US rights advocates are urging President Joe Biden to end his administration’s ‘complicity’ in Israel’s human rights abuses after key members of the Israeli government backed the idea of ousting Palestinians in Gaza.
Far-right Israeli ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich said this week that Israel should “encourage emigration” from the coastal enclave, home to around 2.3 million Palestinians.
Israel has been waging a military offensive in Gaza since October 7, leading to the internal displacement of around 1.9 million Palestinians, according to the United Nations.
“If there are 100,000 or 200,000 Arabs in Gaza and not two million Arabs, the whole discussion the day after (the end of the war) will be totally different,” Smotrich said on Sunday, calling for “migration voluntary” of the Palestinians.
A day later, Ben-Gvir, who oversees national security, made a similar call, saying it was a “correct, just, moral and humane solution,” Israeli media reported.
Their remarks are the latest by Israeli officials hinting at the prospect of resettling Palestinians outside Gaza. Human rights and legal experts have warned that forced displacement constitutes a war crime under international law and could lead to ethnic cleansing.
“It’s not really ‘voluntary’ when you bomb houses and starve the entire population,” said Rasha Mubarak, a Palestinian-American organizer.
Mubarak told Tel Aviv Tribune that the Biden administration not only failed to condemn Israeli officials’ efforts to move Palestinians out of Gaza, but also contributed to the war by providing Israel with military aid and continued diplomatic support.
“They played a huge role in this genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people,” she said.
Biden “an assistant and a better one”
In recent weeks, as Israel continued its bombing campaign, senior U.S. officials have said they do not support efforts to force Palestinians from the enclave.
“The United States remains strongly opposed to any forced or sustained displacement of Palestinians from Gaza,” a State Department spokesperson told Tel Aviv Tribune in an email Monday evening, without commenting specifically on the Israeli ministers’ latest remarks.
In a statement released Tuesday afternoon, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said Washington “rejects” Ben-Gvir and Smotrich’s comments.
“This rhetoric is inflammatory and irresponsible. The Israeli government, including the Prime Minister, has repeatedly and consistently told us that such statements do not reflect Israeli government policy. They should stop immediately,” Miller said.
But rights advocates say unwavering U.S. support for Israel’s war, which has so far killed more than 22,000 Palestinians in Gaza, leaves the door open to further atrocities and violations of international law.
Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, civilians cannot be expelled or forcibly transferred from a territory unless such movement is required for “the security of the civilians concerned or for imperative military reasons.” The International Criminal Court (ICC) also declares that the forced displacement of civilians constitutes a war crime unless justified by “military necessity” or the safety of civilians.
Kenneth Roth, former director of Human Rights Watch, told Tel Aviv Tribune in a television interview on Monday that “the idea of massive ethnic cleansing – the war crime of forced displacement – is still an idea” within the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Critics, however, fear there is growing pressure to make the idea a reality in Gaza. Ben-Gvir’s and Smotrich’s comments are just the latest in a series of comments that have caused concern since the start of the war.
In late October, for example, the newspaper +972 Magazine reported that the Israeli Ministry of Intelligence had recommended the forcible transfer of the population of Gaza to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.
Intelligence Minister Gila Gamliel, a member of Netanyahu’s Likud party, also wrote in the Jerusalem Post in November that the international community should “help the people of Gaza build a new life” elsewhere.
Danny Danon, former Israeli ambassador to the UN and another Likud lawmaker, also defended the idea of “voluntary migration.” In a Wall Street Journal op-ed in November, Danon and Yesh Atid Party lawmaker Ram Ben-Barak urged “a handful of world nations to share responsibility for welcoming Gaza residents.”
Yet while the United States has pressed Israeli leaders to avoid civilian casualties and allow more humanitarian aid to Gaza, Roth said that “Biden so far refuses to use the influence he has” to put pressure on Israel.
The country receives $3.8 billion in US military aid each year. Additionally, late last week, the Biden administration bypassed Congress to authorize the transfer of approximately $147 million in artillery munitions, saying there is “an emergency that requires the immediate sale.” weapons to Israel.
“It would have been very easy to say, ‘You want these guns?’ Let help in. Do you want these weapons? Stop killing so many civilians. (Biden) didn’t do that,” Roth said.
“He left him completely unconditional, abandoning the influence that he had and, in a sense, making him complicit in what is happening – in fact, an accomplice in these war crimes.”
Zaha Hassan, a human rights lawyer and fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, also told Tel Aviv Tribune that the Biden administration could do more to deter any attempts at forced displacement.
The Israeli military offensive, she explained, has “made Gaza not only unlivable, but has endangered the lives of the 2.3 million Palestinians there.”
Israel – as the occupying power – has an obligation to ensure that the basic needs of Palestinians in Gaza are met, Hassan said. But instead, ongoing Israeli bombing has destroyed critical infrastructure in Gaza, and its siege is severely limiting access to food, water and other much-needed supplies.
“So to say now that the Palestinians in Gaza, if they choose to leave, would be welcome by Israel, is a truly cynical understanding of their obligations. At this point, they haven’t really created any choices for the Palestinians. It seems they are trying to force them to flee and seek refuge and survival elsewhere,” she said.
Hassan also called Netanyahu’s comments regarding the takeover of the Egypt-Gaza border area – an area known as the Philadelphia Corridor – deeply concerning.
“This would allow them to carry out whatever plans they have to push the Palestinians out of Gaza under the pretext that it is voluntary. »
Voluntary migration? No matter what the ISR government calls it, forced displacement is a CRIME, punishable under the Rome Statute. Its architects will be subject to investigation/prosecution by @IntlCrimCourt and other courts under #UniversalJurisdiction.@KarimKhanQC: Justice delayed is justice denied.
— Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur, TPO (@FranceskAlbs) December 26, 2023
Although officials said the Biden administration does not support forced displacement, “we haven’t seen much U.S. action to prevent all the different ways Israel is making displacement inevitable,” Hassan said.
“We have not heard from U.S. officials that it is absolutely illegitimate and illegal to starve a population – to deprive them of food, water, electricity, utilities and supplies,” he said. -she declared.
“The United States has great influence over Israel. So far, he has been unwilling to do more than have discreet, behind-the-scenes conversations with Israel about its expectations. She has made some public statements recently, but she has not used her influence as she should.”
The statements by Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, however, renewed pressure for the United States to act.
Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), issued a statement Sunday calling on the Biden administration to “repudiate” Smotrich’s comments.
He added that U.S. leaders “must finally recognize what has long been known and demonstrated daily by Israel’s genocidal actions – that Israel’s racist government seeks to ethnically cleanse Gaza.”
“The Israeli government has always had a plan to ethnically cleanse Gaza,” he wrote. “Smotrich just made it official.”