It has now been more than two months since Israeli authorities launched a war on Gaza in response to Hamas’ attack on its southern territories, which resulted in the deaths of around 1,200 people, mostly Israeli civilians. Incessant Israeli bombings and ground attacks have razed entire neighborhoods and killed nearly 20,000 Palestinians, more than a third of whom were children.
The stated objective of the Israeli attack has been the “eradication” of Hamas from the enclave, but the viability of this objective is increasingly questioned by foreign officials and analysts. Instead, the large-scale destruction caused in Gaza as well as internal communications indicate another objective that Israeli authorities may be pursuing.
A document produced by the Israeli Ministry of Intelligence and leaked to the Israeli press at the end of October describes the forced and permanent transfer of the 2.3 million Palestinian inhabitants of Gaza to the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula.
The document was reportedly created for an organization called The Unit for Settlement – Gaza Strip, which seeks to recolonize the Gaza Strip 18 years after the withdrawal of Israeli troops and settlers.
However, we do not live in 1948. Today it is much more difficult to wipe out towns and villages as it was 75 years ago when a large part of the population was expelled Palestinian people from their country by Israeli militias, when, among other things, the media’s reach was much less extensive than it is today. The Israeli authorities therefore turned to what we could call “plan B”: making the Gaza Strip unlivable, by dropping tens of thousands of tons of bombs.
The new strategy is being implemented by targeting civil infrastructure that supports life in the strip, including schools, universities, hospitals, bakeries, shops, agricultural lands and greenhouses, water stations, sewage systems, power plants, solar panels and generators.
This is taking place alongside a complete siege of Gaza, during which food, water, electricity and medicine have been cut off. The Israeli army lets in a few trucks a day, if at all, which, according to humanitarian organizations, does not at all meet the needs of the Palestinian population, 1.8 million of whom are internally displaced.
This resulted in what is interchangeably called a humanitarian “disaster”, “catastrophe”, “graveyard” and “hell”. Palestinians in Gaza have been pushed to the brink of survival, while widespread epidemics are seen by some as a desired goal. As the former head of the Israeli National Security Council, Giora Eiland, said: “Severe outbreaks in the southern Gaza Strip will bring victory closer. »
Once the Gaza Strip becomes unlivable and the population has no choice but to leave it voluntarily, the next step will be to ensure that neighboring countries, first and foremost Egypt, are prepared to “absorb” them. This has been made clear by several prominent figures in Israel, including the former deputy director of the Mossad national intelligence agency, Ram Ben Barak.
In a tweet in Hebrew, Ben Barak expressed the need “to build a coalition of countries and international funding that will allow Gazans who wish to leave to absorb themselves (in these countries) through the acquisition of citizenship.”
On November 12, 1914, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson wrote to racial equality advocate William Monroe Trotter that “segregation is not humiliating but beneficial and should be regarded as such by you, gentleman.” More than 100 years later, the Israeli plan – which has less to do with segregation and more to do with ethnic cleansing – is presented in similar terms. The expulsion, in the words of Ben Barak, is an “opportunity (for the inhabitants of Gaza) to escape the reign of fear of Hamas, which uses them as human shields”.
The irony, of course, is that Palestinian civilians are often used as “human shields” by the Israeli military itself. But beyond this, in addition to the emphasis on “voluntary” departure in this “benevolent approach”, forced resettlement is also made more acceptable to the international community by claims that Palestinians are in reality nothing more than Arabs and can therefore easily settle in other Arab countries. countries.
Israel has long referred to as “Arabs” the 156,000 Palestinians (and their descendants) who managed to remain within its borders after 1948, thereby denying them their Palestinian identity. As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu once said: “Arab citizens (of Israel) number 22 nation states. They don’t need another one.
It is important here to emphasize that to refer to local populations, from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Strait of Hormuz, as “the Arabs” would be to call people from South Africa, the United States, Canada, Australia , from New Zealand, from Ireland. and Great Britain, whatever their origin, “the English”. They share language but have very clear histories, traditions and particular identities.
More than 1,000 years ago, the Jerusalem geographer al-Muqaddasi (946-1000) explained in no uncertain terms that he considered himself a Palestinian: “I spoke to them (the Shiraz workers) about construction in Palestine and I discussed these issues with them. . The master stonemason asked me: Are you Egyptian? I replied: No, I am Palestinian.
Centuries later, on September 3, 1921, an editorial published in the Arabic-language newspaper Falastin emphasized: “We are Palestinians first, and Arabs second. »
These are just two examples, among many others, of written sources where “Palestinian” is clearly used as an identity marker.
That Palestinians are not simply “Arabs” becomes even more evident if we look at the years during which the West Bank was occupied (1948-1967) by Jordan: an occupation opposed by the local population of the time, especially Fatah. fighters, to the point that King Hussein felt obliged to impose martial law.
In Gaza, which was under Egyptian control during the same period, Palestinians faced severe repression, were denied citizenship, and had very little control over local administration. Most of them lived in very precarious conditions, largely in refugee camps, after being expelled by Israeli militias from villages around the Gaza Strip, including Huj, Najd, Abu Sitta, Majdal, al -Jura, Yibna and Bayt Daras. These last three villages, in particular, are where the three founders of Hamas – Ahmed Yassin, Abd al-Aziz al-Rantisi and Ibrahim al-Yazuri – were expelled with their families as children.
Today, not only are the Palestinians struggling against their mass expulsion from Gaza and perhaps the West Bank, but the neighboring countries that Israel is pressuring to welcome them are also viciously resisting.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi has repeatedly and clearly rejected the “displacement of Palestinians from their lands.” Like his predecessors, he views the Palestinians as a security risk. If they were to be deported to Sinai, he fears the peninsula could become a base of operations for Palestinian fighters, which could drag Egypt into another war.
Jordan is also concerned about the expulsion of Palestinians from the West Bank to its territory and King Abdullah and his government have made their opposition clear. As Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi argued: “Do what you (Israeli authorities) want. Come on, destroy Gaza. No one is stopping you and once you’re done, we won’t clean up your mess.
Israel’s ability to implement its “Plan B” is indeed called into question. In 1950, the United Nations suggested resettling thousands of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to the Sinai Peninsula. The proposal faced stiff resistance from the refugees themselves and was ultimately abandoned. Today, resistance is fiercer than ever. Palestinians know what “temporary” means – that there is no “right of return” for them – and are keen to stay on their land.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Tel Aviv Tribune.
