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may golan
'Conquer, Kick Out, Resettle': Israel's Far-Right Gathers to Plan Ethnic Cleansing of Gaza
"Each of you will witness how Jews go to Gaza and Arabs will disappear from Gaza," said one prominent Israeli settler.
Oct 21, 2024
Hundreds of Israelis including numerous senior state officials gathered Sunday near the Gaza border for a festive two-day rally at which members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government and leaders of the settler movement openly spoke of ethnically cleansing Palestinians in the embattled coastal enclave to make way for Jewish recolonization.
"We came here with one clear purpose: to settle the entire Gaza Strip... Every inch from north to south," Daniella Weiss, who co-founded the extremist settler movement Nachala—which organized the rally backed by Netanyahu's Likud party—told attendees on Monday as joyous music played in the background.
"We're thousands of people and ready to move to Gaza at a moment's notice," she continued. "October 7 changed history. As a result of the brutal massacre, the Gazan Arabs have lost their rights to be here forever, they'll not stay here."
"We plan to take what we have acquired in the years of settling Judea and Samaria and to do the same thing here in Gaza," Weiss asserted, referring to the historic Jewish names for the illegally occupied Palestinian West Bank territories being gradually usurped by Israeli seizure and settlement. "Each of you will witness how Jews go to Gaza and Arabs will disappear from Gaza."
"I want to say to the world: This isn't just for the Jews. We're doing this for the benefit of the entire world," added Weiss, who earlier this year was sanctioned by Canada for inciting violence against Palestinians in the illegally occupied West Bank. "Ending the evil powers is for everyone. I call on the democracies of the world to stand with us. Adopt the values of the Bible."
Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, leader of the far-right Jewish Power party, told attendees: "What we have learned this year is that everything is up to us. We are the owners of this land."
"Yes, we experienced a terrible catastrophe," he added. "But what we need to understand, one year later—so many Israelis have changed their thinking... They understand that when Israel acts like the rightful owners of this land, this is what brings results."
May Golan, Minister for social equality and the advancement of the status of women of Israel, told rallygoers, "We will hit them where it hurts—their land."
"Anyone who uses their plot of land to plan another Holocaust will receive from us, with God's help, another Nakba," Golan added, referring to the ethnic cleansing of more than 750,000 Arabs from Palestine by Jewish militants during the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948. Around two-thirds of Gaza's population are descendants of Nakba refugees.
Sima Hasson of the group Mothers' Parade told the audience that "I'm going to say something that not everyone here is prepared to say, but I am, and I know a lot of you are: Conquer, kick out, resettle."
"I'm not just talking about one area of Gaza," she continued. "I'm not just talking about northern Gaza. I mean every single sliver of land. It's the only way we'll save our boys from constantly going to war."
"To everyone in Europe who has an opinion about what's happening here, I say: Don't get involved," Hasson added. "Worry about yourselves. Radical Islam is taking over your whole continent. You want to help? Take in the Gazans who we want to leave Gaza."
Other Cabinet members who spoke at the rally included Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich of the Religious Zionist Party and Negev and Galilee Minister Yitzhak Wasserlauf of Jewish Power. Knesset members in attendance included Ariel Kallner, Avichai Boaron, Osher Shkalim, Tally Gotliv, and Sasson Gueta of Likud; Tzvi Sukkot of the Religious Zionist Party; and Limor Son Harmelech from Jewish Power.
"We need to occupy the complete land of Israel. There are no innocent people in Gaza," Gotliv toldMiddle East Eye. "Everybody who has refused to leave the north is a collaborator."
"There are no innocent people in Gaza."
While numerous Israeli officials called for the recolonization of a Gaza Strip prior to the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack, such calls have accelerated since then. In January, Ben-Gvir, Smotrich, and other senior Israeli officials attended a similar but smaller conference hosted by Nachala on the Jewish recolonization of Gaza.
Last year, Amir Weitmann, who chairs Likud's Libertarian faction, published a plan examining the economics of forcibly transferring Gazans to Egypt's Sinai Desert. A separate 2023 proposal by then-Intelligence Minister Gila Gamliel, who is also a Likud member, would ethnically cleanse Palestinians from Gaza, forcing them into the Sinai.
Monday's rally came as Israel's military continued its relentless 381-day assault on Gaza, which has left more than 152,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing and for which Israel is on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
In recent weeks, Israeli forces have intensified attacks on northern Gaza—seen by numerous observers as the part of the coastal strip most likely to be seized by Israel—including Saturday airstrikes in Beit Lahia in which more than 120 Palestinians were killed, wounded, or are missing.
The intensified assault comes as some Israeli troops claim the Israel Defense Forces has launched the so-called "General's Plan," a blueprint for the starvation and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from northern Gaza. The U.S., which provides Israel with tens of billions of dollars in military aid and diplomatic cover, last week warned Israeli leaders against any such "policy of starvation," which critics countered is already being implemented throughout Gaza with deadly results.
More than 20 Israeli settlements were built in Gaza following Israel's conquest of the territory during the 1967 Six-Day War. While Israeli troops and settlers withdrew from Gaza in 2005, the besieged enclave is still considered occupied under international law, as Israel maintains a physical and economic stranglehold on the territory.
As in the occupied West Bank, Israel's settlements in Gaza, as well as the occupation itself, were illegal under international law. In July, the ICJ issued an advisory opinion stating that Israel's 57-year occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is an illegal form of apartheid that must end "as rapidly as possible."
However, in language resembling the Palestinian liberation slogan "from the river to the sea," Likud's founding platform states that "between the sea and the Jordan [River], there will be only Israeli sovereignty." On multiple occasions over the past year or so, Netanyahu has publicly displayed maps showing the Middle East in which there is no Palestine and all Palestinian lands are labeled as "Israel."
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Netanyahu's Likud Party Backs 'Preparing to Settle Gaza' Event as Genocide Continues
"This is what the war in Gaza is about," said one critic. "This is what the U.S. is tacitly backing."
Oct 17, 2024
Bolstering fears that Israel plans to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to make way for Jewish colonization, the ruling Likud party of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week sent out invitations to an event near the border of the embattled coastal enclave titled "Preparing to Settle Gaza."
Haaretzreported that the event—which is set to take place next week—is part of an initiative launched by Nachala, a Jewish supremacist movement whose members build illegal settler outposts in the occupied West Bank and whose ultimate objective is Israeli annexation of all of Palestine. The larger initiative's sponsors include the far-right Religious Zionist and Jewish Power parties.
"The event is not just a theoretical conference, but a practical exercise and preparation for renewed settlement in Gaza," Nachala said. "The return to settlement in Gaza is no longer just an idea but a process that is already in advanced stages, with government and public support."
A poster advertising the event declared: "Gaza is ours. Forever."
According to The Times of Israel, 10 of the 32 Likud members of the Knesset and one Cabinet member, Social Equality Minister May Golan—a self-described "proud racist"—said they would attend the event. Haaretz said far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu, and Periphery Development Minister Yitzhak Wasserlauf are also expected to attend.
Other Knesset lawmakers who say they'll go to the conference include Deputy Knesset Speaker Nissim Vaturi—who once called for Gaza to be "wiped off the face of the Earth"—and Tally Gotliv, who said Israel should use nuclear weapons for "crushing and flattening Gaza without mercy."
Nachala said the event will include a tour of Kibbutz Nirim, which was attacked by Hamas-led fighters on October 7, 2023. However, the kibbutz published a statement saying no such tour will take place.
"We are still waiting for the government and coalition members to take responsibility for the catastrophic failures of October 7 and for the deep wound still in our hearts," the community said. "Instead of holding political events aimed at establishing settlements, the government should focus on bringing home the 101 hostages and supporting the reconstruction of Gaza border communities."
Ben-Gvir and Smotrich attended and spoke at a similar event sponsored by Nachala in January. Both ministers called for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza.
Netanyahu has repeatedly claimed that he has no intention of resettling Gaza, which Israel conquered in 1967 and from which Jewish settlers and Israeli forces withdrew in 2005, while maintaining a physical and economic stranglehold on the strip.
The prime minister's claim stands in stark contrast with plans by others in his party and government to recolonize Gaza, as well as Likud's founding charter, which
states that "between the [Mediterranean] Sea and the Jordan [River] there will only be Israeli sovereignty."
Last year, Amir Weitmann, who chairs Likud's Libertarian faction, published a plan examining the economics of forcibly transferring Gazans to Egypt's Sinai Desert. A separate 2023 proposal by then-Intelligence Minister Gila Gamliel, who is also a Likud member, would ethnically cleanse Palestinians from Gaza, forcing them into the Sinai.
Former MK Moshe Feiglin, who quit Likud to found the right-wing Zehut Party, earlier this year invoked Nazi leader Adolf Hitler as he called for Israel to resettle the Gaza Strip and create a "Hebrew Gaza."
"This is our country, all of it," Feiglin said, adding, "As Hitler said, 'I cannot live if one Jew is left.' We can't live here if one 'Islamo-Nazi' remains in Gaza."
Israeli forces earlier this month launched a major assault on northern Gaza that, in practice, resembles a plan pushed by a group of retired generals, which argued for forcibly displacing people in the north and starving those who remain.
Some Israeli opposition lawmakers condemned the upcoming settlement conference.
"A year later, and it's like we haven't learned a thing," MK Gadi Eisenkot of the National Unity party said Wednesday. "Today, we were informed of the intention to set up settlement projects in the Gaza Strip, a controversial issue in Israeli society."
"This is not what our sons and daughters sacrificed their lives for," added Eisenkot, whose son and nephew were killed in Gaza last year.
The resettlement conference comes amid Israel's ongoing assault on Gaza, for which the U.S.-backed country is
on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice. More than 150,000 Palestinians have been killed or wounded—including at least 10,000 people who are missing and feared buried beneath rubble—by Israel's 377-day onslaught, which has also forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened millions of Palestinians.
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Netanyahu Picks Self-Described 'Racist' May Golan as Top Israeli Diplomat in NY
"From her affection for violent anti-Arab radicals to her hatred of feminists to her racist and Islamophobic treatment of African asylum-seekers, Golan's politics could not be further from that of most Jewish New Yorkers," said one U.S. rabbi.
Apr 21, 2023
Progressive and moderate Jews in the United States and Israel this week denounced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's nomination of far-right lawmaker May Golan—who once said she was "proud to be a racist"—as the country's consul general in New York.
Golan, a 36-year-old member of Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party, would have to resign her Knesset seat if she accepts the prime minister's nomination and fills the vacancy created when former Consul General Asaf Zamir resigned last month in protest of the far-right Israeli government's anti-democratic judicial overhaul. Golan supports the reforms.
"From her affection for violent anti-Arab radicals to her hatred of feminists to her racist and Islamophobic treatment of African asylum-seekers, Golan's politics could not be further from that of most Jewish New Yorkers," Rabbi Jill Jacobs, who heads the progressive rabbinical human rights group T'ruah, told The Times of Israel.
"Netanyahu's anti-democracy, pro-occupation agenda is already alienating both the American government and American Jews, and sending Golan to represent Israel will only widen that gulf," she added.
\u201cAs I say here, May Golan & her racist politics are not welcome here. If she is appointed as Consul General, American Jews will give her a proper reception, just as we did to Smotrich. \n\nhttps://t.co/KVGu8I53Bw\u201d— Rabbi Jill Jacobs (@Rabbi Jill Jacobs) 1682039635
In a Thursday tweet, Golan said she was "very flattered to be considered for the post," and that if she accepts the job, she "will work with the leaders of all the Jewish organizations as part of the effort to strengthen the great partnership between Israel and the American Jewish communities."
Golan first rose to prominence over a decade ago as she advocated the deportation of African asylum-seekers from Israel.
In 2012, Golan spoke at an anti-immigration rally in Tel Aviv:
Outside my house I see shit and spit and psychopaths! You can see it in their eyes, people who just want to kill me. But nobody believes us. We're racists. We're racists because we want to preserve our lives and our sanity. So I am proud to be a racist! I'm proud to be racist. If I'm racist to preserve my life, then I'm proud!
Golan's stance was echoed by mainstream Likud leaders including then-Culture Minister Miri Regev, who described African migrants as "infiltrators" and "a cancer in our body."
Responding Friday to Golan's nomination and remarks, U.S. State Department Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel said that "broadly we'd condemn such rhetoric and believe it's particularly damaging when amplified in leadership positions."
Martin Indyk—who served as U.S. ambassador to Israel during the George W. Bush administration and as special envoy for Middle East peace during the tenure of former President Barack Obama—wrote on Twitter that Golan's appointment would "be seen by the American Jewish community as a sign of utmost disrespect."
The Israel Foreign Policy Forum—a group of former Israeli diplomats—said it was "shocked" by the prospect of Golan as consul general.
"Golan's appointment is outrageous as she is a racist and divisive figure, which is the exact opposite from what Israel needs in such a critical place," the group wrote in a letter. "It is time that politicians stop using political appointments in Israel's foreign service like playing cards, we hope the appointment won't go through."
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