This has placed the prime minister in a political vise. If he commits to postwar Palestinian rule in Gaza and begins acting seriously to establish it, he loses the far right. But if he commits to resettling Gaza, he loses the Israeli majority and the international community. And so, as he has often done in the past, Netanyahu has chosen not to choose
The defense minister closed with an ultimatum: “I call on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to make a decision and declare that Israel will not establish civilian control over the Gaza Strip, that Israel will not establish military governance in the Gaza Strip, and that a governing alternative to Hamas in the Gaza Strip will be raised immediately.” With these words, the Israeli defense establishment effectively launched a revolt against the Netanyahu government—and the dreams of its far-right flank to flood Gaza with Israeli settlers.
Gallant is far from the only person to press Netanyahu on this matter. For months, President Joe Biden and his administration have called for Israel to work with the Palestinian Authority—the Hamas rival that governs the West Bank—to establish a new administration in Gaza. Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot, two former IDF chiefs turned opposition politicians, joined Netanyahu’s government after October 7 on the condition that a committee be created to formulate a Gaza exit strategy. But despite all of this external and internal pressure, no such plan has materialized—for a very straightforward reason: Netanyahu cannot publicly commit to a postwar plan for Gaza that includes Palestinians, because the day-after plan of his far-right partners is to get rid of those Palestinians.
Yesterday, standing at a lectern emblazoned with the words settlement in gaza will bring security, the far-right minister Itamar Ben-Gvir told a rally of thousands that the only way to defeat Hamas is to “return home” to Gaza and encourage “voluntary emigration” of its Palestinian population—a euphemism for ethnic cleansing. “Tell them,” Ben-Gvir declared, “‘Go to your homes, go to your countries. This is ours now and forever.’” Shlomo Karhi, a hard-right member of Netanyahu’s faction, offered similar sentiments. “In order to preserve the security achievements for which so many of our troops gave up their lives,” he said, “we must settle Gaza, with security forces and with settlers.”
These paragraphs are a decent snapshot of what's happening politically in Israel if you don't want to read the whole thing
far-right minister Itamar Ben-Gvir told a rally of thousands that the only way to defeat Hamas is to “return home” to Gaza and encourage “voluntary emigration” of its Palestinian population—a euphemism for ethnic cleansing.
And "ethnic cleansing" is in turn a euphemism for genocide. Netanyahu and his government's plan for Palestine is simply genocide.
I disagree that it's a euphemism. It's a term with a specific meaning
Ethnic cleansing has been described as part of a continuum of violence whose most extreme form is genocide. Ethnic cleansing is similar to forced deportation or population transfer. While ethnic cleansing and genocide may share the same goal and methods (e.g., forced displacement), ethnic cleansing is intended to displace a persecuted population from a given territory, while genocide is intended to destroy a group.
