It would be misleading to presume that current Israeli calls to ethnically cleanse and resettle the Gaza Strip are limited to a fringe of messianic far-right settler groups. Israeli colonial expansion and replacement, as well as the desire for the native Palestinians to “vanish,” lie at the very core of the Zionist project across its Liberal/National-Religious spectrum. But how to do so? What conditions are needed? When? By what means and how to justify it (if at all)? These, on the other hand, remain disputed questions.
The Israeli unilateral ‘disengagement plan’ from Gaza in 2005 was not a “retreat,” but rather a reconfiguration of Israeli colonial strategy (as were the Oslo Accords). Motivated by security as well as economic and demographic considerations, the plan transformed the direct and costly Occupation of the relatively small and densely populated territory of the Strip into a ‘remote Occupation’ of its enveloping environment and access routes. Israel sought to minimize the exposure of Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) and settlers to Palestinian resistance attacks (retrospectively, temporarily only); cement the (geo-)political separation between the West Bank and Gaza; reduce the costs of controlling around 1.5 million Palestinian inhabitants at the time (today around 2.3 million); and most importantly, as an effort to manufacture a claim (and project an image) according to which Israel has ended its Occupation of the Strip, and hence, has no responsibility over its population (a stand that is rejected in the international arena). The creation of a new model of control was accompanied by further investments and experimentation in various security technologies that boost the Israeli (war) economy — e.g., drones, fences, surveillance, and sensory technologies, AI systems mapping (potential) targets, autonomous shooting machines, etc. This reconfiguration of Israeli control — especially since the imposition of an almost hermetic siege in 2007 — has transformed the Strip into the most accomplished model of enclavization, concentration, and abandonment that works through the logic of maximum control and minimum responsibility. In the future, this model is meant to expand into densely populated enclaves of the West Bank. Importantly, however, these extreme states of control and abandonment did not replace the deeply engrained Zionist directive of ‘maximum land, minimum Arabs,’ but rather fed into it.
In other words, while beneficial (politically and economically) in the short run, the ‘disengagement plan’ is tightly connected to and overpowered by a ‘transfer plan.’ Its incremental manufacturing of unlivable conditions in the Strip can be seen as the expansion of the Israeli military tactic of “pressure cooker” into an overall long-term military-political doctrine. It rests on the assumption that the gradual diminishing of all aspects of life (social, economic, health, infrastructural, environmental, etc.) conjoined with intermittent mass bombardments to weaken resistance capabilities (‘mowing the grass’ doctrine), would culminate in enduring pressure that will pave way for a preferably “willful” transfer of the Palestinian population in Gaza elsewhere. From the late 2000s up to Donald Trump’s so-called “deal of the century” in 2020, Israel secretly initiated various transfer plans, which it discussed with its global and regional allies and counterparts, primarily suggesting the relocation of the Palestinian population in Gaza to the Egyptian Sinai peninsula by use of economic incentives. Although these efforts reportedly gained some currency among certain Arab countries, they were never openly disclosed, primarily because they would require undoing the longstanding two-state solution paradigm and actively taking part in the dissolution of the Palestinian cause… an issue that will portray Arab parties in a bad light.
However, and like other events of Indigenous resistances to (settler) colonial domination historically, it was Palestinian resistance to their subjection to slow incremental death (and to intermittent rapid death of bombing campaigns), that created the ultimate climate for extreme colonial violence, accelerated mass dispossession and replacement. The surprise attack of Oct. 7 — unprecedented in intensity and scale — prompted an Israeli genocidal war and the resurfacing of transfer and resettlement plans to be actualized. Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza is underwritten and directed by such plans. Not only is Israel deploying a vengeful massacre-terror-starvation warfare against the Palestinian population in Gaza, but it is also seeking to eliminate any life-sustaining elements in the Strip: infrastructures, homes, governmental and non-governmental institutions, hospitals, schools and universities, mosques and churches, factories and businesses, heritage sites, ports… The total destruction of the Strip and the humanitarian crisis it is yielding (including manifold health and environmental hazards) are crucial parts of the overall objective of making the Strip uninhabitable in the very material sense of the term. These conditions — together with systemic dispossession and entrapment of most of the Strip’s inhabitants in disparate overcrowded enclaves, primarily in the Southern areas of the Strip (Rafah) — exhibit the very material foundations from which a future act of expulsion outside the Strip may proceed. One possible scenario is the expulsion of Gazans from Rafah to the Sinai Peninsula, where a massive walled-off camp was reported to be under construction in February.
Yet, scenarios of emptying Gaza of its population and resettling it cannot be done through military means only, but rather are contingent upon complex (and transforming) political conditions across domestic, regional, and international arenas. Domestically, it is beyond doubt now that Israeli government officials and ministerial offices — together with a plethora of political movements, organizations, and think tanks — are already planning a full and imminent transfer and resettlement of the Strip. The term “voluntary emigration” has become the consensus among Israeli government parties, voiced explicitly and publicly, and even in a celebratory manner. The Israeli Ministry of Intelligence, already in late October, provided a directive for a transfer plan of the Palestinian population in Gaza into the Sinai Peninsula, stipulating further mobilizations facilitating their absorption by third-party countries worldwide. In a Likud party meeting, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu explicitly stated that such transfer efforts are currently underway and are negotiated with third-party countries (the Democratic Republic of the Congo was mentioned as one option).
Another motion —equally delusional —was tested by Israel’s minister of Foreign Affairs, Yisrael Katz, in a meeting with EU officials in January, wherein he suggested the building of an artificial island off Gaza’s coast. This suggestion goes hand-in-hand with — or rather is facilitated by — the relentless devastation Israel is inflicting in Gaza, in the name of an “absolute victory.” Prolonging the genocidal war, therefore, is not merely an attempt to abdicate Netanyahu and his government from responsibilities over the failures of Oct. 7 or the period preceding it, but is ingrained in a deeper desire to exploit the current conditions and end the “Gaza problem,” once and for all. The plan for “the day after” that Netanyahu was urged to draft in February following incessant U.S. pressure clearly reflects such logic — the continuation of war as politics. Similar logic still guides the current Israeli government’s plans that insist on “permanent” control over strategic buffer zones, primarily the Salah Al-Din corridor (Philadelphi corridor) and Highway 749 (Netzarim corridor).
Yet, several obstacles lie in the face of such settler-colonial momentum. The extreme political rift within Israeli politics that preceded Oct. 7 (and which was put on hold since) is starting to resurface again. It is particularly epitomized in the dispute over the prisoners/captives exchange deal. The opposition camp is increasingly criticizing the Israeli government’s management of the war, urging the placement of a deal as its highest priority, even at the cost of ending the war and withdrawing from the Strip, at least for the time being. It is not that this camp opposes the resettlement of the Strip, but in the current political climate, it emphasizes the preservation of an ethos that privileges Israeli citizens’ security above other considerations, which, if undermined, may — in the long run — endanger social cohesion and the demographic flow upon which the Israeli settler state depends. With the current regime increasingly sidelining a full prisoner exchange deal, more domestic tensions are expected to grow, and with that, more obstacles would arise in the face of Israeli transfer and resettlement plans.
Another major hindrance comes from the U.S. administration and its allies globally. Despite their immense support and almost complete backing of Israel (economically, politically, and militarily), the U.S. has firmly and repeatedly reiterated its support of the two-state paradigm, officially opposing any transfer and resettlement plans. Burdened with the war in Ukraine; geopolitical shifts endangering U.S. global dominance; the pressure of international legal proceedings; the collapse of the Biden-Harris administration’s popularity among Democratic voters, and the possible escalation of a full-scale regional war, are all alarming factors reflected in the change of discourse by the U.S. administration. This rhetorical deviation may — although it is highly unlikely — be followed by actual efforts to restrain Israel’s genocidal war.
Moreover, even though Israel has been seen as the ultimate and indispensable ally of the U.S., in its effort to maintain dominance in the region, the U.S. is seeking a regional reconfiguration wherein major Arab states normalize ties with Israel. A step that, in the current conditions, clashes with that of transfer and resettlement. In other words, the undoing of a two-state solution in the current political climate is not attainable. The growing tensions between Washington and Tel Aviv are thus another major factor that would impede transfer and resettlement plans. Yet, it is plausible that the Israeli regime’s efforts to prolong the genocide — including through entertaining negotiations that may include brief temporary ceasefires and limited prisoners exchange deals — are in anticipation of possible changes following the upcoming U.S. elections, with hopes that it would bring on a new administration — favorably headed by Trump— which might be willing to undo the two-state paradigm, and by extension the international political and legal structures upholding it.
Lastly, it is the Palestinians — including their various movements at home and in exile — as well as the increasingly growing global movement joining their struggle, who constitute a major force capable not only of abolishing such eliminatory plans but also of creating new ones attuned to Palestinian liberation.
