US President Donald Trump's planned relocation of Gazans from their homes has been embraced by a majority of Jewish Israelis, despite it being the "textbook definition of ethnic cleansing," Jerusalem Report Editor-in-Chief Tamar Uriel-Beeri and Jerusalem Post Editor-in-Chief Zvika Klein said on The Jerusalem Post Podcast.
Klein was quick to point out that the plan to evacuate Gazan Palestinians and relocate them elsewhere, either temporarily or permanently, has gained large amounts of support from among the Jewish Israeli public, citing a recent Jerusalem Post poll as evidence.
"I'm not going to lie, that freaks me out a little bit," Uriel-Beeri noted, "It's a very frightening concept," adding that "such a deal would ultimately confirm to the anti-Zionists out there that we are a genocidal state."
She argued that rehabilitation was a better solution as it would counter Hamas's brainwashing of Gazans. "The level of brainwashing that occurs in Gaza... doesn't mean that a person is bad, because they do exactly what they're taught," she said. "Unlearning doesn't require forced relocation."
Rehabilitation vs relocation
Klein, however, argued that this wouldn't work, and said that a harsher solution may be needed.
"There's a reason that nobody wants them [Gazans] from the Arab League. It's a very difficult population," Klein said.
"These are people - again, not all of them, but many of them, including doctors, educators, whatever, some of them housing hostages throughout this time - who want every single one of us to be killed and to be executed. And if you poll Gazans and ask them if they would legitimize a Jewish state, a majority of them would say no. So their only existence is about us not being here." He continued, noting that the state of the Gaza Strip itself from the past decades of IDF operations has been left in ruins, "so living there has become almost impossible."
Klein further pointed out that Israel also forcibly relocated its own citizens out of Gaza in the past, referencing the 2005 Disengagement, though noting that "it's probably not the textbook of ethnic cleansing."
However, he said that "They've been given so many opportunities to change and to become something else. There are many people that are at fault that that didn't happen, that they didn't create better lives for themselves, but I don't think we have that luxury anymore."
He said that Israel can't follow Western values while in the Middle East.
"The Middle East is not Europe and it's not the United States, right? These people don't hold Western views. So we can't just keep on being politically correct and saying, 'Oh, you know, we can't do that because it's ethnic cleansing.' I don't know. I just know these people don't want me here. They want me killed. I know people that live on the Gaza border will not be able to return to their homes safely if nothing substantial happens in Gaza."
Uriel-Beeri said that the equation isn't adding up, because "the jump from 'something has to be done in Gaza to rehabilitate the people and to also eradicate extremism' to 'forced evacuation, forced relocation' is a big one to me." However, she did note that Israel's right-wing government has been quick to embrace Trump's rhetoric on the subject.
"Defense Minister Israel Katz said earlier this week that he formed a body within the Defense Ministry that will seek to coordinate and assist Palestinians who want 'to voluntarily leave Gaza for third party countries,'" she recounted, expressing skepticism about how "voluntary it will be. I think this is a very pretty expression for something that's very dark."