Wednesday, October 23, 2024

Re-settlement Conference: Gaza at Risk of Ramallah Fate

Alwaght- Whereas the world community is calling on Israel to stop its massacare campaign in Gaza, the hardline leaders of Tel Aviv have new dream for the coastal Palestinian enclave. As Israeli army steps up its crimes in Gaza as part of the "generals' plan", the hardline cabinet ministers are making preparations for full usurpation of Gaza.

In this connection, on Monday, hundreds of settlers held a conference, calling for settlement projects across this besieged enclave.

The two-day event, dubbed "preparing to re-settle Gaza", was held near a town on the border with Gaza where the Israeli army declared it a "closed military zone."

The gathering started on Sunday in small groups, and then on Monday, a number of others joined them on behalf of pro-settlement groups and far-right political parties.

The Likud party, led by PM Benjamin Netanyahu, had requested for this conference and other hard-line ministers of the cabinet also welcomed this call.

According to the Hebrew media, all the ministers of Netanyahu's government including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir attended the conference.

According to Aljazeera, Ben-Gvir addressed Netanyahu and the participants, saying that "fleeing brings war, the role of brave leadership is to make brave decisions... We hit the Palestinians where they hurt us, which is their land. Whoever uses their piece of land to plan another holocaust will receive another catastrophe from us."

Smotrich said:" The main lesson of the past year is that wherever there is settlement, there is security. Therefore, there is no question that the military must control Gaza for a long time to eliminate threats and ensure the safety of Israeli citizens."

Minister for the Development of the Periphery, the Negev and the Galilee, Yitzhak Wasserlauf, held: "For 2000 years, we have dreamed of returning to the Jewish land. I know that those who do not agree with us call it extremism, while I call it Zionism, we are real Zionists. We have a duty to create a safe Jewish nation in the land the God gave us."

Dream of an Israeli Gaza 

While Gaza is now home to more than 2 million Palestinians, more than 60 percent of whom are descendants of the displaced people of the occupied territories in the years after the Nakba Day, radical Israelis are dreaming of evicting hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians and building settlements in Gaza. 

This scenario has been followed in recent years with stepping up settlements in the West Bank and the expulsion of Palestinians living in this region under various pretexts.

In 1993, the year Oslo Accords were signed, the population of Jewish residents in the West Bank increased to 120,000, and by 1995 that an atmosphere of compromise was dominant, this number increased to 146,000.

Under Netanyahu, the development of settlements and the occupation of Palestinian lands gained pace, to an extent that the octopus of Judaization of Palestine has built more than 196 Zionist settlements in the West Bank alone, where about 700,000 Jewish immigrants live.

Yossi Dagan, the head of Shomron Regional Council, which is in charge of settlement projects in the north of the West Bank, rendered to the Israeli settlements after end of Gaza occupation in 2005, saying that "we want to take our land back from them, we will correct the mistakes of the Oslo Accords and we will never repeat these mistakes."

Daniella Weiss, a settlement activist, said: "We came here for a clear purpose, to settle the entire Gaza Strip, in every corner from north to south. There are thousands of us who are ready to go to Gaza at any moment. Arabs do not have the right to live in Gaza. You will see how the Jews will go to Gaza and drive the Arabs out of Gaza."

Another radical settler asserted: "I know many of you are ready for this: invasion, deportation and resettlement. I'm not just talking about northern Gaza, I mean each and every inch of Gaza."

The conference on the occupation of Gaza was held while this strip has been reduced to ruins due to the large-scale bombardment by Israeli bombers and more than 150,000 people have been killed and injured. Still, the radicals are not satisfied with this scale of crime and demand the complete occupation of this Palestinian region.

The attempt to reoccupy Gaza, which has already started from the northern part of the strip, is taking place as the international community has voiced its opposition to Palestinian migration, and even the Westerners as staunch backers of Israel are against this issue.

Israel occupied the Gaza Strip in the six-day war of 1967, but could not resist the ironclad resolve of the Palestinians and was finally forced to withdraw and destroy the Jewish settlements in 2005. 

According to the UN resolutions, any settlement construction in the occupied territories is illegal, and for decades, it has been asking the Israeli regime to end these escalatory measures and warned that it weakens the chances of resolving the conflict in accordance with the principle of the two-state solution. However, the Israelis are pursuing territorial expansion regardless of international warnings, and with the establishment of the hardline government of Netanyahu, this issue has become a priority more than ever. 

Settlers will not return 

The hardliners in Tel Aviv justify occupation of Gaza with the aim of return of the displaced Israelis around this region, but the fact is that the settlers are unwilling to return home.

According to a survey published by Israeli media recently, 86 percent of settlers are unwilling to live around Gaza after the end of the war.

The results of this poll published by Kan news network show that only 27 percent of Israelis believe that this regime has won the war in Gaza, while 35 percent believe that Israel has lost the war and the rest of the respondents, about 38 percent, say they cannot comment on this matter with certainty.

With a deeper analysis of the results, it was found that there is a lack of certainty about the results of the war, and such a situation even prevails among the voters of the Netanyahu-led right-wing coalition parties of the cabinet who speak of a decisive and complete victory, and only 47 percent of them believe that Israel has won the war. 

Poll respondents were also asked if they personally knew someone who was killed in the war or in the October 7 attack, with 12 percent of the sample of 600,000 Israelis responding that they had lost a family member or close friend and 36 percent said they lost someone they know. The results of Maariv newspaper poll on the impact of the war on Israelis show that 35 percent of the residents of the occupied territories have considered the option of emigration because of unfolding war. 

Like the security officials, the settlers believe that obliteration of resistance groups is impossible and the struggle of the radical ministers not only will not ensure security of the settlers, but also will perpetuate war and accelerate reverse migration, leading to deserted occupied territories and shaken pillars of governance. 

Even if Israeli army manages to continue to occupy Gaza, especially its north, security of the settlers will not be restored and they will not return to the pre-war calm. After all, now the serious threat to the occupied territories is not just from Gaza, but also from other fronts of the Axis of Resistance from Lebanon to Iraq to Yemen that are leading the war from a joint command center. 

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