Israeli Officials' Calls For 'Voluntary' Migration Of Palestinians Alarm Human Rights Experts

[Eugene]

Source: HuffPost

Israeli Officials’ Calls For ‘Voluntary’ Migration Of Palestinians Alarm Human Rights Experts

Given Israeli destruction of the Gaza Strip, critics say the rhetoric amounts to calls for forced displacement.

By Matt Shuham
Jan 3, 2024, 06:43 PM EST

As the reported death toll of the Israeli invasion of Gaza tops 22,000, senior Israeli politicians have grown more explicit in their goal for the Palestinian enclave: the movement of a large number of Gazans out of Gaza entirely.

The rhetoric has garnered charges of ethnic cleansing and forced displacement, and a rare rebuke from U.S. officials. But there are no signs of the calls losing steam within Israel.

“What needs to be done in the Gaza Strip is to encourage emigration,” Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Sunday. Referring to Gaza as a “ghetto,” he added: “If in Gaza there will be 100,000 or 200,000 Arabs and not 2 million, the entire conversation on ‘the day after’ will look different.”

-snip-

The idea of expelling ― or encouraging the “voluntary” migration of ― Palestinians from Gaza, once a fringe view held by extremists like Meir Kahane, has become normalized in Israeli society since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that resulted in the deaths of some 1,200 Israelis and the abduction of 240 more, according to Israeli officials.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/israeli-gaza-voluntary-migration-forced-displacement_n_6595cfa6e4b0bf73e1783d34

[Chainfire]

1. And the beat goes on.

[LuvLoogie]

2. Straight up ethnic cleansing.

So do the majority of Israelis support Netanyahu and his Knesset allies?

"You may voluntarily leave or submit to Apartheid and the usurping of your homesteads...or die."

[Richard D]

3. Self-delete

[Igel]

4. Most Americans probably think "ghetto" has a single meaning.

That would be the American Heritage Dictionary's first definition:

A usually poor section of a city inhabited primarily by people of the same race, religion, or social background, often because of discrimination.

For most of my kids' "inhabited primarily by people of the same race, religion, or social background" really just means "primarily black people of the same black race, maybe a religion, and poor background". Noun, adjective, whatever. It's morphing into a generic putdown, "That'('s) ghetto." Usage is ethnicity-independent, but there may be a skew in frequency.

I'm going to say that for most Israeli's not of recent US immigration status, "ghetto" means the 2nd and 3rd definitions:

2. An often walled quarter in a European city to which Jews were restricted beginning in the Middle Ages.
3.Something that resembles the restriction or isolation of a city ghetto.

Where (3) is the historical definition extended just a bit.

I mean, the spelling tells us that it's an obviously Italian word. It was metaphorical when applied to US cities and the metaphorical definition's come to be the new primarily definitions. (Lexical extension, shift, then later restriction.)

Yeah, in many respects Gaza is a ghetto (3). Then again, refugee camps in Lebanon and Egypt are also ghettoes, as long as citizenship isn't bestowed and work permits required for their residents.