There is no real aversion to ethnic cleansing from the international community

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz reiterated the plan to forcibly transfer Palestinians out of Gaza. Noting that 70 per cent of Gaza has been emptied of Palestinians, Katz said that Israel was merely waiting for US approval. “The IDF is prepared, once given the directive to eliminate Hamas, to finish the job so that we can also implement the migration plan,” Katz declared.

Speaking during a visit in the Occupied West Bank and contradicting Katz, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said, “I can tell you categorically there is no plan of the Israelis to displace people out of Gaza against their will.”

Plans for the Palestinian people’s forced transfer from Gaza had been exposed since the early days of the genocide in 2023.

Israel has recently rebranded forced transfer as voluntary migration, in a bid to entice countries to participate in international law violations. Huckabee’s comment, therefore, does not indicate that forced transfer will not happen.

Rather, it insinuates that if forced transfer happens, it will happen disguised as voluntary migration under the Israeli narrative. Katz has provided unverified context that most Palestinians want to leave. If this is woven into the voluntary migration narrative created by Israel, the international community will likely issue nothing more than the usual condemnations, because the term forced transfer would have been eliminated. Also, when the international community collaborates in international law violations, new parameters of impunity are created, to the detriment of the colonised population. 

Whether or not forced transfer happens, the fact remains that Israel will not allow Palestinians back into the land it has militarily occupied and will likely colonise through settlements. Therefore, Israel still has a pressing problem considering Gaza’s population forced into 30 per cent of what remains of the territory.

Netanyahu is eyeing complete control of Gaza, while the genocide set the scene for what Israel is determined to achieve – land without Palestinians. 

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Israel might opt to continue the genocide in full force; it might also choose to continue a slower form of genocide where Palestinians are slowly deprived of all means of survival. Forced transfer would be the easiest option for Israel and the least scrutinised, if it does get approval from the US and willing accomplices from the international community.

However, contrary to what Huckabee stated, Israel has already displaced Palestinians against their will. The Zionist paramilitaries did so during the 1948 Nakba, and Israel employed ongoing forced transfer of the Palestinian people since establishing its enterprise on stolen land. Colonial expansion is synonymous with forced transfer of the Palestinians, as the indigenous are replaced to create space for the settler-colonial society. Israel’s genocide in Gaza forcibly displaced the entire population, to the point that the people have now been forced to live in the 30 per cent of land Israel has not yet militarily occupied. 

The plan, therefore, has existed for decades, and Israel now believes it can execute a more refined version of forced transfer with the least possible scrutiny.

Whether the US will eventually agree to Israel’s current plan remains to be seen, but the international community has already assured Israel, by supporting the genocide, that it is not averse to ethnic cleansing. 

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