It was a very successful event. About 20 far Right Israeli ministers and Knesset members participated in an event that called for building Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip, and the ICC Jerusalem was full. The banner, which was raised by the audience in the gallery and which called for the transfer of Gazans, was welcomed by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir (Otzma Yehudit), who added to it the oxymoron “by consent.”
For an outsider, this looks like there is growing, official Israeli support for settling the most densely populated place in the world for pushing the Palestinians out of a 360 sq. kilometer piece of land against international law. It will never happen, but great damage was done. The last thing that Israel needs now is to vindicate the accusations of South Africa about Israel’s alleged intention to commit genocide in Gaza. It is also damaging the relations between us and the Arab world.
The Israelis have been angry, sad, and even revenge seekers since October 7. The level of anti-Arab hatred is much higher than before that Black Saturday. But most of them are rational and pragmatic; they don’t want to return to the Middle Ages, and they would like to see the kidnapped Israelis released by Hamas and to ensure that this terrorist organization is not ruling Gaza anymore.
They don’t adopt the slogan of the Right, “forever we will live on our sword,” and they would like to live a normal life. Anyone who is following the often-published public opinion polls sees that the most consistent trend is the shrinking Right and the increasing support for the Center-Left.
So what happened to Israel? How come it currently has the most right-wing government ever? Why do so many ministers and lawmakers participate in such delusional events?
The answer is very well known; in the past, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could choose to invite either the Right or the Center-Left to serve on his many governments. Once he was charged with bribery, the political parties on his Left decided not to participate in his coalition. Netanyahu needed the whole spectrum of Right and ultra-religious parties to join him, and so he made all the political manipulations to ensure that the far-right parties would pass the threshold and enter the Knesset.
In this context, he had to legitimize the Meir Kahana disciples, to allow them to serve in the Knesset and, later on (breaching his promise never to permit it), to become very senior members of his government. His coalition of 64 is dependent on the support of their two parties (12 members), and it is very clear that keeping his coalition and preventing his government’s downfall is his number one priority.Israel's mistake in Gaza
The mother of all mistakes was the decision of Labor-led governments to erect settlements (which were, first, established as military-agricultural strongholds and later on transformed into civilian settlements) in Gaza. It began soon after the Six Day War, and the most moderate politicians in the coalition supported the decision, believing that settlements in Gaza would create a security belt against any future Egyptian attack on Israel.
Akiva Eldar and Idith Zertal quote in their iconic book, Lords of the Land, the very important dovish leader, Yigal Allon, saying, on February 24, 1970, when he suggested building two strongholds in Gaza, that “these settlements have an utmost importance for the political future of the Gaza Strip, because they split the southern part of the strip from Gaza City… it is very important security-wise to establish a Jewish presence in the heart of Gaza.”
Shlomo Gazit, then the colonel in charge of coordinating the government’s operations in the territories, said in that meeting: “Security-wise, it will be a catastrophe to erect two settlements in the heart of the Gaza Strip… they will not solve any security problem, but cause it.”
The settlements were built, and Gazit was right. Allon was wrong. Ariel Sharon, as a prime minister and the head of the Likud Party, was right in evacuating all the settlements from the Gaza Strip but was wrong in doing it unilaterally, and by that – paving the way for Hamas to rule it. If Israel ends Hamas’s control in Gaza, and if the Strip returns to pragmatic Palestinian hands, that will be the best solution for the ongoing crisis. The idea of renewing the Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip will find itself in the dustbin of history.