As Israel’s carpet bombing of Gaza leaves over 5,000 dead and at least one million people displaced, a Tel Aviv-based think tank produces an ethnic cleansing plan, Kit Klarenberg reports.
Smoke and flames billow after Israeli forces struck a high-rise tower in Gaza City, Oct. 7, 2023. (Ali Hamad, Palestinian News & Information Agency, Wafa for APAimages, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0)
By Kit Klarenberg
The Grayzone
In a white paper released over a week after the Hamas-led surprise attack on Israeli military bases and kibbutzes, the Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy outlined “a plan for resettlement and final rehabilitation in Egypt of the entire population of Gaza,” based on the “unique and rare opportunity to evacuate the entire Gaza Strip” that Israel’s latest assault on the besieged coastal enclave provided.
Published in Hebrew on the organization’s website, the paper was authored by Amir Weitman, “an investment manager and visiting researcher” at the institute who also leads the libertarian caucus of Israel’s ruling Likud Party.
The document began by noting that there are 10 million vacant housing units in neighboring Egypt that could be “immediately” filled with Palestinians. Weitman then assured readers that the “sustainable plan … aligns well with the economic and geopolitical interests of the State of Israel, Egypt, the USA and Saudi Arabia.”
Amir Weitmann, head of Israel's ruling Likud Party, promises revenge on Russia for insufficient support of Israel in an unhinged live RT interview.
He stated “we will do everything to make sure Ukraine wins!”
He states; "Russia will pay the price!" "Russia supports Nazis!" pic.twitter.com/xDdU7BLh0t
— Meagan Brown ?????????? (@MeaganABrown) October 19, 2023
Weitman’s ethnic cleansing proposal echoes forced transfer plans advanced in recent days by former Israeli officials while capitalizing on evacuation orders delivered to the entire civilian population of northern Gaza by the Israeli military.
Weitman’s sinister blueprint imagined Israel purchasing these properties at a cost of $5 billion to $8 billion, a whopping price-tag that reflects between 1 percent and 1.5 percent of Israel’s GDP.
Flyers dropped from Israeli warplanes, Just received this from #Gaza. #Israel literally asked more than 1.1 million from north and central #Gaza city to leave towards the south. This is illegal and absurd. People of Gaza refuse to leave. #GazaUnderAttack#StopIsraeliAggression… pic.twitter.com/pPktoEjKQJ
— Sameh Habeeb (@Samehahabeeb) October 13, 2023
“These sums of money [required to cleanse Gaza] in relation to the Israeli economy, are minimal,” Weitman posits. “Investing individual billions of dollars to solve this difficult issue is an innovative, cheap and sustainable solution.”
Weitman acknowledged that his plan virtually amounts to Israel “buying the Gaza Strip,” arguing the move would be “a very worthwhile investment” for Zionists because it would “add a lot of value over time.”
He asserted local “land conditions” in the area would provide “many” Israeli settlers a high standard of living, therefore allowing for an expansion of settlements in Gush Dan near the Egyptian border, giving “a tremendous impetus to settlement in the Negev.”
Tel Aviv has approved plans to establish four settlements in the Negev to house 3,000 settler families in December 2021.
Genocidal War to End All Wars
Israel-Egypt border fence north of Eilat, 2012. (Idobi, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0)
Though Egypt has so far rejected Israeli pressure for a mass exodus of Gaza residents through the southern Rafah crossing, Weitman argued Cairo will welcome the mass exodus of Palestinian refugees as “an immediate stimulus” that will “provide a tremendous and immediate benefit to al-Sisi’s regime.”
Weitman claimed that Cairo’s major creditors — including France, Germany and Saudi Arabia — are likely to welcome a revitalized Egyptian economy, courtesy of “Israeli investment” in the Palestinians’ permanent removal.
He surmised that Western Europe will welcome “the transfer of the entire Gaza population to Egypt,” because it will significantly “reduce the risk of illegal immigration … a tremendous advantage.” Meanwhile, he expects Riyadh to embrace the move because the “evacuation of the Gaza Strip means the elimination of a significant ally of Iran.”
The ethnic cleansing of Gaza would mean an end to “ceaseless, repeated rounds of fighting, which inflame the fires of hatred against Israel.” Moreover, “closing the Gaza issue will ensure a stable and increased supply of Israeli gas to Egypt and its liquefaction,” from the vast reserves seized by Israel near Gaza’s shores.
Raz Segel is an Israeli who directs the Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Stockton University.
He says that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and that Israeli leadership openly displays the special intent to commit genocide against International law. pic.twitter.com/6Ru8ru7lQE
— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) October 24, 2023
Palestinians in turn are expected to jump at the chance to be forcibly transferred from their homes rather than “living in poverty under the rule of Hamas.” It is therefore necessary for Israel to “create the right conditions” for them to “immigrate” from Gaza to Cairo. Weitman noted that Gaza’s 2 million inhabitants “constitute less than 2% of the total Egyptian population, which today already includes 9 million refugees. A drop in the ocean.”
The paper ominously concluded:
“There is no doubt that in order for this plan to come to fruition, many conditions must exist at the same time. Currently, these conditions are met and it is unclear when such an opportunity will arise again, if ever. This is the time to act. Now.”
‘If We Want to Remain Alive’
As barbarous as these proposals might seem, they reflect what many Israeli officials appear to be murmuring in private, and what at least one former government spinmeister has openly pushed as an altruistic solution to the Palestinian “problem.”
“There is a huge expanse, almost endless space in the Sinai Desert, just on the other side of Gaza,” former deputy foreign minister of Israel, Danny Ayalon, echoed the genocidal Zionist logic behind Weitman’s proposal in an interview with Al Jazeera’s Marc Lamont Hill.
“The idea is — and this is not the first time it will be done — for them to leave over to the open areas where we and the international community will prepare the infrastructure — you know, tent cities with food and water — just like for the refugees of Syria.”
"There is almost endless space in the Sinai Desert…this is not the first time it has been done…we & the international community will prepare tent cities…"
Israeli politician Danny Ayalon describes the their vision for another Nakba today in Gaza.
— Lowkey (@Lowkey0nline) October 14, 2023
In 2004, Zionist demographer Arnon Sofer of Haifa University laid out detailed plans for the isolation of Gaza directly to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s government. This entailed withdrawing Israeli forces from the area entirely and constructing a stringent system of surveillance and security to ensure nothing and no one went in or out without Zionist proviso. He predicted a perpetual bloodbath:
“When 2.5 million people live in a closed-off Gaza, it’s going to be a human catastrophe. Those people will become even bigger animals than they are today … The pressure at the border will be awful. It’s going to be a terrible war. So, if we want to remain alive, we will have to kill and kill and kill. All day, every day … the only thing that concerns me is how to ensure the boys and men who are going to have to do the killing will be able to return home to their families and be normal human beings.”
Arnon Sofer is an academic who helped devise Israel's siege of Gaza to engineer a one-way peace
Sofer said, "If we want to remain alive, we have to kill and kill and kill, all day, every day. If we don't kill, we will cease to exist."
I explain the logic of the siege (2013) pic.twitter.com/il2oCQQG7O
— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) October 10, 2023
The institute has put forward a clean and easy fantasy of achieving the same goal put forward by Sofer. For it to succeed, all Palestinians have to do is put down their weapons and head toward the desert of permanent exile.
Kit Klarenberg is an investigative journalist exploring the role of intelligence services in shaping politics and perceptions.
This article is from The Grayzone.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
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sigh—This is so horribly sad and awful., awful, awful WHY does America give so much military power to Israel? This will not end well for anyone. I wonder what nation Israel will attack next—I think the people running this are insane . I am so sad, but I do wonder..maybe someday Israel will be WASreal and we can finally hive some kind of Peace on Earth—-for all the People
ChatGPT will translate the Hebrew Language text into English. Some bilingual person (out of my zone, unfortunately) ought to be able to comment on the quality of the translation. My experience with other languages is that the Chat GPT translations are better than Google Translate.
The first two paragraphs of the article linked:
“In this document, a sustainable plan with high economic potential will be presented, which aligns well with the economic and geopolitical interests of the State of Israel, Egypt, the United States, and Saudi Arabia. Below is a brief summary of an immediate, realistic, and sustainable plan for the resettlement and humanitarian recovery of the entire Arab population in the Gaza Strip.
“In 2017, it was reported that there are approximately 10 million housing units in Egypt, about half of which are constructed, and the other half are in the process of construction. For example, in the two largest cities in Cairo, “6th of October” and “10th of Ramadan,” there is an enormous number of vacant apartments owned by both the government and private individuals, with enough building areas to accommodate about 6 million residents. However, most of the local population cannot afford to purchase these apartments despite their very low prices (ranging from 150 to 300 dollars per square meter). While the inventory of vacant apartments may change over time, it appears to remain very high and available for the immediate housing of the entire population of Gaza.”
Go to the Center for Constitutional Rights website and click on their recent reports and read the one that came out yesterday or today. It is not happy reading and implicates all our global west countries who are supporting Israel 100%. Our leaders will all be in line for a visit to the International Courts of Justice for supporting genocide (sorry, spoiler alert). Do please read it though, it will help give a baseline of knowledge for the near future after this crisis is contained.
hxxps://ccrjustice.org/home/press-center/press-releases/rights-lawyers-release-legal-analysis-us-complicity-israel-s
All based on the premise that the Jews are “God’s chosen children,” and deserve that land. It’s so sick that the US bases its foreign policy on biblical bullshit, and not just allows, but calls for the slaughter of innocents in the name of righteousness. I know the evil US government is not religious, but those within it use the Bible to rope ignorant Christians into supporting their policy of using Israel to rule the Middle East. For the record, I know all Christians are not ignorant of their book of Revelation. Chris Hedges is a Christian and doesn’t believe the “rapture” story many fundamentalists have been led to fervently believe. For those interested there’s a book called “The Rapture Exposed: The Message of Hope in the Book of Revelation,” by Barbara Rossing. Personally, I don’t believe in any patriarchal religion, but at least those who do should try and understand that their God’s plan for the planet was not to create it only to ultimately destroy it. I believe Black Elk’s philosophy – “The holy land is everywhere.”
@ Doris !
Very Very Well Said ?
The Gray Zone joining with the present iteration of Robert Parry’s Consortium News in the personage of Kit Klarenberg & Max, plus a salute to the formidable Chris Hedges; and then ? you, dear lady, had to drop in a taste of Black Elk wisdom. I feel fairly confident that ? up there in that higher house, Bob Parry is a very HAPPY camper?.
Thank you all for your truth, and for sharing it with the rest of us.
As Usual,
EA
We will be able to assess the accuracy f this quite easily in the days to come. And that’s good, because if such a plan is attempted, it will implicate the U.S. government in any attempt to carry out such a plan, because obviously our State Dept, Pentagon and Executive Branch would know all about it.
So Israel has created a humane plan to relocate Gazans who weren’t thriving, were being dominated by their evil government that cares nothing for them, and instead of trying to create a peaceful enclave lived in continuous hostility toward Israel and proved a constant threat. Seems like a pretty good offer.
Jews often emigrated from lands where they were persecuted and created a new beginning elsewhere. As a US citizen I am glad my forebearers did so. Sometimes you must cut your losses and move on.
So, what you’re really saying is that reality doesn’t actually exist under the rock you just turned over to show everyone the light of reason. And you forgot to include in that “escaping persecution” scenario the Babylonian Captivity. The Israelites should have just been patient.
compare that to Himmler’s speech to his SSmen:”Most of you men know what it is like to see 100
corpses side by side, or 500 or 1,000. To have stood fast through this – and
except for cases of human weakness – to have stayed decent,”https://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%204029.pdf
Exodus 20:17 King James Version
“Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.”
“Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy”
Putting the ‘State of Israel’ and the ‘Zionist Cause” on a higher pedestal than God itself. They openly advocate breaking God’s laws about killing, stealing and lying (and even on the Sabbath, in pursuit of a cause that they obviously consider to be a higher cause than God itself.
It would be best not to be standing too close to them. God is unlikely to be amused by such behavior.
This madness perpetrated by Israel is only possible because of American tax dollars. Biden and his handlers have blood on their hands, and appear not to care at all. Lunatics like Joe Lieberman now want to attack Iran. It is time we had a serious third party, devoted to peace and environmental sanity, to vote out these monsters. This forever-war mentality has run its course. We either make fundamental changes in human society, or nuclear Armageddon, or catastrophic Climate Change will spell our end.
Wow, an investor’s wet dream: Israel buys property in Egypt for a paltry few billion. Then they force all the indigenous and refugee population of Gaza out to the Sinai where generous, noble Israel will erect their lodging…. er, tent cities. Now Israel will be the Gazan people’s slum landlord, charging rent to recoup their initial investment.
Meanwhile, Israel will come into the possession of premium ocean-front property where they can establish luxury condos or multi-million dollar mansions, five star hotels, resorts, spas, golf courses; you know, all the best that life has to offer. Talk about an investment….. it’s a bonanza! Everyone will be happy, no? What could go wrong?
Don’t forget, this would erase completely any Palestinian claim to their share of the enormous gas field offshore of Egypt, Gaza, Israel and Lebanon. The fact Israel is already stealing the oil and gas of the West Bank says all that needs saying as to their intentions. They may already be doing the same in the gas field off of Gaza. Who are the Palestinians to say anything? At all?
The actions of the current US administration and Congress—from their appalling assent for Gaza’s status quo to Antony Blinken attending Israeli cabinet meetings—says more about the shaky state of our republic’s autonomous sovereignty, and in my opinion the divided loyalties of its US Senate-approved Executive Branch officials, than I ever thought I would countenance in my lifetime.
This entire construct screams “Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!”
Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy
Thank you for documenting this. This will be useful evidence when the time for war crime trials comes around. Not only for the authors, but for the backers. The authors are of course paid to churn out whatever the donors to the think tank want. Its a job. Just following orders is not an excuse, and they deserve the same condemnation as the architects who designed the German camps of the 40’s. Especially when they look to enjoy their work. But the real criminals are the people pulling the strings. Somebody gave this think tank a lot of money, and told them to do reports like this.
Don’t know this ‘institute’, but their American fellow travelers are usually funded by the merchants of death.
This proposal also sounds eerily similar to early settlers homicidal plan here in the U.S. to take over the continent and eliminate as much as possible the Native Americans and then move those who survive into the desert areas in unlivable conditions. I am disgusted with the evil that the U.S. perpetrates around the world including its support of yet another elimination of native people (Palestinians) from their land.
I agree
Sociopaths at work. Like the big capitalist corporate mind set. Which hollows out everything it touches – humanity, the whole earth. People – mere things, commodities, sticks. Eh, stick’em all in a long haul trailer to Egypt. For a price. A not insignificant one. They populate the leadership class in government – Josh Gottheimer comes to mind, and Biden and his neoconservative hawk triplets – Nuland, Blinken, Sullivan.
The ‘Sinai solution’ to the Gaza “concentration camp”, proposed by Giora Eiland, Jewish Israeli National Security Council Director under PM Sharon in 2003-2005, as revealed by WikiLeaks (2004):
‘… Repeating a personal view that he had previously expressed to other USG visitors, NSC Director Eiland laid out for Ambassador Djerejian a different end-game solution than that which is commonly envisioned as the two-state solution. Eiland’s view, he said, was prefaced on the assumption that demographic and other considerations make the prospect for a two-state solution between the Jordan and the Mediterranean unviable. Currently, he said, there are 11 million people in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza Strip, and that number will increase to 36 million in 50 years. The area between Beer Sheva and the northern tip of Israel (including the West Bank and Gaza) has the highest population density in the world. Gaza alone, he said, is already “a huge concentration camp” with 1.3 million Palestinians. Moreover, the land is surrounded on three sides by deserts. Palestinians need more land and Israel can ill-afford to cede it. The solution, he argued, lies in the Sinai desert.
13. (C) Specifically, Eiland proposed that Egypt be persuaded to contribute a 600 square kilometer parcel of land that would be annexed to a future Palestinian state as compensation for the 11 percent of the West Bank that Israel would seek to annex in a final status agreement. This Sinai block, 20 kms of which would be along the Mediterranean coast, would be adjacent to the Gaza Strip. …’
hxxps://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/gaza-concentration
hxxps://wikileaks.jcvignoli.com/cable_04TELAVIV1952
As an American I am responsible and ashamed that my country is supporting this Palestinian Holocaust. NOT ONE MORE DAMN PENNY TO ISRAEL …EVER!! Zionists in all western nations have their hands around the throats of all our governments… and our money. They have trained us to think like them. Be fearful like them… because of their own selfish behavior. They are exterminating the Palestinians and they are corrupting the souls of all humans everywhere that allow it. And now Biden has offered to send Israel 14 BILLION dollars!!! I say NO!! God Damn it!! NO!
In 70 odd yrs Jews from other parts of Europe were begging Palestine to let them in. They were pro Palestine then. What happened? Greed took over and this is the thanks Palestine gets. Very sad indeed. I am ashamed of my govts stance on Israels human rights violations and support of their apartheid state. Israel has been bombing all over the place for yrs and stealing land and the US let them get away with it. Did they really think no one would notice or retaliate? Now when I hear “never again” I think it’s a joke. Netanyahu and his bunch are the new NAZI’s. Defund Israel. We never should have been sending them billions each yr forever just so they can lobby for more. I’m glad Israeli citizens are finally seeing what their govt is doing and I hope they keep protesting.
Israel’s final solution to the Palestinian “problem” mirrors the Jewish holocaust. The former victim becomes the perpetrator. And the world stands by and does little to stop it. The US supports it while supporting Nazis in Ukraine to weaken Russia. Fascism rears its ugly head to challenge humanity yet again. This time the stakes are much higher. There is no room for miscalculation. Our current crop of leadership does not inspire optimism.
Zionists have never been shy of lying and killing to further their geopolitical aims.
For a few decades now, these sadistic hegemonic paranoid pro-Israel zealots have wanted nothing more than for the U.S. to go to war against Iran.
Tel Aviv’s mad dog strategy is currently in play; we are now witnessing it bombing and murdering everything in sight: Syrian airports, Lebanese territory, and thousands of desperate and beleaguered Palestinian women and children, all with impunity.
One of the only nation-states in the region with the military strength to stop this carnage and mayhem is Iran. Israel is attempting to lure Tehran into a justified response to stop the massive and grotesque Zionist bloodletting that shows no signs of abating.
Tel Aviv understands that due to its stranglehold on Washington via campaign donations across all political parties and creepy blackmail operations, it’ll be able to possibly dragoon Washington into an insane war against the Persian state.
The American working people must understand that a war against Iran is not our fight, it’s not in our interests whatsoever. A war between Iran and Washington would be a global catastrophe of epic proportions.
Most establishment media outlets are totally dominated by shrieking pro-Israel militarists who will try and browbeat, propagandize, and bully the American public into assenting to a potentially horrendous war with Iran. Let’s not allow this to happen. And while we’re at it, let’s put an immediate stop to the horrific ethnic cleansing against the Palestinian people we’re all seeing in real-time.
Won’t bombing the Gaza Strip kill the hostages?
Please catch up. Israel doesn’t care about the hostages. They have already admitted this.
I don’t believe the hostages figure in the Israeli plot. The backing of the west to continue the destruction of the Palestinians/Gaza will, to my mind, flame their objective. 200 Israelis versus 2 million Palestinians is no competition. “Collateral Murder”.
Good point, Tony!
Jesus, what is wrong with these Zionist fanatics? How many Palestinians will be left to “transfer to Egypt”? Three? After all of the incessant bombing of Gaza I would say there will be few to none left when all is said and done…
Oh, and Biden, by all means go ahead and give Israel billions to mass murder millions of people in Gaza – after all, that is what these “great united states” are really all about, right? Heck, look at Ukraine, another one of your wonderous blunders – stupid old fool!
Again, these Zionist/fascists have become what they use to abhor. The hypocrisy is clear, the insanity obvious, the need to rid the world of their contemptible politics and ideology more necessary than ever. How is another question.
This proposal sounds eerily similar to the Nazis’ plan to deport their Jewish population to some place like Madagascar prior to deciding to implement the “final solution”.
And you’ve just realized this? Where have you been living all this time?