Israel’s Minister of Finance and settler leader Bezalel Smotrich recently told Israel’s Channel 12 that he was supportive of what he called “voluntary emigration” of Gazans out of Gaza. “All we need,” he said, “is to find countries willing to take them in.” Or in the words of Smotrich’s ideological forebear, Meir Kahane, “they must go.”
Other members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition are apparently conducting secret talks with Congo to take in thousands of Gazans. And while deputies and spokespeople for Netanyahu have issued statements insisting these ministers do not represent government policy, Netanyahu himself gave the go-ahead for members of his government to support Gazan migration out of the Strip.
All of this brought the Israeli government into a direct conflict with the Biden Administration. In response, U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller tweeted that the calls by the far-right ministers were “inflammatory and irresponsible.”
These calls are also disingenuous and morally repugnant. American Jews have an obligation to vocally oppose them.