With the International Court of Justice in The Hague set to issue a decision Friday on South Africa's request for interim orders in a genocide case against Israel, some people in Israel have volunteered to supply additional material signaling Israeli intentions to take control of the Gaza Strip and settle the territory.
A conference will be held at Jerusalem's International Convention Center Sunday calling for a renewal of Jewish settlement in Gaza. This destructive idea is not the province of a negligible minority; it enjoys the support of many cabinet ministers and lawmakers, including Itamar Ben-Gvir, Yitzhak Wasserlauf, Amichai Eliyahu, Miki Zohar, Haim Katz, Hanoch Milwidsky, Nissim Vaturi, Amit Halevi, Tally Gotliv, Etty Atia, Moshe Passal, Ariel Kallner, Limor Son Har-Melech, Yitzhak Kroizer, Almog Cohen, Tzvika Foghel, Moshe Solomon, Tzvi Succot and Michal Woldiger.
In a video that was distributed this week, Zohar is seen standing beside prominent settler Daniella Weiss, known as "the mother of the hilltop youth," and Samaria Regional Council chair Yossi Dagan, urging people to attend the "victory conference," because "this is what will bring security."
Dagan, without a hint of shame or of responsibility for the disaster this far-right government brought upon Israel, has been pushing distorted propaganda claiming that "Oslo and the expulsion led to this Holocaust" – referring to the Oslo Accordsand the 2005 disengagement from the Gaza Strip, which involved evacuating all Israeli settlements from the Strip as well as four in the northern West Bank.
Dagan then enunciates the policy that ostensibly follows from this: "Renewing settlement in the Gaza Strip, in northern Gaza first, and a return to northern Samaria will give us security."
These claims are both false and dangerous. The settlements were built with the express intention of thwarting any possibility of territorial compromise and coexistence. They violate international law and create suffering for the Palestinian population. They are an enterprise of theft and oppression that every decent Israeli ought to oppose. The soldiers now fighting and sacrificing their lives in the Gaza Strip in order to protect the country are not doing so for the sake of renewing settlement in Gaza.
The racist/settler wing of the cabinet, the Knesset, and the public is endangering Israel's existence. In the name of a zealous, messianic vision, it is knowingly intensifying hatred between the two peoples, distancing any possibility of reconciliation and turning Israel into a pariah in the enlightened world. This is additional proof of the urgent need to hold a general election as soon as possible and oust this disastrous government.
The above article is Haaretz's lead editorial, as published in the Hebrew and English newspapers in Israel.