Former IDF Chief of Staff and former Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon has accused Israel’s leadership, driven by far-right elements who seek to resettle Gaza, of taking the country down a path of ethnic cleansing in the Gaza Strip, while warning that Netanyahu’s government was leading the nation to “destruction.” “The path we are being dragged down is one of occupation, annexation and ethnic cleansing in the Gaza Strip,” the prominent government critic told Democrat TV, reported the Times of Israel.
“Transfer, call it what you want, and Jewish settlements,” he said, referring to the policy, pushed by the Israeli far-right, for population transfer and “voluntary migration” of Palestinians from Gaza, and the reestablishment of Jewish settlements in their place—though Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly said such actions are not the goal of the war, nor are they on the agenda. (Times of Israel doesn’t say, however, that population transfer and “voluntary migration” are the policies of Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.)
“Now look at the polls. Seventy percent—sometimes more and sometimes a little less—of the public in the State of Israel advocates a path that is Jewish, democratic, liberal etc., and also with separation [of religion and state],” Ya’alon said. “Therefore, there must be no confusion here. The one who wants to confuse us is the one who is currently leading us to nothing less than destruction,” he said.
An apparently incredulous journalist, whom the Times named as Lucy Aharish, noted that Ya’alon was using surprising language with the term “ethnic cleansing.”
