Congress Reviews Plan to Facilitate Ethnic Cleansing of Palestinians From Gaza

The proposal calls for the US to condition aid to Arab countries on their willingness to accept Palestinian refugees from Gaza

Israel Hayom reported last week that some members of Congress have reviewed a plan to condition US aid to Arab countries on their willingness to accept refugees from Gaza, which would facilitate the Israeli goal of cleansing the territory of Palestinians.

The proposal was shown to key figures in the House and Senate, but the report did not say who submitted the plan. The proposal calls for conditioning aid to Egypt, Turkey, Yemen, and Iraq and even details how many Palestinians each country should take.

The plan proposes that one million Palestinians go to Egypt, half a million to Turkey, 250,000 to Iraq, and another 250,000 to Yemen. In total, the plan outlines the expulsion of two million Palestinians from Gaza, nearly all of the 2.3 million Palestinians that live there.

In October, a document drafted by Israel’s Intelligence Ministry was leaked to the media and outlined several proposals for a post-war Gaza. The document said the best option for Israel would be to expel all the Palestinians in Gaza to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula and create a “sterile” buffer zone in Egyptian territory.

The biggest impediment to the Israeli desire to push all of the Palestinians into Egypt is the strong opposition from Cairo, which repeatedly stated it would not allow a large influx of refugees into its territory. Egypt’s position has led Israeli officials to look to other countries to accept the Palestinians it wishes to expel.

In a recent op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, two Israeli members of the Knesset called for Western countries to accept Palestinian refugees. Israeli Intelligence Minister Gila Gamliel penned a similar op-ed for The Jerusalem Post that proposed the “voluntary resettlement” of Palestinians in Gaza to other countries around the world.

Author: Dave DeCamp

Dave DeCamp is the news editor of Antiwar.com, follow him on Twitter @decampdave.