“Voluntary Migration” or Ethnic Cleansing? Mouin Rabbani on Israel’s Push to Expel Residents of Gaza

Dutch Palestinian policy analyst Mouin Rabbani says Israel is using the Hamas attack of October 7 as a pretext to carry out its “long-standing ambition” to push Palestinians out of the Gaza Strip. He notes Israeli officials started proposing mass displacement of civilians to Egypt and other countries almost immediately after fighting began, and that this reflects Zionist policy since even before the founding of the state of Israel. “Ethnic cleansing, or what Zionists would call transfer, is intrinsic to Zionist and later Israeli policy towards the Palestinians from the very outset,” says Rabbani, co-editor of Jadaliyya and host of the Connections podcast. His latest piece for Mondoweiss is headlined “The long history of Zionist proposals to ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip.”