Israel’s far-right has dreams for Gaza

0:00Today on State of the World, Israel's far right has dreams for Gaza.

0:09You're listening to State of the World from NPR. We bring you the day's most vital international stories, up close where they're happening. I'm Greg Dixon. President Trump's peace plan for Gaza says Palestinians will not be displaced from the territory. That's a pivot from his earlier position. The Palestinians should leave and move to other countries. But powerful figures in Israel's government don't like this change. They disagree with the peace plan, and they say that Israel must never leave Gaza. Itai Stern takes us to Jerusalem, where the future of Gaza is being debated in the halls of power.

0:47Several hundred people, including government ministers, lawmakers, and members of the public, are filing into a large hall in Israel's parliament. They are here for a three-and-a-half-hour-long session, organized by the far right in Israel, which dominates the government. I'm here at the Knesset, Israel's parliament. Signs welcoming attendees for the voluntary migrations of Gazans, the destruction of Hamas, and full Israeli control of the territory. What were once fringe, feverish dreams of the most extreme elements of Israeli society are now common to hear in the corridors of power, since the deadly October 7th attack by Hamas on Israel in 2023.

1:27Who is the enemy? On the other hand, everyone is the enemy. That's Abidah Bachar speaking at the Knesset session in mid-January, three months into the ceasefire. His wife and 15-year-old son were killed in the October 7th attack. He tells the hundreds of people here that everyone in Gaza is an enemy, that babies born there now will grow up to be Hamas. His words, that there are no innocent people in Gaza, sparked applause.

1:59A video at the session shows Israeli soldiers in Gaza blowing up entire neighborhood blocks and bombing high-rise buildings. The Israeli national anthem plays over footage of Israeli soldiers on Gaza's shore. The video says, we are establishing Nova Beach on Gaza's beach.

2:20It's a reference to the Hamas attack on the Nova Music Festival in 2023. Israel, says, killed nearly 400 people. This fervor, motivated by security concerns and ideological conviction, was echoed by government ministers at the Knesset. Minister of Settlements and National Missions, Orit Struk, says in her view, Israel will have full sovereignty over Gaza within 10 years.

2:49If our prime minister doesn't know how to tell Trump and the world that Gaza is ours, we will be stuck with a plan that says Gaza belongs to the Palestinians. Israel's Justice Minister, Yariv Levine, says security can only be achieved where there's Jewish settlements.

3:07He says we need to be in Gaza because this is our land, the land of Israel and the Jewish people, and only the Jewish people. polls in the months before the current ceasefire show Israeli society divided on whether Israel should rebuild Jewish settlements in Gaza the far right in Israel say there is an opportunity now to rewrite history beginning with northern Gaza where thousands of Palestinians were killed and many forced to flee their homes but this is not what Israel agreed to in President Trump's ceasefire deal and it puts the Israeli government at odds with Israel's official policy. I think at some level it is political noise, but it does have an impact.

3:50Michael Ratney, who served at the U.S. Embassy in Israel and is an expert on the region, thinks it's unlikely that Jewish settlements will be re-established in Gaza. But he says these calls from Netanyahu's own party and the far-right coalition he depends on to remain in power feed into his decision-making. It's not the policy of the government, but he's ultimately sensitive to the urges of his most extreme elements, and they, to some degree, define government policy. Among those defining that policy is Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smutwitch. He came to explain to the President that his plan was to be a state of Israel.

4:30At the recent inauguration of a new Jewish settlement in the West Bank, Smutwitch said the time had come to tell Trump his plan is bad for Israel. and to cancel it. Gaza is ours, he said. For now, Gaza is physically divided, with more than half of the territory occupied by Israel. The rest is where Palestinians live, and Hamas governs. Trump's plan rests on Hamas disarming and Israel withdrawing. Israel says it won't withdraw until Hamas disarms. Hamas has floated its own conditions, like a path toward Palestinian statehood. Within that stalemate, Gaza's future remains undecided. Itai Stern, NPR News, Jerusalem.

5:18That's the State of the World from NPR. Thanks for listening.