Ben-Gvir’s Gaza Exit Strategy

Peloni

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir led 4200 Israelis to pray on the Temple Mount on July 23, 2026.  Screengrab via YoutubeNational Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir led 4200 Israelis to pray on the Temple Mount on July 23, 2026.  Screengrab via Youtube

On Thursday, National Security Minister and Otzma Yehudit chairman Itamar Ben-Gvir formally unveiled a policy plan to encourage Gaza Strip residents to emigrate voluntarily to countries willing to receive them.  The policy measure is titled “Disengagement 710.” 

The proposal came following an extended policy review which has been under consideration since October 7, and which was conducted by a special staff assembled under Ben-Gvir’s instruction. Over the past nearly three years, the team examined the issue in depth, reviewing international models, legal and economic considerations, potential absorption options across various countries, and how to translate the concept of voluntary emigration into an organized government policy capable of being implemented.

The plan is designed around a phased targets: approximately 250,000 residents in the first year, 1.11 million within three years, and roughly 1.86 million over seven years. According to Disengagement 710, each individual or family agreeing to leave Gaza would be setup with a personalized path including an approved country of destination, agreed up0on legal status, documentation, visas, travel funding, initial housing, vocational training, employment assistance, and up to two years of ongoing support. Ben-Gvir has named Turkey, Ethiopia, Congo, and several Arab states as potential destinations, with additional countries potentially under consideration as well. Any agreement would be conditional on the destination country’s consent and on arrangements which would secure the emigrants regulated legal status.

The plan includes twelve guiding principles, including strict voluntariness with no coercion, no departure without a country that has agreed to receive emigrants, individual security screening, preservation of family unity, multiple sponsorship tracks (employment, education, medical, family reunification, community), performance-based payments to receiving countries, international partnership in financing and absorption, annual implementation targets, and monthly transparency reporting on applications, approvals, departures, costs, and absorption. The estimated cost of Disengagement 710 would include an initial Israeli investment of 10 billion shekels which would serve to establish and launch the project, with a matching framework of up to 50 billion shekels contingent on international participation and agreements with the various nations receiving the Gazan emigres.

Ben-Gvir is demanding the establishment of a separate dedicated ministry for voluntary emigration as a prerequisite for Otzma Yehudit to join the next govt.  The ministry would be headed by a minister and operating through a director-general, with an independent budget, an international negotiating team, and a dedicated implementation apparatus. Ben-Gvir stated that establishing an Emigration Ministry would be at the top of his party’s demands after the upcoming election.

Ben-Gvir explains that the “achievements [of the Gaza war] came at a difficult and painful price, a terrible and awful price in the blood of our sons,” and that “we must seize this historic opportunity to bring about a historic solution.” Noting further that he had been pushing the emigration idea since the war began, he recalled how he had been characterized as an extremist for doing so, but that “Then, in one day, everything changed: President Trump himself announced the encouragement of emigration as a solution to the Gaza issue. In an instant, Ben-Gvir’s plan became legitimate. Suddenly, everyone became Ben-Gvir.”

He also invoked the 1990s transfer debate, using the nickname “Gandhi” for Rehavam Ze’evi, the late right-wing politician who advocated population transfer. “What a shame they did not listen to Gandhi,” he said, adding that instead Israel had brought “the Oslo disaster upon ourselves, with the insane idea of taking terrorists, arming them with weapons, and naively believing that murderers would turn into doves of peace just because we gave them Kalashnikovs.”

He closed with a series of contrasts: “Instead of the illusions of Peace Now, we need the actions of emigration now. Instead of digging tunnels, it is time to pack suitcases. Instead of working in terrorism, it is time to find work abroad and build new lives.”

The voluntary emigration concept has a broader history dating back to February 2025, when Donald Trump first raised the idea after a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.   Unfortunately, the Americans ultimately backed away from the idea, and in its place Trump’s own 20-point plan was announced last October.  A senior Israeli official noted the fundamental obstacle — emigration requires both willing migrants and a country willing to accept them, and the latter is the more acute gap. Israel’s past diplomatic overtures to several countries have hit a wall.

Politically, Ben-Gvir is using the plan to outflank Netanyahu from the right, and Ofer Winter has included a similar idea in his own platform. Whether “Disengagement 710” translates into actual policy or remains an electoral stunt hinges on post-election coalition dynamics and whether a right-wing government takes shape. Significant doubts remain about whether the Trump administration would back the idea, and the plan would almost certainly draw fierce opposition from the international community.

Sources

https://www.jpost.com/israel-election-2026/article-907523

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/432667

September 3, 2026 | 5 Comments »

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  1. did mahatma gandhi advocate population transfer

    Mahatma Gandhi did not advocate population transfer; instead, he strongly opposed both the partition of India and any forced or state-managed exchange of populations.Gandhi’s Stance on Partition and Population MovementOpposition to Division: Gandhi believed that partition was morally wrong and that Hindus and Muslims could live together harmoniously.Rejection of Uprooting: He argued that forcing millions of people to leave their ancestral homes was inhumane and impractical.Contrasting Views: While figures like B.R. Ambedkar briefly viewed a “complete exchange of population” as a tragic last resort to stop endless communal violence if partition happened, Gandhi consistently rejected this idea, maintaining that unity and non-violence were paramount.Please tell me:Are you researching the partition of India or specific leaders’ views?Do you want to know more about Ambedkar’s proposal?Once you reply, I will provide more details on historical perspectives of the era.

    • Gandhi, the Jews & Zionism

      Links to all of the articles/intervews.

      https://jewishvirtuallibrary.org/gandhi-the-jews-and-zionism

      —-

      Some choice selections:

      Gandhi, the Jews & Zionism: Notes in Young India
      (April 6, 1921)

      Do the Muslims claim Palestine, or will they restore it to the Jews who are the original owners?

      The Muslims claim Palestine as an integral part of Jazirat-ul-Arab. They are bound to retain its custody, as an injunction of the Prophet. But that does not mean that the Jews and the Christians cannot freely go to Palestine, or even reside there and own property. What non-Muslims cannot do is to acquire sovereign jurisdiction. The Jews cannot receive sovereign rights in a place which has been held for centuries by Muslim powers by right of religious conquest. The Muslim soldiers did not shed their blood in the late War for the purpose of surrendering Palestine out of Muslim control. I would like my Jewish friends to impartially consider the position of the seventy million Muslims of India. As a free nation, can they tolerate what they must regard as a treacherous disposal of their sacred possession?

      https://jewishvirtuallibrary.org/notes-in-young-india-by-gandhi-april-1921

      My comment: “by right of religious conquest? This guy’s supposed to be a pacifist?”

        • Gandhi & Zionism: ‘The Jews’
          (November 26, 1938)

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          Several letters have been received by me asking me to declare my views about the Arab-Jew question in Palestine and the persecution of the Jews in Germany. It is not without hesitation that I venture to offer my views on this very difficult question.

          My sympathies are all with the Jews. I have known them intimately in South Africa. Some of them became life-long companions. Through these friends I came to learn much of their age-long persecution. They have been the untouchables of Christianity. The parallel between their treatment by Christians and the treatment of untouchables by Hindus is very close. Religious sanction has been invoked in both cases for the justification of the inhuman treatment meted out to them. Apart from the friendships, therefore, there is the more common universal reason for my sympathy for the Jews.

          But my sympathy does not blind me to the requirements of justice. The cry for the national home for the Jews does not make much appeal to me. The sanction for it is sought in the Bible and the tenacity with which the Jews have hankered after return to Palestine. Why should they not, like other peoples of the earth, make that country their home where they are born and where they earn their livelihood?

          Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French. It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs. What is going on in Palestine today cannot be justified by any moral code of conduct. The mandates have no sanction but that of the last war. Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as their national home.

          The nobler course would be to insist on a just treatment of the Jews wherever they are born and bred. The Jews born in France are French. If the Jews have no home but Palestine, will they relish the idea of being forced to leave the other parts of the world in which they are settled? Or do they want a double home where they can remain at will? This cry for the national home affords a colourable justification for the German expulsion of the Jews.

          But the German persecution of the Jews seems to have no parallel in history. The tyrants of old never went so mad as Hitler seems to have gone. And he is doing it with religious zeal. For he is propounding a new religion of exclusive and militant nationalism in the name of which any inhumanity becomes an act of humanity to be rewarded here and hereafter. The crime of an obviously mad but intrepid youth is being visited upon his whole race with unbelievable ferocity. If there ever could be a justifiable war in the name of and for humanity, a war against Germany, to prevent the wanton persecution of a whole race, would be completely justified.

          But I do not believe in any war. A discussion of the pros and cons of such a war is therefore outside my horizon or province.But if there can be no war against Germany, even for such a crime as is being committed against the Jews, surely there can be no alliance with Germany. How can there be alliance between a nation which claims to stand for justice and democracy and one which is the declared enemy of both? Or is England drifting towards armed dictatorship and all it means?

          Germany is showing to the world how efficiently violence can be worked when it is not hampered by any hypocrisy or weakness masquerading as humanitarianism. It is also showing how hideous, terrible and terrifying it looks in its nakedness.

          Can the Jews resist this organised and shameless persecution? Is there a way to preserve their self-respect, and not to feel helpless, neglected and forlorn? I submit there is. No person who has faith in a living God need feel helpless or forlorn. Jehovah of the Jews is a God more personal than the God of the Christians, the Mussalmans or the Hindus, though as a matter of fact in essence, He is common to all and one without a second and beyond description. But as the Jews attribute personality to God and believe that He rules every action of theirs, they ought not to feel helpless. If I were a Jew and were born in Germany and earned my livelihood there, I would claim Germany as my home even as the tallest gentile German may, and challenge him to shoot me or cast me in the dungeon; I would refuse to be expelled or to submit to discriminating treatment. And for doing this, I should not wait for the fellow Jews to join me in civil resistance but would have confidence that in the end the rest are bound to follow my example. If one Jew or all the Jews were to accept the prescription here offered, he or they cannot be worse off than now. And suffering voluntarily undergone will bring them an inner strength and joy which no number of resolutions of sympathy passed in the world outside Germany can. Indeed, even if Britain, France and America were to declare hostilities against Germany, they can bring no inner joy, no inner strength. The calculated violence of Hitler may even result in a general massacre of the Jews by way of his first answer to the declaration of such hostilities. But if the Jewish mind could be prepared for voluntary suffering, even the massacre I have imagined could be turned into a day of thanksgiving and joy that Jehovah had wrought deliverance of the race even at the hands of the tyrant. For to the godfearing, death has no terror. It is a joyful sleep to be followed by a waking that would be all the more refreshing for the long sleep.

          It is hardly necessary for me to point out that it is easier for the Jews than for the Czechs to follow my prescription. And they have in the Indian satyagraha campaign in South Africa an exact parallel. There the Indians occupied precisely the same place that the Jews occupy in Germany. The persecution had also a religious tinge. President Kruger used to say that the white Christians were the chosen of God and Indians were inferior beings created to serve the whites. A fundamental clause in the Transvaal constitution was that there should be no equality between the whites and coloured races including Asiatics. There too the Indians were consigned to ghettos described as locations. The other disabilities were almost of the same type as those of the Jews in Germany. The Indians, a mere handful, resorted to satyagraha without any backing from the world outside or the Indian Government. Indeed the British officials tried to dissuade the satyagrahis is from their contemplated step. World opinion and the Indian Government came to their aid after eight years of fighting. And that too was by way of diplomatic pressure not of a threat of war.

          But the Jews of Germany can offer satyagraha under infinitely better auspices than the Indians of South Africa. The Jews are a compact, homogeneous community in Germany. They are far more gifted than the Indians of South Africa. And they have organised world opinion behind them. I am convinced that if someone with courage and vision can arise among them to lead them in non-violent action, the winter of their despair can in the twinkling of an eye be turned into the summer of hope. And what has today become a degrading man-hunt can be turned into a calm and determined stand offered by unarmed men and women possessing the strength of suffering given to them by Jehovah. It will be then a truly religious resistance offered against the godless fury of dehumanised man. The German Jews will score a lasting victory over the German gentiles in the sense that they will have converted the latter to an appreciation of human dignity. They will have rendered service to fellow-Germans and proved their title to be the real Germans as against those who are today dragging, however unknowingly, the German name into the mire.

          And now a word to the Jews in Palestine. I have no doubt that they are going about it in the wrong way. The Palestine of the Biblical conception is not a geographical tract. It is in their hearts. But if they must look to the Palestine of geography as their national home, it is wrong to enter it under the shadow of the British gun. A religious act cannot be performed with the aid of the bayonet or the bomb. They can settle in Palestine only by the goodwill of the Arabs. They should seek to convert the Arab heart. The same God rules the Arab heart who rules the Jewish heart. They can offer satyagraha in front of the Arabs and offer themselves to be shot or thrown into the Dead Sea without raising a little finger against them. They will find the world opinion in their favour in their religious aspiration. There are hundreds of ways of reasoning with the Arabs, if they will only discard the help of the British bayonet. As it is, they are co-shares with the British in despoiling a people who have done no wrong to them.

          I am not defending the Arab excesses. I wish they had chosen the way of non-violence in resisting what they rightly regarded as an unwarrantable encroachment upon their country. But according to the accepted canons of right and wrong, nothing can be said against the Arab resistance in the face of overwhelming odds.

          Let the Jews who claim to be the chosen race prove their title by choosing the way of non-violence for vindicating their position on earth. Every country is their home including Palestine not by aggression but by loving service. A Jewish friend has sent me a book called The Jewish Contribution to Civilisation by Cecil Roth. It gives a record of what the Jews have done to enrich the world`s literature, art, music, drama, science, medicine, agriculture, etc. Given the will, the Jew can refuse to be treated as the outcaste of the West, to be despised or patronised. He can command the attention and respect of the world by being man, the chosen creation of God, instead of being man who is fast sinking to the brute and forsaken by God. They can add to their many contributions the surpassing contribution of non-violent action.

          Segaon, November 20, 1938

          https://jewishvirtuallibrary.org/lsquo-the-jews-rsquo-by-gandhi

          My comment: This is what Ghandi had to say 10 days after Kristallnacht:

          From above article in case your eyes glazed over from all this nonsense:

          “The calculated violence of Hitler may even result in a general massacre of the Jews by way of his first answer to the declaration of such hostilities. But if the Jewish mind could be prepared for voluntary suffering, even the massacre I have imagined could be turned into a day of thanksgiving and joy that Jehovah had wrought deliverance of the race even at the hands of the tyrant. For to the godfearing, death has no terror. It is a joyful sleep to be followed by a waking that would be all the more refreshing for the long sleep.”