Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip just a matter of time, vows senior Israeli government minister – but adds such a project is not part of the current war.
By David Rosenberg, World Israel News
A senior Israeli government minister on Monday called for the resettlement of the Gaza Strip, saying the restoration of the coastal enclave’s Jewish presence was both a necessity for Israeli security and an inevitability.
In an opinion piece published by Arutz Sheva, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich (Religious Zionist Party) compared the security situation on three different fronts, noting that the areas where Israel maintained a civilian presence, and not merely a military one, had greater long-term stability.
“Without settlement, there is no security,” Smotrich wrote.
“That is one of the clear lessons from October 7th and the Iron Swords War which we have been waging for the past year in the Gaza Strip and in Lebanon.”
“Reality has taught us that wherever we withdraw from is turned into a terrorist hotspot for Iran’s proxies, and is used by terrorist elements to attack us.”
While Israel had maintained security control through direct military intervention in both southern Lebanon and the Gaza Strip for decades, both areas were later withdrawn from, leaving them to become centers of terrorist activity against Israel.
The IDF pulled out of southern Lebanon in May 2000, ending an 18-year presence.
Five years later, the Sharon government evacuated the roughly 9,000 Israelis living in the Gaza Strip, and withdrew IDF forces during the Gaza Disengagement.
But, Smotrich continued, “In Judea and Samaria there is settlement, so despite the fact that we do have to fight terrorism there and always be ‘trimming the grass,’ the terrorism there can never reach the levels it has gotten to in Lebanon and Gaza.’
“Thanks to the settlements, Kfar Saba did not become [like] Kfar Azza,” Smotrich claimed.
“To be honest, it is fairly obvious to me that at the end of the day, there will be Jewish settlement of the Gaza Strip.”
The finance minister also claimed that a majority of Israelis support resettling Gaza.
“I am convinced, and this is borne out in almost every poll, that there is today a majority of Jews who back resettling Gush Katif,” Smotrich wrote, referring to the largest bloc of Jewish towns in the Gaza Strip prior to 2005.
Nevertheless, Smotrich emphasized that any moves towards resettlement will only begin after the current war is completed.
“It is important to emphasize that this is not one of the goals of the war, as they were defined by the government. Those war goals were defined for a wide consensus – destroying Hamas both as a military force and a civil entity, bringing the hostages back, establishing IDF security control for a period of years in order to prevent the rebuilding of the terror organizations and to remove the threat of being attacked from Gaza.”