Israel/Palestine

Diluting the population," "evacuating homes," "expulsion," "exile," "emptying" and even "transfer." A broad array of words was used by Israeli government ministers during the historic deliberations in the 1960s and 1970s about the future of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

A perusal of the minutes in the Israel State Archives indicates that the present aspiration of the far right to "encourage emigration" of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip only echoes ideas and proposals that came up for discussion in the past – by prime ministers, ministers and leaders in left-wing governments, who were among the country's founding fathers.
The ministers had no shortage of ideas for solving the problem that was laid on their doorstep with the occupation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank in the Six-Day War. At the time there were about one million Palestinians in the territories, about 400,000 of them in the Gaza Strip. There were proposals to send them out of the Gaza Strip to the West Bank, Jordan, Sinai, Arab countries or any other place in the world that could receive them – by force, by consent, by subterfuge and with all kinds of incentives.

"If we can evict 300,000 refugees from Gaza to other places … we can annex Gaza without a problem," said Defense Minister Moshe Dayan on June 25, 1967. He mentioned an idea that was acceptable at the time to the government, but in the end wasn't fully implemented – to annex the Gaza Strip to Israel, to empty it of the Palestinian refugees and then to settle it with Jews.
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"Because of these suffocating conditions and the enclosure there, maybe the Arabs will move from the Strip, but even afterward about 400,000 Arabs will remain here [in Israel] and another 150,000 will remain in Gaza," added Eshkol at the end of the year. The new solution he proposed was harsh. "It's possible that if we don't give them enough water they won't have any choice, because the orchards will turn yellow and wither. But we can't know all that ahead of time. Who knows, maybe we can expect another war and then this problem will be solved, but that's a kind of luxury, an unexpected solution," he said.

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The term "force" also began to be used later in the discussion. Religious Affairs Minister Warhaftig told Meir: "It would be better to use force if there's a need for force, but only in the midst of a major commotion." He explained that there was a need to wait for a deterioration or a war to forcibly expel people from their homes

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