Israeli MK’s Threats to Deport Palestinians Must Be Taken Seriously
Global Rights Watch (GRW) stressed that the Israeli MK Itamar Ben-Gvir’s threats about deportation of Palestinians should be taken seriously.
In an interview on Tuesday with Israeli army radio station. Knesset member and chair of the Jewish Power party Itamar Ben-Gvir said that if he is in the next government, he would work to advance a law that would strip citizenship from and expel “anyone working against Israel from within Israel”.
To help achieve his goal, Ben-Gvir declared that he would set up a government ministry to encourage emigration – for Palestinian citizens of Israel, of course.
The expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees during the Nakba is not merely no longer denied by Israel, but has become a model for emulation among some of its leaders.
As far as most mainstream Israeli political discourse is concerned, mass deportation of Palestinian citizens of Israel is an option on the table.
Therefore, we stress that Ben-Gvir’s threats must not be taken lightly, however – not just in terms of calculations about the future, but also based on bitter experience. The history of Israel shows that Zionist leaders’ threats about deportation should be taken seriously.
We also call on the international community to act urgently and seriously against Israel as a state above the law.
