How Israel’s Resettlement Demands Shifted Toward Europe

Long before Israel declared independence, Zionist leaders openly discussed what they termed “transfer,” the organized removal of the Palestinian Arab population. David Ben-Gurion, who would become Israel’s first prime minister, stated as early as 1937, “The compulsory transfer of the Palestinians from the valleys of the proposed Jewish state could give us something we never had.” He added, “With compulsory transfer we would have a vast area for settlement. I support compulsory transfer. I don’t see anything immoral in it.”

These pre-state declarations established the ideological foundation that would resurface throughout Israeli political history, eventually extending from proposals to relocate Palestinians within the Middle East to explicit demands that Western nations absorb them.

The 1948 war resulted in the displacement of 750,000 to 1 million Palestinians. Ben-Gurion’s government directed and facilitated this displacement as part of constructing a Jewish-majority state. While the primary expulsion pushed Palestinians into neighboring Arab countries, Western resettlement schemes also emerged during this period.

While serving as Deputy Foreign Minister under Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, Netanyahu spoke at Bar-Ilan University on November 16, 1989 and called for mass expulsions of Palestinians: “Israel should have exploited the repression of the demonstrations in China [Tiananmen Square], when world attention focused on that country, to carry out mass expulsions among the Arabs of the territories.” He told the students the government had failed to exploit “politically favourable situations in order to carry out ‘large-scale’ expulsions at times when ‘the damage would have been relatively small.'” He added: “I still believe that there are opportunities to expel many people.” Netanyahu denied the remarks on November 21, claiming he had been misunderstood.

Avigdor Lieberman, then leader of the Yisrael Beiteinu party, first proposed his “Populated-Area Exchange Plan” in 2004. The plan would redraw Israel’s borders to transfer hundreds of thousands of Arab-Israeli citizens, particularly those in the Galilee Triangle region, out of Israel and into a Palestinian state, stripping them of Israeli citizenship. Lieberman reiterated this plan at the UN General Assembly in September 2010, describing it as a “population and territory swap.”

As Foreign Minister in 2014, Lieberman received a classified legal opinion from Foreign Ministry legal adviser Ehud Keinan arguing that a population transfer plan would be legal under international law provided it was consensual. First reported by Haaretz’s Barak Ravid, the document was entitled “Territorial Exchange: Transfer of Sovereignty over Populated Areas” and proposed transferring approximately 300,000 Palestinian citizens of Israel living in the Triangle region—a densely populated area along the Green Line—to Palestinian Authority control in exchange for Israeli annexation of large West Bank settlement blocs.

The ideas Lieberman had spent two decades pushing from the political fringe entered the mainstream of Israeli official discourse after October 7. The Hamas attack on October 7, 2023 triggered an unprecedented wave of Israeli official statements calling for the resettlement of Palestinians outside Gaza, with several explicitly naming Europe and the West as destinations.

In a cross-party op-ed in The Wall Street Journal titled “The West Should Welcome Gaza Refugees,” Danny Danon—the former Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations—and Ram Ben-Barak—the former deputy director of Mossad—called on “countries around the world to accept limited numbers of Gazan families who have expressed a desire to relocate.” They urged Western nations to create “well-structured and internationally coordinated relocation programs” and suggested that “even if countries took in as few as 10,000 people each, it would help alleviate the crisis.” The op-ed explicitly invoked European and American precedents of accepting refugees from prior wars.

Responding to the Danon and Ben-Barak op-ed the following day, Finance Minister Smotrich endorsed the idea in a Facebook post, writing: “I welcome the initiative of members of Knesset Ram Ben-Barak and Danny Danon on the voluntary immigration of Gaza Arabs to the countries of the world. This is the right humanitarian solution for the residents of Gaza and the entire region.” He argued that a “cell with a small area like the Gaza Strip without natural resources and independent sources of livelihood has no chance to exist independently, economically and politically in such a high density for a long time.” At the time, the U.S. State Department condemned the statements from both Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, with spokesman Matthew Miller calling them “inflammatory and irresponsible.”

In a similar vein, shortly after October 7, Intelligence Minister Gamliel called on the international community to promote “the voluntary resettlement of Palestinians in Gaza, for humanitarian reasons, outside of the Strip.” She argued, “Instead of funneling money to rebuild Gaza or to the failed UNRWA [The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees], the international community can assist in the costs of resettlement, helping the people of Gaza build new lives in their new host countries.” She described this as “a win-win solution: a win for those civilians of Gaza who seek a better life and a win for Israel.”

Similar calls came from elsewhere in the Netanyahu cabinet. National Security Minister Ben Gvir called for promoting “a solution to encourage the emigration of Gaza’s residents,” calling it “a correct, just, moral, and humane solution.” He stated, “The emigration of hundreds of thousands from Gaza will allow Israeli settlers to return and live in security.”

After the U.S State Department condemned these statements, Smotrich doubled down, claiming “more than 70 percent of the Israeli public supports” encouraging emigration, and arguing that Israel “cannot afford a reality where four minutes away from our communities there is a hotbed of hatred and terrorism where two million people wake up every morning with aspiration for the destruction of the State of Israel.” Pushing back on the US State Department, Ben Gvir posted on X, “The migration of hundreds of thousands from Gaza will allow the residents of the [Gaza] envelope to return home and live in security … with all due respect, we are not another star in the American flag.”

The rhetorical positions soon hardened into operational planning at the highest levels of the Israeli defense establishment. Defense Minister Israel Katz announced on February 6, 2025: “I have instructed the IDF to prepare a plan that will allow any resident of Gaza who wishes to leave to do so, to any country willing to receive them.” He explicitly named Spain, Ireland, Norway, and Canada as target destinations, stating: “Countries such as Spain, Ireland, Norway, and others, which have falsely accused Israel over its actions in Gaza, are legally obligated to allow Gazans to enter their territory. Their hypocrisy will be exposed if they refuse.” He separately singled out Canada, noting that it “has a structured immigration program” and had “previously expressed willingness to take in residents from Gaza.” Spain’s Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares rejected the suggestion directly, saying “Gaza is the land of Gazan Palestinians and they must stay in Gaza,” and Ireland similarly rejected Katz’s comments.

Despite the European rebuffs, Netanyahu and the Israeli security establishment pressed forward. In February 2025, Netanyahu endorsed the Trump plan to relocate Gaza’s population, calling it a “remarkable idea,” and told Fox News, “The actual idea of allowing first Gazans who want to leave to leave — what is wrong with that?” The following month the Israeli security cabinet formally approved a proposal from Defense Minister Katz to facilitate “voluntary transfer” for Gaza residents.

In July 2025, Mossad Director David Barnea traveled to Washington to meet with US special envoy Steve Witkoff and formally requested US assistance in convincing countries to accept “hundreds of thousands” of Palestinians from Gaza. He told Witkoff that Ethiopia, Indonesia, and Libya had expressed openness, and asked the US to offer incentives to those countries. The White House was described as non-committal and reportedly told Israeli officials that if Netanyahu wanted to pursue the plan, Israel would need to find willing host countries itself. A few months later Netanyahu discussed plans for “voluntary emigration” at a meeting with senior defense officials and cabinet members. A Defense Ministry plan would allow Gazans to leave by air and sea starting in October 2025.

Other figures in the Israeli right pushed the same logic well beyond Gaza. At a vineyard near Ramallah, presenting his “Colonisation 2030” campaign platform ahead of elections, Smotrich declared, “Destroy the idea of an Arab terror state; finally, formally and practically cancel the cursed Oslo Accords and get on the path of sovereignty, while encouraging migration both from Gaza and from Judea and Samaria. There is no other long-term solution.” This marked the first time a senior minister explicitly extended the emigration demand to the West Bank.

These statements have drawn uniform international condemnation. The US State Department explicitly condemned the January 2024 statements by Smotrich and Ben Gvir as “inflammatory and irresponsible,” stating that “Gaza is Palestinian land and will remain Palestinian land.” Saudi Arabia, the EU, Netherlands, Slovenia, and other states joined in that condemnation. Spain, Ireland, and Norway rejected Katz’s February 2025 demand that they accept Gazans. Human rights organizations including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and BADIL have characterized these plans as constituting ethnic cleansing or forced displacement under international law. While the post-2023 statements frame resettlement as “voluntary” and “humanitarian,” critics and legal experts note that mass displacement carried out under conditions of war and siege cannot meaningfully be called voluntary.

Taken together, these resettlement schemes represent the logical culmination of a long-standing Jewish policy designed to make the world safe for Jewish supremacy, where the systematic exploitation of Western capital and influence serves the dual purpose of clearing the land of Palestine while accelerating the permanent transformation and destabilization of the traditional European heartlands.