Board of Peace official: Extremist views in Israel impeding effort to deradicalize Gaza

Widespread public support in Israel for “encouraging the voluntary emigration” of Palestinians from Gaza risks undermining efforts to implement US President Donald Trump’s plan to rebuild the war-decimated enclave, an official from the Board of Peace told The Times of Israel.

“The 20-point plan speaks of a ‘deradicalized’ Gaza, and that is what our remit focuses on. But it’s undeniable that increasingly extremist views in Israel make what we’re trying to do more difficult,” said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The official from the US-controlled panel tasked with overseeing the postwar management of Gaza took particular issue with Israeli support for encouraging Palestinians to leave the Strip. Critics say “voluntary emigration” is a euphemism for the forced displacement of Palestinians, given the current untenable living conditions in the Strip and the fact that many supporters of the initiative want to replace Palestinian towns with Israeli settlements.

It’s not just the far-right Otzma Yehudit and Religious Zionism parties that back depopulating Gaza of its Palestinian population. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other prominent members of his Likud party have backed the idea, as well as opposition party heads Yair Lapid (Yesh Atid), Avigdor Liberman (Yisrael Beytenu) and Benny Gantz (Blue and White). Ofer Winter has made the policy a central plank of his new People of Israel party’s policy, and it is also backed by Reservist Party chief Yoaz Hendel.

“Beyond this policy being immoral, it is also completely impractical,” the Board of Peace official said, insisting that countries are not prepared to accept massive numbers of Palestinian emigrants, as they do not believe Israel will allow them to return to Gaza if they choose to do so.

Trump himself backed a similar idea when he called in February 2025 for the US to take over Gaza and clear the territory of its Palestinian inhabitants, though he has since abandoned the initiative in favor of his 20-point plan, which was unveiled in September 2026 and states, “No one will be forced to leave Gaza, and those who wish to leave will be free to do so and free to return. We will encourage people to stay and offer them the opportunity to build a better Gaza.”

The Board of Peace is going to help facilitate the exit of some Palestinians, including students seeking to study at universities abroad, but the bulk of the Strip’s population of some 2 million is expected to remain.

The official clarified that Israeli hostility toward Palestinians is “not surprising” after Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack, in which the terror group orchestrated the brutal killings of 1,200 people and the abduction of 251 hostages.

The board is working to recreate the education system in Gaza to teach tolerance and coexistence — outlooks whose absence contributed to the conditions that allowed the October 7 massacre to take place, the official said, acknowledging the participation of some Palestinian civilians in that attack.

The official admitted that the Board of Peace’s work will be cut out for it due to the results of Israel’s ensuing war, which has killed tens of thousands of civilians and destroyed the vast majority of infrastructure in Gaza.

In Israel, hostile views toward Arabs have become increasingly mainstream  (Hebrew).

A pair of videos have gone viral in recent weeks showing Israeli TV host Lior Schleien’s conversations with students at pre-military academies, with one of the teens expressing his desire to participate in the killing of the entirety of the world’s Arab population and another asking whether Israel should commit genocide in Gaza because “there are no innocent civilians” there.

Reflecting on those views, the Board of Peace official stressed the importance of point 18 of Trump’s 20-point plan, which states that an “interfaith dialogue process will be established based on the values of tolerance and peaceful co-existence to try and change mindsets and narratives of Palestinians and Israelis by emphasizing the benefits that can be derived from peace.”

“That covers both sides of this conflict, and we’re taking this very seriously,” the official said.