Likud minister slams Smotrich, Ben Gvir: Emigration of Gazans not ‘realistic,’ no reason to discuss publicly

Likud’s Culture and Sports Minister Miki Zohar speaks out against comments by fellow ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir, who have pushed for “voluntary emigration” of Gazans to other countries.

“It’s not realistic, and it’s clear that the international community will not accept it… with things like this, even if you have a belief or a goal like this, it can be discussed and debated behind closed doors,” says Zohar in an interview with Ynet.

Zohar also says that “it’s clear that there is nobody in Israel who wouldn’t be happy if Gazans decided to emigrate voluntarily if they were happy to leave,” but notes that it is not remotely realistic and not helpful to discuss publicly.

He continues that “even if we believe in a topic like this, we need to have a deeper discussion and investigate it before we make it public — and we see the repercussions, we see what happened with the Americans,” he says, referring to US condemnation of public comments by Smotrich and Ben Gvir pushing for the resettlement of Palestinians outside of Gaza.