If Netanyahu and His Allies Win Elections, Ethnic Cleansing Could Expand to Israel Itself
In a speech before the Knesset on October 13, 2021, Bezalel Smotrich – now Israel’s finance minister and a senior partner in Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, then a member of Parliament – referred to Arab lawmakers as “enemies” and “supporters of terrorism,” adding: “You are here by mistake, because Ben-Gurion did not finish the job and did not throw you out in ’48.” In effect, he argued that Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, erred in not expelling all Arabs during the 1948 war and the Nakba.
On April 29, 2024, speaking at a public event about cities and towns in the Gaza Strip, Smotrich said: “There is no half-measure. Rafah, Deir al-Balah, Nuseirat – total destruction. ‘Blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven’ – there is no place under heaven.” On January 6, 2025, he wrote on X that cities in the West Bank should be flattened as the Israeli military had done in Gaza: “Funduk, Nablus and Jenin should look like Jabalia.”
On March 23, 2026, Smotrich said: “Today we are evacuating the residents of southern Lebanon. We are rebuilding and developing our northern communities, and destroying the terror villages in Lebanon.” He added that Israel should annex southern Lebanon up to the Litani River, which, he said, “must be our new border with the State of Lebanon.” He is not alone in expressing such views. A day later, Defence Minister Israel Katz wrote on X: “Israel’s policy in Lebanon is clear: where there is terror and rockets, there are no homes and no residents, and the IDF will control the security zone up to the Litani.”
These statements correspond to developments on the ground. Since October 2023, Israel has carried out campaigns of ethnic cleansing in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon, using overwhelming force, in violation of international law, to compel millions of civilians to leave their homes while deliberately destroying many of them to prevent their return.
If the Smotrich-Ben-Gvir-Netanyahu bloc prevails in the autumn 2026 elections, the government it forms may seek, in line with Smotrich’s description of Ben-Gurion’s “mistake,” to “finish the job” of ethnic cleansing left undone in 1948 in Israel itself, targeting the Arab minority, which makes up roughly one-fifth of the population.
Policy
Within Israel’s sovereign borders, such a campaign would not take the form of aerial bombardment. Instead, it could unfold gradually through policies and practices aimed at similar outcomes. The infrastructure is already in place: a mix of direct and indirect measures that could enable the removal of Arab communities from entire areas, their exclusion from public space, and the creation of conditions so difficult that many would feel compelled to leave their homes “voluntarily” or emigrate.
Decades of neglect and discriminatory planning policies have left tens of thousands of structures in Arab communities without legal permits. In some areas, entire neighbourhoods fall into this category; in regions like the Negev, whole villages remain unrecognized. For years, right-wing and far-right movements have pushed to displace these communities and replace them with Jewish settlements. Indeed, several communities have already been expelled. Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, now overseeing the police, has sought to accelerate home demolitions in Arab towns, though with limited success, partly due to manpower constraints. As in the West Bank, where lack of permits is used to justify demolitions and expulsions, a political mandate could enable a large-scale campaign inside Israel under the guise of enforcing building laws.
An episode that drew little international attention suggests another possible method. Minister Ben-Gvir imposed two-week police siege – effectively collective punishment – on the Bedouin town of Tarabin in southern Israel, ostensibly to combat crime. Hundreds of officers set up checkpoints, conducted house searches and arrests, including of children, threw stun grenades into homes and tear gas into a mosque during prayer, fired rubber bullets, and killed a resident at his doorstep. The Southern District commander warned that forces were prepared to apply the “Tarabin package” with even greater intensity to other Bedouin communities. An electoral victory could see this model – widely used in the West Bank – expanded to many Arab towns in Israel, making daily life increasingly untenable and prompting residents to leave.
A bloodied shoe is seen among rubble at a beauty salon damaged in a deadly Iranian strike in the West Bank village of Beit Awa, near Hebron, Thursday, March 19, 2026. Photo: AP/Mahmoud Illean.
Collective punishment could extend to large-scale destruction. As in West Bank refugee camps, where bulldozers have been used to demolish most residential structures under the pretext of combating armed groups, police could similarly demolish and seize homes inside Israel, claiming links to Arab criminal organisations.
Another significant development came in December 2025, when the government authorized the Shin Bet to address crime in Arab communities in addition to terrorism. Its current head, David Zini – identified with the far-right and religious fundamentalism – supported the move, unlike his predecessors. Routine involvement of the security agency in criminal enforcement affecting Arab citizens, but not Jewish ones, combined with its sweeping powers and technologies, could leave many Arab Israelis living under conditions resembling a police state.
The example
During the war in Gaza, authorities made extensive use of criminal enforcement and civil sanctions to silence Arab citizens and push them out of public life. Mass arrests were carried out, and investigations were opened against Arab professionals, artists, teachers, academics, and students – often on allegations of supporting terrorism – for expressing opposition to the war. Universities suspended and expelled Arab faculty and students, and employers suspended or dismissed Arab workers. The cumulative effect has been trauma for those detained, loss of livelihoods, and a pervasive sense of insecurity.
Such measures have been accompanied by inflammatory rhetoric. Rabbi Meir Shmueli, a prominent and influential rabbi, called for “not employing enemies in hospitals,” claiming that Arab doctors and nurses “kill in hospitals more than Hamas.”
As law enforcement becomes more politicized, incitement intensifies, and security agencies become more deeply embedded in daily life, Arab citizens may find themselves increasingly excluded from Israel’s public sphere. Segregation could deepen, and those with the means may choose to emigrate in search of stability and opportunity elsewhere.
Militias and vigilante groups aligned with the far-right and the government are likely to play a central role in such a process, as they already do in the West Bank. After the November 2022 elections, far-right activists felt impunity, carrying out terror attacks and pogroms in dozens of Palestinian communities. A similar dynamic could take hold inside Israel following a 2026 victory.
Though less visible internationally, such violence is not new. For years, far-right groups have periodically set fire to religious sites, private vehicles, and public buildings within Israel, albeit on a smaller scale than in the West Bank.
More examples
Bentzi Gopstein, a former parliamentary candidate for the Otzma Yehudit party led by Minister Ben-Gvir and still a senior figure in the party, has repeatedly called for violence against non-Jews and their religious institutions, including the burning of churches. Activists from Lehava, the organisation he leads, have staged marches across the country, harassing and attacking Arabs. They also regularly target Arab families living in Jewish neighbourhoods – threatening them, organising “protests” calling for their expulsion, and making daily life intolerable.
Similar dynamics have played out in student housing. While the government has advanced legislation that would ease the removal of Arab students from universities on unsubstantiated allegations of supporting terrorism, far-right activists have acted to expel them from dormitories. On November 21, 2023, Gopstein called on his supporters to attend an event aimed at removing Arab students from dormitories at a college in the northern city of Safed, posting a statement claiming that “student dormitories are a security threat to Safed.” In a serious incident on October 28, 2023, in Netanya north of Tel Aviv, hundreds of far-right activists arrived at the dormitories of a local college, physically and verbally attacked Arab students, and threatened to kill them. As a result, the students were forced to hide on the roof of the building until police arrived and evacuated them.
Particularly concerning are yeshivas and government-funded religious-nationalist “Garin Torani” groups, which establish themselves in mixed cities, some of which already strain relations with Arab neighbours and have been accused of abuse. In December 2025, for example, an incident in Jaffa involved young Jewish men allegedly spraying pepper spray at a local family, sending a woman in her early 30s, who was in advanced pregnancy, to hospital. Since October 7, Minister Ben-Gvir has also overseen the distribution of hundreds of thousands of gun licenses, including to political allies and activists from his own party, and the formation of hundreds of armed civilian defence squads – some including individuals with histories of violence. These groups could serve as auxiliaries when the government calls on them.
The dangers are not hypothetical. In May 2021, amid widespread unrest, Jewish mobs in cities including Haifa and Bat Yam attacked Arab residents, vandalised property, and, in one case, carried out a near-fatal lynching. Then–Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai accused Ben-Gvir – then a lawmaker – of fuelling the violence through provocation and incitement.
On April 20, 2026, representatives of 60 countries gathered at Egmont Palace in Brussels as part of the Global Alliance for the Implementation of the Two-State Solution. If those governments fail to take meaningful action to halt a cross-border campaign of ethnic cleansing, the outcome may not be two states but a single polity – one that reflects the vision of Rabbi Meir Kahane, according to which Arabs should be expelled from all territories under Israeli control, and those who are not expelled would be subject to a rigid system of segregation between Jews and Arabs, enshrining Jewish supremacy.
Eitay Mack is an Israeli lawyer and human rights activist.
This article went live on April twenty-third, two thousand twenty six, at forty minutes past two in the afternoon.The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.
