Dadi who wants to lead the Israelis back to Gaza without the Palestinians

Karanai Shomron, West Bank (CNN) — This message was shared in several WhatsApp groups a day ago: A chance to meet the matriarch of the Zionist settlement movement, Daniela Weiss, at a briefing on the resettlement of Israeli settlements in Gaza after the war.

By the time the evening’s hostess had set out freshly baked chocolate babka for the 20 guests gathered in the living room of her home in the West Bank settlement of Karanai Shomron, Weiss was already deep into her speech.

But his audience needed no further convincing. They were true believers with a deep nostalgia for Gush Katif, although some were too young to remember its existence. The block of 21 Israeli settlements was forcibly evacuated by the Israel Defense Forces in 2005, when Israel withdrew from Gaza.

“Sign up, sign up. You’ll be in Gaza,” Weiss said with a stern look, the 78-year-old telling her audience she was sure it would happen in her lifetime.

Any divestment of land from the Palestinians would be illegal under international law, unworkable and likely to provoke global outrage against Israel.

Weiss said 500 families have already signed up to be restored through his organization Nachla, whose name means “heritage.” A member of Nachala told the group that they were sending a representative to Florida to raise money for the cause. While the move already has support from groups in the United States, including Americans for a Safe Israel, the Biden administration is strengthening opposition to settlements in the West Bank.

Of the more than a dozen organizations now pushing for the resettlement of settlements in Gaza, Weiss’s initiative is the best known. He is of the original generation of immigrants and has been leading the movement for decades.

Weiss projects the image of a domineering grandmother, with her hair up and her kindly face around that straight gaze, as she delivers her message with devout conviction. But at their core, their views are rooted in beliefs of Jewish exceptionalism and their policies cannot accommodate a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

During Weiss’s presentation, his vision of post-war Gaza was projected onto the wall, a map with six nuclei claiming settlements across the region.

There was no territory for the nearly two million Palestinians who now live there and who have seen their lives, homes and communities destroyed by the ongoing war since the massacre of Israeli civilians carried out by Hamas on October 7.

A Jewish audience hears Weiss begging him to sign to be the first person to restore Jewish settlements in Gaza. Credit: Scott McWhinney/CNN

Weiss was blunt in her desires for Gaza when CNN interviewed her at her home in the West Bank settlement of Kedumim, where she was mayor.

“No Arabs, I’m talking over two million Arabs. They won’t be there,” Weiss said. “We Jews will stay in Gaza.”

We said it looked like ethnic cleansing.

Weiss responded: “The Arabs want to destroy the state of Israel, so you can call them monsters. You can say they are wiping out the Jews. We are not doing it to them; they are doing it to us.”

Weiss said returning to Gaza became a priority for him after the October 7 attack. His views, traditionally considered extreme in Israel, have become more popular since that day.

A poll conducted in January by the Jewish People’s Policy Institute found that 26% of Israelis advocate rebuilding the Gush Katif settlements after the war ends. Among supporters of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition government, the figure rose to 51%, compared to 3% of opposition supporters.

Later that month, jubilant crowds filled an auditorium in Jerusalem for a “Victory for Israel” conference, calling for resettlement in Gaza.

Weiss was one of the speakers at the conference, along with his colonial neighbor and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gavir.

Israeli Heritage Minister Amihai Eliyahu vehemently denied the claim that seizing land in Gaza would be illegal, immoral and detrimental to Israel’s position. Credit: Scott McWhinney/CNN

Heritage Minister Amihai Eliyahu also attended. In an interview with CNN, Eliyahu expressed support for Weiss’s vision for a post-war Gaza, even when strongly challenged. Here is an excerpt:

Minister Amihai Eliyahu: The language of the land says that where there is Jewish settlement there will be greater security. That doesn’t mean there will be complete security, but more security.

Clarissa Ward, CNN Chief International Correspondent: Why would you advocate something that many would say is illegal, immoral, not supported by the majority of Israelis, and very damaging to Israel in terms of its international standing?

Minister Amihai Eliyahu: Why do you consider it immoral to take land from someone who wants to kill me? Why is it immoral to give away my land, where my ancestors lived, from the person who murdered, raped and murdered me? What’s more immoral than that?”

Netanyahu has called resettlement in Gaza an “unrealistic goal” but has stopped short of ruling out the possibility entirely, and the far-right members of his coalition, on whose support his political survival depends, are upbeat.

There are many different factions within Zionism, which in its simplest form is support for the Jewish people having an independent state in Israel. Opponents of the expansion of illegal settlements are also growing stronger.

Ofra Goldstein-Gidoni, opposed to Netanyahu’s policy, said that it was a minority of Israelis who wanted to return to Gaza, but that they were politically strong. Credit: Scott McWhinney/CNN

In the latest of what are now weekly anti-government protests in central Tel Aviv, thousands once again marched on Kaplan Street, blocking traffic at a major intersection, to demonstrate against Netanyahu’s coalition.

“I think most people don’t think it’s a good idea to return to Gaza,” Tel Aviv University professor Ofra Goldstein-Gidoni told CNN during the protests. “I think it’s still a minority, but it’s still a very strong minority politically. And that’s the problem.”

For Weiss and many supporters of the colonization movement, what was once a far-fetched notion is now a passionate dream.