Religious Zionist Journalist Criticizes "Back to Gaza" Conference

Kann News reporter Avishai Grinzaig wrote a post on X/Twitter today (Monday) explaining his opposition to and criticism of a "Return to Gaza" conference that called for renewed Israeli settlement of the Gaza Strip:

"I’ve just finished listening to an hour and a half from the conference which took place yesterday. I have difficulty describing the gap between identifying with most of the positions and opinions and the revulsion towards the people expressing them and this out to lunch conference."

For Grinzaig, the whole thing smacked of a refusal to recognize changed political realities after October 7: "It was a conference which is a direct continuation of October 6. Minimal understanding of how these things sound to a very large part of the public. Basic insensitivity towards how the songs and dancing will be interpreted. How reservists who don’t identify politically with returning to Gush Katif will feel. How bereaved families and families of hostages who don’t identify with this ideological line will feel."

He further lambasted the doublespeak of members of the government who attended: "This was a conference which reflected the basic incoherence of this government: clear international commitments from the Prime Minister and the political leadership that Israel will not settle Gaza and won’t even control Gaza civilly for good, alongside ministers in that same government declaring a return to Gush Katif and calling for voluntary population transfer. They are both sending in humanitarian aid and joining those who block the aid, contrary to the decisions made in the quorum in which they themselves are members."

Grinzaig ended his post by saying "the failed promotion of the legal reform led to a defeat which should have resonated with the right’s elected representatives for generations. This didn’t happen."