Pushing Palestinians out to Paraguay

JVL Introduction

After the 1967 war, Israel tried to covertly deport Palestinians under a false promise of well paid work for two years after which they would return. Israel paid a fee to the government of Paraguay and tricked a number of people – the aim was for 60,000 – into leaving, never to return.  The programme was stopped most likely because of resistance in Paraguay that made headlines and exposed the scheme.  At the time the population of Gaza was c 400,000 so to remove 60,000 young men would have made an enormous difference.

At least 1 million more Palestinians lived in areas newly under Israeli control and the Labour government started to plan how to “get rid of” as many Palestinians as possible (“I want them all to go, even if they go to the moon,” Prime Minister Levi Eshkol is reported to have said in one such meeting.) Hence the Paraguay Scheme that was kept secret for many years but “in 2004, several former officials…went on the record, confirming that it had been government policy. “We made an attempt to encourage voluntary (sic Ed) emigration,”

This article gives some of the history and the reality for Palestinians forced out but it also highlights a new podcast that you can listen to on Uncovering Roots which has much more.

There is also information on the role of the little known “Lady in Black” and her role in the Paraguay Scheme.  There is, of course, resonance for the ethnic cleansing by different means that has accelerated since October 2023.

LL

This article was originally published by +972 and Landline magazine on Thu 26 Mar 2026. Read the original here.