In the space of a few months, Israel, which had a long and contradictory tradition, both democratic and criminal, has sunk. Its fundamental laws have been reformed and its Prime Minister has organized, with the complicity of the Muslim Brotherhood, a bloody pretext to liquidate the Palestinian people.
Since then, the Israeli ruling class has been gripped by a kind of supremacist madness. All they can talk about is eradicating Hamas and forcibly transferring the Gazans. Before our very eyes, we are witnessing a genocide, live on social networks.
All the quotations in this article were written or spoken in the last two months.
We all know that supremacist ideologies give rise to unheard-of massacres.
In recent years, we have witnessed the genocide of the Tutsis by Hutu Power, or that of the Yazidis by Daesh. In both cases, the aim was not to get rid of political opponents, but to physically eliminate a population group deemed non-human.
Over the past two months, many Israeli personalities have equated all Palestinians with the crimes of Hamas, and shown their contempt for their people as a whole. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has called them "human animals". Some personalities have concluded that the war must be "total".
For example:
• MP Nissim Vaturi (Likud), Deputy Speaker of the Knesset, wrote on X "All this preoccupation with whether or not there is Internet in Gaza shows that we haven’t learned anything. We are too human (...) Burn Gaza now, nothing less! Don’t let in any fuel, don’t let in any water until the hostages are back!
• Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said: "We are very happy for the return of the freed hostages, but now the idea of a truce has gained ground.
To agree to stop [the war] any further would be a terrible mistake that only shows weakness (...) We must sever all ties and negotiations with Hamas and the mediators and only look at the enemy through the scope of a rifle".
• Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu told Radio Kol Berama that Israel was considering using atomic weapons in Gaza: "it’s a solution... it’s an option". He then compared the residents of the Gaza Strip to "Nazis", assuring that "there are no non-combatants in Gaza" and that the territory does not deserve humanitarian aid. "There are no uninvolved people in Gaza".
On this ideological basis, Israeli and European leaders first evoked the "dream" of the "revisionist Zionists" - i.e., the followers of Ukrainian Vladimir Jabotinski (1880-1940) -: the forced expulsion of all Palestinians or their massacre.
Here’s how this crime was prepared:
• MP Eliyahu Revivo (Likud) has written to the Appointments Committee to ensure that the word Gaza no longer corresponds to any place or appears on any signpost.
According to him, "There is no doubt that the name ’Gaza’ is immediately associated with a negative and evil connotation".
• On October 13, the Minister of Intelligence, Gila Gamliel, drafted a memorandum for the attention of the coalition government (no opposition minister had joined it by then). Entitled Alternatives to a political directive for the civilian population in Gaza, it advocated expelling the 2.2 million Gazans to the Egyptian Sinai [1]. Leaked on October 29, the Prime Minister’s Office assured foreign journalists that Gila Gamliel was an unimportant minister who would write anything to get press.
• A personal friend of the Prime Minister, Amir Weitman, wrote a report for the Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy entitled Plan for the Resettlement and Definitive Rehabilitation in Egypt of the Entire Population of Gaza: Economic Aspects [2]. In it, he estimates the cost of forcibly relocating Gaza’s population to Sinai at around $8 billion. This Likudnik also considers Russia to be solely responsible for the ongoing massacres.
• General Giora Eiland, former National Security Advisor to Ariel Sharon, declared at the end of October: "Gaza must become a place where no human being can live, and I say this as a means rather than an end. I say it because there is no other option to ensure the security of the Israeli state. We are fighting a war that threatens our very existence.
• On November 14, two members of parliament, Danny Danon (Likud) and Ram Ben-Barak (Yesh Atid), published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal [3]. In it, they wrote: "Europe has a long history of helping refugees fleeing conflict (...) The international community can work together to provide one-time funding for support programs for Gazans interested in moving. It can help with moving costs and integration. All we need is for a handful of nations to share the responsibility of welcoming Gazan residents. Even if these countries received only 10,000 each, it would help to alleviate the crisis.
• The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, visits Cairo on November 18.
She first tried to persuade Egypt to open its border and give asylum to the 2.2 million Gazans. Then, faced with General President Al-Sissi’s refusal, she proposed setting up a gigantic camp to temporarily house the Gazans in Sinai, while they were transferred to other countries, including Germany and France.
• On November 19, Gila Gamliel returned to the fray, publishing an op-ed in the Jerusalem Post [4], in which she wrote: "Some world leaders are already discussing a global refugee resettlement program and say they would welcome Gazans in their countries. This could be supported by many countries around the world, especially those who claim to be friends of the Palestinians (...) We need to try something new, and we call on the international community to help make it happen. It could be a win-win solution: a victory for the civilians of Gaza [sic] who are looking for a better life, and a victory for the Hebrew state after this devastating tragedy".
However, the images of the massacre broadcast live on social networks have aroused the indignation of 95% of Internet users. 20,000 Palestinians were killed, if we add up the bodies found and the bodies of the missing, still under the rubble. The Biden administration, which is supplying the bombs to kill them, has been forced to claim that it is putting pressure on the Israeli government to "show restraint". Rhetoric that doesn’t match deeds, since the IDF has no bombs in advance and Washington continues to supply them. However, as the US presidential election campaign gets underway, Joe Biden will at some point be forced to halt deliveries and thus stop the massacre, for lack of weapons to continue it. Israeli leaders are therefore considering that the Palestinians will stay at home and that a government will have to be appointed for them, knowing that Hamas will have to be excluded.
Two options are being considered:
– Set up a provisional international administration, under a UN mandate
However, no state is willing to deploy troops wearing the UN blue helmet, or to manage the Palestinian Territories.
- Creating a Palestinian administration
• The Abbas government’s former Minister of State for Security, Mohamed Dahlan, exiled in the United Arab Emirates, is making the rounds of Arab TV studios.
He is clearly a candidate to lead a "renewed Palestinian Authority" (sic). He has sent his deputy from the "Democratic Reform Bloc", Samir al-Mash’harawi, to meet a Hamas delegation in Cairo. An agreement was reached.
• President Mahmoud Abbas is also a candidate for his own succession. However, the ambiguity of his position in the face of the massacre makes him even less legitimate today than he was before the massacre.
Incidentally, if the Palestinian Territories are maintained, many Israeli leaders want to gradually colonize them.
• Itamar Ben-Gvir, the Minister of National Security, declared in an interview with Kan Sunday public radio: "After the Gush Katif settlements were evacuated [in 2005], the world changed; reality changed (...) What we need here is an occupation. Every time our enemies have lost territory, they’ve lost the war. We should have total control; that will deter our enemies, let them know we’ve won and that we’re allowing residents to return home. I’m not afraid of Israelis resettling in Gaza.
• Yoav Kisch, the Minister of Education, said he would not rule out a scenario in which he would rebuild settlements in the Gaza Strip. A bill has been tabled in the Knesset to restore Israelis’ right of free movement in the Gaza Strip. The unity government has tested this issue with several allied states. It seems that they would express their dissatisfaction, but would not break their ties with the "Jewish State".
• Bezalel Smotrich, the Finance Minister in charge of civil administration in the West Bank, has called for the creation of security zones around West Bank settlements. This strategy could eventually lead to their expansion.
Obviously, not all Israelis support the blindness and fury of their leaders.
• The Prime Minister’s Office refuses to work with the military team in charge of repairing the infrastructure. The team is commanded by General Roni Numa, who has filed a petition with the Supreme Court against the "reform" of the country’s fundamental laws, which he has described as a "coup d’état".
• The Minister of Information, Distel Atbaryan, resigned, refusing to swallow any more bullshit. The IDF continues to censor the Israeli press in connection with the war, including on unrelated political issues.
• The Prime Minister banned all demonstrations in support of the civilian population of Gaza.
An Israeli Arab organization, Adalah, and the Hadash party took the case to the High Court.
– Inhabitants of Kafr Aqab, a neighborhood in East Jerusalem where the Israeli government hoped to confine the capital of a possible Palestinian state, were locked in after 5pm.
• The Minister of Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, attacked three Israeli Arab judges. In his view, they had not sufficiently condemned Maisa Abdel-Had, an actress who had expressed her solidarity with the people expelled from East Jerusalem; against an old man who denounced the conditions of incarceration of Palestinian prisoners; or refused to divulge the name of a defendant accused of being pro-Hamas.
• A Civics and History teacher, the Jewish pacifist Meir Baruchin, was arrested and imprisoned by the Shin Bet for publishing a tweet listing the names and ages of six young Palestinians, aged 14 to 24, killed in Gaza with the words: "They were born under the occupation. Lived there all their lives. They never knew a single day of freedom. They were executed by our wonderful boys".
• MPs Aida Touma-Sliman (Hadash-Ta’al) and Iman Khatib-Yassin (United Arab List) were suspended from the Knesset with salary deductions.
They had observed that crimes attributed to Hamas were in fact Israeli collateral victims of the IDF.
To wage its war, the emergency government was forced to mobilize almost all Jews (not Arabs) of fighting age. However, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was afraid that some would revolt and refuse to obey criminal orders. That’s why he set up a new target designation procedure within the IDF in advance. In the past, the staff would struggle to choose a hundred targets a day. Officers had to be careful to limit collateral damage. From now on, no one chooses the targets - they are selected by software. There is no human responsibility, and therefore no one to oppose criminal orders. The machine selects five hundred a day. It no longer informs us of possible collateral damage. The less we know, the better it works.
Images have just been posted on social networks.
They show Palestinians who have been arrested by the IDF. These men were arrested because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Perhaps a Hamas member got mixed up with them. They are in their underwear, without shoes, on their knees under the guns that threaten them. They were then taken, still without clothes, in dump trucks to interrogation centers. Attorney General Galia Baharav-Miara authorized their detention for 60 days without access to a doctor or lawyer. After 60 days, it will no longer be possible to find any traces of their torture.
[1] "Alternatives to a political directive for the civilian population in Gaza" (in Hebrew), Note from the Ministry of Intelligence, October 13, 2023.
[2] Plan for the resettlement and permanent rehabilitation in Egypt of the entire Gaza population (in Hebrew), Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy, October 2023.
[3] «The West Should Welcome Gaza Refugees», Danny Danon, Wall Street Journal, November 14, 2023.
[4] Victory is an opportunity for Israel in the midst of crisis, Gila Gamliel, Jerusalem Post, November 19, 2023.
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