Israel’s Channel 12 reported on Sunday that there was an open conflict between Netanyahu and Chief of Defence Eyal Zamir. Netanyahu wanted Zamir to give the order to attack Iran just before the election, something Zamir opposed. He demanded written orders.
The sources are anonymous and Netanyahu is dismissing the story.
Who is leaking this and to what end? It was hardly to help Netanyahu.
Nor does the Norwegian News Agency NTB, which publishes the list from Ofek as extreme statements by Israeli politicians.
What NTB overlooks is that extreme circumstances trigger extreme responses. Now, some of the same war Israel is fighting has reached France, and we will see similar statements.
Yoav Gallant had good reason to call the Hamas soldiers ‘animals’.
For the record.
The Israeli think tank Ofek has analysed the situation and compiled a list of nearly 230 extreme statements made this year alone.
– Human animalsIsrael’s then Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, set the tone early on, a few weeks into the Gaza War.
– ‘We are fighting human animals and will act accordingly,’ he said.
Like Netanyahu, Gallant is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC), accused of war crimes.
Similar statements have been made by other military and political leaders, including Security Minister Itzak Ben-Gvir.
– I believe we should carry out 30 to 40 targeted killings per night, not just against those who pose an immediate threat. There are people there who do not deserve to live. They are not even human beings,” he said in August this year.
– Must be driven outBen-Gvir leads the far-right nationalist party Jewish Power and also believes that Gaza should be incorporated into Israel.
– ‘We are returning home; Gaza is ours,’ he declared earlier this year.
Moshe Feiglin made the same claim. Two years ago, he left Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party and now sits in the Knesset for his own party, Zehut.
– The residents of Gaza must be forced to leave their homes. They must be driven out by any means necessary. The water supply must be cut off; those who want something to drink can leave. Killing them all would be fantastic, he said.
– Feels goodIsrael’s current Defence Minister, Israel Katz, has also spoken of driving the Palestinians out of the Gaza Strip, and he apparently revelled in the sight that met him during a visit there in July this year.
‘How do you feel when you see this widespread destruction?’ an Israeli reporter asked.
‘It’s a good feeling, isn’t it?’ was the Defence Minister’s reply.
Daily attacksIsraeli leaders have also made sensational statements about the occupied West Bank, where, over the past year, masked and often armed settlers have carried out daily attacks on Palestinians, destroyed crops and set fire to houses and cars.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has distinguished himself as one of the settlers’ foremost supporters and promised earlier this year to work to get the approximately 3.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank to ‘emigrate’.
Smotrich has also ensured that more settlements are now being built in the West Bank, despite the UN Security Council having ruled that they are illegal.
Both he and Ben-Gvir have, incidentally, been placed on the EU’s and Norway’s sanctions lists as a result of their extreme statements.
– No innocentsIsrael’s Minister of Justice, Yariv Levin, also praises the recent events in the West Bank and believes that Israel should also establish settlements in the Gaza Strip.
– ‘What is happening in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) should ultimately also happen in Gaza,’ he has stated.
Nearly 100 Palestinian civilians have been killed this year in attacks by settlers and soldiers in the West Bank, where Israeli forces regularly raid towns such as Jenin.
– “There are no innocent civilians in Jenin; there are no innocent children there,” said Ben-Gvir’s party colleague, Knesset Member Yitzhak Kroizer, in March this year.
– To JudaiseIsraeli leaders also regularly make harsh remarks against Palestinians with Israeli citizenship, a group that makes up around 21 per cent of Israel’s population.
Smotrich believes they should be treated in the same way as Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
– ‘We shall Judaise the Negev and Galilee, just as we did in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank),’ he said during the election campaign, referring to the two Israeli regions where most Palestinians live.
– Fifth columnistsIn the run-up to this year’s election, the right wing made a fresh attempt to ban the Palestinian Israeli parties, the Joint List and Ra’am, but the Israeli Supreme Court rejected this.
– ‘They are fifth columnists in the true sense of the word, ardent admirers of Hamas who dream of the day when they can destroy us all,’ claimed Zvi Sukkot, who sits in the Knesset for Smotrich’s party.
“Mansour Abbas and his colleagues from Ra’am should be sitting in an interrogation room, not in the plenary chamber,” claimed Tzvika Foghel, an elected representative from Ben-Gvir’s party.
Amichai Chikli, Minister for Diaspora Affairs and a member of Likud, virtually denies that Palestinians exist.
‘There is in fact no such thing as a Palestinian identity,’ he has claimed.
It has become the normPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been far more cautious in his choice of words than his allies on the far right.
During the election campaign, however, he has claimed that the choice is between ‘the right or Palestine’, which critics call incitement.
Commentators in the Israeli media also use inflammatory rhetoric, and one of Netanyahu’s supporters recently called the opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot ‘a monkey’.
It is a derogatory term that in Israel is occasionally directed at Jews who are not of European descent.
‘It’s endless. It’s mad,” says Achiya Schatz of the Israeli organisation Fake Reporter, which monitors disinformation and hate speech.
“Such rhetoric is now quite normal in Israel, and it’s getting worse and worse,” he notes. (NTB)
