This is quite an unbelievable story, but it really isn’t fake news – it is about fake news. It’s about Anti-Palestinian conspiracy theories that went viral on Israeli rightwing social media. Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz thought they must be true, so he shared them at a party meeting.
Let’s look at the content of a WhatsApp message Gantz received that he thought was important enough to read at his official party meeting early this month. The message was supposedly written by a Palestinian:
Continue to curse, you have no chance against Allah. Slowly slowly we will chip at your state. We have a territory in the Galilee the size of the Tel-Aviv area which is full of tin roofs with small Bedouin kids. What will you do? It’s a de facto Palestinian territory, and the moment one tractor comes – we will use the left orgs such as Peace Now and B’Tselem, who will refer to the real ruler of the country, (the Supreme Court), so that it issues an injunction. We’ll send children and youth to throw stones and barricade themselves on location until you flee like mice from the territory… The Galilee with Allah’s help is also ours soon. We buy from the Israeli Land Authority a Dunam for 50.000 Shekels while the Yahud (Jew) pays 1.150.000 Shekels. Already today we are 85% of the Galilee population and are taking over with fast pace, building houses in every corner without permits. Why, who will mess with us? The Yahud who lives in the Galilee – all of them are fleeing to the center of the country – why? – because they suffer from harassment, from violence on the roads and from protection, shootings and theft.
Gantz told the assembly of the Blue and White party that while it’s “unclear who wrote the text”, it’s still “not far from reality, I estimate that in a few years we will be in a state where the Jewish state will be between Gedera and Hadera.” He refers to a 60-mile stretch of the coast region of Israel around Tel Aviv.
Gantz’s credulous recital was first reported in Israel Hayom: “Israel could be swallowed by Arab foes –warns Defense minister.”
It went under the radar till last week when Haaretz journalist Haim Levinson published a piece mockingly titled “Who took control over Gantz’s phone?” (Hebrew). (The title is a play on a 2019 scandal in which Gantz’s phone was allegedly hacked, and suggestions were made that Iran did it.)
Levinson said the message was clearly fake. “[E]ven May Golan [A Kahanist inciter against both Palestinians and refugees who made it to the Likud lawmaker list] would understand that we are talking about a fake message, a potpourri for rightwing propaganda set up as a message from an ‘authentic Arab’,” Levinson said.
It’s not really necessary to get into all the details here. The question is, how can such garbage make it to the official party meeting of the actual Israeli Defense Minister? This is unhinged incitement about “Arabs taking over the country”, much like Netanyahu’s 2015 election-day incitement of “the Arabs are coming to vote in droves”.
Who the hell reads such stuff aloud? This is not just any person; this is the defense minister. He has access to all the information he wants, and he chooses this to read to his faithful followers.
But it’s hardly the first time and it’s hardly innocent. In 2014, the popular Israeli media host Avri Gilad shared a conspiracy theory which went viral on social media, saying that Hamas in Gaza had set up many tunnels through which waves of 200 terrorists each time would infiltrate Israeli towns and cities and massacre Israeli citizens. He said “guys, I don’t know, but it’s sounds credible”. The Prime Minister and Defense Ministry disseminated fake graphics showing Hamas tunnels going straight into kindergartens in Israeli towns. All of this fake propaganda generated enough public hysteria in order to whip up support for the 2014 Gaza onslaught, in which the “terror tunnels” became the casus belli.
Benny Gantz was chief of staff during that onslaught, and later, on entering politics, he boasted of returning Gaza “to the stone age”.
So this tells you, that in the hand of such mass-murderers, unhinged conspiracy theories shared from mobile phones at party meetings serve a particular purpose, and Palestinians may well come to pay with their lives for it, as they have done by the thousands in the past.
Last week, another Israeli lawmaker, Israel Katz, threatened another “Nakba” if Palestinians wave their flags at universities. That threat too was issued under the same notion of “Arabs taking over the country”.
This stuff shouldn’t be passing under the radar. These are the people who are in charge of Israel, and they are controlling the lives of millions of Palestinians.
Benny Gantz is the head of a centrist party embraced by liberal Zionists, and has just received a hero’s welcome in Washington, despite Israel’s refusal to open a criminal investigation into the murder of Shireen Abu Akleh, a murder which is clearly the work of an Israeli sniper.
People like Gantz shouldn’t be taken seriously, they should be taken to The Hague.
H/t Ofer Neiman
The drip drip of scary scenarios meant to brainwash their people into hating Arabs, attack the Palestinians, provoke, kill and injure. The arrogance of Jewish supremacy, and the sadistic treatment of those who are powerless, without weapons to defend themselves, and live in fear. It is only human, and natural, that any person suffering this way, will want to retaliate in any way they can. Damn those in the US leadership who keep supporting these evil people, and keep sending tax payer money, and the weapons, that kill and injure. They are complicit in all Israel’s crimes. Israel is an evil nation, and they show it arrogantly to the world every day…..it is unfortunate that our government pretends they don’t see it.
RE: “Arabs will devour our country — Israeli Defense Minister spouts anti-Palestinian fake news””our country,” is easily dismissed racist nonsense!!
For the record: “The Racist Gene” Haaretz, June 21, 2017: EXCERPT: “In 2013, the results were published of a study by the prominent British geneticist Martin Richards, who specializes in researching the maternal genome, which passes from the mother to all of her descendants. Richards researched the maternal genetic ancestry of Ashkenazi Jews. And lo & behold, he discovered that 80 percent or more (!) of the maternal genetic makeup of Ashkenazi Jews derives from European women – goys, heaven forbid. Gevalt! Devoid of any gene originating in the Land of Israel.”
http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fgene.2017.00087/full
Front. Genet., 21 June 2017 https://doi.org/10.3389/fgene.2017.00087
“The Origins of Ashkenaz, Ashkenazic Jews, &Yiddish”
“Recent genetic samples from bones found in Palestine dating to the Epipaleolithic (20000-10500 BCE) showed remarkable resemblance to modern day Palestinians.”
EXCERPTS: “The non-Levantine origin of AJs [Ashkenazi Jews] is further supported by an ancient DNA analysis of six Natufians & a Levantine Neolithic (Lazaridis et al., 2016), some of the most likely Judaean progenitors (Finkelstein & Silberman, 2002; Frendo, 2004). In a principle component analysis (PCA), the ancient Levantines clustered predominantly with modern-day Palestinians & Bedouins & marginally overlapped with Arabian Jews, whereas AJs clustered away from Levantine individuals & adjacent to Neolithic Anatolians & Late Neolithic & Bronze Age Europeans.”
“Overall, the combined results are in a strong agreement with the predictions of the Irano-Turko-Slavic hypothesis (Table 1) & rule out an ancient Levantine origin for AJs, which is predominant among modern-day Levantine populations (e.g., Bedouins & Palestinians). This is not surprising since Jews differed in cultural practices & norms (Sand, 2011) & tended to adopt local customs (Falk, 2006). Very little Palestinian Jewish culture survived outside of Palestine (Sand, 2009). For example, the folklore & folkways of the Jews in northern Europe is distinctly pre-Christian German (Patai, 1983) & Slavic in origin, which disappeared among the latter (Wexler, 1993, 2012).”
This is the dumbest possible expression of Israel’s bad faith. Pure ventriloquism. The Israeli occupiers are trying to ascribe their motives onto their victims, the Palestinians, and also to a lesser extent anyone who was dumb enough to trust in their lies. (“Hey, we are just grabbing the West Bank for a limited time. We’ll give it back when the time is right. Don’t worry!”) . It seems eliminationist. This is a perfect analog of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The latter was a forgery…probably. But whether a forgery or not, it perfectly states the goals of Zion.
Same goes for this tidbit. It’s probably not real. But, it projects the real feelings of the party (Israel) which concocted it.
Blame your opponent for what you want to do — or are actually doing.
How tiring and disgusting this same, old same blah, blah, blah. Weren’t Palestinians going to push Jews into the Mediterranean? The only bodies floating have been Palestinians. For shame, israel…You didn’t learn a bloody thing from the Nazis.