Many in Israeli society approve of the settler “pogrom” against the Palestinian village of Huwara because they regard Palestinians as “animals” and accept the occupation as normal, a leading Israeli reporter explained to American Jews last week.
Speaking to the Israel lobby group Israel Policy Forum, Amos Harel of Haaretz said the settlers’ rampage in Huwara on February 26 that killed one Palestinian and destroyed stores and cars was reminiscent of the Ku Klux Klan terrorizing blacks in the south, or Russian pogroms against Jews.
Susie Gelman, the chair of the IPF, then asked whether Israelis were horrified by Huwara, and could the pogrom be a wakeup call to those who have compartmentalized the horrors of the West Bank? Harel said most are not horrified, Huwara could be “the dark side of the moon” though it’s 45 minutes from the outskirts of Tel Aviv.
And for many Israelis the pogrom is entirely justifiable, an eye-for-an-eye:
“Most Israelis are avoiding what’s happening in the territories, most Israelis don’t visit there…For most people it’s some kind of unclear reality happening somewhere else that has hardly anything to do with them…
“A lot of Israelis who have strong principles feel very, very badly about what has happened. Others are saying, Serves them right, this is the way to do– eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. And unfortunately what you hear is some — not just the far right politicians– some rightwingers are saying that as well, too.
“There is a sentiment among many Israelis, saying, OK these are the circumstances, they’re animals anyway, let’s behave the same way. And that is very, very frightening. and I think this is some of the results or the implications of a long term occupation. I was born after the Six Day War, this is the reality I know. For many other people they don’t even think about that anymore. This is the part of the reality– Jews are up, Arabs are down, whatever, this is the way things are. But in the long run of course it cannot be maintained forever. In the long run, there will be a deep moral price to pay because of the situation, especially if you put in religion into the equation as well, which is part of the problem in my view.
It is important to note here that when it comes to compartmentalizing the horrors of the occupation, American Jewish Zionist leaders have been key to smothering that awareness in the U.S. The Israel Policy Forum is among the pro-Israel groups that have worked in Washington to give Israel absolute political impunity from its violations of the Geneva conventions in establishing and populating settlements for 55 years, to the point that there are now more than 700,000 Jewish settlers subject to different laws than the Palestinians who live under occupation.
For instance, the Israel Policy Forum has defended Israel from “apartheid” charges, coming from leading human rights groups. Though Harel said that the recent administrative changes under the Netanyahu government only solidify the accusations, by placing West Bank Palestinians under the Defense Minister’s portfolio and Jewish settlers under the Finance Minister’s authority.
He justified using words like “pogrom” and “KKK” for the settler rampage, which followed the killing of two Israeli settlers by a Palestinian gunman on the highway in Huwara:
This is the term that the Israeli media is using, it was a pogrom. It was done by dozens if not hundreds of settlers, who burned down stores and homes all over the village of Huwara… Most disturbing perhaps was the fact that the IDF failed to act, failed to intervene, it took them a long time… until they started preventing the settlers from more retaliation… It looked as if a hurricane went through the main street of the village… It was extremely worrying from a strategic standpoint– this means more escalation and more violence… And from a moral point of view… what we watched and I apologize for the quite blunt language I’m using is a local KKK on a rampage all through the streets of Huwara; this is something that as Jews and Israelis we cannot permit.
The fascistic right wing ministers in Netanyahu’s coalition think that, “maybe a new Nakba is not a bad idea, a deportation of Palestinians,” Harel said. “These are the people who are part of the decision making. They’re not back benchers. These are the people that Netanyahu relies on.”
Harel predicted that Netanyahu will not go forward with the judicial overhaul he set out upon because of the unprecedented mass protests in Israel. And that in the end the government will fall because the far rightwing will be disappointed by Netanyahu, and will abandon him.
He also said that the presence of military reservists and other security forces in the demonstrations has given them a “militaristic” character, but that makes them more effective because they represent “the heart and soul and the backbone of Israeli society.”
If you talk to the officers, all of them are extremely concerned [by Netanyahu’s proposed changes]… Former senior members of Mossad, and Shin Bet officers are demonstrating… There is something very militaristic about the Israeli protests, but it’s also patriotic… This is the way to do it. To use the generals and to use the uniforms and to use the ranks– to pull rank if you like in order to make a point.
The view that Palestinians, and all other non-Jews, are actually animals (have animal souls), and therefore can be treated as livestock, is embedded in the Talmud. This is explained by Jewish Israeli scholar Israel Shahak in his book
Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years
https://ifamericansknew.org/cur_sit/shahak.html
This is not a new idea.
Did not Hitler consider Jews to be ‘unter menschen’??? And now the jewish ‘unter menschen’ are doing to the same to Palestinians. SHAME ON YOU…
“Speaking to the Israel lobby group Israel Policy Forum, Amos Harel of Haaretz said the settlers’ rampage in Huwara on February 26 that killed one Palestinian and destroyed stores and cars was reminiscent of the Ku Klux Klan terrorizing blacks in the south, or Russian pogroms against Jews.”
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-03-05/ty-article-opinion/.premium/from-black-americans-to-israeli-arabs-us-style-mass-incarceration-on-its-way-to-israel/00000186-73f6-dcba-a19e-f3f782d40000
“In America, Mass Incarceration Targets Black Americans. In Israel, It Will Be Palestinians, Ethiopians and Asylum Seekers…In the case of Israel, one of the potentially transformative — but so far unnoticed — changes that could undermine the stability of Israeli society is a growing threat of something called “penal populism”….Penal populism is a term used by philosophers and criminologists to describe a collection of policies, laws and political ideologies that contributed to mass incarceration – the sky-high rate of imprisonment in the United States, and the overwhelmingly racial character of that imprisonment….Over the course of my research on theories of imprisonment and the history of incarceration, I have grown increasingly worried that a similar pattern of penal populism is emerging here in Israel,.. The direct effects of such policies can be seen in lengthening prison sentences to extreme sentences, a growing burden on prisons, and, most worrying, the devastating impact on families and communities as more and more family members and breadwinners are placed behind bars.”
Maybe the U.S. and Israel do have a lot in common!
“Netanyahu calls Arabs ‘wild beasts’ while announcing Israel wall plan”
“[Palestinians] are beasts, they are not human.” — MK Rabbi Eli Ben-Dahan, Aug 1, 2013.
“Israeli rabbi under fire for calling black people ‘monkeys’The chief rabbi of the Sephardic community used two slurs in his speech.”
Jewish supremacism at its worst. With political and religious leaders leading the way, showing disdain for those who they control, occupy, steal, and KILL, and sadistic and cruel treatment of these poor Palestinian people, by these zionists who have mindsets similar to the nazis, who thought they were superior to their victims too, we should not be surprised that Israelis have been brainwashed into thinking that way. A deliberate plan so that the Israeli government can justify their violence against the Palestinians, and readily accept the inhumane treatment of those they hate. We have seen that hatred in the settler terrorists when they attack, injure, steal from, and kill Palestinians, we have seen settler women spit on Palestinian women, and we also see the superior attitude in comments by the hasbara trolls. They are paid to call other commenters “inferior”, showing nothing but Jewish supremacy over others in their little minds.
I have seen many disgusting hasbara comments lauding their “success” as a country, and showing disdain for the Palestinians, who are blockaded for years, cannot get material to build anything, go through several checkpoints to get to work, have to deal with contaminated water, and no electricity periodically, and expected to flourish and progress as a people by the haters.
To justify the violence against the Palestinians, they must make their people hate them and think they are beneath them like animals, and this is what we see today.
Years ago Miko Peled was here on a book tour. I said, “People tell me that Jewish Israelis don’t know what’s going on in the occupied territories. How can that be? They serve in the army. They see it. They do it.” He answered, “They know. They just think it’s OK.”