Thirty years ago, on February 25, 1994, the Zionist terrorist Baruch Goldstein killed 29 Palestinian worshippers and injured another 125 inside the Ibrahimi Mosque in the old city of Hebron. Today, Israel’s Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, and other admirers of the mass murderer, continue his legacy by calling for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and the West Bank.
Last year, Ben-Gvir praised the terrorist Goldstein in a speech on the memorial day of Israeli Independence at a yeshiva (a Jewish religious educational institution), which was founded by another extremist called Meir Kahane. Kahane and Goldstein (both originally from the United States) dreamed of a Jewish theocracy that would extend far beyond the borders of Palestine. Their idea of “Greater Israel” included parts of today’s Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt as a place exclusively for Jews. To politically implement the expulsion of Arab Palestinians, Kahane founded the right-wing extremist Jewish Orthodox party, “Kach,” in 1971, which was declared a terrorist organization and banned by the Israeli government in 1994 after Goldstein’s terror attack.
Today, however, Zionist hatred towards Palestinians lives on and is stronger than ever. After all, Ben-Gvir himself was part of the right-wing Kach organization, and his speeches advocating for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, whether in Gaza or other Palestinian territories, demonstrate that he continues to remain loyal to the racist ideologies of his two idols. His party, Otzma Yehudit (“Jewish Power”), is the ideological successor to the right-wing Kach organization.
Ben-Gvir lives with his family in an illegal settlement in the West Bank called Kiryat Arba, where Goldstein also resided and where he is buried. Apart from the fact that Ben-Gvir is not just anyone, but a leading politician in the current Israeli government, he cannot be regarded as an exception. Even before October 7, other members of the Israeli government, such as Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, used genocidal language. In March of last year, he called for the eradication of the Palestinian town of Huwwara.
This does not prevent the United States and Germany from continuing to unconditionally support Israel’s most right-wing government in history. A few days ago, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz responded at the Munich Security Conference to the question of what evidence he relies on when claiming that Israel is abiding by international law in Gaza by stating: “We are asking that they [i.e. Israel] do so, and we are constantly discussing this question…”
One wonders with whom the German government is engaging in these discussions. Netanyahu, who rejects a two-state solution? Ben-Gvir, who calls for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and the West Bank? Or Bezalel Smotrich, who also threatened to wipe out Palestinian cities?
Meanwhile, the next escalation is already looming, as Ben-Gvir does not cease to provoke. The Muslim fasting month of Ramadan is just around the corner, and he stated just recently that residents of the West Bank should be denied entrance to the al-Aqsa Mosque, which is the third most important mosque in Islam. In a speech last month at a conference in Jerusalem, he spoke about “encouraging” Palestinians to leave the Gaza Strip and the West Bank — a euphemism for ethnic cleansing and a continuation of the Nakba that began in 1948.
Furthermore, Netanyahu threatens to attack Rafah during Ramadan, where 1.5 million refugees are located. In the meantime, food prices continue to skyrocket. Since the beginning of the war, around 30,000 people have been killed in Gaza. In the West Bank, the number of deaths due to violent settlers is also rising. At least 400 Palestinians have been killed since October 7, and more than 7,000 have been detained. After a shooting by Palestinian gunmen at a checkpoint in Jerusalem, in which an Israeli also died, Ben-Gvir once again advocated for the distribution of weapons to Israeli civilians and settlers.
In Israel and Palestine, the tragedy of war and occupation often resembles an Orwellian novel: a Minister of National Security distributing weapons and advocating for ethnic cleansing. Yet, irony also permeates Goldstein’s biography. Despite studying medicine in the United States, he, instead of saving lives, ruthlessly killed and injured innocent worshippers — also during the month of Ramadan. His legacy of bloodshed persists even 30 years after his death. However, in contrast to the past, his beliefs now find greater acceptance within Israeli society, extending to the highest echelons of the government.
“Today, however, Zionist hatred towards Palestinians lives on and is stronger than ever.”
I have a comment on Zionism:
We all know – I think – that all the major religions come in ‘flavors’ that are so different from each other it hardly makes sense to lump them together. Want to practice Christianity? You can join some sex-abuse drenched megachurch in Texas** or you can join some monastic order and spend your life in silent meditation – take your pick! The same holds for Zionism – the flavor of Zionism that became dominant in Israel is the flavor that bears the most resemblance to fascism.
“The Revisionist faction of Zionism that ended up triumphing adhered to literal fascist doctrines and traditions.… I’ve been reading an outstanding 2005 study, The Jewish Radical Right: Revisionist Zionism and Its Ideological Legacy, by historian Eran Kaplan. You should too. One of the things you’ll learn: That settler is repeating almost word for word the doctrines of one of Zionism’s original political traditions—the faction that ended up winning, and whose foundations were literally fascist….I USE THE WORD “FASCIST” in the literal sense. Do not flinch from it. The founders of Revisionist Zionism certainly didn’t. Respect them enough to take them at their word….In 1928, a prominent Revisionist named Abba Ahimeir published a series of articles entitled “From the Diary of a Fascist.” They refer to the founder of their movement, Ze’ev Jabotinsky (his adopted first name is Hebrew for “wolf”), as “il duce.” In 1935, his comrade Hen Merhavia wrote that Revisionists were doing what Mussolini did: “establish a nucleus of an exemplary life of morality and purity. Like us, the Italian fascists look back to their historical heritage. We seek to return to the kingdom of the House of David; they want to return to the glory of the Roman Empire.” …And like all fascisms, it expressed an overwhelming ethnic chauvinism. One of the kookiest things I learned from Kaplan’s book was that Jabotinsky believed “the Semitic sounds of Arabic were but a series of noises without distinction or character,” with which Hebrew had little in common….”
https://prospect.org/world/2024-02-21-neglected-history-state-of-israel/
** see the Hulu documentary on Hillsong, “The Secrets of Hillsong”.
‘Ben-Gvir lives with his family in an illegal settlement in the West Bank called Kiryat Arba.’
Er, call me old-fashioned, but technically ALL settlements in the West Bank are illegal.
Is Joseph R. Biden just fooling himself, or trying to get back lost voters? The reality is, the colonial settler nation, has NO damn intention of doing the right thing, following International laws, ending the bloody occupation, and giving the Palestinians their rights to self determination.
This is now a stupid and cruel game played by America and the apartheid nation. One makes the necessary statements to show concern, and other simply ignores it and continues in its crime of committing death and destruction, at every excuse, using excessive violence, and always against helpless civilians.
Only the ignorant will keep believing that they are the victims, or pretend they believe their endless lies. The western nations are all in on this, either that or they are a bunch of fools.
Opinion | There Are No ‘Uninvolved Civilians’ in Israel
“Despite opposition leader Yair Lapid’s anguished cry of “what are we talking about – there isn’t one official body in the world that’s proposing unilateral recognition of the Palestinians,” the Knesset, by a vote of 99 out of the Knesset’s 100 Jewish MKs and members of Zionist parties, approved a resolution submitted by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that opposed “unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state.”
The only Jewish lawmaker who opposed this embarrassing resolution, MK Ofer Cassif, had been at the center of a shameful political putsch just a few days earlier. A majority of 85 of the Knesset’s Jewish MKs and members of Zionist parties voted to oust him from the Knesset; only one brave Zionist MK, Gilad Kariv, voted against the motion.
Is this another dark chapter in Israel’s history, or is it just an ugly wave that will pass? And are the polls predicting the collapse of Netanyahu’s coalition being conducted on the moon? After all, at the moment, Netanyahu’s policy is the only one on the agenda. And a few days after he shed light on his “day after” plan for Gaza, not a single member of the opposition has dared to touch the hot potato he threw them.”
https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2024-02-27/ty-article-opinion/.premium/there-are-no-uninvolved-civilians-in-israel/0000018d-e6c3-dda5-a18d-e7ef5b9e0000
“A cada cochino le llega su sabado” – very loose translation: their turn will come.