The genocidal references of Israeli leaders to “Amalek,” the biblical enemy nation whom God commanded the Israelites to eradicate down to the last baby and oxen, continue to flow from Israeli leaders. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has used the euphemism several times since October 7, and his statements have been closely scrutinized in Amnesty International’s report on Israel’s genocide. Yesterday, on Jerusalem Day, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich (who also holds a ministerial position in the defense ministry, making him the de facto governor of the occupied West Bank) held a speech, saying:
“We are being blessed with the opportunity, thank god, of seeing an expansion of the borders of the Land of Israel on all fronts. We are being blessed with the opportunity to blot out the seed of Amalek, a process which is intensifying.”
Some might be tempted to believe that these are the rantings of an extremist few. But it turns out that these views are held by the majority of Jewish Israelis.
A devastating poll conducted at Penn State University in March, cited in Haaretz, is currently only in Hebrew at the time of writing. One of the poll’s results shows that 65% of Jewish Israelis agree that a present-day incarnation of the “Amalek” exists.
There is a discussion among Israel’s supporters as to whether the likening of Palestinians to Amalek, like Netanyahu and Smotrich have done, really means extermination. The poll seems to answer this question in the affirmative: 93% of those who believe in that “reincarnation” of the Amalek also answer that “eradicating its memory” also applies to Palestinians today.
On another genocidal question, this time more explicit on the exterminationist detail, 47% answered positively. They were asked whether they supported the Israeli army acting the way the Israelites acted when they conquered Jericho under the leadership of Joshua, killing all of its inhabitants.
But on another question, which specifically involved the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, 82% supported “forced expulsion” — not even euphemistically veiled as “voluntary emigration.”
It doesn’t stop there. A majority of 56% also wanted the forcible expulsion of Palestinian citizens of Israel. To compare, in 2003, the figures for those two items were at 45% and 31%, respectively.
Ethnic cleansing and genocide are not disconnected categories. As genocide scholar Omer Bartov notes, “there is a connection between the two, because often ethnic cleansing becomes genocide.” This is logical because when people do not voluntarily choose to leave the land, the colonialist power may create unlivable conditions of life designed to force them out, or, if not possible, to exterminate them.
In any case, these questions and the answers to them by Jewish Israelis clearly demonstrate a vast and overwhelming eliminationist vein in Israeli society.
This eliminationist vein is not isolated to the religious sector, which is often more right-wing. It is very prevalent among secular Jews, too.
On the question of forced expulsion from the Gaza Strip, the percentage among seculars is 70%. Among “traditional,” it’s 91%, and among the “religious” ultra-orthodox, or Haredim, a whopping 97%.
On the question of the forced expulsion of Palestinian citizens of Israel, the four groups mentioned answer positively at the rate of 38%, 65%, 68%, and again, a whopping 91%, respectively.
Israel seems to have a fascist tendency as far as younger generations are concerned. Rather than being typically more progressive than the older generation, Jewish Israelis under 40 are more genocidal. Only 9% of those under 40 rejected the ideas of expulsion and extermination presented to them. Those are the people typically executing actions as soldiers in regular and reserve army service.
Last week, Netanyahu made it crystal clear, with no ands, ifs, or buts: his goal was ethnic cleansing in accordance with “Trump’s plan,” even though Trump himself walked back his February statements when he said the U.S. would “own” Gaza and turn it into a “Riviera of the Middle East” after expelling its people.
In a press conference, Netanyahu said that the “war” would end “under clear conditions that will ensure the safety of Israel: All the hostages come home, Hamas lays down its arms, steps down from power, its leadership is exiled from the Strip…Gaza is totally disarmed, and we carry out the Trump plan.”
Netanyahu said the plan was “revolutionary.”
But since the goals are unattainable, what Netanyahu is really advocating for is plain genocide, and there’s nothing revolutionary about it. It’s happened before, we said “never again,” yet here it is, happening again.
The poll shows that the problem is much bigger than that of Netanyahu. All of Israel is a giant chorus shouting genocide. Will anyone listen?
Editor’s Note: At the time of writing, the aforementioned Haaretz article was published exclusively in Hebrew (first published May 22). An English version was published on May 28.
Zionism is an outrageously extremist ideology that postulates a Palestinian is a subhuman placeholder that must yield his place and vanish when a white racial supremacist Zionist colonial settler appears to claim the Palestinian’s place. Because Palestinians have refused to vanish as the Zionist belief system requires, Zionists have whipped themselves into increasing hatred that has in the Gaza Holocaust now reached the level of mass murder genocide that was seen in the European Holocaust of Jews.
A few days ago over 1,000 Israeli academics posted an open letter titled “An Urgent Call to the Heads of Academia in Israel”. Some highlights:
Since Israel violated the ceasefire on March 18, almost 3,000 people have been killed in Gaza. The vast majority of them were civilians. Since the start of the war, at least 53,000 people have been killed in Gaza, including at least 15,000 children and at least 41 Israeli hostages. At the same time, many international bodies are warning of acute starvation – the result of intentional and openly declared Israeli government policy – as well as of the rendering of Gaza into an area unfit for human habitation. Israel continues to bomb hospitals, schools, and other institutions. Among the war’s declared goals, as defined in the orders for the current military operation “Gideon’s Chariots,” is the “concentration and displacement of the population.” This is a horrifying litany of war crimes and even crimes against humanity, all of our own doing. As academics, we recognize our own role in these crimes. It is human societies, not just governments, that commit crimes against humanity. Some do so by means of direct violence. Others do so by sanctioning the crimes and justifying them, before and after the fact, and by keeping quiet and silencing voices in the halls of learning. It is this bond of silence that allows clearly evident crimes to continue unabated without penetrating the barriers of recognition...We cannot claim that we did not know. We have been silent for too long. For the sake of the lives of innocents and the safety of all the people of this land, Palestinians and
Jews; for the sake of the return of the hostages; if we do not call to halt the war
immediately, history will not forgive us.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/391987486_An_Urgent_Call_to_the_Heads_of_Academia_in_Israel
This Penn State poll has been mentioned in several pro-Palestinian media over the last week or so, yet it is extraordinarily difficult to find. Why is the original poll not widely available? The link in the piece to the Haaretz article is paywalled. I have grave doubts as to the reality of this poll.
Ofir should provide a link to a Hebrew article that he cites. Some readers of Mondoweiss understand Hebrew.
Possibly the threat, “Again, again , and again”, was taken literally. Many Israelis may believe “free Palestine” is intended to be an existential threat and take it personally, influencing their attitude toward co-existence.