[News] Watch: Israeli children sing, “We will annihilate everyone” in Gaza

[Anti-Imperialist News]

electronicintifada.net
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/watch-israeli-children-sing-we-will-annihilate-everyone-gaza>
Watch: Israeli children sing, “We will annihilate everyone” in Gaza

Ali Abunimah <https://electronicintifada.net/people/ali-abunimah> - 19
November 2023
------------------------------

Israel’s national broadcaster Kan uploaded this song to X (formerly
Twitter) in which Israeli children sing in celebration and support for the
Israeli army’s mass extermination campaign of Palestinians in Gaza.

https://youtu.be/mo6bGp652XI

The sweet faces of children make an incongruous accompaniment to the
genocidal lyrics of the so-called Friendship Song 2023.

“Autumn night falls over the beach of Gaza, planes are bombing,
destruction, destruction,” the children sing in angelic voices. “Within a
year we will annihilate everyone, and then we will return to plow our
fields.”

The lyrics were translated for The Electronic Intifada by independent
writer and filmmaker David Sheen
<https://electronicintifada.net/people/david-sheen> and you can watch a
subtitled video of the song above, or in the tweet below:
You can also read all the lyrics below. Incitement to genocide is a crime

Kan, the Israeli broadcaster, posted the full video of the song on its X
account on Sunday but deleted it a short time later amid an outcry from
Israeli and other users.

Some expressed concern that it would help “Hamas propaganda,” while others
appeared genuinely disgusted by the video’s violent and genocidal messages.

An archived copy of the now-deleted Kan tweet
<https://archive.is/2023.11.19-134658/https://twitter.com/kann_news/status/1726158106453742004>
can still be found online. Kan also deleted a page
<https://www.kan.org.il/content/kan-news/culture/615229/> featuring the
song from its website but that too is archived
<https://web.archive.org/web/20231119142812/https://www.kan.org.il/content/kan-news/culture/615229/>
.
[image: Screenshot of a tweet from Kan, Israel's national broadcaster]

Israeli broadcaster Kan shared the so-called Friendship Song 2023 and later
deleted it.

The now-deleted page on Kan’s website was headlined, “Love sanctified by
blood: The children of the Gaza envelope re-record The Friendship Song.”

It is unclear why Kan removed the video, but it is possible that someone
there was concerned that it could make the channel complicit in genocide.

Two decades ago, officials of Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines
were convicted
<https://unictr.irmct.org/en/news/three-media-leaders-convicted-genocide>
by an international tribunal for incitement to genocide for broadcasts
promoting the extermination of Tutsi people in Rwanda nine years earlier.

The song and video were originally created by Ofer Rosenbaum a so-called
“crisis-communication expert” who heads a public relations firm called
Rosenbaum
Communication <https://www.rocg.co.il/>.
PR firm for ethnic cleansers

The video was published <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yc-TmQXv3hM> by
“The Civil Front,” an organization run by Ofer Rosenbaum
<https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-770867> that purports to rally
the Israeli homefront in support of the war on Gaza.

In 2020, Rosenbaum was responsible
<https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2022-07-31/ty-article-magazine/.premium/i-was-involved-in-the-malka-leifer-case-it-was-a-mistake-on-my-part/00000181-f8ca-d4e2-a193-fefe83190000>
for a billboard campaign in Tel Aviv depicting Palestinian Authority leader
Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh kneeling on the ground
blindfolded, under the slogan “Peace is *only* made with defeated enemies.”

The client for this campaign
<https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2020-02-26/ty-article/.premium/court-rules-tel-aviv-municipality-can-take-down-signs-of-defeated-abbas-haniyeh/0000017f-e5bb-d97e-a37f-f7ff1d370000>
was the Israel Victory Project <https://www.israelvictory.org/about>, a
cutout of the Middle East Forum, the organization run by notorious
anti-Muslim agitator Daniel Pipes
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/daniel-pipes>.

The Israeli Victory Project is currently promoting the ethnic cleansing of
the Gaza Strip.
Rosenbaum also took on
<https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2022-07-31/ty-article-magazine/.premium/i-was-involved-in-the-malka-leifer-case-it-was-a-mistake-on-my-part/00000181-f8ca-d4e2-a193-fefe83190000>
as a client Malka Leifer, a former principal of a Jewish girls school in
Melbourne who spent years trying to avoid extradition from Israel back to
Australia to face charges of child sexual abuse.

Rosenbaum claimed later to regret this decision, albeit only after the
effort to stop Leifer’s extradition failed in 2021
<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/25/malka-leifer-departs-israel-for-australia-to-face-74-counts-of-child-sexual-abuse-in-victoria>
.

In August, Leifer was sentenced by a court in Melbourne to 15 years in
prison for raping and sexually abusing
<https://www.timesofisrael.com/malka-leifer-sentenced-to-15-years-for-sexual-abuse-of-two-students/>
two girls.

Using children to promote a message of genocide is another form of abuse.
“The Friendship Song 2023”

*Lyrics by Ofer Rosenbaum and Shulamit Stolero*

*First Stanza:*

Autumn night falls over the beach of Gaza
Planes are bombing, destruction, destruction
Look the IDF is crossing the line
to annihilate the swastika-bearers
In another year there will be nothing there
And we will safely return to our homes
Within a year we will annihilate everyone
And then we will return to plow our fields

*Chorus:*

And we will remember everyone
the pretty and the pure
We will never let our hearts
forget a friendship like that
Love sanctified with blood
You will return and bloom amongst us

*Second Stanza:*

We have now run out of words
Our soul still cries out
Our soul not only sings
Today our soul also fights
One people
The people of forever evermore
We won’t stop protecting our homes
We won’t be silent
We will show the world
how today we destroy our enemy

*Chorus repeats*

*Lyrics translated from Hebrew for The Electronic Intifada by David Sheen.*
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