[News] Don’t believe Haaretz and the NYT. Israeli society fully supports the Gaza genocide.

[Anti-Imperialist News]

mondoweiss.net
<https://mondoweiss.net/2024/01/dont-believe-haaretz-and-the-nyt-israeli-society-fully-supports-the-gaza-genocide/?ml_recipient=109994542543930844&ml_link=109994419674941136&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=2024-01-10&utm_campaign=Daily+Headlines+RSS+Automation>
Don’t believe Haaretz and the NYT. Israeli society fully supports the Gaza
genocide. By Jonathan Ofir
<https://mondoweiss.net/author/jonathan-ofir/> January
9, 2024
<https://mondoweiss.net/2024/01/dont-believe-haaretz-and-the-nyt-israeli-society-fully-supports-the-gaza-genocide/>
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[image:
Prime-Minister-Benjamin-Netanyahu-is-now-convening-the-War-Cabinet-at-IDF-Central-Command-Headquarters-October-11-2023-768x576.jpg]

An editorial
<https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/editorial/2024-01-03/ty-article-opinion/genocide-charge-against-israel-must-serve-as-a-wake-up-call/0000018c-d113-daf6-a5df-d77f2f370000>
in *Haaretz* last week, as well as a piece
<https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/05/opinion/israel-gaza-displacement.html>
by the *New York* *Times’*s Michelle Goldberg a few days later, told a
similar story. Both articles portrayed genocidal statements by Israeli
leaders, and both articles explained them as an expression of far-right
extremism. *Haaretz* seems to suggest that the solution (which would
protect Israel at the International Court of Justice) would be for
Netanyahu to fire his extremist ministers. Goldberg’s article takes it even
further, suggesting that Netanyahu is also part of the problem.

However, there’s a story that is not being fully told in these two main
liberal outlets. Both ignore the evidence and the polling that show near
universal Israeli support for the unfolding genocide in Gaza — both from
the Israeli political class and the vast majority of the Israeli
population.
*Haaretz** in denial*

On January 3, *Haaretz *published an editorial
<https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/editorial/2024-01-03/ty-article-opinion/genocide-charge-against-israel-must-serve-as-a-wake-up-call/0000018c-d113-daf6-a5df-d77f2f370000>
titled “Genocide Charge Against Israel Must Serve as a Wake-up Call,”
referring to South Africa’s recent appeal
<https://mondoweiss.net/2023/12/south-africa-appeals-to-the-international-court-of-justice-stop-israels-genocide-in-gaza/>
(dated December 28) to the International Court of Justice to stop Israel’s
genocide in Gaza. The editors mentioned a gathering held that day at the
Israeli parliament, the Knesset, “that specified the goal: Palestinian
emigration from the Gaza Strip and the settlement of Jews in the
territory.” They highlighted extremist statements like that of lawmaker Zvi
Sukkot
<https://mondoweiss.net/2023/02/meet-zvi-sukkot-israels-newest-fascist-lawmaker/>
of the Religious Zionism party, who said: “At least the northern Strip we
must first of all conquer, annex, raze all the buildings and build
neighborhoods”;  Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich’s comment that “if
there are 100,000 or 200,000 Arabs in Gaza and not 2 million, the entire
discussion on ‘the day after’ will be different”; National Security
Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s calls for “a project to encourage the emigration
of residents from Gaza,” and more. The editors’ conclusion:

“But the most effective way to undermine the filing is to remove from the
government those who incite war crimes. This is the only way to persuade
the world that the deranged ideas they are spreading do not reflect
reality. This must be done urgently, before they cause Israel’s standing to
deteriorate to that of a war criminal.”

Muhammad Shehada was brilliant in mocking
<https://x.com/muhammadshehad2/status/1743281107984883971?s=20> this
portrayal on X.

As they say, it’s the whole damn system.

Who is supposed to “remove from the government” those who incite war crimes
when all of those who would have the power to remove them are engaging in
the same incitement? *Haaretz *seems to be suggesting that it’s just a few
bad apples, but these bad apples are not only in the government, but well
beyond it. For instance, as Shehada mentioned, Israel’s president, Isaac
Herzog, said that there is no such thing as “uninvolved” civilians in Gaza.

And then there’s the so-called “opposition.” Center-left lawmaker Ram
Ben-Barak of Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party, who co-authored
<https://www.timesofisrael.com/two-israeli-lawmakers-call-on-european-countries-to-take-in-gaza-refugees/>
with Likud’s Danny Danon an Op-Ed advocating for the “relocation” of Gaza’s
residents in mid-November. In early November, Ben-Barak pushed it more
forcefully in an interview
<https://twitter.com/MiddleEastMnt/status/1720913228916576460> on Israeli
television, making clear he meant the entire Gaza population: “Let’s spread
them across the globe. There are 2.5 million people there. If each country
takes in 20,000 individuals, that would involve 100 countries…it is better
to be a refugee in Canada than in Gaza.” In late December, Danon boasted
that according to new polls
<https://www.jewishpress.com/news/eye-on-palestine/gaza/poll-83-of-israelis-support-voluntary-emigration-from-gaza/2023/12/24/>,
83% of the Israeli population supports the “voluntary emigration” idea. And
we know it’s not “voluntary” when you first flatten Gaza and make it
uninhabitable.

Let us be clear: 83% of the Israeli population is not an extremist fringe.
The vast majority of Israelis support the genocide — they just call it
other things, like self-defense. Did we already forget Ben-Barak’s party
ally Meirav Ben-Ari’s claim
<https://mondoweiss.net/2023/10/israeli-politician-the-children-of-gaza-have-brought-this-upon-themselves/>
that “the children of Gaza have brought this upon themselves” from
mid-October? Have we failed to notice that *only 1.8% of Israeli Jews think
that Israel is using too much firepower in Gaza*? This was on a poll of the
Israel Democracy Institute cited in *Time*
<https://time.com/6333781/israel-hamas-poll-palestine/> in mid-November.

Think about it — only 1.8%! And 57.5% believed the army was using *too
little* firepower in Gaza, which is to say that the combined firepower of
two nuclear bombs akin to the ones used on Japan in WWII was not enough for
over half of the Israeli public. An additional 36.6% thought it was an
appropriate level of firepower, and 4.2% weren’t sure.

To say that *Haaretz* is not giving us the full picture would be to let it
off too easily. *Haaretz* seems to be most concerned with the supposed
extremists “over there,” maintaining denial regarding the prevalence of the
genocidal zeitgeist and the nexus between the Zionist right and left.

On Sunday, Jewish Power’s Heritage minister, Amichai Eliahu, used Ram
Ben-Barak as his centrist alibi for ethnic cleansing in an interview
<https://twitter.com/TalulaSha/status/1744345703038566772> on the centrist
*Ynet*. This bit was amazing. The host asks Eliahu, “Do you [Jewish Power]
support the transfer of the Gazan population and Jewish settlement in the
Gaza Strip?”

Amichai answered:

“Noa, you know very well that what we are speaking about in Jewish Power is
really not transfer. We are speaking about the willingness to improve
housing, for the Gazans who seek to improve their housing.”

At this point, the whole studio cracked up with laughter, unable to stop
themselves. The other host says, “So you’re saying if only they had a
parking and an elevator…”

Eliahu laughs, too. He continues: “This is the parallel of the word
transfer… what we suggest is voluntary emigration.” Here, he mentions
Ben-Barak: “It’s not only us who are saying it, people from the left spoke
about this, Ram Ben-Barak.”

But we all know what transfer really means. Israeli historian Benny Morris
wrote <https://mondoweiss.net/2016/10/cleansing-becomes-israeli/>:

“Transfer was inevitable and inbuilt in Zionism — because it sought to
transform a land which was ‘Arab’ into a Jewish state and a Jewish state
could not have arisen without a major displacement of Arab population.”

A euphemism for ethnic cleansing that has now become a ridiculous
caricature of itself when the Jewish Power Minister tried to portray it as
an “improvement of housing.” It would be hilarious if the results weren’t
an actual genocide. Yet when people like Ben-Barak seriously promote this,
people don’t seem to register that it is not a fringe suggestion.
*Times’ ‘good old Israel’*

Over to Michelle Goldberg at the *Times*, who wrote on January 5 a piece
<https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/05/opinion/israel-gaza-displacement.html>
titled “America Must Face Up to Israel’s Extremism.” Much in line with
*Haaretz*, Goldberg opens by citing Smotrich and Ben-Gvir on their calls to
depopulate Gaza.

Goldberg seems somewhat more specific and inclusive than *Haaretz*. She
notes that while the Biden administration “has joined countries all over
the world condemning these naked endorsements of ethnic cleansing,” it
still “acted as if Ben Gvir and Smotrich’s provocations are fundamentally
at odds with the worldview of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.”

So far, so good. At least she includes Netanyahu, since it’s about his
whole government, not just a few rogue ministers.

Goldberg even mentions Danny Danon as an example of a Likud minister
“pushing emigration as a humanitarian solution,” but fails to mention his
co-author, Ben-Barak.

Goldberg says that “U.S. policymakers are fostering denial about the
character of Netanyahu’s rule,” and mentions Biden’s oft-cited stories
about meeting Golda Meir in 1973 as representing a view of Israel that
“sometimes seems stuck in that era,” as with “many American Zionists.”

Goldberg finds space to cite a Golda Meir quote
<https://www.haaretz.com/2015-06-16/ty-article/golda-meirs-gems-did-she-really-say-that/0000017f-dee0-d856-a37f-ffe02e3a0000>
(the one about being able to “forgive the Arabs for killing our sons,” but
not being able to “forgive them for having forced us to kill their sons”),
which Goldberg admits is probably unauthentic, but she still doesn’t find
space to talk about the prevalence of these views and advocacies among the
Israeli public. She cites Daniel Levy for pointing out the “willful refusal
to take seriously just how extreme this government is — whether before Oct.
7 or subsequently” — which is true in and of itself, but again, what about
the rest of Israeli society?

After October 7, Netanyahu took in two centrist generals and made them
Ministers in his war cabinet, Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot. Gantz boasted
<https://mondoweiss.net/2019/01/another-terrorist-minister/> of returning
Gaza to the “stone age.” Eisenkot coined the Dahiya doctrine
<https://mondoweiss.net/2023/12/israels-gaza-onslaught-is-the-next-stage-of-the-dahiya-doctrine/>,
advocating indiscriminate, “disproportionate force” against any area from
which rockets are fired — a doctrine now at the heart of the current
genocide. These two ministers demonstrate precisely how genocide is a
centrist issue in Israel today. Even “leftist” general Yair Golan, who used
to be in what is considered a far-left party, Meretz, said
<https://mondoweiss.net/2023/12/in-israel-politicians-like-yair-golan-gain-popularity-when-they-call-for-genocide/>
that the Gazans can just “die from starvation, it’s totally legitimate.”

Goldberg ends her piece by saying, “I’m tempted to say that Ben-Gvir and
Smotrich said the quiet part out loud, but in truth they just said the loud
part louder.”

Goldberg already goes further than *Haaretz*, but her framing still seems
to imply that a liberal Israel still exists on the other side — and who
knows, maybe if they just fight more for “democracy” and get a more
moderate centrist government, things will be better. *Haaretz *says that
these “deranged ideas they are spreading do not reflect reality” — but the
scary thing is that they do.

Since Goldberg brought up Golda Meir and the romanticism she invokes about
the “good old Israel,” it would be irresponsible not to remind readers that
Golda Meir poisoned a Palestinian village
<https://mondoweiss.net/2023/06/new-report-outlines-how-golda-meirs-israel-poisoned-palestinian-land-in-ethnic-cleansing-operation/>
as part of an ethnic cleansing operation and then scolded ministers for
being too outspoken about the settlement enterprise, telling them to
“simply do and do not talk [about it]… talk less, and do as much as
possible.”

It’s chilling to think that so many people for so many decades have been
more worried about how Israelis talk than about what they do.

What Israelis say is important, of course, but actions count more — and
more often than not, ethnic cleansing and genocide are carried out in
silence.

Israel is committing genocide, and almost all Israelis are on board. We
need to face that Israel is beyond saving. We need the international
community. We need boycott, divestment, and sanctions, but even more than
that, we need international intervention in the whole damn system.

*H/t Ofer Neiman*, *Tali Shapiro*
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