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<a class="gmail-domain gmail-reader-domain" href="https://mondoweiss.net/2025/05/poll-shows-israeli-belief-that-palestinians-should-be-eradicated-is-no-longer-a-fringe-opinion/?ml_recipient=155825277202596907&ml_link=155825168471557802&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=2025-05-30&utm_campaign=Daily+Headlines+RSS+Automation">mondoweiss.net</a>
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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Poll shows Israeli belief that Palestinians should be eradicated is no longer a fringe opinion</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">Yumna Patel</div>
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<div class="gmail-reader-estimated-time">May 29, 2025</div>
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<img src="cid:ii_mbaypglz0" alt="180523_JERUSALEM_ZU_2_00-3.jpg" width="442" height="295"><br>
<font size="1">Israelis take part in the flag march marking Jerusalem Day on May 18,
2023. (Photo: Ilia Yefimovich/dpa via ZUMA Press/APAimages)
</font><br><p>The genocidal references of Israeli leaders to \u201cAmalek,\u201d 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 <a href="https://mondoweiss.net/2024/05/netanyahu-invoked-another-genocidal-biblical-reference-in-his-response-to-the-icc/">several times</a> since October 7, and his statements have been closely scrutinized in Amnesty International\u2019s <a href="https://mondoweiss.net/2024/12/israels-genocide-in-gaza-is-fully-intentional-and-other-takeaways-from-the-amnesty-international-report/">report</a>
on Israel\u2019s genocide. Yesterday, on Jerusalem Day, Israeli Finance
Minister Bezalel Smotrich (who also holds a ministerial position in the
defense ministry, making him the <em>de facto</em> governor of the occupied West Bank) held a speech, <a href="https://x.com/ireallyhateyou/status/1927494637490516081">saying</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>\u201cWe 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.\u201d</p>
</blockquote>
<p>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.</p>
<p>A devastating poll <span>conducted at Penn State University in March, cited in <a href="https://www.haaretz.co.il/magazine/2025-05-22/ty-article-magazine/.highlight/00000196-f3a3-d6d3-ab9e-f3bbf6070000" target="_blank">Haaretz</a>, is currently only in Hebrew. One of the poll\u2019s results</span> shows that 65% of Jewish Israelis agree that a present-day incarnation of the \u201cAmalek\u201d exists.</p>
<p>There is a discussion among Israel\u2019s 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 \u201creincarnation\u201d of
the Amalek also answer that \u201ceradicating its memory\u201d also applies to
Palestinians today. </p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>But on another question, which specifically involved the ethnic
cleansing of Gaza, 82% supported \u201cforced expulsion\u201d \u2014 not even
euphemistically veiled as \u201cvoluntary emigration.\u201d </p>
<p>It doesn\u2019t 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. </p>
<p>Ethnic cleansing and genocide are not disconnected categories. As genocide scholar Omer Bartov <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/10/bartov_genocide_apartheid">notes</a>,
\u201cthere is a connection between the two, because often ethnic cleansing
becomes genocide.\u201d 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. </p>
<p>In any case, these questions and the answers to them by Jewish
Israelis clearly demonstrate a vast and overwhelming eliminationist vein
in Israeli society. </p>
<p>This eliminationist vein is not isolated to the religious sector,
which is often more right-wing. It is very prevalent among secular Jews,
too. </p>
<p>On the question of forced expulsion from the Gaza Strip, the
percentage among seculars is 70%. Among \u201ctraditional,\u201d it\u2019s 91%, and
among the \u201creligious\u201d ultra-orthodox, or Haredim, a whopping 97%. </p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>Last week, Netanyahu made it crystal clear, with no ands, ifs, or
buts: his goal was ethnic cleansing in accordance with \u201cTrump\u2019s plan,\u201d
even though Trump himself walked back his February statements when he
said the U.S. would \u201cown\u201d Gaza and turn it into a \u201cRiviera of the Middle
East\u201d after expelling its people. </p>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-implementation-of-trumps-gaza-relocation-plan-is-condition-for-ending-war/">press conference</a>,
Netanyahu said that the \u201cwar\u201d would end \u201cunder 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\u2026Gaza is totally disarmed, and we carry out the Trump plan.\u201d</p>
<p>Netanyahu said the plan was \u201crevolutionary.\u201d</p>
<p>But since the goals are unattainable, what Netanyahu is really
advocating for is plain genocide, and there\u2019s nothing revolutionary
about it. It\u2019s happened before, we said \u201cnever again,\u201d yet here it is,
happening again. </p>
<p>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? </p>
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