Middle East Monitor / May 25, 2022
A member of the Israeli Knesset has warned Palestinians of another “Nakba” if they fly their national flag. Gloating at the prospect of another round of ethnic cleansing, Likud lawmaker Israel Katz put up a video of himself on Twitter speaking at parliament, issuing a stark warning to Israel’s Palestinian citizens.
“Yesterday I warned the Arab students, who are flying Palestine flags at universities: Remember 48. Remember our independence war and your Nakba, don’t stretch the rope too much. […] If you don’t calm down, we’ll teach you a lesson that won’t be forgotten,” Katz, who was Israel’s foreign minister a few years ago, said in Hebrew.
Katz, who belongs to Israel’s most successful political party after winning four elections in a row between 2009 and 2020 under Benjamin Netanyahu, continued with his threat by telling Palestinian to ask their elders what ethnic cleansing feels like if they have forgotten.
“Ask your elders, your grandfathers and grandmothers, and they will explain to you that in the end, the Jews awaken, they know to defend themselves and the idea of the Jewish state. Don’t stretch the rope too much,” Katz added.
“Are you threatening?” countered Palestinian Israeli lawmaker Aida Touma-Sliman from the Arab majority Joint Listbloc. “Listen, listen, this is also meant for you” said Katz before telling her to be grateful to be living inside the Apartheid State.
“If you don’t calm down, we’ll teach you a lesson that won’t be forgotten,” Katz barked during the heated exchange with Touma-Sliman. “Wow,” replied the Palestinian lawmaker in shock.
The Nakba refers to the forced displacement of more than half the Palestinian population; 750,000 who were driven out of their homes during 1947-48 by recently arrived European Zionist paramilitary groups. Palestinians who made up nearly half the population of the territory that would later become Israel, were ethnically cleansed in order to artificially create a Jewish majority and make way for the creation of a racist ethnic state.
After their expulsion and the destruction of some 600 Palestinian villages, their homes were occupied by Jewish settlers who had arrived from Europe. Under international law, Palestinians have a right of return to the territory and home from which they were expelled as well as a right to compensation.
While Israel’s Law of Return grants Jews from all over the world permission to return and settle, including in occupied Palestinian territories, non-Jewish Palestinian refugees – both Muslims and Christians – are denied this right.
The Law of Return is one of the many racist laws instituted by Israel and is cited by human rights group in their designation of the country as an Apartheid State.
