Philip Weiss
Mondoweiss / June 25, 2023
Israel’s violent racism becomes more naked to Americans every day. Israel’s security minister openly called Friday for a genocide of Palestinian communities to make way for more illegal Jewish settlements in Palestine. “The land of people for the people of Israel.”
Welcome to the New Israel. Why new? Now everybody knows, that’s why. The mask is gone, and everyone in the United States can see the racist, violent regime Israel has become.
Virtually every day now, gangs of Jewish settlers descend on Palestinian villages, terrorize people with dogs and rip up holy texts. And Israeli soldiers stand by or assist in the attacks by firing tear gas and percussion grenades at the unarmed Palestinians. CNN is even reporting as much!
And when Palestinians do what any other people would do and take up arms to resist the theft and ethnic cleansing, the Israeli army sends in commando units and helicopter gunships, and kills Palestinian civilians indiscriminately– almost all of them refugees who have seen their rights denied for generations.
And the State Department says that it’s a “cycle of violence,” and issues the usual criticism of further Jewish settlements, but won’t lift a finger to stop those settlements, by say, cutting off the billions in aid. And let the Israeli army investigate itself when it kills children. “I have never heard of asking the butcher to be told to give themselves judgment and accountability, I have never heard of that dynamic except in this area,” Mariam Barghouti told Democracy Now this week.
The only good news is that it’s so naked. Israel’s national security minister openly called Friday for a genocide of Palestinian communities to make way for more illegal Jewish settlements in Palestine. Itamar Ben-Gvir issued the call standing in the illegal settlement of Evyatar that the U.S. decries repeatedly and does nothing about.
“We need to settle the land of Israel. We need a military operation. Take down buildings and kill terrorists. Not one or two, but dozens and hundreds. If need be thousands. Because this is the only way to strengthen control and bring back security. Above all, this is how we will fulfill our great purpose. The land of Israel for the people of Israel. We are backing you. run to the hills, settle down. We love you.”
That’s not even a dog whistle, it’s a clarion call of racism. Liberal Zionists cannot blind themselves to the savagery, and they turn on the right-wing Zionists for protecting the occupation that is going to destroy “the Jewish state.”
While the U.S. press corps now openly mocks the State Department’s policy.
You empowered that occupation by supplying Israel with endless amount of weapons and aid and cover at the UN, politically everywhere. Correct?
Everyone sees what Israel has become. This is what it means to be a Jewish state in 2023. “This is how we will fulfill our great purpose–the land of Israel for the people of Israel,” as the minister said. And this is what it means to be Jewish in America, blindly supporting those actions as necessary to Jewish peoplehood and sovereignty. Everyone sees it.
And the politicians and advocates who fret about Israel’s “delegitimization” — give up. Apartheid gets more delegitimized every day.
Philip Weiss is senior editor of Mondoweiss.net and founded the site in 2005-2006
