I found this sufficiently concerning I wanted to pass it along. It isn’t exactly new news but, since the conflict between Israel and Hamas continues, it’s certainly relevant. A poll was taken of Israeli public opinion back in March by Geocartography Knowledge Group. Shay Hazkani and Tamir Sorek reported on it in Haaretz in May:
A recent survey of Israeli Jews reveals a growing comfort with the idea of forcibly expelling Palestinians – both from Gaza and from within Israel’s borders. The poll also found that a significant minority supports the mass killing of civilians in enemy cities captured by the Israeli army. These disturbing trends reflect the radicalization of religious Zionism since Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from Gaza, and the failure of secular Israeli Jews to articulate a vision that challenges Jewish supremacy.
Commissioned in March by Pennsylvania State University and conducted by Tamir Sorek for the Israeli polling firm Geocartography Knowledge Group, the survey polled a representative sample of 1,005 Jewish Israelis. It posed a series of “impolite” questions – topics typically avoided in mainstream Israeli polling – about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
According to the results, 82 percent of respondents supported the expulsion of Gaza’s residents, while 56 percent favored expelling Palestinian citizens of Israel. These figures mark a sharp rise from a 2003 survey, in which support for such expulsions stood at 45 percent and 31 percent, respectively.
IMO we should definitely support Israel’s right to exist and, consequently, its right to defend itself. But that support should not be unconditional.
There are two things of concern in the poll’s results. 82% support for ethnic cleansing of Gaza is bad enough but majority support among Jewish Israelis for expelling “Palestinian citizens of Israel”, i.e. ethnic Arabs who are citizens of Israel, is that much worse. And the situation is deteriorating as the change since 2003 indicates.
Israel is a European colonial project. The Israeli Ashkenazi have no right to be there, and they must be returned, forcibly if necessary, to their European homelands, which are largely Germany, Austria, Poland and Ukraine.
Moreover, the appalling genocide of Palestinians in both Gaza and the West banks, which includes Christian Palestinians, erases the meaning of the Holocaust. Now it is just yet another stupid thing in thousands of years of stupid things.
One should have hoped that the Ashkenazi would have learned from the horrors inflicted upon their grandparents by the European Nazis, but they haven’t. They have descended into madness and bloodlust.
Netanyahu, like Trump, is at least partially the result of underlying problems/issues and not just causal. I think he has been a leader in the radicalization of the country but he couldn’t do it alone. Given this level of support Netanyahu can maintain the war indefinitely which lets him avoid accountability for his incompetence that helped lead to 10/7. Netanyahu should, I guess, get extra kudos for firmly enlisting the political right to his cause to the point that now in public discourse opposing, or even criticizing, Israeli actions or supporting Palestinians is considered antisemitic.
Steve
And on the flip side, Hamas has been quite good at getting American college students to rally to their cause, which in turn attracts headline seeking politicians. While in the gripping hand, Hamas released photos an video of an emaciated hostage digging a trench (grave?) in a tunnel. But, nice to know climate change is no longer an issue.
The weak suggestion I can make is an arms embargo on all sides. however, that is impossible. So, eventually this will fade off the screen just like the Uyghurs, Syrian massacres, Kurds suppression, Bahai persecution have in flavor of the latest outrage du jour.