In Israel it is permissible to carry out ethnic cleansing — just don’t say the E-word
Moshe Ya’alon, who is both a former Defence Minister and a former IDF Chief of Staff, called what Israel is doing in Gaza “ethnic cleansing” and “war crimes”. The Israeli media ridicule him and called him crazy
By Yoana Gonen • Translated by Sol Salbe
Israeli television channels, which for more than a year have been hiding the atrocities taking place in Gaza from viewers, finally found time to deal with them extensively yesterday. Well, not exactly what is happening in Gaza, but more in the way that Moshe “Boogie” Ya’alon who’s both a former Defence Minister and a former Chief of Staff called it “ethnic cleansing” and “war crimes,” and that’s really not nice on his part. Because that’s the order of priority in the studios: covering the mass killing of civilians, a terrible humanitarian crisis and hundreds of thousands of refugees starving — what are you taking about? What are we, journalists? But lashing out at a pensioner who called it “ethnic cleansing” — great! We’ll have a whole day of that.
Judging by the reactions to Ya’alon’s remarks, in Israel it is permissible, and even desirable, to carry out ethnic cleansing, the only thing which is forbidden is using this offensive term, which implies criticism. It can be called “reducing the population by half” (Bezalel Smotrich), “encouraging immigration” (Itamar Ben-Gvir), “the Gaza Nakba” (Avi Dichter) or “Jewish settlement as an answer to the International Criminal Court in The Hague” (Yitzhak Goldknopf). Just don’t mention the explicit term — the expression that begins with the letter E, our Voldemort, the open secret that sits at the end of every sentence you say in Hebrew about Gaza.
In the midst of this festival of insults and condemnations, no one saw the need to examine the facts on the ground. Who needs facts if you can scribble knowingly? And why bother to find experts if you can bring in [super-commentator] Amit Segal?
It is no coincidence that Ya’alon was described yesterday by variations on the theme of being crazy. Channel 14 anchor Ido Tauber turned to the camera shouting: “Bogie Ya’alon, what happened to you? Are you normal?! Have you gone crazy?!”, Channel 12 panellist Harel Horev defined Ya’alon’s remarks as “weird statements” and Amit Segal arrogantly said that “it’s just not serious to take these things seriously” (the arrogance has nothing to do with Ya’alon, that’s just his usual tone). In the world of the theatre, it’s the madman and the court jester who are the only ones who can express the unpleasant truth out loud, which all the “sane” people around them are required to deny in a pious tone.
In the midst of the festival of insults and condemnations, no one saw the need to examine the facts on the ground or bring in experts in international law to explain what ethnic cleansing is (according to the United Nations: the use of force or intimidation to remove another ethnic group from a certain area). Who needs facts if you can prattle on knowingly? And why bother to find experts, if you can bring in a reserve brigadier-general, a reserve lieutenant-colonel , a reserve Shin Bet agent , Amit Segal (who is an expert on everything so he may as well be an expert on this too) and journalist Yaron Avraham, who rebuked Ya’alon that “the IDF is the most moral army in the world.” This is what you call investigative journalism.
Thanks to Ya’alon — a right-winger who insists on acknowledging reality — it was one of the few days when the naked truth stared at us from the screen. “Ya’alon insists: Israel is committing war crimes and ethnic cleansing,” declared the Channel 12 streamer. The first part seems to have been swallowed up in the resounding cry of the second part. They appear only in quotation marks, wrapped in ridicule and rebuke, but nevertheless — words of truth were evident, they permeated the collective consciousness and they will not give it rest.
