Israeli leaders always wanted to destroy, expel, erase the Palestinians
From the 1967 Six Day War until today, the war is the same. That original sin has been with us since the beginning, but as of now it controls us. In 1967, the monster disguised itself as “pragmatic” discussions behind closed doors of the left-wing [in the Israeli sense-tr] government. Today, the ministers of the right-wing government are shouting the same sin from the rooftops. But it is exactly the same animal — the animal instinct to destroy, to expel, to erase the “other”
By Noa Epstein • Translated by Sol Salbe
The same war
You read the historical protocols (Heb) from the secret discussions of Israeli governments in the 1960s and 1970s and you find it hard to believe it. The same euphemisms that we hear today appear in black and white: “thinning the population,” “Evacuation of Homes,” “Transfer.” And sometimes even more directly: “expulsion,” “exiling,” “emptying,” and even “transfer.” In other words, the founding generation — all from the “Left” side, if you like — supported transfer and ethnic cleansing.
What, then, is the difference between Moshe Dayan (“If we can evacuate 300,000 refugees from the Gaza Strip to other places… We will be able to annex Gaza without a problem”), Golda Meir (“There is a matter of thinning out the camps. There is no debate about the principle”), Yigal Alon (“They can go to Canada, Australia”), Haim Landau (“people with a trade — there is a greater chance that they will be able to be absorbed and integrated into other countries”), Yosef Sapir (“They need to be taken by the scruff of their necks to the other side of the Jordan and dumped there”), Levi Eshkol (“We want to empty Gaza first. Therefore, we will first give the Arabs of Gaza priority to leave”) — and the voices of Itamar Ben-Gvir, Bezalel Smotrich, Shlomo Karhi, and Yitzhak Goldenkopf, who recently joined the group (“Settling here is the answer to the terrible massacre and the answer to the International Criminal Court in The Hague”), parts of the Likud and in fact most of the coalition?
Nothing. Perhaps only the ignominy: one lot did it under the cloak of secret protocols because they feared the international repercussions, and the other lot dare doing it openly and loudly, in order to speak directly to their political base. But beyond ignominy — which should not be underestimated — the same desires are the same desires: power, domination, subjugation, the boundless lust for victory.
The war is the same war: those who won in the Six Day War felt that they had ridden the crest of a historic wave that required the conquest of more and more land and the elimination of those who’d turn out to be enemies down the road. As if there is a point at which it is possible to stop and ensure peace forever. Those who have today destroyed Gaza want to take advantage of the forces that are still on the ground there to “finish the job”: to occupy, expel and settle.
The idea may be tempting, but there are a few problems. First, it usually doesn’t really work: needless killing and abuse of the civilian population create new hatred, isolates Israel in the international arena, and could create a new and stronger wave of resistance. Second, the lust for power and Occupation is a monster that the more you feed it, the more it grows. And third, the most basic of all: we are talking about human beings, not harmful insects. Those people who still find human values meaningful must be shocked by the thought of ethnic cleansing, whatever the circumstances.
That original sin has been with us since the beginning, but as of now it controls us. In 1967, the monster disguised itself as “pragmatic” discussions behind closed doors of the left-wing [in the Israeli sense-tr] government. Today, the ministers of the right-wing government are shouting the same sin from the rooftops. But it is exactly the same animal — the animal instinct to destroy, to expel, to erase the “other.”
It is this animal instinct to eliminate the “other” that we must read ourselves off. It should be banished, expelled, diluted and destroyed. This is true of the occupation of territory, just as it is true of the restraint of any other force. Our role — the role of those who still believe in humanity and human rights — is not to let this desire take us over again. As we know, this animal will not be satisfied. It gnaws at the courts, the media, the police, the intelligence agencies, and every other democratic institution. The struggle against it is a struggle for the character of Israeli society, and it is just as urgent today as it was 57 years ago.
