The physical and symbolic erasure of Palestinians from Israeli consciousness
The symbolic erasure, of course, is not as bad as the physical erasure, but it makes it possible. A life that in the first place is nothing more than a rhetorical device — it is a life that there is no problem annihilating
By Yoana Gonen • Translated by Sol Salbe
The State Prosecutor’s application regarding the possibility of a criminal investigation against singer Eyal Golan, following Golan’s call to “erase Gaza completely,” sparked a storm yesterday. On the one hand, it is certainly worth wondering why the State Prosecutor’s Office chose Golan specifically, while completely ignoring the genocidal pronouncements of dozens of politicians, military officers and journalists, who went full bore with morbid fantasies about the destruction ND flattening of Gaza and depriving all its residents of food and water.
On the other hand, let me reassure you: Eyal Golan is in no danger, and the person who emerged unscathed from a case of sexual exploitation of underage girls will certainly not go to prison for incitement against Palestinians. Anyone who has lived in Israel for more than two hours understands that this “investigation” is merely a smoke-and-mirrors performance for the benefit of the judges in The Hague and uncles in America, as if Israel deals seriously with war crimes and incitement to genocide. So, there is no need for any bunch of pinkos to stick their noses into it and bring up outlandish ideas such as international conventions and human dignity.
Raising the possibility of investigating Golan was so puzzling that the revolt against it covered the entire political spectrum, from Religious Zionism MK and Judicial Coup driver Simcha Rothman to Palestinian MK Ahmad Tibi, albeit for opposite reasons (I would hazard a guess that Tibi believes that many others who incited genocide in Gaza should be convicted, while Rothman believes that no Jew should be prosecuted, because “incitement” is a bewitching offence that only Arabs can commit).
Among the many responses, one particularly idiotic one stood out, that of Attila Somfalvi– formerly a columnist for Ynet and now a media consultant with vague political aspirations. “Here is something new worthy of investigation,” wrote Somflavi, “expressed here as a result of the baseless decision by the State Prosecutor: erase Gaza! Come and investigate me.” There is no need to praise Somflavi for his boldness: he knows full well that the state gives total backing to those who call for the erasure of Gaza, and in fact also to those who physically erase it. Had he been so eager to defend freedom of expression with his body, perhaps he would have fought for [Palestinian] Arab citizens who have been sacked, arrested and beaten up in recent months for perfectly legal things — for example, a social media post that said, “The eye cries for Gaza,” a shirt with Arabic writing, and nonviolent demonstrations against the war.
But Somflavi’s post isn’t just pathetic, it’s dangerous. It turns the physical survival of two million people into nothing more than a rhetorical device in a theoretical debate about the rights of Jews (just as a call to “gas all Jews” in the name of freedom of expression would turn real Jews into an abstract issue).
This trivial post represents a much broader phenomenon: the complete erasure of Palestinians from Israeli consciousness. It was like the way President Isaac Herzog condemned the pogrom in Jit, which he asserted harmed “the entire settlement project” and “Israel’s image” — without a word about the actual harm to the Palestinians they tried to burn. Similarly former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni wrote that “they think they are burning Palestinian homes, but they are burning the foundations on which the National Home for the Jewish People was established,” as if the burning Palestinian homes were an imaginary illusion and not the heart of the matter.
Dealing with the lives of Palestinians as if they were theoretical plaything, or at most a PR problem, turns millions of people into ghostly figures who have no existence or importance beyond the way they illuminate the internal Jewish debate. The symbolic erasure, of course, is not as bad as the physical erasure, but it makes it possible. A life that in the first place is nothing more than a rhetorical device — it is a life that there is no problem annihilating.
