Gazans? Certainly you mean Hamas, right? RIGHT? The military group that attacked Israel on Oct 7th. Because if you mean really mean "Gazans must be destroyed" then that is the dictionary literal definition of genocide.
edit: for clarity to whom I'm addressing my questions
The Haaretz page seems to be unavailable right now. Here’s the MSN version:
Apologies if my post wasn't clear. I wasn't questioning you personally, but rather the cited lawmaker in the article. I'll edit my post to make that clear.
This is an excellent reference. Very cogently used as well I might add. Avatar the Last Airbender was truly ahead of its time, and one of the greatest pieces of children's media ever made in my humble opinion.
I know you're being sarcastic but people unironically believe it. So let me just say they can use the largest US base in the Middle East which is in the UAE.
I'd like to remind people that the heritage foundation helped netanyahu to engineer this situation over the course of decades, . Mandatory military service + a lifetime of consistent propaganda is more than most people can overcome
Israel can be better... Netanyahu and his administration? They can fuck all the way off
what’s clear to everyone is bibi and the far right are doing genocide. his popularity is around 4% over there, and the court just said sorry bibi, you still gotta stand trial for theft and corruption. what we call “the far right” is what the ancients called “evil.” it’s all about greed, lies, hatred, killing, blood, cruelty, and so on. nothin good come of it because it’s literally evil. doesn’t matter what the nationality or history of where it’s born. bibi has no more care for jews than he does for palestinians, just like the far right over here doesn’t give a rats ass about the rednecks and fanatics it winds up for its own gain.
Israeli lawmaker Moshe Saada from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party said on Tuesday that recent widespread calls to "destroy" the residents of the Gaza Strip affirm that the right-wing was right.
In an interview on pro-Netanyahu Channel 14, Saada said that even "in the kibbutzim they say, 'destroy them.' My friends at the prosecutor's office, who fought with me on political matters, in debates, tell me, 'Moshe, it is clear that all the Gazans need to be destroyed,' and these are statements I have never heard." This proves, he said, that the right-wing was correct just as it was on the Palestinian issue.
...
In November, Far-right Eliyahu said that that dropping a nuclear weapon on the Gaza Strip is "an option."
Eliyahu, a member of National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir's Otzma Yehudit party, maintained that "there are no non-combatants in Gaza." He was then asked, in light of his views, whether a nuclear attack on the Gaza Strip is an option. "That's one way," he responded.
Seems pretty clear and unambiguous what he means. This is calling for genocide.
In response, Ben-Gvir said that the Eliyahu was only speaking "metaphorically.
"You see this shit!? This is why we kicked them out. " --Spain
Realistically I'm not a proponent of genocide or exile against anyone (and no one should be!), but I really do feel like the world would have done Israel a true favor by nipping this Middle Eastern paranoid tribal victimhood thing in the bud back in the 90s or earlier. This is a fine example of how terroristic activity has nothing at all to do with a religious system.
It should have been nipped in the bud in 1947. The UK should have made a point of fighting the Israeli terrorists and setting up a proper post colonial government like they did everywhere else. But this was the desired outcome by people in power at the time. Their last grasp at colonialism and a giant middle finger to the locals who were taking the empire a part bit by bit every year at that point.
Do you ever wish you could be there just to call all of these people out? I mean I don't possess the eloquence to do it right but still. Seeing people in suits calling for the destruction of others really makes me grip my palms.
The lawmaker in question is Moshe Saada, number 28 out of 32 MKs from Likud (Israeli elections fix an order for each party, and legislative seats are awarded by that order).
He gave an interview on Channel 14, which is generally regarded as extremely right wing in Israel. Ahmad Tibi, number 1 on the Ta'al list, was the one who called him out for the statement:
The full interview is here on youtube (In Hebrew, no translation available).
He only said it once in a 13 minute interview and every other instance he's talking explicitly about Hamas (L'hashmid Ha'Hamas). I'm guessing it was him searching for a word to include both Hamas and PIJ, but that might be too generous. But anyone thinking this is an official policy of Israel and that's the way forward is delusional - almost every country on Earth has extremist members of their legislature.
Funny how when it comes to Israeli extremists we all discuss nuance and how complicated and messy politics and language is but when it comes to extremists in resistance organizations it's immediately assumed that what they say colours the entire resistance.
That's because they're politicians in a political structure where different views exist and matter.
As opposed to a group of insurgents where their level of extremism is irrelevant. If you're a part of the group willing to resort to mass murder and kidnapping you're in the "too extreme" group already.
Asking for a nuanced view of "resistance fighters" is like asking for a nuanced view of serial killers, they're all a problem. Trying to identify which serial killer did it for the correct reasons or doesn't really want to kill people but does anyways is a ridiculous concept.
I support palestine but this kind of reporting definitely seems dishonest. There absolutely is an argument to be made about it being a slip up and a showing of true colors, but saying this is clear evidence for the intent of a genocide is dishonest and only hurting the movement to free palestine. Thanks for pointing out that it was the only time in the interview where he says gazans, not hamas.
No, it is as clear as yet another GOP representative saying we should ban abortion. That is obviously their party's position. This is not the first Likuud member to outright call for a genocide. It is obviously the position of the Likuud party. Who happens to control the military and police in both Palestine and Israel.
And keep in mind that the dishonesty extends to the OP, of which there are many in this sub with the motive to disseminate inaccurate rage bait articles.
Context matters. If she says abortion is bad, it deserves to be reported, and is, while abortion policy is actively being dismantled - because she is a lawmaker in the party actively working towards that (and in power for one of the legislatures).
Just like this guy's words matter while it's being supported by other people like Ben-Givir and while they're actively in the process of doing genocide stuff.
In context of everything else that's happening, other remarks by his party, and the availability of "It's clear to everyone that militants in Gaza must be destroyed." There is no excuse. It's just another layer of evidence.
I have a question but I want to make it clear that I am asking in good faith as I fumble my way through understanding the complexities of geopolitics, and I am not casting aspersions or pushing a conspiracy theory. I am especially not taking a position in defense of Israel, or against their accountability to the ICC.
Okay, that said: Is South Africa pushing this at the behest of Russia, like as a BRICS thing? The only other thing I can think of is that this helps improve the image of an embattled ANC at home.
I get why they have a unique perspective given their defeat of apartheid, and that's likely the steelman for why they are advancing this, but that just seems like too pat of an answer.
As horrible as South African apartheid was, what is happening to the Palestinans is degrees worse.
Ordinary South Africans still remember the deep damage Apartheid perpetrators inflicted on us, it's poisonous remnants are still affecting us as a country to this day as we try to heal as a people.
Now imagine South Africans seeing what Israel is perpetrating against the Palestinians, now and in the past. It's a punch to the gut, a searing pain, to see what was done to us and our parents being done to Palestinians. We're seeing a gross refined version of Apartheid that was inflicted on us being inflicted on the Palestinians. And largely the so called west/ global north is cheering for the Israeli Apartheid regime commiting genocide. It makes me sick to my core.
For these reasons there is immense pressure on our government by civil society to denounce Israel and support Palestine. It does help that the ANC has always been pro Palestinian in the first place. Also it's elections this year so the ANC definitely wants some good pr too.
I would say that these points factor in way more than any link to Russia or China
I've heard Irish people say they support Palestine for similar reasons. They didn't go through an apartheid, but they went through oppressive colonization being done on them.
I suspect whats going on here is that the South Africans know what kind of people Zionists are, since the old apartheid government used to partner with them.
It's probably a similar reason to why the european country that first asked for sanctions againat Israel was the Republic of Ireland, who like Palestine and until the early XX Century was occupied and oppressed by a larger neighbhour, in their case the United Kingdom: when you suffered it yourself or grew up hearing the stories from those who suffered it, it's a lot easier to understand the true depth and hurt of what's being done to a people in a similar situation as you, your paraents or even grandparents were once in.
It also explains why Germany still unwaveringly supports Israel: they naturally empathise with the strong military power that's trying to control a "lesser race" in a territory they occupy - it's painfully obvious that "never again" wasn't at all about the violent genocide of a weaker ethnic group by a stronger one driven by cold violent extreme racism (the kind who describes another etnic group as untermenschen/human animals) and greed, but was only ever about Germans vs Jews, hence Germany ending up again involved in a Holocaust on the side of the genociders.
An additional perspective is that the Apartheid government became an ally of convenience with Israel to the point that they created a joint nuclear weapons program together. Then you have the political pressure African union states have for maintaining robust trading agreements with Arab states. There's a ton of history there
I don't think it's a BRICS thing at all. It's what their own population want. South Africa has long been critical of apartheid in Israel.
Moreover back when South Africa was under Apartheid, for a long time Israel was one of its main trading partners even after the west had imposed sanctions, and it also contributed directly to the white military. They eventually joined the boycott but the damage was done.
I think South Africans just have a more defined (and more recent) sense of pride when it comes to standing up against Apartheid. They recognize the rhetoric and the legal justifications from Israel's right wing. I had the privilege of studying law under someone who helped to right the ship in South Africa, an American constitutional law scholar who worked with President Mandela to help write their new Constitution in the late 1990's. They are immensely proud of it as a document that secures human rights for people.
As an aside, just as Hamas must be thought of as separate from the Palestinians, the far right Israeli leadership needs to be thought of distinct from the Israeli people.
There are plenty of people in Israel who think their government has been going too far, and there are plenty more people who think their response after the attacks were justified but have since gone too far.
The danger is not really Israel or Zionism, it is nationalism, a perversion of patriotism that works to justify people's worst emotional reactions.
Have you just never experienced what manners are good online discourse look like? I admit its rare thing, but your statement reads like you're looking at a filet mignon and asking why its missing a leaf of iceberg lettuce, a dollop of ketchup, and a sesame seed bun.