The Israeli public has embraced the Smotrich doctrine

The internalization of the far-right minister's 'Decisive Plan' is evident in the popular support for a new ultimatum for Gaza: emigration or annihilation.

 

Six years ago, Bezalel Smotrich, then a young Knesset member in his first term, published his “Decisive Plan” — a kind of “endgame” for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. According to the far-right lawmaker, who now serves as Israel’s finance minister and the government’s West Bank overlord, the inherent contradiction between Jewish and Palestinian national aspirations does not allow for any kind of compromise, reconciliation, or partition. Instead of maintaining the illusion that a political agreement is possible, he argued, the issue must be unilaterally resolved once and for all.

The plan makes only passing references to Gaza, with Smotrich seeming content with Israel’s encagement of the enclave as an ideal solution to what he calls the “demographic challenge” posed by Palestinians’ very existence. Vis-à-vis the West Bank, however, he calls for annexing its entirety.

In the latter territory, demographic concerns will be ameliorated by offering the 3 million Palestinian residents a choice: to renounce their national aspirations and continue living on their land in an inferior status, or to emigrate abroad. If, instead, they choose to take up arms against Israel, they will be identified as terrorists and the Israeli army will set about “killing those who need to be killed.” When asked at a meeting, in which he presented his plan to religious-Zionist figures, if he also meant killing families, women, and children, Smotrich replied: “In war as in war.”

Insofar as it has received any public attention at all, the Decisive Plan has been perceived since its publication as delusional and dangerous even among mainstream Israeli political commentators. Yet an examination of the current Israeli media and political discourse shows that, when it comes to the army’s current assault on Gaza, large parts of the public have completely internalized the logic of Smotrich’s plan.

In fact, Israeli public opinion regarding Gaza, where Smotrich’s vision is being implemented with a cruelty that even he may not have foreseen, is now even more extreme than the text of the plan itself. That’s because, in practice, Israel is removing from the agenda the first possibility on offer — of an inferior, de-Palestinianized existence — which until October 7 was most Israelis’ chosen option.

Read more at +972 Magazine: https://www.972mag.com/smotrich-decisive-plan-israeli-public/

A tribute to Vivian

I know you will be greeted up above by your Palestinian and Israeli partners in activism, and the thousands of other victims of this pointless war.

Nothing prepared me for yesterday’s bitter news of Vivian’s tragic end. I felt deep despair, like a bottomless sink-hole had opened under the foundations of humanity, where thousands are already buried – men, women, children, innocent Palestinians and Israelis. People who had wished for peace, and did not live to see that wish fulfilled. 

https://www.972mag.com/vivian-silver-tribute-peace-activist/

My life has been defined by genocide of Jewish people. I look on Gaza with concern

...I have focused on the kind of speech that enables and justifies genocide. To justify mass killing by self-protection, by the claim that its targets pose an existential threat, is the classical justification for genocide.
 
To my fellow Jewish people: the actions of the State of Israel are being committed in the name of our preservation worldwide. It is incumbent on those of us who are Jewish to clearly and openly call for a halt to Israel’s assault on Gaza. If we do not succeed in stopping the bombing, our children and grandchildren are at risk of inheriting a double identity: not just as targets of mass killings of civilians, but also as those who stood by when mass killings were committed in their names.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/nov/11/my-life-has-been-defined-by-genocide-of-jewish-people-i-look-on-gaza-with-concern

The Left Is Not “Anti-Jewish”

What we are witnessing is an effort to get people to see slogans like “Free Palestine” as anti-Semitic and the protests as threats to Jewish existence.

 https://www.thenation.com/article/world/jewish-left-israel-protests/

Two States: To the Palestinian Peace Movement: A Plea for Solidarity

(…and why a “one-state solution” is probably off the table) 

I know that my thoughts on this issue will displease many. I am used to it. I know there are many serious, deeply sincere proponents of Palestinian rights and a just peace who have supported a so called one-state solution. Many of us, myself included, have continued to support the two-state option. Because the slaughter in Gaza is so relentless today, and a quick end to the violence there is desperately needed, it is imperative that advocates of human rights agree on a viable endgame for a just peace in Palestine. Only then can we present a coherent case to the wider world. Time is of the essence. 

Read more: Two States: To the Palestinian Peace Movement: A Plea for Solidarity

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