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Experts say inflammatory statements by Israelis normalize concepts such as the killing of civilians and mass deportations.
By Mark Landler
Reporting from Jerusalem
Shock, grief and grief have spread across Israel since Hamas gunmen left Gaza to kill some 1,200 Israeli civilians and infantrymen on Oct. 7. The same applies to anger and a thirst for vengeance, which the country’s leaders express in language that critics in Israel say crosses the line of incitement.
“We are human animals and we act accordingly,” Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said two days after the attacks, describing how the Israeli military planned to eliminate Hamas in Gaza.
“We are fighting the Nazis,” said Naftali Bennett, a former minister.
“Ye shall not forget what Amalek did unto you,” says our Holy Bible; “We don’t forget it,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, referring to the Israelites’ ancient enemy, in scriptures interpreted by scholars as a call to exterminate their “men and men,” women, young people and babies.
Incendiary language has also been used by journalists, retired generals, celebrities and social media influencers, according to experts who stand by those statements. Calls to “flatten”, “erase” or “destroy” Gaza have been discussed some 18,000 times since October 1. 7 in Hebrew posts on X, the former Twitter site, said FakeReporter, an Israeli organization that monitors disinformation and hate speech. These words were discussed 16 times in the month and a half before the war.
The cumulative effect, experts say, has been to normalize public debate on concepts that would have been banned before Oct. 7: discussions about the “erasure” of Gaza’s population, ethnic cleansing, and the nuclear annihilation of the territory.
Of course, the incendiary statements are not limited to Israel. Ghazi Hamad, a senior Hamas leader, pledged on October 24 that the organization would protect Israel as a country, and gave the impression of rejoicing at the barbaric acts its militants had perpetrated against Israeli civilians. “We’re not ashamed to say this strongly,” he said. We have to teach Israel a lesson, and we will do that again and again. “
But the proliferation of such language among Israelis has opened up a debate in Israel, where ultranationalist and far-right politicians were testing the limits of appropriate speech even before Oct. 7. Itamar Ben-Gvir, a right-wing settler who emerged from being Netanyahu, a fringe figure in the national security minister, has a long history of incendiary rhetoric against Palestinians. He said in a recent television interview that anyone who supports Hamas will be “eliminated. “
The concerns about extremist rhetoric are an extension of a political war in Israel that has raged year-long between Netanyahu’s far-right government and a civic opposition, some of whom now fear Israelis will pay for the civilian toll in Gaza. while the war continues.
The idea of a nuclear attack on Gaza emerged last week through another right-wing minister, Amhay Eliyahu, who told a Hebrew radio station that there were no non-combatants in Gaza. Netanyahu suspended Eliyahu, saying his comments were “out of touch with reality. “
Netanyahu says the IDF is trying to save civilians from harm. But with the death toll rising to more than 11,000, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, such claims are met with skepticism, including in the United States, which has pressured Israel to allow four-hour humanitarian pauses in the fighting.
Such assurances are also belied by the language used by Netanyahu with the Israeli public. His reference to Amalek gave the impression of a speech given in Hebrew on October 28 when Israel began its invasion of the land. Although some Jewish scholars claim that the message of Scripture is metaphorical and not literal, his words have resonated widely, as the video shows. of his speech has been shared on social networks, through criticism.
“These are not just one-off statements made in the heat of the moment,” said Michael Sfard, an Israeli human rights lawyer and “The Wall and the Gate: Israel, Palestine and the Legal Battle for Human Rights. “
“When ministers make such statements,” Sfard added, “the door is opened to everyone. “
Yehuda Shaul, co-director of Ofek, a Jerusalem-based think tank, has collected 286 statements since Oct. 7 that he says may simply incite illegal behavior. Their roster includes Eyal Golan, an Israeli pop singer; Sara Netanyahu, Mr. Netanyahu’s wife; and Yinon Magal, host of Israel’s right-wing Channel 14.
“Erase Gaza. No there’s no one out there,” Golan said in an interview with Channel 14 on Oct. 15.
“I don’t call them human animals because that would be insulting animals,” Netanyahu said in an Oct. 10 radio interview, referring to Hamas.
“It’s time for Nakba 2,” Magal wrote in X on Oct. 7, referring to the mass displacement and flight of Palestinians before and after the creation of Israel in 1948, which Palestinians declared the “Nakba” or “catastrophe. “
Last week in the West Bank, several officials cited Eliyahu dropping an atomic bomb on Gaza as proof of Israel’s goal of cleansing the enclave of all Palestinians, a crusade they call the nakba of the last days.
On Saturday, Israeli Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter claimed that the army’s crusade in Gaza was explicitly designed to force the mass displacement of Palestinians. “Lately we are deploying the Nakba in Gaza,” he said in a televised interview. “Nakba in Gaza 2023”.
The accumulation of incendiary statements comes amid escalating violence in the West Bank. Since October 7, according to the United Nations, Israeli infantrymen have killed 150 Palestinians, as well as 44 children, in clashes. Jewish settlers, some of whom are armed and unofficial allies. with the military, killed 8 people, in addition to a child, according to the United Nations.
Israeli officials note that Hamas is also active in the West Bank and say many of those clashes are the result of the army’s efforts against the militants. Three Israelis have been killed in Palestinian attacks since October 7.
Eran Halperin, a professor of psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said the use of inflammatory language by Israeli leaders is surprising, or even understandable, given the brutality of Hamas’ attacks, which inflicted collective and individual trauma on Israelis.
For the first time since the 1973 Yom Kippur War, he said, Israel’s survival is at stake. The country faces the prospect of a multifaceted clash between Hezbollah and Hamas, as well as a possible uprising in the West Bank.
“People in this scenario are in favor of very, very transparent answers,” Professor Halperin said. “You can’t afford the intellectual luxury of complexity. You need to see a world of smart, bad guys. “
“Leaders,” he added, “and that leads them to use that kind of language, because that kind of language has an audience. “
Presenting the risk posed by Hamas in blunt terms, Professor Halperin said, also helps the government ask the population to make sacrifices for the war effort: the mandatory mobilization of 360,000 reservists, the evacuation of another 126,000 people from the northern and southern border areas. , and the surprise for the economy.
But Sfard warned that Israel’s dehumanization of Gaza’s population could simply open the door to further discrimination and mistreatment of Palestinian citizens in Israel. It will also allow Israelis to become more accustomed to the civilian death toll in Gaza, which has isolated Israel from the world, he said. “A death toll of 10,000 or 20,000 civilians, she said, might seem “not so bad to the average Israeli. “
In the long run, Sfard said, such language dooms any chance of ending the confrontation with the Palestinians, erodes Israeli democracy and spawns a younger generation that “easily uses this language in their discussions with their friends. “
“Once a safe rhetoric is legitimized, backtracking requires a lot of education,” he said. “There is an old Jewish proverb: ‘A hundred sensible men will fight for a long time to remove a stone that an idiot has dropped on the ground. ‘Good. ‘”
Adam Sella contributed reporting.
In three decades at The Times, he has served as a bureau chief in Hong Kong and Frankfurt, a White House correspondent, a diplomatic correspondent, a European correspondent and a reporter in New York. Learn more about Mark Landler
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