UN Office of the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, International Criminal Court Prosecutor, International Court of Justice President: Investigate the Possibility that Israel is Committing the Crime of Genocide Against the Indigenous Palestinian People.
Smotrich has also possibly committed the act of incitement to genocide, which also would prevent him from acquiring a U.S. visa under the statute, “Any alien who ordered, incited, assisted, or otherwise participated in genocide, as defined in section 1091(a) of title 18, is inadmissible” (E)(ii). 18 U.S. Code § 1091(a) defines genocide as: “Whoever, whether in time of peace or in time of war and with the specific intent to destroy, in whole or in substantial part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group as such,” including “kills members of that group;” (a)(1); “causes serious bodily injury to members of that group (a)(2); and “subjects the group to conditions of life that are intended to cause the physical destruction of the group in whole or in part” (a)(4).
Israeli scholars have suggested in the past that Smotrich’s violent rhetoric and detailed policy plans to expel Palestinians from the occupied territories could amount to genocide.
The effectiveness of policies of elimination requires two conditions: mass killings and varying degrees of violence on the one hand, and a supportive or complicit public on the other. Israel has both.
The phenomenon known as “settler violence” is a daily and endless sequence of assaults, of which only the tip of the iceberg ever reaches the Israeli media. Under the banner of a “war on terror,” soldiers can commit intolerable crimes, many of which, too, are rarely reported. The mass of the crimes, their frequency, their pervasiveness, and the explicit endorsement of them by Israel’s leadership and public opinion, are all designed to produce a reality in which the law of elimination becomes a law of nature.
Ben-Gvir – a disciple of genocidal anti-Palestinian rabbi Meir Kahane and a fan of Baruch Goldstein, the Jewish settler who murdered dozens of Palestinians at Hebron’s Ibrahimi mosque in 1994 – is now Israel’s national security minister. With that title he visited the holy site on 3 January, flaunting his power over Palestinians and relishing both the fear and anger his supremacistworldviewelicits. On site, the lifelong racist and head of the Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party outrageously claimed, “In the government which I’m a member of, there won’t be racist discrimination.”
… What Ben-Gvir wants, just like American segregationists, is perpetual domination re-branded as “equality.” Jewish Power lawmaker Zvika Fogel, for his part, threatened genocide in relation to the visit by Ben-Gvir. “If Hamas violates the current existing peace and opens fire on Israeli territory, we will respond as I think we should, and yes it would be worth it because this will be the last war and after that we can sit and raise doves and all the other beautiful birds that exist.” Suggestions of genocide, however, profoundly undercut right-wing claims of an interest in equal rights.
On December 28th, 2022 Benjamin Netanyahu tweeted that “the Jewish people have an exclusive and unquestionable right to all areas of the Land of Israel. The government will promote and develop settlement in all parts of the Land of Israel — in the Galilee, the Negev, the Golan, Judea and Samaria,” making its new government priority an explicit and total Jewish supremacy over historical Palestine at the expense of any Palestinian land claims. In light of Netanyahu’s profoundly disturbing statement, as well as the recent provocations by Israeli political leaders in an increasingly extremist political context, the Lemkin Institute for the Prevention of Genocide is issuing a genocide red flag alert for Israel.
Both politicians seek to force the Palestinians to kneel by giving them two options: either a complete surrender and the acceptance of Jewish supremacy throughout Greater Israel, or emigration. Smotrich’s detailed plan for Palestinian surrender, published in 2017, includes a clause for Israeli security forces to treat anyone who opposes those two options “with greater force than we use today and under more favorable conditions for us.” In short, a new Nakba.
The outgoing Chief of Staff promised at the beginning of his term to deploy a deadly army. Kochavi’s approach fit like a glove to governments that are not interested in a political solution, and to the radicalizing Israeli society.
Aviv Kochavi sparked controversy immediately when he entered the position of Chief of Staff in January 2019: At his appointment ceremony, he pledged to “deploy a lethal, efficient, and innovative army.” “Lethal”, according to the The Hebrew Academy of the Hebrew Language, means “causes death”. This was the first time in the history of the position in which a Chief of Staff commits to deploy an army that generates killing.
The outgoing Chief of Staff promised at the beginning of his term to deploy a deadly army. Kochavi’s approach fit like a glove to governments that are not interested in a political solution, and to the radicalizing Israeli society.
Aviv Kochavi sparked controversy immediately when he entered the position of Chief of Staff in January 2019: At his appointment ceremony, he pledged to “deploy a lethal, efficient, and innovative army.” “Lethal”, according to the The Hebrew Academy of the Hebrew Language, means “causes death”. This was the first time in the history of the position in which a Chief of Staff commits to deploy an army that generates killing.
The outgoing Chief of Staff promised at the beginning of his term to deploy a deadly army. Kochavi’s approach fit like a glove to governments that are not interested in a political solution, and to the radicalizing Israeli society.
Aviv Kochavi sparked controversy immediately when he entered the position of Chief of Staff in January 2019: At his appointment ceremony, he pledged to “deploy a lethal, efficient, and innovative army.” “Lethal”, according to the The Hebrew Academy of the Hebrew Language, means “causes death”. This was the first time in the history of the position in which a Chief of Staff commits to deploy an army that generates killing.
Israeli Human Rights Groups Call on U.S. to Sanction Ben-Gvir, Smotrich Over Human Rights Violations The letter, signed by more than 200 Israeli activists and human-rights organizations, accused incoming coalition lawmakers and their far-right allies as, among other things, inciting genocide against the Palestinian people and advocating for racial segregation.
Gideon Sahar, a top Israeli doctor, is facing criticism from Palestinian citizens of Israel after he said that the “Arab womb” is threatening to overwhelm Israel with high birth rates and suggested fines for Palestinian mothers who have five or more children. pic.twitter.com/I0NeuvpyCv
“Regarding the matter of population growth and the more problematic population, we face a kind of paradox. On the one hand, we understand that the birthrate is decisive – the Arab womb; and on the other hand, we encourage it with all the child allowances. That’s why I think we should consider a child allowance that is regressive: the first child receives one, the second child receives one, perhaps the third child; the fourth child does not, and the fifth child perhaps triggers a fine. We have to figure out something.”
