Tag: Bezalel Smotrich

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24 Democratic Congress members visit Israel, give unconditional support to the apartheid regime by Sameena Rahman

PLEASE TAKE ACTION RIGHT NOW AND SEND YOUR LETTER TO THE UN OFFICE OF THE SPECIAL ADVISER ON THE PREVENTION OF GENOCIDE AND THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT PROSECUTOR.

Twenty-four U.S. Democratic Party congress members visited Israel this week and gave unconditional support to the ultra-reactionary Netanyahu government, whose genocidal policies towards Palestinians have reached new heights.

… This blatant tone-deafness from the Democrats is hardly surprising as they continue to ignore the widespread repression and violation of Palestinians human rights. Just this year alone, multiple Palestinian communities have faced repeated assault by the Israeli Defense Forces despite international condemnation. On Aug. 6, Zionist settlers who murdered three Palestinian children were hailed as heroes by Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. Such crimes and incitements of genocide by high Israeli officials was ignored, with the Democrats’ blanket endorsement and legitimizing the racist state.

… The Biden administration has thus far only offered mild admonishment with no teeth to force Israel to uphold any semblance of democracy for Palestinians as it spirals further into a fascistic state. The Democrats delegation’s uncritical visit is a green light for Israel’s racist crimes to continue with impunity, and puts the Democratic Party fully in league with the likes of Netanyahu, Beh-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a self-described “fascist homophobe” and promoter of genocide. 

Continue reading at https://www.liberationnews.org/24-democratic-congress-members-visit-israel-give-unconditional-support-to-the-apartheid-regime/

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Israel: Chronicle of a Genocide Foretold by Richard Silverstein

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Some find use of the term “genocide” regarding Israel’s treatment of Palestinians objectionable for various reasons.  But I’ve written here rebutting such claims. With the rise of Israel’s Judeo-fascist government and its terrorist senior ministers (Smotrich and Ben Gvir), it’s far past time for the world to not only acknowledge this genocidal reality, but to stop it before it’s too late.

We already see genocidal incitement both in words and deeds.  Seven Palestinian villages with over 500 residents have been expelled by settler violence.  Bezalel Smotrich called for “wiping out” the village of Huwara, after two settlers were killed nearby. A villager was murdered by a Judeo-terrorist. No one has been charged with any crime.

…Anyone who scoffs at the idea of genocide or a Final Solution should examine the history of countries which did such heinous acts.  The final act of extermination did not spring up ex nihilo.  It followed a slow, building process of demonization, harassment, and violence, which led up to it.  This is the stage in which Israel finds itself.

Continue reading at https://www.richardsilverstein.com/2023/08/11/israel-chronicle-of-a-genocide-foretold/

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Israel views children’s lives as irrelevant by Haidar Eid

PLEASE TAKE ACTION RIGHT NOW AND SEND YOUR LETTER TO THE UN OFFICE OF THE SPECIAL ADVISER ON THE PREVENTION OF GENOCIDE AND THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT PROSECUTOR.

In its latest attack on Gaza, Israel killed at least 33 Palestinians within five days. The attack was accompanied by calls from Israel’s government ministers – including the overt fascists Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich – for greater violence, in effect the intensification of genocide. Gaza has long been acquainted with Israel’s policies of extermination.

…To “justify” the dehumanization of Palestinian children, Maurice Hirsch, who spent almost two decades in Israel’s Military Advocate General Corps, tweeted that “while the incidental loss of life of non-combatants is always unfortunate, the Laws of War take into account that this is a possible & even legitimate result.” And in a much worse tweet, he goes further: “Considering the military advantage gained by eliminating these senior terrorists, it is irrelevant to ask how many children were incidentally killed.” Hirsch’s words encapsulate Israel’s ideology. Under Israel’s genocidal, settler-colonial doctrine, the lives of the natives are “irrelevant.”

Continue watching at https://electronicintifada.net/content/israel-views-childrens-lives-irrelevant/37781

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Isa Soares: UN Special Rapporteur on Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese tells me that the European Union’s words of condemnation following remarks made by Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich in France are not enough. on CNN

PLEASE TAKE ACTION RIGHT NOW AND SEND YOUR LETTER TO THE UN OFFICE OF THE SPECIAL ADVISER ON THE PREVENTION OF GENOCIDE AND THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT PROSECUTOR.

“I think that that statement was shocking for many reasons, but let me point to two. First of all, it’s shocking that someone known for genocidal statements, and someone who’s also known for the jubilant response to the recent violence unleashed against the occupied Palestinian population is allowed to deliver such a message in France, at the heart of the European Union, basically, without real consequences other than words of condemnation. European Union has a legal framework that prohibits and demands states to punish racist and xenophobic public incitement. And in other cases, like in the case of Russian propagandists’ attacks against the identity of the Ukrainian people, political leaders, including US president Biden, have promptly warned against the risk of genocide. And without getting into the material commission of genocide, international law enshrines- triggers the state’s responsibility to make the best efforts to prevent the incitement to the commission of atrocity. But also, the other element that I find shocking is that this statement is not just yet another slip of the tongue of an extravagant minister. This statement has been heard before, meaning the denial of the Palestinians as a people, and responds to something we are seeing in practice- happening and consolidating- meaning the occupation is a denial of the existents of the Palestinians as a people. And therefore the apartheid is a tool to manage the problem: an occupied people who shouldn’t be there, to be displaced and replaced.”

Continue watching at https://twitter.com/i/status/1638474551465000960

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The danger of treating Smotrich as an anomaly by Edo Konrad

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Yet the shortsighted attempt to compartmentalize Israeli extremists — to treat them as inherently more repugnant than “mainstream” hawks and nationalists — is not simply doomed to fail. It will, in fact, only enable more violence. Israeli society refused to recognize that Kahanism drew from the rivers of Zionism, rather than the other way around, only to find that it would return to dominate public life. American Jewish organizations are now making the same mistake. They hope that somehow, with just enough petitions or strongly-worded condemnations, they will defeat the scourge of Smotrich — without addressing the ideology and state structures that both encourage his call for genocide, and give him and his successors the power to fulfill it. They are dangerously wrong.

Continue reading at https://www.972mag.com/smotrich-american-jews-huwara/

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Israel: Evidence of Bezalel Smotrich’s support for genocide is clear. The US must act by Eitay Mack

PLEASE TAKE ACTION RIGHT NOW AND SEND YOUR LETTER TO THE UN OFFICE OF THE SPECIAL ADVISER ON THE PREVENTION OF GENOCIDE AND THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT PROSECUTOR.

Like all of these previous comments, Smotrich’s statements from last week about the pogrom in Huwwara can only be construed as a direct and public incitement to commit genocide against the Palestinian people. According to article 3(c) of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, and according to the judgments of the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda (ICTR) and the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), in terms of the mental element necessary for the crime of “incitement” to commit crimes against humanity and genocide, the instigator must act intentionally, that is, there must be an intention to provoke or cause to commit the crime, or at least awareness of the likelihood that committing a crime will be a possible result of his actions.

The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide establishes on state parties the obligation to take measures to prevent and to punish the crime of genocide (article 1), including by enacting relevant legislation and punishing perpetrators, “whether they are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials or private individuals” (article 4).

That obligation to “prevent” genocide, in addition to the prohibition not to commit genocide, has beenconsidered a norm of international customary law and therefore binding on all states, including the US… As detailed above, Smotrich, in my opinion, appears to support genocide and the full denial of human and civil rights recognised in international law of those he sees as “enemies”. Under these circumstances, he should be sanctioned in accordance with article 3(b), including inadmissibility to the US and the blocking of his property.

Continue watching at https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/israel-us-bezalel-smotrich-evidence-genocide-support

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Israel’s new far-right government: Unprecedented challenges and opportunities by the BDS National Committee

PLEASE TAKE ACTION RIGHT NOW AND SEND YOUR LETTER TO THE UN OFFICE OF THE SPECIAL ADVISER ON THE PREVENTION OF GENOCIDE AND THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT PROSECUTOR.

Supporting the recent pogrom by fascist Jewish-Israeli militias against Palestinians in Huwara near Nablus in the occupied Palestinian territory and overtly inciting state terrorism, senior Israeli government minister, Bezalel Smotrich, a self-declared “fascist,” said, “I think Huwara needs to be erased. The state should be the one to do that.” Smotrich, however, is not the first Israeli leader to publicly embrace or threaten genocidal acts against Indigenous Palestinians. Labor Party leader Matan Vilnai in 2008 threatened Palestinians with “a bigger shoah [Holocaust]” if resistance groups did not stop their armed retaliation to Israel’s criminal siege and violent attacks on Gaza. A recent error by Israel’s censors accidentally has revealed secret documents exposing David Ben Gurion’s support for “wiping out” Palestinian villages during the 1948 Nakba, with a minister in his first government admitting, “Let us say that instances of rape occurred in [the ethnically cleansed Palestinian city] Ramle. I can forgive instances of rape, but I will not forgive other acts,” such as forcibly removing “jewelry from women.”

Continue reading at https://bdsmovement.net/israels-new-far-right-government-analysis

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US: Revoke Visa, Deny Entry to Israeli Minister Bezalel Smotrich Over Incitement to Violence by DAWN

PLEASE TAKE ACTION RIGHT NOW AND SEND YOUR LETTER TO THE UN OFFICE OF THE SPECIAL ADVISER ON THE PREVENTION OF GENOCIDE AND THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT PROSECUTOR.

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.

Continue reading at https://dawnmena.org/us-revoke-visa-deny-entry-to-israeli-minister-bezalel-smotrich-over-incitement-to-violence/

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Red Flag Alert for Genocide – Israel by Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention

PLEASE TAKE ACTION RIGHT NOW AND SEND YOUR LETTER TO THE UN OFFICE OF THE SPECIAL ADVISER ON THE PREVENTION OF GENOCIDE AND THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT PROSECUTOR.

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.

Continue reading at https://www.lemkininstitute.com/red-flag-alerts-1/red-flag-alert-for-genocide—israel