What have we become if this is our legacy

I'm afraid the time has come when the Jewish community has to ask, Will we allow this government to define who we are?

PART FOUR - IS THERE A WAY BACK FROM THESE CRIMES?

The nationalist element within the Israeli government is comfortable with starving Palestinian children because to them, they are cockroaches that need to be crushed underfoot. The words of these monsters should resonate in the mind of anyone with an ounce of humanity. I want to be very clear here, because I am more than aware that my words may be perceived as inflammatory and possibly unwarranted. I NEVER use words I do not stand behind, so let me lay out, with absolute clarity, why I use and stand by them.

This goes way beyond the Gaza conflict

Below are the words of various Israeli politicians, extending to the highest levels of government. I have included a wide variety deliberately, because you need to understand that this is not limited to a few bad apples and by no means is the limit of what is being openly stated; this is a creeping systemic cancer at the heart of government:

“Wipe Gaza off the face of the earth,” and “Gaza must be burned,” and “I have no mercy for those who are still there. We need to eliminate them,”

Nissim Vaturi, Deputy Speaker of the Israeli Parliament

“The children of Gaza have brought this upon themselves,” and “there are no innocents” or “uninvolved” (civilians) in Gaza

Avigdor Lieberman, former Minister of Defence

“There is only one solution to curing a cancer, and it is the evisceration of the cancerous cells.”

Gilad Erdan, U.N. Ambassador

“We will not be able to live in this land if one Islamo-Nazi is left in Gaza". This paraphrases the words of Adolf Hitler: “I cannot live in this world even if only one Jew is left in it”

"Every child in Gaza is the enemy. We need to occupy Gaza and settle it, and not a single Gazan child will be left there. There is no other victory,"

Moshe Feiglin, Former Member of the Israeli Knesset

“Anyone waving a Palestinian flag shouldn’t continue to live on the face of the earth”

Amihai Eliyahu, Heritage Minister

“We cannot have women and children getting close to the border... anyone who gets near must get a bullet.”

Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israeli Security Minister

“Gaza will be entirely destroyed”, [Its Palestinian population will] “leave in great numbers to third countries”

Bezalel Smotrich, Israeli Finance Minister

Smotrich also said, “It may be just and moral” to starve 2 million Gaza residents until Israeli hostages are returned, but “no one in the world would let us.” And here we are, the world has allowed his dreams to come true with cheap words of condemnation and no action. The point I’m trying to make is that once you see the deep-rooted hatred present at the very highest levels of government, and I include Benjamin Netanyahu in this group, nothing about what is happening in Gaza should be a surprise.

You can paint a picture of this all-powerful Hamas, threatening the existence of poor, defenceless Israel all day long. Anyone with an ounce of intelligence knows that Hamas are a bunch of not the best-equipped insurgents who, while they may be hardened fighters versed in the art of insurgent war and improvised explosives, only became a genuine problem when the arrogance of Israeli leadership underestimated the imminent threat they posed. Nearly 1200 innocent Israeli citizens were killed because the Israeli military’s at best arrogance or worst incompetence created a permissive environment for a terrorist attack. Netanyahu had encouraged funding them via Qatar for years to avoid discussions on a two-state solution, and what we see now is the cost of a significant military miscalculation and refusal to take action, despite being in possession of the actual October 7th blueprint.

Far from taking responsibility for that failure as he should, Netanyahu ordered the murder of tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians to direct attention away from his and his Security Services’ abject failure to act to protect the Israeli people. Military historians will not fail to make that judgment, I feel.

I find myself with a deeply uncomfortable question. Where does the Jewish community stand in this moment that will be recorded in history as the moment in which humanity died? When the extermination camps were liberated at the end of the Second World War, the world gasped in horror at the attempted genocide of the Jews. The same world declared ‘Never again’ and here we are. Some figures at the highest levels of your government would, by their own admission, gladly exterminate the Palestinian people. I simply don’t want to believe that this is who the Jewish community is.

I am deeply grateful for the report by Dahlia Scheindlin on Harretz.com on June 8th 2025. She notes:

‘In 2014, when Jewish Israelis kidnapped and immolated Mohammed Abu Khdeir, a Palestinian teenager from East Jerusalem, many Israelis were shocked and ashamed. The next year, Jewish Israelis torched a home in the Palestinian village of Duma, burning a father, mother and baby to death in their sleep; a surviving child was horribly burned. By then, few were surprised.’

Every so often something forces Israelis to confront the terrible things their society has done. This can happen anywhere. The Israeli historian Elazar Barkan wrote a whole comparative study about how countries acknowledge their historic guilt. But it's ironic that in the midst of the most brutal action Israel has ever perpetrated, it was a public opinion survey that sparked such a reckoning.

The survey conducted by Professor Tamir Sorek of Pennsylvania State University, published here in Haaretz (I have gifted the link to remove the paywall), together with Professor Shay Hazkani, examined what the authors called "eliminatory" attitudes among Jewish Israelis and their theological roots.

Even more disturbing:

‘47% of respondents agreed that "when conquering an enemy city, the Israel Defense Forces should act as the Israelites did in Jericho under Joshua's command – killing all its inhabitants." Sixty-five percent said they believed in the existence of a modern-day incarnation of Amalek, the Israelite biblical enemy whom God commanded to wipe out in Deuteronomy 25:19. Among those believers, 93 percent said the commandment to erase Amalek's memory remains relevant today.’

“Breaking the Silence: Israeli Soldiers Come Clean.” Avner Gvaryahu is the director of public outreach for Breaking the Silence

I know that many good people in the Jewish community object to the actions being taken by the Israeli government in their name. My concern is that they tragically appear to be in the minority, and that breaks my heart. I am not a Muslim or a Jew. I have little time for organised religion, I’m afraid. I’m just the guy who steps up when I see someone in trouble. I have a fundamental problem with the destruction handed down in the name of God.

I always want to believe in the good in people, and even in the darkest of moments, when I feel humanity has left the room, my soul is fed by those who dare to speak out and say, ‘Enough is enough.’ That’s why I am grateful to the creators of Breaking The Silence where you can find brave voices of dissent from within the Jewish community willing to tell the truth, often against a background of persecution and intimidation. I would highly recommend visiting the site and spending time to hear the uncomfortable truth. It WILL set you free.

In particular, I would direct you to a publication called ‘The Perimeter’ Soldiers’ testimonies from the Gaza buffer zone. Look, I’m not here to sit in judgment on anyone; that’s not my job. If you can’t see through the fog of hate to understand that the willful starvation of a child is wrong, then I can’t help you. If you believe that the indiscriminate murder of 18,000 children is acceptable, I can’t help you. That is a matter between you and your maker, not a matter between you and me. What I do know is that I have made my position unequivocally clear, and I stand behind every single word without fear or favour. If you can step up and disagree without feeling ashamed to acknowledge your position in public, then I think some introspection is in order.

There can be no military solution to this problem, and that is why Israel wants to expel the Palestinians, because if they don’t, they will never be forgiven for the tens of thousands they have murdered. Imagine if the boot were on the other foot and Hamas had killed over 50,000 Israelis, what would the response look like? The truth is that the only solution is political, and at some point, both sides will have to sit around the table and work it out, just as the IRA had to do with the British government and find a solution. The world will accept no less than the two-state solution that the Israeli government have spent decades avoiding.

If you are sitting there, having read this piece in isolation, waiting to remind me that I have not once in the entirety of this article condemned Hamas for their actions on the 7th October 2023, please feel free to read part one, because I am sick and tired of having to repeat, I DO NOT SUPPORT WAR CRIMES.

For those sharpening their tongue to send me hate, I say to you, I support your right to do that, and hateful comments will never be removed from my work, because understanding the opposition to what I write is just as important as reading the compliments. You and I don’t have to dodge bombs, sniper bullets and drones in Gaza. The worst we can face is an insult, and we don’t need a nonexistent hospital or anaesthesia to deal with that. We are the lucky ones who can sit in the comfort of our homes to launch attacks on each other. How odd life can be.

If I can’t convince you to support my work after this four-part piece, I fear I never will, but I’ll leave you with this thought.

Thank you for taking the time to read my thoughts and observations. I hope you feel it was worth the investment of your time. I deliver a post to my community most days and invest significant time, money, and effort in producing fact-checked pieces. If you appreciate my work, please consider becoming a paid subscriber to help offset the associated costs. It makes a huge difference.

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Martin