{"id":79569,"date":"2016-09-19T12:00:46","date_gmt":"2016-09-19T11:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=79569"},"modified":"2016-09-14T20:12:33","modified_gmt":"2016-09-14T19:12:33","slug":"how-israel-aims-to-redefine-ethnic-cleansing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2016\/09\/how-israel-aims-to-redefine-ethnic-cleansing\/","title":{"rendered":"How Israel Aims to Redefine \u2018Ethnic Cleansing\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"nazareth-5_feature-logo-jonathan-cook\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Netanyahu\u2019s controversial comments have thrown another obstacle in the way of Palestinian statehood, analysts say<\/em><\/p>\n

12 Sep 2016 – <\/em>On one level, an incendiary video posted by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the weekend looked suspiciously like an own goal.<\/p>\n

In it, Netanyahu argues that a Palestinian demand to dismantle Jewish settlements amounts to the \u201cethnic cleansing\u201d of some 650,000 Jews living in the occupied territories in violation of international law.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Palestinian leadership actually demands a Palestinian state with one pre-condition: no Jews,\u201d he says in the short video<\/a> posted on Facebook last Friday. \u201cThere\u2019s a phrase for that: It\u2019s called ethnic cleansing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Netanyahu\u2019s aim was not hard to decipher. He wants yet another obstacle in the way of Palestinian efforts to seek international backing for statehood. It comes as pressure mounts<\/a> separately from France and Russia for the Israeli government to re-engage in peace talks.<\/p>\n

Now Netanyahu can argue that when Palestinian leaders call for a state free of armed, Jewish-only colonies breaking up any hope of Palestinian territorial contiguity they should be labelled as ethnic cleansers.<\/p>\n

\"Jonathan<\/a>

Jonathan Cook<\/p><\/div>\n

Backed by Trump adviser<\/strong><\/p>\n

Early indications are that Netanyahu\u2019s upending of international law may quickly win backing from the US right \u2013 and potentially from the next US administration, if Republican candidate Donald Trump is elected president in November.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, the Haaretz daily quoted Trump adviser David Friedman as agreeing with Netanyahu and accusing<\/a> the Palestinians of planning to make any future state \u201cjudenrein\u201d \u2013 the term Nazis used to mean \u201cempty of Jews\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is an entirely racist and anti-Semitic position,\u201d Friedman added.<\/p>\n

Amal Jamal, a politics professor at Tel Aviv University, told Al Jazeera that Netanyahu\u2019s video should be understood as the flipside of his earlier precondition for peace talks: that the Palestinians recognise<\/a> Israel as an exclusively Jewish state.<\/p>\n

That demand was intended as a trap for the Palestinian leadership, especially given that Israel includes 1.7 million Palestinian citizens who already suffer rampant and institutionalised discrimination.<\/p>\n

Population swap<\/strong><\/p>\n

In Friday\u2019s video, Netanyahu again exploited the existence of this large minority of Palestinians inside Israel to advance his right-wing agenda. He explicitly equated the settlers in the occupied territories with Israel\u2019s Palestinian citizens, saying neither is \u201can obstacle to peace\u201d.<\/p>\n

The implication is that, should the Palestinian leadership insist on the settlers being \u201cethnically cleansed\u201d from their illegal colonies, Israel would be justified in demanding tit-for-tat. If the settlers have to return to Israel, why not a population swap, with Israel\u2019s Palestinian minority forced into the occupied territories?<\/p>\n

Palestinian leaders in Israel understood the danger. Ahmed Tibi, a Palestinian member of the Israeli parliament, wrote<\/a> at the weekend: \u201cWe are not Israeli settlers, Mr, Netanyahu \u2026 [We] are not foreign immigrants that came to Israel and applied for visas or citizenship \u2026 [We] are the indigenous population.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jamal said that Netanyahu\u2019s claim would also help him to \u201cset the domestic agenda\u201d against political rivals on the far-right, such as Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Education Minister Naftali Bennett, both of them identified with the settler movement. Lieberman has repeatedly announced plans<\/a> for land swaps that would redraw Israel\u2019s recognised borders to move some Palestinian communities outside Israel in return for the annexation of the larger settlements.<\/p>\n

\u201cNeither Lieberman nor Bennett have gone as far as Netanyahu has now in suggesting that the evacuation of any settlement is ethnic cleansing,\u201d Jamal said. \u201cThat will strengthen him with his power base on the right.\u201d<\/p>\n

Risky strategy<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nonetheless, this new condition \u2013 that Jewish colonies be treated as untouchable \u2013 is diplomatically a high-risk strategy.<\/p>\n

If, as Netanyahu claims, \u201csocieties that demand ethnic cleansing don\u2019t pursue peace\u201d, what does that say about Israel, a state founded on the mass expulsion of Palestinians from their homeland in 1948?<\/p>\n

Chemi Shalev, an analyst with the Haaretz daily, noted<\/a>: \u201cAfter years that Israel has toiled to prevent the loaded term \u2018ethnic cleansing\u2019 from entering the Israeli-Palestinian lexicon, Netanyahu is now pushing it in himself, through the front door.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a counter-video hurriedly produced by the Palestinian Authority pointed out<\/a>, Israel\u2019s founding fathers spoke out repeatedly in favour of ethnic cleansing.<\/p>\n

Extending Netanyahu\u2019s logic, another commentator in Haaretz observed<\/a> that, if Jews had an inviolable right to live on Palestinian land, why should Palestinians expelled in 1948 not have an equivalent right to live in their former homes now inside Israel, in cities like Haifa and Jaffa?<\/p>\n

Ongoing expulsions<\/strong><\/p>\n

Netanyahu\u2019s claim not only shines an embarrassing light on Israel\u2019s past crimes. Palestinians are currently being driven off their land to allow for the expansion of Jewish-only settlements, with Israel demolishing<\/a> Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem and in West Bank communities, in the Hebron Hills and Jordan Valley.<\/p>\n

It is doing the same to Palestinian citizens inside Israel. The homes of 1,000 Bedouin residents of Umm al-Hiran in the Negev are about to be demolished so that an exclusively Jewish town \u2013 also called Hiran \u2013 can be built in their place<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In short, ethnic cleansing \u2013 of the kind defined by international law \u2013 is very much an ongoing project by Israel.<\/p>\n

Then there is the matter of the United States, Israel\u2019s patron. Netanyahu chose to issue his video in English, indicating that it was intended for a foreign as much as a domestic audience.<\/p>\n

White House \u2018livid\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

Publicly, the Obama administration called<\/a> Netanyahu\u2019s comments \u201cinappropriate and unhelpful\u201d. Behind the scenes the White House was variously reported<\/a> to be \u201cseething\u201d and \u201clivid\u201d.<\/p>\n

That was entirely predictable. In the video, Netanyahu states that \u201csome otherwise enlightened countries even promote this outrage [of ethnic cleansing of Jews]\u201d.<\/p>\n

It is hard not to read this as an attack on Washington. US President Barack Obama spent his first term trying unsuccessfully to force Netanyahu to freeze settlement expansion, and has regularly called the settlements an impediment to peace. Last month, US officials were reported to have warned<\/a> of a \u201charsh response\u201d if Israel demolished Palestinian homes in the West Bank village of Susiya to make way for settler homes.<\/p>\n

So why did Netanyahu choose this provocative course?<\/p>\n

The video was certainly not a mistake. It is part of a strategy planned by Netanyahu\u2019s foreign media spokesman, David Keyes. He was appointed<\/a> in March after coming to prominence for controversial pro-Israel stunts on social media.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu has issued eight such videos under Keyes\u2019s direction, many of which have gone viral and are highly popular among his supporters, both in Israel and the US.<\/p>\n

Reading US mood<\/strong><\/p>\n

The inspiration for the latest video appears to be Frank Luntz, a high-profile consultant to the Republican party and pro-Israel causes. Famously, he developed a document<\/a> in 2009 advising Israel\u2019s supporters on how best to make their case. Netanyahu\u2019s ethnic cleansing claim is set out almost word for word at the top of page 62 as the most effective argument with American audiences.<\/p>\n

The Trump campaign\u2019s apparent endorsement of the Netanyahu video suggests that the Israeli prime minister may be reading the political climate in the US correctly.<\/p>\n

Jamal said that Netanyahu and his advisers intended to severely limit the terms of any future peace process. \u201cNow anyone who demands the evacuation of settlements risks being accused of anti-Semitism,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Jeff Halper, a founder of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, agreed that Netanyahu\u2019s goal was to reframe the international community\u2019s assumptions.<\/p>\n

\u201cNetanyahu is telling them that there are\u00a0no more occupied territories and no more settlers,\u201d he told Al Jazeera. \u201cHe\u2019s saying, \u2018Israel won, and it is time to get used to the reality of a single state\u2019. This is the new normal and he wants the language and thinking of the international community to reflect that.\u201d<\/p>\n

_______________________________________<\/p>\n

Jonathan Cook is an award-winning British journalist based in Nazareth, Israel, since 2001. He is the author of: <\/em>Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish State (2006); <\/em>Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East (2008); and <\/em>Disappearing Palestine: Israel\u2019s Experiments in Human Despair (2008). In 2011 he was awarded the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize<\/a> for Journalism.<\/em> The same year, Project Censored<\/a> voted one of Jonathan\u2019s reports, \u201cIsrael brings Gaza entry restrictions to West Bank\u201d, the ninth most important story censored in 2009-10.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 jonathan-cook.net<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Netanyahu argues that a Palestinian demand to dismantle Jewish settlements amounts to the \u201cethnic cleansing\u201d of some 650,000 Jews living in the occupied territories in violation of international law. His aim is not hard to decipher. Netanyahu can argue that when Palestinian leaders call for a state free of armed, Jewish-only colonies breaking up any hope of Palestinian territorial contiguity they should be labelled as ethnic cleansers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-palestine-israel-gaza-genocide"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79569"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79569\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}