Israeli Gov’t Just Condoned the Slaughter of Men, Women and Children by Calling Them ‘Nazis’

By Rachel Blevins

 While the world was shocked by the news that Israeli forces killed  more than 60 Palestinians in one day last week, Israeli officials have  refused to cooperate with a United Nations investigation into the  slaughter, and have defended the death toll by calling Palestinians  “Nazis.” May 14 marked the bloodiest day in Gaza since 2014 when Israel opened  fire on Palestinian protesters who were demonstrating within 100 meters  of their border fence. More than 2,700 Palestinians were injured, and  the majority of them were hit by live fire. 

The death toll was around  60, and at least six of the civilians who were killed were under the age  of 18, according to reports from the Gaza Health Ministry. In response to concerns about the number of Palestinians killed and  injured, Gilad Erdan, Israel’s minister of Strategic Affairs and  Hasbara, released a statement on Twitter justifying the actions by  equating Palestinians to “Nazis.”  

“Despite the number of dead, we need to remember and remind:  We’re not speaking about demonstrations. We’re talking about terrorists  of a terrorist organization who endanger Israeli residents. All  responsibility for the bloodshed lies with the leaders of Hamas, who, with Nazi anger,  endlessly shed blood to erase from people’s memories their own failures  in the management of the Gaza Strip. Here it is, the truth,” Erdan said, as translated by Mondoweiss. Erdan continued, and claimed that Israel was the side working to  de-escalate the situation and that the number of Palestinians who were  killed “doesn’t indicate anything.” 

“Israel does not wish to escalate and doesn’t want the  death of residents of the Gaza Strip. Those who want this are solely the  leadership of the Hamas terrorist organization, which uses a cynical  and malicious use of bloodshed. The number of killed doesn’t indicate  anything—just as the number of Nazis who died in the world war doesn’t  make Nazism something you can explain or understand,” Erdan said Israeli officials then announced on Friday that they will refuse to cooperate  with a UN investigation into the killings and that they insisted that  the idea of launching such a probe clearly shows that the UN Human  Rights Council has an “anti-Israel bias,” and supports terrorism. The United States also voted to block the investigation. 

However, the claim that the only people shot by Israeli forces were “terrorists” or “members of Hamas”  simply is not true. While Israel’s rules of engagement allow sniper  fire on anyone who is within 100 meters of their border fence, as long  as the snipers claim that they believe the individual’s intent was to “penetrate Israeli territory,” several of the people shot and injured last week were women, children, journalists, and paramedics. Yaser Murtaja, a Palestinian photojournalist, was wearing a jacket that clearly said “PRESS” when he was shot in the chest and killed by an Israeli sniper last month.

 As The Intercept noted, “Either  the Israeli sniper could not clearly see who was in the rifle scope—in  which case the claim that the use of live fire is precise is shown to be  untrue—or the soldier intentionally fired at a journalist, which is a  war crime.” 

Just as The Free Thought Project advocates for the freedom of  Americans, we advocate for the freedom of Israelis and the Palestinians.  Only through discussion and peaceful criticism will peace ever be  achieved. While there are Palestinians who claim that Israel has no right to  exist, there are Israelis who say the same thing about Palestine. 

A documentary  from Empire Files released in October 2017 showed that a number of  Israeli citizens support their government’s occupation in the Gaza  Strip, and believe the land is rightfully theirs to own. 

As a report from Amnesty International noted, Israel “maintains  an illegal air, sea and land blockade on Gaza and maintains a so-called  ‘access-restricted area’ or buffer zone within Gaza. These have cut off  more than 2 million Palestinians from other parts of the Occupied  Palestinian Territories and the outside world for 10 years.” 

The report also noted that while there have been more than 1,000  complains of torture submitted to Israel since 2001, none of them have  been investigated, and Israel continues to build new settlements on  occupied territory: 

“For the last 50 years, Israel has been forcing  thousands of Palestinians off their land, occupying and illegally using  it to create settlements that exclusively house Jewish Israeli settlers. Entire Palestinian communities have been displaced by these  settlements. Their homes and livelihoods have been destroyed, they’ve  had restrictions enforced on their movement, access to their own water,  land and other natural resources. The communities have also been  violently attacked by the Israeli military and settlers.”

Israel has the power to limit the most basic resources in Gaza, and Palestinian residents are lucky to receive four hours of electricity a day. Earlier this year reports also revealed  that while the Gaza Strip endured a massive drought, Israel cut off  fresh water and as many as 2 million residents were left to suffer  without it. 

The conditions from the occupation have become so egregious that many  Palestinians who join in protests against Israel claim they do so  because they have nothing to lose. Samer, 27, told the Jerusalem Post last month that he risked his life to join in the protests because he wanted to take a stand.

 “Israel took everything from us, the homeland, freedom, our future,” Samer said. “I have two kids, a boy, and a girl, and if I die, God will take care of them.” As for Hamas, a 2014 report from the Washington Post noted that the terrorist organization actually “has the Jewish state to thank for its existence.”  

The report noted that Hamas was originally created by Israel in the  1960s to combat Yasser Arafat’s Fatah party, formed by the Palestinian  Liberation Organization, which was Israel’s enemy at the time. In the same way that the United States blatantly ignores the blowback  that has resulted from its reckless decisions to arm and train  extremists in Syria in an attempt to overthrow President Bashar  al-Assad, Israel also ignores its involvement in helping Hamas become  the group that it is today. 

While Israel continues to claim that anyone who joins in on the  protests is a member of Hamas, it plays the same game as the United  States by giving the group more credit than it deserves and failing to  acknowledge the fact that many Palestinians who participate in protests  against Israel are doing so because they are begging the world to stand  up against Israel’s occupation of their land and control over their  resources. 

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