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(LifeSiteNews) — Following condemnation from the United States over the treatment of the Palestinians, a senior minister in the Israeli government has publicly snubbed the Biden administration.
“We are not another star on the American flag”, said Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. His January 2nd tweet defended demands made the previous day that the population of Gaza should be expelled to Europe.
His rebuttal, aimed at the U.S. Department of State, continued, “We will do what is best for the state of Israel.”
‘Genocide’ or ‘opportunity’?
In speeches given in the Israeli Parliament on Monday 1st January, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said the Israeli ground operation, described as a genocide by the South African government, was an opportunity to build Jewish settlements in Gaza.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich added that Gaza was “a hothouse of 2 million people who want destroy the state of Israel,” as he pressed for the “voluntary migration of Gaza’s residents to countries that will agree to take in the refugees.”
Outrage followed the remarks reported in the Times of Israel, which revived a former fringe policy recommending the transfer of the Palestinian population out of the country.
READ: The US has lost all control as the Middle East slides deeper into war
Strongest U.S. condemnation
The U.S. State Department responded on January 2 with its strongest criticism of the Netanyahu government’s actions since beginning of the Israeli ground invasion of Gaza in October. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said: “The United States rejects recent statements from Israeli Ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir advocating for the resettlement of Palestinians outside of Gaza.”
Miller labeled the talk of expelling the entire population of Gaza as “inflammatory and irresponsible,” noting that the United States recognizes “Gaza is Palestinian land and will remain Palestinian land, with Hamas no longer in control of its future and with no terror groups able to threaten Israel.”
He continued: “That is the future we seek, in the interests of Israelis and Palestinians, the surrounding region, and the world.”
This policy places the United States government in direct opposition to the stated aims of two of the most powerful ministers in the Netanyahu government.
With the dismissal of the concerns of the U.S., the Israeli government is signaling that it has no intention of altering plans for the future of Israel which have been years, or even decades, in the making.
Fringe policy no longer
Ben-Gvir and Smotrich have long been described as Kahanists, who make no secret of their sympathy for a Jewish supremacist movement founded in New York in the 1970s.
Called Kahanism, after its founder rabbi Meir Kahane, it envisioned the complete removal of non-Jews from Israel, which should claim all the land within its borders for the Jews alone. This means the complete destruction of any Palestinian homeland, and the transfer of their population abroad.
Seen for decades as a fringe movement, Kahanism and its ideas have come to dominate the Netanyahu government. In a speech on Monday, January 1, 2024, Ben-Gvir said, “We must promote the solution to encourage the migration of Gaza residents. This is a correct, just, moral and humane solution. We have partners around the world that we can help.”
Ben-Gvir and Smotrich’s position means the fringe has now moved to the forefront of Israeli politics.
The legacy of supremacy
Smotrich and Ben-Gvir are seen as the political heirs of Meir Kahane, a Jewish terrorist who advocated the complete removal of all non-Jews from Israel.
Ben-Gvir faced condemnation from the United States government in November 2022, when he attended a memorial service for the late champion of Zionist extremism.
Meir Kahane was convicted on terrorism charges in the U.S. and in Israel. He founded an extremist political party, Kach, which is seen as the direct forerunner to the Jewish Power party now led by Itamar Ben-Gvir. It supported the use of violence to create an ethnically homogeneous state.
Kahane was assassinated in New York in 1990, but his legacy serves as an inspiration to these two ministers in the Netanyahu government.
His vision of an Israel purged of non-Jews complements Netanyahu’s decades-long opposition to the peace process. Netanyahu has faced allegations that he incited the murder of Yitzhak Rabin in the 1990s, in order to destroy the two-state solution Rabin had promised to implement.
Growing support for ‘population transfer’
Bezalel Smotrich is the leader of the National Religious Party. It is one of several minority parties on which current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu relies to remain in power.
Smotrich has consistently declared his desire to expel non-Jews from Israel – and, unlike the U.S. State Department – he includes the Palestinian territories of Gaza and the West Bank in this definition.
In a spat with an Arab member of the Knesset, Smotrich warned in a 2021 Jerusalem Post report that Muslims who do not accept that all of Israel belongs to the Jews “will not remain here.”
The exchange highlighted a growing division in Israeli politics, fueled by the parties of Smotrich and Ben-Gvir.
The report noted that another Knesset member, Ofer Cassif, framed the incident as evidence that “Israeli society is divided into transfer supporters and opponents of transfer.”
Cassif, who is himself Jewish, has been an outspoken opponent of the policies of Smotrich, Ben-Gvir, and the Netanyahu government their support empowers.
‘Final solution’ to the Palestinian question?
On October 18, Ofer Cassif was suspended from the Israeli Parliament for 45 days – after describing the Israeli operation in Gaza as the implementation of a “final solution” to rid Israel of the Palestinian people forever.
A report by the Jewish News Syndicate on October 19th noted “Cassif also said that the Israeli effort to eliminate the Hamas threat ‘has nothing to do with security. It has to do with hatred and revenge.’”
The report continued to explain some of the reasoning behind Cassif’s controversial remarks: “Cassif asserted that Israel’s current Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich published a 2017 ‘subjugation plan’ that called for annexing all disputed territories, expelling all Arabs who didn’t accept their position as ‘subjects’ and killing any who resisted.”
READ: Journalist Max Blumenthal breaks down Israel’s massive influence over US foreign policy
Agents of ‘messianic chaos’?
Smotrich’s plans were advanced in May 2023, with preparations made to settle half a million Jews in the former Palestinian territory of the West Bank – which an article in the Jerusalem Post said he intends to “annex” completely.
This alarming report, written by an anonymous officer in the Israeli army, foretold the current crisis, warning it may spell the end of Israel itself.
“Deliberately and fully aware, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is leading Israel into the abyss, all to avoid facing justice for his actions. He and he alone bears overall responsibility for what is about to transpire.”
The officer, a serving Major-General, described the Jewish supremacist policies of Ben-Gvir and Smotrich as a “messianic chaos” which threatens to destroy the nation.
“At stake is the Zionist vision that has guided us for the past 130 years and which is embodied in Israel’s Declaration of Independence. Agents of messianic chaos must not be allowed to bring it to an end.”
That serving members of the Israeli army would issue such a stark warning shows the danger presented to Israel – and the wider world – of an extremist Israeli government seemingly beyond U.S. control.
Despised by Zionists abroad
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s extremism has seen him effectively banned from the United Kingdom by its foremost Jewish organizations
As the Jerusalem Post reported in February 2022, the Board of Deputies of British Jews demanded he never return to Britain, following a visit to London as part of a European tour.
The translation function doesn’t quite convey the meaning of the last phrase. It’s more like:
“Get back on the plane Bezalel and be remembered as a disgrace forever.”
— Board of Deputies of British Jews (@BoardofDeputies) February 9, 2022
In the same report, the Zionist Movement of Great Britain also condemned Smotrich for his “politics of hatred and division”, with a member of the leftwing Israeli Meretz party saying that it was Smotrich’s “Kahanism … [which is] disgusting the Jewish community in the U.K.”
It is notable that a leading Israeli minister has been condemned – by Zionists – for his Zionist extremism.
Question of survival
Netanyahu’s partnership with the agents of messianic chaos goes back thirty years. In this time, both he and his current ministers Ben-Gvir and Smotrich have moved from the margins to the center of Israeli politics.
Netanyahu has refused to condemn the latest remarks by his extremist ministers, being reliant upon the support of their parties to remain in power.
On leaving office he is expected to face criminal charges related to corruption in office, which provides him with an incentive to support the most reckless policies for reasons of personal security.
Once ready to plead guilty, his career was saved by deal-making with the extremist allies he found in Ben-Gvir and Smotrich. In exchange for his preservation, he has granted them power.
This latest scandal once more highlights the importance of the question of survival – of the career of Benjamin Netanyahu, and of the state of Israel itself.
The Israeli government is now leading the United States in a strategy of escalation. If it is not halted, it may lead to a war in which national and personal survival may become the most pressing questions for many within – and without – the borders of Israel.
Tell Congress to stop the Biden administration from funding wars in Ukraine and Israel