Daily Times

Belazel Smotrich, a senior Israeli minister, said that the Palestinian village of Huwara should be wiped out days after far-right settlers ransacked occupied West Bank villages, torching houses and firing live ammunition on Palestinians in revenge for the killing of two Israeli brothers. A thirty-year-old Palestinian man was killed and hundreds of others injured during the rampage, which Israel’s top general in the West Bank referred to as a “pogrom.” Smotrich, who has a long history of bigoted remarks against Arabs, Palestinians and non-orthodox Jews may have single-handedly soured Israel’s ties with long-term ally Washington, who called upon Prime Minister Netanyahu to disavow his comments-a rare reaction from the US, which has always mechanically supported Israel’s designs for Palestine.

The Biden administration, like many administrations before it, has enabled Israel’s violent implosion by remaining silent when it could be wielding its diplomatic and military influence to hold Israel accountable for its actions. Instead, the US has continually shielded Israel from accountability at international forums such as the United Nations and takes pride in brokering halfhearted agreements between the Palestinian Authority and Israel that are inevitably broken when the latter decides to kill Palestinians again.

The situation in occupied Palestine has been described as the worst since the First Intifada-there have been reports of Israeli security forces using force preemptively regardless of the level of threat. 2022 has seen the most Palestinians killed by Israelis since 2006 and the election of a far-right Israeli governing coalition with prominent members openly calling for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, along with an unprecedented expansion of Israeli settlements, a surge of attacks by settlers and the rapid displacement of Palestinians. Gaza remains under a suffocating blockade and top Israeli officials have made it clear that they don’t want to entertain any notions of Palestinian statehood anymore. 131 Palestinians were killed by ISF personnel over the last year outside any context of conflict-related hostilities. By refusing to take a stance against Israeli extremism, governments all across the globe are giving its colonial-settler administration the green light to viciously wipe out its largest minority. Smotrich’s comments echo the voices of a society that is built upon the systematic dehumanisation of Palestinian bodies-they are not fringe beliefs, but rather mainstream. It’s high time the world realises this too. *