Racism is the Foundation of Israel’s Operation Protective Edge
How pervasive anti-Arabism has paved the way for Israel's latest assault on Gaza.
On June 30 Ayelet Shaked, chairwoman of the Knesset faction of the ultra-right wing ha-Bayit ha-Yehudi (Jewish Home) Party, a key member of the coalition government led by Prime Minister Netanyahu, posted on her Facebook page a previously unpublished article written by the late Uri Elitzur. Elitzur, a pro-settler journalist and former chief-of-staff to Netanyahu, wrote
Behind every terrorist stand dozens of men and women, without whom he could not engage in terrorism… They are all enemy combatants, and their blood shall be on all their heads. Now, this also includes the mothers of the martyrs, who send them to hell with flowers and kisses. They must follow their sons. Nothing would be more just. They should go, as well as the physical homes in which they raised the snakes. Otherwise, more little snakes will be raised there.
Shaked’s post appeared the day the bodies of three abducted settler teens—Naftali Fraenkel, Gilad Shaar, and Eyal Yifrach—were discovered. It has since received more than 5,200 “likes.”
For over two weeks, Netanyahu and the media whipped the country into a hysterical state, accusing Hamas of responsibility for abducting the teens without providing evidence to support the claim and promoting hopes that they would be found alive, although the government knew that the boys were likely murdered within minutes of their abduction. Their deaths provided a pretext for more violent expressions of Israeli anti-Arab racism than ever before.
The international community typically sees the manifestations of Israel’s violent racism only when they erupt as assaults on the Gaza Strip, the West Bank,
or Lebanon.
The viciousness of Mordechai Kedar, lecturer in Arabic literature at Bar Ilan University, was even more creative than Shaked and Elitzur’s merely genocidal proposal. “The only thing that can deter terrorists like those who kidnapped the children and killed them,” he said, “is the knowledge that their sister or their mother will be raped.” As a university-based “expert,” Kedar’s heinous suggestion is based on his “understanding” of Arab culture. “It sounds very bad, but that’s the Middle East,” he explained, hastening to add, “I’m not talking about what we should or shouldn’t do. I’m talking about the facts.”
Racism has become a legitimate, indeed an integral, component of Israeli public culture, making assertions like these seem “normal.” The public devaluation of Arab life enables a society that sees itself as “enlightened” and “democratic” to repeatedly send its army to slaughter the largely defenseless population of the Gaza Strip—1.8 million people, mostly descendants of refugees who arrived during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, and have been, to a greater or lesser extent, imprisoned since 1994.
Conciliatory gestures, on the other hand, are scorned. Just two days after Shaked’s Facebook post, Orthodox Jews kidnapped 16-year-old Muhammad Abu Khdeir from the Shu‘afat neighborhood of East Jerusalem and burned him alive in the Jerusalem Forest. Amir Peretz (Hatnua) was the only government minister to visit the grieving family. For this effort he received dozens of posts on his Facebook page threatening to kill him and his family. Meanwhile, vandals twice destroyed memorials erected to Abu Khdeir on the spot of his immolation.
The international community typically sees the manifestations of Israel’s violent racism only when they erupt as assaults on the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, or Lebanon. But Israel’s increasingly poisonous anti-Arab and anti-Muslim public culture prepares the ground of domestic public opinion long before any military operation and immunizes the army from most criticism of its “excesses.” Moreover, Israeli anti-democratic and racist sentiment is increasingly directed against Palestinian citizens of Israel, who comprise 20% of the population.
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman of the Yisrael Beytenu (Israel Is Our Home) Party made his political reputation on the slogan “No Loyalty, No Citizenship”—a demand that Palestinian Israelis swear loyalty oaths as a condition of retaining their citizenship. Since 2004 Lieberman has also advocated “transferring” Palestinian-Israelis residing in the Triangle region to a future Palestinian state, while annexing most West Bank settlements to Israel. In November 2011 Haaretz published a partial list of ten “loyalty-citizenship” bills in various stages of legislation designed to “determine certain citizens' rights according to their ‘loyalty’ to the state.”
While Lieberman and other MKs pursue legal channels to legally undermine the citizenship of Palestinian-Israelis, their civil rights are already in serious danger. In 2010 eighteen local rabbis warned that the Galilee town of Safed faced an “Arab takeover” and instructed Jewish residents to inform on and boycott Jews who sold or rented dwellings to Arabs. In addition to promoting segregated housing, Safed’s Chief Rabbi, Shmuel Eliyahu, tried to ban Arab students from attending Safed Academic College (about 1,300 Palestinian-Israelis are enrolled, some of whom live in Safed). The rabbinical statement incited rampages by religious Jews chanting “Death to the Arabs,” leading Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy to dub Safed “the most racist city” in Israel. In Karmiel and Upper Nazareth—towns established as part of Israel’s campaign to “Judaize the Galilee”—elected officials have led similar campaigns.
Palestinian Israeli Knesset members receive regular verbal abuse from their Jewish “colleagues.” For example, Hanin Zoabi (National Democratic Alliance), who participated in the 2010 Freedom Flotilla to the Gaza Strip, which Israeli naval commandos attacked, killing nine Turks (one of whom also held U.S. citizenship), has been particularly targeted. In the verbal sparring over the murder of the three teens Foreign Minister Lieberman called her a “terrorist.” Not to be outdone, Miri Regev (Likud) said Zoabi should be “expelled to Gaza and stripped of her [Knesset] immunity.” Other Knesset members—some from putatively “liberal” parties—piled on. [Update: Yesterday—July 29—Hanin Zoabi was suspended from Knesset].
Violence against Arabs in and around Israeli-annexed “Greater Jerusalem” is particularly intense. Much of it is the work of Orthodox Jews. The Jewish Defense League, banned in Israel in 1994 and designated a terrorist organization by the FBI in 2001, and several similar groups regularly assault and harass Arabs. The day of the funeral of the three abducted teens, some 200 Israelis rampaged through the streets of Jerusalem chanting “Death to Arabs.” The previous evening, hardcore fans of the Betar Jerusalem football club, known as La Familia, rallied chanting, “Death to the Arabs.” The same chant is frequently heard at games of the team, which is associated with the Likud and does not hire Arab players. Hate marches, beatings and shootings of Arabs, and destruction of their property, long common in the West Bank, have become regular events in Israel-proper in the last month.
The citizenship-loyalty bills, Safed’s designation as “the most racist city,” the attacks volleyed at Palestinian elected officials, and mob violence against Arabs all took place before Israel launched Operation Protective Edge on July 8. The operation—more aggressively dubbed “Firm Cliff” in Hebrew—constitutes Israel’s third assault on the Gaza Strip since 2008. As of yesterday, July 29, the Palestinian death toll in that operation has reached over 1,200, the great majority of them civilians. Thirty-two Israeli soldiers and three civilians have also died. Israeli security officials sardonically call these operations “mowing the lawn” because well-informed observers know that Hamas cannot be uprooted and is capable of rebuilding its military capacity. There is no long-term strategy, except, as Gideon Levy put it, to kill Palestinians. Major General (res.) Oren Shachor elaborated, “If we kill their families, that will frighten them.” And what might deter Israel?
Joel Beinin is Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History at Stanford University and a past president of the Middle East Studies Association of North America. He is coeditor of The Struggle for Sovereignty: Palestine and Israel, 1993-2005 and Social Movements, Mobilization, and Contestation in the Middle East and North Africa and author of The Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry: Culture, Politics, and the Formation of a Modern Diaspora as well as The Struggle for Worker Rights in Egypt. He is the series editor of Stanford Studies in Middle Eastern and Islamic Societies and Cultures.
Give me a break, in every society there will be racist people. But as a nation Israel runs on a free, mostly democratic society. Try to compare it to the surounding arab societies….
Great and detailed article …. thank you Joel
Thanks for posting. Will use in a course I’m teaching this fall.
I think both racism and fascism both are the foundation of Israel’s operation.
Secondly is not the war between Israel and Hamas but US – Israel and Hamas.
That article COMPLETELY ignored the 6 thousand rockets lobed at Israel this year alone. It COMPLETELY ignored the palistines constantly calling for the total destruction of Israel. It COMPLETELY ignores that Israel warns ppl before they target a house that contains rockets. It COMPLETELY ignores that Hamas beats or kills anyone who leaves a house that received a warning. It COMPLETELY ignores that hamas has ignored EVERY cease fire.
Oh the other hand it IMPLIES all Israel wants to kill All Arabs. It IMPLIES Israel fires on Palistine indiscriminately (its hamas who does that) It IMPLIES Israel shots civilians indiscriminately!
Can we say bias? I think who ever wrote this is a racist!
“But as a nation Israel runs on a free, mostly democratic society.”. This is like saying, a woman is half pregnant. Israel is an apartheid nation
Thank you for your clear-eyed courage and scholarly realism. Stay human, Joel.
While every nation has racist people, institutional racism as mentioned in this article only stands to delegitimizes Israel. It will corrupt its soul and leave it no moral authority to stand behind.
Great article Joel. Thank you for sharing. It is extremely disappointing that after living the hell of the holocaust Israel is inflicting similar treatment to Palestinians. An eye for an eye and the hatred will only increase. What a shame that all these innocent souls had to die. Israel you have lost the battle in our eyes, you have no credibility to the rest of the world.
@mohamad the zionist, there’s no link between racism and democracy, or the lack thereof. Democracy is political, racism is (mostly) cultural. So saying there’s as much racism in Israel as there’s elsewhere because Israel is a “free” society, is an invalid argument.
Israel is far from perfect – but in how many other Middle Eastern countries could an Arab Muslim woman be valedictorian at a leading university, as happened at the prestigious Technion last year? I taught Israeli Arab graduate students there in the 1980’s briefly. On a recent trip to a conference at Bar Ilan university, I came across students and faculty of Arab Muslim, Christian background; on the buses woman had more freedom to ride in burqas than they do in Paris.
If you want real racism, go watch Hamas TV, or the speeches of the PA appointed Mufti of Jerusalem. Go examine Jordan’s Civil Law no. 6, which excludes Jews from citizenship.
Israel is far from perfect, but still the freest state in the Middle East. Beinin evidently wants to replace it with another Syria or Egypt or Saudi Arabia.
Actually, racism is the foundation of this article.
A course in basic statistics will tell you that a biased sample of several Israelis will not yield results generalizable to the entire Israeli population. The Hamas Charter calls for the deaths of all Jews-how’s that for racism? The IDF was not sent into Gaza to slaughter all it’s inhabitants-a course in basic military strategy and tactics, which you failed if you ever took one-would tell you that could be accomplished by the IDF far more easily with area wide carpet bombing of the entire strip, which the IDF has not done. Instead they were sent in to stop Hamas’ firing of rockets at innocent civilians, and to stop attacks on Israel through tunnels.A refresher course in Middle East history, which I suggest you attend, will reveal that Israel evacuated Gaza in 2005, and imposed import restrictions, which the UN Goldstone Report deemed legal, only after the takeover by the terrorist racists of Hamas, who are sworn to Israel’s destruction and attempt to achieve this every day. As an academician, aren’t you supposed to take a measured, reasoned, thoughtful approach to historical issues? Or have you abdicated this role in favor of acting out your venomous hatred of Israel? For shame…
No more breaks, this is a humanitarian crisis and if the shoe were on the other foot – the entire world would boycott the perpetrators. Please take a look at what is going on in your house before you quickly judge your neighbors as a defense, it truly is getting old and so is this dilemma.
Whenever they can, pro-Israel supporters claim that “Israel is the only democratic country in the region”. Truth is,Israel is far from being a democratic country. In fact, the only citizens that enjoy the privileges of a democratic society are the Israeli Jews. As for the Israeli Arabs, their Legal, Civil and Human Rights are severely restricted, if not ignored, as the article points out. Regarding the Palestinians living in the Occupied Territories, they simple have no rights at all. Some democratic country!
This article shows that there is racism in Israeli society (just like in every society, especially the United States). However this article does not show how that is a direct cause of Israel’s operation, rendering the title misleading. Moreover it fails to address the possibility that this racism may largely be fueled by Arab racism.
Anna Baltzer: “Hamas is a red herring. The policies Israel has against the Palestinian people have been going on for decades. The policies Israel is enacting is part of a pattern that goes back decades before Hamas was in existence. And if anyone who is very serious about seeing a lasting peace in the area has to address the root causes of the violence: and that has to do with the suffocating blockade Palestinians have been living under, the brutal occupation Palestinians have lived under for more than 40 years, and the ongoing displacement and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians for more than 60 years.
End The Siege!
https://vimeo.com/101473151
http://stormcloudsgathering.com/an-honest-israeli-soldier-speaks?utm_source=share-fb
As a German, I keep hearing from our politicians, press and many people how we, as the country that committed such immense injustice to the Jewish people in the past, are responsible for them, to support them and pledge our allegiance to them.
What I don’t hear a lot of is that, especially with our past and the lessons learned from it, we mustn’t turn a blind eye to racial discrimination and persecution, regardless of the perpetrator. I don’t hear much of the same statements declared throughout our recent history, for example the civil war in former Yugoslavia, the inhumane methods against Vietnamese civilians or the vast casualties in Iraq.
We’ve spoken out against injustice before and supported the oppressed. Yet, in this crisis, the German public seems more concerned with its own reputation tarnished by potential accusations of anti-Semitism than about actual human lives which are lost in dozens, daily.
This makes me feel ashamed to be German for the first time. Not because of our past but because this time, we are looking away and prove that we have not learned our lesson after all.
There needs to be a change of view from the anti-Palestinian argument, for a start, it should be purely focused on being anti-Hamas. If someone is truly anti Hamas then their argument for the bombing of innocent civilians is void.
Hamas is a political party, a terrorist party granted, but they govern the Gaza strip. The Palestinians don’t have much of a choice here, so why are they being punished by Israel for the actions of a few? The argument that rockets are being fired into Israel is not justification to bomb a hospital.
From an outside perspective it almost looks like a mixture of Genocide and Gentrification, all at the same time.
The comment by Pamela above says, “It COMPLETELY ignored the Palestine constantly calling for the total destruction of Israel.”
There has to be a differentiation between Hamas and regular Palestinians. There can be no place for ignorance here. Most Palestinians want peace, not war. I completely agree that Hamas should be stopped but the people of Gaza should be allowed their freedom. Israel are fighting as if everyone is the enemy. If what people are saying is true about Hamas killing Palestinians, then why does that make it ok to rub salt on the wound and kill them too?
“That article COMPLETELY ignored the 6 thousand rockets lobed at Israel this year alone.”
Israel has launched more rockets at Gaza this month alone.
“It COMPLETELY ignored the palistines constantly calling for the total destruction of Israel.”
Please give me a valid source justifying this statement. Do you think the palestinians actually LIKE living in a constant state of war ? The reason Israel will not attempt to make peace with Palestine is, as this article points out, the inability of Zionists to live alongside Arabs which they denigrate and consider as second-class citizens.
“It COMPLETELY ignores that Israel warns ppl before they target a house that contains rockets.”
Oh how nice of them. Please warn me before you kill me.
“It COMPLETELY ignores that Hamas beats or kills anyone who leaves a house that received a warning.”
Again, what is your proof ? Did you actually think or do some research before posting this ? Or is it just your pride and blind hatred towards arabs that wrote this for you ?
“It COMPLETELY ignores that hamas has ignored EVERY cease fire.”
Why would Hamas accept a cease fire if Israel undeniably refuses to remove the 7 YEAR blockade or restore power to Gaza ? Don’t the citizens of Gaza deserve basic human needs and living conditions ?
“Oh the other hand it IMPLIES all Israel wants to kill All Arabs. It IMPLIES Israel fires on Palistine indiscriminately (its hamas who does that) It IMPLIES Israel shots civilians indiscriminately!”
Yes, the three children blantly murdered on the beach in front of reporters were clearly terrorists…
“Can we say bias? I think who ever wrote this is a racist!”
Why don’t you also throw in the anti-semitic card ? I would expect nothing more from you.
Who pays for Hamas, and why? Palestine certainly can’t afford to pay for rockets, especially when they won’t even put a dent in Israeli soil if Israel chooses to deploy Iron Dome (so anyone killed by a Hamas rocket – IDF decided you were expendable).
Mossad set up Hamas. It still props Hamas up because that gives legitimacy to the anti-Arab rhetoric and human rights abuse. “loyalty clause” – communist China in the worst days, North Korea have these, the tool of the tyrant (when will it become disloyal to vote democratically?).
Israeli government wants ownership of Gaza because of the gas, but it also wants an enemy because that stops its own citizens asking awkward questions.
The right solution is a single state, one person one vote, equal rights and equal access. Sure, Israel will lose its slave labour and will have to take responsibility for the old and sick, but South Africa is a richer place as a rainbow nation, and Israel could be too. Oh and before you complain, Jews still form a substantial majority in a united country.
Racism is the foundational principle of the settler colony that is Israel. Period.
LIVE FREE or DIE!
The battle of FEMA-CAMP-GAZA will be remembered.
Indeed the surrounding Arab societies are terrible examples of civil rights and of independent thinking. But that does not decrease Israel’s responsibility to be moral and just. Israel has become a big Klu Klux Klan meeting.
Detailed and precise.
As an Israeli Jew I fear open my mouth in Israel to say I care about the other side. We are going down hill fast with no self observation. Racism is all over is Israel and Israeli arabs live in fear these days.
This article is all true. I am so sad to say that as an Israeli Jew
The human shield propaganda is used by Israel to give it an excuse to commit these atrocities. Hundreds of people were interviewed, people who lost children, relative, ohmes and entire families….they all disputed this bogus accusation. In fact, the vast majority did not support Hamas. There are, I read 15,000 Hamas members in Gaza……..if this is true, how can they possibly enforce this rhetoric on 1.8 million people, to claims that they would not let them leave their houses? this is propaganda to the utmost extreme.
Didn’t do your research did you?
Kdeir’s murder prompted a phone call from Netanyahu, more than 600 Jewish Israeli visitors to the mourning tent, public condemnation and horror. The FAMILY of KDEIR rejected a visit by Shimon Perez.
See more on Wikipedia – if you even bother to check anything before writing your silly accusations:
The day the suspects were arrested, the family of one of the Israeli victims, the Frenkels, called the family of Abu Khdeir to condemn the murder and offer their condolences.[9] The Frenkels said they understand the magnitude of the loss and that they oppose any act of violence either by Jews or Arabs.[10] Khdeir’s family rejected a condolence visit by Israeli President Shimon Peres [9] The attack was widely condemned in Israel,[11] with Israeli media and government officials across the political spectrum expressing strong outrage, shame, and shock.[12][13] Khdeir’s family members have, however, blamed government incitement for the murder.[14] The murder was condemned by the families of the three murdered Israeli teens, who sent Khdeir’s family their condolences.[15]
—
Get your facts right when there is good in the world – otherwise you are a racist yourself.
Prof. Beinin is right that Israel must do a better job of tamping down on pockets of extremism within its society. Sociologists would make the link between this incitement and the Tag Machir (price tag) attacks, and possibly the heinous murder of Muhammad Abu Khdeir (although the evidence that is emerging is that several of the perpetrators suffered from under-treated mental illness; and as far as the ‘price tag’ vigilante activities go, many Israeli politicians are demanding harsher sentences, even calling these hooligans ‘terrorists,’ and the vigilantes—numbering only a few hundred at most—have zero support within Israeli mainstream society).
But I have a hard time making the connection between a constant (the rampant and entrenched racism within the Israeli state and society, as Beinin claims) and a variable (Operation Protective Edge).
Why did a war between the governing authority of Gaza and Israel erupt in summer 2014? Hamas had been refraining from rocket attacks since the ceasefire of November 2012, and had even been patrolling the border on Israel’s behalf to curb rocket fire by other Gaza militants. Only a rational choice explanation that considers Hamas’s and Israel’s motivations in June to escalate can account for the timing of Operation Protective Edge.
Teasing out the time line through a process tracing methodology could still bring in the element of racism. Prof. Beinin could make the argument that both Israeli and Palestinian racist online vitriol that went viral on social media (Beinin ignores the ugliness of the Palestinian “3 Shalits” hashtag), and the rising tensions within Arab and Jewish communities, were conveniently exploited by both Israel and Hamas. Israel used the kidnappings as an opportunity to root out and shut down Hamas in the West Bank—arresting nearly 400 West Bank residents, raiding over 1000 institutions, putting over 200,000 Hebron residents into lock-down. Hamas also exploited the June tensions. It began firing rockets and let other militants do the same—300 rockets had been lobbed onto Israeli civilians between June 11 and July 8 when Operation Protective Edge began.
If we are using a qualitative research design, though, we need to also raise the counterfactual: if there had been no kidnappings, would Israel have spent the month of June ‘cleaning house’ in the West Bank? We can only prove this counterfactual if there were government plans in the works to ‘mop up’ Hamas operations in the West Bank. But such plans have not come to light. Would Hamas have still sought ways to build its terror tunnels and renege on its ceasefire commitments this summer? The answer is yes, because as we now know there was a mega-attack being planned through the tunnels for the Jewish New Year in late September.
There are also better ways of taking the measure of a society’s racism than relying on cherry-picked examples of a few hot-heads. One could consider the educational system. Dr. Danny Bar-Tal at Tel-Aviv University and a team of Israeli and Palestinian researchers did just that in a multiyear study recently published. It found no egregious “dehumanizing of the other” in either the Palestinian Authority or the Israeli state curricula. It did find racist messaging in some of the ultra-Orthodox textbooks, however. One could also consider official media. Following the Abu Khdeir murder the entire official Israeli political spectrum roundly condemned it. This vicious murder was universally rejected by all political and religious leaders. Over 300 Israelis went to Shuafat to visit the Khdeir family’s mourners tent (an event that was widely reported in the Israeli media, but Prof. Beinin does not mention it).
Let’s look a bit further: Israeli politicians do not name public squares after Jewish terrorists (there is no Baruch Goldstein Square in downtown Tel Aviv) and don’t demand that Jewish terrorists be released as a prerequisite to peace negotiations. Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority glorifies and venerates hundreds of terrorists by calling them heroes and martyrs and celebrating them with official state parties, and its official media often includes not only anti-Israel, but also anti-Semitic messaging. And this is the PA, to say nothing of Hamas’s poisonous anti-Israel and anti-Jewish media and educational programming.
All this is not to say that Israel doesn’t have to improve, but it’s light years ahead of where the Palestinian leadership is in terms of creating an atmosphere that fosters a non-racist culture.
In regards to majority/minority relations in Israel, until the larger conflict is resolved it’s difficult to see how Jewish-Arab relations within Israel can improve, an argument made persuasively in Yitzhak Reiter’s excellent book on the topic, National Minority, Regional Majority: Palestinian Arabs Versus Jews in Israel.
By the way, Beinin mentions Uri Elizur at the start of his article. This is the same “racist” who in 2009 advanced a ‘one state’ plan (only available in Hebrew) that would have seen all Palestinians of the West Bank receive Israeli citizenship. People are complicated, even Israelis.
Re: “hollywood, the media, the 4th estate in the US is run by Jews” That’s bull. I am a television director – not Jewish- Jews do not run anything in my business. Business itself runs media. . Jews do not form a group, as in getting together to plan on taking over. Such a concept smacks of Protocols of Zion written by the Czarist regime to vilify all Jews as a group and believed as gospel to justify racist attutudes. True a greater proportion of Jews than non Jews are highly successful, scientists, doctors, humanitarians, entrepreneurs. Thats good not bad. Everyone should be so successful.
A good question is, what is meant by the designations of Jew, Arab, American, and most certainly Christian. I grew up Episcopalian and never want to be called Christian.
Anger and violence don’t always result from racism. When you are angry at people for what they do, that is not racism. The Arab Israeli dispute is based on nationalism and religion far more than race. But calling somebody a “Racist” is a more powerful hate word these days, so Beinin uses it. This is superficial and silly.
There is no “One drop rule” in Israel. There are no “Octaroons”. Skin color is not a determining factor. As it happens the Jews have more diversity in skin tone than the Muslims (Arabs), so I don’t think it’s a question of skin.
There are no doctrines about the genetic superiority of Jews in Israeli society. There is no official document of Zionism with even one percent of the vileness of the Hamas Covenent (http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp).
The charge of racism is not substantiated. It is falsity, a knowing falsity, and a libel. Beinin should be ashamed of himself.
I do not believe you have shared much of value here.No mention of the Palestinians persecuting christians and driving them out.The rise of antisemitism is alive and well in the us.My hope is that your student take what you preach and read beyond your revisionist history.
Thanks for this. A recent article in Haaretz underlined the extent to which racism is an integral and growing part of Israeli society, especially and most obviously among the young. Most polls indicate that around 70% or more of Israeli youth are in favor of apartheid in Israel and the recent Gaza War has made dissent in Israel even more difficult than ever before. Indeed, the crackdown on any form of dissent has become intense, with efforts to criminalize left-wing NGOs like B’tselem. The reality that Israeli youth cut their teeth by serving as occupiers in the occupied territory has further contributed to the dehumanization of Palestinians. In the end, your central thesis is easily supported by the facts. Racism has become absolutely essential to Israeli identity and it helps to make possible the kind of attacks that are going on now in Gaza.