ISRAEL FINALLY GETS WHAT IT ALWAYS WANTED: THE TOTAL ELIMINATION OF PALESTINE AND THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE
- Olav Ulrich
- Jul 20
- 5 min read
The news of recent weeks leaves no room for doubt. Israel is the victor in the total war it has unleashed in Gaza, using the horrific massacre committed by Hamas on October 7, 2023, as an excuse. The transformation of all of Palestine into The Land of Israel (Greater Israel) will soon be a reality. Palestine and the Palestinians will be crushed and relegated to a footnote in history.
It is the final phase of a long process, initiated over a hundred years ago against the original inhabitants of Palestine. In 1885 (!), the Austrian journalist and proto-Zionist Theodor Herzl wrote the following in his diary about Palestine:
"We must gently expropriate private property in the territories allocated to us. We will try to force the destitute inhabitants to disappear across the borders by creating employment in transitional countries while simultaneously denying them work in our own country. Owners of land and houses will come to our side."
One hundred and forty years later, the Palestinians are indeed forced by Israel to leave their homes, or what's left of them. Foreign real estate investors are already preparing to establish their new empires on the rubble of Gaza. The Tony Blair Institute states: "In Gaza lies the opportunity to build something beautiful from the ground up... a secure, modern, prosperous society." Exactly as Herzl envisioned in 1885.
After the First World War, Palestine became a British Mandate. The Jewish minority was conspicuously favored (and armed) by the British and the US at the expense of the non-Jewish majority. The militant Zionist Jabotinsky, often cited as the godfather of the current dominant political trend in Israel, saw his opportunity and made no bones about it. Jabotinsky wrote in 1923:
"Every indigenous population resists colonists as long as it has the slightest hope of escaping the danger of being colonized. This is what the Arabs and Palestinians in Palestine do, and will continue to do so as long as there is any hope of preventing the transformation of 'Palestine' into the 'Land of Israel.'" He added: "Zionist colonization can only proceed {...} behind an iron wall through which the indigenous population cannot breach."
Jabotinsky's iron wall has now been developed into the Iron Dome, which makes Israel militarily impregnable. Palestinians' hopes for a dignified existence and their own state are being crushed daily by violence, just like the buildings they live in. Just as Jabotinsky foresaw in 1923, over a century ago. And anyone who still dares to claim that Zionism is not a violent and racist colonial enterprise denies historical reality. Zionists themselves defined it as such.
Meanwhile, any criticism of Israel and Zionism is being stifled and dismissed as antisemitism. For example, the United States is imposing sanctions against Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur investigating human rights violations in the Palestinian territories, and is very outspoken about it. The Knesset, the Israeli parliament, is initiating impeachment proceedings against prominent Palestinian-Israeli politician Ayman Odeh, partly because, following a mutual prisoner release by Israel and Hamas, he wrote: "Now we must free both peoples from the burden of occupation. We were all born free." The number of starving Palestinians deliberately murdered by the Israeli army for attempting to obtain food from distribution points run by the American-Israeli "aid program" GHF is countless. In the West Bank, settlers, unhindered by anyone or anything, terrorize and murder the Palestinian residents. These practices have been going on for decades and have never led to any measures against the occupying forces. Israel, through ever-new racial legislation, is rapidly deteriorating into the apartheid state it denies it is, and has even unveiled far-reaching plans to establish a "humanitarian city"—effectively a city prison—for 800,000 Palestinians. Any attempt at a ceasefire or truce is initially categorically rejected by Israel, and if it does happen, it is promptly violated. The list of such reports is endless and grows longer by the day.
The Palestinians are being deliberately marginalized, dehumanized, and driven from their land, thus being pushed into oblivion. The leaders of the so-called free Western world look on, lend Israel a hand if necessary, and shed a few crocodile tears for the sake of appearances. While the death toll has long since ceased to be counted, they debate about whether what is going on can or cannot be defined as genocide, with the sole purpose of buying time and avoiding the need to take concrete action against Israel. The cowardly, callous, and terrifying inability of the international community is appalling. Proof of this was provided again this week: the EU claims to be critically monitoring developments but remains passive and does absolutely nothing concrete. Meanwhile, share prices on the Tel Aviv stock exchange have risen by 213% in the past year. Warfare and industrial-scale murder and manslaughter are proving, as always, highly profitable.
One day, the question will be asked how this crime against humanity could take place in full view of the world. I suspect the answer to this question can also be found in a statement by the proto-Zionist Theodor Herzl. He described the inhabitants of Palestine as "formless and nameless." In other words: "who cares?" It is the indifference that the Jewish poet Eli Wiesel so feared after World War II when he wrote: “The opposite of culture, beauty, and generosity is indifference. That is the enemy.”
If, despite everything, the international community comes to its senses, it must immediately cease exonerating and supporting Israel. Instead, take harsh economic and political measures. Impose the most far-reaching sanctions against Israel. Prosecute the country and its leaders in accordance with international law. No longer admit Israel as a participant in cultural and sporting events and competitions. Sever scientific ties with Israel. In short, the world must completely isolate Israel, as once happened to South Africa. That is the only way to ever be able to do anything for Palestine and the Palestinians, and to salvage what remains of the international legal order.
Israel as an international pariah. If that sounds too harsh, or is dismissed as pure antisemitism? Know then that Israel, Zionism, and Judaism are not identical; they are not interchangeable concepts. Also know that Zionism as Herzl advocated it, which aimed to realize the Land of Israel without Palestinians, was already fiercely opposed in the nineteenth century by Jewish thinkers and activists, who, for various reasons, openly abhorred the idea of a separate Jewish state. They wanted global emancipation and equal rights in the countries where Jews already lived—not emigration to Palestine. A separate Jewish state, they argued, could lead to increased antisemitism. Their words, too, now, almost 150 years later, have proved prophetic.
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