2023-11-05 20:19:37
The war is in Benjamin Netanyahu’s house. At least, the verbal one. The Prime Minister of Israel had to respond this Sunday to the statements of his Heritage Minister, Amichai Eliyahu, who stated that Tel Aviv should consider launching an atomic bomb on Gaza.
The reaction has been immediate.
His words have fallen like a thermonuclear explosion in an international community increasingly shocked by the death of civilians in the airstrikes on Gaza and in a country where hundreds of people are demonstrating in front of Netanyahu’s house demanding his resignation over security failures. who facilitated the Hamas massacre on October 7. Critics attack the ruler for having built a cabinet of circumstances to continue in power with an amalgam of radical ministers like Eliyahu, in which personalisms predominate more than a realistic security policy. The phrase from the head of Heritage has once again opened the debate on the extremism of the Executive.
The controversy arose during an interview on Radio Kol Berama, in which the presenters asked Eliyahu if he would be in favor of a radical solution such as a nuclear projectile to resolve the war against Hamas. “This is one of the possibilities,” the Minister of Heritage responded seriously, questioning whether the current objectives of the Israeli offensive are sufficient. «There is no place for the Gaza Strip. “The north of the Strip should not exist,” he stated, convinced that “anyone who raises the Hamas flag should not continue living on earth.”
Questioned by the evidence that 240 hostages are in the hands of the militiamen, Eliyahu has made clear his contempt for their fate by stating that “I pray and hope for their return, but in war you have to pay a price. Why are the lives of the kidnapped people, whose release I really want, more important than the lives of the soldiers and the people who will be killed later?
The minister rejects providing humanitarian aid to the population of Gaza. AFP
The Israeli politician, who belongs to the far-right wing of the Executive and known for his incendiary comments, also shows his refusal to let humanitarian aid in – “we would not have given it to the Nazis” – and even considers that there are no humanitarian aid within Gaza. the innocent: “There are no uninvolved civilians.” In this sense, he is in favor of the expulsion of the Palestinians – “they can go to Ireland or the deserts, the monsters of Gaza should find a solution for themselves” – and occupy the Strip with new settler settlements. “I hope that after the war we will return to the establishment of settlements and go there with pride.”
“Away from reality”
It only took a few minutes for the Israeli Government to react to its partner through Netanyahu himself, who stated that at no time has Tel Aviv explored the nuclear option. “Amichai Eliyahu’s words are far from reality,” said the Chief Executive before announcing that the Minister of Heritage has been suspended indefinitely from cabinet meetings, although he will continue in his position. At least, for now,
Netanyahu also has no other option without jeopardizing his position.
The prime minister returned to power last December thanks to an alliance of his party, the Likud, with two ultra-Orthodox parties and three far-right religious parties. Without them, he would lose his majority in Parliament. Jewish Power, Religious Zionism and Noam, his three main traveling companions, advocate deporting those who do not swear allegiance to Israel and declare themselves anti-Arab racists and homophobes. Eliyahu belongs to the first of them. Its leader is Itamar Ben-Gvir, who has become popular among the ultra-right with his phrase “we must shoot down the Arabs” of Jerusalem.
Ben-Gvir is the Minister of the Interior.
The opposition considers that the apparent sanction imposed by Netanyahu is nothing more than a smokescreen. Even far-right ministers have pointed out that it lacks logic since the cabinet barely meets and votes are carried out mainly by telephone voting, rounds from which Eliyahu has not been removed.
«It was a horrible and insane comment from an irresponsible minister. “He offends the families of the captives, he offends Israeli society and damages our international position,” denounced opposition leader Yair Lapid, who has demanded the minister’s dismissal. “The presence of extremists in the Government endangers us and the success of the objectives of the war: defeating Hamas and returning the hostages.”
Demonstration against Benjamin Netanyahu, whose policies are blamed for the security failures that facilitated the Hamas massacre. AFP
What seems clear is that the head of the Executive has a string of extravagant and extemporaneous statements accumulated by his supremacist ministers. One of them, belonging to Religious Zionism, has requested that the olive crops that form their livelihood be taken away from the Palestinians in the West Bank. Bezalel Smotrich, from the same party and Minister of Finance, lives in an illegal colonial settlement, considers the Palestinian people to be a “recent invention” and never shakes hands with women. He defines himself as a “proud homophobe.”
With this tableau, it is not so strange for Israeli society that Amichai Eliyahu makes the type of comments inclined to the atomic route. Some consider him the Israeli Donald Trump, even in a more hardcore version.
The leader of Jewish Power, who has defended himself by saying that his commitment to launching a nuclear bomb on Gaza is only “metaphorical”, already expressed himself last Thursday on the networks with the comment that “northern Gaza is prettier than never,” in a video where a military excavator appeared clearing the way for soldiers in the Strip. «Fly and crush everything. “It’s a treat for the eyes.” added this 44-year-old politician, who no sooner demands the annexation of the West Bank and describes the Strip as “Sodom and Gomorrah” than he calls the governor of the Bank of Israel “savage” for speaking out against Netanyahu’s controversial judicial reform.
One hundred or one hundred thousand
Amichai Eliyahu served as a deputy before being appointed minister on December 29 of last year. He descends from a well-known ultranationalist and religious family. He is the grandson of Mordechai Eliyahu, former Sephardic chief rabbi of Israel, and son of Shmuel Eliyahu, who obtained the title of chief rabbi of Safed, northern Israel.
Like his son, Shmeuel Eliyahu was part of the Defense Forces. A follower of Ben-Gvir and his extreme right-wing ideology, he is very critical of women who enter the army in combat units, declared homophobic and the United States revoked his visa to enter the country last year. In 2007 he came out in favor of intensive bombing of Hamas, declaring: “If they don’t stop after we kill 100, then we must kill 1,000.” If not, we must kill 10,000. If they still don’t stop, we must kill 100,000. Like father Like Son.
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