2 Million Palestinians in Gaza Want to Rape, Murder Jews: Senior Israeli Official
Bezalel Smotrich's comments have become mainstream in the U.S.
Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s finance minister who was once considered a hardliner but now is an Israeli moderate, said there are two million Palestinians in Gaza who want to “slaughter, rape, and murder Jews.”
His comments are becoming widely accepted in the U.S. Fox News commentator Mark Levin has tweeted out opinion articles claiming that there are no innocent Palestinians, thus the massive human toll in the conflict is justifiable.
Smotrich urged Palestinians to leave the coastal enclave so Israelis could "make the desert bloom," The Jerusalem Post reported. He said 70 percent of Israelis agree with him that Palestinians need to be moved from the enclave.
The Times of Israel reported: A resettlement policy is necessary, he said, because “a small country like ours cannot afford a reality where four minutes away from our communities there is a hotbed of hatred and terrorism, where two million people wake up every morning with aspiration for the destruction of the State of Israel and with a desire to slaughter and rape and murder Jews wherever they are.”
Smotrich, who is in charge of West Bank territories, told The Times of Israel last month that there are two million “Nazis” living in the West Bank after recent opinion polls showed most living in the region approved Hamas’s 7 October attack.
The paper asked him about security funding in the West Bank, and Smotrich indicated that Israel will have to up its game.
“There are 2 million Nazis in Judea and Samaria, who hate us exactly as do the Nazis of Hamas-ISIS in Gaza,” he said, according to the paper. The paper noted about 3 million Palestinians live in the West Bank. Smotrich’s comments reflect Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s position that anyone who does not outright condemn the Hamas attack is today’s equivalent of a German Nazi.
TRENDPOST: Our readers are familiar with Smotrich, who, long before the Hamas attack, called on Israeli forces to wipe out an entire Palestinian village earlier this year. He has endorsed the all-out bombing campaign and initially rejected calls for a ceasefire—even if it meant no release of hostages. (He later approved of the ceasefire, only after he was assured Israel would continue its bombing campaign after the temporary pause.)
Smotrich called the decision to allow two fuel trucks to enter Gaza a “grave mistake.” The amount of fuel was considered a pittance for what was needed in hospitals and homes.
Itamar Ben Gvir, Netanyahu’s minister overseeing Israel’s police, agreed with Smotrich at the time: “So long as our hostages don’t even get a visit from the Red Cross, there’s no sense in giving the enemy humanitarian gifts.”
Ben-Gvir told members of his far-right Otzma Yehudit party that the war presents an “opportunity to concentrate on encouraging the migration of the residents of Gaza,” The Times of Israel reported.
“We cannot withdraw from any territory we are in in the Gaza Strip. Not only do I not rule out Jewish settlement there, I believe it is also an important thing,” he continued.
Smotrich also said: The “correct solution” is “to encourage the voluntary migration of Gaza’s residents to countries that will agree to take in the refugees,” Smotrich told members of his Religious Zionism party, according to the report. He said “Israel will permanently control the territory of the Gaza Strip.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly told fellow members of his Likud party that he is the only leader in Israel who can prevent any hope for a Palestinian state in Gaza or the West Bank after the ongoing war against Hamas.