Israeli PM Takes Sharp Criticism Over ‘Ethnic Cleansing’ Statement
BY: Zane Ziebell/Contributing Writer
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government have faced growing disapproval in recent years over Israeli settlement policies in the West Bank. This week, criticism grew even sharper when Netanyahu related Palestinian opposition of Israeli settlements in the West Bank to “ethnic cleansing.”
In a video released on Friday, Netanyahu said, “Palestinian leadership actually demands a Palestinian state with one pre-condition: No Jews.”
“There’s a phrase for that: It’s called ethnic cleansing,” he added.
In the video, Netanyahu rejected the notion that the Israeli settlements in the West Bank are “an obstacle to peace.” The prime minister claims “that the nearly two million Arabs living inside Israel” are an example of the Jewish State’s “openness and readiness for peace.”
The Israeli settlement policy in the West Bank, which is illegal under international law, started in the 1960s when the first Jewish settlers occupied a Palestinian hotel in the West Bank city of Hebron. The hotel was the first building to be confiscated by Israel in the West Bank after the Jewish settlers were granted approval from the Israeli government to stay there. Currently, more than 1,000 Jewish settlers, protected by the Israeli army, live among 230,000 Palestinians in the heart of Hebron.
Today, more than 500,000 Jewish settlers live in more than 120 officially documented settlements in the West Bank that are deemed illegal under international law. Regardless, the illegal settlement policy of the Israeli government continues to grow and expand.
Terming the Palestinian desire for a state without Jews as “ethnic cleansing” also drew a rebuke from the United States, Israel’s strongest ally.
Spokeswoman for the U.S. State Department Elizabeth Trudeau said, “We obviously strongly disagree with the characterization that those who oppose settlement activity or view it as an obstacle to peace are somehow calling for ethnic cleansing of Jews from the West Bank. We believe that using that type of terminology is inappropriate and unhelpful.”
Palestinian dreams of an independent state were brutally crushed when the State of Israel was declared in 1948. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forced out of their homes by the Israeli army and sent into what is now the West Bank. Thousands more were sent to refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Egypt.
After the 1967 Six-Day War, dreams of Palestinian Statehood took another fatal blow when Israel captured the West Bank and took the Gaza Strip in southern Israel and the Golan Heights along the northern border with Syria and Lebanon. The eastern side of the holy city of Jerusalem was also annexed and has been occupied by Israel since 1967. Israel believes that it’s right to the land of the West Bank comes from Jews having lived in Judea and Samaria, the biblical term for the West Bank, for thousands of years.
With so much activity and construction inside the West Bank, U.S. State Department Spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau also added that the U.S. feels the Israeli settlement policy raises “real questions about Israel’s long-term intentions in the West Bank.”
Ayman Odeh, an Israeli Arab Knesset member, said of Netanyahu through his Facebook page: “He hypocritically speaks of tolerance and peace. Netanyahu even dares to use a new concept in his vocabulary – ethnic cleansing – ironically referring to the settlements.”
Odeh went on to say that Netanyahu “knows full well that the settlements were built in order to push out entire Palestinian communities from their land and crowd them around the Palestinian cities resulting to the de facto annexation of most of the West Bank.”
Despite increased international criticism of settlement building in the West Bank, the Israeli government still continues with the policy and shows no signs of stopping. As recently as last week, Israeli officials approved the construction of 284 new housing units inside existing West Bank settlements. Among the buildings is a 234 unit nursing home, 30 houses, and 20 dwellings.
Watch the video here: