Israel controls the narrative on ethnic cleansing
Israel’s former prime minister Ehud Olmert made headline news upon calling the planned humanitarian transit areas “concentration camps”. No disputing Olmert’s statement: “If [the Palestinians] are to be exiled to the new ‘humanitarian aid city’, you can say this is part of ethnic cleansing.”
Part of ethnic cleansing as a concept? Or part of ethnic cleansing of Zionist colonialism and the Nakba? That is the missing component of the Israeli-controlled narrative. If Olmert is merely stating the obvious, and his words were so widely reported, why not give even more weight to the Palestinian people’s assertions and lived experiences of ethnic cleansing, the Nakba and the genocide?
According to Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz, Palestinians within the so-called humanitarian transit area will not be allowed to leave. The Israeli Military’s Chief of Staff called the plan “unworkable”.
Meanwhile, Israeli Foreign Affairs Minister Gideon Sa’ar stated that there are no plans for long-term control of Gaza. “With regard to the Gaza Strip, we have only security concerns,” Sa’ar said, while disagreeing with criticism of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. “The terror state should be eliminated as a state.”
These are recent examples of how Israel controls the narrative on Gaza. Olmert opposes the creation of concentration camps, but does not link his opposition to Israel’s colonial existence and violence, despite the fact that Israel needs more violence to maintain itself. Katz openly flaunts how the designated zones will work and the military’s chief of staff calls the plan unworkable. But between these two seemingly opposing views, there is a tacit agreement that Israel relies on ethnic cleansing for its survival, even if there is discord about the implementation. Sa’ar, on the other hand, contradicts himself even more blatantly – Israel only has security concerns about Gaza, but the only way to eliminate those concerns is to eliminate it. All examples contribute not only to the genocide in Gaza, but to its dissemination.
Furthermore, all statements are concerned with fitting the Palestinian people into the ethnic cleansing, genocidal narrative, like important appendices that complete the picture. And yet, this happened because the international community continually refuses to allow Palestinians their right to their narrative, their history and their land. They have been forced to play a role in the history of the Zionist colonisers and their accomplices. But even the most basic forms of visibility, which are existence and resistance against colonialism – nothing contrary to international law, unlike genocide – have been denied. Denied to allow Israel the space to justify and manipulate genocide into a right.
The next step isolates Palestinians even more. Since Israel has now created rights out of genocide, the international community is far more preoccupied with finding the means to match Israel’s political pace. Of course, Israel has already prepared the groundwork for that, which brings us back to the planned concentration camps for Palestinians in Gaza. How many times has the international community condemned forced displacement without linking it to the earlier Zionist ethnic cleansing? Olmert can oppose concentration camps, but he will not oppose Israel’s colonial existence. And neither does the international community. Meanwhile, somewhere beneath the invented political correctness in genocide, Palestinians are butchered, blasted, torn to shreds. The background needs to be brought forth.
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