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NO INNOCENTS IN GAZA’: REFLECTING ON ISRAEL’S FIRST FASCIST WAR
 
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Gideon Levy
January 19, 2025
Haaretz
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_ The only war that resembled this was the 1948 war that caused the
Nakba, the motivations behind that war were different. That was a war
to establish a Jewish state; this is a war to establish a fascist
state. The State of Kahane has risen in Israel. _

IDF troops in Gaza, June., Credit: IDF Spokespersons' Unit // Haaretz


 

The war that is supposed to end Sunday will go down in history as the
First Kahane War. It is fundamentally different from all of Israel's
previous wars.

The only war that resembled it was the 1948 war, that caused
the Nakba
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but the motivations behind that war were different. That was a war to
establish a Jewish state; this is a war to establish a fascist state.

The State of Kahane 
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risen in Israel. Benjamin Netanyahu's criminal spinelessness made it
possible. It wasn't only the neo-Nazi right-wing parties: It was,
above all, the prime minister's own Likud party that brought Kahanism
to power.

The profound change that has occurred in Israel is best exemplified
by the war in Gaza
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Almost everything about it was meant to appease the fascist, racist,
pro-population-transfer far right; and the spirit of Kahanism seized
control of its goals and conduct. It wasn't only the scale of the
army's cruelty; it was, above all, the way in which cruelty was
rendered into a value in Israeli society as a whole, into an
opportunity, an asset, a miracle. Cruelty as something to be proud of,
to aspire to, to boast of and to flaunt.

In its previous wars, too, Israel committed heinous acts. Sometimes it
tried to deny, conceal, and lie, and sometimes it even admitted and
was ashamed of them. Not this time.

This time, the IDF spokesperson
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presents the scale of the destruction and the killing, brandishing
them as accomplishments in order to please the Kahanist right, which
has become the mainstream.

Israel has become a state that aspires to the killing and destruction
of Arabs solely for the sake of killing and destroying Arabs. It did
not used to be like this, and it certainly did not take pride in it.
This is a profound change, one that we will struggle to undo. It
portends a pitch-black future.

 
Palestinian detainees sitting on the back of a truck in Gaza, in
2023.  (Credit: Moti Milrod  //  Haaretz)
When Meir Kahane
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he brought with him an Israeli-made neo-Nazi party that viewed Arabs
as dogs, at best. Israel recoiled from him. The Mapai ethos of
"shooting and crying" still prevailed here, alongside the
nonpartisanship of Likud. Menachem Begin, and also the first Netanyahu
government, preserved it. The collapse began with the second Netanyahu
government and reached its peak in his current one. Of all his crimes,
this is the greatest and most unforgivable. In the first stage,
fascism was legitimized and whitewashed.

Voices that were never before considered legitimate infiltrated
politics and the media. Soon they were not only legitimate, they were
the voice of the Israeli masses and also of the government and
military. On radio and television, people said, "There are no
innocents in Gaza
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and spoke about the (happy) right and duty to kill everyone, with the
same ease with which they discussed the weather.

Senior reporters
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the opinions they once kept hidden when they realized that it was not
only permissible, but also beneficial to them. From Amit Segal
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Yehezkeli
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Almog Boker, fascists were born. Such discourse simply didn't exist in
Israel before, and has no place in any democracy. Meanwhile, anti-war
voices were silenced; even compassion and humanity were forbidden. The
takeover of the public conversation was completed.

During the long months of the war, Kahanism became the dominant voice
of Israel and its military. There was no longer any difference between
the commanders who emerged from the rotten soil of the settlements and
their counterparts from "beautiful" Israel: They all did everything in
the spirit of Kahane, without exceptions and without dissenters.
Pleasing Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir
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the goal. Just give them the endless measure of blood they crave.

A hostage deal was postponed for months, Gaza was destroyed
completely
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entire areas were cleansed of people and tens of thousands were
killed, all to satisfy the spirit of Kahane and his earthly
representatives in the cabinet.

It's ironic that the First Kahane War is ending now with the
withdrawal from the governing coalition of Otzma Yehudit
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whose leader already promised to return when the genocide resumes. But
the upheaval has been completed, there is no longer any need for
Ben-Gvir and his ilk. Netanyahu and Likud are sufficiently Kahanist to
continue to pursue Kahane's vision; there is no longer even a need to
scribble "Kahane was right" on the walls.
 

_[GIDEON LEVY
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columnist and a member of the newspaper's editorial board. Levy joined
Haaretz in 1982, and spent four years as the newspaper's deputy
editor. He was the recipient of the Euro-Med Journalist Prize for
2008; the Leipzig Freedom Prize in 2001; the Israeli Journalists’
Union Prize in 1997; and The Association of Human Rights in Israel
Award for 1996. His new book, The Killing of Gaza:
Reports on a Catastrophe, has just been published by Verso.]_

* Israel-Gaza War
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* Genocide
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* Fascism
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* war crimes
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* Benjamin Netanyahu
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* Ceasefire
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* Hamas
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* Hostages
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* Nabka
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* Israel
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* Palestine
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* Gaza
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* Israel-Palestine
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* IDF
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* Israeli politics
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* Meir Kahane
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* Israeli right-wing
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