Horrible Polls: The Ugly Face of Israeli Society
A startling and deeply disturbing new poll shows that not only the Israeli government, but also a large portion of the Israeli public, supports the extermination of the Palestinians.
Tamir Sorek, a professor of Middle Eastern history at Penn State University, tasked the survey organization Geocartography with posing a series of questions to the Israeli public.
Zero Geocartography's polls have a proven track record of accurately representing the opinions of the Israeli public. CNN reported in 2015 that Geocartography was the only polling firm to correctly predict the Likud party's victory in the Israeli elections that year.
According to the Haaretz newspaper, the survey was conducted among "1,005 respondents representing the opinion of the Jewish population in Israel."
The responses painted a disturbing picture of the current prevailing views in Israeli society, with 82 percent of Jewish Israelis "supporting the forced transfer of Gazans to other countries," and 56 percent even favoring "the expulsion of Israel's Arab citizens."
Even more horrifying, some respondents took pleasure in retelling the story from the Book of Joshua, in which the ancient Israelites conquered the city of Jericho and massacred its entire population.
When asked whether the Israeli army should "do the same thing the Israelis did when they conquered Jericho when they captured an enemy city," 47 percent of respondents said they should. This means that 47 percent of the Jewish population in Israel support "killing all the inhabitants of an enemy city."
We often hear Israeli officials denying their war crimes by claiming that Hamas is using "human shields" or is "doing everything it can" to protect civilians in Gaza.
The disturbing truth is that this propaganda is aimed at encouraging Western audiences to continue arming and funding Israel, while within Israel, the use of overtly genocidal language has become a tradition.
The survey cites numerous examples of key Israeli officials openly using genocidal language.
The conclusions cite the following words from "Rabbi Eliyahu Mali, head of the military program for religious students in Jaffa":
"If you don't kill them, they will kill you. Today's terrorists are the children of the previous operation that you saved alive, and women are the ones who nurture the terrorists."
It is noted that such language was not limited to religious extremists and was often used by secular Israelis as well.
Former football star Danny Neumann is quoted as saying openly on Israeli television:
"I tell you, in Gaza, without exception, they are all terrorists, sons of dogs. They must be exterminated, they must all be killed."
Israeli TV commentator and legal scholar Kinneret Barashi was also quoted as saying, "Every trace of the killer mutations in Gaza must be eradicated, from the maternity wards to the last elderly person in Gaza."
This is not limited to a few individuals. The recent UN Human Rights Council report on Israel's use of sexual violence cites many other examples of prominent Israeli figures using this type of language.
The report quotes Eliyahu Yossian, who works at the Israeli think tank Misgav Institute for National Security, as saying on Israel's main Channel 14, "A woman is the enemy, a baby is the enemy, a pregnant woman is the enemy."
The report found that the video clip of this vile statement had been viewed by "1.6 million people as of January 3, 2024."
The report also quotes journalist Yehuda Schlesinger as saying on Channel 12 news station that "the rape of Palestinian prisoners should be institutionalized by the Israeli government to punish, retaliate against, and deter Palestinians."
In 2024, one of the hosts of the Israeli podcast "Two Good Jewish Boys" said, "If there was a button to turn off Gaza, I would press it in a second, right now, and I think most Israelis would do the same."
Israeli politicians are also making public statements openly inciting genocide.
At the start of the Gaza genocide, former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said: "I have ordered a complete blockade of the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed, we are fighting against animals and humans, and we are acting accordingly."
The genocide case brought by South Africa against Israel at the International Court of Justice exemplified the countless genocidal statements made by IDF soldiers, television commentators, and politicians.
The report quotes Israeli Colonel Yogev Bar-Sheshet from a video taken by Israel's Channel 4 during his visit to the Gaza city of Beit Lahiya: "Whoever returns here later will find barren land. No homes, no farming, nothing. They have no future."
The report quotes another Israeli colonel, Erez Eshel, as saying in the same video: "Revenge is a great value. We are taking revenge for what they did to us... This place will become a sanctuary. They will not be able to live here."
At the same time, the report referred to a December 2023 video of IDF soldiers shouting, "Let their village burn, let Gaza be destroyed" and "We know our motto: there are no civilians who are not involved."
Additionally, the report cites and links to numerous genocidal statements by key Israeli officials.
Tali Gottlieb, a member of the ruling Likud party in the Israeli Knesset, wrote on Twitter in December 2023:
"A brutal airstrike!! Let's stop feeling sorry for the brutal in such a difficult situation. Let's not feel sorry for the "non-intervening" Gazans. There are no non-intervening. Every Gazan left on the battlefield is helping a terrorist organization. Enough! Change your mind. Destroy every place where terrorists and their supporters are. From the air!! If you can bomb the area from the air, don't put the soldiers at risk!"
Likud Party member of the Israeli Knesset, Katie Sheetrit, said on Channel 13:
"The word revenge has been used a lot. I don't think it's revenge - it's justice. If you ask me my personal opinion - I would raze Gaza to the ground, without any feeling of pity. Because there is no difference between the murderers of women and children and the citizens of Gaza."
Also, on Channel 14 in Israel, former Israeli military intelligence officer Eliyahu Yossian said, "There is no population in Gaza, there are 2.5 million terrorists."
X, a member of the Israeli Knesset and former editor of the Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom, wrote:
"We must not forget that the "innocent civilians" - the cruel and barbaric people in Gaza - also actively participated in the massacres in Israeli communities, in the systematic killing and shedding of Jewish blood, in the kidnapping of children, the elderly and mothers, in the forcible killing and burning of babies alive!"
"There is no room for pity for the cruel, no room for any act of humanity - the memory of Amolek must be erased!"
Former Finance Minister Avigdor Lieberman said in 1999, "There are no innocent people in Gaza."
Even Israeli politician Meyrav Ben-Ari, considered a "liberal centrist," said on Israeli television, "The children in Gaza bought this for themselves!"
Former Israeli politician Moshe Feiglin recently said on Israel's Channel 14: "The enemy is not Hamas, nor is it the military wing of Hamas. Every child in Gaza is the enemy. We must occupy Gaza and occupy it, and not a single Gazan child will be left there. There can be no other victory."
These are not the statements of crazy people on the internet, but statements by Israeli elected officials, members of the IDF, and television commentators.
A recent poll shows that the reason these individuals say such things so freely is because a large portion of the population agrees with them.
A December 2024 Pew Research poll found that only 4 percent of Jewish Israelis believed the campaign of mass killing in Gaza had gone "too far," while 34 percent believed it had "not gone far enough."
Many Israelis have said they are unaware of what is really happening in Gaza, but this new poll, along with the increasing number of statements inciting genocide on Israeli television, suggests that they are aware of the situation and are supporting it.
Source: The Dissident