On this edition of Parallax Views, Estee Chandler, co-host of KPFK's Middle East in Focus alongside Nagwa Ibrahim and a key organizer in the pro-Palestinian social justice organization Jewish Voice for Peace, joins us to discuss the controversial, right-wing Israeli Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich's comments calling for the Palestinian village of Huwara in the occupied West Bank to be "wiped out". Smotrich made the comments shortly after Israeli settlers laid waste to...
On this edition of Parallax Views, Estee Chandler, co-host of KPFK's Middle East in Focus alongside Nagwa Ibrahim and a key organizer in the pro-Palestinian social justice organization Jewish Voice for Peace, joins us to discuss the controversial, right-wing Israeli Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich's comments calling for the Palestinian village of Huwara in the occupied West Bank to be "wiped out". Smotrich made the comments shortly after Israeli settlers laid waste to the village reportedly burning down houses and cars in a rampage last week. “I think that Huwara needs to be wiped out," remarked Smotrich at a March 1st, 2023 conference of the Israeli business newspaper TheMarker, "but the State of Israel needs to do it, most certainly not private citizens." In response to Smotrich's comments, the activist group Jewish Voice for Peace released an action statement calling the comments genocidal and urging the administration of President Joe Biden to respond by barring Smotrich from entry to the U.S. and ending unconditional military funding and support to Israel. Although the U.S., through the voice of State Department Spokesman Ned Price, has in no uncertain terms referred to Smotrich's comments as "repugnant", "disgusting", and "irresponsible", JVP argues that the Biden administration must take action beyond what they describe as "hollow words of condemnation".
Smotrich is scheduled to be in the United State on Sunday for an Israel Bonds conference in Washington, D.C. The Biden administration was reportedly considering denying Smotrich a visa, but the State Department has since granted a diplomatic visa for the controversial political figure. Smotrich has gone on to apologize to the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) for his remarks while simultaneously claiming the media distorted and manipulated his comments.
In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Smotrich's statements "inappropriate", before appearing to accept that Smotich had unfortunately misspoken and then going on to accuse both the Palestinian Authority and the international community of being lax on Palestinian violence and terrorism. The latter comments concerning the international community come on the heels of UN rights chief Volker Turk referring to Smotrich's so-called so-called "emotional slip of the tongue" as "an unfathomable statement of incitement to violence and hostility" at a United Nations Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva
Meanwhile, Smotrich's extreme statements about Huwara have sparked something of an uproar in the American Jewish community, and not just amongst activists associated with the explicitly anti-Zionist Jewish Voice for Peace. For instance, the Israel Policy Forum, an organization oriented towards the goal of a negotiated two-state solution between Israel and Palestine, released a statement signed by a plethora of American Jewish Community leaders not only condemning Smotrich's Huwara outburst but explicitly saying that Smotrich and his views should not be welcomed by the American Jewish community. Signatories included J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami, former Chairman of the Board of the Institute for the Study of Global Anti-Semitism and Policy Lawrence B. Benenson, former Executive Director of the American Israel Public Affairs Commitee (AIPAC), Thomas A. Dine, George W. Bush-era Under Secretary of Defense and Atlantic Council board of directors member Dov S. Zakheim, former AIPAC President Steven Grossman, former Anti-Defamation League national director Abraham H. Foxman, Square One Foundation President and Obama-appointee to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council Priscilla Kersten, National Council of Jewish Women CEO Sheila Katz, Jewish Democratic Council board member and former AIPAC board member Ada Horwich, 8 time Academy Award-winning film producer Lawrence Bender, and many others. Additionally, the Progressive Israel Network has released a statement signed by 77 Jewish American organizations pledging to shun Smotrich during his planned visit to the U.S.
Amongst the Arab nations, Smotrich has also received pushback and condemnation, even amongst state involved with the Abraham Accords or nominally less hostile relations with Israel. The Ministry of Foreign Affair in Saudi Arabia, for example, called Smotrich's remarks "racist" and "irresponsible" as well as claiming that they "reflect the amount of violence and extremist practiced by the occupying Israeli entity towards the brotherly Palestinian people." Fellow Persian Gulf nations Qatar and the United Arab Emirate (UAE) have likewise made strongly worded condemnations. Beyond those GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council States), Egypt's Foreign Ministry said Smotrich's comments are an "unacceptable and serious incitement for violence" that "contradict laws, norms, and moral values."
In this episode, Estee and I discuss not only Smotrich's disturbing response to the Israeli settler violence in Huwara and JVP's stance on how the Biden administration should've have responded to it, but a number of other issues as well including:
- JVP's opposition to Zionism; the history of Zionism and the Occupied Palestinian Territories
- The question of apartheid in relation to discussions of international law and Israel/Palestine
- Estee's background as a Jewish woman with Israeli family and her personal awakening on Israel/Palestine
- The BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) Movement and free speech
- Jewish Voice for Peace and the role Jewish people can play in Palestinian human rights activism
- Antisemitism and the controversy over the IHRA definition of antisemitism
- Settler-colonialism and Israel/Palestine
- Is the new Netanyahu government, with figures like Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir in key ministerial position, a signal of a particularly dangerous moment in Israel/Palestine?
- And more!
