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moshe feiglin
Rights Groups List 50+ Calls for Gaza Genocide on Israel's Channel 14
"Incitement to war crimes is part of the Channel 14 poison machine, and its aim is to create a forever war here," said one campaigner.
Sep 25, 2024
Since the October 7 attack, Israel's right-wing Channel 14 has broadcast over 50 statements by presenters, panelists, and guests advocating or defending genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and more than 150 calls for war crimes and crimes against humanity, according to a report published Tuesday by an Israeli newspaper.
Haaretz reported that the Israeli human rights groups—Zulat for Equality and Human Rights, Hatzlacha: Movement for the Promotion of a Fair Society, and the Democratic Bloc—have compiled a list of genocidal statements and incitements to war crimes made by individuals appearing on Channel 14 since October 7.
The groups have written to Israeli Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara requesting a criminal investigation into the station for "systematic and widespread incitement." The organizations want Channel 14 sanctioned and fined.
"On October 7, the terrorist organization Hamas committed war crimes and crimes against humanity," attorneys Michael Sfard, Alon Sapir, and Einat Gaier—who are representing the groups—told Haaretz. This caused "massive grief, deep sorrow, and burning and understandable fury."
"Israeli society is deeply traumatized, and this trauma will take years to heal," the lawyers continued. "This is exactly the type of ground upon which moral monstrosities are liable to flourish, and are flourishing."
The Haaretz article lists each incident in which genocidal statements have aired on Channel 14, with one program, "The Patriots," appearing repeatedly on the list.
On October 12, former Israeli lawmaker Moshe Feiglin—who has quoted Adolf Hitler, the leader of Nazi Germany, while arguing for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza—said on "The Patriots" that "if the goal of this operation isn't destruction, occupation, expulsion, and settlement, then we've done nothing."
Two days later on the program, presenter Nave Dromi said that "there are no innocents" in Gaza.
"In 1948, they brought the Nakba on themselves," she added, referring to the ethnic cleansing of more than 750,000 Arabs from Palestine by Jewish militias during the foundation of modern Israel. "Now they'll have a second Nakba, but for real, to finish the job."
The following day, October 15, Channel 14 aired a prerecorded message from Israeli singer Eyal Golan, who asserted that "Gaza should be totally wiped out, not one person should be left there."
Golan's message was cited in the South Africa-led genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague. Israeli State Attorney Amit Aisman is also considering a criminal investigation of Golan's remarks.
The human rights groups and Haaretz documented many other instances of on-air calls for indiscriminate bombing of Gaza, shooting civilians, and to "just exterminate" Palestinians.
Channel 14 personalities were aware of the legal implications of these statements. Following the ICJ's January order for Israel to avoid genocidal acts—which the country's far-right government has been accused of ignoring—Israeli journalist Shimon Riklin said on air that a law professor "warned me before the broadcast that if I say these things on the show I could be sued in The Hague."
"But I want you all to know that since October 7, one of the things that helps me to sleep is when I see all kinds of buildings flying through the air in Gaza, I enjoy it," he said. "Let's have more! Destroy as much as possible, so they won't have anywhere to go back to. Hang on a second, The Hague is calling... Hello?"
That same day another Israeli journalist, Itamar Fleischmann, argued on air that "the more humane solution is to starve" Palestinians in Gaza.
"And the choice is up to the civilians there," he added. "You want to keep starving? Keep supporting Hamas... That's why in my view, the Israeli interest is starvation in Gaza and a humanitarian disaster in Gaza."
At least dozens of Gazans, mostly children, have starved to death amid Israel's siege of the embattled enclave, where more than 147,000 Palestinians have been killed or injured by Israel's nearly yearlong onslaught.
"Incitement to war crimes is part of the Channel 14 poison machine, and its aim is to create a forever war here," Zehava Galon, a former left-wing Israeli lawmaker and president of Zulat for Equality and Human Rights, told Haaretz.
In a social media post, Zulat for Equality and Human Rights said Tuesday that "we specifically present here evidence of a serious crime being committed on Channel 14 and it needs to be stopped immediately."
Channel 14 "turned these statements into a systematic agenda," the group added. "An urgent investigation is required so that this incitement cannot be legitimate and allowed in Israel. It's time for the instigators to pay the price."
Israeli Politician Quotes Hitler to Argue for Resettlement of Gaza
"In what kind of society can one openly advocate policies modeled on Hitler's conduct? In a society that feels complete impunity due to America's protection," one foreign policy expert said.
Jun 16, 2024
Former Israeli Knesset member Moshe Feiglin quoted Adolf Hitler as he called for Israel to resettle the Gaza Strip and create a "Hebrew Gaza."
Feiglin, who quit Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud Party to found the right-wing Zehut Party and plans to challenge Likud in Israel's next elections, made the comments during a panel discussion on Israel's Channel 12 that was shared on social media on Sunday, as Middle East Eye reported.
"We are not guests in our country, this is our country, all of it..." Feiglin said, adding, "As Hitler said, 'I cannot live if one Jew is left.' We can't live here if one 'Islamo-Nazi' remains in Gaza."
Feiglin's remarks earned widespread condemnation on social media.
"In what kind of society can one openly advocate policies modeled on Hitler's conduct?" asked Trita Parsi, the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. "In a society that feels complete impunity due to America's protection."
Former Greek Finance Minister and leader of the pan-European leftist political party DiEM25 Yanis Varoufakis wrote that "the evidence of genocidal intentions is mounting" and asked, "When will the ICC [International Criminal Court] act?"
Israel has killed at least 37,337 people and injured 85,299 in its war on Gaza since October 7, when Hamas carried out a lethal attack against southern Israel, killing around 1,100 people and taking more than 240 hostage. Prior to the attack, Israel had maintained a 16-year blockade of the narrow enclave.
South Africa brought a case before the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza, citing the vast destruction of its bombing campaign as well as statements made by high-level Israeli politicians, including Netanyahu, that portray all Gazans as complicit in the October 7 attacks. Several human rights experts and scholars have also concluded that Israel is committing genocide.
This is not the first time that Feiglin, who served in the Knesset from 2013 to 2015, has called for the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza.
"We need a different prime minister who is willing to stick his neck out to win. Zehut will provide, whenever elections happen, such a candidate," he told supporters in January, according to Middle East Eye. "For us, the war in Gaza is not merely a defensive war. It's a war of liberation, the liberation of the land from its occupiers."
In an October 2023 interview with Al Jazeera, he also advocated for the "complete destruction of Gaza, before invading it... Destruction like Dresden and Hiroshima, without a nuclear weapon."
Zehut's 2019 platform included the cancellation of the Oslo Accords with the Palestinians, according to Haaretz.
"Don't talk to me about international law, because there is not such a thing. You know, the minute you use the word 'Palestinian,' you stop saying the truth. Because there is no Palestinian nation, and they know it," Feiglin said that same year.
Other currently governing Israeli politicians have also called for the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza.
Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said in January that the Israeli government should "encourage the migration" of Palestinians out of Gaza.
Later the same month, Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attended a right-wing conference calling for the "resettlement" of Gaza.
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