.png)
Why do these expressions evoke so much fear and anger among the people of Israel?
Recently, Moshe "Bogie" Ya'alon, a former defense minister, dared to say that Israel is committing ethnic cleansing in Gaza.
In response, he faced severe backlash. Some suggested he should be sent to prison or a mental hospital with a diagnosis of insanity. Others claimed that in his old age, he is disgracing his earlier years. Perhaps the opposite is true.
Given today's political climate, it is clear that if he were an ordinary citizen, he would have been summoned for questioning.
The public is outraged and cannot comprehend how such statements could be made about their "moral army."
The prime minister explained to the public that on October 7th, a Holocaust was perpetrated against Jews once again. Since then, everything is justified because of the massacre committed against them. But how can it be that someone, along with many others, argues that October 7th was a massacre against the citizens of Israel, not against Jews as such?
A military response meant to defend the state does not necessarily justify a reflection of a racist Holocaust against another people—the Palestinian people.
The establishment of the State of Israel was necessary to address the horrors of the Holocaust. But the state was not founded with a license to commit atrocities against another people living in this land. The horrors of the Holocaust do not grant immunity or pardon to commit crimes against humanity.
On the contrary, logic demands that a people who have known what it means to be victims of racist rhetoric and actions should act morally and refrain from delighting in acts of revenge.
Self-defense does not justify starvation, torture, or massive killings through indiscriminate bombings—acts of cruelty, poisonous incitement, and nationalism. Palestinians are human beings. Through acts of cruelty, Israelis transform themselves into beings no longer soldiers but creatures driven by power, money, and pride. Jewish arrogance stirs within us, Israeli citizens, shame and disgrace, diminishing our desire to remain one people.
Along with the fallen soldiers and Palestinian civilians, all the values of a decent state are collapsing.
From a people destroyed, we have become a people that destroys.
Hamas did not commit its atrocities against the Jewish people but against citizens of the State of Israel. The state, which has existed for 76 years, is meant to act as a state, not as a Jewish tribe.
Yes, Moshe "Bogie" Ya'alon, a former defense minister, does not believe that security requires abuse and dehumanization of people. It does not require punishment or massive destruction driven by revenge and a megalomaniac illusion of conquest and the establishment of additional settlements.
Minister Israel Katz fights for the release of Jews from prison even when they attack Palestinians. The ministers of this government live in Judea, not in the State of Israel.
"Genocide" and "ethnic cleansing" are returning to us, within the Jewish state. The Nazis exist within us, and identifying with them leads to a state that reverts to the past, to history, and does not face the future. It is trapped in a closed cycle of repetition, with no political horizon.
A state working to eliminate the position of the legal advisor because "the minister is the law" and dismantling public media is suspected of concealment. A government that seeks to keep the truth hidden from the eyes and ears of its citizens wants subjects who, like the Germans who didn’t want to know, might also become deaf and blind.
One can observe the slide into the decay of democracy and complete identification with racist values.
After the slogan "Together we will win," we will not be so "together" because we are different people with different moral values. Some of us do not revel in victory and vengeance, do not love hatred, and prefer to live rather than die. We prefer to unite around values rather than unifying hatred.
We are in a party of all its citizens—different citizens who want to live in the State of Israel without religion because we have overcome the Nazism living within us. We aim to build a moral state, with fewer notifications to families, fewer fallen soldiers who are also innocent, and less pride in eliminating human beings.
The "People of the Book" is gradually becoming a people that worships power through planes and weapons.
This kind of power does not impress us.
Everyone sympathizes with the hostages, but who is the public addressing? Even the prime minister walks around with the yellow ribbon, yet he is the one who doesn’t bring back the hostages because his interior security minister shouts that he refuses to release Sinwar.
They will call us anti-Semitic citizens, but we came here, to Israel, not because we returned to some forgotten homeland. We are here to live with you, the Palestinians.
When public discourse blends images of the massacre of October 7th with the 9th of Av, equating the burning of the Temple with the burning of homes in Nahal Oz, it reinforces a cycle that sees the state as the "Land of the Patriarchs." In contrast, we think of a land for all.
The zealots are leading us to ruin, to self-destruction. At least one, Moshe "Bogie" Ya'alon, is ashamed and shouts the truth. To see the present clearly, we must act for the future.
If nationalism wins, the subject will die.
Anna Gelman
Clinical Psychologist
Lacanian Psychoanalyst
Member of the council of the "All Its Citizens" party