It has always been said in defence of Zionism and Israel, when comparisons are made between the treatment of the Palestinians and Jews under Hitler, that however bad Zionism is they have not called for or undertaken the planned extermination of the Arabs.

The editorial of the ‘family’ magazine Fountains of Salvation, which calls for the placing of Palestinians in extermination camps, is therefore not something that can be dismissed as the isolated call of a few nutcases.

It follows events such as the adulation of Baruch Goldstein who massacred 29 Palestinians in Hebron, because they were not Jewish. It follows the defence, by hundreds of rabbis, including ‘moderates’ like Haim Druckmann, of Torat HaMelech, Word of the Kings, [see Arabs to the Ovens] which justifies the murder of non-Jews because they are non-Jewish, including the murder of babies and infants.

What we are seeing is the opening of a new chapter in Zionism. At the same time as Ehud Barak deserts the sinking ship of Israel’s Labour Party for a new ‘Democratic’ Zionist Party, i.e. Likud lite (or not so lite!) we are seeing openly exterminatory calls by the religious Zionists who set the ideological pace.

In practice Israeli soldiers are indeed taking on board the message, whether it is the murder of human rights activists, the use of phosphorous against schools, the use of poison gas against demonstrators or the deliberate shooting and murder of civilians because of a soldier’s whim. What is also clear is that those who rush to defend Israel – right or wrong – the Jonathan Hoffman’s and Stephen Pollards of this world – have decided to keep silent. Far better to attack the weak and defenceless Hamas group which the Israeli state helped create than to criticise their own.

After all blood is thicker than water and criticism of other Jews, even if they are calling for genocide, is the act of a ‘traitor’. Well I am proud to be a ‘traitor’ to Zionism and Jewish barbarism if that means keeping faith with universal human values.

Tony Greenstein

Monday, 17 January 2011 15:28
Yossi Bartal for the Alternative Information Center (AIC)

Major Israeli banks, credit institutions, and communication companies are among the advertisers in an extreme right wing weekly magazine that called for building concentration camps.

An Israeli Jewish orthodox magazine “Ma’ayanei Hayeshua” (Fountains of Salvation) that is distributed freely in hundreds of synagogues all across the country has been the center of attention after calling in its editorial for the concentration of Arabs in extermination camps. In the article, published on 25 of December 2010, the editors attack rabbis who refused to support the call against renting apartments to Palestinians and accuse them of being too cowardly to follow the biblical commend of wiping out the people of Amalek ( who through the context of the article clearly means Palestinians). In the last segment of the editorial the editors wrote “It will be interesting to see whether they (the moderate Rabbis) leave the concentration of the Amalekites [Palestinians] in extermination camps to others, or whether they will declare that wiping out Amalek is no longer relevant”.

This blunt call for a genocide against Palestinians is not new in publications of the Israeli extreme right, but this is the first time it appears in a “family” magazine with prominent advertisers. Among the companies advertising in the website of of Maayanei Hayeshua there are three major banks in Israel: Bank Hapo’alim, Bank Le’umi and Bank Discount, along with the Isracard Group that is working together with Visa, Europay and Mastercard. The national phone company, Bezeq, also advertises their international call service on the website. Even an academic institution, the Jerusalem College of Technology, published its advertisement inside the print version of the magazine.