Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has said Israel would stop its military operations only if “hundreds of thousands” of Palestinians are removed from Gaza and Syria is partitioned, among other conditions, The Times of Israel reported on Tuesday.
“With God’s help and the valor of your comrades-in-arms who continue to fight even now, we will end this campaign when Syria is dismantled, Hezbollah is severely beaten, Iran is stripped of its nuclear threat, Gaza is cleansed of Hamas and hundreds of thousands of Gazans are on their way out of it to other countries, our hostages are returned, some to their homes and some to the graves of Israel, and the State of Israel is stronger and more prosperous,” Smotrich said in a speech at a Jewish settlement in the West Bank.
Smotrich, a West Bank settler himself, is a major proponent of the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and the collective punishment of the civilian population. He said last year that it may be “moral and justified” for Israel to starve millions of Palestinians in Gaza to death.
Smotrich, leader of the Religious Zionism party, has significant power in the Israeli government and threatened to quit the coalition if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu didn’t break the ceasefire deal that was signed in January and restart the genocidal war after the first phase was completed.
Addressing Netanyahu in his speech on Tuesday, Smotrich said it was the “hour to change the history of the State of Israel and the Jewish people.”
“The government of Israel and the entire people of Israel will be with you and behind you in the decision to do everything in our power to fortify Israel’s security. You, and we, have no mandate to miss this opportune moment,” Smotrich added.
Smotrich recently visited the US and received a warm welcome from the Trump administration. He met with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and thanked the administration for the “unequivocal support of the State of Israel in the critical war of existence we are waging.”
Mental masterbation!…!
Israel continues to behave like the Germans, in days of old….! Rather shocking, actually!…!
"With God's help" to kill people, stave them to death and rape them?
Best look for another god, not one that kills anything in sight.
Ummm… that's their god. The god of the bible is rather really f**kin' evil. Also it's incompetent & stupid, but those are lesser concerns.
Many Israeli Jews have no god — they identify as “secular or not religious.”
That said, I recently began my periodic re-reading of the Bible, and yeah, the preeminent god in the Old Testament (early on that text claims the existence of other gods) is pretty bloodthirsty. I’m in Exodus at the moment, and that particular god brags to Moses that he will “harden the heart of the Pharaoh” so that there can be a lovely bloodbath including the deaths of all firstborn sons and livestock before the Jews are allowed to leave, then “harden the heart of the Pharaoh” again to make him get stupid and march his troops into the Red Sea, rather than just “soften the heart” of the Pharaoh so that he says “yeah, you guys can go” when first asked. Apparently the only, sole, and complete goal of that god in that situation was to kill a bunch of people so he could show off, even if he had to create an unnecessary conflict to do it.
That's EXACTLY what the OT god did – just show off because he could. It's amusing to hear theists and Apologists trot out the [Free Will Argument] to counter [The Problem Of Evil] only to run smack-dab into [God v. Pharaoh] or the OTHER times the biblical god overrides somebody's Free Will as it suits him.
Good on you for making that literary slog again ! I read the bible (probably RSV edition) cover-to-cover over about eighteen months from age 16 – and lard tunderin' jaysus was that a grind. And I got through The Silmarillion, so that's saying something !
From what I understand the Exodus, the Jews were not chased out of Egypt, but left due to a pandemic, and were not allowed back as long as the pandemic was still under way.
According to Exodus, the Jews asked to leave, were refused permission, then their god (who had “hardened the Pharaoh’s heart” to get that refusal) caused the “pandemic,” then they were allowed to leave but chased (and their chasers killed).
Saying the quiet part out loud now, and my country’s
leaders cheer them on. We are in a rapid descent to hell.
I can't get over that. I keep wondering if they have access to what these monsters are saying. Just between Netanyahu, Smotrich and Ben Gvir there are enough quotes to make even the most hardened pro-Israeli member of congress cringe.
It’s hard to wrap your mind around it. I think they exhibit a special kind of depravity. Some will probably claim ignorance, but at this stage, with mountains of evidence all around, there’s no way they could not know. Ignorance by choice or the full throated endorsement of genocide….either way, at this point they’re just in the way.
“…we will end this campaign when Syria is dismantled, Hezbollah is severely beaten, Iran is stripped of its nuclear threat, Gaza is cleansed of Hamas and hundreds of thousands of Gazans are on their way out of it to other countries, our hostages are returned, some to their homes and some to the graves of Israel, and the State of Israel is stronger and more prosperous."
Death To Smoochy is kind of a remarkable idiot – not only has he managed to create a list of conditions that will be impossible for the ASI to ever accomplish (establishing a forever-war state), he has ALSO somehow managed to state out loud the full & comprehensive wish-list of the morons in charge of the ASI (limiting it to "only those goals")
IF ethnic cleansing and collective punishment are justifiable, then Israel deserves it more than any other country on Earth. They had best be more cautious about proving their point.
Hezbollah Beaten-Iran stripped of N-Threat-Gaza is cleansed of Hamas
Then why the fuck still bombing Gaza, bombing Lebanon, and threatening Iran with air strike…?!
Some questions I have :
1. How "severe" is "severely beaten" ? Is it just paralysed, or exterminated, tactically kicked in the d**k or what ? That's like saying "let's hobble childhood leukemia !"
2. What does "dismantled" mean for Syria ??
3. So "some" of "our hostages" return to their homes, "some" to their graves (read : "all")…where do the rest go ???? [Dead, alive] is kind of a binary.
DTS has dreadful speechwriters.