Calls for the destruction of Israel

Calls for the destruction of Israel refer to expressions that call for the elimination of Israel as a modern country, many forms of which have been seen by scholars and officials as hate speech inciting genocide against Jews due to Israel's Jewish-majority population.[1][2]

Overview

Such calls have occurred since the 1940s. In 1947, Arab League's leader Azzam Pasha said in the well-known Azzam Pasha quotation that he hoped for the Arabs not to be "forced into a war of extermination" if a Jewish state was to be founded.[3] This statement has been regarded by scholars and officials as a threat to commit genocide against Jews.[3]

Before the Six-Day War in 1967, there was reportedly a full consensus among Arab states that Israel needed to be destroyed. Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser repeatedly called for the destruction of Israel.[4] Palestinian terrorist groups, including the Hamas,[5] Houthis[6][7] and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ),[5] have called for the destruction of Israel.[8]

History

20th century

Before and after modern Israel was founded in 1948, Arab leaders in the Middle East made several statements calling for the physical elimination of Israel.[9]

Saudi Arabia

In late 1947, King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia told U.S. President Harry S. Truman:[9]

“ The Arabs have definitely decided to oppose [the] establishment of a Jewish state [. ...] such a state must perish in a short time. The Arab will isolate such a state from the world and will lay siege until it dies by famine. ”

Azzam Pasha quotation

In October 1947, in response to the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) report, Arab League's Secretary-General Abdul Rahman Hassan Azzam said,[9]

“ Personally, I hope the Jews do not force us into this war, because it would be a war of extermination and momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacre and the Crusades. ”

Arab Women's Organization

In 1948, Matiel Mughannam, the leader of the Arab Women's Organization, remarked,[10][11]

“ [A Jewish state] has no chance to survive now that the "Holy War" has been declared. All the Jews will eventually be massacred. ”

Egypt

Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser called for the destruction of Israel repeatedly. At the United Nations General Assembly in September 1960, Nasser argued that "the annulment of Israel's existence" was the only solution to the Israel–Palestine conflict. Nasser repeated in 1964,[12]

“ We swear to God that we shall not rest until we restore the Arab nation to Palestine [. ...] there is no room for Britain in our country, just as there is no room for Israel within the Arab nation. ”

In 1965, Nasser threatened,[12]

“ We shall not enter Palestine with its soil covered in sand, we shall enter it with its soil saturated in blood. ”

21st century

Iran

Since the Islamists took over Iran in 1979, opposition to the existence of Israel has been the state policy of Iran, with the two countries in a constant state of conflict.[13][14] In 2000, Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said,

“ The cancerous tumor called Israel must be uprooted from the region. ”

In 2001, Ali Khamenei stated,[15][16]

“ The perpetual subject of Iran is the elimination of Israel from the region. ”

During the Israel–Hamas war, Ali Khamenei said on May 24, 2024,[17]

“ The divine promise to eliminate the Zionist entity will be fulfilled and we will see the day when Palestine will rise from the river to the sea. ”

Academic views

Some of those calling for the end of the current State of Israel claimed that they wanted a "free and democratic state of Palestine" within the current boundaries. Academics have different views on this.

Efraim Karsh

Efraim Karsh,[a] an Israeli and British historian who is the founding director and emeritus professor of Middle East and Mediterranean Studies[18] at King's College London, commented on the matter:[19]

The new "free and democratic society" was perceived not as a true partnership between equal groups sharing sovereignty over a specific territory, but rather as an Arab-Muslim state in which Jews would be reduced to a permanent minority status, a modern-day version of the ahl al-dhimma" system of "protected non-Muslim minorities" that had existed since Islam's early days [...] The PLO's pretence that those Jewish citizens of the defunct state of Israel who would like to become citizens new Arab Palestine would be allowed to do so was patently false [...] the Palestinian National Covenant, revised in July 1968 [...] states explicitly that only those Jews "who were normally resident in Palestine up to the beginning of the Zionist invasion are Palestinians." Since most of Israel's citizens are an integral part of this "Zionist invasion," the practical meaning of this declaration is that the prospective Palestinian state would be virtually Judenrein[b].

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Hebrew: אפרים קארש; born 6 September 1953
  2. ↑ A Nazi word to designate an area that has been "cleansed" of Jews during the Holocaust.[20]

References

  1. ↑ "הפלסטינים רוצים להשמיד את ישראל" ["The Palestinians want to destroy Israel"]. www.inn.co.il (in Hebrew). Archived from the original on 2023-11-23. Retrieved 2023-11-07.
  2. ↑ Krell, Gert; Müller, Harald (2012). Noch ein Krieg im Nahen Osten? Zum misslungenen Anstoß von Günter Grass zu einer überfälligen öffentlichen Debatte [Another war in the Middle East? On Günter Grass's failed attempt to spark a long-overdue public debate]. HSFK-Report (in German). Vol. 2/2012. Frankfurt am Main: Hessische Stiftung Friedens- und Konfliktforschung. ISBN 978-3-942532-40-2. Archived from the original on 2024-09-16. Retrieved 2024-10-19.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Barnett, David; Karsh, Efraim (2011). "Azzam's Genocidal Threat". Middle East Quarterly. 18 (4). Retrieved January 12, 2025.
  4. ↑ Freilich, Charles D. (2018). Israeli National Security: A New Strategy for an Era of Change. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. pp. 34, 37. ISBN 978-0-19-060293-2.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Jaeger, David A.; Paserman, M. Daniele (2006). "Israel, the Palestinian Factions, and the Cycle of Violence" (PDF). The American Economic Review. 96 (2): 45–49. doi:10.1257/000282806777212008. ISSN 0002-8282. JSTOR 30034612. S2CID 18626011.
  6. ↑ "The Impact of the Religious Phenomenon on the Political Crisis in Yemen from 2011 to 2020: The Houthi Movement as a Case". European Researcher. 12 (1). 2021-03-12. doi:10.13187/er.2021.1.19. ISSN 2224-0136.
  7. ↑ "Houthis push for 'demise of Israel' amid attack on Red Sea ship". The Jerusalem Post. 2023-11-20. Archived from the original on 2023-11-22. Retrieved 2023-11-23.
  8. ↑ Stripling, Jack (31 December 2023). "Colleges braced for antisemitism and violence. It's happening". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 1 November 2023. Retrieved 1 November 2023.: "Defenders of the phrase [from the river to the sea...] often say that the line refers to a one-state solution to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians over that tract of land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, in which Arabs and Jews could have equal voting rights. But the U.S. and U.N. position is that Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state and that the conflict should be solved with a “two-state solution,” one country for each group".
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 Morris, Benny (2009). One State, Two States: Resolving the Israel/Palestine Conflict. New Haven: Yale University Press. pp. 108–109, 112. ISBN 978-0-300-12281-7. OCLC 253841498.
  10. ↑ Ellen L. Fleischmann (2005). "Mogannam, Matiel". In Philip Mattar (ed.). Encyclopedia of The Palestinians (Revised ed.). New York: Facts On File, Inc. p. 322. ISBN 978-0816057641.
  11. ↑ "Matiel Mogannam - Feminist Figures (1899 - 1992)". Interactive Encyclopedia of the Palestine Question – palquest. Retrieved 2024-11-18.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Sachar, Howard M. (1976, 2007) A History of Israel from the Rise of Zionism to Our Time. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 0-394-48564-5. pp. 615–16
  13. ↑ "Khamenei says Iran wants removal of Israel state not people". France 24. 2019-11-15. Archived from the original on 2020-02-13. Retrieved 2024-06-02.
  14. ↑ karbalaei (2023-11-30). "Single-State, Iran's solution to the Palestinian crisis". Strategic Council on Foreign Relations. Archived from the original on 2024-09-22. Retrieved 2024-06-02.
  15. ↑ "Threats Iranian Leaders Made Against Israel in 2013". Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. Archived from the original on 2023-11-07. Retrieved 2023-11-07.
  16. ↑ "Giving nukes to Iran will be the greatest error of the 21st century". The Jerusalem Post | JPost.com. 2022-03-10. Archived from the original on 2024-01-13. Retrieved 2023-11-07.
  17. ↑ "Iran's Khamenei tells visiting Hamas chief that Israel 'will one day be eliminated'". The Times of Israel. 2024-05-23. Archived from the original on 2024-06-02. Retrieved 2024-06-02.
  18. ↑ Professor Efraim Karsh, King's College London Research Portal
  19. ↑ Karsh, Efraim (October 2004). Arafat's War: The Man and His Battle for Israeli Conquest. Grove Press. ISBN 978-0-8021-4158-3.
  20. ↑ Scheffler, Wolfgang (2007). "Judenrein". Encyclopaedia Judaica (2 ed.). Thomson Gale.
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