Barbara BorgesMay 30, 2025
Itamar Turner-Trauring

Apparently 82% of Israeli Jews support ethnic cleansing, per this survey reported by an Israeli newspaper.

For some historical context, when I was a kid living in Israel, political parties supporting ethnic cleansing were illegal.

(The fact they're surveying Jews specifically is because there are also ~20% of population who are Palestinian citizens of Israel, who tend to have very different views and also a lot less influence on outcomes. These latter are not to be confused with Palestinians in Gaza and West Bank, who are not citizens of Israel.)

https://archive.is/85C4v

UPDATE: A rebuttal suggesting numbers aren't as high as that - https://archive.is/iJoEJ

May 30, 2025 at 7:03pmWeb
Show threadDiego Mascarell ⁂  🏳️‍🌈May 31, 2025

@itamarst ŝajnas ke, la 82% de la israelaj judoj estus tranĉoj da fifeko

Apparently, 82% of Israeli Jews would be pieces of shit

Show threadItamar Turner-TrauringMay 31, 2025

@MascarellDiego On the one hand, sure, but also "these figures mark a sharp rise from a 2003 survey, in which support for such expulsions stood at 45 percent." So the real question is how does a society go into this sort of moral collapse.

And you need a systemic explanation, it's not like 40% of people suddenly become _individually_ worse people.

Show threadCurioso 🍉 🇺🇦 (jgg)May 31, 2025

@itamarst @MascarellDiego

Fear.

The far right has always fed on fear, and tried to breed it. And this is a war between two far right parties, so there is plenty of fear to be had.

Fear out of bonds leads to hate crimes and genocide.

History repeats itself.

Show threadJacquelineJul 5, 2025

@itamarst the Israeli state did ethnic cleansing for much of its history. It otherwise wouldn't exist.

The only difference is that it used to be illegal to say it out loud, and now it's not because MAGA style fascists are in charge.

Show threadItamar Turner-TrauringJul 6, 2025

@burnoutqueen It started with ethnic cleansing, but it wasn't legal to advocate for _further_ ethnic cleansing. Political parties got banned from running for parliament for this.

In the West Bank there was slow creeping ethnic cleansing, yes, but compared to what is happening right now, let alone what is being proposed, it was a lot slower.

In 2004, Ariel Sharon, who was a war criminal even according to Israel (but got elected Prime Minister anyway), _removed_ Jewish settlement in Gaza (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_disengagement_from_the_Gaza_Strip). And the goal was still a Jewish ethno-state but the main worry was about Palestinians demanding a one-state solution combined with lower Jewish birth rates, so the goal was to have a Jewish majority core with a clear border. Netanyahu resigned from the government over this... The plan was not ethnic cleansing at the time.

So the difference is very much not just about being able to say it out loud. This is a massive escalation.

Or another example, if you look at pre-October 2023 Israeli military operations, they'd kill 10× the number of Palestinians or Lebanse for every Israeli killed https://statistics.btselem.org/en/stats/since-cast-lead/by-date-of-incident?section=overall&tab=overview.

Since then it's 100× Gazans killed for every dead Israeli.

Israeli disengagement from the Gaza Strip - Wikipedia