Brendan O’Neill, a columnist for the magazine Spiked, discusses who really wants “ethnic cleansing” in the Middle East. Spoiler alert: It isn’t Israel. More of the British journalist’s animadversions on who is the real offender can be found here: “Who really wants ‘ethnic cleansing’ in the Middle East?,” by Brendan O’Neill, Spiked, February 8, 2025:
…What’s exasperating about all this [hysterical charge of Israel committing “ethnic cleansing] is that we’ve just come through 16 months of shameless agitation for the end of the Jewish State. Modern anti-Israel activism, at root, is a dream of ethnic cleansing. Consider Columbia. Its woke students are fuming over Trump’s Gaza idea. Yet this is a campus where apocalyptic Israelophobia has run riot since Hamas’s pogrom 16 months ago. Campus activists referred to Israel as ‘the pigs of the Earth’ and fantasised about a future when it would die. ‘We don’t want no two states / We want ’48!’, they cried, referring to 1948, when the modern state of Israel did not yet exist. Plainly put, they want the obliteration of the Jewish homeland.
‘Crush Zionism!’, the West’s activists cry. ‘End Zionism!’, their banners demand. They want the very belief in a Jewish homeland – which is all that Zionism is – killed off and buried. You should be grateful we’re not ‘going out and murdering Zionists’, said a spokesman for Columbia’s Gaza encampment last year. Trump might want to put up some plush condos in Gaza but at least he hasn’t raised the prospect of murdering everyone who believes in Palestinian statehood. Hostility to Israel’s right to exist is entirely commonplace on demonstrations in the West. That’s what ‘From the river to the sea’ means – the complete excision of the Jewish nation and its replacement by Palestine.
If you call for Israel to be completely destroyed, and its Jewish citizens to be expelled or killed, isn’t that “ethnic cleansing”? When you scream “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” you are calling for an end to the Jewish state, its replacement by a 23rd Arab state — “Palestine” — that will be judenrein.
Though the Israelis are now accused by all and sundry of committing “ethnic cleansing” or, still worse, of “genocide,” the charge is preposterous. Before the 1948 war and during it, Arab broadcasters urged the Palestinian Arabs to temporarily leave the area of Mandatory Palestine/Israel; they would then be able to return once the Arab armies had engaged in what Azzam Pasha, the Secretary-General of the the Arab League, said would be “a war of extermination and momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacre and the Crusades.” It was not to be; the tiny Jewish state fought off, and defeated the armies of five Arab states.
Was there then an “ethnic cleansing” of the Arabs who remained in Israel? In 1949, there were 160,000 Arabs inside Israel. There are now more than two million Israeli Arabs. Does that sound like “ethnic cleansing” took place? What about Gaza? In 1967, when Israel took over Gaza from Egypt, there were 400,000 Arabs living there. When Israel relinquished control of Gaza in 2005, their number had more than tripled, to 1.3 million. Ethnic cleansing? The same was true in Judea and Samaria (a/k/a the West Bank). When Israel won that territory during the Six-Day war, 900,000 Arabs lived there. Now there are three million “Palestinian” Arabs living in Judea and Samaria. Once more, I ask: “Ethnic cleansing”?
In 1949, Egypt promptly expelled any Jews who were still living in Gaza when the war ended. Jews returned to Gaza, in a handful of settlements on the border with Israel, after winning the Strip in the Six-Day War. Then, when Ariel Sharon made the decision to pull out of Gaza in 2005, the Palestinians insisted that not a single Jew would be allowed to remain. The Hamas Charter calls for the complete eradication of the Jewish presence everywhere in “Palestine.” The Palestinian Authority has made clear that in its hoped-for future state, there will be no room for Jews. But at the same time, the Palestinians, the Arabs, the Muslims would be enraged, if Israel were ever to expel large numbers of Israeli Arabs from its territory.
Brendan O’Neill wants the world to stop accusing the Jewish state, so idiotically, of “ethnic cleansing” and aim that charge instead where it is deserved: right in the black heart of Hamas and all other jihadist groups.
SKA says
A member of the British elite with a heart as well as a brain! Will wonders ever cease?
࿗Infidel࿘ says
The exception that proves the rule? Although according to Sherlock Holmes, an exception disproves a rule
Walter Sieruk says
The ones who who actually want to commit “Ethic Cleansing” eliminate In the Middle East are the Muslim terrorists of Hamas. For they have the intention to perpetrate the murderous action of genocide against the Jewish people of Israel and throughout the entire world. That had been revealed in the official charter of Hamas.
Furthermore, there is a saying among jihad -minded Muslim in the Middle East ,which is “First comes Saturday and then comes Sunday.” Which means “First eliminate the Jews and then kill all the Christians.”
Thus all Christians and Jews should be aware and knowledge about the jihadist terror/murder entities of Hamas , Hezbollah ISIS , al Qaeda and so forth.
Cynthia says
This couldn’t be more true. All Arab countries terrorized and expelled Jews from their countries after the establishment of the state of Israel. There are more Jewish refugees than Palestinian refugees from that time. But Israel didn’t create refugee camps. They were integrated into the country. The UN and the Palestinian Authority have an interest in forever refugees to ultimately destroy the Jewish state.
Jews are not allowed to live in Palestinian areas of Israel and will be violently attacked if they go in by accident.
Christians are not doing so well with Islam all over the world. They are being killed or forcibly converted all over Africa and the Middle East.
(Ethnic cleansing/genocide)
abu taleb says
Muslims want ‘ethnic cleansing’ of not only the Jews, but also the rest of the non muslims if possible. Just see how many Christians left in the MIddle East and North Africa, how many Hindus left in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. Even in the “moderate Islamic” country of Indonesia, there is hardly any Hindus left during the Islamic expansion except in Bali and Lombok islands.
Billy says
Allah wants destroy Muslims, Jews, Christians, and all Non-Muslims as taught in Islam’s Quran and in Islam’s Law, Sharia. Allah teaches and promotes hatred and violence by Muslims against Jews and Christians because infidelity is a CRIME AGAINST ALLAH. Allah in Quran 5:51 says, “O you who have believed[Muslims], do not take the Jews and the Nasara(Christians) as friends. They are friends to one another. And whoever among you takes them as friends, so surely he is of them. Surely Allah does not guide the unjust people.” See also Quran 2:63-65; 4:144; 5:59-60, 82; 7:166.
Like a Foreign Terrorist Organization(FTO) designated by the USA Secretary of State, Islam is a MUSLIM TERRORIST ORGANIZATION(MTO) to fight against Non-Muslims and NOT A PEACEFUL religion under Western Law because Islam funds, teaches, and promotes a Terrorist, Criminal Organization with Muslims as Terrorists for Allah. Under Islamic Law, it is a Crime against Allah for Muslims to neglect performing Islam’s Terrorism against Non-Muslims; Jihad means warfare against Non-Muslims to ESTABLISH THE RELIGION, ISLAM(“Reliance of the Traveller”, o9.0). More specifically, Islam is a Muslim Terrorist Ideology and Murderous, Criminal Enterprise of intolerance, continuous war, discrimination, segregation, supremacy, genocide, polygamy, propaganda, deceit, hatred, incitement, sedition, rape, terrorism, and violence against all Non-Muslims as taught in the Quran(Quran 2:216; 4:89,95; 8:12,39,74; 9:5, 21, 29, 36, 41, 49, 88, 111, 123; 21:92; 49:15 and more).
England Invaded says
Consider the ethnic cleansing in the UK by invading third worlders.
Walter Sieruk says
As far as the subject of in “Ethnic Cleansing” go’s in the Middle East it’s the Muslim terrorists of Hamas , also Hezbollah , who want to engage in the genocide of the Jewish people
The reason why so many Muslims all that vicious spite and deadly hate filled malice for the Jewish people and likewise the Jewish State of Israel It’s the Jewish State of Israel because of Islam’s “holy book” the Qur’an.
To explain this in more detail Such vicious Muslims hate towards the Jewish people is because according to Qur ‘an n ,which is the entire foundation of Islam, the Jews are “apes and swine in human form.” Such vicious and malice -filled vicious murderous spite and hate of jihadist Muslims ,as those of Hamas ,Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad for the Jewish people is based upon the foundation of Islam’s “holy book” the Qu ‘ran.
The roots of this awful Muslim murderous hostility towards the Jewish people is the result of a firm but blind and unquestioning Muslim faith in the Qu ‘ran. Which instructs in violence and killing for the cause of Islam. As found in, for example, 4: 89. 5:33. 9:5,111,123. 47:4.
In other words the Qu ‘ran inspires and causes such hideous violence. Furthermore, another role the Koran has in such deadly Islamic terror attacks in the Jewish nation of Israel is that the Koran contains many negative about the Jewish people.
The reason that the Qur ‘an reads as it does have much to do with the history of the founder and prophet of Islam, who is Muhammad. This is for a specific time period of his life Muhammad lived among many Jewish people and he liked them at first.
Later then they would not accept his claim of being of prophet, Muhammad then took is dislike to them that then turned into bitterness and even hate for them. So in the hate and bitterness he spoke many derogatory things about the as even referring to them as “apes and swine.” Such word of bitterness and hate, along with other thing he said, where written down on things and then later after his death those words were together and then eventually, in time went in the composition of the Qu ‘ran.
Therefore, that why the Koran reads and in does about the Jewish people, as in calling them descendants of “apes and swine.” As seen in the Qur ‘ran in 2:65; 7:166.; 5:60.
Furthermore, as a Christian I can keyboard that there is a chance the Muhammad actually might had been a prophet but the important thing to understand is that Muhammad was NOT a prophet send by God. Instead, Muhammad was a deceptive, lying false prophet send by Satan to lead many people astray and even and straight into hell. Jesus, in fact, had predicted and warned of the coming of such men as Muhammad. For Jesus taught “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.” Matthew 7:15. In addition, the Bible further warns that “many false prophets have gone out into the world.” First John 4:1.