Dahlia Scheindlin recently analyzed the grim results of polling among Israelis toward the current war on Gaza civilians, referring in particular to a survey conducted by Tamir Sorek of Pennsylvania State University:
Every so often something forces Israelis to confront the terrible things their society has done. This can happen anywhere. The Israeli historian Elazar Barkan wrote a whole comparative study about how countries acknowledge their historic guilt. But it's ironic that in the midst of the most brutal action Israel has ever perpetrated, it was a public opinion survey that sparked such a reckoning. ...These reports on Israeli attitudes toward the current genocidal war its government is waging against Palestinians are reminders that knowledge about the Holocaust as such does not necessarily make people more self-critical about the ideas and attitudes that can and do wind up supporting genocidal actions of crimes like forcible ethnic cleansing. The latter requires some substantive understanding of the historical situations in which actual genocides have occurred, and a basic sense of moral justice and historical responsibility. (3)
Within days I began receiving anguished inquiries about the results. Friends, colleagues, peace activists, journalists and strangers wrote in from Australia to Uruguay to down the block, asking if it could possibly be true that 82 percent of Israeli Jews support "the transfer (expulsion) of residents of the Gaza Strip to other countries?" No less than 54 percent of Jewish respondents were "very" supportive.
Other findings were grim: A majority of 56 percent of Jews supported the "transfer (forced expulsion) of Arab citizens of Israel to other countries." And when asked directly whether they agreed with the position that the IDF, "when conquering an enemy city, should act in a manner similar to the way the Israelites acted when they conquered Jericho under the leadership of Joshua, namely, to kill all its inhabitants?" nearly half, 47 percent, agreed. (2)
Notes:
(1) The international community must impose sanctions to end the war: Gideon Levy. The Hindu YouTube channel 06/02/2025. <https://youtu.be/a3aDIsRvj5E?si=R7SL85Oln6DVcQG0> (Accessed: 2025-04-06).
(2) Scheindlin, Dahlia (2025): A Grim Poll Showed Most Jewish Israelis Support Expelling Gazans. It's Brutal - and It's True. Haaretz 06/03/2025. Full link: <https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2025-06-03/ty-article/.premium/a-grim-poll-shows-most-jewish-israelis-support-expelling-gazans-its-brutal-and-true/00000197-3640-d9f1-abb7-7e742b300000?gift=69d309e822f444fd8e5cecb998244ebb> (Accessed: 2025-04-06).
(3) See: Foster, Stuart et. al. (2020): Holocaust Education: Contemporary challenges and controversies. London: UCL Press. <https://muse.jhu.edu/book/81875>
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