Minister Ty Alexander: Professor Herf and many siders with Israel’s handling of Gaza, the West Bank, and Palestinians these past years have made errors of judgment in their analyses. One is they tend to equate Hamas with all Palestinians and so have stereotyped an entire group of people to be evil, making it so free “extermination” of everyone in Gaza and the West Bank justifiable. I put extermination in quotes because certainly it is not Israel’s nor their leaders’ public policy to wipe out Palestinians. But what I see from Israel’s leadership is a campaign to exterminate and “encourage” (that is, strong arm) relocation of Palestinians.

Genocide is defined as deliberate extermination of a national, racial, political or cultural group, and the very similar term, ethnic cleansing, is the expulsion, imprisonment or killing of an ethnic minority by a dominant majority to achieve ethnic homogeneity.

Whether or not anyone wants to admit genocide or ethnic cleansing, what I’ve seen done by Israel satisfies both terms in practical ways even if not in explicitly public ways. What I’ve seen is the wanton destruction of nearly all civil structures and utilities in Gaza leaving the majority there homeless and/or destitute, over liberal use of high munitions in populated areas, even in refugee camps and hospitals, that killed many noncombatants, talk by Israeli leadership to encourage complete relocation of Palestinians to other countries (not to mention hostile Israeli Jewish “settlers” forcibly and murderously taking over Palestinian homes and property in the West Bank and Gaza), complacent foot dragging to bring civil aid to Gaza far too late (as well as complete ineptness to have control in Gazan security and aid distribution despite having a far superior military).

These decisions in how Israel has handled Palestine were certainly not all because of inept leadership, but were strategic, because the plain truth is Israeli leadership, especially of the Right Orthodox group, do want Palestinians gone so that they can take over Gaza and the West Bank and bring the glory of a united Israel spanning Syria, the Negev, Sinai Peninsula, and even Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Arabia according to promises of Holy Land borders in scripture. Those boundaries never came to be in ancient times but were prophesied and are still to come (Yechezkel/Ezekiel 47:13-23). Yet even so, El Elyon, God Most High, never said His people were to relocate or exterminate foreigners from this border.

What was it God said?

“You will divide the land by lot for an inheritance among yourselves and among the foreigners, that is the non-Jew or non-believer, who stay in your midst. And they and the children whom they beget will be to you as the native-born among the children of Israel; they will be allotted an inheritance with you among the tribes of Israel. And in the tribe with which the foreigner resides, there you will give them their inheritance.” Those were the words of Adonai Yahovah, El Elyon, God Most High (Yechezkel/Ezekiel 47:22-23).

Share the land justly and live in peace with all your neighbors, Israel, for even when Israel has full possession of the land, God says to share it and treat all your neighbors as they are your very own people. God is not with you to expel or exterminate the non-Jew among you, now, nor in the future, so destroy the religious zealotry among you to possess all the land and ideology before worse comes because of your sins.

It is another error to think the collapse of Hamas will remedy the war and bring times of peace, because all that was done against your neighbors raised the ire of enemies to make Hamas, and all that was done to be rid of Hamas will fester more hate for you, Israel, long after Hamas has gone. Think again where your problems have come from, Israel.