A nation erased

When asked why his latest map has erased the whole of the West Bank, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu retorted with the most detestable answer. “I didn’t include the Dead Sea. It’s not shown on the map. I didn’t show the Jordan River. It’s not on this map. I didn’t show the Sea of Galilee,” was Netanyahu’s response.

The Israeli leader must have known that neither the indigenous population of Palestine, nor the occupied territories of West Bank and East Jerusalem – which are recognized as such under international law – are topographical or geographical phenomena.

It should be obvious that Netanyahu has deliberately erased the West Bank from his map, which he displayed on September 2, in another one of his tirades on why Israel must maintain ‘security control’ over Gaza. There are plenty of reasons to demonstrate that this assertion is true.

One, Netanyahu has erased Palestine and the Palestinians from his previous maps as well, with the prime example being his ‘New Middle East’ map, which he proudly held during a United Nations General Assembly speech in September 2022.

Two, because Netanyahu does not even recognize such a term as the West Bank in the first place. Even in his defense of why his latest map of Israel has swallowed the West Bank, he responded by saying that he “was talking about Gaza”, not “Judea and Samaria”.

The Biblical reference to the Palestinian homeland fits perfectly into the prevailing Israeli political discourse, now championed by the most ardent far-right, ultranationalist extremists in Israeli society. Israel’s current regime simply does not believe that Palestinians have any historical claim or political rights and aspirations in their own land. Among a long stream of such comments, a few stand out. For example, in March 2023, Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich denied the existence of Palestinians during a private memorial service in Paris. There is “no such thing as Palestinians because there’s no such thing as the Palestinian people,” he said.

As for Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, the erasure of Palestinians requires action, violent action. On June 23, he said during a press conference: “The Land of Israel must be settled, and a military operation must be launched. (We must) demolish buildings, eliminate terrorists, not one or two, but tens and hundreds, and if necessary even thousands. The Land of Israel is for the people of Israel.”

And, of course, Netanyahu himself, who in March 2019, stated that Israel is “the national state, not of all its citizens, but only of the Jewish people.” Such a discourse is backed by action, namely the constant expansion of illegal Jewish settlements, the slow ethnic cleansing of Palestinian communities from various regions in the West Bank and a government program that, in April 2020, agreed to annex large parts of the occupied region.

Three, Netanyahu rejects the very discussion on a Palestinian State. He even pushed a law at the Israeli Knesset that opposed the establishment of a Palestinian State because it would pose “an existential danger to the State of Israel and its citizens, perpetuate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and destabilize the region”.

Excerpted: ‘Cartography of Genocide: Why Netanyahu Erased Palestine from the Map’.

Courtesy: Counterpunch.org