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Israel’s role as a safe haven for Jewish people after the Holocaust is central to its identity and values as a modern, democratic state. And so it was striking to read, in a recent story by my colleague Azam Ahmed, multiple prominent Israelis, including former military and intelligence officials, using World War II comparisons to describe what’s currently unfolding in the West Bank. “Eighty years after the Holocaust, ‘Mein Kampf’ in reverse,” one said; another called it “ethnic cleansing.”
Azam spent over a month on the ground reporting on the impunity of settlers attacking Palestinians, a source of growing concern around the world. (Before turning his attention to the West Bank, he also investigated the impunity of U.S.-backed forces in Afghanistan, and won a Pulitzer for it.) I asked him what he learned during a recent trip to the West Bank with retired Israeli generals.
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The retired generals sounding the alarm over the West Bank
Azam, you recently accompanied a group of retired Israeli officials and military officers to the West Bank. How did that happen? And what did you see?
One of these generals had known our colleague Ronen Bergman for a long time and asked whether we’d like to come along. We saw villages where settler violence has cleared entire communities. You walk around and it’s like a ghost town. There are the remnants of shepherding pens and homes. But no people.
The most striking thing to me was the language these former military officers used to describe what’s happening. They openly called it “ethnic cleansing.” They also referred to “Jewish terrorism” — the idea that in the name of Judaism settlers terrorize innocent farmers, women and children, and sometimes even kill them.
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