Originally published at: Israel cabinet minister suggests it may destroy Gaza with the nuclear weapons it has never admitted owning | Boing Boing
…
6 Likes
From a practical point of view: as Beau of the Fifth column pointed out, this option isn’t an option. It’s called the “Strip” for a pretty solid geographical reason - at its widest point, the Gaza Strip is about 12 km / 8 miles wide. One pretty good rule about nukes is you try to be very far away when one detonates, and this is very close.
From a diplomatic point of view, it’s strange and interesting that a cabinet minister - not some back-bench yahoo - would be talking like this. Interesting for both the “empty threat” aspect and breaching the “neither confirm nor deny” position.
21 Likes
Unless, of course, you’ve been paying any attention whatsoever to the kind of language being used to describe the Palestinians for years now by the Israeli hard right. None of the rhetoric they use should surprise us (even this kind of apocalyptic saber-rattling), because they’ve been using that language for years now when it comes to all Palestinians. They have no interest in a solution to this problem, because this problem keeps them in power. And finally, the Israeli public are aware of just how much of a failure Netanyahu’s government has bee in keeping them safe from the very people they’ve been told to fear. Let’s just hope that the Israeli left, that might actually care about crafting a real political solution to this situation, might get into power again and stop treating the Palestinians like a problem to be wiped out, and recognize their common humanity and find a way forward.
45 Likes
8 Likes
Yeah, I was just thinking how strange it is that I’m surprised by the technical details of a threat of mass indiscriminate killing, but not particularly surprised by the threat itself. Honestly, I’m a bit shocked that my gut reaction to the overall message (minus the nuclear diplomacy part) was a very unsurprised “another genocidal Likud party member, again”.
So much this.
17 Likes
That seems just bafflingly stupid even by the standards of hard-right types who feel liberated to say the quiet part out loud; which makes me wonder what the deal is.
Gaza is pretty small, the really dense bits smaller still; all in reasonably convenient artillery range and with effectively zero air defense. There’s nothing there that couldn’t be levelled or burned with conventional munitions in short order if it were deemed worth the bad press; which makes the prospect of choosing greater effectiveness in exchange for basically the worst press possible for any available weapon seem like a very curious choice.
I’m not expecting him to refrain out of the goodness of his heart; but when the primary limitation is what you can get away with choosing the maximum opprobrium option rather than heavy deployment of conventional munitions along with pious reiterations of how careful and discriminant you are being in using them seems like an obviously bad choice.
13 Likes
This guy is likely apocalyptically minded, and would gladly destroy the region so long as it destroys the hated other.
The Far right believe in the use of violence, and even extremes like this, to “cleanse” the world of those they hate. They will go through whoever to do so.
Let’s start believing these assholes when they show us who they are.
26 Likes
I doubt this person gave a second’s thought to whether one made any strategic sense; fascism is all about brute strength and willingness to use it, and a nuke is a manifestation of that. Donald Trump wanted to nuke a hurricane.
27 Likes
If anything, the more dead the better, because it shows just how “tough and manly” you are, unbothered by emotions and compassion for your fellow man. For these types, nothing is more antithetical to their worldview than compassion and caring about human life. It’s there to be subjugated and brutalized if not. I can not stress enough how little they care about the preservation of life, even of their own young men, who are right now, dying in this incursion into Gaza…
15 Likes
Not Likud, he’s Otzma Yehudit. They’re basically Kahanists (racist far-right fundies) with a different name.
14 Likes
What utter stupidity combined with massive ego, though; use a nuke there and EVERYONE dies, including the perpetrator.
8 Likes
Yep, like I said, what matters to them is showing how tough they are, and not giving a shit about the consequences of violent action.
5 Likes
Heard.
I agree; it’s fucking insane.
10 Likes
It’s a hard mindset to wrap one’s head around, I think.
5 Likes
I concur.
6 Likes
7 Likes
I wonder if Amihay Eliyahu volunteered to take one for the team to put an even more horrendous scare on the Palestinians. It’s always been believed that Israel had nuclear weapons, so no big secret lost. And Netanyahu gets to play the “reasonable one”.
6 Likes
I got in a pretty heated argument with a good friend of mine earlier today over the whole situation (not the nuke threat, we hadn’t heard that at the time). She’s Jewish, and I intellectually understand where she’s coming from emotionally, but she keeps saying the dumbest shit and my stupid mouth cannot stay shut. Like today it was (I’m paraphrasing), “Why don’t the other Palestinians just kick Hamas out of Gaza? That’s what they need to do.” And so I could not let that go unchallenged, even though I probably should have, and things just went downhill from there.
11 Likes
Right?
It seems unlikely to me he actually meant it. OF COURSE actually nuking Gaza is a fucking ridiculous idea.
6 Likes
Apparently he’s the minister for heritage.
The Ministry of Heritage is responsible for developing tangible and intangible national heritage assets, preserving content of national historical importance while making them accessible to the public, and encouraging the assimilation of national heritage into the education system and to IDF, as well as other activities.
https://www.gov.il/en/departments/ministry_of_heritage/govil-landing-page
3 Likes
