Russian Isrealis Support Ethnic Cleansing of Arabs

A new survey published by Israel National News, itself a far-right online news site, reports that 77 percent of Israeli Russians [or Russian-Israelis] favor the ethnic cleansing of Arabs from the Jewish state.

Arabs in Israel "proper" make up 23% of the population numbering over 1.3 million. Palestinian citizens of Israel [or Israeli-Arabs/Arab-Israelis] are the Palestinians who remained on the land that was once all Palestine when Israel was created. The establishment of Israel lead to the ethnic cleansing of 800,000 Palestinians which Palestinians call their Nakba [Catastrophe], of the Palestinian population at the time roughly 130,000 remained in 1948 Palestine.

They lived under martial law until 1969 and have long been a second-class or even third-class grouping of citizens. Their numbers have naturally multiplied and many of them have become very vocal and advocating for their equal rights in a nation that likes to brag about being "the only democracy in the Middle East."

Despite constant effort by Israeli efforts to undermine Palestinian nationalism among Arabs in Israel, the entire effort has failed. Palestinians in Israel take great pride in the heritage and culture. Consequentially, in a settler-colonial state that defines itself along chauvinistic, ethnic lines; Arabs pronunciations of equal rights with Jews has brought great resentment among many Israelis. The majority of Israelis admit to harboring prejudice against their fellow Arab citizens.

Among Israelis, those of Russian descent are most hostile. This is not surprising. First, Israelis from Russia lack the appreciation for equal rights and democratic government than an Israeli from, say, Europe or America. This is not to say that such pro-ethnic cleansing views do not emanate from European-Israelis; they do exist in such Israelis. But given the authoritarian country Russian-Israelis come from, a nation that has never upheld minority rights including those of Jews; it is not surprising that such views are more widely held among Russians in Israel.

The Russian bloc has risen to political power in the mold of Avigdore Lieberman and his ultra-nationalist, anti-Arab party Yiseal Bietenu [Israel Is Our Country]. Lieberman is a child from the Soviet Union and unabashedly argues for a loyalty oath for Arabs in Israel and even drawing their communities outside of the border of Israel. Lieberman maintains strong support among Russian-Israelis and one of his campaign videos featured a Russian singer.

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His campaign poster reads "Lieberman Speaks Arabic." He doesn't really, the message is that he knows how to deal with the nation's Arabs.

The militancy of the Soviet Union, the lack of regard for the rule of law and the disdain for minority in the name of the "Mother Country" are all exhibited in Lieberman's party and widely shared by Russians in Israel. I emphasize Soviet Union nationalism as featuring these grotesque traits, not Russian nationalism per se. They, Russian Israelis, have brought up them such traits and made Israeli society even more militant and racist toward Arabs.

What is ironic and a grave injustice is that besides the fact that unlike the Palestinians they want to kick out, these Russian-Israelis do not have any meaningful roots to the land; but they can't even claim a Biblical connection to the land as most Jews do to justify their colonization. That is because a great deal of Russian-Israelis are not even Jews, but when the Soviet Union collapsed many of them saw Israel, a nation with a higher per capita GDP to this day, as a great refugee. So they falsified their documents pretending to have a, say, Jewish mother or grandfather so they could enter the country under the "Law of Return."

This is Israel: a nation where people without even the excuse of Biblical connection claim the right to subject families living on the land for centuries to loyalty oaths in subservience to the new arrives and threaten to eject them from their lands.