Days of Palestine

Thursday, June 8
News, Occupied lands of 1948

Kahana: If I had a button that remove the Arabs, I’d press it

H.JA| DOP -

“If there was a button to erase the Arabs from here, I would press it,” the deputy minister of religious affairs in the Israeli government, Matan Kahane said as he was recording that aired on an Israeli public radio station on Tuesday, adding that he believed that the prospects for achieving “peace” with the Palestinians were not possible in the near future.

Israel Radio reported that Kahana’s statements, a member of the Yamina party— led by Naftali Bennett, came during a lecture he delivered in front of students at Derech Avot High School on Monday in the Efrat settlement, which is built on privately-owned Palestinian land between Jerusalem and Bethlehem.

In his speech to the religious high school students, Kahane said, “If there was a button you could press that would make all the Arabs disappear, that would send them on an express train to Switzerland — may they live amazing lives there, I wish them all the best in the world — I would press that button,” he said.

Kahane is also heard in the documentation from the lecture, saying, “The idea that if we withdraw and go back to the 1967 borders, there will be two states at peace with each other, I think that’s nonsense.”

The Deputy Minister of Religious Affairs in the Israeli government added that he believed that the Palestinians believed that they would never and never give up on Sheikh Munis, Tel Aviv University, saying, “The Arabs tell themselves that they are the ones who have lived here always and since ancient times, and we Jews came and expelled them, that is of course. Bullshit”

Kahana — who served and was recently reappointed as religious affairs minister — stated his opposition to the two-state solution, saying the idea that it would bring peace is “nonsense” reducing the reason of this to the fact as he states that Palestinians “will never give up Beit Gamliel and Sheikh Munis — Tel Aviv University.” referring to a Palestinian village whose residents were forced to leave in 1948, and which lay on land that today partly includes the university.

Such an n0tion albeit terrible and stems from engraved bigotry against the Arab population, which comes as no surprise since Israeli marches and protests come brawling with anti-Arab slogans calling for the death of all arabs.

 

 

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