In the weeks following Hamas’ 7 October attack, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told soldiers, ‘“you must remember what Amalek has done to you”, says our Holy Bible. And we do remember’. Israelis, he claimed, were committed to ‘completely eliminating this evil from the world’. The scale of Netanyahu’s language was echoed by members of his cabinet – part of a tide of overtly genocidal statements on Gaza by Israeli politicians and coalition members. Among them, Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu noted that Israel’s options against Hamas included dropping a nuclear bomb on the besieged strip.
At first, little attention was paid to these statements by Israeli leaders. The shock of the horrific attack by Hamas combined with public support for the war made such comments appear relatively ‘normal’. Despite being translated and republished around the world, the weight of these words only began to register with the Israeli media and public when quoted at the Hague during South Africa’s appeal to the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
