Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has always advocated for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, but has dressed himself up as someone who wants peace, all the while continuing to steal Palestinian land for Jewish settlements and to deny Palestinians their civil and political rights on lands in which Israel controls. In a November, 1989 speech, Netanyahu said: Israel should have exploited China s suppression of the demonstrations [Tienanmen Square], at a time when the world s attention was devoted to events in that country, in order to conduct mass expulsions of the Arabs [sic] of the Occupied Territories. However, to my sorrow, they [government ministers] didn t support the policy I espoused and whose implementation I continue to recommend. Most of the world knows Netanyahu is not a peace maker. Yet, Israeli apologists will argue that if only Israel would elect someone from other  moderate  parties in Israel, then he/she would take a softer stance on Palestinians and thus peace could be achieved. However, those who believe this nonsense are naive. Israel has a deep rooted culture of ethnic cleansing that dates back to the early Zionists and it is at the very core of today s Israel.When the first Zionist delegation came to Palestine from Europe in the 19th century looking to colonize the country and create their Jewish state, they declared that the  Bride is beautiful but she s married to another man,  meaning that there was already an existing people and culture in the country   the Palestinians. However, that didn t stop the Zionists from pursuing their agenda of wanting to create a Jewish state despite the fact that 97% of the population wasn t Jewish. We must keep in mind that the ideology of Zionism advocates not only for a Jewish state but the state must be majority Jewish. Thus, a major dilemma for the Zionists was how to create a majority Jewish state in a country where the majority of the population wasn t Jewish. The answer was to bring European Jews to the country on the one hand and to pursue the policy of ethnically cleansing Palestinians on the other.That Zionist culture of ethnic cleansing came into fruition in 1948. Despite massive European Jewish immigration into the country for 50 years, the Jewish population never reached a majority, accounting for about 30% of the population. Thus, in order to attain the majority Jewish state, David Ben-Gurion, who would later become Israel s first prime minister, unleashed Operation Plan Dalet, a campaign of ethnic cleansing that saw the destruction of hundreds of villages and the forced expulsion of close to a million Palestinians out of the country. Today, they and their descendants number in the millions.In 1967, Israel conquered the remaining 20% of Palestine, taking the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Despite the fact that close to 300,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed, the majority managed to remain on their lands and today the West Bank s 2.5 million Palestinians are a thorn in the side of the Zionists who have been building settlements in the heart of Palestinian communities throughout the West Bank and thirst for more Palestinian land. The United Nations considers Israel s presence in the West Bank and Gaza to be illegal and their building of settlements to be in violation of the fourth Geneva Conventions. Yet, Israel continues building, confiscating lands, blowing up Palestinian property to make way for Israeli expansion and then killing Palestinians when they complain and labeling them as terrorists when they resist.Calls for the ethnic cleansing and genocide of Palestinians continues to this day. While Netanyahu is currently the prime-minister, a new generation of Israelis have called for the violent removal of Palestinians. The calls for crimes against humanity are thus not isolated to a few politicians in Israel but are at the very fabric of the ideology of Zionism and its adherents. Featured Image via Wikimedia Commons. 