“Gaza is a graveyard,” sing joyful Israeli youths

Ali Abunimah 28 July 2014

In her latest post, my colleague Rania Khalek makes reference to “a new racist chant mocking the more than two hundred children slaughtered by Israel’s merciless bombing campaign in Gaza: ‘Tomorrow there’s no school in Gaza, they don’t have any children left.’”

This video shows an Israeli mob actually singing in celebration of children’s deaths in the style of a soccer fans’ song: “In Gaza there’s no studying, No children are left there, Olé, olé, olé-olé-olé.”

The mob also incites directly against Ahmed Tibi and Haneen Zoabi, two prominent Palestinian citizens of Israel who are members of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament.

The video of the 26 July event in Tel Aviv was published by Israeli journalist Haim Har-Zahav.

The words of the repulsive song have been translated for The Electronic Intifada by Dena Shunra:

Tibi – Ahmed Tibi
I wanted you to know
The next kid to be hurt will be your kid
I hate Tibi
I hate Tibi the terrorist.
Tibi – is dead!
Tibi – is dead!
Tibi – is dead!

Tibi is a terrorist.
Tibi is a terrorist.
Tibi is a terrorist.

They’ll take their papers away.
They’ll take their papers away.
They’ll take their papers away.
Olé, olé, olé-olé-olé
In Gaza there’s no studying
No children are left there,
Olé, olé, olé-olé-olé,

[Three lines, not entirely clear]

Who is getting nervous, I hear?
Zoabi, this here is the Land of Israel
This here is the Land of Israel, Zoabi
This here is the Land of the Jews
I hate you, I do, Zoabi
I hate all the Arabs.
Oh-oh-oh-oh
Gaza is a graveyard
Gaza is a graveyard
Gaza is a graveyard
Gaza is a graveyard

English subtitles

Tali Shapiro has posted a version of the same video with English subtitles

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Comments

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Eli Kaplan replied on

I have a very simple solution to Israel' s refusal to abide with Obamas's demand for a cease fire. Let America stop providing replacement parts for the Iron Dome and for all the rest of the equipment that Israel is using not for self- defense but to murder children in Gaza. During the Yom Kippour War, Israel could have lasted only one week without the American replacements parts

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elsa replied on

True that they are not refined people at all. If anyone speaks negatively, well, comes the qualifier stock in the broken record: anyone is anti-Semitic. Sociopaths is better. Tyrannical like unstructured anyone else, no social finesse, no social development.
Blackmailers!
How can those folks ever imagine to gain respect...respect cannot be purchased with dollars, it has to be earned, and it cannot be fabricated by Technion!!!

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Anonymous replied on

These are extreme rightists who DO NOT REPRESENT THE MAJORITY OF ISRAELIS. They are most likely doing this in response to all the anti-war Israelis that were protesting the night before by reading the names of dead Gazans in the same plaza. Both pro-war and anti-war protesting has been done under police protection since Israel is a democracy where people are allowed to protest...just like in the States where KKK marchers don't represent the majority of Americans. Once again these people do not represent the majority of Israelis...about a third of whom are not Jewish themselves

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JvdM replied on

Israel a democracy? Not to the Palestinians, who were first driven into an enclosed space that is getting smaller and smaller and now get murdered. They don't really have a say in the matter. And in a democracy there's freedom of speech. So how come students are expelled from university, if they post something that the zionists don't like? I'm saying zionists, because I know the real jews don't agree with their politics, but unfortunately they are not in control of the country - or even the world. They remember a time where they lived in peace together, like brothers. Real jews follow the thora, where it is against the will of God to create a new state of Israel, only God Himself can do that, not humans. The irony is that fake jews, who originate from the kaukasus and converted to judaism just for political reasons, are the ones who claim Israel. Their religion is pagan, the old babylon religion, based on the talmud and zohar. These books teach that it's okay to rape girls until the age of three, because supposedly until that age the hymen keeps growing back. Also it states gentiles are less than Israelites, in fact they are considered animals, and they should all be killed (so not just the Palestinians, also non jews are of no value to them). And to seize control over the whole world, it is okay to deceive and trick everyone, 'until the natural balance of things is restored', like Jacob did, when he stole Esau's first birth right. That explains why politicians always lie trough their teeth and want war, since most governments have been infiltrated by those evil satanists. So, if you're living in Israel, praise the Lord...

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james replied on

Wait, so when I see Israeli people sharing videos of extremists on the Palestinian side I'm supposed to take it as justification for the bombing of Gaza....but when the other side of the coin is shown...it's "wait! this doesn't represent us!!!"

It's time we start seeing Israelis out in force asking for a ceasefire....where pray tell is this 'silent majority'? All you see on the internet are people who support the bombing, kinda hard to imagine then that these are in the minority. A bit like it would have been hard to argue that racists were a minority in Texas when blacks were being lynched.

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juliane house replied on

The great majority of Israelis Support the massacre in Gaza. This a is the sad truth.They are Prey to the Slick spinmasters in the rightwing Israeli government. And just comparing the number of dead civilians in Gaza and Israel should open everybody's eyes. The constant Repetition of 'we are defending Israel' and 'the radical Hamas terrorists are hiding their weapons in hospitals, refugee camps,and UN schools' is wearing thin.

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Otto van Rhijn replied on

The real thoughts of Israeli are demonstrated once again. This is sick, it show how the majority of Israeli are been brainwashed by the state it self. Israel is doing worse things than Hitler did to the Jews in the WW II. Put them in an open prison, close al the borders and bomb them indiscriminately. How can one justify the ethnic cleansing, genocide, massacre of the Palestinian by the the Israeli army?

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Sid replied on

In many democracies, this would be criminalised as racist hate speech. Considering the situation, it's not far-fetched to say that these are incitement to murder (the families of Arab Knesset members) and genocide (the children of Gaza). Certainly in the UK, no such bloodthirsty 'protest' would be allowed.

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christian replied on

As the KKK do not represent the majority of americans, that majority is racist anyway, only not as extreme as KKK. And 91% of polled israeli support the assault on Gaza, so even if the song is not supported by a majority of israeli, the majority is racist.

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farid replied on

Israel is democracy!? What about this fact:
15 arrested in a peaceful Solidarity with Gaza demonstration -one parlamant member is among the demonstrators, and she got arrested- , the next day, even more peaceful demonstration shared by arabs and jews and calls for the fighting to stops was interrupted by 300 right extremist hooligans who came to the site just to "teach the anti-war activist a lesson" guess how many arrests? Just one hooligan! ! The police is sending a clear message of democracy

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Anonymous replied on

So are you denying the fact that over 80% of Israeli citizens support this massacre? You should check your statistics. America is a cultural melting pot with all races and ethnicities living there and the KKK does not represent the majority of american citizens. You people, on the other hand, have shut people in a pen and are murdering them for sport.

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Bilbo replied on

well israel is based on zionism and zionsim is all about extreme rightists (DOT)

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Fernando Cerezal replied on

Israel se reconoce como un estado democrático pero ¿cómo puede permitir semejante ejemplo de NAZISMO puro? Israel es un estado realmente despreciable, copado por el nazi-sionismo. Ya está bien de hablar de anti-semitismo. BDS es lo que se merece hasta que se acabe el apartheid y devuelvan los territorios ocupados a sus verdaderos dueños.
Mientras ¿qué hace la Unión Europea? Hay que llevar a los genocidas a la Corte Penal Internacional por crímenes contra la humanidad y genocidio.

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nomoralequivalence replied on

This is truly disgusting and, if the prevailing view in Israel, explains the contempt shown by the Israeli population generally, and by Israeli soldiers for people and property in the occupied territories. Even more nauseating is that they wage war on Gaza as a pretext to split the united front between the PA and Hamas claiming that the latter were responsible for the abduction and murder of 3 Israeli settlers. The result is that the 4th biggest army in the world armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons can shell children in plain view on the beach repeatedly until they are blown to pieces on live TV, as well as hospitals and schools and blow up mosques and minarets for target practice, while their own citizens shelter under the worlds most sophisticated anti-missile shield from the puny homemade rockets fired by Hamas and yet claim that there is some kind of equivalence ... sick!

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tom hall replied on

Fascist mobs like this one have become a common sight in Israel. They didn't spring up overnight and without encouragement. The country is an incubator of racism, from the official to the personal level. There's no need to rehearse here the numerous provocations uttered by mainstream figures in the Israeli establishment. It's enough at this point to mark the social parallels with Nazi Germany. The character of the Zionist regime is evident in each of its actions and institutions, and it bleeds effortlessly into the malignant chants and dancing of these mobs. The world must be made to see these features of Israeli life and to understand that they are not lamentable aberrations but rather expressions of the dark soul of that nation.

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Bilal replied on

Yup - We do have a "Special" relationship with Israel. It is the equivalent of a Parasite and the Host. The host is protecting what it thinks is his friend while the friend eats it away from the inside. Look at where America was and where it is now when it comes to the principals that this country was built upon!!!!

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Anonymous replied on

It is frightening and outlandish to view a video like the one above. It conjures words like Holocaust, propaganda, genocide. However, we must strive to remember that the largest scale genocide in human history was less than a century ago, and that they feel a similar incident may reoccur. One must also note that the people in this video represent a tiny portion of all Israelis, and that a third or more of these people are not even Jews; they are young men looking for a fight. Mobs of the same mentality are found all over the world, including the USA, Canada, France, Great Britain...

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juliane house replied on

This is the worst excuse I have read in a long time. Those despicable racist cheerers can be excused because they fear a second Holocaust by the Palestinians?? Israel is armed to the hilt - and the Palestinians? Sad, however more effective the Israeli Propaganda machine has become. But this is not really the Point: the Point is that over 1700 human beings have been killed , nearly 7000 are injured, nearly 170 000 displaced- against 55 Israelis who died.

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Maura replied on

The largest scale genocide in the past 100 years was in Stalin's Russia- well over 20 million. Or maybe it was in Mao's China

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Gypsy replied on

I beg to differ with Anonymous that this is a "rare sight" in Israel. Does he/she recall Israelis in their beach chairs cheering as they watched missiles being fired into Gaza? How about the Israel children penning vile messages on outgoing missiles? The kidnapping of and burning alive of a West Bank boy by Israeli youth? The truth is that this is the result of ZIONIST CONDITIONING from birth, and that 87% of Israel citizens believe that by massacring Gazans, the government is doing the "right thing".
BTW, I don't ever recall seeing film of Nazis cheering for ever increasing murder. What does that say about you, Israel? You're worse than your former tormenters!
Fernando: Yo soy en acuardo con su opinion. Muchas gracias.

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Anonymous replied on

These people are absolutely a rarity in Israel. The people that were sitting on a chair watching explosions in Gaza were citizens of sderot a city that has been on huge receiving end of missiles from Gaza since Israel yanked all it's citizens out and have it over to the PA. Everything you are saying is either fully or slightly incorrect. The boy who was abducted and murdered was from Jerusalem NOT the West Bank and the people who did it were captured within days and are now sitting in jail awaiting trial which will surely end with the rest of their lived in prison. In contrast of course to the abductees of 3 Israeli kids who are sitting safely protected by their underground tunnel.

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Tom Pain replied on

The parallels between the vicious Israeli slaughter of the people of Gaza and the WW2 event known as the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and Liquidation are uncanny and bizarre. Surely the people of Israel can see the similarities, as they have monuments to the Warsaw Ghetto fighters. The mantra (repeated by Israel, US politicians and media) "Israel has a right to protect itself" is a vile attempt to eclipse the fact that Palestinians also have a right to protect themselves, their property and their resources. The really sick part of this is that Israelis also know that from their inception the German Nazi Party justified their vicious anti-Semitic policies with the similar phrase "Germany has a right to protect itself"!

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joanne replied on

We are a predator species killing one another and the planet so that a few of us will live in luxury, a+d forever in their supremacist dreams. Are people of conscience capable of thwarting the savage stupidity that has invented murderous machines ever more deplorable and perpetrated genocide routinely throughout history? How DO the masterminds accomplish such abhorrent carnage century after century? How??? Wisdom, rare and precious, has not saved us from ourselves, by Guiding us toward All that is Good. ISrael is a failure. The US is a failure. Democracy, capitalism, religion, communism...all failures. Homo sapiens is a failed species!

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Yog replied on

Polls taken yesterday (when over 1350 Palestinians, 80% of whom are civilians have already died) in Israel say that almost 90% of the *average Israeli public* is not willing to have a ceasefire. CNN even interviewed some Israelis on the streets who said clearly that they are "not apologetic about the deaths of children" in Gaza.

Also remember, this is a country whose greatest heroes were actually terrorists---folks like Ben Gurion, Shamir, Begin, Dayan were, by the dictionary definition of the word, terrorists. They attacked civilian arabs in order to drive them out of their homes, and create land for the establishment of Israel. When a nation is based on such a crime, what more do you expect from it.

I am a very devout Hindu btw. And I am saying all this inspite of the incredible cruelty towards Hindus shown by moslems through the centuries (including the 1971 genocide of over 2 million Hindus by the Pakistan army in what is today's Bangladesh). Two wrongs do not make a right.

Ali Abunimah

Co-founder of The Electronic Intifada and author of The Battle for Justice in Palestine, now out from Haymarket Books.

Also wrote One Country: A Bold-Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse. Opinions are mine alone.