Elon Musk, a well-known tech entrepreneur, recently traveled to Israel and expressed support for the fight against Hamas.
Musk asserted that Israel’s will to annihilate Hamas is unalterable.
During his meeting in Kfar Aza, Israel on Monday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other stakeholders, Musk disclosed this.
Musk, who has been accused of inciting antisemitism on his social networking platform X, traveled in Israel on Monday to meet with Netanyahu, President Isaac Herzog, other officials, victims of the October 7 Hamas attack, and the relatives of the hostages.
Less than two weeks after he supported an antisemitic conspiracy theory on his X platform, which caused big businesses to remove their advertisements from the microblogging site, the billionaire made the decision to travel to Israel.
Musk began his visit with a tour of some southern Israeli villages that were among the worst hit by the October 7 Hamas offensive, accompanied by Netanyahu.
Musk was shown the atrocities of the Hamas attack, which saw militants storm the neighborhood and about twenty others, during the visit to Kfar Aza.
Musk described the encounter as “jarring”. He added that he was startled by the terrorists’ seeming “joy” in the video.
“The rebuttal is often made that well, you know, Israel has killed civilians also in Gaza,” Musk said. “But there’s an important difference here, which is that Israel tries to avoid killing civilians, doing everything it can to avoid killing civilians. And, you know, there’s no sort of joy expressed.”
He added that “there’s no choice” but for Israel to destroy Hamas, but that Israel then needs to “help those that remain,” likening a future postwar scenario to the post-World War II US occupation of Germany and Japan.
“If you want security, peace and a better life for Gazans, then you need to destroy Hamas. You first have to get rid of the poisonous regime, as was done in Germany and Japan,” said Netanyahu, to which Musk responded: “There’s no choice.”
He added,
“You need to pair firmness and taking out the terrorists and those intent on murder, and at the same time help those that remain, which is what happened in Germany and Japan.”
“Usually the victor punishes the loser,” he continued, pointing to the rehabilitation of Germany and Japan by the allies after World War II as examples of how reconstruction efforts after a major war and a clear-cut victory helped secure peace for a long period.
In his remarks, Herzog noted that Musk’s X platform reeks of antisemitism, calling on the tech mogul to endeavour to nip it in the bud as soon as possible.
He said,
“Unfortunately, we are inundated by antisemitism, which is Jew hate, and Jew hate impacts the entire notion of behaviour of human beings in so many places around the world. And you have a huge role to play, and I think we need to fight it together, because under the platforms you lead, unfortunately, there is a harbouring of a lot of old hate which is Jew hate, which is antisemitism.
“You’ve seen how evil can supersede everything, you’ve seen this morning what hate can bring about, you’ve seen how thought turns into evil turns into hate and bloodshed”, he added.
Responding, Musk said,
“These people have been fed propaganda since they were children. It’s remarkable what humans are capable of if they are fed falsehood since they are children. They think that murdering innocent people is a good thing. That’s how much propaganda can affect people’s minds.”
Since he took over the company last year, Musk has been panned for what critics say is a proliferation of hate speech in general on the platform.