An extremist rabbi who is known for using bulldozers to raze Palestinian civilian homes in Gaza, lit a torch at Israel’s special independence day celebration on April 21, marking Israel’s embrace of genocide the official “spirit of the nation.” This signals what Israel’s policy will be for the future.
Rabbi Avraham Zarbiv was one of 14 people chosen for their “extraordinary contribution to society and the state” at the ceremony.
A reservist who drives an armored D-9 bulldozer, Zarbiv rose to prominence through videos documenting his personal campaign of destruction in Gaza, often accompanied by inflammatory rhetoric. “You will have nothing left,” he declares in one voiceover, as the camera pans across a landscape of shattered buildings. “We will flatten you and destroy you.”
On April 21 The Guardian reports, “The footage spread so widely on social media that his name entered the lexicon of Hebrew slang. ‘To Zarbiv’ now means to destroy, a neologism that the 54-year-old has embraced, making it the title of a lecture earlier this year.”
