NETANYAHU DESTROYS ISRAEL'S REPUTATION AND MAKES US COMPLICIT IN HIS ACTS.

I have not wanted to write about this topic. But the accumulation of facts in the past month make it impossible not to.

Two far-right members of Israel’s cabinet — the national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, and the finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich — caused an international uproar this week with their calls to depopulate Gaza. “If in Gaza there will be 100,000 or 200,000 Arabs and not two million the entire conversation on ‘the day after’ will look different,” said Smotrich, who called for most Gazan civilians to be resettled in other countries. The war, said Ben-Gvir, presents an “opportunity to concentrate on encouraging the migration of the residents of Gaza,” facilitating Israeli settlement in the region.

The Biden administration has joined other countries in condemning these endorsements of ethnic cleansing. But the administration spokesman acted as if Ben-Gvir and Smotrich’s provocations differ to any degree with the position of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The State Department denounced their words as “inflammatory and irresponsible,” saying, “We have been told repeatedly and consistently by the government of Israel, including by the prime minister, that such statements do not reflect the policy of the Israeli government.”

Democratuic Representative Jim McGovern, who has called for a cease-fire, thanked the Department in a social media post, stating, “It must be clear that America will not write a blank check for mass displacement.”

Unfortunately, it’s not clear at all. The Unitd States is “writing a blank check” for a leader who is only slightly more coy than the two domestic terrorists about his plans for Gaza. Last week, Netanyahu said the government is considering a “scenario of surrender and deportation” of residents of the Gaza Strip. According to the Times of Israel, “The ‘voluntary’ resettlement of Palestinians from Gaza is slowly becoming a key official policy of the government, with a senior official saying that Israel has held talks with several countries for their potential absorption.”

Last Thursday, defense minister Yoav Gallant released a plan for the day after the war stating that, contrary to the dreams of the ultranationalists, there would be no Israeli settlement in Gaza.

Israel’s widespread destruction of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure, including approximately 70% of housing there, has made most of Gaza uninhabitable for the foreseeable future. Disease is rampan, hunger almost universal, and 60% of the population is at risk of famine.

Danny Danon, Israel’s former ambassador to the United Nations, and Gila Gamliel, Israel’s intelligence minister, are now pushing emigration as a humanitarian solution; Gamliel recently wrote in the Jerusalem Post, “Instead of funneling money to rebuild Gaza or to the failed U.N.R.W.A., the international community can assist in the costs of resettlement, helping the people of Gaza build new lives in their new host countries.”

The horrific, sadistic Hamas attack on October 7, justified Israel’s retaliation. But there is a difference between the war Israel’s international supporters want to pretend is being fought in Gaza, and the war Israel is actually waging.

Increasingly, it appears the Biden Administration is underwriting a war to remove Gazans from Gaza. Whether forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza can be classified as genocide is debatable, but Netanyahu’s attempts to “thin out” Gaza’s population leave the United States implicated in them. Biden has often spoken of his 1973 meeting with Golda Meir; like many American Zionists, his personal view of Israel seems stuck in that era.

The American position is that Ben-Gvir and Smotrich said the quiet part out loud, but in fact they merely said the loud part louder.

Now that the question of whether Israel is committing genocide in Gaza has been placed before the International Court of Justice, the administration has taken a position of glib dismissal.

“Meritless” appears to be the agreed-upon official term, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken saying last week in Tel Aviv that “The charge of genocide is meritless,” while National Security Council spokesman John Kirby called the case “Meritless, counterproductive, and without any basis in fact whatsoever.”

Just looking at photos of what the Israeli bombing of Gaza has accomplished, these statements strain credulity. Reading the 84-page case submitted by South Africa is hard; it is filled with devastating evidence Israel has breached its obligations under the 1948 International Genocide Convention, which defines genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” The document fully footnoted and impeccably sourced. It makes for difficult reading. That such a charge can believably be brought against the government of the state founded as a result of the Holocaust, the genocide that prompted adoption of the UN convention, is deeply ironic.

Raz Segal, an Israeli historian and genocide expert who has argued that Israel’s actions in Gaza are “a textbook case of genocide,” recently said, “The idea that the Jewish state could commit war crimes, let alone genocide, becomes from the beginning an unthinkable idea. Impunity for Israel is baked into the system.”

Netanyahu publicly urges Israelis to “remember” the Old Testament account of the carnage of Amalek, the opening passage of which reads, “Spare no one, but kill alike men and women, infants and sucklings.” Defense Minister Yoav Gallant vowed at the outset of the Israeli response that “Gaza won’t return to what it was before — we will eliminate everything.” The minister of energy and infrastructure pledged, “They will not receive a drop of water or a single battery until they leave this world.” The representatives of the IDF speak openly about destroying Gaza. Speaking from Gaza, IDF Colonel Yogev Bar-Sheshet said, “Whoever returns here, if they return here after, will find scorched earth. No houses, no agriculture, no nothing. They have no future.”

There has been no other action that has been determined to be a genocide where the aims of those committing the acts have been so clear and public - not even in Rwanda. Genocide is generally hidden by governments.

If the violence in Gaza is found to be genocide, the United States could be charged with complicity, a crime in its own right. Given the U.S. track record of international impunity, the odds any significant consequences might be attached to such a finding are small. But we should understand that despite the State Department’s non-denial denial, reading the document shows the case is serious and substantial; our own government is implicated, regardless of what Blinken or Kirby say.

Yes, Israel did suffer an intolerable blow on October 7. The Hamas militants did cut a path of atrocities through southern Israel. They did slaughter hundreds of civilians and they did take hundreds more back into Gaza as hostages. Both Israeli and American officials have repeatedly invoked self-defense to justify the violence in Gaza. But self-defense cannot excuse or justify acts of genocide. As I said before, the rule is “an eye for an eye,” not “a head for an eye.”

What Israel had done in Gaza is wildly disproportionate to the crimes of October 7. With 25,000 Gazans dead in the past 100 days - with children accounting for more than 9,000 of the dead - for an Israeli loss of around 1,000, this conjures the kind of collective punishment the Waffen-SS committed in Lidice. The photos of Gaza now are only different from those taken by the Nazis of the Warsaw Ghetto following its destruction 80 years ago by the fact they’re in color.

The IDF has been responsible for the killing of more Israeli hostages than has Hamas. The IDF has rescued one hostage, while Israeli soldiers shot three Israeli hostages dead who were waving a white flag and begging for rescue, saying they mistook them for Palestinians. Today, Hamas released photos of two more Israeli hostages who were killed over the weekend by IDF aerial bombs.

There are no working hospitals in Gaza to care for the wounded. By late November, in less than 60 days of strikes, it was reported that over 1,000 children had undergone amputations without anesthesia. Women have had cesarean sections without anesthesia. Operations on the wounded have been performed in hallways, again without anesthesia. The deliveries of medicine, including antibiotics to fight infections after such operations, have been insufficient.

The bombing has displaced more than 85 percent of the population, and in the past month Israel has bombed the places they originally told Gazans to go to for safety at the outset of the operation. An estimated 1.9 million Gazans have been displaced, living in tents if they’re lucky, with winter now in force. There is widespread hunger and disease.

October 31 - with no warning - the IDF dropped 2,000-pound bombs on the Jabalia refugee camp, one of the most densely populated precincts of Gaza, killing 126 people, a thirde of them children. An IDF spokesman said Ibrahim Biari, a leader of the October 7 attack, was killed and then also issued the familiar regrets for civilian losses, pointing out Hamas uses civilians as “human shields.” In late December, Israel dropped similar bombs on the Al-Maghazi neighborhood, in central Gaza, killing Palestinians who had fled there from northern Gaza. The IDF spokesman said, “The IDF regrets the harm to uninvolved individuals, and is working to draw lessons from the incident.” Shades of the American “Five O’clock Follies” in Saigon 55 years ago! Despite the Biden Administration’s pressure on Netanyahu to scale back the attacks, the bombing - and the ritual statements - has continued.

The Israeli air strikes have now killed one per cent of the citizens of Gaza. Given that in previous bombing campaigns in other wars going back to World War II, the ratio of dead to wounded among those being bombed is 1:3 or 4, the reports of 25,000 dead and over 100,000 wounded sounds accurate.

British TV host Iain Dale recently interviewed Tzipi Hotovely, Israel’s ambassador to Britain, who explained that “Israel had to lay waste to Gaza” because “every school, every mosque, every second house” was connected to a tunnel used by Hamas. When the interviewer responded, saying, “That’s an argument for destroying the whole of Gaza, every single building in it.” Hotevely replied, “Do you have another solution?”

This Vietnam veteran is reminded of the famous American statement, “We had to destroy the city to save it,” regarding the Battle of Hue.

Every event that has been termed a genocide - including the Holocaust - was first met with doubt and quibbling over the proper language to describe what was happening, until finally, and always too late, a declaration that what happened was in fact genocide is made.

In a recent interview in Ha-Aretz, former defense minister Moshe Ya’alon described the two convicted domestic settler terrorists Netanyahu brought into his governing coalition a year ago - and the 500,000 West Bank settlers they represent as being “so messianic that they believe in Jewish supremacy - ‘Mein Kampf’ in the opposite direction. They’ve taken Netanyahu hostage. There is no need annex the West Bank; the settlers have annexed the State of Israel.”

American influene on Israel is close to nonexisant now. Netanyahu and Biden haven’t spoken since December 23, when Biden cut off the conversation and hung up on Netanyahu. Unsurprisingly - particularly to those involved Biden Administration foreign policy, who came to know Netanyahu during their time in the Obama Administration, when he openly conspired with President Obama’s domestic antagonists and brazenly meddled in domestic U.S. politics - Netanyahu has continued to put his personal freedom and political survival ahead of all other priorities, and to performatively “stiff” President Biden as part of his campaign to show he can “stand up to America.”

In light of Netanyahu’s latest outrages to normal international political behavior, Biden should publicly announce that his support for Israel does not include support for Netanyahu, pointing out that the prime minister is an obstacle to both U.S. and Israeli national interests. Given that Natanyahu has support from only around 20% of Israelis on the question of his remaining Prime Minister, this could spur the anti-Netanyahu members of the national unity government to take action that would only improve Israel’s declining international reputation.

Israel right now is doing exactly what Hamas determined they would do in response to the October 7 attack. Israel is destroying its own reputation, led by a man who cannot distinguish between the needs of his country and his own desire to stay out of prison.

Anyone who really supports Israel has to see this is true.

It’s heartbreaking to have to write this post.

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