John Mearsheimer: Death and Destruction in Gaza

By John J. Mearsheimer, Information Clearing House, Dec 13, 2023

I do not believe that anything I say about what is happening in Gaza will affect Israeli or American policy in that conflict. But I want to be on record so that when historians look back on this moral calamity, they will see that some Americans were on the right side of history.

What Israel is doing in Gaza to the Palestinian civilian population – with the support of the Biden administration – is a crime against humanity that serves no meaningful military purpose. As J-Street, an important organization in the Israel lobby, puts it, “The scope of the unfolding humanitarian disaster and civilian casualties is nearly unfathomable.”^[1]

Let me elaborate.

First, Israel is purposely massacring huge number of civilians, roughly 70 percent of whom are children and women. The claim that Israel is going to great lengths to minimize civilian casualties is belied by statements from high level Israeli officials. For example, the IDF spokesman said on 10 October 2023 that “the emphasis is on damage and not on accuracy.” That same day, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced: “I have lowered all the restraints – we will kill everyone we fight against; we will use every means.”^[2]

Moreover, it is clear from the results of the bombing campaign that Israel is indiscriminately killing civilians. Two detailed studies of the IDF’s bombing campaign – both published in Israeli outlets – explain in detail how Israel is murdering huge numbers of civilians. It is worth quoting the titles of the two pieces, which succinctly capture what each has to say:

“‘A Mass Assassination Factory’: Inside Israel’s Calculated Bombing of Gaza”[3]

“The Israeli Army Has Dropped the Restraint in Gaza, and the Data Shows Unprecedented Killing.”[4]

Similarly, the New York Times published an article in late November 2023 titled: “Gaza Civilians, Under Israeli Barrage, Are Being Killed at Historic Pace.”[5] Thus, it is hardly surprising that the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, said that “We are witnessing a killing of civilians that is unparalleled and unprecedented in any conflict since” his appointment in January 2017.[6]

Second, Israel is purposely starving the desperate Palestinian population by greatly limiting the amount of food, fuel, cooking gas, medicine, and water that can be brought into Gaza. Moreover, medical care is extremely hard to come by for a population that now includes approximately 50,000 wounded civilians. Not only has Israel greatly limited the supply of fuel into Gaza, which hospitals need to function, but it has targeted hospitals, ambulances, and first aid stations.

Defense Minister Gallant’s comment on 9 October captures Israeli policy: “I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed. We are fighting human animals, and we are acting accordingly.”[7] Israel has been forced to allow minimal supplies into Gaza, but the amounts are so small that a senior UN official reports that “half of Gaza’s population is starving.” He goes on to report that, “Nine out of 10 families in some areas are spending ‘a full day and night without any food at all’.”[8]

Third, Israeli leaders talk about Palestinians and what they would like to do in Gaza in shocking terms, especially when you consider that some of these leaders also talk incessantly about the horrors of the Holocaust. Indeed, their rhetoric has led Omar Bartov, a prominent Israeli-born scholar of the Holocaust, to conclude that Israel has “genocidal intent.”[9] Other scholars in Holocaust and genocide studies have offered a similar warning.[10]

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To be more specific, it is commonplace for Israeli leaders to refer to Palestinians as “human animals, ”human beasts,” and “horrible inhuman animals.”[11] And as Israeli President Isaac Herzog makes clear, those leaders are referring to all Palestinians, not just Hamas: In his words, “It is an entire nation out there that is responsible.”[12] Unsurprisingly, as the New York Times reports, it is part of normal Israeli discourse to call for Gaza to be “flattened,” “erased,” or “destroyed.”[13] One retired IDF general, who proclaimed that “Gaza will become a place where no human being can exist,” also makes the case that “severe epidemics in the south of the Gaza Strip will bring victory closer.”[14] Going even further, a minister in the Israeli government suggested dropping a nuclear weapon on Gaza.[15] These statements are not being made by isolated extremists, but by senior members of Israel’s government.

Of course, there is also much talk of ethnically cleansing Gaza (and the West Bank), in effect, producing another Nakba.^[16] To quote Israel’s Agriculture Minister, “We are now rolling out the Gaza Nakba.”^[17]Perhaps the most shocking evidence of the depths to which Israeli society has sunk is a video of very young children singing a blood-curdling song celebrating Israel’s destruction of Gaza: “Within a year we will annihilate everyone, and then we will return to plow our fields.”^[18]

Fourth, Israel is not just killing, wounding, and starving huge numbers of Palestinians, it is also systematically destroying their homes as well as critical infrastructure – to include mosques, schools, heritage sites, libraries, key government buildings, and hospitals.^[19] As of 1 December 2023, the IDF had damaged or destroyed almost 100,000 buildings, including entire neighborhoods that have been reduced to rubble.^[20] Consequently, a stunning 90 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians have been displaced from their homes.^[21] Moreover, Israel is making a concerted effort to destroy Gaza’s cultural heritage; as NPR reports, “more than 100 Gaza heritage sites have been damaged or destroyed by Israeli attacks.”^[22]

Fifth, Israel is not just terrorizing and killing Palestinians, it is also publicly humiliating many of their men who have been rounded up by the IDF in routine searches. Israeli soldiers strip them down to their underwear, blindfold them, and display them in a public way in their neighborhoods – sitting them down in large groups in the middle of the street, for example, or parading them through the streets – before taking them away in trucks to detention camps. In most cases, the detainees are then released as they are not Hamas fighters.^[23]

Sixth, although the Israelis are doing the slaughtering, they could not do it without the Biden administration’s support. Not only was the United States the only country to vote against a recent UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, but it has also been providing Israel with the weaponry necessary to wage this massacre.^[24] As one Israeli general (Yitzhak Brick) recently made clear: “All of our missiles, the ammunition, the precision-guided bombs, all the airplanes and bombs, it’s all from the U.S. The minute they turn off the tap, you can’t keep fighting. You have no capability.… Everyone understands that we can’t fight this war without the United States. Period.”^[25] Remarkably, the Biden administration has sought to expedite sending Israel additional ammunition, by-passing the normal procedures of the Arms Export Control Act.^[26] 

Seventh, while most of the focus is now on Gaza, it is important not to lose sight of what is simultaneously going on in the West Bank. Israeli settlers, working closely with the IDF, continue to kill innocent Palestinians and steal their land. In an excellent article in the New York Review of Books describing these horrors, David Shulman relates a conversation he had with a settler, which clearly reflects the moral dimension of Israeli behavior toward the Palestinians. “What we are doing to these people is actually inhuman,” the settler freely admits, “But if you think about it clearly, it all follows inevitably from the fact that God promised this land to the Jews, and only to them.”^[27] Along with its assault on Gaza, the Israel government has markedly increased the number of arbitrary arrests in the West Bank. According to Amnesty International, there is considerable evidence that these prisoners have been tortured and subjected to degrading treatment.^[28]

As I watch this catastrophe for the Palestinians unfold, I am left with one simple question for Israel’s leaders, their American defenders, and the Biden administration: have you no decency?

NOTES

---

^[1] https://jstreet.org/press-releases/moment-of-truth-for-israels-government/

^[2] Both quotes can be found in: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-12-09/ty-article-magazine/.highlight/the-israeli-army-has-dropped-the-restraint-in-gaza-and-data-shows-unprecedented-killing/0000018c-4cca-db23-ad9f-6cdae8ad0000

^[3] https://www.972mag.com/mass-assassination-factory-israel-calculated-bombing-gaza/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

^[4] https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-12-09/ty-article-magazine/.highlight/the-israeli-army-has-dropped-the-restraint-in-gaza-and-data-shows-unprecedented-killing/0000018c-4cca-db23-ad9f-6cdae8ad0000

^[5] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/25/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-death-toll.html

^[6] https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/press-encounter/2023-11-20/secretary-generals-press-conference-unep-emissions-gap-report-launch

^[7] https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/defense-minister-announces-complete-siege-of-gaza-no-power-food-or-fuel/

^[8] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67670679

Also see: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/11/opinion/international-world/us-government-gaza-humanitarian-aid.html

^[9] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/10/opinion/israel-gaza-genocide-war.html

Also see: https://www.nybooks.com/online/2023/11/20/an-open-letter-on-the-misuse-of-holocaust-memory/

^[10] https://contendingmodernities.nd.edu/global-currents/statement-of-scholars-7-october/

^[11]

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/Fr24GcCDgyM?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0

^[12] https://news.yahoo.com/israeli-president-says-no-innocent-154330724.html#:~:text=“It%20is%20an%20entire%20nation,It%27s%20absolutely%20not%20true.

^[13] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/15/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-war-rhetoric.html

^[14] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/10/opinion/israel-gaza-genocide-war.html

https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2023-11-23/ty-article-opinion/.premium/giora-eilands-monstrous-gaza-proposal-is-evil-in-plain-sight/0000018b-f84b-d473-affb-f9eb09af0000

https://mondoweiss.net/2023/11/influential-israeli-national-security-leader-makes-the-case-for-genocide-in-gaza/embed/#?secret=rzxQkv5QIA#?secret=hBFMAN9VdO

^[15] https://www.timesofisrael.com/far-right-minister-says-nuking-gaza-an-option-pm-suspends-him-from-cabinet-meetings/

^[16] https://mondoweiss.net/2023/10/israeli-think-tank-lays-out-a-blueprint-for-the-complete-ethnic-cleansing-of-gaza/

^[17] https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-11-12/ty-article/israeli-security-cabinet-member-calls-north-gaza-evacuation-nakba-2023/0000018b-c2be-dea2-a9bf-d2be7b670000

^[18] https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/watch-israeli-children-sing-we-will-annihilate-everyone-gaza

^[19] https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-war-gaza-public-library-destroyed-bombing

The Chris Hedges Report

Israel’s War on Hospitals

Eve of Destruction – by Mr. Fish Israel is not attacking hospitals in Gaza because they are “Hamas command centers.” Israel is systematically and deliberately destroying Gaza’s medical infrastructure as part of a scorched earth campaign to make Gaza uninhabitable and escalate a humanitarian crisis. It intends to force 2.3 million Palestinians over the bo…

Read more

22 days ago · 481 likes · 174 comments · Chris Hedges

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20231211-report-israel-destroyed-192-mosques-in-gaza-strip/embed/#?secret=3Jug2qfe0B#?secret=8btQeX0KA5

https://www.npr.org/2023/12/09/1218384968/mosque-gaza-omari-israel-hamas-war

^[20] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67565872#

^[21] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/israel-gaza-attacks-north-south-us-veto-un-ceasefire-resolution/

^[22] https://www.npr.org/2023/12/03/1216200754/gaza-heritage-sites-destroyed-israel

^[23] https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/israel-says-groups-of-hamas-militants-surrendered-amid-gaza-fighting-7891bc22

^[24] https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-vetoes-un-security-council-resolution-demanding-immediate-gaza-ceasefire/

^[25] https://www.jns.org/biden-is-the-primary-obstacle-to-israeli-victory/

^[26] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/09/world/middleeast/us-israel-tanks-ammunition.html

^[27] https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2023/12/21/a-bitter-season-in-the-west-bank-david-shulman/

^[28] https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/11/israel-opt-horrifying-cases-of-torture-and-degrading-treatment-of-palestinian-detainees-amid-spike-in-arbitrary-arrests/

John Mearsheimer is an American political scientist and international relations scholar who belongs to the realist school of thought. He is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago. He has been described as the most influential realist of his generation.

𝐄𝐔’𝐬 𝐓𝐨𝐩 𝐃𝐢𝐩𝐥𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐭: 𝐃𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐢𝐧 𝐆𝐚𝐳𝐚 𝐌𝐚𝐲 𝐁𝐞 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐬𝐞 𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐆𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐢𝐧 𝐖𝐖𝐈𝐈

Israeli officials have invoked the allied strategic bombing campaigns of World War II to justify its mass slaughter in Gaza

by Dave DeCamp, Antiwar. com, December 11, 2023

Josep Borrell, the European Union’s top foreign policy official, said Monday that the destruction in Gaza as a result of the Israeli bombing campaign could be “even greater” than the damage to German cities during World War II, AFP reported.

Borrell called the situation in Gaza “catastrophic, apocalyptic” and noted that the Israeli onslaught has resulted in “an incredible number of civilian casualties.” Discussing the destruction of buildings in Gaza, he said it is “more or less or even greater than the destruction suffered by the German cities during the Second World War.”

Borrell made similar comments on Friday, saying the Israeli bombing campaign in Gaza was “one of the most intense in history” and said the destruction is “comparable, if not higher, to levels of destruction of German cities during World War II.”

A report from Financial Times found the damage to northern Gaza was comparable to the most heavily bombed cities of Germany in World War II. “Dresden, Hamburg, Cologne — some of the world’s heaviest-ever bombings are remembered by their place names,” Robert Pape, a US military historian who focuses on air power, told FT. “Gaza will also go down as a place name denoting one of history’s heaviest conventional bombing campaigns.”

Israeli officials and their supporters in the US have invoked the allied strategic bombing campaigns of World War II to justify the mass slaughter in Gaza. “There were many, many civilians [that] got attacked from your attacks on German cities,” Tzipi Hotovely, the Israeli ambassador to the UK, told a Sky News anchor in October, according to The Grayzone.

“Dresden was a symbol, but you attacked Hamburg, you attacked other cities, and altogether it was over 600,000 civilian Germans that got killed … Was it worth it in order to defeat Nazi Germany? And the answer was yes,” she added.

The Israeli bombing campaign has also been compared to the US bombing of Japanese cities during World War II, which includes the fire bombings of Tokyo that killed around 100,000 civilians in one night in 1945, as well as the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has said Gaza is “going to look like Tokyo and Berlin at the end of World War II when this is over. And if it doesn’t look that way, Israel made a mistake.” He made the comments in an interview where he said there was “no limit” to the number of civilians Israel kills in Gaza, which is the policy of the Biden administration as it continues to provide unconditional military aid despite the massive civilian death toll.

–

Author: Dave DeCamp

Dave DeCamp is the news editor of Antiwar.com

Israeli Government’s War Crimes – Enabled & Defended by Biden & Congress

by Ralph Nader, Counterpuch, Dec 11, 2023

The humiliation of the U.S. government, which is actively complicit in providing the weaponry, funding, and UN vetoes backing the Israeli government’s attack on the civilian Palestinians/Arabs in tiny Gaza, is in plain view daily. All in the name of the unasked American people and taxpayers.

Earlier this week, at a House of Representatives’ hearing, Trump toady Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) repeatedly assailed three University presidents with the question of would they discipline students calling for the genocide of Jews, without any evidence that this hateful speech is prevalent on campus.

Pursuing her fulminations, Stefanik was cruelly oblivious to the real ongoing genocide in Gaza with her support of unconditional shipment of American F-16s, 155mm. missiles and other weapons of mass destruction used to kill children, women and the elderly who had nothing to do with the preventable October 7th Hamas violence.

Meanwhile, a State Department spokesman continues to say that the Israeli government does not intentionally target civilians. With U.S. drones over Gaza daily, Secretary of State Antony Blinken has visual proof that the overwhelming bombing on civilian structures is killing innocent civilians.

The evidence is in the rubble of hospitals, health clinics, ambulances, schools, libraries, places of worship, marketplaces, water mains, homes, apartment buildings, and piles of unburied corpses being eaten by stray dogs. All this information is in the possession of bomber Biden’s regime.

The Bidenites and their bloodthirsty cohorts in Congress were forewarned when the Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant and other Israeli officials on October 8th shouted these chilling genocidal orders to their army: “No electricity, no food, no fuel, no water.… We are fighting human animals and will act accordingly.” (See, Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide). Add an already illegal 16-year Israeli blockade of 2.3 Palestinians suffering from dire poverty, with 40% of their children down with anemia.

Now, about half of Gaza’s population are children, 85% of the entire population is homeless, wandering helplessly into nowhere, afflicted with pending starvation, sickened by spreading infectious diseases and dirty drinking water. There is little or no medicines for diabetics and cancer patients. No surgery, no anesthesia, no emergency transport, no shelter from cold weather, only American-made bombs and missiles blowing up Palestinians into bits with Israeli snipers everywhere.

The Palestinians cannot flee from their open-air prison. They cannot surrender – the Israeli government wants them gone. Bear in mind, the population that is not yet blown up is sick and dying, denied needed outside humanitarian aid. Defying feeble Biden’s wishes, Netanyahu only allows a trickle of aid trucks to enter Gaza, and those that do enter can scarcely reach their destinations.

All this raises the issue of the gross undercount of casualties. The Hamas Health Authority has restricted its count to the names of the deceased and injured supplied by hospitals and morgues. These locations are now largely rubble or inoperative. Bodies under the rubble, many of them children, can’t be counted. Thousands of missing people cannot be counted. The Ministry’s suspended count is over 17,000 fatalities, plus 45,000 injuries. With the far larger carnage unable to be tabulated, the actual fatality toll may reach 100,000 soon.

Nonetheless, about two weeks ago, the New York Times reported the death undercount of children in Gaza in two months was ten times greater than the deaths of Ukrainian children in nearly two years of Russian bombings. One of its headlines – “Smoldering Gaza Becomes a Graveyard for Children.”

There are about 50,000 pregnant women in Gaza and about 5,500 of them are due to give birth. Where are they going to do that? How can they be cared for and be nurtured? These mothers are sick and starving. Add the babies to the terrorists toll.

Gaza’s area is about the size of Philadelphia. How many dead, injured, and dying people would there be if 20,000 bombs were dropped on civilians and civilian structures in Philadelphia? Philadelphians trapped without food, water, medicine or any escape route. Imagine 85% of 1.5 million residents homeless, wandering in the streets and alleys. And with virtually no humanitarian aid coming from outside the city. There wouldn’t be any fire trucks or water to extinguish spreading fires.

Over a nine-week period there would have to be over 200,000 deaths and many more permanently disabled for life.

There are courageous Jewish groups (e.g., Jewish Voice for Peace and If Not Now) and rabbis calling for an end to the slaughter, demanding a ceasefire. There are protestors at all of Biden’s public events/trips reminding him of next November.

Veterans for Peace and other veteran groups are engaged in non-violent civil disobedience in front of the Scranton, Pennsylvania factory producing 155mm missiles for Israel. (Scranton is Biden’s hometown.) Public opinion is turning against the Biden/Israel war without limits on the Palestinians.

Biden wouldn’t want to poll the American people about his $14.3 billion genocide tax, charging American taxpayers to further prosperous Israel’s war of extermination in Gaza. They’ll likely tell Biden that poor children, unaffordable health facilities and other necessities in America need that money first.

There are some 30 Democratic Senators demanding that this Biden bill contain conditions and safeguards so that the money is not used to blow up more Palestinian children and women. But what else are these funds for other than to expand Israel’s military budget? The Israeli extremist ruling coalition under Netanyahu has made no secret of wanting to take over all of remaining Palestine as part of their “Greater Israel” mission to include what they call Judea and Samaria. As Israel’s Founder, David Ben-Gurion, frankly declared referring to the Palestinians, “We have taken their country.” (As quoted in The Jewish Paradox (1978) by Nahum Goldmann.)

It is a cruel irony of history that Israeli state terrorism is producing a Palestinian Holocaust. Netanyahu’s regime has killed over 60 journalists—three of them Israelis—120 United Nations relief workers and instituted total blackouts to keep the grisly events in Gaza out of the news in real time. Netanyahu, to shield his colossal failure to defend Israel on October 7thand to keep his job, is making sure that his country joins the world community of savage, slaughtering regimes, exemplified by the Bush/Cheney unlawful criminal destruction of Iraq and Afghanistan, followed by Hillary Clinton toppling Libya into permanent violence and chaos since 2011. (Obama later called his conceding to Hillary’s demands as his worst foreign policy decision).

Capitol Hill and the White House don’t wait for any blood-guilt to be recognized. That will surely come later with the judgment of history and the nightmarish visions of innocents being vaporized because of Washington’s unconditional backing of the Israeli blitzkrieg against what the Israeli newspaper Haaretz has repeatedly called the “totally defenseless people” of Gaza.

Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate, lawyer and author of Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us! 

 

𝐀 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭, 𝐇𝐀𝐌𝐀𝐒

— Nasir Khan

In 2017, the resistance movement of Palestinians accepted the solution of a Palestinian state according to the 1967 borders. That meant all illegal occupation of the Palestinian land since 1967 by Israel should be annulled and Palestinians should be given back a fraction of their land. That was a fair compromise, according to many thinking people. But the Zionists will have nothing of the sort; they will take over the whole of Palestine and crush its native population.

The resistance movement is not fighting the Jews, but the colonial settler entity that has been ethnically cleansing Palestine since 1948. It wants an end to the illegal siege and the restoration of the national rights of Palestinians according to the UN resolutions. Obviously, the ongoing genocide and destruction of Gaza is the continuation of the Zionist plans for Greater Israel.

Evidence of ethnic cleansing growing in West Bank and Gaza

Increasingly brutal IDF activity, official Israeli rhetoric, and settler-led violence is making it harder to deny a policy designed to expel Palestinians

Paul R. Pillar, Responsible Statecraft, Dec 08, 2023

Even if one were to take at face value Israel’s declarations that its assault on the Gaza Strip and its two million residents is all about “destroying Hamas,” the Israeli operation is too misguided for the United States or any other power to support or condone it.

Hamas cannot be destroyed with bombs and a ground invasion, and even if it could, the operation is worsening, not enhancing, the future security of Israeli citizens.

But the Israeli declarations should not be taken at face value in any event. Other motivations are also likely behind the Israeli assault. Almost two months into the Israeli offensive, the evidence is increasingly suggesting that Israel is engaged in nothing less than ethnic cleansing of Palestinians who live in the Strip.

One is the sheer scale and indiscriminate nature of Israel’s military attacks. The leveling of entire neighborhoods and the inflicting of civilian casualties far outnumbering any military ones, with little evidence of any positive result beyond the capture and display of some empty tunnels can hardly be described as an operation sharply focused on destroying Hamas.

Consider the following numbers. Israeli officials claim that their operation in Gaza has so far killed 5,000 Hamas fighters. The officials admit that this is a squishy estimate, and the outside world has no way of knowing whether it is even close to being true. But assume for the moment that it is. By the Israeli military’s own estimates, Hamas’ military wing numbered about 30,000 fighters at the start of this war, implying there are still 25,000 yet to be eliminated. The latest estimates of the fast-rising count of total Palestinian casualties from the war so far are 16,000 dead, including more than 5,000 children.

Do the math. At the current pace and with Israel’s current methods, finishing the supposed job of destroying the Hamas military wing would entail almost 100,000 dead Palestinians, including more than 30,000 dead children. And that does not include the damage from Israel going after the rest of Hamas besides its military wing, including the senior leadership whom Israel has vowed to kill, as well as the Hamas-run civil administration of the Gaza Strip which Israel has vowed to eliminate. Nor does it consider that the rate of civilian casualties from Israeli military operations currently escalating in the southern part of the Strip — now crammed with those who had fled the north — is likely to be at least as high as from the previous operations in the north.

These numbers are not only orders of magnitude greater than anything that could be justified as a response to the brutality Hamas committed in Israel in October. They strongly suggest that in addition to eliminating Hamas, killing civilians and pushing as many Palestinians as possible out of Gaza is an Israeli objective.

The Israeli military’s claim to have used warnings to try to reduce civilian casualties has become little more than a cruel joke. Residents are ordered to flee their homes but then are bombed anyway either en route or at the location to which they were told to flee. Then they are ordered to move again—if there is any place at all they can go—and get bombed yet again. QR codes on leaflets promising information about safe zones are useless with communications knocked out and most Palestinians having no access to the internet.

Israel is not even bothering to use its previous “knock on the roof” practice of using a small munition to warn occupants of a building that it was about to be destroyed — as if it ever were acceptable to bomb someone’s home as long as they are advised a few minutes earlier that it is going to be bombed.

Further evidence of Israel’s objectives in Gaza comes from simultaneous events in the West Bank. For the last two months, Israeli settlers there, acting largely with the acquiescence of Israeli authorities, have been using violence and intimidation to drive longtime Palestinian residents out of their villages.

Then there is the rhetoric of Israeli political leaders, which some observers have described as genocidal. Examples over the past two months abound. About Gaza, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said, “we will eliminate everything.” Meanwhile, deputy Knesset speaker Nissim Vaturi said of Palestinians in Gaza, “expel them all,” while Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter said, “we are now rolling out the Gaza nakba,” (the original nakba, or catastrophe, being the forced displacement of 750,000 Palestinians when Israel was created in 1948). Heritage Minister Amachai Eliyahu suggested that Israel should consider dropping a nuclear weapon on Gaza.

Added to all this is evidence of planning within the Israeli government. A report in October revealed a proposal from the intelligence ministry to transfer the entire population of the Gaza Strip to Egypt’s Sinai peninsula, to be housed first in tents and then in permanently constructed cities. This proposal did not explain how Israel would overcome Egypt’s strong opposition to any such population transfer, but other reports confirmed that Israeli leaders and diplomats were quietly proposing to other governments the transfer of several hundred thousand Gazans to Egypt.

The Israelis contended this would be a temporary movement for the duration of the current war, but their interlocutors rejected the idea given the likelihood that such a displacement, like earlier displacements of Palestinians, would become permanent.

More recently, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is reported to have tasked his U.S.-born Minister of Strategic Affairs, Ron Dermer, with developing a plan to “dilute” the population of the Gaza Strip to a minimum. That story was broken by the Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom, which has supported, and is considered to have good access to, Netanyahu.

As a possible reflection of such planning, other Israeli press reports that a proposal has already been quietly floated with members of the U.S. Congress to have two million Gazans move through Egypt for ultimate settlement both there and in Iraq, Turkey, and Yemen. The United States would be expected to use aid to those countries as leverage to pressure them into accepting the arrangement.

Since the Hamas attack on October 7 demonstrated that the conflict with the Palestinians could not be removed from the regional equation, the Israeli government has rejected as forcefully as ever the only avenue for ending such troubles, which is to resolve the conflict through peaceful negotiations that permit Palestinian self-determination, whether through a two-state solution or equal rights in one state.

Instead, it is increasingly looking like Israel is trying to remove the Palestinians themselves from the equation through death and displacement. Israel’s apparent strategy is no more likely to bring peace to Israelis or anyone else than its earlier gambits, as long as there are dissatisfied exiles. For just one example, think of how Israel went after the exiled Palestine Liberation Organization beginning in the 1980s and how it led to multiple wars, the rise of Lebanese Hezbollah, and the loss of almost any hope for stability in Lebanon.

The Biden administration has shown some signs of recognizing what is going on. Vice President Harris, speaking at the climate meeting in Dubai, stated that “under no circumstances will the United States permit the forced relocation of Palestinians from Gaza or the West Bank.” And the United States has begun imposing visa bans on Israeli settlers guilty of violence in the West Bank.

But those signs fall short of fully dissociating Washington from abhorrent policies and practices — a dissociation necessary to spare the United States from any more of the international opprobrium it already has incurred through its association with Israeli conduct.

The Relationship of the United States and Israel

Nasir Khan, June 25, 2015

In a comment on a short article of mine,  Comrade Bill Benfield raises an important point about the relationship between the US and Zionist Israel. In fact, our views have much in common while we are looking at different aspects of the same issue. US imperialism is a militaristic world power, which uses large parts of its resources to perpetuate its hegemonic domination. Transnational capital has bolstered that power. For instance, the Saudi investments in the United States amounting to hundreds of billions of dollars and China’s lending of billions of dollars to the United States show the easy flow of capital there.
But how the Zionists of Israel enter in this power game? They had found an easy way. By closely aligning themselves with the US imperial power and its objectives, they became the main supporters of the US in the Middle East. At the same time, they systematically used their influence to create a powerful Israeli lobby in the United Sates that played divergent cultural and religious cords to gain support. Their success has been phenomenal.
It is obvious to everybody that the US government, Congress and its policymakers support whatever Israel does in the occupied Palestine. Israel’s wars of aggression, its violations of human rights of the Palestinians, the demolition of Palestinian homes, illegal settlements in the occupied land, etc, are all in the service of a higher cause: for the ‘security of the land of Israel’! The United States supports this lie and protects Israel whenever the matter of its criminal actions comes before the United Nations.
In fact, the influence of Zionists in the US is so great that America has to do what the Zionists say. No one can go against the wishes of the Israeli leaders. American administration and power elite know it fully well. These are some bare facts. Thus, Israel has created a unique place for itself in the centre of US power. From this privileged position, it can get whatever it wants from the United States including military weapons, money and ‘protection’ to carry out whatever it wants to do in the Middle East.

The Guardian’s Misleading Editorial

 Nasir Khan, November 20, 2014

The Guardian’s editorial on 18 November 2014 (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/18/guardian-view-on-jerusalem-killings) deals with the violent killing of four Israeli worshippers at a synagogue in a Jerusalem neighbourhood on Tuesday 18th November 2014. On hearing the news the PA President Mahmud Abbas condemned this act of violence by two Palestinians, who were immediately killed by the Israeli police. The American rulers and media condemned these brutal killings vociferously. But as far as I am concerned I have always condemned and opposed any acts of violence against anyone because all bloodshed is wrong, unacceptable and indefensible no matter who the perpetrators of such crimes are, Israelis, Palestinians or someone else.

In the last two short paragraphs of the editorial, the editor raised some  fair questions about the policies of the Netanyahu government. But the editor’s portrayal of the gory acts in the first three paragraphs is much flawed and misleading. If the writer has some inkling of the forces that created Israel, not as espoused by the hasbara, but by historians of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict then he would have seen and wrote about them otherwise.

However, it is quite common to see amateur journalists who can easily skip facts to push a story on their readers. But we expect an editorial of the Guardian to present facts in a sober and judicious manner to help readers to understand the issues involved. Melodramatic and emotive language used here hides the facts more than it enlightens. All acts of violence, killings, desecration or provocation in a place of worship are reprehensible. We all readily agree on this. What the two killers did at Bar Nof synagogue was a crime.

At the same time we should also keep in mind what the Israeli authorities and righting Jews have been doing for quite some time at Al-Aqsa Mosque are also crimes and incessant provocations. In fact, the Israeli state and Zionist provocateurs bear the full responsibility for their criminal actions surrounding at Al-Aqsa Mosque for the last few weeks while such provocations by Israeli leaders have a long history. No wonder if such actions lead to their anticipated or unexpected fallout. The killings at the synagogue and the desecration of Al-Aqsa Mosque are not isolated incidents; they are interrelated. Obviously, it does not suit hasbara to admit any such connection.

The editor writes, “Attacks like this were precisely what the creation of the state of Israel was meant to prevent. Israel was to be the one place in the world where Jews could pray in peace and safety. Synagogues in London, Paris or New York have grown used to having a security presence on the door. Now there are calls for the same precaution to be taken in Israel, a bleak thought for a country established to be a safe haven.” Here the whole narrative becomes untenable in the light of history. The state of Israel was not created, as the editor asserts, to provide a country to Jews where they could pray in “peace and safety”.

The British imperialists laid the foundations for such a state in 1914 many years before the Nazis under Hitler gained political power in Germany. After the Balfour Declaration in 1917, the plans for the expropriation of the Palestinian people of their land were in place. During the inter-war period, the growing Jewish migration to Palestine and subsequently at the end of the Second World War, the Zionist terrorist organisations in Palestine lost no time to force the British as the mandatory (colonial) power to run back to the British isles. Now the Zionists were in full control. This was the creation of Israel and the start of the process of the Zionist colonisation and ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

What started in 1948 is still going on. The West Bank has gradually been devoured by Israeli settlements and in East Jerusalem the pace of settlements has increased. Whereas the Gaza strip remains a virtual concentration camp. After the 51-day Israeli war on Gaza, the Zionists have devastated Gaza from which it may take years to recover. Moreover, it is Israel that tells PA President what to do or not to do. Living under Israeli occupation, he has few options. He is a nominal figure operating under a colonial power. As a result he conforms to Tel Aviv’s edicts.

Obviously, the creation of Israel was not to provide a safe place of worship to the Jewish believers. In fact, there was no restriction on Jews going to their synagogues. That was so in Europe, Asia and America. The present-day safety measures in the synagogues of London, Paris or New York, as the editor erroneously explains, are not due to any inherent hatred against the Jews but rather due to the genocidal policies of the state of Israel and its brutal oppression of the Palestinians.

The editor pushes his/her line of thinking even further and along the same lines as before and comes up with an explanation that many observers may find amusing: “By attacking men as they pray – not, it is worth stressing. In the occupied West Bank or in annexed East Jerusalem but inside the boundaries of pre-1967 Israel proper – . . .” No one from Israeli ruling class has ever defined where Israel’s borders and boundaries lie or would lie. To have done so would have meant to forego the Zionist objective of creating Greater Israel. Consequently, the easiest thing to do was better served by keeping the question of ‘Israel’s borders’ a matter in the grey zone, where nothing was definite and all was subject to change as the chances arose.

Netanyahu says there will never be a real Palestinian state

Editor’s remarks: Netanyahu is saying what is obviously Israeli position despite the charade of ‘peace negotiations’ and the mouldy mantra of the ‘two-state’ solution that has been the stock-in-trade of the Israeli deception and thereby misleading the Palestinians and the world public opinion. Most of the Arab states and their servile rulers are dependent upon US imperialism for their survival. Except for an occasional pronouncenment of solidarity with the people of Palestine, mostly for domestic consumption and to please the Arab masses, the countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia are furthering the Israeli designs. What makes these countries partners of Israel and for which objectives is not always divulged openly.

Nasir Khan, Editor

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Philip Weiss, mondoweis.net,  July 15, 2014

Lots of folks are talking about this. Last Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave a press conference in Hebrew in which he stated that he would never accept Palestinian sovereignty in the West Bank because Israel’s security needs are too great in an era of Islamic radicalism. His remarks have been summarized by David Horovitz in the Times of Israel, with limited quotations.

“I think the Israeli people understand now what I always say: There cannot be a situation, under any agreement, in which we relinquish security control of the territory west of the River Jordan,” Netanyahu said, leading Horovitz to say: “That sentence, quite simply, spells the end to the notion of Netanyahu consenting to the establishment of a Palestinian state.” Just Bantustans, what we’ve observed again and again in recent years.

Continues >>

– See more at: http://mondoweiss.net/2014/07/netanyahu-palestinian-state#sthash.wBUJGjva.dpuf

Disarming: Gaza or Israel?

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Nasir Khan, August 7, 2014

Palestinians have been under Israeli occupation; they have been frequent targets of destructive Israeli wars and massacres. If common sense can be our guide in this situation than the solution is to disarm Israel and prosecute its war criminals for war crimes and crimes against humanity in ICC. Disarming Hamas? Hamas has no army, no air force, no missiles, no navy, no naval gunships, no tanks, no anti-aircraft missiles. If Israel has played havoc with the homes and buildings of the Gazans and killed people then the main reason for the Gazan tragedy lies in their inability to defend themselves.

Ideally, for Gazans to defend themselves against Israel’s military might they need a matching military power and weapons. It is obvious that without this they have no chance to defend themselves and their homes. We have seen this what Israel is capable of doing in the 29-day war on Gaza. The Gazans have been at the mercy of Israeli missiles and powerful bombs that pulverised their homes and other structures. Unless Israel lifts the blockade, ends the occupation and develops a new approach towards the people of Palestine the conflict will not disappear.

But how can the Gazans under Hamas do that, to defend themselves militarily, remains an open question. The leaders of the ‘New World Order’ especially the United States will not allow that. There is no major country that is ready to give substantive material support to the Palestinians. Therefore the prevailing conditions will remain intact.

We need to keep in mind that Gaza is beleaguered by Israel from all sides including its air space. It is the largest open-air prison in the world. Now Israel by intentional destruction of the infrastructure of Gaza has made sure that its people would not raise their heads again against the ongoing occupation and blockade for years to come. But if they did at some stage then they would have Israeli war-machine on their heads again. It is as simple as that if we want to understand the Israeli position.

No doubt, this is an undefendable situation. To my mind the only explanation lies in the fact that it is military might that decides the fate of a subjugated people, not their rights according to international law or humane considerations. Yet the struggle of the Palestinians for their national liberation from the Zionist yoke needs universal support. The public demonstrations in many countries around the world denouncing the Israeli genocide and carnage in Gaza have been positive. They show a growing awareness among the people of the world about the plight of the colonised Palestinians.

Israeli war on Gaza is to crush Fatah-Hamas unity and any resistance to Israeli occupation

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Nasir Khan, July 19, 2014

There are many people who think that Israel has invaded Gaza in response to the rockets from Gaza. But there is more to this scenario then many casual readers know. Therefore I present a brief account of what happened. After the killing of three young ultra-rightist Jewish settlers by some unknown people and the burning alive of a Palestinian youth by the Zionists, the Netanyahu government accused Hamas of the killings. This Hamas categorically denied and declared that such accusations were totally unfounded. Hamas had nothing to do with the killings; it also condemned such killings because it was apprehensive that the Israeli government would use it an excuse to unleash terror in the West Bank and also Gaza. That’s exactly what happened.

Israeli police and army started a large-scale crack down on all members and sympathisers of Hamas in the West Bank. They also killed many Palestinians during these operations. As a reaction to the victimisation of its members by Israel, some resistance-fighters from Gaza fired rockets into Israel without causing much damage or death. There is no credible evidence that one Israeli citizen was killed by the rocket fire. As expected by many political observers Israel used firing of rockets from Gaza as a casus belli for a full scale aerial bombardment indiscriminately that was followed by a ground invasion. But what are the real reasons for Israeli war on Gaza? One prime reason is to strike at the Palestinian unity government that the two factions Fatah and Hamas had formed after the collapse of the US charade of peace talks between the parties.