As a follow-up to yesterday’s post about the Amnesty International report on genocide in the Gaza Strip, I call to your attention a website created by Israeli historian, Lee Mordechai, an associate professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. It is entitled “Bearing Witness to the Israel-Gaza War.”
In his preface to the report, Mordechai says:
“The enormous amount of evidence I have seen, much of it referenced later in this document, has been enough for me to believe that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian population in Gaza. I explain why I chose to use the term below. Israel’s campaign is ostensibly its reaction to the Hamas massacre of Oct. 7, 2023, in which war crimes and crimes against humanity were committed within the context of the longstanding conflict between Israelis and Palestinians that can be dated back to 1917 or 1948 (or other dates). In all cases, historical grievances and atrocities do not justify additional atrocities in the present. Therefore, I consider Israel’s response to Hamas’ actions on Oct. 7 utterly disproportionate and criminal.”
Further in the Preface, Mordechai directly addresses the critical questions of intent:
“The evidence I have seen and discuss indicates that one of Israel’s very likely objectives is to ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip, whether in part or in total, by removing as many Palestinians as feasibly possible. Key members in Israel’s government have made statements confirming this intent, and several of Israel’s government ministries have planned or worked to facilitate such an end, sometimes by persuading or pressuring other states. Israel has already cleared significant parts of the Gaza strip by demolition and bulldozing, also attempting to destroy the fabric of Palestinian society by deliberately targeting civilian institutions such as universities, libraries, archives, religious buildings, historical sites, farms, schools, cemeteries, museums and markets. So far more than 60% of the buildings in the Gaza Strip have been destroyed or damaged.”
He goes on:
“All the evidence I have seen indicates that Israel is systematically destroying Gaza to make it unlivable in the future. In the first week of fighting, Israel dropped 6,000 bombs on Gaza – over the annual total used by the US in Afghanistan.48 In the first three months of fighting Israel had destroyed over 10,000 buildings in the Strip – compared to some 4,700 buildings in Aleppo after three years of fighting. A coalition of aid groups stated in December that rebuilding the housing destroyed to that point will take 7 to 10 years if financing is available and will cost some $3.5 billion.49 According to a joint report by the World Bank and the UN, the cost of damage to physical structures alone was around $18.5 billion at the end of January (the cost during the 2014 Protective Edge was $1.4 billion).50 In mid May a UN official stated that rebuilding could cost around $50 billion over two decades.51 The amount of debris created by the destruction of residential areas (estimates ranged between 26 and 37 million tons in April) will take many years to remove.52 A top UN demining official claimed that simply clearing the debris could take as much as 14 years.53 An expert on the warfare-related destruction pointed out that the case of Gaza fits the term ‘domicide’, a massive violation of the right to housing and basic infrastructure in residential areas by making them inhabitable, which is itself a crime against humanity.48
“Israel is said to have dropped over 500 2,000-pound bombs within the densely populated urban area, despite the massive collateral damage these bombs cause (causing death or injury in a radius of up to 365 meters around the target). These bombs are four times heavier than the largest bombs the United States used when fighting ISIS in Mosul; the US dropped a single such 2,000-pound bomb throughout its fight with ISIS.54 After two months of fighting, Israel had already caused more destruction in Gaza than Syria in Aleppo (2012-2016), Russia in Mariupol in 2022, or (proportionally) the Allied bombing of Germany in World War II,55 as well as the fights against ISIS in Mosul (2016-7) and Raqqa (2017).56“
The report is meticulously documented and judicious in its language. It is definitely worth a careful read.
Amnesty International has issued a new report accusing the state of Israel with the crime of genocide in its actions against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip. The crime of genocide is the most serious crime in international law and an accusation of genocide needs to meet extremely specific and demanding criteria of both actions and intent. Amnesty International is a well-respected human rights organization with a record of accomplishment that deserves respect.
It is a long, incredibly detailed report with evidence from a variety of credible sources. The report begins with an acknowledgement of what needs to be proven in order to support an accusation of genocide:
“To make a determination on genocide, Amnesty International first examined whether Palestinians in Gaza constitute part of a protected group under the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Genocide Convention), that is a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. It then focused on three out of the five prohibited acts under the Genocide Convention: ‘killing members of the group’; ‘causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group’; and ‘deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part’. It finally examined whether Israel committed these acts with the specific ‘intent to destroy, in whole or in part, [the] group, as such’.”
The report then goes through each of these criteria and documents specific cases through eyewitness testimonies. I was unaware of several of these cases, even though I have tried to be as well-informed as I can on this conflict. Much of the evidence, largely from satellite imagery, suggests destruction in Gaza which can hardly be described as precision accuracy. And the degree of forced displacement is staggering. Given the scale of destruction in such a small area, it would be difficult to deny that the degree of “harm” inflicted on the population in the Gaza satisfies the first two criteria of the Convention.
The significantly more difficult question to answer is whether Israel intends to “destroy, in while or in part, [the] group, as such”. People have intentions; governments have intention; it is questionable whether “states” have intentions. In today’s US Department of State Press Briefing, members of the press questioned the matter of intent:
“QUESTION: Because now we have Amnesty International. Before that, we had Human Rights Watch. We have all the UN organizations, all the human rights organizations probably throughout the world, B’Tselem, the Israeli human rights organization, every other organization saying that Israel is committing genocide. And depends – I mean it says – I know that genocide depends a great deal on intent, and it says – it bases its conclusion on statement time and time and time again by Israeli commanders, by Israeli officials, by certainly the president of Israel, by many, many other people that said they are committing genocide. I mean, we see that they have killed 44, 45 thousand people, 17,000 children. It deprives it food from going in, it deprives anesthesia from going on. CNN reported yesterday that Israel disallowed anesthesia from going into Gaza.
What is it going to take for you – for the United States of America that really holds the moral high ground on these issues, on human rights issues – to say what is happening is genocide? Because you are – what we see today, what we witness in northern Gaza is basically starvation by intent.
MR PATEL: Said, that’s an opinion. And you’re certainly welcome and you are entitled to it, as are all the organizations that you listed. They are entitled to make their own analysis of the situation and come to their own conclusions. What I can say as a spokesperson of the U.S. Government and as a spokesperson of this administration is that the findings of – the accusations of genocide, we continue to believe those to be unfounded. That does not change and that does not change the prioritization and the stress and the emphasis that we are placing on ensuring that there is appropriate access to humanitarian assistance, ensuring that every possible measure is taken to protect civilians, ensuring that we’re doing everything possible to bring this war to an end.
QUESTION: So —
MR PATEL: People, organizations, groups are entitled to draw their own conclusions. The U.S. conclusion is that these allegations of genocide are unfounded. There are and there continue to exist a number of avenues within the U.S. Government in which we are looking at what’s happening on the ground, where those assessments continue to be ongoing. But I don’t have any update to provide as it relates to that.
I sincerely doubt that there are many Israelis who wish to see the Palestinian people exterminated, even after the atrocities of 7 October. But does the government of Israel wish to see the Palestinian people exterminated? According to Amnesty:
“The offensive on Rafah was launched a week after Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich, a member of Israel’s security cabinet, explicitly called for the city’s destruction by referring to a well-known Biblical story of absolute vengeance in which an entire nation – the people of Amalek – is ordered to be destroyed: “There are no jobs half done. Rafah, Deir al-Balah, Nuseirat, destruction! Blot out the memory of [the people of] Amalek from under heaven,” he said at a public event on 29 April 2024. In fact, Minister of Finance Smotrich and Minister of National Security Ben-Gvir, who also made some of the most explicit calls for the destruction of Palestinians in Gaza, threatened to quit the government coalition if Prime Minister Netanyahu abandoned plans to attack Rafah. Minister of Finance Smotrich’s statement came months after Prime Minister Netanyahu first referred to the story of the total destruction of the people of Amalek in the first week of Israel’s ground offensive in late October and early November 2023. He used it to garner support for what was, at the time, a new and highly destructive phase of the conflict. As Israel’s highest office-holder, who oversaw the offensive on Gaza, Prime Minister Netanyahu would have most certainly known that his words would be understood by soldiers, particularly those affiliated with the settler movement and religious nationalist parties led by the two ministers, as calls for the destruction of Palestinians in Gaza.”
The Israeli Government has explicitly rejected the report. The US has not rejected the report, but has rather found it to be “unfounded”. There really is no way to determine what the intent of the destruction on the people and land of Gaza was or is. But the future will give us an answer. If the Palestinian people cannot repopulate the land because of Israeli occupation or sovereignty, then the intent to remove the Palestinian people will become clear. If the world wants to know what Israel’s intentions truly are, then the world should demand that Israel clearly state that the Palestinian people will be able to return and to live in the Gaza Strip as part of their own homeland, Palestine.
Last Tuesday, the Israeli Defense Force announced that its current plan is for the complete evacuation of Palestinians from north Gaza. The Guardian summarized the announcement:
“Israeli ground forces are getting closer to ‘the complete evacuation’ of northern Gaza and residents will not be allowed to return home, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has said, in what appears to be the first official acknowledgment from Israel it is systematically removing Palestinians from the area.
“In a media briefing on Tuesday night, the IDF Brig Gen Itzik Cohen told Israeli reporters that since troops had been forced to enter some areas twice, such as Jabaliya camp, ‘there is no intention of allowing the residents of the northern Gaza Strip to return to their homes’.
“He added that humanitarian aid would be allowed to ‘regularly’ enter the south of the territory but not the north, since there are ‘no more civilians left’.”
With that announcement, it is clear that Israeli military actions against the Gaza Strip, Syria, Lebanon, and Iran no longer qualify as “self-defense” unless we decide to include ethnic cleansing as an act of self-defense. Indeed, the IDF tactic is similar to the horrific acts committed by the Serbs and Croats in Bosnia in the early 1990s. The US Holocaust Memorial Museum characterized these acts as war crimes:
“On April 5, 1992, the government of Bosnia declared its independence from Yugoslavia. The creation of an independent Bosnian nation that would have a Bosniak majority was opposed by Bosnian Serbs, who launched a military campaign to secure coveted territory and “cleanse” Bosnia of its Muslim civilian population. The Serbs targeted Bosniak and Croatian civilians in areas under their control, in what has become known as “ethnic cleansing.”
“During the subsequent civil war that lasted from 1992 to 1995, an estimated 100,000 people were killed, 80 percent of whom were Bosniaks. In July 1995, Bosnian Serb forces killed as many as 8,000 Bosniak men and boys from the town of Srebrenica. It was the largest massacre in Europe since the Holocaust.”
There is little question that the act clearly qualifies as a war crime. The Fourth Convention of the Geneva Accords is explicit on the movement of civilian populations in an occupied territory:
ART. 49. — Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive. Nevertheless, the Occupying Power may undertake total or partial evacuation of a given area if the security of the population or imperative military reasons so demand. Such evacuations may not involve the displacement of protected persons outside the bounds of the occupied territory except when for material reasons it is impossible to avoid such displacement. Persons thus evacuated shall be transferred back to their homes as soon as hostilities in the area in question have ceased.
There is little chance that there is any amount of pressure that will change Israel’s behavior, as Prime Minister Netanyahu has openly refused to accept most guidance from its allies. And now that former President Trump has been elected, it appears that US policy will be guided by the blank check suggested by Trump: “do what you have to do”. Netanyahu also seems to be preparing the US government for expanded actions against Palestinians in the West Bank by appointing Yechiel Leiter as the next Israeli Ambassador to the US. Leiter has been an advocate for annexing the West Bank. According to Middle East Eye:
“Leiter was a member of the Jewish Defence League, which was founded in the US by the far-right rabbi Meir Kahane. The group was later designated as a terrorist organisation by the US, although the designation was lifted in 2022 due to inactivity.
“Leiter’s son was killed last year in Gaza while serving with the Israeli military.
“Leiter’s appointment came just three days after Donald Trump’s election as US president. During his first term, Trump reversed decades of US policy that considered Israeli settlements in the West Bank a violation of international law.
“Under Trump, Israel aggressively expanded its settlement building, pushing deeper into the West Bank and constructing thousands of settler homes on Palestinian land.
“Trump also recognised Israel’s control over the Golan Heights, a Syrian territory that Israel annexed in 1981 in a move the international community has never recognised.
“Israel’s settler leaders and far-right figures welcomed Trump’s victory, particularly after the Biden administration imposed sanctions and asset freezes on settler groups and individuals involved in violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
“Leiter’s appointment suggests that Netanyahu plans to advance policies in line with the settler movement’s agenda, which includes the annexation of the West Bank.”
I expect that Netanyahu will take advantage of President Biden’s lame-duck status and move forward aggressively to resettle the Gaza and the West Bank. Israel’s behavvior is comparable to the atrocities in Bosnia, in Rwanda in 1994, and the ongoing war against the Royingha in Myanmar. The critical difference is that Israel would not be able to accomplish any of its goals without the support of the US, and the American complicity in the atrocity breaks my heart. But we can dispense with the idea that Israel is conducting a war of self-defense. It is quite clearly a war of conquest.
Israel continues to force Palestinians to leave northern Gaza. Mondoweiss reports:
“Israel’s siege and offensive on northern Gaza have been ongoing for 20 days, as part of what has been described as the implementation of Israel’s ‘Generals’ Plan,’ which aims to forcibly depopulate northern Gaza through deliberate starvation and extermination. Although the Generals’ Plan doesn’t include plans for settler colonization of the area after its ethnic cleansing, far-right Israeli politicians and settler groups have been advocating for settling Gaza since December of last year.
“On Monday, Israelis rallied at Kibbutz Be’eri 3 kilometers away from Gaza’s fence demanding to be allowed to settle in the Strip. The rally was attended by several Israeli ministers, according to Israeli media. Reports indicated that some 700 Israeli families at the event had signed up to move to the prospective Israeli settlements in Gaza.
“Northern Gaza was home to some 700,000 Palestinians before October 7, 2023. According to estimates, some 200,000 Palestinians continue to live in the area, which includes Jabalia, Beit Lahia, Twam, Sheikh Zayed, and Beit Hanoun.”
The “Generals’ Plan refers to a plan devised by Israeli Major General Giora Eiland, although parts of the plan have always been part of Netanyahu’s overall strategy in the Gaza. The plan, however, is most explicit on the forced relocation of Palestinians to southern Gaza. Middle East Eye reports:
“Once Palestinians have been removed from northern Gaza, which the plan anticipates will take a week, the second phase can proceed: the transformation of northern Gaza into a closed military zone.
“The area will, says the plan, be subject to a ‘full and tight blockade, which includes preventing movement to and from it, and preventing the entry of supplies, including food, fuel and water’.
“Anyone remaining will be treated as a combatant. The plan’s YouTube video states that the Hamas operatives who remain can choose to ‘surrender or die of starvation’. After that, ‘it will be possible to enter and cleanse the area of Gaza City with almost no enemy’.”
Middle East Eye interviewed Abdullah al-Muqayid, a resident of Northern Gaza, who eventually left for the south. The report is chilling:
“After an interrogation that lasted until sunset, the Israeli army ordered the residents to evacuate to the southern Gaza Strip. However, reluctant to leave northern Gaza entirely, they moved to the adjacent Gaza City instead.
“‘One of the phrases the soldiers told us was, ‘Go south; you will never return to the north. The north will be ours, and we will build settlements there,'” he said.
‘There were martyrs and wounded people whom no one could help along the way’
“But we came to Gaza City. Along the way, there was a massive number of soldiers and tanks as far as the eye could see, as if they were invading a country, not merely civilians and unarmed individuals. We saw the bodies of martyrs on the ground, with dogs mauling them.”
“Muqayid managed to leave Gaza City, but he had to leave his elderly mother behind.
“She remained in Jabalia; she cannot leave, she cannot walk such a long distance and face the humiliation and insults we faced.”
The “Generals’ Plan” is not official policy of the Israeli government at this point, but The Times of Israel reports that in a recent meeting between US Secretary of State Blinken and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, the Prime Minister refused to rule it out publicly:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his top aides sidestepped US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s request during a meeting Tuesday to publicly clarify that Israel is not seeking to lay siege to northern Gaza, a US official tells The Times of Israel.
Netanyahu and Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer insisted during the meeting that Israel is not implementing the so-called General’s Plan aimed at isolating northern Gaza and argued that claims to the contrary have been detrimental to Israel’s public image, the US official says.
Blinken urged Netanyahu to clarify this publicly, but he and his aides demurred, the official adds.”
The Generals’ Plan is a clear violation of the Geneva Accords which forbids the forcible displacement of civilians in any occupied area. It is also completely inconsistent with US foreign policy which still calls for a “two-state” solution to the dispute between Israel and the Palestinians. But Netanyahu likely sees the coming months as a window of opportunity: Americans are transfixed by the upcoming presidential election and the period between election day and the inauguration is a very difficult time to make significant foreign policy changes. Further, Netanyahu probably thinks that, if Israel quickly makes the annexation of northern Gaza a fait accompli, a President Trump would approve and a President Harris would be powerless to dislodge Israel until after inauguration, at which point US opposition would be moot.
The Generals’ Plan is not possible without US continued support. That support has two components: massive military and financial assistance; and the US missile interceptor systems which prevents Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran from inflicting heavy civilian casualties in Israel. Both are indispensable to the Generals’ Plan, but the US protective shield gives Netanyahu the freedom to do whatever he, or his right- wing cabinet members, Ben-Givr and Smotrich, want.
The US is a clear accomplice in this crime. If Netanyahu had to worry about significant civilian casualties (on the scale of the near 43,000 identified Palestinians bodies, not to mention the bodies buried under the rubble in Gaza), I doubt that he would currently be bombing the Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iran with such abandon.
This circumstance places the US in a very delicate moral dilemma. In order to restrain Netanyahu, the US should lift its protective missile shield and allow civilian casualties at a scale necessary to change Netanyahu’s calculations. But that tactic is morally indefensible: innocent civilians cannot be used as a diplomatic tool. The US needs to continue to shield Israeli civilians.
The alternative is to use the military and financial support as a bludgeon. Netanyahu would then have to calculate how long he could continue the military operations without the infusion of weapons and wealth. That course of action lacks the immediacy of the costs of civilian casualties, but Netanyahu has got to start worrying about the long-term capabilities of Israel without US support.
In order to implement this tactic, US President Biden should immediately announce the suspension of US support unless Netanyahu publicly commits to no annexations of land in the Gaza and in the West Bank and the establishment of a viable Palestinian state. It is long past time for the US to indulge Netanyahu’s political survival which is dependent on Ben-Givr and Smotrich. And the US needs to more vigorously pursue its own foreign policy interest which is a peace based on the two-state solution.
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has established Israel as a rogue state with no red lines. It has attacked the Gaza Strip, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and Iran with few repercussions to its own security. And it has launched these attacks with no hints whatsoever as to what would be acceptable terms of peace. Consider: the Gaza Strip has been almost completely destroyed and its inhabitants do not know how the devastation might stop. The US and its allies have all stated that the only possible resolution to the conflict would be the implementation of a two-state solution. Netanyahu has explicitly rejected this approach, according to the New York Times:
“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel doubled down on his opposition to the creation of a Palestinian state this weekend, again rebuffing pressure from President Biden to agree to that path after the war in Gaza is over.
“My insistence is what has prevented — over the years — the establishment of a Palestinian state that would have constituted an existential danger to Israel,” Mr. Netanyahu said in a statement in Hebrew on Sunday. “As long as I am prime minister, I will continue to strongly insist on this.”
“The statement reiterated comments he made on social media the previous day, when he said in Hebrew that he “will not compromise on full Israeli security control of the entire area west of the Jordan River — and that is irreconcilable with a Palestinian state.”
Because it has offered no alternative, Israel only offers continued occupation, and it demands that the “elimination” of its enemies is the price that the Palestinian people have to pay for those terms if they want peace. And now the same terms are being offered to Lebanon, Syria, and Iran. Moreover, there are apparently no limits on how Netanyahu defines “elimination”. The current war in Gaza was precipated by a heinous Hamas attack that killed 1,200 Israelis but the counterattack on the Gaza has killed almost 42,000 Palestinians, the majority of which are women and children. The disproportionate ratios are also reflected in the losses suffer by the Lebanese in the current escalation, as demonstrated graphically byBloomberg:
The one-sidedness of this conflict means many things, but the one point most relevant to any possible settlement is that the terms of a settlement acceptable to Israel is the complete and utter capitulation of the Palestinian people and that Israel is willing to kill as many people and to attack any state required to achieve that capitulation.
As I have argued before, Israel is only able to follow this strategy because the US continues to arm and financially support Israel with no conditions and that the US is willing to provide the necessary shield to prevent any Israeli civilian losses from attacks from any state in the region. The attack on the Hezbollah headquarters in Beirut was likely done by a 2,000 pound bomb supplied by the US, even though President Biden had earlier banned the export of such bombs to Israel because of their indiscriminate destruction. The Israeli air strike against Yemen yesterday was especially significant because it was a difficult mission that demonstrated the geographic reach of Israeli power as described by The Jerusalem Post:
“Until July, the IDF had outsourced responses to the Houthis to the US, which was fighting the group over various maritime aggression issues. However, after the Houthis killed a civilian in Tel Aviv, the Jewish state struck back directly for the first time.
“During Israel’s July counterstrike, it took two hours and 50 minutes for the IDF’s F-15s, F-35s, and other fighter jets, which carried out around 10 airstrikes against the Houthis, to reach their targets in the Hodeidah Port area. Those aircraft took off around 3 p.m. on July 20 and struck their targets around 6 p.m.
“Although the IDF kept classified the exact number of aircraft it used to refuel its fighter jets to make the 1,800-kilometer flight and return safely during that July attack, it provided a dramatic video showing some of the mid-air refueling in real-time.
“Sunday’s flights and refueling were equally complex, intended to completely destroy the Houthis’ capability (as opposed to a partial cut in July) to receive refined products, including weapons, from Iran.”
The significance of the attack was not in the destruction it caused in Yemen, but rather the message sent by Israel to Iran that it had the capability to attack Iran (also because the Saudis allowed Israel to use its airspace to make the flight). Reuters highlights Netanyahu’s objective:
“Israel warned Iran on Monday that nowhere in the Middle East was beyond its reach and hinted at a land invasion of Lebanon after assassinating the leader of the Tehran-backed Hezbollah group, one of its biggest adversaries, in a Beirut suburb last week.
“‘There is nowhere we will not go to protect our people and protect our country,’ Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a three-minute video clip in English that he addressed to the Iranian people.”
The Iranians have taken actions, such as hiding high-ranking officials, in anticipation of such an attack. I doubt, however, that the Iranians want such a war–the country is weak economically and suffering from drought, a weak economy, and questions about the legitimacy of the regime. More importantly, however, Iran does not have a viable military option. As long as the US is committed to the aerial defense of Israel, there is probably nothing that the Iranians could do do change Netanyahu’s determination to eliminate Israel’s enemies. This is particularly true given that Israel has demonstrated that its has pierced Iranian intelligence by its assassination of Ismail Haniyeh right in the heart of Tehran. Israel also compromised the communications network of Hezbollah by its bold tactic of planting explosives in the pagers and walkie-talkies of Hezbollah activists.
There is, however, one course of action open to the Iranians. It could take to heart the lesson of the fate of the “axis of evil” identified by US President George W. Bush after the 11 September attack on the US. The axis consisted of Iraq, North Korea, and Iran. Iraq had no nuclear weapons and was invaded by the US in 2003 and its government was overthrown and the country occupied by the US for a number of years. North Korea, on the other hand, did have nuclear weapons and does not have to worry about an attack by the US or its allies. The lesson seems clear: if one is worried about an attack by a state that is militarily superior and has indicated that it has no constraints on the use of force, then possession of a nuclear weapon is the best defense.
I sincerely doubt that Iran wants a nuclear weapon. The late Ayatollah Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, called nuclear weapons inconsistent with Islam in 2010. But Iran exists in a dangerous neighborhood. Some of its closest neighbors–Russia, China, India, Pakistan, and Israel–already have nuclear weapons and the US is constantly patrolling the Persian Gulf with ships that are nuclear-capable. Iran unquestionably has the capability to develop a nuclear weapon. but would have to develop a nuclear weapon secretly so that Israel would not launch a pre-emptive strike against its nuclear facilities. A nuclear test conducted by Iran would quickly raise the costs of any Israeli action against it. The outcome of a nuclear Iran is decidedly against Israel’s and the world’s interest. But territorial integrity and sovereignty are attributes without which a state cannot exist, and Israel is currently threatening both of those attributes.
The US must immediately announce that it is suspending all military and financial assistance to Israel until Israel puts forth a proposal for the two-state solution that effectively creates the opporunity for the Palestinians to exercise their inherent right of self-determination. That aspiration will never die no matter how many leaders in Hamas, Hezbollah, Yemen, and Iran that the Israelis succeed in assassinating. This has been the official position of the US ever since the war in 1967, and it is second only to the Cuban Embargo as a bootless policy–it is an objective that has been purely rhetorical and meaningless to the countless number of people who have died in the region. Fifty-seven years is a very long time for a power to remain impotent, and Netanyahu has apparently no compunction to disregard American counsel or interests.
The situation is reminiscent of the difficulties the US had in floating peace proposals during the Vietnam war. In 1972, the US had reached agreement with North Vietnam on a cease-fire, but South Vietnamese President Thieu rejected the proposal as a “surrender to the Communists”. Rather than using its formidable levers to change Thieu’s mind, the US instead chose to amplify its military commitment to South Vietnam and the war expanded and dragged on for two more years. President Nixon chose the military path because he did not wish the US to appear as a “pitiful, helpless giant”. The US became a hostage to its weaker ally and many died because of US inaction on the diplomatic front. In the immediate case, choosing a diplomatic path is the only effective course of action. The US must clearly tell Netanyahu that that path is the only one it will support even as it promises to defend Israel against any attack on its territory, but it will not support any further expansion of the war.
Like Thieu, Netanyahu can ignore the US, but the US needs to make clear to its ally that it means what it says. If Israel wants to continue the carnage, then the US should no longer be an accomplice to the war crimes being committed. Israel is a sovereign state and the US should not dictate to Israel what it should do. But Israel also should not tell the US that it has to support actions that do not serve US interests.
Israel dramatically escalated the conflict in the Middle East by bombing what it called the headquarters of Hezbollah in Beirut, killing the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, as well as Gen. Abbas Nilforushan, one of the prominent generals in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. The timing of the attack was impeccable: the Israeli Knesset is in recess until 24 October and the US in nearing its Presidential election which make any dramatic change in US policy unlikely. The US was not forewarned about the attack and it came as Israel rebuffed US efforts to forge a temporary cease-fire between Hezbollah and Israel.
Hezbollah has long been opposed to the state of Israel and there have been many clashes between the two entities which included Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon in 1982, an event that led to the formation of Hezbollah and an occupation that lasted 20 years. That occupation was a disaster for Israel–it was very costly in lives and expense–and it settled nothing: “In 1982, tens of thousands of Israeli soldiers were sent into Lebanon. About 650 Israeli soldiers were killed in the fighting and another 750 during the subsequent occupation. That makes it Israel’s third costliest war, after 1948 and 1973.” [that article was published in 2006 and does not include the expense of the current war].
There is little sympathy for Hezbollah in the world, but in 2018 Lebanese election, Hezbollah and its allies gained a majority in the Parliament (but lost the majority in the 2022 election). So we are not just talking about a terrorist organization but also a major political actor in Lebanon. The US and its European allies will not shed any tears about the killing of Nasrallah, but all Israeli allies are worried about what the next step in the conflict may be.
It seems likely that both Iran and Hezbollah will respond in force, but neither side has any good options given the Israeli defenses and the willingness of the US to provide additional air defense protection. THe failure of an earlier Iranian attack, in which it launched almost 300 missiles which were mostly intercepted, makes anything other than a massed missile attack likely to fail. Such an attack would likely require attacks against population centers which would outrage the world. But Iran and Hezbollah lack the ability to make effective attacks aginst specific military targets in Israel. Neither Iran and Hezbollah can afford to appear impotent if they wish to maintain their ability to organize opposition to Israel.
While there may not be an effective response to the Israeli attack, it is also not clear what Israel has gained through this attack. Both the US and Israel have a fixation on assassinating individuals in hopes of affecting the dynamics of the long-standing conflict. Israel has been remarkably successful in killing people it believed were involved in terrorist activities. Wikipedia has a list of those killed by Israeli forces and it is extensive (too long to reproduce here).
But killing individuals is not the same as addressing the root causes of the violence. Nasrallah is dead, but does anyone doubt that Hezbollah will find a new leader? Indeed, the ranks of Hezbollah have probably increased as a result of the Israeli attacks. And, if Israel invades Lebanon to ssecure its border, how long will the Israeli occupation last?
Israel has seemingly unlimited resources ot fight its wars and the US offers Israel almost airtight protection against counterattacks. Netanyahu obviously believes that more war is the right course of action for Israel. Perhaps Netanyahu should be reminded that there is a real possibility that its allies will withdraw their support unless Netanyahu begins to pursue policies that lead to peaceful resolution.
Israeli Prime Minister is clearly provoking Hezbollah into a broader regional war. Since the 7 October attacks by Hamas on Israel, there has been a persistent low-level conflict at the Israeli-Lebanese border. But the Israelis have escalated the conflict throught the introduction of the booby-trapped pagers and walkie-talkies and the direct aerial attack on Beirut. These actions comes on top of the Israeli attacks against Hezbollah and Hamas leaders in Syria and Iran. In short, Israel has already committed acts of war against three soveriegn states: Lebanon, Syria, and Iran.
These attacks have been quite successful in diminishing the command structure of both Hamas and Hezbollah. But the apparent Israeli assumption that by eradicating the leadership of these organizations, it is reducing the tactical threats of these organizations to Israeli security is profoundly mistaken. Unquestionably, these organizations have been set back and will need to establish new leadership and new communication strategies. But the attacks serve only to amplify the sense of grievance that underlies the conflict. In particular, Hezbollah will have to respond in some effective way or it runs the risk of becoming totally irrelevant. Writing for the Long War Journal, Joe Truzman outlines the dynamic:
“How and when will Hezbollah respond against Israel is the question on the minds of Israeli military leaders, analysts, and many people living in the region. Retaliation will surely come, but it won’t be a knee-jerk reaction. Hezbollah has demonstrated over the past 11 months that despite initiating a conflict with Israel under the guise of assisting Palestinian civilians in Gaza, it prefers to keep the fighting limited to southern Lebanon. However, after months of rocket fire against Israel and the resounding response by the IDF in the last days, the era of limited conflict may be reaching its conclusion in the days ahead.”
Hezbollah and Iran have been remarkably restrained thus far in their responses to the Israeli attacks, most likely because they have yet to figure out an effective response. The both know that the US and its allies in the region have the capability to shoot down many missiles before they hit their targets. The only possible way for Hezbollah and Iran to actually damage the Israeli homeland is through a massive attack that would deplete their arsenals and would only be effective against population centers in Israel. Such an attack, however, would clearly trigger off a massive response by Israel and the US. That outcome would be disastrous, but it might be a better outcome than humiliation and irrelevance.
The real question is why Israel is pushing its adversaries into such a catastrophic position. The question takes on special urgency since we have no idea what the Netanyahu government intends to do with the Gaza Strip. The war there is essentially over: Hamas is probably incapable of launching any attacks on the Israeli homeland any time soon: “As military operations continue in Gaza and the West Bank, the overall posture of the Israeli military appears to have shifted north. Israel has shifted its 98th Division, which contains the Commando and Paratroop Brigade, to the north. This is a key division that played a major role in Gaza fighting between November 2023 and July 2024. It is joining a number of IDF divisions already deployed there.”
But a larger war would take the eyes of the world off of Gaza and that objective may be the purpose of the escalation–to provide cover for the eventual takeover of the Gaza Strip by Israel. The Middle East Eye suggests that this objective is indeed real: “The threat of war, however, will have implications far beyond Lebanon, as it will turn the world’s attention away from Gaza and allow Israel to complete its mass killing and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.” NBC News reports:
“Warnings from the White House — and the United Nations’ top court — appear to have done little to stop some of Israel’s right-wing ministers from touting a vision that the country’s own prime minister has dismissed: rebuilding Israeli settlements in Gaza after the war.
“Several ministers within Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu‘s right-wing government were among thousands of people who flocked to a conference in Jerusalem on Sunday night calling for Israelis’ ‘resettlement’ of Gaza, with far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich delivering keynote speeches.
“The conference, dubbed ‘Settlement Brings Security,’ was led in part by the right-wing Nachala organization, a group advocating for the expansion of Jewish settlements, which are considered illegal by international and humanitarian bodies. The event called for Israel to rebuild settlements in both Gaza and northern parts of the occupied West Bank.”
That objective seems fanciful, given the massive destruction in Gaza. But it is precisely because the Israelis have destroyed the infrastructure of the Gaza that resettlement becomes possible. No states, including Israeli allies, will contribute to the reconstruction of the Gaza as long as it remains under Israeli control And the Israelis will not contribute to the reconstruction of Gaza unless it is accompanied by resettlement. The end result is that the default option for the battered Gaza Strip is Israeli control.
The Israelis have decided to start a fire in order to put out another fire. They would be well-advised to read The Possessed by Dostoyevky. In that novel, a revolutionary group starts a fire in a town and the immediate response of the townspeople is to put out the fire. But as a governmental official watches those efforts, he reveals the underlying truth to resistance movements:
‘What is he doing there?’
‘He is putting out the fire, your Excellency.’
‘Not likely. The fire is in the minds of men and not on the roofs of houses.’
Israel bombed a school being used as a shelter for displaced Palestinians in Gaza today, killing as many as 100 civilians according to the Gaza Healthy Ministry. The Israelis claimed that the school was being used by Hamas as a command center and asserted that 20 terrorists were killed in the strike and disputed the number of civilians killed. The Israelis have destroyed most of the schools in Gaza: “The U.N. previously said that as of July 6, 477 out of 564 schools in Gaza had been directly hit or damaged in the war, adding that Israel has a duty under international law to provide safe shelter for the displaced.” Moreover, the Israelis claimed to have used precision weapons which may have included weapons supplied by the US: “Unverified reporting indicated that at least one of the missiles dropped on the al-Tabin school overnight may have been a U.S.-made MK-84 bomb weighing 2,000 pounds.”
“The White House is ‘deeply concerned’ about reports of civilian deaths in Gaza related to Israel striking a school in Gaza City that killed at least 80 people, saying the strike “underscores the urgency of a ceasefire.”
“’We are deeply concerned about reports of civilian casualties in Gaza following a strike by the Israel Defense Forces on a compound that included a school,’ NSC spokesperson Sean Savett wrote in a statement to The Hill. ‘We are in touch with our Israeli counterparts, who have said they targeted senior Hamas officials, and we are asking for further details.’
“’This underscores the urgency of a ceasefire and hostage deal, which we continue to work tirelessly to achieve,’ Savett added.”
The US position is indefensible. On the same day that the attack occurred, the US sent $3.5 billion in military assistance to Israel without any assurances that “precision” bombs would be used with more precision (the idea that a 2000-lb bomb can be “precise” in a densely populated area is malicious doublespeak). Israel’s procedures which permit the killing of civilians as long as there are Hamas militants in the general area is completely at odds with the laws of war. There have been 40,000 deaths in Gaza since the war started last October. The US has a law (the Leahy Law) which prohibits “the U.S. Government from using funds for assistance to units of foreign security forces where there is credible information implicating that unit in the commission of gross violations of human rights.” The US has sent about $310 billion in military aid to Israel since its sounding–by far the most supported country in the world despite the fact that its per capita GDP ranks 14th in the world.
The US-led alliance that thwarted Iran’s mille attack last April undoubtedly contributed to Prime Minister Netanyahu’s sense of immunity to attacks in the future, and the subsequent killing of Hamas leader, Haniyeh in Tehran. Because of the US missile shield, the Prime Minister has pursued policies aptly described as rogue. He appears to ignore international condemnation and any pressures from the US to move toward a cease-fire. Indeed, the Prime Minister appears willing to risk a war with Iran, believing that the US would defend Israel. The US should announce an arms embargo on Israel until a cease-fire is reached and to withold future military assistance to Israel until an agreement between Israel and the Palestinian people is reached on the future of the Occupied Territories.
On 8 February 2024, US President Biden issued National Security Memorandum 20 (NSM20) to avoid a showdown with Democratic Senators who were threatening to pass an amendment to restrict US military aids to Israel because of its use of US weaponry in the conduct of the war in Gaza. The Senators believed that the weapons were already being used in a manner inconsistent with international and domestic laws safeguarding humanitarian use of the weapons and wanted the US to enforce the laws more stringently. According to Sarah Harrison, writing for Lawfare:
“Which is why it comes across as misleading that President Biden cites these laws and policies in NSM-20, a document based on the Van Hollen amendment, which was originally intended to put pressure on his administration to comply with them. If applied objectively, the president’s own Conventional Arms Transfer (CAT) Policy, the departments of State and Defense Leahy laws, and 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act—all of which are cited in NSM-20—arguably restrict some assistance to Israel. But so far, public reporting and indications from U.S. officials make clear that is not happening. (NSM-20 also references end-use monitoring requirements, though the State Department does not interpret them to mandate monitoring of actual use of equipment, but to strictly prevent diversion.)”
Importantly, NSM20 requires that such a determination be made within 45 days from the onset of a conflict in which US miliatary assistance is being used. The report from the State Department was released yesterday, a few days past that deadline. It is a textbook case in sophistry, holding two conclusions that do not support the policy recommendation.
The first conclusion is: “Nevertheless, given Israel’s significant reliance on U.S.-made defense articles, it is reasonable to assess that defense articles covered under NSM-20 have been used by Israeli security forces since October 7 in instances inconsistent with its IHL obligations or with established best practices for mitigating civilian harm.” (p. 22) That conclusion is followed by several pages of examples of Israeli military activity violating international humantiarian law.
That conclusion, however, does not suffice to halt military deliveries; the laws also require the US to assess whether the recipient of US military assistance is taking all necessary steps to follow international humanitarian law. If such measures are being taken, then the US can still legally provide aid, hoping that those measures can mitigate the harm to civilian populations.
However, the second conclusion is: “While Israel has the knowledge, experience, and tools to implement best practices for mitigating civilian harm in its military operations, the results on the ground, including high levels of civilian casualties, raise substantial questions as to whether the IDF is using them effectively in all cases.” (p. 28)
By these criteria, the US should stop all military assistance to Israel until there is more effective implementation of the requirements of international humanitarian law. But that course of action is not what the report calls for. The final policy recommendation (pp. 31-2) is: “While the USG has had deep concerns during the period since October 7 about action and inaction by Israel that contributed significantly to a lack of sustained and predictable delivery of needed assistance at scale, and the overall level reaching Palestinian civilians – while improved – remains insufficient, we do not currently assess that the Israeli government is prohibiting or otherwise restricting the transport or delivery of U.S. humanitarian assistance within the meaning of section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act. This is an ongoing assessment and we will continue to monitor and respond to any challenges to the delivery of aid to Palestinian civilians in Gaza moving forward.”
The most benign interpretation of the incoherence of this document is that there are two competing factions in the State Department that failed to reach a compromise. A less benign interpretation is that the State Department had already decided not to follow the law and decided merely to follow the letter of the law with an act of obfuscation. Ni matter, the US should be ashamed of being an accomplice to the crime in Gaza.
There are many reports about the deaths of over 100 Palestinians who were killed during a delivery of humanitarian assistance to northern Gaza. The truck delivering the aid was besieged by hungry people and the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) fired live ammunition to disperse the crowd. The IDF claims that most of the people killed were crushed by the fleeing stampede; the Palestinians claim that most were killed by Israeli bullets.
Since the Israeli assualt on Gaza, living conditions in Gaza have deteriorated precipitously. The Associated Press reports:
“Maurizio Martina, the Food and Agriculture Organization’s deputy director general, described the horrific state of farmland, greenhouses, bakeries and irrigation systems that are essential to produce, process and distribute food.
“Since Oct. 9 – two days after the Hamas attacks – ‘the government of Israel’s reinforced blockade has included stopping or restricting food, electricity and fuel supplies, as well as commercial goods,’ he said.
“This has affected the entire food supply chain in different ways, Martina said.
“As examples, he said, severe restrictions on fuel shipments are crippling water supplies and the functioning of desalination plants, with the water supply at only 7% of pre-October levels. Fuel shortages have also crippled the production and delivery of food and electricity, and seriously hampered the ability of bakeries to produce bread, he said.
“Martina said the collapse of agricultural production in the north is already happening and in the most likely scenario will be complete by May. And as of Feb. 15, over 46% of all crop land in Gaza was assessed to be damaged, he said.”
There are a variety of reasons why deliveries of aid have failed to address the shortages. First, many of the agencies which supply aid, such as the UN World Food Program, have stopped deliveries because it is impossible to provide security for the delivery workers. To get around this problem, many countries are now air-dropping aid into Gaza. Second, some Israelis are preventing the delivery of aid through the Kerem Shalom checkpoint in an attempt to decrease the food available to Gazans, a blockade that the Washington Post claims is supported by the IDF forces guarding the checkpoint. Finally, the main agency supporting the Palesdtinian people, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNWRA) which has been supporting the Palestinian people since 1948, has been charged by Israel that some of its employees participated in the 7 October massacre and has suffered a dramatic drop off in support. According to Care International:
“UNRWA staff have faced near impossible conditions for months: in addition to the 158 UNRWA staff killed during the ongoing hostilities, at least 404 people in UNRWA shelters have been killed during the hostilities; almost 1,400 have been injured; and 155 UNRWA installations have been damaged. UNRWA workers continue to serve their community amid this unprecedented violence. The funding suspension will have wider regional implications that need to be carefully considered. In addition to Gaza, UNRWA operates in 4 other locations (West Bank- including East Jerusalem, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan) where it delivers critical services such as education and healthcare.”
The situation in Gaza is catastrophic and the deaths of the Palestinians at the aid delivery site raises serious questions about whether any outside aid is possible under current conditions. There will unqeustionably be an investigation into what happened, but that investigation will be conducted by the IDF itself. Aside from Palestidnian journalists, there are no outside news agencies that have been allowed into Gaza. Haaretz makes the point: “Since the war began, Israel and Egypt have largely barred foreign reporters from entering Gaza. Of the handful of journalists who have been granted access to Gaza, almost all of them were ’embedded’ with the Israeli army, which brings with it a long list of restrictions.” Moreover, many Palestinian journalists have been killed in the conflict. Haaretz continues: “The most recent tally from the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists puts the number of journalists and media workers killed in the war at 99, according to their website. (This number includes two Israeli journalists, who were killed on October 7 during the Hamas attacks.)”.
Thus, we do not know what has actually happened in this war, aside from the fact that about 1200 Israelis were killed and approximately 200 hostages taken and over 30,000 Palestinians killed, the majority of which are women and children. Presumably, the Biden Administration has its own information sources, but the US response to the conflict is signiticantly at odds with the redponse of most other countries, including strong US allies. Fareed Zakaria assesses the US policy:
“The United States has repeatedly pressured Israel to make greater efforts to protect innocent civilians, but to little avail. Now it has been counseling against an invasion of Rafah, the city nestled close to Egypt where more than 1 million Palestinians have huddled together. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has promised to invade Rafah, whether another hostage deal is made or not.
“The result is that American policy on the Gaza war now appears hapless, ineffective and immoral. The image of U.S. officials wringing their hands about civilian casualties while providing ever-more weapons is grotesque. The image of a president of the United States mumbling words such as ‘indiscriminate’ and ‘over the top‘ to describe Israel’s bombings suggests weakness and passivity.
“Part of the problem is that in trusting the Israeli government, Biden is trusting Netanyahu, an exceptionally clever politician who knows how to handle American presidents expertly and has done so for decades. This time, Bibi has outsmarted, outmaneuvered and outplayed Biden.”
We all need to be far better informed about what has happened in the Gaza Strip since last October. Without information that is independent of the warring parties, we are all allowing the tragedy to continue without respite for the innocents.
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