Tag: genocidal war

Israel’s So-Called Seven Front War

W.J. Astore

And I thought a two-front war was bad

From my CNN feed this morning (October 6th):

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country faces war on seven fronts and called them the “enemies of civilization.” Heavy Israeli airstrikes pounded southern Beirut overnight, with the military saying it was targeting Hezbollah.

Wow. And I thought a two-front war was bad.

Netanyahu is a war criminal. And whether it’s Joe Biden or Kamala Harris or Donald Trump, U.S. leaders bow before him, giving him all the weapons, military cover, and diplomatic cover he needs to wage his so-called seven-front war.

Let’s not forget the rapturous applause Netanyahu received on his recent appearance before Congress. Half the Congress allegedly hates the other half, but they sure came together to profess their love of Netanyahu and Israel.

Maybe Netanyahu and Israel are the “enemies of civilization”? Perish the thought.

Israel is at pains to portray its neighbors as uncivilized even as Israeli bombing produces scenes like this one:

Civilized Israeli bombing of Beirut, Lebanon (Hussein Malla/AP)

That scooter just might be Hezbollah. Maybe Israel can rig it with explosives and remotely detonate it in another one of their “precision” attacks, like all those pagers exploding in “precise” ways.

CNN, of course, always reports the Israeli perspective. Rarely if ever do you hear the Arab perspective, the Persian perspective, the Palestinian perspective. Why listen to the “uncivilized,” right?

The 2024 election in America, which has witnessed total support by Democrats and Republicans of whatever Israel does no matter how heinous, shows the utter bankruptcy of U.S. government rhetoric and the moral bankruptcy of its leaders.

Why do we continue to listen to these people? Why do we contemplate voting for them?

Coda: Netanyahu is going to keep waging war and committing crimes against humanity because that’s what’s keeping him in power. As long as the U.S. keeps arming him and blessing him, mass death will follow. How pathetic is it that our leaders clap to this man like so many trained seals?

(No insult to trained seals intended.)

Israel in Gaza: War, Genocide, Both?

W.J. Astore

A War of Annihilation Is a Genocidal Act

History teaches that you can have genocide without war, you can have war without genocide, and you can have war and genocide together.  In Gaza today, the right-wing Israeli government is clearly engaged in a war on the Palestinian people that amounts to a genocide.

The horrific face of genocidal war

Of course, Israeli leaders claim they are engaged in a war against Hamas, and Hamas alone. Events, however, prove they are engaged in a genocidal war of annihilation.

A few harrowing data points: Israeli forces have already killed or wounded 100,000 Palestinians in Gaza.  Journalist Chris Hedges reports that Israel:

has damaged or destroyed all 12 of Gaza’s universities. Some 280 government schools and 65 UNRWA-run schools have also been destroyed or damaged, often resulting in dozens of fatalities. About 133 remaining schools are used to shelter those displaced by the assault. More than 85 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been driven from their homes amid continued Israeli ground and air offensive that has killed more than 25,000 [now more than 28,000] people, including 10,000 [now more than 12,000] children.

Clearly, Israeli leaders are using war as a means of genocide, an excuse for it, as well as a form of camouflage for it.  Don’t be deceived. War and genocide can and do coexist and feed off each other, as did the Nazi Holocaust against the Jews during World War II.  As Israeli leaders readily admit to war while dissembling about genocide, at least they can be justly accused of war crimes while being held to international agreements governing the conduct of war, such as the Geneva Conventions.

Israel’s genocidal war, if left unchecked, will eliminate Gaza and its people. That is the stated intent of the Netanyahu government, which spouts the worst kind of eliminationist rhetoric, rhetoric that amounts to a “final solution to the Palestinian question.”

Any country that arms Israel in its genocidal war is complicit. Guess which country is clamoring to send another $14 billion in weaponry to Israel so it can pursue its war/genocide in Gaza?  Yes: The United States of America. 

In Gaza, both Hamas and Israel may act savagely and cruelly, but only one side truly has the means at its disposal to slaughter the other, and that side is Israel.  Meanwhile, the mainstream media reserves words like “slaughter” for Hamas, even as Israeli forces kill Palestinians on a massive scale.

Clearly, the current strategy of the Israeli government is to destroy Gaza, making it uninhabitable, forcing the Palestinians in Gaza to leave or die.

When Israel is done in Gaza, they will turn to the West Bank.  As Netanyahu said, Israel’s goal is to dominate Palestine “from the river to the sea.”  Palestinians “in the way” are being killed, or starved, or expelled, or (if lucky) reduced to subjects under intolerable conditions of apartheid.

The Israeli government is getting away with this because it has the legal, military, and propaganda cover of the U.S. and much of Europe as well.  The Biden administration complains about the worst excesses of Israel’s genocide while sending its leaders the weapons they need to continue the killing.  Members of Congress like Nancy Pelosi suggest that earnest Americans calling for a ceasefire in Gaza are the useful idiots of Vladimir Putin.

It seemingly never occurs to Biden and Pelosi that they are the useful idiots of Bibi Netanyahu.

Stop the war in Gaza.  Stop the genocide.

Postscript: The “Words About War” Team have posted ten suggestions for writing and talking more clearly, honestly, and accurately about Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza. Please go to https://www.wordsaboutwar.org/gaza.html.