“Life over the past four weeks, if I can sum it up, is a people being exterminated.”

—Islam Ahmad, a freelance journalist from North Gaza

“The magnitude of the crimes Israel is currently committing in the northern Gaza Strip in its campaign to empty it of however many residents are left is impossible to describe, not just because hundreds of thousands of people enduring starvation, disease without access to medical care and incessant bombardments and gunfire defies comprehension, but because Israel has cut them off from the world. Ever since Israel’s current operation in the northern Gaza Strip began on 5 October, the area has been under a near complete siege, relentlessly pummeled by the military…”

—The Israeli Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories

Israel’s cabinet, led by Netanyahu—now charged by the International Criminal Court as a war criminal—his generals, and the Israel Defense Forces are committing war crimes in their genocidal operations against the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank. They are now also uprooting hundreds of thousands of Lebanese, even beyond the “strongholds” of Hezbollah militants. Every day there are reports of dozens killed and injured in both northern Gaza and Lebanon. Israel’s leaders appear hell-bent on permanently occupying Gaza and the West Bank—and most likely southern Lebanon—as part of “Greater Israel.”

WHO WILL STOP THIS ONGOING INHUMAN SLAUGHTER?

Certainly not the U.S., which shares responsibility for the continuation of the war, since its military weapons have been flowing non-stop to Israel throughout the year-plus war. The coming Trump administration, which has appointed an evangelical Christian, Mike Huckabee, as its ambassador-to-be for Israeli, will no doubt worsen the situation. Huckabee states: “There is no such thing as the West Bank—it’s Judea and Samaria . . . There is no such thing as an occupation.” Nor does he recognize Palestinians as a distinct people.

There have been significant, large protests worldwide against this continuing outrage. Importantly, this includes protests of both Palestinians and their supporters in the U.S. As well, and this is crucial, there have been many Jewish youth in the U.S. and elsewhere joining, and sometimes leading, these protests, particularly on university campuses. Many times, these demonstrations have been slandered as anti-Semitic by reactionaries, university officials, police, as well as conservative Jewish supporters in the United States and elsewhere. This is not to say that anti-Semitism does not exist. It does, in the U.S. as well as in Europe. But to be anti-Zionist, and oppose a “Greater Israel,” is not anti-Semitic. It is in fact opposing Israel’s genocidal war, a war that has opened the door for anti-Semitism to grow. So we ask again, who can stop this genocidal war?

The citizens of Israel must take matters into their own hands to stop this barbaric outrage, this madness being carried out by the Israeli government and its far-Right supporters in their name. Of course, the horrendous brutal attack by the fundamentalist Hamas organization against Israelis of Oct. 7, 2023, resulting in the deaths of some 1,200 civilians and soldiers, had to be thoroughly opposed, but not by a collective punishment against all Palestinians! Hezbollah, too, began firing rockets the day after Oct. 7, and continues to do so from inside Lebanon. They too need to be opposed and condemned. But why does that mean that hundreds of thousands in Lebanon should be subjected to Israeli bombardment, and now an invasion of Lebanese territory?

THE HORRORS OF GENOCIDE

By now well over 40,000 Palestinian have died—and this does not include the thousands uncounted, buried below the rubble of the IDF’s massive attacks. A United Nations agency reports that two-thirds of those killed have been women and children!

Many in Israel, perhaps even a majority, were outraged that Netanyahu and his cabinet put the return of the hostages kidnapped on Oct. 7 on the back burner, but few seem to show concern for the majority of Palestinians in Gaza, who are under a barbaric siege, with northern Gaza being starved and cleared. What has happened to the Other Israel, the Second Israel, which for many years opposed Netanyahu’s reactionary policies and practices? Where is the outrage against the Israeli settlers, who, with the support of the IDF, are terrorizing Palestinian villages in the West Bank? Who, within Israel, are protesting the inhuman and often torturous interrogation of Palestinian prisoners?

This war is not alone a threat to all people in the Middle East but it may explode into an even greater confrontation. The Israeli Right has shown its intention to involve Iran, and Iran has certainly shown its willingness to keep the war ongoing. Will the U.S., with its aircraft carriers and troops in the Mediterranean, enter into war not alone with arms, but with troops? It is a continuing danger.

The only way Israel can have real security, is to end the occupation of Palestinian land and oppression of its people. Clearly a defense against the theocratic fundamentalism of Hamas and its ilk is necessary. But a separation from and struggle against the fundamentalism and armed terror of the Israeli Right is needed as well. Israel’s citizens need to confront their own rulers for this cycle of madness to end. We in the U.S. also bear a heavy responsibility, and must dramatically increase pressure on our government to stop arming Israel’s genocide.

—Eugene Walker
For the National Editorial Board of News and Letters Committee
November 22, 2024