The Israeli prime minister cited Mr. Trump’s efforts to end conflicts in the Middle East. But in truth he is grateful to the U.S. president for joining his war against Iran last month and for allowing carnage in Gaza to continue after a brief pause.
He is also eager that the U.S. president does not strong‑arm him into another ceasefire. Perhaps the indirect talks between Hamas and Israel in Qatar will reach a temporary deal again, with hostages released and possibly more aid allowed in.
Even so, few expect that a lasting peace would result.
Words matter. They have become so detached from reality when it comes to Israel’s war in Gaza that it is not merely absurd, or despicable, but obscene.
The defense minister, Israel Katz, has laid out plans for a “humanitarian city”: this means forcing all Palestinians in Gaza into a camp that the military would bar them from leaving.
Prof. Amos Goldberg, a historian of the Holocaust, used the accurate words: it would be “a concentration camp or a transit camp for Palestinians before they expel them.”
The “emigration plan” which Mr. Katz says “will happen,” according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, is in fact an ethnic cleansing plan. No departure can be considered voluntary when the alternative is starvation or indefinite imprisonment in inhuman conditions.
Some think the proposal is a political gambit. Perhaps.
Israel has yet to find countries prepared to take Palestinians. Yet it is laid out not even by extremist coalition partners whom Mr. Netanyahu wants to keep on board, but by a man whose position gives him the authority to carry it out — even if the military has qualms.
Ideas previously seen as unfeasible and unconscionable have already become reality.
The “humanitarian distribution” system run by the private Gaza Humanitarian Foundation summons starving Palestinians into a death trap; hundreds have been killed.
Soldiers near the hubs have told journalists that they were ordered to shoot at unarmed Palestinians who pose no threat — a war crime. (The Israeli government called the allegations “blood libels.”) The IDF says it attempts to minimize civilian casualties. But most of the tens of thousands who have died are women and children. Israel has killed hundreds of medical workers: another war crime.
Words matter. When South Africa took its genocide case to the international court of justice, many resisted that description. Far fewer do so now.
The legal bar is extraordinarily high. But signatories to the genocide convention are required to prevent it, and the U.S. has declared genocides four times in the last decade.
Destroying Palestinians’ means of survival, planning the removal of Gaza’s population and envisioning its outright destruction are surely not merely brutal acts but ones committed with “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group” — the definition of genocide in the UN convention.
Israel’s rhetoric aims to obscure the horror, and allow those who are complicit, including the UK, to distance themselves.
