Genocide and Israel

Israeli Cartoon via Telegram

Today I want to touch on southern Lebanon and the latest statements from oh, Itamar Ben Gvir and others in the far Israeli right. Yes, they do meet the definition of genocide and are incredibly damaging to Israel, and by extension, Diaspora Jews. I would also like to balance this with the opening of the permissive structure in Israel. People are talking about this in Israel, and some Israelis are even quite open about what Israel is doing abroad.

Yes, there is an American saying that politics stops at the water’s edge, but we haven't followed it for the last ten years. But the reality is that there is a minority of Israelis talking about this as well, and not being friendly to the government. In fact, a member of the Knesset has joined the BDS movement in a speech in Germany to a left-wing party. This matters because even touching on the BDS when you are asking for it matters. I don’t care if this is somebody on the left or the right of the political spectrum.

So first with Ben Gvir and others in the far right.

This actually rises to a call for genocide, and if Ben Gvir were your crazy uncle, we all have them, who gets drunk on Thanksgiving and demands we nuke the enemy of the moment, that is one thing. Itamar Ben Gvir is far more than your crazy uncle. Among other things, he runs the police and prisons, and he often violates the Fourth Protocol of the Geneva Convention. So here, via Times of Israel, because his post on Twitter, yes, I refuse to call it by its new name, has landed badly:

Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s call “to burn all of Lebanon” has sparked international condemnation, with Iran latching on to the comment as proof that Israel is a “genocidal death cult” that seeks “constant war.”

In Israel there was silence from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar over the incendiary call, while former prime minister Naftali Bennett tried to allay criticism by dismissing the ultra-nationalist leader as a “clown” with no real impact on policy.

Ben Gvir published his comments on X on Friday after the Israel Defense Forces announced that four soldiers were killed in southern Lebanon, where the IDF is battling the Iran-backed Hezbollah terror group.

This is not the first time he has done this, and he is hardly alone in these feelings. Here is another example from a reserve officer: For those at the back of the room, or who claim that Israel can do this, well, this is a war crime. It literally violates the proportionality rule in combat. And yes, civilian casualties are a sad thing, but when you go disproportionate, you are causing a maximum number of them. That is where the war crime lies.

Colonel (res.) Prof. Gadi Siboni on Channel 7: “If the State of Israel does not set the rules of the game, the enemy will set them with blood, fire, and missiles. The State of Israel must adopt Minister Smotrich’s policy and use every attack on Israel and IDF soldiers for a disproportionate strike in Lebanon.”

Colonel Siboni is quoting Bezael Smotrich, who has similar calls, to just drop buildings in Beirut for every drone that hits Israeli troops. Let me explain something that matters here. The IDF is shocked at the way their enemy has adapted. And they lost a couple of tanks over the last few days to drones, with crews. So that has created a wave of shock. But the speech that you are seeing on the right is normalizing war crimes, as well as genocide. And to be fair, more than a few tanks have been lost, but most of those losses have not come with personnel losses.

So, let me balance this with the still small, but it is slowly growing, side of Israeli politics that has broken quite a few unwritten rules. The first is to be critical of Israel in this way, and calling for Boycott, Sanctions, and Divestments (BDS). This member of the Knesset, calling for this in Germany, is not a young college student at Berkeley or Columbia. She was not influenced by woke professors at any of these institutions. And she is on the Israeli left, but she is joining people like Ehud Barak, who was a Likud prime minister at one point. I bring this to you because most of this is in Hebrew, and people not in Israel are missing these discussions, so now I am trying to bring these to you:

One of the guests invited to speak about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was MK (Member of the Knesset) Aida Touma-Suliman, who sharply attacked Israel, accusing it of “genocide,” apartheid, and that it was “pushing the region and the entire world into crisis.” She accused Germany of aiding genocide because of its stand on Israel’s side.

In her speech, Thomas-Suliman called on Die Linke to stand firm against Israel and what she called the “fascist government,” claiming that Israel was taking revenge on the Palestinians following the “horrible attack that took place on October 7.” According to her, Israel is expanding beyond its borders as part of the idea of ​​a “Greater Israel,” occupying territories in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria, and carrying out ethnic cleansing in Judea and Samaria and the Negev - “settler violence is state violence,” she said.

Thomas-Suliman “warned” that even a change of government would not help, as she claimed that “the political center in Israel supported the war, and changing the leadership and coalition will not stop the occupation, apartheid, and fascism that have penetrated deeply into the state’s systems.” She also claimed that the majority of Israeli citizens supported the “genocide,” and called on the party’s voters in Germany to act against Israel: to promote an arms embargo that would include both the sale of weapons to Israel and the purchase of weapons from it, to boycott goods from “illegal settlements,” and to promote sanctions on European-Israeli relations.

I recommend you put the whole article through Google Translate, because these conversations are happening. And they need to happen. She did not excuse Hamas; there is no excuse for Hamas either, but she does explain how this government is using the events of October 7. And as I said, this is the part of the conversation that most people (even Diaspora Jews) are missing. Speaking this way in Israel could carry serious political consequences, but it is now across the political spectrum.

What you are watching, in slow motion, is the Overton window starting to open. And permissive structures are slowly getting bigger. In a way, this is why the Coalition is trying to collapse the Knesset this week, so they can accelerate elections. They know Gadi Eisenkot is nipping at their heels, and the last thing this far-right government wants is for more moderate forces to take over.

Perish the thought that we should see a board of inquiry finally convened in Israel over the events of October Seven. And if you thought American politics were bad, as I told a couple of friends, they seem tame when compared to Israeli politics. So you welcome. But Israel has another aspect: most of these conversations are happening in a language that, let's say, 12 million people globally are fluent in. So, of course, a lot of this is missed.