Gaza: never forgive, never forget

Senior officials in the Israeli government are increasingly open about the genocide they have been carrying out, and the endgame they believe to be within their reach.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said earlier this month that the forced expulsion of Palestinians will be the “inevitable outcome” of the destruction of Gaza.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, an advocate of starvation as a weapon of war, said at a press conference: “We are disassembling Gaza, and leaving it as piles of rubble, with total destruction [which has] no precedent globally. And the world isn’t stopping us”.

The army plans to force Palestinians into the south of Gaza and then to third countries. “This is a change of the course of history—nothing less”, Smotrich said.

And in a piece last week for Haaretz’s Hebrew edition, former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert wrote:

“What we are doing in Gaza is a war of extermination: indiscriminate, unrestrained, brutal, and criminal killing of civilians. We are doing this not because of an accidental loss of control in a particular sector, not because of a disproportionate outburst of fighters in some unit—but as a result of a policy dictated by the government, knowingly, intentionally, maliciously, with reckless abandon. Yes, we are committing war crimes.”

The liquidation of the Gaza Strip through starvation, disease, relentless bombardment and terrorism would represent Israel’s final solution: the annihilation of the centre of Palestinian national life and the redrawing of the Middle East’s political map.

It is increasingly clear that this is the crime of the century. Not because it has generated more death or suffering than other atrocities, but because the death and suffering have been backed and justified down the line by those who claim to represent the “civilised” world.

With this war, all the old, purportedly “banished” colonial-era canards about civilisation taming barbarism return with a vengeance to justify the slaughter and starvation of several million people.

Last week, the governments of Britain, France and Canada—staunch backers of the Zionists’ genocide—finally appeared to waver in the face of a renewed Israeli offensive. In a joint statement, they described conditions in Gaza as intolerable.

“We will not stand by while the Netanyahu government pursues these egregious actions. If Israel does not cease the renewed military offensive and lift its restrictions on humanitarian aid, we will take further concrete actions in response”, the three governments said.

But this was theatrics. One Israeli official told Haaretz newspaper that the public pressure was “all part of a planned ambush we knew about”.

Netanyahu has been clear that the resumption of small deliveries of aid to starving Gazans is about “the operational need to enable the expansion of the intense fighting” and to ward off international pressure while the genocide continues.

At any rate, Western politicians cannot claim ignorance. The historical record will inevitably contest any attempt now to rewrite their history of support for these crimes.

From the very beginning in October 2023, the Israelis talked about destroying every last building in Gaza. Within weeks of the ground invasion of Gaza, United Nations officials were warning about ethnic cleansing and a potential genocide.

Western governments not only ignored these warnings. They provided support for the slaughter and to this day continue to slander opponents of the genocide as racists.

Israeli politicians who attempt to rewrite their place in this gruesome event will also face history’s judgement.

Yair Golan, leader of the opposition Democrats party, in a now widely reported interview with Kan public radio, recently said Israel was “on the path to becoming a pariah state, like South Africa once was”. He continued: “A sane state does not wage war against civilians, does not kill babies as a hobby, and does not set goals for itself like the expulsion of a population”.

But like all politicians trying to cover their arses, Golan is up to his neck in these crimes.

“First of all, we need to cut off any supply to Gaza”, he said in October 2023. “I think that in this war, a humanitarian effort should not be allowed. They should be told: Listen, until they [the hostages] are freed, we don’t care if you starve to death. It’s completely legitimate.”

A few months later, on the Haaretz podcast, he said: “We’d all like to wake up one spring morning and find that 7 million Palestinians who live between the sea and the river have simply disappeared”.

This has been the standing position of the Israeli establishment: from the river to the sea, a Jewish ethnostate free of Palestinians.

Israel’s Western backers knew this then, and they know it now. They have given unconditional support to the Zionist state in full knowledge of its intentions and its crimes against humanity.

As the endgame draws nearer, still they support the government in Tel Aviv.

This shall never be forgotten. And they should never be forgiven.