Israeli forces committed a new massacre against Palestinians late on 14 March as they were waiting for aid near Gaza City’s Kuwait Roundabout, marking the second attack of its kind in the last 24 hours.
Footage on social media shows dead Palestinians laid out across the ground, covered in dust and rubble.
The Health Ministry in Gaza said on Thursday night that at least 20 corpses and 155 injured Palestinians arrived at Al-Shifa Hospital following the attack, calling it a “new premeditated massacre.”
Gaza’s government media office said in a statement that the Israeli army targeted “a gathering of citizens while they were waiting for relief aid at the Kuwait Roundabout in Gaza City.” Israeli troops opened fire at the aid seekers with tanks and helicopters, killing and wounding at least 100, it said.
The attack is “to be added to the series of massacres and brutal attacks against the defenseless civilians who face the Zionist starvation policy,” the media office added, calling the attack “deliberate.”
“The occupation targeted aid recipients for the 20th consecutive day,” the government media office continued.
Israeli forces have repeatedly attacked aid seekers at the Kuwait Roundabout in Gaza City and elsewhere.
Israeli forces shot and killed six Palestinians waiting for aid at the roundabout late on 13 March. Hours earlier, at least five Palestinians were killed and several injured by Israeli army shelling on a UNRWA aid distribution center in the Gaza Strip’s southernmost city of Rafah.
The Rafah attack came a day after Israeli forces opened fire at dozens of Palestinians lined up for food aid near the Kuwait Roundabout.
Israeli troops committed a massacre against Palestinians seeking aid in northern Gaza’s Al-Rashid Street near the Kuwait Roundabout on 29 February. The brutal attack, which killed over a hundred Palestinians, has come to be known as the Flour Massacre.
Due to the several attacks on hungry Gazans near the Kuwait Roundabout and Al-Rashid Street, Al-Jazeera’s correspondent Hani Mahmoud said on 14 March that the area “is now known as a death trap.”
On Thursday, multiple media outlets reported on secret meetings between Iranian and US officials with Omani officials acting as a conduit. According to the reports, the US asked Iran to instruct the Yemeni Houthis to stop their blockade in the Red Sea.
However, Iran has made it very clear that they will not negotiate on behalf of their allies, Dr. Seyed Mohammad Marandi, a professor of English literature and Orientalism at the University of Tehran, told Sputnik’s The Critical Hour on Thursday.
“It’s obvious that the Iranians are not going to negotiate on behalf of Yemen,” Marandi explained, pointing to when Saudi Arabia and Iran were negotiating to reestablish diplomatic relations. “There were years of negotiations to reestablish ties. The sticking point was that the Saudis wanted Iran to negotiate on behalf of Yemen because [Saudi Arabia was] at war with Yemen… and the Iranians insisted that they [would] not negotiate on their behalf… ultimately, the Saudis removed that precondition.”
Marandi insisted that contrary to media reports, “No negotiations between Iran and the United States took place [regarding Houthi attacks in the Red Sea] because the Iranians would not accept such negotiations.”
To stop the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea, the US simply has to stop supporting Israel’s genocide in Gaza, Marandi argued. “[The Houthis] have said from the very beginning when the genocide in Gaza began that they will block shipping to Israel, to Israeli ports, in order to put pressure on the regime to stop the genocide and they said they will do it in accordance with the Genocide Convention,” Marandi explained. “They are actually working within the framework of international law and their position is a deeply moral position… Yemen has said repeatedly that if the genocide stops, their actions in the Red Sea will stop.”
Meanwhile, the US and its “sidekick, the British” are working to help the Israeli genocide, including by killing Yemeni citizens, Marandi said.
However, that has caused problems for those countries who were added to Yemen’s blockade list in response. “[The US and UK] created a problem for themselves,” he explained.
“In this upside-down world that we live in today, the United States is attacking Yemen in order to help the Israeli regime continue with genocide unimpeded.”
The reverberations of that decision and the US insisting that shipping companies go around Africa instead of through the Red Sea, is hurting more than just the US and its allies. “What the Americans want to do, is they want to make this a crisis, a global economic problem,” Marandi said. “They want everyone to suffer so that they can gain leverage and put pressure on Yemen to end the blockade… for the sake of Israel and for the sake of the Israeli genocide, they’re willing to make everyone suffer.”
The leader of Yemen’s Houthis has said that the Yemeni armed forces will continue their retaliatory operations against Israeli-affiliated commercial vessels, preventing the passage of the ships even through the Indian Ocean and through the Cape of Good Hope.
About 34 Houthi fighters have been killed since the Yemeni armed forces began to attack shipping lanes in solidarity with the people of Palestine under attack in Gaza by Israel, Ansarullah leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi said in a televised speech on Thursday.
Yemeni forces have repeatedly launched drones and missiles against Israeli and Israel-bound ships since mid-November, saying they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians against Israel’s war on Gaza.
Al-Houthi said 73 ships have been targeted in Yemeni operations in support of Gaza so far, adding rarely does any ship associated with the Israeli enemy pass through Bab al-Mandab.
“This week, support operations included 12 operations targeting ships and barges, executed with a total of 58 ballistic and cruise missiles and drones in the Red Sea, the Arabian Sea, and the Gulf of Aden,” he said.
“Our operations this time reached unprecedented ranges, with 3 operations reaching the Indian Ocean, by the grace of Allah,” he added. “The total number of targeted ships and barges reached 73.”
Al-Houthi said that the operations will continue as long as the aggression and siege on Gaza persist.
The United States and Britain began striking Yemen in January in order to dissuade the country from targeting Israeli ships which carry arms and logistics for the onslaught on the besieged Gaza Strip.
Al-Houthi said the Americans and the British have received “painful blows” from the Yemeni armed forces in retaliation.
The American-British “aggression will not affect the escalating course of our operations in terms of range, momentum, precision, and strength,” said Al-Houthi.
“What can stop the Yemeni military’s maritime operations is only the cessation of aggression and siege on Gaza,” he noted.
The American stubbornness and escalation of aggression result in only one outcome: the expansion of the conflict, the widening of the circle of war and events, and the tension of the situation at the regional level in general, he stated.
He went on to say that the Yemeni armed forces will continue and effectively expand the range of the operations to reach areas and locations that the enemy never expected.
Al-Houthi said what insures the navigation security in the Red Sea is for any country not to participate in the Israeli aggression against Gaza.
He said the Americans and those who drag the United States towards the militarization of the Red Sea are the ones who undermine international navigation.
“By the grace of Allah and His assistance, we aim to prevent the passage of ships associated with the Israeli enemy even through the Indian Ocean and from South Africa towards the Cape of Good Hope,” he stated.
“For this important, advanced, and significant step, we have begun to implement our operations related to it through the Indian Ocean and from South Africa towards the Cape of Good Hope,” he said.
There is absolutely no choice for the Americans and the British but to stop the aggression on Gaza and stop starving the people in Gaza, he declared.
“Our human conscience, our religion, our morals, our dignity, our pride, our belonging to Islam, prohibit us from watching the oppression of Palestine or remaining silent about it,” said Houthi.
He added that the Yemeni military is in continuous development of capabilities and in constant expansion of the stance in its range, effectiveness, and impact.
“The American’s actions this week, involving aerial bombings and naval shelling, amounted to 32 bombing raids and strikes, which, as usual, were unsuccessful,” he revealed.
“The impact of the American raids and bombings is negligible regarding our missile and drone capabilities and in terms of continuing operations effectively to counter it, and in preventing ships associated with the Israeli enemy,” he stated.
He concluded by saying that the Yemeni armed forces are continuously escalating, and increasing capabilities to attack enemy ships. “No matter what the Americans do, they will not be able to stop us from supporting the Palestinian people in Gaza.”
Yemenis have declared their open support for Palestine’s struggle against the Israeli occupation since the regime launched a devastating war on Gaza on October 7 after the territory’s Palestinian resistance movements carried out the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm.
The Yemeni Armed Forces have said they won’t stop retaliatory strikes.
The maritime attacks have forced some of the world’s biggest shipping and oil companies to suspend transit through one of the world’s most important maritime trade routes.
Tankers are instead adding thousands of miles to international shipping routes by sailing around the continent of Africa rather than going through the Suez Canal.
Since the start of Israel’s genocidal war following Operation al-Aqsa Storm by Gaza-based resistance movements on October 7, 2023, more than 31,000 Palestinians, including many women and children, have lost their lives.
The Israeli military offensive has left a trail of destruction in Gaza, leaving hospitals in ruins and displacing around half of its 2.4 million residents.
Israel has additionally enforced a comprehensive blockade on the coastal sliver, severing the supply of fuel, electricity, sustenance and water to the population residing there.
The EU is preparing a €7.4 billion ($8 billion) aid package for Egypt, citing “concerns” that the Israeli genocide in Gaza and the ballooning crisis in Sudan could “risk exacerbating financial troubles in the North African nation and raising immigration pressure on Europe,” according to a report by the Financial Times(FT).
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen is set to visit Cairo on 17 March alongside the Greek, Italian, and Belgian prime ministers to “finalize and announce the agreement.”
Completion of the deal accelerated following the start of Israel’s campaign of genocide in the Gaza Strip. The terms of the agreement reportedly include support for Egypt’s energy sector, assistance to deal with the rising number of refugees entering the country, and help to fortify the country’s border with Libya.
An estimated €1bn in emergency financial assistance could be paid immediately to Cairo, while another €4 billion in “macro-financial assistance” hinges on implementing reforms under an expanded loan program with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Officials told FT the rest of the funds would be drawn from various EU funding streams.
The funds from Brussels is the latest in a recent string of investment packages coming from the west and Gulf states for cash-strapped Egypt.
“With respect to the question on the potential impact pressures from refugees from Gaza, what we do see in Egypt is that there is a need to have a very comprehensive support package for Egypt. And we’re working … to ensure that Egypt does not have any residual financing needs,” IMF spokesperson Julie Kozack said on 22 February.
The IMF agreed just days later to expand its financial rescue program for Egypt to $8 billion after the Egyptian central bank let loose its currency to help stabilize the economy. Egypt is the second most indebted country to the IMF, behind only Argentina, with an international debt that grew from $37 billion in 2010 to $164 billion in 2023.
In late February, UK oil giant BP announced plans to develop gas projects and drilling in Egypt over the next three to four years at a cost of $1.5 billion. This came just after the North African nation sealed a massive $35 billion real estate development deal with the UAE, which will see Emirati investment vehicle ADQ build a 170 km tourism and financial center in the Ras al-Hekma area.
In recent weeks, Cairo has also been in discussions to sell prime Red Sea coastal land near Sharm al-Sheikh to Saudi investors.
The unprecedented windfall comes as Egypt is putting the finishing touches on a kilometers-wide buffer zone and wall along its border with southern Gaza, allegedly in preparation to take in hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians once the Israeli ground invasion of Gaza’s southernmost city begins.
Amnesty International and other NGOs have also accused Cairo of “harassing” the director of the UK-based Sinai Foundation for Human Rights, which revealed the construction of the buffer zone last month.
Geopolitical analysts, including The Cradle’s Mohamad Hassan Sweidan, have speculated that Egypt may be willing to accept refugees from Gaza in exchange for a significant offset of its staggering debt.
The ongoing Israeli aggression on the besieged Gaza Strip has targeted historic sites and cultural centres destroying them either completely or partially while the indiscriminate killing has led to the death of many of the enclave’s writers, artists and activists, a joint report issued by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) and the Ministry of Culture has revealed.
The report issued yesterday on the Palestinian National Culture Day said Israel has destroyed 32 cultural centres and institutions as well as 12 museums while more than 2,100 pieces of heritage dresses and embroidered items had been lost. As many as 45 writers, artists and activists have been killed by Israel since it started its war in October.
The Israeli aggression has led to the destruction of about 27 murals, and the bombing of more than eight publishing houses and printing presses, three media and art production companies and studios, nine public libraries as well as four religious shrines.
The Israeli bombing has completely destroyed 219 mosques and partially destroyed 287 mosques and three churches, 195 historical buildings, nine archaeological sites and 19 universities and colleges.
In the occupied West Bank, the Israeli army’s restriction on movement, repeated invasions and various massacres have caused the halting of many cultural activities including the soap festival in the city of Nablus, which was scheduled in April as part of the Ministry of Culture’s preparations to register the soap on the World Heritage List.
The statement said that Palestinian institutions and associations in the occupied city of Jerusalem “were subjected to attempts to dismantle them… as happened with the Al-Hakawati Theatre,” adding that “the [Israeli] occupation authorities are working to put in place everything that would keep these associations ineffective and completely stop their activity, through stifling administrative and legal processes.”
While Israel’s unsubstantiated claims of rape on 7 October have dominated western media headlines, credible documented cases of rape against Palestinians and Israeli-on-Israeli sexual assault have received far less attention.
Israel’s scourge of sexual violence and rape incidents did not originate five months ago – its roots go deeper and farther back than that, and there is a crucial context essential for understanding the country’s domestic environment of abuse.
Israel’s massive sexual violence problem
On 8 February, Haaretz brought to light a harrowing revelation: 116 separate files detailing instances of sexual assault and domestic violence against women and minors among Israelis ‘displaced’ from their illegal settlements due to the ongoing military conflicts with Gaza and Lebanon.
The cases surfaced during a special Knesset committee on the Status of Women and Gender Equality, where “committee chair MK Pnina Tamano-Shata [National Unity Party] chastised police representatives for failing to collect accurate data from each hotel regarding violence and sexual attacks.”
Although there were disputes over a lack of complete data, disturbing incidents were highlighted, including a case of pedophilia involving a 23-year-old establishing a “relationship with a 13-year-old girl, both living in the same hotel” and a rape committed after a man followed a woman to her room. It also noted that elevators were places of particular vulnerability for sexual assault and violence.
Sexual harassment and violence are nothing new among Israel’s armed forces. According to a Haaretz report, “a third of female conscripts in the military had suffered sexual harassment at least once in the previous year [2022].”
Haaretz noted that most victims avoid reporting what happened to them and that “70 percent of those young women who did report what happened to them stated that their report was not handled at all, or not handled sufficiently.”
In 2020, the Israeli army’s sexual violence crisis was recognized after only 31 indictments were filed out of 1,542 sexual assault complaints registered within the military establishment.
That’s a stunning indictment of the ‘world’s most moral army.’ And it isn’t just Israel’s war establishment afflicted with the rape bug.
Rape, normalized in Israel
In addition to being a regional hub for human trafficking and a haven for pedophiles, Israel consistently ranks the highest in West Asia for documented cases of rape and sexual assaults.
In 2020, protests erupted across Israel after 30 men gang-raped an intoxicated 16-year-old girl, which prompted Ilana Weizman, of the Israeli women’s rights group HaStickeriot, to disclose that a shocking one in five Israeli women was raped during her lifetime, with 260 cases reported every day.
In March 2021, a series of gang rapes against minors, with the youngest victim being just 10-years-old, sparked widespread concern in Israel over the prevalence of sexual assault. APCCI said that the rate of violent sexual offenses in Israel was 10 percent higher than the average for Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, labeling it as an “epidemic.” A Knesset report from the same year revealed that nearly half of the sexual abuse cases between 2019 and 2020 involved underage girls.
Back in 2016, activists from Jewish Community Watch warned that Israel was becoming a “safe haven for pedophiles,” noting that sexual offenders were using the Israeli Law of Return, which allows any Jew to claim citizenship and live in occupied Palestine. Years later, in 2020, CBS News released a report entitled ‘How Jewish American pedophiles hide from justice in Israel,’ which demonstrated how wanted individuals were walking free in Israel, leaving behind a spate of unresolved criminal cases.
To add insult to injury, Hebrew media reported that 92 percent of civil rape investigations were closed without charges in Israel.
According to the Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel (ARCCI), despite the country’s ‘good laws’ on sexual assault, inadequate enforcement of these laws means that people use “legal tricks” to avoid retribution for assaults, with many assailants avoiding prosecution. In short, “people are not afraid to hurt. There is no fear or retribution.”
Occasionally, in high-profile cases of rape and sexual assault, the Israeli judicial system has been known to act, as evidenced by the conviction of former Israeli president Moshe Katsav in 2010 for raping an aide and sexually harassing two other women.
However, Katsav’s release after serving just five years of a seven-year sentence ignited a debate on the early release of sex offenders. In 2022, APCCI reported that 75 percent of sexual offenders in Israel are released before completing their full sentence.
Israel, weaponizing rape against Palestinians
From the time of Israel’s founding, rape has been extensively documented in its use as a weapon of war against Palestinians. In a 2022 documentary named after the Israeli massacre in the Palestinian village of Tantura, horrific admissions of rape committed by the Alexandroni Brigade were acknowledged for the first time on camera.
There are also various other reported cases of rape from that period: at least three rapes, one committed against a 14-year-old Palestinian girl, that occurred during the Safsaf massacre in October of 1948.
Because rape and other forms of sexual violence are often difficult to prove conclusively, it is essential to note that early Zionists also weaponized the threat of sexual violence, especially surrounding the massacre of Deir Yassin in 1948.
As documented by Israeli historian Ilan Pappe in his book “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine,” stories of explicit gendered atrocities were deliberately spread to encourage residents of other villages to flee. In a recent series of interviews conducted with two Nakba survivors, both revealed that they fled their villages specifically due to the rape atrocities in the village of Deir Yassin.
Today, that same attitude of sexualizing vulnerable Palestinians is apparent in the countless snuff films published widely on social media with the approval of the Israeli military, featuring male Israeli soldiers going through the underwear drawers of Palestinian women and even mockingly wearing their lingerie.
This, coupled with what a UN panel of experts recently said were “credible allegations” of sexual assault against Palestinian women by Israeli soldiers operating in Gaza, indicate a clear pattern of gendered violence taking place in the war.
At least two cases of rape, along with numerous cases of sexual humiliation and threats of rape, have also been recorded. Reem Alsalem, the UN special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, has noted that “We might not know for a long time what the actual number of victims are.”
Systematic sexual humiliation
In 2002, during the Second Intifada, Israeli occupation soldiers took control of Palestinian TV networks in the West Bank city of Ramallah to broadcast pornography on several channels. Knowing that Palestinian society is a socially conservative one, it is clear that this was done with the intent of humiliation.
A prominent case of recent sexual humiliation in the West Bank occurred just last year near the city of Al-Khalil (Hebron) and was investigated in a joint Haaretz-B’Tselem report. On 10 July, between 25–30 Israeli soldiers burst into the Ajluni family’s home, forcing five Palestinian women to strip naked at gunpoint and threatening to unleash army attack dogs on them.
One woman named Amal was taken into a private room with her children and forced to take off her clothes. The report states: “the children also had to witness their mother being ordered to turn around while naked as she sobbed over the humiliation. About 10 minutes later she and the children were taken out of the room pale and trembling.”
While it is not possible to note every single case of sexual violence perpetrated against Palestinian women by Israeli forces, it is well documented that female prisoners have been subjected to some of the worst forms of it.
During the Second Intifada, there were countless allegations of sexual violence against women and girls in Israeli military detention, a trend which Israeli human rights group B’Tselem reports is again on the rise. The rights group said that the Palestinian female detainees recently released in the Hamas–Israel prisoner exchange were subjected to “threats of rape” and “were humiliatingly strip-searched several times” after their violent arrests.
An interrogator came in and asked me in English what I thought about what Hamas did. He swore at me and called me a ‘whore.’ He said there were 20 soldiers in the room and that they would rape me like Hamas–ISIS raped Jewish women in southern Israel. He kept swearing at me and threatening me and my family. Then, a female soldier came and took me to another room with more female soldiers, who told me: ‘Welcome to hell.’ They sat me in a chair and started laughing at me and calling me ‘whore’ again and again.
Speaking to the media following her release from Israeli detention late last year, Baraah Abo Ramouz said the following about the “devastating” conditions faced by female Palestinian prisoners:
They are being constantly beaten. They’re being sexually assaulted. They are being raped. I’m not exaggerating. The prisoners are being raped.
In 2022, the Shin Bet dropped a case of sexual assault against a Palestinian woman detained in 2015 over “lack of evidence.” This is despite the fact that a doctor and female soldiers had admitted to inappropriately touching the woman’s private parts, while the company commander in control admitted to giving the order. The victim’s filed appeal states:
In a situation in which there is no dispute that acts that constitute rape and sodomy were committed, [in which] there is sufficient evidence, and when no one is punished, it’s outrageous and unbearable.
According to former US State Department official Josh Paul, after he and his colleagues received credible evidence that Israeli forces had raped a 14-year-old Palestinian boy in Al-Moskibiyya detention center, Israel raided the offices of the human rights group that passed the information on to the State Department, later declaring it a terrorist organization.
False narratives fueling war crimes
While the Israeli government pushes the story that Hamas implemented a pre-planned systematic rape campaign on 7 October, for which there has been no independent investigation or evidence produced, documented cases of sexual violence are undermined and ignored.
The mere fact that Israel’s notorious ZAKA rescue service relied upon heavily for testimonies of rape on 7 October, was founded by serial rapist Yehuda Meshi-Zahav, nicknamed the ‘Haredi Jeffrey Epstein,’ is telling.
The wholly unsubstantiated rape claims of the Israeli government – widely amplified and parroted by western media – are impossible to take seriously when a known propaganda outfit like ZAKA is the source.
The UN Office of the Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict recently released a report after its Special Representative Pramila Patten completed an eight-day trip requested by the Israeli government.
The report on sexual violenceallegations was produced by a team of nine UN experts and had no investigative mandate. Yet statements from it made headlines in western media, suggesting that the UN had confirmed Israel’s narrative, although the report in no way substantiated it.
In the case of sexual violence allegations made about Kibbutz Be’eri, from where the majority of the allegations emerged, there was no evidence found. Two cases were debunked by the UN team as having been “unfounded.”
In one, widely cited as proof of rape, a woman was found separated from her family with her underwear pulled down. The UN team said that the “crime scene had been altered by a bomb squad, and the bodies moved.”
The UN report also noted that the interrogations of alleged participants in Operation Al-Aqsa Flood by Israeli intelligence agencies were not considered as evidence, another major blow to Israel’s body of claims.
In Kibbutz Kfar Aza, where the report concluded “the recurring pattern of female victims found undressed, 18 bound, and shot – indicates that sexual violence, including potential sexualized torture, or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, may have occurred,” it also notes that “verification of sexual violence against these victims was not possible at this point.”
Given that the UN team found that Israelis had altered other crime scenes, an independent investigation would be needed to confirm that the crime scenes weren’t equally compromised.
The human cost of Israel’s lies
It should also be noted that the recent New York Times scandal – where its investigation into sexual violence on 7 October was directly discredited by the family members of a woman they tried to claim was raped – dealt a massive blow to the credibility of Israel’s narrative.
During Primila Patten’s press conference, in which she addressed the findings of her UN mission, she admitted that they had not interviewed any victims and did not find a systematic campaign of sexual violence, nor was the team able to attribute sexual violence to any specific Palestinian resistance group.
Amidst the recurrent circulation of unverified claims lacking independent investigation, these graphic and unsubstantiated allegations fuel widespread sexual violence against vulnerable Palestinians.
Israel, grappling with its own internal sexual assault issues, has a troubling history of utilizing gender-based violence within its military jurisdiction. The disproportionate lack of attention towards the ongoing atrocities perpetrated by the occupation state illustrates a clear double standard perpetuated by western mainstream media.
In just five months, Israel has killed more children in a strip of land the size of the US city of Philadelphia than all conflicts worldwide did in the past four years combined, said a UN special rapporteur today.
In a scathing report presented to the United Nations, Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, decried the ongoing crisis in Gaza, describing it as a systematic process tantamount to genocide.
Albanese’s report underscores the harrowing reality faced by Palestinian children under Israeli occupation, highlighting the devastating toll of the conflict.
“Destroying a population from its roots. Genocide is a process, not an act, and what is happening in Gaza is a tragedy foretold. See my report on the treatment of Palestinian children under Israeli occupation,” she wrote on X.
The report details the relentless assault on Gaza’s civilian population, particularly its children, who have borne the brunt of the violence. Albanese’s findings paint a disturbing picture of systematic targeting, indiscriminate bombings and the destruction of essential infrastructure, leaving countless families displaced and communities in ruins.
Israel has waged a deadly military offensive on the Gaza Strip since October. Over 31,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have since been killed in Gaza, and over 73,000 others injured amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities.
There has been a growing public rift between US President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over Israel’s plan to invade the southern Gaza city of Rafah, the last designated safe area in the region.
Despite the growing public rift, Israel has nothing to fear from Biden and the United States will ultimately assist Israel in ethnically cleansing Palestine in more ways than just supplying weapons, professor, activist and anthropologist Jeff Halper told Sputnik’s Fault Lines on Tuesday.
“[Israel] is a settler colonial movement. Therefore, in order to transform Palestine into Israel, an Arab country to a Jewish country, you have to displace the population and you have to take its land. This isn’t only happening in Gaza. This is certainly happening in the West Bank as well,” Halper explained. “By destroying Gaza… it makes it impossible for the Gazans to come back. Now, Israel would like Egypt to take them and put them in the Sanai [desert], [but] Egypt says no.”
Instead, the United States and other Western countries will take the Gazans into their country. “The United States will say ‘Alright, we’ll take 50,000,’ Canada will say – Canada already said this – ‘we’ll take 30,40,50,000.’ Each European country will take a few thousand or tens of thousands, Australia, New Zealand and so on. Israel could get rid of a million or more Palestinians, with the help – the complicity – of European and North American countries, under the guise of humanitarian aid for refugees… That’s what Israel is calling ‘voluntary transfer.’”
Earlier, Co-host Jamarl Thomas asked about Egypt’s intentions, noting that satellite imagery has shown that infrastructure is being built in the Sinai desert, presumably meant to house potential Palestinian refugees.
“They’re building a camp, but not as [part of] a plan,” Halper explained. “They built the camp because they’re afraid… that if in fact, Israel does invade Rafah in the south, there isn’t really a good plan of where those people go. The combination of military pressure plus starvation is simply going to drive a million Palestinians through the border… If there [is] a massive break out of Gaza in the direction of Egypt, then Egypt is prepared for that… It isn’t for any kind of voluntary plan, it’s for that possibility.”
Israel’s ultimate plan, Halper argues, is to greatly lower the number of Palestinians in the region and then create an apartheid for the remainder.
“[Israel will] lock them into small little islands with the help of Biden, we’ll call those Bantustans a state, and now we have a two-state solution. Israel is on 85% of the country, it controls everything [and] it’s a Jewish country, but there’s a Palestinian state on a few little islands that will be recognized by the international community and now we’re done with the Palestinians and we can move on,” Halper explained. “In other words, Israel thinks it can get away with apartheid in a way South Africa couldn’t, and there’s good reason to believe that might be true.”
Rather than push for a two-state solution that is looking increasingly less likely, Halper argued that Israel should be converted “into one democratic state of equal rights for all its citizens.”
The curtain opened. In front of a dismayed world, a staging of genocide is taking place under the supervision, assistance and protection of the world hegemon.
No water, no food, no medicine, no fuel, no electricity! We are fighting the human beast. The whole nation is responsible, no one is innocent. Burn completely, no hope left. Destroy Gaza now! Now! Nakba! A Nakba that will overshadow the Nakba of 1948. Wipe them out, their families, their mothers and their children. These animals are no longer allowed to live.
It is Amalek, calling the Leader – a nation that stood in the way of the Jews during their emigration from Egypt. Now go and slay Amalek; like a sledgehammer you will destroy everything that belongs to him. You will not spare him, but you will kill man and woman, young man and infant, bull and sheep, camel and donkey, Jehovah commands King Samuel (1S 15,3). You will wipe out the memory of Amalek under heaven, do not forget it! (Deuteronomy 25:19)
This is the framework in which Israel’s campaign against Gaza begins in October. If we leave aside the immediate consequences – dead, human suffering, destroyed earth, the long-term consequence will be a fundamental break in the paradigms and clichés of the Western world. In their smug self-righteousness, Netanyahu and the Zionist politicians do not realize what a Pandora’s box they have opened.
Genocide
To avoid misunderstandings: genocide, according to the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, means any of the following acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group as such:
killing members of such a group;
causing grievous bodily harm or mental disorder to members of such group;
the intentional placing of any group in such living conditions as to bring about its total or partial physical destruction;
measures aimed at preventing the birth of children in such a group;
forcibly transferring children from one group to another.
The International Court of Justice must review the evidence and hear the parties and witnesses before rendering and reasoning judgment. A non-participating observer does not have to wait. If he sees someone kill another, he doesn’t have to wait for an investigation, an accusation, an indictment, a retrial, witnesses, evidence, and a verdict to know that he is committing a crime.
At the same time, it must be remembered that the Convention was adopted in December 1948. Earlier cases may fulfill its factual essence, but – unlike the current one – they cannot be retroactively judged on its basis.
The term genocide is already terrifying because of its weight, most people – incorrectly – understand it in the spirit of the Old Testament as the complete extermination of the entire target group. However, this was never achieved – that is why the formulation was completely or partially destroyed. A somewhat milder synonym is ethnic cleansing , more accurately describing the goal: removing the target group from the given territory. By persuasion, coercion, terror, banishment, killing, whatever.
Historical examples and comparisons are provided. The first genocide of Palestinians – Nakba in Arabic (النكبة, catastrophe, despair) – took place after the declaration of the State of Israel in May 1948. Three quarters of a million Arabs expelled, 532 Arab towns and villages razed to the ground, an estimated 15,000 dead – also thanks to arms supplied by Czechoslovakia – is the trauma from which Palestinian identity is derived. It differs from the current genocide primarily in that it took place covertly. Israel has so far tried to cover up its tracks and denied that it ever happened. It is only now that they suddenly claim it as a model worthy of repetition and exceding.
In many ways, the genocide in Gaza resembles the post-war genocide of the Sudeten Germans: the size of the target group (2.3 or 3.2 million respectively), the intensity (around 25,000 dead in three months), the justification (revenge for an armed attack against the state, or for its destruction and occupation), collective punishment affecting mainly the innocent, rhetoric (Gallant: human beast, Beneš: human monster ), great power cover (USA, USSR), hidden personal motivation of the leaders (Netayahu’s avoidance of trial and prison, Beneš’s post-war presidency) , the intention of the booty (Palestinian land and natural gas fields, German possessions), the strategy (killing as a means of forcing them to leave) and the mass support of the population.
One difference is in the design. In the Czech case, the killing was not an officially announced program, but to a large extent the honest handiwork of ordinary citizens, so to speak. Two years later, it became the subject of an investigation. In the case of Gaza, the official program is officially announced and is carried out by a professional army killing industrially by the hundreds with bombs from above; honest manual labor is left only to the West Bank settlers. Another difference is in the outcome: Czechoslovakia was more successful in that Stalin secured the additional approval of the Potsdam Conference and the killing could end.
Genocide, however, primarily evokes reminiscences of the Nazi genocide of Jews, Gypsies and Slavs. It differs from the current one in several ways, not only in the monstrous number of victims.
Above all, it was perpetrated covertly and in secret, even shyly, in front of its own population. German politicians did not publicly shout out their targets, German soldiers did not boast of photos of torture and murder in the media, small children did not joyfully sing ” we will kill them all” on German radio , and there is no evidence that the Leader himself gave the order for it. Being shot or gassed was – if such a word can be used – more humane than the slow death of those buried under the rubble, from injuries, diseases and the unavailability of medical care, from starvation. The strategy was also the opposite: initially the Jews were forced to emigrate by coercion and repression, physical liquidation came only when there was nowhere else to go. It was only on the eastern front that it was justified by the fight against terrorists (guerrillas) and acquired a character similar to Gaza.
Most of all, the events in Gaza are reminiscent of the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto in the spring of 1943. Hundreds of thousands of Jews crowded into three square kilometers, in a hopeless situation, decided to fight desperately to the last man. They built a network of underground passages and bunkers, collected a meager arsenal of weapons, attacked police and SS units and forced them to retreat from the ghetto. A similarly brutal retaliation followed, artillery bombardment, flamethrowers, burning of houses block by block, flooding of underground passages, indiscriminate murder. Within a month, the ghetto was practically razed to the ground, 13,000 of its inhabitants perished and 50,000 of the survivors were deported to concentration camps.
The elimination of the inhabitants of Gaza by starvation may remind us of the Ukrainian Holodomor of 1932-33. However, it is wrongly labeled as genocide, there is a lack of definition of the target group and the intention of its destruction. Contrary to the Ukrainian narrative, it was not targeted against a specific ethnicity, and the motivation was not ethnic cleansing and looting, but the export of wheat despite a disastrous crop failure.
However, the most extensive genocide in history is the genocide of the indigenous population of both Americas. In South America in the 16th century is the spoils of gold and silver of Indian empires, in North America in the 19th century, territories of Indian tribes.
Gaza and Ukraine
If the war outcome of the Maidan putsch has already shaken many established clichés, after the massacres in Gaza there is practically nothing left of them.
Just a few months ago, the Russian annexation of Crimea and the Donbas republics was presented as the ultimate violation of international law, while the annexations – without referendums – of the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem, the West Bank, were generously overlooked. Today, in the face of undisguised expansionism and the intended annexation of all of Palestine, Israel’s borders have become the most pressing issue in international politics.
Just a few months ago, the Russian bombing of civilian infrastructure was considered a war crime – regardless of the fact that they were mostly targets of military importance and regardless of the war crimes in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Sudan. Compared to the interruption of water, food, medicine, and energy supplies to the world’s largest concentration camp, with the systematic bombing of housing estates, hospitals, schools, universities, mosques, power plants, waterworks, and bakeries, this seems like the grossest hypocrisy today.
Just a few months ago, the media was filled with reports of Russian attacks against the civilian population – regardless of the fact that the ratio of thousands of civilian dead to hundreds of thousands of military dead is an unprecedented low in the history of world warfare. They disappeared. President Herzog abolished the distinction between civilians and terrorists. Compared to three times more civilian casualties in four months than in two years of the Ukrainian war, with hundreds of women and children killed per alleged terrorist, it is better not to mention Russian crimes.
The topic of the Ukrainian war did not disappear from the media only because of the failed offensive and the inevitable defeat of the West. First of all, they have run out of topics to disavow Russia – any accusations of any crimes only underline their multiple validity for Israel. There is a war between two armies going on in Ukraine, which at least the Russian side is conducting with maximum consideration for the civilian population. There is no war in Gaza, but a military massacre of the civilian population.
A certain similarity can be seen at most in the characters of Zelensky and Netanyahu. Both have dragged their country into wars they cannot win and whose outcome threatens the very existence of their states. Both of them have already been written off as politicians, and prolonging the war at any cost for them means postponing not only the end of their careers, but above all the post-war reckoning.
A similarity can also be seen in the likely future fate of both countries given their unwavering irrational belief in ultimate victory. For both, common sense would see ending the fighting, opening diplomatic negotiations, coming to terms with the loss of some territory, and accepting new neighbors – New Russia and Palestine – as the last realistic chance before destruction. For both of them, such an idea is absolutely unacceptable, so they have no choice but to enjoy their pride until the bitter end.
Gaza and Western Democracy
Just a few months ago, the cliché of the struggle of our Western democracy against a foreign (Russian) dictatorship, the struggle of Good against Evil, was prevalent. If we descend from the heights of transcendent metaphysics back to earth, we find that the highest imaginable Evil is crimes of aggression, war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide. After several months of massacres, it is clear that their perpetrators are not strangers, but ourselves – whether Israel, which we rightfully count among ours, or the entire collective West, which actively supports or at least passively tolerates it. Even countries like the Czech Republic and Austria, which might be expected to show particular restraint in the matter of genocide, vote at the UN General Assembly – as the only EU members – to continue the genocide.
Just a few months ago, Israel was being touted as the only democracy in the Middle East—regardless of the fact that Western democracy itself had long since been emptied by oligarchy, totalitarian propaganda, censorship, and repression. If Ukrainian neo-Nazism could still be trivialized and silenced in the media, in the perspective of Israeli apartheid, the Nuremberg Laws, the denial of human rights and the right to life to the inferior non-Jewish population – Muslims as well as Christians – the content of the term Israeli democracy suddenly overlaps with Nazi ideology.
The West – this is Europe including its branches, the USA and Israel. Today it could be more aptly described as a caste of Israeli-American oligarchs who have colonized it for their own purposes. Unreserved support for Israeli genocide may appear to us as an incomprehensible anomaly in view of traditional European values - the UN Charter and international law, peace and conflict prevention, resolution of disputes through action and not force, immutability of borders through violence, democracy, freedom, equality and human rights, social market economy , social security, elimination of poverty, human life as the highest value. It is as if in twenty years Europe has turned into the exact opposite of what shaped its identity at the end of the century and what citizens voted for in referenda.
Only in a longer-term perspective will we discover that the period of humanism in the second half of the 20th century was an anomaly, that it was only a temporary reaction to the trauma of two world wars. Since its birth in the 9th century, Europe has been the most aggressive, predatory and cruel civilization in history. The Inquisition, the Crusades, the Conquista, slavery, the East India Company, colonialism, pogroms, world wars, the Holocaust – these are not anomalies, they are a continuous European tradition. It was only from the 19th century that the European USA took over the initiative from it, and from the second half of the 20th century, the European Ashkenazis took over new territories and genocided their population.
Let’s also note that the conquests of previous empires were generally motivated by the expansion of the territory and its resources, including – or mainly – its inhabitants. After these, loyalty to the new ruler and tribute were required, but they were usually left with extensive autonomy. Violently subverting their social structures, religion, culture would be counterproductive – it would only reduce their economic contribution. Only the USA, Nazi Germany, Israel and (let’s not forget) Czechoslovakia are conquering exclusive Lebensraum for themselves , a living space , which, of course, must first be cleared of its current inhabitants .
For a Western reader, these remarks are probably heresy of the coarsest grain. Outside the circle of Western civilization – that is, in seven-eighths of the human world – this is the basic perspective in which the West is seen and judged. The genocide in Gaza and its Western support only confirms it. The continued clamor for democracy, human rights, rule-based order can only further discredit the West. Respect and authority are gained by countries that are able to stand up to it and whose tradition is not burdened by conquests, colonialism and subversion, especially Russia, China, Iran.
Thus, Gaza gave another powerful impulse to the ongoing process of global polarization. In perspective, one can expect accelerated consolidation of the rising Global South in the new structures of BRICS+, SCO, EAEU and further decline in the influence, isolation and disintegration of the West. Desperate efforts following the example of Zelensky and Netanyahu, which cannot be avoided at all costs, can easily turn into a global nuclear conflict in Ukraine, the Middle East or the South China Sea.
Gaza and Israel
I still remember the enthusiasm and admiration for Israel at the time of the Six-Day War in 1967 and the Yom Kippur War in 1973. With the Lebanon War and the massacre of Palestinians in Sabra and Shatil in 1982, sympathy began to quickly disappear – Israel must be like a rabid dog, declared Moshe Dayan, and so he began to appear. I remember the statement of an Israeli politician at the time after some other scandal in the sense that there will be an uproar about it for a few weeks and then it will be forgotten again. I think that’s how Israeli politicians have imagined it to this day. For a society whose thinkers have contributed a great deal to the knowledge of the human psyche, one can only marvel at such a level of ignorance.
It doesn’t work that way. The scream subsides, but the mental image is burdened with another negative emotion. They accumulate over a long period of time, even if they do not outwardly manifest themselves in shouting. The initial sympathy gradually turns into its opposite – we have all experienced such a process many times. Extremely negative events, such as an ongoing genocide, eliminate the remnants of latent sympathy for good.
Regardless of the current berserk mode of bloody unity, it is going on under the surface in Israel as well. The previous wave of resistance against Netanyahu’s attempt to introduce a dictatorship sensitized a critical view of one’s own history and its meaning. The campaign in Gaza pulled out of the hole of oblivion the circumstances of the establishment of the state, including the hitherto carefully concealed Nakba, terror, massacres such as Tantura, Deir Yassin and others. The process of coming to terms with its own history is just beginning in Israel, but the question is whether it will have enough opportunity and time to do so, whether the fanatical Deuteronomists, who understand the Torah literally as Jehovah’s order to kill others, will not expel all critical citizens from the land before the inventory.
It is said that states are maintained by the political forces by which and from which they were created, stated Masaryk. With a genocide that has no parallels in modern history in terms of its obviousness and cruelty, Israel has burned all bridges behind it. The return of the rabid dog to the international community is hardly imaginable. All that remains is to run forward: completing the purge in Gaza, extending it to the West Bank, eliminating Hezbollah and occupying Lebanon, attacking Iran.
But Israel does not have the means to do so. Even in the campaign in Gaza, it is completely dependent on weapons, ammunition, financial, intelligence and, in the future, military assistance from the USA and its veto in the Security Council.
But even the control of the US by the Israeli lobby is not a sustainable state. There, too, criticism of America’s participation in Israeli massacres is gaining unprecedented strength, not least in the Jewish community itself and the state administration. Nor can the US afford to become a permanently isolated outcast of the world, as the latest UN vote suggests. So far, American politicians are dependent on electoral votes, and they are rapidly polarizing under the reality of Gaza.
Despite the fact that the US is not even in a position to effectively intervene militarily in a volatile region without causing an uncontrollable explosion. An attack on Iran, in which the myopic sees its own perpetrator, would immediately result in a devastating storm on Israel and on forty American bases and the navy, caught in a regional trap, and the disruption of the vital oil trade by closing the Strait of Hormuz. A full invasion of Iran is hindered by the lack of financial, military and human resources, the reaction of the American population, Iran’s alliance with Russia and China, and practically zero chance of final victory.
The US can only watch helplessly at the tenacious resistance of Hamas, the binding of a large part of the IDF in the north by Hezbollah, the Houthi sanctions against Israeli shipping and even the attack – quite possibly under a false flag – on a base in Jordan with three dead. The toothless retaliatory bombing of Shiite terrorists is PR for the public and voters, but apart from the further consolidation of the Arab Axis of Resistance and the intensification of demands for the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq and Syria, it has no real effect.
The future of Israel cannot be predicted. The only thing that is certain is that it will not exist in its current form for a long time. Several possible directions of development can only be imagined very broadly.
The first is the escalation that is currently looming: Israel will deliberately continue to drive Palestinians from Gaza into Egypt’s Sinai, domestic pressure will force Egypt to armed border protection, Hezbollah to intensify attacks from the north, Israel to attack Lebanon and other actors, including USA, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey and various Muslim militias, to actively participate in the wider and regional conflict. Israel’s chances of surviving it are more than doubtful. Unless the fighting escalates into a devastating World War III, what is left of Israel will certainly be far from what it is today.
Another is what is referred to as the two-state solution: Israel within the 1967 borders and a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza with East Jerusalem as its capital. In addition to Israel’s radical rejection, which perhaps sufficient pressure from the world could eventually break, similar to South African apartheid in the 1980s, the biggest problem is the dense network of settlements built by the most fanatical Zionist extremists in the Palestinian territories. An attempt to subject them to Palestinian state jurisdiction would most likely lead to protracted civil war and Israeli-sponsored terrorism with the prospect of an Israeli-Palestinian war and again a latent escalation into a wider regional conflict.
The third option is Palestine/Israel from the river to the sea, i.e. the only state entity within the boundaries of the former British Mandate of Palestine. Paradoxically, the Palestinians and Benjamin Netanyahu subscribe to it, but with different ideas: Israel is Erez Israel, the only Jewish state gradually eliminating the share of its racially inferior fellow citizens. The Palestinian idea is a democratic state of equal citizens, where, of course, the Palestinian majority would have a decisive weight. If there is a real regional war, this is probably the most likely outcome.
The fourth possible variant is a gradual dampening of the current conflict without further major dramatic reversals, but not a return to business as usual. The balance of power has irreversibly changed. Israel has lost both its nimbus of invincibility and the unconditional support of the West, which is also itself in a phase of decay. On the contrary, with its role as a common enemy, it consolidated the Islamic identity and self-confidence of Islam as, alongside the USA, China and Russia, another powerful pole in a multipolar world. Israel’s only chance of survival could be accommodation in the Islamic environment, but it has already burned all bridges for that.
Gaza and the Jews
Israel is a Jewish state.
If we were to take his self-declaration seriously, then the worst imaginable crimes against humanity up to genocide are committed by Jews. And if we were to follow the conclusions of its president, none of them is innocent.
I am afraid that many people already perceive it this way, not only in Islamic countries and in the Global South. As if Israel wanted to confirm all the centuries-old European anti-Jewish prejudices.
But it’s like all stereotypes: the differences within each group are greater than the differences between the groups. The most die-hard Zionists claim to be Jewish just as much as their staunchest opponents.
Jews are probably the most heterogeneous identity in the world. Those we meet in the West are generally Ashkenazi, culturally descended from Central Europeans who escaped Christianization by conversion to Judaism in the ninth century, much like the Iberian Sephardim, descended from those who escaped Islamization two hundred years earlier. The Jewish religion was chosen for the Turkic Khasars in the eighth century by King Bulan. The Jews – in the continuity of the ancient Hebrews – lived in part on the territory of Palestine even before the Ashkenazi invasion, in part merged with the Palestinian Arabs and in part lived in peace in the surrounding countries, mostly Islamic since the seventh century, from where they were forced to emigrate to Israel after 1948 as Mizrahim.
Over the centuries, however, they mixed with the local population and with Jews from other areas; the Central European Ashkenazis, for example, seamlessly follow the Eastern European Khazars. Seeing them as a biological race is misleading for several reasons. On the one hand, genetics has definitively disproved the idea of race, and on the other hand, the derivation of biological origin in the horizons of millennia is a pure myth. Thousands of years ago, we each had one trillion ancestors. We are all multiple descendants of Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, Muhammad, Confucius, Genghis Khan, the ancestor of Bohemia and Charlemagne. What unites Jews of various origins, languages and cultures is the mystique of their own uniqueness, the mystique of belonging to Jehovah’s chosen nation. Including secular Ashkenazim.
But not all Ashkenazim are Zionists. Zionism is the concept of the Jewish people formulated in 1896 by Theodor Herzel, demanding their own state in Argentina or Palestine. In the following year, the first Zionist Congress was held – incidentally, at the same time as the founding of the Czech National Social Party and the Bund, the party of the Russian Jewish proletariat, three concepts that authoritatively determined the following century. The Zionist colonization of Palestine begins especially after the adoption of the Balfour Declaration in 1917, in which Britain supports the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine – as a European enclave to control the Suez Canal.
It was clear from the beginning that the territory could only be acquired at the expense of its existing inhabitants. All the initial declarations about the peaceful coexistence of two equal nations – from Herzel to Žabotinsky – were hypocrisy in a situation where one group forcibly occupies the territory of another. Of course the native Arabs, Jews and Christians had to defend their land and property, of course the European colonization of Palestine – like all others – could only be accomplished by power, money, violence, weapons and terror.
Brutality, however, is nothing remarkable about the Ashkenazi colonization of Palestine, European colonizations from the New World through Africa to the Far East were similarly brutal. Its anachronism is remarkable. The European colonial system peaks at the end of the 19th century and ends no later than the Second World War, when the colonization of Palestine is just beginning. In addition to the British interest in controlling the Suez Canal, the main motive for European support is helplessness over hundreds of thousands of Jews freed from concentration camps, in which feelings of complicity for their suffering are mixed with resentment for their repatriation. Sacrificing the Palestinians as compensation for the victims of European genocide pushes the problem aside, away from Europe.
The status of victims of eternal anti-Semitism, pogroms and the Holocaust, together with the trauma of European guilt, gives Israel and European Jews a de facto nimbus of exceptionalism – and impunity; it morally – and often legislatively – excludes any discussion and criticism a priori. Let us note its Ashkenazi origin: it is based on an exclusive European experience. There was no persecution of Jews (Gypsies, Gentiles, heretics, witches…) anywhere else, especially not in Islamic countries, nor elsewhere in Asia, America, or even in the European USA and Canada. And let’s add that the identity of the victim is always an aggressive identity.
Now the Ashkenazi Zionists are forcibly implanting their victim identity into the Islamic world, where Muslims, Jews and Christians have lived together in mutual respect and tolerance. With European arrogance, they also transfer their battle cry of eternal anti-Semitism to the Muslims who are resisting the occupation of their country, launch a hateful anti-Islamic campaign in the Christian West, and manipulate the US into military interventions against its Islamic rivals. It is a suicidal strategy: an alliance with Christian Europe, persecuting the Jews for millennia, against Islam, providing them with a safe home for millennia.
However, the genocide in Gaza is also shaking the European alliance and the protective walls of European historical myths and taboos. Never again holocaust! But which one, the one committed against the Jews, or the one committed by the Jews? The most powerful Ashkenazi weapon is losing its force after seventy years, on the contrary, a critical revision can be expected. In time, the criminalization of Holocaust denial will either have to be extended to genocide denial in general or be abandoned – after all, this is a question for historians and lawyers, not politicians.
Also, the impact of the second Ashkenazi weapon, anti-Semitism, suffered from inflationary use already before October 2023. However, it does not have much of a chance to convince that it is a worse crime than genocide. With Gaza, the question of what its users actually mean by Semitism becomes even more pressing. If he means robbery, terror, ethnic cleansing, mass murder and genocide, perhaps we are all anti-Semites.
Israel’s barbarism also re-examines the age-old problem of Jewish identity: what is it? Is it a biological race according to Torah, Halachah, Nuremberg Laws and Israeli Laws? Religion in the sense of Maimonides, Hasids, Haredim, Jews in Islamic countries and proselytes? Secular nationality according to Herzl, Weismann and the early Zionists? Cultural tradition – but which one, Saba Kadisha of Damascus, Moses Mendessohn of Germany, Ba’al Shem Tova of Poland? A caste superior to the rest of the world according to Ovad Yosef, Schlomo Aviner, Israel Ariel?
Since October, over half a million Jews who had somewhere to go have left Israel. This is almost as many as the number of Palestinians expelled during the Nakba of 1948. The outlook for others is all the more bleak because Israel has burned all the bridges behind it. There is nowhere left to go to.
The head of the UN aid organization for Palestinians, UNRWA, reported that Tel Aviv has rejected aid shipments for Gaza because the supplies included children’s scissors and other life-saving mediations. Israel has used a multitude of tactics to reduce the flow of aid to a trickle, as top UN officials warn of an intentional famine in Gaza.
On Monday, UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini explained that the Israeli restrictions on Gaza are getting even more severe, to the point that child scissors were rejected. “A truck loaded with aid has just been turned back because it had scissors used in children’s medical kits,” he posted on X. “Medical scissors are now added to a long list of banned items the Israeli Authorities classify as ‘for dual use.’”
Aid groups have repeatedly condemned Tel Aviv’s tight restrictions on aid, pointing to its policy of rejecting entire shipments even if one banned item is found. According to Lazzariri, the list of prohibited goods includes “basic and lifesaving items: from anesthetics, solar lights, oxygen cylinders, and ventilators, to water cleaning tablets, cancer medicines, and maternity kits.”
Aid shipments in the Strip have plummeted from 500 to under 100 per day. Tel Aviv has deployed a series of bureaucratic and military obstacles to prevent aid from reaching the starving Palestinians. Israeli officials have blocked aid deliveries from being offloaded at the port while government agencies continue to reject visas for international aid workers.
Israeli citizens have also helped to block aid shipments by staging large protests at checkpoints, with the military standing by as demonstrators prevent the transit of life-saving aid. Additionally, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have attacked several aid shipments and the police that escort the convoys.
Michael Fakhri, special UN rapporteur on the right to food, told Mondoweissthat the Strip is now on the brink of famine, also noting the official death toll of 31,000 is an undercount. “We’ve never seen children pushed into malnutrition so quickly. This was all preventable.” He continued, “I have no doubt – and this is again in consultation with experts all over the world – we all have no doubt that the horror, the numbers, the degree of hunger, the degree of death from malnutrition will be higher than we’re able to measure right now.”
Last week, a group of seven UN experts said the famine in Gaza was a deliberate Israeli policy of collective punishment. “Israel has been intentionally starving the Palestinian people in Gaza since 8 October. Now it is targeting civilians seeking humanitarian aid and humanitarian convoys,” the UN experts said. “Israel must end its campaign of starvation and targeting of civilians.”
While President Joe Biden has repeatedly stated over months that he is pressing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to allow more assistance into Gaza, less aid has reached the Strip. Rather than use Washington’s substantial leverage over Tel Aviv to reverse course, the White House has resorted to complicated and deadly methods of bringing small amounts of aid into the Strip.
The US and several other countries have used air drops to get food to starving Gazans. However, people on the ground report the drops are often difficult to access, while a botched airdrop resulted in five people being crushed to death last Friday.
During his State of the Union address, Biden declared the US would establish a temporary pier allowing aid to reach Gaza via a sea corridor. Tel Aviv says it will only permit the shipments if it has control over the process, all but ensuring Israel will continue severe restrictions on life-saving medicine even if the military can build a functioning dock.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to promote Brigadier General Barak Hiram, the Israeli army officer who ordered the shelling of a house in Kibbutz Be’eri on 7 October, resulting in the killing of 13 Israeli civilians, say Israeli sources. He also ordered the demolition of a university in Gaza. The move comes as a surprise to many, considering the controversial nature of Hiram’s military record.
The incident in Kibbutz Be’eri, saw Hiram apparently following the Israeli army’s Hannibal directive, a controversial policy to use maximum force in order to prevent the taking of Israeli citizens as hostages. The charred bodies of dozens of Israeli civilians recovered after the 7 October attack are believed to be the victims of the apartheid state implementing the Hannibal directive.
In addition to the Kibbutz Be’eri incident, it is reported that Hiram was reprimanded by the Israeli army’s chief of staff recently for ordering the demolition of a building at Israa University in the south of Gaza City without proper authorisation.
Despite these controversies, Netanyahu has reportedly interviewed Hiram for the role of his military secretary. The Prime Minister’s Office has refused to comment on the matter, while the military maintains that it does not provide details on how appointments are made within the army.
The potential promotion of Hiram has raised eyebrows among observers, who question the wisdom of rewarding an officer responsible for such contentious decisions during the Gaza genocide.
Last week it happened that God and the United States Treasury managed to underwrite a record issue of Israel Government bonds to continue the war against the Arabs in Gaza, West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq – and Iran if necessary.
The war financing comprised $2 billion of five-year bonds, and $3 billion each of 10 and 30-year bonds.
The US Treasury guarantees bond holders that if Israel defaults on repayment of its obligations, the US will pay instead. Notwithstanding this, the Israelis were obliged to offer an extra 1.35%, 1.45%, and 1.75% more in interest over the going rate for US Treasury bonds for the same length of term.
The Reuters news agency headline on March 6 celebrated “Israel sells record $8 billion in bonds despite Oct 7 attacks, downgrade”. The propaganda agency based in New York quoted Israel’s Accountant-General as claiming the bond placement “results showed an “unprecedented expression of confidence in Israel’s economy by the world’s largest international investors”.*
In fact, according to well-informed bond trade sources in Europe, with the higher interest rates the market has just demanded from the Israelis, the spread between the Israel bonds and US Treasuries has never been wider, and the worse this spread will become for Israel. This is a vote of no-confidence from the market which the Israelis, the Americans, and their media are trying to keep secret.
The longer the war is protracted, the more obvious the costs of Israel Defence Forces’ (IDF) failure will become – and the deeper the negative bond sentiment will grow. By converting secrecy into money, the market is signalling that it has begun to turn against Israel – and profit at Israel’s expense.
Also unprecedented is the secrecy in which the “expression of confidence” has been managed by the US, French, and German banks acting as managers of the Israeli bond issue; and of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which has had regulatory oversight of the process. The debt financing has been reported as a “private placement”; this has removed the requirement that the Israelis produce a public prospectus explaining how they think their war – plausibly genocide, according to the International Court of Justice in its ruling of January 26, 2024 – is going, and how long the IDF claim it will last.
This does not remove the legal requirement on the two US banks engaged in marketing the bonds to US investors, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs, to submit a formal application for SEC approval of what is called a letter of consent. However, asked to confirm the contents of the letter of consent application for the sale of the Israeli bonds, and its official approval, the SEC has refused to give any answer.
Goldman Sachs was asked the same questions. The bank also refuses to say.
Last October the chief executive of Goldman Sachs, David Solomon,* issued a personal letter to the bank’s employees claiming the Hamas operation was a “violation of fundamental human values”: Solomon then proposed a $2 million gift of bank funds “to organizations providing critical support and humanitarian relief in Israel”; plus additional bank money, three bank dollars for every one contributed by bank staff making donations under $25, and one for one if the staff contribution was over $25. Asked how much money has been raised for Solomon’s gift to the Israelis, the bank is refusing to reply.
In other words, Israel’s public genocide is a private secret among Americans who are paying for it, and among US government officials responsible for regulating the scheme according to US law.
According to well-informed bond traders, this deal-making is worth in fees to the dealmakers, led by Goldman Sachs, about $100 million.
The following week, the downgrade by the Moody’s rating agency confirmed the inflection in market sentiment against Israel, with worse to come.
A month ago, Bloomberg’s Israeli reporter Galit Altstein was assigned the job of printing all the material he could find promoting the sale of the bonds. The headline of his report implied that Israel would be able to finance its war despite the Moody’s downgrade and the longer-term risks in the small print of the Moody’s report.
According to Bloomberg, about $58 billion in new debt would be issued this year, up by a third from the prewar year. About 80% of that total is usually raised in the domestic Israeli market; but if Israeli investors lack the funds or are fleeing to safe havens for their money, a much larger percentage of the issue will have to be raised from international investors, most of them in the US. This, conceded Bloomberg’s Israeli informants, would require “private placements, which are typically bought by a few investors at most. Those have been arranged by banks such as Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank.”
“Domestic issuance in the first two months of this year,” Altstein reported for Bloomberg, “is projected to total the equivalent of more than $9 billion, a 350 percent rise from the same period last year… The cost of insuring against an Israeli default — as measured by credit default swaps — is now higher than that for lower-rated sovereigns such as Mexico and Indonesia, indicating some investors are nervous.”
Israeli financial media reporting indicates that the $8 billion in bond sales completed this month were entirely placed outside Israel.
In the money markets, nervousness fetches a rising price; in the case of Israel’s genocide bonds the only way to keep that price rise secret is through private placements. They are operations run by banks like Goldman Sachs which avoid the requirements of issuing a prospectus; obtaining a credit rating from a ratings agency which evaluates the prospectus claims; and making a market with semi-public meetings with investors and answering their questions. What Goldman Sachs does instead, according to those familiar with the bank’s operations, is to “dump the issue in state or institutional pension funds which can be counted on to hold the issue until maturity, and ask no questions.”
But even passive pension fund managers have their fiduciary limits: Israel’s war began to trigger withdrawals from both Israeli state and corporate bonds by Norwegian pension funds last November; by Danish pension funds after the genocide ruling by the ICJ in January.
An index tracking ten Israeli corporate bonds for the banking, telecommunication, pharmaceutical, and real estate sectors, shows market demand for Israeli debt issues fell in the first month of the war, but then began recovering above the pre-war levels.
By opting for private placement, the Israelis, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America agreed to avoid having to issue prospectus claims about the war against the Arabs which, if truthful, might reveal how false Israeli government claims about the war have been so far; and if false, would create a legal liability for the Israelis and the banks to being charged with a Section 17(a) fraud.
In the US Securities Act, which the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) enforces, Section 17(a) “makes it unlawful to ‘employ any device, scheme, or artifice to defraud’, ‘obtain money or property’ by using material misstatements or omissions, or to ‘engage in any transaction, practice, or course of business which operates or would operate as a fraud or deceit upon the purchaser.’ This provision is closely tracked by Section 10b of the Securities Exchange Act and Rule 10b-5, which is used more widely by investors suing for fraud.”
The ICJ ruling against Israel in January has not stopped or even paused the IDF operations in Gaza, the West Bank, or on the northern front with Lebanon. However, the court has established a benchmark for “material misstatements and omissions” in what the Israel bond marketeers can say without running into Section 17(a) fraud litigation. This makes Israel’s war financing riskier and a bond prospectus impossible; it also makes the interest rate cost to the Israelis more expensive. For Goldman Sachs and the other banks engaged, that has meant more profit with higher fees.
Asked what the market was thinking about the private placement of the Israeli paper, a veteran European trader refused to reply. Other traders in Switzerland answered in generalities until Israel’s bonds were mentioned; then there was stonewalling. “It’s certain there’s an omerta,” a trade source commented. “The Israeli finance ministry has claimed the bond offer drew 400 investors from 36 countries making bids totalling $38 billion. But there is no mention of how the bonds were actually allocated. I suspect there were many token offers and only a few selected buyers got most of the issues.”
The Israeli financial source Globesclaims “demand for the issue was led by first-rate strategic investors such as pension funds, insurance companies, hedge funds, and institutions that have been holding Israeli securities for many years.”
A bond trade source at an international institution points out that “when issuing a bond, the lead manager charges a fee. The net proceeds are going to be obviously less. The question is how much is Goldman Sachs charging in fees? This is usually stated in a prospectus but we don’t have that in the Israeli case. If the issue is difficult to place, the lead manager will contract with other banks to share the burden. They will then use a portion of the fees to make a market for the issued instruments and stabilize the pricing. Again this should be disclosed.”
In the results given by Israeli officials to Reuters on March 6, it was reported that Israel sold $2 billion of five-year bonds, and $3 billion each of 10 and 30-year bonds. “This is unusual,” the trade source comments. “If you need to restructure your economy you would expect most of the costs will be upfront, with payback from the higher efficiencies or higher profits reimbursing the borrowed funds later. This should not take ten or thirty years, so another calculation is in play.”
He believes the Israel government’s calculation is that the war on the military front is going to get worse, and the economic war for longer than can be acknowledged publicly. “So they are trying to lock in as much money for the long term as they can now, leaving less to pay back in the short term. They say they are aiming to raise $58 billion over this year, but we are already three months in — they have $50 billion still to go. At this rate of timing and at this pricing, they won’t make it.”
“As for the fees charged by a lead manager for an $8 billion debt issue, these can vary depending on several factors including the complexity of the issuance, prevailing market conditions, and negotiation between the government and the lead manager. Typically, lead managers charge a percentage fee based on the size of the offering, often from 0.5% to 2% of the total amount raised. Therefore, for an $8 billion issue, lead manager fees could range from $40 million to $160 million. However, these figures are indicative and could vary based on the specific terms of the deal.”
“I speculate that the fees will be around $100 million. The princes at Goldman Sachs are being rewarded handsomely. We will have to wait and see if they will regret it. The buyers should also be asking the fee question. If there is no answer, then these Israel bonds are not being bought or placed based on financial reasoning. It’s political, ideological, religious.”*
The SEC last published an Israel bond prospectus in June 2018. The amount of the placement is not recorded.
The US Government was identified as the guarantor of the debt paper. “The amount of guarantees that may be issued to Israel under the loan guarantee program may be reduced by an amount equal to the amount extended or estimated to have been extended by Israel for activities that the President of the United States determines are inconsistent with the objectives and understandings reached between the United States and Israel regarding the implementation of the loan guarantee program. Under the program, the United States issues guarantees with respect to all payments of principal and interest on certain bonds issued by Israel. The proceeds of the guaranteed loans may be used to refinance existing debt. Under the $9 billion loan guarantee program, between September 2003 and November 2004 Israel issued guaranteed notes totaling $4.1 billion face value. Israel has not issued any notes under the loan guarantee program since November 2004, and up to $3.8 billion of U.S. loan guarantees (subject to the reductions described above) remains available.”
There has never been a determination by the President that the guarantees should be suspended because of “activities… inconsistent with the objectives and understandings reached between the United States and Israel”. For the Biden Administration, genocide is not an “inconsistent activity”.
The map accompanying the 2018 prospectus shows the occupied West Bank and Golan Heights as subject “to agreements between the State of Israel (the “State” or “Israel”) and the Palestinian Liberation Organization”. The Golan Heights are legally Syrian territory, and there is no agreement. Gaza is marked separately without explanation – and without an agreement with the Hamas administration of Gaza. According to the document, before the date of the prospectus, Israeli military operations against Hamas in Gaza “did not materially affect the Israeli economy.” To claim this now is not only propaganda, it would be a material misstatement — in SEC terminology, a Section 17(a) fraud.
During the marketing of the $8 billion in bonds, there were highly confidential briefings for selected investors. According to Globes, “prior to the offering, Israel’s Accountant General Yali Rothenberg and his team led rounds of extensive meetings in Europe and the US.”
US bond trading sources believe it likely that Goldman Sachs and Bank of America, the two US banks identified as placing the bonds in the US market, sought to protect themselves from what Rothenberg and his Israeli officials said at these meetings, and from later reaction by bond buyers if the war goes longer and much worse for Israel than they were led to believe. A letter of consent seeking approval from the SEC is protective cover from Section 17(a) fraud liability in the absence of SEC review and approval of a prospectus.
Scott Schneider is head of public affairs and press spokesman at the SEC. He speaks for Gary Gensler, chairman of the SEC since 2021.* The SEC was asked by email whether “the widely publicized Israeli government bonds to be issued this year on a private placement basis are subject to SEC supervision to the extent of requiring a formal application for consent to the issues.” He was also asked to say what letters of consent have been approved by the SEC in relation to earlier Israeli issues.
Left to right, Yali Rothenburg, Israel’s Accountant General; Gary Gensler, SEC Chairman; Scott Schneider, SEC press spokesman.
There was no reply to the email, and no reply when the questions were repeated by telephone to the SEC press office in Washington.
When clarification of the letter of consent issue was then requested from Goldman Sachs, the press spokesman in New York, Jen Blackhall, promised a response, but none there came. The stonewalling by Goldman Sachs has also extended to the patsy question asked – how much in charity funds have been donated to Israel on CEO Solomon’s request to his staff last October.
Bond traders in London, Europe, and the US consulted for this story believe that the most reliable indicator that the money markets have begun to turn against Israel can be found in the spread between the interest rates (or yield-to-maturity**) of Israel’s bond issues compared with US Treasuries. For more details, click to read.
COMPARISON OF THE SPREAD BETWEEN 10-YEAR ISRAEL & US BONDS, MARCH 11, 2023-MARCH 11, 2024
The positive-negative spread between Israel’s 10-year government bond yield and the United States’ 10-year Treasury yield indicates when Israel’s yield is lower or higher than that of the US Treasury at that particular point in time.
The source, Worldgovernmentbonds.com, explains: “In the case of government bonds, the yield spread also means credit spread. These countries usually differ regarding credit quality. A positive spread means that the percentage yearly return of one bond over another is higher. For example, if one bond is yielding 5% and another is yielding 3%, the spread is 2%, or 200 basis points (bp).”
What remains unclear is whether the private-placement Israel bonds are included in the charting; if they are excluded, this is an attempt to keep the political and military meaning of the spread from becoming obvious outside the bond market.
The international bond trade source explains: “Until the war, Israel was able to finance itself at a lower cost than the US government, if you look at the 10-year bond spread in basis points [percentage points] between them. Then at the start of the war the situation reverses itself. Israeli bonds lose their advantage. The Israeli government is now having to pay a premium in interest rate over US Treasuries in order to secure buyers. Last week’s reports show that Israel is committing to pay 135 basis points over comparable 5-year US Treasuries, 145 basis points over 10-year Treasuries and 175 basis points over US 30-year bonds. For comparison, US 5-year bonds currently yield 4.15%, 10-year Treasuries are at 4.16%, and 30-year notes yield 4.30%.”
“Note that the chart is lagging behind the new $8 billion placement, and has not yet registered the widening of the spread against Israel. This is because the chart is based on all bonds which have a residual maturity of ten years, so it is showing an average. This average indicated that Israel’s 10- year residual maturity bonds were trading at a positive spread of 4.9 basis points (100 basis points = one percent) to the US equivalents. Worldgovernmentbonds.com does not provide a listing of the issues included in its calculations, but future charting can be expected to reveal the latest private placements will accelerate the widening of the spread. With $50 billion more in private placements still to go, the cost to the Israelis will become higher than ever before – and the spread will be pushed wider. That is if the private placements are included in the charting.”
“The outcome of the latest Israel government bond issue is nothing for them to cheer about. The previously favourable spread compared to their US Government guarantor has evaporated and now reversed itself. The same goes for the loss of money market confidence in Israel.”
[*] When an international court of law determines that a religious organization like the state of Israel is plausibly genocidal, it is relevant to note the religious affiliations of organizations which may be assisting in the genocide with money or propaganda. For example, the Reuters executive responsible for ethics and standards is Alix Freedman, who is Jewish. The SEC Chairman since 2021 is Gary Gensler, who is Jewish. The Goldman Sachs chief executive David Solomon is Jewish.
[**] The yield to maturity (YTM) of a government bond is a measure indicating the total return investors can expect to receive if they hold the bond until it matures, taking into account its current market price, the coupon payments, and the time remaining until maturity. For more details, click to read.
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