Olmert: Israel Engaged in “War Crimes”

The IDF is in the early stages of permanently occupying what it claims will be 75% of Gaza. It is Israel’s Final Solution to the Palestinian Problem (or so it hopes). It will forcibly expel 1.3-million residents from northern Gaza into three small enclaves in the south. In one of them, al-Mawasi, 1-million Palestinians will be driven like cattle in a pen; onto a thin strip of beach (see map) with no infrastructure including food, shelter or medical care.

By some dint of magical thinking, the army claims that this will enable it to finally and completely destroy Hamas. At the same time, it claims that the operation will compel the militant group to accede to Israel’s demands, including releasing all the remaining hostages.:

According to the IDF, the evacuation is expected to push Hamas into a state of collapse and internal governance crisis, forcing the group back to the negotiating table over hostage releases, on terms dictated by Israel.

It’s not clear how you can both eliminate Hamas and simultaneously force it to the negotiating table.

Further, Hamas will never simply surrender to Israels terms. Israel has been fighting the Palestinian resistance for 70 years. It has never retreated from its demands or from armed resistance. It never will. Yet by another feat of magical thinking, it believed this time will be different.

It cannot achieve its military goal. IDF intelligence concedes that Hamas now has 40,000 fighters, which is the same number it had on 10/7. At one time, the army boasted that, due to its degradation of Hamas fighting capabilities, it was in tatters and could not mount sustained, coordinated attacks. Now, it has changed its tune:

The current assessment, that Hamas still retains operational capabilities, marks a significant departure from the previous position, which claimed most of Hamas’s brigades had been dismantled, except in the central refugee camp areas.

The IDF’s mendacious claim that it will respect the laws of war is preposterous:

The IDF stresses that all operations – some 2,900 strikes since fighting resumed in March – have been carried out under close legal supervision from military prosecutors and in accordance with international law.

This is an outrageous lie. I don’t know for whose benefit they offer these disingenuous statements. Certainly no one, either inside Israel or out can find a shred of credibility in them. The very same legal authorities who pass judgment on these issues have already found in multiple rulings that Israel is in gross violation of international law. This very claim is an insult not only to anyone who cares about the genocide, but to the 53,000 known victims.

Earlier this month, the Economist painstakingly compared various lists of the Gaza dead and determined that the death toll is twice as high as the figure reported: as many as 107,000. I’ve reported here on separate estimates that range up to 335,000 (as of last January), which includes direct and ancillary deaths ranging from military operations to disease, starvation, etc. In the five months since then, that number has surely risen significantly. According to these figures, 16% of the total Gaza population has been murdered.

Israeli aid-washing

The US-Israeli “humanitarian aid” operation is a laughingstock. It was devised by Israelis with no expertise in this field. The government in turn encourage it and presented it to the Americans. Both parties knew that to circumvent the established international aid groups working in Gaza (UNRWA, World Food Program, UNICEF, etc.) it would have to disguise its origins. So it created a shady foreign “foundation” with opaque finances. The original director of the program, an ex-CIA officer, quit saying its goals were unattainable. Among them: that it would feed 1-million Gazans within two weeks.

It has brought in 60 truckloads of aid per day, when 600 are the minimum necessary to sustain normal levels of food, medicine, etc. The Israelis who devised this scheme and the Americans who bought into it have created a cruel hoax, in the hope that the world will believe that Israel cares about starving children. This project, like the war itself, is a calculated political scheme having nothing to do with providing aid or alleviating suffering. Israel’s true goal is maximizing suffering for the sake of keeping Netanyahu in power and out of jail.

The IDF itself rebuts false media stories of a revolt inside Gaza against Hamas. Doubtless fed to them by Netanyahu and his toadies:

the IDF says there is no widespread uprising against Hamas. Intelligence assessments indicate that roughly one-third of Gaza’s population still supports Hamas, another third identifies with Fatah, and the rest are unaffiliated.

I’m skeptical that one-third of Gazans support Fatah and suspect the numbers who support Hamas are likely higher. But regardless, the militant group retains enormous support despite the slaughter. How does Netanyahu and his army command presume to eliminate Hamas? What do they think will happen when they occupy 100% of Gaza, unless they eliminate every last Gazan from the enclave? Hamas will not die. It cannot be eliminated, because it embodies Palestinian resistance to Israeli crimes. This is further proof that Israeli military goals are inflated, unrealistic, and unattainable. The last to recognize this seem to be the military planners and their political overlords.

Olmert’s lament

None other than former prime minister, Ehud Olmert has excoriated Netanyahu’s war strategy. Once Olmert was a member of the Likud and a successor of Ariel Sharon. It’s a clear indication of the radicalization and Nazification of Israeli politics that Olmert has become a radical dissident, far outside the mainstream of what was once simply a right-wing Party:

The government of Israel is currently waging a war without purpose…and with no chances of success. Never…has the State of Israel waged such a war. The criminal gang headed by Benjamin Netanyahu has set a precedent without equal in Israel’s history…This is now a private political war [on Netanyahu’s behalf]…

What we are doing in Gaza now is a war of devastation: indiscriminate, limitless, cruel and criminal killing of civilians…It’s the result of government policy – knowingly, evilly, maliciously, irresponsibly dictated. Yes, Israel is committing war crimes.

An indication how deeply genocide politics have penetrated into Israeli society is that Olmert’s jeremiad falls like a stone in well. Few care. Few listen. There is no viable Opposition. Extermination is the order of the day.

Note that Olmert refuses to use the G-word. Though he has done everything but. He explicitly rejects the claim of ethnic cleansing offered by a former army chief of staff. Though the evidence is clear that it is happening and will happen on an even larger and decisive scale as Israel forcibly expels all its residents.

While Olmert at least speaks clearly about the horrors in Gaza–and as a former Israeli leader has a bully pulpit–he did nothing while he was PM to advance peace with the Palestinians and Israel’s neighbors. In fact, when he was on the verge of signing a peace treaty with Syria, he commenced the 2009 Lebanon War, which destroyed that opportunity. Similarly, he offered peace to the Palestinians. But demanded control of portions of the West Bank. Negotiation foundered due to his conditions. Only after he left office, when he had no power to implement any such peace plan, did he begin to sound like a statesman.

In light of this and Netanyahu requested refusal to sign a deal with Hamas, Abba Eban’s saying comes to mind (slightly revised): Israeli prime ministers never miss an opportinity to miss an opportunity.