By: Donald V. Watkins
Copyrighted and Published on May 11, 2024
An Editorial Opinion
The Biden administration has finally and formally acknowledged Israel’s war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in Gaza. On Friday, the U.S. State Department released a 103-page report that extensively documents the findings presented in the Executive Summary excerpted below:
“On October 7, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and other Palestinian terrorists launched a large-scale attack on Israel from the Gaza Strip, killing an estimated 1,200 individuals, injuring more than 5,400, and abducting 253 hostages. Israel responded with a sustained, wide-scale military operation in Gaza, which had killed more than 21,000 Palestinians and injured more than 56,000 by the end of the year, displaced the vast majority of Palestinians in Gaza, and resulted in a severe humanitarian crisis. The continuing conflict had a significant negative impact on the human rights situation in the country.
Significant human rights issues included credible reports of: arbitrary or unlawful killings, including extrajudicial killings; enforced disappearance; torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment by government officials; harsh and life-threatening prison conditions; arbitrary arrest or detention; political prisoners or detainees; arbitrary or unlawful interference with privacy; punishment of family members for alleged offenses by a relative; serious abuses in a conflict by Hamas and Israel, including unlawful or widespread civilian deaths and harm, enforced disappearances or abductions, torture, physical abuses, and conflict-related sexual violence or punishment; serious restrictions on freedom of expression and media freedom, including violence or threats against journalists, unjustified arrests or prosecution of journalists, and censorship; substantial interference with the freedom of peaceful assembly and freedom of association; restrictions on freedom of movement and residence; serious government restrictions on or harassment of domestic and international human rights organizations; and crimes involving violence or threats of violence targeting members of national, racial, or ethnic minority groups.”
As we have reported since December 15, 2023, Israeli descendants of the Nazi holocaust during World War II are perpetuating their own holocaust against tens of thousands of innocent Palestinian babies, children, women, and men in Gaza.
Israel's holocaust has been atrocious. It has also violated well-known international laws against war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. Sadly, it has been aided and abetted by the use of American weapons of war.
A Failure of Leadership in Israel and at Home
Hamas’ invasion of Israel was a terrorist attack that was pre-planned months in advance. Israeli intelligence agencies had advance knowledge of the widespread attacks, but they failed to prevent or adequately defend against them.
This catastrophic failure of Israeli national intelligence agencies occurred on the watch of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the current and former Prime Minister. Netanyahu is generally regarded in the international community as a ruthless and lawless "thug."
Netanyahu’s hardline coalition government views all Palestinians as "inferior beings" and potential Hamas terrorists.
Joe Biden has been too weak to stop Israel’s war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in Gaza. However, in recent days, Biden finally mustered up the nerve to pause the shipment of America's mega bombs and artillery shells to Israel.
Biden's executive action is too little, too late. More than 34,900 Palestinians in Gaza have been slaughtered ny Israeli forces, including 13,000 innocent Palestinian babies and children and 9,000 innocent women.
Netanyahu has vowed to continue with his country’s campaign of genocide in Gaza. His unrelenting war crimes have effectively isolated Israel from the rest of the world.
America is Israel’s staunchest ally, but there is a limit to how much genocide Israel can perpetrate in the name of national defense. Apparently, 35,000 Palestinians deaths is the limit Biden will tolerate in the Israel-Hamas war.
Netanyahu would kill them all, if he could. He has dared the world to criticize this scale of genocide in Gaza.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump supports Netanyahu's campaign of genocide against the innocent Palestinians in Gaza, without hesitation or reservation. As Americans know, Trump has also advocated killing innocent people of color in the U.S. (e.g., the "Central Park Five," who were later declared innocent of the charges against them) and at the southern border of the U.S.(e.g., "military should shoot rock-throwing migrants"). Trump openly expresses his disdain for the people of color he does not like.
This is Murder and Ethnic-Cleansing, Not National Defense
I also agree with Prof. Noam Chomsky’s statement of the war:
“The Israeli decision to rain death and destruction on Gaza, to use lethal weapons of the modern battlefield on a largely defenseless civilian population, is the final phase in a decades-long campaign to ethnically-cleanse Palestinians.
Israel uses sophisticated attack jets and naval vessels to bomb densely- crowded refugee camps, schools, apartment blocks, mosques, and slums to attack a population that has no air force, no air defense, no navy, no heavy weapons, no artillery units, no mechanized armor, no command in control, no army... and calls it a war. It is not a war, it is murder.”
Of course, Prof. Chomsky is a highly respected Jewish scholar. His words ring true.
Epilogue
The International Criminal Court should issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu and the top Israeli officials who organized and executed the war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in Gaza. They are war criminals.
Finally, we owe a huge debt of thanks to the thousands of college students across America who stood up and protested against Israel’s war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in Gaza. Without their conscience, courage, and tenacity, Netanyahu’s indiscriminate killing of innocent Palestinians in Gaza would have continued unnoticed and unabated.
I will always speak out in real-time against war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide, no matter who the self-righteous perpetrators of these crimes are. No person, world leader, or special interest group on the planet has a chokehold on my journalistic voice.
I support Israel's right to exist as a nation and I condemn Hamas' acts of terrorism. However, I do not support ethnic-cleansing perpetrated by war criminals like Benjamin Netanyahu. He is an incompetent, ruthless thug.
"...The United Nations seemingly halved the estimated number of women and children killed in Gaza, according to UN data published on May 6 and 8."
https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-800772