Pity the people of Gaza!
A discussion of Hamas’s strategy and the options to which it is confronted
Friday 6 June 2025, by Gilbert Achcar
What we have witnessed in recent days in the negotiations between Hamas and the Zionist state under American and Arab auspices, following the Islamic movement’s rejection of the seventy-day truce accompanied by mutual prisoner releases and the entry of humanitarian aid, proposed by US envoy Steve Witkoff and accepted by Benjamin Netanyahu, is in fact a repetition of what we have been witnessing since the beginning of last year.
After news of an impending agreement spread, Hamas announced its rejection of the plan because it did not stipulate the withdrawal of the Israeli army from the Gaza Strip and a permanent cessation of the war. These are the same conditions that Hamas announced it had obtained in the spring of last year. Then, the people of Gaza celebrated the good news until it became clear that it was a figment of imagination. I commented on what the movement announced at the time, more than a year ago, under the title “Gambling Game between Hamas and Netanyahu”.
Apologies are due to readers for the length of the following two excerpts, but their purpose is clear enough. They illustrate the continuation of the situation as it has been since the beginning of last year, with one serious difference though: the number of victims of the genocidal assault on the people of Gaza continues to increase steadily, and the Zionist destruction of the Strip and its depopulation (“ethnic cleansing”) continue at an extremely dangerous pace, with the aim of creating an irreversible situation. The following lengthy excerpt from the article mentioned above reads today as if it were a commentary on the current situation, replacing Joe Biden with Donald Trump and Anthony Blinken with Steve Witkoff:
The statement by Khalil al-Hayya, the deputy head of Hamas in Gaza, explaining what the movement had agreed to, left no room for hope that an agreement would be reached, except by projecting desires onto reality. Had the Zionist state accepted the movement’s official interpretation, it would simply have been an admission of crushing defeat. The proposal accepted by Hamas comprised three stages, which, according to al-Hayya, included not only a temporary ceasefire and a prisoner exchange between the two sides, but also a permanent cessation of hostilities, a complete withdrawal of the Israeli army from the Gaza Strip, and even an end to the blockade imposed on it… Of course, the Zionist state could never accept such conditions, and Hamas is certainly not naive or prone to magical thinking to the point of believing that its declared position would lead to a truce.
This suggests that the announcement actually served two purposes: a secondary purpose, which was to lift the blame on Hamas in the eyes of the people of Gaza, desperate for a truce accompanied by an acceleration of the entry of aid so they could catch their breath, reunite, bury their dead, and heal their wounds. Thus, after a long wait, the movement is telling them that it has accepted the truce, but Israel is the one rejecting it. The other, primary, purpose behind the announcement relates to the ongoing gambling game between Hamas and Benjamin Netanyahu.
It is well known that the latter is caught between two fires in Israeli domestic politics: those calling for prioritizing the release of Israelis held in Gaza, naturally led by the families of the detainees, and those rejecting any truce and insisting on continuing the war without interruption, led by the most extremist ministers of the Zionist far right. However, the greatest pressure on Netanyahu comes from Washington, which aligns with the wishes of the families of the Israeli detainees in its pursuit of a ‘humanitarian’ truce lasting a few weeks, allowing the Biden administration to claim it is eager for peace and concerned for civilians, after having been and while remaining a fully responsible partner in Israel’s genocidal war, a war which Israel would not have been able to wage without US military support.
Netanyahu decided to evade the embarrassment by tactically agreeing to a ceasefire lasting a few weeks and to terms for a prisoner exchange that Washington, in the words of its Secretary of State, deemed ‘extremely generous’. That was a few days ago, and Antony Blinken added that the ball was now in Hamas’s court and that it would bear sole responsibility for continuing the war if it rejected the proposal. This was embarrassing for the Islamic movement, both in the eyes of the people of Gaza and in the eyes of international public opinion, because it knows for certain that the Zionist government is determined to complete its military occupation of the Strip...
So, Hamas responded to Netanyahu with a counter-maneuver, announcing with great media fanfare its acceptance of a ceasefire based on a proposal that differed greatly from the one Netanyahu had agreed to, thus putting the ball back in his court, knowing that he would reject its proposal. However, this is a dangerous game, as it did not truly embarrass Netanyahu, because all wings of the Zionist power elite share his rejection of that proposal. Rather, it strengthened the Zionist consensus to complete the occupation of Gaza... (End of quote from “Gambling Game Between Hamas and Netanyahu”, Al-Quds al-Arabi, 7 May 2024—in Arabic.)
But the similarity between the situation a year ago and the current situation does not hide the fact that things have seriously deteriorated, as I emphasized two months ago as follows:
Donald Trump’s victory for a second presidential term allowed Netanyahu to achieve what he had been striving for, but could not have done without a US green light... With Trump’s support, Netanyahu has now shifted the direction of pressure: Instead of Hamas using its hostages as leverage to extract concessions from Israel in exchange for their gradual release, Netanyahu has reoccupied the Gaza Strip, taking all its residents as hostages. He is now threatening Hamas with continued killing of thousands of Gazans and working to displace most of them if it does not surrender, release all its captives, and even leave the Strip.
The people of Gaza are now facing two possibilities, with no third looming on the horizon: Either the Zionist regime proceeds with its project to complete the 1948 Nakba by perpetrating a new “ethnic cleansing” accompanied by the annexation of the Strip, as advocated by Netanyahu’s allies on the Zionist far right; or the settlement negotiated by the Arab states is reached, which stipulates the departure of Hamas’s leaders and fighters and their allies from Gaza, similar to the departure of the PLO leaders and fighters from Beirut in 1982, to be replaced by the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority, backed by Arab forces. Hamas has no say in the cleansing scenario, of course, but it can negotiate the second scenario and set its own conditions.
Beyond that, what other option does Hamas have to offer? The only alternative strategy we’ve heard from the movement is the one articulated by one of its spokespersons, Sami Abu Zuhri [1]... He called for confronting the ongoing population displacement in the following way: ‘In the face of this diabolical plan that combines massacres and starvation, everyone who can bear arms anywhere in the world must act. Spare no explosive device, bullet, knife, or stone. Let everyone break their silence. We are all sinners if the interests of America and the Zionist occupation remain secure while Gaza is being slaughtered and starved.’ This vision of the battle is a reiteration of the call made by Muhammad Deif on the morning of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood: ‘Today, today, everyone who has a rifle should take it out, for this is its time. And whoever doesn’t have a rifle should come out with his machete, axe, or Molotov cocktail, with his truck, bulldozer, or car... This is the day of the great revolt to end the last occupation and the last apartheid system in the world.’
It quickly became clear that betting on such a call was pure fantasy, as nothing noteworthy happened, even in the occupied West Bank, let alone in the 1948 territories and the Arab world. So, what chance of success does the same call have today, after all the genocide and devastation the people of Gaza have endured? As for those who support this call from outside the Strip and do not implement it with any “explosive device, bullet, knife, or stone” they can lay their hand on, according to Abu Zuhri’s recommendation, they are merely hypocrites, verbally inciting from afar to fight to the last Gazan. The truth is that Hamas today faces a choice between relinquishing its rule of Gaza—the terms of which it can negotiate to ensure the safety and survival of the people of the Strip—and continuing with the strategy of liberation through weapons and illusions. Of the latter, i.e. illusions, the Islamic movement have certainly much more than from the former. It seems, however, that there is a debate going on among the movement’s leaders about the approach that should be taken in the face of the dilemma here described.” (End of quote from “Gaza and Solomon’s Wisdom”, Al-Quds al-Arabi, 1 April 2025—in Arabic.)
For an in-depth discussion of the ongoing genocide and Hamas’s strategy, see my new book: (The) Gaza Catastrophe: The Genocide in World-Historical Perspective. UK edition, online and in bookshops on 20 June; US edition online on June 20 and in bookshops on August 5.
3 June 2025
Translated by the author from the Arabic original published in Al-Quds al-Arabi for his English-language blog.
Attached documentspity-the-people-of-gaza_a9029.pdf (PDF - 916.2 KiB)
Extraction PDF [->article9029]
Footnotes
[1] Abu Zuhri (based in Qatar) has recently attracted widespread condemnation—primarily within Gaza itself—for declaring in a televised interview in mid-May, “Today, we are more certain of the justice of the battle after we and our people have managed to hold out for fifteen months”, adding that “the houses that were destroyed will be rebuilt, and the wombs of our women will give birth to many more children than those who died as martyrs”.
Gilbert Achcar grew up in Lebanon. He is currently Professor of Development Studies and International Relations at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London. A regular and historical contributor to the press of the Fourth International, his books include The Clash of Barbarisms. The Making of the New World Disorder (2006), The Arabs and the Holocaust: The Arab-Israeli War of Narratives (2012), The People Want: A Radical Exploration of the Arab Uprising (2022). His most recent books are The New Cold War: The United States, Russia and China, from Kosovo to Ukraine (2023) and the collection of articles Israel’s War on Gaza (2023). His next book, Gaza, A Genocide Foretold, will come out in 2025. He is a member of AntiCapitalist Resistance in Britain.
International Viewpoint is published under the responsibility of the Bureau of the Fourth International. Signed articles do not necessarily reflect editorial policy. Articles can be reprinted with acknowledgement, and a live link if possible.
Israeli tanks opened fire last Sunday on a crowd of thousands of starving Palestinians at an aid distribution center in the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. The victims had gathered in hopes of finding food for themselves and their families, following a nearly three-month total Israeli blockade of the territory. At least 31 people were killed; one Palestinian was also killed by Israeli fire the same day at another distribution site in central Gaza.
On Monday, June 2, three more Palestinians lost their lives to Israeli projectiles while trying to procure food, and on Tuesday there were 27 fatalities at the aid hub in Rafah. This brought the total number of Palestinian deaths at the newly implemented hubs to more than 100 in just a week.
‘Not possible to implement’
Mass killing in the guise of food distribution is occurring under the supervision of the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a sketchy-as-hell organization registered in Switzerland and Delaware. It boasts the participation of former US military and intelligence officers, as well as solid Israeli endorsement and armed US security contractors escorting food deliveries.
Jake Wood—the ex-US Marine sniper who had taken up the post of GHF executive director—recently resigned after reasoning that “it is not possible to implement this plan while also strictly adhering to the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence.”
Indeed, the GHF, which has temporarily suspended operations to conduct damage control, has managed to align its activities entirely with the genocidal vision of the state of Israel, whose military has killed more than 54,600 Palestinians in Gaza since October 2023. In May, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu determined that “minimal” aid should be let into Gaza, lest mass starvation force the US to scale back its support for genocide (which is somehow less problematic than enforced famine).
By entrusting the delivery of this “minimal” aid to the brand-new GHF, rather than the United Nations and other groups that have decades of experience doing such things, the Israelis have in fact been able to call the shots in terms of strategic placement of the aid hubs. Only four are currently in place for a starving population of 2 million, requiring many Palestinians to walk long distances—those that are able to walk, that is—across Israeli military lines.
The hubs are mainly in southern Gaza, which is conveniently where Israel has schemed to concentrate the surviving Palestinian population, in order to then expel them in accordance with US President Donald Trump’s dream of a brand-new Palestinian-free “Riviera of the Middle East” in the Gaza Strip. Even as he authorized the resumption of aid, Netanyahu reiterated his vow to “take control” of all of Gaza. As UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini has observed, “Aid distribution has become a death trap.”
Leading with denials
And yet despite all of this, Western corporate media have somehow found it difficult to report in straightforward fashion that the food-distribution massacres have left Palestinians with a rather bleak choice: either die of starvation or die trying to obtain food aid.
So it is that we end up with, for example, the Washington Post’s Tuesday dispatch (6/2/25) from Jerusalem, headlined “Israel Says It Fired ‘Warning Shots’ Near Aid Site; Health Officials Say 27 Dead,” which charitably gave Israel the privilege of refuting what the health officials have said before they even say it. The article quoted the Israeli army as claiming that its soldiers had fired at suspects “who advanced toward the troops in such a way that posed a threat.” It also quoted the following statement from the GHF:
While the aid distribution was conducted safely and without incident at our site today, we understand that [Israeli army] is investigating whether a number of civilians were injured after moving beyond the designated safe corridor and into a closed military zone.
Anyway, that’s what happens when you put your aid distribution site in the middle of an Israeli military zone.
Then there was the BBC report (5/31/25) on Sunday’s massacre, headlined “Israel Denies Firing at Civilians After Hamas-Run Ministry Says 31 Killed in Gaza Aid Center Attack,” which went on to underscore that the ministry in question was the “Hamas-run health ministry.” Given Hamas’s role as the governing authority in the Gaza Strip, this is sort of like specifying that the US Department of Health & Human Services is “run by the US government”—except that, in Gaza’s case, the “Hamas-run” qualifier is meant to cast doubt on the ministry’s claims. Never mind that said ministry’s death counts have over time consistently “held up to UN scrutiny, independent investigations and even Israel’s tallies,” as the Associated Press (11/6/23) has previously acknowledged.
On Tuesday, though, the AP (6/3/25) chimed in with its own headline, “Gaza Officials Say Israeli Forces Killed 27 Heading to Aid Site. Israel Says It Fired Near Suspects.” The text of the article details how Gaza’s Health Ministry, which is “led by medical professionals but reports to the Hamas-run government,” has calculated that the majority of the more than 54,000 Palestinian fatalities in Israel’s current war on Gaza are women and children, but hasn’t said “how many of the dead were civilians or combatants.”
Meanwhile, Reuters (6/1/25) reported that an Israeli attack near a GHF-run aid distribution point had “killed at least 30 people in Rafah, Palestinian news agency WAFA and Hamas-affiliated media said on Sunday.” In a separate article on Sunday’s massacre, the news wire (6/1/25) wrote that
the Hamas-controlled Gaza health ministry said 31 people were killed with a single gunshot wound to the head or chest from Israeli fire as they were gathered in the Al-Alam district aid distribution area in Rafah.
The latter dispatch was headlined “Gaza Ministry Says Israel Kills More Than 30 Aid Seekers, Israel Denies.”
‘No shortage’
There is pretty much no end to the crafty sidelining by Western corporate media of truthful assertions by “Hamas-run” entities—and the simultaneous provision of ample space to the Israeli military to continue its established tradition of propagating outright lies. Recall that time not so long ago that Israeli officials insisted that there was “no shortage” of aid in the Gaza Strip, despite a full-blown blockade, and the glee directly expressed by various Israeli ministers about not letting an iota of food, or anything else necessary for survival, into the besieged enclave (FAIR.org, 4/25/25).
It is furthermore perplexing why there is even a perceived need to cast doubt on massacres of 31 or 27 or three individuals, in the context of a genocide that has killed more than 54,600 people in 20 months—a war in which Israel has exhibited no qualms in slaughtering starving people, as in the February 2024 incident when at least 112 Palestinians were massacred while queuing for flour southwest of Gaza City (FAIR.org, 3/22/24). Against a backdrop of such wanton slaughter, what are 100 more Palestinian deaths to Israel? Indiscriminate mass killing is, after all, the objective here.
Just as GHF is now engaged in micro-level damage control operations vis-à-vis their militarized distribution of food in Gaza, Israel, too, appears to be in a similar mode, since it’s a whole lot simpler—and helpfully distracting—to bicker over dozens of casualties rather than, you know, a whole genocide.
And the Western establishment media are, as ever, standing by to lend a helping hand. Perhaps we should start calling them the “Israel-affiliated media.”
Global Backlash: How the World Could Shift Israel’s Gaza Strategy
Image by Ömer Faruk Yıldız.
The decision resonated as shocking for all sides. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose entire war strategy hinges on the starvation of Palestinians in Gaza, unilaterally decided on May 19 to allow “immediate” food entry to the famine-stricken Strip.
Of course, Netanyahu still maneuvered. Instead of permitting at least 1,000 trucks of aid to enter the utterly destroyed and devastated Gaza per day, he initially allowed a mere nine trucks, a number that nominally increased in the following days.
Even Netanyahu’s staunch supporters, who fiercely criticized the decision, found themselves confounded by it. The prior understanding among Netanyahu’s coalition partners regarding their ultimate plan in Gaza had been unequivocally clear: the total occupation of the Strip and the forced displacement of its population.
The latter was articulated as a matter of explicit policy by Israel’s Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich. “Gaza will be entirely destroyed, civilians will be sent to… third countries,” he declared on May 6.
For food to enter Gaza, however minuscule its quantity, directly violates the established understanding between the government and the military, under the leadership of Netanyahu’s ally, Defense Minister Israel Katz, and Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir.
These two significant additions to Netanyahu’s war cabinet replaced Yoav Gallant and Herzi Halevi. With these new appointments, Netanyahu stood poised for his master plan.
When the war commenced on October 7, 2023, the Israeli leader promised that he would take control of the Gaza Strip. This position evolved, or rather was clarified, to signify permanent occupation, though without the Palestinians themselves.
To achieve such a lofty objective–lofty, given Israel’s consistent failure to subdue the Palestinians over the course of nearly 600 days–Netanyahu and his men meticulously devised the “Gideon’s Chariots” plan. The propaganda that accompanied this new strategy transcended all the hasbara that had accompanied previous plans, including the failed “Generals’ Plan” of October 2024.
The rationale behind this psychological warfare is to imprint upon the Palestinians in Gaza the indelible impression that their fate has been sealed, and that the future of Gaza can only be determined by Israel itself.
The plan, however, a rehash of what is historically known as “Sharon’s Fingers,” is fundamentally predicated on sectionalizing Gaza into several distinct zones, and leveraging food as a tool for displacement into these camps, and ultimately, outside of Gaza.
However, why would Netanyahu agree to allow food access outside his sinister scheme? The reason behind this relates profoundly to the explosion of global anger directed at Israel, particularly from its most staunch allies: Britain, France, Canada, Australia, among others.
Unlike Spain, Norway, Ireland and others that have sharply criticized the Israeli genocide, a few Western capitals have remained committed to Israel throughout the war. Their commitment manifested in supportive political discourse, blaming Palestinians and absolving Israel; unhindered military support; and resolute shielding of Israel from legal accountability and political fallout on the global stage.
Things began to change when US President Donald Trump slowly grasped that Netanyahu’s war in Gaza was destined to become a permanent war and occupation, which would inevitably translate to the perpetual destabilization of the Middle East – hardly a pressing American priority at the moment.
Leaked reports in US mainstream media, coupled with the noticeable lack of communication between Trump and Netanyahu, among other indicators, strongly suggested that the rift between Washington and Tel Aviv was not a mere ploy but a genuine policy shift.
Though Washington had indicated that the “US has not abandoned Israel,” the writing was clearly on the wall: Netanyahu’s long-term strategy and the US’ current strategy are hardly convergent.
Despite the formidable political power of the pro-Israel lobby in the US, and its robust support on both sides of the Congressional aisle, Trump’s position was strengthened by the fact that some pro-Israeli circles, also from both political parties, are fully aware that Netanyahu poses a danger not only to the US, but to Israel itself.
A series of decisive actions taken by Trump further accentuated this shift, which received surprisingly little protest from the pro-Israel element in US power circles: continued talks with Iran, the truce with Ansarallah in Yemen, talks with Hamas, etc.
Though refraining from openly criticizing Trump, Netanyahu intensified his killings of Palestinians, who fell in tragically large numbers. Many of the victims were already on the brink of starvation before they were mercilessly blown up by Israeli bombs.
On May 19, Britain, Canada, and France jointly issued a strong statement threatening Israel with sanctions. This unfamiliar language was swiftly followed by action just a day later when Britain suspended trade talks with Israel.
Netanyahu retaliated with furious language, unleashing his rage at Western capitals, which he accused of “offering a huge prize for the genocidal attack on Israel on October 7 while inviting more such atrocities.”
The decision to allow some food into Gaza, though patently insufficient to stave off the deepening famine, was meant as a distraction, as the Israeli war machine relentlessly continued to harvest the lives of countless Palestinians on a daily basis.
While one welcomes the significant shifts in the West’s position against Israel, it must remain abundantly clear that Netanyahu has no genuine interest in abandoning his plan of starving and ethnically cleansing Gaza.
Though any action now will not fully reverse the impact of the genocide, there are still two million lives that can yet be saved.
The decision resonated as shocking for all sides. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose entire war strategy hinges on the starvation of Palestinians in Gaza, unilaterally decided on May 19 to allow “immediate” food entry to the famine-stricken Strip.
Of course, Netanyahu still maneuvered. Instead of permitting at least 1,000 trucks of aid to enter the utterly destroyed and devastated Gaza per day, he initially allowed a mere nine trucks, a number that nominally increased in the following days.
Even Netanyahu’s staunch supporters, who fiercely criticized the decision, found themselves confounded by it. The prior understanding among Netanyahu’s coalition partners regarding their ultimate plan in Gaza had been unequivocally clear: the total occupation of the Strip and the forced displacement of its population.
The latter was articulated as a matter of explicit policy by Israel’s Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich. “Gaza will be entirely destroyed, civilians will be sent to… third countries,” he declared on May 6.
For food to enter Gaza, however minuscule its quantity, directly violates the established understanding between the government and the military, under the leadership of Netanyahu’s ally, Defense Minister Israel Katz, and Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir.
These two significant additions to Netanyahu’s war cabinet replaced Yoav Gallant and Herzi Halevi. With these new appointments, Netanyahu stood poised for his master plan.
When the war commenced on October 7, 2023, the Israeli leader promised that he would take control of the Gaza Strip. This position evolved, or rather was clarified, to signify permanent occupation, though without the Palestinians themselves.
To achieve such a lofty objective–lofty, given Israel’s consistent failure to subdue the Palestinians over the course of nearly 600 days–Netanyahu and his men meticulously devised the “Gideon’s Chariots” plan. The propaganda that accompanied this new strategy transcended all the hasbara that had accompanied previous plans, including the failed “Generals’ Plan” of October 2024.
The rationale behind this psychological warfare is to imprint upon the Palestinians in Gaza the indelible impression that their fate has been sealed, and that the future of Gaza can only be determined by Israel itself.
The plan, however, a rehash of what is historically known as “Sharon’s Fingers,” is fundamentally predicated on sectionalizing Gaza into several distinct zones, and leveraging food as a tool for displacement into these camps, and ultimately, outside of Gaza.
However, why would Netanyahu agree to allow food access outside his sinister scheme? The reason behind this relates profoundly to the explosion of global anger directed at Israel, particularly from its most staunch allies: Britain, France, Canada, Australia, among others.
Unlike Spain, Norway, Ireland and others that have sharply criticized the Israeli genocide, a few Western capitals have remained committed to Israel throughout the war. Their commitment manifested in supportive political discourse, blaming Palestinians and absolving Israel; unhindered military support; and resolute shielding of Israel from legal accountability and political fallout on the global stage.
Things began to change when US President Donald Trump slowly grasped that Netanyahu’s war in Gaza was destined to become a permanent war and occupation, which would inevitably translate to the perpetual destabilization of the Middle East – hardly a pressing American priority at the moment.
Leaked reports in US mainstream media, coupled with the noticeable lack of communication between Trump and Netanyahu, among other indicators, strongly suggested that the rift between Washington and Tel Aviv was not a mere ploy but a genuine policy shift.
Though Washington had indicated that the “US has not abandoned Israel,” the writing was clearly on the wall: Netanyahu’s long-term strategy and the US’ current strategy are hardly convergent.
Despite the formidable political power of the pro-Israel lobby in the US, and its robust support on both sides of the Congressional aisle, Trump’s position was strengthened by the fact that some pro-Israeli circles, also from both political parties, are fully aware that Netanyahu poses a danger not only to the US, but to Israel itself.
A series of decisive actions taken by Trump further accentuated this shift, which received surprisingly little protest from the pro-Israel element in US power circles: continued talks with Iran, the truce with Ansarallah in Yemen, talks with Hamas, etc.
Though refraining from openly criticizing Trump, Netanyahu intensified his killings of Palestinians, who fell in tragically large numbers. Many of the victims were already on the brink of starvation before they were mercilessly blown up by Israeli bombs.
On May 19, Britain, Canada, and France jointly issued a strong statement threatening Israel with sanctions. This unfamiliar language was swiftly followed by action just a day later when Britain suspended trade talks with Israel.
Netanyahu retaliated with furious language, unleashing his rage at Western capitals, which he accused of “offering a huge prize for the genocidal attack on Israel on October 7 while inviting more such atrocities.”
The decision to allow some food into Gaza, though patently insufficient to stave off the deepening famine, was meant as a distraction, as the Israeli war machine relentlessly continued to harvest the lives of countless Palestinians on a daily basis.
While one welcomes the significant shifts in the West’s position against Israel, it must remain abundantly clear that Netanyahu has no genuine interest in abandoning his plan of starving and ethnically cleansing Gaza.
Though any action now will not fully reverse the impact of the genocide, there are still two million lives that can yet be saved.
Citizen Mercenaries and the Gaza Genocide
It is, of course, nice to see Canada, the UK and France finally developing a conscience over what multiple international institutions and prominent scholarly experts have concluded. That is, the Zionist colonial regime of Israel is committing the crime of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. After all, the evidence of murderous carnage perpetrated upon Gaza and its peoples is robust. Scientists for Global Responsibility show how weapons supplied by the above states, along with Germany and the United States (US), have not only resulted in explosive tonnage bombarding Gaza exceeding that of multiple Hiroshima bombings and destructive World War II campaigns against Hamburg, Cologne, and Dresden, but have produced a casualty count far above that estimated by besieged local authorities cited in mainstream presses.
An additional 186,000 people are expected to be slaughtered indirectly through famine and lingering impacts of the bombing. In fact, estimates have it that 4000 items of unexploded ordinance litter Gaza, rendering it effectively “uninhabitable” and projected to cost $500-million to “clean up.”
However, what is to be done? Enforcing arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court against Israel’s leaders is proving difficult. The United Nations Security Council has been rendered ineffectual on Gaza by US veto power in favor of Israel. While boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) are easily flouted if target states do not find themselves completely isolated as was apartheid South Africa in its final days. Yet one clear avenue with both arrest and enforcement mechanisms along with necessary judicial infrastructure does exist to deal with the sort of crimes Israel and its occupation military is accused of. This is the power of domestic legal systems. If these can spring into action over pedophilic offences committed by citizens abroad, why not over genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity?
Tourist Crimes and Offences
For example, the US Department of State issues travel advisories over sex tourism warning travelers with pedophilic intentions that, whatever legal strictures apply in their destination there is no potential happy return as US law is empowered to prosecute residents for crimes committed abroad.
Canadian law offers a renowned example of this legal principle in action. In the notorious “swirl face” case from the early 2000s, global police forces worked tirelessly to identify an individual who, disguising his face with a “swirl,” posted photos of himself, across clandestine internet sites, abusing young boys in Southeast Asia, Cambodia and Thailand, in particular. Ultimately, police experts undid the “swirl” revealing the face of a Canadian citizen. This led to his arrest and transfer to Cambodia where he was sentenced to a five year prison term. Yet, on his return to Canada, the “swirl face” pedophile was again arrested and prosecuted under rarely used sex tourism laws and subsequently sentenced to a further five years in prison.
What about citizen mercenaries traipsing around the globe to participate in military conflicts? Canadian law is unambiguous. Genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed abroad are all offences for which individuals can be arrested, tried and sentenced in Canada. This is important because, unlike the “swirl face” pedophile, Canadians and others serving in the Israeli military, as it engages in its genocidal maraud, have been brazenly posting their exploits on social media.
In a recent expose, Canadian publication The Maple has uncovered and made public the identities of a full 85 Canadians who have joined the Israeli occupation forces in recent years. These individuals are profiled in several ways. It is revealed how all are Canadian citizens who were either born in Canada or lived there for lengthy periods of time. Their demographics indicate that 75 percent are men, 25 percent women. The majority hail from the Toronto, Ontario area. They come from well to do families. From scouring news sites, The Maple reproduces testaments from them asserting their interest, from a young age, in joining the Israeli military. It also quotes reflections they made upon their service as evidencing zero inhibitions over what they were doing. Though, as explained by The Maple, not all of the exposed Canadians serving in the Israeli military are involved in the current devastating Gaza assaults, their earlier Gaza related postings and activities in the West Bank Occupied Territories are also demonstrably breaches of international law.
To be sure, the mainstream Canadian press has erupted with cries of “antisemitism” and the like, asserting that Canadian dual citizens have served in other militaries such as that of Britain during World War II. Yet there is not a peep about what is going on in Gaza today or of the fact that numerous international bodies and academic experts calling it out for what it is. Nor is there any mention of international law in reference to Israeli military actions in the Occupied Territories.
Not Just Canada
Canada is not the only country with its citizens participating in recent Israeli military endeavors. Over 100 individuals from Britain are identified as either serving in the Israeli Occupation forces or residing in the Occupied Territories as “settlers.” The Euro-Med Monitor for Human Rights, for its part, has identified hundreds of European Union states’ citizens who have joined the ranks of the Israeli military. It not only provides video testimony from them concerning their service to Israel but tracks how Israel related organizations in Europe actively promote military recruitment within Jewish communities for purposes of mercenary activity in Israel. At least 1000 American citizens are serving in the Israeli military. US law has also established a precedent for arrest and trial of American citizens for crimes against humanity committed in foreign conflicts. The son of Liberian warlord Charles Taylor “Chuckie,” an American citizen, was convicted in 2008 in Florida for torture in the Liberian civil war. This was the first such case in the US.
Now is the time for legal systems in proclaimed democracies such as Canada to begin investigations leading to arrests and trials. If rarely utilized sex tourism laws can be dusted off to prosecute pedophilic tourism, what is preventing the legal systems from prosecuting returning mercenaries implicated in wholesale genocide of Palestinian children? This is particularly urgent given the headlines splashed across mainstream presses alerting the world of the possibility that 14,000 children in Gaza are at risk of death by deliberate Israeli military starvation of the territory. It is indeed time that the legal principle established at Nuremberg against claims that one “was just following orders” is rendered actionable for Gaza’s children’s sake.
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