The Palestinian population is threatened with erasure as the world watches
November 13 looms. This date marks the end of the 30-day respite given Netanyahu by the Biden Administration to demonstrate that Israel is permitting aid to “surge” into Gaza or possibly face the consequences of the US enforcing its own law barring weapons from being sent to countries that prevent the entry of US humanitarian aid.
With Israel’s leaders jubilant over the election of Trump whom they believe will give Israel even more of a free hand than Biden who is now a lame duck president, it seems likely that nothing will be done to reverse conditions in northern Gaza which UN officials have called “apocalyptic.” They state that the “entire Palestinian population in North Gaza is at imminent risk of dying from disease, famine and violence.” Biden may leave office without doing anything about the 500 or so reports that Israel has used US weapons to cause unnecessary harm to civilians in violation of domestic and international law. US taxpayers have funded 70% of Israel’s wartime expenses.
And now the genocide is intensified, unimpeded by international action. The multiplying atrocities that have brought the death toll to more than 43,600 – as many as 70 percent believed to be women and children - have received scant media attention. According to Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, at least 365 familieshave lost 10 or more family members. Among the recently slaughtered are nearly 100 civilians in the Oct. 30th bombing of a residential building in Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza and those wiped out in the Nov. 4thshelling of Kamal Adwan Hospital where child patients were killed and dozens of medical staff were wounded and arrested. The hospital director Hussam Abu Safiya is one of only two doctors remaining in the hospital which is still under attack. “I refused to leave the hospital and sacrifice my patients,” Dr. Abu Safiya told +972 Magazine, “so they punished me by killing my son.”
According to the Palestinian media office, since Israel’s siege of the north and obliteration of the towns of Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahiya, Al-Attatra, and the Jabalyia refugee camp began in early October, Israel has blocked 3,800 aid trucks from entering the area, and “deliberately starved nearly 400,000 people there, including more than 100,000 children.” On Nov. 6 , an Israeli general stated that Israel was completing the evacuation of northern Gaza bordering Gaza City, and would not permit residents to return home. Israel appears to be carrying out the ‘General’s Plan’ to ethnically cleanse the northern quarter of the Gaza Strip. Erasure by Design, a report by the UK Action for Humanity, gives a damning assessment of the more than 65 Israeli evacuation orders that have forced over a million people into a so-called ‘humanitarian zone’ covering 13 percent of Gaza, that is devoid of sufficient shelter, food, sanitation, water and medical services. Only 30 trucks per day are now permitted to enter the southern Gaza Strip, a tiny fraction of the 500 or so which supplied Gaza before the war.
Meanwhile, Israel continues to reduce parts of Lebanon to ruins, with the death toll now exceeding 3,000. Little media attention has been given to the destruction of entire villages in the south and the strikes on Beirut, Baalbek, Sidon and Tyre. Will Massad Boulos, the Lebanese father-in-law of Trump’s daughter Tiffany, be able to negotiate the truce he reportedly said he would work to bring about as soon as Trump takes power?
The ‘war for Judea and Samaria’ is now spreading through the West Bank, as armed settlers terrorize towns, villages and refugee camps. There have been at least 177 settler attacks related to the olive harvest. Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese writes in her latest report that “genocidal conduct in Gaza set an ominous precedent for the West Bank. The deliberate strategy of Israel to render Palestinian life unsustainable has markedly intensified everywhere in the occupied Palestinian territory, with devastating consequences for Palestinian survival…. Advancing its goal of ‘Greater Israel’ threatens to erase the Indigenous Palestinian population.” The next Israeli ambassador to Washington, Yechiel Leiter, an American-born Israeli settler and former member of Meir Kahane’s Jewish Defense League that the US listed as a terrorist group, will likely make achieving that goal a top priority.
Israel also appears bent on eradicating components of the United Nations apparatus which sustain Palestinian life and uphold human rights. Its outlawing of 75-year-old UNRWA was called by UN General Secretary Guterres “a catastrophe in what is already an unmitigated disaster.” This move drastically impacts distribution of aid in Gaza and life in the West Bank where UNWRA runs 96 schools and 43 health centers and gives monetary aid to refugees.
The request by International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Khan for ICC judges to issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Defense Minister Gallant and three Hamas leaders has gone nowhere. Since the request was made last May, 7,000 more Palestinians have been killed, including the named Hamas leaders, Gallant is no longer in the cabinet, and Khan - who with his predecessor had been subjected to nine years of threats from Israel – remains under relentless pressure.
On Oct. 28 South Africa submitted 500 pages of evidence to the International Court of Justice to meet the deadline given by the Court to back up its claim that Israel was committing genocide. But don’t expect a ruling anytime soon. Israel has a deadline of July 2025 to submit its rebuttal and oral arguments are anticipated for the following year. By then the erasure of Palestinians could be nearly complete.
Netanyahu Appoints Yechiel Leiter as Israel's Ambassador to U.S. Hardline Settler
Netanyahu Appoints Yechiel Leiter as Israel's Ambassador to U.S. Hardline Settler, Ex-member of Far-right Kahanist Group
Leiter, a right-wing writer affiliated with Kohelet Forum, supports West Bank annexation and was once active in Kahane's Jewish Defense League. His son died in combat in the Gaza war. The pick signals Netanyahu's intention to align with Israel's settler movement ahead of Trump's new term
Amir Tibon, Ben Samuels
Nov 8, 2024 5:28 pm IST
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has appointed Yechiel Leiter as Israel's ambassador to the U.S. Leiter, who will be replacing ambassador Michael Herzog, is considered close to Netanyahu and previously served as his chief of staff.
Leiter was born in the U.S. and immigrated to Israel four decades ago. He has been actively involved in supporting Jewish settlements in the West Bank, particularly in Hebron, currently lives in the settlement of Eli. His son Moshe was killed in combat in northern Gaza during the war, about a year ago.
"Yechiel Leiter is a talented diplomat, an articulate speaker, and has a deep understanding of American culture and politics. I am convinced he will represent the State of Israel in the best way, and wish him luck in his new role," Netanyahu's office said in a statement.
The post of ambassador to the U.S. is Leiter's first diplomatic job, after working for decades writing and researching at right-wing Israeli and American research institutes, including the Shalem Institute and Herzl Institute. He also served as a senior fellow at the Kohelet Policy forum, the organization that promoted legislation in 2023 aimed at weakening Israel's judiciary.
In his youth, Leiter was active in the Jewish Defense League, an organization founded in the U.S. by Rabbi Meir Kahane and later designated as a terrorist organization by U.S. authorities. He was part of a group of activists within the organization who eventually moved to live in settlements in the West Bank.
Leiter also knew Baruch Goldstein, another U.S. immigrant involved in JDL activities. In 1994, following the massacre carried out by Goldstein at the Cave of the Patriarchs, Leiter gave an interview to a Jewish-American newspaper describing Goldstein as "very close to Rabbi Kahane and regarded him as his rabbi." He mentioned having known Goldstein for a decade, during which they both lived in settlements in the Hebron area.
In the 1990s, he was an activist in the public campaign against the Oslo Accords. In 2020, he published an article advocating for the annexation of the West Bank by Israel. In 2023, three months before the Hamas attack on the Gaza border communities, he published an article on a right-wing Jewish website urging the Israeli government to bring about the collapse and dismantling of the Palestinian Authority, even if doing so would trigger a security crisis in the West Bank.
Another article by Leiter, also published on the Jewish News Syndicate website in 2023, discussed the warming relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia and the possibility of a normalization agreement between the two countries. He wrote that Saudi demands regarding the Palestinians during the negotiations were relatively modest and did not include an explicit call for the establishment of a Palestinian state. However, over the past year, amid the war in Gaza, Saudi Arabia's stance has hardened, with the kingdom consistently emphasizing that any agreement with Israel must include tangible progress toward a two-state solution.
Leiter is considered close to right-wing Jewish circles, including David Friedman, who served as U.S. Ambassador to Israel during the Trump administration and is seeking a significant role in a potential second Trump administration. Leiter's appointment signals Netanyahu's intent to advance a policy aligned with Israel's settler movement in coordination with the incoming Trump administration, including annexation of the West Bank. This approach could complicate the president-elect's efforts to broker a normalization agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Hadar Susskind, the CEO of Americans for Peace Now, a nonprofit whose stated aim is to find a political solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, said that "Netanyahu has never been subtle, and this appointment is no different. Sending a Kahanist settler to Washington is a clear sign that Netanyahu and his government are moving toward their goal of annexation and doing so openly. We will continue to oppose his disastrous agenda."
J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami said that "This choice is a concerning signal of the direction the Netanyahu-Trump alliance is going to take the moment Trump takes office. Just like last time, Trump and Netanyahu will promote annexation above peace, safety and democracy for Israelis, Palestinians and everyone else."
"Our hope is that Dr. Leiter will take the time to engage with and understand the concerns of the vast majority of the American Jewish community and Democratic Members of Congress, who are deeply concerned about Netanyahu's anti-democratic, annexationist agenda and the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza. For the sake of a sustainable and strong U.S.-Israel relationship, this must be taken into account," he added.
We are witnessing the final stage of genocide in Gaza
by Arwa Mahdawi
Omer Bartov, an Israeli-American historian who is a professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown, is one of the experts who believes what is happening in Gaza is a genocide. He didn’t always believe this to be the case. Last November, Bartov wrote a piece for the New York Times stating: “I believe that there is no proof that genocide is currently taking place.” But this came with a disclaimer: “There is genocidal intent, which can easily tip into genocidal action … There is still time to stop Israel from letting its actions become a genocide.”
Intent is a key component of genocide, which is legally defined as committing certain specified acts (including killing and imposing measures intended to prevent births) with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.
The genocidal intent Bartov mentions is the dehumanizing language and threats of total annihilation from Israeli politicians and influential figures. There are hundreds of these statements out there. Bartov cites an example from 9 October, when Major General Giora Eiland wrote in the daily newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth: “The State of Israel has no choice but to turn Gaza into a place that is temporarily or permanently impossible to live in.” In another article, Eiland wrote that “Gaza will become a place where no human being can exist.”
…Rafah was a grim milestone. But the very last stage of this genocide, Bartov says, is happening right now in Jabalia in north Gaza, where over 1,000 people have been killed in the last three weeks. What’s happening in north Gaza should not be considered – as it often seems to be in the media – as just more bombing. Rather, Bartov notes, it is a genocidal campaign clearly based on The General’s Plan.