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october 7
Netanyahu Replaces Fired Israeli Defense Minister With 'Another Genocidal Lunatic'
"Israel just doubled down on prolonging its genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza," said one observer.
Nov 05, 2024
Palestine defenders on Tuesday accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of swapping one "genocidal lunatic" for another after the right-wing leader fired Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and replaced him with Israel Katz, who was serving as foreign minister.
"Israel just doubled down on prolonging its genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza," journalist and genocide scholar Samira Mohyeddin said on social media following Netanyahu's moves.
Netanyahu cited what he called a "crisis of trust" that "gradually deepened" as his reason for the changes, which came as Israel is waging war on Gaza and Lebanon while bracing for Iranian retaliation for recent Israeli attacks on the Middle East nation.
"In the midst of a war, more than ever, full trust is required between the prime minister and the minister of defense," Netanyahu said Tuesday, according toThe Jerusalem Post. "This trust has cracked between myself and the defense minister."
Katz, a member of Netanyahu's Likud party, previously held several Cabinet posts, most recently as Israel's top diplomat. He was the minister of energy and infrastructure on October 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants launched a surprise attack on Israel that left more than 1,100 people dead—at least some killed by fratricidal fire—and over 240 others kidnapped and taken to Gaza.
Two days later, Katz issued an order to "immediately cut off the water supply from Israel to Gaza."
"Electricity and fuel were cut off yesterday," he said. "What was will not be. All the civilian population in Gaza is ordered to leave immediately. We will win. They will not receive a drop of water or a single battery until they leave."
Katz's directive followed Gallant's
order for a "complete siege" of Gaza.
"There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed," Gallant said. "We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly."
These statements by Gallant and Katz are
cited in the International Court of Justice's January 26 provisional order for Israel to prevent genocidal acts in Gaza. Israel—which is on trial for alleged genocide at the ICJ—has been accused of ignoring this and subsequent orders issued by the tribunal.
On Tuesday, Israeli state media reported that the Israel Defense Forces has completed its division of Gaza into two parts, and that "there is no intention to allow the residents of the northern Gaza Strip to return to their homes."
Katz has also come under fire for declaring United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres "persona non grata in Israel" for criticizing the country's war on Gaza, which has left more than 155,000 Palestinians in Gaza dead, wounded, or missing and millions more starving and sick.
While serving as Israel's foreign minister, Katz was also condemned for threatening "severe consequences" for nations that officially recognize Palestinian statehood. Nearly 150 of the 193 United Nations member states recognize Palestine.
Katz also raised eyebrows in 2022 after he
made a thinly veiled threat to ethnically cleanse Arab citizens of Israel. Responding to Israeli Arab students who displayed the Palestinian flag on college campuses, Katz said "remember '48," a reference to 1948, when Israel declared its independence amid an ethnic cleansing campaign in which more than 750,000 Arabs were expelled from Palestine to make way for Jewish settlement.
Palestinians call this mass dispossession and expulsion the
Nakba, which means "catastrophe" in Arabic.
"Remember our independence war and your Nakba," Katz said. "Don't stretch the rope too much... If you don't calm down, we'll teach you a lesson that won't be forgotten."
"Ask your elders—your grandfathers, and grandmothers—and they will explain to you that in the end, the Jews awaken, they know to defend themselves and the idea of the Jewish state," he added.
In one of his final acts as foreign minister, Katz on Monday
initiated the process of annulling a 1967 agreement between Israel and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, which Israel accuses of being "infiltrated" by Hamas. The U.N. strongly refutes Israel's accusation.
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'Not for Long,' Says Israeli Defense Minister After Hezbollah Names New Leader
"The road to your arrest and The Hague won't be long either, you genocidal war criminal," one observer retorted.
Oct 29, 2024
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Tuesday on social media that Hezbollah's pick of Naim Qassem to lead the Lebanon-based political and paramilitary group would be "temporary"—a remark seen by many as an assassination threat.
Hezbollah tapped Qassem, its longtime deputy chief, to lead the group following Israel's assassination of former Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut last month.
"Temporary appointment. Not for long," Gallant said on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter, in response to Hezbollah's move.
The state of Israel's official Arabic X account said Qassem's "tenure in this position may be the shortest in the history of this terrorist organization if he follows in the footsteps of his predecessors."
"There is no solution in Lebanon except to dismantle this organization as a military force," the account added.
Since earlier this month, when Israeli forces launched a ground invasion accompanied by a massive ongoing bombing campaign against Lebanon, nearly 2,800 Lebanese have been killed and more than 12,700 others injured, the country's Ministry of Health said Tuesday. The ministry added that 82 Lebanese have been killed and another 180 injured over the past 24 hours alone.
Since shortly after October 7, 2023—when Hamas led the deadliest single attack on Israel in its history—Hezbollah has been launching rockets and other projectiles at Lebanon's southern neighbor, killing and wounding scores of Israelis.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, Netherlands is currently
weighing whether to approve Prosecutor Karim Khan's application for warrants to arrest Gallant—who responded to the Hamas-led attack by ordering a "complete siege" of Gaza that has been blamed for the starvation and sickening of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians—and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Khan also sought ICC arrest warrants for three Hamas leaders, at least two of whom have been assassinated by Israel.
Over 388 days, Israeli forces have killed at least 43,020 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them women and children. At least 101,100 others have been wounded. More than 10,000 Palestinians are also missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the ruins of Gaza. Almost everyone in the embattled Gaza Strip has been forcibly displaced, often multiple times.
Responding to Gallant's threat, Somali-Australian journalist Najat Abdi said on X that "the road to your arrest and The Hague won't be long either, you genocidal war criminal."
Gallant's remarks came amid reports that Israeli and Hezbollah negotiators are "in the advanced stages" of hammering out cease-fire agreement that would lead to Israeli troops withdrawing from Lebanon, where they have been suffering high casualties at the hands of Hezbollah fighters.
One important unanswered question is whether Hezbollah will accept a deal to end hostilities with Israel without a cease-fire in Gaza.
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Yahya Sinwar's Miscalculation and What Comes Next
If the successors to Sinwar's leadership within Hamas are smart, they will offer to release all the remaining hostages, dead and alive, in exchange for an immediate ceasefire and a massive influx of humanitarian aid. The Israelis would be well-advised to declare victory and accept such an arrangement.
Oct 18, 2024
Yahya Sinwar’s death, which was confirmed by Israeli authorities Thursday, was long anticipated. Within Gaza, he was one of three key targets; the other two, Mohammad Deif and Marwan Issa were killed months ago.
Sinwar will be remembered by some as an inspired, defiant champion of Palestinian rights, by others as a false prophet and by still others as a bloodstained villain. The one aspect of his role in the 100-year war over Palestine, to paraphrase Rashid Khalidi’s book title, that most will agree upon, is that he failed to understand not only his adversary, but also his friends. He believed, among other things, that his October 7 attack would precipitate Israel’s collapse and that others in the Axis of Resistance would coordinate serious attacks against Israel with his own.
He timed his “big project,” as its planners called it, to exploit civil discord in Israel over Benjamin Netanyahu’s effort to hamstring the country’s Supreme Court and subordinate it to the will of the right-wing legislature. Netanyahu’s gambit spurred massive demonstrations against the government and led some in the reserves, including pilots, to declare that they would not serve until the court reform measure was shelved.
Sinwar interpreted this unrest as cracks in the foundation of the Israeli state. In the very long run he might well prove to have been right. But he was very wrong to think that these cracks could be widened by the big project. Indeed, Sinwar’s assault on Israel and the taking of hostages, was not the wedge he thought it would be, but rather the cement that instantaneously sealed the fault lines.
Sinwar united a factionalized society, reminded them of the rationale for their state and the dark history preceding it.
The result was an all-out war on Hamas. Traumatized Israelis, humiliated and scandalized by an historic intelligence failure, quickly coalesced in favor of a scorched-earth response and Netanyahu’s aim of total victory. And it was understood that as of October 7, Sinwar was dead, if unburied. Sinwar’s hubris triggered a massive assault that eviscerated Gaza’s civilian population and was — is — apparently replete with war crimes related to Israel’s failure to protect Gaza’s civilian population from attack, the targeting of humanitarian agencies, and the failure to ensure that Palestinian noncombatants had adequate access to food, water, and medical care.
Sinwar’s colossal misperception also led to Hezbollah's involvement, which to the grief of both Gazans and Lebanese, was too trivial to fulfill Sinwar’s expectations, but too much for Israel to ignore, as it emptied northern Israel of its inhabitants. This in turn brought Israel and Iran into direct conflict and threatened the escalation of a regional war. And it is undeniably regional — as Houthis increasingly target U.S. vessels in the Red Sea, the U.S. deploys B-2 bombers from Missouri to drop bunker busters on deeply buried installations in Yemen, and the Israelis bomb Yemen’s only port for the transfer of humanitarian assistance.
Sinwar understood well enough that many ordinary Gazans would die in furtherance of his vision of victory. In this, he evidently confused himself with Vo Nguyen Giap, who likewise understood that many Vietnamese would die, particularly in vast U.S. air raids on the North, but was correct in assessing that this would weaken the U.S. internationally, legitimize his campaign to destroy South Vietnam, and unify the country under Hanoi’s rule.
But North Vietnam had a powerful ally, a population many times the size of Gaza’s, a much larger land area, and a highly mobilized society and powerful army. And his adversary to the south was, unlike Israel, fatally divided against itself.
The question for both the Palestinians and Israelis is what happens next. If the two are smart, Sinwar’s successors will offer to release all the remaining hostages, dead and alive, in exchange for an immediate ceasefire and a massive influx of humanitarian aid. The Israelis would be well-advised to declare victory and accept such an arrangement.
The Biden administration, and presumably Vice President Harris, have signaled that Netanyahu’s government is skating on thin ice. The prime minister might calculate that he need only wait a few weeks for a president-elect Donald Trump and therefore pocket Sinwar’s death and carry on with business as usual. This might be a good bet.
But hedging might be a better bet, and that would mean using Sinwar’s death as a face-saving way to manage White House pressure.
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