Israelâs Onslaught: to What End? | |
Israelâs Onslaught: to What End?Israeli Proposals for Total Expulsion of Gazans
Seventy percent of Gazans, their children or grandchildren are refugees.
Palestinians refer to the forced displacement of some 700,000 Palestinians in 1948, at the creation of the Israeli state, as Nakba, or The Catastrophe. Four hundred Palestinian villages were eradicated and Palestinians fled from massacres such as what happened at Deir Yassin. As a result of the 1967 so-called Six-Day War, around another 280,000 to 325,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from the territories. Additional Palestinian refugees were created due to the Gulf War, and the Lebanese and Syrian Civil Warsâalthough they didnât necessarily end up in Gaza or the West Bank.
From the earliest days of the formulation of Zionism, the dominant ideology was the removal of the Arab population; its slogan, a land without people for a people without a land, meant to encourage Jewish immigration to Palestine, conveniently overlooked the fact that hundreds of thousands of Arabs had lived there for generations. (British Mandate census figures list more than a million Muslims living in Palestine in 1931.)
Itâs important to look at the reality of what is happening on the ground as well as what is being said by Israeli government figures and ministries to try and deduce Israelâs ultimate intent in Gaza.
Israeli Knesset member Ariel Kallner called for a second Nakba to take place in Gaza: âRight now, one goal: Nakba! A Nakba that will overshadow the Nakba of â48. Nakba in Gaza and Nakba to anyone who dares to join their Nakba, because like then in 1948, the alternative is clear,â Kallner wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
As reported by Israeli journalist, Yuval Abraham, a leaked document from Israelâs Intelligence Ministry dated less than one week after the October 7 Hamas attack proposes the permanent transfer of Gazaâs residents to Egypt. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed the documentâs authenticity but dismissed it as a mere âconcept paperâ.
Abraham also exposed a similar paper from the right-wing think tank, âMisgav,â headed by Meir Ben-Shabbat, a senior former Israeli security figure and close associate of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Published a little over two weeks ago, the report has the identical conclusion, that Israel needs to transfer, forcibly transfer, all the civilians in Gaza to Egypt.
Israelâs continuing wholesale destruction of Palestinian homes and infrastructure, when seen in this light, give credence that another Nakba is the long-term goal. As do the so-called âhumanitarian corridorsâ pushing Gazans south to the border with Egypt.
Early in Israelâs assault, IDF spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari made the startling admission that âhundreds of tons of bombsâ had already been dropped on the tiny strip, adding that âthe emphasis is on damage and not on accuracyâ. And Netanyahu promised to âdemolish Hamasâ and âflattenâ Gaza. Palestinian children writing their names on their bodies so they could be identified in case they were killed. The resemblance to the tattooed numbers Jews were marked with by the Nazis is obvious.
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![](site/www15.eiffel.live/media_pages/israelrsquos-onslaught-to-what-end_para_image_1.jpg) David Anson Russoâs cover story is a fanciful beginning to the Season of Light & Love. Coupled with the recent suggestion by Israeli cabinet minister, Amihay Eliyahu, that Israel should use a nuclear bomb on Gaza, the implementation of such an extreme measure becomes more likely. A large segment of the Israeli society is already rabidly anti-Palestinian, and settler violence, especially in the West Bank had increased significantly under Netanyahu. Calls for killing all Palestinians echo beyond the settler movement, encouraged and armed under successive Israeli governments.
Israelâs vaunted military and civilian intelligence services, that have a vast network of spies and collaborators inside Gaza and the West Bank, failed to detect Hamasâ attack plans, which some military experts say might have taken as much as two years to formulate. Yet, they want us now to believe that they know where every Hamas fighter isâapparently under hospitals, schools, UN shelters, and every other place constituting Palestinian civil society.
Mainstream media constantly repeats the trope of Hamas using civilians as shields, even though now, and in past conflicts between Hamas and Israel, human rights groups have said there is no to little evidence of that being the case, and in fact, the IDF has been cited for using Palestinian civilians as literal human shields. (https://reliefweb.int/report/israel/human-shield-use-palestinian-civilians-human-shields-violation-high-court-order.)
Hamas is a revolutionary group (terrorist to some), and by nature, revolutionary movements arise from the population they are fighting for.
What do these pundits think should happen, for Hamas to isolate themselves in some clearly delineated area with flags and boundaries so that Israel can kill them with impunity? For the 16-years of the blockade of the Gaza Strip, the IDF constantly raided cities, towns and refugee camps, killing and assassinating Hamas members as well as civilians. Where was the outcry then?
A large majority of the civilized world is calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. It is telling who is opposing it.
Fred Samia is a freelance journalist who has worked in the Middle East and a Marine combat veteran.
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