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OP/ED - Israel has used the savage acts of October 7 to justify its savagery against millions of innocent people. Israel continues to deprive millions of Gazans with life-giving food, water, electricity, fuel, and safe passage. Yet these people have no control over or complicity with the Hamas terrorists that attacked innocent Israelis. Sadly, the far-right government of Israel uses this attack to justify its own attack on innocents. As this is being written, Israel is slowly killing over 160 newborns through deprivation of medicine and electricity for ventilators, ensuring their inevitable death. Israel has killed over 2,000 children in Gaza in just the past few days. Israel promises to kill far more in the cruel, unnecessary, and relentless campaign that Netanyahu promises will “reverberate for generations.”
Israel has no military advantage in killing these children or other innocents. Indeed, Israel holds responsibility under international law to protect these people as the occupying force. Far from protecting them, Israel uses mass incarceration to slowly torture and kill as many as possible by withholding essentials. Under pressure from the United States and the remainder of the World, Israel has allowed passage of a miniscule portion of the aid that is needed to sustain these people. This gesture only accentuates the enormity of human life under threat by Israel’s commission of this crime against humanity.
Israel could easily open her borders to allow civilians to flee. Israel could vet each person wanting to leave to confirm that they have no affiliation with Hamas. In this way, Gaza could be drained of innocents before Israel commenced the massive bombings and killings that have thus far left over 5,000 dead and tens of thousands injured. After all, these are people of Israel. Gazans and their forefathers were colonized by Israel, and as the indigenous people, these Gazans have every right to be inside Israel and to live as Israelis.
So why does Israel work to kill these enslaved, helpless, and innocent people? The far-right Israeli government has long sought a greater Israel that encompasses the lands from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean. For decades, Israel has used periods of military conflict as an excuse to expand its borders. In order to expand in Gaza and the West Bank, Israel needs to eliminate more of the indigenous population. In this way, war becomes the fog under which Israel cleanses its land of indigenous people. This started long before the current conflict.
Many compare the current attack on Gazans with the attacks committed by the Irgun during the Nakba. Zionist founders, including Herzl, lamented the presence of indigenous people in the land Israel intended to colonize. Herzl’s diary entries discussed how to persuade the indigenous Christian and Muslim populations to leave the area intended for colonization. Although Herzl did not advocate violence, the Irgun (that later became the core of the Israeli Defense Force) chose to terrorize many indigenous Christians and Muslims into fleeing the area. One key event in this campaign of terror occurred in 1948 when the Irgun massacred the men, women, and children civilians in village of Deir Yassin. The Irgun intended to instill terror in the indigenous Christians and Muslims and thereby persuade them to flee. Although the massacre received much international and Jewish condemnation, the massacre and similar acts of settler violence had the intended effect of causing the Christians and Muslims to flee Israeli violence. Menachem Begin helped lead the Irgun and was later rewarded politically, despite these misdeeds of the Irgun.
Israeli violence during the Nakba reminds the World of Israeli violence today. Israel directs its violence toward those indigenous persons and their descendants that pose no military threat to Israel, and whose only crime is being an impediment to greater Israel. As recently as March 2023, the Israeli finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called for Israel to “erase” a Palestinian village. In June 2023 Israeli lawmaker Matan Hahana expressed his wish to “press a button” and expel Palestinians. Ayelet Shaked, Mr. Netanyahu’s former Justice Minister, has call openly for genocide against the indigenous people. And the list goes on. . .
Despite Israeli requests, both Jordan and Egypt have refused to allow Israel’s refugees admission into their countries. Jordan and Egypt have long housed many of Israel’s refugees, starting in 1948 and continuing through the present. Each realizes that allowing these refugees entry almost certainly means Israel will not allow their re-entry. Understandably, these countries refuse to facilitate another 1948-style ethnic cleansing.
The United States also has a sad history of mistreatment of those it has colonized. But in the more modern era, America has learned that engagement and integration of indigenous people build peace and prosperity for the entire society. Native Americans receive citizenship, live within our US borders, and are not placed under apartheid or confined to areas of concentration. Israel must see that its ever-harsher treatment of the indigenous people has failed to provide it with either peace or security. The path to peace and security for both sides lies in integration---not oppression.
The United States has a special responsibility to prevent realization of Ms. Shaked’s and other far-right Israelis’ vision of the violent repression and expulsion of indigenous people. Israel’s infliction of death and destruction that Mr. Netanyahu promises will “reverberate for generations” is being delivered through military charity provided by the United States. Every man, woman, and child that Israel kills needlessly serves to undermine not only America’s security, but also America’s integrity. As a nation, we have led efforts to stop the very types of cruelty that Israel now prosecutes relentlessly. Americans must stand up for the rights of people being unlawfully and immorally persecuted by Israel.
American largesse must be used to bring about just and humane consequences. As over 2.2 million civilians are now in life-threatening danger from Israel, made possible by our charity, we Americans have both the right and the obligation to use our power to circumscribe Israeli violence. The World will be watching as our generosity is being misused by Israel for its crimes in Gaza. We must lead with our conscience, and our conscience cannot tolerate the continued deprivation of food, water, medicine, fuel, and other essentials to the 2.2 million people Israel has imprisoned in Gaza.
(J. George Mansour was born and raised in Missouri and has long been a student of political science and international relations. Mr. Mansour is now based in Austin Texas, where he remains an active investor in a variety of businesses.)
