The genocidal Netanyahu regime has once again taken to the indiscriminate bombing of Gaza, targeting once again Palestinian civilians and all forms of infrastructure, while using the pretext of liberating the remaining 59 Israeli hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza. In effect, Netanyahu and his extreme-right fascist colleagues have no interest whatsoever in the security or liberation of the Israeli hostages. Their lives are no more important to Netanyahu and company than the lives of those Palestinians that are being massacred in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
The fact of the matter is that Netanyahu never had any intention of settling for a permanent cease-fire in Gaza. That is why he refused to respect the terms of the second phase of the cease-fire plan which would have seen all Israeli forces leaving Gaza in exchange for the release of the remaining hostages. That would have meant an end to fighting, the departure of Netanyahu’s extreme-right faction from his fragile coalition and therefore his fall from power. In other words, Netanyahu requires a permanent war to remain in power.
An article in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz provides the details of Netanyahu’s duplicity and use of Hamas as what can be referred to as an ‘objective ally’ in that Netanyahu, via Qatar, saw to it that Qatari money was sent to Hamas with his own approval. This should be seen in relation to Netanyahu’s need for an external enemy in order to keep the population of Israel in fear and thereby to keep Netanyahu in power. That is the role which Hamas plays in Netanyahu’s scheme to remain in power and avoid trial on charges of corruption, bribery and abuse of power which could in all probability see him land in jail.
The Haaretz article, written by Amos Harel, is entitled “Israel’s Renewed Gaza Offensive Exposes Netanyahu’s Real Goal: Political Survival Through Endless War.” In it, Harel describes exactly why Netanyahu is pursuing the attempt to fire Shin Bet security chief Ronen Bar. A Shin Bet investigation uncovered the details of funds given by Qatar to three of Netanyahu’s advisors. What is more, Shin Bet’s internal investigation into the security failures of October 7 includes accusations against Netanyahu over his policy of transferring Qatari funds to Hamas, as mentioned in the paragraph above. The Shin Bet report also mentions that Netanyahu had been warned that the money from Qatar to Hamas was being used at least in part for Hamas’ military operations. Hence, Netanyahu’s desperate bid to get rid of Ronen Bar to try to bury the truth.
The following paragraphs from the Haaretz article must be quoted in order to underline the real reason for the recommencement of the genocidal attack on Gaza:
“But above all, this is about a series of urgent political goals that the prime minister won’t admit to publicly: restoring Itamar Ben-Gvir and his far-right Otzma Yehudit faction to the government, passing the budget and stabilizing the coalition.
This time, Netanyahu’s political survival truly depends on maintaining the pressure in Gaza – including an attempt to divert media attention from the renewed protests against the government over the plan to fire Bar.
Netanyahu’s true objective appears increasingly clear: a gradual slide toward an authoritarian-style regime, whose survival he will try to secure through perpetual war on multiple fronts”.
Hence, it becomes clear as to why Netanyahu has chosen to attack both Gaza and Lebanon (Hezbollah being the justification for the latter): it is to undertake a perpetual war on multiple fronts with the objective of widening the war, keeping his extreme-right faction satisfied so as to avoid the crumbling of his fragile coalition, and thereby keeping himself in power, which also keeps him away from trial and a criminal conviction in the Israeli court.
Thus the need to rid himself of Ronen Bar’s presence while attempting to fend off the political quagmire represented by those thousands of Israelis demonstrating against him in the streets of Tel Aviv. On Thursday, March 20th, following the Netanyahu cabinet’s approval of the dismissal of Ronen Bar, dozens of demonstrators were arrested as police used water cannons and mounted officers to disperse protesters in Tel Aviv and Haifa, “amid rallies throughout the country on what was billed as a “national day of paralysis” against the government’s moves to radically weaken and politicize the judiciary.”
On Friday March 21st, Israel’s Supreme Court issued a temporary injunction temporarily blocking the dismissal of the head of Shin Bet, but Netanyahu is expected to defy the court, thereby mirroring the same contempt for the judiciary as manifested by Donald Trump in the United States. That thousands of innocent Palestinian civilians are being massacred as a result of Netanyahu’s diabolical plan is but a moot point for this sadistic sociopath who holds no value for human life – Palestinian or Israeli – other than his own life. When in political turmoil, Netanyahu does what he has always done: invent a justification for attacking Gaza, bombing its infrastructure into the ground and murdering innocent civilians.
This Netanyahu does as he has always done, with the complicity of Western political and economic elites who understand and approve of the role of Israel in the region, which from the outset of its creation has served as a ‘beachhead’ in the Middle East for Western oil, gas and other natural resource interests.
The offshoot of all this is the current extension of the Palestinian Nakba begun in 1948 with a continuity reaching into the current genocidal Israeli campaign in Gaza and the accompanying almost daily pogroms carried out in the occupied West Bank by the Israeli army and zealot Jewish settlers.
Gaza’s Health Ministry stated on Sunday, March 23rd that some 50, 000 Palestinian civilians have been killed, adding that, for the record, “the 50,000 figure is only a conservative estimate. These are only the people who have been registered at health facilities across the Gaza Strip. There are so many others buried without being registered or who have gone missing, trapped under piles of rubble . . .” More than 100, 000 Palestinians in Gaza have been injured, some maimed for life.
It is high time that the true nature of Netanyahu and his Likud party (the offspring of the terrorist Menachem Begin’s Herut Party established in 1948, the political expression of extreme-right Revisionist Zionism, and which became Likud in 1988). After the Menachem Begin-led massacre of Palestinian villagers at Deir Yassin in 1948, Albert Einsten, Hannah Arendt and other prominent Jews wrote an open letter published in the New York Times on December 2, 1948.
The first two paragraphs of the open letter read as such:
“TO THE EDITORS OF NEW YORK TIMES:
Among the most disturbing political phenomena of our times is the emergence in the newly created state of Israel of the « Freedom Party » (Tnuat Haherut), a political party closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties. It was formed out of the membership and following of the former Irgun Zvai Leumi, a terrorist, right-wing, chauvinist organization in Palestine.
The current visit of Menachem Begin, leader of this party, to the United States is obviously calculated to give the impression of American support for his party in the coming Israeli elections, and to cement political ties with conservative Zionist elements in the United States. Several Americans of national repute have lent their names to welcome his visit. It is inconceivable that those who oppose fascism throughout the world, if correctly informed as to Mr. Begin’s political record and perspectives, could add their names and support to the movement he represents. . .”
Note that we have underlined in the first paragraph of the Einstein-Arendt et al letter the phrase, “a political party closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties. . .’ which is not underlined in the original letter. We do so because it is our belief that this very description of Begin’s Herut Party is also the description of the true nature of Netanyahu’s Likud Party.
Like the dehumanizing references to Tutsis (You are cockroaches. We will kill you) by the Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines, a Rwandan radio station, which is largely blamed for inciting hatred towards the Tutsi people, the numerous references to Palestinians as ‘cockroaches,’ ‘animals,’ ‘beasts that walk on two legs’, by Israeli media, politicians and public personalities has prepared the way to the genocide in Gaza. It is the language of genocide. The statement by Yoav Kisch, Israeli Minister of Education, that Palestinians are “animals, they have no right to exist. I am not debating the way it will happen, but they need to be exterminated,”is the very same language which was used by the Nazis of the Third Reich to dehumanize Jews as an advent to genocide.
Ramzy Baroud writes: “If one is to randomly select any period of Israeli history to examine the political discourse emanating from Israeli officials, institutions and even intellectuals, one is to draw the same conclusion: Israel has always built a narrative of incitement and hatred, thus making a constant case for the genocide of Palestinians.
Ariel Kallner, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party, explained Israel’s goal behind the Gaza war. “Right now, one goal: Nakba! A Nakba that will overshadow the Nakba of 1948,” he said.”
Neve Gordon, Israeli professor of international law and human rights states: “Statements like Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant saying, « We are fighting against animals » are clear examples of the strategy to try to legitimize war crimes, said Gordon. Comparisons of Palestinians to « rats or snakes » on Israeli social media accounts are an effort to « dehumanize » them and « legitimize civilian deaths. »
What is clear to observers of the present genocide taking place in Gaza is this: the Warsaw Ghetto of 1940 where more than 80, 000 Jews (among 380, 000 Jews sealed within the Ghetto by the Nazis) died of starvation and overcrowding is now the Gaza Ghetto where more than 65, 000 Palestinians have been murdered and are dying from bombardment and starvation. The call to forcibly transfer the Palestinians out of Gaza is the same call that Hitler made in relation to the transfer of Jews out of Germany and Europe.
We hold it to be true that the genocidal campaign enacted against Gaza by Likud is proof positive of the genocidal fascist nature of Netanyahu’s Likud; that Netanyahu is, as was Menachem Begin, a terrorist whose regime practices state-sponsored terrorism against Palestinian civilians. We say as well to those political and economic elites, as well as to those pro-Israel groups who defend the notion of “Israel-Right-Or-Wrong,” exactly what Einstein and his fellow Jewish colleagues stated in their open letter to the New York Times (with an amendment to the targeted villain of the letter): It is inconceivable that those who oppose fascism throughout the world, if correctly informed as to Mr. Netanyahu’s political record and perspectives, could add their names and support to the movement he represents.
To the afore-named political, economic and pro-Israel groups we say this: you are on the wrong side of history and your legacy shall be remembered as such. Gaza is a genocide. The West Bank murders represent war crimes. You either support the torture and exactions committed against Palestinians by the Zionist-Facist Netanyahu regime or you denounce it and impose sanctions against it. There is no place to hide anymore. No more fence-sitting. You shall be judged accordingly!
Information: info@paju.org
Read as well: Chris Hedges https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/03/26/the-last-chapter-of-the-genocide/
