The United States said that its bombing campaign targeted remnants of Islamic State in the east of the country, hitting 75 targets with 140 bombs and missiles, according to Air Force Times. 

A long-standing force of 900 U.S. troops illegally occupy that part of Syria, partly to divert Syria’s meagre oil revenues to the U.S.’s Kurdish allies and prevent the Syrian government regaining that source of revenue. U.S. bombing badly damaged Syria’s oil infrastructure during the war with the Islamic State, but Russia has been ready to help Syria restore full output whenever it recovers control of that area. U.S. forces in Syria have been under attack by various Syrian militia forces, not just the Islamic State, with at least 127 attacks since October 2023.

Meanwhile, Turkiyë is conducting airstrikes, drone strikes and artillery fire as part of a new offensive by a militia it formed in 2017 under the Orwellian guise of the “Syrian National Army” to invade and occupy parts of Rojava, the autonomous Kurdish enclave in northeast Syria.

Israel, however, launched a much broader bombing campaign than Turkey or the U.S., with about 600 airstrikes on post-Assad Syria in the first eight days of its existence. Without waiting to see what form of government the political transition in Syria leads to, Israel set about methodically destroying its entire military infrastructure, to ensure that whatever government comes to power will be as defenseless as possible. 

 Israel claims its new occupation of Syrian territory is a temporary move to ensure its own security. But while Israel bombed Syria 220 times over the past year, killing about 300 people, Syria showed restraint and did not retaliate for those attacks. 

The pattern of Israeli history has been that land grabs like this usually turn into long-term illegal Israeli annexations, as in the Golan Heights and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. That will surely be the case with Israel’s new strategic base on top of Mount Hermon, overlooking Damascus and the surrounding area, unless a new Syrian government or international diplomacy can force Israel to withdraw.

Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Iran, Russia and the UN have all joined the global condemnation of the new Israeli assault on Syria. Geir Pedersen, the UN Special Envoy to Syria, called Israel’s military actions “highly irresponsible,” and UN peacekeepers have removed Israeli flags from newly-occupied Syrian territory. 

The Qatari Foreign Ministry called Israel’s actions “a dangerous development and a blatant attack on Syria’s sovereignty and unity as well as a flagrant violation of international law… that will lead the region to further violence and tension.”

The Saudi Foreign Ministry reiterated that the Golan Heights is an occupied Arab territory, and said that Israel’s actions confirmed “Israel’s continued violation of the rules of international law and its determination to sabotage Syria’s chances of restoring its security, stability and territorial integrity.” 

The only country in the world that has ever recognized Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights is the United States, under the first Trump administration, and it is part of Biden’s disastrous legacy in the Middle East that that he failed to stand up for international law and reverse Trump’s recognition of that illegal Israeli annexation.

As people all over the world watch Israel ignore the rules of international law that every country in the world is committed to live by, we are confronted by the age-old question of how to respond to a country that systematically ignores and violates these rules. The foundation of the UN Charter is the agreement by all countries to settle their differences diplomatically and peacefully, instead of by the threat or use of military force. 

As Americans, we should start by admitting that our own country has led the way down this path of war and militarism, perpetuating the scourge of war that the UN Charter was intended to provide a peaceful alternative to.

“Mt. Hermon,” Digital, Dream / Dreamland v3 / IbisPaint, 2024

As the United States became the leading economic power in the world in the 20th century, it also built up dominant military power. Despite its leading role in creating the United Nations and the rules of the UN Charter and the Geneva Conventions, it came to see strict compliance with those rules as an obstacle to its own ambitions, from the UN Charter’s prohibition against the threat or use of military force to the Geneva Conventions’ universal protections for prisoners of war and civilians. 

In its “war on terror,” including its wars on Iraq and other countries, the United States flagrantly and systematically violated these bedrock foundations of world order. It is a fundamental principle of all legal systems that the powerful must be held accountable as well as the weak and the vulnerable. A system of laws that the wealthy and powerful can ignore cannot claim to be universal or just, and is unlikely to stand the test of time. 

Today, our system of international law faces exactly this problem. The U.S. presumption that its overwhelming military power permits it to violate international law with impunity has led other countries, especially U.S. allies but also Russia, to apply the same opportunistic standards to their own behavior.

In 2010, an Amnesty International report on European countries that hosted CIA “black site” torture chambers called on U.S. allies in Europe not to join the United States as another “accountability-free zone” for war crimes. But now the world is confronting a U.S. ally that has not just embraced, but doubled down on, the U.S. presumption that dominant military power can trump the rule of law. 

The Israeli government refuses to comply with international legal prohibitions against deliberately killing women and children, by military force and by deprivation; seizing foreign territory; and bombing other countries. Shielded from international accountability behind the U.S. Security Council veto, Israel thumbs its nose at the world’s impotence to enforce international law, confident that nobody will stop it from using its deadly and destructive war machine wherever and however it pleases.

So the world’s failure to hold the United States accountable for its war crimes has led Israel to believe that it too can escape accountability, and U.S. complicity in Israeli war crimes, especially the genocide in Gaza, has inevitably reinforced that belief. 

U.S. responsibility for Israel’s lawlessness is compounded by the conflict of interest in its dual role as both Israel’s military superpower ally and weapons supplier and the supposed mediator of the lopsided “peace process” between Israel and Palestine, whose inherent flaws led to Hamas’s election victory in 2006 and now to the current crisis. 

Instead of recognizing its own conflict of interest and deferring to intervention by the UN or other neutral parties, the U.S. has jealously guarded its monopoly as the sole mediator between Israel and Palestine, using this position to grant Israel total freedom of action to commit systematic war crimes. If this crisis is ever to end, the world cannot allow the U.S. to continue in this role.

While the United States bears a great deal of responsibility for this crisis, U.S. officials remain in collective denial over the criminal nature of Israel’s actions and their instrumental role in Israel’s crimes. The systemic corruption of U.S. politics severely limits the influence of the majority of Americans who support a ceasefire in Gaza, as pro-Israel lobbying groups buy the unconditional support of American politicians and attack the few who stand up to them.

Despite America’s undemocratic political system, its people have a responsibility to end U.S. complicity in genocide, which is arguably the worst crime in the world, and people are finding ways to bring pressure to bear on the U.S. government: 

Members of CODEPINK, Jewish Voice For Peace and Palestinian-, Arab-American and other activist groups are in Congressional offices and hearings every day; constituents in California are suing two members of Congress for funding genocide; students are calling on their universities to divest from Israel and U.S. arms makers; activists and union members are identifying and picketing companies and blocking ports to stop weapons shipments to Israel; journalists are rebelling against censorship; U.S. officials are resigning; people are on hunger strike; others have committed suicide.   

It is also up to the UN and other governments around the world to intervene, and to hold Israel and the United States accountable for their actions. A growing international movement for an end to the genocide and decades of illegal occupation is making progress. But it is excruciatingly slow given the appalling human cost and the millions of Palestinian lives at stake.

Israel’s international propaganda campaign to equate criticism of its war crimes with antisemitism poisons political discussion of Israeli war crimes in the United States and some other countries.

But many countries are making significant changes in their relations with Israel, and are increasingly willing to resist political pressures and propaganda tropes that have successfully muted international calls for justice in the past. A good example is Ireland, whose growing trade relations with Israel, mainly in the high-tech sector, formerly made it the fourth largest importer of Israeli products in the world in 2022. 

Ireland is now one of 14 countries who have officially intervened to support South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) – the others are Belgium, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Egypt, Libya, the Maldives, Mexico, Nicaragua, Palestine, Spain and Turkiyë. Israel reacted to Ireland’s intervention in the case by closing its embassy in Dublin, and now Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar has smeared Ireland’s Taoiseach (prime minister) Simon Harris as “antisemitic.”

The Taoiseach’s spokesperson replied that Harris “will not be responding to personalized and false attacks, and remains focused on the horrific war crimes being perpetrated in Gaza, standing up for human rights and international law and reflecting the views of so many people across Ireland who are so concerned at the loss of innocent, civilian lives.” 

If the people of Palestine can stand up to bombs, missiles and bullets day after day for over a year, the very least that political leaders around the world can do is stand up to Israeli name-calling, as Simon Harris is doing.

Spain is setting an example on international efforts to halt the supply of weapons to Israel, with an arms embargo and a ban on weapons shipments transiting Spanish ports, including the U.S. naval base at Rota, which the U.S. has leased since it formed a military alliance with Spain’s Franco dictatorship in 1953. 

Spain has already refused entry to two Maersk-owned ships transporting weapons from North Carolina to Israel, while dockworkers in Spain, Belgium, Greece, India and other countries have refused to load weapons and ammunition onto ships bound for Israel.

The UN General Assembly (UNGA) has passed resolutions for a ceasefire in Gaza; an end to the post-1967 Israeli occupation; and for Palestinian statehood. The General Assembly’s 10th Emergency Special Session on the Israel-Palestine conflict under the Uniting for Peace process has been ongoing since 1997. 

The General Assembly should urgently use these Uniting For Peace powers to turn up the pressure on Israel and the United States. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has provided the legal basis for stronger action, ruling that the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories Israel invaded in 1967 is illegal and must be ended, and that the massacre in Gaza appears to violate the Genocide Convention.

Inaction is inexcusable. By the time the ICJ issues a final verdict on its genocide case, millions may be dead. The Genocide Convention is an international commitment to prevent genocide, not just to pass judgment after the fact. The UN General Assembly has the power to impose an arms embargo, a trade boycott, economic sanctions, a peacekeeping force, or to do whatever it takes to end the genocide. 

When the UN General Assembly first launched its boycott campaign against apartheid South Africa in 1962, not a single Western country took part. Many of those same countries will be the last to do so against Israel today. But the world cannot wait to act for the blessing of complacent wealthy countries who are themselves complicit in genocide.

(The Conversation) – The death of Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut on September 27 has left the militant Lebanese organisation leaderless at a critical time. Two days earlier in a speech broadcast around the world, the head of the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) northern command, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, had told his soldiers to prepare for a possible incursion into Lebanon.

There is every reason to believe Friday’s airstrike, which targeted Hezbollah’s headquarters building in the southern Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh, was in preparation for a possible incursion. It came after days of strikes which Israel claims have eliminated much of Hezbollah’s senior leadership.

Halevi told his troops on September 25 that they would “go in, destroy the enemy there, and decisively destroy” Hezbollah’s infrastructure. As Hezbollah is embedded within the Lebanese population, this strategy promises the deaths of innocent civilians.

Since 2006, both Hezbollah and the IDF have sought to avoid a direct confrontation. For years, they have played tit-for-tat with the rationale of proportionality to prevent an all-out war.

Although the horrific October 7 attacks on Israel by Hamas triggered a resumption of hostilities, until last week both sides were calling for restraint. What has changed? Is a ground invasion now inevitable? And if so, what would that mean for Hezbollah and Lebanon?

Israel has a track record of engaging in military adventures in Lebanon that have only ever served to make its opponents stronger in the long term. The destruction of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) did not prevent the emergence of Hamas – indeed, it helped to create it. Similarly, Israel’s pursuit of the PLO in south Lebanon triggered the creation of Hezbollah. Despite five invasions since 1978, Israel has shown itself incapable of successfully occupying even the smallest sliver of Lebanese land.

While both sides have been preparing for a new conflict for years, the trigger for the escalation began on September 18, when Israel struck the first blow by detonating thousands of pagers and mobile devices owned by Hezbollah operatives, killing at least 32 and injuring several thousand people.

This technological attack had been years in the making and could be described as a strategic masterstroke to disable the enemy. The timing appears to have been because Hezbollah was becoming suspicious about the devices, so the IDF had to act or lose the “surprise”. This suggests operational considerations are taking precedence over strategic and political ones, which research suggests is rarely a good idea.

Nonetheless, these strikes are believed to have crippled Hezbollah’s command in the short term, and emboldened the IDF’s leadership. On September 18, Israel’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, told Israeli troops: “We are at the start of a new phase in the war — it requires courage, determination and perseverance.” While he made no mention of the exploding devices, he praised the work of Israel’s army and security agencies, noting their results were excellent.

A tactic used in recent days by the IDF is one that has been developed over many years on the “Blue Line” – the de facto border that divides Israel and Lebanon. Emboldened by the failure of the IDF to defeat it in the July war of 2006, Hezbollah’s senior operatives have been active and visible on the Blue Line, which is monitored closely by the IDF.

This has enabled the IDF to photograph, identify and track senior Hezbollah leadership, which is why since October 7 we have seen a succession of assassinations of its key operatives, including Ibrahim Aqeel, a commander of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan force, and more recently, Mohammed Sarour in Beirut, as well as many others.

The IDF now believes it has Hezbollah on its knees – or at least, on one knee. The escalation we are currently witnessing is because the IDF is driving home its advantage and applying the same strategy as in Gaza: bombing any area it can plausibly claim to be a Hezbollah target.

This has had devastating consequences for the Lebanese population. The Health Ministry stated on Friday that 1,540 people had been killed since October 8 2023, with thousands of innocent civilians injured. Over 70,000 civilians have reportedly registered in 533 shelters across Lebanon, with an estimated 1 million people having been displaced from their homes.

Can Hezbollah fight back?

The death of Nasrallah has left Hezbollah temporarily leaderless, while the killing of several of its senior figures has deprived it of seasoned commanders, many of whom had recent combat experience in Syria. And the bombing of south Lebanon is reducing Hezbollah’s supply of rockets and other weapons.

However, Israel should not assume that Hezbollah is out of the game or underestimate the group. Hezbollah’s real strength has always lain in its ability to melt into the population – and it will be ready to commence a war of attrition with hit-and-run tactics if the IDF makes the mistake of putting boots on the ground again. The fact that all five previous invasions failed should be an indication that the outcome may be a repeat of what occurred between 1982 and 2006.

Furthermore, while Iran’s response to the escalation has been muted thus far, it is unlikely to abandon Hezbollah. A long, drawn-out, low-intensity conflict would favour the kind of asymmetric tactics used by the “axis of resistance”, which also includes Lebanon’s neighbour, Syria.

By bombing and displacing the Lebanese population, the IDF aims to reduce morale. It is now destroying private homes and public buildings on the grounds they are Hezbollah ammunition and weapons depots.

“Invasion,” Digital, Dream / Dreamland v3 / Clip2Comic, 2024.

In Lebanon, the Palestine issue has always been regarded as the primary cause of the civil war that took place from 1975 to 1990. As such, the IDF is banking on Lebanese people turning against Hezbollah for bringing a new war down on them as a result of its rocket barrages into northern Israel, in solidarity with Hamas since the October 7 attack.

But, while there are many people in Lebanon who do not support Hezbollah and its activities in south Lebanon, the IDF should remember the past. Even if sentiment against Hezbollah is high today, indiscriminate bombing of the kind we are currently witnessing in Lebanon will not be tolerated by the population indefinitely.

It’s worth noting that in 1982, when the IDF invaded south Lebanon, some Lebanese welcomed them with rice and flowers – viewing them as liberators from the PLO. But that welcome did not last long.

In 2006, the IDF applied a similar strategy, targeting civilian evacuation convoys and UN compounds. And once again, the tide of public opinion swiftly swung back in favour of “al-muqawimah” (the resistance).

The stated IDF aim is to drive Hezbollah back north of the Litani river, to force it to comply with UN resolution 1701 and allow displaced people in northern Israel to return to their homes. But it is naive of Israel and the IDF to think that an invasion or a bombing campaign, no matter how successful in the short term, will enable Israeli civilians to live in peace along the Blue Line for the long term.

Ultimately, the only way forward is for both parties to come to the table and negotiate. The human cost of Israel’s current strategy in Lebanon is appalling to contemplate, and in all likelihood will create more hatred – fostering a new generation of anti-Israel fighters, rather than creating the basis for a durable peace.

Vanessa Newby, Assistant Professor, Institute of Security and Global Affairs, Leiden University and Chiara Ruffa, Professor of Political Science, Sciences Po

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

For almost a year, Israel and Hezbollah have engaged in increasingly provocative cross-border skirmishes as onlookers warn that this escalating war of attrition could land the region in all-out conflict. The past few days have made that devastating scenario closer to a reality.

First came Israel’s pager and walkie-talkie attack, an unprecedented assault on Hezbollah’s communications that injured thousands of the organization’s operatives. It was followed by the assassination of Ibrahim Aqil, a key Hezbollah leader, who died in an airstrike that also killed other senior commanders of the militant group, as well as some civilians. Hezbollah responded by extending the geographical range of its rockets fired at Israel, targeting both military facilities and civilian neighborhoods across northern Israel. Israel then launched a fresh air assault in which more than 270 people were killed, according to Lebanese health authorities, leading also to the flight of thousands of residents from South Lebanon to the north of the country.

As a scholar of Lebanon and Israel, I have followed the dynamics of this war of attrition since Oct. 8, 2023, the day after Hamas executed an unprecedented and deadly attack on Israel, which responded by bombarding the Gaza Strip. Hezbollah then began firing rockets into northern Israel in solidarity with Hamas in Gaza.

Despite the high rhetoric and mutual threats of destruction, until recent days neither Israel nor Hezbollah, nor the latter’s sponsor Iran, have shown an interest in a full-scale war. All parties surely know the likely destructive consequences of such an eventuality for themselves: Israel has the military power to devastate Beirut and other parts of Lebanon as it did in Gaza, while even a weakened Hezbollah could fire thousands of missiles at Israeli strategic sites, from the airport to central Tel Aviv, water supply lines and electricity hubs, and offshore gas rigs.

So instead, they have exchanged fire and blows along their shared boundary, with somewhat agreed-upon red lines concerning the geographical scope of attacks and efforts not to intentionally target civilians.

But Israel’s recent attacks in Lebanon may have turned the page of this war of attrition into a new and far more acute situation, putting the region on the brink of a full war. Such a war would wreak havoc in Lebanon and Israel, and might also drag Iran and the United States into direct confrontation. In doing so, it would also fulfill the apparent of the Hamas gunmen who murdered around 1,200 Israelis on Oct. 7 in the hope that a heavy-handed Israeli response would draw in more groups across the region.

A dangerous ‘new phase’

Hezbollah’s secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, has insisted throughout the near-yearlong hostilities that his organization would hold its fire only if a cease-fire agreement is reached between Israel and Hamas. In recent weeks, however, Israel has taken the conflict in the opposite direction.

The country’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant, described the coordinated attacks on Hezbolah targets as a “new phase,” adding that the “center of gravity” in the war was moving north into Lebanon. The Israeli government has added the “return of the residents of the north securely to their homes” as an additional war goal.

The assault on Hezbollah’s communications system targeted the organization’s operatives but hit many civilian bystanders, leaving Lebanese in shock, trauma, anger and desperation.

It demonstrated Israel’s tactical military advantage over Hezbollah. The unprecedented penetration into the heart of the organization’s command and rank-and-file structures has never been seen before in any conflict or war globally. It struck Hezbollah in its most vulnerable places and even exposed its coordination with Iran – one of the injured persons from the pager explosions was the Iranian ambassador in Lebanon.

The killing of Akil two days later was another signal that the Israeli government had now decided to try to change the rules of this risky game of reprisals and counter-reprisals. It is clear that rather than the uneasy status quo that defined this war of attrition for nearly a year, Israel’s intent is now to pressure Hezbollah to concede.

Getting out of control

Nasrallah delivered a gloomy and defiant speech in the aftermath of the pager attack. While acknowledging that Hezbollah was severely undermined by this operation, he defined the Israeli attack as a continuation of “multiple other massacres perpetrated by the enemy over decades.”

By doing so, he framed it within a popular historical narrative among many Lebanese and Palestinians who regard Israel as a criminal entity that regularly carries out massacres against innocent civilians.

Nasrallah also insisted that his commitment to supporting Hamas in Gaza remains unwavering.

While stating that Israeli actions have “crossed all red lines” and could amount to a declaration of war, Nasrallah also reiterated a point he had made in previous peaks of this ongoing conflict: that retribution is coming, the only question being of timing and scale. By doing so, Nasrallah hinted that he may still not be interested in a full war.

Israel, on the other hand, appears less circumspect. After almost a full year of contained tension with Hezbollah, Israel’s leaders appear willing to risk an escalation that might get out of control.

It is hard to determine what the strategy behind Israel’s actions is: Since Oct. 7; as the Biden administration has noted, Israel has not displayed a coherent strategy with clear political goals.

Rather, critics of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suggest that he is mainly motivated by his own political survival and the retention of power as the head of state, tying Israel’s interests to his own.

Uniting the ‘axis of resistance’

So where does this leave Nasrallah as he weighs Hezbollah’s response, surely in consultation with Iran? After such devastating blows to Nasrallah’s organization, it is hard to think that Hezbollah would be willing to scale down, stop its cross-border attacks and retreat away from the Israeli border, or give up its commitment to support Hamas in Gaza.

On the other hand, opting for a full-scale war, after spending a year avoiding it, is fraught with risk – both Nasrallah and his sponsors in Tehran know well the high costs of such a war for Hezbollah, Lebanon and potentially also for Iran.

If Hezbollah went to war now against Israel, it would embark on its most consequential move since its foundation in 1982. But it would do so with crippled communications systems and without much of its leadership – some of whom had worked for decades side by side with Nasrallah, building with him the military capacity of the organization.

In some respects, Israelis under Netanyahu’s leadership, and Lebanese in a country increasingly held hostage by Hezbollah’s interests, face similar predicaments: Their well-being is being sacrificed for other priorities.

Netanayhu’s recent statements about concern for Israeli citizens in the north sound hollow after 11 months of pursuing policies that put them more in danger, as well as opposing a Gaza cease-fire deal that would also end hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel.

In Lebanon, Hezbollah has dragged the country into this war against the will of most Lebanese – a decision that has led to significant devastation in parts of a country already suffering extreme political and economic duress.

Nasrallah’s speech described Hezbollah’s predicament as that of all Lebanon – while sending a veiled threat that dissent would not be tolerated. Many Lebanese are undoubtedly sympathetic to the Palestinian cause and resent Israel’s war in Gaza. But at the same time, they may balk at the idea that their own well-being has to be sacrificed in the process.

In the meantime, Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader and mastermind behind the Oct. 7 massacre, may well be looking on at the unfolding events between Israel and Hezbollah with satisfaction. His plan was designed to trigger the unification of all fronts of the so-called “axis of resistance,” which includes the Houthis in Yemen as well as Hezbollah and other Iran-backed groups with the hope for a regional war against Israel.

A year later, we are closer than ever to that scenario.

Editor’s note: This story was updated on Sept. 23, 2024 to include the latest developments in the region.

Asher Kaufman, Professor of History and Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The barrages went on Saturday and began again this (Sunday) morning, striking east and south of Gaza and the Golan Heights, as well as in the Galilee. Some rocket debris landed in east Haifa and cut off the electricity for some districts. It was the deepest Hezbollah had struck into Israel since the total war on Gaza began on October 8, and this depth of strike is unusual for the Lebanese Shiite militia.

[Juan says: Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is widely believed to be seeking an widening of the Gaza war to Lebanon as a way of rallying the Israeli public and staying in power to avoid possible jail time as a result of the two civil corruption cases against him, which are paused in the courts as long as he is PM. The Biden administration had pressured Netanyahu not to go this route, but he stopped paying attention to Biden’s red lines a long time ago. In the first 6 months after October 7, some 80% of the cross-border Israel-Lebanon attacks were launched by Israel, and 20% by Hezbollah.]

Some 80,000 Israelis have been displaced from their homes in the north by Hezbollah rockets in the past year. About 95,000 Lebanese in south Lebanon have also been forced out of the areas near their border with Israel by Israeli air strikes.

Back to Al Jazeera: Hezbollah late on Saturday said that the base and airfield at Ramat David was hit a second time by dozens of heavy long range Fadi 1 and Fadi 2 rocket shells. F-16s fly to bomb targets in Lebanon from this base. In actuality, the rockets appear to have been intercepted or to have fallen on open fields, though the Israelis admitted one fell near the base.

Five barrages of 30 rockets each were fired at Galilee and East Haifa by Hezbollah. On Sunday morning some 30 rockets landed on northern Israel alone.

It was announced that Haifa schools and schools of towns in its vicinity — including Akka — would close on Sunday. The metro area population of Haifa is about 1.1 million, and it is 20% Muslim.

The Israeli press reported that there was one Israeli casualty in the lower Galilee from the Hezbollah bombardment.

Israeli radio reported that the residents of Kiryat Tiv’on near Haifa had tried to take refuge in their local shelter but found it locked.

Israeli anti-missile missiles appear to have started a fire that firemen rushed to contain. Likewise one of the Hezbollah rockets started a fire at Marj Bin Amer in the north.

Al Jazeera quotes Israel’s Channel 12 as saying that Hezbollah was focusing on military targets and not civilians in cities, suggesting that it “does not want to break the rules.” It said that it is unclear if this was a limited raid or just the beginning.

The Israeli Air Force replied with strikes on southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah had vowed revenge on Israel for the booby trapped pagers that injured and blinded some 3000 persons, many of them Hezbollah members, though some of them were civilian Party members rather than guerrillas. One physician said he had never removed so many eyes in his life. Such booby trap attacks are forbidden by the second Protocol to the Conventional Weapons Treaty, to which Israel is a high signatory. Israel also took out a building in east Beirut, killing a high Hezbollah official, Ibrahim Aqil, who is implicated in the 1983 bombing of the US embassy in Beirut.

The Israelis claim to have decimated the Hezbollah leadership, but they have never understood how clan-based organizations work; siblings and cousins step up to replace killed commanders.

The State Department asked all Americans to leave Lebanon while there were still commercial flights, since these might be cancelled if hostilities escalate.

Al Jazeera reports that State Department sources are afraid the current round of tit-for-tat exchanges of fire could easily escalate into a full-scale war.

In other news on Saturday, Israeli jets bombed a UN school / shelter in Gaza, killing 22 persons, including a pregnant woman — in what has become a daily war crime.

—-

Video added by Informed Comment:

CBS Evening News: “Israel, Hezbollah exchange border fire one day after Beirut attack”

From an intelligence and technical point of view, the booby-trapping of the pagers was a sophisticated espionage operation carried out by the Israeli Mossad. There is an international trail in this complex operation and, so far, even the company that produced those pagers and those who manipulated them have not been identified. In view of the impact of this extensive form of cyber terrorism on the current Israeli war and its repercussions in the region and beyond and what it means for cyber security in the future, this incident must be properly investigated to see which firms and which countries were involved in this heinous act.

Many international legal experts and academics have stressed the illegal nature of such indiscriminate action and have described it as another Israeli war crime. Luigi Daniele, a senior lecturer at Nottingham Trent University and an expert in international humanitarian law, says that these acts constitute at least two war crimes. “The first is intentionally directing attacks against individual civilians not taking a direct part in the hostilities, for all the unlawful targets, so basically, diplomats or merely political affiliates of Hezbollah with no combat function.” The second is “intentionally launching an attack in the knowledge that such attack will cause incidental loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects or widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment which would be clearly excessive in relation to the concrete and direct overall military advantage anticipated.”[1]

Yet, some pro-Israeli commentators have bizarrely praised it as an example of Israel’s technical expertise and its intelligence dominance of the region. Writing in Haaretz, Yossi Melman called it a “genius move” and praised it as “a brilliant and innovative operation, showing that for imaginative spy craft planners the sky is really the limit.” However, he criticises its “early implementation”, rather than waiting for the start of a war on Hezbollah. Axios cited a former Israeli official who said Israeli intelligence services had originally planned to use the modified pagers as a “surprise opening blow in an all-out war to try to cripple Hezbollah”, but three U.S. officials told Axios that they used them prematurely because they believed that their secret might have been discovered by the group.[2]

Clearly, the massive pager attack on Lebanon was meant to coincide with the start of a major Israeli invasion of Lebanon and it might still lead to a regional war. Israeli aircraft have already started bombing parts of Lebanon. Even from before the 7^th October attack, Netanyahu spoke about a new Middle East. In a speech at the UN General Assembly in New York, Netanyahu showed a map of Israel which had incorporated both Gaza and the West Bank.[3]

Speaking two days after the Hamas attack on Israel, Netanyahu vowed to change the Middle East: “What Hamas will experience will be difficult and terrible … we are going to change the Middle East.” The day after the Hamas attack, Israeli forces shelled Lebanon, killing three Hezbollah members, to which Hezbollah responded by firing a salvo of rockets into northern Israel, marking a significant expansion of the conflict.[4] These border attacks have continued ever since, displacing some 60,000 Israelis from their homes in Northern Israel and a larger number of Lebanese from southern Lebanon.

Israel’s technical prowess and the expansion of the war to Lebanon may be a sign of Israel’s military superiority, but in the long-run they may prove to be counter-productive and even foolish. Praising them is similar to praising Hitler’s aggressive wars as signs of German military strength. The German invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 marked the beginning of World War II with dire consequences for Europe, for the world, and especially for Germany. Yet, from a military point of view, it was a great achievement. It started with the Gleiwitz incident, which was a false flag attack on a radio station in Gleiwitz (then Germany and now Gliwice, Poland) staged by Nazi Germany as a casus belli for the invasion of Poland. 

“Beirut Hospital Explosion,” Digital, Dream / Dreamland v3 / Clip2Comic, 2024

One of the aims of the invasion was to divide Polish territory at the end of the operation and seize large parts of it, something that the Israelis have done before in the case of Lebanon. The 1978 South Lebanon conflict (codenamed Operation Litani) began when Israeli forces invaded southern Lebanon up to the Litani River in March 1978. The conflict resulted in the deaths of as many as 2,000 Lebanese and Palestinians, and 20 Israelis, and the internal displacement of nearly 250,000 people in Lebanon. In response to the Israeli invasion, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolutions 425 and 426, calling on Israel to withdraw its forces from Lebanon, which eventually she was forced to do.

Again, on 6 June 1982, Israeli forces under the command of Ariel Sharon invaded Lebanon on the false excuse of the attempted assassination of an Israeli diplomat in London by the PLO, despite the fact that the perpetrators belonged to Abu Nidal Organisation, which was an enemy of the PLO. Israel’s objectives were to expel the PLO members who had fled to Lebanon following the Nakba, and install a pro-Israeli Christian government led by President Bachir Gemayel.

Israeli forces carried out massive bombardment of Beirut and Sidon, killing between 20,000 and 30,000 people and displacing hundreds of thousands of the Lebanese. Those savage attacks ended with the Sabra and Shatila Massacre when between 16–18 September 1982 several thousand unarmed Palestinians were massacred by Israeli-backed right-wing Lebanese militias, while Israeli forces provided lighting for the massacre. In February 1983, an independent commission chaired by Irish diplomat Sean MacBride, assistant to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, concluded that the IDF, as the then occupying power over Sabra and Shatila, bore the main responsibility for the militia’s massacre.

The Shi’is who formed the majority in the south bore the brunt of Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon. This is how Hezbollah was born to force the Israeli forces to leave Lebanon, which they eventually achieved in the year 2000. The Israelis have a habit of describing all those who rise against their occupation as terrorists, whether the PLO and later the Hezbollah in Lebanon or Hamas which came to power in Gaza as the result of a democratic election, encouraged by President Bush mainly in order to weaken the PLO.

If Israeli forces are foolish enough to invade Lebanon again and try to occupy a part of it near their border they will face the same outcome. Despite massive and unquestioning US support, the Israelis constitute a tiny minority in the Middle East. The genocide in Gaza has alienated and infuriated many people, even many of Israel’s former friends. Far from achieving an Israeli-Arab front against Iran, many Arab countries that Netanyahu counted on, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have established relations with Iran. Egyptian and Iranian leaders have spoken of the possibility of renewing diplomatic relations. Turkey which has friendly relations with Iran has turned against Israel and has called Netanyahu’s government a terrorist regime.

Although so far, the United States has supported Israel at great cost to its reputation and its relations with Middle Eastern and Muslim countries as a whole, there are indications that most Americans, including young Jewish Americans have turned against Israel’s far-right government.

Netanyahu has not concealed his ultimate desire to expand the scope of the war and get the United States involved in a war against Iran. Such a  war will not be in the interest of the region and the United States. Even if Israel manages to crush Hezbollah and weaken Iran, he will not be able to get rid of some seven million Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and in Israel. In this day and age, the world will not allow another massive genocide and ethnic cleansing similar to the one Israel carried out in 1948. The only solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict is the end of the occupation and apartheid and the establishment of a truly democratic state for both the Palestinians and Jews.

The world’s highest judicial authority, the International Court of Justice, has described Israel’s massacres in Gaza as “plausible genocide”, and had ordered Israel to stop the war. It has also clearly declared the occupation of Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights as illegal and had ordered Israel to end the occupation as soon as possible. On 18^th September, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution demanding that Israel “brings to an end without delay its unlawful presence” in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. The voting result was as follows: In favour: 124, Against: 14, Abstain: 43. This shows that the international community as a whole regards Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories as illegal and views its system as an apartheid regime. Israel should stop digging and should abide by international law.

As was done in the case of the apartheid South Africa, the international community must form a truth and reconciliation commission, to punish those who have been directly involved in the genocide and to form a unity government under United Nations supervision, until the two communities learn to live in peace together. Any other alternative will be a mirage and will lead to greater tragedies in the future.

[1] Rabia Ali, “2 probable crimes committed in Lebanon pager attack: Legal expert”, Anadolu, 18.09.2024, https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/2-probable-war-crimes-committed-in-lebanon-pager-attack-legal-expert/3333837#

[2] Barak Ravid, “Israel conducted Lebanoln pager attack fearing Hezbollah was onto the operation”, Axios, Sep 18, 2024. https://www.axios.com/2024/09/18/hezbollah-pager-explosions-israel-suspicions

[3] “Netanyahu predicts a new Middle East, is silent on the havoc he’s unleashed in Israel” The Times of Israel, 22 September 2023. https://www.timesofisrael.com/pm-predicts-an-israel-transformed-in-mideast-has-no-words-for-internal-israeli-peace/

[4] Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu vows to ‘change Middle East’ as Hamas threatens killing captive Israelis”, ABC News, Mon 9 Oct 2024. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-10-10/netanyahu-promises-massive-force-against-hamas-and-gaza/102954562

Meanwhile, liberal Zionists have been whitewashing these events, regurgitating fantasies of a “two-state solution” and ignoring widespread use of the Hannibal Directive while scapegoating Netanyahu as a bug rather than a feature. Undeniably, Zionism remains a colonialist, white supremacist movement aimed at capitalist resource acquisition while appropriating Judaism.

Viewing this dynamic through a behavioral neuroscientific lens, which studies violence as an expression of defensive and offensive aggression, provides insight into the mechanisms of a deadly, escalating cycle of eliminatory force, its underlying motivations and associated propaganda. The genocidal imperial practices in Gaza constitute a blueprint for future aggressive actions in the Global South and for suppressing dissent within the imperial core. Thus, such an analysis may assist in identifying state criminality, fostering an improved process of truth and accountability en route to reconciliation, peace, and justice.

Defensive versus Offensive Aggression

Vertebrates, including humans, exhibit defensive reactions to mitigate danger and ensure survival. These behaviors involve the activation of similar brain structures and associated neurotransmitters, leading to the consensus that they are species-typical and consistent across species in form, function and triggers.

Defensive responsivity is influenced by several factors. Context plays a crucial role; an animal will typically flee a threat if escape is possible yet will freeze when trapped. The intensity of the stimulus is also important. Ambiguous stimuli trigger risk assessment behaviors, while clear and immediate threats trigger flight, avoidance, defensive threat and/or attack. The distance to the threat further influences defensive strategies; longer distances prompt avoidance, while shorter distances and contact lead to defensive threat and attack postures, collectively termed defensive aggression.

The primary objective of offensive aggression, as opposed to defensive aggression, is resource acquisition. Offensive aggression targets competitors and typically involves disputes over territory and access to assets crucial for evolutionary success. Notably, in many mammalian and primate groups, offensive aggression is employed to establish authority within a social hierarchy, where both dominant and subordinate roles are crucial for collective survival, making it typically non-lethal.

In contrast, defensive aggression, or ‘self-defense,’ is driven by the perceived intensity of the threat and can escalate to lethal force. Indeed, an analysis of fighting patterns in animals reveals offensive aggression targets protected body areas to convey dominance, while defensive aggression targets vulnerable body sites.

An extrapolation to human social behavior reveals interesting parallels. Collective offensive aggression, aka war, a far later, explicitly human development, as expressed by the acquisition and annexation of territory through conquest, is prohibited by the UN charter and establishment and expansion of settlements on such land is a violation of international humanitarian and human rights law. In contrast, Article 51 of the UN Charter explicitly recognizes self-defense, including defensive aggression, as a right.

Jewish Defense

The 1881 assassination of Czar Alexander II, carried out by the revolutionary group Narodnaya Volya (“People’s Will”), triggered a surge in antisemitic sentiment and widespread pogroms.

In response to this onslaught of violence by antisemites, Jewish people defended themselves via the above outlined patterns. First, those who had the means and ability chose to escape, leaving for Western Europe, the Americas, Australia and other destinations. Second, many opted for avoidance, further self-segregating in Jewish communities – shtetls. Third, a minority chose defensive aggression, forming organized self-defense units aimed at repelling antisemitic attacks.

During this period, many Jewish inhabitants had become secular yet were not emancipated. Consequently, their understanding of antisemitism and its associated violence and trauma was modern, contrasting with the traditional Jewish belief that viewed oppression and hardship as divine punishment for sins.

Zionism, emerging amidst the rise of European colonial and nationalist movements and the imposition of the restrictive “May Laws” on land ownership in Jewish communities in the Russian Empire, recognized the potential in this dynamic. It presented an empowering vision of a “new Jew,” rejecting outdated beliefs perceived as passive and weak, including sole reliance on defense. Instead, Zionists advocated for an offensive response to oppression and adopted the antisemitic notion that Jews were responsible for their own suffering, promoting segregation and land acquisition in a new homeland as a solution.

Zionist Propaganda

Nationalistic propaganda merges the perception of ‘self’ with that of ‘nation’ into a cohesive identity loyal to the ruling class. Zionist propaganda fused Jewish longing for safety with white supremacist, messianic and fascistic ideologies aimed at land theft.

Settler colonialism often relies on depicting targeted territories as inhabited by dehumanized, primitive barbarians unworthy of land. Contrary to the reality of an historically continuous Palestinian society with an educated and politically engaged urban elite and a flourishing web of rural communities, this portrayal allowed Zionists to displace Indigenous Palestinian people without moral qualms, framing the establishment of ‘Jewish only’ settlements as a divine right.

In this context, any threat to the manufactured Zionist collective became existential, used to justify an often-brutal, so-called ‘defensive’ response, which involved genocide of the Indigenous, Palestinian “other”.

In the movement’s early days, Zionists employed various settlement tactics in Palestine, leading to frequent clashes with Palestinian people. The causes of tension were typically land disputes, quarrels over pastureland, the use of spring water and wells, thefts and robberies. Consequently, Zionist self-defense militias were formed with the aim of protecting settlements on acquired lands.

The tangible rewards from Zionist offensive aggression – power and resources – in conjunction with increased Jewish migration encouraged by Zionists, the rise of antisemitism in Europe and the British Passfield White Paper (1930), which attempted to limit Jewish immigration and land purchases in Palestine and increased frequency of Arab rebellions, encouraged the various Zionist militias to transition increasingly to openly offensive tactics, such as the “wall and watchtower” doctrine.

Their goal was to secure as much land with as few Palestinians as possible, using offensive tactics in concert with propagandized Jewish victimhood, so-called deterrence and dehumanization of Palestinian people to justify the brutality afforded by defensive aggression, i.e. self-defense – the ability to respond to threat by any means necessary, including lethal force.

The concept of ‘self-defense’ carries entirely different meanings for the colonized and the colonizer. For the colonized, self is rooted in ancestral land, identity and resources. In contrast, the colonizer’s self is built on expansionism, a manufactured identity and stolen resources.

“Gaza Guernica 23,” by Juan Cole, Digital, Dream / Dreamworld v3, PSExpress, Ibis Paint, 2024

Indeed, the foremost Zionist militia which later transformed into the IDF was called “Haganah” – “defense” in Hebrew – and the settlers’ mission was outlined in three stages: ‘from survival to defense to struggle to war.’

This strategy culminated in the Palestinian Nakba, sanitized as the Israeli “war of independence” during which Israel, under the guise of ‘defense’, carried out mass expulsions, genocide and land grabs.

Atrocity Propaganda and Genocide

While the events on October 7^th were still unfolding, Zionist leaders within political, military and media echelons launched a propaganda campaign serving their established pattern of colonial genocide.

The campaign targeted Israeli citizenry with Zionist tropes aimed at fortifying a united front against Palestinian people, including their dehumanization by reinstatement of fear-conditioning with Jim Crow-style rape allegations and other fictitious horrors. This deliberate, malicious embroidery served to garner support for wide-scale eliminatory aggression branded as ‘self-defense,’ transforming the Israeli public’s shock into genocidal tribalism, diverting attention from Israel’s political, intelligence and military failures that enabled Hamas’s attack. Additionally, the campaign helped the government secure crucial public support for the mass mobilization of reserve units, paving the way for the subsequent full-scale ground invasion of the Gaza Strip accompanied by a host of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

While the underlying aim was consistent with historical Zionist criminality – the acquisition of the land of Gaza with as few Palestinian people as possible – the Israeli campaign sought to circumvent legal barriers to conquest by portraying the October 7^th attacks as an existential threat and defense of hostages which warranted defensive aggression. In this manner, and throughout much of Zionist history, Jewish victimhood was used as a tool of oppression, apartheid and genocide of Palestinians, while enriching Zionist leaders and their benefactor in Washington.

What began as an appeal to ‘self-defense’ has morphed into a military adventure with openly offensive aims and associated propaganda, including potential annexation of Gaza and possibly elsewhere, into Lebanon, whilst wallpapering over concurrent settler attacks and massive land heists in the occupied West Bank. ‘Self-defense’ has even been used as an excuse for torture.

Similarly, the state of Israel was instituted under the propagandized premise of ‘self-defense’, yet now as then, as its leaders threaten nuclear war in the Middle East and by extension the world, its offensive aggression is clear and criminal. In contrast, Palestinian people have the full right to defend themselves against Zionist aggression by any means necessary.

For more info, please visit yoavlitvin.com/about/  

Reprinted from Counterpunch with the author’s permission.

The views expressed are those of the author and not Informed Comment.

In his capacity as a minister in the equally extremist government of Benjamin Netanyahu, Ben-Gvir has worked hard to translate his language into action. He has raided Al-Aqsa Mosque repeatedly, and implemented his starvation policies against Palestinian detainees, going as far as defending rape inside Israeli military detention camps and calling the soldiers accused of such a heinous crime “our best heroes”.

Moreover, his supporters have carried out hundreds of assaults and dozens of pogroms targeting Palestinian communities in the West Bank. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, at least 670 Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank since the start of the Gaza war last October. A large number among those killed and injured were victims of illegal Jewish settlers.

However, not all Israelis in the political or security establishments agree with Ben-Gvir’s behaviour or tactics. For example, on 22 August, Israel’s Shin Bet chief, Ronen Bar, warned against the damage to Israel caused by Ben-Gvir’s actions in East Jerusalem.

“The damage to the State of Israel, especially now… is indescribable: global delegitimisation, even among our greatest allies,” wrote Bar in a letter to several Israeli ministers.

His letter may seem odd. The Shin Bet has been instrumental in the killing of numerous Palestinians in the name of Israeli security. Bar himself is a strong supporter of the illegal settlements, and as hawkish as is required for the person who leads such a notorious organisation.

Bar’s conflict with Ben-Gvir, however, is not one of substance, but style.

This conflict is only an expression of a much greater ideological and political war among Israel’s top institutions. This “Zionism vs Zionism” war, however, began before the 7 October attack and the ongoing Israeli war and genocide in Gaza.

Seven months before the start of the current war in Gaza, Israeli President Isaac Herzog said in a televised speech that, “Those who think that a real civil war… is a border we won’t cross, have no idea.”

The context of his comments was the “real, deep hate” among Israelis resulting from the attempts by Netanyahu and his extremist government coalition partners to undermine the power of the judiciary. The fight over the Supreme Court, however, was merely the tip of the iceberg. The fact that it took Israel five elections in four years to settle on a stable government in December 2022 was itself indicative of Israel’s unprecedented political conflict.

The new government may have been “stable” in terms of the parliamentary balances, but it destabilised the country on all fronts, leading to mass protests, involving the powerful, but increasingly marginalised military class.

“Extremism,” Digital, Dream/ Dreamland v3, 2024.

The 7 October attack took place at a time of social and political vulnerability, arguably unprecedented since the founding of Israel atop the ruins of historic Palestine in May 1948.

The war, and especially the failure to achieve any of its objectives, deepened that existing conflict. This led to warnings from politicians and military men that the country was collapsing.

The clearest of these warnings came from Yitzhak Brik, a former top Israeli military commander. He wrote in Haaretz on 22 August that the “country… is galloping towards the edge of an abyss,” and that it “will collapse within no more than a year.”

Although Brik was, among other things, blaming Netanyahu’s losing war in Gaza, the anti-Netanyahu political class believes that the crisis lies mainly in the government itself. The solution, according to recent comments made by Herzog, is that

Kahanism needs to be removed from the government.

Kahanism refers to the Kach Party of Rabbi Meir Kahane. Although now banned, Kach has resurfaced in numerous forms, including in Ben-Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit party. As a disciple of Kahane, Ben-Gvir is set to achieve the vision of the extremist rabbi: the complete ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.

Ben-Gvir and his ilk are fully aware of the historic opportunity that is now available to them as they hope to ignite the much-coveted religious war. They also know that if the war in Gaza ends without advancing their main plan of colonising the rest of the occupied territories, the opportunity may never present itself again.

The far-right Ben-Gvir’s rush to fulfil the religious Zionist agenda contradicts the traditional form of Israeli colonialism, predicated on the “incremental genocide” of Palestinians and the slow ethnic cleansing of Palestinian communities from East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

The Israeli military believes that illegal settlements are essential, but they perceive these colonies in strategic language as a “security” buffer for Israel.

The winners and losers of Israel’s ideological and political war are most likely to emerge following the end of the Gaza war, the outcomes of which will determine other factors, including the very future of the state of Israel, as per the estimation of General Yitzhak Brik himself.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor or Informed Comment.

Via Middle East Monitor

Unless otherwise stated in the article above, this work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Another central passage is a paraphrase of the Ten Commandments (5:6-21). Differences between the original formulation and the one we read this Sabbath constitute fertile ground for interpretation and commentary. This week, we read about the universal meaning of the commandments: “Observe them faithfully, for that will be proof of your wisdom and discernment to other peoples, who on hearing of all these laws will say, ‘Surely, that great nation is a wise and discerning people’” (4:6). This highlights a crucial obligation bestowed on the Jews with respect to the rest of humanity: to be “a kingdom of priests and a holy people” (Exodus 19:6). There is nothing genetic or innate in this; only proper values and behavior would be valued by others.

Conversely, those Jews who violate these values would be abhorred by non-Jews and Jews alike. These violations are particularly grievous if they occur in the Land of Holiness, which is the proper translation of ארץ הקודש, usually referred to as “the Holy Land.” There are degrees of holiness: Jerusalem has more of it, and the Temple Mount (or Haram Al-Sharif in Arabic) is endowed with even more (Mishnah Kelim, ch. 1). This is why halacha, Jewish legal tradition, forbids Jews to ascend the Temple Mount. While a place of holiness does not make humans holy, humans may indeed desecrate it, including the Land of Holiness.

Yet, some Israeli politicians make a point of ascending the Temple Mount; this is how Ariel Sharon provoked the Second Intifada in 2000. While Sharon was not an observant Jew, those who do it nowadays observe Jewish rituals and are graduates of religious schools. They have been roundly denounced by those who remain loyal to traditional Judaism, especially because such provocative acts often lead to bloodshed. Jewish tradition affirms that the First Temple was destroyed because of three transgressions committed by the Israelites, one of them being bloodshed.

One may wonder how outwardly religious Jews can engage in such explicitly forbidden acts. What explains this is that they follow a religion that is “new and improved”; they call it דתי לאמי, National Judaism. It combines traditional practices with a commitment to Zionism, even though our weekly reading reminds us: “You shall have no other gods beside Me” (5:7). Followers of the new religion have transformed this political movement, developed mostly by atheists and agnostics, into a religious belief, overriding quite a few fundamental commandments, including “You shall not murder” (5:17), repeated in this week’s reading. Talmudic rabbis give a sharp definition of such behavior: כל ת”ח שאין בו דעת נבלה טובה הימנו, “any Torah scholar who has not internalized what he learns is worse than a carcass” (Vayikra Rabbah 1:15).

According to Jewish tradition, bloodshed led not only to the destruction of the temple built by King Solomon but also to the first exile. Moreover, this outcome is made explicit in this week’s reading: “I call heaven and earth this day to witness against you that you shall soon perish from the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess; you shall not long endure in it but shall be utterly wiped out” (Deuteronomy 4:26).

This week marks the end of a mourning period preceding the 9th of Av, which commemorates numerous tragedies experienced by Jews. These include the destruction of the two Jerusalem temples, the expulsion from Spain, and the beginning of the First World War, which eventually led to the Second World War and the Nazi genocide.

The passage from the Prophets (haftarah) read after the weekly portion of the Pentateuch reflects a sense of relief and hope, suggesting that the worst is behind us.* This haftarah is usually referred to as “Comfort, oh comfort My people,” which is the first verse of Chapter 40 in Isaiah. Further on, the text explains one of the reasons to hope for better times. Amid the distress many of us experience, appalled by the disasters brought about by political leaders, it is comforting to be reminded that God “brings potentates to naught, makes rulers of the earth as nothing” (Isaiah 40:23). Let us pray and work to bring this about soon in our times.

—–

* “On Shabbat and holiday mornings, after the Torah is read, another biblical selection is read. Called the haftarah (plural, haftarot), this reading traditionally comes from one of the Prophets. Haftarah comes from the Hebrew root meaning ‘to conclude.'” – Reform Judaism.

—

Bonus video added by Informed Comment:

Middle East Eye Video: “Israeli rabbis denounce Jewish prayers at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque”

Some demonstrators actually set a fire in front of the headquarters of the ruling Likud Party, which Netanyahu heads.

The first nine months of 2023 saw regular massive rallies against Netanyahu and his cabinet, which includes elements that are the Israeli equivalent of neo-Nazis. The horrid Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas caused Israelis to pull together and the demonstrations ceased for a long time, with a war cabinet having been formed that included opposition members. Earlier in June, however, Benny Gantz resigned from the war cabinet, essentially a government of national unity, and Netanyahu has now dissolved it. Gantz, a retired general, leads the centrist opposition National Unity Party.

On Saturday Gantz joined in a demonstration in the town of Kiryat Gat in the Southern District, demanding a hostage deal.

Some of the renewed opposition derives from Netanyahu’s refusal to cease bombing Gaza long enough to conclude a hostage exchange agreement with Hamas. The terrorist organization continues to hold an estimated 120 Israelis who were taken hostage on October 7, a mixture of civilians and military, of men and women, and of Israelis and guest workers (some from Thailand).

The families with members who remain prisoners in Gaza’s tunnels have concluded that there is not hope of a hostage deal as long as the current extremist government remains in power. At a news conference near the Ministry of Defense in Tel Aviv, hostage families announced that Netanyahu’s government has to fall before the hostages can be brought out.

Channel 13 carried an interview with hostage families who asserted that Netanyahu does not want a hostage deal because he knows that their return would signal the fall of his government.

Al Jazeera English Video: “‘All of the rats in the Knesset’: Mass antiwar protest in Israel”

Netanyahu is on trial for corruption and were he to lose the position of prime minister and become a civilian again, the trials would go forward and he could be jailed. One of his predecessors as prime minister, Ehud Olmert, went to prison for corruption. The Israeli prosecutors and police don’t play.

President Joe Biden told an interviewer that it would be legitimate to suspect that Netanyahu carries on the nine-month Gaza campaign because he wants to remain in power.

Warrants have been sought against Netanyahu for war crimes by the International Criminal Court.

Netanyahu’s maximalist goal of “destroying Hamas” was brought into question this week by military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, who said, “Hamas is an idea, Hamas is a party, it is embedded in the hearts of people. Whoever thinks that we can make Hamas disappear is mistaken. It is the Muslim Brotherhood, which has been in this area for a great many years.” He said the most you could do is set up an effective rival to it that would provide aid to people and then publicize that this alternative, not Hamas, was doing effective charity work.

Hagari said that anyone who spoke about destroying Hamas was deceiving the public.

That assertion seemed to many observers a not very veiled reference to Netanyahu.

Yediot Aharanot columnist Nadav Eyal wrote in mid-June, “The IDF believes that the tactical achievement allows Israel to ‘pass a phase,’ and in fact to end the war in Gaza through an agreement to return the kidnapped. ‘The end of the war is not the end of the fighting,’ say security officials, ‘the intelligence will continue to flow and so will the possibility of attacking from the air or from the ground.” [Google translate.; h/t for cite BBC Monitoring.]

This increasing split between the extremist government, with its fascist elements that insist on a forever war in Gaza, and the Israeli officer corps, is momentous and perhaps gives the protesters hope.

However, in a parliamentary system Netanyahu can stay in power until 2026 as long as his coalition retains a majority and he can avoid a vote of no confidence. Israeli civil society is too weakened by decades of Likud Party Neoliberalism to intervene effectively.