Israel Keeps Committing War Crimes — And Isn’t Getting Any Safer

-OpEd-

BERLIN — Of course, Israel has a right to defend itself from Hamas and Hezbollah.

The terrorist organizations and their protector Iran want to wipe Israel off the map. Their representatives have repeatedly declared their intentions to destroy Israel, sometimes in slightly euphemistic terms, sometimes bluntly, and they have confirmed it with the horrific terrorist attacks of October 7, 2023 and the constant bombing by Hezbollah rockets.

There is no doubt that Israel’s existence is threatened from both the south and the north.

But Israel’s fight for self-defense has crossed the boundaries of international humanitarian law: these are war crimes. First in Gaza, where Israel indiscriminately bombs hospitals and schools and puts large parts of the Palestinian civilian population at risk of starvation by stopping aid shipments. And now, in Lebanon. Evidence suggests that Israel is now crossing the red line in its fight against Hezbollah, too.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, hundreds, if not thousands, of pagers, walkie-talkies and radio receivers exploded in the hands, pockets and backpacks of countless people in Lebanon. According to government officials, at least 32 people died and thousands were injured. Although Israel has not officially taken responsibility for that, it seems plausible that its secret service placed the explosive devices in the radios.

In Israel, some are defending the operation, saying the victims were all Hezbollah members. But were they really all terrorists? At least three children died; the pagers and walkie-talkies exploded in markets, on the street, in front of hospitals, and at a funeral.

Israel has been indiscriminately killing civilians and, with attacks like this one, it is once again putting the entire Middle East at risk of war. “One thousand explosions with 3,000 injuries are an invitation to war,” writes Israeli columnist Gideon Levy in the daily newspaper Ha’aretz . “And the war will come.”

Is there no way to stop Netanyahu?

Why can’t anyone stop Benjamin Netanyahu’s plans? The United States, Israel’s protector and largest arms supplier, have the power to do so. But they are in the middle of an election campaign and are satisfied — like most Europeans — with a toothless call for moderation.

Netanyahu and his right-wing extremist coalition are taking the country and its population hostage.

And yet, this must be said: Israel is still a democracy with a functioning justice system despite all attempts to gag it. Civil society is lively and rebellious, the media is free. But the courage of many judges, the criticism of some newspapers and television channels, the uprising of hundreds of thousands of Israelis cannot prevent Netanyahu and his right-wing extremist coalition partners from taking the country and its population hostage, and driving them into isolation for their personal and political goals.

Many years ago, former President of Israel’s Supreme Court Aharon Barak told me that a threatened country like Israel is always in danger of losing its identity in its fight for survival. As a liberal democracy, Israel should hold itself to the highest standards, something the current government seems to have forgotten.

Do the bombings make Israel safer?

The Netanyahu government has long been ignoring the warnings of international courts to abide by the law, and it has been ignoring international humanitarian law and human rights in general. And now, Israel is in danger of losing the war against its enemies not only legally and morally, but also strategically.

The questions that Israel should now be asking itself, after almost a year of war, are obvious: Has bombing the Gaza Strip, displacing two million Palestinians, killing over 40,000 and injuring 100,000 (according to non verifiable figures from the Hamas-controlled health authority in Gaza) made the State of Israel and its people safer?

Promises of “total victory” 

Has the Gaza war made the fate of the Israeli hostages any easier to resolve? Has the Iranian threat diminished?

And, most recently, do the pager and walkie-talkie attacks against Hezbollah make Israel any safer?

The answer is obvious: No. Of course, Hamas is weakened, but it still has power in Gaza. The fact that negotiations are underway with it over a ceasefire and the release of the hostages shows just how influential it still is. Netanyahu once promised “total victory” over Hamas, an expression his own Defense Minister later described as “nonsense.”

Things are not looking any better on Israel’s second front. The bombs of the past few days have not neutralized the Hezbollah fighters on the border. And thousands of rockets are still pointing to Israel.

Huge miscalculation

The hope for popular uprisings has also been dashed. The Palestinian population in Gaza has not risen up against Hamas, nor are the Lebanese revolting against Hezbollah. On the contrary, the result of these attacks is that terrorist organizations regain the sympathy of the people.

Israel’s own allies are reacting with horror at what could have been an understandable self-defense fight.

The war is also becoming an increasing danger in foreign policy. After the attack on October 7, Israel’s friends and partners joined forces. Solidarity was understandably the order of the day. But now Israel’s own allies are increasingly reacting with dismay and horror at what could have been an understandable self-defense fight. Some are already distancing themselves, and Britain is considering an arms embargo.

And even in the United States, the unconditional cross-party solidarity with Israel that has existed for decades can no longer be taken for granted. A deep rift is running through the Democratic Party in particular.

Israel’s illegal occupation of land in the West Bank also remains shocking. Using the war as an alibi and a distraction, Jewish settlers are driving Palestinians out of their ancestral lands and, incited by right-wing extremist ministers, are building settlement after settlement. Israel’s army mostly stands by and does nothing, even when people are pillaged and murdered.

In the meanwhile, Benjamin Netanyahu is fervently hoping for an election victory for Republican Donald Trump in November: he might be making a huge miscalculation. A Trump presidency would have no objections to Israel’s settlement policy, but he has often expressed a desire to keep the U.S. out of new wars. Trump prides himself in the fact that he neither started nor joined a war during his term in office between January 2017 and January 2021, and he repeated that to Netanyahu when the two last met in Florida.