Caitlin Johnstone
SOMETIMES I’ll write a headline that looks odd on its face, but then I’ll lay out facts and arguments which allow the reader to understand the validity of the claim by the end of the essay. This is not one of those times.
This headline is just me saying the thing that happened. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz are publicly denouncing a report from an Israeli newspaper quoting Israeli soldiers who describe atrocities they were ordered to commit in the Israeli military, accusing the report of “blood libels”.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz has published an article titled “‘It’s a Killing Field’: IDF Soldiers Ordered to Shoot Deliberately at Unarmed Gazans Waiting for Humanitarian Aid”, subtitled “IDF officers and soldiers told Haaretz they were ordered to fire at unarmed crowds near food distribution sites in Gaza, even when no threat was present. Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed, prompting the military prosecution to call for a review into possible war crimes.”
One Israeli soldier attests that civilians seeking aid are “treated like a hostile force — no crowd-control measures, no tear gas — just live fire with everything imaginable: heavy machine guns, grenade launchers, mortars.”
“We open fire early in the morning if someone tries to get in line from a few hundred meters away, and sometimes we just charge at them from close range. But there’s no danger to the forces,” the soldier says, adding, “I’m not aware of a single instance of return fire. There’s no enemy, no weapons.”
IDF sources tell Haaretz that Gaza has become “a place with its own set of rules” where they are interacting with civilians with whom “your only means of interaction is opening fire”. Deadly military weapons are used as crowd control to steer the starving populace wherever it’s determined they’re supposed to be, routinely killing desperate aid seekers.
Another soldier describes being instructed to fire artillery shells at a crowd to keep them at a distance, saying, “Every time we fire, there are casualties and deaths, and when someone asks why a shell is necessary, there’s never a good answer. Sometimes, merely asking the question annoys the commanders.”
In quote after quote after quote we read Israeli soldiers describing atrocities they were ordered to commit which they knew were wrong. I guess Israel’s PR machine never counted on some of the soldiers they sent in to perpetrate the Gaza holocaust having an actual conscience.
A joint statement from Netanyahu and Katz denounced the report, accusing Haaretz of publishing “blood libels”.
“The State of Israel absolutely rejects the contemptible blood libels that have been published in the Ha’aretz newspaper, according to which ‘IDF Soldiers Ordered to Shoot Deliberately at Unarmed Gazans Waiting for Humanitarian Aid.’ These are malicious falsehoods designed to defame the IDF, the most moral military in the world,” the statement reads.
“Blood libel” refers to the way medieval Europeans used to falsely accuse Jews of murdering Christian children in blood sacrifices — an early form of atrocity propagandaused to justify the persecution of Jews.
So again, just to be absolutely clear, the leader of the Israeli government is claiming that an Israeli newspaper quoting Israeli soldiers describing their own atrocities is antisemitic. And that mountains of testimony from inside the IDF is “designed to defame the IDF, the most moral military in the world.”
What can I even say about that here? It speaks for itself. I have nothing to add.
The more exposed Israel’s criminality becomes, the more absurd the arguments made in its defense are getting.
