When Israel's friends say .... " Israel’s Gaza Campaign Is Making It a Pariah State "

By Thomas L. Friedman , NY Times Opinion Column

" I will leave it to historians to debate whether Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. But what is absolutely clear to me right now is that this Israeli government is committing suicide, homicide and fratricide.

It is destroying Israel’s standing in the world, it is killing Gazan civilians with seemingly no regard for innocent human life, and it is tearing apart Israeli society and world Jewry, between those Jews who want to still stand with Israel no matter what and those who can no longer tolerate, explain or justify where this Israeli government is taking the Jewish state and now want to distance themselves from it.

I was struck by this paragraph in The Times’s story from Israel on Monday about the Israeli strikes on a hospital in southern Gaza, killing at least 20 people, according to the Gaza Health Ministry — including five journalists who worked for international media outlets, plus medics and several others: “The Israeli military said it had carried out a strike in the area of Nasser Hospital, without saying what the target was. The statement said the military regretted ‘any harm to uninvolved individuals,’ adding that its chief of staff had ordered an immediate inquiry.”

Obviously sensing that many around the world were appalled by this explanation — I mean, how many times have we heard this? — the office of the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, issued a rare statement of contrition, saying that “Israel deeply regrets the tragic mishap.”

The truth is, though, what Netanyahu called a “tragic mishap” is the inevitable byproduct of his policy of stringing out the war in Gaza in order to stay in power, to avoid his criminal trials and to avoid any Israeli inquiry commission into his profound complicity in the failure to prevent the surprise attack by Hamas on Oct. 7. For Netanyahu to stay in power, he needs the support of far-right ministers, like Bezalel Smotrich, who is engaged in an effort to carpet the West Bank with as many Jewish settlements as he can to prevent any Palestinian state from emerging there. Smotrich is also encouraging the eviction of Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza, to pave the way for Israel to absorb both.

But here’s the problem: Israel has already devastated Hamas as a military force and killed virtually all of its top commanders who planned the Oct. 7 attack. So now, to justify the continued war effort, it must go after lower-level commanders, who are living and hiding among civilians.

It is one thing for a country at war to justify collateral damage when going after the enemy’s top leaders. It is something entirely more sinister when you are killing and wounding dozens of civilians to try to kill, say, the deputy to the deputy commander.

It is also devious and sinister when you use your military to move hundreds of thousands of Gazan civilians from one part of Gaza to the other — under the guise of evacuating them from fighting zones — and then deliberately bulldoze the homes they left behind for no real military reason but with the clear ulterior motive of making life so miserable for them that they will leave the area entirely. And it is shameful when you stop and start humanitarian aid, with the hope that people will get hungry enough to leave.

But as I said, this is not just homicide pure and simple; it is also suicide and fratricide. Israel is now well on its way to making itself a pariah state — to the point that Israelis will think twice about speaking Hebrew when traveling abroad. "

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