"Netanyahu has never been interested in peace. But now he has a clear interest in war.

Holocaust traumas weaponized, Israelis have been fiercely defending the state’s right to defend itself on every front or platform. The just calls to free the hostages blended with the denial and even justification of excessive use of force. Recently, this blindness to the Israel Defense Force’s own loose cannons backfired when three unarmed Israeli hostages wearing no shirts and waving a white cloth, begging for rescue in Hebrew, were hunted and killed by the soldiers who were tasked with saving them. Furthermore, according to Haaretz, IDF figures reveal that 17.5 percent of the army’s casualties result from “friendly fire.”

The war, fueled by terror and vengeance, is led by those who failed to prevent it and are now scrambling to save face. Yet the faces of Israeli hostages are staring down at everybody from every wall on every street. And every day Israelis wake up to confront the faces of soldiers who saved no one, not even themselves.

Meanwhile, in the West Bank, racist fundamentalist settlers are singing Samson’s praises. The biblical womanizer who murdered and robbed to settle bets, who tied torches to the tails of foxes to set Philistine fields ablaze, who served as a judge to his people but mostly showed lack of judgment, who finally saved no one, not even himself, has become the model for Jewish supremacy. Willfully blind to the irony, the settlers sing, “Avenge but one of my two eyes,” as they terrorize Palestinian villages, burn Palestinian orchards, and force communities off their land. Under the fog of war, a faction of these homegrown terrorists amplifies these acts of ethnic cleansing as ministers and government officials. They continue to corrupt the police, the jail system, the judicial system, and the army to clear the way for further ethnocratic fundamentalism and annexation.

The genocidal statements from government officials that are widely reported around the world are not a gaffe. They present Israel’s most incompetent, corrupt, and irresponsible government ever as ideological, determined, intentional, calculated, strategic, disciplined … and nothing could be further from the truth. More than genocide, this is suicide.
Being an Ally

As the country inches closer toward the edge, how can the United States, Israel’s closest ally, assist?
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To be a true ally, America should do the following: Remove the veto support of this government from the U.N.’s Security Council; pull funding from offensive military actions and support only defensive ones; demand and help facilitate a truly sustainable cease-fire that would allow the delivery of urgent humanitarian aid and an opportunity for a hostage deal; commit immediately to the long, costly, and complicated reconstruction and administration of Gaza by an international alliance with Arab leadership; and develop a firm framework of incentives and counter-incentives to support trust building and deradicalization on both sides of the broken fence.

Finally, a true friend would open Israel’s blood-shut eyes and help unchain the shackles of the occupation. The world has to seize this terrible and unique opportunity by supporting a strong, lasting, and just peace agreement. We can end the occupation, provide security for both peoples, and deliver this region from endless despair. We, Palestinians and Israelis at A Land for All, have prepared the outlines for an updated two-state solution, one that is built on two sovereign states sharing the land from the river to the sea, rather than slicing and dicing it.

The book of Judges didn’t specify how Samson was expected to deliver the Israelites from the threat posed by Gaza. The tales of three other judges ended with “… and the land had peace for forty years.” In grief, terror, and despair, Israel pounds Gaza again and again, as if the next blow will somehow finally turn back the clock. America, Israel doesn’t need you to give its blinded leaders any more strength and allow its soul to perish with the Palestinians. This land needs peace. It could indeed last for 40 years, maybe even longer. We have to start right now."

https://newrepublic.com/article/177972/israel-bibi-biden-war-government