This was the first invasion of supposed Israeli territory since the Arab/Israeli war of 1948. Surely these groups must have known the response would have been swift and devastating from the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) which indeed it has. It has been very disproportionate and now bordering, relative to the attack on Israeli territory, bad as it was, on a Nazi style genocide (please do not cry anti-Semitism). The Palestinian fighters took around 250 hostages of which around 58 still remain hostages on what is left of the Gaza Strip under Hamas captivity. Hamas, like the Government of Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv, are opposed to any form of a ‘two state solution’ in the area for different reasons. It does beggar the question, could there have been some kind of collaboration between the two, thus putting such a solution even further away? There are valid reasons against a two-state solution but none are held by Hamas or the Netanyahu Government.
On Thursday 23rd May 2025 two Jewish people were gunned down and killed in Washington DC (District Columbia) the capital of the USA outside the Israeli Embassy. They were Yaron Lischinsky and his partner Sarah Lynn Milgrim who were soon to be married. The Palestinians in Gaza are facing famine two and a half years after the Israelis invaded and the IDF are preventing food supplies entering the area and it was against this backdrop the killings occurred. The Israeli Government are describing the murders as being “anti-Semitic” against the Jewish population as a whole (it must be stressed here that both Arab and Jewish peoples are Semites) by the suspected assailant, Elias Rodriguez, who shouted pro-Palestinian slogans.
On Thursday 23rd May 2025 two Jewish people were gunned down and killed in Washington DC (District Columbia) the capital of the USA outside the Israeli Embassy. They were Yaron Lischinsky and his partner Sarah Lynn Milgrim who were soon to be married. The Palestinians in Gaza are facing famine two and a half years after the Israelis invaded and the IDF are preventing food supplies entering the area and it was against this backdrop the killings occurred. The Israeli Government are describing the murders as being “anti-Semitic” against the Jewish population as a whole (it must be stressed here that both Arab and Jewish peoples are Semites) by the suspected assailant, Elias Rodriguez, who shouted pro-Palestinian slogans.
The fact is individual terrorist acts of this nature against civilians will not promote the Palestinian cause in any way shape or form. Perhaps the suspected assailant should have remembered the response of Hitler and the Nazis against the Jews of Germany when a Jewish assassin shot and killed a German diplomat, Ernst Vom Rath, in Paris on 7th November 1938. The Nazis used this killing as a pretext to launch Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass) the pogrom of 9-10 November 1938 against Jewish people and property. As Netanyahu appears to have scant regard for Palestinian life in the Gaza Strip what is to stop him, similar to Hitler, launching all out genocide against the Palestinian population on the West Bank? The policies against the Jews of Germany held by Hitler are not dissimilar to those of Netanyahu against the Palestinian people so why should the Israeli Prime Ministers response be any different? Perhaps this possibility should have been thought out first by the assailant! There can be no doubt the Israeli leader is capable of carrying out genocide against the Palestinian people, he has been doing so for the last two and half years.
In between these two murderous attacks on civilians the Israelis have killed around 54,000 Palestinians. This does not include the shootings of more Palestinians on the West Bank which is supposed to be a homeland for the Palestinian people. When the Israelis sent their forces into Gaza in response to the 7 October attack’s they moved the Palestinian people to what they were told were ‘safe havens’ for them. This turned out to be a blatant lie because as soon as these Palestinian civilians were moved the Israelis began rocket and bombing attacks on these areas. They then told these terrified people, many of them women and children, to move again, and again, and again until in Northern Gaza there was nowhere else left. The Israelis then told the terrified Palestinians they would be safe in Southern Gaza. Once they had moved the Israeli Airforce bombed them and their artillery opened up with missiles once again causing mayhem and murder. The Palestinian people of Gaza were terrified as women and children screamed for their lives. Very few Hamas fighters were killed which was supposed to be the objective of these attacks. The western powers, including the USA and UK, did nothing while this genocide went on and is ongoing, a genocide which is in the same league as the actions of the Nazi genocide against the Jews carried out prior to the construction of the death camps. The question could be asked; will Netanyahu stoop to the depths of the Jewish people’s former murderers, the Nazis in Germany and captured territories, against the Palestinians?
Tel Aviv are now using food as a weapon in what can only be described as an attempt at starving the Palestinian people to death. These Israeli actions are similar to Nazi atrocities against the people of Leningrad, during WWII in the Soviet Union, where citizens were starved to death by the Waffen SS (Nazi Party troops) and the Wehrmacht, Nazi Germany’s Army and Airforce (the third arm being the Kriegsmarine), during the siege of Leningrad. During the same conflict Soviet Army Prisoners of War who had been taken into captivity were also starved of rations and of sufficient food, as their captors would occasionally throw them the odd loaf of bread and watch the prisoners fight over a few crumbs. This was against the Geneva Convention which Germany were signatories to. Unfortunately the Soviet Union were not signatories and therefore, the Nazis claimed, Germany were not in breach of any laws. What the Israelis are doing to the peoples of Gaza, also claiming to be breaching no laws, is akin to the actions of the Nazis in occupied Soviet territories using food as a weapon of war and murder!
On 14th May 2025 in the 26-County Dail Independent ‘TD’ (Teachta Daila, Deputy to the Dail) Seamus Healy equated the looming “famine in Gaza” with Irelands own “famine of the 1840 and 50s” when the potato crop failed in Ireland. The difference between Ireland and the rest of Europe where the potato crop also failed was other countries had alternative food stuffs to feed their populations. So did Ireland, but these foods were stolen by a “foreign power” to feed the fat cats of England and, to a lesser extent, Scotland and Wales where the numbers of aristocratic and bourgeois elements were far fewer than in in England. This “foreign power” in effect starved Ireland and was akin to a “foreign power” starving the Palestinians. The Independent TD said the “looming famine in Gaza” is the same as the “famine in Ireland created by a foreign power.” The British did nothing to alleviate the ‘famine’ in Ireland, which they were greatly responsible for creating than the Israelis are doing to feed the population of Gaza whose lack of food they are responsible for. The Israelis are preventing food getting into the Gaza Strip which is the same, in principle, as the British taking food out of Ireland where the people were starving back in the nineteenth century!
The Israeli Army are physically preventing food convoys getting into the Gaza Strip at border crossings. This is in clear breach of International Law which the Israeli Government break with impunity on a daily basis. On 21st November 2024 the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for two senior Israeli officials, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister, and Yoav Gallant the former Minister of Defence yet these two men travel with impunity around the globe. These two men are sticking two fingers up at the ICC and the United Nations (UN) in much the same way as the Nazi regime and that of Imperial Japan did to the League of Nations, predecessor to the UN, prior to the Second World War. World leaders say nothing about these breaches of the law which clearly shows the myth of International Law is exactly that, a myth. On the contrary, despite these clear breaches and telling the ICC to stuff their arrest warrant, the Israeli Prime Minister accuses these world leaders who turn more than a blind eye to genocide, of being “anti-Semitic”!
In between these two murderous attacks on civilians the Israelis have killed around 54,000 Palestinians. This does not include the shootings of more Palestinians on the West Bank which is supposed to be a homeland for the Palestinian people. When the Israelis sent their forces into Gaza in response to the 7 October attack’s they moved the Palestinian people to what they were told were ‘safe havens’ for them. This turned out to be a blatant lie because as soon as these Palestinian civilians were moved the Israelis began rocket and bombing attacks on these areas. They then told these terrified people, many of them women and children, to move again, and again, and again until in Northern Gaza there was nowhere else left. The Israelis then told the terrified Palestinians they would be safe in Southern Gaza. Once they had moved the Israeli Airforce bombed them and their artillery opened up with missiles once again causing mayhem and murder. The Palestinian people of Gaza were terrified as women and children screamed for their lives. Very few Hamas fighters were killed which was supposed to be the objective of these attacks. The western powers, including the USA and UK, did nothing while this genocide went on and is ongoing, a genocide which is in the same league as the actions of the Nazi genocide against the Jews carried out prior to the construction of the death camps. The question could be asked; will Netanyahu stoop to the depths of the Jewish people’s former murderers, the Nazis in Germany and captured territories, against the Palestinians?
Tel Aviv are now using food as a weapon in what can only be described as an attempt at starving the Palestinian people to death. These Israeli actions are similar to Nazi atrocities against the people of Leningrad, during WWII in the Soviet Union, where citizens were starved to death by the Waffen SS (Nazi Party troops) and the Wehrmacht, Nazi Germany’s Army and Airforce (the third arm being the Kriegsmarine), during the siege of Leningrad. During the same conflict Soviet Army Prisoners of War who had been taken into captivity were also starved of rations and of sufficient food, as their captors would occasionally throw them the odd loaf of bread and watch the prisoners fight over a few crumbs. This was against the Geneva Convention which Germany were signatories to. Unfortunately the Soviet Union were not signatories and therefore, the Nazis claimed, Germany were not in breach of any laws. What the Israelis are doing to the peoples of Gaza, also claiming to be breaching no laws, is akin to the actions of the Nazis in occupied Soviet territories using food as a weapon of war and murder!
On 14th May 2025 in the 26-County Dail Independent ‘TD’ (Teachta Daila, Deputy to the Dail) Seamus Healy equated the looming “famine in Gaza” with Irelands own “famine of the 1840 and 50s” when the potato crop failed in Ireland. The difference between Ireland and the rest of Europe where the potato crop also failed was other countries had alternative food stuffs to feed their populations. So did Ireland, but these foods were stolen by a “foreign power” to feed the fat cats of England and, to a lesser extent, Scotland and Wales where the numbers of aristocratic and bourgeois elements were far fewer than in in England. This “foreign power” in effect starved Ireland and was akin to a “foreign power” starving the Palestinians. The Independent TD said the “looming famine in Gaza” is the same as the “famine in Ireland created by a foreign power.” The British did nothing to alleviate the ‘famine’ in Ireland, which they were greatly responsible for creating than the Israelis are doing to feed the population of Gaza whose lack of food they are responsible for. The Israelis are preventing food getting into the Gaza Strip which is the same, in principle, as the British taking food out of Ireland where the people were starving back in the nineteenth century!
The Israeli Army are physically preventing food convoys getting into the Gaza Strip at border crossings. This is in clear breach of International Law which the Israeli Government break with impunity on a daily basis. On 21st November 2024 the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for two senior Israeli officials, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister, and Yoav Gallant the former Minister of Defence yet these two men travel with impunity around the globe. These two men are sticking two fingers up at the ICC and the United Nations (UN) in much the same way as the Nazi regime and that of Imperial Japan did to the League of Nations, predecessor to the UN, prior to the Second World War. World leaders say nothing about these breaches of the law which clearly shows the myth of International Law is exactly that, a myth. On the contrary, despite these clear breaches and telling the ICC to stuff their arrest warrant, the Israeli Prime Minister accuses these world leaders who turn more than a blind eye to genocide, of being “anti-Semitic”!
Today, the phrase ‘anti-Semitic’ has taken on a totally different form meaning ‘anti-Netanyahu’. Anybody who criticises the actions of the Israeli Government and the IDF in Gaza are considered ‘anti-Semitic’ by western governments. The Israeli action in Gaza, are worse by some volume to those carried out by the Russians in Ukraine, yet we are encouraged to be anti-Russian and certainly to hate Putin. If anybody said the same of Netanyahu as they do Putin they would be hauled before the courts accused of anti-Semitism. This international law is very selective and the question must be asked; had Hitler not invaded Poland but held on to Czechoslovakia and Austria, continued persecuting then murdering Jews in Germany and his occupied territories, continued murdering trade unionists and all forms of political opposition, promoted and carried out live experiments on Gypsies before murdering them would the world have stood by and let him carry on? Hypothetical, granted, but would any what look like meaningless arrest warrants have been issued for him and Goering as is the case with Netanyahu and Gallant and never acted upon?
If the intention of the Israeli Government was solely to root out and behead Hamas, they have the ability to do that without committing genocide. In fact, if they could only see it, the Israelis were winning some elements of moderate Palestinian support over to being sympathetic towards Israel after the 7th October attacks. Some of those who were once critical of Israel, especially on social media were, after 7th October, taking a more sympathetic stance after what had happened. Instead, the Israelis decided to commit crimes a thousand times worse thus reversing such changes of hearts. The Israelis have some of the finest ‘special forces’ on the planet. Their intelligence services, Aman, Mossad and Shin Bet are second to none and they could easily have gone into the Gaza Strip, captured the Hamas leadership and taken them out, no difficulty whatsoever, without all this genocide. The IDF infantry could have mopped up the remainder of the Hamas fighters. Let’s face it, Mossad travelled half way around the world in May 1960 and captured Adolf Eichman in Argentina. They brought him back to Israel to face trial for war crimes, similar war-crimes they themselves are now committing. It would have been a walk in the park to cross the road into Gaza and take out the Hamas leadership. The truth may be taking out Hamas was not their sole intention, but a much more sinister operation may have been planned, the annihilation of the Palestinian people of Gaza! Just as Hitler planned to eradicate the ‘Jews of Europe’ could Netanyahu have been planning to wipe out the Palestinians of Gaza? If so, he has failed so far!
Those masquerading as politicians in Washington, London, Paris and other western countries are still naively calling for a ceasefire in the region. This demand which Netanyahu would appear showing no interest at all is falling on deaf ears in the Knesset though elements within the Israeli population are also calling for such a ceasefire. These people are in all probability not Netanyahu supporters, but they are evidently people of some compassion.
If the intention of the Israeli Government was solely to root out and behead Hamas, they have the ability to do that without committing genocide. In fact, if they could only see it, the Israelis were winning some elements of moderate Palestinian support over to being sympathetic towards Israel after the 7th October attacks. Some of those who were once critical of Israel, especially on social media were, after 7th October, taking a more sympathetic stance after what had happened. Instead, the Israelis decided to commit crimes a thousand times worse thus reversing such changes of hearts. The Israelis have some of the finest ‘special forces’ on the planet. Their intelligence services, Aman, Mossad and Shin Bet are second to none and they could easily have gone into the Gaza Strip, captured the Hamas leadership and taken them out, no difficulty whatsoever, without all this genocide. The IDF infantry could have mopped up the remainder of the Hamas fighters. Let’s face it, Mossad travelled half way around the world in May 1960 and captured Adolf Eichman in Argentina. They brought him back to Israel to face trial for war crimes, similar war-crimes they themselves are now committing. It would have been a walk in the park to cross the road into Gaza and take out the Hamas leadership. The truth may be taking out Hamas was not their sole intention, but a much more sinister operation may have been planned, the annihilation of the Palestinian people of Gaza! Just as Hitler planned to eradicate the ‘Jews of Europe’ could Netanyahu have been planning to wipe out the Palestinians of Gaza? If so, he has failed so far!
Those masquerading as politicians in Washington, London, Paris and other western countries are still naively calling for a ceasefire in the region. This demand which Netanyahu would appear showing no interest at all is falling on deaf ears in the Knesset though elements within the Israeli population are also calling for such a ceasefire. These people are in all probability not Netanyahu supporters, but they are evidently people of some compassion.
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| Caoimhin O’Muraile is Independent Socialist Republican and Marxist. |
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