Israel outsourcing war crimes

Seeking bulldozer drivers to demolish Gaza: how a genocide is being outsourced

mer Bartov is an Israeli-American historian and one of the foremost scholars on genocide in the world. He has spent over 25 years teaching a class on the subject. He deals with atrocities for a living, analyzing some of the very worst things that human beings are capable of. And yet even Bartov has said he can’t bear looking at some of the excruciating images coming out of Gaza any more.

What’s happening, Bartov says, is unprecedented in the 21st century. “I don’t know of any comparable situation. Recent estimates show that about 70% of the structures in Gaza are either completely destroyed or severely damaged,” Bartov says. “The argument that the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] is conducting a war in Gaza is simply cynical, there is no war in Gaza. What the IDF is doing in Gaza is demolishing it. Hundreds of buildings are being bulldozed every week. This is not a secret, but mainstream media coverage has been insufficient.”

Part of the reason that mainstream coverage has been insufficient is because reporting about what’s happening in Gaza is difficult: foreign reporters are still not allowed into Gaza to see what is happening for themselves and Israel is slaughtering Palestinian journalists on the ground. I feel like I’m screaming into the void every time I repeat some version of that sentence and yet there still seems to be apathy about this assault on press freedom from some of my colleagues in the mainstream media.

As Bartov said, despite the lack of coverage, the systematic destruction of Gaza is hardly a secret. Indeed, the Israeli military is so desperate for extra bulldozers that, over the last couple of months, there have been ads for bulldozer drivers to help demolish Gaza posted on Facebook – some apparently offering as much as 3,000 shekels ($882) a day for the work. I found around a dozen of these ads on Meta since the end of May, many of them on a public Facebook page for bulldozer operators. Meanwhile a Haaretz article from this week looking into the outsourcing of bulldozer drivers found that they are paid per building: 2,500 shekels for the demolition of a small building, 5,000 shekels for a large building.

“The idea that the bulldozer has become a major article of genocide and warfare is quite new,” says Neve Gordon, a professor of international law and human rights at Queen Mary University of London. “What is happening in Gaza is not a building here or there being demolished; it’s the destruction of whole villages and towns.”

Also new is the outsourcing of bulldozer drivers. “The Israeli military usually does not work in this way,” says Gordon. “It can sequester bulldozers and draft the drivers as reserve soldiers.” Reports from Israeli outlets show that the IDF is facing a shortage of drivers and is recruiting civilians for military operations in Gaza, Syria and Lebanon. “I would consider this as a form of ‘outsourcing demolitions’ used to advance a genocidal project,” Gordon says.

Outsourcing your war crimes is a mutation of hate that is almost impossible to comprehend.

The IDF have their bulldozer levellers pin the soft toys of Palestinian children whose homes they have demolished as trophies…

…Phil Goff is right, what the IDF are doing to Palestinians amounts to genocide…

Phil Goff: Israel’s actions now amount to genocide

For a long time, I hesitated to describe Israel’s intentions in Gaza as genocide. Genocide is a term I associated with the Nazi Holocaust in which 6,000,000 Jews were murdered. Over many years I have attended memorials to the Holocaust in the belief that we should never forget the lessons of history including the consequences of populist politicians demonising ethnic minorities for political purposes.

I am not comparing Israel’s actions in the Gaza with the Holocaust. However, Israel’s actions now clearly meet the definition of genocide. Article 2 of the Geneva Convention on Genocide defines genocide as acts committed with intent to destroy in whole or in part a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. Among other things it specifies the killing of members of groups, causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of a group and deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.

Israel’s latest announcement to forcibly transfer 600,000 Palestinians in Gaza to an internment camp established in Rafah on Egypt’s border confirms Israel’s intent. The announcement was made by Israel Defence Minister Israel Katz, who said it could begin as soon as a 60-day ceasefire currently under negotiation came into effect.

Once in the camp, people would be unable to leave. The intent is that the whole of Gaza’s more than two million Palestinian people would ultimately be transferred to the zone. In language comparable to propaganda used by authoritarian regimes, the internment camp is being termed “a humanitarian city”. Amos Goldberg, historian of the Holocaust at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, described what was being proposed as “neither humanitarian nor a city”. It was placing people in “a concentration camp or transit camp”.

…everyone should feel a shiver down their spine at this grotesque ‘concentration camp’ idea Israel are embarking upon for the Palestinian people .

The echos of history are screaming at us!

Phil Goff saying what we are all thinking but are too frightened to say for fear of being accused anti-semitic resets the debate in New Zealand.

You can’t eclipse his righteous and rational criticism of Israels disproportionate actions by trying to smear Goff as an anti-semite!

He makes valid and very reasonable criticism of what Israel’s actions amount to, regardless of Israel’s right to defend itself, a right remember they are using over a people they have occupied brutally.

Phil is providing real moral leadership here, when someone of his mana calls out Israel’s brutality and speaks for basic decency when so many are too fearful to, that deserves respect.

I supported him speaking truth to power over that Trump question in Chatham House, because Trump is an extremism that must be denounced.

Gaza demands our attention regardless of how uncomfortable the issue makes us.

No citizen of this planet can support killing civilians with the woeful malice of the IDF.

Shooting through human shields to kill Hamas is not a solution nor justification. It’s murder.

‘Who started it’ doesn’t justify what has happened and is occurring right now.

We in the West are complicit to enabling a war crime if we refuse to speak out.

Phil has the courage to speak out.

We should be grateful there are still those New Zealanders bold enough to demand action against the worst angels of our nature.

We can not remain silent any longer while Israel continues to butcher human beings.

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