Recently the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz revealed that the Israeli military is the sponsor of a Telegram channel called 72 Virgins. That channel is composed of videos made by Israeli soldiers in which they document and brag about their abuse of Palestinians. In some, they are shown mocking or beating prisoners. One particularly gross one documents an Israeli soldier raping a Palestinian man with a rifle. The channel is no different from what Nazi propaganda against Jews could contain. The fact that this has not caused a huge scandal in Israel shows to what depths Israeli society has sunk.

We must not shrink from a full recognition of the difficulties we face – because the horrors the people of Gaza are enduring are not only the continuance of the crimes of the past; these crimes will accelerate and be magnified if we do not have a full reckoning. That full reckoning is painful. But considering what is at stake, more for the future than the present, we must undertake it. And make no mistake, the path we must trod is a difficult one.

Genocide is defined as “the deliberate  killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group.” This is what is happening in Gaza. The term originates from what the Nazis did (although there were many genocides before then). But if the term has that origin, then that necessitates the next question: Is Israel preparing a new Holocaust? 

There are huge differences between Germany and Israel. Germany was the most powerful nation on the continent which was central to world wide imperialism. It also was at war with other major imperialist powers. Also, the Nazi dictatorship had completely atomized – crushed – the German working class and no sign of dissent, no matter how minor, was possible. And within Europe, the Jews (who bore the brunt of the Holocaust) were a discriminated-against minority. Those are all major differences.

Israel today has not reached anything near the state of repression that existed in Nazi Germany. Not only that, but the Palestinian people are part of the Arab world of SouthWest Asia North Africa (SWANA), and those people will rise up against a full Holocaust against the Palestinians. Furthermore, as opposed to Nazi Germany which was at war with the major imperialist powers, Israel is dependent on those powers.

But nevertheless, genocide is genocide. Sometimes the details reveal the true nature of the crimes. One such detail is the Israel Occupation Force (IOF) murder of three of their own – the three Jewish hostages who escaped from their captors. In that case, the three young men had taken off their shirts, were waving a white flag and shouting in Hebrew. Nevertheless, the IOF killed two of them on the spot and the third after he ran into a building and then reemerged, again with a white flag. The IOF soldiers killed them because they thought they might be Gazans. That raises the obvious point: How is the IOF treating others in Gaza? The answer is clear. Al Jazeera, for example, has published evidence of a massacre carried out by IOF soldiers against dozens of Gaza residents who were sheltering inside a school. This included women and children. Mandoweiss produced evidence of the deliberate destruction of the health system in Gaza. They also report on possibly hundreds, maybe even more, being held and tortured in Israeli concentration camps. 

In southern Gaza things are no better. Here is the description of Mansour Shouman, Canadian Palestinian in Khan Younis: “There is no place safe here in Khan Younis. Israeli tanks are as close as 600 metres [1,968 feet]. There are snipers on top of buildings that shoot whatever moves. People do not know where to go. I have a friend who tried to reach Rafah. When they reached there his family was bombed – his wife lost her legs, one of his children lost her eyes, and his youngest daughter is nowhere to be found. Khan Younis residents are not able to find safe refuge anywhere. The eastern part of Khan Younis is now taken over by the Israeli military and there is a lot of heavy fighting there. The main north-to-south road is now occupied with heavy fighting as well. Even if you successfully reach Rafah, there is no temporary shelter, no food, no water. That’s why people are deciding to stay here in Khan Younis – at least it’s better than the unknown.” In addition to the bombings and shootings, Israel is using starvation to drive the people of Gaza out.

The plan is to force Egyptian president al Sisi to allow the residents of Gaza to enter Egypt, from which they will not be allowed to return and then to incorporate Gaza into Israel itself. But al Sisi may not ever agree. But Israel is proceeding as if they will succeed. Now, an Israeli development company is advertising beachfront land for sale in Gaza. Biden and his government are opposed to this, but what does that matter? He, and Obama before him, have opposed the continuing construction of settlements in the West Bank. Their “opposition” meant nothing whatsoever. It is the same this time. Netanyahu told the Knesset, “We will remain in Gaza as long as is necessary.” We can be sure that “necessary” is the same as “indefinitely” for Netanyahu. As for Biden’s pressure, Netanyahu said, “Ben-Gurion was a distinguished leader, but in the end, he surrendered to American pressure. A prime minister who can’t stand up to American pressure shouldn’t enter the Prime Minister’s Office.”

“Greater Israel”

Meanwhile, expulsion of Palestinians is under way in the West Bank. Even before Oct. 7, Israeli forces had killed 243 Palestinians in the West Bank this year. Al Jazeera reports that since then, an additional 240 were killed and a total of 12, 769 injured in the year by the IOF or by settlers (who often are one and the same). Although statistics are difficult to come by, there are reports of Palestinians being forced to evacuate entire villages as well as individual homes in the West Bank. Nor will it automatically stop there. Israeli politicians like Itamar Ben Gvir are descendants of Meir Kahane. He and others proposed a “Greater Israel” that includes parts of Lebanon, Jordan and Syria, Iraq and Egypt.

The Nazi Holocaust started with forced deportations. Two factors forced them to start on the death camps. The first was when the Nazis invaded Poland and the Soviet Union, where the majority of European Jews lived. They were far too many to deport. Hitler reportedly planned to murder them all only after the war. The beginning of military reversals – specifically the Soviet counter offensive – and the entry of the United States forced Hitler to step up his timeline.

How far Israel will be able to go and how fast is unclear. What is clear is that a new Holocaust is in process. It’s not identical to what the Nazis did, but there enough similarities that it merits the term, just as “genocide” does.

Israeli journalist Amira Hass asks how the majority of Israelis can be so uncaring to the suffering of Gazan children like these.

War fever and all that goes with it is sweeping Israel. Amira Hass recently wrote a column in the Israeli daily Haaretz, in which she asked: “The Gaza Strip is gradually being erased, along with its families, its people, its children, their smiles and laughter. What enables the majority of Jewish Israelis to support this systematic and mass erasure?…. What enables the majority of Jewish Israelis to remain unshocked by the fact that in about two months we’ve killed around 7,000 children (a provisional figure) with the help of America’s improved bombs?

“What enables most of the Jews not to gasp in horror at the crowding of 1.8 million or 1.9 million people into about 120 square kilometers (46 square miles), a “safe area” that’s constantly being bombed? What’s preventing those Jewish Israelis from screaming when they hear about the thirst and hunger of 2.2 million Palestinian civilians and the diseases spreading due to the crowding, the water shortage and the out-of-action hospitals?” She concludes that the attitude “is being “is being reflected in expulsion, disguised as voluntary under the shelling. It’s being reflected in the physical erasure of the Gazans, and in plans to return Jewish settlers to Gaza. Woe to them and woe to us.” 

As this is being written, it seems that the Houthis may have succeeded in shutting down shipping through the Red Sea, meaning through the Suez Canal. Will the US then become directly involved militarily? If so, this may mean a military conflagration throughout SWANA. That has direct bearing on a possible Israeli-inflicted Holocaust. Hitler’s original plan for murdering all European Jews was to delay that until Germany won WW II. Then it became clear that the path to victory would not be so easy. The Red Army started its counteroffensive in the Soviet Union and also the United States entered the war. This caused Hitler to advance his timetable and start on the mass slaughter immediately. As for Israel: They already are encountering difficulties. Middle East Eye reports that as of Dec. 9, over 5,000 Israeli soldiers have been wounded in Gaza, some of them very seriously. Of course, that is nothing compared to the mass murder of Gazans, but Israel is unaccustomed to taking any serious number of casualties. It is one thing to slaughter Gazans from artillery and something entirely different to engage in urban fighting, in which about a 20% casualty rate can be expected. If a huge regional conflagration erupts, and if Netanyahu (and possibly Biden) cannot convince al Sisi to allow the people of Gaza to enter Egypt, it cannot be ruled out that Israel could actually intensify its artillery attacks on Gaza as well as its move to starve the people to death. This would necessarily be followed by accelerated ethnic cleansing of the West Bank and, in fact, serious steps in that direction in Israel itself.

What effects would this have on domestic politics in the United States? What does it mean for the opposition to US support for Israel? In fact, what actually are the attitudes regarding that support? In the coming day or two, we will discuss that aspect of the question.