Netanyahu is a criminal. It doesn't even need a court or trial to give proof of it. He should be arrested and brought to account NOW. Indeed, it should have been done long ago.
Netanyahu has brought no kudos upon Israel. On the contrary, it is now in the eyes of any intelligent, rational, compassionate and objective appraisal, a rogue state and, if we are to use the inordinately biased, discriminatory and loaded term, terrorist at all, Israel is now a terrorist state.
My experience and observation of world conflicts has long been that they are brought about almost exclusively as a result of a single or small group of individuals and that the majority of those who fight and suffer have little appetite for the conflict and would not have chosen or started it, if they were in a position of power. I have, therefore, whenever in the past commenting on such conflicts, focused my criticism on those 'at the top' or 'pulling the strings' as it were.
Tragically, there is a major difference in the Israeli v Palestinian conflict and the genocide taking place in Gaza and increasingly on the illegally settled West Bank.
The difference to which I refer is that polls show that, regardless of protests against Netanyahu, the majority of Israeli civilians have supported this genocidal assault and probably still do. Indeed, illegal Israeli settlers on the West Bank constantly attack Palestinians without any provocation, have burned their orchards, destroyed their crops, assaulted adults and children and even destroyed their homes — all the while, with the IDF and Israeli police watching on and doing nothing to intervene.
That is why, now, whilst accepting that there will be exceptions, i.e. Israeli citizens and individuals in the Jewish diaspora who disagree and oppose the actions of the IDF in civilian massacre, the majority continue to excuse it, absurdly justify it as 'self-defense' and claim that Hamas caused it.
In fact, the root cause lies in colonialism, a British breaking of a promise to the Arabs, the Balfour declaration and the giving in of England and allies, includings (after some persuasion) the US, to Zionists resulting in the partitioning of Palestine and creation of the State of Israel.
That decision was made without the involvement of any Palestinian representatives and with the perfidious claim that there were only a very small number of Palestinians in the partitioned territory. In fact, Palestinians were more than 90% of the population but were allocated just a small area of what had been their land for at least 400 years prior to the war with the Ottomans.
What followed was an immediate dispossession of around 750,000 Palestinians and subsequently, over the following decades, increasingly perniciously draconian restrictions on Palestinians that severely impeded their development, ability to live safely, opportunity to engage and trade with the rest of the World or to move freely.
No reasonable person condones the actions of Hamas fighters on 7th October 2023. Those responsible and those involved are guilty of human rights abuses and ought to be brought to account. However, the impact of occupation, restriction and persecution over 70 years cannot be ignored in considering how Palestinians were brought to such extreme measures, though as I've said, that does not excuse them - it does make them somewhat understandable.
If a police-officer breaks your arm when you are not offering any resistance, they will almost certainly be charged with the use of excessive force and, at least discipline if not charged with assault or some such.
If police-officers suspect that a criminal is hiding in your house and throw in grenades in order to kill that criminal, also killing other occupants half of whom are children, one would expect an uproar of outrage that would consume the media and cause mass protests for days, weeks or months. Unless there was some corrupt cover-up, those responsible would certainly be prosecuted and punished.
Yet, Israeli forces, at the command of Netanyahu and his erstwhile 'war cabinet' have used tanks, artillery, drones, and even fighter bombers to lay waste to probably 90% of Gaza. They have killed over 37,000 Palestinians including around 17,000 children. They have targeted ambulances, hospitals, schools, aid convoys, journalists, United Nations workers and more - quite deliberately if video footage and first hand witness accounts are to be believed.
No sensible, intelligent and rational individual of conscience can justify this or suggest that it is not 'excessive force'.
No compassionate person can stand by and make clever arguments as to why this is 'Just' and/or necessary.
The USA has both financed and provided modern weapons to Israel for many years. That is as it may be. However, for the US to continue to supply arms and funds to Israel after witnessing even a few weeks of its actions, let alone months of ignoring United Nations resolutions and decisions of the ICC and ICJ, the US administration's rhetoric is nothing more than hypocritical distortion. It is false and misleading and no matter how many visits by envoys it sends to supposedly attempt to bring about an end to this conflict will not change the fact that it is complicit.
Netanyahu must be removed and prosecuted.
The US must stop any further aid to Israel
The apologists for Israel ought to tell the truth
And
Netanyahu ought to get real - if the US has begun to withhold weapons or any other aid then it is not before time. They ought to have done so months, if not years ago. A blind eye to Israel's inhumanity has been turned for far too long.
This conflict is not about anti-semitism or terrorism or justice - it is about political convenience and strategic advantages, none of which justify the indiscriminate slaughter of innocent civilians who were, in any case, mostly living in refugee camps at little more than subsistence level.
SOMEONE SHOULD STOP THIS NOW - IF FORCE IS TO BE USED, IT SHOULD BE TO ARREST NETANYAHU AND ANY OTHER LEADER WHO CHOOSES TO ORDER FURTHER VIOLENCE.
