Comments this week by the Israeli finance minister about starvation were seen as an “explicit admission of adopting and bragging about the policy of genocide.”
International Criminal Court at The Hague in the Netherlands. (Vysotsky, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0)
By Edward Carver
Common Dreams
The Palestinian foreign ministry has called on the International Criminal Court to issue an arrest warrant for Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich after he suggested this week that it might be “justified and moral” to cause 2 million Palestinian civilians to starve to death until Hamas returns Israeli hostages.
The prosecutor of the ICC, based in The Hague, Netherlands, has already sought arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as for Hamas leaders.
The foreign ministry, a branch of the Palestinian Authority, which has partial control over the Israeli-occupied West Bank, condemned Smotrich’s remarks, calling them an “explicit admission of adopting and bragging about the policy of genocide.”
“The ministry further affirmed that such [a] statement is considered a direct disregard for international legitimacy decisions and international consensus on protecting civilians and securing their basic humanitarian needs,” a ministry statement said on Thursday, according to Al Jazeera.
Israel’s finance minister has suggested that starving 2 million people in #Gaza “might be justified and moral.”
The world is rightly outraged – and should also be reminded this is the Israeli government’s current policy.
Read @astroehlein’s Daily Brief: https://t.co/nCEWx6vSN2 pic.twitter.com/P0DxMgvHgq
— Human Rights Watch (@hrw) August 8, 2024
The controversy arose because of comments Smotrich, a far-right politician, made about humanitarian aid at a conference on Monday.
“We bring in aid because there is no choice,” he said. “We can’t, in the current global reality, manage a war. Nobody will let us cause 2 million civilians to die of hunger, even though it might be justified and moral, until our hostages are returned.”
Critics argued that Smotrich’s remarks conveyed not only indifference to Palestinian suffering and death but also, more specifically, an attempt to justify Israel’s documented practice of blocking or disrupting aid from reaching the Gaza Strip.
Our Minister of Finance and Minister within the Ministry of Defense, Bezalel Smotrich, in his own words:
“Nobody will allow us to let 2 million civilians die of hunger, even though it might be justified and moral until our hostages are returned.”
All the way to The Hague. https://t.co/6KhOsG8rmO
— Peace Now (@peacenowisrael) August 5, 2024
Human rights groups say that Israel has obstructed aid during its 10-month siege of the enclave, which has killed many tens of thousands of Palestinians and displaced the vast majority of the population. Some groups have accused Israel of using starvation as a “weapon of war,” which is a war crime.
United Nations’ experts warned earlier this month that Gazans faced famine due to an “intentional and targeted starvation campaign against the Palestinian people,” calling the obstruction of aid “a form of genocidal violence.”
In his Monday remarks, Smotrich went on to imply that Israel only allows in aid at all as a matter of public relations.
“We live today in a certain reality, we need international legitimacy for this war,” he said.
Smotrich’s remarks provoked widespread international condemnation.
Jeremy Laurence, a spokesperson for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, said on Friday that U.N. human rights chief Volker Türk was “shocked and appalled” by Smotrich’s comments, warning that such remarks could incite war crimes and hatred toward innocent civilians.
Laurence also suggested that public statements such as Smotrich’s could themselves be criminal and should be investigated and prosecuted if appropriate.
Türk, U.N.high commissioner for Human rights, addressing the General Assembly in December 2023. (UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe)
Officials from the European Union, France, Germany, Egypt, and the United Kingdom each issued strongly critical statements about Smotrich’s remarks, characterizing them as, for example, “appalling” and “beyond ignominious,” and calling for Israel to respect international law regarding humanitarian aid.
Even Israel’s strongest diplomatic ally and main weapons supplier, the United States, apparently could not abide Smotrich’s remarks.
“We are appalled by these comments and reiterate that this rhetoric is harmful and disturbing,” a U.S. State Department spokesperson told The Times of Israel.
Edward Carver is a staff writer for Common Dreams.
This article is from Common Dreams.
Views expressed in this article and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
” we are appalled at these comments…”
this sounds like Mr vedant patel, who never seems to be appalled at the level of cruelty, death and destruction Israel does
Jesus christ!
I’ve been boycotting all things Israeli, amongst others, since the late 80’s and have never looked back.
I urge everyone to make the sacrifice of no longer using Israeli products – it’s exactly how we, as a global collective of rational and outraged minds, managed to put an end to apartheid in Africa.
It can be hard for us coddled Westerners, conditioned towards avarice and brand-names, to fully boycott something that owns or profits from much of what we consume and may have come to rely on(coffee can be a tough one for example), which is why it can feel like a sacrifice but then nothing is free, not even freedom.
To exact meaningful change without physically going over there and getting your hands dirty, sacrificing some personal preferences from the comfort of your home is literally all it can take to change the world and could be the best thing you could ever do to help end this ongoing campaign of genocide.
I can’t think of a better, tried & tested way for the ‘powerless’ to fight against human evil.
Re: Coffee. I haven’t seen coffee as a product on the BDS target list. If you have concerns in general about the sources of coffee, a good program to look for is Equal Exchange. They offer coffee, chocolate and other products from ethical sources. They even offer olive oil from a Palestinian source.
Re: BDS in general. Watch out when you buy fresh vegetables. One of my family members brought home a bag of fresh bell peppers, which was sourced in “Israel”.
Chiquita bananas are sourced in Central America, but, should be boycotted as well, if you care about justice.
@platopus
@nyah
boycotts are one thing.
and yes, they did help bring S.A. apartheid down.
seen in a larger context, they’re just drops in oceans.
FAIR trade and free market policies that deserve
their name are among long-term remedies.
but THAT can’t be.
given that some nations are more equal than others.
the global north [plus israel], for their permanent comfort,
need all the resources the global south has to offer:
cheap labor, raw materials, minerals, rare earths, water and
huge swaths of land for military bases, for monocultures,
and as dumps for the endless amounts of waste produced
by the insatiably affluent …
Excellent points!
Especially the fact that it appears our ?e?f?f?l?u?e?n?t? affluent societies can only function by exploiting poorer/weaker nations and stealing, rather than trading for, their valuable resources.
Having everything, at the expence of everyone.
It’s not a model that inspires a sense longivity, that’s for sure.
Thanks for the good advice, I’ll certainly be looking to source some olive oil from Palestine now!
Re: BDS, I’d be incredibly surprised if they didn’t have all the Nestlé coffee brands on their list. Surprised and then very mistrustful of ’em. Nestlé are one of the worst.
Sadly, when it comes to quality coffee usually the most expensive is the closest one can get to ‘ethical coffee’ and it’s a lot of cash for just a small jar. Due to this most people I know just conveniently forget to boycott coffee. I understand why, so I don’t hold it against them. Coffee’s an addictive drug and far too many people, whilst their intentions may be good, are simply too easily led and weak-willed to change the consumer habits deliberately conditioned into them over their lifetime.
Israel and the Western governments that support it should be boycotted and sanctioned by the whole world until they turn over their leaders to stand trial for genocide. There is no other solution. They do not respect international law.
I agree 100%.
You write:
“The prosecutor of the ICC, based in The Hague, Netherlands, has already sought arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as for Hamas leaders. ”
Of the three Hamas leaders, whom you do not mention, Haniyeh and Dief are already dead – assassinated by Israel. Israel has threatened to assassinate Sinwar, the third Hamas leader with an ICC arrest warrant.
Thanks for reminding them about this.