War on Gaza: How Israel relies on foreign fighters to carry out its war crimes
30 April 2024
Thousands of people from countries around the world have joined the war against Palestinians
Israeli soldiers walk near the border with Gaza Strip in southern Israel on 12 March, 2024 (AFP)
The US recently threatened to impose sanctions on Netzah Yehuda, an Israeli army unit established around 25 years ago to integrate ultra-Orthodox men into the military.
While the prospect of sanctions against this unit might appear to be a
positive development, there are concerns that the move aims to improve
the overall image of the army as a law-abiding force, as Washington
continues to provide financial, military and intelligence support to
Israel's war machine.
As the war on Gaza
has continued for more than six months, Israeli soldiers have flooded
the internet with photos and videos of themselves stealing from the
homes of Palestinians, wearing the lingerie of dead or displaced women, riding stolen bicycles, and boasting of attacks on civilian infrastructure. Even the army’s top lawyer concluded they had crossed a “criminal threshold”.
Since the war began last October, Israeli forces have killed
more than 34,500 Palestinians, 72 percent of whom were women and
children. The army’s deliberate and systematic killing of Palestinian
civilians, along with the weaponisation of food and water, has few
precedents in the context of modern warfare.
Even after the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to prevent acts of genocide, soldiers continued as if nothing had happened. Why?
When the Israeli army was created, terrorist Zionist organisations such as Haganah, Palmach and Irgun, among others, formed its backbone. The state of Israel was born out of large-scale terrorist operations by Zionist groups, with the aim of occupying Palestinian lands.
David Ben-Gurion, who later became Israel’s first prime minister, summed this policy up by writing in 1937: “We must expel Arabs and take their place.”
'Tremendous operation'
David Charters, a professor of military history, has asserted
that Zionist terrorism in 1940s Palestine “was both tactically and
strategically significant … [and] created the conditions that
facilitated both the founding of Israel and the creation of an
Arab-Palestinian diaspora”.
Among the atrocities committed by Zionist groups against the
Palestinian people, with the aim of large-scale displacement and land
seizure, was the Deir Yassin massacre.
In the 2017 documentary Born in Deir Yassin,
former Haganah member Meir Pail detailed how Zionist militias massacred
Palestinian civilians, including women and children. In one of the
historical documents revealed in the documentary, Yehuda Feder,
a member of the Lehi paramilitary group, boasted proudly of executing
girls with a machine gun and looting their village: “This was a really
tremendous operation, and it is with reason that the left is vilifying
us again.”
All these categories of foreign fighters enjoy full impunity, which
perhaps explains why some have been behaving in such a cruel, reckless
manner
Like tens of thousands of Zionists who came to Palestine as refugees from Europe and elsewhere, Feder was
a Jew from Poland. After Lehi was dismantled, he joined the Israeli
army, and from 1986-94, he served as chairman of the Likud branch in
Jerusalem.
In April 2001, he was reportedly given the “Jerusalem Notable
Citizen” award. This is just one example of foreign terrorist fighters
who created the Israeli army later being rewarded for their massacres.
The longstanding practice of absorbing foreign fighters is still
active in the Israeli army today, including a significant American
component. According to the Israeli army,
more than 23,000 US citizens currently serve in Israeli ranks; in fact
around 10 percent of the army’s fatal casualties since the invasion of
Gaza have reportedly been American.
Last December, a French lawmaker revealed that more than 4,000 French citizens have been embedded in the Israeli army during the war in Gaza. There are also reportedly up to 1,000 Australians, 1,000 Italians and 400 Indians. Britain, Germany, Canada, Russia, Ukraine, Finland and South Africa, among others, also constitute a source of foreign fighters for Israel.
Ideological indoctrination
In addition, the army recruits volunteers to assist with tasks such
as packing medical supplies and preparing combat meals, with
organisations like Sar-El bringing in thousands of volunteers from dozens of countries worldwide. The minimum age for volunteering is 16.
Such programmes expose volunteers to ideological indoctrination,
aiming to strengthen the bond between them, Israel and its army.
Another programme to enlist foreign volunteers, Mahal, was initially founded
decades ago when volunteers from around the world came to help the
Haganah, and later the Israeli army. In addition, the Lone Soldiers programme
provides support for “highly motivated” fighters who have no family in
Israel. So-called lone soldiers, of whom there are more than 7,000, earn
twice the regular monthly salary. According to Israeli army estimates, 35 percent of them are from the US. In 2020, nine percent of the 'lone soldiers' in the Israeli military were from Canada.
The most controversial category of foreign recruits, however, are
mercenaries hired through contractors. There have been reports of mercenaries fighting in the Gaza war, including videos and images suggesting that American mercenaries have been operating alongside the Israeli army.
Just like Israeli soldiers, all these categories of foreign fighters
enjoy full impunity, which perhaps explains why some have been behaving
in such a cruel and reckless manner, bragging about their crimes online
and publishing evidence of them violating various rules of war.
Indeed, despite widespread protests against such activities, only South Africa has expressed a serious willingness to pursue criminal penalties.
In previous cases, nationals of western countries who travelled to
fight against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, for
example, were investigated, penalised, criminalised, and jailed, even if
their activities were limited to fundraising rather than actual combat
operations against the Assad forces.
Beyond the obvious double standards applied here, the impunity
granted for foreign fighters joining the Israeli army will result in
severe consequences for the Palestinian civilians if these fighters
remain and for internal security back home if they return to their
country of origin.
The situation risks motivating those foreign fighters to be further
involved in unethical, illegal, and criminal activities. This could
include participating in combat operations that result in killing more
civilians, being stationed in occupied territories, living in
settlements, or participating in the ongoing genocidal war against the
Palestinian people.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do
not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.