Israel, Stop Killing Children in Gaza - Opinion - Haaretz.com
The first was on May 9, celebrated as Victory in Europe Day, when Nazi Germany surrendered to Allied forces. I stood at the podium and spoke, as I do every year, about the historical lessons we must remember especially on this day; about the victory of life over the killing machine, about the defeat of the murderous, racist, anti-humanist ideology and about the moral test we are failing today: the killing of thousands of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, among them tens of thousands of children.
I stated a simple fact: Innocent, helpless children are being killed, not "terrorists" and not "human shields." Children.
Small human beings, flesh and blood. According to United Nations figures, 18,000 children have been buried alive or burned to death; many more are sick, starving or blown up by bombs or buried under rubble every day, every night.
- Israeli incitement to genocide in Gaza goes mainstream
- Will not one Israeli say: end the war for Gaza's sake?
- What will it take for Israelis to acknowledge the suffering in Gaza?
The Knesset was in an uproar. When I finished speaking, MK Michal Woldiger (Religious Zionism) – from the heart of the governing coalition, not its political margins – stood up and replied: "What is being done in Gaza, it's a pity that worse isn't done. There are no innocents. Yes, children should be killed. Because they serve as a human shield."
The second scene took place on May 21, when my party colleague MK Ayman Odeh (Hadash-Ta'al) was forcibly removed from the podium only because he said: "There is a limit to lies. Denying the Nakba" – when more than 700,000 Arabs fled or were expelled from their homes during Israel's 1947-49 War of Independence – "won't make it disappear. You don't understand that you look weak. A year and a half of war, 19,000 children killed, 53,000 inhabitants killed – and you don't have even a single political achievement. Only killing, only bombings, only war against civilians."
Pandemonium erupted and Knesset guards were called in to remove him from the stage – an event the likes of which I've seen only a few times during my Knesset career, most of them during this term. It appears that the more they deviate from the truth, the more they hate those who speak it – and their reactions intensify.
The sad truth is that with the exception of Yair Golan, who is not serving in the Knesset today, the only Jewish MK to condemn the killing of children in Gaza is Ofer Casif (Hadash-Ta'al).
Last week, too, after the terrible catastrophe of the Najjar family – the loss of nine children and severe injury of the father and the only surviving child, the 11-year-old Adam – not a word of condemnation was uttered. No demand to stop the horror was heard.
Yahya, 12, Eve, 9, Rival, 5, Sadeen, 3, Rakan, 10, Ruslan, 7, Jibran, 8, Luqman, 2, and Sedar, 7 months, were killed/murdered in a bombing carried out by an Israeli pilot – and on Sunday the father, Hamdi, died of his injuries – and life goes on.
In Israel this is the abnormal norm: open and proud support for murder of children is not a slip of the tongue; harsh statements that publicly support war crimes are spoken outright, openly and with pride.
Instead of arousing a public outcry demanding a cease-fire or at least expressing moral shock, these utterances earn a chuckle and sometimes backing in the form of deafening silence.
And absolutely, precisely, Golan's nearly banal statement that "a normal country doesn't kill babies as a hobby" is what has stirred up a public storm. Is there anyone who can say there is anything sane in killing babies?
In November 2023 Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wrote: "We have always fought bitter enemies who have risen up against us to destroy us. Equipped with strength of spirit and a just cause, we have stood determined against those who seek our lives.
The current fight against the murderers of 'Hamas' is another chapter in the generations-long story of our national resilience.'Remember what Amalek did to you.'"
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Knesset on Wednesday.Credit: Olivier Fitoussi
And recently he declared: "Our forces are capturing more and more areas in Gaza. At the culmination of this move, all the territories of the Gaza strip will be under Israel's security control." This is a statement contrary to the doctrine at the base of the international law prohibiting the occupation of territory by force.
In recent weeks, many cabinet members and lawmakers have openly expressed support for war crimes. In late February, Deputy Knesset Speaker MK Nissim Vaturi (Likud) said unhindered, in an interview with Radio Kol Barama, "Who is innocent in Gaza? Civilians went out and slaughtered people in cold blood. The children and women must be separated, and the adult [men] in Gaza must be killed. We are being too considerate."
He added: "Very soon we will turn Jenin [in the West Bank] into Gaza." MK Moshe Saada (Likud) said: "Yes, I'll starve Gazans, yes, this is our obligation; to impose a totally full blockade" (Haaretz, April 27).
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich (Religious Zionism) called to expel civilians from the Strip and promised: "We will destroy what remains of Gaza."
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir Otzma Yehudit) regularly declares that "There are no noncombatants" in Gaza, and justifies harming innocent civilians.
The support for war crimes, killing and forced expulsion is not limited to members of the coalition. Only last week, in a speech at a conference in New York, MK Benny Gantz (National Unity Party) did not miss the opportunity to mention "the unique opportunity to advance President Trump's plan for voluntary emigration."
Imagine for a moment that in some distant democracy, a member of parliament openly declares unreserved support for killing children. A statement like that would arouse a public outcry, impel a wave of protests, lead to condemnation and a demand for an investigation.
And here? Almost nothing. No headlines, no investigation, no public shock. On the contrary. A major media organization is distributing a "survey" for and against mass starvation and is normalizing the starvation of 2 million Gazans in front of the cameras.
Palestinians carry boxes and bags containing food and humanitarian aid packages delivered by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a U.S.-backed organization approved by Israel, in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, in May.Credit: Mariam Dagga/AP
Are you already identifying the processes? We are scraping the bottom of the slippery slope down which we have tumbled, at the end of which are ethnic cleansing, genocide, starvation, expulsion, extermination.
This is not about "background noise" on social media, nor remarks meant to satisfy the base, nor a "hobby," but rather official policy. A policy that is laundered and framed in terminology that legitimizes violence and slaughter. A policy that eradicates and crosses all moral boundaries.
A policy that has no limits, a policy of destruction and of the demolition of hundreds of homes in Arab communities within Israel, especially in the Negev.
The double standard is intensifying. The politicians who are leading the violent discourse attack those of us who warn, document and protest, accusing us of "incitement."
Delegitimization campaigns, shouting, threats, taunts, arrests, organized online attacks, physical assaults, profanity and many complaints to the Knesset Ethics Committee or the relevant professional associations.
The same committee that just last week ruled that Vaturi's repeated calls to "burn Gaza" are protected speech, remarks that "are of political nature and accurately reflect the Knesset member's ideology," although "they do not bring honor to the Knesset as an institution." The ruling confirms that any connection between ethics and the current Knesset simply does not exist.
All this is true all year long, but when someone allows themselves to justify killing children or a policy of starvation and expulsion precisely on the day commemorating the victory over the Nazis, it is a sign that the lesson has not been learned. This is cynical, manipulative exploitation of history, of the individual and the collective trauma. A historical and moral distortion.
And of course, there is also the grandfather of all lies, "the most moral army in the world." For what is less moral than an army that kills thousands of children and starves hundreds of thousands? "The most moral army in the world" is hollow, manipulative rhetoric aimed at creating an illusion in order to deaden the public's conscience and silence the criticism and the critics.
Whitewashing the language and using it to enlist the masses against a weakened and oppressed minority, to create indifference, which is enabling the horrors we are seeing, in real time.
From Primo Levi, who experienced the horrors on his own flesh, I learned: "We still possess one power, and we must defend it with all our strength for it is the last – the power to refuse our consent."
I myself refuse to become accustomed. We refuse to remain silent. We refuse to accept this conception and this hollow politics: We refuse to normalize the violence. Each and every one of us is a partner. And each and every one of us has the ability to refuse.
The calls for genocide and war crimes and extermination isn't a 'hobby,' but rather official policy that also has support in the opposition.
Ahmad Tibi is a member of Knesset and the chair of the Ta'al party.