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(LifeSiteNews) — A former Israeli Defense Chief has joined his voice to many who have charged Israel with committing international war crimes, specifically “ethnic cleansing” against the Palestinian people in Gaza.
Moshe Yaalon, who served as both Israel’s military chief of staff (2002-2005) and Minister of Defense under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (2013-2016), denounced the latter’s current government for the conduct of its army in the besieged strip during an event on Saturday.
“The path they’re dragging us down is to occupy, annex, and ethnically cleanse — look at the northern strip,” he said.
According to the New York Times, Yaalon also said the government was moving towards building Jewish settlements in Gaza, an objective being advanced by far-right politicians in Netanyahu’s government.
When an interviewer asked the former military chief to clarify if he thought Israel was on the way to executing the crime of ethnic cleansing, he responded, “Why on the way? What’s happening there?”
“There’s no Beit Lahia. There’s no Beit Hanoun. They’re now operating in Jabaliya. They’re basically cleaning the territory of Arabs,” he said, referring to various towns and cities which have suffered renewed decimating ethnic cleansing attacks in northern Gaza.
READ: Americans must wake up to the dangers of religious Zionists inciting violence in the Middle East
Following a barrage of scathing criticism for his remarks by a variety of Israeli political figures, Yaalon gave an interview to Israel’s Channel 12 on Sunday and doubled-down on his comments.
“What I said accurately reflects what’s happening on the ground,” he affirmed, going on to characterize his statements as “simply a mirror held up to many statements made by those in the government.”
He also charged Netanyahu with exposing Israeli commanders to lawsuits at the International Criminal Court (ICC) while at the same time putting their lives at risk.
“I’m speaking in the name of IDF commanders who are operating in the northern strip,” Mr. Yaalon told the Reshet Bet radio station. “They reached out to me expressing fear about what’s happening there.”
Later in the interview he said, in apparent reference to the Netanyahu government, “At the end of the day, they’re perpetrating war crimes.”
Yaalon ‘served as a bulwark’ against ‘extremism, violence and racism’ in Israeli society
In a Monday interview with Judge Andrew Napolitano, former U.S. Marines Officer, author, and military commentator, Scott Ritter said Yaalon is “a very serious man” with a decorated career, also including being the former head of Israeli Military Intelligence (1995-1998).
Knowing him personally, Ritter explained how as a political insider, having successfully worked in governance with Netanyahu in the past, “he is not a dove either,” but like most Likud Party members “he is hawkish” against regional rivals such as Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas.
“And when Moshe Yaalon says that Israel is committing war crimes, and he is a hawk, that means Israel has gone way overboard beyond anything that could remotely be tolerated or excused,” he said.
READ: The West cannot hide’: Compelling documentary presents Israel’s ‘live stream genocide’ in Gaza
Described in 2016 as a “center-right” leader who “has served as a bulwark against the most extreme populist sentiments,” Yaalon resigned from his role as Defense Minister under Netanyahu at that time stating, “I fought with all my might against phenomena of extremism, violence and racism in Israeli society that threaten its fortitude.” He additionally warned that these forces “are trickling into” the military and expressed “sincere worry for the future of Israeli society and future generations” due to these movements.
READ: Inside the rise of an Israeli faction seeking to provoke Armageddon
‘Horrors’ in the Gaza Strip break through on Israeli television, confirm starvation agenda
Now, eight years later, he lamented the presence in the government of Jewish supremacist lawmakers such as National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Betzalel Smotritch, who have repeatedly declared their intentions to build Jewish settlements in Gaza.
And with the ICC issuing arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former defense chief Yoav Gallant two weeks ago, Yaalon added that had he been making the decision, these same warrants would have been issued to these two men as well.
READ: ICC issues arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former defense chief
The ICC charges against Netanyahu and Gallant include “the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.” The case also details their “intentional … impeding [of] humanitarian aid in violation of international humanitarian law” – a reference to the blockade of aid into Gaza.
“Both individuals intentionally and knowingly deprived the civilian population in Gaza of objects indispensable to their survival, including food, water, and medicine and medical supplies, as well as fuel and electricity,” the warrant reads.
READ: Israel’s Zionist ideology the ‘principal cause’ of the war in the Middle East: eminent scholar
One Jewish journalist at the Israeli publication Haaretz suggested on Wednesday that Yaalon’s warning of “ethnic cleansing” in Gaza indicated a type of miracle since he is perceived as a “right-wing” leader associated with the Likud Party.
As if to confirm his statements, journalist Yasmin Levy also hailed a breakthrough from the “self-censorship” of the Israeli press with one channel being willing to show a three-minute report from CNN revealing a bit of the “horrors” taking place in the Strip: “women being crushed among the hungry masses storming the line for bread distribution.”
רציתם לדעת על מה דיבר בוגי יעלון?
מה זה הרעבה?
כיצד ילדים נמעכים למוות בתור ללחם?
מה מסתירים מכם בערוצי התקשורת בישראל בכוונת מכוון?
הנה כתבת CNN מהיום.
האג שמח!
3 דקות.קרדיט: Roni Harel pic.twitter.com/dQ7MYdtw75
— ש𝕏ולי 🎗️🏳️🌈 Sh𝕏uLi (@Shaulirena) December 2, 2024
“Viewing helpless women crying out from hunger – with some of them crushed to death in their desperate attempt to get out with a bit of flour – one can’t be surprised” that the ICC issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant, she wrote.
Despite denials, Israel ethnically cleansing Gaza with ‘starvation, disease’ ‘bombardments and gunfire’
Allies of the government responded forcefully to Yaalon’s comments asserting that his charges of ethnic cleansing were a malicious falsehood.
“Yaalon already lost his way a long time ago,” said a statement from the Likud party. “His defamatory words are a prize for the International Criminal Court and the haters of Israel camp. Israel is fighting back against a murderous terrorist group that carried out mass slaughter.”
Gallant, who explicitly ordered the genocidal siege on Gaza in October of last year, said on Sunday that Yaalon’s statements were “a lie that aids our enemy and harms Israel.”
The Israeli army (IDF) denied Yaalon’s charge of ethnic cleansing, claiming it is “acting in accordance with international law, and evacuating the population temporarily in accordance with operational need, for its defense.”
Despite the denials, human rights groups such as B’Tselem have maintained since October that Israel appears to be carrying out a version of the so-called “generals’ plan” to ethnically cleanse northern Gaza by subjecting Palestinian families to “starvation, disease without access to medical care and incessant bombardments and gunfire” to force their evacuation, all while leveling their residences.
READ: Congress has no right to force the heresy of Christian Zionism upon faithful Catholics
A November 29 article by the BBC further corroborates these assertions, reporting that “Satellite images and videos show that hundreds of buildings have been demolished (in Gaza) between the Mediterranean Sea and the Israel border, mostly through controlled explosions.”
Additionally, the IDF has created a new corridor in Gaza which analysts believe has the purpose of dividing the strip into sections to facilitate military control, and in particular, as a means of preventing Palestinian civilians from ever returning to what is left of their homes in the north.
Yaalon: Israel’s extremist government ‘Mein Kampf in reverse’
And while the Israeli military has stumbled in their attempts to maintain a public perception of this forced displacement of Palestinians—a war crime—as only being temporary, these fellow ministers of Netanyahu’s Likud Party have been explicit about their support for such expulsion and the building of Jewish settlements in the internationally recognized Palestinian territory.
After asserting in August that it would be “right and moral” to starve the two million Palestinians (1 million children) in Gaza “to death,” Finance Minister Smotrich recently proposed his further ethnic cleansing plans by creating “a situation where Gaza’s population in two years will be less than half its current size.”
READ: Expelling the Palestinian people has always been a goal of Zionism
Furthermore, while Netanyahu has previously claimed his plans for Gaza did not include expulsion of the Palestinians and building Jewish settlements in the strip, reports in the Israeli press late last year indicated he was looking for nations to “absorb” the Palestinian population.
And reports from Sunday quote Ben Gvir as saying Netanyahu is showing “openness” to the idea of expelling the Palestinians from Gaza.
READ: Col. Macgregor: The ‘top priority’ for Israel is to make Gaza ‘unlivable,’ expel all survivors
Yaalon, who has been warning for years about the grave dangers of the radical religious Zionism espoused by these extremist ministers, gave an interview in March 2023 where he framed this movement’s perils with the sharpest irony.
“When you talk about Smotrich and Ben Gvir,” he said at the time, their ideology of racial subjugation is a concept that “rests on Jewish supremacy: Mein Kampf in reverse.”
70 thousand Palestinians trapped in northern #Gaza face starvation, extermination in one of the largest genocidal campaigns in modern historyhttps://t.co/QK8hFKETlB
— Euro-Med Monitor (@EuroMedHR) December 5, 2024
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U.S. citizens: Tell U.S. Senate to reject new ‘anti-terrorism’ bill