Israel Defends Its Right to Commit Genocide

Israel maintains its deniability, but is there any doubt that it was behind the drone attack against a ship carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza on May 2, 2025 off the coast of Malta? Israel was delivering a statement to the Gaza Freedom Flotilla and the defenders of human rights everywhere, that Israel will not be denied the territory of Gaza, emptied of the more than 2 million Palestinian inhabitants living there on October 8, 2023. The current plan clearly is to dispose of them through starvation, disease and exposure, which will make the tens of thousands killed directly by bombs, drones, bullets and other weapons pale by comparison.

The contents of the ship, if it had delivered its cargo, would have made only the smallest dent in Israel’s plan. But Israel stands on principle – namely that it has the right to slaughter as many Palestinians and other non-Jews as it wants in order to grab the territory it covets (and, not incidentally, the vast oil and gas fields off its coast), and to assure a demographically Jewish result in that territory. Never mind how many men, women and children are eradicated, or how horribly they die.

Of course, Israel has always expressed the willingness to have the Palestinians shipped elsewhere: Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Somalia…who cares, but preferably away from Israel’s borders. But whatever country participates in such a plan will be forever stigmatized for collaborating in genocide. And what country or countries would welcome the forcible entry of such a population? That’s why there are no takers. In any case, Israel seems content to wipe them off the face of the earth, which is more permanent. Furthermore, the United States is a powerful partner in this project, with few if any apparent qualms.

Is there anything the international community can do to stop the crime of the century? Of course. But no amount of UN resolutions, ICJ injunctions or other legal actions will be obeyed. Neither will suspension of diplomatic or economic relations, as long as Israel’s big brother, the US, provides them with everything they need, especially the weaponry. The entire world can completely isolate Israel, as long as that isolation does not include the United States, and as long as the people of the United States do no more than demonstrate, write letters, make phone calls and vote in elections for two parties that compete with each other for how much support they can give to Israel.

What can be done to change the outcome? The aid ship is the right idea, but it would require a thousand aid ships or more. Another would be a national general strike in the US, but neither the consensus nor the organization exists for such an effort in a country that has never seen a national general strike. A vote boycott directed against the two major parties might have the desired effect, but that also is exceedingly unlikely, and in any case too slow. How about attacks against Israeli interests abroad, such as the ones against the Israeli arms manufacturer, Elbit, in the UK and the blocking of Israeli ships in Oakland, California? Perhaps, but it would have to be carried out worldwide and be nearly seamless, which is also difficult to imagine.

I do not have the answer, but it is hard to escape the conclusion that humanity seems doomed to place the worst among us into positions of leadership. How else do we explain that nearly the entire voting public in the US and most Western countries voted for candidates that supported the military and economic aid to Israel, even as it was conducting its genocide?

In the years to come, how will we answer the question “What did you do to stop the Gaza genocide, Grandma?”

The post Israel Defends Its Right to Commit Genocide first appeared on Dissident Voice.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Paul Larudee.