BACBI: Israeli War Crimes

In contemporary Israel, the idea of the universal mission of the Jewish people has morphed into something else – and all in the name of the Jews’ supposed moral supremacy.

Israel’s late 1947 -1948 “War of Independence” took six months to create a new Jewish state, excluding Arabs to the greatest extent possible. To accomplish it, widespread war crimes and atrocities were committed as about 800,000 people were brutally uprooted, ethnically cleansed, or murdered in cold blood. In addition, 531 villages and 11 urban neighborhoods in Tel-Aviv, Haifa, Jerusalem and other cities were destroyed and erased except in the collective memories of their inhabitants and descendants who’ll always consider them their rightful homes.

...The possible crimes most important to investigate, from both legal and moral perspectives, do not involve decisions by gunship pilots or squad leaders to attack particular targets. They involve decisions by the political and military leadership of Israel, setting the strategic goals of the conflict and choosing the means and methods by which those goals would be sought. If, as available evidence suggests, those political and strategic choices, based on long-standing doctrine and declared policy, authorized and validated grave violations of the law, responsibility for the resulting violations should start with the leaders.