Smotrich's Comment on Starving 2 Million Palestinians is ‘Beyond Ignominious’: EU Diplomat
Borrell has said Hamas has been financed by the Israeli government in an attempt to weaken the Palestinian Authority
Josep Borrell, the EU’s top diplomat called on Israel to distance itself from recent comments from Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich – making the case that it could be justified to starve Palestinians.
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“Deliberate starvation of civilians is a war crime: Minister Smotrich advocating for it is beyond ignominious,” he posted on X. “We expect the IL government to distance itself from his words. And provide full account of the reported acts of torture in the Sde Teiman prison.”
(Borrell was also referring to allegations of a brutal rape committed by IDF troops on a Palestinian inmate.)
Smotrich – who owns Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – said Monday that starving 2 million Palestinians to death may be justified, but would be frowned on by the international community.
“We [Israel] bring in aid because there is no choice…We can’t, in the current global reality, manage a war. Nobody will let us cause 2 million civilians to die of hunger, even though it might be justified and moral, until our hostages are returned…We live today in a certain reality, we need international legitimacy for this war,” Smotrich said.
Smotrich also called for an immediate investigation into the leaked video of the rape. Common Dreams ran a headline: “Israeli Leaders Demand Probe of IDF Rape Video – to Find Out Who Leaked It.”
Smotrich called for “an immediate criminal investigation to locate the leakers of the trending video that was intended to harm the reservists and that caused tremendous damage to Israel in the world, and to exhaust the full severity of the law against them.”
This is not the first time that Borrel spoke out against Israel’s actions during the 10-month rampage in Gaza. In July, he condemned an Israeli attack on a Gaza school.
“How long are innocent civilians going to bear the brunt of this conflict?” he posted on X.
Borrell said in a speech in January that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been opposed to a two-state solution for 30 years, and it was Israel that created Hamas.
Borrell expressed dismay over Netanyahu’s comments that a two-state solution with the Palestinians is out of the question after the 7 October Hamas attack. He said Israel’s decision to reject the solution has “gone as far as to create Hamas themselves.”
“Yes, Hamas has been financed by the Israeli government in an attempt to weaken the Palestinian Authority led by Fatah,” he said, according to Euronews. He said Netanyahu, himself, has been boycotting the solution for 30 years.
TRENDPOST: Norman Finkelstein is one of the foremost scholars on Palestine. He said in an undated video that Netanyahu’s government needs a violent Hamas to maintain its effort to steal more land from the Palestinians.
“Of course, the last thing that Netanyahu wants is a reasonable Hamas,” he said. “That’s a disaster for Israel because the moment that Hamas starts to behave reasonably, then the pressure begins to be exerted on Israel, ‘Well, they’re being reasonable, why don’t you negotiate and end the conflict,’ which is the one thing Israel doesn’t want…not that it doesn’t want to end the conflict, it doesn’t want to end the occupation. And it needs an ‘extremist Hamas’ in order to justify its gradual absorption, its incremental annexation of the occupied Palestinian territories.”
Truth tellers are increasingly coming under attack by the US/Israel axis of evil. The NY home of one of America's foremost truth-tellers, Scott Ritter, a former Marine Major and US weapons inspector, was raided by the FBI and NY State police on August 7th, based on a search warrant regarding his potential violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). Electronic devices were the particular focus, with an eye to prying into his communications.
This is intended to have a chilling effect on speech in the United States.
On the evening of the raid, Ritter posted a statement on the raid. “Today, the U.S. government declared war on me,” he said.
Another truth-teller and Army Reserve Office, Tulsi Gabbard, has come under US government scrutiny. Former congresswoman, presidential pre-candidate, and DNC vice chair Tulsi Gabbard has confirmed to Matt Taibbi that she has been a victim of a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) program known as “Quiet Skies,” as first reported in Tracy Beanz’s publication UncoverDC on Aug. 4. It is one aspect of the security state apparatus ostensibly designed to stop terrorism, but more often used for political purposes.
Two weeks ago, Gabbard and her husband were repeatedly stopped for extensive additional security screening at every airport they passed through, their boarding passes marked with the “SSSS” designation of “Secondary Security Screening Selection.” The invasive searches (“they’re squeezing or patting down underwear, bras, workout clothes, every inch of every piece of clothing”) caused multiple delays of up to 45 minutes.
According to Gabbard, one TSA employee to whom Gabbard presented her military ID for identification, was shocked: “Why are you Quad-S? You’re in the military.” (Members of the military are supposed to receive access to TSA PreCheck security lines, which have less than usual security.)
The reason was her enlistment in a TSA program called “Quiet Skies” in which teams of multiple TSA agents and air marshals, most of them undercover, follow targets throughout airports and observe them on their flights.
UncoverDC reports that Sonya LaBosco, Executive Director of the Air Marshal National Council, told them that “Gabbard is unaware she has two Explosive Detection Canine Teams, one Transportation Security Specialist (explosives), one plainclothes TSA Supervisor, and three Federal Air Marshals on every flight she boards.”
LaBosco told Taibbi there are “potentially 15 or more TSA uniformed and plain clothes” at a gate for such assignments.
Is there a legitimate security reason to subject Gabbard, a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve, to such treatment? Is she really going to hijack an airplane? The purpose of such harassment—also meted out to those involved in the events of January 6, sometimes even only tangentially—is transparently political.
These two actions taken by the US federal government, conducted against two outspoken opponents of the Biden Administration's foreign policy, is intended to send a chill down the spines of truth-tellers everywhere in the United States. The government's brazen message to them is clear. "We are watching you. We have the power of the federal government. You cannot beat us".