‘Gaza must become a place where no human being can exist…’ —Major General Giora Eiland, Israel Defense Forces
He neglected to add that it’s a place that few human beings can escape, either. The obvious answer to the question, “Was there anywhere safe to go?” was always “no.” The real question is why people who knew that, and planned for it, ordered people into danger anyway. But they did.
Policy of Truth 
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/10/16/israels-evacuation-order-is-nothing-but-cover-for-ethnic-cleansing
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https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/3/14/israel-was-built-on-burned-palestinian-villages
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The Giora Eiland quotation comes from this guest essay below in The New York Times by Rashid Khalidi. Khalidi provides a link that goes to the original article in Israel’s Yedioth Ahronoth. The original article is in Hebrew, but there’s an English translation function on the page.
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Perhaps the old testament should have been a warning indication of what Israel might turn into.
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I think the conquest/retaliation narratives of the Hebrew Bible are the unfinished business of Western civilization, just as the caliphate/conquest narrative of Islamic history is for Muslims. Each “civilization” is more defensive of its legacy than it is prepared to deal with it.
At this point, the United States is so deeply implicated in Israel’s war, and so committed to it, that the war may as well be ours. American-Israeli dual nationals may well be fighting there. The Israelis at least have been attacked. We have no excuse at all.
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No. But when do governments need an excuse.
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“True that,” as my wife used to say.
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