Ralph Nader on Gaza War: ‘A Level of Savagery to Haunt the State of Israel for a Long, Long Time’

It’s not only the intent that was expressed by ministers in the Netanyahu coalition, which in effect on Oct. 8 stated, “No water, no food, no fuel, no electricity, no medicine, nothing.” That is genocidal intent. And then, it was followed up by a massive armed attack and invasion in response to the Oct. 7th assault by Hamas, which an elderly Holocaust survivor in Israel told The New York Times, “It should never have happened.” It’s a complete failure of military intelligence by the Israelis that allowed this to happen.

Anyway, the disproportionate attack is producing misery not seen for many, many decades in plain sight. Thirteen thousand is a minimal figure. There are at least 20,000 to 30,000 dead so far. I mean, you can’t deprive people of healthcare, critical transportation, blowing up ambulances, blowing up schools sheltering fleeing people, blowing up apartment buildings, mosques, churches clearly marked UN installations, even the Palestinian Red Cross facilities.

Anything in Gaza, of which Israel has longtime computer models, by the way, is a target. And is justified by saying, “Well, there are Hamas fighters here and there, everywhere.” Well, that is just an excuse. Because first of all, as a high government official experienced in the Middle East told Sy Hersh, “The Israeli invasion is a cakewalk.” It’s hardly getting any resistance because it’s up against one of the most modern superpower militaries in the world by land, sea, and air, what has Hamas got? Limited supplies of rifles, grenade launchers and a few anti-tech missiles.

So what was going on is Israel is trying to justify what they’re doing by saying, “We got to destroy everything because Hamas uses them as human shields.” Well, first of all, even if they were using them as human shield, you don’t blow up a hospital. You don’t blow up a school. That’s a clear violation of the ban on disproportionality under international law.

And now there’s a spread of diseases, infants who don’t have their parents, nothing to take care of them, the elderly, the infirm, the people with cancer, no insulin for diabetics, and they’re trying to say 13,000. Imagine if 20,000 bombs were dropped on Philadelphia, all kinds of civilian areas. Fires couldn’t be put out because they blow up fire prevention facilities and you think there’d only be 13,000 fatalities in Philadelphia? The Palestinians cannot even have their dead counted. They can’t bury their dead. They’re piled up, rotting under the sun and eaten by stray dogs under the gaze of Israeli soldiers.

They can’t escape because it’s an open air prison surrounded by Israel under a 16-year-long blockade, which is illegal under international law. They can’t even surrender because Israel won’t even let them surrender because they don’t want to take responsibility under international law for the POWs.

So they’re trapped, and they’re fleeing under orders of the Israeli army and then being bombed while they’re fleeing. And they go down south for a refuge, and they’re being bombed down there.

So what’s all this about? It’s clearly the extremist right-wing Netanyahu coalition longstanding policy of a Greater Israel. Eretz Israel, they call it in the Likud Party, which means to take over the entire original Palestine, which means the West Bank and Gaza.

And how do you do this? By pushing people further out into the desert, maybe try to push them into Jordan, into Egypt, which of course is going to resist that, and create a vast destitute refugee camp of 2.3 million people, three-quarters of whom are children and women. So this is a level of savagery that’s going to haunt the state of Israel for a long, long time.