800 European and American officials against Israel

Translated by Angela Tagliafierro

October 07^th, 2023, represents a turning point in the history of the Middle East. Hamas' attack on Israel prompted an Israeli counter-offensive by air, land, and sea. It is a counterattack responsible for a substantial number of civilian casualties and the massive destruction of infrastructure. As the months went by, Israel became a paradox: on the one hand, part of the population is sceptical and critical of Prime Minister Netanyahu, and on the other hand, the rest of the population is still supportive of the war. Four months after launching military operations in Gaza, the Israeli military is preparing to ramp up air strikes in the south of the Strip, unaffected by the residents of the area. According to UN General Under-Secretary for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths: “Gaza has become a place of death and despair”. Here, families sleep outside their homes, medical centres are under constant attack and those still holding out have to face severe lacks of supplies.

Denouncing the alleged grave violations committed by Israel's military response against the Gaza Strip, more than 800 diplomats and officials, both American and European, signed a document accusing the Israeli government. In it, political figures blame the state not only “grave violations of International Law” but also the West for contributing to “one of the most serious humanitarian catastrophes of the century”. The document's main demand is a more decisive reaction from states that, by not intervening, risk making themselves complicit in “grave violations of International Law, war crimes and even ethnic cleansing or genocide”. By definition, genocide is an international crime qualified by the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide as an act committed with the intent to destroy, wholly or partially, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. According to law, the norm prohibiting genocide is recognized as a binding norm of the international order, i.e. as a mandatory norm.

In the declaration, whose signatories are still unknown, Israel is accused of having “no limits” in its military operations, actions that have caused tens of thousands of civilian deaths as well as a blockade of humanitarian aids. A copy of the document was given to the newspapers Bbc in the UK and New York Times in the US. According to the BBC, in addition to American personalities, the text was signed by officials from several European countries, including the UK, Germany, and France. According to an American official who has worked in national security for more than twenty-five years, the decision to make the document public was dictated by the states' continued refusal to let people specialized in Middle Eastern dynamics expose themselves for political and ideological reasons.

The signatures include one of Israel's top scientists, Professor David Harel, a member of the Royal Society, and many others, including academics, former diplomats, journalists, and activists. The document is represented by human rights lawyer Michael Sfard and lists a high number of people who have incited war crimes, including cabinet ministers and members of the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, former senior military officers, influencers, and celebrities. In addition, there are comments from parliamentarians, such as that of Yitzhak Kreuzer, an extreme right-wing Israeli politician. He states that "the Gaza Strip should be wiped out, and for all of them there is only one sentence, and that is death”. Sfard was astounded by the speed with which incitement to genocide has been normalized in Israel. Hence, according to him, one of the biggest problems with this attitude, namely the fact that people will tend to behave according to the ideas released through this reasoning. As the paper points out, the language with which the genocide is described and recounted influences the way Israel conducts the war itself.

In a context where the price has been paid for months by more than 2 million people who suffer attacks every day and are repeatedly denied sufficient humanitarian aid, nowhere is safe any more. The precariousness touches various levels, especially for children who have not had free access to food, water, and education for four months. An entire generation of minors traumatized by a war that shows no sign of ending. This is an aspect fundamental in the letter signed by the 800 personalities. Robert Ford, former US ambassador to Algeria and Syria, said that in over 40 years of his foreign policy experience, he had never come into contact with such a high level of dissent. A dissent which, shortly after the publication of the document, was also joined by South Africa by lodging an appeal with the International Court of Justice in The Hague and accusing Israel of “genocidal conduct”.

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