In his speech to Congress on Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a direct appeal to U.S. lawmakers to send Israel more weapons, vowing, chillingly, that the weapons shipments would enable Israel to “finish the job faster” in Gaza.
Netanyahu drew one of the clearest lines yet between the supply of U.S. weapons and Israel’s genocidal assault of Gaza, essentially straight out saying that the slaughter has been made possible by U.S. assistance — and that the speed of Israel’s genocide is scaled to how many U.S. weapons they receive.
“Fast tracking U.S. military aid can dramatically expedite an end to the war in Gaza and help prevent a broader war in the Middle East,” said Netanyahu, who tried to stoke war with Iran later in the speech.
“In World War II, as Britain fought on the frontlines of civilization, Winston Churchill appealed to Americans with these famous words: ‘Give us the tools and we’ll finish the job,’” he went on. “Today, as Israel fights on the frontline of civilization, I, too, appeal to America: ‘Give us the tools faster, and we’ll finish the job faster.’”
This rhetoric is horrific to those who have followed the genocide, in which Israeli forces have made it clear that they are willing to kill any Palestinian in Gaza — including newborn babies. “Finish the job faster,” in the context of what UN experts have labeled a “genocidal” famine, a looming polio outbreak, and Israel’s relentless and indiscriminate attacks, commentators noted, appears to be a call for the complete ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian population of Gaza.
Israel has vowed to continue attacking Gaza until it has eliminated Hamas — a goal that experts have said is impossible to achieve in practical terms, especially as the genocide inspires a new generation of Palestinians to take up arms against Israel. At the same time, many reports — some from Israeli soldiers — have shown that Israeli forces consider any man or boy in Gaza to be a member of Hamas and therefore a legitimate target.
Netanyahu, perhaps inadvertently, alluded to this policy elsewhere in his speech. When speaking about Israel’s invasion of Rafah, where nearly two-thirds of the Palestinian population had been sheltering before May, Netanyahu said that Israeli forces had killed no civilians there in the first days of their attack — but had killed 1,200 “terrorists.”
It is a lie that Israel has killed no civilians in Rafah; in fact, there have been many reports of the Israeli military killing people, including children, in civilian areas both before and after their invasion of Rafah in May. Netanyahu himself admitted that Israel has massacred civilians in Rafah, saying that a soldier told him a supposed accidental strike in Rafah had killed 24 civilians — which Netanyahu qualified as “practically” no civilian deaths.
As Netanyahu spoke, Israel was carrying out more massacres in Khan Yunis, which Israeli forces have fiercely attacked this week. In the past 24 hours alone, Israeli forces have killed at least 30 Palestinians and injured 146 others, the Palestinian health ministry reported on Thursday. Just prior to his speech, Palestinian officials reported that, in the previous 48 hours, Israel had killed 129 Palestinians and injured over 400 others in Khan Yunis alone.
Netanyahu also laid out a “day after” plan for Gaza in his speech, saying that Israel was aiming to “demilitarize” and “deradicalize” Gaza — in other words, even further intensify Israel’s control over Palestine and eliminate the ability of the remaining population of Gaza to resist against that control. His plan, in essence, is to eliminate all possibility of a Palestinian state.
“For the foreseeable future, we must retain overriding security control there to prevent the resurgence of terror, to ensure that Gaza never again poses a threat to Israel,” he said.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment. We’re presently working to find 1500 new monthly donors to Truthout before the end of the year.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy