Netanyahu has pushed a small genocide in Gaza. New elections must be called

The prime minister provokes domestic and international fury.

I have written for years that Netanyahu and his illegitimate, violent and extremist coalition are more of a risk to Israel’s short-term security and long term stability than Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, Iran and all the West’s anti-Israel protests combined. Sadly, my prediction seems to be coming to pass.

Though I’ve resisted this identification previously, Netanyahu, has crossed the line into what I agree is now a war criminal status. I’m Jewish. I’ve lived, worked in and strongly support Israel to the same degree I am powerfully revulsed by and opposed to Netanyahu.

I’m certainly not an antisemite. And I am absolutely not anti-Israel. But as much as I support Israel, I am as strongly opposed to Israel’s current, extremist government over which Netanyahu has no control despite his earlier promises. And as Netanyahu and members of his coalition have made clear, returning the hostages to Israel has always been a secondary concern…at best.

I strongly, vehemently oppose the use of illegal fundamentalist settlers to violently push Palestinians out of their West Bank homes and villages to include the use of destruction and murder while IDF and Israeli police often watch passively.

I strongly, vehemently oppose Smotrich’s decision to create a new Israeli neighborhood in the E1 zone. E1 is in the occupied West Bank and will cut off East Jerusalem from the West Bank. It, technically, falls within the boundaries of the Ma’ale Adumim settlement and is part of Smotrich’s intent to smother any chance for an autonomous Palestinian region (or state).

Bibi has no political control or moral authority. His only interest is self-preservation and staying out of the courtroom by holding onto the PM office with a death grip no matter the physical, economic, military, or moral destruction of the State of Israel.

I am deeply ashamed as a Jew watching what the Israeli government has become through Netanyahu and how this represents on both Israeli Jews and Jews across the Diaspora.

Children in Gaza should not be dying from malnutrition no matter the useless debate over who has primary responsibility. Israel should certainly not be reoccupying Gaza City against the recommendations of the IDF. Netanyahu’s never-ending and always expanding war is exhausting and weakening the IDF and, especially, its reservists who have civilian jobs, businesses and families.

Netanyahu certainly is not the cause of increasingly violent global antisemitism whose roots go back many millennia. But the violent, criminal behavior by Netanyahu and his coalition isn’t helping either. Only Netanyahu and his extremist coalition could have lost the world’s empathy so quickly after the genocidal horror of 10/7.

Only Netanyahu could have gone from what was, initially, a just war against Hamas and turn it into extreme cruelty with no purpose but to assuage the most violent members of Israel’s settler movement whose senior members, to include Smotrich and Ben Gvir, are part of Netanyahu’s coalition.

Rather than a genocide against Palestinians, which is still not what’s happening at all, Netanyahu has created what amounts to a ‘small genocide’ with intended ethnic cleansing specifically targeting Gaza and Gazan citizens.

Netanyahu must be removed from office and forced to call new elections immediately. His direct culpability in creating the conditions for 10/7 to include the IDF’s initial lack of preparedness and catastrophically failed response on that day must be comprehensively examined – which, so far, has been blocked by Netanyahu.

Netanyahu must be stopped even if that means temporarily cutting off military aid so long as he and his coalition remain in office. I have never supported such a step before, but it is time. There has to be change.

Netanyahu must resign and new elections called towards the strength, security and future of the State of Israel.