“Save Us from Ourselves”: 3,000+ Israelis Call for Int’l Help to Pressure Israel to Back Ceasefire

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

“We, Israelis, are calling for global pressure on Israel to force an immediate ceasefire.” That’s the headline of an open letter signed by more than 3,000 Israelis, along with our next guest, the Israeli political scientist Neve Gordon. The letter concludes by noting, “The leaders of many countries make repeated statements about the horror they feel and verbally denounce Israel’s operations, but these condemnations are not backed by practical actions. We are replete with empty words and declarations. Please, for our futures and the futures of all of the residents of Israel and the region, save us from ourselves and use real pressure on Israel for an immediate ceasefire,” the letter says.

For more, we go to London. We’re joined by Neve Gordon, professor of international law and human rights at Queen Mary University of London. His recent Al Jazeera article is headlined “Israel has taken human shields to a whole new criminal level.” He’s author of Human Shields: A History of People in the Line of Fire and co-editor of Torture: Human Rights, Medical Ethics and the Case of Israel.

Neve Gordon, welcome back to Democracy Now! Can you start off actually by talking about what this letter says? And the number of people is — the last time we looked, it was 2,000 Israelis who have signed it. Now it’s over 3,000, Professor Gordon.

NEVE GORDON: There’s a feeling among Israelis that the change cannot come from within. We do not have enough power from within to change the course of actions that Netanyahu and his government have put in place. And the only way to stop the violence, to stop the genocidal violence in Gaza, to stop the violence in Lebanon, and to stop future attacks and geopolitical war in the region is that leaders in Europe and leaders in North America, particularly the United States, put their leg down and say enough is enough and threaten Israel that if there is no ceasefire, they will sanction Israel, they will stop arms trade with Israel, they’ll stop sending Israel money, and ultimately stop trading with Israel. So, our belief is, to save the populations that inhabit this region, we need such an action.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk directly about what’s happening in the United States, clearly the major arms supplier to Israel, and what you think of the role of the Biden administration, of President Biden himself?

NEVE GORDON: The United States has a memorandum for arms trade. And in that memorandum for arms trade, it says very clearly that countries or warring parties that violate international humanitarian law and the laws of war, the U.S. will not sell weapons to them, will not give them weapons or sell weapons to them. It is beyond doubt that Israel has been systematically violating the laws of war since October 7th, 8th, and yet the United States continues to send arms. And that has to do with many reasons. One is the power of the military corporations in the United States. The other is the lobbying groups in the United States. And all the United States really has to do — all Kamala Harris has to do today is say that “the minute I’m president, if there is violation of international law, I will stop sending arms.” And yet the United States is breaking its own laws in order to continue giving Israel arms so that it continues its violence in Gaza, Lebanon and elsewhere.

AMY GOODMAN: And your response to the grassroots protests across the country of the Biden administration continuing to support Israel?

NEVE GORDON: There’s a major gap, both in the United States but all across Europe and North America, between civil society and the political and financial elites. Civil society has been saying now for over a year, “Enough. We want to ceasefire. We’re against this human catastrophe. We’re against what Israel is doing to the Palestinian people. We want the Palestinian people to enjoy self-determination, to enjoy statehood like everyone else.” And yet the political and financial elites are continuing as if nothing is happening, supporting Israel. Here and there, there’s a kind of criticism from Biden, and yet Netanyahu is doing exactly as he wants to do, and the Biden administration is not doing anything. And there is fear from donors here during an election campaign. It’s a very complex system. But what we see is this major gap between the two kind of poles, the civil society pole, on the one hand, and the ruling political and financial elites. And I think we just need to continue doing what we do until we get them to follow their own laws, as they appear, for example, in the memorandum of arms trade.

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Gordon, does Netanyahu have a plan for Gaza? And what about these negotiations that are now taking place in Doha, in Qatar? Apparently, Egypt has proposed a two-day ceasefire, release of four hostages. What is happening there? And what do you think needs to happen?

NEVE GORDON: Well, I’d like to say a few words about the bigger picture. I think Netanyahu, pre-October 7, 2023, saw himself as a figure of history, one that has led Israel to economic success, one that will normalize relations with Arab countries in the region, including Saudi Arabia, and one that is slowly managing to erase the Palestinians from history. Come October 7th and the failure of the Israeli intelligence and after 35 weeks of protest against the judicial overhaul and the death of 1,200 Israelis and 250 Israeli hostages, he understood that his position in history has changed. And he’s trying to rebuild that through, I think, three axes.

One is the Gaza Strip. And I don’t — I have very little belief in the current negotiations. I think large parts of his coalition want to resettle the northern Gaza Strip, and that’s why we’re seeing what we’re seeing there and what your previous guest told us about the kind of displacement of the population there, the destruction of the whole infrastructure of existence of the population through the destruction of the hospitals, of the schools, of the mosques, etc. And ultimately, what Netanyahu’s coalition would like is to resettle that part of the Gaza Strip, enclose the rest of the Palestinians in the south, and probably maintain some kind of ethnic policing there for years to come.

In Lebanon, I think Netanyahu would like to cleanse the area that’s south of the Litani River from any presence of Hezbollah. And I think that’s going to last for quite a while now. I hope I’m wrong. But I think that it’s not going to end soon.

But I think that the crown of the jewel for Netanyahu and the only way that he thinks of himself as returning to history as a hero is through the bombing of the nuclear plants in Iran. I think everything is leading in that direction. Again, I hope I’m wrong. But I think now Netanyahu will wait for the elections on November 5th, and then he’ll decide how to continue on that strategy. So, I think the talks now in Doha are more of a cosmetic to a large process that we see unfolding now in Israel and the Middle East.

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Gordon, we just have a minute, but you begin your recent Al Jazeera piece headlined “Israel has taken human shields to a whole new criminal level,” writing, quote, “The use of human shields in war is not a new phenomenon. Militaries have forced civilians to serve as human shields for centuries. Yet, despite this long and dubious history, Israel has managed to introduce a new form of shielding in Gaza, one that appears unprecedented in the history of warfare.” We have one minute. If you could explain?

NEVE GORDON: So, human shielding works through a politics of vulnerability, through the recognition that the civilian that is shielding a military target is not like a robust landmine or anti-missile defense system, but it’s the moral value that is ascribed to the civilian that supposedly deters the enemy from firing. So, if Hamas sees a co-patriarch dressed in civilian clothes, then, hopefully, that will dissuade them from firing and killing the human shield or try to deter it. When you dress the human shield in military garb, you’re not trying to deter Hamas from firing at the civilian, but you’re trying to actually lure Hamas so that they think it’s an Israeli soldier, that they fire at him, and then the Israeli soldiers can see where the fire is coming from and fire back. So it’s changing the whole logic of human shielding and using the vulnerability, instead of as a form of deterrence, in order to lure fire in, and basically relating to the Palestinian civilians not only as not quite human, as any kind of human shielding would relate to him, but actually as fodder, as a thing, as a shield, without the human in it.

AMY GOODMAN: Neve Gordon, we want to thank you being with us, Israeli political scientist, professor of international law and human rights at Queen Mary University of London, is one of the main signatories of the letter that has now more than 3,000 signatories of Israelis calling on international pressure on Israel.