Professor Mearsheimer is an internationally acclaimed academic, author, expert in post-Sovietism, and keen observer of international violence, who predicted Russia’s action against the Ukraine, and is currently the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago.
In his Death and Destruction in Gaza, published today on his Substack newsletter, the good professor suggests that:
What Israel is doing in Gaza to the Palestinian civilian population – with the support of the Biden administration – is a crime against humanity that serves no meaningful military purpose. As J-Street, an important organization in the Israel lobby, puts it, “The scope of the unfolding humanitarian disaster and civilian casualties is nearly unfathomable.”
He then proceeds to analyze in detail Israel’s actions that massacre “huge number of civilians, roughly 70 percent of whom are children and women” as total war against innocents that may not excused in any way and form.
He presents in detail the public statements of Israeli leaders stating in “shocking terms,” that Palestinian civilians are, in effect, starved, thirsted, and relentlessly bombed without mercy leading Omar Bartov, a prominent Israeli-born scholar of the Holocaust, conclude that “Israel has “genocidal intent.”
The full article is effectively a sharp indictment of Israel’s total war upon both the innocent and the guilty.
Read Professor Mearsheimer’s full article below.
Death and Destruction in Gaza
I do not believe that anything I say about what is happening in Gaza will affect Israeli or American policy in that conflict. But I want to be on record so that when historians look back on this moral calamity, they will see that some Americans were on the right side of history.What Israel is doing in Gaza to the Palestinian civilian population – with the support of the Biden administration – is a crime against humanity that serves no meaningful military purpose. As J-Street, an important organization in the Israel lobby, puts it, “The scope of the unfolding humanitarian disaster and civilian casualties is nearly unfathomable.”[1]Let me elaborate.First, Israel is purposely massacring huge number of civilians, roughly 70 percent of whom are children and women. The claim that Israel is going to great lengths to minimize civilian casualties is belied by statements from high level Israeli officials. For example, the IDF spokesman said on 10 October 2023 that "the emphasis is on damage and not on accuracy." That same day, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced: "I have lowered all the restraints – we will kill everyone we fight against; we will use every means."[2]
Moreover, it is clear from the results of the bombing campaign that Israel is indiscriminately killing civilians. Two detailed studies of the IDF’s bombing campaign – both published in Israeli outlets – explain in detail how Israel is murdering huge numbers of civilians. It is worth quoting the titles of the two pieces, which succinctly capture what each has to say:“‘A Mass Assassination Factory’: Inside Israel’s Calculated Bombing of Gaza”[3]“The Israeli Army Has Dropped the Restraint in Gaza, and the Data Shows Unprecedented Killing.”[4]Similarly, the New York Times published an article in late November 2023 titled: “Gaza Civilians, Under Israeli Barrage, Are Being Killed at Historic Pace.”[5] Thus, it is hardly surprising that the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, said that “We are witnessing a killing of civilians that is unparalleled and unprecedented in any conflict since” his appointment in January 2017.[6]