Israel’s former prime minister, Ehud Olmert, writes:

The fight against Jewish terrorism in the West Bank must advance to the next stage and be waged with greater determination. The daily terrorism that is managed, directed, encouraged and supported by the Israeli government can no longer be tolerated.

What is happening across the West Bank today is not the work of “70 kids … from broken homes,” as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu once tried to claim, disingenuously. Nor are these the crimes of a small, anomalous minority among settlement residents, as some leaders of the settler movement often contend.

Today, it must be said that the State of Israel is conducting an organized, systematic, state-funded campaign of ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. Not in the Gaza Strip, not in southern Lebanon, not in Syria, but in areas of the West Bank that are under the exclusive security control of the state and its security and law enforcement apparatus.

At the forefront of this campaign are the prime minister, Defense Minister Israel Katz and the rest of the cabinet, of course. The drive behind these acts is reflected in the statements and actions of senior ministers who seek the full annexation of the West Bank without their Palestinian inhabitants remaining there. I am referring specifically to Itamar Ben-Gvir, Bezalel Smotrich and the other ministers who support, through word and deed, policies that amount to the expulsion of Palestinian residents.

These are harsh words. Never before have such serious accusations been leveled against an Israeli government and the entire defense establishment, certainly not by someone who once held ultimate responsibility for Israel’s security. But after a long and painful period of restraint, there is no choice but to say these things plainly and in full. [Continue reading…]