source: POLTICO

published: 5 January 2024

Image Credit: Pexels/Duda

Back in November, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged the far-right and religious nationalists in his coalition government to pipe down and “be careful with their words” when talking about their desired outcomes for the war on Hamas.

“Every word has meaning when it comes to diplomacy,” he said at a Cabinet meeting, warning that speaking out of turn harms Israel’s international legitimacy.

Netanyahu’s plea for circumspection was triggered by a series of contentious public remarks made by hard-liners in his government, hinting at the possible annexation of the Gaza Strip and the expulsion of Palestinians from the coastal enclave.

After three months of destruction, displacement and the killing of Palestinians, we take a deep dive into the way the Gaza story has been covered.

And these off-the-cuff, ill-judged comments will now complicate Israel’s defense before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, which has scheduled a hearing next week on the genocide accusations South Africa has lodged against Israel.

Just days before Netanyahu’s appeal, Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter appeared to relish the idea that this war was “Gaza’s Nakba” — the Arabic word for “catastrophe,” which is commonly used to refer to the flight and expulsion of an estimated 700,000 Palestinians during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.

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