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After Israel’s top leadership exhaustively blamed Hamas for kidnap of 3 teens, they’ve now admitted killers were acting as “lone cell.” — Sheera Frenkel (@sheeraf) July 25, 2014



Sheera Frenkel has just tweeted an amazing, deeply troubling statement from Israeli official sources. To most of us here, this tweet will be nothing new. Journalists were reporting within a few days after the kidnapping of the three Israeli teenagers that the Netanyahu claim that Hamas was responsible was false. But now we have official confirmation that this claim was a lie.

Some may reply: Bibi lied? How shocking! Of course, we know Bibi lies. If telling the truth would save a life he probably couldn’t do it. But what’s different here is that the entire month of hate and slaughter that followed from those kidnappings originated in Bibi’s lies and incitement. Had he not exploited the murders of the three boys for maximum political leverage against the PA and Hamas; had he not sent 10,000 IDF troops into the West Bank where they engaged in a massive pogrom resulting in 7 dead, 500 arrested and thousands of homes ransacked in the dead of night; had he not done these things, Hamas would not have fired rockets into southern Israel. Israel would have had no justification for invading Gaza and 1,000 Palestinians would still be alive and breathing.

This entire slaughter is based on a lie. And not just a small lie, but a huge, cancerous, evil lie. I do not like to make absolute moral statements if I can avoid it. But there is no doubt in my mind that Bibi Netanyahu is evil. While that doesn’t necessarily mean all of Israel is evil, as long as they elect this melalomaniac to office, then all of Israel is culpable in his malevolence.

Bibi must be brought to the Hague. Benny Gantz should join him along with all the other Israeli leaders who authorized war crimes with names like Cast Lead, Pillar of Cloud and Mavi Marmara. Certainly, there should be a few Palestinians joining them. But let’s keep things in perspective: 800 of the 1,000 Palestinian dead are civilians; 3 of the Israeli dead are civilians. If there are crimes here we know whose crimes have proven far more lethal.

To return to Sheera’s tweet, lest anyone question her source, the BBC’s Jon Donnison is reporting that Israeli police spokesflack, Mickey Rosenfeld is saying the same thing explicitly.

On a related matter, several thousand Israelis marched yesterday night in Tel Aviv against the Gaza massacre. It is not easy to do so when 90% of your fellow citizens believe you’re being traitorous. I don’t know if such protests are enough to exonerate the nation of war crimes. But they are some small solace.

Another IDF soldier has just been killed in a mortar attack, bringing the number of soldiers who’ve died to 43.