In June of 1941, Nazi Germany launched Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union. It was to be a “war of annihilation,” a “Vernichtungskrieg,” involving not only the destruction of cities and economic infrastructure but the extermination of the population in preparation for settlement of the land by German citizens. The Nazi invasion led to the deaths of 27 million people in the Soviet Union and was accompanied by the Holocaust, the extermination of over 6 million of Europe’s Jews.
Destruction left by the Israeli air and ground offensive is seen in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, on Sept. 13, 2024. [AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana]
Populated areas of the Soviet Union under Nazi control were subjected to the “Hunger Plan” devised by SS Senior Group Leader Herbert Backe, with Nazi officials concluding that “millions of people will die of starvation” as a result of the plan. The Third Reich’s agriculture minister declared that “many tens of millions of people in this country will become superfluous and will die or must emigrate to Siberia.” As a result of this plan, 3.3 million people in the Soviet Union were deliberately starved.
This month, the state of Israel adopted the 21st century version of Nazi Germany’s “Hunger Plan.” The role of Herbert Backe is today played by Giora Eiland, a retired major general of the Israel Defense Forces and a former head of the Israeli National Security Council.
For over one year, Eiland has advocated the deliberate starvation of the population of Gaza as a means of exterminating and displacing the people from the territory. In recent months, Eiland consolidated his plan into an actionable proposal to block the entry of all food into Northern Gaza, so that, in his words, “People will not be able to live there. The water will dry up.”
Israel would then turn the entire area into a free-fire zone in which extermination squads—modern-day versions of Nazi Germany’s Einsatzgruppen mass extermination squads—would kill everyone who resisted forcible displacement.
On October 12, CNN reported:
A former senior military official who is aware of the Israeli government and security leadership’s thinking—though not directly involved in decision-making—told CNN that the cabinet had adopted “a version of” Eiland’s proposal, which has come to be known as “The General’s Plan.” Eiland told CNN the claim was “quite true.”
In keeping with the plan, Israel has stopped the entry of all food into Northern Gaza, with less food entering the Gaza Strip than at any point since Israel launched its military offensive last year. Israeli army units have surrounded hospitals, carried out indiscriminate airstrikes and besieged refugee camps, forcing their residents to move south at gunpoint. In the course of the operation, more than 700 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces, with countless others starved or killed by preventable disease.
It is against this backdrop that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken made his eleventh trip to Israel since the start of the war. On Tuesday, he met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for what the prime minister’s office called a “friendly and productive” discussion of Israel’s war against the Palestinian people.
Subsequent media reports have made clear that the discussion revolved around the mass extermination plan. According to the Washington Post:
US officials told Netanyahu there is a “perception” that Israel is pursuing a strategy of “isolating the north, telling people that if they don’t leave they’re effectively targets and denying food to go in,” said the official.
When the US delegation asked whether the Netanyahu government would, for public relations purposes, disavow the mass extermination plan, “the Israelis declined to make such a commitment,” the Washington Post wrote.
In response to this blunt declaration, Blinken issued a communique declaring the United States’ blanket support for Israel: “The Secretary reaffirmed the United States’ ironclad commitment to Israel’s security” and pledged to continue “ongoing efforts by the United States and its partners” to support Israel.
Blinken’s visit carries with it enormous political, legal and historical significance. A top representative of the American government was briefed on the plan of mass extermination and proceeded to give what amounted to an unconditional and blanket endorsement of Israeli policy.
This means the Israeli “Hunger Plan” is the policy not merely of the Netanyahu government but also of the Biden administration, which is funding, arming and politically supporting the genocide.
But as soon as Blinken emerged from his meeting, he began lying about the content of the discussion. “I heard from the prime minister, who is the authoritative word on these things,” Blinken said, that the Israeli government rejects “Israeli reoccupation of Gaza.”
No one saw fit to point out to Blinken that Israel has illegally and permanently occupied or controlled the Gaza Strip since 1967—a period of more than 57 years—and that Israel has demolished the majority of the region’s buildings and displaced 95 percent of its people over the past year. But no, Blinken insists, Israel has no interest in “reoccupying” Gaza, and the United States would never support such a policy.
Such statements by Blinken constitute a form of wartime disinformation, aimed at creating a smokescreen for the actual US government policy. But unlike traditional wartime disinformation, whose aim is to deceive an enemy army about troop deployments and plans, the target of this deception is the American population, from whom the Biden administration is attempting to hide its complicity in genocide.
Let’s be blunt. Blinken came to Israel to sign off on the deliberate starvation of Gaza, the ethnic cleansing of Northern Gaza and the systematic extermination of all who remain. Every crime of which Robert Jackson, the lead prosecutor at the Nuremberg tribunal, accused the leaders of Nazi Germany is being committed on a somewhat smaller scale by the Biden administration. Jackson said that by condemning the leaders of Nazi Germany, the American government was putting a “poisoned chalice … to our own lips as well” if it ever carried out similar crimes. Blinken has gulped the chalice down to the dregs.
Blinken, Biden and Harris are war criminals. They speak not only for American imperialism but for all the imperialist powers, which are openly embracing every form of social barbarism. In remarks this month, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, a leading member of the Green Party, openly defended attacks on civilians. She said:
When Hamas terrorists hide behind people, behind schools, then we end up in very difficult waters. But we’re not shying away from this. This is why I made it clear at the United Nations that civilian sites could lose their protected status if terrorists abuse this status. That’s what Germany stands for—and that’s what we mean when we refer to Israel’s security.
This declaration, in its own way, is a restatement of what Eiland has been saying for over a year, that “the ‘poor’ women of Gaza … are all the mothers, sisters or wives of Hamas murderers” and should be killed alongside those engaging in armed resistance. The imperialist powers are declaring that civilians are fair game for extermination.
All over the world, the imperialist powers are saying that a new world war has begun. The lead essay in this month’s edition of Foreign Affairs declares:
An era of limited war has ended; an age of comprehensive conflict has begun. Indeed, what the world is witnessing today is akin to what theorists in the past have called “total war,” in which combatants draw on vast resources, mobilize their societies, prioritize warfare over all other state activities, attack a broad variety of targets, and reshape their economies and those of other countries.
To declare that this new era of global warfare allows countries to “attack a broad variety of targets” is a colloquial way of saying that international law is being suspended, and civilians, hospitals, humanitarian organizations are all fair game. The “Israeli model” is to be the standard for waging war in the future.
On Tuesday, World Socialist Web Site Editorial Board Chairman David North gave a lecture in Frankfurt, Germany, titled “Back to the Future: Genocide, War and Fascism.” North explained that “when we say ‘back to the future,’ the phenomena of war, the phenomena of genocide, phenomena of fascism, are re-emerging.” He continued:
All the horrors that we are observing today—the horrors of genocide, the resurgence of fascism, the danger of war—these were the realities of the 20th century, particularly the first half of the 20th century.
North concluded:
And so when we say “back to the future,” if there is a future, there must be a reconquest within the working class and the advanced sections of youth of an understanding of the Marxist analysis of the laws of capitalism.
The genocide in Gaza has triggered mass protests by millions of people all over the world. But what has up to this point been lacking is a perspective aimed at ending the fundamental cause of genocide and all forms of imperalist barbarism: capitalism. The struggle against the Gaza genocide must proceed as a struggle by the working class against the capitalist system and for its replacement with socialism.