August 8, 2025
Israel’s savaging of Gaza has now inflicted over 61,000 dead. This is close to the generally accepted death toll from the US nuclear bombing of Nagasaki, Japan in Sept 1945.
Nagasaki was hit with the second atomic bomb on August 9, 1945. Its hilly topography prevented even greater casualties. But no one really knows how many Japanese died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki from explosions, seas of fire, radiation or lack of food and medicines.
According to the post-war US strategic bombing survey a third to a half of all buildings in Japan were destroyed by waves of US heavy bombers showering firebombs on Japanese cities. Germany’s cities fared even worse from US and British carpet bombing.
As intense as the bombing of Japan and Germany was, the photos of the aftermath do not appear as cataclysmic as what we see today in Gaza. The obliteration of the Gaza enclave by US-supplied Israeli aircraft and US-made heavy bombs was even more destructive than what the US 8th Air Force did to German cities. Not an ounce of mercy was shown to the humans and wretched animals trapped in Gaza. One is reminded of the Warsaw Ghetto destruction in WWII.
Israel’s PM Netanyahu just declared his army would storm and occupy the most densely populated part of Gaza, the demolished city of the same name. At least one million Palestinian refugees are cowering there. Netanyahu and his far-right wing coalition allies are eager to impose a Final Solution on Gaza before an outraged world demands a real two state solution. Netanyahu also faces serious court charges of personal corruption – but not so long as the Gaza crisis drags on. Trump and his rightist allies (whom the late great journalist Uri Avnery called “Jewish fascists”) keep him in power.
But how much longer? It’s not a war, as the media calls it. It’s one of the world’s largest and best-armed armies versus a handful of raggedy Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants with only small arms. We should call it what it is: a massacre.
Israel now says it may agree to some form of Arab-led governance for Gaza. But what? Ever since the 1960’s, Israel has killed off generations of the best Palestinian leaders, leaving the least capable and most extreme.
Netanyahu has stated he could work with the so-called Palestinians authority (PLO) run by 89-year-old Mahmoud Abbas who was shoehorned into power by the US and Israel after the probable poisoning of Yasser Arafat by Israeli Mossad agents.
The US and Israel are not trying to install one of two Palestinian CIA assets to head the PLO. But yes-men like Abbas won’t resolve the Gaza problem. All other Arab nations have so far stated they want no part of the Gaza snake pit and certainly have no desire to do Israel’s dirty work. Maybe Trump will get his new favorite Latino-Arab Salvadoran dictator, Nayib Bukele, to act as chief warder for two million Palestinians. Egypt, which has played a key role in maintaining the Gaza open air prison camp, will turn another blind eye.
Meanwhile, Israel’s armed forces and their very tough leaders just went public with protests against Netanyahu’s Gaza plans, which they say are all wrong. Could Israel’s new chief of staff, the brainy Eyal Zamir, decide to push aside Netanyahu, Israel’s longest serving prime minister? Israel’s fate could be in his hands.
Copyright Eric S. Margolis 2025
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