How the IDF Central Command Chief Enables Crimes against Humanity in the West Bank

PALESTINE ISRAEL GAZA GENOCIDE, 22 Sep 2025

Jews for Justice for Palestinians - TRANSCEND Media Service

IDF Central Command chief Maj. Gen. Avi Bluth

5 Sep 2025 – Amos Schocken writes in Haaretz on 1 Sep 2025:

If the situation were normal, someone appointed as head of the Israeli army’s Central Command – which includes occupied territory in which 3.5 million Palestinians and 520,000 Israeli Jews live – would presumably have begun his term by meeting with the mayors of Palestinian cities and villages.

At those meetings, he would have told them that despite Israel’s control over the area where they live, which affects many aspects of their lives, his goal is for them to maintain their normal lives insofar as possible, and that he is at their disposal for any problem that arises.

The head of Central Command would tell them that because this is what is required by international law, as codified in the Fourth Geneva Convention and in UN Security Council Resolution 2334 of December 2016, which was based on it. Both say that an occupier of territory in which people who aren’t involved in the conflict live must provide them with reasonable and humane conditions for getting on with their lives.

Resolution 2334 also says that the Security Council won’t recognize any annexation of territory acquired by war. The ban on annexation also exists in the UN Charter. In addition, international law forbids transferring the population of occupied territory elsewhere, and it also forbids transferring the occupying power’s population into occupied territory.

But all Israeli governments since 1967 have ignored international law and enabled the settlement enterprise, which is illegal under that law. At one time, this was said to be for security reasons, to assuage international objections, including from the United States. Later, governments found ways to maneuver around international pressure and kept moving forward.

And since the current government was formed, all restraints have ended. Many single-family farms were established that took over large swaths of the West Bank, and the crime of ethnically cleansing Palestinians from places where they had lived for a long time began, with backing from the Israel Defense Forces and the government.

Given this, one can conclude that the head of Central Command, Maj. Gen. Avi Bluth, knowingly headed a project of crimes against humanity. These acts have led various countries to impose sanctions on key criminals in this field, but the IDF hasn’t taken any steps against them. And Bluth’s decision, following a minor terror attack, to cut down 3,100 trees from which Palestinians earn a living, which he termed an act of collective punishment that could recur if there are more terror attacks, was another crime against humanity.

Given all this, it’s hard to understand how IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir can ignore the criminal situation that the IDF is enabling, and even actively supporting, in the occupied territories. It’s also hard to understand how he can describe Bluth as a “moral” and “ethical” officer “who has worked for years, day and night, for the security of Israel and its residents, and especially the residents of Judea and Samaria” (the biblical term for the West Bank).

Clearly, Zamir didn’t mean the security of the majority of the region’s residents – that is, the Palestinians. For him, too, they don’t exist. And the occupying power’s obligation to allow them to live normal lives doesn’t interest him. It’s also clear that there’s nothing moral or ethical about the things being done to the Palestinians on Bluth’s watch.

The policies set by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, to which Defense Minister Israel Katz is also a party, make it clear to the Palestinians that they don’t count. And they thereby lead to Palestinian terror.

Combined with the government’s guidelines, which say that only Israelis have the right to settle in the Land of Israel; Netanyahu’s arrogant speech to the UN General Assembly in September 2023, in which he said that a normalization deal was being negotiated with the Saudis and the Palestinians must not be given a veto over it; and Jewish settlers’ aggression against Palestinians in the occupied territories, which has received the IDF’s backing, no one should be surprised that the result was Hamas’ attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, and sporadic terror attacks after that as well.

This unstable situation, which has lasted for many years, could be ended by Israel consenting to establish a Palestinian state based on peace agreements that would address both sides’ interests. I saw the document that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas submitted to the French president and the Saudi Crown Prince as part of their effort to persuade as many countries as possible to attend July’s conference in New York on a two-state solution. This document spoke clearly about a demilitarized state with policing powers only, and it seems to me that it’s one Israel could easily accept.

Granted, it will be necessary to dismantle settlements, though possibly not all of them. But once such a Palestinian state exists, most of Israel’s security problems will disappear. Countries that are currently alienated from it will go back to having good ties with it, and in general, its position overseas will be bolstered. Israel’s Palestinian citizens will be proud of their country, and there will also be enormous economic benefits.

It’s unfortunate that Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar persuaded U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio to revoke entry visas to the United States for the Palestinian leaders who had planned to attend this year’s UN General Assembly, where the heads of all member states appear. This was a petty and unnecessary move, as was Israel’s decision to bar the foreign ministers of Arab states that seek a comprehensive peace in the Middle East from visiting Ramallah, the Palestinian Authority’s seat of government.

Regardless of whether it’s driven by Smotrich or Netanyahu, Israel’s current ambition is a population transfer of residents of both the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank, some 6 million people, or perhaps only some of them. Either way, this is a crime against humanity.

And U.S. President Donald Trump is giving the government a tailwind. In America right now, he is the Constitution, the House of Representatives, the Senate and the Supreme Court. He is also the one imposing sanctions on the International Criminal Court in The Hague. But he will not be there forever.

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Jews for Justice for Palestinians is a network of Jews who are British or live in Britain, practising and secular, Zionist or not. We oppose Israeli policies that undermine the livelihoods, human, civil and political rights of the Palestinian people. We support the right of Israelis to live in freedom and security within Israel’s 1967 borders. We work to build worldwide Jewish opposition to the Israeli Occupation, with like-minded groups around the world and are a founding member of European Jews for a Just Peace, a federation of Jewish groups in ten European countries.

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