Consciousness Burning: Israel’s Pattern of Targeting Civilians and Its Genocide in Gaza

5 June 2026

"אנחנו אחרי אלפי פצצות, ששת אלפים פצצות שהוטלו בעזה...וזאת רק ההתחלה."

תומר בר, מפקד חיל האוויר לשעבר, 13 באוקטובר 2023.

"שיישרף לכם הכפר"

שיר עממי ישראלי.

“Earlier Monday, Rubio appeared with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem as the two presented a unified front.”

Nick Schifrin, “Rubio affirms U.S. support for Israel's vision of military victory in Gaza”, PBS NewsHour, 15 September 2025.

“The donation from Ellison, the executive chairman of Oracle Corporation, brings his total spending on behalf of Rubio to $4 million, making him among the top donors of the 2016 cycle.”

Kenneth Vogel, “Larry Ellison gives another $1 million to boost Marco Rubio”, Politico, 20 February 2016.[1]

Israel’s pattern of targeting civilians has a long tradition that can be traced to the first Israeli war criminal, the founder of the country David Ben Gurion, and even earlier. Not necessarily accurately depicted in relevant literature, the nature of the conduct of the Israeli military speaks for itself. Here, we do not refer to Israel’s pathological use of violence through accusatorial terrorism domestically[2] and regionally absorbed and reflected by Haaretz newspaper and the rest of Israeli outlets. Rather, the idea is that Israel’s military engages in ordinary military activity while intentionally targeting civilians and civilian objects, culminating in Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Israel could not have done so for decades without the blunt and tacit support of international powers who perceived it as a geographical asset for their strategic pursuits, primarily natural resources in the Gulf monarchies and the suppression of any genuinely popular rule among the peoples of the Middle East. The purpose of the presence of the Israel lobby in its broad sense, primarily in the United States and Britain, has been to enhance Israel’s stature regardless of its essence as a colonial and apartheid state and to undermine legal and moral challenges to Israel’s standing as a rogue and illegitimate political entity in the Middle East.

The Ben Gurion ‘doctrine’ of targeting civilians has resulted in the ethnic cleansing of more than two thirds of Palestinians, followed by relentless intellectual and propaganda efforts aimed at concealing the original sin crime, also through the sham trial of Eichmann in the 1960s during a military regime against non-ethnically cleansed Palestinians. Culturally, Israel’s generals have always been considered heroic figures despite their actual performance and results on the battlefield. The paradox is that Israelis know the actual character of their fighting forces, but there had been no real venue that provided a research setting for this phenomenon, nor was it captured by literary or other cultural representations.

The structural divide in Israeli society between Eastern European Jews on the one hand (forming Mapai’s and its subsequent variants' main constituency) and resentful Mizrahi Jews (constituting Likud’s primary base), has left Israeli military commanders with the dilemma of being appreciated by the former, rather than the latter. This divide is also a main source for Israeli security agencies’ apocalyptic behavior internally and in foreign affairs, seeking to manage the country’s identity in favor of a certain wholly unappealing group, with the total cooperation of the purported marginalized one, all within the contours of the Zionist Yishuv or political entity in Palestine.

Israel’s generals derive from Mapai’s ideology. Their deranged combat propositions centered on deterring the adversary by killing and displacing its civilians have shaped many of Israel’s leading politicians. They often stepped from the military field into the local political one. They can be recalled by defining location and period: Rehavam Ze’evi a key proclaimer of Ben Gurion’s actual transfer paradigm honored with a bridge on his name that leads to the humongous Mossad building not far from Tel-Aviv University; Ariel Sharon (1950s Kibya, 1970s Gaza, 1982 Lebanon, and 2002 Ramallah); Rafael Eitan (Lebanon 1982); Yitzhak Rabin (1948 Led and 1987 – 1992 crushing of unarmed uprising in the 1967 occupied Palestinian territories); Ehud Barak (raids in Lebanon 1975 and Tunisia 1988, Lebanon 1982, Gaza 2001, and Gaza 2008-2009); Moshe Yaalon (Lebanon 1996, Gaza 2002 – 2004); Gabi Ashkenazi (Gaza 2008 – 2009); and Benny Ganz (Gaza 2012, Gaza 2014, and Gaza 2023 onwards).

Many of the Israeli military commanders are educated in various security studies in Israeli universities, the most notable of which is located at Haifa University. Dan Schueftan represents a projection of this education where he has glorified the Israeli military theory of ‘Consciousness Burning’ ('צריבת תודעה'),[3] the illegal warfare of targeting civilians to realize the adversary’s submission, which has been utilized by the Israeli military for generations. Occasionally, this theory emerges from military personnel such as former IDF Northern Commander Gadi Eizenkot, the framer of the “Dahya Doctrine”.[4]

An attempt to grant the illegal Israeli warfare philosophical justification can be found in the writings of philosopher Asa Kasher, the drafter of IDF’s code of conduct “IDF’s Spirit”. He was joined by former head of Tel-Aviv University’s INSS Amos Yadlin, arguing that the IDF’s obligations towards Israeli soldiers during armed activity are greater than regarding civilians, paving the path for ubiquitous moral justifications for flagrant violations of international law.[5] While Yadlin has been concerned with the potential strategic effects of perceiving Israel as a burden by the United States, Kasher has engaged in the daunting pursuit of claiming that Israel has not been committing genocide in Gaza.[6]

Both Yadlin and Kasher echoed the Israeli establishment and its society in denying that Israeli forces killed at least most of the civilians according to existing military procedure during the resistance operation from an occupied, besieged, and disfigured Gaza on 7 October 2023, and that Israeli censorship continues to prohibit reporting this fact.

The assault on Gaza that followed is no less than genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes in the spirit of consistent Israeli military unlawfulness. The complicity of both the Biden and Trump administrations is beyond doubt. Both provided Israel with arms and operational support, shielded it from any diplomatic and legal measures at the United Nations Security Council, before the International Criminal Court, and before the International Court of Justice. Biden and Trump also repeatedly expressed ideological identification with Israel while benefiting from significant financial contributions from the Israel lobby.

Israel’s intentional targeting of civilians reached genocidal levels and continued after violating the ceasefire reached by the Biden administration, announced in his final address from the Oval Office in January 2025. On 17 March 2025, the ceasefire fell apart after Israel broke it with the explicit support of the Trump administration, continuing in its genocide, targeting civilians intentionally with the intent to commit the heinous crime.[7] In October 2025, Trump announced another ceasefire that failed to deter Israel from its continued barbaric onslaught.[8] The American administrations’ interventions proved neither reliable nor effective. Both Trump and Biden, controlled at home by Israel’s advocates, deny Palestinian rights in any sincere version. They also consider accountability a strain, given their vulgar and indisputable aiding and abetting of Israel’s crimes.

While Biden Foreign Secretary Blinken pushed his British counterpart Cameron to pressure ICC’s Prosecutor Khan not to indict Israeli officials, the Trump administration simply sanctioned on behalf of Israel many of this court’s judges and prosecutors in addition to prominent Palestinian NGOs, and the U.N. Special Human Rights Rapporteur.[9] The enormous diplomatic pressure proved to be unproductive, apparently, as an additional five arrest warrants were issued by the ICC, three to Israeli politicians and two to Israeli military officials.[10] It would defy reason if the commander of the Israeli Air Force were not one of the targets of the ICC. Previously, the ICC had issued arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Gallant, who ended his tenure in February 2024. The process of seeking arrest warrants against Israeli officials at the ICC after the initial two is not public until the final decision by the Appeals Chamber based on Israel’s request.

The process of investigating and prosecuting Israeli officials at the ICC has been marred with grave breaches by Israel,[11] the United States, and its allies, particularly member states Britain and Germany, which filed legal briefings on behalf of Israel challenging jurisdiction. France has recently disinvited South Africa from the G7 gathering because of Trump’s ultimatum in an attempt to punish it for initiating genocide proceedings against Israel before the ICJ.[12]

The Prosecutor Khan himself adopted an extremely cautious path by forming an advisory committee that is premised on British domestic politics, where the politics of Starmer’s Blairism and the Conservatives are hostile to any genuine definition of Palestinian rights. It does not seem that ICC’s Prosecution has moved towards capturing the Israeli conduct accurately and diligently, failing to accuse Israel of what it had committed: genocide.

Israel’s attempts at procedural stalling, both at the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice, is a development from its previous policy of avoiding international litigation. Nevertheless, there is ample evidence to apply the principle of universal jurisdiction in national courts against culpable Israeli officials. Palestinians’ opponents are not only plentiful, but also powerful and stop at nothing to realize their objectives, including the sabotage and destruction of the international rule of law.

Former Israeli Air Force Commander Bar (center) and his incoming Deputy Tischler (left). Source IDF’s X account, 11 May 2023.

Asa Kasher. Source: Haaretz.

Amos Yadlin. Source: INSS website.

Moshe Yaalon in the Background. Source: Kan Channel, 2017.

Bar and former CENTCOM’s commander Kurilla. Source: Jerusalem Post, 9 August 2025.

[1] See also Ryan Grim & Murtaza Hussain, “Larry Ellison Vetted Marco Rubio for Fealty to Israel, Hacked Emails Reveal”, Drop Site, 2 October 2025.

[2] See Bruce Hoffman, “The Logic of Suicide Terrorism”, The Atlantic, June 2003. The essay quotes Israeli strategist Shiftan of Haifa University explaining the rationale of the ‘suicide bomber’.

[3] See Dan Schueftan, “Consciousness Burning has Expired”, Yisrael Ha-Yom, 9 May 2022 (Hebrew). See also

[4] Alex Fischman et al, “I Have Immense Power, I shall Not Have Any Excuses”, Ynet, 3 October 2008 (Hebrew). See also Paul Rogers, “Israel’s use of disproportionate force is a long-established tactic – with a clear aim”, The Guardian, 5 December 2023.

[5] Asa Kasher & Amos Yadlin, “Military Ethics of Fighting Terror: An Israeli Perspective”, 4(1) Journal of Military Ethics, pp.3-32 (2005). Even Michael Walzer, a longtime proponent of Israel, its strategy, and tactics, had reservations on Kasher and Yadlin’s diversion from the simple rules of international law. See Asa Kasher and Amos Yadlin, In response to: Israel - Civilians & Combatants from the May 14, 2009 issue, 11 June 2009 Issue.

[6] Yair Weinreb, “Prof. Asa Kasher: I have not seen in Gaza any act of the Genocide family”, Kan News, 10 August 2025 (Hebrew).

[7] Ben van der Merwe et al, A Pattern of Deadly Attacks on Gaza Families, Sky News, 9 October 2025.

[8] UN OHCHR, Palestinians across Gaza unsafe six months on from ceasefire announcement, says Türk, 10 April 2026.

[9] See Trump sanctions of 6 February 2025 against the ICC for investigations against Israeli and American officials; U.S. State Department’s ICC Sanctions page available at: https://www.state.gov/icc-sanctions.

[10] See Jeremy Sharon, “ICC issues five new arrest warrants against Israeli officials”, Times of Israel, 17 May 2026.

[11] See Harry Davies, “Revealed: Israeli spy chief ‘threatened’ ICC prosecutor over war crimes inquiry”, The Guardian, 28 May 2024; Harry Davies et al, “Spying, hacking and intimidation: Israel’s nine-year ‘war’ on the ICC exposed”, The Guardian, 28 May 2024.

[12] “South Africa says it was disinvited from G7 summit after US pressured France”, Le Monde & AFP, 26 March 2026.