Do President Biden and Secretary of State Blinken have any strategy here besides wagging a finger at Israel while supporting its’ vengeful assault on a civilian population to teach Hamas a “lesson”? And what lesson will be learned? Palestinians will likely learn the lesson that they need more resistance to the unfolding genocide and more and better weapons to aid their efforts.
What are U.S. leaders thinking? Their veto of the UN-sponsored ceasefire resolution guarantees not only more civilian deaths and displacement in Gaza and the West Bank but severely damages the faint hopes for peace in the region and justice for the Palestinians. This is not to say that a UN Security Council resolution alone could stop Israel’s assault, but it would have sent a message that the Israeli government would be hard-pressed to ignore.
Now the UN General Assembly, representing a huge majority of nations of the world has voted for a ceasefire. The vote was 150 in favor and 10 opposed. The U.S. and Israel, allies in the massacre taking place in Gaza, were opposed. In response to growing international horror, Biden has offered words of caution to Israel that it is losing support for its indiscriminate attacks on civilians. Jeremy Scahill, investigative reporter for the Intercept, tweeted in response “This cosplay by Biden and co where they pretend the US is somehow not the central facilitator of this enduring mass slaughter would be pathetic if it wasn’t so murderous.”
U.S. credibility, already low, is now in tatters as the Israeli war machine has no reason to cease its not-so-secret-efforts to kill or drive most of the 2.3 million Palestinian population in Gaza into surrounding countries like Egypt, Jordan, and elsewhere if possible (neither the Jordanians nor the Egyptians are willing to accept them at this point). If enacted, this would be ethnic cleansing on a scale even more significant than the original displacement of over 700,000 Palestinians in 1948 out of their ancestral home into refugee camps in Jordan, Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon (and some were pushed into the West Bank and Gaza).
Do President Biden and Secretary of State Blinken have any strategy here besides wagging a finger at Israel while supporting its’ vengeful assault on a civilian population to teach Hamas a “lesson”? And what lesson will be learned? Palestinians will likely learn the lesson that they need more resistance to the unfolding genocide and more and better weapons to aid their efforts.
Why can’t American leaders, media, and politicians see this? By now, Biden and the Democrats must see the unpopularity of the war on Palestine in polling of younger voters, including Jews, as well as Arab American voters in swing states like Michigan who may not vote as a protest. Can they really depend on this antiwar sentiment evaporating over the next year? It is becoming clear that the current Israeli onslaught will continue for an unknown period, with the result being more, not less, opposition to the war and the war’s American enablers.
Israel’s stated goal, backed by the U.S. and mainstream media, is that it must eliminate Hamas in order to ensure the safety of the Jewish state. This is powerful propaganda in light of Jewish history and the trauma arising from the holocaust and the near elimination of the entire Jewish population of Europe. This trauma was reawakened by the October 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel that killed 800-900 civilians and 300 or so soldiers.
But “defeating Hamas” and ensuring Jewish safety is not what is occurring in the Gaza Strip now. Over 18,000 civilians have been killed, 70% of them women and children, in Israeli attacks on apartment buildings, UN refugee camps, schools, and hospitals. Thousands more will die in the days, weeks, and months ahead due to a lack of water, fuel, electricity, and disease. This is a policy of pure revenge directed at the civilian population.
There are reportedly 30-40,000 Hamas fighters and about 10-15,000 more from Islamic Jihad. According to Israeli sources, about 2,000 have been killed so far. To eliminate all or most of them would entail killing hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians and/or driving them entirely out of Gaza. No sane observer believes that is possible, much less consistent with international law or modern moral precepts.
The only hope now for a ceasefire, not to mention a long-term settlement of the issues driving the war, is public pressure and massive protests here in the U.S. and abroad. One positive sign is the leadership of Jewish groups like Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow, who have joined with Palestinian rights groups to demand a ceasefire as well as justice for Palestinians.
The other positive sign is the effort by some Jewish and Palestinian academics, writers, and activists to promote a vision of what Israel/Palestine might look like in the future if Jews and Palestinians can recognize each other’s pain and work towards a state where Jewish fears are addressed, and Palestinian rights to a homeland are respected.
Nothing less will do.
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