Chethana Janith, Jadetimes Staff
C. Janith is a Jadetimes news reporter covering science and geopolitics.
As time passes, unrelentingly, Israel’s crimes in the Gaza Strip are multiplying, with the apparent help and support of the “democratic” US. The latest figures show that the IDF has killed more than 41,000 Palestinian civilians with American weapons, and that 70 percent of the victims were women and children.
Some observers estimate that the number of deaths resulting from the attacks on Gaza could be at least another 100,000—including those already killed and buried under rubble, as well as those who have died due to lack of basic medicines and healthcare, malnutrition and disease. On August 26, the first case of polio in twenty-five years was reported in Gaza.
There are tens of thousands of orphaned children in Gaza who are struggling to survive and who are constantly on the move as the Israelis order them to evacuate every few days. Gazans’ miserable livelihoods and the depleted infrastructure of the territory before the war have now been 80-90% destroyed, and residents are surviving in a state that few faced even a century ago.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to destroy Hamas, but this is an impossible task, because Hamas is a movement seeking Palestinians’ liberation after years of Israeli oppression, and this goal cannot be abandoned until Palestinians’ aspirations have been realized. Instead of destroying Hamas, the Israeli army, in a bid to minimize its own losses in close combat, cowardly bombed peaceful neighborhoods in Gaza, dropping 2,000 and 1,000 pound bombs provided by the “supportive” US, which are designed to kill indiscriminately and destroy residential buildings.
The USA’s total support for its Israeli ally
The massacres of Palestinians by Israel were organized and instigated by the United States. Bombs and every conceivable weapon have been provided to the Israeli war machine so that it can massacre civilians, a criminal offense under international law. It is true that the Biden administration has paid lip service to the need to minimize civilian deaths, but while publicly claiming that it has put pressure on Israel to do so, it has in fact dramatically increased its supply of weapons to the IDF. Washington has also provided and continues to provide enormous financial support, thus paying for the killing of Palestinian civilians.
The US defends the current extreme right-wing Israeli government in all international forums. It has vetoed resolutions condemning Israeli atrocities, despite the fact that no sane person could justify these deadly attacks as self-defense. The United States, a country that claims to be guided by the rule of law, has undermined the rule of law in several ways. For example, it has used threats in order to pressurize countries not to bring cases against Israel before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court (ICC). Moreover, the Biden administration has even stooped to threatening judges and prosecutors, tactics reminiscent of those used by the mafia, an organization which was hated and outlawed in the United States. Regardless of how one looks at it, the United States is directly and clearly complicit in everything Israel does, and Washington will eventually be held accountable. It may be recalled that the Second World War ended with the Nuremberg Trials, which imposed severe penalties on the Nazi criminals.
Washington’s deceit and lies to its people
In an attempt to gain the support of the American public, the Biden administration is working continuously to misinform and deceive its own people. The American president has repeatedly claimed that he is working tirelessly to minimize civilian deaths and achieve a ceasefire so that the Israeli hostages can be freed, but at the same time he signs off decisions to supply Israel with more and more powerful bombs, and protects Israel behind the scenes.
The Pentagon, like the IDF, is after Hamas leader Yahwar Sinwar, and is generous with its intelligence, but nevertheless Joe Biden is claiming at every corner that the US is not involved in Israel’s war. In his speeches, the American president sheds tears for the fate of the Israeli hostages, but almost never mentions the fate of the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have been killed, arrested and tortured without charge by Israeli authorities. After all, the hostages are not only those captured by Hamas on October 7, but also the many Palestinians imprisoned by the IDF without charge. But Israel’s actions are for some reason portrayed as acceptable, while the Palestinian leadership is seen as beyond the pale, because the US and its allies, deceiving everyone, falsely define Hamas as terrorist organization while the IDF is portrayed as a “humanitarian” army.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is portrayed as tirelessly and bravely traveling to the Middle East in search of a ceasefire, but his missions are more about fooling Americans and the world than establishing a just ceasefire and peace. The United States, as Israel’s main supporter, could have demanded a ceasefire with one phone call, but instead it claims that its hands are tied. The ceasefire plan proposed by President Biden under international pressure was accepted by Hamas, and allegedly initially even accepted by Israel, but then Netanyahu began to change the terms relating to Israeli withdrawal. Most notably in relation to the border with Egypt, commonly referred to as the Philadelphia Corridor, and the Netzarim Corridor, which allowed the Israeli army to divide the Gaza Strip in half and control it. It was Israel that reneged on the ceasefire plan, but the United States will never admit this! This is not the behavior of an “honest” broker, as the US tries to portray itself.
The Biden administration’s bias and deception
The bias and deception goes far beyond the White House. While Donald Trump was entirely on Israel’s side, the Democrats have been more secretive and have promoted themselves as the party that supposedly represents all Americans, regardless of race, creed or color. It is reported that Jews make up 2 percent of the US population and Muslims 1.3 percent, with Pew Research predicting that Muslims will outnumber Jews by 2040. Yet, at the recent Democratic Party convention (apparently with Kamala Harris’ blessing), everything possible was done to silence even a modest request for a two-minute speech in support of the Palestinians. A truly catastrophic mistake! Those in the independent bloc nominated any one of three speakers for a two-minute speech - Georgia Representative Ruwa Romman, Illinois Representative Abdel Nasser Rashid, and Dr. Tania Hajj Hassan, a pediatrician who has treated patients in Gaza. After intense negotiations, they were all rejected, and the mother and father of an American-Israeli hostage (Hersh Goldberg-Polin) were invited to speak at the convention.
The US political parties and the vast majority of US lawmakers serve the perceived interests of Israel and the AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) or the Israel lobby. Tens of thousands of Palestinians from the West Bank held as prisoners and tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza killed cannot field a speaker for two minutes, while the Israeli hostages, who number less than a hundred, have their spokesperson and plenty of Jewish support in the Democratic Party.
An extremely effective step that could moderate pro-Israeli prejudice in the United States would be to ban dual citizenship for all Americans, regardless of country. There are thousands of people in the US today with dual and triple citizenship, of whom many have served in foreign armies such as the IDF and now work at very high levels of the US government, both in the White House and in intelligence. Why, Americans ask, should we tolerate the threat of conflicts of interest and all that they can lead to? Make all such citizens choose their loyalties! In addition, many civil society organizations believe the Biden administration should immediately put an end to all financial and military assistance to Israel. Can any legislator make a convincing argument in favor of this huge amount of aid that the US is providing to a country that is richer than France, at a time when Americans themselves are in need?
The US unilaterally designates Hamas as a terrorist group, and then feels free to do what it wants with respect to that group. Yes, the October 7 attacks and the hostage taking were horrific, and they were perpetrated by Hamas, which the US calls a terrorist organization. But what is the IDF doing in Gaza and the West Bank? One has only to look at some of the horrifying posts showing war crimes that “brave” IDF soldiers have freely posted on Instagram.
If the West calls Hamas a terrorist organization, what should they call the IDF, which massacres Palestinian civilians on a daily basis? Does this not constitute state terrorism? Is this “better” than Hamas’s actions? Why do the American media label Hamas as terrorists at every opportunity, but refuse to censure the IDF? Why is it that every attack on Jews is characterized as terrorist, while the daily attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinians in the West Bank are almost never characterized as terrorist, or even widely reported?
These labels and biased narratives are clearly designed to brainwash Americans into buying into the Israeli narrative—that everything Israelis do is justified as being in defense of their homeland, land which they seized and are illegally occupying, and everything Palestinians do to resist handing over most of their land and homes to the Israelis is terrorism. This false and distorted narrative must be scrutinized if the world is to present a balanced picture of all that has happened since 1948, and the roots of which go back even further. Only if this is done can the world expect a more balanced US policy in the Middle East.
