Wrong Response to Israeli Attacks

It’s not often that I think both sides, meaning both Democrats and Republicans, are the same yet the action of the Biden administration last week is the same as I’d expect from any of the last half dozen presidents. Biden has sided with Israel to allow them to continue their overreaction to violence perpetrated by Hamas militants and is killing Palestinian civilians at several times the rate suffered by Israelis. At least 122 Palestinians have been killed this week by Israeli airstrikes on Gaza, including 31 children, 1230 have been wounded according to local health officials. That compares to just 8 Israelis killed.

The United Nations Security Council, of which we are one of five permanent members, took a vote on whether to call for a cease fire in the Israel/Palestinian conflict and the only dissenting vote was the United States. Since the U.S. is a permanent member that no vote vetoes the measure.

The US supplies $4 billion in aid every year to Israel, that gives us a lot of leverage to use to moderate Israeli actions but once again our leaders fail to use it. Instead Israel is using that money and the weapons purchased from us with it on air strikes and artillery shelling of densely populated areas. That makes this country complicit with the murder of civilians. The Gaza Strip is the world’s third most densely populated polity at 1.85 million people crammed into an area less than a third the size of San Antonio. It isn’t possible to drop bombs and artillery shells without killing civilians and destroying their homes.

I make no excuses for Hamas, their rocket attack last week set off the latest round of violence. On the other hand Israel, especially as led by the corrupt Benjamin Netanyahu, has oppressed Palestinians since 1948 and due to walls, blockades, and other measures; Gaza suffers 70% unemployment among young people. Netanyahu has setup an apartheid state similar to what existed in South Africa until 1994. In 2018 Netanyahu’s government passed a racist law that affords exclusive rights to Jewish people and not available to the 20% of the citizens who are Arabs. That same law removed Arabic as an official language which it had been since 1948 when Israel was founded. You reap what you sow.

I don’t think for a moment that Joe Biden or anyone in the United States can solve the situation between Israel and the Palestinians though at least Jimmy Carter made some progress toward it in 1978. Israel’s leader at the time, Menachem Begin, was no innocent but Netanyahu makes him look like one, so Carter had a big advantage. Never-the-less I just don’t see that it’s too much to ask that the United States not single-handedly prevent the call for a cease fire. At least it would give a chance to provide medical attention to those injured in the Israeli attack.

Sadly this is another situation where Biden’s primary opponent, Bernie Sanders, has a better response. In a New York Times op-ed Sanders wrote. “No one is arguing that Israel, or any government, does not have the right to self-defense.” But “why is the question almost never asked: What are the rights of the Palestinian people?” Sander’s also issued a statement saying “We must also take a hard look at nearly $4 billion a year in military aid to Israel. It is illegal for U.S. aid to support human rights violations.”

Published in the Seguin Gazette - May 19, 2021