Is the US complicit in the Gaza conflict?

 

I do wish the media would stop using the term "Israel - Gaza War" - it is NOT a war, it's a slaughter. 

With a war, generally, both sides are more or less equal in terms of armaments, forces and objectives. The conflict between Russia and Ukraine is a war (of aggression, prompted by one sovereign state invading a neighouring sovereign state).  No-one could suggest that is the case in the Israel - Gaza conflict because Gaza has no sovereignty. Hamas committed an awful terrorist attack, and has rightly been condemned for doing so. 

Israel's response is anything but proportionate, no matter what that state's government might say. There have been around 1,200 Israeli deaths, and 253 citizens captured (some of whom have now been released by Hamas) according to press reports. In Gaza, there have been almost 30,000 deaths and over 70,000 injured by Israeli forces. And that ignores the tens of thousands, on both sides, who have been killed or injured over the past 75 years of conflict. Where is the condemnation for that?  

The Israeli actions have spread to the West Bank, legally Palestinian territory according to international law and the UN but illegally occupied by Israel, and neighbouring Lebanon, allegedly because of links between Hamas and the Lebanese Hezbollah movement that has had no proven link to the October attacks.  The prospect of an escallation across the entire region exists. Where is the condemnation for that?

And yet Netanyahu, buoyed up by billions of dollars in US military aid, insists "only the total destruction" of Hamas will end the war. He has given no hint as to how this will be achieved, and ignores the fact that his continuing military campaign is probably acting as a recruitment tool for Hamas - Gaza is now awash with orphaned and traumatized young men, their families dead or missing, still under daily bombardment - and some may well join Hamas hoping to exact revenge for their losses. The only way there can be a "total destruction" of Hamas is by the total destruction of the Palestinian people themselves - including the innocent men, women and children who do not support Hamas. In other words, genocide.  South Africa and other African allies took a complaint to the UN Security Council alleging precisely that, and made allegations of daily war crimes by Israeli forces.  The UNSC found largely in South Africa's favour and requested a "humanitarian pause", but stronger wording and action was abandoned due to the US refusing to support a full condemnation.

This is Netanyahu's aim, and has been all along, in every term of office he has enjoyed. Israel, clearly, contiues to flout every UN Resolution trying to end this conflict, every call for a ceasefire to provide desperately needed humanitarian aid, and yet the US continues to support the regime. It is an obscenity. The US is complicit in daily war crimes and murder by a state actor. 

Biden should stop every cent of military aid to Israel today - not a penny more until and unless Israel removes its forces from Gaza. Not a penny more until and unless there is a detailed, negotiated settlement between Israel and the Palestinian authorities that provides the latter with statehood, and the freedoms that go with statehood. Achieve that, and there will be no need for Hamas or any other active terrorist organisation to exist there. The people will be able to govern themselves instead of being penned up in what amounts to the biggest open prison-cum-killing ground in the region, arguably in the world.

But I am NOT holding my breath for that, for the US completely lacks a moral compass when it comes to Middle Eastern affairs - indeed, any foreign affairs, unless there is financial gain to be had. Should Trump get re-elected (God forbid!), the situation will only get worse, globally.  He has already openly voiced anti-NATO sentiments, even during his term of Office, and his Republican accolytes in Congress are blocking a further aid package to Ukraine that essentially sends a message to Putin that he can carry on with his war without US interference.  How long before the US also withdraws its sanctions package against the Russian regime too?  The day after a Trump inauguration, perhaps?  And yet that same Congress continues to pump military aid into Israel to prolong this slaughter.....

These are dangerous times indeed!