War over Peace

Bob Sheak, April 6, 2024

There was a terrorist attack by Hamas on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. This took place in context of long-standing Israeli control of Gaza’s borders and illegal land takeovers in Jerusalem and the West Bank. Israel’s response has been to use massive bombing and ground forces in Gaza and to increase expansion of settlements in the West Bank. (For historical background, see Rashid Khalidi’s book, The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine.)

Amid the unfolding and devastating war carried out by Israel in Gaza, the Biden administration has continued to support Israel politically and militarily. Though, as of April 4, President Biden is finally warning Netanyahu that the killing of civilians in Gaza must stop. Up to this time, however, Biden and his administration have failed to have Israel allow meaningful-levels of humanitarian aid to enter Gaza or to institute at least a temporary cease fire. Hence, there is rampant hunger, even starvation, over 33,000 Gazans have been killed, over 70,000 wounded, and buildings, hospitals, and communities have been destroyed.

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Israel’s brutal war – some effects

Nils Adler and Farah Najjar report for Aljazeera on the death and destruction wrought by Israeli forces on Gaza, bearing in mind that the conditions for the 2.3 million people living in Gaza grow increasingly desperate (https://2024/4/3/israels-war-on-gaza-live-condemnation-of-israel-over-aid-worker-killings).

Israel continues to block the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) from bringing food and other aid into northern Gaza, the aid agency said.
Worldwide condemnation rises as Israel’s military stands accused of deliberately targeting charity staff bringing food to thousands of Gaza Palestinians facing imminent famine.
A UN-World Bank report estimates the infrastructure damage in the Gaza Strip at $18.5bn in the first four months of Israel’s devastating assault.
UN Secretary-General Guterres says the Israeli attack that killed seven World Central Kitchen staff brings the number of aid workers killed in Gaza to 196 – including more than 175 UN staff. “This is unconscionable.”
At least 32,975 Palestinians have been killed and 75,577 wounded in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7. The death toll in Israel from Hamas’s October 7 attack stands at 1,139 with dozens still held captive.

U.S. Complicity in Israel’s “Plausible” Genocide

Daniel Warner writes on U.S. complicity in the Israeli genocidal attacks on Gaza

(https://counterpunch.org/2024/03/29/u-s-complicity-in-israels-plausible-genocide).

Warner quotes Representative Ocasio-Cortez, a proponent for a cease fire in this war.

“‘Honoring our alliances does not mean facilitating mass killing,’ Representative Ocasio-Cortez said on the floor of the House of Representatives on March 22. ‘We cannot hide from our responsibility any longer.’ ‘Facilitating mass killing’ and ‘responsibility’ could include United States legal complicity.” This is the position taken by the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

“The ICJ ruled on January 26 that Israel was committing ‘plausible genocide.’ In addition, Warner continues, “in a March 25 Report to the Human Rights Council by the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Francesca Albanese wrote in the Summary: ‘By analyzing the patterns of violence and Israel’s policies in its onslaught on Gaza, this report concludes that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating Israel’s commission of genocide is met.’”

The Oxford dictionary defines genocide as “the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or group with the aim of destroying that nation or group.”

The Genocide Convention

Voker Turk, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, writes that the “Genocide Convention is the first human rights treaty in the history of the United Nations, adopted on the eve of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

“Seventy-five years later, the two foundational agreements remain closely interlinked.

“Despite the lessons of the Holocaust, and the ‘never again’ moment in history that led to the Convention, genocide occurred again and again ever since, inflicting intolerable harm and suffering. Preventing genocide, and bringing its perpetrators to account before all humanity, are imperative to fulfil our human rights.

“The Convention calls on all States, and all of us, to maintain vigilance, and push for action to prevent genocide, everywhere. In reality, genocide is never unleashed without warning. It is always the culmination of serious human rights violations: identifiable patterns of systematic discrimination – based on race, ethnicity, religion or other characteristics – which have been ignored.

“The prohibition of genocide is not an ordinary rule of international law: it is jus cogens – an overriding fundamental principle, at all times and without exception, for all humanity.

Turk urges “all States that have not yet done so, to ratify and accede to this most fundamental of treaties, to protect our common humanity, and advance our universal human rights.”

Complicity

Daniel Warner (cited above) points out that there are two types of violations to the Genocide Convention.

“The first violation is that the prevention of genocide is a legal obligation. If a state has knowledge that genocide is being committed and does nothing, if it has knowingly not prevented genocide, the state is complicit. The duty does not require a finding that genocide is occurring; rather, awareness of a serious risk of genocide places an obligation on all States to take whatever action possible and necessary to prevent its occurrence or continuation.” The ICJ’s decision on “plausible genocide” makes this point relevant for the United States as does the Report of the Special Rapporteur.

The second type of violation “describes a positive act of commission rather than the negative act of not preventing. If a state continues to support the state committing genocide…the supporting state may be held complicit in genocide’s commission.” The United States continues to supply weapons to Israel after October 7. quietly approving and delivering “more than 100 separate foreign military sales to Israel since the Gaza war began Oct. 7, amounting to thousands of precision-guided munitions, small-diameter bombs, bunker busters, small arms and other lethal aid, U.S. officials told members of Congress in a recent classified briefing,” John Hudson wrote on March 6, 2024, in The Washington Post. The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times confirmed this account of the Congressional briefing in similar reports.”

How, Warner asks, does the United States justify its continuing supply of weapons to Israel in violation of the Genocide Convention? “The U.S. Arms Export Control Act does permit exceptions for arms sales to close allies. The United States uses this loophole to continue sending weapons to Israel. But using this loophole to continue sending weapons does not exonerate complicity in genocide. In the least, it is hypocritical. Using the Arms Export Control Act ‘doesn’t just seem like an attempt to avoid technical compliance with US arms export law, it’s an extremely troubling way to avoid transparency and accountability on a high-profile issue,’ according to Ari Tolany, director of the security assistance monitor at the Centre for International Policy think tank….”

Biden supports the Israeli war on Palestinians, while ineffectively pushing for less Israeli violence and more humanitarian aid

Meanwhile, the Biden administration keeps sending arms to Israel

John Hudson reports on this issue (https://washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/03/29/us-weapons-israel-gaza-war). Here’s some of what he writes.

“The Biden administration in recent days quietly authorized the transfer of billions of dollars in bombs and fighter jets to Israel despite Washington’s concerns about an anticipated military offensive in southern Gaza that could threaten the lives of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians.

“The new arms packages include more than 1,800 MK84 2,000-pound bombs and 500 MK82 500-pound bombs, according to Pentagon and State Department officials familiar with the matter. The 2,000-pound bombs have been linked to previous mass-casualty events throughout Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.”

“The development underscores that,” as Hudson reports, “while rifts have emerged between the United States and Israel over the war’s conduct, the Biden administration has viewed weapons transfers as off-limits when considering how to influence the actions of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“We have continued to support Israel’s right to defend itself,” said a White House official. “Conditioning aid has not been our policy.”

An Obscenity

Brett Wilkins writes on March 29, 2024, on the “obscenity” of the ongoing U.S. weapons transfers to Israel (https://commondreams.org/news/us-military-aid-to-israel-2667634511).

“Despite growing worldwide calls for an arms embargo, the Biden administration in recent days has approved the transfer of billions of dollars’ worth of new weapons shipments to Israel, including warplanes and 2,000-pound bombs that have been dropped on densely populated areas of Gaza with devastating results.

“The Washington Post reported Friday that the administration has ‘quietly’ authorized arms shipments including more than 1,800 MK84 2,000-pound bombs and 500 MK82 500-pound bombs, as well as 25 F-35A fighter jets and engines worth approximately $2.5 billion. The transfers are the latest of more than 100 arms shipments authorized by the Biden administration since the October 7 attacks on Israel.

“‘Quietly,'” Palestinian American writer and political analyst Yousef Munayyer scoffed in response to the report. ‘This is cowardly from the administration. If you are going to be full backers of genocide, own it. We see you and history sees you as well.’

“‘It is scary to think of the world U.S. support for Israel is creating. A world with no rules, no limits in war, where norms don’t exist, and where genocide is supportable,’ he added. ‘Good luck getting anyone to listen to you about international law after this.’”

According to the Post:

“The 2,000-pound bombs, capable of leveling city blocks and leaving craters in the earth 40 feet across and larger, are almost never used any more by Western militaries in densely populated locations due to the risk of civilian casualties.”

As of March 29, 2024, after 175 days of the war, 32,600 Gaza residents had been killed and over 75,000 wounded.

On April 4, 2024, Gaza’s health authorities say about 33,000 Palestinians have been confirmed killed, around 40 percent of them children, with thousands more bodies lost under rubble not recovered. More than 70,000 have been wounded, meaning around 5% of the population has been killed or injured, not counting deaths from hunger, unsanitary conditions and the collapse of health care (https://reuters.com/world/middle-east/gaza-war-after-six-months-what-are-the-issues-now-2024-04-04).

The Biden administration supports Israel at the UN Security Council

Marjorie Cohn considers the Biden administration support of Israel at the U.N. in an article published on Truthout on March 26 2024

(https://truthout.org/articles/israel-remains-intent-on-genocide-despite-world-court-orders).

“Israel is continuing its genocidal campaign against the Palestinians in Gaza and hindering humanitarian relief efforts despite specific orders from the International Court of Justice (ICJ), or the World Court, to refrain from these very actions.”

Cohn continues. “On January 26, in response to South Africa’s genocide case against Israel, the ICJ ordered the following provisional measures be taken:

Israel shall prevent the commission of all genocidal acts, especially (a) killing Palestinians in Gaza; (b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to Palestinians in Gaza; (c) deliberately inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction in whole or in part; and (d) imposing measures intended to prevent Palestinian births in Gaza;

Israel shall immediately ensure that its military does not commit any of the acts listed above and it should

punish the direct and public incitement to commit genocide;
immediately enable urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance to Palestinians in Gaza;
prevent the destruction and ensure the preservation of evidence; and
submit a report to the ICJ on all measures taken to carry out this order within one month.
Since the ICJ issued the order, Israel has consistently flouted its mandate.

Cohn adds: “One month after the ICJ’s ruling, Human Rights Watch reported that, “Israel continues to obstruct the provision of basic services and the entry and distribution within Gaza of fuel and lifesaving aid, acts of collective punishment that amount to war crimes and include the use of starvation of civilians as a weapon of war. Fewer trucks have entered Gaza and fewer aid missions have been permitted to reach northern Gaza in the several weeks since the ruling than in the weeks preceding it….”

Famine

Cohn writes: “‘The Israeli government is starving Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians, putting them in even more peril than before the World Court’s binding order,” said Omar Shakir, who is Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch. ‘The Israeli government has simply ignored the court’s ruling, and in some ways even intensified its repression, including further blocking lifesaving aid.’”

“On March 18, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, the world’s leading tracker of humanitarian crises, reported that a state of famine is ‘imminent’ in Gaza unless there is an immediate ceasefire and full access granted to protect civilians; provide food, water and medicine; and restore health, water, energy and sanitation services.”

South Africa Asks the ICJ to Order Additional Measures

“In light of Israel’s impending ground offensive in Rafah, South Africa returned to the ICJ on February 12 and requested additional provisional measures, according to Cohn. South Africa noted that Rafah [in southern Gaza] is generally home to 280,000 Palestinians. But as of February 12, 1.4 million people — more than half of Gaza’s population, about half of whom are children — were living there, predominantly in makeshift tents.

“Pursuant to Israeli military evacuation orders, these people fled to Rafah from their homes and areas that had been largely destroyed by Israel. The International Committee of the Red Cross said there is ‘no option’ for them.

On February 16, the ICJ refused to order additional provisional measures. But the court quoted UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who said that a large-scale assault against Rafah ‘would exponentially increase what is already a humanitarian nightmare with untold regional consequences.’ The court concluded: “This perilous situation demands immediate and effective implementation of the provisional measures indicated by the Court in its Order of 26 January 2024, which are applicable throughout the Gaza Strip, including in Rafah, and does not demand the indication of additional provisional measures.”

South Africa presses its case against Israel’s war

On March 6, as the slaughter continued, South Africa once again returned to the ICJ and requested additional provisional measures “in order urgently to ensure the safety and security of 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza, including over a million children.” South Africa asked the court to order: “All participants in the conflict must ensure that all fighting and hostilities come to an immediate halt, and that all hostages and detainees are released immediately.

“South Africa also urged the court to order that Israel immediately and effectively ‘enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance to address famine and starvation and the adverse conditions of life faced by Palestinians in Gaza.’ The measures South Africa requested would require Israel to (a) immediately suspend its military operations in Gaza; (b) lift its blockade of Gaza; (c) rescind all other existing measures and practices that directly or indirectly obstruct the access of Palestinians in Gaza to humanitarian assistance and basic services; and (d) ensure the provision of adequate and sufficient food, water, fuel, shelter, clothing, hygiene, sanitation requirements and medical aid.”

The ICJ has not yet ruled on South Africa’s March 6 request for additional provisional measures.

Israel attacks aid workers

On April 1, 2024, as reported by Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan, Israel attacked a World Central Kitchen humanitarian convoy with three separate missile strikes while on a so-called “deconflicted” route in Gaza, killing seven of the aid group’s workers as they coordinated the delivery of hundreds of tons of food (https://democracynow.org/2024/4/4/israel_is_wielding_starvation_as_a). They add,

“The world-renowned chef José Andrés, founder of World Central Kitchen, who has worked in many conflict zones….said the convoy had coordinated their route with the Israeli military. He told Reuters, ‘They were target[ed] systematically, car by car…we were targeted deliberately, nonstop, until everybody was dead in this convoy.’”

“Israeli newspaper Haaretz published a timeline of the attack, describing at least three missile strikes. After the first strike, Haaretz reported, ‘some of the passengers were seen leaving the car after it was hit and switching to one of the other two…seconds later, another missile hit their car.’ Then, ‘the third car in the convoy approached, and the passengers began to transfer to it the wounded who had survived the second strike in order to get them out of danger. But then a third missile struck them.’”

“‘Of course,’ Goodman and Monihan continue, ‘these are not the only aid workers killed so far in Gaza. Jamie McGoldrick, the UN’s Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, stated, As of 20 March, at least 196 humanitarians had been killed in the Occupied Palestinian Territory since October 2023. This is nearly three times the death toll recorded in any single conflict in a year…There is no safe place left in Gaza.”

“The vast majority of those killed were Palestinians who worked for UNRWA, the UN’s principal relief agency in Gaza. +972 Magazine reported this week that the Israeli army has been using AI-driven targeting systems, one called ‘Lavender’ and another called ‘Where’s Daddy?’ that ‘systematically attacked the targeted individuals while they were in their homes — usually at night while their whole families were present. Thus, entire families are wiped out.’”

Some context: Israel control and repression of Palestinians is decades old

Phyllis Bennis reviews evidence on the relevance of Israeli Apartheid in creating the repressive conditions under which Palestinians have lived in an article for In These Times, Oct 12, 2023 (https://inthesetimes.com/article/israel-palestine-apartheid-occupation-war-seige).

Bennis argues this: “The only answer to the horrifying violence is to change the conditions from which it sprang. The first step is an immediate cease-fire.

“The violence in Gaza and Israel is bringing horrifying new levels of human suffering to both Israelis and Palestinians.

“Both sides have committed heinous violations of international law, and all attacks on civilians must be condemned. But if we’re serious about preventing such horrors in the future, we have to go beyond condemnation.

“We can’t understand how we got here — or how to end the crisis — until we grapple with the immensity of Palestinian suffering. And for us in the United States, a big part of the equation means confronting the role our government and tax dollars play in enabling that oppression to continue.”

Bennis continues. “Since 2007, Gazans have lived under siege, prohibited from leaving their open air prison by a high-security militarized wall and platoons of Israeli soldiers.

“Well before the latest escalation, the transit of most goods was banned. Gazans couldn’t get construction materials to repair the apartment blocks, power plants, water treatment facilities, hospitals, school, mosques and churches that Israel bombed repeatedly — in 2008, 2012, 2014, 2018 and 2021.

“Emergency medical permits were often denied, leaving many Gazans to die without care.

“Electricity was already limited. A 72-year-old woman in Gaza told a reporter last January, ‘It is hard to imagine, but we used to experience 24 hours of electricity each day in Gaza; now we are lucky if we get six.’

“Water was already unavailable except by expensive purchases from Israeli water companies. And food has long been scarce — by the age of two, 20% of Gaza’s children are already stunted.

Now, Bennis reports, the Israeli war is causing even worse outcomes.

“On October 9, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant called for a ‘total siege’ of Gaza. ‘No electricity, no food, no water, no gas — it’s all closed,’ he said. For Gaza’s already impoverished and malnourished population, that’s not just collective punishment — it’s genocide.”

“Hospitals will be unable to treat patients. Families will starve or die of thirst.

Gallant is transforming an existing long-term risk of early death into an immediate, lethal threat. It’s a policy consciously and specifically designed to kill innocent children, babies, elders — everyone.”

“For decades, Palestinian resistance has taken overwhelmingly non-violent forms, including the Great March of Return in 2018-2019, a peaceful Gaza protest that was met with overwhelming lethal violence by Israeli forces. But the world didn’t hear — or if it heard, it didn’t answer. When the UN warned in 2012 and 2015 that by 2020 Gaza would be ‘unlivable’ without a ‘herculean effort’ by the international community, the world didn’t respond.

“This time the resistance took a violent form, including Hamas targeting civilians in horrifying ways that are illegal under international law. Those illegitimate acts must be condemned. But if we’re serious about preventing violence — all violence — we need to remember they didn’t come out of nowhere.”

Bennis continues. “We need to change the conditions from which this brutality sprang. Sending more bombs, warplanes, guns and bullets won’t solve the problem. We’ve been providing Israel billions of our tax dollars—supplying about 20% of Israel’s entire military budget—for years. And we’ve done it without putting any conditions on an Israeli military that’s enforced a brutal siege and is indiscriminately bombing Gaza today.

“That must end. We also need to stop protecting Israel from being held accountable in the International Criminal Court, and we need to stop vetoing virtually every UN resolution criticizing Israeli violations of human rights.

“We need an immediate cease-fire right now. And we need to hold our own government accountable — which includes stopping Washington’s enabling of Israel’s oppression of Palestinians.

Israel’s apartheid regime

Israel’s 55-year occupation of Palestinian Territory is rooted in an Israeli enforced apartheid system. This is the basic point made by Michael Lynk for the UN, March 25, 2022 (https://ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/03/israels-55-year-occupation-palestinian-territory-apartheid-un-human-rights).

A UN expert, Michael Lynk, called today on the international community to accept and adopt the findings in his current report, echoing recent findings by Palestinian, Israeli and international human rights organizations, that apartheid is being practiced by Israel in the occupied Palestinian territory.

“There is today in the Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967 a deeply discriminatory dual legal and political system that privileges the 700,000 Israeli Jewish settlers living in the 300 illegal Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank,” said Michael Lynk, the UN Special Rapporteur for the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967.

“Living in the same geographic space, but separated by walls, checkpoints, roads and an entrenched military presence, are more than three million Palestinians, who are without rights, living under an oppressive rule of institutional discrimination and without a path to a genuine Palestinian state that the world has long promised is their right.

“Another two million Palestinians live in Gaza, described regularly as an ‘open-air prison’, without adequate access to power, water or health, with a collapsing economy and with no ability to freely travel to the rest of Palestine or the outside world.”

The Special Rapporteur said that a political regime which so intentionally and clearly prioritizes fundamental political, legal and social rights to one group over another within the same geographic unit on the basis of one’s racial-national-ethnic identity satisfies the international legal definition of apartheid.

“Apartheid is not, sadly, a phenomenon confined to the history books on southern Africa,” he said in his report to the Human Rights Council. “The 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court came into law after the collapse of the old South Africa. It is a forward-looking legal instrument which prohibits apartheid as a crime against humanity today and into the future, wherever it may exist.”

Lynk said that Israel’s military rule in the occupied Palestinian territory has been deliberately built with the intention of enduring facts on the ground – primarily through settlements and barricades – to demographically engineer a permanent, and illegal, Israeli sovereign claim over occupied territory, while confining Palestinians in smaller and more confined reserves of disconnected land.

This has been accomplished in part through a long-standing series of inhuman(e) acts by the Israeli military towards the Palestinians that have been integral to the occupation, he said. Lynk points to arbitrary and extra-judicial killings, torture, the denial of fundamental rights, an abysmal rate of child deaths, collective punishment, an abusive military court system, periods of intensive Israeli military violence in Gaza and home demolitions.

Lynk also refers to a number of recent reports and opinions issued by respected Palestinian, Israeli and international human rights organizations that have come to the same conclusion on the practice of apartheid by Israel. He added that leading international personalities – including former UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor and former Israeli Attorney General Michael Ben-Yair – have also all called this apartheid.

The Special Rapporteur said the international community bears much responsibility for this present state of affairs. “For more than 40 years, the UN Security Council and General Assembly have stated in hundreds of resolutions that Israel’s annexation of occupied territory is unlawful, its construction of hundreds of Jewish settlements are illegal, and its denial of Palestinian self-determination breaches international law,” he said.

“To end the practice of apartheid in the occupied Palestinian territory, the Special Rapporteur called on the international community to assemble an imaginative and vigorous menu of accountability measures to bring the Israeli occupation and its apartheid practices in the occupied Palestinian territory to a complete end.”

Ecocide

Ecocide, Jake Johnson reports on March 29, 2024, is a ‘Critical Dimension of Israel’s Genocidal Campaign’ in Gaza (https://commondreams.org/news/ecocide-israel-gaza).

Analysis by a research group found that roughly 40% of Gaza land that was previously used for food production has been destroyed by Israeli forces.

The widespread destruction Israel’s military has inflicted on Gaza’s farmland and agricultural infrastructure amounts to a “deliberate act of ecocide,” according to a new investigation that uses satellite imagery to survey the extent of the damage.

“Released Friday ahead of Palestine’s Land Day, the analysis by the London-based research group Forensic Architecture (FA) shows that Israel’s ground forces—including tanks and other military vehicles—have advanced over half of Gaza’s farms and orchards, critical food sources that the besieged enclave’s population has worked tirelessly to cultivate in the face of decades of occupation.

“Since 2014, Palestinian farmers along Gaza’s perimeter have seen their crops sprayed by airborne herbicides and regularly bulldozed, and have themselves faced sniper fire by the Israeli occupation forces,” FA said. “Along that engineered ‘border,’ sophisticated systems of fences and surveillance reinforce a military buffer zone.”

Comparing satellite imagery from prior to Israel’s invasion and the present, FA found that roughly 40% of Gaza land that was previously used for food production has been destroyed by Israeli forces. Nearly a third of Gaza’s greenhouses have been demolished, according to the investigation.

“In total, Forensic Architecture has identified more than 2,000 agricultural sites, including farms and greenhouses, which have been destroyed since October 2023, often to be replaced with Israeli military earthworks,” the group said. “This destruction has been most intense in the northern part of Gaza, where 90% of greenhouses were destroyed in the early stages of the ground invasion.”

“It is no surprise, then, that northern Gaza is currently experiencing famine conditions, with most of the population there at imminent risk of starvation as Israeli forces impede the flow of humanitarian assistance and continue their relentless bombing campaign.”

An expert panel convened by Stop Ecocide International has defined ecocide as “unlawful or wanton acts committed with knowledge that there is a substantial likelihood of severe and either widespread or long-term damage to the environment being caused by those acts.”

Ecocide is officially recognized as a crime in at least 10 countries, including France, Ecuador, Russia, and Ukraine. Earlier this week, the European Council adopted new rules that include a provision criminalizing acts deemed “comparable to ecocide.”

FA’s analysis argues that Israel’s latest military assault on the Gaza Strip and the intentional targeting of the enclave’s agriculture is “a critical dimension of Israel’s genocidal campaign,” fueling both a humanitarian and environmental disaster.

“The targeted farms and greenhouses are fundamental to local food production for a population already under a decades-long siege,” the research group said. “The effects of this systematic agricultural destruction are exacerbated by other deliberate acts of deprivation of critical resources for Palestinian survival in Gaza.”

“These acts include the well-reported, catastrophic, and Israeli-made famine ongoing in Gaza, continued obstruction of humanitarian aid destined for Gaza, the destruction of medical infrastructure, the destruction beyond repair of other areas of civilian infrastructure, including bakeries, schools, mosques, churches, and cultural heritage sites,” the group added.

Concluding thoughts

The U.S. support for Israel with weapons and diplomatically goes back decades. Israel has subjugated the people of Gaza to periodic military onslaughts, ecocide, limited the ability of Gazans to leave this narrow strip of land, controlled access to food, water, health care resources, and left them increasingly desperate just to survive.

The current Israeli war in Gaza just makes their conditions ever-more life-threatening. These are well-known facts.

In offering unconditional support, the Biden administration is carrying out a long-standing morally corrupt U.S. pro-Israeli policy. It remains to be seen whether Biden will change any of this. If he goes on supporting this war, it does not bode well for his presidential campaign and there is a good chance that he will lose votes in the November presidential election.

At the same time, if Trump and the Republicans win in November, there will be no restraints on U.S. support of Israel’s genocidal policy. Julia Conley reports,

“U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg became the latest Republican lawmaker to openly call for the genocide of Palestinian people in Gaza, saying at a town hall that instead of sending humanitarian aid to starving civilians there, the U.S. should ‘get it over quick’ by dropping a nuclear bomb on the besieged enclave” (https://commondreams.org/news/tim-walberg-gaza).

What makes better sense is to support a cease fire and peace. This is the message that Ralph Nader and many others are sending to U.S. officials (https://commondreams.org/opinion/biden-give-peace-a-chance). Nader points to the large and active opposition to Biden’s policies.

“…public dissatisfaction with the dictatorial decision-making by the White House and the absence of congressional action is growing rapidly. More and more labor unions are now opposing Biden’s bombings, Jewish Americans working with Jewish Voice for Peace and If Not Now are brilliantly organizing demonstrations. Veterans for Peace’s 27 chapters around the country are in the streets peacefully demanding a cease-fire, cessation of weapons shipments, and major increases in humanitarian aid. They are mostly ignored by the corporate media, NPR, and PBS.

“Religious groups are beseechingly calling for peace. This week in the latest public letter, 140 global Christian leaders, organized by Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP) called on President Biden ‘…to have the moral courage to end U.S. complicity in the ongoing violence and, instead, do everything in [his] power to…’ stop the ‘death and destruction’ in Palestine.”

Biden’s support of Israel’s war on Gaza may have electoral consequences

Bob Sheak, Jan 3, 2024

Introduction

This post raises the question of whether President Biden’s quest for re-election in 2024 will be negatively affected by his pledge to continue America’s support for Israel and its war on Gaza.

President Biden has put his 2024 re-election at risk by supporting Israel’s genocidal war against Gaza.

Early in this war, Biden unequivocally supported Israel’s military response to the Hamas attack on southern Israel. In just over a week after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, Biden met with Netanyahu to express his and America’s unequivocal and unconditional support for Israel

(https://www.npr.org/2023/10/19/1206832708/biden-israel-trip-mideast-peace).

Biden did this without anticipating the devastation and harm Israel was about to afflict on Gaza and the 2.2 or 2.3 million Palestinian people living there. He did it without knowing how widespread and outraged the opposition to Israel’s military attacks and to the intensification of the blockade would be. The bombardment and invasion have led to ever-increasing human death, suffering, and destruction. And, having belatedly realized all this, Biden has continued to support Netanyahu’s policies, while trying to figure out a way to stop the bloodbath without undermining U.S.-Israeli relations.

Blocking a cease fire proposal at the U.N.

At various times Biden and Anthony Blinken, the U.S. Secretary of State, have successfully influenced Netanyahu to support a number of short “pauses” in the war, accompanied by the exchange of “hostages” for Palestinian prisoners. The pauses also allowed trucks carrying food, sanitation, and medical supplies to enter, but never nearly enough to satisfy the growing needs. At the same time, the U.S. has gone along with Israel’s opposition to a cease fire and has supported Israel at the U.N. on this issue.

Prem Thakker reports on the U.S. role in blocking support for a cease fire at the U.N. Security Council (https://theintercept.com/2023/12/21/joe-biden-un-resolution-gaza-today). Here’s some of what he writes.

“Amid all of this suffering, President Joe Biden delayed a United Nations vote for humanitarian aid to Gaza eight times, watering it down until he felt satisfied enough to not veto it.

“The vote is on a U.N. Security Council proposal, put forward by the United Arab Emirates and repeatedly whittled down just for Biden, that calls for limiting the hostilities in Gaza and expanding aid distribution. Officials reportedly crafted the resolution in such a way that it would be ‘tolerable’ enough for the Biden administration to avoid a veto. The U.S. has long been Israel’s guarantor at the Security Council, using its veto as a permanent member of the council to block almost every measure critical of Israel.

“For Biden, the preemptive concessions were not enough, and he continued to delay the UAE resolution. The main sticking points for Biden were the resolution’s use of the word ‘cessation’ in a call to end fighting and on allowing an independent inspection of aid going into Gaza, rather than the Israel-administered checks that have slowed aid shipments to a crawl.

“As negotiations edged into Thursday evening, the vote was kicked once again, to Friday [Dec 22] — but not without reward for Biden. He was able to force out language that does not establish a mechanism for U.N. inspection of aid, nor call for the ‘suspension of hostilities.’

“On Friday, the fateful vote was finally held — after the U.S. first vetoed a Russian amendment to restore the resolution’s originally stronger language for a ‘suspension.’ Indeed, the 15 member nations [in the Security Council] instead voted on a resolution calling for ‘the conditions for a sustainable cessation of hostilities.’ The resolution passed, 13-0-2. Russia abstained out of frustration. The United States abstained, even after getting what it wanted.”

The Israeli claim of precision bombing is unpersuasive

Israeli officials says that the massive and increasing bombing of Gaza is precise and aimed at non-civilian targets. They also claim that the 1.1 million Gazan residents in the northern parts of Gaza have been notified to move south, away from the Gaza/Israel border and ostensibly away from Israeli bombing. However, the Israeli bombing is occurring everywhere in Gaza,

The idea of precise bombing to avoid Palestinian deaths and injuries, and the destruction of residences and building of all kinds, including schools, hospitals, residences, and other structures, is hard to believe, given the dense population of the tiny Gazan strip and the extensive and increasing destruction and death that comes with the bombing.

The effects of Israel’s war in Gaza.

Thakker writes,

“An estimated 570,000 people in the Gaza strip are now starving. Three-quarters of the territory’s 36 hospitals are closed. The remaining nine, all in southern Gaza, are ‘partially functional.’ The shuttered hospitals in the north are serving as impromptu shelters for some of the 85 percent of Palestinians in Gaza who have been displaced, but did not trek south to escape the ravages of Israel’s ground invasion. Beyond an estimated death toll of 20,000 according to the Gaza Ministry of Health, a devastating 355,000 are suffering from infectious diseases as conditions in the territory worsen.” These numbers continue rising.

U.S. influence on Netanyahu is limited

Phillis Bennie points out, “The Biden administration’s increasingly public requests for Israel to pay more attention to civilian safety have so far failed — and will continue to fail so long as Israel understands there will be no consequences for saying no” (https://commondreams.org/opinion/cease-fire-in-gaza-now).

Those “requests” must be turned into requirements, linked to direct changes in actual U.S. policy — such as conditioning all aid to Israel on ending its violations of the Geneva Conventions and other parts of international humanitarian law, and ending the longstanding U.S. protection of Israeli officials from accountability in the International Criminal Court. Otherwise polite requests will continue to fail.

Israel withdraws some troops from Gaza

Aaron Boxerman, Isabel Kershner and Eric Schmitt report on small, and temporary, withdrawal and what it may mean

“The Israeli military said on Monday that it would begin withdrawing several thousand troops from the Gaza Strip at least temporarily, in what was the most significant publicly announced reduction since the war with Hamas began.

“The military cited a growing toll on the Israeli economy after nearly three months of wartime mobilization with little end in sight to the fighting. Israel had been considering scaling back its operations, and the United States has been prodding it to do so more quickly as the death toll and privation in Gaza rose.”

“Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the Israeli military spokesman, emphasized that the move to demobilize some soldiers did not suggest any compromise of Israel’s intention to continue fighting until it destroys Hamas, and the fighting across Gaza remained intense. Admiral Hagari, who had said he expected “warfare throughout this year,” indicated that some troops would be called back to service in 2024.

“He did not mention the American requests to scale back, and Israeli officials have not declared any shift toward a more limited, targeted phase of the war in Gaza, though they have said such a transition would come.

“But military analysts and U.S. officials say the troop withdrawal probably signals that such a change has begun, though they caution that the war is nowhere near over.

“Reservists from at least two brigades will be sent home this week, the Israeli military said in a statement, and three brigades will be taken back for “scheduled” training. Brigades vary in size, up to roughly 4,000 troops, and the Israeli military does not disclose how many troops it has deployed in Gaza, so it was unclear how many would remain.”

U.S. supports Israel and its war with money and weapons

The U.S. government continues to supply Israel with money and weapons for its war machine. This makes the U.S., and American taxpayers, complicit in the death and destruction.

Nader criticizes the Biden administration’s request for $14 billion in additional aid for Israel in an article published on Nov. 23, 2023 (https://commondreams.org/opinion/israel-s-antisemitism-gaza). It was part of a larger package that Congress has yet to approve, including $106 billion supplemental funding request from October that includes $61.4 billion for Ukraine and $14.3 billion for Israel—which already receives $3.8 billion in U.S. military aid annually and is now getting some weapons for its war effort without congressional oversight.

However, the Republicans in the House of representatives have yet to allow a vote on the issue. The Biden administration still wants to give the money to Israel. Nader points out that there are other domestic needs on which this 14.3 billion could be better used.

“That sum of money…is greater than the combined annual budgets of the FDA, OSHA, NHTSA and the section of HHS, whose missions are to reduce the loss of hundreds of thousands of preventable American fatalities in the workplace, on the highways, and in the marketplace and the hospitals. (See, the 2016 peer-reviewed study from the John Hopkins University of Medicine).

“Lastly,” Nader writes, “still not calling for a ceasefire, Biden is disregarding his own military’s private advice against an Israeli ground invasion of Gaza as raising the risk of a larger war in the Middle East that would clearly be against the national interests of the American people and U.S. security.

“He could have done what President Eisenhower did in 1956, when he demanded that the Israeli, British and French attack on Egypt stop immediately.

And stop, they did!”

“Moreover, Biden seems unwilling to recognize the historical origins of this conflict that now has mighty Israel occupying, colonizing, brutalizing and stealing land and water from the twenty-two percent of the original Palestine left for millions of Palestinians under Israeli daily control.”

As Nader points out, Biden pays no meaningful attention to the historical context of Israel’s blockade of Gaza, Israel’s five previous wars, or, little significant influence on the continuing onslaught of Palestinians in the current war.

Netanyahu and his extreme right-wing government have said the war will continue until the hostages are returned and Hamas is destroyed. However, Netanyahu has also said at various times that he would like the Gaza strip cleansed of Palestinians, that Palestinians living in Gaza would be limited to the southern parts of this land, or that there would not be a permanent occupation, but, confusingly that Israel would determine how Gaza would be governed and secured. He has not made it clear what Israel’s objectives are, but has said it will be a long war. Although Biden keeps referring to a two-state solution, Netanyahu ignores or rejects this possibility.

Biden approves the sale of weapons to Israel

John Hudson and Mikail Klimentov report that on the sale of weapons

(https://washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/12/30/us-weapons-sale-israel-blinken).

“Secretary of State Antony Blinken approved the sale of 155 mm artillery shells and related equipment to Israel by invoking an emergency authority that bypasses the standard congressional review for arms sales, the Biden administration said on Friday.

“A State Department spokesman said that ‘given the urgency of Israel’s defensive needs, the secretary notified Congress that he had exercised his delegated authority to determine an emergency existed necessitating the immediate approval of the transfer.’

“The $147.5 million sale comes as Israel steps up its intense bombing campaign in the Gaza Strip, and as the Biden administration’s rhetoric surrounding the conflict emphasizes the importance of Israel minimizing casualties and scaling back its offensive.”

Death, destruction, and misery increase

Unsurprisingly, the number of reported Palestinian deaths goes up day after day, along with the devastation of medical facilities, schools, whole communities, UN facilities, housing, and more. No place is safe for Palestinians. Hamas also has launched hundreds or thousands of missiles toward Israel, but most have been destroyed by Israeli “iron dome” defenses. As it stands, the blockade, siege, the severe limiting of humanitarian aid, the Israeli efforts at ethnic cleansing of at least northern and central Gaza – perhaps all of the strip – all contribute to a rising human catastrophe of enormous and tragic proportions.

The most devastating in history

Brett Wilkins cites experts who maintain that “Israeli Bombing of Gaza Ranks Among ‘Most Devastating’ in History” (https://commondreams.org/news/bombing-gaza). The article was published on Dec. 23, 2023. The numbers have continue to rise since then. Wilkins writes: “Gaza health officials said Friday [Dec. 22] that 390 Palestinians were killed and 734 others wounded in the besieged strip over the previous 48 hours, driving the death toll from 77 days of near-relentless Israeli attacks to 20,057, with another 53,320 people injured. More than 6,000 women and over 8,000 children have been killed—approximately 70% of all fatalities.

“That’s more than twice the number of civilians—and over 14 times as many children—as Russian forces have killed in Ukraine since February 2022.

“Thousands more Palestinians are missing and feared buried beneath the rubble of the hundreds of thousands of buildings destroyed or damaged by Israeli bombardment.

“‘The scale of Palestinian civilian deaths in such a short period of time appears to be the highest such civilian casualty rate in the 21st century,’ Michael Lynk, who served as the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories from 2016 to 2022, told The Washington Post on Saturday.”

And it’s hardly over. The death, destruction, and carnage continue to rise.

Israel uses one of the most destructive bombs in Gaza

Robin Stein and colleagues report on Israel’s use of one of the most destructive bombs in human history – manufactured in and exported from the U.S. (https://nytimes.com/2023/12/21/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-bomb-investigation.html).

“A Times investigation used aerial imagery and artificial intelligence to detect bomb craters that showed that one of Israel’s biggest bombs was used routinely in south Gaza.

This is an area in Gaza where, for weeks, civilians fled to find safety. These are 2,000-pound bombs, one of the most destructive munitions in Western military arsenals. When a 2,000-pound bomb detonates, it unleashes a blast wave and metal fragments thousands of feet in every direction.”

“Munitions experts say 2,000-pound bombs are almost never used by the U.S. military anymore in densely populated areas. Israel says it must destroy Hamas above and below ground to prevent terrorist attacks like Oct. 7… and claims it’s taking extraordinary measures to protect civilians. But a Times investigation using aerial imagery and artificial intelligence found visual evidence suggesting Israel used these munitions in the area it designated safe for civilians at least 200 times.

“Our analysis indicates 2,000-pound bombs were dropped on a routine basis in south Gaza during the first six weeks of the war. And it suggests that even for those who followed every Israeli evacuation order and advisory, there was still no safety to be found in a war zone that’s more dangerous for civilians than any in recent history. Amplifying the danger are many factors. Hamas intentionally uses dense civilian areas to position military personnel and weapons. Buried underground are vast tunnel networks used by Hamas fighters, but no bomb shelters for civilians. When the war started, Israel completely sealed off Gaza’s borders and claimed it was going to keep civilians out of the crossfire by establishing a safe zone and issuing evacuation orders. By air, phone and social media, over a million people living in northern Gaza were told they must move to the south to be safe. “The I.D.F. is calling for the people of Gaza to evacuate to southern Gaza.” “To go south.” “South of this river.” “Move south. For your own safety, move south.” But the evacuation routes and the safe zone were anything but safe. How often the attacks were launched by Hamas is unclear. But visual evidence indicates Israel was dropping 2,000-pound bombs in the area it was ordering civilians to go. The Times programmed an artificial intelligence tool to analyze satellite imagery of south Gaza to search for bomb craters. The A.I. tool detected over 1,600 possible craters.”

U.S. complicity

Phyllis Bennis argues that “Washington’s acquiescence to Israel’s continuing violations of international humanitarian law makes the U.S. complicit in these crimes (https://commondreams.org/opinion/cease-fire-in-gaza-now).

“The U.S. failure even to acknowledge Israel’s violations sends a message to governments and people around the world that the much-vaunted U.S. commitment to international law is conditional on whether the government violating international law is deemed a close ally or a potential opponent.”

“According to many influential scholars of genocide studies,” Bennis reports, “Israeli violations may be approaching specific violations of the Genocide Convention. As a signatory to the Convention, the U.S. is obligated to do whatever is in its power to prevent a potential genocide. But instead of using its influence to stop these dangerous Israeli actions, the U.S. is enabling them by sending money and arms without conditions, which would certainly violate the Convention’s specific crime of complicity in the crimes of collective punishment, genocide, and ethnic cleansing.”

Destruction, death, and misery

Bennis also considers the conditions and effects of Israel’s war on Gaza.

She maintains, “…it is not possible to end or even significantly reduce the direct killing of civilians as long as the bombardment continues (and now combined with a ground invasion).

“Gaza was one of the most crowded pieces of land on earth before this most recent assault. Now almost all of the 2.3 million people imprisoned in the Strip have been forced to move to the southern third of the territory. That means the lack of water, sanitation, electricity, fuel, food, medicine are all much more drastic and urgent.

“According to the World Food Program, 90 percent of Gazan families are now hungry and half the population is starving, while diseases are spreading due to the lack of clean water and sanitation as well as shelter.

“Israel’s bombing has destroyed about 60 percent of all housing in the Strip, and most of the rest is severely damaged. Israel has also targeted UN facilities, schools, hospitals, clinics, mosques, and churches — all of which had been serving as overcrowded shelters for the 85 percent of Gazans forced from their homes.”

More evidence on how Gaza’s residents are affected by Israel’s war.

“In Gaza, at least 21,110 people have been killed and 55,243 injured in Israeli attacks since October 7 (and through Dec. 28). (https://aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2023/12/28/israel-hamas-war-live-israel-kills-palestinians-in-central-gaza-attacks).

Israeli deaths and injuries

The death toll of Israelis from Hamas’s attack on Israel stands at 1,400.

There is no doubt that the barbaric attack on Oct. 7 by Hamas in southern Israel must be condemned. Reporting for ABC News, Bill Hutchinson describes the attack (https://abcnews.go.com/international/timeline-srprise-rocket-attack-hamas-isreal-story?id=103816006). The article was published on October 19.

“The conflict was touched off by the Oct. 7 sneak attack, which included thousands of armed Hamas fighters breaching a border security fence and indiscriminately gunning down Israeli civilians and soldiers taken off guard. Other militants stormed beaches in Israel in motorboats and some brought death from the sky, swooping in on paragliders.

More than 1,400 people were killed in Israel, including children, and more than 4,500 people were injured, Israeli officials said. At least 32 of those killed in Israel were Americans, according to the U.S. State Department.” Over 200 hostages were taken by Hamas. That number has subsequently fallen as a result of the exchange of some of the hostages for Palestinian prisoners.

In addition, more than 500 Israeli soldiers, officers, and reservists have been killed in the ongoing war against Hamas which began on October 7, the IDF says, as reported by Emanuel Fabian for the Times of Israel, Dec 28, 2023 (https://timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/501-israeli-soldiers-have-been-killed-in-war-against-hamas-starting-oct-7-idf). “The IDF’s list does not include 57 police officers killed during the October 7 attack, as well as an officer killed in a terror attack in Jerusalem, and another officer killed during clashes with terror operatives in the West Bank.”

Ahmed Asmar reports on other injuries to Israeli soldiers (https://aa.com/en/middle-east/1-600-israeli-soldiers-suffer-shell-shock-sumptoms-from-gaza-war-report/3098248).

“At least 1,600 Israeli soldiers have developed shell-shock symptoms since Israel expanded its ground offensive in the Gaza Strip on Oct. 27, according to local media on Tuesday.

“Data obtained by the Walla news website showed that 76% of these soldiers returned to the battlefield after initial treatment in the field.

“Nearly 1,000 soldiers, however, did not improve and required further rehabilitation at military centers, data showed.

“Some 250 Israeli soldiers were discharged from service as they continued to suffer shell-shock symptoms from the war, Walla said.

“According to the news portal, around 3,475 injured soldiers have been treated at the army’s rehabilitation center since the outbreak of the Gaza conflict on Oct. 7.”

Israeli propaganda is not persausive

But the destruction and death levied by Israel are far greater than what Israel forces have suffered. Israeli journalist and author Gideon Levy offers one description in an article published by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz (https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2023-12-28/ty-article-opinion/.premium/theres-no-way-to-explain-the-degree-of-death-and-destruction-in-gaza/0000018c-ace3-d22d-a3dd-bdfb92870000?utm_source=App_Share&utm_medium=Twitter).

Here’s some of what he considers.

“There is no way to ‘explain’ Israel’s conduct in the Gaza Strip. Destruction, killing, starvation and siege in such monstrous dimensions can no longer be explained or justified, even by an effective propaganda machine like Israeli public diplomacy (hasbara; or pro-Israel propaganda).

“The evil,” Levy writes, “can no longer be hidden by any propaganda. Even the winning Israeli combo of victimhood, Yiddishkeit [being Jewish], chosen people and Holocaust can no longer blur the picture. The horrifying October 7 events have not been forgotten by anyone, but they cannot justify the spectacles in Gaza. The propagandist who could explain killing 162 infants in one day – a figure reported by social media this week – is yet to be born, not to mention killing some 10,000 children in two months.

“Israel is already setting up its updated ‘Yad Vashem’ [Israel’s official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust]. Hundreds of Jewish functionaries from the United States are being flown by air shuttle to the burnt kibbutzim in the south.”

“No official guest will be able to land in Israel from now on without being forced to pass through Kibbutz Be’eri [one of the Israeli communities attacked by Hamas]. And afterward if he dares turn his gaze to the Gaza Strip, he will be labeled antisemitic.”

“It is very doubtful this will do any good. Hasbara is now an immoral machine. Anyone who makes do with being shocked at what has been done to us while disregarding what we’ve been doing since has no integrity or conscience…. Of course it’s compulsory to tell and show the world what Hamas did to us. But the story only begins there. It doesn’t end there. Not telling its sequel is a despicable act.”

The children of Gaza

Steve Sosebee, founder of the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, is a guest on Democracy Now and talks with hosts Nermeen Shaikh and Amy Goodman about the absolute unimaginable suffering of the children under the Israeli war

(https://democracynow.org/2023/12/28/palestinian_children_gaza). “It is an organization that provides medical and humanitarian aid to Palestinian children in Gaza and the West Bank. The fund, founded in 1991, has helped build pediatric cancer center units, emergency departments and ICUs in Gaza.”

Here are excerpts from the interview.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: We continue to look at Israel’s war on Gaza and turn now to the war’s impact on children. According to Palestinian officials, the Israeli assault has killed more than 8,200 children in Gaza over the past 11 weeks. At least 8,600 children have been injured. UNICEF says some 1,000 Palestinian children have had limbs amputated without anesthesia due to the lack of basic medical resources….[By the time you read this post, the numbers will have risen.]

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Steve Sosebee, you mentioned, of course, that even before October 7th, the care for amputees in Gaza was very, very poor. If you could talk about what you’re hearing from your colleagues in Gaza now, where there are so many children who are in need of prosthetic limbs? What is the situation there now, especially since also, as we reported, you know, there isn’t even anesthesia available for operations for children who are so much in need?

STEVE SOSEBEE: Yeah, it’s hard to even convey the idea that in this world today that children are being amputated, having limbs amputated, as a result of traumatic injury, without anesthesia. And by the way, there’s plenty of anesthesia medicine at the border of Egypt waiting to enter Gaza. There’s plenty of food at the border of Egypt ready to enter Gaza. Children are starving. People are starving in Gaza. It’s not as if there’s some kind of natural disaster that’s preventing anesthesia medicine to come into Gaza and be able to be utilized to treat injured children. This is absolutely unimaginable that this is happening in this modern world. And we’re witnessing it, and everybody sees it, and nothing is changing.

“The fact that there’s now 1,000 new amputees, at least — and that number is going to grow, because a lot of these kids are with significant injuries in which their limbs are going to have to be amputated in the coming weeks and months. Let’s keep in mind, not only were they amputated without anesthesia, but many of them were amputated in a very quick fashion. And, you know, God bless the doctors and nurses in the health sector in Gaza. They are the true heroes in this, if there are any heroes in this, and there are, of course, among the Palestinian health workers. They’re the ones who are, day and night, in the hospitals, exhausted, as their own families are living under bombs and being killed, trying to help their own patients. And they’re doing these amputations in a very quick manner, because they have so many injured cases coming in. And a lot of these kids who are suffering traumatic amputations have to have surgery again in the future and even further amputations, because they’re not getting the adequate care in the initial stages of an amputation. So they’re going to need revision surgery.” ….

“There is no services at all in Gaza for amputees. The hundreds of kids that we’ve treated over the years who’ve suffered traumatic amputations in Gaza,” as “their limbs are breaking down. They’re being destroyed. They’re being — they need to be adjusted. They need to be repaired. So these kids are now going again without limbs.

“And you can imagine, under these circumstances, once again being dependent on others to carry you around, or being on crutches while your neighborhoods are being bombed or your refugee camps are being bombed, is just an unimaginable situation.”

STEVE SOSEBEE: “Yeah. So, prior to October 7th, we were on the ground in Gaza identifying needs in all of the various specialties in the health sector and developing programs to support the improvement of patient care and reducing the need for patients to leave the Gaza Strip for medical treatment that they should be getting locally. We were training doctors. We were bringing in medication, medical support.

“We were bringing in medical teams from all over the world — we’re the main organization doing this — and providing hands-on training and support in various specialties that don’t exist in Gaza — open-heart surgery for children, neurosurgery, orthopedic surgery, and so on and so forth, reconstructive surgery. These were all specialties that we were identifying as a need on the ground and bringing in teams to address those needs.

“And in addition to that, we were identifying significant gaps in the health sector, like the lack of pediatric cancer treatment for children, in which prior to our opening of the only cancer department in Gaza in 2019, every single child in Gaza with cancer had to travel outside for treatment. And a lot of them were suffering, and in many cases even dying, due to the lack of permits being issued or the access to care.

“After October 7th, the health sector, as you all know, has been almost completely destroyed. There’s only a few hospitals now functioning, most of them in the south. The European Gaza Hospital, Nasser Hospital, Al-Aqsa Hospital are the three main hospitals in the center and in the south of the Gaza Strip that are now operating, but they’re basically just triage centers.”

“And this is what needs to be pointed out, as Amy said in the early part of the show when she mentioned the statistics of over 8,000 children in Gaza have been killed [now over 10,000]. They’ve been killed by bombings. They’ve been killed by traumatic injury. What about the children who have heart disease, who need medical care they can’t get in Gaza anymore? What about the kids who have neurological disorders or have cancer or have other types of, in many cases, quite serious injuries or diseases, that they otherwise would get through our medical teams coming in or through the health system being available that can do elective surgeries, no longer having access to treatment, kids with diabetes, kids with dialysis? All of these children no longer have medical care, and they’re dying, or they’re not getting treatment. In many cases, their conditions are getting worse, and they’re suffering.” ….

“Add to that the fact that a significant number of children now in Gaza are suffering from hunger and from starvation. All of these factors, in addition to the over 8,000 children that have been killed through bombings of their homes and of their schools and of their mosques and churches and hospitals, you add all of those numbers up, and it’s an absolute humanitarian catastrophe, far beyond what anybody can even articulate properly in words. It’s unimaginable.”

A letter from MECA on the horrendous conditions facing children

Here is a copy of a letter sent out on the Internet by Wafaa El-Derawi, the MECA [the Middle East Childrens’ Alliance] Nutrition Coordinator in Gaza (https://meca@mecaforpeace.org).

“My name is Wafaa El-Derawi and you may know that I’m the MECA Nutrition Coordinator in Gaza. There are no ‘normal times’ in Gaza but usually my work is focused on getting healthy meals to children in kindergartens, supporting women with small food businesses, and delivering food parcels to vulnerable families.

“The hunger I’m seeing now is unbelievable. So is the strength and determination of the MECA partners and volunteers in Gaza. Please donate now so we can continue getting food to children every day.

“Israel is deliberately starving us. A report on hunger in Gaza just came out from a UN agency called the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC). It’s filled with numbers, diagrams, and dry language but the story it tells is very real and very terrifying:

• More than half a million people are facing catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity. That is the last phase before famine.

• All children under five in the Gaza Strip—335,000—are at high risk of severe malnutrition and preventable death

• Four out of five households in the north, and half the displaced households in the south, go entire days and nights without eating. Many adults go hungry so children can eat.

These conditions are also ripe for the spread of disease.

Palestinian and foreign journalists targeted

Karen Attiah reports on this (https://washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/12/18/israel-gaza-war-journalists-killings). “According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, at least 64 journalists have been killed in the Israel-Gaza war; 57 were Palestinian, four were Israeli, and three were Lebanese. This war ‘has been the deadliest conflict for journalists that CPJ has ever recorded, in terms of documenting attacks on the press,’ CPJ President Jodie Ginsberg said in an interview with the New Yorker.

“For context, nearly as many journalists have been killed in two months in Gaza as were killed worldwide in 2022.

“It’s not just that journalists are being killed; some believe they have been explicitly targeted, even outside Gaza.”

For example: “On Oct. 13, an Israeli strike in Lebanon killed Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah and injured six others. Reuters, Agence France-Presse, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International assert that the Israeli strike was most likely deliberate and therefore a war crime. Israel has said that the strike was in an active combat zone and that the episode was “under review.”

Biden appears sensitive to the public outrage over his support of Israel but has little effect on the war

The Polls

Mark Murray reports for NBC News on the negative impact of Biden’s embrace of Israel’s policies (https://.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/poll-bidens-standing-hits-new-low-israel-hamas-war-rcna125251). Murray writes,

“President Joe Biden’s approval rating has declined to the lowest level of his presidency — 40% — as strong majorities of all voters disapprove of his handling of foreign policy and the Israel-Hamas war, according to the latest national NBC News poll.

“What’s more, the poll finds Biden behind former President Donald Trump for the first time in a hypothetical general-election matchup, although the deficit is well within the poll’s margin of error for a contest that’s still more than 11 months away.

“The erosion for Biden is most pronounced among Democrats, a majority of whom believe Israel has gone too far in its military action in Gaza, and among voters ages 18 to 34, with a whopping 70% of them disapproving of Biden’s handling of the war.”

Murray continues.

“…only 34% of all voters approve of Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war, versus 56% who say they disapprove.

“By party, only half of Democratic voters (51%) say they approve of Biden’s handling of the war, compared with majorities of independents (59%) and Republicans (69%) who say they disapprove.”

“And while a majority of all voters (55%) support the United States providing military aid to Israel, almost half of Democrats (49%) say they oppose this aid.”

What to do?

It is neither lawful nor morally justified for Israel to continue on its current path in Gaza. Therefore, there must be pressure from the U.S. on that country to stop the bombing, the ethnic cleansing, the siege, the collective punishment, and any genocidal policies advanced by Israel.

It may begin with a “humanitarian pause” that allows for an adequate supply of aid to enter Gaza, including fuel. It should be accompanied by a cease fire. Ideally, though presently unlikely, there would also be negotiations that ended Israeli bombing and lifted the siege and blockade. Hostages held by Hamas could be released as part of a peace settlement, perhaps in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners held by Israeli authorities.

Humanitarian pause

Nidal Al-Mughrabi and Emily Rose report on how the UN, US and Canada have at last appealed for a “humanitarian pause in the Israel-Hamas war to allow safe deliveries of aid to civilians short of food, water, medicine and electricity in the Israeli-besieged Gaza Strip” (https://reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-promises-unrelenting-attacks-hamas-us-obama-urge-caution-2023-10-24).

According to Reuters, “U.N. agencies were pleading ‘on our knees’ for emergency aid to be let into Gaza unimpeded, saying more than 20 times current deliveries were needed to support the narrow strip’s 2.3 million people amid widespread devastation from Israel’s aerial blitz.”

“The United States is negotiating with Israel, neighboring Egypt and the U.N. to smooth emergency deliveries into Gaza, but have wrangled over procedures for inspecting the aid and over bombardments on the Gaza side of the border.

“While we remain opposed to a ceasefire, we think humanitarian pauses linked to the delivery of aid that still allow Israel to conduct military operations to defend itself are worth consideration,” a senior U.S. official said.”

“U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told the Security Council: ‘Palestinian civilians are not to blame for the carnage committed by Hamas,’ referring to the militants’ killing of 1,400 people, mainly civilians, and capture of over 200 in a one-day rampage through Israeli communities near Gaza.

“‘Palestinian civilians must be protected. That means Hamas must cease using them as human shields … It means Israel must take all possible precautions to avoid harm to civilians,’ Blinken said.”

“The World Health Organization, in the latest of increasingly desperate U.N. appeals, called for “an immediate humanitarian ceasefire” to prevent food, medicines and fuel supplies from running out in Gaza.”

“Doctors in Gaza say patients arriving at hospitals are showing signs of disease caused by overcrowding and poor sanitation after more than 1.4 million people fled their homes for temporary shelters under Israel’s heaviest-ever bombardment.

“All hospitals say they are running out of fuel to power their electricity generators, leaving them increasingly unable to treat the injured and ill. More than 40 medical centres have halted operations, a health ministry spokesman said.

UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, warned in a post on messaging platform X that it would halt operations in Gaza on Wednesday night because of the lack of fuel.

“However, the Israeli military reaffirmed it would bar the entry of fuel to prevent Hamas from seizing it.”

Calls for a cease fire plus

Pleas for a “humanitarian pause” in Israel’s bombardment of Gaza and for increases in humanitarian aid are often combined with demands for a cease fire. But they also sometimes go beyond such demands to include an end to the blockade. the recognition of the Palestinians’ right to their own independent state, and the reclamation of some of the land in the West Bank taken forcibly by Israeli settlers, with backing by Israeli military forces. Right now, the call for cease fire is needed to end the slaughter of Palestinians and the danger the conflict poses to Israelis.

Concluding thoughts

Biden’s support of Israel’s genocidal war on Palestinians in Gaza is bound to have some negative electoral consequences for his 2024 presidential campaign. Those Democrats and Independents who oppose or are critical of the U.S. support of Israel will be in a quandary. The options.

(1) A vote for Trump would be a vote for an authoritarian candidate, who, with support from the Republican Party, broad swaths of corporate America, and his massive electoral base, would end democracy in America.

(2) Not voting would have the same effect. A vote for Biden would be a vote for letting Israel extend its un-democratic and violent suppression of Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank (where Israeli settlements continue to expand), and in Jerusalem. In this case, the U.S. would continue to be complicit in the Israeli suppression or elimination of Palestinians through its financial and weapons support and thus would be guilty of war crimes. And, as in option #1, not voting would increase the chances that Trump wins in 2024.

(3) There are reasons for voting for Biden, to keep Trump out and to support a largely prosperous economy that reflects Biden’s policies. See David McCall’s article on “How Biden’s Economy Puts Money in Workers’ Pockets” (https://counterpunch.org/2023/12/26/how-bidens-economy-puts-money-in-workers-pockets). McCall is the international president of the United Steelworkers Union (USW).