The United States and the Middle East: Blatant U.S. Hypocrisy
It is said that you can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time. The United States government seems intent on disproving that last condition.
For months, U.S. spokespersons have been saying how they are working tirelessly to arrange a ceasefire to end Israel’s genocide of Palestinians. Some candidates and elected officials decry the slaughter of innocent men, women and children in Gaza. Vice-President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris has said she will not be silent about the suffering of innocents in Gaza. And yet, these are members of the same government that is supplying the very weapons causing that suffering.
Lame-duck president Joe Biden, often referred to as ‘Genocide Joe’, has sent hundreds of millions of dollars worth of weapons to Israel since the beginning of this genocide. The recent slaughter of over 100 Palestinian men, women and children, sheltering in a school and praying in a mosque, was done with U.S.-made bombs. These bombs shred their victims, forcing survivors to try to find the remains of their loved ones from the scraps of skin and bones remaining.
If these illustrious officials truly wanted peace in the Middle East, and sincerely believed that genocide is wrong in all cases, this slaughter would have ended months ago. All it would have taken is notification to Israel’s Prime Murderer Benjamin Netanyahu that the money tap from the U.S. was being turned off immediately. Without that source of funds, the Zionist entity is helpless. It is incapable of defending itself without significant assistance from the U.S. and other countries, as demonstrated when Iran, with prior notification to Israel, bombed it in April of this year. Israeli intelligence is flawed, as demonstrated by the extent of the resistance event on October 7, and how the government of the Zionist regime was caught completely off-guard. The government doesn’t have the support of its people, as shown by the massive demonstrations prior to October 7, opposing Netanyahu’s proposed changes to the judiciary, and by those afterwards, demanding a ceasefire so the hostages could be released. It cannot live in peace with its neighbors; despite the ‘normalization’ with some Arab countries, the people in those countries continue to oppose any association with the racist Zionist entity.
And now we are being told, by straight-faced U.S. imperialist leaders and their spokespeople, that the ceasefire agreement is in jeopardy due to Hamas’ unwillingness to agree to it. We can all see how this will be marketed: the ‘terrorist’ Hamas militants do not want peace and are willing to allow the continued slaughter of tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians, and to see them starved to death, simply due to their hatred of Jews.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
In June, Genocide Joe proposed an agreement that he said Israel agreed to. Hamas then agreed to it, with the terms of how it would be implemented still to be determined. Not so fast, said Netanyahu. He apparently didn’t think Hamas would agree, so once they did, he had to change the terms. He is now demanding control of the Gaza-Egypt border, major restrictions on movement of Palestinians in Gaza, and continued military presence of Israel within Gaza’s borders. These, of course, are totally unreasonable, and are conditions no nation would agree to.
The Prime Murderer isn’t interested in such trivialities as human rights and international law, the same as his main sponsor in genocide, the United States.
Let us look at a few facts:
The Leahy law “… refers to two statutory provisions prohibiting the U.S. Government from using funds for assistance to units of foreign security forces where there is credible information implicating that unit in the commission of gross violations of human rights (GVHR).” According to Human Rights Watch:
“The Israeli Government is using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare in the Gaza Strip, which is a war crime.
“Israeli officials have made public statements expressing their aim to deprive civilians in Gaza of food, water, and fuel – statements reflected in Israeli forces’ military operations.”
In October, Aljazeera reported the following: According to the Fourth Geneva Convention, in times of armed conflict, there is an overall requirement for the “…protection of people who do not take part in any hostilities – be it children, patients or healthy adult men. A number of its articles directly address the importance of medical support.” Israel has bombed every hospital in the Gaza Strip.
Bombing hospitals, depriving people of medical care, food and water are only some of the shocking violations of the human rights of the Palestinians that Israel is committing. Yet the U.S. government is not only continuing to fund Israel with hundreds of millions of dollars of deadly weaponry, it is increasing the amount being sent. So the U.S. is violating its own laws.
The occupation of Palestine is illegal under international law. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has said that “… Israel has no right to sovereignty of the territories, is violating international laws against acquiring territory by force and is impeding Palestinians’ right to self-determination.” The ICJ further stated “… other nations were obliged not to ‘render aid or assistance in maintaining’ Israel’s presence in the territory.” The United States is in violation of this international law.
Vice-President Kamala Harris stated the following in July: ““What has happened in Gazaover the past nine months is devastating. The images of dead children and desperate hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third or fourth time.” This either demonstrates her ignorance, or her desire to control the narrative, because she said nothing about people who have been displaced for the tenth, twentieth or thirtieth time. Countless thousands take shelter where they can for a day or so, before being forced to flee to another location.
Is there ever a time when U.S. hypocrisy isn’t front and center on the world stage? After Israel assassinated the chief Hamas/Palestinian negotiator, Ismail Haniyeh, on July 31, in Iran, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken made sure to issue a warning to Iran. In reference to a possible ceasefire, National Review reported the following on August 19: “’It’s also time to make sure that no one takes any steps that could derail this process,’ he added, seemingly referring to Iran. ‘And so we’re working to make sure that there is no escalation, that there are no provocations, that there are no actions that in any way move us away from getting this deal over the line, or for that matter, escalating the conflict to other places and to greater intensity.’”
Was not the assassination of Mr. Haniyeh a provocation? Why was Blinken ‘seemingly referring to Iran’, when he should have been demanding that Israel make no further provocation?
Let us summarize. The United States is working tirelessly to end a genocide that it supports in every way possible. It wants Palestine to give up its decades-long struggle for self-determination, so that Israel can further oppress the Palestinian people. It will wage war to assure that none of Palestine’s allies are able to assist the people suffering there.
There are, of course, some people, mostly only within U.S. borders, who belief the myth of the U.S. as a beacon of freedom, human rights and international law. Their numbers are dwindling, but the U.S.’s imperial leaders aren’t paying attention. U.S. hypocrisy, always a hallmark of U.S. foreign and domestic policy (a topic for another essay), can hardly be denied by anyone today. The evidence is there, on social media, some ‘mainstream’ news channels, and in the accounts of eye-witnesses to the unspeakable slaughter occurring in Gaza, and the increased oppression in the West Bank.
U.S. efforts to thwart the work of the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice must be opposed and defeated by the global community. If the U.S. is allowed to succeed, one can only wonder where the next U.S.-protected genocide will occur. The list of possible victims is, unfortunately, quite long.
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