SAN FRANCISCO, USA, Nov 9 (IPS) – The governments of Israel and the United States are now at odds over how many Palestinian civilians should be killed. Last week — as the death toll from Israel’s massive bombardment of Gaza approached 10,000 people, including several thousand children — top U.S. officials became concerned about mounting outrage at home and abroad. So they went out with muted doubts and calls for a “humanitarian pause.” But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made it clear he wanted none of that.
Such a minor tactical disagreement does little to dent the solid basic alliance between the two countries, which have made it most of the way through a 10-year deal that guarantees $38 billion in U.S. military aid to Israel. And now, as the carnage in Gaza continues, Washington is rushing to provide an additional $14 billion in military aid. Days ago, In These Times reported that the Biden administration is seeking permission from Congress “to unilaterally approve future sales of military equipment and weapons – such as ballistic missiles and artillery ammunition – to Israel without notifying Congress .” And so “the Israeli government could purchase up to $3.5 billion in military items and services in complete secrecy.” While Israeli forces used US-supplied weapons to massacre Palestinian civilians, supply flights landed in Israel courtesy of American taxpayers. Air & Space Forces Magazine published a photo showing “U.S. Air Force pilots and Israeli military members unloading cargo from a U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster III onto a ramp at Nevatim Base, Israel.” Photos taken on October 24 show the military cargo going from Travis Air Force Base in California to Ramstein Air Base in Germany to Israel. Overall, the magazine reported, “the Air Force airlift fleet has worked steadily to deliver vital munitions, armored vehicles and aid to Israel.” And so the apartheid country gets a huge boost to assist in the murder. The horrific atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7 opened the door for long-term horrific atrocities by Israel, with significant assistance from the United States. Oxfam America has released a briefing paper dismissing the Pentagon’s plans to ship tens of thousands of 155mm artillery shells to the Israeli military. The organization noted that “Israel’s use of these munitions in previous conflicts demonstrates that their use would almost certainly be indiscriminate, unlawful and devastating to civilians in Gaza.”
Oxfam added: “There are no known scenarios in which 155mm artillery shells could be used in Israel’s ground operation in Gaza, in accordance with international humanitarian law.” In recent weeks, ‘international humanitarian law’ has been a full-blown issue general sense coming from President Biden, as he expressed support for Israel’s military actions. It is an Orwellian absurdity, as if uttering these words is enough while Israel is continually helped to violate international humanitarian law in countless ways. “Israeli forces have used white phosphorus, a chemical that ignites on contact with oxygen, causing horrific and severe burns in densely populated neighborhoods,” Human Rights Watch senior legal adviser Clive Baldwin wrote in late October. “White phosphorus can burn to the bone, and burns of up to 10 percent of the human body are often fatal.” Baldwin added: “Israel has also engaged in the collective punishment of the people of Gaza by cutting off food, water, electricity and fuel. This is a war crime that deliberately prevents humanitarian aid from reaching civilians in need.” Late last week, the organization Win Without War noted that “senior government officials are becoming increasingly alarmed by the way the Israeli government is conducting its military operations in Gaza, as well as the reputational repercussions of the Biden administration’s support for a collective punishment strategy . that is clearly contrary to international law. Many worry that the US will be blamed for the Israeli military’s indiscriminate attacks on civilians, especially women and children.” The news reports now tell us that Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken want a small course correction. For them, the steady large-scale killing of Palestinian civilians became worrying when it became a PR problem. Shrouded in an endless supply of euphemistic rhetoric and double talk, such immoral policies are stunning to watch in real time. And for many people in Gaza literally breathtaking. Now the White House, guided by political calculations, is trying to convince the Israeli Prime Minister to increase the lethal doses of the bombing of Gaza. But as Netanyahu has made clear in recent days, Israel will do whatever it wants despite the pleas of its patron. While in fact Israel largely functions in the Middle East as part of the American war machine, Israel has its own agenda. Yet the two governments are locked into shared, overarching, long-term strategic interests in the Middle East that have absolutely no human rights use other than as rhetorical window dressing.
Biden made that clear last year when he punched the de facto ruler of oil-rich Saudi Arabia, a dictatorship that — with major U.S. help — has led an eight-year war on Yemen that has cost nearly 400,000 lives. The war machine needs constant fuel from the news media. That requires continued adherence to the ambiguous assumption that when Israel terrorizes and kills people from the air, the Israeli military is fighting “terrorism” without engaging in it. Another useful idea in recent weeks has been the assumption that while Hamas spreads ‘propaganda’, Israel does not. And so on November 2, PBS NewsHour foreign affairs correspondent Nick Schifrin reported on what he called “Hamas propaganda videos.”
Reasonable. Except that it would be virtually impossible for the mainstream American news media to even matter-of-factly refer to the Israeli government’s public output as “propaganda.” (I reached out to Schifrin for comment, but my various emails and text messages went unanswered.) Whatever differences may surface from time to time, the United States and Israel remain intertwined. For the power elite in Washington, the bilateral alliance is much more important than the lives of the Palestinian people. And it is unlikely that the US government will actually confront Israel about its open killing spree in Gaza. Think about this: Just weeks before she began her second stint as speaker of the House of Representatives in January 2019, Representative Nancy Pelosi was videotaped at a forum sponsored by the Israeli American Council stating: “I’ve told people when they ask me, if this Capitol were to crumble to the ground, the only thing left is our commitment to our help, I don’t even call it help – our cooperation – with Israel. That is fundamental to who we are.” Even allowing for outlandish exaggerations, Pelosi’s statement reveals the kind of mentality that still prevails in official Washington. It won’t change without a huge grassroots movement that refuses to go away.
Norman Salomon is the national director of RootsAction.org and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. He is the author of many books, including War Made Easy. His latest book, War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine, was published by The New Press in summer 2023.
IPS ONE office
Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
Follow IPS News UN Bureau on Instagram
© Inter Press Service (2023) — All rights reservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service