Weekly Briefing: Biden’s voters say it’s genocide, by 50-20, but Biden can’t

There was great news this week, the International Court of Justice issued an interim ruling: South Africa’s charge that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza is “plausible” and the court ordered Israel to take immediate steps to prevent genocide.

The ICJ did not call for a ceasefire, but the top judge, a former legal adviser in the State Department, read off a summary of actions Israel has taken against the 2.3 million people of Gaza over the last 16 weeks, including the killing of 1 percent of the population in bombings, food blockades and the destruction of hospitals and infrastructure, that “looks, sounds and smells like genocide,” as David Kattenburg reported from the Hague at our site.

A Hamas spokesperson called the ruling a historic exception to 75 years of Israeli impunity. “Today was a monumental step toward ending the genocide of Palestinians,” wrote Defense for Children International, Palestine.

Biden’s own voters believe that Israel is committing genocide, 50-20 percent, according to a new poll from the Economist. Democrats, 49-21. Liberals, 60-16.

In line with that Democratic base, Reps. Cori Bush and Rashida Tlaib called on the U.S. to suspend all military aid to Israel. “The Biden Administration must not only affirm the legitimacy of this ruling and facilitate an immediate ceasefire – it must comply with federal and international law by suspending military assistance to the Israeli government,” they said (per Al Jazeera).

While Israel promptly thumbed its nose at the order. “Hague-schmague,” Itamar Ben-Gvir, the fascistic national security minister, wrote on X (the Guardian reported).

And, of course, the Biden administration also thumbed its nose at the ICJ. It claimed Israel complies with international law. Biden got the backing of liberal Zionists. Even as he has drawn pro-Palestinian protests on the campaign trail.

The rejection by the U.S. establishment of the “plausible” genocide, indeed its material support for wholesale massacre, demonstrates that Israeli war crimes are not just a threat to Palestinians, but they undermine the international rule of law, such as it is. Biden has undertaken “boundless genuflection to Israel… following the lead of a far-right, corrupt Israeli prime minister not only in matters of policy, but also in the racist view of Arabs, be they in Palestine or the United States,” Mitchell Plitnick wrote at our site.

Biden has the elites behind him. Israel supporters are throwing around their weight at Harvard and Columbia.

While our media continue to ignore the glaring press scandal of this war: Israel won’t allow Western reporters into Gaza.

So I’m incredibly proud this week of Tareq Hajjaj’s reporting for us from Gaza on the utter devastation of the economy. Hajjaj visits a couple whose workplaces Israel destroyed– taxicab and nursery. Now, they live in a tent alongside hundreds of thousands of other refugees, reduced to near famine.  

“Gaza essentially no longer has an economy, and what has arisen in its stead is a series of black markets that exploit the gargantuan humanitarian needs created by the war. These black markets sell basic subsistence goods for astronomical prices,” Hajjaj writes.

Here’s some of Hajjaj’s price list:

Diapers, ($27-$33). Prewar price $5-7.

Coffee, $67 for the cheapest variety, up from $8-14.

Cigarettes, $27-30 for a pack, up from $5 (and please save us the lectures about the dangers of smoking)

Meat, $40 per kilo. “My children say they haven’t eaten meat in months and miss it.”

A jacket for an 8-year-old: $40.

No wonder Palestinians in Gaza are grinding hay and straw into flour. And the UN says that Gaza faces “catastrophic hunger.”  

Meanwhile, the West debates what term to use for this historical savagery. Even as it sends shells and blessings to the Israeli bombers.