Ten children in Gaza are losing a limb every day in Gaza to Israeli airstrikes, as Israeli politicians say the Gaza onslaught will last at least another nine months.
The instability in the Middle East cannot be overstated as the region stands on the precipice. It all stems from Israel’s ongoing slaughter in Gaza and the Biden administration’s blind support of it.
Israel has larger war aims than Hamas, and is deliberately provoking a regional war to draw the U.S. into the fray. Biden has made halfhearted efforts to cool the situation, but he needs to be bolder in reining Israel in before it’s too late.
Tom Friedman created minor shockwaves when he wrote the Biden administration is “reassessing” the U.S.-Israeli relationship, but actual U.S. policy remains committed to Israel and the “shared fiction” that the occupation is temporary .
Members of the Palestinian Legislative Council in Gaza have lodged a complaint to the International Criminal Court protesting Israeli crimes against humanity resulting from the 17-year-long Gaza siege.
Biden officials have been unequivocal in their support for Israel’s assault on Gaza, barely paying lip service to a ceasefire. More concerning is their refusal to acknowledge Israel initiated and provoked this escalation.
The United States bears a responsibility to rein in Israeli violence against Palestinians. The only real question is whether the Biden administration will use the leverage it has.
There is no middle ground; you’re either with Israel or against it these days, as J Street, the liberal Zionist group, found out yesterday. Jeremy Ben-Ami of J Street says it was shocking when the Jewish establishment allowed a speaker to call his group “anti-Semitic” at a UN summit against BDS. But the same event smeared Bassem Tamimi, the leader of nonviolent resistance in Nabi Saleh in occupied Palestine, without protest from J Street.
US politicians swearing fealty to Israel at AIPAC know there are cracks in US support. “When people sometimes say to me, the United States is so overwhelmingly partial to Israel in this discussion, I say Yes of course. We have been friends for a long time,” Nancy Pelosi admits.