Over 5,000 dead, mostly civilians, from 2 weeks of relentless Israeli bombing, turning much of the 139 square miles of Gaza into rubble, is a genocidal act of ethnic cleansing. It is designed to diminish, if not eliminate the 2.3 million Gazans. The many who have died from lack of food, water, medicine and electricity, while unknown, may be in the thousands as well. It is a monumental crime against humanity.
Much of the world is repulsed, including many in Israel. Yesterday, dozens from local Chicago Jewish groups, If Not Now, Never Again Action, and Jewish Voice for Peace, held up traffic in the Loop for over an hour during rush hour in their call for immediate ceasefire. Bravo.
But not President Biden who is arming Israel and giving it a virtual blank check for an imminent invasion likely to further kill, degrade and ethnically cleanse those 2.3 million Palestinians. That imminent invasion may unleash blowback that could involve Iran, Lebanon and Syria; a regional conflict that may be uncontainable.
Biden preaches aid for starving, dying Palestinians but what has arrived is a pittance that will make no difference in their ongoing destruction from the worst collective punishment inflicted upon a civilian population in our lifetime. His aid lip service is not soothing…. it is deadly.
Biden’s cruel greenlighting of Gaza’s impending demise is no surprise. He’s simply following US policy for the last 18 years supporting Israel’s blockade of Gaza since they withdrew in 2005. But he has the opportunity. It requires true, humane statesmanship to lead the world in confronting the need for a Palestinian state prevented by Israeli intransigence and enabled by the US for 75 years now. Biden should demand an immediate ceasefire. He should suspend all aid to Israel including the proposed $10 billion in weaponry to conduct their impending invasion.
A more destructive US policy destroying peace and bringing needless death and suffering to millions is hard to imagine. But it is happening, which requires every American to demand Biden, his administration and Congress pivot from supporting relentless war to promoting a lasting peace in Israel and Gaza/West Bank.
Walt Zlotow became involved in antiwar activities upon entering University of Chicago in 1963. He is current president of the West Suburban Peace Coalition based in the Chicago western suburbs. He blogs daily on antiwar and other issues at www.heartlandprogressive.blogspot.com.
If he is looking for statesmanship from this administration, it ain’t here. I doubt if Joe can spell statesmanship. He could have saved the Ukraine mess in December, 2021. He didn’t. I tell you what. He will not be re-elected next year. I know I am not voting for him. If there is a G-d, I beseech him to grant us a consenting adult with a brain who wants world peace.
Biden is enabling genocidal, ethnic cleansing of Gaza so he can be worse than his predecessors, he does the bad things they did and takes it to a whole new level. He is far more hawkish than they were when they were POTUS.
“ Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations is ripping the “horrible views” that U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres expressed at a meeting of the Security Council on Tuesday and is calling for his resignation”
“ His statement that, ‘the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum,’ expressed an understanding for terrorism and murder. It’s really unfathomabale (sic). It’s truly sad that the head of an organization that arose after the Holocaust holds such horrible views. A tragedy!”
If this guy thinks Guterres’ view is “horrible”, he should go live a few days in the Gaza Strip to see what “horrible” really means!
*Holocaust*. Always the answer to their brutality