{"id":54335,"date":"2025-07-28T08:02:05","date_gmt":"2025-07-28T16:02:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=54335"},"modified":"2025-07-28T08:02:05","modified_gmt":"2025-07-28T16:02:05","slug":"the-gaza-catastrophe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2025\/07\/28\/the-gaza-catastrophe\/","title":{"rendered":"The Gaza Catastrophe"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reprinted from\u00a0Bracing Views<\/a>\u00a0with the author\u2019s permission.<\/i><\/p>\n

It was obvious almost from the get-go what Israel was up to in Gaza. I wrote the article below in early December of 2023. Gaza was to be ethnically cleansed of Palestinians, full stop. Whether by bullets, bombs, disease, mass starvation, or expulsion, Palestinians were to be eliminated from the land, replaced by Jewish settlers. A\u00a0beach blanket bingo<\/a>\u00a0fantasy scene would follow.<\/p>\n

Chris Hedges writes about this\u00a0today<\/a>, honestly and powerfully. Caitlin Johnstone puts it\u00a0bluntly<\/a>\u00a0in her latest, the title of which is \u201cThey’re Starving Civilians To Steal A Palestinian Territory, And They’re Lying About It.\u201d It\u2019s all so shameful and disgusting.<\/p>\n

Anyway, here\u2019s what I wrote in 2023, when Israel got a blank check from Biden and Blinken. Now that blank check has become a mandate from the Trump administration, complete with fantasies of a \u201cnew\u201d Gaza, depopulated of Palestinians, featuring a fantasy Trump tower. Can the U.S. government sink any lower? I suppose it can.<\/p>\n

Biden to Israel: Don’t Ethnically Cleanse Too Fast<\/h1>\n

Don’t Bomb and Kill Too Much, Bibi<\/h3>\n

BILL ASTORE<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

DEC 02, 2023<\/strong><\/p>\n

Have you ever heard parents tell their unruly children: Don\u2019t run in the store too fast. Don\u2019t slug your friend too hard. Don\u2019t eat all the candy. Instead of telling them to stop running in the store, to stop slugging their friend, to stop hogging all the candy.<\/p>\n

I feel like that\u2019s the Biden and Blinken approach to Israel: Don\u2019t ethnically cleanse Gaza too fast. Just slow down a bit. Don\u2019t make it too obvious. Don\u2019t be too ruthless.<\/p>\n

Biden and Blinken are those permissive parents who are dominated by an unruly child. Let\u2019s call the child \u201cBibi.\u201d They don\u2019t dare tell Bibi to stop. They don\u2019t dare punish him. They don\u2019t dare make a scene, because Bibi will throw a tantrum and make their lives hell. So they allow Bibi to do whatever the hell he wants to do, except just a bit quieter, or slower, or less violent. They enable the child, in short, and indeed Biden and Blinken give Bibi more \u201cclubs\u201d (as in 2000-pound bombs and Hellfire missiles) so he can keep slugging other kids with even more relish.<\/p>\n

Speaking of enabling, I got my daily report today from the\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0on what\u2019s happening in the \u201cIsrael-Hamas War.\u201d Note the framing here: the idea this is a war between equals, when Israel is an overwhelmingly powerful nation-state and Hamas consists of maybe 20,000 lightly-armed fighters. Anyhow, here\u2019s the summary:<\/p>\n

Israel-Hamas War<\/strong><\/p>\n