President Biden is not killing babies alone, but with the help of his
harsh condemnation you ask? On 16 Sep 2024 the names of 710
Palestinian newborn babies were released by the Palestinian Health
Ministry. These babies were all age zero (<1yr); and all had been killed by
Israeli forces in the war on Gaza. If we include children under age 2, that
number rises to 2,100.
In Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, Israeli forces (and settlers)
routinely target Palestinian children (under age 18) with live ammunition
and aerial attacks, prevent medical care from reaching wounded children,
and confiscate children’s bodies in violation of international law. One
child is killed every two days in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem)
More than 16,765 Palestinian children have been killed in Israeli attacks in
Gaza since 07 Oct 2023 (corrected to date of this writing); an untold
number lie under rubble and debris. In the occupied West Bank, more than
164 children have perished. For those bodies found, field researchers from
Defense for Children International-Palestine confirm each child’s full name
and date of birth by obtaining a copy of the child’s national identification
card or birth certificate plus affidavits, eyewitness reports, and/or video
footage. More names are to be listed as data collection proceeds.
Nihon Hidankyo, atomic bomb survivor and winner of this year’s Nobel
Pace Prize, commented on the similarities between post-war Hiroshima
and Israel’s war on Gaza, especially on the plight of children, the enclave
that U.N. officials have described as a “graveyard for children.” Biden has
not expressed the slightest sympathy for the Palestinian children who have
been killed by U.S. bombs, drones, snipers, tank shells, etc. U.S. Senator
Bernie Sanders has asked, what kind of permanent damage will occur to
virtually every one of these children that survive. How long can the U.S.
Congress ignore the many images of child carnage in Gaza?
As I write this, news reports indicate that more than 127 children have
been killed and 690 injured in Lebanon by Israel’s IDF as they expand
military aggression “under the guise of attacking Hezbollah targets.” This
is the same ‘cover’ the IDF uses in Gaza as they kill Palestinians with
abandon. Note that the Lebanese Health Ministry reported more than 27 people killed and more than 2,750 injured with sabotaged cell phones,
pagers, walki-talkies, and lap-tops, most were civilians. Israel had
briefed the U.S. prior to the attack.
NO ACCOUNTABILITY
No one has been held accountable for killing these children, and Israeli
authorities are unwilling to take any action, all of which embolden Israeli
forces to continue killing with impunity. As outlined in the widely ratified
Convention on the Rights of the Child, Israel is obligated to “ensure to the
maximum extent possible the survival and development” of children.
Thus, “When an Israeli soldier targets a Palestinian child, or an Israeli
military official orders the targeting of a child, they are in violation of
international human rights, humanitarian, and criminal law.” “To protect
Palestinian children’s lives, the international community must act urgently
to enact an arms embargo and sanctions.”
COMPLICITY
This is where President Biden enters the picture because he, and his
Administration are knowingly complicit in this slaughter. “He has no
shame, no sense of the dimensions of the horrific genocide that he and his
Administration are helping to perpetuate.” A healthy conscience cannot
simply ignore the mutilated bodies of tens of thousands of Palestinian
children. As noted earlier, these killings occur mostly with U.S.-
manufactured armaments. Thus, Biden could initiate an arms embargo
and sanctions that would force Israel to stop the slaughter tomorrow. Such
was done in 1982 with then President Ronald Reagan ordered then Prime
Minister Begin to stop the campaign in Beirut…within a few days they
did.
NO ONE HELPS PALESTINIANS
Gaza and the occupied territories represent the largest and most shameful
open-air concentration camp of this century; it is Israeli-controlled through
laws, practices and state violence. Israel denies those living in
occupied territories under military rule even the most nominal privacy
protections. Israel is erasing Palestinian existence, one school-, one
university-, one hospital-, one refugee camp-, one mosque-, one World
Heritage Site-, and one safe area-at a time. Genocide is the term for acts committed to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or
religious group. This is not the first act of genocide, but it is the first to
be witnessed in real time on our electronic devices. However, Israel’s
ruthlessly savage attacks on Palestinians goes beyond, and the term for
that is omnicide (extinction of a people and its culture). As Ariel Sharon’s
son Gilad stated in 2012: “We need to flatten entire neighborhoods in
Gaza. Flatten all of Gaza…”. Zionism has mutated into an aggressive,
anarchistic, and murderous form of settler-colonialism. Today, Gilad’s
views seem like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Sadly, Israel is aware that most
Western and many Arab states will not risk a relatively peaceful status quo
to help the Palestinians. Israel has crossed every red line with impunity…
America is preparing to come to the rescue as it did in the 1973 war. It
was mentioned in the news (09/24/2024) that the U.S. is sending ground
troops to the Middle East because of the Israel’s expansion of war into
Lebanon. Ironically, Hezbollah in Lebanon is sending rockets into Israel in
support of Hamas in Gaza, and it could all be ended if the Biden
administration would stop arming Israel which would stop its aggression on
Lebanon and end the occupation of Gaza as proposed in his “peace plan”
in May.16,17 In that plan to end the conflict, remaining hostages (~100 [64
presumed alive]) could have been freed by Hamas, and Palestinian
prisoners (~10,96612) could have been released by Israel; a deal to which
Hamas agreed, but which Israel rejected. Meanwhile, Biden insists on
propagating a distorted narrative of the 100+ year history of the region and
dismisses the current horror being perpetrated on Palestinians and
Lebanese.
SOCIAL JUSTICE
The definition of “antisemitism” is animosity toward Jews as Jews, and is
directed towards the Jewish religion and Jews individually or collectively.
The 2016 IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance) new
definition includes “expressions of antisemitism directed against the State
of Israel” (that has ultimately lead to the dispossession of Palestinians). So
why does Biden continue to use the 2016 definition that conflates
antisemitism with criticism of the apartheid Israeli government? There is
no link between the two positions. How do we gain social justice for
Palestinians and for Israelis (re. 07 Oct 23 Hamas attack on IDF and
civilians) without falling into the trope (used by Biden, Blinken, etc.) that
“Israel has the right to “defend itself”? However, Israel has no right to
massacre more than 42,814 Palestinians, with at least 97,886 wounded (corrected to date of this writing). via its current “offensive of collective
punishment”; it has no Holocaust-sanctified demand for permanent
security. Israel has been a member of the UN since 1949 and is not a
victim in need of protection; ‘vicitimhood’ is passé in our post-colonial
world. Today, “Never Again for Anyone” is the slogan of the Jewish
Voice for Peace activists and is expressed loudly on U.S. campuses and
elsewhere.
HOW ABOUT YOU
For its survival, Israel must radically change its model and accept equality
with all Palestinians at all levels. So where does this leave us? What is
our federal government doing in our name, complicity in killing innocent
babies and children? Is this genocide/omnicide morally tenable? What
are your members of Congress doing to end the carnage? How about
you, what will you tell your children you did during the omnicide in Gaza?