Gaza's terrified civilians were driven from their historic homes by ethnic cleansing after 1948, with their lands seized by Israeli authorities and far-right settlers, many from the US.
by Eric S. Margolis
Good work, Mr. President Biden. You have managed to do what America’s enemies have not – creating widespread hatred for the United States around the globe. Your destruction of the Gaza refugee camps has inflamed antisemitism everywhere.
There is widespread disgust and anger at the US government over your decision to give Israel’s new far right government carte blanche to massacre rebellious Palestinians in the open prison of the Gaza Strip. The death toll is now over 31,000 killed and at least 70,000 seriously injured, not counting the long-term effects of malnutrition and even starvation. Most victims are women and children.
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| People mourn victims killed during Israeli airstrikes in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah, on Feb. 12, 2024.(Photo by Khaled Omar/Xinhua) |
All of Gaza’s hospitals have been wrecked by Israeli bombs and tank fire. The Biden administration has thoughtfully rushed tank shells to Israel’s armored forces. Large stores of arms and supplies, supposedly provided by the US to Israel for an emergency situation, have been offered up to Israel to continue its massacre of Gaza. Such action violates US law – which bars the use of US-supplied arms against civilians. Dropping 2,000 lbs bombs on residential buildings is, according to Israeli spin doctors, ‘counterterrorism.’ The rest of the world does not think so.
Except of course the US, Canada and Britain, where the media is totally dominated by supporters of Israel’s now governing far right. And Washington, which is paralysed by pre-election fever. Palestinian ‘terrorists’ are purposely running into Israeli tanks, shells and bombs just to discredit Israel. Big money financial donors are terrorising major US and British educational institutions. Writers who dare challenge Israel’s party line on Gaza are blacklisted. Those honorable Jews who denounce Israel’s brutal policies in Gaza are denounced as ‘self-hating Jews.’
We are not told that Gaza’s terrified civilians originally came from areas around Gaza and Galilee from whence they were driven into the prison camp of Gaza from their historic homes by ethnic cleansing and massacres after 1948. Their lands were seized by the Israeli government or far-right settlers, many from the US.
As yet, we know little about the alleged massacre of some 1,000 Israelis attending a music festival on former Arab lands. I know this region fairly well after visiting the kibbutz of Nahal Oz in the 1950’s to meet relatives and see how Israel was allegedly making once supposedly barren lands flower and blossom. There were no such people as Palestinians, according to Israel’s then prime minister, who herself hailed from Ukraine.
Israel’s governing far right – was described by the late, great Israeli writer Uri Avnery as ‘Jewish fascists.’ They clearly intend to grind Gaza and its people into dust. There are large numbers of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, some of whom were gunned down this week. The objective of Israel’s far right is to expel these Arabs from the entire West Bank that Israel seized in the 1967 War and shove them into the arid Jordanian desert. Israel has long had its eye on southern Lebanon and its Litani River waters.
‘Don’t worry what Washington will say,’ said the architect of this mess, the late General Ariel Sharon. ‘I control Washington.’ True enough, as Biden and his party are showing. Wall Street donors have become more important than America’s geopolitical interests.
Interestingly, the likely winner of the upcoming US presidential election, Donald Trump, is an even stauncher supporter of Israel. But even many Democrats don’t trust his fidelity to Israel even though he openly dislikes Arabs and Muslims. Trump appears to have a clearer idea of where America’s interests lie – he may not allow Israel to lead America around by the nose.
Israel’s North American partisans keep running old films about the Holocaust to help justify their laying waste to Gaza. We ought to remember there were less than half the numbers of Jews in the besieged Warsaw Ghetto than there are today Palestinians in Gaza.
Americans should be ashamed of Biden. His administration, infiltrated and directed by far-right neocons, does not represent America’s values or traditions. Gaza will remain a major crime as well as a dark stain in America’s honor.
Copyright Eric S. Margolis 2024
Eric S. Margolis is an award-winning, internationally syndicated columnist. His articles have appeared in globally recognized newspapers and He appears as an expert on foreign affairs on CNN, BBC, France 2, France 24, Fox News, CTV and CBC. As a war correspondent Margolis has covered conflicts in Angola, Namibia, South Africa, Mozambique, Sinai, Afghanistan, Kashmir, India, Pakistan, El Salvador and Nicaragua. He was among the first journalists to ever interview Libya’s Muammar Khadaffi and was among the first to be allowed access to KGB headquarters in Moscow.
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