Many months ago, I wrote a letter criticizing President Joe Biden for his unwavering support of Israel’s inhumane and illegal assault on Gaza’s innocent civilians. Now a lame-duck president, Biden has been given a chance to make belated amends and cut off military aid to Israel. But as I write these words, he’s proved unwilling to do that.
Though largely ignored by our country’s mainstream media, Biden and his Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, have again shown remarkable duplicity when it comes to Gaza and Israel. After earlier indicating that it would cut off weapons shipments unless Israel allowed increased humanitarian aid to northern Gaza, the Biden administration has somehow determined that Israel has “made progress” on that front, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
If not an outright lie, it is a gross misreading of conditions in Gaza and directly contradicted by several international- aid groups who have witnessed firsthand Israel’s continued blockade of northern Gaza’s Palestinians.
Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, is among those who’ve appeared on American news shows to condemn Israel’s strategy of preventing humanitarian assistance. After spending three days in Gaza, Egeland told Democracy Now! about Israel’s “besiegement, which is a deliberate starvation of the population there, while they’re being bombarded, to depopulate the area. This is unlawful beyond belief. Every rule in the Geneva Conventions are being trampled on in Gaza.”
Egeland added, “What the U.S. has fueled is an indiscriminate military campaign that is destroying Gaza, which is filled to the brim with women and children that have no escape. So, that the U.S. has not even been able to get Israel to provide the relief that we need to get in is beyond belief. It’s been a diplomatic impotence that is astounding.”
I think Egeland goes too easy on our country’s leadership. It’s not impotence as much as an unwillingness to stop “fueling” Israel’s war on Gazans.
Biden’s actions — or inaction — in response to this genocidal assault is to me an unforgivable crime. I would also argue it’s one more piece of evidence that in some substantial ways, Biden and the Democratic party are not so different than the Republican party under Donald Trump. That is both a shame and shameful.
— Bill Sherwonit
Anchorage
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