The Gaza War Could Have Been Otherwise, and Joe Biden Will Forever Have Blood on His Hands
The ‘otherwise it could have been’ was if Joe had told Benjamin Netanyahu that the United States supported Israel, as it always had, but would not provide offensive weaponry beyond that for a measured response against Hamas. What on earth did he think would come of promising unlimited support? Israel does not, and did not have sufficient weapons to instigate the retaliatory genocide against Palestinian civilians it has chosen to pursue.
It was a a choice.
Diplomacy and support for allies are always choices, but Biden was in a close political race for a second term as president of the United States, and he chose politics over judgement in a volatile Middle East. He was not the first American president to do so.
America is the sole guarantor of Israel’s right to exist in the Middle East
To say that ‘mistakes were made’ in the Middle East by every successive American government since Israel’s creation in 1948 is far too easy an excuse, but that area of the world is ancient, and America was (and is) but a powerful newcomer. A World War had just been concluded, boundaries had been reset by the winners, and oil was the new world currency. Kingdoms rearranged themselves, Empires faded and the weaponry by which wars are fought became more powerful than our ability to comprehend their consequences.
America, my native land, is twice more militarily powerful than the next six world powers combined, yet finds itself chased out of war after war by insurrectionists wielding homemade weaponry. Car-bombs and suicide bombers are relentless when the enemy wears no uniform. A nation that will not submit, cannot be conquered. My nation fought the longest war in its history in Afghanistan, five times as long as our battles in World War Two, and when we left in disgrace and despair, the Taliban remained.
There is a lesson to be learned from that. Ever since Alexander the Great, Afghanistan has never been conquered. In modern times, both Russia and the United States failed.
And so, we come to Israel’s war with Hamas in Palestine, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and (possibly) Iran
Israel may survive as a nation, but Netanyahu has forever sullied its international reputation as a democratic Jewish state. Standing by his side in a mutual embrace, while providing the weaponry of a genocide yet to come, Joe Biden has chosen to place America at the scene of the crime.
That also was a choice.
Every bomb dropped, bullet fired, and inhumanity thrust down the throats of a civilian Palestinian population has an American signature on it. “Made in the USA, delivered by American F-16 aircraft.” Every terrorist (or freedom-fighter, depending upon your side in the conflict) killed, recruits three more in his or her place.
Palestinians had no voice in the UN decision to partition a huge swath of their county to Israel. They had no power to resist the building of illegal Israeli towns across what territory was left to them. After 76 years of living as second-class citizens in their own country, they’d finally had enough. Their attack was reprehensible, but so were the circumstances leading up to it.
We don’t want a two-nation solution, we want our country back
And who can blame anyone for that? The United States fought a Civil War over exactly that same issue.
Israel will not win this war, but it will forever carry the stench of genocide. That suggests that “Never Again” applies only to Israel, a nation salvaged from a Nazi genocide, only to create its own.
History will not be kind to Israel for that.