Stampede deaths?

The recent attack by Israeli soldiers killed over 100 hungry Palestinians trying to get food from a relief truck

Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza knows no end, with every new war crime underscoring that the country’s political class and its military seem to have been born without an ounce of humanity. The comments and conduct of the Israeli government and its death squads has been so astoundingly bloodthirsty that news summaries are indistinguishable from fictional supervillains.

The recent attack by Israeli soldiers that killed over 100 hungry Palestinians trying to get food from a relief truck came as some people in the country have reportedly taken to eating animal fodder and leaves to avoid starving. Unfortunately, while almost the entire world knows that the bodies on TV are real and their deaths entirely unjustified, the US has convinced itself that thousands of dead Palestinian children are fiction. While billions of people are disgusted by the US move, it is, unfortunately, practical — acknowledging genocide would mean admitting US responsibility and complicity, since most of the bombs blowing up Palestinians are ‘Made in the USA’.

But the truth is that many Americans also know their government is the only one that can stop Israel from turning Gaza into what the UN’s refugee chief describes as ‘hell’. Some American opponents of genocide say they will vote against President Joe Biden to punish him for his support of Israel. Unfortunately, this won’t help much, because even though Biden has literally called himself a Zionist, he has on occasion offered up mild criticism of Israel and PM Benjamin Netanyahu.

Former president Donald Trump, on the other hand, was perhaps the most anti-Palestinian president in US history. He gave Israel a free hand to do whatever it wanted with no criticism. He was so extreme that the Palestinian Authority cut off ties with the US in response to his moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. He also made the case for a Palestinian state weaker by convincing several Muslim states to open diplomatic relations with Israel. It is thus up to US allies to convince Biden to put his thumb on the scale before Netanyahu kills and starves all of Gaza.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 3^rd, 2024.

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