José R. Oro*, contributor to Prensa Latina
When the public saw “recorded” episodes of the “massacre of Israeli civilians” on October 7th – replayed ad nauseum by every corporate media – we were all Henri Dunant; appalled by the “barbaric atrocities” allegedly committed by Hamas militants. International humanitarian law, codified in the four Geneva Conventions of 1949, protects civilians in time of war and treats the killing of civilians, torture, rape and hostage-taking as war crimes. Individual Hamas militants and leaders should be prosecuted for such brutal crimes, a large portion of humanity thought, shocked by the biased information they received.
In the more than two months since Israel declared war on Hamas, we have also been shocked by the killings of Palestinian civilians. The death and destruction unfolding before us on television screens and in the print media is more shocking than the battle scenes in Solferino.
Israel's declared war of retaliation against Hamas has instead turned into a war against all Palestinians in Gaza. Excluding the bodies lying under the rubble, the death toll now stands at over 20,000, mostly women and children.
While the laws of war allow combatants to attack enemy soldiers in proximity to civilians, such attacks must be carefully limited in scope to minimize the risk of “collateral damage.” Despite the IDF's protests to the contrary, its indiscriminate bombings of homes, mosques, churches, schools and hospitals; its forced evacuations of residents; and the siege of the entire Gaza Strip to cut off water, food and other essential supplies constitute not only war crimes and ethnic cleansing, but also genocide. How could such actions be different given the population density?
As defined in the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, genocide refers to certain acts committed with the intent to destroy “a national ethnic, racial or religious group.” These acts include “the killing of group members” and “the deliberate imposition on the group of living conditions designed to bring about its physical destruction, in whole or in part.”
Article IV states that “persons who commit genocide will be punished, whether they are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials or private citizens.” Prime Minister Netanyahu, his war cabinet and individual IDF soldiers and commanders must answer for the genocide be held responsible.
By supplying Israel with offensive weapons and by his steadfast refusal – expressed by his veto in the UN Security Council – to join other nations in calling for a ceasefire, President Joe Biden has made the United States accomplices (perhaps protagonists) of the genocide against Israel. He has also become a possible subject of prosecution for his “direct and public incitement to genocide.”
FBI Director Christopher Wray, referring to a U.S. war crimes indictment against Russia over the torture of an American in Ukraine, said: “We are committed to holding war criminals accountable, no matter where they are or how long I led.”
Will Wray's comments apply to Israel's war on Gaza? Not likely, but nations around the world are outraged by the United States' sole veto of a Dec. 8 Security Council resolution.
On December 22, the United States abstained from voting on a United Nations Security Council resolution supporting an indefinite pause in fighting to allow the flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza. The vote came after a series of delays in which Washington, Israel's unconditional ally, negotiated “soft” language against Israel, with the threat that it would feel obliged to veto it if the text was too strict. Would all UN member states do this? Charge Secretary of State Antony Biden with aiding and abetting Israeli genocide?
Israel currently receives $3.8 billion a year for American weapons (which have often been tested in wars against Gazans). However, Biden wants to provide Israel with $14.6 billion in additional weapons, weapons that could likely kill more Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Now the State Department has approved a $106 million sale of tank ammunition to Israel. Israel has a huge military industry, but has around 760,000 fewer workers overall due to the war, so munitions production would place a huge additional burden on the reduced workforce. Will American voters accept that such transfers make their ally more secure? Or will they begin to doubt the wisdom of their country’s intelligence “experts”?
A Dec. 3 news article from The Intercept, citing “an explosive new report” from the Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom, describes a proposal by Netanyahu to “reduce to a minimum” the Palestinian population in Gaza by moving Palestinians to other Arab ones countries are resettled. and/or open sea routes to enable mass flights to European and African countries. Israel Today has reported on a plan pushed by members of Congress that would condition U.S. aid to Arab countries on their willingness to accept Palestinian refugees. Given the inhospitable conditions in the devastated Gaza Strip, such plans do not seem as far-fetched and immoral as they should be. It is a new edition of the Nakba from 1948.
If Henri Dunant were alive today and looking at the devastated and bloody Gaza Strip, he would certainly lament the failure of the law to protect civilians. Only accountability, identification and punishment of the guilty can redress this failure and restore global respect for international law. What we know won't happen.
Who is the puppet and who is the puppeteer?
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remains determined to use overwhelming and indiscriminate military force to destroy the Palestinian community in Gaza or force them to flee to Egypt (a similar action would then follow in the West Bank to force them to attempt to flee to Jordan). Over the past two decades, Netanyahu has participated in the total humiliation of the Palestinian people. At the same time, he is humiliating and embarrassing the only nation that offers Israel political, military and diplomatic protection: the United States. The fact that Netanyahu is bombing Gaza with Weapons supplied to the US make the US complicit in Israeli ethnic cleansing, particularly the killing and maiming of children.
The Biden administration has criticized so-called “bunker buster” bombs that weigh two thousand pounds and are capable of penetrating concrete shelters where Palestinians are hiding; The United States supplies these weapons. One of these bombs was dropped on the Jabalia refugee camp, killing 100 people. The Biden administration has criticized Israel's use of Mk84 “dumb bombs,” or unguided bombs; The United States has provided 5,000 of these weapons since the start of the war. At $16,000 apiece, they are comparatively inexpensive (either way, this means $80 million of these bombs will be delivered to the Zionist entity). These bombs are transported by air in C-17 military cargo planes directly from the United States to Israel.
President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, national security adviser Jake Sullivan and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin have publicly called on Israel to avoid civilian casualties but have shown no interest in backing up their appeals. Biden criticized Israel's “indiscriminate” bombing of Gaza but called on Congress to lift key restrictions on Israel's access to U.S. weapons stockpiles. Biden told Netanyahu that the war would not end until a two-state solution was reached. But Netanyahu has never accepted the idea of a two-state solution and has been reported to take credit for “stopping the Oslo Accords.”
Last week, Blinken invoked rarely-used “emergency authority” to deliver 14,000 tank artillery rounds to Israel without meeting the standard 15-day deadline for congressional review. These deliveries contradict President J. Biden's policies on protecting civilians and human rights. Secretary Blinken ignored his own Civilian Damage Response Guide, which was aimed at investigating reports of civilian harm caused by governments using U.S. weapons.
Defense Secretary Austin warned Israel that it risked “strategic defeat” if it did not heed warnings about the rising civilian death toll. Meanwhile, his Pentagon is speeding up arms exports to Israel by deploying the so-called Tiger Team to facilitate arms transfers. The transfer of arms to Ukraine is an open process; The transfer to Israel takes place relatively covertly. Austin has also stated that the United States will do “everything we can” to support Israel.
In addition to rejecting the advice of American leaders, Netanyahu and his “war cabinet” blocked Mossad chief David Barnea's efforts to return to Qatar with CIA Director William Burns to resume negotiations on a new hostage-taking agreement. According to Israeli media, the War Cabinet decided that Israel would neither submit a draft agreement nor begin talks because the war would make it difficult for Hamas leaders in Qatar to contact their counterparts in Gaza.
J. Biden is no stranger to Netanyahu's efforts to manipulate the United States. Netanyahu has always opposed the so-called peace process and has taken credit for the destruction of the Oslo process in this regard. He has embarrassed recent U.S. administrations by typically announcing new settlements in the West Bank when U.S. leaders, including then-Vice President Biden and Secretaries of State Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, were on official visits to Israel. The nadir of Netanyahu's ruse came in 2015, when Netanyahu accepted an invitation to speak at a joint session of Congress to embarrass President Barack Obama and block the signing of the Iran nuclear deal.
Netanyahu and his war cabinet are making senior American politicians, including Biden and Blinken, look particularly weak as they publicly advocate moderating the military campaign against Hamas (actually against the Palestinian people), while Netanyahu and his Defense Secretary Yoav Gallant will emphasize the bombings will continue for months. While the administration
As a result, violence continues in both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. More Palestinians were killed in the West Bank last year than in any other year since the Second Intifada in the early 2000s. There will be no response to the cruelty of Hamas and Israel, let alone Israel's apartheid and occupation policies, as long as the United States ignores the humanitarian crisis that is getting worse every day.
For reasons unknown to me, the United States appears to be Israel's puppet, rather than the other way around, as common sense would suggest.
Some things B. Netanyahu shouldn't ignore
When the imperialists say they have no permanent friends but only permanent interests, Israel should be understanding, despite what currently appears to be solid American support for destruction and genocide in Gaza. Like chameleons, the methods, strategies and puppets that imperialists use to control their empires change circumstances. B. Netanyahu need only look at recent history to see that he is in danger of being abandoned by his so-called Western friends.
In particular, Muammar Gaddafi's experience with capricious imperialism was brief, up close, personal and deadly. In 1965, Mobutu Sese Seko, a CIA puppet, took control of the Congo after the assassination of Patricio Lumumba, but with the fall of the Soviet Union, the West turned its back on him.
Imperialism's temporary friendships were not limited to Africa. The CIA's love affair with Panama's Manuel Noriega came to a hostile end when he was no longer useful. The same thing happened with Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines and others around the world whose value to the empire had expired. Israel has long been a key asset of Western imperialism, but the United States may soon tell the Zionist government that its honeymoon is over. It's not that imperialism doesn't like violence. He feeds on it. But violence, civil strife and wars cause enormous instability. Especially in a presidential election year in the USA like 2024.
The turning point in Palestine is getting closer and closer. For years, the empire has viewed Israel as a “stabilizing force” in an oil-rich and strategic region. Tensions and conflicts between the Israeli government and the Palestinians were the cost of doing business. But Zionist terrorism in Gaza is no longer remotely “a contained and controlled operation” but outright genocide. Not only has it captured the world's attention and significantly increased support for the Palestinians, but it has also caused the resistance of the Palestinians themselves and neighboring countries to Zionism to reach unprecedented levels, making it impracticable, if not impossible , so that Western imperialists count on Israel as an effective check on hostile forces in the region.
The empire's departure from the Zionist government will not be sudden or dramatic, any more than was the case with apartheid in South Africa. In the US, organizations such as Jewish Voices for Peace and If Not Now have made strong and militant demands for justice for the Palestinians. This movement will likely continue to grow, and if its support base is broad enough, Zionism will falter and wait for the United States to throw it a lifeline. But on this fateful day, it is possible that Uncle Sam already has new friends and will not show up anywhere, so the devil pays those who serve him.
rmh/jro
*Cuban engineer residing in the United States