The Biden administration also bears a wider responsibility for the deterioration in Gaza and the extinguishing of Palestinian political aspirations
oe Biden flew to Israel on Wednesday to prove how deeply he and the US political establishment support Israel, even as it intensifies its indiscriminate bombing of Gaza, demands the forced displacement of more than 1 million Palestinians, and prepares for a ground invasion of the territory. Biden could have paired his expressions of grief over the brutal attacks by Hamas on 7 October, which killed more than 1,400 Israelis, with pressure for a ceasefire in Gaza and an effort to prevent the fighting from spreading to other parts of the Middle East.
Instead, Biden ended up doubling down on his administration’s unwavering support for Israel and its leaders. As Biden met with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and survivors of the Hamas attacks, the US ambassador to the United Nations vetoed a security council resolution calling on Israel to pause the fighting and allow humanitarian corridors into the besieged Gaza Strip. The resolution criticized the “heinous terrorist crimes by Hamas” but that wasn’t enough for US officials who insisted that the text was unacceptable because it failed to mention Israel’s right to self-defense.
Biden also went out of his way to support Israel’s claim that it was not responsible for a devastating explosion at al-Ahli Arab hospital in northern Gaza on Tuesday night, which killed 471 Palestinians and wounded hundreds. Palestinian officials blamed the strike on Israel, while Israel insists that the blast was caused by a malfunctioning rocket fired by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a group allied with Hamas.
“Based on what I’ve seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you,” Biden told Netanyahu as they met with a group of journalists in a Tel Aviv hotel. While Biden tried to hedge his language, he didn’t explain that his own intelligence officials were still working to collect and analyze evidence….
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/19/biden-israel-palestinians-foreign-policy
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State Department official resigns over Biden administration’s handling of Israel-Hamas conflict
A State Department official has resigned from the agency over the Biden administration’s approach to the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, the official announced on LinkedIn Wednesday.
Josh Paul, who said he has worked in the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs for more than 11 years, said in his LinkedIn post that he resigned “due to a policy disagreement concerning our continued lethal assistance to Israel.”
“Let me be clear,” Paul wrote. “Hamas’ attack on Israel was not just a monstrosity; it was a monstrosity of monstrosities. I also believe that potential escalations by Iran-linked groups such as Hezbollah, or by Iran itself, would be a further cynical exploitation of the existing tragedy. But I believe to the core of my soul that the response Israel is taking, and with it the American support both for that response, and for the status quo of the occupation, will only lead to more and deeper suffering for both the Israeli and the Palestinian people – and is not in the long term American interest.”
“This Administration’s response – and much of Congress’ as well – is an impulsive reaction built on confirmation bias, political convenience, intellectual bankruptcy, and bureaucratic inertia,” Paul adds. “That is to say, it is immensely disappointing, and entirely unsurprising. Decades of the same approach have shown that security for peace leads to neither security, nor to peace. The fact is, blind support for one side is destructive in the long term to the interests of the people on both sides.”…
United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
No Path to Ending Bloodshed If Palestinian Rights Continue to Be Denied
We’re anti-Zionist Jews and we see genocide unfolding in Gaza
Standing up for Palestine is also standing up to save the west from the worst of itself
Netanyahu’s deliberate extremism has failed
Haaretz Editorial: Netanyahu Bears Responsibility for This Israel-Gaza War
After the truth-shower 