Why the US won't stop the genocide

Published in The National, March 17th, 2024.

US President Joe Biden has greenlit Israel’s use of starvation as a weapon of war. He continues to bankroll the Israeli regime while feigning concern for the Palestinians, offering performative gestures such as the announcement to build an Israeli controlled temporary port for aid, rather than force Israel to open the land crossings that would deliver immediate relief to the starving Palestinians trapped in Rafah.

It doesn’t matter that US law bans assistance to countries that prohibit or restrict the delivery of US-provided humanitarian aid as Israel is doing in Gaza, because Biden flouts US law just as he flouts international law. Since the January ICJ ruling ordering Israel to take all measures to prevent genocide, not only does the killing continue but aid has been halved and funding to UNRWA, Gaza’s largest aid provider, suspended.

Here’s the question: why is the US facilitating this genocide?

It’s not, as it claims, to protect democracy and Israel’s right to self-defense. Relying on 2,000k pound bombs, starvation and disease isn’t an exercise in defense. America’s real motivation is to cling on to its global leadership position which was built on the material exploitation of nations and peoples in the global south and maintained through regime change, economic sanctions and military force.

The US is terrified of losing access to Middle East oil which for decades has been secured through weapons sales to corrupt Gulf monarchies. America has showered Israel with military aid and money so that the Zionist state can act as its bulwark in the region.

And the western power elites that control the money, the media and the politicians make sure that the governments they fund back Israel to the hilt even as it commits genocide in front of the whole world.

A case in point. The zionist American Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has complained that the social media platform TikTok which is popular with GenZ (ages 18-24) is promoting anti-Israel and anti-zionist views to young Americans. 70% of voters aged18-34 disapprove of Biden’s handling of the conflict and half believe Israel is committing genocide. Yesterday, the US House of Representatives passed a bill that would ban TikTok in the US unless it is sold to an American company. The bill now moves to the Senate where it is expected to pass.

Any who dare to resist US hegemony are called terrorists – the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iraqi and Syrian resistance fighters, and Hamas, democratically elected in 2006 to lead the Palestinian Legislative Council.    

It’s only a matter of time before the US-dominated world order, supported by its nodding European lapdogs, collapses under the weight of its moral decay and corruption.