The main press stable was keen to see the scrappy benefits of the 31-hour visit to Israel by US President Joe Biden. On National Public Radio (NPR), Scott Neuman expressed the view that the “largely symbolic” visit did yield a few “concrete accomplishments” including an announcement of $100 million in Palestinian aid, convincing Israel to permit humanitarian aid into Gaza and persuade Egypt’s strongman president Abdel-Fattah El-Sissi to open up an access route via land into southern Gaza. If these were seen as achievements, one dare not look at the picture of bright success.
On an individual level, sharing the same stage with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was always going to be an awkward exercise. A figure reviled and loathed for attacking the judicial system in his own country, and one self-touted as “Mr Security”, things looked rather shoddy. Given that Israel’s own security was premised on a de facto encirclement and suffocation of Gaza, the occupation of the West Bank, and a virtual hibernation of talks about Palestinian sovereignty – the Israeli PM’s competence has been irreparably damaged.
To that, can be added the entire Israeli approach to Hamas, which was dubbed, in a research brief by the RAND Corporation from 2017 as “mowing the grass” – a less than grand strategy which accepted Israel’s “inability to permanently solve the problem and instead repeatedly targeting the leadership of Palestinian militant organizations to keep violence manageable.”
Biden was there to serve as prop and stay for a war that is moving into a phase of unceasing slaughter. Slipping into hopeless locker room argot, he whispered his view that the “other team” (to be clear, not Team Israel) had been responsible for the attack on the al-Ahli Arab Hospital that killed hundreds. This is from the same world leader who has made it a habit to use cue cards when conducting business. (That business is made particularly easier at press conferences, where Biden is seemingly receiving questions in advance from reporters.)
Things were also made that more interesting by a casual observation made at Ramstein Air Base en route back to Washington that, while he did not necessarily thumb Hamas as responsible for the intentional bombing of the hospital, “It’s that old thing: got to learn how to shoot straight.”
There was, however, a note of warning from the President, delivered while in Tel Aviv. Remarking on comparisons of the Hamas attacks on Israel as the country’s own version of 9/11, Biden accepted that, “Justice must be done. But I caution this: While you feel that rage, don’t be consumed by it. After 9/11 we were enraged in the United States. While we sought justice and got justice, we also made mistakes.” Given that these mistakes involved a two-decade war in Afghanistan and a disastrous, destabilising invasion of Iraq that constituted a crime against peace while releasing the monster of sectarianism, the remark must surely win an award for understatement.
Biden’s Israel gambit also lends itself to the prospect for further mistakes. To take the position that Israel is essentially above reproach, certainly publicly, is to flirt with a power potentially engaged in acts of genocide. The line between rogue state and ennobled avenger becomes blurry.
While international law is exacting about the bar on what constitutes genocide (there can be no other inference, essentially, of an intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group), statements made by Israeli officials, the chilling dehumanising rhetoric towards Palestinians, the collective punishment of the siege, and the evacuation orders of over a million Gaza residents do not auger well for the historical record.
That record is already bulking, aided by suggestions that the Gaza Strip we emptied. Calcalist, an Israeli business daily, was first to report on a plan from Israeli Intelligence Minister Gila Gamliel to forcibly transfer Gazans into the Sinai Peninsula. Doing so would “yield positive and long-term strategic results”. While the paper cautions readers about the influence Gamliel exerts in the government, the idea of relocating and ensuring a “final settlement of the entire Gaza population,” is something the Misgav institute for National Security & Zionist Strategy finds entirely palatable.
In an emergency briefing paper published this month, expert lawyers of the US-based Center for Constitutional Rights asserted that there was a “plausible and credible case, based on factual evidence, that Israel is attempting to commit, if not actively committing, the crime of genocide in the occupied Palestinian territory, and specifically against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.”
The authors also warned that the US “is not only failing to uphold its obligation to prevent the commission of genocide, but there is a plausible and credible case to be made that the United States’ actions to further the Israeli military operation, closure and campaign against the Palestinian population in Gaza, rise to the level of complicity in the crime under international law.”
These policies have all been subsumed under the elastic netting of “self-defence”, a term that solidly binds Israel and the United States to an expansive use of retaliatory force. It has assumed the standing of holy writ in US foreign policy, shielding Israel from its more exuberant uses of violence. On October 18, for instance, the US rejected a Brazil-sponsored resolution calling for a “humanitarian pause” as it, in the words of US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield, “made no mention of Israel’s right of self-defence.” Every nation of the world had “the inherent right to self-defence, as reflected in Article 51 of the UN Charter.” If so inherent, why expressly mention it?
On October 25, sharing the podium with his Australian counterpart, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in the Rose Garden, Biden reiterated the position that Israel not only had the right but a “responsibility to respond to the slaughter of their people. And we will ensure Israel has what it needs to defend itself against these terrorists. That’s a guarantee.”
Sophistically, he sought to separate Hamas from the Palestinian people, a chaff-from-wheat exercise that Israeli politicians and a number of security personnel have distinctly refused to do. “Hamas is hiding behind Palestinian civilians, and it’s despicable and, not surprisingly, cowardly as well.” The task for Israel, then, was positively Sisyphean: “to do everything in its power, as difficult as it is, to protect civilians.”
With such a gulf between rhetoric and reality, the world’s most powerful cue card reader also made sure he would partake in the finest traditions of the IDF public relations effort, disputing the casualty lists released by the Hamas-run health ministry. “I have no notion that Palestinians are telling the truth about how many people are killed. I’m sure innocents have been killed, and it’s the price of waging a war.” At a tag of over 7,000 dead and rising, that’s a considerable amount of expended innocence.
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The US knows a great deal about collateral damage . Experts there. A saying applied to the empire it often resembles ” they made a desert and called it peace” Gaza , previously a prison , is becoming a mass burial ground of rubble , a charnel house , in the cruelest imaginable way. One wrong never cancels out another, it mutiplies it .
“Hamas is hiding behind Palestinian civilians, and it’s despicable and, not surprisingly, cowardly as well.”
This is true. Hamas doesn’t give a flying fuck aboput Palestine or Palestinian people. They’re an excuse for Hamas’ stated aim of totally eliminating both Israel and Jewish people.
The Israeli government is every bit as bad; the only difference between the two is that Israel has the military power to do more damage. And, boy, are they ever revelling in that. Scum, the lot of them.
The US and its Western allies used the logic of the domino effect in their false flaged war in Vietnam ( the false claim that USN Madox was attacked by the North Vietnamese). The logic was if it can happen to Vietnam then no country in the region is safe from being taken over.
This very same logic is being used by the Kiev government and NATO on Ukraine sovereignty.
Then surely the Paledtinians can use the same logic.
Once the Palestinians have been delt with which country will be next to be exterminated by the West.
Israel made HAMAS and the USA made Israel.
Their ideologies differ but both sides were helped along by larger powers for self interested political reasons.
Biden doesn’t trust HAMAS records for deaths?
Oh! That’s right! Biden never thought he would see ACTUAL beheaded babies and children.
First casualty of war or the callous use of others for political swag.
Bitter conflict usually requires some historical perspective…
Palestine was part of the Ottoman Empire for 300 or 400 years before WW1.
The Ottoman Empire lost WW1 and Britain was the successor in some of its territories, including Palestine.
Palestine had not been a separate country, it was a region or territory.
Jews, Muslims and a Christians lived there for thousands of years.
During the late 1800s Jews in Europe were persecuted across the continent, and they began to develop a sense that they should have a homeland.
When Britain became the governing body of Palestine in 1917, they announced that they would support the creation of a separate state for Israel and another for Arab Palestinians, it was the “2 state solution”
This proposal was resisted by the Arab League for 31 years, until Israel was formally and legally created by the United Nations in 1948.
Israel accepted the 2 state solution, the Arab League rejected even the concept.
Instead Israel’s neighbours declared war on the day it was created.
And invaded again in 1967 and 1973.
Israel took territory as a result of the attempted invasion.
Israel maintained the territory as a buffer zone as it was only about 10 km wide in parts.
Unfortunately settlements started to germinate in the occupied territory.
Israel is surrounded by neighbours that are either committed to its elimination, or have been.
The hostile neighbours have caused Israel to develop a siege mentality and become about as harsh and brutal as those that seek to destroy it.
It is a debacle and a tragedy.
Can’t work my old country out.
One the one hand they vilify Jews, on the other they support Israel.
Neither is called for. But on the latter, I want them to support peace.
Can’t see them doing that though.
From contacts in my previous job I’ve heard some very damning stuff. Like what an Israel soldier did to a young Lebanese baby in a refugee camp, the details of which are too gruesome to discuss here.
The other was from an Israeli soldier, distraught and in tears when confessing that his own country opened fire on a tourist bus solely for the purpose of blaming it on the Palestinians. They killed their own people ffs.
Please note that the latter is not confirmed, and I imagine, never will be. But the whistleblower was very convincing.
The US is complicit in every Palistinian death. It always was.
Interesting, but this analysis would mirror that of GOP types too, who are critical of Biden as opposed…?
Further, the imagery of Biden being close to or hugging Netanyahu was criticised in some offshore media, but may signify ‘keep your friends close but your enemies closer’; suggesting the Biden administration has very good reasons not to trust Netanyahu’s regime.
Like Russia’s invasion of Ukraine there has been much PR via social media and MSM including framing, focus etc. when e.g. pro Russian faux anti-imperialist tankies and the Kremlin, RT, FoxNews etc. go back through history to justify Russia’s invasion due to Ukraine, NATO, western US, Anglo-Saxon and EU provocations, and bypass recent or current events that contradict their ‘peace’ messaging.
Rather than focus on the corrupt Netanyahu regime in a civil war for past year+, encouraging illegal settlements and their RW extremists to provoke incidents on the West Bank (Fatah/PNA controlled) vs. Hamas death cult leadership in Gaza. The latter provoked a reaction from Israel, it became broadened or simplified by media into Israel vs. Palestine, almost absolving the main players of culpability?
Meanwhile Sunni Gulf states are mute─ while there is still liberal democracy in Israel, civil society, media etc. and according to Haaretz, near a majority of Israelis against Netanyahu (inc. many IDF/security) are demanding no invasion of Gaza; after ongoing domestic protests vs. Netanyahu’s judicial and other coups attempts (aka Trump).
Then, Putin who is chummy with both Netanyahu and Hamas leadership muddies the waters, and shares some dubious allies with Netanyahu including Viktor Orban, too many linked to the GOP and Trump inc. $2bn man Kushner from his mate Saudi’s MBS etc., who was about to sign a treaty with Israel….
We must not let the US drag us into taking the side of Israel. We have a relatively peaceful multicultural population and it appears that there is at least as much support for the Palestinians as for the Jewish population despite the strong Jewish influence on our government. Amongst the population there appears to be a strong understanding about the cause and the rise of Hamas. From this distance we have a clear view of the aims of Israel and their aim to annihilate the Palestinians.Albanese would do well to follow Penny Wong’s stance and not inflame the situation here by appearing pro-Israeli. Dutton on the other hand sees an opportunity to make mischief. I applaud the Labor members Ann Ali, Ed Husic , Tony Burke and a number of backbenchers whose names escape me for speaking out without inflaming the situation.
Mark this date…
I agree with some-much of what Andrew Smith said.
I am going to add an unsubstantiated opinion.
In the initial military/terrorist attacks that provoked disproportionate Israeli atrocity, I suspect that the the most atrocious acts could/would likely have been carried out by hamas’ ‘i j’ allies’.
They are more poorly trained and ill-disciplined, and far more fanatical in tactic and manifesto, and they are rogue operators with an apocalyptic religious agenda, rather than paramilitary forces of a defacto civil authority.
“We’re moving our embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, and it’s going to be beautiful!!!” brayed Trump, whilst playing his air accordion.
(#grabembythepussy)
“How good’s toadying up to wannabe demagogues?” scomo simpered, giving it his best good ol’ double thumbs up.
(#metoo)
Glad at least one of them’s likely headed for some jailtime.
CB, I like was someone said the other day (about Trump):
“Lock him up and throw the jail away.”
Roswell,
I’m starting to think the purse-mouthed, perpetually bloviating, ferret-wig wearing shart-stain might actually be sitting in confines before the documents case even starts
Bearing in mind that the documents case could potentially expand from current charges of willful retention and obstruction into including things like disseminating TS/SCIF national security shit to foreign nationals/agents.
By the way, did you know that “trumpery” is an archaic English word (both noun and adjective) for something of flashy appearance but little substance or value.
(All hat, no herd)
ITrumpery as a term dates back at least to Shakespeare, who wrote of it in The Tempest, but it etymologically derives from an older French word “tromper”, which describes actions of deception.
Werds, ay?
CB, loved the etymology lesson, keep ’em coming !
Joe Biden is now on my pity list.
Don’t want to be ageist, but boy, there is some thing infant-school level going on. Mass media have spun the corpses of thousands of children into an abstract.
How much of a psychosis do politicians and msm live, dislocated from reality. And how dare they expect us to authenticate all the lies.
Israel continues to practice the Warsaw Ghetto Playbook from 1943 with a viciousness that even the Germans of 1933 – 1945 death squads would admire. Meanwhile, European nations stand back wringing their national hands and ensuring the security of their national borders to protect the wealth accumulated/”stolen” from ”developing” the natural resources of Africa and other third world export economies.
Sort of reminds me of Australia in the 21st century ….. corrupted politicians declining to commit to any national development programmes for the benefit of jobs for Australian voters. Meanwhile Australian military forces are role playing military scenarios to deal with large crowds of hungry people looking for food, shelter and safety that may overcome the natural defence of being ”girt by sea.”
@corvusboreus: The label ”trumpery” for the Orange Brainfart has been used in my AIMN posts since 2016 since a late colleague made the connection.
NEC,
I am probably not the first nor the last to state something previously stated.
I use the term ‘Gaza ghetto’ to describe the besieged/invaded strip without a state (because history rhymes).
And yeah, if the gloomiest of the ice scientists are near the mark in their declaratives (which they increasingly are), events on Greenland and West Antarctica will see Girt tightening her girdle by more than a few notches over the unfolding century.
Must go, duty calls…
What a stupid bloody “defence” for one of the three moronic arseholes!
“…one of their lawyers telling a Sydney court his client had never worn a Nazi uniform, unlike former NSW premier Dominic Perrottet and Prince Harry.”
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/big-misunderstanding-men-plead-not-guilty-to-alleged-nazi-salutes-at-jewish-museum-20231031-p5egbd.html
Seeing a document prepared by Zionists, and signed by previous prime ministers, in support of genocide of the Palestinian people tells me all I need to know about how this country is run, and by whom.
Paul K remains my one light in the appalling slaughter of innocents, and this countries involvement.