The Oval Office chose to ignore the pleadings of humanity in favor of supporting the extremist religious zealots calling themselves the Israeli war cabinet, led by a man who may remain out of prison for corruption only while he occupies the prime minister’s chair. They together created the unfolding Gaza horror story.
This conflict is no mystery to me. I once worked for the UN organization most responsible for providing humanitarian support to the Palestinians, UNRWA. This critically important agency has been cut off from US funding, while being forbidden by the Israeli Government to perform its former humanitarian role in Gaza. It has been replaced by the outrageously incompetent US-funded private company, Gaza Humanitarian Fund.
The result: starvation has been fully weaponized — a war crime. I feel sickened beyond words that America has become complicit in enabling crimes against humanity to proliferate. The death toll continues to grow day-by-bloody-day, now exceeding fifty thousand in number, and with undiscovered thousands more buried beneath the rubble that used to be homes and businesses.
I know the people who live in Gaza. I walked in their decades-old refugee camps. I know their history and their temper. I also lived and worked in Israel. To the same degree, I know them too. The horrors of the Holocaust led to the creation of the Jewish State, considered by some more a theocracy than a democracy. “Never again” became a pillar of faith. Zionism is about securing and expanding land for the nation-state. Antisemitism is about religion and bias. The two should not be conflated. In other words, standing against Israeli government policies in Gaza is not antisemitism, as many would wrongly have us believe.
Essentially, removing Palestinians from Gaza has been the Zionist plan all along. If you harbor doubts regarding the veracity of my above assertion, I challenge you to read the book “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine” by Israeli Jewish Professor Ilan Pappe. The truth of my words will become self-evident to even the most hard-core of those who identify as Zionist supporters. Remember this: not all Israelis are Zionists, and not all Gazans are affiliated with Hamas.
Ethnic cleansing is a heinous offense that has been unfolding before a global audience for over seventy years, going unnoticed by many because it occurred at such a glacial pace. Last year, fifty countries went before the International Court of Justice in the Hague — a historic first — to support the Palestinians under the gun in Gaza, most of whom are innocent of any wrongdoing.
Blameless women and children continue dying every day in Gaza. Death from starvation may soon become the primary cause of loss of life. The tragedy continues apace. Whole families have already been wiped out. Hospitals are destroyed. The wounded have nowhere to go, many dying in agony. Hunger is everywhere evident. Clean water is lacking. Sanitary facilities are grossly insufficient. Death from disease follows close behind.
Take a moment. Imagine it if you can — envision the members of your family experiencing these terrors. How quickly would you forgive the perpetrators and their enablers? Could you ever?
The Israeli Knesset recently voted 71–13 in favor of the annexation of the West Bank. Although largely symbolic, the vote does tend to demonstrate where the greater conflict is headed. The long-standing and internationally supported two-state solution appears to be dead. So too are Palestinian aspirations of a home of their own. As a reminder, Hamas is not in control of the West Bank.
Does the evidence support Israel engaging in genocide? One could be forgiven for believing so. Amnesty International, and several other international organizations, concluded that this was case last year.
Of course, Hamas was wrong to kill Israeli innocents and take hostages on 7 October nearly two years ago. The International Criminal Court has requested indictments against both Hamas and Israeli leaders. However, Israel must be compelled to stop its attacks on the innocent. Only the US possesses that kind of leverage with Jerusalem. We must come to see those who are suffering in Gaza with better eyes. If we continue to do nothing, as too many of us are, we become complicit and deserving of the world’s condemnation for the resulting horrors attendant to starvation. Moreover, those surviving Palestinian children in the aftermath will become the sworn enemies of Israel and the conflict only further perpetuated.
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*** Editor’s Note: If you liked this article, you’ll definitely want to check out Bob’s latest book: Surviving the United Nations – A True Story of Violence, Corruption, Betrayal, and Redemption.
It’s an eye-opening account of a Green Beret’s second career at the United Nations.
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“In his humanitarian and peacekeeping missions for the United Nations he dealt with child soldiers, blood diamonds, a double hostage-taking, an invasion by brutal guerrillas, an emergency aerial evacuation, a desperate hostage recovery mission, tribal gunfights, refugee camp violence, suicide bombings, and institutional corruption. His UN career brought him face to face with the best and worst of human nature, and he shares it all here.”
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