Israel is not alone in its genocide

How geopolitical interests have prolonged the suffering in Gaza

OpinionsSean Richard — Published October 22, 2024 5 minutes

The United States and other Western countries continue to supply weapons used to facilitate the genocide in Palestine. Over 42,000 people have been killed in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023, marking it as the deadliest period of Israel's 76-year occupation of Palestine. 

The current prime minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu was invited to speak at the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Sept. 27. As several delegates walked out in protest, Netanyahu took the podium to claim that “Israel seeks peace.” 

He and his government’s actions have proven otherwise time and time again. 

The day prior to Netanyahu’s speech, both the U.S. and France proposed a 21-day ceasefire deal between Israel and Hezbollah across the Lebanon-Israel border to allow negotiations in de-escalation. 

However, following a targeted Israeli airstrike on Sept. 28, leading to the assassination of Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah and the destruction of six residential buildings, President Joe Biden issued a statement calling Israel’s attack “a measure of justice.” 

Yet again, the U.S. has proven its complicity in this genocide and has allowed and enabled Israel to continue its massacre. America’s leadership is turning a blind eye to the tens of thousands of people who were martyred and hundreds of thousands who were injured and left with nowhere to seek shelter. Only to expand America’s influence. 

Recently, the U.S. gave Israel 30 days to increase humanitarian aid access into Gaza or risk losing some American military assistance. This tepid threat came after Israel blocked all food aid from entering the North of Gaza for two weeks. This is not a threat and this is not enough for the Palestinian people. 

At the end of September, Reuters reported that Israel secured a US$8.7 billion aid package from the U.S., US$5.2 billion of which was designated specifically for air defence systems. These billions of American dollars will be used to bolster the Israeli military. 

The U.S.’s emphasis on maintaining its relationship with Israel after the International Court of Justice ruled that it was responsible for apartheid dates back to the early 20th century. 

Originally, it was the British who possessed a vested interest in the land of Palestine through the Balfour Declaration of 1917. The declaration, which set the idea for the Zionist project, was a perfect way for Britain to acquire a colony in the Middle East while simultaneously limiting Jewish immigration in England. This was due to growing antisemitic fears stemming from European elites who were worried about Jewish people achieving upward social mobility during the late 19th century. 

The promise was to create a “national home” for Jewish people. This idea came without recognizing the Indigenous Palestinian population’s sovereign right to their land. 

That promise for a national home was realized through forcible displacement and murder and led to the loss of 78 per cent of historic Palestine, with Palestinians having next to no autonomy in their occupied territories. 

While Palestinian displacement began before the 1947 UN Partition Plan for Palestine, a large portion of it came with the 1948 Nakba—meaning catastrophe in Arabic—which led to the murder of 15,000 Palestinians and the forced displacement of 750,000 people from their homes by Zionist forces. In November 1967, Israel implemented Military Order 158, barring Palestinians from building new water installations without a permit from the Israeli army. According to Amnesty International, the permit is nearly impossible to obtain. 

Over 90 per cent of the water supply in Gaza is contaminated and unfit for human consumption, and Israel has prevented Palestinians from accessing their own running water network in the occupied West Bank, which infringes on international law. 

Today, between 600,000 to 750,000 settlers live in 250 illegal settlements in the West Bank. And still, the American government is willingly sending billions of tax dollars to fund violations of international law.

America’s support for Israel has its perks in international politics. Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. aid and has received a total of US$310 billion between 1946 and 2024, with US$230 billion of that sum reserved for the military. In return, the U.S. gets to sell massive military contracts to Israel, while Israel is a strategic military ally in maintaining control over the Middle East. 

According to Vox, Israel provided security and information in the U.S.’s quest against “counter-terrorism” following 9/11. All the while, American arms dealers and weapon manufacturers such as Boeing, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and RTX (formerly Raytheon) get to earn massive profits from the suffering of Palestinians. 

The U.S. has not even performatively halted its support for Israel, as opposed to other Western nations. The United Kingdom has pulled out 30 of their 350 weapon licenses to Israel while Canada recently prevented ammunition made in Quebec from being sent to Israel. Although it is a step in the right direction, these acts are nothing but performative. These countries still maintain a strong relationship with Israel and have not called out the U.S. for their involvement in Gaza. 

We have witnessed oppression towards Palestine even on a humanitarian level. The U.S. possesses veto power in the UN Security Council, which they have relentlessly used to protect Israel from facing international reprimand. In October 2023, they vetoed a resolution that would have called for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza if it garnered enough votes to pass. The U.S. has historically vetoed 46 resolutions on Israel, which included resolutions on Israel’s invasion of southern Lebanon, its annexation of the Syrian Golan Heights, and Israel’s treatment of Palestinian civilians following the second Intifada in 2000. 

The American military-industrial complex, through providing weaponry and funding to a colonial regime, has murdered countless children and destroyed Gazans’ way of life. Now, Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, funded in part by the U.S., has killed over 2,000 people. 

President Biden has publicly called for diplomatic solutions between Hezbollah and Israel, yet in an act of cognitive dissonance continues to support Israel’s military efforts. The U.S. is complicit, through seeking its own political and financial gain, in keeping Palestinians away from any sliver of liberation.

This article originally appeared in Volume 45, Issue 4, published October 22, 2024.