Opinion Page

OPINION PAGE

© 2024 Timothy Moody

The world has forgotten Gaza and the Palestinian people. Democracies like Canada, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Ireland, Germany, and, tragically, shamefully, the United States have all left the Palestinians in the hands of a monster.

Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his hostile, extremist Likud party have never wanted anything  but to destroy the Palestinian people and take complete control of the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights. And that is precisely what they are doing. 

The deadly Hamas attack on an outdoor music concert in Israel last October gave Netanyahu the perfect excuse to begin the extermination of the Palestinians and the land grab he has always wanted.

Palestine is supposed to be protected by international law. But Israel has violated that law again and again since it was given status in 1948. And the world has done nothing to stop it.

Like Trump, Netanyahu obeys only the laws he chooses. The rest are of no concern to him. He has permitted himself to wipe out Palestine and its people under the guise of protecting Israel. But his indiscriminate war on Palestine has put Israel in defiance of fragile international agreements and made it a target of Muslim terrorists across the Middle East and beyond.

Presidential candidate Kamala Harris has said she will work for a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas and bring the more than one hundred remaining hostages safely to their homes. But she will have to get elected and will need a Democratic Senate and House to get that done. None of which is guaranteed. 

AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, is supposed to be a nonpartisan lobbyist group working in support of Israel. Republican interests mainly lead it, and it is the most significant source of Republican donors in the nation, giving millions of dollars to Republican candidates in national campaigns. It has no interest in Palestine and its people.

Harris will have to deal with this group and the Christian nationalists who fund it and work hand-in-hand with them to provide Netanyahu with whatever he wants in his war on Palestine. 

Norman Finklestein, a Jewish political scientist, author, and outspoken activist against Netanyahu, has written, “Israel will not reform itself because it cannot reform itself. It is contaminated at every level, not the least the judiciary, by a virulent brew of racism and arrogance freely circulating in a body politic whose immune system has collapsed. By fostering the illusion that if Israel incorporated a handful of internal administrative reforms it would heal itself….But a state that every couple of years launches - with overwhelming popular support and without a hint of remorse - yet another high-tech blitzkrieg against a defenseless, trapped civilian population is profoundly sick.”

For years, Finklestein has openly criticized Israel for its bullying and oppressive control of the Palestinian people. Now, a growing number of American Jews, Israelis, and others have joined in his pleas for humanitarian aid to the Palestinians and an end to Israel’s hostile and illegal domination of Palestine. 

Israel’s conduct in its war on the Palestinians is, as Finklestein says, “profoundly sick.” 

Our government’s continued billions in aid to Israel’s inhumane conduct against Palestine and our American tolerance of Netanyahu is a pathetic demonstration of national weakness and shriveling capitulation to AIPAC, Christian nationalists, and compromised politicians.  

The weak and helpless who cannot rise to dignity and nobility, and be safe in the land they live in, because of a terrorizing, powerful force against them, have only the courage and honor of a more powerful force to defend them.

We are the United States of America, still the most sophisticated democracy in the world. Still the most lethal nation with a military force and devastating arsonal unmatched anywhere. And yet we allow a cowardly, bullying little man like Netanyahu to slaughter defenseless women and children, the sick and the old, completely destroy their schools, hospitals, churches, and mosques, and chase them out of the land they have occupied for centuries. 

The utter dismissal of and refusal to stand up for the Palestinian people and rescue them from Israel’s relentless and unjustified slaughter, will be remembered in history books for centuries.

And our own great nation will carry the bloody stain of our cowardice, negligence, and refusal to do anything about it.