Washington rolls out the red carpet for war criminal Gallant as US imperialism prepares to support Israel’s war in Lebanon
The visit of war criminal and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to Washington demonstrates once again that American imperialism supports Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, which is part of a regional war against Iran. Gallant, who infamously referred to Palestinians as “human animals” when the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) began their genocidal assault on Gaza, held talks about acquiring more US weapons and expanding the war against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Gallant arrived in Washington almost exactly a month after Karim Khan, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, arrived to seek arrest warrants for him and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on war crimes charges. Gallant has overseen the inhumane blockade of all essential goods in Gaza, which has led to the spread of hunger, disease and misery on a horrific scale. On the second day of the Israeli assault on Gaza, he declared: “I have ordered a complete siege of Gaza. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed.”
A recent United Nations report accused the Israeli regime, of which Gallant and Netanyahu are leaders, of “extermination,” “war crimes” and other “crimes against humanity.” Gallant’s Defense Ministry oversees an army that the report said is “one of the most criminal in the world.” That army has officially killed over 37,000 Palestinians in less than nine months, the vast majority of them women and children.
In fact, Gallant and his entourage should have been arrested as soon as they got off the plane and handed over to the International Criminal Court for prosecution. But the Secretary of Defense had nothing to fear during his trip to Washington. Far from being held accountable for his barbaric crimes, Gallant was welcomed with open arms into the cockpit of world imperialism by fellow war criminals soaked in the blood of Palestinians, Iraqis, Afghans, Ukrainians and Russians. These war criminals never tire of invoking the principles of international law to denounce the aims of US imperialism’s wars of aggression, but they refuse to abide by such restrictions when they and their allies want to defend the “rules-based international order.”
Gallant met with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Biden administration special envoy for the Middle East Amos Hochstein and Republican Senator Lindsey Graham.
Graham noted after his conversation with Gallant that any Hezbollah attack on Israel that breaches the Iron Dome defense system “would be considered an Iranian attack on Israel.” He continued:
At this crucial moment for the State of Israel, the world must hold Iran accountable for the actions of its proxies, including Hezbollah.
It must be made perfectly clear to Iran: if it tries to destroy Israel with the help of Hezbollah, we will all bring down the Iranian regime.
Gallant’s deliberations in Washington have the character of a war council, planning exactly how to expand the war throughout the Middle East, a possibility many international actors see as imminent. After the Israeli military said last Tuesday that operational plans for a war in Lebanon had been “approved,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Monday: “The risk of this war reaching and spreading to the south of Lebanon is growing day by day. We are on the verge of an expansion of the war.” According to Israel’s Channel 12, the Canadian government has already sent military personnel to the region to plan the evacuation of 45,000 Canadian citizens in Lebanon if war breaks out.
This reality is being glossed over in official media coverage with talk of the Biden administration’s efforts to achieve a “ceasefire” in Gaza. Even the Israeli military has said that its large-scale operations in Rafah, where over a million people have been forced to flee since early May, are coming to an end. Gallant’s Defense Ministry spoke in a recent statement of “phase three” of the Gaza conflict, characterized by “low-intensity” attacks to destroy what remains of Palestinian infrastructure after nearly nine months of continuous bombardment. But this would only mark a possible shift in the focus of Israel’s war from Gaza to what Gallant and former War Cabinet member Benny Gantz regularly refer to as the “northern front,” i.e. Hezbollah and Lebanon.
The main force escalating the war throughout the region is American imperialism. World Socialist Website Washington fully supported Israel’s genocidal “final solution” to the Palestinian question in Gaza as part of its war preparations to consolidate US imperialist dominance in the energy-rich Middle East. The International Committee of the Fourth International, in a statement on October 9, presciently warned of the Zionist regime’s onslaught in response to the events of October 7:
The imperialist leaders and their media echo chambers are not against “terrorism,” but against mass opposition to the occupation and terror that Israel perpetrates on a daily basis. And they will do so to the extent of supporting a genocide against the Palestinians and escalating this to a regional war against Iran, Syria and Lebanon.
US imperialism is pushing for a regional war against Iran on the Middle East front of a rapidly developing Third World War. The major powers are engaged in a ruthless re-division of the world to secure access to resources, markets and geostrategic influence and to outdo and ultimately subjugate their competitors. For American imperialism, which has been waging continuous wars in the Middle East, Central Asia and North Africa for over thirty years to offset its economic decline by using its overwhelming military power, the preservation of its global hegemony is at stake. To this end, it is determined to inflict a devastating strategic defeat on Russia in Ukraine and throughout Eastern Europe, thereby destroying its main economic rival, China.
In these conflicts, the imperialists of North America and Europe are prepared to commit any crime and risk everything, including the outbreak of a nuclear war that would threaten the survival of humanity. For this reason, the governments of the United States, Germany and the other imperialist centers have supported Israel’s genocide to the utmost and have suppressed any resistance to the annihilation of the Palestinians with brutal state violence. They intend to wage their world war on all fronts with no less ruthlessness and with no less regard for the lives of their victims than the Zionist regime sacrificed the lives of Palestinian civilians.
The support of the war criminal Gallant by both parties of the US political establishment underscores the basis on which the World Socialist Website has called for a demonstration on July 24 in Washington DC to coincide with Netanyahu’s scheduled speech to Congress. The WSWS International Editorial Board wrote in its statement calling for the rally:
The purpose of this demonstration, however, is not simply to protest against Netanyahu, but against the role of American imperialism and the entire political establishment in directing, financing, arming and politically justifying the genocide. …
In order to defend its interests and the capitalist profit system, the corporate and financial oligarchy is driving humanity into the abyss. The permanent war of the ruling class must be answered with the perspective of the permanent revolution of the working class, whose strategic goal is the abolition of the nation-state system and the establishment of a socialist world federation.
Famous birthdays on March 9: Juliette Binoche, Suni Lee
Man sentenced to 29 years in prison for murder of Washington police officer shot by deputy sheriff
Bragar Eagel & Squire, PC announces that a
About The Author
