War on Gaza: To end Israel’s massacre, the world must eliminate the US

On June 13, Hamas responded to persistent taunts from US Secretary of State Antony Blinken over the American proposal to stop the Israeli massacre in the Gaza Strip.

The group said it had “positively treated” the latest proposal and all proposals to reach a ceasefire agreement. Hamas, however, added: “While Blinken continues to speak of Israel’s agreement to the latest proposal, we have not heard from any Israeli official expressing agreement.”

The full details of the US proposal are not yet public, but a halt to Israeli attacks and the release of hostages in the first phase would reportedly lead to further negotiations in the second phase on a more permanent ceasefire and Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. However, there is no guarantee that the second round of negotiations will be successful.

Former Israeli Labor Party Prime Minister Ehud Barak told Israel Radio on June 3: “How do you think (Gaza military commander) Sinwar will react if he is told: ‘But hurry up, because we still have to kill you after you return all the hostages.'”

As Hamas stressed, Israel has not publicly accepted the terms of the latest US ceasefire proposal; it only has confirmation from US officials that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has confidentially agreed to the proposal.

In public, Netanyahu continues to insist on his firm intention to completely destroy Hamas and its government in the Gaza Strip. In fact, he has even intensified Israel’s brutal attacks in the center and south of the Gaza Strip.

The fundamental disagreement that President Joe Biden and Blinken cannot hide with their smokescreens is that Hamas, like all Palestinians, wants a real end to the genocide, while the Israeli and U.S. governments do not.

Self-imposed isolation

Biden or Netanyahu could end the massacre very quickly if they wanted to – Netanyahu by agreeing to a permanent ceasefire, or Biden by ending or suspending US arms supplies to Israel.

Israel could not fight this war without US military and diplomatic support. But Biden refuses to use his influence, although he admitted in an interview that the conclusion that Netanyahu is prolonging the war for his own political gain is “reasonable.”

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The United States continues to supply weapons to Israel to continue the massacre, violating a ceasefire order from the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

Bipartisan U.S. politicians have invited Netanyahu to address the U.S. Congress on July 24, while the International Criminal Court (ICC) simultaneously considers a request from its chief prosecutor for an arrest warrant against Netanyahu for war crimes, crimes against humanity and murder.

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The United States seems determined to share Israel’s self-inflicted isolation from voices calling for peace around the world – including the vast majority of countries in the UN General Assembly and the UN Security Council.

But perhaps that is appropriate, because the United States bears a large share of the responsibility for this isolation. By providing unconditional support to Israel for decades and by using its veto in the UN Security Council dozens of times to shield Israel from international accountability, the United States has enabled successive Israeli governments to pursue blatantly criminal policies and ignore the growing outrage of people and countries around the world.

This pattern of US support for Israel stretches back to the founding of the state, when Zionist leaders in Palestine launched a well-planned operation to capture far more territory than the UN had agreed to grant their new state in its partition plan, despite previous strong opposition from the Palestinians and neighboring countries.

The massacres, the razed villages and the ethnic cleansing of the Nakba of 1948, in which between 750,000 and one million people died, were meticulously documented, despite an extraordinary propaganda campaign designed to convince two generations of Israelis, Americans and Europeans that such a thing never happened.

Genocidal territorial ambitions

The United States was the first country to de facto recognize Israel on May 14, 1948, and played a leading role in the 1949 UN vote recognizing the new State of Israel within its illegally occupied borders.

President Dwight Eisenhower had the wisdom to oppose Britain, France and Israel in their war to capture the Suez Canal in 1956. But Israel’s occupation of the occupied Palestinian territories in 1967 convinced U.S. leaders that the country could be a valuable military ally in the Middle East.

The United States’ unconditional support for Israel’s illegal occupation and annexation of ever-increasing territory over the past 57 years has corrupted Israeli politics and encouraged increasingly extreme and racist Israeli governments to further expand their genocidal territorial ambitions.

Netanyahu’s Likud party and government today fully support the plan for a Greater Israel to annex all of occupied Palestine and parts of other countries wherever and whenever new opportunities for expansion arise.

The contradiction between the United States’ contradictory roles as Israel’s most powerful military ally and as the main mediator between Israel and Palestine is obvious to the whole world.

Israel’s de facto expansion has been facilitated by the US monopoly on mediation between Israel and Palestine, which it has aggressively staked out and defended before the UN and other countries.

The irreconcilable contradiction between the United States’ contradictory roles as Israel’s most powerful military ally and as the main mediator between Israel and Palestine is obvious to the entire world.

Yet, as we see even in the midst of the genocide in Gaza, neither the rest of the world nor the UN have succeeded in breaking this US monopoly and establishing legitimate, impartial mediation by the UN or neutral countries that respect the lives of Palestinians and their human and civil rights.

In November, Qatar brokered a temporary ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, but has since been overshadowed by US efforts to prolong the massacre through misleading proposals, cynical posturing and vetoes in the Security Council.

The United States consistently vetoes all proposals on Israel and Palestine in the UN Security Council except its own, even when its own proposals are deliberately meaningless, ineffective or counterproductive.

“Together for peace”

The UN General Assembly stands united behind Palestine and calls almost unanimously every year for an end to the Israeli occupation. 144 countries have recognized Palestine as a state, and only the veto of the USA denies the country full UN membership.

The Israeli genocide in Gaza has even shamed the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court into abandoning their deep-rooted pro-Western bias and initiating proceedings against Israel.

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One way the nations of the world could come together and put greater pressure on Israel to end its attack on Gaza would be through a UN General Assembly resolution entitled “United for Peace.” This is a measure the General Assembly can take if the Security Council is prevented from restoring peace and security by a permanent member’s veto.

Israel has shown that it is willing to ignore ceasefire resolutions from the General Assembly and the Security Council, as well as an order from the International Court of Justice. However, a resolution from the organization Uniting for Peace could impose penalties on Israel for its actions, such as an arms embargo or an economic boycott.

If the United States continues to insist on its complicity in Israel’s international crimes, the General Assembly could also take action against the United States.

A General Assembly resolution would change the terms of the international debate and shift the focus from Biden and Blinken’s diversionary tactics to the urgency of enforcing a lasting ceasefire that the entire world is demanding.

It is time for the United Nations and neutral countries to push aside Israel’s US partner in genocide and for legitimate international authorities and mediators to assume responsibility for enforcing international law, ending Israel’s occupation of Palestine, and bringing peace to the Middle East.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial line of Middle East Eye.