Genocide Blog 52 – Sometimes I wonder if we are all going stone mad
21.08.2024
Genocide Blog 52 – Sometimes I wonder if we are all going stone mad
Sometimes I wonder if we are all going stone mad. Imagine us all waiting for news on Middle East “ceasefire talks” to come out of the mouth of one Anthony Blinken, US Secretary of State, who is at the same time in charge of “negotiations” and is also, wait for it, the supplier-in-chief of armaments to one of the two sides.
This means Blinken is a party to the war. How can we expect him to be mediator in chief? He gives 3.8 billion dollars a year to Israel for arms to kill Palestinians with. Well, the first thing he might do is quit sending arms to the main belligerent. How can we expect anything else from him until he, at least, stops arming Israel? Or are we all going stone mad?
Mr. Blinken and his boss Joe Biden, are the suppliers of arms to not just “one side”, but to the very side committing genocide, as was already esteemed “plausible” by the highest Court of the world, the ICJ, as early as January this year. And the Israeli slaughter continues, since then, without cease. Israeli occupation of Palestine – the whole project – has been declared illegal by this same Court in July this year. Yet the USA goes on sending arms for the occupying power – the illegal occupying power – to massacre the very people it is occupying illegally? And we expect Blinken and Biden to negotiate a peace deal? No. The world has to quickly find out how to control Israel and the USA some other way.
Us all sitting waiting for good news from “negotiations” from Blinken’s mouth is one of the sick symptoms of a dying, yet violent, force – Israel – dragging a dying, yet violent empire – the USA – down. Only, the empire will take a while to topple. Meanwhile, it is destroying the fabric of international law. And sacrificing the people of Palestine. As if it were a pagan ritual. And at the same time, it is ending any future for the colonial enterprise called Israel. And making idiots of us, the people of the world. Unless we continue to act consciously against this injustice.
The USA is the supplier of over 65% of all the arms the illegal Israeli Occupying Force. It is these arms that Biden sends that pound down upon the people of Palestine, of whom over 40,000 have been killed just since October last year, mainly children including babies, women, old folks, the sick and the injured. It is these arms that corral the people of Palestine from pillar to post, as the Israeli and USA put out propaganda that this corralling is “getting them out of harm’s way”. It is these arms that go on killing and maiming children, even as Biden and Blinken pull the wool over the world’s eyes, talking about “peace negotiations” while they sell and give arms to the perpetrators.
And Blinken and Biden do not mind telling lies and making fools of themselves, as they try to fool us all. In May, US President Joe Biden announced “Israel’s proposal” for a ceasefire. This is odd. Why should Biden make Israel’s proposal? But he did. He laid down his credibility for all to see. Hamas accepted the proposal.
Then Israel said it rejected the proposal. It rejected its own proposal?
Again, are we all going stone loco?
Now, this week, Blinken is again presenting Israel’s proposals i.e. what Israel did not accept in its own previous proposals.
Really?
Blinken did not blink an eye at Israel assassinating the Hamas negotiator, Ismail Haniyeh. What kind of negotiations are these when one side kills the negotiator on the other side, and the mediator says nothing except “We will always defend Israel,” i.e. the aggressor, the outlaw?
In the USA we have this kind of leadership – not just Blinken and Biden, but also the majority of Congressmen – because these politicians have, over the years, become puppets on the Israeli lobby strings. We actually saw the puppet strings in action when Netanyahu addressed a joint session of the US Congress. It was ludicrous enough to cause anyone watching to howl with laughter – were it not for the genocide being perpetrated. And, curiously, this is where we get hope. The absurdity of the situation forces the truth to come out.
As I am reading the Ilan Pappé book Lobbying for Zionism on Both Sides of the Atlantic (just out) and understanding the roots of the Zionist project from the mid-19th Century, I develop the long-term vision that helps us get through these dark times. Pappè meticulously and convincingly describes the coming together in both the USA and UK of different strands of prophetic religious ideas – Christian evangelical Zionists and also Jewish Zionists – coming together with the UK’s and also the USA’s economic and geo-political interests in the Middle East, especially once there was oil found there, and once cars began to be sold by the million, especially once the Suez Canal needed protection to link the West to the East, and of course, as the Ottoman Empire was collapsing, the US and UK wanted control of the area.
Hope springs eternal
History is on our side. Not in the short run. And it will probably be after even more Palestinians have been tortured and killed.
But, as things change, the truth is getting exposed, in all its absurdity. As empires like the Ottoman Empire, and now the American Empire, over-reach, they get caught out in lies and duplicity, exposed even for genocide. And people, especially young people, are courageous in opposing such injustice.
The majority of Americans are in favour of a ceasefire, and amongst young people this is overwhelming. Young people increasingly support the Palestinian cause against the colonial Apartheid Israeli occupation. Many have been in huge demonstrations and sit-ins, in direct action.
A majority of people in most European countries are in favour of a ceasefire.
A vast majority of people in the world live in countries that support Palestinian freedom by a huge majority at the UN. And have done so for decades.
The Hamas and other Palestinian resistance fighters fight on – even with their home-made weapons. Even without an army, an air force, or navy. The Hezbollah, too, vow to fight Israel as long as the genocide continues. The Houthi fighters have sworn to impede shipping that supplies the genocide with weapons, too.
The ICJ has made the law clear. The International Criminal Court has asked for Warrants of Arrest against the Israeli leaders, as well as some Hamas leaders.
We must keep all the pressure on – against the Israel lobby, an imperialist lobby which works in wicked ways – and know that it will be a combination of all our efforts that will first weaken Israel and its US masters, and then contribute to cause the Empire, itself, to fail, then fall. But, the violence it will lash out as it fails and falls, will be dangerous for humanity.
* Minor correction of drafting glitch in paragraph about discover of oil while car production rose on 23 August 2024.
