Discourse that allows us to express a wide range of ideas, opinions, and analysis that can be used as an opportunity to critically examine and observe what our experience means to us beyond the given social/cultural contexts and norms that are provided us.
Palestinian citizens inspect the destruction caused by air strikes on their homes on December 03, 2023 in Khan Yunis, Gaza. Getty Images News
More than 700 people were killed in the Gaza Strip in just 24 hours,
the Health Ministry in the besieged territory said Sunday, as Israeli
bombings escalated following a brief pause and wider evacuation orders
stoke fears of wider displacement and carnage.
Overnight and into Sunday, intense bombing was reported in Khan
Younis, Rafah, and some northern parts targeted by Israel’s air and
ground attacks.
“Everywhere you turn to, there are children with third-degree burns,
shrapnel wounds, brain injuries and broken bones,” James Elder, UNICEF’s
global spokesperson, told Al-Jazeera from Gaza.
“Mothers crying over children who look like they are hours away from death. It seems like a death zone right now.”
The Israel Defense Force (IDF) has been dropping evacuation leaflets
across the south of Gaza in cities that include Khan Younis, Rafah, and
others neighborhoods where many had been told to flee by Israel prior to
the recent week-long pause.
The IDF is now using a wholly invented “grid system” to tell
Palestinians in Gaza which sectors might be safe and which ones will
not, leading to reports
of widespread confusion on the ground for those trying to keep
themselves and their families safe from the indiscriminate bombing
“What Israel is doing in Gaza right now is one of the most cruel
tactics of war I’ve ever seen,” said Rohan Talbot, director of advocacy
and campaigns for the U.K.-based Medical Aid Palestine, on Sunday. “This
grid system effectively means people are being chased from square to
square, in constant mortal fear. Bombing happens both inside and outside
‘unsafe’ areas. It’s terrorism.”
“And they say it’s about protecting civilians! People in Gaza are
saying they hope to die just to be free from the fear!” Talbot declared.
“I use the word terrorism in its specific sense: using violence to
intimidate civilians for political aims. Israeli leaders don’t hide that
this is what they are doing.”
Last week, it was reported
that the Israeli military is using artificial intelligence to help
generate bombing targets, a situation described as “dystopian” and the
“first AI-facilitated genocide in history.”
Horrifying scenes were evident across Gaza as witnesses shared
footage of children killed by the bombings along with the heartbreak and
cries of survivors:
In the north, the Jabilia refugee camp, the largest in the Gaza Strip, was bombed again on Saturday.
“More than 100 Palestinians were killed Saturday in a new massacre
committed by Israeli occupation forces in the Jabalia refugee camp in
the central Gaza Strip,” the official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.
The agency said an Israeli missile hit a residential building
belonging to the “Obaid family in Jabalia camp” and that “dozens were
injured, and many others are still missing under the rubble,” in that
strike alone.
Meanwhile, Medicin Sans Frontier/MSF doctors reported their rescue
vehicles, despite being clearly marked, were targeted by Israeli tanks.
Jason Lee, the Palestine country director for Save the Children, who was in Rafah on Friday, told the Guardian
newspaper that what’s being witnessed is a fresh population transfer in
a country where 1.7 million people — out of an approximate total of 2.3
million — have already been displaced, with most now frantically trying
to find safety in the south.
“How is it possible for people to move again? For many, this is not
their first evacuation. The scale and scope of this is unprecedented,”
he said.
Jason Lee, the Palestine country director for Save the Children, who was in Rafah on Friday, told the Guardian
newspaper that what’s being witnessed is a fresh population transfer in
a country where 1.7 million people — out of an approximate total of 2.3
million — have already been displaced, with most now frantically trying
to find safety in the south.
“How is it possible for people to move again? For many, this is not
their first evacuation. The scale and scope of this is unprecedented,”
he said.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Jon Queally is senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams.
Israel
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hugs US President Joe Biden upon his
arrival at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport on October 18, 2023. (Brendan Smialowski / AFP via Getty Images)
The high civilian death rate brings to the fore the fundamental
policy contradiction that has bedeviled the Biden administration since
the start of the conflict: how to reconcile the stated desire to
minimize civilian death with the full-throttle support of Israel that
the administration is committed to in practice.
Speaking on Saturday at a National Defense Forum, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin added
to the chorus of public rebukes the Biden administration is making of
Israel’s treatment of civilians in the current conflict. Lloyd told the
audience, “I have personally pushed Israeli leaders to avoid civilian
casualties, and to shun irresponsible rhetoric, and to prevent violence
by settlers in the West Bank.”
As befits his position as the cabinet official overseeing the
Pentagon, Austin’s criticism of Israel focused not just on the violation
of international law incurred by indiscriminately killing civilians but
also on the fundamental incoherence of Israel’s military strategy.
Austin noted, “In this kind of a fight, the center of gravity is the
civilian population. And if you drive them into the arms of the enemy,
you replace a tactical victory with a strategic defeat.”
Austin’s caution is sober and compelling, but it ignores the fact
that Israel’s incoherent policy is paralleled by the Biden
administration’s equally incoherent handling of Israel. Since the Hamas
massacre of October 7, Biden has followed what has been called a “bear hug”
strategy of holding tight to Benjamin Netanyahu as a way to contain and
channel Israel’s response. As Stephen Wertheim, a senior fellow in the
American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace, sums up the strategy, “Bear-hugging America’s ally, [Biden] apparently figured, was the surest way to restrain it—or the only way he was willing to try.”
In recent days, the bear hug has been accompanied by louder public
criticism of Israel’s disregard for civilian life—sharp words that
previously had been only uttered privately. At a press conference in Tel
Aviv on Friday, just hours before the humanitarian pause was broken,
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said
that in speaking to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, “I
underscored the imperative of the United States that the massive loss of
civilian life and displacement of the scale that we saw in Northern
Gaza not be repeated in the South.”
But this rhetorical emphasis on civilian life amounts to little in practice, because on a policy level the Biden administration refuses to put any conditions
on aid to Israel. There is absolutely no incentive for Netanyahu’s
government to heed the pleadings of Austin, Blinken, or even Vice
President Kamala Harris, who has spoken in similar terms.
On Sunday, Harris said, “Too many innocent Palestinians have been
killed. As Israel pursues its military objectives in Gaza, we believe
Israel must do more to protect innocent civilians.”
The true nature of the Biden approach to Israel was caught by a Wall Street Journal headline reading,
“After sending massive bombs, artillery shells, U.S. also urges Israel
to limit civilian casualties.” This is Biden’s bear-hug strategy in its
essence: “Send bigger bombs, leavened with humanitarian platitudes.”
The bear-hug strategy has failed in the most direct way possible: Far from being restrained, Israel is fighting one of the most ferociously murderous wars
in the 21st century. It’s a war that, as Lloyd Austin notes, makes
little strategic sense. Far from defeating Hamas, it will radicalize a
new generation of Palestinians. Realizing this reality, Netanyahu is now
shopping around a proposal to “thin out” Gaza’s population and expel the surviving residents into neighboring countries—a proposal that he is pitching to the leaders of both parties in Congress.
This policy, amounting to a second Nakba, would not only be a moral
atrocity; it would destroy the reputation of Israel and the United
States around the world for decades to come. The consequences of this
policy, in terms of future terrorism and also loss of international
credibility and fraying of alliances, would be incalculable.
The only way for Biden to stop this catastrophe is to reject the
bear-hug strategy and openly set forth the consequences to Netanyahu of
pursuing ethnic cleansing. But there’s little evidence that Biden has
either the inclination or the will to take such a step.
Politically, Biden is also undermining his own chances for reelection.
Support for Israel continues to sink, particularly among key
demographics that make up the Democratic coalition: the young, people of
color and women. A Gallup poll released
on Thursday showed that Israel’s policies in Gaza divided the country
almost in half: with 50 percent supporting Israel and 45 percent
opposing. But among the groups that helped Biden win in 2020—and that he
needs to motivate again in 2024—the numbers are starker. Among women,
52 percent oppose and 44 percent support. Among voters aged 18 to 34, 67
percent oppose and 30 percent support. Among people of color, 64
percent oppose and 30 percent support. Among Democrats in general, 63
percent oppose and 36 percent support.
In other words, by giving the bear hug to Benjamin Netanyahu, Biden
is giving the cold shoulder to women, young people, people of color and a
strong majority of his own party. If these voters remain demoralized a
year from now, then Biden’s chances for reelection are bleak.
Biden’s 2020 victory was strong in the popular vote but exceptionally narrow in the electoral college. A shift of less than 45,000 votes in three states (Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin) in 2020 would have led to Donald Trump’s reelection.
The bear-hug strategy has already failed and continues to be an
unfolding disaster. It endangers the long-term security of the United
States as well as its international reputation. It also divides the
coalition Joe Biden needs to win reelection.
The Biden administration is now becoming more vocal in criticizing
Israel. That’s a welcome shift. But they also need to start criticizing
their own failed strategy.
