America is complicit in the genocide in the Middle East

Amos Goldberg, professor of Holocaust studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, sounded the alarm in April of this year, announcing: “Yes, it is genocide. It’s so difficult and painful to admit that.”

The United Nations definition is “any act committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group”. The current Israeli military attack on Gaza meets four of the five criteria found in Article II of UN Genocide Convention which the US ratified in 1948 except for the forced transfer of the group’s children to another group. Article III lists the punishable acts, including complicity in genocide.

Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel has repeatedly stated that the purpose of this military operation was to destroy Hamas and free the hostages. Neither objective was achieved after 13 months of shelling and shelling that leveled the area and killed nearly 50,000 Palestinians with no end in sight. He used the US election day fun to to fire his defense ministerYoav Gallant, removing any claim of righteous self-defense.

On his last day, Minister Yoav Gallant told family members of the Israeli hostages that the army had achieved all its objectives in Gaza and that the prime minister was maintaining negotiations with Hamas. Also on election night, the IDF brigade. General Itzik Cohen stated that “there is no intention to allow the residents of the northern Gaza Strip to return to their homes.”

Last month, the UN estimated that there were approximately 400,000 civilians unable or unwilling to follow Israeli evacuation orders. Cohen added that humanitarian aid would not be allowed into the north because “there are no more civilians”. If they are no longer civilians, then all human beings in the area are fair game.

Of the 254 hostages, 105 were released by Hamas and 34 were killed by their captors. Netanyahu has been heavily criticized in Israel for his lack of commitment to negotiate for their release. One can only speculate as to his reluctance to do so. It is assumed that people related to him were involved leaks of Hamas strategy documentsmanipulating or editing the material to make it appear that the Palestinian militant group’s leadership planned to prolong the talks as long as possible, as well as smuggle hostages into Egypt to justify the continued destruction in Gaza.

On the same day he fired his defense minister, he expanded his goals to include destroying Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed extremist militia in Lebanon. Addressing the Lebanese people after the IDF incursions into southern Lebanon, Netanyahu said: “You have an opportunity to save Lebanon before it falls into the abyss of a long war that will lead to destruction and suffering as we see in Gaza. It doesn’t have to be this way.”

He knows full well that Lebanon does not have the military strength or political stability to drive Hezbollah out of southern Lebanon. When they don’t, it will become his justification to continue to increase the level of violence in Lebanon.

The White House last month gave Israel 30 days to improve humanitarian aid convoys and other conditions that have not been met or risk losing military support. By the end of October, an average of only 71 trucks were entering Gaza per day. That deadline has come and gone.

The State Department said Israel had made limited progress and would not take any punitive action against its close ally. According to Israel’s numbers, that’s up to 75 trucks a day in November, four trucks a day more than the daily number in October and below the minimum of 350 trucks needed to meet the basic needs of the civilian population.

There is plenty of blame to be shared on all sides for the level of instability in the Middle East. The last 72 years have been marred by Arab terrorists, Christian terrorists and Jewish terrorists participating in war crimes, including ethnic cleansing, as well as killing and raping innocent men, women and children.

This cycle of violence has been further exacerbated by the interference of foreign powers in their own geopolitical agendas, including the US. Our $18 billion contribution to this genocide this year makes us complicit and does nothing to improve the chances of peace.