In other words, Biden gave the Israeli government his blessing to not just continue but intensify the genocide in Gaza over the holiday weekend.
That phone call marked the prelude to a bloodbath. On Christmas Eve, Israel bombed the Maghazi camp, one of the most densely populated areas in the Gaza Strip. At least 70 people were murdered. “What is happening at the Maghazi camp is a massacre that is being committed on a crowded residential square,” said Gazan Health Ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qudra.
The relentless bombardment continued on Christmas Day with hundreds killed, mostly women and children.
This mass murder was accompanied by open statements of genocidal intent and the deliberate circulation by the Israeli military of shocking footage of hundreds of detainees huddled naked and blindfolded.
The call between the two old war criminals, Biden and Netanyahu, was not the exception but the rule. Every major decision taken by Israel is done with the prior knowledge and full support of the United States government. Every new atrocity is preceded by a high-level meeting with Washington, either by phone or through the seemingly endless parade of US officials traveling to Tel Aviv.
Israeli troops, paid with billions in US military funding, are dropping American-made bombs from American-made aircraft onto civilian targets designated by American spy planes flying over Gaza, in coordination with American officers.
The Biden administration, which is working to provoke a war in the Middle East targeting Iran, has decided that the “final solution” of the Palestinian question is a vital strategic aim of US domination in the Middle East.
On Monday, the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor submitted to the International Criminal Court documentary evidence of dozens of cases of mass summary executions of civilians by the Israeli army. The report referred to what is taking place as “field executions,” “physical liquidations” and “widespread killing operations.”
These words recall the infamous Einsatzgruppen of the SS under Nazi Germany, responsible for the rounding up and mass extermination of Jews during the Holocaust.
The Monitor estimated that 28,000 people have been killed since the start of the genocide, with 70 percent of the victims being women and children. It reported that “Palestinian deaths constitute the highest rate of civilian casualties worldwide in the 21st century.”
The Israeli military has circulated footage of the mass detention of hundreds of prisoners, stripped naked, blindfolded and forced to kneel outside on streets and in mass detention facilities. The Euro-Med Monitor reported that women and girls, detained in separate areas, are being stripped of their veils, beaten and forced to watch men being stripped.
The Monitor wrote, “The Israeli military has deliberately published shocking footage and photos showing Palestinian detainees—both male and female civilians—in humiliating conditions, in an attempt to dehumanize Palestinians and deprive them of their dignity.” In detention, “they are forced to answer questions while naked, handcuffed, and blindfolded, and are threatened or tortured by Israeli soldiers who demand that they provide information about Palestinian factions. Some of them are eventually released, while others are killed.”
The release of this footage by the IDF comes as Israeli officials are becoming ever more explicit in demanding the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. In a speech in Parliament on Monday, Netanyahu declared, “Regarding voluntary immigration … we are working on it. This is the direction we are going in.”
In making these statements, Netanyahu is employing the homicidal cynicism pioneered by the Nazis. In the parlance of the “banality of evil” preferred by Netanyahu, after Gaza is made uninhabitable, the people will “voluntarily” leave.
The Israeli press is, meanwhile, openly advocating the displacement of the people of Gaza to the Sinai Peninsula. On Monday, the Jerusalem Post published an op-ed declaring that “moving to the Sinai peninsula is the solution for Gaza’s Palestinians.” It calls for the total razing of damaged structures—which encompasses nearly all of Gaza: “Rather, the damaged and destroyed structures must be completely torn down.”
The Sinai Peninsula, on the other hand, represents “one of the most suitable places on Earth to provide the people of Gaza with hope and a peaceful future.” This, the op-ed says, is the “Sinai solution,” echoing the language of the “final solution” used by Nazi Germany to describe the Holocaust.
In response to these and similar statements, Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, wrote, “Forced Displacement is a CRIME, prosecutable under the Rome Statute. Its architects shall be investigated/prosecuted by the International Criminal Court and other courts.”
The Israeli government is systematically and deliberately committing war crimes at a scale with hardly any precedent since the Second World War. But it is an undeniable fact that any future war crimes prosecution will by rights include not only Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant but US President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
The Biden administration has categorically asserted that there is no “red line” for the types of crimes it will allow Israel to carry out against the Palestinians. Last week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken was asked, “Is there a red line for you?” regarding how many people Israel will be allowed to massacre. To this, Blinken replied that the United States is “intent on seeing this through to completion.”
The United States has vetoed two UN resolutions calling for a ceasefire and has provided Israel with 10,000 tons of military equipment, loaded by 20 ships and 244 transport planes, according to a report by Israel’s Channel 12.
US imperialism sees the genocide in Gaza as inseparable from its broader military offensive throughout the Middle East.
On Monday, Israel carried out an illegal airstrike on Syria, killing the highest-ranking Iranian general in the country. Later that evening, the United States carried out its own strikes in Iraq, intended to “degrade capabilities of the Iran-aligned militia groups,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said. To this was added a threat: “We are committed and fully prepared to take further necessary measures to protect our people and our facilities.”
American imperialism, seeing itself in what it calls a “decisive decade” to secure its global domination, is seeking to reimpose colonial shackles on the masses of the Middle East. The genocide of the Palestinians is a critical step in world imperialism’s drive to militarily subjugate the globe.
Source: President Joe Biden is greeted by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after arriving at Ben Gurion International Airport, Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023, in Tel Aviv © AP Photo / Evan Vucci.
Source: World Socialist Web Site.
