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For tonight, in March, President Joe Biden was asked about his opposition to a proposed Israeli invasion of the Rafah refugee camp in Gaza, where Israel had ordered all Palestinians to go and seek refuge. There were at least one million people — one million displaced Palestinians, probably more — in that refugee camp that Israel was then saying it intended to bomb and invade.
When asked in March, Biden said that the U.S., which is funding, arming and diplomatically protecting Israel's war, was not only opposed to an Israeli attack on Rafah, at least without a concrete plan for evacuating civilians, which the Israelis hadn't provided, but also, he said, it was what he called a “red line” for him, which is president speak for what the White House regards as not just objectionable but so intolerable that it would require punishment and retaliation to any country that does it. That's a very important phrase for communicating to the world what the White House will not tolerate without punishment.
The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, immediately mocked and dismissed Biden's warning, vowing that Israel would bomb and invade Rafah whenever they felt like it regardless of what Israel's benefactors in Washington think. We may be financing Israel's war, we may be arming it, we may be diplomatically supporting it but that said, Netanyahu doesn't mean we have any say in how this war is conducted. And true to his word, Netanyahu ordered Israeli military forces to begin shelling and entering two weeks ago.
Even as thousands died by the dozens as a result, the Biden White House continued to defend Israel, claiming that Israel had not crossed Biden's proclaimed “red line” because this was only a minimal, limited invasion, not a full-scale invasion, and it was very targeted and selective, even though that was not in Biden's original warning.
Well, that excuse is no longer available, even given the willingness of Biden officials to lie to protect Israel and protect themselves, because last night, Israel did exactly what everyone knew would happen if they invaded Rafah, namely they shelled and bombed parts of the refugee camp, the very parts where they told Gazans to seek safe harbor and that would be a safe zone. That bombing caused a mass fire that extinguished the lives of dozens of Palestinian women and children who were burned to death while incinerating hundreds more with severe injuries. That bombing caused a mass fire that extinguished the lives of dozens of Palestinian women and children who burned to death while incinerating hundreds more with severe injuries. That there is virtually no working health care system in Gaza — since Israel bombed all of their hospitals and killed so many health care workers — and that so many Palestinians face mass famine, this atrocity was just that much more horrific. They are bombing, incinerating and killing an already decimated population.
As Israel always does in such situations, it first denied this happened: claiming it only killed Hamas terrorists. Then when the proof immediately emerged of how many civilians had been massacred, they admitted it but justified it. Finally, in the wake of international outrage and disgust, Netanyahu apologized earlier today, calling the massacre a "tragic mistake"–the exact cycle that occurred when Israel slaughtered seven aid workers, including an American, from the World Central Kitchen, shooting at their well-marked cars which had coordinated their route with the Israel military, and in so many other instances over the past seven months.
The undeniable reality is that this war and these crimes are as much of an American policy as it is an Israeli one. The money, the bombs and the diplomatic protection that Israel is using to kill so many innocent human beings come overwhelmingly from the U.S. government, with both political parties overwhelmingly in support.
That is why it is insufficient and unconvincing, and, I think, ethically intolerable to simply proclaim indifference to this conflict, to say, “Oh, it's not about us, it's on the other side of the world.” I know that's tempting, but it is the American government as much as the Israeli government that's responsible for all of this and the world knows that. It does require our close attention and scrutiny, which is what we intend to give tonight.
Exactly at the same time that the horrors of the enduring U.S.-sponsored Israeli war are escalating again, crackdowns on American speech rights advocated by pro-Israel supporters also continue to escalate. Each week brings new and worse examples of this as we continue to report on and will report tonight on the latest targeting of the free speech rights of American citizens in the protection of this foreign country.
And then finally, as we noted, one of the things we did while traveling in the U.S. last week was a debate with Alan Dershowitz that was nominally about whether the U.S. should bomb Iran's nuclear facilities–a limited resolution Dershowitz insisted on–but very quickly in the debate, he admitted what he really wants. His real goal is for the U.S. to force regime change in Iran, which just coincidentally happens to be the country Israel considers to be its greatest enemy and then, once there's regime change, he wants the U.S. to impose a new government there, one that is pro-Israel and secondarily pro-U.S.
The debate took place before a sold-out theater, and it was definitely an intense energy, which I think really helped to explore these issues more than the specific question of bombing Iran. The debate offered the opportunity to analyze and deconstruct the classic neoconservative mindset of war and militarism that Dershowitz defends on behalf of Israel but more importantly, it continues to dominate American wars and foreign policy in Washington. So, we'll take a look at some of the most illuminating parts of that debate.
For now, welcome to a new episode of System Update, starting now.
