Editor’s note: This article was updated on Nov. 28, 2023.
As this article is being written, a “humanitarian pause” is in effect in Gaza, allowing a prisoner exchange, but Israel has made clear its assault on Gaza will continue after the pause ends. Killings and arrests of Palestinians in the West Bank continue. So far, over 15,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, including over 6,150 children, and 36,000 have been wounded. Thousands are missing. After Israel bombed Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital, children there told reporters, “We come now to shout [to the world] and invite you to protect us….We want to live as the other children live.”
Meanwhile, a young woman approached Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren recently while Warren was dining in a restaurant. She told Warren, “I’m a refugee from Gaza. Sixty-eight members of my family have been killed in the past three weeks. How many more of them have to die before you will call for a ceasefire?” Warren had no answer.
Anyone with a brain and a heart can see that a permanent ceasefire is necessary, and the U.S. can impose it on Israel, given Israel’s dependence on U.S. money, weapons and military protection. Why won’t Biden and the majority in Congress demand a ceasefire? It’s because Israel was created in part on behalf of American and European corporations and billionaires to further their interests in the Middle East. This meant colonizing Palestine. The Middle East is important to the U.S. because it is a crossroads of the world between profitable markets in Asia, Africa and Europe, and because it is rich in oil (including oil and gas under Gaza). The profits for U.S. oil companies are immense, and just as importantly, the U.S. uses the control of oil and the sale of weapons as a means of controlling countries across the world. The U.S. can also use Israel as a base for its own military interventions. And the U.S. weapons sales to Israel are another source of profit. As Biden said as a young senator years ago, “If Israel didn’t exist we’d have to invent it.”
But pressure is mounting to stop the mass murder of the Palestinian people. Some U.S. and UN officials have resigned in protest at the slaughter. Huge demonstrations are taking place across the world. People have marched, blocked traffic, occupied buildings, confronted Biden at public events, disrupted congressional hearings, and blocked the loading of weapons on to ships. Some Israelis have also taken a stand against Israel’s war crimes. Belgium and Spain have called for a war crimes investigation, and Belgium is considering “recognizing the State of Palestine.” At a demonstration confronting Biden in Chicago, one woman said, “My Jewish blood and my Jewish soul compel me to stand up and come here today and tell President Biden that we need a ceasefire now and anything else is immoral.” Progressive youth groups have warned Biden he will lose millions of youth votes. Of course, support for Biden among Arab-Americans and Muslims has evaporated.
As well as a fight to stop the massacre and finally liberate the Palestinians, this is a fight to prevent a war that could end the world, and a fight for democracy. The people have to win. We want everyone’s children to be safe and free, in the Middle East and everywhere else. The fight in Palestine is a critical battle in the fight to save humanity. We have to take the world away from the corporations and the billionaires whose greed and empire-building have brought us to the edge of the abyss.
Bob Lee is a professional journalist, writer and editor, and is co-editor of the People’s Tribune, serving as Managing Editor. He first started writing for and distributing the People’s Tribune in 1980, and joined the editorial board in 1987.
