The ongoing, relentless campaign of genocide waged by the Israeli state against the people of Gaza has produced shock, anger, and outrage all over the world, including here in the United States.
Israeli military forces have now killed more than 30,000 people in Gaza, many of them children. Water, food, electricity, fuel, and supplies are scare. As a result, many people in Gaza have resorted to eating leaves, grass, and animal feed and drinking contaminated water. Israeli officials have blocked essential humanitarian aid, including flour, from entering Gaza.
In early March, the world braced for a cataclysm as Israeli forces prepared to attack Rafah in the southernmost part of Gaza, a location where Israel has crammed 1.4 million people into a space the size of London’s Heathrow Airport. A team of expert medical researchers has estimated that an escalation of the war could ultimately lead to more than 85,000 deaths.
The unrelenting cruelty of the Israeli military assault on Gaza has sparked outrage around the globe. Here in the United States, awareness is growing about the key role played by the U.S government in this genocide. The Biden administration has provided the Israeli government with billions of dollars of military support – even bypassing Congressional approval to do so. It has also given the Israeli state extensive intelligence support and diplomatic cover. (For instance, it has vetoed three U.N. resolutions calling for a cease-fire.)
The growing outrage of some voters can be seen in the recent Democratic presidential primaries. A small but significant percentage of Democratic voters has been voting for “uncommitted” in the presidential primaries as a way to show support for a cease-fire in Gaza. In late February and early March, “uncommitted” took significant portions of the vote in the primaries in Michigan, Minnesota, Colorado, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Massachusetts. This means that there will be at least some uncommitted delegates at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August and perhaps the possibility of some debate there over the question of the war in Gaza.
The massive outpouring of outrage at genocide in Gaza has forced the Biden administration to initiate a series of cosmetic measures designed to distance itself from the Israeli government. Token gestures like dropping pallets of food and talking about building a pier do not change the reality that bombs supplied by the United States are killing Palestinian children. These gestures have fooled no one, and the voices calling for a permanent cease-fire refuse to be silenced. The fight for a cease-fire will continue – in the streets and where possible, in the voting booth. We must keep the pressure up!
Chris Mahin is a writer, speaker and teacher on contemporary U.S. politics and history, particularly on the significance of the American Revolutionary War and Civil war eras for today. He is the Electoral Desk on the People’s Tribune Editorial Board.
