On Friday evening, May 18, 2024, the Middle East Eye website published a new report that included criticism from a former official in the US intelligence agency (CIA) regarding the Biden administration's delay in tracking the latest known location of Hamas leader Yahya Al-Sinwar in Gaza for nearly a month. From my perspective, the most significant revelation from the report is the disclosure of one of the critical, invisible roles that the United States plays in Israel's war against the Palestinian people. The U.S. is a primary partner with Israel in military operations and in committing the crimes and atrocities that indiscriminately target the lives of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians for over six months. This is further evidence that the United States is not just an ally of Israel, nor merely a supporter and funder, nor just a supplier of weapons, nor just a supporter through diplomatic efforts defending Israel in all international forums. There is no doubt that many facts will be revealed successively about this American partnership, along with the other partners of Israel involved with it in all the inhumane practices that the progress of human civilization has long since buried and closed their chapters on, with all the sins of its bygone ages, including genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, affecting Palestinians as human beings, a nation, an identity, and an existence, within the "Holocaust of the 21st century," under the eyes and ears of the world. All participants and supporters, alongside Netanyahu and Israeli officials, will be condemned, pursued, and held accountable, whether sooner or later.
Partnership Despite Atrocities
On numerous occasions, the U.S. National Security Advisor and senior American officials in the Pentagon, State Department, and White House have affirmed the objectives of the joint war between the Biden administration and Netanyahu's government in all their public statements, coinciding despite the occasional, minor disagreements, which have never disrupted the amicable and cooperative relations between the two sides. This is further despite the flood of Israeli atrocities that have killed more than 35 thousand Palestinians and injured over seventy thousand others since October 7, 2023, and also despite Israel killing more than 130 journalists and destroying the majority of Palestinian civilian facilities in Gaza, including hospitals, medical facilities, schools, media headquarters, places of worship, residential buildings, shelters, displacement camps, and humanitarian organization headquarters. Moreover, Israel has also targeted humanitarian and relief workers, aid convoys, and basic goods transport vehicles, as well as civil infrastructure facilities, obstructed humanitarian aid from reaching Palestinians and has used aid as a means to impose starvation upon them, committing genocide against the Palestinian people, protecting settlers' violent practices against Palestinians across wide areas of the West Bank and Galilee, seizing large areas of Palestinian lands and farms, arbitrarily detaining thousands of Palestinians, using torture, ill-treatment, and inhumane and degrading treatment against hundreds of them within systematic violations aimed at forcibly displacing Palestinians from their homeland. These crimes are committed in full partnership with the United States and under its protection, which not only disrupts all international mechanisms but also prevents any meaningful action to halt these violations or hold those responsible accountable.
“The current U.S. policies towards Israel are no longer related to state interest calculations nor to political, security, or military alliances between countries. Instead, they appear now to be solely sheer absolute submission, serving the terrorism and criminality of a right-wing extremist government leading a state soaked in bloodshed, occupation, settlement, and displacement, commonly known as ‘Israel’.”
Moreover, the U.S. ruling elite employs all agencies, institutions, resources, relationships, and leadership to serve Israel and its crimes, fully aligning with the dangerous adventures of its extremist leaders. This has reached the extent that American leaders have chosen to sacrifice America's reputation, relations, and interests to stand with Israel, supporting its crimes and war financially, militarily, logistically, politically, and diplomatically in various forums, before the UN Security Council, the Human Rights Council, UN mechanisms, the International Criminal Court, the International Court of Justice, and all high-level diplomatic efforts aimed at ensuring the minimum rights of Palestinians.
Accordingly, if the United States does not take the initiative to fulfill its moral, legal, and political responsibilities to stop these horrific crimes and violations—not for the protection of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, nor out of belief in the human rights values it claims to adopt and lead, in their universality and inclusivity for all humans without discrimination, in the supremacy of international humanitarian law, and in international charters, treaties, and instruments — if not for all this, then at least to protect its ally Israel and its future from sinking into the quagmire of atrocities and bloodshed, and from further involvement in genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and starvation, and crimes of displacement, settlement, and occupation, to save and restore its eroded image and reputation before the Palestinian victims, the peoples of the Middle East, and all the peoples around the world who are witnessing and following everything that happens and interacting with it, and before what the human memory documents and carries into the future; hence, if the United States does not take the initiative, then it is incumbent upon the American political elite to undertake their duties and responsibilities to stop the brutal Israeli war, to restore and save its eroded image and reputation, at least before American public opinion and generations of Americans who can no longer be deceived, misled, or controlled by any ruling, dominant, and influential authority through directed propaganda from the influential political elites. Thus, the American ruling elite must stop relying on tactics and policies characterized by disrespect for the intellect of Americans, belittling their awareness, consciences, and wills, and deceiving them. Actually, the university protests have enough lessons and insights for American political elites to ponder and take them as a basis for realizing the seriousness of the deep-seated imbalances in its internal and external policies and interactions.
“The United States is incurring unprecedented losses as a leading player on the global stage, to the advantage of other competing countries. The limited remaining scope of its influence is now primarily dependent on a single pillar: military power. However, this power is no longer beyond the reach of other competing states, which are striving to end American superiority in this domain.”
Squandering State Interests
The policies of the United States of America towards Israel are no longer related to the calculations of the interests of the American state, nor to the political, security, and military alliances between states, nor to politics or pragmatism, nor to any of the modern scientific approaches that govern the definitions, approaches, and tactics of state policy issues, both internal and external, nor to the contents and determinants of international relations, commitments, and objectives of strategic alliances and partnerships between states and regional and international axes and blocs. Rather, it is now an absolute submission, in which the power, influence, relations, hegemony, agencies, institutions, and resources of a state as significant as the United States are utterly exploited, and the bridges of this country with many societies around the world are burned, all in order to serve the terrorism and criminality of an extreme right-wing government leading a country steeped in blood, injustice, occupation, settlement, and displacement called "Israel."
On the other hand, if we exclude attributing this American acquiescence to Israel, its lobbies, interests, and wars to a supposed state of "blind fanaticism" based on religious, ideological, racial, or any other discriminatory grounds—considering it a primitive and inhumane, backward, and uncivilized approach—then the closest and most realistic interpretation is based on attributing this abnormal and unusual American situation to the electoral calculations of the American political elites. Further, these elites compete to offer their sacrifices in the auctions of winning the favor of the influential Israeli lobbies that impact the course of primary elections within the corridors and alleys of the both parties, as well as the paths and results of the electoral races for the White House, the percentages of seats in the House of Representatives and Congress, and the governance of states. At the forefront of these lobbies is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which finds no need to hide or obscure its activities and roles aimed at influencing the paths and outcomes of American elections and US administration policies. It openly publishes on its website, accounts, and official pages on social media networks and platforms about its influential activities and roles. The latest of these was posted on its official Twitter account on May 15, 2024, celebrating the defeat of the Democratic candidate Sarah Alfreth in the Democratic Party primary elections, as a candidate supported by Senator Bernie Sanders. Of course, both Alfreth and Sanders are classified by AIPAC as not pro-Israel. A few days earlier, AIPAC had published a congratulatory note for seven candidates it classified as pro-Israel Democrats, all of whom won after AIPAC's support against all their non-pro-Israel Democratic rivals in the Democratic Party primaries. These activities and roles are managed and directed by the interests of another state in the far east, influencing the internal political sphere of another state in the far west, practices that are prohibited, criminalized, and condemned by all countries.
Based on the experiences of countless countries and empires, both large and small, throughout long human political history, tolerating any state's usurpation of another country's political sphere is extremely dangerous to that state's existence, societal cohesion, stability, national security, interests, power, influence, and relationships. Such interference paves the way for a chaos of interventions by other states, creating serious gaps that affect the mechanisms of forming ruling authorities and political systems, as well as internal and external policies. It imposes the interests of intervening states as the primary guiding force in political competitions during elections, leading to sacrifices to appease external actors who work to seize that state's decision-making power and align its internal and external policies with the interests of their own countries. This trajectory leads competing political factions to squander their country's and society's interests, becoming collectively involved in a state of "national betrayal," where there is no fundamental difference between working for an allied state and "collaborating" with an enemy state, nor between working for Israel, Russia, Iran, or the UAE.
“The most plausible and realistic explanation is to attribute the abnormal and unusual American situation to the calculations of American political elites who are competing to offer their sacrifices in the auctions to win the favor of Israeli lobbies that influence the course of the primary elections within the corridors of both parties.”
Unprecedented Losses
There is widespread certainty around the world about the realities of the great, rapid and unprecedented shifts in the situation of the United States of America, which American political elites seem to deliberately ignore, or lack the ability to comprehend and realize, a trait that has accompanied the vast majority of political elites who have witnessed the stages of the collapse of empires and states to which they belong and loyal and are fond of defending in the face of interactions defined as hostile to them, after having witnessed the stages of the rise of their power, which is currently represented by the case of the United States, which is incurring unprecedented losses as a leading player on the global stage, to the advantage of other competing countries. Further, the limited remaining scope of its influence is now primarily dependent on a single pillar: military power. However, this power is no longer beyond the reach of other competing states, which are striving to end American superiority in this domain. Hence, the United States has either abandoned or lost, no difference, the promises of democracy, freedoms, human rights, and justice, which were the pillars of American civilization, whose influence and absolute dominance surged in the unipolar system, following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the collapse of the bipolar system with it.
Thus, reviewing and reforming the imbalances and deviations in the policies of the American ruling and influential elites is no longer merely a requirement to protect Palestinians and other victims of American foreign policies and actions around the world. It is also not just essential for protecting and promoting human rights, upholding international law, and adhering to global charters, treaties, agreements, declarations, and covenants to end genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, and to hold violators accountable globally, despite the importance of these factors. Rather, such a review and the fundamental reforms that should arise from it have become an existential internal necessity for the United States itself. It is not an exaggeration to assert that the future of the United States—as a nation and society, and in its global relations and roles—depends on the extent to which American political elites recognize and respond to this urgent need for reform.
Therefore, the U.S. ruling elites must take the initiative to achieve a radical change in their policies, starting with a firm decision to stop the current Israeli-US war, end the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories completely, recognize a fully sovereign and democratic Palestinian state, and launch programs for reconstruction, reparation for victims, and transitional justice, strengthening guarantees for Palestinian rights and supporting the accountability of those responsible for all horrific violations. Accordingly, such a strategic and effective transformation is the only way to address the serious damage done to the United States' reputation, both domestically and internationally, resulting from a long accumulation of flawed policies worldwide—from the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, through its wars in Vietnam, Somalia, Afghanistan, and Iraq, and its involvement in numerous conflicts in Syria, Yemen, and Ukraine. However, at the forefront of its negative foreign roles is its unwavering absolute partnership with Israel’s occupation and numerous wars against Palestinians. This dark legacy renders the United States comparable to regimes in Iran, Russia, North Korea, and other Third World and dictatorial regimes globally. Consequently, the persistent and blatant double standards in dealing with human rights issues, violations, humanitarian crises, and war victims worldwide define U.S. foreign policy. Actually, the United States takes effective actions to condemn perpetrators of violations in certain wars and conflicts and stands in solidarity with victims, while in other conflicts and wars, it works to shield violators from any condemnation or accountability, ignoring their victims. The determining factor in its actions is the identity of the perpetrators and the victims, reflecting a disgraceful and blatant practice of discrimination based on political convenience, against all principles and values of human rights, international humanitarian law, and justice. The harm of these double standards has gone beyond tarnishing the U.S. reputation and policies; it has also undermined the mechanisms of the United Nations and the global faith in human rights, international humanitarian law, and international human rights law, treaties, agreements, declarations, and covenants on a wide scale around the world.
