Arms sales and diplomacy encourage Israeli genocide

The White House issued a briefing on 8 February regarding a National Security memorandum that conditions US military aid to its allies. Or rather, pretends to condition aid. One of the listed objectives, for example, reads, “prevent arms transfers that risk facilitating or otherwise contributing to violations of human rights or international humanitarian law.” The following is equally abominable and reads in part: “strengthen ally and partner capacity to respect their obligations under international law and reduce the risk of civilian harm.” None of this, of course, is applied to Israel, which clearly has impunity at very high levels. This impunity is what normalises such diplomatic gibberish and encourages the ensuing massacres of civilians. Pretending to close a loophole, the memorandum states that the US requires “certain credible and reliable written assurances from foreign governments receiving defence articles” as well as periodic reports for Congress.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration is pushing for a temporary and conditional ceasefire in Gaza “as soon as practicable” while also preparing the next arms delivery for Israel, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is describing as an urgent need “for the defence of Israel against continued and emerging regional threats.” The US Embassy in Jerusalem declared that it found no human rights violations of concern that could impede the delivery and called Israel “a transparent partner in US investigations into allegations of defence article misuse.” Arms sales and diplomacy thus encourage Israeli genocide of the Palestinians.

What this means is that the US is rendering a temporary ceasefire based upon the whims of the settler-colonial aggressor.

Which, of course, means never, until the colonial objective is achieved, with the help of US military aid and the qualitative military edge that Israel benefits from. Algeria’s resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire will likely be vetoed by Washington, hence the alternative draft resolution proposal at the UN Security Council. Israel acts and the US extends the parameters of what constitute human rights violations, but only for the apartheid state. Genocide is now as mainstream as the other international law violations that Israel has been committing against Palestinians for decades, always with the aim of eradicating the Palestinian population and taking their land.

To have arrived at such a point where world leaders are still observing and not even planning to act in order to stop Israel’s genocide, it is imperative to look back at the state’s origins and the Zionists’ “Plan Dalet”, which contained the blueprint for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and the colonisation of Palestine. The initial massacres and displacement of the 1948 Nakba were replaced by actions which the UN preferred to overlook, despite Israel’s admission to the organisation being conditional upon abiding by UN resolutions, which it has never done. However, it must also be stated that UN resolutions have never prioritised the colonised population’s demands, but rather subjected the Palestinians to conditions, one of which is enshrined in the UN’s resolution on the Palestinian right of return and which coerces Palestinians to accept the colonisers as their “neighbours”.

Only Israel and the US have a say in genocide and whether it is to continue or not, apparently. Other countries are merely following suit with their silence or weak proposals, thus allowing the concentration of power to remain in the hands of two allies which are the driving force behind the complete destruction of human rights and, it must be said, an international rules-based system.

Arms sales and diplomacy encourage Israeli genocide