After the horrors of WWII and the countless civilian atrocities, especially the Holocaust, the international community formed a coalition of nations and international institutions, all with the ostensible objective of promoting peace throughout the world and preventing an atrocity like the Holocaust from ever happening again. In 1945, the United Nations was formed; from 1948- 1950, the Nuremberg Trials were prosecuted, with Nazi and Japanese war criminals brought to justice under the first application of international law; 1950, the Geneva Conventions entered into force. During this time, this coalition of nations codified into law definitions of genocide, ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity, and various war crimes, barring their use to prevent the total destruction of a civilian population or nation during the brutalities of war. It is clear within international law that the taking of Israeli hostages– including Holocaust survivors and activists for Palestinian rights living in Jewish communes, or Kibbutz– and the violence against civilians that Hamas perpetuated in the October 7th terror attack is illegal and condemnable. We heard many public figures, politicians, and mass media organizations condemn this violence against civilians, appropriately horrified by the massive loss of life and the sheer terror innocent children and non-combatants endured. However, we have seen almost no such condemnation of the indiscriminate bombings of civilians in Gaza, despite the rising death tolls and humanitarian crisis documented by the UN, the WHO, Amnesty International, and many more human rights organizations. See, under international law, Israel’s retaliation in response to the terror attacks is nothing short of a travesty, overstepping countless boundaries to commit crimes against humanity and repeated war crimes.
It is vital at this point to emphasize that to conflate criticism of Israeli actions with anti-semitism is an insidious usage of a straw man logical fallacy to obscure the humanitarian crisis people are protesting. To assert, as many have, that any criticism of Israel is anti-semitic is not just facially absurd, it is logically inconsistent. No one seriously refers to criticism of Iran or Saudi Arabia’s human rights records as Islamophobic, they rightly recognize that criticisms are geared towards state policy and behavior, regardless of their religious affiliation. Countless Jewish people throughout the world stand in support of Israel, and countless Jewish people have been on the streets advocating for an end to the bombings of Gaza. It is not as simplistic as a sectarian religious conflict, despite what the media would have you believe. In the past week, we’ve seen ‘reputable’ institutions like the BBC malign Pro-Palestinian protesters as “pro-Hamas,” and were subsequently forced to walk their comments back due to public pressure. Whichever stance you take as an individual, whichever stance our government officials make, all should recognize the importance and value of human life. If you are told a child has been killed, you should not need to know the religion or ethnicity of that child to feel heartbreak and despair. The absurdly sectarian rhetoric throughout the American political ecosystem since the October 7th attack has only served to accelerate hatred and ignore the humanitarian crisis Israel is creating in Gaza.
Since WWII, Israel has been the largest cumulative recipient of US foreign direct investment, with much of that aid dedicated to military purposes, comprising about 71% of Foreign Aid the State of Israel has ever received. The United States is not a neutral country in this dynamic. As significant funders of the Israeli military, our government has a moral and legal responsibility to ensure that American-made planes and bombs aren’t used by the Israeli government to commit war crimes.
Those who haven’t been exposed to constant influxes of information from reporters on the ground in Gaza and Israel likely are unaware of the extent of the war crimes Israel has engaged in in their retaliation, and may understandably see my referring to them as an overstatement. To alleviate those concerns, I’ll provide a documented list of the war crimes committed in the past week against Gazans, along with the specific law barring this behavior. At the conclusion of this list, I find it hard to believe that any objective reader would deny the severity of the crisis in Gaza or the necessity of a ceasefire, despite the fact that Congressional members of the ‘Squad’ were just excoriated for daring to propose an end to the violence. In response to these congresswomen, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre responded by calling proposals for deescalation and peace “wrong,” “repugnant,” and “disgraceful.” This is not just a slip-up by the Press Secretary either. The Huffington Post obtained (and the Washington Post confirmed) email communiques throughout the State Department advising US diplomats about the use of three phrases in any rhetoric related to the violence: “de-escalation/ceasefire,” “end to violence/bloodshed,” and “restoring calm.” Peace is not what is repugnant. A ceasefire is not what is repugnant. What is repugnant is bombing mosques, UN safe houses, schools, hospitals, residences, and everything in between. See, the Gaza Strip is one of the most densely populated regions on earth, with over 2 million people living on a piece of land about twice the size of D.C. When Israel decided to pelt the Gaza Strip with bombs, they were fully aware of the fact that it would be impossible to not kill civilians, journalists, and even the very hostages they were ostensibly seeking the return of. Many have attempted to justify Israel’s carpet-bombing of the Gaza Strip with their right to defend themselves from terrorism under the UN Charter, and the necessity of retaliation to get the civilian hostages returned. But a ‘right to defend yourself’ does not justify verified targeting of UN safe houses, paramedics, civilian residences, schools, and more; you don’t get to engage in collective punishment because of a terror assault. And if the goal is to secure the return of the hostages, it’s probably not the smartest strategy to bomb the place they were all taken to smithereens– in fact, 22 of the hostages taken on October 7th have already been killed by Israeli airstrikes.
Here are the violations of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court as it defines genocide: Article 6(c) states that deliberately inflicting on a group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction, in whole or in part, is an act of genocide; the imposition of a complete siege of the Gaza Strip, entirely depriving Gazan residents of electricity, internet, food, and fuel meets this definition– what other objective is there in denying families, children, and hospitals water, food, medical supplies, electricity, and the internet? The Rome Statute also bars incitements to mass killing and genocide; many have argued that the statements of Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, where he stated Israel was fighting “human animals, and [would] act accordingly,” meet this legal bar. However, if you are unconvinced by these examples, there are, unfortunately, plenty more. Article 8(2)(a)(iii) of the Geneva Convention bars ‘willfully causing great suffering and serious injury to body and health,’ deeming that behavior a war crime. Last Thursday, the IDF confirmed that they had dropped over 6,000 bombs on Gaza in 6 days, equivalent to the number of airstrikes conducted by the US in Afghanistan over the course of a year. Based on the most recent data from a Saturday update, at minimum 2,215 Palestinian civilians, including 724 children, have been killed since October 7th; even more have been injured with 8,714 civilians reporting injuries from the bombing campaigns.
Due to the severity of the constant airstrikes, over 400,000 Palestinians have been forced to flee their homes in Gaza, an example of forced deportation worsened still by Israel’s evacuation order of Friday the 13th, mandating over 1.1 million Gazans to leave their homes with just a 24 hour warning before their ground invasion. No matter your position on the Israel-Palestine conflict, you must recognize that this is a logistical impossibility. It is impossible for that many people to evacuate in that short of a time frame, especially for those who are wounded or sick, disabled, infants, or elderly. The WHO and other international institutions have repeatedly spoken out against the Israeli evacuation orders given to hospitals; in some instances, they were afforded less than 10 hours to evacuate patients, which is, again, a logistical impossibility. In a series of tweets on Sunday, human rights group Amnesty International verified that a convoy of about “30 people, 8 cars, and other nearby people, including women, children, and people with disabilities, was attacked.” In what’s known as a ‘double-tap’ operation, also a war crime, the first responders who arrived on the scene were immediately bombed upon arrival, killing a total of 70 civilian evacuees and medics. This was on one of the very paths of evacuation Israel recommended civilians fleeing Gaza take.
Additionally, a Human Rights Watch report published last week claims to have verified video of Israel’s use of White Phosphorus on civilian populations, a substance banned under international law which leaves serious burns on any skin it touches. 14 UN Officials have also been killed in the bombing. So have 12 journalists. And at least 22 of the approximately 150 hostages taken on the October 7th attack have now been killed by Israeli airstrikes.
I want to conclude by quoting Nicholas Kristof, a Pulitzer-winning American journalist: “If we owe a moral responsibility to Israeli children, then we owe the same moral responsibility to Palestinian children. Their lives have equal weight. If you care about human life only in Israel or only in Gaza, then you don’t actually care about human life.” I think this is an important note to end on because so many people seem to have lost their minds, uttering some of the most violent, genocidal rhetoric I’ve ever heard following politics. “Wipe them out.” “Flatten Gaza.” “They’re inhuman.” It is unacceptable to allow massacres of civilians on this scale to continue, and it’s disgusting to allow this dehumanizing rhetoric to exist without challenge or condemnation. It is unacceptable to use the killings of civilians and their family and nation’s collective grief to spur the mass killing of Palestinian civilians, subjecting them to torture by forcing people to starve to death, or die due to dehydration, lack of medical supplies, or indiscriminate bombing. The killing of civilians has never, and will never, justify the collective punishment and killing of other civilians. A right to defend yourself does not involve a right to commit Crimes against Humanity.
Note: Hours before publication, news broke that IDF airstrikes targeted a major hospital in Gaza, killing an estimated 500 wounded patients and doctors fighting to save them. This horrific atrocity has been denied by the IDF, claiming it was an errant Hamas missile aimed for Israel. It should be noted that Hamas is not known to have missiles of this capability, and that former misfired Hamas missiles, even in crowded areas, have not killed anywhere near as many people. Al Jazeera has also reported that the IDF gave the hospital an evacuation warning, indicating it was in fact an Israeli target.
The opinions expressed within this piece represent the views of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Jefferson Independent.
We must be absolutely and irrevocably resolute in aiding the only functional democracy between the Atlantic Ocean and the Indus River, Israel, both for geopolitical strategic and moral reasons. I absolutely hope that I am wrong as I write this on Columbus Day, October 12, 2023. Joe Biden is the American equivalent of Neville Chamberlain, an appeaser who enabled and encouraged vile enemies to take on the free liberal (in its original and truest sense – with the traditions of free speech, free markets, freedom of religion, independent judiciary, etc.) Western democracies that we treasure and take for granted. As Churchill said to Chamberlain, “You were given the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour, and you will have war.”
If history has taught us anything it is that dictators and authoritarians prize one thing above all others; strength combined with resolve. The USA under the Biden administration has shown neither strength nor resolve. The policy of appeasement with Iran dates back to Obama‘s disastrous nuclear deal, which terms were never verifiable, as part of an 11 year program of the Obama/Biden administration, as the latter is a continuation of the former, to be sure. Biden is on record, and you can look up the video, of saying that “a minor incursion” by Russia into Ukraine would essentially be OK with us *. Hence, Putin went through the EZ Pass lane into Ukraine. This was on top of Obama‘s spineless non-response to the Crimean annexation in 2014 and his declaration of a “red line” with Syria on the use of chemical weapons**, again with absolutely no consequences. China and the other foes of democracy and self-determination are highly vigilant of the USA’s feckless foreign and economic policies and feel emboldened to do as they please. The Chinese build new islands in the Pacific, brazenly spy on us, steal American security and technology secrets, and rattle their sabers toward Taiwan. Like the murderous mullahs, they also sponsor global terrorism. A bit more of a subtle approach, but they are relentless in their economic and stealthy military expansion into our historic spheres of influence, in the vacuum left by the absence of American strength.
The USA must bear some burden of guilt for creating the conditions of opportunity for Hamas’ and Iran’s opportunity to sow horrors on the borders with Gaza. There is a direct line, I would argue, from DC to the failure in Kabul, to Tehran, to the nameless atrocities delivered from Gaza to southern Israel. This is directly contrary to the campus demonstrating leftists claiming that Israelis brought it upon themselves. The list of these is long and preposterous: Harvard, UNC, Baruch, Penn, even UVA, on and on. I am especially not proud of the latter two, my alma maters. A burglar comes into your home, kills your children, rapes your wife, and steals your goods, then sues you for not having the right security system? Insane proposition!
As evidence of the Biden administration ‘s appeasement, Tehran’s foreign currency reserves at the end of the Trump administration were $4 billion. Today these reserves are variously credibly estimated at between $70 and $86 billion***, primarily through Biden’s relaxation of sanctions and catastrophic abandonment of US energy independence. We have substituted the security of our nation and its closest allies for the chimera of the Green New Deal, which has absolutely no chance of success without the participation of China and India.
Biden/Blinken et al, under enormous bipartisan pressure, finally pulled the trigger on freezing the additional $6 billion to Tehran, but apparently still cherish hopes to revive the worst deal in US foreign policy history, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or 2015 Iran nuclear deal. They cling to the fantastical notion that this was not ransom and that the Iranians couldn’t use the money as they pleased. Notably, the current administration has not yet specifically called out Iran on their sponsorship of global terror and their dedication to the total elimination of the State of Israel and of Jews everywhere. If you do not name your enemy, how do you effectively coalesce global popular support for their defeat? How many burnt bodies of parents and children lashed together by steel cables and babies’ decapitated heads will it take to truly stand up and not just utter platitudes?
A note to my sons follows: Imagine L that you and your friends were at a music festival/rave with murderous machine gun-toting terrorists coming out of the sky. Imagine, B and D, that your little brother was decapitated before your eyes, while your mother was dragged off, raped and held hostage, and maybe you were lucky enough to escape. This is what our friends in Israel are dealing with. This is the most urgent issue facing the Democracies of the West and indeed, of humanity.
Sow the wind and you shall reap the whirlwind. I fear that we are entering a very perilous period not just for Israel, for US power and influence, but for humanity. It is important that the forces of freedom and democracy win, and not the forces of enslavement and suppression, which are represented by our major adversaries: China, Russia, and most notably at this moment, Islamo-Fascism. Throw North Korea in there to the new Axis of Evil.
By the way, our own government is using against the citizens of the United States, and indeed the citizens of the free world, the tools formerly used by the worst dictators in history. We haven’t quite gotten to the level of Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Hitler, but the playbook is the same. Take control of the economy through regulation. Degrade education and make schools a tool for indoctrination rather than fostering critical thinking. Enforce party orthodoxy in the press and media. Attack the independence of the judiciary and attempt to rule by fiat. I could go on and on, but when our enemies see us using their own techniques, they see boundless opportunity and we have only encouraged, unwittingly, to put upon it a charitable interpretation, the enemies of Israel and of global freedom.
I sincerely hope for regime change here when the American people wake up to the dangers everywhere, including the terrorist-supporting, anti-Semitic demonstrations at “elite“ universities, the eradication of biological barriers in assigning gender, and the radical move towards economic decline and Socialism through disastrous fiscal policies. These are all pieces of the same fractured puzzle.
I am old enough to have seen this proverbial movie before. As you know, I am a bit of a film buff and a student of history. This picture will not end well without a swift rewrite of the script.
Let’s hope that your generation wakes up enough to make a major correction and restore the values of patriotism, family, and freedom to save America and the rest of the free world, liberating those who are not free along the way.
I am all too keenly aware that you have asked me repeatedly not to bring up topics or my opinions that speak to politics, but this is not a political issue. It is an issue of basic human decency and civilization. The evil people around the globe must be defeated. With all due respect, the Europeans aren’t going to do it, compromised as they are by their own historical traditions of antisemitism and military weakness. The United States must be the leader of the free world.
Yet I don’t see leadership here. I see weakness; hesitancy, too little too late, over and over again; and a lack of strong belief in our core values. Perhaps because we have had it so soft for so long. Believe me, if the authoritarian bastards win, we won’t have it soft for very much longer, and the globe will descend into a 1984-like permanent struggle among repressive regimes.
I trust in the iron resolve of Israel to defend itself and crush the opposition, which has never been interested in peace, only in racial hatred, destruction and self-aggrandizement. The other Arabs I knew through work were not inclined toward the Palestinians, at least in private, cf. below.
Though I am no Middle East expert or scholar, a la Bernard Lewis, I have read the Koran twice, spent a fair bit of time in the region, and studied its history. I honeymooned in Egypt for seven days back in 1988 and did 11 C-level searches for Investcorp in Bahrain. I have been fortunate enough to do work for the Olayan family, who were once the largest shareholders in Chase Bank, and whose Chair sits on the board of Morgan Stanley, CEO searches in Dubai, which I visited, and Jeddah, Saudi, Arabia, for a $450M healthcare facility, backed by one of the leading non-royal families. In the latter case, the clients were delighted not to have me come to Saudi, but to meet in London. “I’ll have a double Johnny Walker on the rocks, please.” In most cases the Arab clients made it very clear that they wanted no Palestinian candidates, for they did not trust them, even decades ago. I attributed it to their being pragmatists, not fanatics, whatever their public declarations of support for the Palestinians may have been. Despite their hypocrisy, if you are accepted, as I was, at least on limited commercial terms, the Arabs can be the best of friends and the worst of enemies. So, by experience & knowledge I am not inclined to be off the cuff anti-Islam or anti-Arab. Yet enough is enough. The butchers must be brought to heel so they can not ever threaten Israel or other free people again in a meaningful way, and so set an example to other tyrants around the world.
Sorry to deliver such a sad message, but I truly fear that you will look back and say that I was right as you survey the global wreckage if Israel and the USA do not link arms to adequately demonstrate a massively forceful response to the forces of hatred and evil.
1) RUSSIA’S “MINOR INCURSION” https://www.npr.org/2022/01/20/1074466148/biden-russia-ukraine-minor-incursion#:~:text=%22I%20think%20what%20you're,to%20do%20and%20not%20do.%22
2) POLITICO on Obama’s “Red Line” https://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/obama-clinton-syria-red-line-228585
3) IRAN’S FOREIGN EXCHANGE RESERVES
2019 https://www.bourseandbazaar.com/articles/2021/4/13/whats-the-deal-with-irans-foreign-exchange-reserves
2023 estimates range from $70B to $86B
The Iranian government does not report the foreign exchange reserves as a matter of policy and all figures are estimates calculated by international or foreign institutes, which are occasionally endorsed by Iranian officials without disclosing the exact numbers. Wikipedia
Sir, you just Totally nailed it