By Barry Sheppard [Photo above: Gaza starves as Israel presses war on Hamas, Reuters http://www.reuters.com 474×316]
No sooner had the preliminary report from the International Court of Justice appeared, finding that South Africa had made a plausible case of genocide against Israel, than Israel charged that 13 members of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) had participated in the October 7 Hamas attack inside Israel, and that it harbored many members of Hamas.
UNRWA is the most important relief agency for distributing humanitarian aid that does get through to the people in Gaza, and has 13,000 employees in Gaza.
Immediately, Biden cut off U.S. funding of UNRWA, and lackey European countries followed suit. The U.S. and these other countries provide most of UNWRA’s funding. If this funding is not restored soon, the situation in Gaza will become even more dire in February says the United Nations.
Biden already stands guilty of aiding and backing Israel’s genocide, earning him the nickname of “Genocide Joe,” but this decision, if not immediately reversed, will mean that the U.S. is carrying out its own genocide in Gaza on top of Israel’s.
Even if Israel’s charge about the 13 is true (and Israel regularly lies), Biden’s response to put in harms way hundreds of thousands is grotesque.
Hamas is more than its armed wing. It is the administrative government of Gaza, and UNRWA must work with whatever of that administrative apparatus continues.
For years the rightists in Israel’s government has sought to eliminate UNWRA, and they now see their chance.
Writing in The Intercept, Ryan Grim reports, “Most recently, on January 9, the Knesset discussed the issue, video of which has subsequently gone viral. ‘Our main goal in the war is to eliminate the threat and not neutralize it and we know how to eliminate terrorists. It is more difficult with an idea. UNWRA is the source of the idea,‘ said Israeli Knesset member Noga Arbell on January 6. ‘And it will be impossible to win the war if we do not destroy UNWRA. And the destruction must begin immediately…. They must be abandoned. Or they must go to hell.’
“The [discussion] against UNWRA continued over the following days in the Knesset.”
Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) said Biden “defunding UNWRA is another heinous act of genocide.”
Before the charges against UNWRA were made, on January 26 JVP ran a full page ad in the New York Times and other major newspapers across the country. This was a public letter addressed to President Biden.
“As American rabbis, we write to you with deep sorrow and fury,” the letter began.
“Tomorrow is International Holocaust Remembrance Day: a time to honor the memory of the millions of people murdered through the genocide committed by the Nazi regime, including six million of our Jewish ancestors.
“We will also remember this is the time in which Israel was committing genocide, aided and abetted by the United States. We know how painful it is for Jews to grasp that a Jewish state could possibly commit a genocide. Nevertheless, we are compelled to speak with moral clarity about what is happening to Palestinians.
“We do so not in spite of our histories, but because of them. We know in our bones what it means to hear Israeli officials dehumanize an entire people, to witness the Israeli military mass murder tens of thousands of Palestinians, to watch Israel systematically destroy civilian infrastructure, cultural institutions, universities, and hospitals. To see Israel purposefully deny food, medicine and shelter.
“The Torah teaches there are moments when we must make a critical moral choice. As Deuteronomy 30:19 says, ‘I have put before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life.’
“President Biden, you have chosen death.
“Instead of using your considerable power to prevent or end this genocide, you have directly abetted it with weapons, funds and diplomatic cover. If the words ‘Never Again’ have any meaning at all, they must mean ‘Never Again for Anyone.’
“With urgency, Jewish Voice for Peace Rabbinical Council.”
Black Clergy Speak Out
The January 29 New York Times reported, “As the Israel-Hamas war enters its fourth month, a coalition of Black faith leaders is pressuring the Biden administration to push for a cease-fire — a campaign spurred in part by their parishioners, who are increasingly distressed by the suffering of Palestinians and critical of the president’s response to it.
“More than 1,000 Black pastors representing hundreds of thousands of congregants nationwide have issued the demand….
“ ‘Black faith leaders are extremely disappointed in the Biden administration on this issue,’ said the Rev. Timothy McDonald, the senior pastor of First Iconium Baptist Church in Atlanta, which boasts more than 1,500 members. He was one of the first pastors of more than 200 Black clergy members in Georgia, a key swing state, to sign an open letter calling for a cease-fire….
“The intense feeling about the war in Gaza is among the many unexpected ways that the conflict has scrambled U.S. politics. And it comes as Mr. Biden is already facing signs of waning enthusiasm among Black voters, who have for generations been the Democrats’ most loyal voting base.
“The coalition of Black clergy pushing Mr. Biden for a cease-fire is diverse, from conservative-leaning Southern Baptists to more progressive nondenominational congregations in the Midwest and Northeast.
“ ‘This is not a fringe issue,’ said the Rev. Michael McBride, a founder of Black Church PAC [Political Action Committee] and the lead pastor of the Way church in Berkeley, Calif. ‘There are many of us who feel that this administration has lost its way on this.’….
“ ‘Black clergy have seen war, militarism, poverty and racism all connected,’ said Barbara Williams-Skinner, co-convener of the National African American Clergy Network, whose members lead roughly 15 million Black churchgoers. She helped coordinate recent meetings between the White House and faith leaders.”
A point made in the long article that it is especially young parishioners who are the most angry about the war.
Arab Americans Against Biden
On February 1, Biden travelled to Michigan, home to the largest percentage of Arab Americans in the U.S. He said he wanted to speak with auto workers. The United Auto Workers has endorsed Biden’s bid to get re-elected, but it has also called for a cease-fire in the war.
At the January 24 rally where the UAW president endorsed Biden, a number of people held up Palestinian flags and shouted “cease-fire!”
A Biden campaign event was at the UAW office in Warren, a town bordering Detroit. Hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters were waiting for him.
When he visited a restaurant to talk up his campaign, he was again met by waving Palestinian flags, and protesters with megaphones chanting “Genocide Joe” and “How many kids have you killed today?”
Dearborn, Michigan, bordering Detroit, is the home of many Arab Americans, including people from Palestine, Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq and other countries in the Middle East, some of whom are presently under attack by Israel or the U.S. It is sometimes called the Arab American capital.
In preparation for his electoral campaign trip, Biden’s representative Julie Rodriguez, tried to speak with Arab American leaders in Dearborn to set up campaign events, but was rebuffed.
Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now, interviewed Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud the day after Biden’s visit. Hammond is the first Arab and the first Muslim to be elected mayor of Dearborn.
Concerning why the group of Arab leaders didn’t meet with Rodriguez, Hammoud said, “The stand we took was sending the message that this is not the moment that calls for electoral politics. Over the course now of coming close to 120 days, Israel has murdered more than 27,000 Gazans and displaced over two million. The lives of Palestinians should not be measured simply in [electoral] poll numbers.
“We want to have meaningful dialogue with senior decision-makers and policy makers who have the ability and the openness to change course in what’s unfolding overseas.
“And as you have seen at rallies across this country, the position we’ve taken, one in which we support a cease-fire is not one just supported by Arab Americans and Muslim Americans. This is supported by over 60 percent of Americans across the country, over 80 percent of Democrats and even over 50 percent of Republicans.”
On the same Democracy Now show, James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute, said that in the 2020 election, Biden had 59 percent of the Arab American vote and that had dropped to 17 percent as of October, and is probably lower now.
It is already well known that young voters in their majority are against Israel’s war. Electorally what all this means for the November election remains to be seen. What can be said now is that a Trump-Biden contest is viewed by many Americans as an unacceptable choice.
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