U.S. policy has perpetuated the crisis and atrocities in Gaza

U.S. leaders must now confront their country’s and, in many cases, their own personal complicity in this catastrophe.

By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas Davies | Mondoweiss | May 21, 2021

U.S. policy has perpetuated the crisis and atrocities of the Israeli occupation by unconditionally supporting Israel in three distinct ways: militarily, diplomatically and politically.

The U.S. corporate media usually report on Israeli military assaults in occupied Palestine as if the United States is an innocent neutral party to the conflict. In fact, large majorities of Americans have told pollsters for decades that they want the United States to be neutral in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

But U.S. media and politicians betray their own lack of neutrality by blaming Palestinians for nearly all the violence and framing flagrantly disproportionate, indiscriminate and therefore illegal Israeli attacks as a justifiable response to Palestinian actions. The classic formulation from U.S. officials and commentators is that “Israel has the right to defend itself,” never “Palestinians have the right to defend themselves,” even as the Israelis massacre hundreds of Palestinian civilians, destroy thousands of Palestinian homes and seize ever more Palestinian land.

The disparity in casualties in Israeli assaults on Gaza speaks for itself.

• At the time of writing, the current Israeli assault on Gaza has killed at least 232 people, including 65 children and 35 women, while rockets fired from Gaza have killed 10 people in Israel, including two children.

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