For the past 12 months, the world has watched in horror as Israel has laid waste to Gaza in what Palestinians and many experts consider a genocidal military campaign—one of the most lethal and destructive bombing campaigns in history—armed and funded by the U.S. government.
The U.S. has spent at least $17.9 billion in weapons for Israel and that staggering sum continues to grow; the Biden Administration in August approved a further $20 billion.
This support for Israel violates both U.S. and international law. It also goes against the wishes of a majority of Americans. Polls consistently show that most Americans want a ceasefire in Gaza and to stop weapons transfers to Israel (including 77% of Democrats) amid the death and destruction.
At least 42,000 Palestinians, including over 16,500 children, have been killed in Gaza. A further 96,000 people have been wounded there. Nearly 2 million people in the Strip have also been displaced. These are staggering figures.
Meanwhile, in the occupied West Bank, Israel’s military and settlers have launched a wave of violent repression while the world’s attention has been focused on Gaza. At least 722 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli soldiers and settlers; more than 1,600 people have also been driven out of their homes amid a huge expansion in illegal settlements. A recent report from the watchdog Peace Now called one seizure in the Jordan Valley the “the largest single appropriation approved since the 1993 Oslo accords.”
It’s critical to put the past year in context and remember that the violence we Palestinians face did not begin in the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack. Most people in Gaza are refugees whose families were expelled from their homes in what became Israel in 1948. They have lived under violent, oppressive Israeli military rule since the occupation began in 1967. And for over 17 years prior to Oct. 7, Israel imposed a suffocating siege and naval blockade on Gaza—condemned as illegal by the U.N. and rights groups—that controlled who and what went in and out. The blockade plunged much of Gaza’s already impoverished population further into despair.
Now the nightmare of Gaza—the stench of corpses, the widespread destruction, the incessant buzzing of military drones—is spreading to Lebanon. The death toll has topped 2,000 in recent weeks while more than 1 million of the country’s 5 million people have been displaced amid fierce Israeli airstrikes. Israel has also begun a ground offensive in southern Lebanon.
Read More: ‘We Can’t Predict What Israel Will Do.’ Inside the Fear and Chaos Gripping Lebanon
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing government seem intent in dragging the U.S. into a war with Iran on Israel’s behalf. Will President Biden finally draw a red line to stop Israel’s escalation? So far, there has been no evidence he is prepared to rein in Netanyahu.
Clearly no one benefits from Israel’s war footing—certainly not the innocent civilians in Gaza and Lebanon suffering now, nor the American people.
Yet Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris aren’t listening to most Americans’ wishes. Harris has pledged “unwavering” support for Israel and declared that she won’t impose conditions on weapons transfer to Israel if she’s elected in November. Donald Trump has vowed that the U.S. and Israel would become “closer” than ever if he were President again.
If there is any hope for peace, it must come from the American people demanding a change in U.S. policy toward Israel and the Palestinians. They must demand that the noble values their country professes—equality and justice for all—be applied to their government’s treatment of Palestinians, Lebanese, and others in the region as well.
In many ways our situation as Palestinians has never felt more hopeless. Freedom is a far-off dream when one’s own very survival is in question. The hope I have is that the growing global consciousness about the reality of Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the apartheid regime in Israel and the occupied territories will move us a step closer to our collective liberation and an end to the horrors we have endured for far too long.
A great American once said the moral arc of the universe bends toward justice. But it does not bend on its own. It is up to each of us to create the kind of world we want to live in—one that respects the dignity of every person and the sanctity of every life.
