U.S. Senate expresses strong support for Israel’s war

The U.S. Senate is not made up of people who are monsters or idiots. But it is made up of people whose first inclination is to look out for their chances of re-election in a political system that is drenched in, and corrupted by, the influence of raw money.
The new US Senate was voted in Tuesday. Today, as Israel’s assault on Gaza continues, the Senate made one of its first items of business the adoption of a strongly pro-Israeli resolution– crafted in AIPAC’s policy shop— that expressed strong support for Israel’s viewpoint on all aspects of the current war.
This, even as the UN’s Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs was issuing the latest in its series of updates on the humanitarian crisis that Israel’s latest war of choice has inflicted on Gaza’s 1.5 million people.
It read in part:

    The Israeli military operation has caused extensive damage to homes, civilian institutions and infrastructure. The entire Gaza Strip is on the verge of collapse, already weakened by the 18-month blockade on the territory. Most people have no electricity and no clean running water. While food assistance has entered, agencies are facing difficulties to distribute it due to the security situation. Food stocks are low in people’s homes, people are afraid to go out to find food and there is no cooking gas to cook whatever is available. Many homes do not have glass in their windows, and others are leaving them open to avoid shattering. Without electricity, the hospitals are operating on backup generators and are low on fuel, threatening the life-saving services doctors and nurses are urgently providing in the overloaded hospitals…

The report recounted the ICRC’s grisly story of its fieldworkers having yesterday discovered a cache of 12 bodies along with wounded people, including four young children left weak and hungry clinging the bodies of their dead mothers, who were stranded in an area of Zaitoun south of Gaza for the preceding four days. Though some of the wounded people there had called to friends outside, and the Palestinian Red Crescent, for evacuation help, the Israeli military would not allow evacuation for four days.
The OCHA report continued:

    As of 16.00 on 8 January, the MoH in Gaza revealed that 50 bodies were recovered today from the rubble of houses: the total number of fatalities is now 758, of whom 257 (34%) are children and 56 (7.4%) are women. Of the 3,100 injuries, 1,080 (34.8%) are children and 452 (14.6%) are women. The danger to medical staff and the difficulty of extracting the injured from collapsed buildings makes proper evacuation and estimation of casualties difficult.
    Palestinian militants continued to fire rockets and mortar shells into Israel resulting in moderate to light injuries. An IDF soldier was killed this morning.

So, 758 now-identified fatalities, of whom 313 were either women or children. We can assume that many of the men were civilians, too. (Including the police recruits mown down on the first day of the war.) I imagine it is hard, though, for the ICRC/PRCS, or any other body necessarily to tell who was a combatant actively involved in hostilites (which would make him– or her– a “legitimate” military target) and who was a noncombatant.
The OCHA report also said this:

    On 8 January, a UN-contracted convoy transporting food through the Erez crossing was shelled. One UNRWA-contracted worker was killed and two injured. At approximately 14.00, a UN convoy of two armoured vehicles escorted an ambulance through Gaza City to recover the body of a local UN staff member during the scheduled humanitarian cease-fire. On Salah Ed Din Street the vehicles were targeted by three rounds of small arms fire. One armoured vehicle was hit. Two international staff were in the vehicle, but no casualties were reported. The movement of the convoy had been coordinated in advance [presumably with the IDF] and the UN vehicles were clearly identified. UNRWA has announced that it is temporarily suspending its operations until real security guarantees can be ensured.

UNRWA’s quite wrenching decision to suspend its long-established relief services is quite understandable, in the circumstances. But this means that the humanitarian situation can only be expected to deteriorate– and more rapidly, now, than ever.
Information about the ever-worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza has been available for a number of days now, and has been reported on the US media. In light of that, I find the one-sided nature of the resolution passed by Congress (the AIPAC-suggested text is here– PDF) literally nauseating.
Do the Senators have any idea how heartless and brutal they look to just about everybody else in the rest of the world when they pass such a slaveringly pro-Israeli resolution?
The House of Representatives is expected to take up a similar or concurrent resolution on the matter shortly. No doubt since all Representatives face re-election in two years and are therefore already “running” for the 2010 election, the vote there will also be an easy one for the AIPAC crowd.
It is true that in the US system, the actual conduct of foreign policy is the responsibility of the president, not congress. So these resolutions have no immediate impact on policy. But they do act as a “warning shot across the bows” of the incoming president, to show him that though some pro-peace organizations — like the courageous and agile Jewish Voice for Peace organization– may have emerged here in recent years, still AIPAC is the Biggest Bully on the Block and can come in like steamroller whenever it sees a chance.
It would be great if the members of the US’s two houses of Congress could show even a little basic human decency in their attitude to the multiply devastated population of Gaza, instead of simply dancing to AIPAC’s tune and cheering on all aspects of Israel’s current war effort against Gaza.
But another thing the members of Congress should consider is the effect their resolutions have on the safety of all US citizens in many countries around the world. In Iraq, Moqtada al-Sadr has already called on his supporters to start killing US soldiers because of the US’s support for Israel in the current war. But what about all the other US citizens– soldiers, business-people, students, or just travelers– who find themselves in every country of the world today? Why on earth would anyone in the US Senate or House of Representatives think today’s resolution serves the US citizenry, at all?
It doesn’t. It is just yet another chapter in the long story of the US’s close alliance with Israel helping to drag down the influence of the US all around the world.
A tragic day today. For many reasons.

14 thoughts on “U.S. Senate expresses strong support for Israel’s war”

  1. The US will support Israel as it thinks it is necessary to have this guaranteed base to dominate the oil fields. (and Jewish power in the US)
    They know we are all impotent and no one can or will stop the unspeakable slaughter which is below contempt
    Irrael , a Jewish state, will only respond to Jewish pressure. No large group of Jews has done this. They must be pressured
    Our only peaceful powerful weapon is a massive boycott of all Jewish businesses. This is very powerfull and always works. I know this is unfair (like the Jewish punishment of all arabs) but killing babies,women and innocent men is more unfair. This is being unfair to stop murder.
    If you cannot see that this will work let us all just keep quiet and stop fooling ourself.
    No big deal -Just quietly stop buying goods and services.. Tell me another way that works and I will do it. It has reached a level where the World would applaud an intervention by Russia, China, India or any other civilised nation
    Shame . Shame. Shame on us all.

  2. It’s as usual Helena not new and no surprises at all, they doing this for last 50 years or may be more.
    No changes, new elected President kept his lips tied about all GAZA massacre by Israelis. He will surprises us if there are changes in US Deafblindness support for here proxy state in ME as he promised like successive older US presidents and administrations

  3. Pat Lang has just posted an enlightening article on the organization & organizational problems of the Israeli army, which he has observed first hand over many years. See it here:
    The IDF Ground Force

  4. Congress, it would seem, remains AIPAC occupied territory.
    Once again, a stain of blood is now on its hands.

  5. Hello!
    I’ve been reading your blog and I think it’s very interesting. I am a student of journalism from Barcelona and I am following the steps of Barack Obama in my blog in Spanish (http://anabelencg.blogspot.com). I would like to know what you think about the fact that Obama has just said that he is very disgusted for the Israel war but he is not going to do anything now because Bush is who is in the power. I mean, I can’t understand why he has not made a strong speech against the war yet and why he hasn’t say anything about the Mideast in his weekly address. What is your opinion about this? I would be very grateful if you answer me back here or in my blog. Thank you very much.

  6. Helena:
    One of your best posts ever.
    Finally telling it like it is. There will be no peace in the Middle East or anywhere else in the world until and the unless the Israel lobby is broken or at least cut down to size.
    That is the nitty gritty as we used to say in the 1960s.

  7. H, yes-a terrible replication of the political whoredom which the US political system is absolutely infused with. Except, this was a great day, as we can THANK SENATOR LEAHY for his brilliant statement about this resolution.
    H, what of a Hat-Tip to Senator Leahy? I think there is the space to recognize his courage, his contribution to the region to humanity. Is that not we so many of us are about, or strive to be about? Here is the link to his brilliant statement
    http://leahy.senate.gov/press/200901/010809b.html

  10. Kevin, I agree that Sen. Leahy’s statement is important and probably took some courage to make. However, I wouldn’t describe it as “brilliant.” He has bought many of the Israeli government’s talking points about Hamas starting the violence. He introduces some pretty faux “balance” by giving equal treatment to the (relatively tiny) amount of physical damage suffered in Israel and to that suffered in Gaza. Also, the whole statement is pretty strongly anti-Hamas. He seems to take it as given that Hamas should be countered or combated. He doesn’t mention their electoral victory…
    “Brilliance” in the current context belongs only to those who argue– and there are increasing numbers of us here in the US as in Israel– that a way must must be found to include Hamas in the peacemaking process rather than continuing to seek to exclude, minimize, and counter or combat it. He is nowhere near there yet.

  11. Hi, H:
    Thank you for this critique. In the past, Senator Leahy has called for the appointment of a US envoy who would work to resolve Israel’s conflicts with Hamas and Hezbollah, de-facto recognition of their presence.
    Yes, it is a bit generous to the Israelis, but if he is trying to persuade his colleagues to recognize how useless such a resolution is, he does a strong job. I think Senator Leahy deplores the use of violence, whether it be by armed groups or by states. Maybe I am wrong, or too generous. I do not think that the US will get much better in the Senate. How can a Senator speak to Hamas, their rocketing of Israel at the end of the ceasefire (I think you were having X-mas break from blogging) and its announcement that the ceasefire was over (which they did do).

  12. I’m not saying Leahy or any other Senator should necessarily speak to Hamas (though why not?) But rather that realism right now for a senator or anyone else is to call for a way to be found to include it rather than continuing to try to demonize, exclude, and crush it.
    Also, re the ending of the tahdi’eh, as I blogged earlier, it really did start to fall apart from Nov 4 on (the day the Israelis took advantage of the preoccupation of Americans elsewhere to launch a nasty lethal operation deep inside the Strip. Negotiations ensued over whether it could be renewed when its term ran out, but those failed. Hamas did not ‘break’ it as such. They announced the negotiations over renewing had broken down. And no Israelis had been killed for a long time previous to December 27, though Palestinians were. The whole Israeli narrative about Hamas “breaking the tahdi’eh” is very flawed and was constructed mainly to justify the current war.

  13. “U.S. Senate expresses strong support for Israel’s war”
    Darth Vader votes in favour of Death Rays

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