President Joe Biden once said, “If there were no Israel, the US would have to invent one.” When he first made the comment as Senator, back in 1986, he explained that it is in America’s interest to support Israel in this vital region of the world which produces over 31 per cent of oil, for which the United States is always thirsty, as it imports an estimated 12 per cent of its total imports from the Middle East.
Clearly, the US still needs to be present in the region, if only for its energy needs. That is closer to reality than the next claim he recently made.
In a comment he made on 24 October this year, Joe Biden, the President this time, said that the US supports Israel based on “our principles, ideals, [and] values. They are the same values.” Here; he is not talking about interests, but about values and ideals, giving the wrong impression that the US and Israel share the noble ideals and principles of freedom and equally value democracy, where human rights and law are highly regarded. This is a far from reality comment, and it makes him, as President, complicit in what Israel is doing in the Gaza Strip and to Gazans.
When Hamas Resistance fighters attacked Israel, Mr. Biden made it his sacred mission to step up his support for Israel by offering the Occupation State unprecedented financial, political and expertise support. He first announced, and got Congress approval for $14.5bn. The colossal sum of money gives the impression that tiny Israel is fighting another superpower, not “terrorists”, as it calls Hamas. Of course, this is aside from the annual $3.1bn that Israel gets in military aid from the American taxpayers. Some of the extra windfall came in the form of military equipment, including the top line bombs that are being used by Israel to kill, maim and displace Palestinians across the Gaza Strip.
The idea of “shared” values between Tel Aviv and Washington raises one question: what is the grandeur, shared noble values that both capitals have in common? Furthermore and, in line with Mr. Biden’s comment, what US interests compel it to support Israel? What is the single US interest in the death of more than 15,000 Palestinians and what kind of US interest is served by repeatedly displacing over 1 million Palestinians after denying them food, medicine, water, medical care and safe shelter? Difficult to find one!
Over the last 75 years of its bloody history, Israel has not only enjoyed, to use Mr. Biden’s words, “iron-clad” military commitment of the US, but its political protection on any international stage wherever Israel is called out, for whatever disaster it has committed – as it never stops committing the kind of ugliness unimaginable in the 21 century, like what it is doing in Gaza.
By being nurtured, coddled, hugged and financed by the US, Israel has grown up just like a badly behaved child and over-spoiled kid who knows what is right and what is wrong, but insists on doing the very wrong thing and always repeating it, counting on “mother America’s” help.
Over the years, this kid has become an embarrassment to its protector, the US and others, a shameful affront to the entire human race and a machine of lies, death, fake news and collective punishment.
Despite being America’s spoiled boy, Israel does not hesitate to insult it and harm its interests whenever it serves its own interests. It has spied on the US, betrayed its trust, killed its soldiers, murdered its citizens, broken its internal laws and dragged it to become a war-monger and a symbol of state sponsored terrorism and, yet still, remains the spoiled kid of Washington.
This is because spoiled children, at one point, no longer respect the values and principles of their guardians and grow up to mock them, while they define their own twisted principles and values and attempt to impose them back on those closest to them. This is where Israel and the US are today, despite all the niceties repeatedly said by Washington about shared principles and values.
Over the years this “bastard” child, Israel, has grown to become a force to be reckoned with, inside America itself. Any American politician could end his political career by a slip of the tongue if it is perceived as critical of Israel. In business, it could also mean the immediate firing of any CEO if, by bad luck, prompted him to say, for example, “Israel has killed too many children’, which is a fact. Even former officials aspiring to go back to the government payroll do their best to boast about their support for Israel.
Here is a good example: Jimmy Carter, US’ former president who brokered the first and biggest peace deal for Israel, was called a “bigot” by Israel just because he met a Hamas leader in 2008. In more recent times, Democrat Congresswoman, Rashida Tlaib, was censored simply for calling for a free Palestine.
Back to Mr. Biden, the Vice President, this time. In 2010, during his visit to Israel, he was openly humiliated by Netanyahu who chose to announce settlement expansion while Biden was in town specifically calling for a freeze on them.
Antony Blinken, Biden’s Secretary of State, has been visiting Israel almost every week over the last month or so, pleading with all Israeli officials to kill fewer Gazan civilians. Despite everything he did for Israel, he was rebuffed and sent home disappointed, by this over-spoiled kid called Israel, who has grown beyond any blame or even reprimand.
Mr. Biden was made to lie by Netanyahu, who told him that Hamas fighters beheaded babies. Because of his fear of the Zionist lobby inside the US itself, the man, who is expected at such an age to be wiser and very sensitive, became desensitised over the Gaza tragedy. He not only questioned the death and injury tolls announced by Gazan authorities and quoted by all UN agencies, but went further by vindicating Israel from bombing hospitals, when he accused Hamas of using tunnels under Al-Shifa Hospital.
He became morally bankrupt to the point of attempting to rationalise the bombing of hospitals, cutting off power in their neonatal wards, shutting off the water supply to dialysis rooms and snipers spraying bullets in their oncology wards.
And, again, the coddled kid called Israel never really appreciates any of it by rewarding him, for example, by a mere promise to murder fewer Palestinians in the West Bank or destroying fewer homes in Gaza Strip—the typical behaviour of an over-parented child!
