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No surprise: US leaders have forgotten all about Gaza

No surprise: US leaders have forgotten all about Gaza

Last updated on: June 9, 2024 at 8:54 pm by Kathryn Shihadah

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No surprise: US leaders have forgotten all about Gaza 2024-06-09T20:54:12-04:00 Kathryn Shihadah

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What our nation’s leaders said about Gaza after Saturday’s horrific massacre – and even more, what they failed to say – is all the proof we need: according to the US government, Palestinians are officially invisible.

As reported Sunday in If Americans Knew:

The death toll in Israel’s massive Saturday raid on the Nuseirat refugee camp has risen to 274, with more than 698 others injured, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

This fresh horror in Nuseirat comes just two days after Israel bombed a UN school in the refugee camp where thousands of displaced people were sheltering, killing at least 33.

BBC notes, latest figures from Gaza would, if confirmed, make it one of the deadliest days of the conflict so far.

Saturday’s attack resulted in the rescue of four Israeli hostages – as well as the deaths of three more hostages and one Israeli soldier. That is, Israel broke even (so to speak), while 274 Palestinian women, children, and men were slaughtered.

Neither US President Biden nor Secretary of State Antony Blinken even mentioned the Palestinian casualties. They only gushed about the rescue operation and vowed (again) no never stop working till every hostage is home.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza have no home to return to. UNOSAT, the United Nations Satellite Center, recently estimated that about 55% of all structures in Gaza have been damaged. That is about 137,300 structures, of which about a quarter were totally destroyed (this estimate was taken prior to Israel’s three-week attack on Khan Younis, when another roughly 55,000 buildings were damaged).

And of course, tens of thousands of Palestinians will never return home because Israeli attacks killed them. The current estimated death toll is over 37,000, with about 10,000 more buried under the rubble of those destroyed buildings and presumed dead. Over 84,000 have been injured.

President Biden said of the attack, “We won’t stop working until all the hostages come home and a ceasefire is reached. It is essential that it happens.” Period.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken similarly did not mention the loss of Palestinian life in the operation.

In an official White House statement, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan declared US support for “all efforts to secure the release of hostages still held by Hamas…This includes through ongoing negotiations or other means.” He too failed to mention Palestinian casualties. “Negotiations or other means” means whatever Israel wants it to mean. Another massacre? Sure.

In an interview, Sullivan, listed a few recommendations going forward: “Now, we have said all along that Israel should be operating in a way, not just consistent with the laws of war, but taking extra precautions to try to protect civilians. We have spoken about where we would like to see them operate differently, where we would like them to be more precise, more targeted in their operations.”

The White House has stated hundreds of times that it “expects” or “urges” or “hopes” Israel would be more careful about civilians. That’s why, for the Rafah massacre, Israel used a teeny-tiny bomb and took great care to avoid civilian casualties. They failed.

Why? Because the teeny-tiny bomb, “the smallest munitions our planes can use” – with just 37 pounds of explosives – was housed in a

What he didn’t mention is that those explosives are housed in a 250-pound bomb that is 6 feet long, with a 7.5-inch diameter. Its wingspan, when the wings are extended, is over 5 feet. That’s why, in addition to killing several alleged Hamas members, it also incinerated at least 45 people, mostly women and children.

All this to say, the US can make suggestions till the genocide is complete, and Israel will do whatever it wants to do. Suggestions are pointless. Suggestions make the US complicit in genocide.

The Biden administration has all kinds of potential leverage available to make Israel compliant. We provide billions of dollars in military aid to and for Israel, We could simply tell Israel the gravy train ends with the next massacre. It’s not rocket science.

But President Biden seems to be unaware that Palestinians are human beings. Recall that on Day One Hundred of this accursed war, he didn’t even mention them.

The American people have much more love and compassion than our elected “representatives.” Biden can’t ignore all of us…can he?

As I recently wrote, I have for the time being washed my hands of Christians who refuse to engage with the issue of Palestine, and for now (at least until the end of this horrific war) I will be writing about the significance of what is going on “over there” from a global and historic perspective.

I’m here for anyone who cares to have an intelligent conversation about reality, instead of living in a silo of confirmation bias.

I invite you to subscribe to my newsletter. I write about the Palestine-Israel issue regularly, and other issues relevant to progressives or those considering becoming progressive. If you would like to comment on this post, please pop over to my Facebook page. All of my posts are there and open to constructive comment. I welcome your thoughts.

I also commend to you If Americans Knew (full disclosure: I am a writer and editor there), where you can get factual reporting on the Palestine-Israel issue. I can personally vouch for its accuracy.

If you are interested, here are some of my earlier posts on the Palestine issue:

Further reading on the Palestine-Israel issue:

Posts about my Gazan family (in chronological order):

FEATURED IMAGE: by Shubham Dhage, via Unsplash

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About Kathryn Shihadah

I was raised as a conservative Christian, and was perfectly content to stay that way – until the day my stable, predictable world was rocked. A curtain was pulled back on conservative Christianity, and instead of ignoring the ugliness I saw, I confronted it. I began to ask questions I never thought I’d ask, and found answers I’d never expected. Old things began to fall away, and – behold! – the new me has come. What a gift to be a new, still-evolving creation. I found out that it’s better to look at the world through Progressive Lenses, with Grace-Colored Glasses. You can read more about the author here.

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