ON 7 October 2023, a total of 1,100 Israelis died and 250 were kidnapped. In retaliation, the Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar, Hezbollah chief Hasan Nasrullah and thousands of Hezbollah fighters were killed by October 2024. Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu had all out American support for his ethnic cleansing campaign that has led to 47,000 dead in Gaza. The American Secretary of State Antony Blinken unsuccessfully tried hard to convince Egypt to take in the residents of Gaza and Jordan to take in the residents of the West Bank. Territorial expansion which culminates in “Greater Israel” remains the central ideological goal of Netanyahu’s Likud political party, which has dominated Israeli politics since 1977. It had a law, passed in 2018, promoting and legitimizing Jewish settlement in the West Bank. Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich claimed in 2019 that Israel would eventually include Palestinian territories as well as parts of Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Syria and Iraq.
Netanyahu has been working on this goal since 1991 with the first Gulf War. The brainchild behind the US wars on Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia and Sudan was the Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. The plan made in 2001 was complete except for Iran. Netanyahu publicly took credit for the fall of Syria, and Israel immediately seized Syrian territory. The Eastern Mediterranean offshore from Gaza in Palestine and Haifa in Israel, has undiscovered oil. Gaza is estimated to hold one trillion cubic feet of gas but the 2.5 million residents of Gaza stand in the way. The Israeli lobby controls the American propaganda machine. Israel has additionally enmeshed itself with the US academia, US police and the tech giants.
When Palestinian citizen journalists live streamed the genocide, mass protests erupted across western capitals. Sit-in protests broke out in US campuses, which led to Ivy League schools divesting from Israeli universities. The United Nations saw many resolutions put forward to stop the war, but every single one was vetoed by the US. Then came the genocide case by South Africa at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against Israel. Finally the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant.
Israel under Netanyahu remained unfazed. A complicated mix of religious zeal and economic interest makes the US support Israel. In 1909, early Zionists peddled the Scofield Bible, which taught that only the establishment of the state of Israel can usher in the second coming of Jesus Christ (PBUH). Using public radio and eventually tele-evangelism, they made Zionists out of Americans. Christian Zionists include American presidents such as Truman, Johnson, Reagan, George W. Bush and Biden. Israel, despite being a secular state, benefits from this religious zeal. However, every American President supports Israel because the Israel lobby in the US uses its money to make sure that Capitol Hill is occupied only by Israel supporters.
The US’s geo-economic interest also matters. The Abraham Accords under POTUS Trump normalized Israel’s relations with Bahrain, Morocco and the UAE in 2020. Saudi Arabia was to follow suit by 2023. The reason was the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) inaugurated at the G-7 summit in India, in September 2023. The IMEC links India, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Israel to Europe. It is an alternative to existing maritime and land-based transport routes, such as the Egyptian Suez Canal, China’s BRI and the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC). Europe carries the guilt of the holocaust. To make amends, Germany established the military industrial complex of Israel, buys Israeli weaponry and extends unconditional diplomatic support to Israel, be it the UN or the ICJ. Germany has criminalized any solidarity with the Palestinian people. Israel uses the occupied Palestinian territories as a testing ground for weaponry and surveillance technology. Then it sells it as “battle tested.”
Israel sold weapons to despots in Romania, Chile, Nicaragua, Guatemala, South Africa, South Sudan etc. Israeli spyware and surveillance technology is used by Rwanda, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, UAE and India. Israel is hence a valuable ally to many foreign governments, and, therefore above reproach. The $500 billion strong Israeli economy’s mainstay is the tech sector and the defence sector. Both sectors have taken a massive hit during 2024. About half a million teachers, doctors, tech professionals and other educated professionals have fled.
Israeli society has dehumanized Palestinians. It celebrates civilian Palestinian deaths. American Jews — especially those under under 40 — are turning against Israel due to the occupation and genocide. They held many public protests. Potus Trump forced Netanyahu’s hand on a ceasefire and he has said: “It is not our war, it is their war.” Although everyone doubts that the ceasefire would hold, Trump’s statement hints at the much needed military embargo, which will ensure peace.
—The writer contributes regularly to the national press.
