The anniversary of the October 7 attack on Israel is rapidly approaching, so this seems an appropriate time to take stock of what, if anything, has changed in the never-ending Mideast horror show. The answer, unfortunately, is not much.
After October 7, there was a rightful condemnation of Hamas for the savagery and scale of its attacks on Israel citizens, and for the taking of Israeli hostages. Some 1,200 Israelis were killed, and around 250 were taken hostage. While some Arab and Muslim-majority countries (and some American college students) blamed Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories as the root cause of the attack, most global observers described the Hamas attack as terrorism.
Almost immediately, though, Israel returned to the lopsided violence it has displayed from the time of the Nakba. Roughly 41,000 Palestinians have been killed to date, of whom nearly 18,000 were women and children. The actual number is probably higher. These people, mostly innocent civilians, were not just killed, they were killed with a vengeance—2,000-lb. bombs dropped on hospitals and shelters, in a campaign of indiscriminate destruction which has virtually leveled the entire Gazan infrastructure. And now the contagion of Israeli violence has spread to the West Bank, where “settlers” are murdering Palestinians with impunity. It is an old, old story: brutal force prevails. And it is a story in which Americans are strongly complicit.
(Americans, so far, have not been identified as complicit in the exploding pagers incident in Lebanon, a particularly sadistic example of Israeli belligerence.)
There is little doubt that Benjamin Netanyahu and his corrupt, right-wing government are guilty of numerous war crimes. Netanyahu is widely viewed as perpetuating the “war” (an inappropriate term for such a one-sided conflict) to avoid criminal prosecution, with no regard for Israeli hostages (or humanity in general) whatsoever. Regular Israeli citizens have repeatedly protested his government’s actions, to no avail. Netanyahu is doing what he is doing with American-supplied materiel and support, but this is not the only instance of the sick relationship between the two countries.
It is sickening to see Secretary of State Antony Blinken shuffling ineffectually back and forth, mouthing pieties about Israel’s right to self-defense and gently tapping Netanyahu’s wrist for various atrocities. It is sickening to see the elderly President Biden refusing to modify his support of Israel or significantly modify the American flow of weapons to the country, despite growing evidence of genocide in Gaza. And it is sickening to watch U.S. college students being arrested and punished for calling attention to that same genocide.
The U.S. presidential election occurs not long after the Oct. 7 anniversary. A Trump victory would only solidify America’s blind support of Israel. A Harris victory, though, might just tilt the relationship ever so slightly in the direction of justice.
The ultimate goal, as so many have said forever, is a two-state solution, where both nations are free and equal and Israel is no longer an apartheid state and an oppressor. That is the only way that Israel will ever be truly secure. This dream scenario seems as distant as ever, though. But that’s no reason why a new American president can’t nudge things toward the goal, by taking a firmer diplomatic stance with Israel and implementing a more rational policy of support, one which hinges on Israeli behavior.
Thank you so much for your clear-headed assessment of a most difficult and deeply complicated matter.