Thursday, October 19: "The Other Team"
Biden's visit to apartheid Israel goes exactly as expected
What’s the proper etiquette for meeting with a murderous foreign leader?
I suppose given the way the US has responded to the genocide in Gaza over the past week and a half, it’s only slightly disturbing to see president Joseph Robinette Biden smiling and shaking hands with the leader of an apartheid state in the midst of an ethnic cleansing campaign.
Tuesday’s bombing of Al Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza (digital investigation linked for those still confused) has quickly devolved into a finger-pointing mess of a blame game. We’ve got overnight munitions experts declaring with certainty that the explosion couldn’t have been Israel because of the blast radius on blurry satellite images. We’re essentially dealing with a war crime the same way comedian Tim Robinson approaches crashing a hot dog car into a clothing store. “We’re all trying to find the guy who did this.” Meanwhile, as the apartheid regime in Israel continues to feign innocence, and as the world debates whether or not the same heartless perpetrators could’ve conducted this particular airstrike, the bloodthirsty Israeli military has already moved on to the next set of war crimes they intend to commit.
When journalists choose to actively ignore all available evidence, including genocidal intent, firepower, and even eyewitnesses, they're no longer acting in a journalistic capacity. So much of western coverage over the past week and a half is simply media outlets offering rhetorical cover and justification for the perpetrator. Why bother even pretending to be journalists when we can just cut out the middle man and go directly to the Israeli military for their statements?
Israel has dropped thousands of bombs on Gaza, including on the very routes they advertised as safe corridors to many Gazans. Earlier this week, Amnesty International verified 6 videos of an attack on 13 October 2023, resulting in dozens of civilian casualties along Salah-Al Deen street, a route the Israeli military had previously publicized as safe for Gazan civilians to flee after an Israeli ‘order’ told them to leave northern areas. They dropped leaflets telling Palestinians to evacuate using specific routes, then the proceeded to bomb those same routes. The list of warcrimes is long and brutal, and truly there is no depth to which the apartheid regime won’t stoop.
Upon his arrival to apartheid Israel, Joe Biden’s comments to Israeli prime minister Benny Netanyahu yesterday were that, “based on what I’ve seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you.” Even for a demented old bag of bones like Biden, that statement speaks volumes of his view that this genocide is a two-sided affair. But looking deeper into Biden's referring to Palestinians as "the other team" and you see it does several things at once: it renders the innocent people in Gaza anonymous, it flattens them into an estranged, opposed adversary of equal power, and most importantly, it reaffirms his undying support for a genocidal regime in just three words.
Meanwhile, the focus of American politicians at home remains clear. Marco Rubio and several other idiots have proposed legislation allowing deportation and cancelling of visas of people deemed to be “Hamas supporters”. Given that “Hamas supporter” has been broadly defined as anyone sympathetic to the cause of Palestinian liberation, the purpose of such legislation is clear. Those in power want full control over where our sympathies lie, especially if those sympathies dare extend to innocent children and civilians in Gaza.
The US vetoed a UN Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire yesterday. America’s political leaders continue to endorse and facilitate genocidal warfare, making a global mockery of themselves in the process. Far be it from the first such resolution, there have been more than 50 vetoes by the US providing apartheid Israel with impunity and sabotaging any international efforts aimed at ending Israel’s subjugation and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
US academic institutions have also had a swift and harsh response to students expressing solidarity with the Palestinian struggle. Last week I mentioned students at Harvard being intimidated and called “anti-Semites” for refusing to stand by silently as Gaza was destroyed. Countless stories have emerged since then of students across the country having job offers rescinded or having their personal information leaked and being labeled as terrorist sympathizers. If you live in America and can’t say the words “Free Palestine” without fear of losing your job or being doxxed, congratulations, you’re imprisoned too! Let that knowledge radicalize you.
If you’re still wondering what true solidarity looks like, ask the thousands of Palestinians taking to the streets every single day to demand an end to the genocide. Ask the hundreds of American Jews who occupied the halls of congress yesterday, risking arrest to demand an immediate ceasefire from our cowardly public servants. Ask Josh Paul, a state department employee that approves arms sales who resigned yesterday in objection to the American contribution to the ongoing genocide. In Paul’s own words:
"We cannot be both against occupation and for it. We cannot be both for freedom and against it. And we cannot be for a better world, while contributing to one that is materially worse."
This is solidarity. Putting your conscience before your career aspirations, making your objections loud and clear, even risking your own freedom and livelihood to ensure that the message is getting across. Educating ourselves is a crucial first step in establishing solidarity, but it’s only the first step. The Palestinian people aren’t simply victims in need of our aid, they are an occupied populace desperately in need of freedom. All around the world, from Greece to Colombia to Morocco and beyond, there is a multi-ethnic, international mass movement calling for their liberation. There is no such movement or rally in support of the genocidal regime in apartheid Israel. Solidarity is an act of courage, silence and complicity are a crime.