Joe Biden

A long read in which I highlight the profound and consequential differences between those who see the events of October 7, 2023 as having occurred in a vacuum, and who seek to justify their extraordinarily murderous response as some sort of necessity borne of their perceived “exceptionalism”, and those who, in contrast, correctly understand that the events of October 7, however horrendous, were part of a 57-year history of, on the one hand, occupation, oppression, apartheid, murder and brutal arbitrary imprisonment, and, on the other, the resistance to it, and that nothing can justify an open-ended military response of such severity, and involving the indiscriminate slaughter of so many civilians that it not only invites comparisons with the most brutal regimes in history; it also threatens to fatally undermine the international “rules-based order” established in the wake of the Second World War to try to prevent such atrocities from ever taking place again. In an attempt to understand the position taken by those who are trapped in a bubble of exterminating fury focused on the events of October 7, I draw on a recent and revelatory article by the renowned scholar Omer Bartov, written after a recent and disturbing visit to his home country, and I also seek to understand the position taken by most of the leaders of the west, whose unquestioning support for this unending aggression makes a mockery of their claims to hold any kind of moral high ground, has led to the disturbing and unprecedented suppression of internal dissent, and also threatens, eventually, to lead to them being held complicit in the grave crimes that have been taking place over the last ten and a half months.

My latest long read about Israel’s seemingly unstoppable genocide in Gaza, as displaced civilians are bombed and burnt alive in makeshift tents in Rafah, in an area they were told was a “safe zone,” in which I revisit the lies told by Israel and its western backers in an attempt to justify its actions, and provide a summary of the almost innumerable ways in which, in contrast, Israel, with western support, has, completely unjustifiably, murdered 40,000 civilians and destroyed almost the whole of the Gaza Strip. I also examine the efforts to hold Israel accountable through the UN Security Council and the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which, on May 24, delivered its third, and most strongly worded ruling this year, but I note how the UN is hobbled by the veto wielded by the five permanent members of the Security Council, including, most notably, the US, and how, problematically, the court has no enforcement mechanism. I also examine the recent, and unexpected announcement by Karim Khan, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), that he intends to issue arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, as well as three Hamas leaders, and conclude that international humanitarian law, established after the Second World War, is now being tested as never before, as those who set it up, and, crucially, included Israel in its group of ‘western’ countries who never thought that the rules would apply to them, are now exposing their colonial supremacist mindset more shockingly than ever before, defending and supporting the most barbaric and inexcusable genocide on behalf of another country, which, they believe, should be above the law. My hope, in conclusion, is that, because so many people are so implacably opposed to allowing Israel’s crimes to go unpunished, Israel itself, and the countries that support it, led by the US, can no longer get away with putting Israel’s demands — reinforced through powerful lobbying groups — before their own citizens’ wishes, and that meaningful change, via the collapse of Zionism, the liberation of Palestine, and the collapse of the western power structures that prioritize Israel over themselves, will have to prevail.

My unapologetic condemnation of the Biden administration for stopping the release from Guantánamo, in October, of eleven men who have long been approved for release. The men were supposed to be resettled in Oman, but the deal was pulled at the last minute, as a result of what NBC News, which broke the story, based on the accounts of four administration officials, called the “political optics after Hamas’ attack on Israel.” These men, all Yemenis, who were unanimously approved for release by high-level US government review processes between 607 and 1,301 days ago — and, in one case, 5,234 days ago — cannot even challenge the outrageous politicized decision to cancel their release, because the decisions taken to free them in the first place were purely administrative, meaning that they are completely outside the US legal system. With no ability to ask a judge to order their release, these men, held for the most part for over 20 years without charge or trial, have no idea if they will ever be freed, as that decision is dependant on the whims of two men in particular — President Biden and Antony Blinken — who wield absolutely power over their lives, just as George W. Bush did when he first opened Guantánamo over 22 years ago.

My response to today’s major victory for Julian Assange in his five-year struggle to prevent his extradition to the US to face espionage charges relating to the publication by WikiLeaks, in 2010 and 2011, of classified US files leaked by Chelsea Manning. In the UK High Court, judges allowed him to appeal on the basis of his right not to be prejudiced against because of his nationality (he is an Australian citizen), and his entitlement to the protections of the US First Amendment. On this latter point, the US government refused to provide adequate assurances that he would be entitled to First Amendment Rights, even though they guarantee freedom of speech and freedom of the press. The decision highlights the US government’s shameful efforts to portray Assange as someone other than a journalist and publisher whose publication of files leaked by Chelsea Manning took place alongside some of the world’s most significant newspapers. It is shameful that only Julian Assange has been singled out for punishment, and even more shameful that the Biden administration failed to drop the extradition request, initiated by Donald Trump, despite its devious and unacceptable efforts not only to prevent Assange from having the protection of the First Amendment, but also to portray him as some kind of terrorist.

In my latest article about Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, I reflect on the latest death toll and the scale of the destruction, and invite western readers to reflect on what this scale of death and destruction would mean if over 100,000 bombs had been dropped on comparable areas in the west — half of New York, or a quarter of London — in a seven-month period. I also examine the ceasefire proposal recently agreed to by Hamas, but turned down by Israel, and assess Benjamin Netanyahu’s obsession with invading Rafah as the continuation of what has now become Israel’s sole purpose: the continued eradication of the whole of the Gaza Strip, and the murder of as many Palestinians as possible. I also look at the few hopeful signs that an end could possibly be in sight — increasing anger within Israel that the hostages in Gaza are being sacrificed for Netanyahu’s quenchless thirst for genocide, alarm in military circles in both Israel and the US about the risks of Israel’s actions in Gaza turning into an endless, pointless quagmire, alarm within the Democratic Party that they will lose to Donald Trump in November unless the conflict is brought to an end, and the emerging awareness of what “the day after” would mean in practice — reconstruction efforts that, as the UN Development Programme has estimated, will take until 2040 and cost at least $40bn (£32bn), even if an end to hostilities takes place soon. The alternative, as I point out, is the completely unacceptable realization of the darkest wish of Netanyahu and his ministers — a truly alarming “forever genocide.”

In my latest article about Israel’s genocide in Gaza, I provide a re-cap on the last seven months of horror in Gaza, in which over 42,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have been murdered by Israel. I also condemn the Israeli regime and the western governments providing unconditional support, but note how unparalleled numbers of people have switched off from largely uncritical mainstream media (with the brave exception of Al Jazeera), and are refusing to conform, through their engagement with what, globally, must be the largest protest movement in human history. I also celebrate the student protests on US campuses, deplore the violent response by many university administrators and the police, and express my hope that, not only will the protests continue, but that students’ call for their universities to divest from organizations complicit in Israel’s genocide will expand to recognize that the genocidal war machine is just part of the capitalist death cult of the third decade of the 21st century, and that what is also needed is wholesale divestment from every aspect of this sick system, which is not only erasing Gaza, but is also committed to making the prospect of life on earth untenable for all of us.

In my latest article about Israel’s genocide in Gaza, I examine a little-discussed aspect of Israel’s actions — the lack of an exit strategy. With no prospect of any other countries accepting the population of the Gaza Strip as refugees, I conclude that Israel’s genocidal actions are actually a “final solution” to the Palestinian “problem”, and that President Biden, who leads the west’s largely unconditional support for Israel, also endorses this approach. Criticizing western leaders for the emptiness of their support of Israel’s “right to defend itself”, I also condemn their refusal to recognize that Israel’s two stated aims — to “destroy” Hamas and to free the hostages seized on October 7 — are either unworkable or self-defeating, and conclude my analysis by comparing how the west’s position on Israel is as dangerous and irresponsible as its failure to take climate collapse seriously, and warn that, by allowing Israel to so blatantly shred international humanitarian law, and by using fake antisemitism claims to suppress dissent and to further stifle protest, they are ensuring that, not only is nowhere in Gaza safe, but nowhere in the west is safe either — not from any external “terrorist” threat, but from our own governments.

In my latest article about Israel’s still-ongoing genocide in Gaza, I reflect on the latest death toll of 41,496 Palestinians, compiled by Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, which also indicates that 90% of those killed were civilians, and discuss the latest investigation by +972 Magazine, exposing the existence of an AI program, codenamed “Lavender,” which auto-generated bombing targets with little or no human oversight, contributing immensely to the devastating civilian death toll. I note, however, that the existence of the AI program shouldn’t distract us from the reality that Israel’s aim has always been genocide, as evidenced by bombing raids in which no military target is discernible, through the complete destruction of Gaza’s entire infrastructure, its war on hospitals, its summary executions and enforced disappearances, its incessant use of snipers and quadcopters (often deliberately targeting children), and its use of starvation. I end by noting that unconditional western support for Israel finally seems to be waning, particularly as a result of outrage generated by the killing of six western aid workers (and a Palestinian), which, of course, only demonstrates a fundamental racism in the west. Despite the hypocrisy, however, I conclude that it is worth exerting as much pressure as possible on western politicians and the media to permanently shift their positions and to begin the necessary moves towards finally ending Israel’s 76-year impunity, and, by whatever means, ending its current, and unprecedented genocidal slaughter.

My latest article about Israel’s genocide in Gaza follows the most recent report, by the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, that over 40,000 people (mostly civilians) have now been killed by Israel over the last five months. I discuss the latest horrors to be inflicted on the trapped Palestinians of Gaza — deliberate starvation — and assess how, despite so much unconditional support for Israel in the west, an untold number of people are waking up to the fact that Israel is the last European colonial settler project, and that the brutality of the Israelis, their belief in themselves as the “chosen people”, and their horrendous dehumanization of the Palestinians, is all part of the same colonial template that western countries undertook for many centuries, and which in some cases (including the UK and France) involved their engagement in unspeakable brutality as recently as the 1950s, and into the 1960s. With western countries still engaged in desperate attempts to stifle all criticism of Israel, I conclude with a hope that an end to this horrific situation is in sight, that Gaza will be rebuilt and Palestinians given autonomy, that Israel will collapse, and that everyone who has supported this genocide in any way will be permanently ostracized.

Two weeks into Israel’s relentless bombing of Gaza, as the death toll reaches 5,926, including 2,450 children, I discuss ongoing western complicity, focusing on President Biden’s visit to Israel last week, his hypocrisy, his rambling and often contradictory speech, and his absurd claim that Hamas’s attacks on October 17 were not only Israel’s equivalent of the 9/11 attacks, but, “for a nation the size of Israel, it was like 15 9/11s.” Making a comparable assessment, I explain how, for the people of Gaza, their deaths to date are equivalent to 285 9/11s. I also discuss “administrative detention” in Israel, comparable to indefinite imprisonment without charge or trial at Guantánamo, and also reflect on how a Guantánamo analogy can be made regarding the 2.3 million inhabitants of the Gaza Strip, which is an open air prison, and where those held are all regarded as guilty of Hamas’s crimes, according to Israel’s President, Isaac Herzog. Finally, I look at the growing body of evidence that Israel’s attacks on Gaza constitute genocide, with particular reference to a UN report last week, in which nine Special Rapporteurs stated “There is an ongoing campaign by Israel resulting in crimes against humanity in Gaza”, and adding that “there is also a risk of genocide against the Palestinian People.”