Biden, Harris Commend Nasrallah Assassination

DONATE: This is a time of crisis. A time of murder and genocide. There are voices raised among against these crimes against humanity. I raise up my voice, a passionate voice to defend decency and human rights in the face of unspeakable horror. If you value that voice…if you value Jews who stand against the slaughter, please DONATE to support this mission.

Yesterday, Kamala Harris and Pres. Joe Biden released statements endorsing the assassination of Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah.  They were a shameful bit of pandering to Israel and its murderous operation which destroyed four neighboring high-rise apartment buildings and murdered 300 civilians.

Neither statement mentioned the enormous death toll. Under international law this was clearly a war crime.  Yet for the president and potential future president, they were commendable.

Let’s start with the title of Harris’ message, “Statement by Vice President Harris on the Death of Hassan Nasrallah.” Death??  Try murder. Try assassination. This is an attempt to obfuscate, to obscure Israel’s murder of a foreign leader. The most important political (and military) leader in Lebanon and one of the most revered in the entire Middle East.  How would the US react if a US Catholic cardinal or prominent rabbi was killed by such a bomb? Yet these hypocrites use mendacious language to obscure an act which would be illegal under US law if Biden committed it.

• Save

She continues:

Hassan Nasrallah was a terrorist with American blood on his hands. Across decades, his leadership of Hezbollah destabilized the Middle East and led to the killing of countless innocent people in Lebanon, Israel, Syria, and around the world. Today, Hezbollah’s victims have a measure of justice.

I have an unwavering commitment to the security of Israel. I will always support Israel’s right to defend itself against Iran and Iran-backed terrorist groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis.

Nasrallah “destabilized the Middle East?” Who killed more people than Nasrallah? Only one country: Israel.  Who killed more “innocent people in Lebanon and Syria?” Israel.

And “justice?”  What sort of justice has Israel done to Gaza, where it has murdered at least 42,000 and possibly as many as 335,000 Palestinians?  What sort of justice has it done in Lebanon where it has murdered 2,000 Lebanese civilians in a week, while it only killed 1,100 in 34 days of war in 2006?  Whose justice are we talking about?  Israeli justice?  What an oxymoron! The justice of the tyrants? The justice of the thugs in uniform? The justice of state terrorists? What sort of justice is that?

What’s even more insulting–after offering fulsome praise for death, they say they remain committed to a peaceful resolution of the conflicts in Lebanon and Gaza:

President Biden and I do not want to see conflict in the Middle East escalate into a broader regional war. We have been working on a diplomatic solution along the Israel-Lebanon border so that people can safely return home on both sides of that border. Diplomacy remains the best path forward to protect civilians and achieve lasting stability in the region.

Biden added:

It is time for these deals to close, for the threats to Israel to be removed, and for the broader Middle East region to gain greater stability.

• Save

How does the region “gain greater stability?”  By Israel, armed to the teeth with US weapons, throwing everything in its arsenal against its enemies except nuclear weapons? How does it gain stability by provoking precisely the regional war it claims it wants so desperately to avoid?

Bibi itching for war on Iran

Anyone with eyes in their head sees what Netanyahu wants.  Not just war against Hamas and Hezbollah. But against Iran as well.  He wants Iran to launch missiles at Israel. He wants Iran to justify Israel unleashing its full might to attack Iran.  He lusts after Israeli warplanes striking scores of sites there, including nuclear facilities and military bases.  He lusts for regional war. He lusts for vengeance, for enemies on whom to wreak havoc. How does that square with gaining regional stability?

Previous presidents, Obama and Bush, prevented Netanyahu (and Olmert) from attacking Iran, though the Israelis desperately wanted to.  They, Republican and Democratic presidents, understood what that would mean.  They said No.  Biden knows what it means too, regardless of what he says.  Yet he not only will do nothing to stop it–he will provide the weapons to do it: the bunker buster bombs, the warplanes, the refueling tankers.  All US-made.

If Biden-Harris don’t want war why have they sent $80-billion in armaments to Israel?  Why have they provided the lethal tools enabling genocide?  How do you make peace through war?  How do you stop killing by killing?  This is disingenousness of the worst degree.  It is built on lies. Lies to themselves, which they know to be lies. And lies to the American people whom they hope will believe them.  It is shameful.

Biden doubles down on our odious support of Israel by mobilizing a full range of American might on its behalf:

I directed my Secretary of Defense to further enhance the defense posture of U.S. military forces in the Middle East region to deter aggression and reduce the risk of a broader regional war.

Imagine, if instead of joining with our British ally during WWII to fight Nazism, we had sent an armada to threaten any country fighting against Hitler.  This is what Biden has done.  The only difference between Israel and Hitler is a matter of degree. And if it remains unchecked, who knows?

For over a year his administration has offered multiple ceasefire proposals which Israel summarily rejects. Yet the administration offers no response other than to say they are “disappointed” and “frustrated.”  What a sob story.  Last week, they also believed they had Israel’s commitment to a Lebanon ceasefire and…wait for it…Israel rejected it.  That same day it assassinated Nasrallah.

Biden’s statement offered an account of the history of the conflict omitting critical context:

The strike that killed Nasrallah took place in the broader context of the conflict that began with Hamas’s massacre on October 7, 2023. Nasrallah, the next day, made the fateful decision to join hands with Hamas and open what he called a “northern front” against Israel.

A truly broader context would encompass 75 years of Israeli wars of aggression against their neighbors beginning in 1948 and continuing to today.  It would encompass Israeli oppression of Palestinians including the Nakba, 60 years of Occupation of Palestine, and years of desecration of Islam’s holy places in Jerusalem.  It would encompass the genocide against the Palestinian people by Israel over many decades.  10/7 did not spring up ex nihilo.  It happened because of the mass violence which preceded it.

Nasrallah engaged in legitimate armed resistance against Israel’s crimes. Without them, there would be no Hamas, no Hezbollah, no Nasrallah.

America: arms merchant to the world

Despite Israeli lies and deception, despite Israeli war crimes, despite its refusal to end its genocide, the US does nothing. Even worse, it supplies the 2,000 lb. JDAM bunker buster bombs which murdered Nasrallah.  These are among the most lethal in the US arsenal, as you can see from the deep crater the US-made bomb made.  These munitions do not explode when they contact the ground. They burrow into the ground and then explode once they have reached their depth: scores or hundreds of feet underground.

This is the sort of weapons engineering we offer the world. We’ve given it to the Israelis without any controls or constraints. Despite claiming the Israelis are using them in accordance with US law.  Even more insulting is that while the Leahy Law exists to prohibit US military aid to regimes violating human rights law, we mendaciously claim Israel is acting in accord with such protections.  In doing so, we ignore the ICJ rulings that Israel is engaged in genocide and ICC decision to seek arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant.

US policy makes a mockery of our own laws and international law.  We are arming a regime engaged in genocide.  Imagine for a moment if Adolf Hitler exterminated European Jewry and we provided him the weapons to do so.  How would the world react?  Would they put Biden and Harris in the dock at Nuremberg and sentence them to death or life imprisonment?  They would have been justified to do so.

But what will happen in this case?  Biden will end his presidency on January 20th with “honor” and Harris may be inaugurated as next president.  Both will get a reward for this unconscionable policy.

• Save

American genocide

I am ashamed both as a Jew and American that my country is debasing humanity.  The US has done so before, committing genocide against Native Americans and enslaving African-Americans for a century or more.  We have committed genocide in multiple foreign countries such as the Phillipines, Vietnam and Iraq.  Today, we are accessory to yet another genocide.  It sickens me.

Perhaps the worst thing about all this, is that Biden and Harris ignore the overwhelming consensus among Americans that we should stop arms shipments to Israel and that we should demand an Israeli ceasefire.  A plurality of Americans also agree Israel is committing genocide.  Characteristically, politicians listen to the voice of the people and adapt their positions and policies to it.  In this case, they are deliberately ignoring the will of most Americans.

There can be only one reason: they are frightened at the prospect of bucking the Israel Lobby and its billionaire donors.  Pro Israel donors are the backbone of support for Democrats.  Without them, candidates from the president on down the line could not fund their campaigns.  Secondarily, Democrats remain frightened that acting tough against Israel will give MAGA Republicans a cudgel with which to beat them on the campaign trail.

Leaders are supposed to lead. They are supposed to do what the people say. Sometimes, if they have a conscience, doing what they know is right.  They are not supposed to cower in the face of opposition.  Instead our putative leaders do precisely that.

Democrats do not deserve our support.  They do not earn it. They shun our views. They cravenly bend the knee to right-wing pro-Israel billionaires.  I will not vote for any Democrats who do not support ending arms shipments to Israel and an immediate ceasefire.  My conscience permits nothing less.