Tens of thousands of people continue protesting worldwide against the Zionist State of Israel and its chief benefactor the United States in what is widely seen as aiding and abetting war crimes, including ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Palestinian people.
Anti-war, anti-Zionist groups, student organizations and concerned persons across the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Africa are objecting to Israel’s ongoing bombing and killing of Palestinians since war broke out in early October. There were mass demonstrations at the White House, at U.S. and Israeli embassies worldwide, and there are planned protests over the weeks to come. What is manifesting is an intensifying universal cry for justice, say activists and change agents.
“As the continued crimes of Israel are laid bare for all to see, the outrage is increasing,” said Muhammad Sankari of the U.S. Palestinian Community Network-Chicago (UPCN-C) in a telephone interview with The Final Call. UPCN-C has held several protests in Chicago since the war started.
“As the United States and the Western world continue to greenlight these crimes, and in fact, fund them, and arm them, and make them possible, instead of calling it what it is—the righteous anger of people is increasing,” he added.
›With the diversity of voices pushing back against Washington and Tel Aviv, people are raising the same demands that not only is it “Israeli war crimes,” but “joint American and Israeli war crimes” against the Palestinian people.
“I think that’s kind of what we’re understanding in these massive demonstrations,” said Mr. Sankari.
His organization the UPCN-C demands the U.S. stop facilitating what they view as Israeli war crimes. With an annual $3.8 billion subsidy bag provided through 2028, signed by former President Barack Obama, America underwrites Israel’s systemic oppression of Palestinians, critics argue.
This money is separate from the added costs of munitions, sending and maintaining two Naval carriers, replete with aircraft and multiple thousands of soldiers in the eastern Mediterranean Sea.
In addition, after President Biden’s seven-in-a-half hour visit to Israel on Oct. 18, he increased Washington’s support by requesting Congress authorize $14.3 billion in additional aid for Israel. The funding would go almost entirely toward defense contracts and facilitating the transfer of weapons and ammunition to the occupier state from U.S. stockpiles.
The amount is part of a $105 billion package that included $61.4 billion to Ukraine, $13.6 billion for U.S. southern border security, and $7.4 billion for Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific. A $9.15 billion portion of humanitarian aid includes assistance for Palestinian, Israeli and Ukrainian civilians impacted by the wars.
The White House did not provide a breakdown of who gets what, although Mr. Biden in a foreign policy speech to the nation on Oct. 19, mentioned $100 million for Gaza and the West Bank.
‘This is nothing less than genocide’ ‘An enabler of genocide’
While the loss of innocent Israeli and Palestinian life is tragic and horrific, some observers and analysts call what Israel, backed by America is doing to Palestinians in the name of “erasing” the Palestinian resistance is genocide, according to the Geneva Convention.
The Convention defines genocide as committing the following acts with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group:
(a) Killing members of the group.
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group.
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated
to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
The Zionist State has been shelling Gaza nonstop and in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem there is an increase in Israeli settler anti-Palestinian violence, arrests and repression with at least 81 deaths. At presstime, Israel was still threatening a ground offensive in Gaza that human rights advocates argue will add to an already grim humanitarian situation.
Casualty figures as of Oct. 20 showed that since Oct. 7, more than 4,000 Palestinians were killed and over 13,000 injured, and of Israelis, over 1,400 were killed with 4,629 injured, according to an Aljazeera daily tracker.
Considering the “unwavering” support of Israel by the U.S., Britain, and others, the question some critics and observers are asking is, are they also culpable or criminals for aiding and abetting genocide?
“There’s really no other way to put it,” argued Mr. Sankari, speaking about the U.S.. “This country is the enabler of genocide,” he said.
This war is the latest crisis of 75 years of Israeli aggression, colonial occupation, and ethnic marginalization of the Palestinian people. It began with an unprecedented surprise attack on illegal Jewish settlements by the Palestinian resistance—Hamas on Oct. 7.
Since then, Israel has implemented a “prefer damage over precision” campaign on Gaza. Under the guise of destroying Hamas, and contrary to international humanitarian law, Israel blocked electricity, fuel, water, medicine and food supplies to 2.3 million Palestinians. This while unceasingly bombing homes, whole neighborhoods, hospitals, schools, mosques and churches—where people sought protection.
On Oct. 19 Israeli destruction rained on a Greek Orthodox church compound. Authorities said 18 people were killed at the Saint Porphyrius Church, the oldest church still in use in Gaza City—where an estimated 1,000 Christians live. The Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem condemned the Israeli airstrike that struck its church compound as a war crime.
“Targeting churches and their institutions, along with the shelters they provide to protect innocent citizens, especially children and women … constitutes a war crime that cannot be ignored,” said the Patriarchate in an Oct. 19 statement.
“People there—Muslims and Christians—they thought they’d be safe inside the [church] building,” Father Issa Musleh of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in Bethlehem told Al Jazeera. “Because it’s a church, they didn’t think it would be bombed by Israel.”
In another blast, mutual blame-shifting occurred between Israel and Palestinian resistance fighters over the Oct. 18 bombing of AL-Ahli Baptist Hospital, with Israel denying responsibility and blaming the Palestinian Islamic Jihad for rocket misfire. The group denies any involvement. The blast killed more than 500 people and sparked worldwide protests.
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said on X, formerly known as Twitter, that it was horrified by the bombing of the hospital where they were treating patients and displaced Gazans were sheltered. They called it a massacre and absolutely unacceptable.
“We were operating in the hospital, there was a strong explosion, and the ceiling fell on the operating room. This is a massacre,” says Dr. Ghassan Abu Sittah, MSF doctor in Gaza.
“Nothing justifies this shocking attack on a hospital and its many patients and health workers, as well as the people who sought shelter there. Hospitals are not a target. This bloodshed must stop,” he said. “Enough is enough.”
U.S. and Israel’s ‘unholy alliance’
For America to remain “ironclad” with the actions of the Zionist State further adds to her own trouble. Before the Middle East crises reached this level of distress, there were years of warning to America and Israel by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan and his teacher the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad of the Nation of Islam.
They warned that America is under Divine Judgment for her errant foreign policies and sordid domestic policies, namely the genocide of the Indigenous Native Americans and the persistent oppression of the Black once slaves—which has never been corrected by way of justice. However, their struggle is inextricably tied to the struggle of Palestinians.
In words spoken 39 years ago—that the turmoil in the last several weeks is proving still relevant—Minister Farrakhan specifically warned the proponents of Zionism. “That nation called ‘Israel’ never has had any peace in 40 years, and she will never have any peace, because there can never be any peace structured on injustice, thievery, lying and deceit using The Name of God to shield your dirty religion under His Holy and Righteous name.”
He cautioned Israel about the “dirty” practices of oppression, land theft, apartheid, and claiming a divine mandate for such practices.
No peace exists and it was and is the failure of the U.S. to be an “honest broker for peace” with her closest ally Israel, that has caused the current crisis in Gaza to reemerge today, some observers note.
The arrogance, hubris, and false invincibility the U.S. and Israel are on display in the current crisis which is imperiling America closer to her own demise as the greatest nation on the Earth.
In a November 18, 2018 press conference in Tehran, Iran, while answering a question about U.S. foreign policy, Minister Farrakhan warned of the dire consequence of its Middle East policy.
“My teacher, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, taught me years ago that the policies of our government would bring about a war in the Middle East that would be a trigger to the greatest war that has ever been, the War of Armageddon, spoken of in the Bible,” said Minister Farrakhan.
“A reporter asked my teacher: ‘Is America going to remain in the Middle East?’ And my teacher said, ‘America is going to come out of the Middle East.’ And when they asked about war, he said, ‘yes, there would be war.’ And he said, ‘bloodshed in this area would be much,’” said Minister Farrakhan.
When Minister Farrakhan gave these remarks, President Donald Trump was in power. However, his warning is as applicable in 2023 with Mr. Biden or whoever will win the upcoming 2024 presidential race.
“I am begging our president and the government that supports him to be very, very careful because if the trigger of war in the Middle East is pulled by you, using your surrogates at the insistence of Israel, then the war will trigger another kind of war, which will bring China, Russia, all of the nations into a war and it bothers me to say this to you, Mr. President, but the war will end America as you know it,” warned Minister Farrakhan.
›