Will Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu really order a final solution for over a million displaced Palestinians crowded into Rafah, in southern-most Gaza? Is he serious about dismantling the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees—when around 1.7 million homeless people are sheltering in their emergency shelters or in close vicinity to their distribution sites?
As crucial as those questions are, that’s not really the issue. That’s reacting to a horror show. Instead, Israel has the positive legal and moral obligation to do everything within its power to end the starvation, the homelessness, and the lack of clean water, to provide needed shelter and medical care—that is, to recognize the danger that 2.2 million Gazans have been put in by diseases and epidemics, and to take the steps to address that danger.
The International Court of Justice put the world on notice that nations have a fundamental obligation to intervene against genocidal actions, not just South Africa and not just the six provisional orders issued to Israel. That notice includes the United States, Germany, and all sorts of countries that have temporarily forgotten how to be embarrassed. The 1948 Genocide Convention actually established a standard for countries, with the fresh memory of the Nazi genocide in mind. “Never again” was supposed to mean something.
Today, South Africa, in announcing that they have just filed to have the ICJ intervene on the Israeli leadership’s obvious flaunting of its genocidal actions, insists that “never again” actually means something. And like a dog with a bone, they will not relent, they will not count the days until Israel is supposed to make their four-week report back to the ICJ. The ongoing Palestinian civilian deaths that too many in the world view as a scorecard, mount up every day—and South Africa is not playing a publicity game. It’s called “Keep Your Eyes on the Prize.”
Permanent Observer of the State of Palestine to the United Nations Riyad Mansour was equally insistent, coming back to the UN Security Council three days after calling for their immediate intervention into the ongoing mass deaths in Gaza. Mansour had the audacity to bring up the problem with business as usual: “Emboldened by the Council’s continued paralysis and the cover given to it by some permanent members, Israel has launched its threatened invasion of Rafah, killing more than 164 people and injuring hundreds more in the span of these two days.”
In the U.S., Veterans For Peace dug in their heels Sunday, filing a formal request on Feb. 11 with the Inspector-General of the U.S. State Department to investigate the flagrantly illegal shipments of weapons to Israel and the alleged criminal acts by senior Biden administration officials in violation of U.S. law. In announcing the request, VFP National Director Mike Ferner stated: “We believe the State Department—from the Secretary down to every staff person working on arms transfers to Israel—is in criminal violation of U.S. statutes regarding how U.S. weaponry can be used. There’s no ‘Israel exception’ that makes it okay for U.S. weapons to be used in genocide even if it’s labeled self-defense.”
The simple matter of the U.S., the prime source of funding and weapons to Israel, cutting off the supply is understood by any half-witted person as perhaps the only thing that would get Netanyahu’s attention. But State Department spokesman Matthew Miller, when asked about this, claims that State’s present methods in handling Netanyahu are the best that can be used, and that they’ve simply not assessed whether cutting aid “would be more impactful than the steps that we have already taken.” White House National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby explained that the U.S. advises Israel not to massively kill Gazans, but, regardless what Netanyahu does, we won’t think of cutting off military aid.
As out of touch with reality, as clinically psychotic as such behavior is, there is a simple piece of reality non-psychotics can employ. It begins like this:
Support the LaRouche Oasis Plan for Peace and Development in Southwest Asia. For the past century and more, the region called the Middle East has been a geopolitical playground, maintained in a state of perpetual conflict as a bomb whose fuse can be lit at any time. This has exacted a terrible toll on the people of Palestine and Israel. LaRouche’s vision for the region promises productivity, not geopolitics. This is the Oasis Plan!
Sign below to express your support for the Oasis Plan approach, as presented in this 15-minute video on realizing the LaRouche vision for a future of peace and development, transforming a region of conflict and discord into one of connectivity, growth, and happiness.
Keep your eyes on the prize.
