r/InternationalNews • u/Horus_walking • Oct 01 '24
Opinion/Analysis Why America is looking increasingly powerless as Israel’s war expands - The pattern of American impotency and Israeli defiance has played repeatedly since October 7
https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/30/politics/america-israel-lebanon-war-analysis/index.html
387
Upvotes
1
u/palmugen Oct 01 '24
Part 1
All nations have a duty to prevent genocide and apartheid. Right now, Palestinians are enduring genocide. Ending war crimes, massacres, and genocide is crucial and will not lead to increased suffering.
Since its peace agreement with Israel in 1979, Egypt has received substantial US aid, totaling around $50 billion to $60 billion. In contrast, Israel has received approximately $250 billion in total aid since 1948. This support includes both military and economic assistance, providing around $146 billion in military aid alone since 1948.
The idea of European colonizers establishing a nation-state in Palestine was fundamentally predicated on the expulsion and subjugation of the native Arab population already residing there. The mental gymnastics required to present the Zionist project as anything other than a classic colonial endeavor of foreign settlers displacing the indigenous inhabitants is truly mind-boggling.
The founding figures and influential thinkers of the Zionist movement were remarkably candid about their belief that the realization of a Jewish homeland necessitated the removal of at least some portion of the Palestinian Arab population. Theodor Herzl, the founder of political Zionism, wrote in 1895 of procuring employment for Palestinians in "transit countries" while denying them jobs in the envisioned Jewish state. David Ben-Gurion later advocated for the "compulsory transfer" of Arabs from areas designated for a Jewish state after initially opposing "unilateral transfer." As late as 1941, Yitzhak Greenbaum stated that the establishment of a Jewish state would inevitably require "a transfer of Arabs to one of the neighboring countries."
These were not mere hypothetical musings, but part of the ideological bedrock that guided the Zionist movement's actions on the ground through intimidation, violence and terrorism against the Palestinian population. Groups like the Irgun, Lehi and Haganah perpetrated horrific massacres at sites like Deir Yassin, carried out bombings such as the King David Hotel attack, and systematically depopulated and destroyed entire Arab villages and towns. The expulsion of over 70,000 Palestinians from Haifa alone demonstrated the brutal reality of this ethnic cleansing.
Ultimately, the idea that European colonial settlers could descend on inhabited lands, displace and dispossess the native population through violence, and then cast themselves as the persecuted victims merely defending themselves is utterly abhorrent. The conflict did not result in vacuum, but rather was the inevitable consequence of Zionism's very genesis as a movement to create a Jewish state at the expense of the Palestinian Arabs' existence on their ancestral lands.