Happy Together: Biden’s Genocide and Power’s Unavailing Alibi

18 October 2024

On 7 October 2023 Israel launched an unjustified and illegal war against Gaza committing genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. Israel’s crime of genocide in Gaza was completed by the end of October 2023 when the first phase of its ongoing war terminated. This crime has only escalated since and has not ended yet.[1] Israel’s egregious war followed an exceptional resistance operation by Palestinian armed groups that targeted Israel’s system of occupying and enclaving Gaza. Israel could not tolerate the shame of being defeated so easily and in a timeless period by a much inferior adversary in terms of weaponry, logistics, diplomatic backing, and military alliances. The Palestinians had no one but themselves. Israel had been enjoying the comfort of its allies in the United States, the European Union, and parts of the Middle East.[2] 

Israel decided to impose military censorship keeping undisclosed the fact that at least most Israeli civilians who died that day were killed by its own gunfire. The country spread lies about the raping of women and burning of babies joyfully reiterated by dominant media outlets in the West that required time, energy, and little sophistication to refute.

The war and its misinformation from the outset granted Biden the opportunity to reverberate Israel’s ridiculous fantasies, project spiritual exhilaration repressed in his form of faith and familial ties, and practice his political allegiance to his political masters donors supporters of Israel. Having led the long list of members of Congress who received such donations, and given the longevity of serving Israel as an American elected official, it was a futile intellectual exercise to monitor his defence of Israel’s actions and claims throughout its genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

Under Biden’s leadership and with the full collaborative support of his leading staff at the National Security Council (Secretary of State Blinken, National Security Adviser Sullivan, and Secretary of Defence Austin) the absolute force of the American government backed Israel to carry out its genocide against occupied and enclaved Palestinians. Constant supply of weapons and other military capacity including recruiting the commander of CENTCOM Michael Kurilla to be a component of Israel’s illegal war effort. A study by the Watson Institute for International & Public Affairs at Brown University estimated that the U.S. government's military aid to Israel in one year of unlawful war reached the climactic figures of $17.9 billion to $22.76 billion.[3]   

Secretary of State Blinken led the absolute diplomatic shielding of Israel in the international arena. The U.S. State Department spared no measure to protect Israel while committing genocide. Vetoing U.N. Security Council resolutions regarding ceasefire has been the hallmark of America’s Israel diplomacy at the United Nations for decades. Opposing South Africa’s case against Israel before the International Court of Justice under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime Genocide elevated the U.S.’s standing from a close protective ally to an identical polity at a time of grave violations of international law. This stature was perpetuated by the State Department’s defence of Israel in the case before the same court regarding its felonious 1967 occupation and apartheid which took place during the atrocities in Gaza. The empire of democracy’s hyper-defence of Israel could not refrain from sabotaging a Palestinian effort to hold Israel accountable under the Geneva Conventions. Biden administration’s complicity in Israel’s unforgivable crimes is indisputable.

Humanitarian assistance is part of a country’s foreign policy. Regardless of the actual motivation of persons engaged in the actual activity of delivering aid to unknown nationals of a foreign country, the overarching objective of this endeavor is to advance the interests and stature of the contributor. It is also a one-sided political activity where the giving actor presumes moral gratitude and superiority compared with competitors. The receiving side is a captive of misery reduced to an obedient follower by the generosity of the supplier.

Formed in 1961 the American foreign aid program was by definition political aimed at overcoming the geopolitical rivalry of the day.[4] The incoherency of American foreign policy was paramount also then exasperated by the domestic performance, particularly with respect to the issue of race. The political nature of this program persisted also after the end of the Cold War and the turn of the twenty-first century despite bureaucratic complexities.[5] 

Samantha Power served in the Biden administration during Israel’s war on Gaza heading U.S. Aid otherwise known as United States Agency for International Development. A key element of Martha Minow’s distinguished ‘Harvard milieu’,[6] Power’s activism, scholarship, and diplomacy have attracted admiration and contempt. On the one hand, she is considered an expert on genocide prevention, human rights, and idealism. On the other, she is loathed for her purported role in concealing America’s foreign policy’s true desires and objectives. What is indisputable is her unsurprising and lame capitulation to the politics of the Israel lobby.[7] Seeking a congressionally confirmed governmental job Power retracted mentioning Israel uncritically and lobbied Israel’s lobbyists to facilitate her legitimacy:         

In a 2002 interview on “Conversations with History,” a television series filmed in Berkeley, Power described a hypothetical need for a “mammoth protection force” to police a peace accord between the Israelis and the Palestinians. But after she began working as an adviser on Barack Obama’s Presidential campaign, in 2007, his critics quoted that interview in accusing him of harboring hostility toward Israel, and Power disavowed her comments. In a departure for a journalist, she quietly asked the host of the interview to remove the video from the Web, though portions of it still circulate online. To repair the damage, she subsequently approached Shmuley Boteach, a celebrity rabbi who ran for Congress in New Jersey, Abraham Foxman, of the Anti- Defamation League, and other prominent defenders of Israel, who endorsed her U.N. nomination. She knew that during her confirmation hearing her record, her vision of America’s role in the world, and her transformation from an activist to a political figure would receive intense scrutiny. Tom Nides, a former Deputy Secretary of State, told her that her chance of being confirmed was twenty percent, at best.[8] 

Biden & Power. Source: Just Security, 13 January 2021.

Power’s failure to stand up to Israel’s genocide in Gaza from a position of authority and influence is tragically expected reinforcing the disdain aspect of her career as a journalist, an academic, and governmental official. One month into Israel’s assault against Gaza more than 1,000 USAID officials protested Israel’s conduct which killed over 11,000 people among them no less than 4,500 children.[9] Power was not one of the dissenters. On the contrary, the evidence points to USAID management’s complicity in Biden - Blinken wholehearted support for Israel’s atrocities in Gaza against the wishes of other employees of the humanitarian agency.

Challenged by USAID staff given her engagement with the question of genocide prevention, Power reiterated perfunctorily her government’s illegal conditions to enter aid into Gaza.[10] A PowerPoint presentation about health conditions in Gaza that related to international humanitarian law also led to the employment termination of the presenting USAID worker.[11] This episode coincided with the resignation of a State Department official over a report that absolved Israel from responsibility for hampering the entry of aid into Gaza.[12] U.S. Secretary of State and Biden were adamant in their defence of Israel’s claim not to block aid into Gaza despite USAID’s findings.[13] Power’s silence and helplessness are not coincidental. Her staff protested before her in Jordan in February 2024.[14] Biden administration explicitly told aid organizations in August 2024 that Israel’s unwillingness to enter aid into Gaza would not result in withholding arms distribution to its close ally despite reaching the stage of sustaining the crime of genocide.[15] USAID charade under Power’s tenure is completed by her staff’s resentment for having to meet Israeli officials at the site of a notorious Israeli prison facility engaged in systematic torture.[16]

Throughout Israel’s genocide in Gaza Samantha Power’s heart and interests were at the White House together with Biden. Another possible Biden presidency was on the horizon and Power is probably familiar more than others with the requirements attached to this expectation. The American political system is tough but it is not too complicated. Power chose to join Biden, Blinken, Sullivan, Austin, and figures of the American national security apparatus. Her complicity in Israel’s genocide is palpable and unassailable.    

Antony Blinken. Source: Jerusalem Post, 6 June 2023.  

[1] See Article 6 of the International Criminal Court’s statute that defines the crime of genocide.

[2] There have been differences in the positions of EU governments regarding Israel’s gravely illegal conduct. Germany under its Foreign Minister Ms. Annalena Baerbook stood out in its misrepresenting support for Israel despite committing genocide. German history is a matter between that country and affected Jews. It does not grant Zionism a right to sovereignty in Palestine, and certainly no right to commit preposterous violations of international law can be derived from the actions of Nazi Germans. We shall elaborate on these issues in the near future.  

[3] Linda Bilmes et al, “United States Spending on Israel’s Military Operations and Related U.S. Operations in the Region: October 7, 2023 – September 30, 2024”, Watson Institute for International & Public Affairs, 7 October 2024.

[4] See Aurelius Morgner, “The American Foreign Aid Program: Costs, Accomplishments, Alternatives?”, 29(1) The Review of Politics, pp.65-75. Many American foundations, chief among them the one established by George Soros, follow the U.S. Aid pattern of being part of America’s geopolitical understanding of the world. Their legitimacy in the receiving end of this policy has persistently been shattered.

[5] See Raj Kumar, “USAID Revisited”, 7(1) Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, pp.51-51 (2006); John Brian Atwood et al, “Arrested Development”, 87(6) Foreign Affairs, pp.123 – 132 (2008).  

[6] Before joining this group, Power was in Michael Walzer’s intellectual circle which is ideologically protective of Israel. Minow, the Barbara Streisand of the mainstream human rights community in the United States, and Walzer are similar in their American academic reputation and the chilling effect they have on critical analysis of Israel in general and Zionism’s lack of right to sovereignty in Palestine in particular.  

[7] Nathan Guttman, “For Samantha Power, Support for Israel Is Deeply Personal – and Proven”, The Forward, 15 June 2013; Barak Ravid, “Samantha Power, Israel’s Unlikely Line of Defense”, Haaretz, 1 June 2013; Rebecca Shimoni Stoil, “Samantha Power: US – Israel ties transcend politics and always will”, Times of Israel, 2 March 2015.  

[8] Evan Osnos, “In the Land of the Possible”, New Yorker, 15 December 2014.

[9] Humeyra Pamuk et al, “Over 1,000 USAID officials call for Gaza ceasefire in letter”, Reuters, 10 November 2023. 

[10] John Hudson, “USAID’s Samantha Power, genocide scholar, confronted by staff on Gaza”, Washington Post, 31 January 2024.

[11] Shawn Musgrave, “He Made a PowerPoint on Mothers Starving in Gaza. Then He Lost His Job”, The Intercept, 31 May 2024.

[12] John Hudson et al, “Another State Department official resigns over Gaza, taking aim at aid”, Washington Post, 28 May 2024.

[13] Brett Murphy, “Israel Deliberately Blocked Humanitarian Aid to Gaza, Two Government Bodies Concluded. Antony Blinken Rejected Them”, ProPublica, 25 September 2024. 

[14] Jonathan Guyer, “The Price of Power”, New York Magazine, 4 October 2024.

[15] Erin Banco et al, “Biden envoy told aid groups Israel too close an ally for US to suspend arms”, Politico, 16 October 2024.

[16] Jonathan Guyer, “US officials attend Gaza aid meetings on site of Israeli prison accused of ‘horrific torture’”, The Guardian, 14 October 2024.