3 October 2024
“The conclusion qualifies the analysis and points to larger lessons.”
Jack Goldsmith, "The Self-Defeating International Criminal Court", 70(1) University of Chicago Law Review, pp.89-104 (2003), p.89.
“We are a very powerful nation.”
Former head of CIA and NSA Michael Hayden, CBS, 21 February 2016.
Biden administration’s overwhelming backing of Israel during its genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes in Gaza requires placing a spotlight on some significant aspects of it. While Biden is a well-known Zionist enthusiast, a longtime supporter of Israel, and a leading recipient of political donations from its lobbyists in America, the military dimension of the close cooperation and support is less detectable despite widespread publication about billions of dollars of military aid poured on Israel throughout the atrocities in Gaza. The military assistance and salvage complement the total shielding and impunity that Israel enjoys by American diplomatic cover at the United Nations Security Council and other international venues. It is also informed by an awkward cultural understanding of Israel distributed by what can be framed as Israel’s emotional promoters in the United States.
Israel’s security advocacy in the United States captured by the caricature organization the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA) that provides fellowships and trips to Israel utilizing the ancient Judeo–Christian tradition is a natural expansion of operation on behalf of America’s ally in the United States. Senior military commanders, usually retired, find comfort in the hospitability of such an organization dedicated to Israel’s apartheid and lasting illegal occupation.
There is a shared barbarity between Israeli and American security officials amplified by the events of 11 September 2001. Biden’s presence in the international arena during Israel’s genocide in Gaza only helped in its crystallization. The cultural closeness between the two security systems leads to common grave illegal practices, particularly NSA’s monotonous information gathering and sharing. CIA and Israeli Mossad are practically the same cooperating intimately chronicled by former Jerusalem Post reporter and current CNN presenter Wolf Blitzer. Reading Ronen Bergman and his fellows in the New York Times is a message from the Israeli–American intelligence community.
The U.S. military is probably the most undemocratic institution domestically and internationally. This military practically governs the Middle East placing American interests in its natural resources at the highest levels of American foreign policy. Policing and sabotaging, a practice adored by Israel regionally for decades, the purpose of which is to undermine the growth of countries in the region and stir chaos in them overshadow America’s stated mission about democracy and development.
Blessed with a wealth of international legal scholarship ranging from the Lieber Code to Philip Jessup and after, American legal learning and governmental advice seem to have little to no influence on the actual conduct of an American administration, the U.S. military, and other security officials.
Practical, uninformed of legal consequences, and enjoying a cheering public sphere in their home country, senior American security officials, including the head of CENTCOM during Israel’s savagery in Gaza General Michael Kurilla, provided material assistance to the systematic destruction in the occupied enclave. Although Kurilla and his kind should be forcefully pursued with relentless legal and public condemnation, no high expectation from the ‘Kurillas’ ought to be contemplated given the performance of their shaping culture and psyche. This task might be daunting to fulfill because it is primarily an after-the-act endeavor. Nevertheless, the satisfaction that it generates and the value in its persistence make it worthy of accomplishing.
Kurilla with Gallant and Ha-Levi. Source: Times of Israel, 26 July 2023.
Comments