- by William Briggs
- The Guardian
- Issue #2119
Israeli airstrike on Gaza City on October 2023. Photo: Palestinian News & Information Agency (Wafa) in contract with APAimages – (CC BY-SA 3.0)
It is now 12 months since Israel’s blood-letting in Gaza began. That awful anniversary comes as Israeli bombs rain down on Lebanon. Every day since 7 October 2023, an average of 113 people in Gaza have died.
They have died from bombs, tank shells, machine gun fire, and the combined force of Israel. The USA has funded each of those deaths. The weapons that the USA has supplied, and the component parts for weapons that Australia and all the rest have supplied damns these countries. Even as the bombs continue to fall in Gaza, even as a displaced people wander across the rubble, the bombs fall in increasing intensity on Lebanon.
SPIN AND REALITY
What is the response of the West to the latest acts of mass murder? The same empty phrases are uttered by the same soulless, hollow figures. US Secretary of State Blinken read from a familiar and well-thumbed script saying the region was facing a “precarious” moment. “The path to diplomacy may seem difficult to see at this moment, but it is there and, in our judgement, it is necessary. We will continue to work intensely with all parties to urge them to choose that course.”
The truth is that the Biden administration has effectively rejected any calls to halt or even limit the military ‘aid’ it supplies to Israel. The US gives Israel US$3.8 billion in military assistance every year. Biden has authorised additional weapons sales as the slaughter goes on in Gaza and now in Lebanon. His regime has continued to offer diplomatic backing to Israel to fend off the international condemnation for the atrocities being committed.
The mass killings of Lebanese were furiously underway as the United Nations General Assembly was sitting. The International Criminal Court has sought a warrant for Netanyahu’s arrest as a war criminal. Earlier this year, Netanyahu addressed the US Congress and now the same criminal had the floor at the UN.
WAR CRIMINAL PLATFORMED
The Israeli leader told the UN General Assembly that Israel would fight until “total victory.” He has refused to consider the calls for a ceasefire in Lebanon. The US and the French have made noises to the effect that a 21-day ceasefire must be brokered. The words are empty ones. The ‘breakthrough’ in talks and the cessation of hostilities in Gaza has been ‘imminent’ since May, and yet each day the killing has gone on. Only the naïve could believe that Israel’s actions in Lebanon would be any different.
PEACE PLAN
The UN General Assembly also heard Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. He denounced what was happening in Palestine. “This madness cannot continue. The entire world is responsible for what is happening to our people.” Abbbas singled out the USA for special condemnation saying that “we regret that the United States, the largest democracy in the world, obstructed three times draft resolutions of the Security Council demanding Israel to observe a ceasefire … The US alone stood and said, ‘No,’ the fighting is going to continue.”
Abbas put forward a 12-point proposal for Gaza. This included a complete Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, without the establishment of buffer zones or the seizure of any part of Gaza. He said the Palestinian Authority, should govern post-war Gaza as part of a Palestinian state. “We are not asking for more, but we will not accept any less.” In the face of Israeli intransigence, brutality and refusal to countenance the idea of a Palestinian state, Abbas once more called for a two-state solution to the crisis. Regardless of US hand-wringing, and regardless of the sanctimonious words of Penny Wong and her global counterparts, Israel will not shift its position, and knows it has the backing of its ‘allies.’
LEBANON
It is in the knowledge that it has the backing of the USA and its closest supporters, that Israel can now wreak havoc in Lebanon. It seeks to present the barbaric attacks as creating safe conditions for Israelis in the north of the country who have been evacuated. The evacuations were needed because Hezbollah fired rockets into Israel. This was done as an act of support for Gaza. Hezbollah has repeatedly said they will stop these attacks when a ceasefire is achieved in Gaza. The hostilities in Gaza continue and the disproportionate attacks into Lebanon have grown to the point where an open invasion seems highly likely.
Hundreds of thousands of Lebanese have been forced from their homes. Many have crossed into Syria which has not been exempt from Israeli attack.
The growing ferocity of the attacks, the call-up of reservists, the ‘pep-talks’ of military leaders to troops, and the demands made by the far-right in Netanyahu’s have an air of certainty about them.
While Beirut is being bombed, the bombing goes on unabated in Gaza. Twelve months of horror. Twelve months of trauma. Nearly 42,000 dead Gazans, 113 a day, every day.
Gaza Anniversary facts
Since 7 October 2023:
- Injured Palestinians: 95,000 +
- Palestinians killed in Gaza: 42,000 +
- Palestinians killed in West Bank: 623
- Lebanese killed: 1,400 +
- Amount given to Israeli weapons company Elbit systems by the Australian government: $917 million plus
