'Israel's war on Gaza is made in the USA,' reads the image showing President Joe Biden (Left) and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Right). Photo: Geopolitical Economy.
By Ben Norton – Sep 4, 2024
Israel would not realistically be able to wage war on Gaza without US support.
Citing a senior Israeli air force official, prominent newspaper Haaretz reported that, âwithout the Americansâ supply of weapons to the Israel Defense Forces, especially the air force, Israel would have had a hard time sustaining its war for more than a few monthsâ.
Israelâs Ministry of Defense wrote in August that US arms shipments have been âcrucial for sustaining the IDFâs operational capabilities during the ongoing warâ.
President Joe Biden has repeatedly emphasized that Israel serves US imperial interests in a highly geostrategic region. In a speech in Tel Aviv in October 2023, Biden stated, âI have long said, if Israel didnât exist, weâd have to invent itâ.
Former Secretary of State Alexander Haig, an ex US Army general who commanded NATO, similarly boasted that âIsrael is the largest American aircraft carrier in the world that cannot be sunk, does not carry even one American soldier, and is located in a critical region for American national securityâ.
The United States has protected Israel at the UN Security Council, shielding it from international law by repeatedly vetoing resolutions that called for peace and a ceasefire in Gaza.
Top UN human rights experts have warned that Israel is carrying out a genocide in Gaza, demanding an arms embargo.
The onslaught in Gaza has been referred to as âthe worldâs first livestreamed genocideâ.
Scientific experts published an academic article in leading medical journal The Lancet in July estimating that 186,000 or more Palestinians in Gaza will die due to Israelâs war. This is nearly one-tenth of the population of the densely populated strip.
Ignoring rulings by the International Court of Justice, the US government has continued flooding Israel with weapons.
As of July 2024, the Biden administration had given Israel $18 billion in military aid. This is significantly higher than the roughly $4 billion in unconditional military aid that the US government provides to Israel in an average year.
In August, the US State Department approved additional arms packages for Israel worth $20 billion and $3.5 billion.
The Israeli military reported on August 26 that, since October 2023, the United States has sent it more than 600 arms shipments.
The US âoperation has delivered over 50,000 tons of military equipment to Israel via 500 flights and 107 sea shipmentsâ, Israelâs Ministry of Defense wrote.
US-Turkish Activist Killed by Israeli Gunfire in Military Raid in Beita
It stressed that the US âequipment procured and transported includes armored vehicles, munitions, ammunition, personal protection gear, and medical equipment, which are crucial for sustaining the IDFâs operational capabilities during the ongoing warâ.
The September report in Haaretz, titled âIsraeli Air Force Official: Without U.S. Aid, Israel Couldnât Fight Gaza Beyond a Few Monthsâ, makes it clear that the only reason Israel is able to continue this genocide in Gaza is because Washington is facilitating it.
Before 1967, Israel was sponsored by the European colonial powers, principally the British and French empires. However, following a 1967 war on its Arab neighbors, Haaretz noted, âIsrael then switched over its dependence on a foreign power to the United States, which provides the air force with all of its fighter planes and some of its bombs, missiles and intelligence equipment â on top of the development of joint weapons systems for all three layers of air defenseâ.
It was the British empire that had helped to create Israel in the first place. In the 1917 Balfour Declaration, the Crown gave its blessing to Zionist settlers to establish a colonialist Jewish state in Palestine, because it assumed they would be loyal proxies of the British empire.
The founding father of the Zionist colonialist movement, Theodor Herzl, had written a letter in 1902 to the genocidal British colonizer Cecil Rhodes, praising him as a âvisionaryâ and boasting that the Zionist project was âsomething colonialâ.
Just as the United States absorbed parts of the British empire after World War II, Washington also inherited the Israeli colonial project and became its imperial protector.
As a senator in 1986, Joe Biden boasted on the floor of Congress, âWere there not an Israel, the United States of America would have to invent an Israel to protect her interests in the region; the United States would have to go out and invent an Israelâ.
Biden added, âI think itâs about time we stop, those of us who support, as most of us do, Israel in this body, for apologizing for our support for Israel. There is no apology to be made. None. It is the best $3 billion investment we makeâ.
In 2022, as US president, Biden reiterated that, âif there were not an Israel, we would have to invent oneâ. He then repeated the same phrase in a 2023 press conference in Israel.
For his part, Israelâs far-right Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made no secret of the fact that his regimeâs goal is the colonization of all of historic Palestine.
In September, Netanyahu appeared with a map that completely erased the West Bank.
Israeli minister and security cabinet member Avi Dichter, a member of Netanyahuâs ultra-conservative Likud party, boasted in 2023, âWe are now rolling out the Gaza Nakbaâ. (The Nakba refers to the mass ethnic cleansing of indigenous Palestinians, upon which Israel was founded in 1948.)
Ben Norton
Benjamin Norton is the founder and editor of the independent news website Multipolarista, where he does original reporting in both English and Spanish. Benjamin has reported from numerous countries, including Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Ecuador, Honduras, Colombia, and more. His journalistic work has been published in dozens of media outlets, and he has done interviews on Sky News, Al Jazeera, Democracy Now, El Financiero Bloomberg, Al Mayadeen teleSUR, RT, TRT World, CGTN, Press TV, HispanTV, Sin Censura, and various TV channels in Mexico, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia. Benjamin writes a regular column for Al Mayadeen (in English and Spanish). He was formerly a reporter with the investigative journalism website The Grayzone, and previously produced the political podcast and video show Moderate Rebels. His personal website is BenNorton.com, and he tweets at @BenjaminNorton.
