US aid to Israel: Twenty-three billion dollars to slaughter women and children
After vetoing Palestinian statehood, the US, on Sunday, passed an aid package worth $23 billion to Israel, to strong-arm the Israeli machine of killing and destruction. In a twisted coincidence, on the same day, it was reported that around 23,000 women and children had been killed in Gaza so far since October 7, 2023. The US has decided to generously reward Israel $1 billion per thousand women and children that Israel has killed in the Gaza Strip. With this generosity, the US has proven that it is most aggressively against the human rights of women and children.
More than three decades ago, the US, the sponsor of the peace process in the Middle East, began injecting the Palestinians with morphine through false promises of a two-state solution, and in return, unlimited support for Israel, the occupying power, and its racist, expansionist, and fascist policies that it practices against the Palestinian people.
After the direct Iranian response to the Israeli attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus, where the US rushed to rescue its spoiled son to avoid the expansion of the conflict in the Middle East, it presented a request to Israel to not drag the region into a war with dire consequences. In exchange for Israel accepting the US' request, the US handed out gifts to Netanyahu. But only billions of dollars was not sufficient. The US also had to wrap the gift with a veto in the United Nations to prevent the full membership of Palestinian Statehood in the United Nations. With such palatial blessings from the US, Netanyahu will now advance his planned operation in Rafah, where most of the displaced Palestinians of the Gaza Strip are taking refuge.
How could the US give this shameless, morally bankrupt "go-ahead," after the documented atrocities in the Gaza Strip?
Biden ostentatiously spoke about building a port to provide aid to Palestinians to project how much he cares. Since January, we have seen reports that the US has apparently set up a channel with Israel "to discuss concerns" over the large number of civilian deaths, and "seek answers." What came out of all these big words? Is this—the continued slaughter of civilians—the result of their moral investigations? How can we ever take a single word that the US says seriously when it is simply letting Israel do whatever it wants, at the cost of Palestinian lives—thousands and thousands of innocent Palestinian lives. Palestinians continue to pay the price. It appears as though Palestinian blood is just a liquid with no value.
When will the Muslim ummah wake up from its deep sleep, its helplessness, and its restraint? When will they rise to defend their sanctity and honour sacred places such as the Al-Aqsa mosque, our first Qibla? When will they step up to protect the Palestinian people? Why are we continuing to tolerate this utter humiliation?
Joe Biden not only failed to live up to his promises to the Palestinians, but also to every Muslim in the US and every citizen who voted for him, because he had promised to take a stand against fascism and racism in his presidential campaign against Donald Trump. But then he presented the worst US initiative of the century to solve the Palestinian issue.
The US president, who claimed he is a "Zionist at heart," washed away every promise he ever made to uphold human rights with the worst policy. He not only disavowed all his promises to the Palestinians, and not only aided the genocide in Gaza, but he actively participated in it. As his own citizens protest against him, calling him "Genocide Joe," Biden shamelessly continues to provide Israeli aggressors with all the support on both material and diplomatic fronts. In the upcoming election, where he is projected to face Donald Trump again, voters have said in polls they consider Biden to be more evil. It's as though Biden is ready to lose his seat by supporting this genocide but he still cannot stop Israel's worst impulses. So how can we even believe that he truly even wants to stop Israel's genocide?
In February, one of Biden's top foreign policy officials acknowledged the administration's mistakes in Gaza and offered "clear notes of contrition" for its response to the Gaza war to Arab-American voters in Michigan. And even after all that, as Israel continued to kill more civilians and poked Iran to start a larger war, the US president took to The Wall Street Journal, writing a word salad plea to pass the aid, before it was successfully passed. In the opinion piece, Biden wrote, Israel is facing "brazen adversaries that seek their annihilation." So we ask, who are Israel's "brazen adversaries"? Is it the thousands of helpless, starving children who are being orphaned by the Israeli occupying forces? And what about the annihilation of Gaza?
After giving aid to Israel to kill Palestinians, the US is now reportedly considering placing sanctions on a unit of the Israeli "occupying" forces—Netzah Yehuda Battalion, the ultra-Orthodox Israeli military unit accused of documented human rights abuses against Palestinians. Netanyahu responded that, "At a time when our soldiers are fighting against the monsters of terror, the intention to impose a sanction on a unit in the IDF is the height of absurdity and a moral low." He added, "The government headed by me will act by all means against these moves."
So tell us, why is the Biden Administration rewarding this selfish, fascist man who has always been a renegade, out only for himself? Netanyahu has not expressed gratitude for the support it gets from the US, instead he keeps showing off that he doesn't need the US, each time there are any minor speculations of punitive actions against his murderous agenda to remove Palestinians from the map. All of humanity stands helpless before the tyranny of Netanyahu, the US' spoiled son, dragging the White House behind him. The US has pretended to stand with the oppressed when the reality is, it stands only and only with the oppressor, becoming the oppressor itself. Time and time again, the US has proven to the world, especially the Arab and Islamic world, that it simply does not care—not only about the aspirations of the Palestinian people, but also about the ongoing demands of many other countries. Shame on everyone who has claimed to be moral and stand by humanity, while silently watching double standards pave the path for unspeakable horrors to unfold, the likes of which history has never known.
Now, the question is, how long will the rest of the world remain hostage to the oppressor? Or rather, when will the Muslim ummah wake up from its deep sleep, its helplessness, and its restraint? When will they rise to defend their sanctity and honour sacred places such as the Al-Aqsa mosque, our first Qibla? When will they step up to protect the Palestinian people? Why are we continuing to tolerate this utter humiliation? Will we raise our heads high and say enough is enough? Or will we continue to live in this darkness?
I can answer on behalf of my Palestinian people because I breathe their air, drink their water, and live in their pain. So I say to every free person in this world that we Palestinians are a people who love life. We are human beings who continue to fight for our freedom even when the worst of mankind keeps killing us; we Palestinians resist, for the sake of our dignity. The Palestinians in Gaza, unlike anything seen before, refuse to leave, they have accepted martyrdom. If sacrificing our human lives is what it takes to protect our land, our sanctity and our dignity, then so be it.
No matter how strong the power of the oppressor is, we will not surrender. No matter how tyrannical the oppressor is, the strength of our people will continue on. We will fight until we obtain our rights as human beings. We believe in the power of truth. The oppressors will never attain victory, real victory, because the determination of Palestinians will continue to prevail.
His Excellency Youssef SY Ramadan is the ambassador of Palestine to Bangladesh.
Views expressed in this article are the author's own.
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