UN: Netanyahu's Acts Against Gaza Consistent With Genocide
Biden continues to arm Netanyahu in violation of US and international law, even as Netanyahu continues to commit numerous war crimes
One of the most significant issues during the 2024 Presidential campaign revolved around Israel’s siege on Gaza. Finally in mid-October the Biden administration issued (another) ultimatum to Netanyahu—stop bombing civilians in Gaza within 30 days and allow aid to enter Gaza, or the United States would cut off offensive arms to the Israeli military. Those 30 days have now passed, Netanyahu has continued to bomb Gaza, and aid has still not entered Gaza.
Sadly, President Biden has done nothing but continue to arm Netanyahu, even as he commits war crimes. How do we grapple with this massive injustice, and where do we go from here? Let’s Address This.
The Previous Ultimatum
In April of 2024, Joe Biden issued an ultimatum to Netanyahu. Stop bombing Palestinian civilians or the United States will uphold the Leahy Laws and stop sending offensive arms to Israel. Netanyahu refused to comply. Two State Department reports confirmed that Netanyahu was committing war crimes against Palestinian civilians, including the crime of withholding aid. ProPublica published a detailed report documenting the following:
The U.S. government’s two foremost authorities on humanitarian assistance concluded this spring that Israel had deliberately blocked deliveries of food and medicine into Gaza. The U.S. Agency for International Development delivered its assessment to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the State Department’s refugees bureau made its stance known to top diplomats in late April. USAID sent Blinken a detailed 17-page memo on Israel’s conduct. The memo described instances of Israeli interference with aid efforts, including killing aid workers, razing agricultural structures, bombing ambulances and hospitals, sitting on supply depots and routinely turning away trucks full of food and medicine.
A UN Office of Human Rights report went on to document a horrific statistic about the Israeli military’s mass murder of children, stating:
According to figures verified by our Office, close to 70 percent of those killed in Gaza by strikes, shelling and other hostilities were children and women. The age group most represented in verified fatalities was children from 5 to 9 years old.
Inexcusably, despite knowing full well that Netanyahu was committing war crimes with US funded weapons and mass murdering children, days later, Blinken delivered a carefully worded statement to Congress that said, “We do not currently assess that the Israeli government is prohibiting or otherwise restricting the transport or delivery of U.S. humanitarian assistance.”
Blinken lied to Congress, and Biden backed him up. And the genocide continued. Indeed, in what world does a war of alleged self-defense mass murder 5-9 year old children as its most represented fatality?
The Current Ultimatum
In October, weeks before the Presidential election and with pressure mounting on VP Harris to act, Biden once more sent an ultimatum to Netanyahu. This time, once again telling him he had 30 days stop bombing Palestinian civilians and allow aid to enter Gaza, or he would suffer the consequences of restricted arms. In that time the UN Office on Human Rights released this assessment:
Israel’s warfare in Gaza is consistent with the characteristics of genocide, with mass civilian casualties and life-threatening conditions intentionally imposed on Palestinians there. Since the beginning of the war, Israeli officials have publicly supported policies that strip Palestinians of the very necessities required to sustain life — food, water, and fuel. These statements along with the systematic and unlawful interference of humanitarian aid make clear Israel’s intent to instrumentalise life-saving supplies for political and military gains.
I repeat, “Israel’s warfare in Gaza is consistent with the characteristics of genocide.” And despite this, when the 30 day window concluded, the Biden administration claimed—contrary to the evidence available for the world to see—that Netanyahu had allowed aid to enter Gaza. Therefore the United States would not cut off offensive arms to Netanyahu. A thorough UN report confirms that insufficient aid has reached Gaza during the 30 day period:
The main UN aid agency in Gaza says Israel has failed to meet a US deadline to boost aid to the territory or risk a reduction in American military aid. Last month, in a strongly worded letter, the US secretary of state gave Israel an ultimatum of 30 days to ensure more aid trucks reached Gaza daily. The deadline expires on Tuesday. The amount of aid getting into Gaza is at its lowest level in a year, the UN says. A UN-backed report recently warned that there was an imminent likelihood of famine in northern Gaza, where hardly any aid has entered in the past month.
The BBC reports that Israel rejected the UN report, and instead claimed that, “Israel has substantially increased the amount of aid getting into Gaza, and accuses aid agencies of failing to adequately distribute it.” A reminder that Israel has made this accusation before, without evidence, and independent US investigations found that in fact the Israeli military itself was guilty of blocking aid or helping destroy the aid. So what became of the alleged aid that Israel claims reached Gaza? Haaretz, Israeli’s oldest newspaper, confirms, perhaps unsurprisingly, that Israeli soldiers themselves set fire to the aid and destroyed it:
A Gaza School Burned Down Hours After Aid Arrived. Witnesses Say Israeli Soldiers Started the Fire: Witnesses said soldiers forced civilians away from the area, preventing them from collecting aid from the first convoy to reach the area in over a month. A video seen on social media, taken by an IDF soldier, showed two Israeli armored vehicles leaving the school as it was engulfed in flames.
What Does The Future Hold?
President Biden has left U.S. foreign policy in a precarious situation. Now, with Donald Trump returning to office, Biden has set the precedent that US Leahy Laws don’t matter, that US State Department reports confirming war crimes don’t matter, and that UN reports of genocide don’t matter. It should be no surprise, therefore, that Donald Trump has already promised to lift all military restrictions on Israel to bomb Palestinian civilians, his very first day in office:
President-elect Donald Trump has promised to lift all restrictions and delays on the supply of military equipment and ammunition to Israel immediately after his inauguration, Israeli Channel 12 News reports. The assurance from Trump’s team came as Israel is considering a 60-day cease-fire with Hezbollah, which would provide a window until Trump takes office and implements the promised changes.
Those of us who have called out these injustices over the last several years will continue to call them out. When we called them out prior to the election, we were told that doing so would “help Trump win,” even though the facts demonstrated the opposite was true. The vast majority of Americans—more than 61% across the political spectrum and more than 77% of Democrats—called for an end to offensive arms to the Israeli military, and that doing so would make them 5-8 times more likely to vote for Harris. Biden refused to listen to the will of the American people, much less uphold American and international human rights law. Now, with Trump at the helm, it will be that much more difficult to hold him accountable when he can point to Biden’s precedent of ignoring his own State Department’s reports that Netanyahu is committing war crimes.
Our responsibility remains clear—continue to raise our voices for justice, and continue to support those demanding accountability. Contact your member of Congress regardless of party affiliation, and demand our elected officials uphold US and international law. Silence is not an option, as that enables further war crimes, and in this case, genocide. You have my commitment to continue to speak up relentlessly at every opportunity, even when it isn’t popular to do so, because human rights are not a popularity contest, they are a fundamental obligation upon all of us to protect.
I am saddened to see how tone death the Biden administration has been ignoring the cry of the American people to stop supporting this senseless genocide. I misjudged Biden, incorrectly assuming that at his advanced age, he would make bold moves to facilitate positive change both within the US and abroad. While Biden and his administration did a wonderful job with student loan's, and various other areas, they failed terribly in the area of human rights, especially in how they did not adequately address the issues in Palestine. While in office, Biden still has time to impact this situation yet he continues to support Israel in its efforts to literally wipe out the population. I receive pictures almost daily and see things in real time that I can't unsee. I am broken and confused as there is nothing that I can do to help them to save the children. I know that the Israelies want to make an example, to build their greater Israel, etc. they are not looking for hostages. Our country needs to stop using their veto power to protect Israel, and discontinue the blank checks. We have had enought of this racial/religious bias..
Thanks for this assessment, Qasim.
How Pres Biden can continue to choose as he has is as tragic as it is against all international norms that support humanitarian interests.
You have stated it plainly, "Our responsibility remains clear—continue to raise our voices for justice, and continue to support those demanding accountability. Contact your member of Congress regardless of party affiliation, and demand our elected officials uphold US and international law. Silence is not an option, as that enables further war crimes, and in this case, genocide."