Israeli soldiers preparing for the ground invasion of the Gaza Strip on 29 October. PHOTO COURTESY OF WIKIPEDIA

Some may call it cynicism. Others may deem it hypocrisy. Still others may dub it immoral. But none of those sanitized labels fully reflects the profoundly offensive action of the United States government in continuing to arm a foreign nation’s war machine and then dropping food packets from the air to the victims slowly being starved to death.

But that is what the U.S. has just done as it continues to provide Israel with “whatever it needs” in its scorchedearth war against Hamas and then sending food to the civilian victims. The U.S. has provided Israel with about $158 billion in military aid since that state was founded in 1948 to ensure its security in a hostile region. Following the horrific attack by Hamas on Israel last Oct. 7, President Joe Biden pledged continuing support and dispatched war ships and war planes to the region, He is currently asking Congress for an additional $14 billion. But it is not Hamas, the militant group identified as the enemy, that is bearing the brunt of the offensive. It is the two million or so Palestinian civilians who, even before the war, were living on the 141-square-mile Gaza Strip – about 14,000 per square mile.

MOHAMED HAMALUDIN

The Israeli offensive is portrayed as a campaign to destroy Hamas and avenge the atrocities committed by the Palestinian militant group that killed more than 1,000 Israelis and took more than 200 hostages. But even after a few weeks, it was already clear that the vast number of the casualties were civilians. The offensive worsened an already dire situation in the territory because of an almost total blockade, including humanitarian aid. With the war now five months old, more than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to Gaza officials, a large number of them children, and numerous buildings have been destroyed, including more than 25 hospitals.

After the initial horror of Hamas’ brutality, and Israel’s justification for retaliating, questions arose as to whether there was more to the offensive than just punishing the few hundred invaders for the atrocities which they committed against mostly Israeli civilians.

For instance, a few Israeli Cabinet ministers have stated that the goal is to expel the Palestinians who live in the Gaza Strip, as well as the three million who live in the 2,263-square-mile West Bank.

Also, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has a personal stake in continuing the war. The Hamas attack took place on his watch, and he is therefore accountable to the Israeli people for the massive security failure that enabled it. And Israeli prosecutors have charged Netanyahu with fraud, breach of trust and receiving bribes, for which he is still to be tried.

Still, the U.S, despite its considerable influence over Israel, has refused to demand an end to the war. The U.S. has also vetoed United Nations Security Council resolutions on that matter, as it has done with more than 40 resolutions criticizing the country in the past.

So, as a presidential election draws closer and there is growing outrage at home and abroad over what Israel is doing to the Palestinians, evidently some official or officials came up with the idea of dispatching military aircraft with 38,000 food packets for the victims — men, women and especially children — who are fighting over scarce food supplies which Israel periodically allows to enter the Gaza Strip. The food was dropped on Saturday.

The next day, Vice President Kamala Harris acknowledged what most of the world already knows: “What we are seeing every day in Gaza is devastating. We have seen reports of families eating leaves or animal feed. Women giving birth to malnourished babies with little or no medical care, and children dying from malnutrition and dehydration.”

Harris added, “Our hearts break for the victims of that horrific tragedy and for all the innocent people in Gaza who are suffering from what is clearly a humanitarian catastrophe. People in Gaza are starving. The conditions are inhumane.”

Her answer? “The Israeli government must do more to significantly increase the flow of aid. No excuses.” She called also for a ceasefire “for at least the next six weeks.”

Harris was speaking during observance of the 59th anniversary of the historic march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. Martin Luther King Jr., and John Lewis — whom police nearly beat to death — and other stalwarts of that demonstration would have affirmed support for Israel’s right to exist and denounced the Hamas attack. But they would also have been at the forefront of another march demanding to stop the killing.

Vermon’s Independent U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders put it bluntly. “We’re talking about Israeli bombs making it impossible for humanitarian aid to get to places that it is needed, that the borders are being blockaded and aid is unable to get through,” Sanders told MSNBC’s Alex Wagner.

Sanders demanded that “not another nickel” be sent to Netanyahu “if he’s gonna continue this wholesale slaughter of the Palestinian people,” In his totally partisan policy on the war, Biden is bucking public opinion, which has risen in support of a ceasefire. A New York Times/Sienna College poll put that support at 44 percent, with 39 percent rejecting it.

In the recent primary caucuses held in Michigan, home of one of the largest concentrations of Muslim and Arab Americans, 13.3 percent of Democrats – more than 100,000 voters – identified as “uncommitted.”

That is significant because Biden won Michigan in 2020 by about 154,000 votes. That could be a trend lasting throughout the primary season with serious consequences for the incumbent.

“We don’t want a Trump presidency but Biden has put Netanyahu ahead of American democracy,” Michigan Congresswoman Debbie Dingell told CNN. “It’s not just the Arab American and Muslim community. It’s young people who want to be heard and have the same concerns.”

They do. Tens of thousands have been staging protests, especially on college campuses, defying those who — wrongly – lump them together as anti-Semitic.

In one tragic protest, Aaron Bushnell, 25, a senior airman in the U.S. Air Force, set himself on fire outside the front gate of the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 25 while wearing his uniform, He shouted “Free Palestine” as the flames engulfed him and died later at a hospital.

Meanwhile, in early January, South Africa formally asked the International Court of Justice (ICJ) or World Court to rule that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people and to order an immediate ceasefire. But, as The Associated Press has pointed out, it could take two years for the court, which is an agency of the United Nations and whose opinions are binding, to decide the case.

The court has so far merely issued a preliminary order that Israel must protect civilians and investigate and punish instances where that has not happened. Israel responded that it already has such a policy in place.