Despite the fact that more than 11,000 Palestinians have been killed — including 4,600 children — the Biden administration and Congress continue to solidly support Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s relentless bombing campaign and ground assault in Gaza.
After Hamas massacred 1,200 Israelis and kidnapped 240 civilians brought back to Gaza as hostages, Biden sent two aircraft carriers to patrol offshore. Biden has also asked Congress to approve $14 billion for Israel in addition to the $3.8 billion Israel receives from the U.S. every year in military aid. The proposed White House proposed Israel and Ukraine funding request is now stalled, as the House Republican caucus is in disarray.
Between The Lines’ Melinda Tuhus spoke with Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of the group Democracy for the Arab World Now, or DAWN. Here she explains why U.S. support for Israel’s mass killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza and the fear of many Gaza residents that they will soon be permanently forcibly displaced from their homes, makes the U.S. complicit in war crimes in the eyes of the International Criminal Court.
[Web editor’s note: The broadcast version of this interview has been edited to fit on-air time constraints.]
SARAH LEAH WHITSON: The United States has been Israel’s largest weapons supplier for decades. The U.S. has provided billions and billions and billions of dollars in military support to Israel, and that is matched by America’s political support of Israel, reflected most significantly in America’s role in shielding Israel from any accountability, any restraint, any compliance with international law at the UN Security Council. The U.S. is counted on by Israel to veto any measure, no matter how broadly supported by the international community or every single member of the Security Council, the U.S. steps in to veto measures that would, for example, most recently, bring about even a humanitarian pause, much less a ceasefire.
In this most recent round of conflict – because the war against Palestinians did not start on Oct. 7 – but in this most recent round, the U.S. has supplemented the billions it has already provided to Israel this year with additional military support – with the presence of Navy warship to buttress Israel’s defense; with logistical support; when the Secretary of State of the U.S. spends a day in the Israeli war cabinet, followed by the President of the US spending a day in the Israeli war cabinet, it is meant to signal to the international community that the US is part of Israel’s war effort.
Now, given Israel’s record in this latest round of fighting of systematic and widespread war crimes against Palestinian people, the U.S. is complicit in these war crimes because it is playing the role of aiding and abetting war crimes. This is particularly significant at a moment in time when the International Criminal Court (ICC) has launched a historic investigation, an open prosecution of Israeli war crimes and Palestinian crimes in Palestine since 2014. This means that U.S. officials can also be found criminally liable by the ICC for their role in aiding and abetting Israeli crimes.
MELINDA TUHUS: Am I right that the U.S. is not a party to the ICC, and if so, what does that mean?
SARAH LEAH WHITSON: The U.S. is not a party to the ICC and has repeatedly threatened and sanctioned the court under prior administrations for their efforts to hold Israeli officials accountable, and American officials accountable, including for crimes in Afghanistan. However, the U.S. not being a party to the Rome Statute (of the International Criminal Court) will not shield American officials from criminal liability where the ICC has jurisdiction, as it does in Palestine. The state of Palestine submitted the situation in Palestine to the ICC. The ICC opened a preliminary examination and then declared that it was formally launching an investigation. That is how an ICC investigation starts. Israel and the US and others challenged the ICC’s jurisdiction by stating that Palestine is not a state and therefore not able to ask for the Court’s jurisdiction. The ICC rejected that appeal on jurisdictional grounds and the prosecutor therefore then reaffirmed in 2019 that the investigation is open and ongoing, and because that investigation is open and ongoing, it would capture anyone who participates in or contributes to crimes and violations of the Rome Statute, including American officials for aiding and abetting.
MELINDA TUHUS: It seems like there’s been a slight change in the Biden administration’s and maybe members of Congress, attitude toward what’s going on now since Oct. 7, after Biden went to Israel and said there’s no sunlight between him and Netanyahu, gave him a big hug, and now different officials, including Biden, are calling for a humanitarian pause. What do you think of the idea of a humanitarian pause and how that fits into the U.S. relationship with Israel?
SARAH LEAH WHITSON: It’s true there’s been a slight change in the evolution in the Biden administration’s position from where it started and I think where President Biden probably remains and that is fully in support of Israel right or wrong, Palestinians be damned.
That evolved into language trying to emphasize efforts of the U.S. to get humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza, as well as Palestinians outside of Gaza, with plans for funding to build infrastructure for Palestinian refugees in Egypt, which itself would be aiding and abetting the crime of forceful displacement of Palestinians from Gaza, and now it has morphed into actually saying that they want to encourage Israel to agree to a humanitarian pause.
All of these slight improvements are really not much more than empty rhetoric, reflecting the Biden administration’s desperate efforts to catch up to where the American people are and the American people are horrified and disgusted with the bombardment of Gaza, to also to cover their own asses in terms of the global accountability that is taking place and will continue to take place against the US for its role in supporting Israeli war crimes.
For more information, visit Democracy for the Arab World Now – DAWN at dawnmena.org.
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