The situation for the 2.3 million residents of Gaza grows more desperate with each passing day as the death toll of Palestinians reached more than 29,000, 70 percent of women and children, and another 69,000 wounded. The United Nation’s World Food Program announced on Feb. 20 that it was forced to suspend food aid deliveries to isolated northern Gaza due to the Israeli military’s failure to ensure UN convoys’ safety. The agency warned that “People are already dying from hunger-related causes.”
On Feb. 20, the Biden administration vetoed an Algerian-drafted UN Security Council resolution on the Israel Gaza war, blocking for a third time an international demand for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, as the U.S. pushed for an alternative resolution calling for a temporary ceasefire linked to the release of hostages held by Hamas.
At the same time, world leaders are ratcheting up pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to abandon his plans for a ground offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah where some 1.5 million Palestinians have been told by Israel to seek safety. Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Mike Ferner, national director of Veterans for Peace and Matthew Hoh, associate director of the Eisenhower Media Network. Here they discuss a recent Veterans for Peace letter demanding President Biden stop sending weapons to Israel, declaring the transfer of these weapons is a violation of U.S. and international law.
MIKE FERNER: There are at least six things that Biden administration is either ignoring their own directives or violating U.S. law or international treaties that we are bound to uphold, such as a conventional arms transfer policy. That’s one of them. I’ll just read down the six of them quickly: The Foreign Assistance Act, the Arms Export Control Act, the U.S. War Crimes Act, the Leahy Law and the Genocide Convention Implementation Act.
These are all things that are on the books. And the enforcement problem was stated really well by Ralph Nader, who expounded on our letter and explains some of it in one of his recent columns. And the enforcement problem is that private citizens can’t bring action against the State Department or any other governmental department for not enforcing the law.
That has to come from Congress. Well, we know what the political problem is. The administration, at least at the top, they’re starting to get a lot of opposition from within their own staff members. But from the top, they’re 100 percent supportive of Israel. And Congress has yet to find any backbone to do anything to make the administration uphold the law.
So given that and the fact that private citizens can’t bring legal action, I’ve been encouraging our members to take this opportunity to up their activity and tell Congress, you know, enforce the law. And how should we be telling Congress? What I specifically suggested is, of course, the old write your congressperson call, but participate in activities that are going on all over the country.
Get out in the street, sit down in the streets and bridges and just do everything possible to nonviolently bring business as usual to a halt until this government starts to enforce the laws that it’s supposed to abide by–not even saying anything about the morality involved.
SCOTT HARRIS: Thank you, Mike, for that good summary of the reasons why this letter was written in. Matthew, what would you like to add in terms of the rationale for citing human rights law in this country, both domestic law and international law, and really holding the Biden administration accountable for their supply of weapons to Israel as the carnage continues in Gaza?
MATTHEW HOH: There are certainly moral arguments to be made, as well as a strategic arguments to be made why the United States should not be supporting Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people. There are many arguments that can be made based upon the wisdom of doing such or whether this actually serves the interests of the United States, as well as the moral argument of committing such a crime against humanity.
But there’s also the legal argument. And what this letter does that Veterans for Peace said to the State Department is make it clear that the United States government is in violation of its own laws. There is no vagueness about this. It is very clear that the United States government is deliberately and overtly violating its own federal laws in terms of providing support to Israel as it commits genocide against the Palestinian people.
You have … the International Court of Justice, as well as the U.S. district court affirm that there is a plausible risk of genocide occurring, as well as just the vast volume of evidence that has been produced, as well as the actual authoritative reporting coming from dozens of international organizations.
So the rationale behind this is to, one, do the right thing here as American citizens, as former veterans of the United States military, as citizens of a democracy. It is our responsibility to ensure that our government is put on notice that it is violating its own laws. The other aspect of this as well is to provide education, provide information to people, give people the information they need to do exactly what Mike was saying in terms of confronting their elected officials, whether they be elected officials at the federal level, at the state level, or at the local level.
This type of information where it clearly demonstrates that, Look, the federal government is violating its own laws here, what the Biden administration’s doing is illegal. Very clear to see that type of information, that type of public education, if you will, we believe is necessary to ensure that resistance against the U.S. support to Israel’s genocide is as strong as it can be.
Listen to Scott Harris’ in-depth interview with Mike Ferner and Matthew Hoh (17:47) and see more articles and opinion pieces in the Related Links section of this page.
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