by Shaheryar Ali Khawaja

The US government claims to be the champion of democracy and human rights, and is ever ready to highlight heinous acts of discrimination around the world. However, when it comes to calling out the crimes of Israel and bringing it to justice for its atrocities, Washington finds itself numb, dumb and lip-locked. Such duplicity is incomprehensible to many analysts, bearing in mind that Israel is totally dependent on the US not only for its military hardware and technology, but also for milking enormous amounts of financial aid to fund its budget deficit and war crimes.

Why, despite being reliant on the US, is the Israeli regime totally indifferent to US concerns? How can it feel empowered to tell the US to mind its own business and to ignore concerns regarding its large-scale slaughter of Palestinian civilians?

Pro-Israel lobby groups… basically buy the loyalty of US politicians

In answering such questions, we need to consider the fact that the US is not, in fact, a proper democracy; it is a plutocracy, a dollar democracy where candidates for political office rely heavily on campaign funding. It is here that pro-Israel lobby groups such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) come into play as major donors to campaigns which basically buy the loyalty of US politicians, who are thus compromised and easy to manipulate. Any US government proposal that AIPAC deems to be unfavourable to Israel stands little chance of becoming law. Or Israel is given special treatment to avoid the consequences of existing human rights laws concerning arms supplies, for example, as we have seen recently.

The US government claims to be the champion of democracy and human rights, and is ever ready to highlight heinous acts of discrimination around the world. However, when it comes to calling out the crimes of Israel and bringing it to justice for its atrocities, Washington finds itself numb, dumb and lip-locked. Such duplicity is incomprehensible to many analysts, bearing in mind that Israel is totally dependent on the US not only for its military hardware and technology, but also for milking enormous amounts of financial aid to fund its budget deficit and war crimes.

Why, despite being reliant on the US, is the Israeli regime totally indifferent to US concerns? How can it feel empowered to tell the US to mind its own business and to ignore concerns regarding its large-scale slaughter of Palestinian civilians?

Pro-Israel lobby groups… basically buy the loyalty of US politicians

In answering such questions, we need to consider the fact that the US is not, in fact, a proper democracy; it is a plutocracy, a dollar democracy where candidates for political office rely heavily on campaign funding. It is here that pro-Israel lobby groups such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) come into play as major donors to campaigns which basically buy the loyalty of US politicians, who are thus compromised and easy to manipulate. Any US government proposal that AIPAC deems to be unfavourable to Israel stands little chance of becoming law. Or Israel is given special treatment to avoid the consequences of existing human rights laws concerning arms supplies, for example, as we have seen recently.

Moreover, the US has a large evangelical Christian voter base that drives politicians to throw their weight behind the wayward actions of Israel no matter how grave they are and how complicated the consequences might be. These Christians believe that the survival of Israel is vital for the second coming of Jesus and the Apocalypse. Their pressure on US politicians makes sure that they side with Israel; even the slightest empathy for the Palestinian cause is a no-go zone.

As the de facto government in Yemen imposed its own sanctions on Israel in solidarity with the Palestinians facing genocide in Gaza, and has targeted shipping in the Red Sea connected in some way to the occupation state, the US has put together an international naval coalition to attack Yemen, rather than seek to stop the genocide. The protection of Israeli trade rather than Palestinian lives is another glaring and despicable example of Washington’s submissive attitude towards Israel. The apparently default position of the US sacrificing its resources and personnel for the security of Israel is totally incomprehensible, bearing in mind that Israel has never sent its troops to protect US assets anywhere in the world. On the contrary, as far back as 1967, Israel attacked the USS Liberty off the Sinai coast of Egypt, killing 34 members of the crew and wounding 173 others. No action was taken against the occupation state, and survivors of the attack have maintained ever since that there has been a cover-up by successive US administrations.

Another great injustice on the part of the US has been its use of its veto at the UN Security Council to protect Israel from the condemnation of the global community. As former US President Richard Nixon said in his book Beyond Peace, Israel has no significant strategic value for US interests since the end of the Cold War, making US protection even more irrational.

In all of this, US politicians know that they can rely on a compliant pro-Israel media in America. We have seen journalists and news anchors parroting Israel’s “self-defence” narrative repeatedly. This in turn not only emboldens US politicians, but also Israel itself in its brutal military occupation of Palestine. Anyone who stands up against pro-Israel politicians will find themselves facing character assassination pieces in the mainstream media. The demonisation of Representatives Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and others is a key example of this.

And look what happened to President George Bush Senior who, despite riding high in the popularity stakes after the 1990-1991 Gulf War against Iraq, failed to be re-elected. Why? Because he withheld loan guarantees from Israel due to its illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. The pro-Israel lobby rallied against him, which cost him a second term in the White House.

Another example of the cost of standing up against the Zionist state was the late US Senator Paul Findley, who served from 1960 to 1981. His anti-Israel stance eventually cost him his position, as noted in his book They Dare To Speak Out.

The issue at stake is the freedom of US politicians to exercise their role responsibly with a clear conscience, and withdraw their blanket support from Israel and hold it to account for its occupation and ethnic cleansing of Palestine. The US has the leverage to do this, with its military aid and diplomatic cover at the UN for Israel. It is time for American politicians to grasp the Zionist nettle and, no doubt, save many lives in wars in the Middle East that threaten the whole world. If they do this, then “Genocide Joe” aka “Butcher Biden” will have a more honourable legacy than aiding and abetting the mass murder of Palestinians, children and women especially. The same is true for politicians in the UK, Europe and elsewhere.

The world remembers and honours individuals like Nelson Mandela much more than the US presidents who have supported a state which was founded on terrorism and has killed and oppressed the Palestinians for more than 75 years. This unquestioned support for the apartheid state of Israel has not only cost the US billions of dollars, but also international goodwill. It’s time to ditch parasitic Israel, before it kills off completely the ideals and foundations upon which the US was built.

© Middle East Monitor