President Biden needs to Dump his War Hawks and Turn to Peace Work if he wants to Salvage his Presidency
Omer Abid 11/27/2023
Grand Blanc, Mi. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – It has been clear since the horrid terror attack of October 7 by Hamas that President Joe Biden has been getting dreadful advice from his top officials, whether at the State Department, the CIA or the National Security Council. The president’s refusal to draw any red lines for an Israeli response endangers the entire rules-based international order, of the United Nations Charter, the Nuremberg Trials, the Geneva Conventions, the UN Declaration of Human Rights, and the Rome Statute, which Biden and his aides have spent nearly two years throwing in the face of Vladimir Putin over his invasion of Ukraine. Biden has presided over a genocide in Gaza, the fiercest assault on a civilian population in this century, in which nearly half the habitable buildings have been damaged or destroyed, thousands have been killed (mostly women and children) and thousands more wounded. Biden kept denigrating the whole idea of a ceasefire and kept resupplying Israeli munitions for this Cambodia-on-the-Mediterranean. He clearly is surrounded by hawks who have more hatred than good sense, and if he is to survive politically, and if the US is not to be blemished by yet another mass atrocity, he must start firing people.
As our entire nation ate and drank to our fill and then some on Thanksgiving weekend, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), 2.3 million Palestinians are trying to get by with only 3% of water that the WHO says is minimum water requirement. As a physician and as a former Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer at the CDC, I know that a person typically dies after 3 days without any water. Gaza, under an Israeli economic blockade that crashed its economy and produced 54% unemployment, used to receive 500 trucks of aid daily before the war. The food trucks allowed in the Gaza Strip from the Rafah crossing in the past month have only provided 7% of the caloric needs of the population, according to the World Food Program of the United Nations. Even during the humanitarian pause of this weekend, only 63 aid trucks came in on Saturday.
GAZA CITY, GAZA – NOVEMBER 26: A view of the heavily damaged, collapsed factory buildings caused by Israeli attacks during the third day of the humanitarian pause in Gaza City, Gaza on November 26, 2023. Multiple factories in Gaza turned into ruins as a result of Israeli attack. (Photo by Montaser Alsawaf/Anadolu via Getty Images)
The WFP website reported, “Supplies of food and water are practically non-existent in Gaza and only a fraction of what is needed is arriving through the borders. With winter fast approaching, unsafe and overcrowded shelters, and the lack of clean water, civilians are facing the immediate possibility of starvation,” said WFP Executive Director Cindy McCain. “There is no way to meet current hunger needs with one operational border crossing. The only hope is opening another, safe passage for humanitarian access to bring life-saving food into Gaza.”
Who is advising President Biden on Gaza including on this weaponization of withholding food, water, medicine, fuel from the civilian population? It is figures such as Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Brett McGurk, the Middle East coordinator on the National Security Council. When Blinken was pressed on the unacceptably high rate of killings of children in the Israeli assault on Gaza, Blinken rejected any ceasefire, “we have to remember. Israel has to do everything it can to make sure this doesn’t happen again . . . Freezing things in place where they are now would allow Hamas to remain where it is and to repeat what it’s done sometime in the future. No country could accept that.” Blinken’s absolute refusal to abide by the principle of proportionality in the international law of war (more than ten Palestinian civilians have been killed for every one Israeli since October 7, and nearly half of Gaza’s infrastructure is rubble) should be disqualifying for his office.
Antony Blinken, US secretary of state, during an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders retreat in San Francisco, California, US, on Friday, Nov. 17, 2023. President Biden met Thursday with counterparts from South Korea and Japan, two top US allies, a day after his landmark summit with China’s President Xi Jinping. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images.
As for McGurk, he had served as special Presidential Envoy for the international coalition countering ISIL (“ISIS”, Daesh), the terrorist group that brutalized Iraq and Syria until 2018. Someone so obsessed with counterterrorism is perhaps not the right person to deal with a humanitarian crisis such as Gaza, of which the Hamas party-militia is only a small part. Many experts have for some time held that he is the wrong person for his position on the NSC.
What McGurk said in a meeting at the International Institute of Strategic Studies think tank in Bahrain on Friday requires him to be immediately replaced. According to Politico, “The White House insists a top aide’s comment tying the release of hostages to increased humanitarian aid for Gaza was taken out of context, even though he explicitly and repeatedly made references to a direct trade.”
McGurk said “a release of [a] large number of hostages would result in a significant pause in fighting, a significant pause in fighting and a massive surge of humanitarian relief,” he said during the Manama Dialogue hosted by the IISS think tank in Bahrain. Critics, including former Biden administration officials, pointed out that McGurk’s statement meant that the U.S. admitted to withholding humanitarian assistance until Hamas let the 200-plus hostages go. This is a prescription for genocide, since Hamas’s interests diverge substantially from the 2.3 million noncombatants in Gaza who have no control over the disposition of the guerrilla-held hostages.
MANAMA, BAHRAIN – NOVEMBER 18: American National Security Council Coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa Brett McGurk attends the Manama Dialogue, held by International Institute for Strategic Studies, in Manama, Bahrain on November 18, 2023. (Photo by Ayman Yaqoob/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Politico continued “But the White House insisted that’s not the point McGurk was making. He was noting how a halt in bombings made it easier to deliver greater amounts of aid and for Palestinians in Gaza to reach packages, echoing concerns other officials have made for weeks. Throughout his address, McGurk detailed the millions in support delivered to Gaza and President Joe Biden’s own efforts to ensure 100 trucks enter the enclave daily.”
This supposed clarification makes no sense in the light of Washington’s actual actions. The Biden Administration has been helping Israel with its attacks throughout all of Gaza with munitions and diplomatic support and denying that it gave any red lines to Israel. The whole reason for the urgency of aid now is that Israel cut off water, food, electricity and fuel for weeks and destroyed sources of food such as bakeries. NSC spokesperson, Adrienne Watson, tried to go into damage control after McGurk was called out, even saying, “The United States does not support conditions on the delivery of humanitarian aid into Gaza. We never have, and never will. Insinuating that McGurk implied this during this panel in Manama falsely characterizes what he said.” She added, “We have made a sustained effort to generate humanitarian assistance into Gaza,” she proceeded, “and will continue to work hard to ensure more and more aid gets in.”
Again, the Biden Administration should not want to take credit for creating imminent starvation of the civilians of Gaza, one million of whom are children. But the damage control that Watson attempted falls short, as explained by Politico. McGurk used different moments in his remarks to directly connect the hostage-aid issue. “The surge in humanitarian relief, the surge in fuel, the pause in fighting will come when hostages are released,” he said. Later, he added “we aim to double that amount as soon as possible and see it grow exponentially from there. But I want to just stress: the hostages are released, you will see a significant, significant change.”
Still, at no point during McGurk’s remarks or the question-and-answer portion afterward did the NSC official clearly state a temporary pause in fighting would make delivering aid a less dangerous endeavor. Human Rights Watch’s Washington Director Sarah Yager told us the administration should clear up “what people heard [as] a deeply alarming statement.” “Yes, a pause in fighting would clearly allow more aid, but the aid itself cannot be dependent on the release of hostages, which was the link made in his speech,” she said.
On November 20, Senators Tammy Baldwin, Tim Kaine, Chris Van Hollen, and 10 others wrote to Biden with an excerpt below with the first sentence expressing how out of touch Biden and officials such as McGurk are.
“It is hard to overstate the scale of the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza.The United Nations estimates 1.6 million (now 1.7 million) Palestinians are internally displaced within the Gaza Strip, a land area comparable to twice the size of the District of Columbia. It is estimated that half of the displaced civilians are in make-shift United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) shelters. It is largely unknown where the remaining displaced civilians are seeking shelter. The United States must urge Israel to work with international relief agencies to facilitate safe and adequate accommodations for displaced individuals, and the United States must make clear that no non-combatant individuals should be compelled to leave Gaza.This humanitarian crisis will precipitate a significant, and preventable loss of human life if not addressed immediately. More than half of Gaza’s hospitals have shut down, desalination plants are struggling to remain operational, and the last operative flour mill has been shut down due to a lack of fuel.”
The senators also wrote, “We hope you’ll join us in encouraging our ally Israel to take immediate steps to help provide critical humanitarian aid to the innocent civilians in Gaza, including re-opening the Kerem Shalom border crossing to allow life-saving water, food, and fuel to reach vulnerable civilians.” The fact that US Senators need to tell Biden that Kerem Shalom has to be opened underscores that the President has not been receiving the information he needs advisers such as McGurk, who need to go.
There is another reason for Biden to give the boot these genocidal maniacs. The callousness of the Biden administration’s stance toward Palestinian noncombatants may turn out to be costly at the polls. Most of the victims of the bombings have been civilians and most are women and children; the number of dead children appears to exceed 5,000. While Mr. Biden and his top officials appear to be tone deaf to the scale of this atrocity, voters are not. A Data for Progress poll of 1329 voters on their view of the conflict revealed that 66% of voters agreed with the statement that “The U.S. should call for a ceasefire and a de-escalation of violence in Gaza. The U.S. should leverage its close diplomatic relationship with Israel to prevent further violence and civilian deaths.”
Those insisting on an end to the Israeli offensive included 80% of Democrats, 57% of Independents, and 56% of Republicans. The poll was taken on October 18-19. Since the death toll now exceeds 13,500 Palestinians, along with over 6,000 missing civilians assumed trapped or dead under rubble, the urgency voters feel about a ceasefire are likely even stronger now.
In Michigan, Muslim and Arab Americans have already started a campaign called Abandon Biden. John Zogby did a nationwide poll and stated the summary as follows: “Support for President Biden in the upcoming election has plummeted among Arab Americans voters, dropping from 59% to 17%, a 42% decrease from 2020. Biden’s approval rating has also dropped precipitously from 74% in 2020 to 29% in 2023, reflecting trends across the American public as a whole. Arab Americans account for hundreds of thousands of voters in several key election states, like Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, where the 2024 election battleground will play out.”
The Guardian ‘Save the children of Gaza’: Pro-Palestine protests interrupt Blinken’s senate hearing
Muslim and Arab Americans voted overwhelmingly for Biden and they form a swing vote in battleground states such as Michigan, Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania. The support for Biden has plummeted in Muslim Americans but also among minorities, progressives, and other groups because Biden refused to call for a ceasefire. Even the four-day “humanitarian pause” in which he acquiesced may be followed by a further long-term bombing campaign aimed at making even more of Gaza uninhabitable and preparing the way for the further ethnic cleansing of Gaza’s Palestinians, the majority of whose families were expelled by Zionist gangs from southern Israel in 1948.
Biden needs to replace hawks such as McGurk for many reasons, most of all for the welfare of 2.3 million noncombatants. A stark change in course is also needed to begin repairing the reputation of the United States, which is now seen as heartless and hypocritical in most of the world, for having strenuously condemned Russia for occupying part of Ukraine and brutalizing the latter country but for having defended Israel’s even harsher treatment of the Palestinian civilians it occupies.
Israel cannot change it’s geography from being located at the center of the 2 billion strong Muslim world and at the center of the Arab world. Israel and the US had been duped by Donald Trump and Jared Kushner into thinking that the Abraham Accords with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain would provide Israel security. This is wishful thinking, and depends on the Arab world remaining in the grip of a handful of pro-Western autocrats. It is likely that the voice of the Arab peoples will eventually be heard, and there is no question that they are deeply hostile to Israel as a result of its treatment of the Palestinians. They will vividly remember what they know in their bones was genocide of the Palestinians of Gaza.
The rate of the killing of Palestinian civilians is similar to the rate of killing during the Cambodian genocide. Within a week of the Israeli assault, 880 scholars and practitioners of international law, conflict studies, and genocide studies signed a statement warning the public and in particular political leaders of the possibility of genocide. They started their statement writing, “As scholars and practitioners of international law, conflict studies and genocide studies, we are compelled to sound the alarm about the possibility of the crime of genocide being perpetrated by Israeli forces against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. We do not do so lightly, recognising the weight of this crime, but the gravity of the current situation demands it.”
Many of these signatories such as the Israeli scholar Raz Segal, is Director of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Stockton University, said back then that what Israel is doing is “a textbook case of genocide.” Israel’s nonstop bombardment of and denial of staples to noncombatants during the past month has strengthened their assessment. The Center for Constitutional Rights has facilitated the lawsuit of Palestinians and Palestinian Americans who have lost multiple family members against Biden, Blinken, and Austin for not only failing their obligations on preventing genocide as per the Genocide Convention that the US signed and ratified but that these three even aided and abetted this genocide.
What are the statistics we are seeing on the watch of hawks like Blinken and McGurk, admitted to even by Israeli officials? Nearly 20,000 Palestinians killed (including the 6,000 who are missing and presumably trapped or dead under the rubble) and over 30,000 wounded. Many of those with severe wounds will soon die but a lot of those with milder wounds which could have been treated with antibiotics will end up with amputations and some with deaths because the medicine has not been made accessible to the population. And the WHO is reporting that there is sharply increasing number of waterborne diseases including bloody diarrhea which indicates dysentery. These numbers of almost all civilian casualties are in just 6 weeks.
Israeli Defense Minister Gallant insists that the agreed-upon pause for hostage/prisoner exchanges will be “a short respite, at the end of which the fighting will continue intensely.” He said: “At least another two months of fighting is expected.” What will the numbers be if we allow Israel to continue using the bombs and fighter jets we gave them to inflict on Palestinians in Gaza? And as shocking it may be, I know as an epidemiologist that deaths from disease and starvation and dehydration are likely to be higher than from the bombs and shelling. And if aid does not immediately increase (and this would require the other border crossings on the Israel side of Kerem Shalom and Erez to be immediately opened), then there may be hundreds of thousands of deaths attributable to Israel and by extension to us.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu began his public statement about this recent deal to release women and children Israeli hostages and mostly women and children Palestinian prisoners not with relief that some hostages were being released but rather that he said that Israel will continue their attack on Gaza. Who will help coordinate the US role in all this? It can’t be the ones who thus far has not treated Palestinian civilians with the full respect and compassion they deserve. Hawks such as Blinken and McGurk have been complicit in the catastrophic flattened landscape and the willful starvation of noncombatants. Under these careless eyes, the Palestinians today are experiencing the horror of an existential threat, the Israelis will be gravely endangered if a full genocide occurs, and we and our fragile democracy face the peril of four more years with Donald Trump in the White House. Biden needs an immediate course correction.