Why is a global superpower under the influence of the tiny Zionist state?
On the world stage, the United States of America is the only country that fulfils the criteria to be considered a superpower, although China, the European Union, India and Russia are discussed academically as having the potential to attain such status. As a global superpower, the rest of the world looks to the US for guidance and leadership on thorny issues such as peace and justice affecting us all, especially when it comes to matters around the Middle East.
The world and, indeed, the region itself, desperately needs a calming influence. We must look elsewhere for this, though, because Washington shows absolutely no sign of reining-in the rogue state of Israel which is currently under investigation for genocide while arrest warrants have been sought for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Defence Minister Yoav Gallant.
While America is in a league of its own militarily, it is nowhere near the top when it comes to its politicians; the challenge to find influential US politicians of great intellect and integrity is formidable. At the helm is octogenarian President Joe Biden, who is mired in rumours about his health, with dementia being a prime concern among some observers. As this video illustrates, there have been many presidential gaffes over the past year.
Clearly, Biden is not up to the job but no one, not even his best friends in Europe, dares to tell him this uncomfortable fact.
However, it’s not just the behaviour of a confused US president which is causing global concern and instability, it’s all the president’s men who back him in his unquestioned support for the apartheid state. This is a bipartisan issue. Take Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, for example, who said that America’s use of nuclear bombs against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end the Second World War was the “right decision”. He wants Israel to be given the bombs “they need” to end the war.
Having a mainstream politician calling for Israel to nuke Gaza is a frightening prospect, but Graham’s your man for the job. “Do whatever you have to do to survive as a Jewish state,” the South Carolina Republican told Israel. “Whatever you have to do.”
His unhinged comments were not the first time that such insanity has been voiced in the US. His remarks echoed those of another Republican, Illinois Congressman Tim Walberg, who suggested in March that the war in Gaza “should be like Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Get it over quick.” In other words, unleash nuclear weapons against Palestinian civilians.Last November, Israel’s Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu hinted that Israel could consider doing just that, before he was suspended indefinitely by his own government. That was the first — and last — act of restraint shown in Netanyahu’s far-right government since 7 October. Graham and Walberg, though, remain uncensured for the inflammatory remarks.
Some impatient observers believe that the US is in decline as a superpower, but they are probably in for a disappointment, according to respected academic Michael Beckley, an associate professor of political science at Tufts. Rather depressingly, he believes that the era of the US as the worlds’ sole superpower, and thus its domination of the global order, will continue for decades to come.
While academic heavyweights debate the status of the US, no one has told Israel. The tiny Zionist state, which could easily be swallowed up by almost any one of America’s 50 states, takes not a blind bit of notice of Washington, its main ally and source of diplomatic, economic and military aid. Israel couldn’t care less if US hegemonic power is in decline as long as it keeps the arms and ammunition flowing, without which it is incapable of fighting any adversary.
The US defence budget has increased to $770 billion in order to maintain the Cold War, according to another Beckley article — “Enemies of my Enemy” — in which he makes the case that having and sharing an easily identified enemy is the key to effective world government. He says quite bluntly that the liberal order of things has nothing to do with good intentions or even being a force for good. Instead, he claims, it thrives on a strong dose of irrational fear that can be spread among friends.
That sums it up in a nutshell: the 21st century’s sole superpower to date is run by paranoia and fear, while the biggest threat to world peace is barely a speck on the world map.
In recent days, weeks and months we have seen Israel completely reject and ignore instructions and red lines set by the White House. The most recent order was that Rafah must not be invaded. Ignoring Biden’s exasperation, Israel has even carried on killing regardless of the unprecedented arrest warrants from the International Criminal Court (ICC), and despite being ordered by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to end its offensive against Rafah.
As the world looked to Biden and Washington for leadership, though, all we got was a presidential tantrum. Biden called the ICC arrest warrants “outrageous” and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken asserted that Washington “fundamentally rejects” them. Sanctions against court officials have been mooted.
If the superpower of the day refuses to implement international law, then what hope is there for a rules-based international order? What will the US achieve by threatening to dismantle the legal apparatus to uphold such an order? When 335 million US citizens are incapable of placing anyone better than Biden or his predecessor Donald Trump in the White House, do they really expect the world to turn to America for justice?
Both Biden and Netanyahu are in total denial of where this can all lead without an immediate ceasefire and serious peace-making efforts. Intelligent and responsible leaders and their advisers always have a passion for facts, not fantasy, so that should rule both of these dangerous clowns out of the running, but it hasn’t.
Despite the impending legal action, Tel Aviv has shown no sign of restraint. If anything, the belligerent behaviour of the rogue state has increased with a show of unsurpassed cruelty against the Palestinians in Gaza. The enclave’s health sector took yet another battering recently when two more hospitals in the north — Al-Adwan and Al-Aqsa — were targeted by Israeli soldiers, and medical staff and 1,300 patients were ordered to leave (to go where?).
On Sunday evening the world was left reeling in horror after 2,000lb bunker-busting bombs were dropped on tents in an area declared by Israel to be a humanitarian safe zone for tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians. As the massive bombs exploded, babies and children were dismembered and decapitated, and their mothers were burnt alive and turned into human torches.
This horror was captured on smart phones and relayed to a shocked world on social media. Just as observers catch their breath over Israeli war crimes, the Zionist state comes up with yet another way to bring death and destruction to the Palestinians for the perverse gratification of sick Zionists around the world.
What did Netanyahu do about this latest massacre? He expressed regret and promised an investigation, as though someone had just spilled a cup of tea on his office floor. We all know that Israeli investigations are meaningless whitewashes, and any sincerity that he might have shown was cancelled out immediately by his promise to continue to bombard Rafah.
Israel has now used US-made and supplied weapons to massacre 38,000 innocent Palestinians in Gaza, of whom 14,000 were children and 9,500 were women. An estimated 12, 000 children are buried under the rubble of their homes, and there are 80,000 wounded. Israel’s appetite for killing Arabs and Muslims appears to be insatiable.
The genocide is now turning into a holocaust and the world seems to be powerless to stop it. The people of Germany remain overwhelmed by guilt for what their grandparents’ generation did during the Second World War, looking the other way during the Nazi Holocaust in which six million Jews were murdered. But no one can look the other way today, because the horrific images and eyewitness accounts of war crimes are everywhere, even as they are carried out by the descendants of the survivors of that mass murder in Europe. The Israeli genocide of the Palestinians is being broadcast in real time. Nobody will be able to claim, “I didn’t know.”
And what will we say when our grandchildren ask what we did to stop the mass murder in Gaza? We can speak out; we can boycott; we can push for sanctions, but the real power to end the killing lies in the US. The buck will stop in Washington because, like it or not, it is the superpower. There will be no hiding place for the Senators who have been bought and paid for by the pro-Israel lobby; or the officials who have carried out the murderous orders of their leaders; or the armed forces who obey their commander in chief without question. That person, of course, is the President of the United States of America, and whether that means Joe Biden, Donald Trump or any of their predecessors, each one is beholden to that wicked, wretched, rogue state squatting in the Middle East. “We were only obeying orders” didn’t wash when the Nazis went on trial at Nuremburg, and it doesn’t wash today for their political heirs ruling the roost in Israel.
READ: German vice chancellor accuses Israel of violating international law
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.