This week, we learned that Israeli war cabinet member Benny Gantz is visiting Washington, D.C. by the invitation of President Biden, while Vice President Kamala Harris has also called for a six-week ceasefire in exchange for a prisoner swap. The news comes amid U.S. primary elections over the next several weeks. These developments show two things:
- Our pressure campaigns are working to push the White House to take action for a ceasefire, humanitarian aid, and Palestinian rights—or suffer political consequences. We must keep up the pressure.
- The Biden Administration has lost control over Prime Minister Netanyahu to stop this war and is attempting to save face with inadequate and superficial measures towards humanitarian aid and an end to all violence.
Inviting Gantz, Netanyahu’s war cabinet member and direct political rival, to meet with senior Biden Administration officials is a disturbing signal that the White House’s diplomatic pressure on Netanyahu has completely failed. Instead of cutting aid to Israel and intervening in this war, officials are attempting to do damage control and play into Israeli politics amid the humiliating failure of diplomatic pressure to end the massacre in Gaza or provide humanitarian aid.
If Netanyahu’s extremist leadership does not have the support or trust of the Biden Administration, we must ask why the Israeli government receives a blank check for billions of dollars in weapons and military aid amid an unrestrained campaign of genocide. As a client state of the United States, financially supported more than any other country, Israel must be held accountable—not appeased while it publicly undermines the United States. The Palestinian people face a rapidly-rising death toll after already over 30,000 people have been killed and a million people are starving from Israel’s ban on and bombing of humanitarian aid to Gaza.
Begging Netanyahu to stop killing civilians or going around him belittles the position of the United States with regard to Israel. The Biden Administration’s early support for Netanyahu’s campaign and syndication of his war-mongering talking points has not resulted in respect for U.S. interests or the Administration’s own political interests in a major election year. But the Administration continues to act as if its hands are tied—or rather, that it is unwilling to take serious action to stop the genocide of Palestinians.
The truth is that Israel’s genocidal campaign cannot continue without U.S. support. The administration cannot shirk its power to stop this war on all Palestinians in Gaza.
A six-week ceasefire does not respond to popular demands and the urgency of the situation in Gaza. A ceasefire must be permanent, immediate, and enforced. Conditions for a ceasefire, imposed on a starving population facing ongoing and imminent genocide, is a gross miscalculation of the scope of human tragedy Israel is creating with U.S. support. The U.S. government can be found complicit in the war crimes and genocide it has aided and abetted since October.
Instead, the White House must take this opportunity for a comprehensive change in American strategy toward lasting peace by asserting a moral stance to impose a permanent ceasefire and affirm the full rights of the Palestinian people to live on their land.
