As I write this, in the last 15 days, Israel has bombed a tent city and a UN school and has killed 276 Palestinian non-combatants in a mid-day raid to gain the release of four Israelis being held as hostages.
Almost 400 people were killed in the three actions, with many hundreds more wounded. In the hostage retrieval, 64 Palestinian children and 57 women were killed.
The UN has reported that more than 37,000 Palestinians have been killed since the war in Gaza started, with over 38% (about 14,000) being children under the age of 14.
Jeffrey Sachs, a Columbia professor and one of the most respected foreign policy experts in this country, in a one-minute, 34-second blast on YouTube said the following:
“Israel has deliberately starved the people of Gaza. Starved! I am not using an exaggeration. Israel is a criminal, is in war crime status now I believe, in genocidal status, and it is without shame, without remorse….” Sachs is a Jew.
Another Jew, Dave Smith, has a very popular podcast called “Part Of The Problem.” He has been very critical of the way Israel has treated the Palestinians, both in this war and in the way Israel evicted hundreds of thousands of them from their homes during Israel’s founding in 1948.
I have read that Netanyahu has only a 34% positive rating in Israel, but that 80% approve of his handling of the war in Gaza. If 80% of Jews worldwide approve of Israel’s war, this still would leave more than 3,000,000 Jews who do not approve.
After the tent city bombing mentioned above, the Washington Post reported the “horrific scenes” and said, “Parents were burned alive in their tents while children screamed for help. Doctors recounted struggling to treat gruesome shrapnel wounds with dwindling medical supplies.”
The Post quoted one man who lost seven relatives in the attack: “We were not able to identify them until this morning because of the charred bodies. The faces were eroded and the features were completely disappeared.” Four were children.
The Post interviewed another man who said “he still heard the screams…” He said he took a fire extinguisher and rushed to help. “I didn’t know what to do to help people as they burned… dismembered bodies, charred bodies, children without heads, bodies as if they had melted.”
Another man found his brother and three-year-old niece dead, the little girl had been hit in the head and he said “There was blood everywhere.”
At an International Medical Corps Clinic, a surgeon said one little girl was asking everyone if they had seen her parents. The parents were dead. He said the clinic had run out of even basic medical supplies and said he had tried to save a six-year-old girl, but she died that night.
After these latest episodes, even people and countries that had always supported Israel had seen too much. Canada, France and Germany all condemned the bombings. Spain, Norway and Portugal joined the 145 other countries that had previously called for full UN membership for Palestine.
The U.S. finally supported a UN Security Council call for an immediate ceasefire but is still sending military aid to Israel. In fact, on June 7, CNN reported Israel’s latest bombing of a UN school “leaving dozens dead, using U.S. munitions.”
Our national media has reported that many Jewish students have felt “uncomfortable” on some college campuses. They should not be treated rudely, but this pales in comparison to thousands of Palestinian children being killed and thousands more being starved or losing arms or legs or parents.
I have been a very loyal, very conservative Republican since I was a teenager. But this war is not conservative. I am disappointed that only one Republican, Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, has had the courage to oppose and criticize Israel’s cruelty in this war. I was pleased that he won 76% in his recent primary even though huge money was poured in against him.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee owns the Congress because of its ability to steer many millions in campaign contributions from all over the U.S. to anywhere in the U.S.
Netanyahu funded Hamas for several years in a strategy that horribly backfired last Oct. 7. Since then, he has led a terribly lopsided war that has caused the deaths of many thousands of innocent men, women, and children.
He has been invited to speak to Congress and the nation on July 24. He will be treated as a conquering hero. As a man with the blood of thousands on his hands, he should not have even been invited.
Reprinted with author’s permission from The Knoxville Focus.
