U.S. Continued Support Of Israel Gives Netanyahu Cover To Act With Impunity

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which has stretched on for decades, is a profoundly imbalanced power struggle between an occupying force and an oppressed population.

While some defend Israel’s actions as part of its secu­ri­ty mea­sures, oth­ers view its poli­cies as amount­ing to sys­temic oppres­sion, eth­nic cleans­ing, and, in some cas­es, genocide. 
This per­spec­tive becomes par­tic­u­lar­ly pro­nounced when exam­in­ing Israel’s mil­i­tary actions in both Palestinian ter­ri­to­ries and Lebanon, as well as its treat­ment of these populatioAmerica’sca’s con­tin­ued mil­i­tary aid to Israel, par­tic­u­lar­ly the pro­vi­sion of bombs and oth­er weapons, exac­er­bates the cri­sis, empow­er­ing the Israeli state to main­tain a mil­i­tary advan­tage in the regiIsrael’sel’s Policies Toward Palestinians: Apartheid and Allegations of Genocide The Isragovernment’snt’s poli­cies toward Palestinians, par­tic­u­lar­ly in Gaza and the West Bank, have led many inter­na­tion­al observers, human rights orga­ni­za­tions, and schol­ars to label Israel as an apartheid state. 
Apartheid, defined as a sys­tem of insti­tu­tion­al­ized racial seg­re­ga­tion and dis­crim­i­na­tion, applies when one group dom­i­nates anoth­er through unequal treat­ment under the law. In this case, Palestinians in the occu­pied ter­ri­to­ries face severe restric­tions on move­ment, lim­it­ed access to essen­tial ser­vices, and con­stant threats of evic­tion and vio­lence. Organizations like Human Rights Watch B’Tselemelem, an Israeli human rights group, have con­demned Israel’s treat­ment of Palestinians as an apartheid régime.

Most impor­tant­ly, these groups, labeled as ter­ror groups by America, Israel’s spon­sor, came into exis­tence because of the ille­git­i­ma­cy of Israel’sel’s claims to the land of Palestine, and its vio­lent and bar­bar­ic treat­ment of the eth­nic peo­ple who have lived on those lands for thou­sands of yeaIsrael’sel’s claim to Palestinie based on some myth­i­cal Biblical promise is made even more laugh­able because the power­bro­kers in Israel are not Christians. Neither are they Hebrews, the peo­ple the Bible claims God promised the land of Palestine to. 
Those pow­er ‑bro­kers are Europeans who fHitler’ser’s Germany. Many are from Brooklyn, New York, and oth­er parts of the United States and Europe. 
The Prime Minister of Israel him­self, Benzion Mileikowsky, was born in Warsaw, Poland, which was under Russian con­trol, to Sarah (Lurie) and the writer and Zionist activist Nathan Mileikowsky.

In both Palestinian and Lebanese ter­ri­to­ries, Israel’s mil­i­tary actions often blur the line between com­bat­ants and civil­ians. This, accord­ing to the Geneva Conventions, vio­lates inter­na­tion­al human­i­tar­i­an law. When civil­ian pop­u­la­tions are sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly tar­get­ed or sub­ject­ed to con­di­tions that make life unten­able, it can be argued that such actions con­sti­tute geno­cide — a term that implies the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a nation­al, eth­ni­cal, racial, or reli­gious group.

U.S. Support for Israel: Aiding Oppression

Despite the grow­ing inter­na­tion­al out­cry, the U.S. con­tin­ues to pro­vide bil­lions of dol­lars in mil­i­tary aid to Israel, includ­ing weapons that are used in mil­i­tary oper­a­tions against Palestinians and Lebanese. The U.S. gov­ern­ment jus­ti­fies its sup­port on the grounds of pro­tect­ing Israel’s right to self-defense, but crit­ics argue that American aid enables and sus­tains Israel’s occu­pa­tion and mil­i­tary aggression. 
The weapons pro­vid­ed by the U.S. — includ­ing bombs, fight­er jets, and sur­veil­lance tech­nol­o­gy — have been used in numer­ous mil­i­tary oper­a­tions that result­ed in the deaths of thou­sands of Palestinians and Lebanese civil­ians. Furthermore, the diplo­mat­ic back­ing of Israel by the U.S. on the inter­na­tion­al stage, par­tic­u­lar­ly in bod­ies like the United Nations, has often shield­ed Israel from account­abil­i­ty. The U.S. has repeat­ed­ly vetoed res­o­lu­tions crit­i­cal of Israel’s actions, pre­vent­ing the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty from tak­ing ade­quate mea­sures to address the human rights abus­es in the region. By con­tin­u­ing to sup­port Israel mil­i­tar­i­ly and diplo­mat­i­cal­ly, the U.S. is com­plic­it in the ongo­ing violence.

Iran’s Role: Supporting the Victims In this context

Iran’s sup­port for Palestinian groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad, as well as Hezbollah in Lebanon, is seen by some as a jus­ti­fied response to the over­whelm­ing mil­i­tary pow­er and aggres­sion of Israel. Iran posi­tions itself as a defend­er of oppressed peo­ples in the Middle East, par­tic­u­lar­ly Muslims who are under attack by Israel. 

While Iran’s back­ing of mil­i­tant groups is con­tro­ver­sial, it views its actions as a form of resis­tance against an occu­py­ing and col­o­niz­ing pow­er that is sup­port­ed by the West. 
From Iran’s per­spec­tive, the mil­i­tary and finan­cial aid it pro­vides to these groups is part of a broad­er strat­e­gy to bal­ance the pow­er dynam­ics in the region, ensur­ing that Israel is not able to act with impuni­ty. Given the U.S. Israel’sel’s over­whelm­ing mil­i­tary strength, Iran sees its role as a nec­es­sary coun­ter­weight to pre­vent the com­plete sub­ju­ga­tion of Palestinians and Lebanese populations.
The sit­u­a­tion in Palestine and Lebanon remains one of the most press­ing human rights crises of the mod­ern era. The Israstate’ste’s poli­cies toward Palestinians and its mil­i­tary actions in Lebanon have been wide­ly con­demned as con­sti­tut­ing apartheid and poten­tial­ly even geno­cide. The con­tin­ued sup­port of Israel by the U.S. has only deep­ened the cri­sis, as American bombs and mil­i­tary tech­nol­o­gy are used to oppress fur­ther and dis­place pop­u­la­tions in the region. In this envi­ron­ment, sup­port for Palestinian and Lebanese resis­tance move­ments can be seen as a form of jus­ti­fied sol­i­dar­i­ty with oppressed peo­ples. While the meth­ods employed by these groups are con­tentious, the pow­er imbal­ance in the region and the lack of inter­na­tion­al account­abil­i­ty for Israel has cre­at­ed a sit­u­a­tion where resis­tance is seen as the only viable means of sur­vival for many Palestinians and Lebanese.