The horrific Israeli assault on Gaza has exposed the extent to which Israeli pressure has infiltrated and corrupted American institutions. Eventually America will pay an enormous price for this. The presidency, the congress, our commitment to international law, even simple regulatory agencies have all been corrupted. It is an orgy of lies unmatched since the lead up to the invasion of Iraq.

Obama repeats Netanyahu’s stock phrase that, “Israel has a right to defend itself”—support that ensures continued Israeli aggression and war crimes. The US Senate approves S.Res. 498 –blaming Palestinians for the violence and demanding the dissolution of the Palestinian national-unity government—even though the lack of a unity government had previously been used by Israel and the US as an excuse NOT to negotiate with Palestinians. The killing goes on.

On July 22^nd the FAA banned US airlines from flying into Israel because a Hamas rocket had landed nearby. After railing all week about the dire existential danger posed to the entire state of Israel by Hamas rockets Netanyahu insisted that the airport was perfectly safe!  This enormously hypocritical reversal completely undermines Netanyahu’s rationale for the Gaza operation. No one notices.

 In the UN Human Rights Council, America cast a lone vote NOT to even investigate the horrors that are on TV every day. Meanwhile, almost every news channel has allowed Israeli military officials to give long, uninterrupted opportunities to repeat their official lies and talking points ad nauseam. Pundits nod complacently.

I call all this corruption because it is based on a series of blatant Israeli lies. Here are some truths.

1.     Israel provoked this war. In the Israeli operation following the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers in mid-June, Israel's military killed five to ten Palestinians and arrested about 600 more, including nearly all of Hamas' West Bank leaders. On 6 July, an Israeli strike killed seven Hamas militants in Gaza. That’s when Hamas responded.

2.     It’s not about the Israeli teens. To this day, Israel has not shown any evidence that Hamas was involved in the killing of the three teens—reports on the 25^th of July showed there is evidence that Israel knows Hamas wasn’t involved. 

3.     This isn’t about stopping rocket fire or aggression by Hamas. In 2013, ZERO Israeli civilians had been killed by rockets from Gaza. 36 Palestinians were killed by Israel in the same period.

4.     It’s not about protecting Israeli civilians. Since the fighting began, only two Israeli civilians have been killed as opposed to 53 IDF troops (a 4% civilian casualty rate). Some 1,000 Palestinians have been killed and over 5000 wounded (UN estimates show an 80% civilian casualty rate). 

5.     Hamas isn’t using human shields. Despite repeated Israeli claims, no independent reporter on the ground has actually seen evidence that Hamas is using civilians as human shields.

6.     Israel isn’t trying to minimize Palestinian civilian casualties. Israeli warnings of imminent attack are irrelevant—Israeli policy has left Gazans nowhere to go. During the Jewish Warsaw Ghetto uprising in WWII, the Jewish resistance fought for weeks through crowded neighborhoods. No one has blamed the resulting civilian casualties on them.  Like the people of Gaza today, they simply had no choice.

7.     Disproportionate response and collective punishment are war crimes—even if there is provocation.

The carnage in Gaza today is a deliberate Israeli strategy— a strategy that is corrupting the US as surely as it has corrupted Israel. That strategy is to kill civilians and maximize damage in the hope that the surviving civilians will blame their plight on Hamas. As one historian puts it with regard to the 2008 Israeli attack on Gaza, “The ultimate goal was to inflict such pain on the Gazans that they would turn against the regime which had brought down this mayhem on their heads, driving it from power.” That is the only explanation for the horrific casualties and damage Israel has inflicted in Gaza.

But even if you approve of this strategy (which clearly involves war crimes), it has clearly failed. Even moderate Palestinians on the West Bank are rallying behind Hamas. What we see are simply Palestinians trying to defend their land from Israelis intent on stealing it. That is the history of Israel in a nutshell.

So even if you have watched the mayhem in Gaza and still side with Israel, at least don’t delude yourself that Israel is “winning.” It is simply soaking itself in blood and shame and guaranteeing that the future of Israel will be more of the same.

Finally, the current catastrophe has served as an ongoing, 24/7, 20+ day infomercial exposing how America has been corrupted by narrow, vicious, Israeli political interests. A future generation of Americans will pay the price. Extremists are being created every second. We have Israel to thank for that. Some ally.

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