The Path to Peace
To build a lasting peace between peoples trapped in an endless cycle of violence, we must address the root cause of the conflict. Without justice, all ceasefires will be doomed to impermanence.
There is a new peace proposal between Israel and Hamas in the works, which Biden very publicly advocated for.
It’s a proposal that Hamas has spoken positively of so far but has not yet agreed to. Unfortunately, fundamentalists in the Israeli government have threatened to dissolve their coalition with Netanyahu if he agrees to peace; so “Netanyahu went on to say that Israel can stop the war for as long as six weeks, but no longer” (Fox). Netanyahu reiterated that he views any permanent ceasefire, which is Phase 2 of the proposal, as an unacceptable non-starter (BBC). Biden said that people have “every reason” to believe Netanyahu is prolonging the war for his own political career (Axios). Without the support of “radical…ultranationalist ministers” within the Israeli government, Netanyahu’s grip on power could fall apart. But it seems like pressure from the Biden administration at least brought Netanyahu to the negotiation table for now. Unfortunately Netanyahu maintains a vague and unattainable goal of total victory before ending the war; “Israel’s conditions for ending the war have not changed” (NBC). That unreasonable starting position will lead to unreasonable demands and a failure to create a true lasting peace. The American and Israeli governments need some serious self-reflection to understand how we arrived at this situation; significant concessions and substantial alterations are needed in all post-war ambitions to achieve peace. I’ve written a lot about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over the past 2 years. My ultimate goal has been and still is to advocate for the peaceful coexistence of both the Israeli and Palestinian people. The last 8 months of war have not been leading towards that, and this is the same endless cycle of violence they’ve been trapped in for years. Pro-war fundamentalists have been in control and unforgivable atrocities are continuing to happen.
In addition to a ceasefire, it is essential that there is some sort of accountability for the evils perpetrated over the last few months. The Palestinian population has been under constant bombardment and dealing with prolonged hunger for months; the subsequent animosity is justified and will never subside, but after accountability at the ICC the desire for revenge may. On the other side, Israelis have also been under threat for 8 months from rocket fire after a truly gruesome and devastating Hamas attack which included rape, torture, and hostage-taking. All the people in the region have good reasons to despise the other side and continue this war. Both populations have valid reasons to support continued armed conflict and without some sort of accountability, those motivations will not go away. The real question is not whether you are pro-Israel or pro-Hamas; it is whether you are pro-peace or pro-war. If you’re pro-war, continue cheering on one side while ignoring the plight of the other. But if you’re pro-peace, that means realizing both sides have to make changes to their own cultures, ideologies, and even political systems as well as take responsibility for their war crimes to facilitate peaceful coexistence. The current situation and the pre-war status quo are unacceptable; a new reality must be created which does not yet exist.
If you had been paying attention to the conflict before the war, you’d know that the Hamas terrorist attacks were highly anticipated and highly provoked. The current war was predicted and preventable, but steps were purposefully not taken to facilitate peace. Israeli violations of Palestinian human rights combined with a total lack of accountability is the main cause of the endless violence in the region. That is what the UN found when they reported on the conflict in June of 2022;
“impunity is feeding increased resentment among the Palestinian people, with forced displacement, demolitions, settlement construction and the blockade of Gaza, some of the main contributing factors to recurring cycles of violence…The findings and recommendations relevant to the underlying root causes were overwhelmingly directed towards Israel, which we have taken as an indicator of the asymmetrical nature of the conflict and the reality of one State occupying the other,
The Commission identified several overarching issues that lay at the core of most recommendations, such as Israel’s failure to uphold the laws and customs of war, including those of belligerent occupation, violations and abuses of individual and collective rights, and a lack of accountability. Our review…clearly indicates that ending Israel’s occupation…remains essential in stopping the persistent cycle of violence…It is only with the ending of occupation that the world can begin to reverse historical injustices and move towards self-determination of the Palestinian peoples…However, it is clear that Israel has no intention of ending the occupation…In fact, it has established clear policies to ensure complete permanent control over the Occupied Palestinian Territory. This includes altering the demography of these territories through the maintenance of a repressive environment for Palestinians and a favourable environment for Israeli settlers…Israel's policies and actions build Palestinian frustration and lead to a sense of despair. They fuel the cycle of violence and the protraction of conflict.” -UN
Year after year the United Nations warned Israel to end its illegal, “belligerent” apartheid occupation of Palestinian territory, yet year after year Israel ignored those recommendations. Instead, October 7th was the inevitable outcome of the Israeli government’s approach to the conflict under Netanyahu’s leadership. Peace was and still is an option, but the reality of the situation needs to be acknowledged. Netanyahu rose to power as a religious fundamentalist in fierce opposition to the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians (Frontline). He successfully encouraged the assassination of his pro-peace predecessor and vowed to sabotage any Palestinian state, instead proclaiming that Israel would control the entire territory exclusively. And that was the reality on the ground before the war; Israel has been the “sole governing power” inside of Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory. As a result of Netanyahu’s leadership, a 2022 United Nations investigation confirmed that the Israeli government was committing the crime against humanity of apartheid. The UN investigation added to the global consensus of classifying Israel as an apartheid state; it came alongside a 2022 Amnesty International and 2021 Human Rights Watch report both confirming that the Israeli government was committing the crime against humanity of apartheid as well as Israeli human rights groups like B’Tselem and many others. Whether or not you agree, the indisputable fact is this; it is the global consensus of the world’s leading human rights organizations that Israel is an apartheid state. The reality is that the Israeli government has long been engaged in the illegal apartheid occupation of Palestinian territory and until that reality is changed, we should expect an endless cycle of violence.
(Zeteo)
That underlying reality of occupation and apartheid must end to end this conflict. As long as Israeli’s expect the Palestinian population to live as second-class citizens deprived of their human rights, a genuine lasting peace will always be an impossibility. There is a naïve childlike understanding of the conflict in America with Israel being portrayed as the blameless, noble good guys standing up for the values of western civilization while Palestinians are viewed as delusional evil people who live and breathe to kill Jews or spread Islam. It is such an unhinged and uninformed view that it seems to only persist due to anti-Arab racism. That has not been the case for years, but many people want to pretend that we’re dealing with the same situation as existed in the 20th century.
The United States Congress recently invited Netanyahu to give an address to a joint session. Our nation has been religiously pro-Israel for decades and we’ve heard the Israeli government’s perspective spoken directly to our leaders many times before. One thing most of America and the world has failed to do is hear the opposing side of this war. It is vital to at least hear the views from both sides of the conflict and I encourage people to apply reasonable skepticism to all narratives. Hamas put out a document titled “Our Narrative” which is about 16 pages long to explain their side of the conflict. I think we should all hear Hamas in their own words too, so here is a portion of their narrative;
“We would like to clarify to our people and the free peoples of the world the reality of what happened on Oct. 7, the motives behind, its general context related to the Palestinian cause, as well as a refutation to the Israeli allegations and to put the facts into perspective…The battle of the Palestinian people against occupation and colonialism did not start on Oct. 7, but started 105 years ago, including 30 years of British colonialism and 75 years of Zionist occupation…Over these long decades, the Palestinian people suffered all forms of oppression, injustice, expropriation of their fundamental rights and the apartheid policies. The Gaza Strip, for example, suffered as of 2007 from a suffocating blockade over 17 years which turned it to be the largest open-air prison in the world. The Palestinian people in Gaza also suffered from five destructive wars\aggressions all of which “Israel” was the offending party. The people in Gaza in 2018 also initiated the Great March of Return demonstrations to peacefully protest the Israeli blockade, their misery humanitarian conditions and to demand their right to-return. However, the Israeli occupation forces responded to these protests with brutal force by which 360 Palestinians were killed and 19,000 others were injured including over 5,000 children in a matter of few months…According official figures, in the period between (January 2000 and September 2023), the Israeli occupation killed 11,299 Palestinians and injured 156,768 others, the great majority of them were civilians…
Unfortunately, the US administration and its allies did not pay attention to the suffering of the Palestinian people over the past years but provided cover to the Israeli aggression…The US administration and its western allies have always been treating Israel as a state above the law; they provide it with the needed cover to maintain prolonging the occupation and cracking down the Palestinian people, and also allowing “Israel” to exploit such situation to expropriate further Palestinian lands and to Judaize their sanctities and holy sites. Despite the fact that the UN had issued more than 900 resolutions over the past 75 years in favor of the Palestinian people, “Israel” rejected to abide by any of these resolutions, and the US VETO was always present at the UN Security Council to prevent any condemnation to “Israel’s” policies and violations. That’s why we see the US and other western countries complicit and partners to the Israeli occupation in its crimes and in the continued suffering of the Palestinian people…
Proceeding from the above, Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on Oct. 7 was a necessary step and a normal response to confront all Israeli conspiracies against the Palestinian people and their cause. It was a defensive act in the frame of getting rid of the Israeli occupation, reclaiming the Palestinian rights and on the way for liberation and independence like all peoples around the world did. In light of the Israeli fabricated accusations and allegations over Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on Oct. 7 and its repercussions, we in the Islamic Resistance Movement – Hamas clarify the following:
1. Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on Oct. 7 targeted the Israeli military sites, and sought to arrest the enemy’s soldiers to pressure on the Israeli authorities to release the thousands of Palestinians held in Israeli jails through a prisoners exchange deal. Therefore, the operation focused on destroying the Israeli army’s Gaza Division, the Israeli military sites stationed near the Israeli settlements around Gaza.
2. Avoiding harm to civilians, especially children, women and elderly people is a religious and moral commitment by all the Al-Qassam Brigades’ fighters. We reiterate that the Palestinian resistance was fully disciplined and committed to the Islamic values during the operation and that the Palestinian fighters only targeted the occupation soldiers and those who carried weapons against our people. In the meantime, the Palestinian fighters were keen to avoid harming civilians despite the fact that the resistance does not possess precise weapons. In addition, if there was any case of targeting civilians; it happened accidently and in the course of the confrontation with the occupation forces. What the Israeli occupation promoted of allegations that the Al-Qassam Brigades on Oct. 7 were targeting Israeli civilians are nothing but complete lies and fabrications. The source of these allegations is the Israeli official narrative and no independent source proved any of them. It is a well-known fact that the Israeli official narrative had always sought to demonize the Palestinian resistance, while also legalizing its brutal aggression on Gaza. It is also a matter of fact that a number of Israeli settlers in settlements around Gaza were armed, and clashed with Palestinian fighters on Oct. 7. Those settlers were registered as civilians while the fact is they were armed men fighting alongside the Israeli army. We are confident that any fair and independent inquiries will prove the truth of our narrative and will prove the scale of lies and misleading information in the Israeli side. This also includes the Israeli allegations regarding the hospitals in Gaza that the Palestinian resistance used them as command centers; an allegation that was not proven and was refuted by reports of many western press agencies…
The events of Oct. 7 must be put in its broader context, and that all cases of struggle against colonialism and occupation in our contemporary time be evoked. These experiences of struggle show that in the same level of oppression committed by the occupier; there would be an equivalent response by the people under occupation…We hail the free people of the world from all religions, ethnicities and backgrounds who rally in all capitals and cities worldwide to voice their rejection to the Israeli crimes and massacres, and to show their support for the rights of the Palestinian people and their just cause.
Hamas affirms that its conflict is with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion. Hamas does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine. Yet, it is the Zionists who constantly identify Judaism and the Jews with their own colonial project and illegal entity.
The reality is that there are reasonable people on both sides and religious fundamentalists on both sides. All fundamentalism, religious or otherwise, is wrong. The difference is, while some Palestinians are religious fundamentalists, the majority of the fighting comes from militants who view themselves as engaged in a justified armed struggle for Palestinian liberation. Just listen to a Palestinian Ambassador explain their view on the true root cause of the October 7th attack from Hamas;
(Zeteo)
In America we have a saying; “Give me liberty or give me death!” The United States of America was justly created in a violent uprising against a tyrannical government infringing on the human rights of our population. The similarities between our own national origin story and the Palestinian struggle for self-determination are obvious and undeniable. It would be hypocritical to support America’s revolutionary armed struggle for independence yet oppose Palestinians engaging in armed resistance for their own independence. On the other side of the conflict, the Israeli government is almost entirely controlled by religious fundamentalists who believe they are entitled to that land by god so they are justified in the ethnic cleansing of Gaza or the annihilation of its population to take it.
In May 2023 the United Nations warned that the year was quickly becoming the deadliest year for Palestinians in the West Bank since records began. Israeli fundamentalists routinely and forcibly removed Palestinians from their homes to then demolish the home to clear the area for illegal Israeli settlement construction on stolen Palestinian land. The Israeli Defense Force accompanies the settler fundamentalists to monitor the situation; no settler is ever arrested but if a Palestinian fought back they would be arrested or even killed for the transgression. On May 24th 2023 the UN reported;
“17 Palestinians, including two children, were killed and 138 Palestinians, including two women and 23 children, were injured by Israeli security forces during demonstrations, clashes, search-and-arrest operations, attacks and alleged attacks against Israelis, while another 24 Palestinians, including two children, were injured by Israeli settlers or other civilians in shooting attacks, stone-throwing and other incidents...Thousands of right-wing Israeli activists, including senior Government ministers, participated in the highly provocative annual “flag day” march through Jerusalem’s Old City, chanting racist slogans, including “Death to Arabs.”
…levels of settler-related violence also remained high, with five Palestinians shot and injured by Israeli settlers using live ammunition…Settlement plans were also moving forward, with…demolitions continuing…Further, Israeli authorities demolished, seized or forced owners to demolish 33 Palestinian-owned structures in Area C and 17 in East Jerusalem, including a donor-funded school east of Bethlehem, displacing 89 Palestinians, including 45 children.” (UN)
The Israeli government is an apartheid government with a failed judicial system incapable of holding its own war criminals accountable. The total lack of accountability for Israel’s apartheid system enabled them to increasingly make their misconduct worse and more frequent. It is unpopular to acknowledge that reality in America, but the truth is that Israeli leaders like Netanyahu and the fundamentalists he represents are the biggest obstacle to peace in the region. Netanyahu and Israeli fundamentalists have been unambiguous that peaceful coexistence was never an option to them. They made their position clear when the war began that they would only accept 2 outcomes; the ethnic cleansing of Gaza or Genocide. In response to October 7th, “The Israeli Ministry of Intelligence’ was ‘recommending the forcible and permanent transfer of the Gaza Strip’s 2.2 million Palestinian residents to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula” (+972 Magazine). The plan was simple;
conduct the military operation in a way which forced the civilian population into Southern Gaza on the Egyptian border,
make the whole of Gaza a conflict zone with a devastating humanitarian disaster,
advocate to relocate the Gazans to the Egyptian desert out of the conflict zone,
never allow them to return,
and exploit the sympathies of Western nations so they take in civilian refugees.
After October 7th, Israeli fundamentalists jumped on the opportunity to expel Palestinians from Gaza advocating to seize the moment because it was unclear if such an opportunity like this would ever arise again (Daily Beast). In that effort, Israeli leaders said; “Countries around the world should offer a haven for Gaza residents who seek relocation” (The Hill). As a backup plan to expulsion, Israeli leaders planned the mass starvation of Palestinians and enacted a siege using their pre-existing land, air, and sea economic blockade of Gaza to bring about that reality. A famine has now broken out in Gaza as a result; children and adults are actively dying from starvation after months of prolonged hunger.
(Sky News)
Netanyahu and Gallant have been ordered by the International Court of Justice to end their siege and allow sufficient humanitarian aid through the land crossings. The International Criminal Court is issuing arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant over their use of starvation as a method of warfare. It has been clear for months, but if you are continuing to support the Israeli government today you are supporting religious fundamentalists engaged in the literal starvation of children. Which makes this next part truly disgusting. The White House ordered the State Department to create the National Security Memorandum/NSM-20 to assess Israel’s compliance with international law. The report found that Israel’s bombing campaign has violated international law but that Israel is not blocking humanitarian aid. So every single American should watch this clip of a former State Department official with 20 years of experience who just resigned over the NSM-20.
In this clip we learn that State Department subject matter experts, USAID, and on the ground US-aligned human rights organizations all agreed that Israel IS blocking aid. But after all subject matter experts created a report confirming that Israel is blocking aid, that report got sent to higher ups for editing and review before release. A second Biden administration employee also resigned over the same issue (Guardian). The higher ups which could've been Biden, Blinken, or maybe 1 or 2 other people changed the findings of the subject matter experts to instead say Israel is not blocking aid. That is incredibly significant because as Bernie Sanders pointed out;
“The Foreign Assistance Act makes clear; no US assistance may be provided to any country that “prohibits or otherwise restricts, directly or indirectly, the transport or delivery of United States humanitarian aid.”
The truth disqualifies Israel from receiving US financial or military support, so they lied to enable Israel's siege of Gaza. That means the Biden administration knowingly put out a false report in which they lied on purpose to continue funding and supporting the literal starvation of children. Either Biden, Blinken, Kirby, Miller or some combination of them knowingly took steps to help Israel evade the Leahy laws so they can continue keeping food away from people experiencing a famine with US support. The United States is complicit in all of Israel’s war crimes in Gaza and the position of our leaders from both parties on this issue is irredeemably biased and corrupt.
It is absolutely vital to solve the underlying root problems of this conflict to enable true peaceful coexistence. The root cause of this conflict is that Israel was an unjustly created state; after World War II Europeans had no right to create a new state in Palestine and kick out the native population. Israel continues to this day to be an apartheid state based on the subjugation of Palestinians. Israeli propaganda goes; “Israel was created after the Holocaust on a land without a people for a people without a land.” But Israel was created on a land with a native population. That native population was ethnically cleansed off of their land to make way for modern-day Israel. In the attempt to steal even more land and subjugate the Palestinian population, Israel has engaged in an apartheid occupation and illegal settlement construction for years leading to rising resentment in the Palestinian population. Palestinians launched the peaceful Boycott, Divest, Sanction movement in the 2000s but it failed to usher in peaceful revolution. The Palestinians launched the Great March of Return in 2018 calling for an end to the illegal Israeli blockade of Gaza. That protest was met with Israeli snipers firing on women, children, journalists, and paramedics killing hundreds and wounding thousands. It is absolute insanity to expect the Palestinians to sit back and accept their death or exile, yet many people are today proving themselves to be insane.
It is time to bring about a true Palestinian state with real self-determination for the Palestinian people. Acknowledging the Palestinian right to independence is not a reward for terrorism, but is a long overdue step towards peace. As a Palestinian diplomat put it; “self-determination and statehood…should have happened long ago. This is not a gift or a favor or a reward, this is a right that should have been granted long ago” (Zeteo). And not only is the Israeli state policy of apartheid immoral, so is the culture which developed to defend and facilitate that crime against humanity. The United States was also an apartheid state between the Civil War and Civil Rights Movement. Just as America had a cultural reckoning and now looks back at Jim Crow/Bull Connor era with regret and disgust, Israel now needs to go through that same process. We can’t change history but we can change our current actions. Today the Palestinians have a right to armed resistance while the Israelis have a right to self-defense. Without some sort of drastic changes, there will not be any shot at creating a lasting peace. On October 10th I wrote;
“There is a long history of war in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and even in times of relative peace, thousands of people still die. Both Israelis and Palestinians have legitimate reasons to despise each other. The annihilation of the other side is a mainstream sentiment in both populations; ideologies of evil have taken over. It is not uncommon to hear truly vile language insinuating that the other side are somehow less-than-human or that they should be eradicated. If that is acceptable language in your culture, your culture needs to change. Israeli suffering is suffering, Palestinian suffering is suffering; both sides are made up of human beings deserving of human rights and fair treatment. There needs to be a cultural renaissance in the region; mutual respect for human life, empathy, compassion, tolerance, interdependence, and personal connections are the bedrock of peaceful coexistence. One way or another, this war will end diplomatically; the question is whether that happens before or after widespread atrocities and loss of life. I’m not saying this will be easy or quick; wounds are fresh and severe so they will take time to heal. I am saying now is the time for de-escalation so that these wounds may heal and no more are created.” (Philosophical Rebellion)
I really wish my advice had been taken back then. I also wish my advice would’ve been taken on July 16th 2023 which I strongly believe would’ve prevented this war altogether;
“The Biden Administration needs to direct the State Department to investigate the claims made by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the UN. Secretary of State Blinken should travel to the West Bank and Gaza to personally determine if conditions there truly equate to an “open-air prison” with “deprivations…so severe that they amount to the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution.” In addition to that investigation, the United States needs to end unconditional backing for Israel. In response to South African apartheid, Congress passed the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986 which applied temporary sanctions on the apartheid government that would be lifted once the apartheid system was ended. Biden and Congress should create the equivalent of that bill concerning Israeli apartheid. America should at least put stipulations on the funding and military aid we provide which would pause support if Israel is found to be committing human rights violations. That pause in support should remain until those violations are stopped. America also needs to stop shielding Israel from international condemnation at the United Nations; just abstain and let the world speak freely. Lastly America should invest more in peace and less in war. America needs to divest from the military conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians to instead invest in the mutual respect, cooperation, friendly competition, and eventual interdependence between both populations…A UN representative from Ecuador rightly stated, “If even a fraction of what is spent on rockets, war planes and missiles was devoted to financing the development and well-being of populations, it is highly probable that we will approach solutions that today seem far distant and almost impossible.” The Israeli-Palestinian conflict isn’t going away anytime soon, but America needs to reassess our role in it. I’d rather America support peace than continue to support apartheid.”
American foreign policy from both Trump & Biden have also significantly contributed to the endless cycle of violence. The United States under both Trump and Biden enabled religious fundamentalists in Israel to exacerbate the conflict with the political protection of the United States. In addition, many Americans are wildly misinformed on the issue and have no idea how inextricably involved our government is in the conflict. The level of propaganda which has gone into manufacturing consent for Israeli war crimes today is made possible by decades of an extreme pro-Israel bias in American mainstream media. Not only has the media been religiously pro-Israel, American universities have been too as well as Congress with some members losing their committee positions for failing to show total fealty to Israel. I wrote all about the extreme pro-Israel media, academic, and political bias in the United States in my first paper on the topic, Real Censorship in Mainstream American Media, on February 5th 2023. I argued in my paper that the media censorship of criticism of Israel needed to end because the American people need to be accurately informed of the situation.
In an effort to document the magnitude of Israel’s crimes against humanity, Amnesty International produced a 280 page report released a year after Human Rights Watch produced a 213 page report. Summary videos of those reports could be found here (Amnesty-YouTube) and here (HRW-YouTube). Those reports are hundreds of pages long, so I wanted to explain their findings concisely; which I did in February 23rd 2023 in my paper Why Israel is Considered an Apartheid State. Those organizations found;
“Family separation, home demolitions, illegal settlement construction, unlawful detainments, forced relocation and displacement, illegal blockades, and institutionalized discrimination; all combined with an intent to dominate the Palestinian people. The fragmentation of the Palestinian population is one of the most important aspects of the apartheid system within Israel…Depending on where a Palestinian is located, they receive different rights and are subjected to different treatment.
Each of those reports documented a myriad of crimes against humanity ranging from “draconian movement restrictions in the OPT…and the denial of refugees’ right to return...” to the more severe crimes of “forcible transfer, administrative detention, torture, and unlawful killings, in both Israel and the OPT” (Amnesty). In the effort to maintain their domination, Israeli “authorities have dispossessed, confined, forcibly separated, and subjugated Palestinians by virtue of their identity” (HRW). The UN investigator noted that many UN resolution have failed which enables Israel to avoid accountability…Until the entire international community, especially the United States, comes together to clearly denounce apartheid and hold those who engage in such acts accountable, nothing will change.”
Bill Maher is a prime example of arrogant ignorance. Maher, to this day, continues to deny that Israel has committed the crime of apartheid. Obviously if he engaged in good faith, he would check out what sources make that claim and see what evidence they relied on for their determinations. Instead he did this totally insincere stunt with absolutely no pushback at all;
To this day Maher continues to completely ignore the anti-apartheid progressive left while smugly claiming that Israel is not an apartheid state and calling progressives uninformed for holding that view. At a time when a UN appointed expert found “reasonable grounds” to label Israel’s actions a genocide, the ICJ ordered Israel to end their siege, and the ICC is issuing arrest warrants for Israel’s use of starvation as a method of warfare, Maher continues to proudly support Israeli war crimes without even a shred of sincere engagement with the anti-war left. It is not like Bill Maher is an anomaly in America, rather, he is emblematic with how broken and misinformed our entire political and media ecosystems have become. I’ve been advocating for Bill Maher to host Rashida Tlaib, Ken Roth, Katie Halper, Bernie Sanders, Lowkey, and myself to discuss the conflict for almost 2 years. America also needs a cultural reckoning where we ask ourselves; should we be unconditionally opposed to war crimes even when Israel commits them or should we be unconditionally pro-Israel no matter how many war crimes they commit?
Unfortunately, America continues to be on the wrong side of this conflict. We need to stop enabling war and instead start supporting peace. The Israeli government must change to facilitate peace, the Israeli apartheid occupation must end, and Netanyahu must face trial at the ICC for his war crimes. Netanyahu is a war criminal personally responsible for the planned starvation of children. He is a truly evil, vile, disgusting individual and our government should not be listening to the depravity of his propaganda. These images represent the thousands of children Netanyahu is starving to death right now;
I hope our leaders hear me now; the best thing the United States could do for peace in the middle east today is arrest Netanyahu ourselves and deliver him for trial in the Hauge for war crimes. Similarly to Netanyahu, Hamas leaders charged by the ICC should also submit themselves for trial at the ICC or be forced to show up. If they were engaged in a legitimate armed struggle for independence, make that defense; the world is listening. The best forum to resolve conflicts like these is not through war, death, and destruction, but through careful deliberation in a world court. The United Nations is an absolutely vital tool for world peace which has, through this conflict, exposed its total impotence. There is a clear need to reform the UN Security Council to prevent misuse and abuse of the Veto power. I believe in an international system of law and order where even world leaders are held accountable for war crimes; that is not the current reality but it is one we could create. The United States should support the ICC arrest warrants for Israeli and Palestinian leaders and reaffirm our commitment to a genuine rules-based order. Just as John F. Kennedy said so many decades ago;
“Peace is a daily, a weekly, a monthly process, gradually changing opinions, slowly eroding old barriers, quietly building new structures. And however undramatic the pursuit of peace, that pursuit must go on…The task of building the peace lies with the leaders of every nation, large and small…The long labor of peace is an undertaking for every nation--and in this effort none of us can remain unaligned. To this goal none can be uncommitted…But peace does not rest in charters and covenants alone. It lies in the hearts and minds of all people. And if it is cast out there, then no act, no pact, no treaty, no organization can hope to preserve it without the support and the wholehearted commitment of all people. So let us not rest all our hopes on parchment and on paper; let us strive to build peace, a desire for peace, a willingness to work for peace, in the hearts and minds of all our people….My fellow inhabitants of this planet: Let us take our stand here in this Assembly of nations. And let us see if we, in our own time, can move the world to a just and lasting peace.” -JFK
The world should also listen to voices like MC Abdul speak on behalf of the children of Gaza;
References;
https://philosophicalrebellion.substack.com/p/one-of-the-most-censored-stories
https://philosophicalrebellion.substack.com/p/why-israel-is-considered-an-apartheid
https://philosophicalrebellion.substack.com/p/war-and-peace-in-the-middle-east
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz55y6k0p5go
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/netanyahu-says-biden-presented-incomplete-version-gaza-cease-fire-deal
https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/06/commission-inquiry-occupied-palestinian-territory-including-east-jerusalem
https://www.btselem.org/publications/202210_not_a_vibrant_democracy_this_is_apartheid
https://thehill.com/policy/international/4297914-israeli-lawmakers-urge-world-leaders-to-accept-gaza-refugees/
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/netanyahu-aide-israel-agreed-biden-cease-fire-plan-gaza-rcna155075
https://twitter.com/netanyahu/status/1796966031291720136
https://twitter.com/WhiteHouse/status/1796655394619564460
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https://press.un.org/en/2023/sc15293.doc.htm
