...Let us look closely at what is being said and what the American public is now urged to think and accept as Israeli forces prosecute a campaign against Gaza’s 2.1 million people so extreme as to suggest ethnic cleansing is, as many have long argued, the ultimate Israeli project...
Jean–Pierre’s response merits careful parsing...
“So, look, I’ve seen some of those statements this weekend. And we’re going to continue to be very clear,” Jean–Pierre replied. “We believe they are wrong, we believe they’re repugnant, and we believe they’re disgraceful.”...
Let’s not miss what transpired in those few seconds. To call for a ceasefire as the Israeli Defense Forces level an entire city and turn a million human beings into refugees — murdering many children and noncombatants in the process — is humane by any serious definition. To describe such a call as wrong, repugnant, and disgraceful is to assert that what is ordinarily decent must now be cast aside as indecent.
At this point, Washington’s defense of Israel becomes as baldly obscene as the apartheid state’s long record of lawless aggression toward the Palestinian population.
‘Not Two Sides’
Pressing on in a tone that is combative and unmistakably defensive all at once, Jean–Pierre added, “Our — our condemnation belongs squarely with terrorists who have brutally murdered, raped, kidnapped hundreds — hundreds of Israelis. There can be no equivocation about that. There are not two sides here. There are not two sides.”
Later at the same presser, another White House correspondent asked Jake Sullivan, “Is the goal the destruction of Hamas? … What is — where do you draw the line? Is there a red line of where do you draw that line of what you need to accomplish?” ...
Sullivan replied, “I’m not here to — to draw red lines or issue warnings or give lectures to anybody.”
Translation: No, we, the one nation with the power and influence to stop the most nakedly racist case of violence in the IDF’s long history of such aggression, will do nothing to prevent it.
Last Friday Akbar Shahid Ahmed, the foreign affairs correspondent at
HuffPost,
reported on an internal State Department memorandum advising diplomats and other officials to refrain from any suggestion that Israel moderate its bombing campaign or its planned ground invasion into Gaza...
... high-level officials do not want press materials to include three specific phrases: ‘de-escalation/ceasefire,’ ‘end to violence/bloodshed’ and ‘restoring calm,’” Ahmed wrote...
Chuck Schumer...denounced U.S. demonstrators calling for Israel to stop...and said Israelis must get “everything they need” — the objective being “to totally eliminate Hamas.”
“Totally eliminate.” Does the phrase summon any echoes in history?
...Douglas Emhoff
addressed Jewish leaders at the White House...With the incoherent president by his side, Emhoff reassured them, “I know you’re all hurting…. But thank God we have the steady leadership of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris during this unthinkable time in our history. Their moral compass, their calm and empathy are what we need in this time of crisis.”...
Biden will travel to Israel Wednesday — not at his initiative but in response to a telephone call from Bibi Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister. Biden’s purpose, as the
Times described it in Tuesday’s editions, is “to bolster the country’s resolve to eradicate Hamas.”...
I had an interesting conversation over the weekend with Christian Müller, a prominent Swiss journalist for many years and now the publisher and editor of
GlobalBridge.ch, a German-language current-affairs publication. Is this the moment, we wondered together, when the international defense of Israel crumbles and the apartheid state stands effectively alone, the U.S. its only defender?
...Gideon Rachman, a
Financial Times columnist and long a reliable friend of Israel, quoted European diplomats saying ruefully — and of necessity anonymously — “We may be about to see a massive ethnic cleansing.”...
The offensive pretense of Israeli innocence has never been more thoroughly exposed as fraudulent, never more obviously a matter of moral irresponsibility. It will nonetheless require more time before the lights go on and the great, grotesque game of charades we call “democratic Israel’s self-defense” is over.
I can't post the whole article which is much more detailed.