Hypocrisy Unlimited

Perhaps it is a political fashion to shed tears for genocide in Gaza. All these empty words are meaningless to the Palestinians. They want justice, not rhetoric. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was accused of stark hypocrisy after he condemned Myanmar’s military’s genocide against the Rohingya people while simultaneously aiding Israel’s genocidal assault on the Gaza strip. It’s the seventh anniversary of Mayanmar’s barbaric ethnic cleansing. And the world remains silent. Nor does the UN make any effort to help the Rohingyas.

Blinken issued a statement highlighting the US State Department’s ‘extensive documentation of the atrocities and abuses committed against Rohingya and all civilians’—a sharp contrast with the American administration’s reluctance to assess Israeli atrocities against Palestinians in the Gaza strip and West Bank. Even at the time of writing Palestinians fled the Al-Aqsa martyrs Hospital in central Gaza after the Israeli military again ordered people to immediately leave parts of Dieral-Balah.

American double standard is phenomenal. Under Blinken’s stewardship, the US government has approved massive arms transfers to Israel—including a recent $20 billion sale—and provided diplomatic cover for the country’s far-right government in the UN and broadly on the world stage, dismissing as meritless the South Africa-led genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. Israel’s military has so far killed more than 40,000 people while injuring countless Gazans since the October 7 Hamas-led attack on Israeli civilians. The Hamas horror was equally barbaric. But Israel’s barbarism surpasses all previous records of army brutality. Most of those killed in Israel’s continued assault have been women and children——including thousands of infants and toddlers.

In addition to perpetrating horrific war crimes with US weapons, Israel has sold arms to Myanmar’s military junta, even after the 2021 military coup. In the years in which the country was openly ruled by its military junta Israel continued its arms trade through the genocide of 2016-17.

As Israel launches a massive attack on Lebanon the prospects of a cease-fire deal seem bleak. The Israeli Defence Forces started carpet bombing, kicking off a major escalation in the region, endangering tens of thousands of civilians and heightening the chances of an all-out regional war. In truth, Israel is trying to drag America directly into the war to fight against what they call the Iranian axis of evil and its proxies led by Hezbollah. The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) said Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant group, was preparing to launch an extensive rocket and missile attack against central and northern Israel. So to neutralise these threats their fighter jets targeted ‘Hezbollah positions’. But they can’t explain why only civilians die. In a show of support for Israel and an attempt to deter Iran, the US has steadily moved Navy forces closer to the area.

 Israel’s bombardment of Lebanon came after another horrific day in the Gaza Strip, where the IDF killed dozens of Palestinians in southern Gaza. Among the dead were 11 members of a family, including two children, after an airstrike hit their home in Khan Younis. These disturbing developments occur even as Israel and Hamas are set to negotiate peace in Cairo. Israeli desperation to hunt for the Hamas top leader has been like chasing a mirage!

While they talk day in and day out about the destruction of infrastructure in Ukraine but forget to mention how the destruction of residential buildings, including schools and hospitals, has transformed Gaza into a ghost land.

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Frontier
Vol 57, No. 11, Sep 8 - 14, 2024