By Chris Asay
President Donald Trump is still criticizing many actions of former President Joe Biden, but on at least one issue, Donald is shuffling right along in Joe’s footsteps: Providing a green light to the genocide being committed by Israel on the Palestinian people.
In October of 2023, Biden unleashed the Israeli war machine in a way that no prior US president ever had. He gave Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his henchmen full permission to do what they had been eager to do for many years: Eliminate the Palestinian people and erase their culture and history. This is a desperate attempt to legitimate the hundred-year-long theft of Palestinian land by the Israeli people. And Biden not only gave permission, but he funded, armed and defended the slaughter of unarmed civilian men, women and children on a scale that hasn’t been seen in 80 years.
Many of us in the US watched the genocide unfold on our TV screens, shamefully knowing that our tax money went to produce the fighter jets, bombs, missiles and drones that were killing these helpless people. Children blown to bits, women with severed limbs, unarmed men shot in the head, medical workers vaporized in their emergency rooms, food-aid workers murdered, journalists targeted for death, all courtesy of “Made in the USA” equipment. The Biden administration spokesmen adamantly defended all of these atrocities, twisting themselves into knots trying to justify the endless series of Israeli war crimes, but the people could see the truth with their own eyes. Genocide Joe, and his colleagues, got their lack of endorsement from the American people at the ballot box in 2024.
Donald Trump likes to say that he is a different kind of president than Joe Biden, but when it comes to Israeli genocide, there seems to be little difference. Both are puppets, easily manipulated by Netanyahu.
Trump claims to have brokered a cease-fire between the combatants in Gaza, but the cease in fire has come only from the Palestinian side. The Israeli military continues to murder Palestinian civilians on a daily basis. Donald Trump doesn’t object.
The Trump cease-fire deal promised adequate food and medical aid for Palestinians — who have all been bombed out of their homes — but Israel continues to block the aid, causing widespread famine and misery. Donald Trump doesn’t object.
The Trump cease-fire deal promised shelter and safety for Palestinians, but Israel forces the people into tent encampments in mid-winter, and then bombs the tents and their occupants. Donald Trump doesn’t object.
Seeing an opportunity while the world is busy watching Gaza being obliterated, Israelis step up their murder and land-robbery of Palestinians in the West Bank. Donald Trump doesn’t object.
The Trump-lead “Board of Peace” also sees an opportunity: A real-estate deal, appropriating Palestinian land to build high-value hotels and condos along the Mediterranean Sea. Plus, they plan build concentration camps to hold Palestinians as a ready labor supply to service those hotels and condos. Surveillance of every move that the Palestinians make insures that they remain invisible to the consciences of the Israeli people, and, the Board of Peace hopes, to the rest of the world. Donald Trump certainly doesn’t object to making a little money out of this “opportunity.”
Israel remains the most visible actor in this genocide, but the former and current US presidents are among the primary facilitators of these war crimes and should be held equally accountable. The results of the upcoming mid-term elections should reflect this. Please say “NO” to bullies and tyrants.
Chris Asay is a resident of Dover.
