Asay: US must stop arming Israeli genocide
Chris Asay is a resident of Dover.
Day after day, week after week, month after month, our eyes and ears are assaulted with yet another report of the latest killing of unarmed civilians by the Israeli war machine. Tens of thousands of Palestinian women are killed indiscriminately by Israeli bombs. Tens of thousands of Palestinian children are callously killed by Israeli missiles. Tiny body shrouds are being carried by heartbroken relatives. Thousands of the injured and maimed are carried into hospitals, which later are bombed themselves. Food, medicine and water are blockaded by Israeli troops. International aid workers are intentionally targeted and killed by Israeli drones. Journalists are targeted and murdered for reporting the truth about the carnage. This very publication characterized this as the deadliest and most destructive military campaign in recent history. It needs to be stopped immediately.
Recently, many thousands of Lebanese civilians have similarly come under indiscriminate and savage attack. Israeli warplanes and drones are now targeting another civilian population with little ability to defend itself. The nation of Israel is the bully of the Middle East, with a massive arsenal of powerful weapons that vastly dominates that of its neighbors. And it uses them liberally and wantonly. The United Nations and international courts are calling it genocide because that is what it is. It needs to be stopped immediately.
Where are most of these Israeli-used weapons coming from? The United States is Israel’s largest arms supplier. Those 2,000-pound bombs that are being dropped on mosques, schools and hospitals all say “Made in the USA” on them. My tax money, your tax money, is funding and supplying this genocide. Regardless of the immense financial benefit this situation provides to the U.S. military industrial complex, it needs to be stopped immediately.
It is not just a violation of international law, but it is also a violation of U.S. law for our country to supply arms to a nation that is committing genocide. It needs to stop immediately.
Despite dramatized statements of concern and frustration made by President Joe Biden over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s intransigence, our president poses himself as impotent to stop the death and destruction. The president and his advisers appear to conclude that the loss of tens of thousands of innocent Arab civilian lives are a “tragic” but acceptable price to pay to protect Israeli civilian lives. That thinking is not only racist; it’s counterproductive. It has to be stopped, now.
Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcomed at civiltalk@iniusa.org.
