Last Tuesday, during a campaign speech at the Salamander Hotel in Washington DC, President Joe Biden suggested, quite openly, that Israel’s war crimes in the Gaza Strip may be grounds for dismissing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
One must dig through a lot of Biden’s folksy talk to get at that blood-curdling core of his message, but here it is. Biden said: “Right now [Israel] has more than the United States’ [support]. It has the European Union, it has Europe, it has most of the world supporting it. But they’re starting to lose that support by the indiscriminate bombing that takes place.”
Politico got it, reporting that “when President Joe Biden reiterated Tuesday that Israel was using ‘indiscriminate bombing’ in Gaza — a breach of international humanitarian law — he was likely speaking about information he had. And his administration appears to have some of the data it would need to determine whether or not Israel is violating global rules of war.”
According to the Red Cross’ Customary International Humanitarian Law, Rule 12. Indiscriminate attacks are those:
(a) which are not directed at a specific military objective;
(b) which employ a method or means of combat that cannot be directed at a specific military objective; or
(c) which employ a method or means of combat the effects of which cannot be limited as required by international humanitarian law;
and consequently, in each such case, are of a nature to strike military objectives and civilians or civilian objects without distinction.
Although the Red Cross’ rules are not as universally held as, say, the Geneva Convention (France, for example, voted against some of the articles because by their “very complexity” they “would seriously hamper the conduct of defensive military operations against an invader and prejudice the inherent right of legitimate defense recognized in Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations.”).
As things stand today, numerous States have adopted legislation making it an offense to carry out indiscriminate attacks, and the prohibition is supported by official statements and prevalent practice.
Back in August, the State Department announced the new Civilian Harm Incident Response Guidance (CHIRG), empowering US officials to investigate reports of civilian harm by allied governments suspected of using US weapons and recommend suspension of arms sales.
In early September, The Washington Post reported that “the Biden administration has established a new system for responding to incidents in which foreign forces are suspected of using American-made weapons to injure or kill civilians, a first-of-its-kind initiative in an ongoing effort to minimize the human toll of US arms exports and military operations worldwide.”
According to Politico, “The US has collected intelligence and formulated detailed assessments related to both Israel and Hamas military movements and tactics in Gaza since the war began in October. … That information has been shared with members of Congress in several briefings, including with the members of the intelligence committees, the people said. Both individuals were granted anonymity to detail a sensitive issue.”
BIDEN’S PLOT TO REMOVE NETANYAHU FROM OFFICE
Back to Biden’s speech at the Salamander. He said, “It was pointed out to me — I’m being very blunt with you all — it was pointed out to me that — by Bibi — that ‘Well, you carpet-bombed Germany. You dropped the atomic bomb. A lot of civilians died.’ I said, ‘Yeah, that’s why all these institutions were set up after World War Two to see to it that it didn’t happen again — it didn’t happen again.”
Tell that to the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who were incinerated by US carpet bombings in 2003, while Joe Biden was chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In fact, Biden was a strong supporter of the war in Afghanistan, and was quoted by The New Republic as saying regarding the invasion, “Whatever it takes, we should do it.” Biden said in 2002 that there was no other option but to “eliminate” Iraqi president Saddam Hussein – although Saddam had no part whatsoever in the 9/11 attack. In October 2002, Biden voted in favor of the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq, and as chair of the committee, he assembled a series of witnesses who testified in favor of the authorization by grossly misrepresenting the intent, history, and status of Saddam and his secular government, which was an avowed enemy of al-Qaeda. Biden was also part of the lie about Iraq’s “Weapons of Mass Destruction” which facilitated the creation of a coalition of military forces against Iraq.
Now, at the Salamander, Biden recalled preaching to Netanyahu: “Don’t make the same mistakes we made at 9/11. There was no reason why we had to be in a war in Afghanistan on 9/11. There was no reason why we had to do some of the things we did.”
Perhaps someone should prosecute Biden for war crimes on the grounds that he helped introduce mayhem and chaos on an unprecedented scale to the Middle East. Meanwhile, here is what Joe Biden has in store for his great friend Bibi Netanyahu:
“So, those of you who have family back in Israel, you saw what happened when Bibi tried to change the Supreme Court,” Biden said at the Salamander. “Thousands of IDF soldiers said, ‘We’re out. We’re not going to participate. We’re not going to support the military.’ That wasn’t any outside influence. That came from within Israel.”
Never mind that Biden grossly misrepresented the true scope of the protests, he also denied the close relations between the protest leaders and his White House.
And then, in the same folksy manner, the President delivered this ominous message: “So, folks, there’s a lot to do — a whole lot to do.” He followed a minute later with, “We have to work toward bringing Israel together in a way that provides for the beginning of an option of a two-state solution.”
And that, boys and girls, is nothing short of the President of the United States declaring his intent to invest, much the way he declared back in 2002 – “Whatever it takes, we should do it” – in ousting Netanyahu and his allies on the religious Zionist right, to be replaced by Benny Gantz and his ilk who may not say so in their election campaign, but will follow the examples of the late Yitzhak Rabin and Ariel Sharon, and flip on their voters once they gain office.
Haman plotted to do away with all the Jews, Mordechai’s people, throughout the kingdom of Ahashverosh, in the first month, that is, the month of Nisan, in the twelfth year of King Ahashverosh. The lot was cast (Esther 3:5-6).
