Photo courtesy of The Times of Israel
The government of President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has pledged solidarity with Gaza and Palestine. In this the National People’s Power (NPP) party differs little from other political outfits in the country, which have all expressed their support for the rights of Palestinians and the idea of Palestinian statehood. Even the previous administration of Ranil Wickremesinghe reiterated its commitment to a two state solution although its relations with Israel were controversial at best and problematic at worst.
Much of civil society, including political activists, have in some form protested Israel’s bombardment of civilian sites in Gaza, the West Bank, a military campaign that has now spread to Lebanon and threatens to spill over to Iran. While historical ties between Sri Lanka, Lebanon and Iran run deep regardless of the government in power, Israel’s misadventures in the region have brought Sri Lanka to the league of nations that are critical of the West’s duplicity on these developments.
The West, of course, is not a monolithic bloc. Different countries have responded differently to what is happening in Gaza. The Scandinavian countries, for instance, have unanimously condemned Israel’s actions with Norway recognising Palestinian statehood, a move almost unprecedented in the continent. The EU appears to be split on the issue: while they still express support for Israel’s supposed right to defend itself, they have been more willing than the US to condemn its continued violations of international law. The situation is such that former colonisers Spain and Portugal, no less than occupied countries – Ireland – have come out stridently against Israel’s military tactics.
Not surprisingly, Europe’s official statement on the first anniversary of the October 7, 2023 attacks, in which it both condemns Hamas’s incursions and the humanitarian disaster in Palestine, is completely at odds with the US which, at best, makes a passing reference to the people of Gaza as if they do not matter.
While the US appears to be out of step with these developments, it remains to be seen how it will respond to Europe’s position on Gaza and Lebanon. French President Emmanuel Macron’s “bold” statements against arms exports to Israel mean nothing when considering Washington’s military ties with that country. The US has not just snubbed humanitarian concerns, it acts as though those concerns don’t exist in the first place. This is all the more ludicrous when you consider Washington’s affirmation of Ukraine’s right to resist Russian incursions. Many European countries, in this regard, have squared the circle: condemning Russia’s actions in Ukraine while voicing concerns about Gaza.
This begs a painfully self-evident question: why is the US drawing a line between these two situations? What is happening in Gaza that, at least in the eyes of Western commentators who portray Vladimir Putin as a modern day imperialist, is not already happening in Ukraine? Even the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has voiced concerns about Gaza although Kiev has so far sided with the US on all resolutions condemning Israel. The difference between Ukraine and Gaza has to do not just with distance but also the worthiness of the victims. The US media was awash with tears when reporting on Ukrainian refugees; it is indifferent when faced with civilian casualties in Palestine.
If the US’s only crime was to ignore or overlook Gaza, this wouldn’t matter much. But when US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is accused by no less than the US media of covering up for Israel’s crimes, wilfully, when there is no sound strategic reason for doing so, one knows that something is seriously wrong in the US. “In a more enlightened state,” runs the usual Western refrain when a public official is caught but never punished in the Global South, “he or she would have been sacked if not sent to trial.” The US Secretary of State, however, has yet to be questioned; even House Democrats and liberal commentators have called for his resignation.
US foreign policy has been, for the most, a series of blunders. I am not sure how many Americans will admit to this but I do know that quite a number of them do. To do so is not to own up to something shameful – after all, no country in the world has a squeaky clean record in foreign policy or domestic politics. Yet there is something intriguing about a country which, for better or worse, controls the narrative on issues like the international rules-based order and still manages to embarrass itself on the world stage. It is incredibly baffling to watch the US State Department spokesmen come up with one justification after another for Israel. Why it continues doing this has yet to be answered.
There have been Republican presidents and Republican administrations who have put their foot down on Israel’s excesses. Dwight D. Eisenhower did it in 1956. Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush followed suit in the 1980s and 1990s. When Bush’s Secretary of State, the shrewd James Baker, was asked why his administration withheld housing loan guarantees from then Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir after Israel went on another settlement binge in the West Bank he replied, “Because it was the right policy.” Implied in that remark was a recognition of US power and US leverage and more than anything of the US’s ability to use its power and leverage to bargain with its allies.
Given this, it makes no strategic sense for the US to support Israel, particularly when an election is around the corner. Israel has lurched to the right – the far right as even former Israeli prime ministers have acknowledged. Benjamin Netanyahu has more in common with Donald Trump than Joe Biden. Supporting Israel’s campaigns when even the rest of the West – Europe in particular and Canada – are moving away from their previous positions is at best self-defeating. I cannot predict what happens in November but I do know that so long as this administration stands, it will forever be associated with one of the most brutal military campaigns to unfold in recent history. Not all the word salads in the world can or will wash that away. The Biden administration obviously knows this.