Yesterday, the United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly in favor of a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, with the United States voting against it and Italy, Germany, and the United Kingdom abstaining, among a few others. A few days ago, the United States vetoed a draft resolution in the Security Council that would have called for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza and the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages (the United Kingdom abstained). Where is the outrage for this massacre? During the Vietnam War, American academics and intellectuals voiced their opposition: but where are they today? Critical voices, of great prestige and less isolated than it seems, do exist, as well as a significant ferment on U.S. campuses.
According to Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, where he is a professor, there is a strong attempt to intimidate everyone, “not to say a word about the 17,000 Palestinians dead, the millions who have been displaced, the hundreds of thousands of homes apparently destroyed during the bombings: anyone who criticizes what is happening is accused of being anti-Israel and anti-Semitic, and this is the way to silence those who oppose U.S. policy.” According to Sachs, the problem is that American politicians have long believed that their ticket to success is to unconditionally support Israel, and what they are doing now goes beyond unconditional support: the United States is the supplier of the bombs that are killing thousands, probably tens of thousands of innocent women and children in Gaza. So Sachs claims, “there is an attempt to silence dissent by politicians and by all supporters of Israel, who must be rather desperate because the whole world is currently witnessing enormous war crimes and they are trying to prevent people from talking about this reality.” The young people know it, the students on campuses see what is happening, there is a huge generational divide that has opened up because young people are shocked by what is happening.
For this reason, some rectors of important U.S. universities have been accused by a parliamentary committee of not having expelled students active in solidarity with Palestine, with the phantasmagoric accusation of “advocating for the genocide of the Jews.” A new McCarthyism suggests that in major American universities, a single thought aligned with the “far left” dominates. If many students openly oppose and protest, university leaders are in a delicate position: on the one hand, they must constantly ensure the protection of freedom of expression, but they must also maintain good relations with donors, who represent one of the main sources of funding for higher education institutions in the United States. In the economic model of leading American research universities, which essentially rely on income from endowments and sponsorships, donors exert an increasing influence that raises questions about the guarantee of academic freedom and freedom of expression on campuses. The result of this offensive is that the president of the University of Pennsylvania, Liz Magill, announced her resignation after testifying to Congress about anti-Semitism on her campus.
Stephan Walt, an American political scientist, professor of international politics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, wrote, “As a realist (in the sense of the realist doctrine of international relations), I recognize that there are sometimes compromises between legitimate security interests and moral considerations. That said, it is difficult for me to understand how senior U.S. foreign policy officials can look at themselves in the mirror today.”
John Mearsheimer, a professor at the University of Chicago and a famous American political scientist, wrote an article on the ongoing massacre in Gaza. He is another important voice outside the chorus, often critical of U.S. foreign policy, who felt the need to publicly declare his position on the scandalous massacre underway in Gaza.
“I do not believe that anything I say about what is happening in Gaza will influence Israeli or American policy in that conflict. But I want it to be put on record so that when historians look back at this moral calamity, they will see that some Americans were on the right side of history.
What Israel is doing in Gaza to the Palestinian civilian population – with the support of the Biden administration – is a crime against humanity that has no significant military purpose. As J-Street, a major organization of the Israeli lobby, says, ‘the extent of the humanitarian disaster underway and civilian casualties is almost unfathomable.’
- Israel is deliberately massacring a huge number of civilians, about 70% of whom are children and women.
- Israel is deliberately starving the desperate Palestinian population by greatly limiting the amount of food, fuel, cooking gas, medicines, and water that can be brought to Gaza.
- Israeli leaders talk about the Palestinians and what they would like to do in Gaza in shocking terms [leading important scholars] to conclude that Israel has a ‘genocidal intent.
- Israel not only kills, injures, and starves a huge number of Palestinians but systematically destroys their homes and critical infrastructure – including mosques, schools, heritage sites, libraries, key government buildings, and hospitals.
- Israel not only terrorizes and kills Palestinians but also publicly humiliates many of their men who have been gathered by the IDF during routine searches.
- Even if the Israelis are carrying out the massacre, they could not do it without the support of the Biden administration.
- While most attention is now focused on Gaza, it is important not to lose sight of what is happening simultaneously in the West Bank. Israeli settlers, in close collaboration with the IDF, continue to kill innocent Palestinians and steal their land.
As I watch this catastrophe for the Palestinians, I have a simple question for the leaders of Israel, their American defenders, and the Biden administration: don’t you have a little decency?” >>
Francesco Sylos Labini 