Republicans and Democrats rally around Netanyahu
The Capitol building in Washington, DC, which houses the US Congress, is no stranger to war criminals. It was built on indigenous land by enslaved Black workers in the 18th century, and by the middle of the 20th sat at the heart of the most bloodthirsty imperial machine in human history.
Radical linguist Noam Chomsky famously claimed in a speech in 1990 that every US president since World War Two would be hanged if the same legal standard were applied to them as was applied to Nazi defendants in the Nuremberg trials. What could be more normal, then, than for Israeli Prime Minister and war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu to be guest of honour at the Capitol? Indeed, when Netanyahu addressed a joint sitting of Congress on 24 July as the invited guest of the Republican and Democratic parties, it was for the fourth time—breaking a record he previously shared with former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
Earlier in the month, a letter published in the British medical journal Lancet made a conservative estimate that Israel’s war in Gaza could already have claimed 186,000 lives. Officially, more than 39,000 people have been killed so far. The starvation conditions, the annihilation of healthcare infrastructure and the reality that nowhere is safe in the strip make it certain the toll will continue to climb.
The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court recently accused Netanyahu of bearing responsibility for war crimes in Gaza and requested a warrant for his arrest. Very much in line with historic precedent, though, when this genocidal criminal appeared in Congress to speak before the assembled representatives of the world’s “greatest democracy” and self-styled defenders of the international “rules-based order”, he was feted as a hero.
The scene was reminiscent of the most grotesque spectacles of high Stalinism. Netanyahu was on the podium for less than an hour, during which time he received 58 standing ovations. It was enough to make North Korea’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un—who reportedly averages a measly rate of one ovation every four minutes—look like an amateur.
It’s said that the kind of lengthy standing ovations that greeted speeches by Stalin during the years of the great terror in Russia in the 1930s can be explained by the fear among Soviet officials of the repercussions of being the first to stop clapping. No such fears can excuse the behaviour of the members of the US Congress today. The cheering and the hooting and the interminable clapping for Netanyahu, the butcher of Gaza, were not just not coerced. It was genuinely enthusiastic. Even Mitch McConnell, that dwindling light of American gerontocracy, was more animated and lifelike than ever.
The only thing more nauseating was Netanyahu's speech itself. How many civilians had been killed in Rafah? “Practically none”, he claimed. What of the widely attested claim that Israel is deliberately starving the population of Gaza? “A complete fabrication.” He continued: “If there are Palestinians in Gaza who aren’t getting enough food, it’s not because Israel is blocking it, it’s because Hamas is stealing it”. Cue another standing ovation.
While many Democrats chose to not to attend Netanyahu’s speech, their motives were mixed. Among them was venture capitalist and staunch Zionist Nancy Pelosi, who suggested in January that calls for a Gaza ceasefire should be investigated by the FBI as potential Russian interference. She made it clear that her objection was to Netanyahu’s failure to secure the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza, not the tens of thousands of Palestinians killed by Israel or the thousands held hostage under its infamous regime of administrative detention. No doubt, too, some Democrats had an eye to the possible electoral repercussions of seeming too cosy with Netanyahu at a time when increasing numbers in the US are turning against Israel.
Among the few people to come out of this with some dignity intact is Michigan’s Rashida Tlaib. She was the only member of the “Squad” of left-leaning Democrats to attend the address, during which she held up a sign that read “war criminal” on one side and “guilty of genocide” on the other. You could be forgiven for missing it. This was a very small flicker of decency amid the bipartisan celebration of slaughter.
Israel couldn’t get away with its crimes without the support it receives from “both sides of the aisle” in American politics. The bombs that have laid waste to Gaza are shipped off on the say-so of the US Congress. That’s the reason Netanyahu was there in the first place. “Give us the tools faster”, he pleaded, “and we’ll finish the job faster”.
If anything is to change for the better, it won’t be thanks to the politicians in that building on Capitol Hill. It will be thanks to the thousands protesting outside it on the same day that Netanyahu spoke, and to the many hundreds of thousands, if not millions, who continue to show up for Gaza day in day out all around the world.
