Understanding the Israel-Gaza Conflict: Examining the Role of the US and Seeking a Just Resolution

The Biden administration’s response to the crisis has been unequivocal in its support for Israel. We accept the president’s immediate and forceful statement that Israel has the right to defend itself, and additional military support is on the way, adding to the annual $3.8 billion in support. This is already backed up by the presence of a US Navy carrier group in the area. Yet, uncritical support for Israel could be seen as a green light to its military actions in Gaza, despite concerns about civilian casualties.

The heavy-handed retributive response of Israel under Netanyahu is not a mere ‘eye-for-an-eye’ defensive reaction of a nation-state under attack. It is no accident that the hard-right policies of an administration that was already at war with its own people in its consistent assault on the judiciary and Netanyahu’s own Trump-like bid to stay in power under a cloud of criminal indictments coincide with Hamas’s strike and Israel’s response with all-too-predictable overwhelming force. Already, this ham-fisted approach threatens to bring the Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon to make incursions in northern Israel, thus further widening the conflict.

The ongoing structural violence against Palestinians, the long occupation, and the blockade of Gaza cannot be separated by Israel’s far-right governance. The pathway to peace must involve lifting the siege, ending the occupation, and dismantling Israeli apartheid. But that path must also include political change in Israel.

Biden’s trip, therefore, should reinforce Washington’s insistence that even as it pursues Hamas, Israel as a democratic nation must follow its obligations under international law to prevent war crimes and crimes against humanity. Granting Israel carte blanche in its actions, no matter how justifiably we grieve with the Israeli people over this outrage, will plunge the region into generational conflict, where the mastermind of the next 9/11 attack is possibly seeking shelter as a small boy in a Gazan hospital.

This is not about whataboutism. There is human suffering on both sides of the conflict. The people of Gaza are no more or less deserving of the visage of death and destruction than the people of Israel. There must therefore be a concerted effort to de-escalate the situation. Killing more Palestinians in Gaza won’t bring back the dead of Sderot. This, then, is the tightrope that Biden, an avowed high-wire foreign policy artist, must walk if this region can look beyond the bloodshed to begin to build a future in which all people in the region are free from oppression, occupation, and terrorism.