Benjamin Netanyahu and his extremist right-wing government can’t win the “total victory” over Hamas that the Israeli prime minister repeatedly demands; even Israeli defense officials have said so. But he — or, more to the point, Israel — can lose.
With the starvation of Gaza, Netanyahu is hastening a break in the bipartisan U.S. support for Israel, support that has endured for the entire lives of most Americans. After straining that broad backing for two decades by denying Palestinians’ humanity and overtly courting Republicans over Democrats in the U.S., Netanyahu is inviting a complete rupture by his culpability for Gazan babies wasting away in the arms of their helpless parents.
Many more children and adults have died, of course, since the start of Israel’s war to avenge Hamas terrorists’ gruesome murders of 1,200 people and abduction of 251 more in their attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. This week the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry’s toll surpassed 60,000 killed, including 18,500 children. But for the most part, the world hasn’t seen close-ups of kids’ corpses pulled from rubble after Israeli airstrikes. Now, though, despite Israel’s restrictions against international reporters in Gaza, we’re increasingly seeing graphic videos and photos of dying, starving kids, as well as desperate, hungry adults.
Meanwhile, Israel continues its bombing and allows into Gaza a mere drip-feed of humanitarian aid, estranging some longtime allies — France, Britain and Germany among them — as well as Democrats and independents in the U.S. Congress who for much of Israel’s existence were Israel’s most stalwart supporters. That’s a loss that Israel literally can’t afford: For decades, it has been far and away the largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid (eclipsed for now by war aid to Ukraine).
On Monday, independent Sen. Angus King of Maine announced he’d no longer support aid to Israel “as long as there are starving children in Gaza due to the action or inaction of the Israeli government.” His statement began, “I cannot defend the indefensible.”
And Netanyahu’s war policies are indefensible, however justified Israel’s war against the genocidal Hamas was at its start. It is beyond painful and tragic to watch a nation born of the sympathy of a world horrified by the newsreel footage of human skeletons emerging from Nazi camps now bearing responsibility for the pictures coming from Gaza. The Israeli government itself stands accused of war crimes and genocide even by its own citizens, including some former leaders. Yet the prime minister has the gall to tell us that our eyes are lying: “There is no starvation in Gaza,” Netanyahu insisted on Monday.
That lie was so baldfaced that even the liar in chief, Netanyahu’s pal President Donald Trump, called him out. Asked on Monday about Netanyahu’s denial, President Trump told reporters he’d seen the clips of starving Gaza children on TV. “That’s real starvation stuff,” he said. “I see it, and you can’t fake that.”
Not exactly how most people would express empathy and outrage, but we take what we can get. Trump also went on about how the United States would step up to create new food centers in Gaza, seemingly unaware that the United States already is involved, complicit actually, in the failed “humanitarian” effort that supplanted United Nations and independent humanitarian groups in Gaza and spawned the current crisis.
After Israel in March abandoned a ceasefire that Trump had taken credit for, it blocked all goods into Gaza for nearly three months to pressure Hamas to surrender. FYI, starvation as a weapon of warfare is a war crime. Instead of hundreds of aid centers run by experienced humanitarian organizations, Israel created a shadowy, misnamed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation with a handful of centers run by U.S. contractors and policed by Israeli troops. Since May, more than 100 Palestinians in Gaza have reportedly died of hunger, but 10 times as many have been shot dead, according to the U.N., by trigger-happy soldiers firing “warning shots” at the predictably overrun food sites, turning them into killing fields.
And lest we forget, in the West Bank Palestinians continue to be tormented and killed by militant Jewish settlers, backed by the Netanyahu government. U.N. data shows that violence against Palestinians is at a higher level than any time in two decades.
The suffering, and the transformation of Israel’s image from David to Goliath, from righteous to wrathful, is in turn transforming U.S.-Israel politics, no doubt to Israel’s long-term detriment.
On Tuesday a new Gallup polling report was headlined “32% in U.S. Back Israel’s Military Action in Gaza, a New Low.” That poll was conducted earlier in July, mostly before the torrent of heart-rending photos of malnourished babies. Americans’ reduced support for Israel’s actions in Gaza was driven by increased opposition among Democrats and independents. Republicans’ approval of Israel’s war is up, likely reflecting Trump’s support for Netanyahu — and the administration’s zeal to tar as an antisemite anyone or any institution critical of Israel’s government.
In February, amid the since-abandoned ceasefire, Gallup found just 46% support for Israel among Americans overall, the lowest level in its 25 years of tracking. Until 2022, both Republicans and Democrats sided with Israel over the Palestinian territories in their long-running dispute. Since then, Democrats have tipped in favor of the Palestinians, presumably reflecting disgust that was building before the war with Netanyahu’s long, antidemocratic and self-serving rule.
Similarly, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs reported in May on the growing partisan divide on U.S. support for Israel. It concluded: “A long-term shift in public opinion could lead to reduced U.S. support for Israel down the line.”
That polarization of support in the United States, Israel’s most longstanding and crucial ally, is Netanyahu’s legacy. It’s not a good one for the Jewish people, or for America.
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