When Biden and Harris addressed the nation (and the world) on behalf of the Israeli regime — and on behalf of the monied interests behind the American empire — nobody really cared.
To see a decrepit American president — who can scarcely mumble his way through a speech — and his faithful deputy (who hardly ever appears in public anymore, given her abysmal approval ratings) trotted out to the podium… it was almost tragic.
Figureheads for a bloated bureacracy, coached by neocon advisors — who have never held jobs beyond Israeli-funded think tanks and political parties — Biden and Harris were as bored as the few people who bothered to watch them.
It was business as usual in Washington, as Democrats and Republicans legislators hurried to get extra weapons and money to Netanyahu — a fellow American — so that he can bomb even more civilians in Gaza. But it’s certainly not business as usual in Occupied Palestine, where the apartheid project has been rattled to its core.
Despite all the propaganda that we have been fed about Israeli tech — despite all the Israeli robot guns, Israeli face-scanning, and Israeli spyware, deployed against Occupied Palestine and sold to thugs around the world — the fact of the matter is that the apartheid project is, fundamentally, little more than a flimsy structure made up of American subsidies, cowardly European settlers, and an army of brats who “wage war” by beating up children and stripping women and girls. The unfathomably brave and successful resistance of Palestinians shows that this project — a horror-filled extension of a tired empire— is, inevitably, in its dying days.
It’s true that every well-armed and well-fed Western government is on the side of the Israeli regime's ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. And it’s also true that there are some cowards among the supposedly pro-Palestine circles in the world, who rushed to condemn Palestinian resistance the second they heard some tough talk from legacy media outlets. But here and there — in Scotland, in Spain — there’s been official dissent from the Israeli lobby. In new powerhouses, such as Qatar, there has been unequivocal support for Palestine. And, from the kingdoms of complicity — Saudi Arabia and the UAE — an array of unintelligible statements have been released, equivalent to silence. It’s a satisfying silence, confirmation that the likes of Mohammed Bin Salman, Jared Kushner and Mohamed Bin Zayed cannot barter with Palestine in the same way that they’ve sold their own souls.
What’s even more satisfying, however, is that the Israeli elites are now — more likely than ever — going to start sending their money and their children out of the hellish state they have constructed on stolen land. Maybe the most capable of them will leave as well, back to the countries where they came from, with the passports that they’ve dutifully renewed.
Tourists are going to stop flying into Israeli airports. Foreign investment is going to take a pass. Partiers are perhaps going to think twice before dancing on Palestinian cemeteries and razed villages. Mayors of big cities around the world — who, frightened by their donors, have issued censorial statements — are going to see that pro-Palestine marches have taken the streets. Because the Israelis, clearly, have no real support among the people (only in the backrooms)… just as leaders of countries like the United States have no legitimacy among their electorates.
Biden and Harris are the best examples of emissaries whose words mean nothing (although empty vessels such as Trudeau, Sunak, Macron and Von der Leyen are close behind them). Nobody fears their prepared statements threatening Palestine — the Israelis were going to bomb Palestinian families no matter what, as they have been doing uninterruptedly since 1948— and no serious person thinks that Biden and Harris care about anything more than lining their own pockets with blood money. Beyond murderous Israeli settlers — who must be relieved to know that Uncle Sam is still going to bankroll them — the only people who felt any joy when these one-termers spoke were the weapons manufacturers.
The only valid sadness right now is reserved for the people of Palestine — and especially the people of Gaza. Yet, while the American, Canadian, European, Australian, Russian and South African settlers in Occupied Palestine press buttons on screens to destroy people’s lives — as they drag out a 75-year-old illegal occupation even longer, experimenting with new weapons, trafficking in blood diamonds, dealing out more misery — we should also recognize that there is another sadness here (albeit not one worth crying over).
What I’m referring to is the sadness of the condemned. What they don’t realize — what Biden and Harris don’t realize, comfortably ensconced in the White House, and what the Israeli rulers don’t realize, as they plot the next phase of ethnic cleansing — is that they, too, have trapped themselves in the prison that they’ve built.
There’s no way out of that prison — a prison that was built out of hatred, over vineyards and olive trees, over the churches and the mosques. As the settlers flee, as the leaders of the West deliver talking points about a world that they don’t understand and a history that is not theirs, the prison will collapse on them. And outside the ruins of that prison, Palestinians will continue to live, after they have mourned their dead.
Biden will be gone from the rundown White House soon, and Harris with him. Whoever comes next will continue to protect the last little colony on Earth, sheltering its crimes. They will undoubtedly send more bombs and cash and words of support to the settlers, as America’s neglected schools and hospitals crumble at home. But whether it takes a few more years, or even longer than that, Palestine is going to shatter the last of America’s teetering empire abroad.
For those of us who have been spared the checkpoints and walls of apartheid— safely away from the Israeli bombs that rain down from a sky that is not theirs — we cannot do much. And there’s guilt in that. There’s guilt in being able to drink clean water and breathe fresh air, free from the grip of occupiers who have drained the rivers and poisoned the soil. There’s a feeling of profound helplessness in only being able to pray for Palestine, to pray for the swift end of those who torment her people. Although I, for one, will find some small amount of solace in helping to document the slow end of this empire of lies.
