Bernie Sanders calls for pragmatic approaches, Bibi Netanyahu tells Israeli soldiers directly to regard Palestinians as "Amalek"
Bernie Sanders spoke out this week on the need for the US to stand for the protection of civilians in Gaza.1 He has not yet called for a ceasefire. Surprisingly, Dick Durbin was the first Senator to call for a ceasefire.2
But he does call for a humanitarian pause:
The humanitarian crisis is dire, and getting worse by the minute. There must be a humanitarian pause, NOW, so that sufficient supplies – food, water, medicine, fuel – can reach the people of Gaza. If not, thousands more will die needlessly. We cannot allow that to happen. A stop to the bombing is critical to save innocent lives and secure the safe return of hostages.
M. President, let us never forget: the lives of all children—all people—are sacred, whether they are Palestinian children, Israeli children, or American children, and we must do everything we can to protect them.3
He puts the conflict in the larger context of the brutal conditions which Israel maintains in the Gaza Strip, legally territory occupied by Israel and for which Israel has a responsibility for administering in accord with international law.
Sanders as a young man lived on a kibbutz in Israel and is very familiar with the politics of Israel. He is highly critical in this speech of Bibi Netanyahu’s far-right government.
Joe Cirincione notes how quickly the sympathy in the world that Israel received after the terrorist attack by Hamas on October 7:
America enjoyed the support of the world after the terror attacks of September 11. It took a year and a half for us to squander that support with our unnecessary and brutal invasion of Iraq, I told Zerlina Maxwell on her radio show this morning. Israel, too, enjoyed the support of the world after October 7. It took them a week to squander it.
Global opinion is shifting rapidly from horror at the Hamas attack to horror at the Israeli revenge.4 …
Secretary of State Antony Blinken eloquently expressed in his Senate testimony today the pain of the victims of the October 7 attack. But his rejection of a ceasefire under the shallow excuse that Israel needs to “defend itself” not only fails to extend American empathy to the equally innocent victims of Israel terror bombings, it fails miserably as a strategic solution to the crisis that threatens to engulf the entire region. [my emphasis]
Bahrain recently made confusing announcements about recalling its ambassador to Israel. The meaning of that is muddy at the moment.5 But it is likely a sign that the cooperation agreements under Trump’s Abraham Accords may be starting to publicly unravel.
But the Biden Administration is still pursuing its follow-on to those agreements to try to normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, maybe with an defense commitment to defend Saudi Arabia.6
Meanwhile, Netanyahu doubled down on his “Amalek” position, which certainly counts as genocidal rhetoric.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a letter to Israeli soldiers that "this is a war between the sons of light and the sons of darkness," adding "remember what Amalek did to you," referring to the biblical enemy nation of the Israelites.
"We constantly remember the sights of the horrific massacre on that Simchat Torah Shabbat, October 7, 2023," Netanyahu said, "Before us are our murdered brothers and sisters, the wounded, the kidnapped, the fallen of the IDF and the security forces.7
The economics columnist Fraces Coppola has been following the current conflict closely. She provides a useful description of the politics and religious symbolism of “Amalek”:
The lesson [of Netanyahu’s invocation of “Amalek”] seems clear. The Lord ordered the total genocide of the Amalekites to ensure the existence of Israel. It was not sufficient to kill fighting-age men. Children must also be killed, because they become the fighters of the future. And women must be killed, because they breed the fighters of the future. Even livestock must be killed, in case anyone remembers that they once belonged to the Amalekites. No trace must be left of them even in memory.
Whether or not Netanyahu believes this story is beside the point. What matters is that a substantial proportion of his supporters does. He is already facing calls for his resignation from both left and right, and his right wing is demanding genocide of the Gazan Palestinians and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Israel and on the West Bank. If there is one thing Netanyahu wants to do, it is to hold on to power. 8 [my emphasis]
Nettanel Slyomovics and Franklin Foer are expressing concern that Biden may be over-estimating his own ability to personally persuade Netanyahu to back off from mass killing of civilians in this war.9
Meanwhile, Republican Christian Zionists in the US are ecstatic that this war could bring on the End Times:
For most observers, the war in Gaza is a horrifying escalation of tensions in the Middle East, pitting a heavily armed Israeli state in a self-styled “existential” crusade against a stateless civilian population, bringing a brutal toll of casualties and the prospect of permanent displacement. Yet for many in the American evangelical world, the news out of Gaza is a crucial foretaste of redemption—the prelude to the final battle for earthly power, to be followed by Armageddon and the Rapture. …
Believers in the [so-called] literal interpretation of “endtimes” prophecy see the fortunes of Israel as a key harbinger of the Final Judgment and the elevation of fallen human history into the realm of the divine. In secular leftist politics, advocates of rapid escalation of class and geopolitical conflict are known as accelerationists; in endtimes prophecy belief, acceleration is left to God, but his Christian emissaries still retain the awesome power of recognizing and celebrating the signs of the pending judgment—and urging earthly powers and principalities to get in line with the divine plan before it’s too late. …
[Bibi Netanyahu’s] embrace of [the Christian Zionist] endtimes message is less a question of spiritual affinity than a brute reckoning with the rise of this hard-core brand of Christian nationalism to unprecedented political influence in America. Donald Trump’s 2016 election helped to move the evangelical right into the vanguard of Republican politics—while Trump brokered key points of contact between American evangelicals and Likud leaders, such as the embassy move and the failed diplomatic framework of the Abraham Accords. “The reason for Netanyahu to realize how important evangelicals are is clear, since their political influence has done nothing but grow in the last 20 years, especially within Congress,” says Washington State University historian Matthew Avery Sutton, author of American Apocalypse, a study of modern prophecy faith. And as the pronouncements of [John] Hagee and his son [Matt Hagee] make clear, the evangelical right, unlike many other religious Americans, has zero interest in a negotiated settlement to the Israeli occupation. “In their ideal world, there would be no two-state solution, no Palestinian state,” Sutton notes. “The idea is that Jews should control the entire land that King David controlled.” [my emphasis]
Religious fundamentalism has poisoned the politics of the US and Israel, making any serious effort to establish a long-term peace arrangement for Israel-Palestine far more difficult.
There is a humanitarian disaster in Gaza. Congress must act. Senator Bernie Sanders YouTube channel 11/01/2023. (Accessed: 2023-01-11).
Grim, Ryan (2023): Dick Durbin, AIPAC's First Successful Recruit, Becomes First Senator to Call for Gaza Ceasefire. The Intercept 11/02/2023. <https://theintercept.com/2023/11/02/dick-durbin-gaza-ceasefire-aipac/> (Accessed: 2023-03-11).
Sanders, Bernie (2023): Amid Humanitarian Disaster in Gaza, Sanders Urges World to Act (Prepared Text). Bernie Sanders Senate website 11/01/2023. <https://www.sanders.senate.gov/press-releases/news-amid-humanitarian-disaster-in-gaza-sanders-urges-world-to-act/> (Accessed: 2023-03-11).
Cirincione, Joe (2023): Stop the War. Strategy & History (Substack) 10/31/2023. <https://joecirincione.substack.com/p/stop-the-war> (Accessed: 2023-03-11).
Israel-Palestine war: Bahrain parliament says ambassador to Israel 'recalled'. Middle East Eye 11/02/2023. <https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-war-bahrain-parliament-ambassador-israel-recalled> (Accessed: 2023-03-11).
Ravid, Barak (2023): White House: Saudi Arabia is still interested in pursuing mega-deal. Axios 10/31/2023. <https://www.axios.com/2023/10/31/saudi-megadeal-normalization-israel-biden> (Accessed: 2023-03-11).
Lis, Jonathan (2023): Netanyahu in letter to soldiers: 'Remember what Amalek did to you'. Haaretz 11/03/2023. <https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-11-03/ty-article-live/blinken-to-push-for-humanitarian-pause-as-israeli-army-encircles-gaza-city/0000018b-9334-db7e-af9b-fbf78ad50000?liveBlogItemId=659615750#659615750> (Accessed: 2023-03-11).
Coppola, Frances (2023): The road to Armageddon. Coppola Comment (Substack) 10/31/2023. (Accessed: 2023-03-11).
Slyomovics, Nettanel (2023): Haaretz 11/03/2023. <https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-11-03/ty-article-magazine/.highlight/bidens-secret-weapon-vis-a-vis-netanyahu/0000018b-91e7-db7e-af9b-fbe75acf0000> (Accessed: 2023-03-11).