https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/10/09/opinion/gaza-doctor-interviews.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgSZ1fTk4r8
What American physicians and nurses saw firsthand in Gaza should inform the United States’ Gaza policy. The lethal combination of what Human Rights Watch describes as indiscriminate military violence, what Oxfam calls the deliberate restriction of food and humanitarian aid, near-universal displacement of the population, and destruction of the health care system is having the calamitous effect that many Holocaust and genocide scholars warned of nearly a year ago.
American law and policy have long forbidden the transfer of weapons to nations and military units engaged in gross violations of human rights, especially — as a 2023 update to the United States Conventional Arms Transfer Policy makes clear — when those violations are directed at children. It is difficult to conceive of more severe violations of this standard than young children regularly being shot in the head, newborns and their mothers starving because of blocked food aid and demolished water infrastructure, and a health care system that has been destroyed.
For the past 12 months, it has been well within our government’s power to stop the flow of U.S. military aid to Israel. Instead, we fueled the fire at almost every opportunity, shipping over 50,000 tons of military equipment, ammunition and weaponry since the start of the war, according to a late-August update from the Israeli Defense Ministry. This amounts to an average of more than 10 transport planes and two cargo ships of arms per week.
Now, after more than a year of devastation, estimates of Palestinian deaths range from the tens of thousands to the hundreds of thousands. The International Rescue Committee describes Gaza as “the most dangerous place in the world to be an aid worker, as well as the most dangerous place to be a civilian.” UNICEF rates Gaza as “the most dangerous place in the world to be a child.” Oxfam reports that in Al-Mawasi, the area Israel has designated as the humanitarian safe zone in Gaza, there is one toilet for every 4,130 people. At least 1,470 Israelis have been killed in the Oct. 7 attack and the following war. Half of the hostages who remain in Gaza are reportedly dead. And, while American officials blame Hamas for prolonging the war and hindering negotiations, Israeli news outlets consistently report that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has sabotaged cease-fire talks with both Hamas and Hezbollah while recklessly escalating the conflict instead of reaching an agreement that could achieve many of Israel’s stated war aims, including the release of Israeli hostages.
Was this ghastly outcome for the Palestinians and Israel worth corrupting the rule of law in our own society? Certainly, the Biden-Harris administration can’t say they didn't know what they were doing. Eight sitting U.S. senators, 88 members of the House of Representatives, 185 lawyers (including dozens working in the administration), and 12 civil servants (who resigned in protest of our Gaza policy) have told the administration that continuing to arm Israel is illegal under U.S. law. In September, ProPublica reported the lengths to which the Biden-Harris administration went to avoid complying with the laws that define clear consequences for countries, like Israel, that are blocking humanitarian aid. In these pages, the journalist and commentator Peter Beinart recently suggested that Vice President Kamala Harris can “signal a clear break” with the current administration’s disastrous Gaza policy during her run for president. How? “Ms. Harris should simply say that she’ll enforce the law.”
Together, Israel and the United States are turning Gaza into a howling wilderness. But it’s never too late to change course: We could stop Israel’s use of our weapons, ammunition, jet fuel, intelligence and logistical support by withholding them, and we could stanch the flow of weapons to all sides by announcing an international arms embargo on Israel and all Palestinian and Lebanese armed groups. Enforcing American laws that require halting military aid to Israel would be a move with widespread support: humanitarian organizations, dozens of members of Congress, a majority of Americans and an overwhelming majority of U.N. member states all agree.
The horror must end.