EDITORIAL
Our Tax Money Pays for the Murderous War in Gaza

Feb 26, 2024

Since Israel’s murderous war against the Palestinians in Gaza began in October, the Biden administration has blocked three ceasefire resolutions at the U.N. Security Council. It has also twice defended Israel’s occupation and war against Palestinians before the World Court in The Hague.

In so doing, the Biden administration confirmed once again its complete support for Israel’s War—as bloody and destructive and despicable and barbaric as it is.

Of course, even if those supposedly “august” and “prominent” international bodies did pass a resolution or rendered a verdict against Israel’s war and occupation, it wouldn’t be worth the paper it is written on. Over the last half century, the U.N. General Assembly has passed hundreds of resolutions condemning Israeli policies against the Palestinians. But none of that stopped the U.S. super-power from continuing to support the Israeli government to the hilt.

That is because Israel is the U.S. super-power’s top cop in the Middle East. It is a loyal defender of U.S. domination. The U.S. government’s enemies are Israel’s enemies. It regularly threatens and bombs Iran and Syria. It invades Lebanon, where it has also attacked various rebellions of the poor. It helped Saudi Arabia bomb Yemen. It bombed Iraq when Saddam Hussein was in power.

All this protects U.S. investments and trade in the Middle East. It protects the profits of U.S. oil companies, the big engineering companies, the big U.S. financial companies. And let’s not forget the U.S. weapons makers, for whom the Middle East is a veritable gold mine.

To play this role, the U.S. has armed the Israeli military to the teeth. Israel’s population of nine million people may be smaller than Los Angeles County. But its military gets more support from the U.S. than any other country in the world, a total of 158 billion dollars since Israel’s founding in 1948. That makes Israel the greatest recipient of U.S. military aid in history.

All that aid and support from the U.S. has emboldened and strengthened the Israeli ruling class, who constantly seek to expand the borders of its tiny territory. That means constantly going up against the Palestinians in one war after another.

It means Palestinian “removal.” Of course, the U.S. government is not a stranger to such “removal” policies, given its own history of extermination and genocide of the indigenous population in the U.S., not to speak of the enslavement of the millions whom it brought from Africa in chains.

Today, top Israeli officials call the Palestinian people who they are murdering and starving, “human animals” and “sub-humans,” just like top U.S. officials called the indigenous people in this country, “savages,” and black people, “niggers.” Both show their contempt for human life.

This contempt is nothing but the product of a class society, a society based on the exploitation of the working class, the impoverishment of the working masses, for the benefit of a tiny minority of parasites and slave drivers. To them, the only thing that matters is their wealth and their power and they don’t care how many people they kill and destroy to get it.

Watching the horrifying images of the Israeli war in Gaza is certainly shocking. Just as shocking is the fact that it is our tax money here in this country that is paying for it. All of it.… All so that the capitalist class that rides roughshod over us—cuts our jobs and pay, to enrich itself—can rule over the workers of the rest of the world.