Editorial | Biden must restrain Israel

Joe Biden’s declaration of outrage and heartbreak over the killing by Israel’s military this week of seven Western aid workers from World Central Kitchen in Gaza rings hollow.

Not only was the American president’s anger over these deaths seemingly disproportionate to his response to the nearly 33,000 Palestinians killed since the Israel-Hamas war began last October, it appears to have caused no concrete shift in American policy to restrain Israel’s behaviour in the war. Benjamin Netanyahu and his ultra-right administration can seemingly act with impunity because they are allowed to do so by Israel’s Western allies, and most importantly the United States.

If Mr Biden is serious about doing more than ratcheting up his rhetoric, he might adopt the advice offered to the British government by more than 600 academics, lawyers and judges, including three former justices (Lady Hale, Lord Sumption and Lord Wilson) of Jamaica’s highest court, the Privy Council, that the United Kingdom suspends arms sales to Israel, lest the guns and missiles become a means to genocide.

“The ICJ’s (International Court of Justice) conclusion that there exists a plausible risk of genocide in Gaza has placed your government on notice that weapons might be used in its commission, and that the suspension of their provision is thus a ‘means likely to deter’ and/or ‘a measure to prevent’ genocide,” the group said in a letter to the British prime minister, Rishi Sunak.

CONDEMNATION

This newspaper’s concern over how Israel has prosecuted its war in Gaza does not diminish our outright condemnation of Hamas’ massacre of 1,200 Israelis in its October 7 cross-border raid, and its taking of scores of hostages.

Neither do we question Israel’s right, within the confines of international law, to respond.

Few people, however, can legitimately dispute that in attempting to execute Mr Netanyahu’s aim of the total elimination of Hamas, Israel and its military have broken international humanitarian law – and possibly worse.

But as is becoming increasingly clear, this war is not only – and at this stage, maybe even primarily – ensuring Israel’s security. It is as much about saving Mr Netanyahu’s political skin, given the collapse of his popularity and his pre-war fight to stay out of prison for corruption.

Gaza is a narrow strip of land, with an area similar to that of Jamaica’s northwestern parish of St James. A population of over 80 per cent of the size of Jamaica’s resides on that sliver of land.

Since the war began, approximately two per cent of Gaza’s population has been killed, with the majority being mostly women and children – which Israel blames on Hamas fighters embedding themselves among civilians. Most of the strip’s buildings and infrastructure have been destroyed, and almost every Gazan is an internally displaced person, periodically corralled in places from one end of the territory to the other. At present, 1.4 million Gazans are hemmed in at Rafah, in the south, which Mr Netanyahu has vowed to attack despite the urgings of Israel’s allies not to, because of the likelihood of massive civilian casualties.

LIMITED AID ENTRY

Israel has limited the entry of aid into the country; there are outbreaks of communicable diseases because of the lack of sanitation; a majority of Gazans are hungry; and health services have collapsed. The territory’s hospitals, where Israel said Hamas fighters made their bases, have been mostly destroyed.

Mr Netanyahu’s approach to the war was shaped in large measures by Mr Biden’s early all-in support for Israel. There was no nuance to America’s backing. The trajectory was set.

Now, the president’s growing calls for restraint, and his rebuke of some Israeli actions, have not been matched by tough, dissuasive policy action. It has been disclosed, for instance, that Mr Biden recently quietly authorised the sale to Israel of thousands of heavy bombs and fighter jets worth US$2.6 billion.

Clearly, Mr Biden needs to find a balance between his long-standing and instinctive support for Israel, and his efforts to mend his frayed electoral coalition in the face of anger among Arab-Americans and young Democrats over his Israel-Gaza policy. If not the letter of humanitarian law, morality demands that the president exercise American power in a fashion that curbs Israel’s excesses.

Jamaica, too, should help to push Biden, as well as the British government, to do what is right. And it can act with the benefit of the advice of what, essentially, is legal advice from some former members of the island’s apex court.