Maureen Clare Murphy Rights and Accountability 15 June 2022
The US president will be traveling to the Middle East next month to reinforce his country’s “ironclad commitment to Israel’s security,” the White House announced on Tuesday.
That phrase has become something of a mantra for Joe Biden’s administration, with his national security adviser Jake Sullivan recently stating that he “discussed ironclad support for Israel’s security” with Israel’s defense minister.
Sullivan made that proclamation to Israeli defense minister Benny Gantz in May just days after Israeli soldiers shot and killed legendary Al Jazeera correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh, who was a US citizen.
The Biden administration has allowed the Israeli military to probe itself over Abu Akleh’s death rather than calling for an independent investigation or launching one of its own.
That is what “ironclad support for Israel” means in practice: an unyielding commitment to Israeli impunity and Palestinian un-freedom to the tune of at least $3.8 billion in military aid to Tel Aviv per year.
Washington’s ironclad commitment to Palestinian un-freedom was demonstrated this week when Michèle Taylor, the US representative to the UN Human Rights Council, delivered a statement “expressing deep concern” over a new permanent commission of inquiry into Israel’s system of repression against Palestinians as a whole.
That commission published its first report last week. It states that dismantling the Israeli occupation imposed on Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza since 1967 “remains essential in ending the persistent cycle of violence.”
“The culture of impunity begets further human rights violations,” according to the report.
The “promotion of accountability” is a primary focus of the UN commission.
That directly contradicts Washington’s “ironclad support for Israel.”
Taylor trotted out well-worn accusations of bias against Israel at the Human Rights Council.
In addition to the US and Israel, 20 countries signed on to the statement, including Canada and the UK. Six EU states also signed: Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Germany, Hungary and the Netherlands.
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