This is an adapted excerpt from the Jan. 12 episode of "Ayman."
Well, it finally happened. Last week, the United States finally said definitively that the suffering, destruction and violence we’re witnessing abroad is genocide.
If the Biden administration is calling out the famine in Sudan, why not also address the ongoing famine in Gaza?
In a statement, Secretary of State Antony Blinken decried what he called the “world’s largest humanitarian catastrophe:” A famine that has left 30 million people in need of humanitarian assistance and tens of thousands dead. He also referred to the systematic targeting of civilians and the reported instances of rape and sexual violence.
Now, despite what you may be thinking, the Biden administration was not referring to Israel’s war in Gaza. Instead, it was referring to the Sudanese armed forces and the Rapid Support Forces’ ongoing brutality against the people of Sudan.
The horrific atrocities committed against the Sudanese should be labeled as genocide. But Blinken’s declaration begs the question: Why is the U.S. unable to apply that same standard to Israel?
If the Biden administration is calling out the famine in Sudan, why not also address the ongoing famine in Gaza, which has been condemned by independent experts from the United Nations?
If the U.S. is rightfully condemning the horrific violence happening against the Sudanese, why not also condemn allegations that Israel Defense Forces soldiers, according to a report from the United Nations, have been subjecting male and female Palestinian prisoners to abuse, including sexual and gender-based violence?
It’s not like this administration has shied away from the use of the genocide label before. In early 2021, President Joe Biden formally recognized the systematic killings and deportations of hundreds of thousands of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century as genocide, using a term his predecessors had avoided for decades.
In 2022, Biden called Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a genocide. “It had become clearer and clearer that Putin is just trying to wipe out the idea of even being a Ukrainian,” Biden said at the time.
But when it comes to Israel, the Biden administration has gone out of its way to not call what Israel is doing in Gaza a genocide. Blinken has called the accusation of genocide “meritless.”
The day after Blinken’s Sudan announcement, White House national security communications adviser John Kirby was directly asked what distinguishes the situation in Sudan from the one in Gaza. “It’s clear, as the secretary of state articulated, that what we’re seeing in Sudan is genocide,” Kirby told reporters. “It’s the wanton, systematic, direct, deliberate slaughter, rape, murder, torture of people based on their ethnicity or their faith.”
“That is not what we’re seeing in Gaza,” he continued. “It’s not. The IDF isn’t waking up every day putting their boots on the floor and saying, ‘Hey, we’re going to go kill some innocent people because they happen to be Palestinian.’”
But last month, IDF soldiers who have served in Gaza told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that anyone who crosses an imaginary line in the contested Neztarim corridor is shot to death, with every Palestinian casualty counting as a terrorist — even if the casualty is a child.
An IDF commander added, “After shootings, bodies are not collected, attracting packs of dogs who come to eat them. In Gaza, people know that wherever you see those dogs, that’s where you must not go.”
In a statement to Haaretz, the Israeli military said its “strikes are targeted solely at military objectives, and before the strikes are carried out, many steps are taken to minimize harm to noncombatants.”
A new study published by the medical journal The Lancet found that the Health Ministry in the Gaza Strip has significantly undercounted the number of Palestinians killed by 41%. The report estimates there have been 64,260 deaths in Gaza, 59% of which are women, children and people over the age of 65.
In response to the study, a senior Israeli official told Reuters that Israel’s armed forces went to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties, “No other army in the world has ever taken such wide-ranging measures.”
A new report estimates there have been 64,260 deaths in Gaza, 59% of which are women, children and people over the age of 65.
“These include providing advance warning to civilians to evacuate, safe zones and taking any and all measures to prevent harm to civilians. The figures provided in this report do not reflect the situation on the ground,” the official said.
Despite these accounts from IDF soldiers and that new study, there has been no official condemnation from the United States and no accusations of genocide. Instead, the State Department has reportedly informally told Congress about a planned $8 billion weapons sale to Israel.
That brings us back to this week’s determination of genocide in Sudan. Two senior U.S. officials told The New York Times that some officials hesitated to support it because they feared it would draw further criticism of the Biden administration over its refusal to declare Israel’s assault on Gaza a genocide.
And they’re right. It has and should draw criticism because the U.S.’ head-in-the-sand attitude toward Israel is not only inconsistent with its treatment of other countries, but it’s also a clear act of moral cowardice.
Allison Detzel contributed.