LAST Wednesday was a day of shame for the US Congress. The world’s No 1 terrorist and war criminal, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was welcomed by US law-makers with a standing ovation.
They then interrupted his address with a further 16 rounds of applause while sedentary and 23 while up on their hind legs.
The war criminal’s speech contained the usual lies and distortions peddled by Israeli diplomats and military spokespersons around the world as the Palestinian death toll in Gaza headed northwards towards 40,000.
Still, at least we were spared any excuses for the recent massacre of civilians in what the misnamed Israeli Defence Force laughably refers to as its “humanitarian zone” in Khan Younis.
And nobody was so impolite as to mention the latest UN relief agency’s Gaza update on the numbers of civilians displaced (1.9 million), UN agency workers killed (197) or hospitals and clinics shut down by Israeli shelling (80).
In a televised one-to-one love-in at the White House, Netanyahu praised President Joe Biden for being a “proud Irish-American zionist” and thanked him for “50 years of support for the state of Israel.”
The world’s No 1 armourer responded with the kind of smile that betokens both gratitude and confusion. It was one of those moments that explain why the people of the US and its Democratic Party are best rid of Biden as a presidential candidate.
What of Biden’s likely successors in that office and as “the leader of the free world” (© BBC and Sky News)?
Donald Trump is an uncritical admirer of Netanyahu’s brutal suppression of the Palestinians. Like the Israeli premier, he cares nothing for international law, UN resolutions or a just settlement of the Israel-Palestine question.
Kamala Harris, on the other hand, appeared to offer a glimmer of hope to the Palestinian people and their rights to national existence and self-determination.
She failed to fulfil her role as presiding officer for Netanyahu’s Congress address, on the implausible grounds that she had an unbreakable prior commitment in Indianapolis.
Around half of the Democratic Party representatives and senators also stayed away, while Rashida Tlaib displayed a placard reading “War Criminal” and “Guilty of Genocide” throughout the proceedings.
Nevertheless, Harris had her own one-to-one with the state terrorist from Tel Aviv, albeit preceded by a lukewarm handshake. Moreover, she took the opportunity to make a clear statement condemning the mass killing in Gaza and setting out a roadmap to a two-state resolution to the Palestinian question.
Naturally, Netanyahu has no intention of engaging in any process that interferes with his genocidal policy of destroying the Palestinians as a distinct national community.
But at least he was reported in sections of the US media to be unhappy that the US vice-president was less than supine in her dealings with him.
However, Harris said nothing to threaten the huge flow of armaments to the Israel’s merciless war machine. Netanyahu’s appetite for biting the hand that feeds him will continue until and unless a US president puts human rights above the geopolitical interests of US state-monopoly capitalism.
Most likely only the US people can make that happen, through mass protest and pressure on their elected politicians.
In the meantime, Keir Starmer’s government in Britain should cease covering for genocide and condemn indiscriminate mass murder in Gaza, end arms exports to Israel, support the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant for Netanyahu’s crimes against humanity and — like the Irish Republic — recognise Palestinian statehood.
