U.S Tax Dollars Fund Israeli Apartheid

Article

May 11

IDF soldiers fire tear gas at Palestinian demonstrators during a protest in Jerusalem. [AFP/ Abbas Momani]

Last night, Israeli airstrikes in Gaza killed at least 26 Palestinians, including nine children, and injured nearly a hundred people. Hamas also shot rockets at Israel, killing at least two Israelis.

A lot has happened over the past few weeks leading up to this point (too much to successfully recap in this brief note) but one thing is clear: The Biden administration’s response so far to the events in Israel and occupied Palestine, beginning with Israeli police attempting to forcibly remove Palestinian families from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah to make room for settlers (a move that the UN has called a violation of international law) has been embarrassingly evasive.

On Friday, the State Department issued a weak statement calling for both sides to de-escalate violence and use restraint, and to “work cooperatively together to lower tensions.” And yesterday, State Department spokesperson Ned Price said that the U.S. stood by Israel’s right to self defense, mentioned the lives of innocent Israelis, but refused to directly condemn the killing of Palestinian children or say that Palestinians had a right to self defense.

However, the hypocrisy of this – and the decision to call for a de-escalation in violence from both sides when the U.S. currently helps fund and sponsor Israel’s apartheid system – is not lost on all of us.

As AJ+ Host Sana Saeed tweeted, “a multi-billion dollar funded state military force with advanced technology and a non-state militant group operating out of an open-air prison with rockets are not equal counterparts in any legal, ethical or militaristic sense.”

And Jinan Shbat, national organizer for the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), told me that the administration’s response engaged in the “same old tired narrative that skims the surface of what is an illegal, apartheid occupation.”

Palestinians deserve freedom and basic human rights, she continued, and the U.S. administration has the power to make that happen. “We give $3.8 billion of our tax revenue to Israel every year. Money used to forcefully evict, attack and murder Palestinians,” Shbat said. “The U.S. needs to recognize the humanity of Palestinians and start holding Israel accountable for their war crimes.”