If terrorism has any vocabulary, then all of it belongs to the US and its imperialist agendas. It has become a force of destruction than any force for good that American exceptionalism has been fanning over decades. The American dream has served many but it has been very costly for the larger humanity. Threaten North Korea and give security umbrella to South Korea, support Pakistan’s military dictators, sell them arms but call India a natural and strategic ally. Keep threatening Russia and offer NATO membership to Ukraine. Target Iran and bulldoze them with sanctions to cripple their economy and also sell arms to Saudi to make them believe Iran is a threat. They have literally destroyed Latin America and the Middle East. From Guatemala to Iran, the CIA and US agendas have polluted all democratic spaces.
They have armed all dictators in the Middle East and across the world from Africa to South Asia and then declared war on them in the name of the so-called clash of civilisations and war on terror. Historical amnesia, unflinching greed and the military-industrial complex, all have been misused as strategic by the US in the name of liberal democracy and human rights. American imperialist design has been the worst form of colonialism. At least in the colonial structure, the oppressor and oppressed interacted and it forced their constituencies to introspect and at least bring them some form of accountability but American exceptionalism is beyond any trace of that possibility. It’s truly a terrorist state all under the aegis of liberal democracy.
The ‘end of history’ and the ‘clash of civilisations’ were strategic and prescriptions for hate against non-Europeans in continuing that imperialist design and that oriental gaze has been the motherboard of all conflicts. The US is not a normal country, it has forgotten its responsibilities as a great power, rather it has become a pantheon of military-industrial complex rooted in a toxic form of capitalism. US greed is a limitless appetite and its doublespeak is the worst nightmare for the normal world. It’s toxic and inhumane. The hundred-year war on Palestine since the Balfour declaration (1917) is a hallmark of the Zionist agenda and American regimes have been unconditionally supporting it.
American foreign policy in the region has a strategic and domestic underpinning attached to it. Since the inception of Israel, there has been unconditional support for Israel’s settler colonial practices against poor Palestinians and each time, impunity has been awarded to Israel under the name of strategic compulsion, Judeo-Christian heritage and support to only democracy in otherwise vile Arabs who are still tribal and need to be civilised.
Why US has been obsessively in love with Israel? It’s quite understandable that both are satanically embraced. Both the American and modern history of Israel since its inception have an uncanny resemblance. Both are settler colonial in different times and spaces, both are overt believers of biblical prophecies like Armageddon and Promise Land and both are using a balance of power and technology to fulfil god’s will. But that’s not the only item in their catalogues of propaganda. The Cold War compulsion, strategic choke points, the Mediterranean strategy and the pressure of the Israeli lobby in domestic matters have been the past but have persisted like amnesia and the present and future seem unknown to any bright spot.
Each time, the so-called peace accords from Camp David, Oslo and the recent Abraham Accords have only helped Israel to continue with its settlement and dehumanisation of Palestinians. This vile combination of medieval mindset and modern weaponry is quite abnormal and unacceptable to many learned Jews and American Christians. US’ unconditional support of Israel has been the hallmark of American doublespeak and paradoxes of US foreign policy talk of liberal democracy but only as a weapon of imperialist superstructure. It should be spick and span that Hamas, Hezbollah and other militant and so-called Jihadist organisations are not the cause of the unresolved two-state solution. Rather, it is a product of 75 years of dehumanisation of Palestinians and each time the accord and international law are referred to, it only gives Israel more impunity to continue its settler practices and this impunity that the US has provided over seven decades to Israel is the worst form of collective violence against a community.
The peace process can be achievable if it is acceptable to the parties involved, not according to the whims and fancies of the powerful player. The US has vetoed more than 40 occasions in safeguarding Israel’s nefarious act against Palestinians and each time, the accords and agreements and the ceasefire have been strategically used as a weapon and currency to continue killing Palestinians. Hamas’ actions aren’t acceptable by any means and qualifications but that can’t give Israel and the US the right to continue their imperialist-colonial practices.
Israel’s recent collective punishment on Gaza after the shocking and worst attack on Israel killing innocent citizens also explains a telling story that conflicts and war have a racial tone. The support to Ukraine and ignoring Palestinians, the same basic rights of international norms is a criminal act. Value, peace and humanity are not subject to the white race only, despite the US actions over seven decades that have been telling the world that infrastructure of imperialism is a new form of colonialism and is racist. The division of humanity on colours is the worst form of violence and the US support for Israel and similar actions across the world speak the case that the US has been ruling like a mafia that first creates monsters and then comes to the rescue of the world.
Non-white race and non-European lives aren’t Hollywood movies where only Americans can save the world from anarchy rather American policies and thinking and its imperialist design are the root of all anarchies.
There are only a few possibilities that could resolve the Israel-Palestine question. It should start by calling on the US to stop being the saviour to the world and rather introspect towards falling into its imperialist design and churning military industry complex. By now, they should have been reflecting upon how the gun culture has taken more American lives than any number of terrorism combined.
Peace can be only possible if it stops looking at ceasefires and accords, rather it should look deeper into the root of incompatibilities causing structural violence. Moral persuasion can’t be the only force for stopping Israel but essentially reformed and equity-based international laws absent from the clutches of great powers. Until then, the war that has been continuing for over a hundred years would remain in some form or episode. The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) veto has become a tool of mass destruction and the worst enemy to the rest of the world. If there could be any immediate response to resolve any conflict, the demand ought to be to disband the exclusive five-member security council and veto by irresponsible great powers. Veto power has been used as a potent weapon against the popular will that could give a different shape to the world. It’s most undemocratic and the root of many evils. In the Palestinian case, Americans against India by Chinese and similarly Russian, all in the name of national interest.
The US as a mediator is the root of the unresolved Palestinian question until it stops providing unconditional and vile support to Israel under the arms of selective norms and values. And thus, reforming the UNSC to become more democratic and without any veto power to exclusive clubs ought to be the most imperative tool. Second, the US should stop becoming a saviour to the world in the name of liberal democracy. It has caused a more unstable world order and the Palestinian tragedy is the hallmark of its imperialism. Its action in the Iranian nuclear deal with unilateral withdrawal from the UNSC resolution has questioned its seriousness.
The US would eventually harm Israel, the Jews all over the world and its own responsibilities until it stops looking at the Palestinian question from an imperialist lens. The world can’t work in binaries and double standards and till then, the matter will remain unresolved and there will be more Hamas’ and Hezbollah’s and thousands of innocent deaths.
The author is a faculty at The Nelson Mandela Centre for Peace & Conflict Resolution, Jamia Milla Islamia, New Delhi. He can be reached at [email protected]. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
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