« The RNC and Trump’s legal fees | Death of 5-year-old illegal in Chicago facility condemns the left’s approach to public policy »
PrintFebruary 19, 2024
Five U.S. Senators, in an attempt to help Gaza, provide recipe to make Gaza worse
In the February 18 Washington Post op-ed, “The U.S. should go it alone on humanitarian relief for Gaza,” five U.S. Senators (Jeff Merkley, Dick Durbin, Elizabeth Warren, Chris Van Hollen, and Peter Welch) provide their view of humanitarian needs for Gazans:
The role of the United States in this operation should be to get medical aid directly to hospitals by air and supplies of food, water and necessities to the shore. Humanitarian organizations must take over from there to distribute and utilize the supplies. In this intense conflict, the presence of U.S. troops or personnel on the ground inside Gaza would be an invitation to direct involvement in the conflict. We must not make that mistake.
We should immediately launch “Operation Gaza Relief.”
But what they have really done is provide a recipe for terrorist group Hamas to survive and commit future slaughters, to the detriment to both sides of this conflict.
It is so telling that in their comprehensive staged plan for humanitarian aid for Gaza, they didn’t once mention that Hamas should simply surrender. With that, their recommendation is for more Gazans to die, not less. Their plan is for more Israelis to die, not less. Hamas has sworn to repeat October 7 attacks over and over again until Israel is destroyed.
It just makes you wonder what the Senators’ true motivations are. They want to perpetuate one of Israel’s greatest threats.
The five U.S. Senators state that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s government, which they neglect to mention has become a unity government to manage the war by consensus, has had an “unacceptable impact on Palestinian civilians.”
They provide the number of casualties from the terrorist regime’s mouthpiece -– the Gazan health ministry -– as their evidence.
What is conspicuously absent from their evidence of the casualty figure is that it includes not only civilians but terrorist fighters as well!
So why do the Senators feel the need to manipulate readers by inflating the numbers, other than to bias the public against Israel? The factual distortion seems part of what has been a time-worn battle by certain U.S. Senators against the sole Jewish state. As proof, they never protested civilian casualties when the U.S. was battling the Taliban with civilians getting killed in Afghanistan. They never protested when the U.S. was battling in Iraq, when Iraqi civilians were getting killed in Iraq. Yet now, with regards to Israel, they are not only protesting, but embellishing. They also ignore the one measure that would stop all the killing: Hamas should be forced to surrender.
If the Senators are so concerned with the survival of Gazans, why do they not call on Egypt to take in Gazans temporarily to get them out of harm’s way? Egypt, as a border country to Gaza, could easily do that. The U.S. provides enough assistance to Egypt to require this humanitarian refuge. But the Senators don’t even mention it. Why, when it would be such an easy fix? The tactic would also aid Israel since they are painstakingly doing what has never been done before in their efforts to spare civilian lives.
Which other country has ever sent texts, pamphlets, pinged tops of roofs, provided humanitarian corridors to civilians in wartime, other than Israel?
Yes, Senators, you cannot deny that never in warfare has a country gone to such lengths to save an enemy’s civilians, more than the enemy commanders themselves who won’t even provide them basic shelter. Even the Nazis built bomb shelters for their civilians. And it’s not because of a lack of funds that there aren’t shelters in Gaza. Hamas has spent a fortune on military tunnels that they use to attack Israel but also to protect themselves and allow for quick getaways. Removing the civilians would end this war more quickly.
Senators, where are your voices when it comes to pressuring Egypt?
The Senators claim that an Israeli operation against the last remaining stronghold of Hamas would be “unacceptable.” It seems the critics of Israel have said this before every military operation in each city in Gaza. The Senators may see this effort as “unacceptable,” but who could deny that it would bring this war closer to an end -– a permanent end. And isn’t that what we all want? The Senators’ plan would only ensure that the war is perpetuated –- and for this they get the honor of an op-ed?
Dr. Michael Berenhaus is a freelance activist who works to combat anti-Israel bias in the media. He has been widely published in news sources such as The Economist, The New York Times and The Washington Post.
Image: Pixabay / Pixabay License
FOLLOW US ON
