By Aly Kamadia, Editor-In-Chief, iDose

American foreign policy vis-à-vis Israel and Palestine can be swiftly defined in one word: P-S-Y-C-H-O-T-I-C.

To begin with, it’s worth acknowledging the obvious.

The October 7^th attack by Hamas on Israeli civilians was a grave atrocity. While the context underlying the attack is important, this author assumes the moral position that any deliberate attack on innocent civilians is never justified.

But that moral position stands even when country is proclaiming that it is merely using its right to self-defense – which is what Israel stated it would do soon after the Hamas attack.

It’s worth recounting some of the events that unfolded post-October 7^th.

Subsequent to Hamas’ atrocities, a number of Western commentators were focusing on the fact that October 7^th constituted a significant intelligence failure on behalf of Israel. This was correct, as to note a few examples, the reader can recall that the IDF was caught completely off guard, arrived to the scene many hours later (in a very small country), and Israel was overconfident in the use of modern technologies to avert an attack of this nature.   

Despite noting Israel’s significant intelligence failure, it was astonishing to see how little attention was paid to some of the main actors involved, such as Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu.

For example, many people in Western countries had no clue (and still don’t) that Netanyahu was a certified fanatic. He long rejected a two-state solution – a fact well known among many Israelis and anyone who had come across Netanyahu’s name for the past few decades.

Netanyahu’s position that Palestine had no right to exist meant that (which he publicly reiterated recently), insofar as one applied logic, Palestinians had no right to defend themselves. Logically speaking, how could Palestinians have a right to defend themselves when they didn’t have a right to exist?

Too many Western commentators failed to expose Netanyahu as a complete fanatic, while also failing to highlight that the Israeli Prime Minister’s incompetence inadvertently made the attack on Israel possible. After all, consistent with his delusion that the Palestinian issue had been solved and Hamas no longer constituted a threat to Israel, Netanyahu released notable figures of Hamas’ top leadership from jail – who were involved in October 7^th.  

Some of the very same Western commentators that failed to provide such information, also failed to emphasize the character of the fanatics that occupied key positions in the Netanyahu government.   

The former Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, described the Netanyahu government in a way that any reasonable person would. When asked what he thought about statements from Israeli leaders who viewed the mass expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza as a solution, he stated:

“…This is crazy. This is an opinion which is voiced by the Messianic extreme fascist groups of [Israeli ministers Itamar] Ben-Gvir and [Bezalel] Smotrich (emphasis added). This is total insanity and it will never happen.”

Thus, subsequent to the October 7^th attacks, an Israeli government which consisted of extremists in prominent positions was planning a military response.

How did the Biden administration react?

Besides the nearly $4 000 000 000 (four billion dollars) of annual aid that Israel typically received from the US, Biden added roughly $15 000 000 000 (fifteen billion dollars), including advanced weaponry and diplomatic cover.

Under what terms was such astonishing aid delivered?

Surely, in providing any Israeli government whose Prime Minister didn’t believe in a two-state solution, and whose government consisted of some serious fanatics, intent on expelling all the ‘human animals’ from Palestine, any sane American president would have demanded certain conditions be adhered to?

Unfortunately, Biden proved to have no heart for the Palestinians and remained a complete idealogue on the issue. He attached absolutely no conditions on remarkable US aid, while administration officials assured certain media outlets that there was a lot of American pressure on Israel ‘behind the scenes’. (Such pressure proved to be highly ineffective in crucial respects. It would have also been nice if media outlets came together to report on the countless diplomats who, off the record, believed that Israel was pursuing a policy of expelling all Palestinians.)   

In the months that ensued, the Netanyahu government launched a merciless and vicious attack on Gaza that lacked any concrete political strategy.

Insofar as Hamas was an ideology and social movement, how would it be destroyed by military actions? Even if it could be destroyed, wouldn’t a similar organization (or organizations) simply take its place?

With the assistance of US taxpayer funded weaponry, serious US treasure, and American diplomatic cover at every instance, the next few months turned Gaza into literally hell on earth.

The pictures and videos emanating that captured Israel’s ‘right to defend itself’ were so devastating that millions of people from countries across the globe protested in outrage.

At the time of this writing, roughly 80% of Gaza’s 2.2 million residents were internally displaced, over 26 000 people were killed, including 10 000 children. At times, starvation was inflicted upon Gaza, which to any reasonable human being, constituted a use of torture (note that starvation wasn’t the only such weapon).

The situation became so horrific that South Africa pursued a legal case against Israel, alleging genocide, at the International Court of Justice (ICJ, aka World Court). On January 26^th, 2024, in a near unanimous decision, the court determined that the case for genocide was plausible, and would formally proceed (which could take years).

Put differently, the US was unconditionally supporting military assaults, by another government, that was plausibly committing acts of genocide. (So was my home country of Canada, in which numerous scholars have raised the question of whether Canada is complicit in a possible genocide.)

At the present moment, the US and Israel are becoming increasingly isolated as the inexcusable atrocities on Gaza continue.

In fact, even if one shoves all morality aside (which one shouldn’t, but is being done more to make a point), this author is puzzled beyond belief about how American-sponsored Israeli military actions serve any core American interests.

To the contrary, though it is deemed blasphemy to pose certain questions, a notable one is: to what degree are continuing Israeli military actions antithetical to American interests?

While the Netanyahu government embraces the idea of America being sucked into a regional confrontation against Iran, this author fails to see how any such war would serve American interests – let alone be justified.

Moreover, one of the most interesting articles that popped up since the Israeli assault began was published in Foreign Affairs (in December), by the eminent scholar, Robert Pape (University of Chicago).

While one presumes that the distinguished scholar is wise enough to know that his calls for Congressional hearings on the topic he notes will fall on deaf ears (at least for the foreseeable future), Pape is unequivocal in his factually based assessment on an important matter:

“Israel is almost certainly producing more terrorists than it is killing, since each dead civilian will have family and friends eager to join Hamas to exact revenge.”

A perfectly obvious question that arises from this assessment is: how many such terrorists would be enthusiastic about attacking US targets?

Biden is providing serious weapons and serious funding for an Israeli government that is plausibly committing genocide (according to the ICJ). The administration remains committed to an Israeli government that any fool can see is committing horrific atrocities.

Those atrocities utterly fail to be justified by trite references to Israel’s right to defend itself: Any country has a right to defend itself, but no country has the right to commit atrocities so horrific that, among other things, they are patently obvious forms of collective punishment, involve the use of torture (e.g., this author views inflicting starvation as a use of torture), and whose assaults are so vicious that they are plausibly viewed by a credible international court as genocide.  

While the risk of a regional confrontation sucking America into another Middle East quagmire remains low, it is increasing.

And the mother of all ironies is that, perhaps Biden is funding and providing support for military actions that are likely giving birth to more terrorists – including those who will jump at the opportunity to inflict damage upon innocent Americans.  

In consideration thereof, is there any better word to describe current US policy as psychotic?   

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Aly Kamadia is Editor-In-Chief of iDose Magazine. Kamadia holds an Honors BA & MA in Political Science, both from the University of Waterloo, Canada. He currently serves as Director of Kamadia & Associates.  To read selected articles by Kamadia, click here.