Gaza, Israel, Biden, and Harris

This afternoon, I listened to an interview with Palestinian poet and essayist Mosab Abu Toha on Fresh Air. Apparently, his literary credentials were in part responsible for his getting out of Gaza with his immediate family. He nevertheless was apprehended by Israel’s IDF and tortured, and, although he escaped with his wife and children, he lost friends and extended family in Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza. He is now living in Syracuse, New York.

I have been reading Octavia E. Butler’s 1993 novel Parable of the Sower. That novel is set in an American future characterized by ecological disaster, societal disintegration, and police and fire protection that offer more aggression than protection. Parable would have been distressing in 1993. It is more upsetting today, when the diary entries of protagonist Lauren Olamina carry dates of 2024 and beyond.

Listening to Abu Toha describe life in Gaza under Israeli attack reminded me of the trials of Lauren Olamina as she journeys north with her pick-up group of fellow travelers in search of a place of safety. But the horrors of that journey were at least mitigated by some minimum sense of agency for Olamina and her company. They were armed and smart. Ordinary Palestinians have no such agency. They are at the mercy of Israeli troops, Israeli air power, and the hellish environment created by Netanyahu’s war machine. They move from place to place in response to warnings from Israel, but Palestinians are neither safe indoors nor out of doors.

Terry Gross raised the question of whether what was happening in Gaza is genocide. Abu Toha did not call Israeli actions genocide but suggested that it would be so recognized decades from now. Does Netanyahu mean to kill all Palestinians in Gaza? We don’t know that he does. It is clear, however, that many Israelis would raise a collective sigh of relief if there were no more Palestinians in Gaza, a piece of real estate rapidly becoming uninhabitable.

The Israeli attack on Gaza after the Hamas October 7 incursion a year ago is both understandable and justifiable. Yet, this war looks different from other modern conflicts. American journalists have been kept out of Gaza, and many Palestinian journalists have been killed. Not even Israelis—maybe especially Israelis—have a clear view of what is happening in Gaza. We have not seen the kind of firefights one expects to see in urban warfare. Israel’s strategy is to protect IDF troops and to show little concern for civilian casualties. The response to the alleged presence of Hamas fighters is not to attack them from the ground but simply to obliterate them from the air. And the Israeli efforts to disrupt humanitarian aid for Gaza suggest that Netanyahu believes that every Palestinian is Hamas until proven otherwise.

Muslim and Palestinian Americans are understandably concerned about what is happening in Gaza, not to mention events in the West Bank and Lebanon. Unfortunately, President Joe Biden has a longstanding and unshakable allegiance to Israel. Despite multiple instances of disapproval by the American government of Israeli actions such as the building of illegal settlements in the West Bank, Biden’s support for Israel has shown no sign of weakening.

The present question is whether Biden’s support for Israel will be the downfall of the American Republic. Will the disgust with America’s support for Israel among certain groups of voters cause Kamala Harris to lose the presidential election to Donald Trump? Harris, as a member of the Biden Administration, is in a difficult position. Her credibility as a candidate is based partly on her contribution to that administration. Despite Harris’s decrying the suffering of Palestinians brought on by the war, serious criticism of the Biden policy would be seen as a repudiation of her own administration and a self-serving political move. It might gain pro-Palestinian votes but lose the larger, usually reliable, Jewish vote. Lacking evidence, we cannot know Harris’s true feelings about the Mideast war, though we are likely to learn should she become president.

It was reported today that the administration has given Israel a 30-day deadline to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza. The implication is that military aid may be imperiled if the situation in Gaza does not improve. Was this warning an attempt to help Harris out of her dilemma? Perhaps, but the fact that the deadline comes after the election diminishes its salience for the Harris campaign.