Israel-Palestine is a failure of US foreign policy

Watching in horror at the loss of lives in Israel and Gaza, we should all ask ourselves why. The explanation that we hear is that they hate Jews, and they are terrorists. These may well be an answer, but I offer a different one. We must first understand that the West Bank has been under a brutal military occupation from the inside and Gaza has been under the same from the outside by the IDF for decades.

In the Public Policy Journal, former Ambassador Charles Freeman wrote something we should consider: "The Hamas attack on Israel was part jailbreak (from Gaza, the world's largest prison since the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto), but more than that it was a revolt of the hopeless by the hopeless for the hopeless. Sometimes suffering becomes so unbearable that anything goes." President Biden also said, "To be silent is to be complicit." I believe the US, including Biden, has been both when it comes to the plight of the Palestinians.

The real failure is US foreign policy. We have done nothing for decades to ensure a diplomatic solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict except pour billions of dollars into weapons for Israel, falsely thinking it would ensure security and peace. Our only answer to world conflicts is more aircraft, bombs, tanks, more killings, and now the world's largest aircraft carrier. The $3.8 billion or more that we give annually to Israel is just the current failed example of thinking we can achieve a diplomatic resolution with no diplomacy and a war chest of weapons.

~ Bob Horner