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  • Forget Solutions, We Are the Problem
  • Ben Ehrenreich (bio)

On the fifteenth day of Israel's 2014 war on Gaza, the United States Department of Defense agreed to resupply the Israeli military with 120 mm mortar rounds and 40 mm grenades. Israel's own stock had presumably been depleted in the offensive, which at that point had taken almost 700 Palestinian lives. The transfer required the approval of the American president and likely occurred swiftly: the U.S. stores a billion dollars worth of munitions inside Israel for such "emergencies." By the war's end, one month and three days later, 2,251 Palestinians had died, nearly two-thirds of them civilians, nearly a quarter of them children. As awful as they are, these numbers bear repeating.

Much has been made of the tension between Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu. However much the two men may have found each other's company unpleasant, Obama proved a faithful friend to the most right-wing government in Israel's history. He vetoed more resolutions critical of Israel in the UN Security Council than any previous American president. If the $3.8 billion of military aid a year he pledged to Israel fell short of Netanyahu's wishes, it is still far more than the U.S. has ever given any other country in the world. This is what bad relations with Israel look like. Trump has promised to forge an even closer bond. His appointment of David Friedman as ambassador suggests that the U.S. may soon cease to even pretend to play at being an impartial mediator between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. It was never a very convincing act: No matter how many American administrations have cast themselves as "honest brokers" in successive waves of negotiations for something that we still insist on calling peace, our true role has long been obvious to those living behind Israel's walls. We are the occupier's most enthusiastic accomplice, its sponsor and prime enabler. When Israel runs low on munitions and cannot kill Palestinians quickly enough, we are the ones who give them more.

The United States is not a bystander but a participant in these hostilities. We fund the Occupation. We defend it. We cover for its crimes. Palestine's dead are not just Israel's to atone for, but ours as well. Our responsibilities here are therefore very simple. We must organize and pressure our government to stop abetting Israel's steady seizure and theft of Palestinian land and its ongoing slaughter—sometimes slow, sometimes fast—of Palestinians. This means demanding an end to military aid while pushing for boycott, divestment, and sanctions. This is no small task, but it is not impossible. A movement is quickly growing on university campuses around the country. The efforts of Israel's most reactionary supporters to tar activists as anti-Semitic and to outlaw boycotts of the sort that helped end apartheid in South Africa are signs that they take this movement very seriously. So should we.

In the meantime, it is not up to us in the U.S. to "solve" this "problem." We are the problem. Until that changes we have no business offering solutions of any sort. The task ahead of us will require all the energy and creativity we can find.

Ben Ehrenreich

ben ehrenreich's most recent book, The Way to the Spring, is based on his reporting from the West Bank, where he lived from 2013 to 2014. He is also the author of two novels, Esther and The Suitors.

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