Unanimous Consent
When Israel Acts, Congress Applauds. No Debate Required
by Glenn Greenwald
by
Glenn Greenwald
 In
most of the world, the Israeli attack on Gaza is viewed as an intensely
controversial act and, more commonly, an excessive, unjustifiable,
and brutal assault on a trapped civilian population. But not in
the United States – at least not among America’s political
and opinion-making elite. Here one finds a bipartisan consensus
as simplistic as it is unquestioned: Israel’s bombing campaign
and invasion of Gaza are right and just, and it is the duty of the
U.S. to support these actions unequivocally.
From the moment
Israel began dropping bombs on Gaza, leaders of America’s two
major political parties rushed to announce their total support,
competing to see who could most fulsomely praise the offensive.
So complete was the agreement that they all seemed to be reading
from the same script. While other Western governments issued even-handed
statements condemning both Israel and Hamas and their diplomats
worked furiously to forge a ceasefire agreement, America’s
political leaders stood on the sidelines, cheering with increasing
fervor.
When it comes
to Israel’s various military actions, there is far more dissent
within Israel, where one commonly finds prominent, vehement criticism
of the Israeli government, than there is within the U.S., where
such criticism is all but nonexistent. Indeed, in the U.S. Congress,
there is far more unqualified support for Israel’s wars than
for America’s own.
The refusal
of our political leaders to deviate even slightly from this ritual
reached its zenith during the week of Jan. 5, when events in Gaza
heightened worldwide opposition to the Israeli attack. The Palestinian
death toll exceeded 800, with more than 3,000 wounded. The UN reported
that roughly a third of the dead and wounded were children, that
Gaza was on the verge of collapse, that its residents were on the
brink of mass starvation. Israel bombed a school where the UN had
established a shelter, killing 40 refugees hiding there in terror.
The Israeli Defense Force initially claimed that Hamas militants
had shot from a rooftop of the school and Israel merely returned
fire. But the following day, when the UN investigated and found
that claim to be false, Israel was forced to acknowledge that no
such provocation occurred. Instead, the IDF said, the bombing of
the school was merely an accident.
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