There is only one country in the world right now, in the midst of Israel’s slaughter in Gaza, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is guaranteed dozens of standing ovations from the vast majority of its elected representatives.
(Article by Jonathan Cook republished from MiddleEastEye.net)
That country is not Israel, where he has been a hugely divisive figure for many years. It is the United States.
On Wednesday, Netanyahu was back-slapped, glad-handed, whooped and cheered as he slowly made his way – hailed at every step as a conquering hero – to the podium of the US Congress.
This was the same Netanyahu who has overseen during the past 10 months the slaughter – so far – of some 40,000 Palestinians, around half of them women and children. More than 21,000 other children are reported missing, most of them likely dead under rubble.
It was the same Netanyahu who levelled a strip of territory – originally home to 2.3 million Palestinians – that is expected to take 80 years to rebuild, at a cost of at least $50bn.
It was the same Netanyahu who has destroyed every hospital and university in Gaza, and bombed almost all of its schools that were serving as shelters for families made homeless by other Israeli bombs.
It was the same Netanyahu whose arrest is being sought by the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, accused of using starvation as a weapon of war by imposing an aid blockade that has engineered a famine across Gaza.
It was the same Netanyahu whose government was found last week by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to have been intensifying Israel’s apartheid rule over the Palestinian people in an act of long-term aggression.
It was the same Netanyahu whose government is standing trial for committing what the ICJ, the world’s highest judicial body, has termed a “plausible genocide”.
And yet, there was just one visible protester in the congressional chamber. Rashida Tlaib, the only US legislator of Palestinian heritage, sat silently grasping a small black sign. On one side it said: “War criminal”. On the other: “Guilty of genocide.”
One person among hundreds mutely trying to point out that the emperor was naked.
Hellbound and Down 