US Humanitarian Aid to Gaza Is a Cynical PR Ploy

Introduction

Under the administration of President Joseph R. Biden, the US government has been portraying itself as being seriously concerned about the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, where Israel has been waging a devastating military assault that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on January 26 judged to be a plausible genocide.

On March 3, Vice President Kamala Harris acknowledged the “devastating” situation in Gaza, where people who are “starving” are resorting to eating leaves and animal feed, women are giving birth to malnourished babies, and children are “dying from malnutrition and dehydration.” She drew loud applause for saying, “Given the immense scale of suffering in Gaza, there must be an immediate ceasefire.”

In his State of the Union Address on March 7, Biden proclaimed, “The United States has been leading international efforts to get more humanitarian assistance into Gaza.” He announced that the US military would “lead an emergency mission to establish a temporary pier in the Mediterranean on the Gaza coast” so that humanitarian aid could be delivered by ship.

Biden also said that his administration had been “working non-stop to establish an immediate ceasefire” that would “ease the intolerable humanitarian crisis”.

“We have been very, very clear about our concerns over the humanitarian situation there and how unacceptable it is that so many people are in such dire need,” White House National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby told reporters.

But the reality is that the US government has been fully supporting Israel’s military assault on the civilian population of Gaza, including by arming Israel and repeatedly blocking ceasefire resolutions in the United Nations (UN) Security Council aimed at enabling the delivery of urgently required humanitarian aid. Transparently, the Biden administration’s proclaimed desire to help the people of Gaza is a cynical public relations effort aimed at trying to create an illusion that the US government is not complicit in Israel’s ongoing crimes against humanity.

The Biden administration is seeking to distance itself from responsibility for the humanitarian catastrophe because of the support he has been losing among members of his own Democratic party, and with the ICJ already having judged the situation to be a plausible genocide, US government officials are undoubtedly motivated by a desire to avoid potential future charges of complicity and failing in its own moral and legal obligation under the 1948 Genocide Convention to act to prevent genocide.