Dear Editor:
On Aug. 7, David Bumgardner penned a column for BNG under the title “Blinded by Their Hatred of Biden, Arab Voters Cut Off Their Noses to Spite Their Faces.”
Bumgardner’s biased and disheartening column takes American Arabs, especially Michigan Arabs, to task for having refused to support I am a Zionist to the Core Joe Biden. He states the following: “Arab Americans remain furious at what they see as many Democrats’ complicity in various reported civilian casualty events and alleged war crimes attributed to Israel.”
Alleged war crimes? If killing 40,000 people in 10 months’ time, half of whom are children, and pulverizing Gaza to mere rubble isn’t a war crime, then what is? I had thought professor David Gushee, Mercer University’s ethicist/genocide expert in residence and BNG contributor, would have by now opined on the Israeli killing machine, a meat grinder aided and abetted by the United states — jet fighters, 2,000 lb. bombs, reconnaissance drones and eavesdropping; helicopters, political cover, an armada of aircraft carriers and navy destroyers, direct military support (intelligence and personnel on the ground in an advisory capacity) and a whitewashing of the worst carnage of the 21st century. This is a crime that has affected the lives of many Michigan Arabs whose Gaza relatives have been forgotten by an apathetic world.
As long as the no-holds-barred, generous and dollarized umbilical cord between Fort Knox and Israel remains a vibrant conduit of unlimited (gratis) military killing hardware, and as long as successive U.S. administrations, state departments and Congresses shield Israel in international forums as though Israel is America’s appendage and 51st state, Israel will continue to kill, maim and steal more Palestinian lands.
On Aug. 19, a Gaza mother was slaughtered in an air strike. She, her quadruplets and two other children were slaughtered to avenge Netanyahu’s Hebraic God of vengeance. Entire blood lines have likewise been slaughtered in single bombings: great grandparents, grandparents, parents and many children, including uncles, aunts, nephews and nieces, totaling 90-plus family members were pounded to death and buried in a collapsed structure — compliments of Genocide Joe and his ilk.
If killing 168 journalists, more than 280 aid workers, hundreds of medical staff, and the bombing and destruction of 341 mosques, three churches, Gaza’s 11 universities, all but a few schools, water and sewer systems, every single bakery, and every single hospital is not a crime, then what is?
“That Biden has been impotent in stopping the deliberately imposed famine makes him an accomplice.”
That Biden has been impotent in stopping the deliberately imposed famine makes him an accomplice. Late last week he approved another $20 billion worth of military aid to Israel. That he lied about seeing photographs of beheaded babies (he was advised by his aides not [to] make such a statement because no such thing happened) only to curry favor with Jewish voters exposes him for what he is: a manufacturer of facts.
That corpses have been left to decompose and, in some instances, preyed upon by hungry dogs, flies in the face of Western democracies that preach democracy to the Global South — all the while exploiting their natural resources, supporting the tyrants that rule them, and getting rich selling them destructive weaponry.
But I digress.
Bumgardner’s faulty arguments include a caveat to Michigan voters. He warns, “If cutting aid to the West Bank and increasing military assistance to Israel are Dearborn’s idea of holding Joe Biden to account for his perceived failure in Gaza, then they are fish jumping out of a frying pan and straight into the fire.”
Honestly, “Perceived failure”? Biden cannot be a pyromaniac and firefighter at the same time. And hasn’t Biden, at Israel’s urging, cut off funding to UNRWA and other Palestinian agencies? And hasn’t Biden provided taxpayer dollars to Israel to the tune of $40 billion since Oct. 7, 2023?
Bumgardner is on target when he discusses dispensationalism, John Hagee’s Israel right or wrong beliefs, and Mike Pence’s toting the evangelical line. I only wish that mention was made of Pence’s ceremoniously joining Israeli President Herzog in signing the U.S.-made 2,000 lb. bombs, a sinister act (and photo op for future political gain) proudly executed by a man who professes to be a follower of Jesus Christ.
Where is the outrage, Mr. Bumgardner?
Adding insult to injury, more like murder to genocide, Bumgardner states that “despite their rage at the Biden administration and the pro-Israel wing of the Democratic Party, Dearborn’s voters are either profoundly uninformed or willfully lying to themselves if they claim they do not know how Trump would handle the conflict.”
If one were to extrapolate the number of displaced Gazans, that would mean 240 million Americans would have experienced a similar displacement. But then who is counting or paying attention? Gazans are, according to Israelis, subhuman, they are brown folks thrown into the American/Israeli meat grinder.
And yes, Israel has a right to defend itself. But do Palestinians not have a similar right — this, after 76 years of brutalities and dispossession?
Recently a Michigan friend stated the following: “We know Trump will throw our Gaza relatives under Israeli tanks. But how is this different from Genocide Joe? They call us Dearborn Jihadis. Yet they wouldn’t dare call New York, Miami and Los Angeles Zionist Colonial Settler extremists. We are voting undecided to give American politicians a message. We will not be taken for granted.”
“Biden will go down in history as a war monger whose penchant for violence and cheerleading for wars will be writ large.”
Despite his full-of-platitudes convention speech, Biden will go down in history as a war monger whose penchant for violence and cheerleading for wars will be writ large. And the Genocide Joe monicker will be a blight on his record. Biden always has cleaned and will continue to clean Israel’s toilets and serve as Israel’s water boy — even after all the Netanyahu abuse to which Biden was subjected during his years as vice president, a choke hold that continues to this day.
Had Bumgardner expressed even the slightest concern for the dead, dying, starving, thirsty, disease-stricken, limbless, homeless, orphaned, crippled, the grieving and the uncounted thousands of dead and rotting corpses under steel and concrete, I might not have taken umbrage at his callous disregard for and of Palestinian lives, precious souls swatted, en masse, because they are disposable creatures whose very existence is a threat to Israel’s expansionist plans.
Off the Gaza shores is a proven 1.3 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in Netanyahu’s’ cross hairs. And carpetbagger venture capitalist Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner is proposing a real estate scheme to sell Gaza beach properties to wealthy Americans.
Weeks into the Russia/Ukraine war, the American Medical Association passed a unanimous resolution condemning Russia’s atrocities. Yet the same American Medical Association has repeatedly refused to consider a similar resolution — even though the Gaza carnage is exponentially more destructive, and even though the norms of war have been trampled by an Israeli leader who wants to prolong the war so as to save his skin. Bibi, your day of reckoning will come when you are voted out of office.
Bumgardner’s concern that Arab Americans will create “a fissure in the Democratic Party does not bode well for Democrats” has been mitigated by Biden’s decision to drop out of the race, a decision he should have made when he was at the apex of his career.
Democrats, beware. In 2000 Al Gore refused (and returned) a $3,000 donation from Florida Arab Americans. George Bush’ insincere pro forma statement about “solving the Israel Palestine conflict” resonated with Florida’s Arab Americans, who overwhelmingly voted for Bush. Just a handful of nonhanging chads would have given Gore the edge, and America and Iraq would have been spared Abu Ghraib, Falluja and a war that sent Iraq back to the stone age.
And Beau Biden would not have had to endure the fallout from the burn pits resulting from a war for which his father led the charge.
I recently sent the following to an 88-year-old Palestinian Christian Jerusalemite grandmother, a lifelong active Anglican church leader: “Dear S, I am reminded of Jesus’ parable about the Good Samaritan: Gaza and West Bank Palestinians were set upon by thieves and left for dead, the American and European Levites and Pharisees are not only walking away, but they are also part and parcel of this sordid genocide. And the Arabs … where are they? Way back in the aftermath of the 1982 Israeli invasion which left over 22,000 dead, including 2,500 Palestinian refugees butchered at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps of Lebanon, a photographic documentary in book form, depicting Israel’s horrible carnage, a meat grinder of surrealistic proportions, was published under the title God Cried. Since that war, God hasn’t stopped crying. And I sometimes feel as though he is on an extended leave.”
— Raouf J. Halaby