Politics

...on Tuesday, the former Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley was all over social media for a picture taken of her during a visit to Israel. In the picture, Haley – the one Republican who had been frequently lauded for her smarts on foreign policy – is seen squatting down in front of a row of Israeli artillery shells, likely provided by the United States, with pen in hand. “Finish them,” she wrote on one of the shells.

The evidence indicates that Nikki Haley can write, but one must wonder if she can read.

Amazing jabs by the author aside, the cruelty and the callousness and the bigotry displayed by those deadset on supporting Israel is both astonishing and horrifying.

What makes this genocidal unity of Democrat and Republican all the more horrific and rage-inducing is that, despite the war-mongering messages emanating from America’s politicians and media pundits, all the polls repeatedly show that the American people want a ceasefire in Gaza, not a genocide. One of the latest surveys, a Data for Progress poll published in early May, found that seven out of 10 likely voters “support the US calling for a permanent ceasefire and a de-escalation of violence in Gaza”. This position was endorsed by majorities of Democrats (83%), independents (65%) and Republicans (56%).

The [Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention] concluded their position this way: “Humanity has a choice: Either we decide that our children can all be killed whenever a superior force alleges that ‘terrorists’ are among us, or we decide that under no circumstances will we allow these superior forces to lay waste to our world any longer. We each must choose and act accordingly. The watershed moment is now.”

The Lemkin Institute exhibits the kind of moral clarity that we must demand from our leaders. If we don’t, the Nikki Haleys of this world will be signing more than bombs. By endorsing the genocide that the people don’t support, these politicians are also signing the death certificate of our own democracy.