Joe Biden, Gaza, and American moral injury

May 8, 2024

“Virga for Odessa”—spring storm on the scablands north of Othello, WA

Words without shelter

For the past seven months the images of soul-shattering violence in Israel and Gaza have tested the sinew of our humanity like few other tragedies. In the vortex of the death spiral—the indiscriminate bomb blasts, the famine and other cruelties—words get pulled apart; vowels and consonants decoupled, the letters ripped into a plasma of misery and despair. There’s no place to hide American complicity in this.

If you’re my age (I was born in 1956) you may have learned about Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the vaporized innocents who left only shadows of themselves on the ground. You may have learned about Vietnam from the image of a nine year old girl, Kim Phúc, running from a napalm attack, her clothes burned off, as well as much of her skin. You may not have forgotten the massacre at My Lai, nor the words “it became necessary to destroy the town in order to save it.” You would not have forgotten the images from lower Manhattan, 9.11.01, but you may have discarded or misplaced those from Abu Ghraib.

It is human nature to view the world through the lens of our patriotism. On a planet where it can be a struggle for a good night’s sleep, it really helps to believe—on balance—that your nation, your society, is on the right side of history. This is true even though our painfully acquired skepticism, as Americans, carves out room for the late Daniel Ellsberg and the living Hala Rharrit.

I’ve been thinking of Ms. Rharrit often since I learned of her resignation nine days ago. For nearly two decades she’s distinguished herself as a U.S. diplomat, fluent in Arabic, most recently as a conduit to Arabic-speaking journalists.

This is how the Washington Post’s Michael Birnbaum reported Rharrit’s resignation:

“Nearly seven months into the administration’s unstinting support for Israel in its war against Hamas, Rharrit became the first career diplomat to resign in protest of what she called a policy that will set back Washington’s interests in the Arab world for a generation. She told The Washington Post she felt the continued flow of U.S. arms to Israel was enabling the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and inflaming anger toward Washington in the Arab world. Inside the State Department, she said, diplomats are afraid to express viewpoints contrary to official policy.”

The U.S.’s diplomatic and military support for the state of Israel has been a fixture of American foreign policy for decades. It has remained steadfast despite the open recalcitrance of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to U.S. and international efforts to resolve legitimate Palestinian grievances and work toward the creation of a Palestinian state. For example, it’s been more than forty years since the U.S. diplomatically opined that Israeli settlements on Palestinian lands west of the Jordan River were illegal under international law. The illegal settlements continue, as does the flow of tens of billions of dollars in U.S. military aid.

The Hamas attack and massacre last October triggered a vicious counterattack on Gaza by Israeli forces armed, largely, with U.S. equipment and munitions, including 2,000 lb. bombs. A month ago the international Save the Children organization estimated that more than 25,000 children had already been killed. Two days ago the United Nations World Food Program warned that northern Gaza is experiencing a “full blown famine” and the program’s director, Cindy McCain (the widow of former U.S. Senator John McCain) blamed Israeli forces for severe restrictions on the delivery of food to Gazans.

One of two groups of protestors along the Bloomsday race course Sunday morning

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