Javier Espinosa

Updated Friday, April 5, 2024-18:22

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On the afternoon of June 8, 1967, when the

Six-Day War

was at its height, several planes and speedboats of the Israeli army attacked the USS Liberty, an American spy ship sailing in the vicinity of the Sinai Peninsula. , collecting information from both Egypt and Israel. The devastating assault left 34 sailors dead and 164 wounded.

The event caused a real shock given the close alliance that both nations maintained. Official investigations by Israel and the United States concluded that there had been a "confusion" when identifying the nationality of the ship.

Years later, in 1982, the Israeli army department again published a text in which it insisted that what happened was

"an innocent mistake

. "

"The investigation did not uncover a single finding that there was malicious intent or criminal negligence," read the document signed by the Department of Uniformed History.

The detailed account of what happened even indicates that when the packet was attacked by two Israeli Mirages "its flag could not be identified." The same text admits, however, that the captain of the Liberty declared that the American flag was clearly hoisted on the mast.

From the first moment, many survivors of the event and numerous journalistic investigations questioned the official hypothesis. In 1991

, columnist

Robert Novak

broadcast the conversation of the pilot of one of the planes present at the event, as heard by the US ambassador to Lebanon on that date, Dwight Porter. The aviator clearly identified the origin of the ship. "Sir, it's an American ship, I can see its flag!" cried the first uniformed man. "It doesn't matter, shoot," the commanding officer responded.

The passports of several of the dead World Central Kitchen aid workers.HAITHAM IMADEFE

In 2017, the book "Remember the Liberty: sunk treacherously on the high seas" - based on an exhaustive investigation - insisted on the manipulation of the entire official investigation to exonerate Israel and preserve bilateral ties, including a declassified CIA writing which confirmed that

Defense Minister Moshe Dayan himself gave the order

despite the opposition of one of his generals who argued that this action was nothing more than "pure murder."

After the murder in Gaza of seven members of World Central Kitchen, the NGO led by Spanish chef José Andrés, Prime Minister

Benjamin Netanyahu

stated that the bombing was a "tragic case", an "unintentional" error, of his forces. All this despite the fact that the Israeli media described how the Israelis shot at the clearly identified convoy, which was traveling on the route authorized by the Tel Aviv army. Those responsible for the assault fired up to three missiles, one after another, chasing the survivors of the first incident, who tried to escape in a second car that was also hit.

The bloody event of the international aid workers adds to the death of more than 32,000 Palestinians in a whole series of actions that the United Nations rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories,

Francesa Albanese

, defined as a "monstrosity" and "genocidal acts." Israel has spent decades accusing the UN of partiality in the conflict between it and the Palestinians despite the fact that its existence is due precisely to a UN decision that was adopted against the feelings of the majority of the population of the former mandate of Palestine. .

The decisive military and political support that he has received from the United States - which has protected that state by exercising the right of veto in the UN Security Council on more than 40 occasions since 1948 - has not prevented the Israeli prime minister from Benjamin Netanyahu has entrenched himself in power by adopting an increasingly extreme position that led him to defend in his public appearance on the 31st a kind of global conspiracy against his country, as leaders of nations dominated by radicalism often do. "The whole world is ganging up against us," he said.

The reality, however, is that

Article 43 of the Hague Convention

on the Rules of War clearly stipulates that the occupying force of a territory, in this case Israel, is responsible for the "public order and security" of the territory. controlling enclave which places all responsibility for the famine, disorder and human suffering facing Gaza on the forces of Tel Aviv.

The repeated massacres and violations of humanitarian law that the Israeli army is committing in that geographical space serve to confirm the unprecedented moral decomposition that it has suffered, which is not only highlighted in the videos where soldiers record themselves committing possible war crimes - which they then advertise without hesitation - but in the fact that some of their units already act on their own, without obeying higher commands, as if they were more of a militia or a paramilitary group.

They are "symptoms of the disintegration of the chain of command" of the Israeli army, "which is much more serious than previously perceived," wrote

Yagil Levy

, in the Israeli newspaper 'Haaretz'.

Although Netanyahu has become the most relevant example of the deterioration of the values ​​that Israel claimed to represent, his hypothetical replacement would not solve the reality confirmed by the polls. "Netanyahu is not the only problem, it is Israeli society. A large majority of Israeli Jewish citizens support his destructive policy in Gaza and beyond," noted the renowned publication 'Foreing Policy', recalling that 88% of Israeli Jews consider that the death of more than 32,000 Palestinians is "justified."

63% of that same community opposes, like Netanyahu, the creation of a Palestinian State and wants to maintain

the Apartheid system that currently governs the occupied territories

, where the "white" minority - the Israeli settlers - have broad privileges with respect to the "black" majority, the Palestinians.

"Focusing on Netanyahu ignores the rightward drift of the Israeli electorate, which has normalized racism and nationalism," added

Mairav ​​Zonszein

, an analyst at the International Crisis Group.

double standard

The inability to stop the abuses committed by the Israeli army in Gaza - or even the justification of these events issued by countries like the US - is calling into question for a majority of the nations of the so-called Global South the entire

legal and institutional framework that was established. after the Second World War

to stop this type of catastrophes. The double standards of Western nations in this case, if compared with the decisive action taken when Russia launched the invasion of Ukraine, is sinking the credibility of this system, granting the right to the autocrats and armed groups that defend primacy of force as the only argument.

"The reputation of the United Nations has been affected by the failure of the Security Council and its inability to overcome the US veto, which has highlighted its limitations," the Crisis Group think tank reported a few days ago.

"The US is indicating that international humanitarian law can be applied selectively and that some people's lives matter less than others," added

Avril Benoit

, executive director of Doctors Without Borders.

The collapse of the prestige of Western nations and the institutions they created in most of the world has extended to the media themselves, accused of promoting the Israeli narrative and relegating Palestinian complaints following the same partial attitude by which has meant the bloc commanded by the US.

"The facilitators of the genocide, Western journalists, are the ones who have perpetuated the Israeli narrative that aimed at the militarization of Al Shifa Hospital to allow this crime to be possible. They are the ones who most deserve our hatred and disgust," he said a few days ago. the well-known British doctor of Palestinian origin,

Ghassan Abu Sitta

, after the massacre that occurred in that medical center in recent days. The expert was only reflecting the general opinion observed among the public in much of the Global South.

From Saddam to Noriega

The clear "insubordination" of a country that the West has considered a close ally and which for decades has allowed transgressions of international legality that very few countries could have carried out without suffering sanctions or reprisals of another type is reminiscent of the case of

others. friends" of the US-led bloc such as Iraqi Saddam Hussein or Panamanian Manuel Noriega

.

Saddam Hussein with a gun during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s.AFP

According to an investigation carried out by the North American agency UPI in 2003, the future Iraqi leader's contact with the CIA dated back to 1959, when he was part of a 6-person commando sponsored by the agency that was assigned to the failed assassination attempt on prime minister of the time, Abd Al-Karim Qasim, who had withdrawn from the Baghdad Pact, a regional anti-communist alliance allied with Washington. In the 1980s, the United States supported the dictator in his war against Iran, providing him with weapons, information on Iranian capabilities and military advice, while trying to mitigate criticism for the use of chemical weapons against the Kurdish minority.

Donald Rumsfeld

, President Ronald Reagan's envoy, met with the Iraqi in March 1984, proposing to improve bilateral relations despite the massacre of the Kurds.

Some analysts have indicated that it was precisely this feeling of impunity that led Saddam Hussein to make the mistake of invading Kuwait and thus becoming Washington's staunch enemy.

Manuel Noriega, after the invasion of Panama by the US in 1989.Raphael GaillardeGetty Images

Something similar to what happened with Noriega, who remained on the CIA payroll until 1988, just a year before George Bush decided to invade Panama to overthrow whom the United States had elevated as that nation's autocrat.

Washington has not always maintained an attitude as inclined as that promoted by Joe Biden towards Tel Aviv. Both President Harry Truman and his successor, Dwight Eisenhower, maintained an arms embargo on Israel. Eisenhower forced that country at the UN to suspend its aggression against Egypt in 1956 and even threatened it with sanctions if it did not withdraw from the Sinai Peninsula, which he had occupied in that offensive. Even Ronald Reagan, known for his proximity to Israel,

initially blocked the sale of F-16s because of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon

.

On March 31, the Israeli columnist Akiva Eldar joined the Jewish personalities of the diaspora who have expressed themselves in similar terms asking that their country be punished as was done with South Africa during the Apartheid era, adopting a sporting, cultural boycott and economic.

"Israeli society is sick. Very sick. And to save the patient, sometimes it is necessary to amputate the infected limb," he concluded.