It seems that almost every US government official is proud of boasting that there is "no daylight" between the United States and Israel. Meaning that, effectively, Israeli policy is US policy. A sane, rational person might think that when such Israeli policy includes the massive, indiscriminate shelling and bombing of densely populated urban environments, such as Israel is now undertaking in the Gaza strip, that US officials might want to rethink their unquestioned support, and even more so when such brazen violations of international law are enabled and facilitated by massive US military and political aid. Perhaps when Israel repeatedly targets UN refugee shelters, killing children in their sleep amongst others, even after UN officials repeatedly inform the Israeli military of the precise GPS coordinates of these structures, surely then there must be some weakening of the almost fanatical US support? Hospitals, what about the bombing of hospitals, surely that must induce at least the tiniest bit of self-reflection, maybe an iota of doubt then starts to creep into the mind? Still nothing? When Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu remarks about Palestinian's use of their "telegenically dead," to "attack" Israel, perhaps that might suggest to President Obama and other senior US officials that it would be worth considering putting some daylight between themselves and Israeli policy? But apparently not. Official US support for Israel has now reached the level of idolatry. Consider the following question, is there any action or policy that Israel could carry out that would lead to a reconsideration of absolute US support? Sadly, there does not seem to be any. We would, rightly, consider such unthinking fanaticism problematic when exhibited by official enemies, but apparently for "exceptional" Americans it's just fine. To the extent that we do not find this shocking is a profound
indictment of our moral and political culture. If the United States wants to maintain
any legitimate moral standing in the world, then it needs to work to put an immediate end to the Israeli assault on Gaza.
