AS the United States knew that the consequences of supporting, along with its allies, the gruesome genocide in Palestine by Israel in the wake of the verdict passed by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), a distraction was needed. It came in the shape of a bizarre claim by the occupiers that some members of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) had been involved in the Oct 7 attack.

The occupiers and their backers are now trying to starve the Palestinians by halting funds to the relief agency. The allies of the occupiers should know, and I am pretty sure they know already, that it was the occupiers themselves were the ones who had carried out the massacre of their own people on Oct 7 once they realised that a breach had taken place. As such, every Israeli army officer and soldier fully knows the unwritten rule, called the Hannibal directive, under which any Israeli who is about to be taken hostage must be killed.

However, the US seems to have ignored that Israel has also killed many American soldiers in the past. A BBC documentary, USS Liberty: Dead in the Water, proved that the US ship had been attacked to prevent it from knowing about Israel’s secret attack on the Golan Heights.

Additionally, a documentary aired by Al Jazeera pointed out that the occupiers knew the ship was American, and planned to blame the attack on Egypt in order to pull the US into the war on the Zionist side. Retired Lt-Com James Enns, an officer on USS Liberty’s bridge at the time, said that the attack was deliberate.

Is Israel America’s friend or foe? That is the big question that the Americans need to ask themselves with due sincerity.

Angabeen Ahmad
Karachi

Published in Dawn, February 21st, 2024