Above photo: A protestor interrupts US President Joe Biden during a campaign event at Emanuel AME Church on January 8, 2024 in Charleston, South Carolina. Sean Rayford/Getty Images.
Joe Biden’s unchanging support of Israel during the ongoing genocide in Palestine reflects the U.S. empire’s commitment to protecting its imperialist interests in the Middle East.
In one of its finest moments, the African Methodist Episcopal Church recently issued a statement calling “on the United States Government to immediately withdraw all funding and other support from Israel.” The statement goes on to accuse the U.S. of supporting “mass genocide,” and it proclaims that “[t]he tools of empire, colonialism, and domination will not solve the problems they created.”
As might be expected, the statement sent shockwaves through Israel. The AME church is not alone in its public opposition to U.S. support for Zionist crimes. Many Black churches have drawn a line and proclaimed that their collective conscience and theology do not allow them to remain silent as the Biden Administration collaborates in the perpetration of crimes against humanity.
These developments are devastating to the Democratic Party, which is reeling still from the “Abandon Biden” campaign that rages in Dearborn, Michigan, a city with the largest Arab population in the country. Michigan is critical to electoral success, and the plan to boycott Biden puts Democratic Party success in that state in serious jeopardy.
The massive opposition to Biden’s approach to Gaza begs the question of why he stubbornly refuses to in any way modify his support for Israel. There are perhaps many reasons, but his conduct is best explained by the U.S. empire’s confinement to a military box created over time by the masses of people in this country.
Unlike during the first half of the 20th Century, people have an appreciation for the realities of imperialist war. They harbor enduring resentment for the many young black, brown, and white working-class bodies that were returned from southeast Asia in military coffins. Since the end of the Vietnam War, the White House and the Pentagon have understood that sending large numbers of U.S. youth into harm’s way when the sole objective is preservation or expansion of the empire is not an option. The deployment of U.S. ground troops can only be accomplished with carefully crafted lies and deception. Excuses such as U.S. nationals at risk in the targeted country; or foreign governments that are complicit in terrorist plans to cause imminent harm to the U.S. are convenient reasons for intervention.
However, the development of a convincing lie is a heavy lift, and the U.S. has found avoiding deployment of U.S. troops to be a far more appealing option. Most recently this has been accomplished through the use of drones and other technology that makes remote-controlled killing and destruction possible. But while it may ultimately become possible to wage full-scale wars with a robot army, right now the targeted attacks that are possible with drones are not always adequate when what is needed is a full-scale ground war. In these situations, the U.S. has resorted to the use of proxy military forces.
Proxy military forces have come in a variety of forms. When Ronald Reagan wanted to overthrow Nicaragua’s Sandinista government in the 1980s, the CIA armed and directed rag-tag bands of Nicaraguan miscreants and traitors who came to be known as “Contras.” During that period, the U.S. also teamed with South Africa’s apartheid regime to fund right-wing UNITA forces in the struggle for Angola. In more recent years, the U.S. has taken a more sophisticated approach to its proxy strategy by directing recognized standing armies of sovereign states. This has been done most effectively with U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) which masks imperial military projects with claims that U.S. military advisors are in Africa to assist with anti-terrorism campaigns and to otherwise facilitate humanitarian aid to impoverished regions. Still, the U.S. is not above using cutthroats and criminals to act on its behalf as it did when it backed the mob that murdered Libya’s Muammar Gadhafi.
In the end, there is no more valuable proxy than Israeli military forces. The so-called Middle East has been a contested region for years. During the Cold War, it was recognized as having great geo-political strategic value as well as vital, vast oil resources. This has not changed, and consequently, imperialism has a rock solid commitment to locking down control of Palestine. However, this has not been easy because of the heroic, ongoing resistance to occupation by the Palestinian people.
From the perspective of western imperialism, the massive destructive attack on Gaza has been necessary and unavoidable, particularly given the increasing boldness of Hamas and Gaza’s huge oil reserves. Purging Palestinians from Gaza is an ugly, dirty job, and somebody has got to do it. But it won’t be the precious sons and daughters of U.S. citizens. Israel exists precisely for moments such as these, and the Israel Defense Forces are doing a perfect job.
Biden will not and cannot act in ways inconsistent with the imperial agenda, even if it costs him the election. However, that does not mean the resistance by Black churches, the Abandon Biden campaign and other protests don’t have value. As the pressure continues to mount because the contradictions of Zionism become increasingly clear, the empire will be motivated to find another way to exert influence in the Middle East. At long last they may begin a slow-rolling divorce from Israel in favor of currying favor with other forces and governments in the region. It won’t mark the end of the struggle against imperialism, but it will mean the foe will change form, hopefully in ways that make it more vulnerable.