As the nation of Israel continues its rampage in West Asia both President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris are unwavering in their support and in the issuance of blank cheques to the Israelis.

After almost one year of a brutal bloodletting in Gaza, which has killed in excess of 40,000 Palestinians, including close to 20,000 women and children, the Israeli Defense Force has continued a bombing programme that has already sent an estimated 7,000 Lebanese into the great beyond.

Public opinion in the US has turned against the Biden Administration as millions of Americans took to the streets in protest against the unwavering support offered to the Israelis as they engaged in a textbook case of ethnic cleansing. The moniker of Genocide Joe was attributed to President Biden after his glaring displays of political tone-deafness in the face of an atrocity which increasingly resembles genocide.

President Biden’s unwavering support for Israel alienated large swathes of the coalition that normally supports the Democratic Party. Muslim Americans went on record stating that they would not forget the intransigence demonstrated by President Biden even as evidence mounted implicating Israel in numerous atrocities. The Biden Administration refused to exercise any of its leverage over Israel to ensure compliance with stated American foreign policy objectives.

President of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu made it abundantly clear that he intended to pursue his own objectives even if they conflicted with American foreign policy. President Biden was made to look like the junior partner in the American-Israeli coalition on several occasions. Some political analysts, however, posited that Biden and Netanyahu were on the same page, notwithstanding the public sound bites suggesting divergence.

President Biden’s political tone-deafness coupled with his lacklustre performance in the presidential debate against Donald Trump and clear evidence of age-induced mental fog eventually coalesced to produce a perfect storm of no confidence directed against him. A chorus of top-ranking Democrats, including Nancy Pelosi and Barak Obama, eventually were forced to do the needful and ask the president to withdraw from the presidential race.

Ironically, as Biden’s political fortunes dwindled, Netanyahu’s grasp on power in Israel became stronger. The shock and awe attack against Lebanon and the assassination of Hasan Nasrallah and many of Hezbollah’s top generals have resulted in a surge in popularity of Netanyahu’s Likud — National Liberal Movement in Israel. President Biden has been put out to pasture while Prime Minister Netanyahu has grown in stature in Israel.

The endorsement of the assassination of Hezbollah’s top brass by President Biden and Vice-President Harris indicates that the Biden-Harris Administration is continuing with the policy of “fully, fully, fully” supporting Israel. As November 4 approaches, the number one question in the minds of many Democrats who have soured on Biden is whether a Harris Administration would be willing to chart a new course vis-a-vis the nation of Israel.

The ascendancy of Harris to the top of the Democratic Party’s presidential ticket has been greeted with great enthusiasm by Democratic Party faithful and by the Global South. The prospects of a non-Caucasian with Afro-Caribbean and Asian roots seems to have electrified the Democratic base and derailed the Trump train that according to the polls was cruising to an electoral victory in November.

The continued popularity of the Obamas on the American political landscape suggests that Americans of goodwill are still open to new possibilities in political leadership. Caucasian supremacy and colonial settler projects have run their course and are being challenged by the global majority. The nation of Israel is, therefore, destined to go the route of apartheid South Africa.

Harris can decide to be on the right side of history and come out openly against the atrocities being committed by Israel or she can continue to be an agent in support of Caucasian supremacy and the settler colonial project that is the State of Israel. If she can preside over the dissolution of the apartheid State of Israel then history will be very kind to her. If she chooses to follow her predecessor President Biden and go all in with Israel, then her demise will be as dramatic as President Biden’s and the coming collapse of the State of Israel.

Lenrod Nzulu Baraka is the founder of Afro-Caribbean Spiritual Teaching Center and the author of Piarco Affair. Send comments to the Jamaica Observer or rodneynimrod2@gmail.com.

Kamala Harris (Photos: AFP)

Benjamin Netanyahu

Thousand of Palestininans have been and continue to be killed in the Israel-Hamas war.

Lenrod Nzulu Barakao