Republican Senator Lindsey Graham’s call for “nuclear weapons” to be used against the people of Gaza is not the first time such a genocidal suggestion has been made, nor is it even the worst.
Since the beginning of the war on Gaza, the US establishment media and politicians in Washington have been peddling lies, orientalist conspiracy theories and outright calling for genocide in the Gaza Strip.
This collection of anti-Palestinian tropes has translated into real hate crimes throughout the United States and resembles in many ways classical European antisemitism.
Republican Party Senator, Lindsey Graham, recently sparked a controversy with his call for “nuclear weapons” to be used against the people of Gaza in order to end the ongoing war.
However, this is not the first time such a genocidal suggestion has been made, nor is it even the worst.
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‘Kill ‘Em All’
Back in February for instance, Republican Representative Andy Ogles of Tennessee responded to a question posed to him about the slaughter of Palestinian children by stating that “we should kill ‘em all”.
Graham himself also has a history of making other incendiary comments about Gaza too, on October 11 he said that “we are in a religious war here” and that Israel should do whatever it likes in the name of self defense, telling them to “level the place (Gaza)”.
In March, Michigan’s Republican Representative, Tim Walberg, stated that the US government “shouldn’t be spending a dime on humanitarian aid,” while he agrees with sending tens of billions in US taxpayers dollars to Israel.
Instead he argued that “it should be like Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Get it over quick”, which implies dropping nuclear weapons on Gaza, or similarly genocidal action.
‘Finish Them’
US Republican Party Presidential candidate, Nikki Haley, was the first to call for an all out war and catastrophe to be inflicted in Gaza, taking to Fox News on October 7 and telling Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to “finish them” and that because of what Hamas did, they should “have hell to pay”.
While the response from the US congress to their colleagues advocating for Palestinian human rights has been to scorn them, when congress people make public calls for mass murder there is little response.
In the case of the only Palestinian congresswoman, Rashida Tlaib, she was even censured by her colleagues in congress over her calls for a ceasefire and use of the phrase “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”.
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‘Bounce the Rubble in Gaza’
In mid-October Senator Tom Cotton stated that “as far as I’m concerned, Israel can bounce the rubble in Gaza,” arguing that whatever the amount of civilians that the Israeli military is to kill, the blame is all on Hamas for their attack on October 7.
Republican Representative, Brian Mast, who had himself joined the Israeli military prior to becoming an American politician, wore his Zionist military uniform in congress and went on record comparing Palestinians to Nazis.
In addition to this, Mast has denied the existence of “innocent Palestinian civilians”, going as far as arguing that he “would challenge anybody in here to point to me, which Palestinian is Hamas, and which one is an innocent civilian? Which is the child that was poking other Israeli children?”.
His reference to a child poking Israeli children, is a viral video showing a child poking an Israeli prisoner in Gaza. In essence, he was trying to build the argument that because a Palestinian child poked an Israeli, that somehow justifies murdering them and this is such a crime that it’s hard to tell which Palestinian children would poke an Israeli.
Mast, who has also tried to justify the mass murder of Palestinian by referencing the allied bombing campaigns against cities like Dresden and Hamburg, also launched a tirade against the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which he vowed to have defunded.
Instead of being disciplined for his openly bigoted behavior, he was rewarded as the US government voted to defund UNRWA.
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‘Goodbye to Palestine’
When Congressional Representative Chuck Fleischmann was confronted by a Palestinian man from Gaza, who lost over 100 members of his family to Israeli bombing attacks, he yelled back at him “I will never support you,” before stating “I will tell you to your face: Goodbye to Palestine!”.
While the above mentioned comments may be some of the most overtly inflammatory, they must also be paired with the orientalist rhetoric and lies that are openly espoused at all levels of US government.
For instance, the US President, Joe Biden came out only days after October 7, claiming to have seen verified images of Palestinian gunmen beheading Israeli babies, which the White House later issued a statement correcting the record and confirming that Biden had never seen such images.
Atrocity Hoaxes
Biden never apologies for helping Israeli propagandists spread the hoax that Hamas fighters had beheaded infants, especially when the only infant killed was murdered by Israeli tank fire that day. The President then went on, earlier this month, to lie about seeing an Israeli woman and her child burned alive, during an interview on CNN.
Mike Johnson, the US speaker of House, delivered an infamous speech on the lawn of Columbia University in order to condemn pro-Palestinian student protesters.
During this speech, he also repeated the lies about beheaded children on October 7, even adding a claim that had never appeared before, that children were raped by Hamas during the attack also.
The problem with the atrocity hoaxes are not just in their utter dishonesty, but the fact that they attempt to portray the archetypal Arab fighter as a brutal terrorist who is bent on raping Jewish women and mutilating babies for fun.
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This is a blatantly orientalist approach which seeks to dehumanize the Palestinian people, in order to justify their extermination. There is no other reason for US officials to lie about these things, other than justifying Israel’s actions.
If we combine the openly genocidal comments, with talk of a religious war between the West and Islamic civilization and the grotesque hoaxes spread about October 7, we have the perfect cocktail of hate with which vigilante racists can use to justify their violence in the United States.
This has resulted in a massive surge in hate crimes against Muslim and Arab Americans, in addition to shooting and stabbing attacks. Even on college campuses, we have seen racial slurs yelled at pro-Palestinian students of color, while Zionist activists have assaulted women and used weapons to attack peaceful university encampments.
(The Palestine Chronicle)
– Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. He focuses on the Middle East, specializing in Palestine. He contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle.
The level of insidious degeneracy in my federal and several state governments makes me sick every day…
🙁
The United States is a wholly owned subsidiary of Israel. The US exists only to provide subsistence to the Jewish supremacist/fascist/racist state. The parasite has complete control over the host. The host is moribund and will die soon.
Goodbye Israhell and America. The colonial empire is coming to an end.
Amen.