By Jamal Kanj

Sadly, Netanyahu has been playing the Western world, and the Biden Administration in particular like a fiddle, using them to advance his agenda.

“We were outraged to learn of an IDF strike that killed a number of civilian humanitarian workers yesterday from the World Central Kitchen (WCK).” This is how John Kirby, the White House National Security Communications Advisor, said following the Israeli murder of seven, six of whom were foreign aid workers, in Gaza.

The seemingly strong statement by Kirby was anything but. On the surface, it strikes as authentic, when in fact it is a poison laced cake with two clear purposes. Firstly, calling on Israel to conduct a swift investigation was nothing short of an attempt to avert demands for an impartial international inquiry into the killing. Or as WCK founder Chef Jose Andres told Martha Raddatz on ABC’s news program “This Week,” “the perpetrator cannot be investigating himself.”

Secondly, it aims to mollify the genuine outrage among the Democratic Party’s base and young American voters toward Biden’s perceived complicity with Israeli war crimes.

Kirby’s deliberate choice of words, such as “outrage” rather than “condemn,” serves not only euphemistic purposes but also political calculations. In diplomatic language, “outrage” signifies emotion like anger or indignation, whereas “condemn” implies formal disapproval, potentially carrying legal implications.

Hence, the Biden Administration has expressed anger, but stopped short of formally condemning the murder of the international aid workers.

The Administration’s expression of “outrage” was coupled with the statement, “We hope… there is appropriate accountability.” Despite Biden’s provision of material support and political cover enabling Israeli murders, there was no explicit demand for accountability; instead, there was merely a vague expression of “hope” for it. Kirby further cautioned Israel, emphasizing the necessity for being “more precise” and “more careful,” in the killing.

The next day, when pushed back by a journalist, Kirby returned to the same podium and effectively exonerated Israel of a murder he was ostensibly outraged about less than 24 hours earlier. The initial outrage metamorphosed to normalization of the murder, with Kirby asserting that there was no evidence to suggest that the targeting of the WCK convoy was a deliberate attack by Israeli forces.

On its part, and to help the U.S. undercut any independent investigation, Israel released initial findings blaming low level army officers for the “grave mistake.” And in a callous comment lacking an outright apology, the Israeli prime minister explained that “This happens in war.”

Israel’s hasty initial findings neglected to answer the crucial question of how they misidentified the convoy, which had coordinated its movements with the Israeli army prior to departure from their warehouse. Moreover, the attack on the convoy was repeated three times, at three different locations, spanning an area of 1.5 miles.

Chef Jose Andres accused the Israeli army of intentionally targeting the WCK convoy, “systematically, car by car.” This was not a “bad luck situation where, “oops,” we dropped the bomb in the wrong place,” he told Reuters.

The “oops” reflects a policy of “shoot first and ask questions later,” which has characterized Israel’s rules of engagement for the past six months. A policy that led to the methodical destruction of major non-military targets, such as universities, hospitals, and power plants, as well as the blockade of fuel and targeting of police who guarded aid trucks, along with community groups that replaced them.

This code of conduct has resulted previously in the deaths of 196 aid workers. Now, with the targeting of the World Central Kitchen, it exposes Israel’s plan to make Gaza unlivable and ungovernable.

Hence, the targeting of the WCK convoy is part of a broader Israeli strategy to undermine the distribution system, infuse chaos and shift blame for the Gaza famine onto disrupted delivery rather than the Israeli blockade.

For this purpose, UNRWA, the only organization equipped with local staffing and the largest logistical infrastructure for sustainable aid programs in the region, was banned by Israel from receiving or distributing food in Gaza.

The targeting of the distribution centers and international aid groups could also stem from Israeli frustration since hunger and starvation have failed to turn Gaza into an incorrigible space. The mostly civil decorum of the general public, despite hunger and starvation, has so far foiled Israeli malice.

Regardless, it begs the question, why did it take the murder of six foreigners to get the attention of world leaders, while the death of 33,000 individuals, including over 20,000 women and children in Gaza, failed to elicit a similar outrage? Why did the “civilized” Western world not express outrage for the murder of the six-year-old Hind Rajab who was trapped in her family’s damaged car and cried on the phone for hours before being mercilessly murdered in cold blood by an Israeli tank?

Put simply, for Europe and the U.S., all victims are not equal, “but some are more equal than others.” It’s therefore, insincere and hypocritical for the Biden Administration to express outrage at a particular murder while defending, normalizing, and enabling Israel to commit such crimes over the past six months.

Now juxtapose the White House “outrage” by the announcement a day earlier to supply Israel with “new package worth billions in fighter jets and bombs” including 1,800 MK84 2,000-pound bombs similar to the ones that Israel dropped in the middle of one of the most densely populated refugee camp in Gaza.

The murder of the WCK workers was not an anomaly, it served as a warning to foreigners that Gaza was too dangerous. Along with other aid groups who left Gaza, Israel had effectively blocked international media access to Gaza. The engineered absence of the international media has given Israel a wide leeway in determining who to kill or what to destroy with complete impunity.

Remarkably, for the first time in recent history, U.S. networks and cable news outlets, as well as major print publications and European news agencies, have no single presence in a significant theater of war. Western media has been more than accommodating in this news blackout by acquiescing to the modern Iron Curtain directives and by embedding with invading forces to cover the “Israeli Rambo” actions in Gaza, while turning a blind eye to the killings of international aid workers and Gaza civilians.

Not only Israel didn’t allow international journalists access, but it went after Palestinian reporters using an artificial intelligence-based program known as “Lavender” to assassinate over 100 journalists. The largest number of journalists killed since the Committee to Protect Journalists began collecting data in 1992.

The Israeli human harvesting machine uses an AI system called “Where’s Daddy?” to track individuals once they enter their homes killing them along with their families. Despite calls from the Western media for press freedom, they have remained conspicuously silent on the murders of their fellow “less than equal” Palestinian colleagues.

Sadly, Netanyahu has been playing the Western world, and the Biden Administration in particular like a fiddle, using them to advance his agenda. Over the past six months of genocide, the Biden Administration has displayed an alarming readiness to conceal Israeli atrocities, no matter how egregious. Despite evidence to the contrary, Biden persisted in repeating Netanyahu’s fallacy on nonexistent photos of decapitated children and remained convinced of the existence of a military headquarters under al-Shifa hospital, long after these claims were debunked.

In that end, it should come as no surprise if or when Biden ultimately endorses Israel’s final faux investigation, absolving its army of any responsibility for the murder of the World Central Kitchen workers. Biden’s feigned “outrage” would likely spare Israel from facing an impartial investigation into its most recent war crime. For someone who claims to be compassionate, Biden’s loyalty to Israel seems to eclipse his own humanity.

– Jamal Kanj is the author of “Children of Catastrophe,” Journey from a Palestinian Refugee Camp to America, and other books. He writes frequently on Arab world issues for various national and international commentaries. He contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle