by Andrew Grossman
In an October 19th Oval office address, Biden has said that military funding for Israel and Ukraine is good for the American economy, pushing a “made in America” message to sugar-coat the pill of increased funding for the genocidal war against the Palestinian people in response to Operation Al Aqsa Flood’s victory for the Palestinian liberation struggle.
While using the usual “anti-terrorism” rhetoric of the imperialist politicians, Biden hopes to also dress up the funding for the unpopular slaughter of the Palestinian people as good for American workers, injecting money into American arms manufacturers and employing people in rural areas that have lost other industries. He says “Equipment that defends America… is made in America” and that “Just as in World War II, today patriotic American workers are building the arsenal of democracy and serving the cause of freedom.”
Supporting the imperialists’ slaughter in Gaza is not serving the cause of freedom for anyone but the monopoly capitalists who want more freedom to exploit the peoples of the third world, shoring up the US position in the Middle East. The comparison with World War II is also farcical—the US imperialist slaughter of civilians in reprisal for the Palestinian people’s armed struggle for liberation from their oppression has nothing in common with the anti-fascist united front, led by the Soviet Union and waged by the peoples of the world in World War II.
In reality, the imperialists seek to increase war spending to shore up their sinking, crisis-ridden economy and to bribe workers in the US into supporting their own oppressors rampaging across the third world.
This desperate rhetoric comes as the ruling class faces growing opposition to their imperialist aggression from the people and also wrestles with itself around the details of their military funding for imperialist aggression in the Middle East and East Asia and as Republican politicians draw spectral lines against the continued military financing of Ukraine in its war against Russia’s invasion.
Israel already receives $3.8 billion a year in military funding from the US. Biden’s administration is also facing criticism in Congress for refusing to release details of ongoing arms transfers to Israel, while the transfers to Ukraine are detailed.
Biden’s $106 billion proposed funding package bundling funding for Ukraine’s military, Israel’s military, Taiwan’s military as an armed proxy in the US imperialists’ contention with Chinese imperialism, and US-Mexico “border security” is dead in the water as House Republicans have blocked it, citing skepticism of the US interests and mission in Ukraine. Leading Democrats are fuming that the military funding package for Israel—which they call “aid” when it is really funding for their semi-colonial army of genocide in the Middle East—is being blocked for the first time because of policy divisions between the Democrats and Republicans.
photo: Protesters blockade a weapons shipment destined for Israel at the Port of Tacoma – Arab Resources and Organizing Center
