"Genocide is not a 'lesser evil.'" How will Democrats vote in November?

By CARA MARIANNA

On Tuesday of last week, my Senator of many decades, Democrat Patty Murray of Washington State, joined 72 of her colleagues to kill a resolution that would have required the State Department to produce a report addressing human rights violations in Gaza. 

It’s hard to find words to describe the utter depravity and cowardice displayed by Congress as it continues to support Israel’s wholesale slaughter of Palestinians. The U.S. sends Israel—currently facing credible accusations of genocide in the International Court of Justice—billions of dollars in military weaponry, and Congress doesn’t think there should be any oversight or investigation of Israel’s actions. 

All of this at the expense of taxpayers who have no say in the matter and are thus forced to support Israel’s genocidal behavior, even as a majority of Americans oppose continued military assistance. This suggests the question of what voters, particularly Democrats, will choose to do come 5 November.

Will Democrats console their wounded consciences with the cynical and long-discredited argument that their candidates are the lesser of two evils, known these days as LOTE, thus giving up altogether on their legitimate aspirations for a president and government that serves and is answerable to the people?

Words failing me, I’ll quote the distinguished international lawyer, John Whitbeck, from a private email he sent out to his substantial following on 17 January. I find his descriptive language especially fitting:  

The overwhelming majority of the political prostitutes infesting the Great Whorehouse on Capitol Hill (a/k/a the U.S. Congress) simply do not wish to risk their careers by appearing less than unconditionally supportive of anything and everything that Israel chooses to do and are unconcerned that their abject subservience to Israeli domination and control, even during the current horrors, is costing the United States any residual respect (other than respect based on fear) which it may still enjoy in the hearts and minds of most of mankind.

Indeed, these politicians are not only unconcerned with the views and wishes of most of mankind. Polls show that they are also unconcerned, on this as on many other issues, with the views and wishes of most of the American people.

It is clear that they do not even seek to represent the great unwashed masses of the American people. They represent the ultra-rich who can and do pay for their services and who credibly threaten to finance primary and general election challenges against them if they dare to step out of line.

Like most elected officials, Patty Murray serves Israel’s interests above those of her own constituents. If she were to do otherwise, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee would target her, spending millions of dollars to make certain she was replaced—as they have done numerous times to other elected officials, intentionally destroying any politician who opposes their Zionist agenda. 

Rather than do the right thing, assuming Murray knows any longer what the right thing is, she continues to bow to the demands of Israel and the  Israel lobby even when doing so undermines Americas national security. It has long been understood by foreign policy analysts that America’s uncritical support for Israel jeopardizes our security at home—it was a main reason for the attacks on 9/11—and is a leading cause of instability in West Asia, where war is now threatening to erupt.

There is a fascinating and enraging horror in the cold-blooded way most of our politicians serve only their own interests—the accumulation of personal wealth and hoarding of political power. It seems that nothing can rouse them to any display of genuine humanity. Or, indeed, any sense of responsibility to the people they purport to represent and the constitution they swore an oath to uphold. 

The Biden Administration has twice recently violated the Constitution when it sidestepped Congress to send more military weaponry to Israel without the mandated authorization. Hardly a squeak of protest was heard from either Congress or our compromised media.

With events as they now unfold in Gaza, our country has crossed a new line—a line beyond which there is no way to return unscathed. The Biden administration and most of Congress, my senator Patty Murray included, are actively supporting—in Biden’s case actually arming—a genocide. 

It hardly needs saying that any nation or person who supports genocide, whether directly or indirectly, is necessarily complicit in it, is necessarily compromised, and has necessarily lost something of their humanity, while forfeiting all legitimacy and moral authority. 

Americans, as a consequence, are in a quandary of unusual magnitude and significance. With elections looming on the near horizon, voters must now decide whether or not to follow their representatives across that line. Each of us must decide what we are going to do in November, how we will cast our votes, or indeed whether we will vote at all. 

“Lesser evil” arguments and rationalizations typically used by Democrats can no longer be taken seriously. There is no greater crime than the crime of genocide. There is no greater evil than the evil of genocide. There is no greater crime or evil than what Joe Biden and Congress are currently doing. And, it must be said, not doing: With one phone call Joe Biden could end the slaughter in Gaza. He chooses not to. 

On 13 January, the 100th day of Israel’s war on Gaza, Euro–Med Human Rights Monitor released an updated count of the number of Palestinians killed: 31,497 in total, of which12,345 (nearly 40%) were children, and 6,471 were women. In the few days since then the casualty count has surged higher surpassing 35,000. 

It is no longer legitimate to argue that Joe Biden is a lesser evil than Donald Trump. Nothing that Trump did during his reckless four years in the White House comes even close to the evil that Biden has unleashed upon the world with his unconditional support for Israel. He has made the United States—and all of its citizens—complicit in genocide as he edges our country closer to war with Iran—long a policy goal of Zionist hardliners in Israel and the United States. 

Every Democratic voter faces a moment of truth this election cycle. Because the party has forced Joe Biden on Democrats, allowing no other candidate to replace him, there are only two moral choices left: to vote third party or not to vote at all. Anyone who votes for Joe Biden will have explicitly endorsed his policy of supporting Israel’s genocide and made themselves complicit in it. 

There is no greater evil than that.