Interview: Harris or Trump doesn’t matter for Gaza genocide

A year on from the outset of Israel’s war on Gaza, Israeli forces have killed more than 42,000 Palestinians – and this is just the confirmed death toll. A recent study by the Lancet medical journal projected that the death toll could exceed 186,000 when counting indirect deaths – from starvation and diseases due to the Israeli blockade on humanitarian aid, food, water and medicines.

To take stock of where we're at and whether this nightmare is likely to end any time soon, openDemocracy spoke to Tariq Kenney-Shawa, a foreign policy analyst based in New York and US Policy Fellow at Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network.

openDemocracy: It's been a year since this latest iteration of Israel's war on Gaza commenced. Is the end in sight? What's Israel's end game?

Tariq: Unfortunately, I don’t see any light at the end of the tunnel here. There is no end in sight to Israel’s genocide in Gaza. And that’s mainly because Israel hasn’t faced an ounce of accountability or pressure to de-escalate from the international community (the US and other western benefactors) to end this.

I’ve tended to be doubtful when people insist that Israel doesn’t have a plan in Gaza and is just destroying and killing for the sake of it. Israel does have a plan and it has been acting on it. It truly sees this moment in history, as well as the blank check from the US, as a golden strategic opportunity to take leaps towards its ultimate goal of ‘maximum land with minimum Palestinians’ and wider regional domination through brute force.

Israel’s end game in Gaza is erasure, and for the last 12 months, they’ve been laying the foundation for a new reality in Gaza for us all to see. In addition to “thinning out the population,” as Netanyahu said, through genocide, collective punishment, and ethnic cleansing, Israel has been effectively chopping up the Strip into smaller, more controllable enclaves that will come to represent the new “facts on the ground.”

openDemocracy: Has anything about the conflict surprised you?

Tariq: I think one of the most surprising aspects about both the genocide in Gaza and now Israel’s escalation across the region is that it has gone on uninterrupted and without international intervention for so long, despite the fact that just about every massacre has been broadcast for the world to see on social media.

As someone who is part of a generation that grew up being taught that the phrase “never again” really meant something, this is what I have found most jarring. Of course, Gaza is not the first time the international “rules-based” order has been exposed as a crutch for Western hegemony. From Vietnam to Iraq, the West’s selective application of international law has long been exposed for what it is. But Gaza is the first postwar genocide both entirely perpetrated by a Western ally and funded, facilitated, and justified by the West itself, not to mention the first to be so thoroughly recorded for the world to see.

openDemocracy: Now with recent escalations including Iran, do you think realistically we're on the verge of all-out war in the region?

Tariq: I think we are already seeing an all-out regional war by every definition of the term. Israeli fighter jets are bombing Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iran. This is not to mention the strikes the US, UK, and other Israeli benefactors have carried out on Israel's behalf.

It boils down to this: Israel will continue to escalate across the region in hopes of achieving its extremist, expansionist goals as long as the US taxpayer continues to foot the bill and US assets and personnel are off the coast of Haifa to come to Israel's defence if need be.

openDemocracy: It seems that the Biden administration actually gave Israel the green light to mount large-scale attacks on Lebanon. Has the US ever really been interested in stabilising the region? Does the US want an all-out war?

Tariq: The Biden Administration has either explicitly or implicitly (through uninterrupted weapons transfers and diplomatic shielding) given Israel the green light for a year of genocide and regional escalation.

I believe it is clear that the US ultimately shares the same strategic objectives as Israel, which range from silencing Palestinians once and for all to destroying groups like Hezbollah to causing significant damage to Iran. These are all outcomes that the US would celebrate (just take the public statement the US made following Israel's assassination of Hassan Nasrallah as one example).

Does the Biden Administration wish Israel could go about some of their operations differently? Perhaps. But at the end of the day, the costs of Israel's unparalleled violence, the mass death of Arabs and the destruction of their lands, is a price the US is willing to accept. If the US didn't want an all-out war, they would stop giving Israel all the weapons and diplomatic space to keep escalating at will. Because while every US administration has been pro-Israel, other US presidents have stood up to Israel when they felt US interests were at risk.

openDemocracy: Do you think things will change after the US elections on November 5?

Tariq: Nothing will fundamentally change, regardless of who wins the elections on November 5. For Palestinians, the genocide will continue because neither candidate has exhibited any indication that they intend to hold Israel accountable for war crimes and genocide or use any of the ample leverage that the US has to influence Israel's conduct.

In fact, it's the opposite. Donald Trump insists he would let Israel “finish the job” in Gaza, while Kamala Harris promises that she will continue the Biden Administration's policy of giving Israel “everything it needs” and continues to make it clear that she intends to be a carbon copy of the Biden Administration. The truth is, both Harris and Trump spell continued disaster for both Palestinians and the wider region, and there is no “lesser evil” here.

The truth is, the Biden administration’s resume on Israel-Palestine, even long before October 7, has in many ways mirrored that of Trump's.

If Biden wanted to make good on his commitment to a “two-state solution,” he would have at least started by reversing the norm shattering pro-Israel policies of his predecessor. The Biden Administration has actually given Israel more military and diplomatic assistance than any previous administration.

The only substantial difference between Trump and Biden has been their rhetoric. But one could argue that Biden's lofty, yet empty words actually does more harm than good by distracting us from the fact that he has given Israel everything it needed to get away with genocide right in front of our eyes. If Harris wins in November, it will be more of the same, and you don't need to take my word for it, she has made it abundantly clear herself.