On Sunday, Israeli media reported a freeze in sure bulldozer shipments from america to Israel. The distinguished English-language web site Ynet Information, for instance, went with the sensational headline: “D9 bulldozer cargo stalled by US embargo, leaving Israeli troopers uncovered.” To make certain, there’s nothing extra tragic than “uncovered” troopers belonging to a genocidal army.
In response to the article, 134 bulldozers “ordered and paid for” by the Israeli navy are at the moment “awaiting export approval from the US State Division” however their cargo has been stymied by inside US opposition and an obvious choice by President Joe Biden’s administration to freeze deliveries “for a number of months”. The D9 mannequin is manufactured by the US agency Caterpillar Inc.
Some observers have taken this move to mean that the Bidenites are registering their displeasure with the Israeli struggle crime of ethnic cleaning. However should you’re going to be towards ethnic cleaning, why not go all the best way and be towards genocide too?
Certainly, a scarcity of latest bulldozers could have exactly zero bearing on Israel’s potential to proceed waging genocide in Gaza, the place formally greater than 43,000 Palestinians have been slaughtered over the previous 13 months however the actual loss of life toll is undoubtedly many times higher.
Ynet famous that the machines are used “primarily for flattening constructions within the Gaza Strip” however they’re “additionally wanted” in southern Lebanon, the place Israel’s newest terrorist operations have additionally killed 1000’s. The Israeli military’s present arsenal of D9 dozers is reportedly in want of upkeep, therefore the alternative order – the moratorium on supply of which “will doubtless delay one other vital operation by [Israel’s military] that continues to be incomplete: establishing a one-kilometer-wide [0.6-mile-wide] buffer zone between the Gaza Strip [and Israel] involving the leveling of lots of of Palestinian buildings and agricultural lands”.
Not solely is there the troubling problem of the “uncovered” troopers then; there’s additionally the annoying interruption to Israel’s scorched-earth plan.
Along with “leveling” civilian infrastructure and wiping out agriculture, bulldozers have served different useful functions in Gaza. There was that point in September, as an illustration, that the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights documented the taking pictures by Israeli troopers of 17-year-old Majed Fida Abu Zina, a resident of Gaza’s Far’a refugee camp, who was “left to bleed for about an hour and a half”, after which the Israeli military “introduced in a bulldozer and commenced desecrating the boy’s physique, tearing open his stomach and exposing his inside organs earlier than dragging and throwing him on al-Far’a hill”.
By the way, Israel’s bulldozing of human beings has not been restricted to Palestinians. In 2003, 23-year-old American peace activist Rachel Corrie was crushed to loss of life by a 36-tonne Caterpillar bulldozer pushed by an Israeli soldier within the Gaza Strip metropolis of Rafah, the place she was protesting towards Israel’s demolition of Palestinian properties. Name it Caterpillateral injury.
And Rafah, because it so occurs, was central to the story the final time the Biden administration made noises about suspending shipments of deadly supplies to Israel. In Might, Biden announced he would now not be supplying offensive weapons to the Israeli military within the occasion of an all-out assault on the southern Gaza metropolis, reasoning that “civilians have been killed in Gaza as a consequence of these bombs.”
Nicely, yeah – that’s how genocide works. And suspending a few bomb shipments right here and there finally does completely nothing to place a dent in mass killings. Ditto for denying the Israelis their D9 dozer replacements.
These extraordinarily remoted instances of moratoria on weapons transfers impression Israeli navy behaviour even much less provided that they’re accompanied by a steady flood of billions upon billions of {dollars} in US navy help to Israel and different free-flowing weaponry.
Recall that in April, simply weeks earlier than Biden issued his warning re: Rafah, the US Congress OK’d at least $26bn in supplemental wartime help to Israel – which was authorised on prime of all the billions of {dollars} Israel already receives yearly from its trusty American companion in crime.
And as Al Jazeera reported in August, the Biden administration had simply “authorized sending $20bn price of arms to Israel, even because the US publicly requires restraint within the struggle on Gaza”.
After all, the blended messaging is absolutely exploited by Israel’s psychopathic authorities, headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which invokes each perceived slight by the essentially obsequious US as alleged proof that even Israel’s greatest pals are one way or the other now anti-Israel.
As per the Ynet dispatch, the short-term freeze in D9 bulldozer shipments is solely one other case of Israel getting the “chilly shoulder… from Washington” – a state of affairs that “may pose a danger to [Israeli] troopers” in each the Gaza Strip and Lebanon.
And but the “chilly shoulder” has not and won’t forestall Israel from actually and metaphorically bulldozing Gaza to loss of life whereas raining made-in-the-USA apocalyptic destruction from the sky.
Overlook the Israeli troopers left “uncovered” by the reported US freeze on bulldozer shipments. The inhabitants of Gaza is absolutely uncovered to genocide – and worldwide opposition to this most sinister actuality is being bulldozed as we communicate.
The views expressed on this article are the creator’s personal and don’t essentially replicate Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
