Israel's undeclared nuclear weapons grant its leaders impunity in committing war crimes, says a journalist.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared war in the besieged Palestinian territory of the Gaza Strip following the October 7 attacks on southern Israel by the armed wing of the Hamas movement and other militant groups.
The Palestinian Authority's health ministry, based in Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, reported on Thursday that 11,470 people had been killed and around 29,000 wounded by Israel's onslaught in Gaza. The dead included 4,707 children, 3,155 women and 668 elderly people — altogether three-quarters of the total. Some 203 health and 36 civil defense workers have also been killed.
Independent journalist Sam Husseini told Sputnik that Washington has spent decades covering up the open secret of Israel's nuclear arms program — just as it does over its ally's atrocities against Palestinians.
"The US government will not acknowledge that Israel has a nuclear weapons arsenal," Husseini said. "So having followed that issue closely, it hasn't been a great surprise to me that the US will not acknowledge Israel war crimes, Israeli crimes against humanity."
That culture of silence extends across the US political spectrum, from the conservative right to the liberal left.
"Even the 'squad', even members of Congress who are critical of Israel, will not acknowledge that Israel has a nuclear weapons arsenal," Husseini said, even after he presented them with evidence. "It really shows the extent to which even so-called 'dissidents' within the US political system are just simply parroting what the State Department says. And that severely skews the discussion that we have."
He accused US politicians of picking and choosing between items of international law, justifying Israel's actions under the United Nations Charter's doctrine of national defence when its position as occupier of the Palestinian territories does not entitle it to do so.
"By asserting Israel has a right to defend itself, that's their backhanded way of saying we don't recognize the fourth Geneva Convention" — which mandates the protection of civilians in war zones — Husseini said. "The Israeli army just demolished a statue to Yasser Arafat on the West Bank. What the hell does that have to do with Gaza? This is about destroying the Palestinian nation. This has nothing to do with Israel defending itself."
The journalist said the Hamas attacks were a "wet dream" for Netanyahu, giving him a pretext for an uninhibited campaign of bombing against Gaza, just as the September 11, 2001 attacks in the US were used to justify the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.
"He's making the most of it. What's needed is somebody to stop it," he said. While mass protests in demand of a ceasefire have taken place in cities around the world, Husseini stressed that "you need either military or legal mechanisms to constrain it."
He argued military intervention by Iran, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon's Hezbollah and others sympathetic to the Palestinian cause had been low-key so far for fear of Israeli retaliation.
"Israel has a nuclear weapons arsenal. So I think that's why Iran and company are standing down," Husseini said.
"A country has to invoke the genocide convention at the World Court that will further isolate the US at the Security Council," he concluded. "That's the best path forward, in addition to everything else that people are doing in terms of protest and boycott, divestment, sanctions, direct actions, weapons manufacturers and so on."
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