White House's Empty Threats Against Israel is an Attempt to 'Buy Time Until the Elections'

Between October 7, 2023 and August of this year, the UN Commission found more than “20 cases of sexual and gender-based violence against male and female detainees in more than 10 military and Israel Prison Service facilities,” the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory Israel wrote in its report.

The report - which examines the treatment of detainees and hostages as well as attacks on medical facilities and personnel - also said that several male detainees reported that Israeli security forces had “beaten, kicked, pulled or squeezed their genitals, often while the detainees were naked.” One detainee said that in November 2023, members of the Keter unit of the Israel Prison Service “had forced him to strip and then ordered him to kiss the Israeli flag.” When the detainee refused, he was “beaten and his genitals were kicked so severely that he vomited and lost consciousness”.

“The reports that you said, the UN has known about them for decades. This is not the first time, this is not the first aggression. Now the world is actually discovering the other face of the Israelis, which we tried to tell the world throughout the past 78 years. Unfortunately, mainstream media was in control. Social media helped us get the real picture out. Yet, you haven’t seen everything because they are still in control,” Leila Hatoum, a Lebanese journalist, economist and geopolitical analyst, told Sputnik's Fault Lines.

“I am shadow-banned on social media. When I try to open spaces, they crash them and you have to open them one time, two times, three times - it has nothing to do with connection.”

In August, Al Jazeera reported a Palestinian prisoner’s gang rape by guards at the Sde Teiman detention facility in southern Israel. The brutal attack resulted in the Palestinian man needing to be transferred to a hospital, with Israeli media reporting that he was unable to walk. In response, some Israelis, including the country’s far-right minister, Bezalel Smotrich, were outraged not at the rape, but that the video of the gruesome assault has been “leaked”.

“However, the Israelis look at actions, not words. The Americans continue to send weapons to the Israelis, they continue to fund this war, they continue to send batches of billions of dollars worth of military aid to the Israelis, including as recently as a week and a half ago,” Hatoum said.

“And, the Israelis used those weapons to kill more Palestinians and Lebanese with it and breach international laws, attack [the peacekeeping mission] UNIFIL troops directly and nobody does anything. So, at the end of the day, if the US tells the Israelis [not to] do it, but hears, basically, a few thousands… bombs, thermobaric bombs, vacuum bombs, etc. and 'be careful how you use them and then they use them against civilians' and the Americans send them another batch and another batch, that’s the decision. That’s complicity.”

Analysis

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On Tuesday, multiple media outlets reported that the Biden administration has threatened to cut off US weapons if the Israeli government does not take “urgent and sustained actions” to improve humanitarian conditions there within 30 days.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s letter, dated October 13, was addressed to Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant and Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer. The letter asks that the Israeli government “surge all forms of humanitarian assistance throughout Gaza,” and include a list of specific actions.

“Now, when it comes to the case of the US, the current economy in the US is moving past because of the arms manufacturing industry. You can go and ask any economist. They need this war to continue. What the Israelis and Americans are doing at the moment is buying time until the American elections,” she added. “You have to understand from 11 months until now, 12 months until now, they kept talking about negotiations for a ceasefire in Gaza - never materialized. The only time that it materialized, the Israelis continued to bombard and shoot Palestinians.”

“Four months ago, .. Fuad Shukr was assassinated. We had Amos Hochstein, the envoy from Biden coming over, the Israeli American envoy,” she added. “[Hochstein] came to Lebanon and asked for a two-month delay period to try to find a solution and find a ceasefire. Everybody complied with it from the resistance side. The Israelis never complied with it. And what happened is that Americans were buying time to reposition their troops in the Middle East. And I had said that five days before the Pentagon actually issued its paper saying we have finished repositioning our troops in the Middle East.”

“They're not going to do an arms embargo. They're buying time until the elections. Once the elections happen by November 5th, you know who's coming to power. Either Trump or Kamala Harris because Jill Stein has no chance at all because the Americans only see what the mainstream media shows them,” she added. “So, I don’t buy this. The Americans are lying, the Israelis are lying and the international community is silent and that’s international complicity.”

Israel is still facing a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its yearlong assault on Gaza which has resulted in the deaths of over 42,000 Palestinians according to local officials (although some estimates suggest the total is much higher).

Earlier this month, Al Jazeera reported that Bolivia had formally joined South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the ICJ after they filed an application on Tuesday to intervene in the case. This move follows the ICJ’s ruling in January that Israel must do everything in its power to prevent acts of genocide in Gaza as well as to allow UN-mandated investigators to look into the matter within the enclave.

White House's Empty Threats Against Israel are an Attempt to 'Buy Time Until the Elections'