(WASHINGTON, D.C., 10/7/2024) – The US Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO) – the nation’s umbrella group of national, regional, and local Muslim associations – today marked one year since the Oct. 7th attack and the start of genocide in Gaza by calling on President Biden to force the Israeli government to accept a comprehensive ceasefire deal that ends the genocide in Gaza, frees all captives and political prisoners, and lays the groundwork for addressing the root cause of decades of violence: the occupation and oppression of the Palestinian people.
USCMO added that if Biden maintains his illegal financial and military support for Israel’s escalating war crimes across Palestine and now Lebanon, he will be remembered alongside Benjamin Netanyahu as a full partner in this genocidal war on the Palestinian people.
In a statement, USCMO Secretary-General Oussama Jammal said:
“Today, we join American Muslims and many others around the world marking one year since the Oct. 7th attack and the start of the genocide in Gaza by calling on President Biden to bring this year of death and destruction to an end. President Biden must, at long last, force the Israeli government to accept a comprehensive ceasefire deal that ends the genocide in Gaza, frees all captives and political prisoners, and lays the groundwork for addressing the root cause of decades of violence: the occupation and oppression of the Palestinian people.
“The past 365 days of willful slaughter and wanton destruction are on a scale without parallel in the modern era and it must end. With President Biden’s support, the far-right, racist, Islamophobic and openly genocidal Israeli apartheid government has used American weapons to kill a staggering 1 out of every 55 people in Gaza and wounded 1 in 23 in a single year. It is long past time for President Biden to change course and force an end to this madness before more innocent people die.”
Consider for a moment the full measure of this genocide:
➟ 41,870 killed (69% children & women – 16,756 children 11,346 women)
➟ 97,166 wounded
➟ 1.9m (90%) serially internally displaced
➟ 2.14m suffering a 97% per person water decrease
➟ 2.1m (96%) severely food insecure (495,000 in famine)
➟ 17,000-18,000 orphaned children
➟ 814 of 1,245 mosques flattened (another 148 severely damaged)
➟ 3 of the oldest churches in Christianity flattened
➟ 19 of 60 deliberately plowed up
➟ 163,778 structures damaged (66% of all buildings)
➟ 227,591 housing units (77% of all homes 80% of all commercial buildings)
➟ 42m tons of rubble (it will take 14 years to clear & cost 1.2b)
➟ 19 cemeteries of 60 plowed up
➟ 31 of 36 hospitals damaged, 23 not functioning
➟ 456 school structures bombed and destroyed
➟ 123 Palestinian journalists killed, the most since records kept
➟ 456 school structures bombed and destroyed
➟ 516 attacks on health facilities
➟ 1,000 medical workers killed
➟ 115 ambulances damaged or destroyed
➟ 300 aid workers, mostly from UNRWA
➟ 88% of water wells deliberately damaged or destroyed
➟ 85% of sanitation facilities damaged or destroyed
➟ 477 of 564 shelters for the displaced bombed
These shocking numbers of an undeniable Israeli genocide are the “natural” consequences of the “Israeli right to defend itself,” according to the Netanyahu and Biden governments.
Israel Began Its Palestinian Genocide Long Before October 7
Israeli terrorism, genocide, ethnic cleansing, apartheid, land theft, dispossession, aggression, occupation, and systematic oppression of the Palestinians for at least 75 years is meticulously documented by numerous independent humanitarian organizations and historians.
Israel’s War Goal Is to Make Gaza Unlivable
Israel’s clear intent is to systematically render Gaza uninhabitable for the unmistakable purpose of ethnically cleansing the Palestinians from it, forcing their expulsion.
Biden Put His Racism, Politics and Ideology Above his Duty to America
President Biden himself appears to believe that his self-identification as a Zionist somehow explains why he has forced the U.S. into shameful complicity in the Israeli government’s genocide. He has rightly earned him the title he should bear into history: “Genocide Joe.” It also misled him into dereliction of his duty to this country as its president and to a global moral indictment of his leadership. Our nation’s international loss of face and credibility could not be more profound.
President Biden has failed to safeguard American interests. Rather, he let himself and the U.S. become a tool of Benjamin Netanyahu and his genocidal wars that are not even in Israeli interests.
Israeli Policy Has Subsumed US Middle East Policy
Under President Biden, the U.S. has lost credibility as a legitimate peace broker. In fact, the U.S. has grown so obviously biased toward the Israelis that its policy is indistinguishable from Israeli policy and whim.
There is total neglect for Palestinian concerns and aspirations for freedom and sovereign independence and total indulgence of Israeli violations of U.S. and international law, including its rampant illegal settlement expansion.
Netanyahu has repeatedly stated with pride to his far-right supporters how he has obstructed the U.S. two-state solution. U.S. officials know this but still blame the Palestinians for the failure of this process.
Multiple times in the last year, Biden and the U.S. State Department have announced ceasefire and hostage agreements for Gaza, going so far as to claim they were Israeli proposals. Netanyahu would then humiliate Biden and the U.S. by rejecting those proposals or moving the goal posts.
Biden and the State Department repeatedly called for a ceasefire and regional restraint with their mouths, all the while sending bombs and money to fuel the Israeli genocide in Gaza and to expand Israeli aggression throughout the region.
They called for humanitarian aid to feed the starving, thirsting Palestinians and to send them medical aid but sent the Israelis an unending supply of bombs to flatten the hospitals and destroy Palestinian water supplies. Moreover, the U.S. provided diplomatic cover for continued Israeli obstruction of humanitarian food and medical relief, as well as the Israeli killing of aid workers.
Secretary of State Blinken, in particular, became the face of U.S. duplicity, incompetence, and bias in the Gaza crisis. His inability to resolve conflicts in the Middle East or elsewhere, coupled with his knowingly falsified statements to Congress regarding the Israelis thwarting humanitarian aid to Gaza, has undermined all public trust in his leadership.
Netanyahu is dragging the US into a Costly War
Netanyahu has long sought to set off a chain reaction of retribution and reprisal with Arab and Muslim countries and groups throughout the Middle East for the purpose of dragging the U.S. into a dangerous and uncontrollable war with Iran. This war greatly risks plunging the entire region into an all-out disaster.
The cost to US taxpayers of war in Gaza and beyond is $22.8bn
US spending on Israel’s war on Gaza totals at least $17.9bn and counting since October 7, 2023, according to research from the Costs of War project at Brown University’s Watson Institute.
Research found American military operations elsewhere in the region – particularly in Yemen, which the Houthis say is related to Israel’s war on Gaza – have so far cost the US government $4.9bn.
Netanyahu wants the U.S. to spend the lives and tax dollars of its people to fight another dangerous forever war in the Middle East that undermines this nation and its vital interests in the region.
USCMO urgently appeals to U.S. political leaders, including Vice President Harris, to impress upon President Biden the need to end U.S. military, financial, and diplomatic support for the Israeli government’s genocide and regional warmongering.
May God bring us all peace and justice.
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