On genocide, Trump will be no different from Biden

If a Pulitzer Prize was handed retired for nan (unintentionally) funniest, stitch-inducing header drafted by a “major” news organisation successful 2024, past The New York Times – which craves specified frivolous baubles – would triumph it without question.

Here’s nan “award-winning” headline, published past week successful nan aftermath of US President-elect Donald Trump’s negotiated selections that, according to nan Times, will “help style President-elect Trump’s strategy” connected nan Middle East.

“Trump’s Middle East Picks Signal Staunch Pro-Israel Policy,” nan Times wrote.

It is conscionable truthful comical, isn’t it?

An identical header could person been recycled verbatim aft each Democrat aliases Republican president-elect made nationalist his “Middle East picks” since Israel’s engineered inception successful 1948.

My goodness.

The headline’s implicit proposal is that, somehow, for immoderate puzzling reason, location whitethorn person been a scintilla of uncertainty that Trump was not going to adopt a “Staunch Pro-Israel Policy” for illustration each his deferential predecessors.

Sure, Trump played nicey-nicey pinch a bunch of gullible Arab “leaders” (pawns) successful swing-state Michigan during nan statesmanlike predetermination run to curry fleeting favour pinch a “community” he would instantly wantonness erstwhile he scored 270 electoral votes.

The headline’s 2nd underlying conclusion is that immoderate US president-elect – Democrat aliases Republican – would consider, fto unsocial beryllium tin of, embracing thing different than a “Staunch Pro-Israel Policy”.

Finally, and possibly astir absurdly, successful its ongoing and signature efforts to normalise a fascist president-elect, nan Times’s uproarious header and sub-headline connote that Trump, who will soon inhabit nan Oval Office for a 2nd time, has a nuanced knowing of nan Middle East that will construe into a well-defined “policy” and “strategy” for nan region.

My goodness – nan sequel.

This whitethorn beryllium a revelation to nan Times, but I don’t deliberation that Trump tin even distinguish betwixt Iran and Iraq connected a map.

But, arsenic we know, a nuanced knowing of nan Middle East is not needfully a prerequisite successful nan White House aliases nan State Department, erstwhile it comes to electing aliases appointing group to return carriage of America’s “policy” aliases “strategy” for that troubled portion of nan world.

Do nan discredited names George W Bush, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice and nan precocious Donald Rumsfeld and Colin Powell outpouring to anyone’s mind – peculiarly astatine nan complicit New York Times?

Lest we forget.

Predictably, Joe Biden and Antony Blinken followed nan “shock and awe” gang’s ruinous footprints by giving nan indicted premier curate of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, each nan money, arms, and “strategic” screen he required to perpetrate genocide successful Gaza and nan occupied West Bank.

Biden, Blinken and United Nations Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield person pursued nan aforesaid “kill first, deliberation later” “policy” aliases “strategy” – return your prime – that nan “shock and awe” pack employed pinch specified disastrous and inhumane consequences.

You would person reasonably thought that nan calamitous penetration of Iraq would person fixed Biden, Blinken and Thomas-Greenfield pause.

You would beryllium wrong.

Instead, existent to “kill first, deliberation later” form, Biden, Blinken and Thomas-Greenfield person enabled a genocide – that has already claimed nan lives of much than 43,000 Palestinians, mostly children and women – pinch nan patina of faux seriousness that Trump and halting institution deficiency and that is truthful weighted by nan learned cognoscenti astatine nan Times, CNN and MSNBC.

So, why anyone, anywhere, would beryllium “shocked” that Trump has chosen an evangelical Christian and wannabe rampaging Israeli settler, Mike Huckabee, to beryllium America’s adjacent ambassador to Israel is simply a silly enigma to me.

Why anyone, anyplace would beryllium “shocked” that pro-Israel zealots for illustration Senator Marco Rubio and Representative Elise Stefanik would beryllium appointed caput of authorities and UN ambassador respectively is besides a silly enigma to me.

Like Biden, Blinken, and Thomas-Greenfield, Trump, Rubio, Huckabee and Stefanik judge that Israel enjoys nan absolute, uncontested “right to take sides itself”. If that intends nan erasure of Gaza and nan West Bank, past truthful beryllium it — decency, quality and civilian authorities conventions, and world rule beryllium damned.

Beyond nan rhetorical edges astir a mythical “two-state solution”, location is nary “daylight” betwixt Biden, Blinken, and Thomas-Greenfield and Trump, Rubio, Huckabee and Stefanik concerning nan “future” of nan Palestinians successful Gaza and nan West Bank.

They person nary “future”.

Biden, Blinken, and Thomas-Greenfield person permitted Israel to do to Gaza and nan West Bank what Trump, Rubio, Huckabee and Stefanik person agelong hoped to do to Gaza and nan West Bank – move what remains of Palestinian onshore into particulate and representation by, if request be, lethal and indiscriminate force.

Trump, Rubio, Huckabee and Stefanik correspond nan somewhat much blunt and profane continuum of America’s defining “kill first, deliberation later” cognition towards nan Middle East.

That is why Democrats’ and nan cognoscenti’s fuming “outrage” complete Trump’s “scandalous” furniture and different high-profile management choices has been mostly reserved – surprise, astonishment – for his “controversial” picks for lawyer wide and defence secretary.

The methodical, much than yearlong demolition of Gaza and nan West Bank is old news.

Biden, Blinken and Thomas-Greenfield gave Israel nan “green light” to termination arsenic galore Palestinians arsenic it wants to for arsenic agelong arsenic it wants to and Trump, Rubio, Huckabee and Stefanik will do precisely nan same.

On genocide: nan caller White House pack is nan aforesaid arsenic nan aged White House gang.

Hold on. There’s still hope. The Arab leaders (pawns) who met pinch Trump towards nan extremity of nan run – successful rebuff of Kamala Harris – have sent him a missive asking nan president-elect “to use [his] governmental power successful demanding an contiguous ceasefire successful Lebanon and Palestine” pinch a position towards negotiating “a lasting peace”.

Of course, a missive – assuming Trump bothers to publication it – is bound to alteration Washington’s ingrained position that Palestinians are ever nan perpetrators and ne'er nan victims, and that their lives are arsenic disposable arsenic they are inconsequential.

Yes, a pretty-please-worded missive should yet do nan elusive trick.

The views expressed successful this article are nan author’s ain and do not needfully bespeak Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.