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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
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Owen Jones

Is there any red line that Israel will be held to? Biden has just confirmed the answer is no

A Palestinian child at the site of an Israeli strike on tents of displaced people, Deir Al-Balah, Gaza, 13 November 2024.
A Palestinian child at the site of an Israeli strike on tents of displaced people, Deir Al-Balah, Gaza, 13 November 2024. Photograph: Ramadan Abed/Reuters

This is a story about an apparently invincible fortress: the west’s official narrative about Israel’s war on Gaza. No matter how depraved the atrocity, or overwhelming the evidence, or confessed-to the crime, the fortress will not crumble. In fact, even when Israel flagrantly insults its main sponsor, the US, as it did this week, nothing changes.

The case in point here starts with a letter that the US sent to Israel last month, which set out in detail how life-saving aid was being systematically blocked from entering Gaza and threatened undefined action if specific demands to reverse the siege were not taken within 30 days. As the Democratic senator Chris Van Hollen suggested, the letter was a political ruse to woo voters in the run-up to the election (given most Democratic voters correctly believe that Israel is committing genocide).

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