The US has joined other countries in airdropping food and supplies to Gazans. The effort is nothing more than futile grandstanding by the Biden White House.
“Look up! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! Yes, it’s an American C130 dropping 35,000 meals to Gazans.” The latest craze is to drop food and supplies into Gaza. Egypt, Jordan, France, the UAE and now the US are dropping goods, with some landing in the Mediterranean, others falling into Egypt or Israel and much of it being scooped up by armed Hamas operatives. The contents of one Hercules is about half that of a single truck like those that have been bringing supplies into Gaza far more inexpensively since shortly after the war there started.
So why are countries spending a fortune to load, fly and deliver relatively small amounts of food for a population of around 2 million people? It’s called grandstanding. The argument is that not enough trucks are entering Gaza and ways must be found to get more goods to the Gazan people. There are a couple of problems with this line of thinking. Firstly, Hamas declared war on Israel when it killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took several hundred more back to Gaza as hostages. I do not recall Russians feeding Germans or Americans supplying the Japanese while an active war was going on. But somehow, as always, Israel is blessed with special rules that do not apply to any other country in the world. So Israel has to make sure that Gazans have enough in their bellies rather than using the need for food and medicine as one more tool to A) get Gazans to turn on Hamas and B) end the war more quickly. So food has been going through Rafah after Israeli inspections, as war material has been discovered in some attempted deliveries. Israel also opened its own crossings after it vowed never to open them again since the murders that occurred to the staff manning those facilities on 10/7.
Hundreds of trucks have been going into Gaza daily without Israel receiving hostages in return for the supplies. Rule #1: always demand something in return for something given to the enemy. Nothing in such situations should be for free. Each day a truck enters one hostage should come out. But Israelis are terrified of the US turning on them and not supplying weapons or holding off the UN Security Council. So trucks have rolled in, Hamas has stolen most of the goods—oftentimes violently--and that which does reach the people is often resold, though the packaging makes it clear that the stuff is free. Trucks entering via Rafah are often attacked (see picture here) as the people try to stop the trucks early so that they can loot them before they get to a Hamas-run warehouse. The people swarming the trucks last week where over 100 died is proof-positive that Israel is not engaged in genocide. Video shows hundreds of Gazans working those trucks as seen from an Israeli drone. Israel did not fire a missile on the concentrated masses; if it had been going for genocide, the large number of people in a small area would have been a targeting jackpot. Israel claims that those killed and wounded were attacked by Hamas and is looking into the details of the event.
The aid trucks have been reduced in number partially due to looting and possibly due to some Israeli protesters trying to stop the trucks from making their way from the Ashdod port to Gaza. The planes offer little additional aid but they look cool, until the parachutes land in the water. Jordan was the first to send part of its aid to the sharks, and even the arrival of King Abdullah on the next flight did not help their aiming success. The US joining the aerial circus may make the occupant of the White House feel better and help his chances in Michigan but it does little in making the lives of Gazans better in any meaningful way. But that has never been the purpose.
No country has ever cared about the Palestinians. Their sole role in world affairs has been to be a thorn in the side of this generation’s Jews—the Israelis. Palestinians languishing in camps in Lebanon get no food drops or international attention though their conditions are dire. They are too far away from the Israeli border to be of much interest to the West or the media. Only those who can attack and harm Jews, like the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, are the concern of the UN and the State Department. As I wrote previously, the Palestinians are the only people in history whose offspring count as refugees according to the UN. Thus, in every conflict, the number of refugees is fixed and goes down over time. With the Palestinians, the number only goes up and up. Again, there are rules for Israel that do not apply anywhere else in the world. Have you ever seen a BDS movement against China or Russia or Turkey? Me neither.
While C130s were taking to the skies of Gaza, Israelis went to the polls for municipal elections. The elections were pushed off twice due to the war, and there were complaints from soldiers who wanted to run for office that the situation was unfair. Turnout was lousy, around 30%. People are absorbed with the war going on all around Israel and are not particularly interested in who will be the next local dog catcher. As a permanent resident, somehow, I am allowed to vote in local—but not national—elections. What logic was behind this ruling is beyond me. Somebody must have just made it up over a falafel in pita bread. Anyway, I went to do my civic duty and at the polling place, not only did they insist on seeing my government-issued ID card as they compared it to their official voter rolls, they held onto it the whole time I was in the voting booth! Israeli elections are pretty easy. You get two different-colored envelopes: one for the mayor and one for the city council party. In the booth is a large plastic box with cards representing the two candidates for mayor and the dozen or so parties on the ballot. You choose one card for each envelope, put the envelopes into a big box in the middle of the room and then get your ID back. Primitive but effective and unfortunately more honest than what is called voting in the US.
In Israel, democracy is on steroids. There are twelve political parties in the 120-seat Knesset. There is no early voting, no one curating others’ ballots, and only those on official government business can vote overseas. There are no absentee ballots for Israelis living outside of the country, and one votes near where he or she lives. The US could benefit by having such a primitive one-day election format. Simple, honest elections requiring voter ID would go a long way to making people believe in the validity of election results. The Democrats understand that elections are the route to power and that means winning elections by any means, even granting voting rights to non-citizens. Republicans seem to run because that's what's on the calendar in early November every couple of years. A won election for the Democrats is far more important than an honest one day election. Or to paraphrase Joseph Stalin who said,“Those who vote decide nothing. Those who count the vote decide everything.” In the US, those who vote decide nothing. Those who make the voting rules and take full advantage of them decide everything.
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