Background to assassination of World Central Kitchen workers

oaklandsocialist

April 5

Children in Gaza inspect the remains of one of the cars of the World Central Kitchen. Israel's murders of hundreds of Palestinian aid workers in Gaza has gone largely unnoticed in the US.

"From the river to the sea, Israel will be free…" to do anything it likes towards its goal of ethnically cleansing all Palestinians. That is the message it sent with the rockets that killed the seven World Central Kitchen aid workers. To understand that beyond just an agitational statement, we have to look at some history:

***UNRWA aid to Palestinian refugees. While any decent human being will support feeding the hungry, UNRWA basically took Israel off the hook.***

History of aid to Gaza
The population of Gaza is primarily composed of refugees and descendants of refugees of Israel's original ethnic cleansing during its "war of independence". In 1949 - just a few years after the war - the United Nations set up the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) to provide aid to Palestinian war refugees throughout the region, including in Gaza. UNRWA's role in Gaza was intensified after the 1967 war. This was with the encouragement of Israel's then war hero Moshe Dayan. An article in Israel's daily newspaper Haaretz explains that at that time Israel was about to take complete control over Gaza and Dayan was concerned who would pay to keep its residents alive. After all, at that time Israel still relied on its (false) world image as this plucky little nation standing up for democracy throughout the region. Dayan said that "if… UNRWA will continue to take care of the refugees [it] will be a huge achievement." He called the agreement to get UNRWA to be responsible for providing food and services (education, etc.) "an extraordinarily good arrangement."

Haaretz explains further: "Indeed, every dollar spent [by UNRWA] on refugee education, health, and basic necessities found its way into the Israeli economy. Every sack of rice distributed to a Palestinian refugee family subsidized the low wage of a Palestinian worker and freed some income toward buying Israeli consumer goods. Every paycheck received in dollars by one of the tens of thousands of UNRWA employees had been converted in some way into shekels. [This, incidentally, shows what a Palestinian "state" would look like.]

"Netanyahu was probably also aware of this when, in 2018, he secretly tried to dissuade the Trump Administration from cutting all funding to UNRWA, citing concern that it would destabilize the Gaza Strip. According to Dr. Einat Wilf, a staunch anti-UNRWA Israeli researcher, Netanyahu's government was also behind Germany's increase in contributions to UNRWA designed to offset Trump's cuts. Netanyahu strove to retain Israeli overall control of the Territories without taking responsibility for the basic human needs of millions or to deal with the consequences of UNRWA's deficit." Note: UNRWA is one of the few UN agencies that is not simply funded by the UN itself; it largely depends for funding on the voluntary contributions of various governments.
The Trump administration did end US funding for UNRWA but the Biden administration resumed that funding until recently. Biden's termination of funding came as a result of Israel's hue and cry over the claim (never proven) that 12 of UNRWA's 30,000 workers were involved in the Oct. 7 attack.

That same Haaretz article summarizes the role of UNRWA: "UNRWA is essentially the foundation upon which Israel built the post-1967 status quo. (emphasis added)"

As a result of the US defunding of UNRWA, emergency aid to Gaza is now even more dependent on private charities like World Central Kitchen.

What then explains Israel's change of heart -, its present desire to end all aid to Gaza residents? The answer appears in that same Haaretz article cited above. It says: "UNRWA is essentially the foundation upon which Israel built the post-1967 status quo. (emphasis added)" Now, Israel sees the opportunity to fundamentally transform that status quo.

West Bank
That can be seen in the West Bank. There are hundreds of reports of what Israel is doing there. Here's one of them, again from Haaretz, whose headline and sub headline read:

"While War Rages in Gaza, the West Bank Has Undergone a Metamorphosis.

"Israel has seized the opportunity to intensify the occupation, with mass arrests of Palestinians, hundreds killed, a host of new illegal settler outposts and roads. Shepherds expelled from their homes, violent settlers rampaging in uniform. All under the aegis of the war."

Here are a few key passages from the article: "Israel and the settler communities have exploited the dark specter of war to alter reality in the West Bank: to intensify the occupation, extend the boundaries of the settlements, remove the last remaining constraints on interaction with the Palestinian population and to run wild – all far from the public eye."
The article further explains: "the war has apparently presented a great opportunity for the settlers and their collaborators in the government. An opportunity West Bank settlers were just waiting for: to abuse the Palestinians with impunity, to make their lives intolerable, to dispossess and humiliate them until they flee or are driven out."

Maybe most significant is this statement: "Yet perhaps even more than in Gaza, the ramifications of the revolution transpiring in the West Bank will not be confined only to that territory: They will seep deep into every corner of Israel."

Indeed, that is what seems to be happening. Again, we turn to Haaretz: Israel's present "broad agenda: Inequality by law (Jewish supremacy); theocracy; annexation; gut the welfare state; legitimize corruption. To do these, the government is rapidly consolidating executive power, stacking the public sector with political loyalists and dismantling democratic institutions…. The most coveted part of this plan: annexation," of both the West Bank and Gaza. Nor is it planned to stop there: "Most of the parties in the original Netanyahu coalition believe in the cosmic right to a Jewish religious grip over all of historic Palestine. If they could, they'd even cross the Jordan (eastward)," into Jordan (emphasis added.)

So, in other words, up until recently Netanyahu & Co. seemed to accept that the status quo could not be massively changed. Hamas's attack plus a possible shift internally within Israel opened the door for a radical change. Even the reactionary mood within Israel seems to have hardened. Ofer Neiman, long time anti-Zionist and BDS Israeli activist told me "Non-right wing folks seem to feel bad mostly because it's bad PR."

***Gallup poll taken in Mid March. Opinion against Israel surely has increased since then.***

US policy
Meanwhile, the pressure is mounting on Biden to stop US military support for Israel's genocide. An opinion poll taken in mid March (in other words, well before the WCK atrocity) showed that 55% disapproved of Israel's conduct of the war while 36% approved. Even Biden's closest ally in the US senate, Chris Coons (Democrat from Biden's home state of Delaware) is now hinting at making US aid to Israel "conditional". Of course, that is nowhere nearly enough, but it shows the shift that is taking place. This is partly because of the pressure from below, but at least as much it is due to the fact that Israel's present course conflicts with US interests in the region.

This is shown by the resignation of Biden administration worker Annelle Shoreline in late March. She had worked for the US State Department promoting the idea that the US stood for democracy throughout the region. Upon her resignation, she wrote that now "such work has become impossible." Like the opinion poll cited above, Shoreline's resignation was also even before the WCK crime.

Iran and beyond
Netanyahu is in a bind. His coalition government relies on the far right parties. Those parties will not accept concessions to Biden. But without those concessions, it's possible that continued US military aid can be jeopardized. It is in this context that we should consider Netanyahu's bombing of the Iranian embassy in Syria. We have to wonder whether he is not trying to provoke an attack from Iran and then a direct military confrontation between the two countries, with Netanyahu calculating that in those circumstances Biden would rush arms to the aid of Israel.

Of course, that would have massive global consequences, including a political crisis here at home.