When it comes to Israel Palestine shouldn t human rights be at the center of US policy ?
The Biden administration has committed rhetorically to centering human rights in US foreign policy. But when it comes to Palestine/Israel, the Biden administration has continued long-standing policies of enabling Israeli human rights abuses against Palestinians by failing to apply relevant US laws and enabling Israel’s abuses through diplomatic protection at the UN. Even when Israel has committed gross human rights violations against Palestinian Americans, the United States has failed to hold Israel accountable. This selective concern with human rights is most evident when we compare US policy toward Russia’s military occupation, annexation, and war crimes in Ukraine with Israel’s military occupation, annexation, and war crimes in Palestine.
- The United States enables Israel’s human rights abuses against Palestinians by giving Israel weapons, by vetoing resolutions in the UN condemning Israeli human rights abuses and by criticizing and attempting to block UN investigatory bodies, by refusing to acknowledge this is an issue of an oppressor and the oppressed, and by failing to take any meaningful action to pressure Israel to halt policies, such as settlement expansion, which the US claims to oppose.