{"id":4330,"date":"2021-10-12T16:00:53","date_gmt":"2021-10-12T20:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tempestmag.org\/v01_2020\/staging\/?p=4330"},"modified":"2021-10-18T22:13:09","modified_gmt":"2021-10-19T02:13:09","slug":"iron-domes-deadly-lessons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/2021\/10\/iron-domes-deadly-lessons\/","title":{"rendered":"Iron Dome\u2019s Deadly Lessons"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On September 23rd the US House voted 420 to 9 to <a href=\"https:\/\/appropriations.house.gov\/sites\/democrats.appropriations.house.gov\/files\/documents\/Iron%20Dome%20Supplemental%20Appropriations%20Act%202022.pdf\">spend<\/a> $1 billion in taxpayer dollars to replenish Israel\u2019s \u201cIron Dome missile\u201d interceptor battery. This staunch and unsurprising demonstration of bipartisan military support for Israel\u2019s war crimes found opposition from only 9 representatives, including Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Cori Bush, and a handful of others. Several supposedly progressive representatives seen by many on the left as allies even voted for the bill, including Betty McCollum of Minnesota who sponsored <a href=\"https:\/\/mccollum.house.gov\/media\/press-releases\/mccollum-introduces-historic-legislation-defending-human-rights-palestinian\">H.R. 2590<\/a>, a bill which seeks to condition US aid by not funding Israeli jailing of Palestinian children, as well as Wisconsin\u2019s Mark Pocan. During the proceedings Tlaib\u2014who is Palestinian\u2014<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=SIsT5Epojao\">spoke<\/a> against voting for the appropriations bill. The response was an onslaught of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=j6aZH4egHCg\">Democrats<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RepChuck\/status\/1441105872470507529?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1441105872470507529%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Felectronicintifada.net%2Fblogs%2Fmichael-f-brown%2Fdemocrats-abandon-rashida-tlaib-racist-onslaught\">Republicans<\/a> decrying Tlaib\u2019s \u201cbesmirchment of our ally\u201d, and slanders against her with the tired charge of antisemitism. Not a <a href=\"https:\/\/electronicintifada.net\/blogs\/michael-f-brown\/democrats-abandon-rashida-tlaib-racist-onslaught\">single Democrat<\/a>, even from the Squad, stood up to defend her.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"pullquote\">On a standalone vote on a one-line item to support Israel militarily, candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America had a split vote<\/aside>\n<p>More troubling is that on a standalone vote on a one-line item to support Israel militarily, candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America had a split vote. Jamaal Bowman of New York City voted in favor of the funding, <a href=\"https:\/\/rampantmag.com\/2021\/08\/a-vote-to-fund-apartheid\/\">again<\/a> demonstrating his consistent commitment to funding Israel. In just over a month\u2019s time, he has approved funding to Israel to the tune of $4.3 billion. In a tremendous display of political cowardice, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez switched her \u201cno\u201d vote to abstain from voting.<\/p>\n<p>As in <a href=\"https:\/\/rampantmag.com\/2021\/08\/a-vote-to-fund-apartheid\/\">August<\/a>, when parts of the Squad\u2014and certain DSA members among them\u2014voted for $3.3 billion in military funding for Israel, this vote should raise major strategic questions. Are electoral campaigns inside the Democratic Party effective at combating US support for Israel\u2019s ethnic cleansing and oppression of Palestinians? This fiscal year (assuming this bill passes the Senate, which appears a given) the US will have spent more in providing direct military support for Israel than any <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org\/total-u-s-foreign-aid-to-israel-1949-present\">other year<\/a> in at least the last forty years. And the tiny opposition to this record spending has not even been able to maintain a consistent approach against direct military spending for apartheid and settler colonialism.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_4335\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4335\" style=\"width: 639px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-4335\" src=\"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/640px-Flickr_-_Israel_Defense_Forces_-_Iron_Dome_Intercepts_Rockets_from_the_Gaza_Strip.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"639\" height=\"426\" srcset=\"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/640px-Flickr_-_Israel_Defense_Forces_-_Iron_Dome_Intercepts_Rockets_from_the_Gaza_Strip.jpeg 639w, https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/640px-Flickr_-_Israel_Defense_Forces_-_Iron_Dome_Intercepts_Rockets_from_the_Gaza_Strip-600x400.jpeg 600w, https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/640px-Flickr_-_Israel_Defense_Forces_-_Iron_Dome_Intercepts_Rockets_from_the_Gaza_Strip-300x200.jpeg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 639px) 100vw, 639px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-4335\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Iron Dome. Photo credit: Wikipedia Commons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h4>Iron Dome<\/h4>\n<p>Israel\u2019s eleven-day bombardment of Gaza this summer murdered 256 Palestinians, 66 of them children, demolished schools and clinics, and flattened residential buildings. Less than <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2021\/6\/2\/israel-will-ask-us-for-1-billion-to-replenish-iron-dome\">two weeks<\/a> afterward, Israel\u2019s minister of defense\u2014Benny Gantz\u2014hurried to Washington to request the extra $1 billion on top of the $3.8 billion the US already gives Israel annually in accordance with a memorandum of understanding established by the Obama administration.<\/p>\n<p>The Iron Dome system is a set of specialized missile batteries that function to intercept short-range rockets fired at Israel. It is with this pretense that supporters of Zionism claim that Iron Dome is \u201cdefensive.\u201d This completely misses the context that exposes this simple claim as duplicitous.<\/p>\n<p>Development of Iron Dome began in the wake of the Second Lebanon War in 2006 when Israel used the pretext of a Hezbollah raid in Israeli-controlled territory to launch a full-on invasion and bombardment of Lebanon. It carried out massive retaliations and an act of flagrant collective punishment on the Lebanese population. Thousands of Lebanese were killed (only 43 Israeli civilians were killed) and a host of human rights organizations, such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, found that Israel had committed a host of war crimes including the dropping of cluster bombs and white phosphorus on civilian areas. Though leaving a path of destruction in its wake, Israel was forced to withdraw in what many considered a military loss. Israel\u2019s doctrine of overwhelming violence as a deterrent needed to be adjusted to better secure its borders.<\/p>\n<p>A year prior, Israel carried out a unilateral disengagement of Israeli settlements from, and subsequent blockade of Gaza. By 2007, the blockade of Gaza became near totally imposed and continues to this day, with crippling consequences for Palestinians living in this densely populated enclave. With the illegal fencing of Gaza, the use of a short-range interceptor system helped secure a new militarized border caging Palestinians in.<\/p>\n<p>Thus the Iron Dome system can barely be called \u201cdefensive,\u201d as it functions to facilitate Israel\u2019s one-sided aggression against Palestinians and neighboring Arab countries. It allows Israel to carry out regular bombing and missile strikes against civilian populations, especially in Gaza. It ensures that Israeli aggression, war crimes, and ethnic cleansing can be carried out with next to no human cost to Israel.<\/p>\n<p>Considering the number of people killed by Israel\u2019s rockets and airstrikes, the hypocrisy of US politicians justifying the need to back Iron Dome in order to \u201csave lives\u201d is outrageous. Israel doesn\u2019t need protection; it is the primary perpetrator of violence, and does so with overwhelming financial support and with one of the most advanced militaries on the planet.<\/p>\n<p>And yet, since Iron Dome became operational in 2011 it has been a joint American\/Israeli project with a huge amount of funding coming from US taxpayers.\u00a0 Fifty percent of the missiles are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2021-05-21\/what-is-israel-s-iron-dome-anti-rocket-system-quicktake\">produced<\/a> by the US, and technology is shared between the states. Moreover, it is now possibly going on the market as <a href=\"https:\/\/breakingdefense.com\/2021\/09\/saudi-arabia-considering-israeli-made-missile-defense-systems\/\">Saudi Arabia<\/a> is considering contracting Israel for a similar interceptor system. This is just another instance of US cash funding the Israeli permanent arms economy that helps arm other reactionary states.<\/p>\n<p>In a coincidence probably not lost to Israeli politicians, the very name\u2014Iron Dome\u2014evokes the writings of Zionist fascist Ze\u2019ev Jabotinsky who openly called for the complete purging of Palestinians from the land and the construction of a Jewish-only state \u201cindependent of the native population\u2014behind an iron wall, which the native population cannot breach.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This iron wall to secure Israeli settler colonialism, atrocities, and unbridled violence is what Bowman voted for and Ocasio-Cortez abstained from.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_4336\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4336\" style=\"width: 1200px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-4336\" src=\"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Eq1CRC_XEAQhgG-.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"919\" srcset=\"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Eq1CRC_XEAQhgG-.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Eq1CRC_XEAQhgG--600x460.jpg 600w, https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Eq1CRC_XEAQhgG--300x230.jpg 300w, https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Eq1CRC_XEAQhgG--1024x784.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Eq1CRC_XEAQhgG--768x588.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-4336\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Socialist elected officials. Photo credit: Twitter @CoriBush<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h4>Taking Stock<\/h4>\n<p>The drama of AOC shifting from a \u201cno\u201d vote to voting \u201cpresent,\u201d then subsequently breaking down in tears, grabbed media attention. While I would caution against the left\u00a0 focusing its critique on her tears\u2014as some have\u2014because of the sexist tropes of \u201cemotional women,\u201d AOC\u2019s changing of her vote deserves fierce condemnation. The whole affair is a curious one: the vote should be a straightforward one for any individual who claims to be for the human rights of Palestinians, and yet there is a degree of mystery around her wavering. <a href=\"https:\/\/jezebel.com\/aoc-breaks-with-squad-votes-present-on-1-billion-to-f-1847733155\">Some<\/a> have speculated that her abstention is related to her eyeing a possible Senate run. While it is certainly the case that AOC has ambitions, and that moving up in the Democratic Party is usually <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2021\/01\/01\/warnock-israel-dmfi-senate\/\">tied to<\/a> being in line with its position in support of \u201cmaintaining Israel\u2019s security,\u201d this explanation still seems simplistic. If this was some highly strategic political chess move, then why did she initially signal she would vote no, and why did she vote against H.R. 4373 that endowed Israel with $3.3 billion?<\/p>\n<p>On the day following the vote AOC issued an \u201capology\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RepAOC\/status\/1441488402906447872\">statement<\/a> that de-mystified nothing. In the statement made to her congressional district, she says she opposed the resolution that she abstained from voting on. Yet, the reason for her switching her vote remains completely unexplained. Blaming the rushed nature of the vote and the procedure with which the resolution was brought to the floor, which she describes as \u201cthreatening to tear our community apart, and permanently close the doors that we desperately need open,\u201d she claims that if only the vote was delayed a few hours then this vote would not be met with \u201cvitriol.\u201d How this justified her switching her vote is still unexplained, unless one assumes that one of the most controversial questions in American politics\u2014the US unflagging support for Israeli racism and ethnic cleansing\u2014could be resolved through a better procedure in the US House. This is absurd.<\/p>\n<p>Whatever the reason for her retreat, whether crude careerism or inter-party pulls, it is certainly the case that pressure was exerted for her to get in line, perhaps directly so. And the attempts to organize a counter-force are mired by not being independent of these pulls. This produces the jarring inconsistency within the Squad, with Omar breaking to vote \u2018yes\u2019 to fund Israel in August and AOC voting \u2018no\u2019, while last week AOC abstained and Omar voted \u2018no.\u2019 While what motivated AOC last week may be unclear, the fact is that the Democratic Party\u2019s capability to discipline its politicians around issues like Israel is a powerful force.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"pullquote\">Bowman, whose campaign slogan was \u201cfighting for jobs and education, not bombs and incarceration,\u201d has distinguished himself by consistently voting for bombs for Israel this year<\/aside>\n<p>While AOC has received media attention and criticism from the left for her flip-flop, Jamaal Bowman\u2019s vote in favor of Iron Dome funding has generated relatively few waves. While lacking the drama of AOC\u2019s vote, Bowman\u2019s is perhaps more egregious. Bowman, like AOC, is a member of DSA, an organization that has expressed support for Palestine, the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement, and cutting aid to Israel. His election last year was described by Jacobin as a \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.jacobinmag.com\/2020\/06\/new-york-city-election-primary-democratic-socialists-of-america\">political earthquake<\/a>\u201d and his Green New Deal for School initiative is currently being <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dsausa.org\/calendar\/green-new-deal-for-public-schools-campaign-launch\/\">pushed<\/a> heavily in DSA. And yet, the politician whose campaign slogan was \u201cfighting for jobs and education, not bombs and incarceration\u201d has distinguished himself by consistently voting for bombs for Israel this year, totalling $4.3 billion dollars. There is a grotesque irony in his undoubtedly taking to Twitter\u2014as he did this past May\u2014to criticize Israel using the very weapons against Palestinian civilians that he voted to pay for.<\/p>\n<p>Part of the reason Bowman\u2019s vote has garnered less press is that his political softness on Israel is unsurprising. There seems to be a sense that more was not expected of him. This speaks loudly to the very questions these incidents raise around socialist strategy for fighting imperialism and for justice in Palestine. To say that our socialist strategy to combat US imperialism and Israeli settler colonialism includes not expecting socialist candidates to vote against these things can barely be considered a strategy,<br \/>\nlet alone a winning one.<\/p>\n<h4>Socialist Strategy<\/h4>\n<p>So how will the socialist movement and organizations respond? Unlike the vote on H.R. 4373, the DSA National Political Committee issued a <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DemSocialists\/status\/1441485117390790656\">statement<\/a> condemning the vote. The statement names Bowman and Ocasio-Cortez and expressed \u201cdisappointment\u201d in their votes. But beyond an expression of sadness about their vote, there is no indication as to what these failures mean, if there is any cost to these two candidates, or if there are any lessons to be drawn. The closest thing to the latter is the statement\u2019s expression that: \u201cIt is up to us, as socialists, to build enough working class power to ensure that votes like this can never happen again.\u201d Nevermind that votes like this have already happened, and just last month with Bowman.<\/p>\n<p>To say that it is up to \u201cus, as socialists\u201d completely absolves Bowman and AOC of responsibility. They needn\u2019t do anything differently, it is just us that need to build an ambiguous \u201cworking-class power.\u201d Most likely this refers to the oft-expressed need to get more socialist candidates in Congress. But this process of utopian incrementalism, of dreaming of an ever-ascending slow accumulation of socialist \u201celecteds\u201d is a strategy without a time frame. Are we talking about 8, 12, 16 years? If so, one must ask what will happen to the Palestinian people in that time frame. Settler colonialism, ethnic cleansing, and catastrophe are happening now, with American backing. Are Palestinians to be told to wait while \u201cworking-class power\u201d is built?<\/p>\n<p>Additionally the question of <em>how<\/em> power is to be built is essential. Instead of DSA holding elected officials accountable, it was once again the Democratic Party that did all the disciplining. As was seen when the party apparatus kicked into full gear to <a href=\"https:\/\/rampantmag.com\/2020\/04\/bernie-and-the-house-obama-build\/\">end the Sanders presidential run<\/a> in 2020, the Democrats exert massive pull on their members. Without an independent party that can not only discipline its elected officials but also back them around controversial elements of its program, the pull towards the center is a black hole for the left that will only grow.<\/p>\n<p>Building a movement against imperialism and for justice in Palestine will require, first and foremost, building a movement from below beyond the imbroglio of DC politics. But we also need a better electoral strategy. As I have <a href=\"https:\/\/rampantmag.com\/2021\/08\/a-vote-to-fund-apartheid\/\">argued<\/a> before: \u201cInstead of endorsing a politically uneven assortment of candidates over whom we\u2019ll have limited control once they win office, we need a political party (independent of the two cartels that dominate US government) that is internally democratic and membership-based, which fields its own candidates and can hold them accountable. And such a strategy has to be premised on an understanding that all good social change comes from<a href=\"https:\/\/rampantmag.com\/2021\/04\/all-good-social-change-comes-from-mass-disruption\/\"> mass disruption<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><strong>brian bean<\/strong> analyzes the refusal of several socialist elected officials to oppose Israel\u2019s settler colonialism and discusses implications for socialist strategy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":4339,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,7,10],"tags":[28,240,123,181],"class_list":["post-4330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article","category-debate","category-reprint","tag-dsa","tag-electoral-politics","tag-international","tag-palestine"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/bowman3.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4330\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}