Why the Biden Administration Continues to Support Israel's Genocidal Massacre and Ethnic Cleansing of Gaza
On Israel, the US Military-Industrial Complex, and the Dialectic of History
Many left-leaning people seem flummoxed as to why President Biden and the United States government continues to support Israel in its genocidal massacre and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Gaza. Once again, we must analyze this as historical materialists rather than as idealists by looking at two factors:
Israel's role as a forward operating base for US economic and national security interests in the region
The wicked cycle of mutually reinforcing self-interest between the US, its military-industrial complex, and Israel
Firstly, Israel serves as a critically important geostrategic forward operating base for the US military in the Middle East, a region that has fundamental economic interest to the US due to its massive fossil fuel reserves.
For nearly 100 years, the US has focused its foreign policy and military aid on securing safe passage for oil and gas to and through the Suez Canal - that includes the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Oman, the Arabian Sea, the Gulf of Aden, and the Red Sea.
It's no accident that the US has propped up allies, spent trillions in military aid, and installed permanent military bases all along this route - Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Oman, Djibouti, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Jordan. And it's also no accident that significant military expenditure has focused on the chokepoints along that route - the Strait of Hormuz (UAE), the Bab al-Mandab Strait (Djibouti), and the Suez Canal (Egypt). If any of these chokepoints were disrupted the impact on the global economy would be enormous.
The one country in the region that has actively resisted and opposed US dominance is just coincidentally (lol) the most demonized country in the US press over the last 20 years: Iran. The US has done everything in its power outside of a direct invasion to isolate Iran economically and politically while surrounding it geographically with a tightening noose of US-aligned states, including Israel, Pakistan, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, and UAE.
Israel is the single key country in this alliance because Israel has nuclear weapons and all the most advanced military weaponry the US is willing to sell abroad. Israel is the only country in the Middle East that maintains first strike nuclear strike capability against Iran and is willing to use it to further US interests. And the US maintains classified military installations and personnel throughout Israel with the expressed focus of monitoring and opposing Iran.
That leads us to the second piece of the analysis. There is a WICKED circle of mutual, reinforcing self-interest between the US, Israel, and the US military-industrial complex that is supported and perpetuated by a massive political propaganda machine.
Here's how the cycle works: (1) The US government provides billions in military aid to Israel to maintain and expand a US-friendly forward operating base in the region, (2) Israel spends the vast majority of this money on weapon systems built by US military contractors, (3) US military contractors lobby the US government through think tanks, high powered lobbying firms, and campaign donations to provide more military aid to Israel. So the US government provides billions in military aid to Israel. Rinse and repeat.
All three parties benefit immensely from this relationship. The US government benefits because it maintains power over Israel via military aid and can thus influence it to act on behalf of US interests in the region and oppose non-compliant regional actors. Israel benefits because it strengthens its already overwhelmingly powerful military position in the region and also has leverage to push back on the US and engage in its own adventurism because it knows that the US needs it. And US military contractors benefit because they're making massive and increasing profits on sales to Israel.
These three entities are locked into a death spiral together. If a US administration decided to reduce military aid to Israel, the military-industrial complex would immediately fund opposition candidate campaigns across the US while strategically closing factories and creating massive unemployment in key Congressional districts. Think tanks and influential media outlets would write hair-on-fire articles about how the policy is a threat to US national security. Etc until the policy was reversed or the people who created it are voted out. Additionally, the US military-industrial complex is a safe and highly lucrative landing place for former elected officials and military personnel to see out their careers - so it's in the current US administration's interests to make sure that lucrative landing place continues to be lucrative for THEM in the future.
All of this gives Israel IMMENSE freedom to use its massively powerful military in ways that might create more headaches for the US - because ultimately no US administration is willing to pay the price of opposing Israel or cutting military aide to Israel. So if Israel wants to engage in its own settler-colonial adventurism by massacring and ethnically cleansing Palestinians using all of the advanced weaponry funded by the US and constructed by the US military-industrial complex... the US is in no position to oppose that unless it wants to kill the goose that laid the golden egg.
I don't think any Democratic Party operative operative would disagree that Israel's genocidal massacre and ethnic cleansing of Gaza has made the region less stable and created more tension within the US network of allies in the region. But if the US isn't able to cut off aid to Israel then what leverage does it really have? So even if the Biden Administration wanted to explicitly and materially oppose Israeli's Gaza campaign (and they don't, to be clear) they wouldn't have the political support to do so - and doing so would make the military-industrial complex their enemy in the 2024 election cycle.
You'll notice that at no point in this analysis did I speak about morality or ethics or justice. And that's because these kinds of idealist frameworks are not what drive the dialectic of history nor will appealing to them have any effect on the underlying material relationships that maintain existing structures of power. Yes all of this is wildly evil, unethical, and unjust - but saying so does nothing. We must take material action, utilizing the context created by our historical moment (which is never black/white but always gray).
I don't have a pithy way to end this and there's no good news here. I guess the big takeaway is that US empire and military adventurism is the root of the problem - but eliminating US empire requires first eliminating the US military-industrial complex, which seems quite impossible in our current status quo political economy. And certainly not a project where voting does anything at all. The only solutions are likely to be a protracted [redacted] over a very long period of time.