In his State of the Union Address, “Genocide Joe” Biden claimed he was making a big humanitarian move by directing the U.S. military to lead an emergency mission to set up a "temporary pier" on the Gaza coast to receive ships carrying food, water, medicine, and temporary shelters. A British newspaper described this as “an olive branch” (a concession and a peace offering) from Biden to Democratic voters outraged by U.S. support for Israel’s slaughter of more than 30,000 Palestinian people in Gaza. 

This is no “olive branch.” This is an attempt to bamboozle, confuse, and defuse righteous outrage and protest against Israel’s genocide and U.S. backing for that while the genocide escalates. Even if Biden’s temporary pier for aid gets set up and becomes operational in some form in Gaza, U.S. officials say that would take two months. But children in Gaza are already dying of starvation right now.

Let’s make it plain: what Biden is doing is the equivalent of Hitler sending a few sandwiches to the Nazi death camp, Auschwitz. 

Complete and Utter Bullshit

Biden’s whole “deal” is based on complete bullshit: the premise that there are no physical pathways for aid to get into Gaza now and that a channel by sea into Gaza is the solution. The problem is not because there are not enough trucks, or no high-volume ground transit points between Israel and Gaza. 

Before October 7, Israel “allowed” more than 500 trucks a day containing food and other aid to go into Gaza. Today, Israel has cut that to about 100 trucks a day in order to starve the Palestinian people in Gaza. And the U.S. is backing this by supplying Israel with billions of dollars of bombs, drones, tanks, missiles, and guns. 

In Devastated, Bombed-Out Gaza, Children and Babies Are Starving to Death NOW

On March 7, Gaza’s Health Ministry reported that at least 16 children died of malnutrition and dehydration during the previous week. 

Some had underlying health conditions, like 10-year-old Yazan Al-Kafarneh. Yazan had been dependent on a special diet that included blended fruit and milk. A relative told Al Jazeera that the family had been forced to move many times, seeking shelter. Yazan’s father described not being able to find food for Yazan at any price anywhere in Gaza. 

Yazan’s family brought him from north Gaza to Rafah in the far south in search of medical care. But they found nothing. Speaking to the world, a relative called out: “the barbaric war and the oppressive actions of the Israeli occupation against the children of Gaza” were responsible and “must be stopped.” And he called out to “the free people of the world, what are you waiting for?... we have reached famine and complete catastrophe.” 

Right now, six infants are being treated for malnutrition at Kamal Adwan hospital in the Gaza town of Beit Lahia. Pause now. Stop and feel the heartbreak, the pain that will never go away, the fury, of a parent, sibling, or loved one who must watch their child waste away and die for lack of fruit and milk. All the while, in this world of tremendous food resources, access to food, a basic element of human survival is strangled by a system of exploitation and oppression. And that same system maintains its rule by starving children as a weapon of war.

About 576,000 people—more than a quarter of Gaza’s population—are on the brink of famine according to United Nations officials. One in six infants younger than two years in northern Gaza suffers from malnutrition. The UN issued a warning that the Gaza Strip is likely to suffer widespread famine if urgent action is not taken. That famine could begin as early as next week. And the UN warned that once a famine has been declared, it is typically already too late to help many of the affected.

And if Israel goes ahead with its declared plan to invade the city of Rafah, where more than a million people driven from their homes elsewhere in Gaza are camping in flimsy tents on sand, the humanitarian disaster in Gaza will reach unimaginably greater proportions. 

Biden's "Floating Pier," a Sadistic Hustle

So, back to Biden’s temporary pier in Gaza. Biden claimed that the U.S. military will use a commercial seaport in the city of Larnaca, on the island nation of Cyprus, to ship food and other aid to Gaza—more than 200 miles away by sea. And build a temporary, floating pier in Gaza where aid can be unloaded.

Two months from now, when this sea channel is promised, famine will be out of control. Beyond that, huge gaps in the “plan” make it almost impossible to take seriously. The Pentagon claims that non-U.S. personnel, who it will not identify, will take responsibility for the critical step of unloading aid, and packing it in trucks for distribution. In Gaza?! Where people in a crowd gathered to receive food were gunned down, thousands injured, more than 100 murdered, by Israeli troops on February 29? Where Israel bombs people in places it designated as “safe zones” with U.S.-supplied bombs?  Where on-the-scene aid workers are fired on by Israeli tanks when they travel on routes assigned by Israel?

Avril Benoît, executive director for Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), insisted, "This is not a logistics problem; it is a political problem." And he said, "Rather than look to the US military to build a work-around, the US should insist on immediate humanitarian access using the roads and entry points that already exist." 

Israel Is Starving People in Gaza to Death, and the U.S. Is Enabling That

The problem is not, as Biden implied in his State of the Union Address, that for Israel, humanitarian aid is a “secondary consideration or a bargaining chip.” The problem is that Israel is starving the people of Gaza to death, on purpose. And the U.S. has enabled this all the way.

Israel has systematically targeted Gaza’s food production, bombing bakeries, killing fishermen, and destroying farms. It has systematically targeted food distribution channels, repeatedly bombing aid convoys. Israel has enabled small numbers of genocidal so-called “protesters” to cripple aid going into Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing.

Right now, Israeli “inspections” deny much essential aid from getting into Gaza, banning—to take just one example—sanitary pads for women on their period. The “plan” for the shipping channel includes allowing Israeli inspectors at the export site in Cyprus to block anything they want to, which is already a deadly choke point for aid.

Biden, his vice president, Harris, and all the rest of the U.S. government and military are perfectly aware of all this. And they have not just allowed Israel to go on, but the U.S. has backed all this with billions of dollars’ worth of bombs, drones, rifles, and tanks. And by vetoing three cease-fire resolutions at the UN that might have provided at least a chance for aid agencies to operate in Gaza. 

To dig into why, start with the social media post REVOLUTION Number Seven from Bob Avakian (BA), revolutionary leader, author of the new communism. BA gets to the bottom of “Why is Biden, and basically the entire government and ruling class of the U.S., supporting Israel in carrying out genocide against the Palestinian people, before the whole world?”

Nobody who cares about humanity should take up Biden’s “olive branch”—his fake-ass offering—in any way shape or form. Instead, do the right thing: intensify the struggle to STOP the genocide in Gaza NOW and urgently work to overthrow the system behind this genocide and so many other horrors on this planet.