As you read this, Israel is escalating a blatant genocide in the Gaza Strip. And the United States government is funding it, arming it, and whitewashing it as it has for nearly a year now.

Nobody can honestly claim this is a “war against Hamas.” Israel has slaughtered over 40,000 people in Gaza, 15,000 of them children. This is a one-sided genocidal massacre aimed at the Palestinian people as a people.

Look at the evidence.

A “War Against Hamas” in Which the Main Targets Are the Palestinian People

On August 1, the United Nations warned that the humanitarian situation in Gaza remains “beyond catastrophic.” The destruction of Gaza’s water, electrical, transportation and sewage systems is responsible for Gaza’s first polio cases in decades. Repeated evacuation into ever-shrinking and not-at-all “safe” so-called “safe zones” has drastically limited the ability of aid agencies to operate. A UN investigator found that Israel blocked one million Palestinians in Gaza from receiving any food rations in August.

In just two days, September 6 and 7, Israeli bombs and missiles killed at least 61 people in Gaza, from the north to the south. Among the dead were two children killed by Israeli shelling near the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza. In another massacre, an Israeli air attack targeted a school-turned-shelter for displaced Palestinians north of Gaza City. Israel killed at least three people and wounding 20 more in that attack.

Over and over, Israel justifies their murder of civilians (as they did at the school near Gaza City) as a “precise strike” on combatants “inside a Hamas command and control centre.” And over and over, it is civilians, including children, who are Israel’s victims.

In the face of this, people around the world have demanded a ceasefire. Biden, and with him Kamala Harris, have proclaimed themselves as working “around the clock” for a ceasefire.

BASIC REALITY CHECK: Any meaningful interpretation of the word “ceasefire” in the case of Gaza would be that the force that has been committing world-historic crimes against humanity in Gaza—ISRAEL—would CEASE carrying out those crimes. And that the force enabling that with bombs, money, and diplomatic cover—THE UNITED STATES—would CEASE doing that! 

But Biden and Harris are not only arming Israel’s genocide, for months they have been covering for Israel, which has been sabotaging any chances of a ceasefire.

Biden “Isolates Israel from Criticism” After it Assassinates Hamas’ Chief Negotiator 

On July 31, 2024, Israel assassinated Ismail Haniyeh, the civilian political leader of Hamas and Hamas’s chief negotiator in ceasefire talks. It is very hard to imagine a more blatant move to sabotage any kind of negotiation than assassinating the person you are supposedly negotiating with. Israel didn’t publicly take credit, but it informed U.S. officials that it was responsible.

And yet, the U.S. made no criticisms of Israel assassinating Haniyeh. A former senior administration official told CNN that the Biden-Harris administration was committed to “maintaining the fiction Netanyahu has agreed” to a framework for a ceasefire. And that whatever conflict there was over a ceasefire between Biden and Netanyahu, the White House was “insulating Netanyahu from [public] criticism.” Again, please note the source: a former senior administration official.

Yet Genocide Joe and now War Crimes Kamala have insisted over and over that it is Hamas that is obstructing a ceasefire.

Radical New Demand by Israel Sabotages Latest Ceasefire Proposal

A September 7 article on ceasefire negotiations in the Washington Post was headlined “Biden cease-fire push falters again after new demand by Hamas.” 

That was a lie.

The article claimed ceasefire progress had been blocked by “the abrupt introduction by Hamas of a new demand surrounding which prisoners Israel would release.” Negotiations over how and which prisoners Israel would release in exchange for Hamas releasing kidnapped Israeli hostages is not a “new demand.” It is a manageable and relatively resolvable issue within what has been reported as Biden’s framework for a ceasefire, something Biden claimed Israel had signed on to.

But then—further down, of course—comes a truth:

Netanyahu upended the talks in late July when he introduced a new set of demands, including his insistence that Israeli troops remain in the eight-mile-long border between Gaza and Egypt known as the Philadelphi Corridor [emphasis added].

The Philadelphi corridor is an Israeli name for a nine-mile long strip of land near the city of Rafah. That strip of land was seized and occupied by Israeli tanks in May 2024, during the invasion of Rafah. 

Two Reasons Why Israel’s Demand for Control Over the Gaza-Egypt Border Broke the Negotiations

Reason Number One: Since October 7, the Rafah crossing has been the most reliable way aid got into Gaza. The Rafah crossing also allowed a small number of people from Gaza to get into Egypt for medical care while Israel was systematically destroying Gaza’s medical infrastructure.¹ 

But with Israel’s seizure of the Rafah crossing, the situation got much worse. The crossing was closed. Now, the only openings into Gaza are directly from Israel. That means Israel has much more control over what goes into Gaza. 

For example, much if not most of the food “aid” going into Gaza is now through private companies and commercial distributors. It is not distributed by aid agencies for free, but is for sale in markets at a cost far beyond the means of impoverished and starving people in Gaza. Thirty eggs now cost $33. A box of baby formula costs $19. A packet of shampoo costs $26. With total control over what goes into Gaza, Israel is both starving and viciously exploiting the people there.

Reason Number Two: Egypt is highly unlikely to allow Israel to control its border.

Israel knows that demanding any agreement that recognizes its right to occupy the Gaza-Egypt border is most likely a deal breaker with Egypt.

Egypt is a mediator in ceasefire talks together with the United States and Qatar. A previous treaty² with Israel supposedly guaranteed that the Gaza side of the border would be administered by Palestinians. And Egypt reacted angrily to any suggestions that a ceasefire deal would allow Israel to take over the Gaza side of the Egypt-Gaza border.

Going Forward, Not Falling for Bourgeois Electoral Bullshit from Harris

Meanwhile, there is widespread outrage in Israeli society over the (accurate) perception that the Netanyahu government has little or no interest in a ceasefire that would free remaining Israeli hostages held by Hamas and aligned forces in Gaza. That outrage erupted on a new level after Hamas reportedly killed six hostages. There have been protests demanding a ceasefire and return of the hostages by tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of people, especially in Israel’s largest city, Tel Aviv. (For background on this, see the video clip of Bob Avakian speaking to The Existential Crisis Facing Israel.)

At this time, those in the U.S.—and they are in the millions—who have been sickened by what their government is backing must not be allowed to sedate themselves with bourgeois electoral bullshit, must not be allowed to persuade themselves that voting for Harris is some kind of "lesser evil." And those in the U.S.—and they number in the tens of thousands—who rose up on the campuses, as well as Palestinian-American communities—must not give in to the repression on the campuses or to feelings of isolation from the broader society or stupefying hopes that the supposed micro-concessions of the last Democratic convention (“they allowed us to meet!”) are somehow any kind of path forward.

Now is not a time for despair or giving up. But it's also not a time for empty proclamations that "Palestine is winning." Now is a time for confronting the reality and looking squarely at the desperate urgency of the situation. Palestinian people are dying, they are being starved, they are being traumatized in ways that stun and stagger the mind. What we need now—at the beginning of not only the school year but what will be a politically explosive autumn—is renewed resistance against this U.S.-backed genocide, reaching out as broadly as possible, uniting all who can be united and waging this struggle as boldly as required to actually end this. We need a movement with full and honest debate about the road forward for this struggle and for the future of humanity overall.