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MY VIEW - There is no shortage of historical examples of direct and indirect genocide perpetrated by the US government. The worst example is the near extermination of Native Americans, packaged as manifest destiny, and, like Israel’s actions in Gaza, justified as divine will. According to History magazine:
“By the close of the Indian Wars in the late 19th century, fewer than 238,000 Indigenous people remained, a sharp decline from the estimated 5 million to 15 million living in North America when Columbus arrived in 1492.”
Other examples of genocide perpetrated by the US government include Cambodia, where the US played a direct role, and Guatemala where the US relied on a proxy.
To cite historical precedents for the despicable role of the US government does not, however, excuse it, especially because public opinion polls consistently find that the US public prefers a negotiated cease-fire in Gaza, not a genocide.
On October 7, 2023, when Hamas and nine other Gazan military organizations fought their way out of the Gaza ghetto, initial Israeli deaths totaled 1,195. These included 736 Israeli civilians (including 36 children and 364 people attending a music festival ), 79 foreign nationals, and 379 soldiers, police, and other security forces. Furthermore, at least 14 Israeli civilians were killed by the IDF's use of the Hannibal Directive. Other sources, especially the Electronic Intifada, report the figure is much higher, and that the Israeli military killed hundreds of Israelis through a mass Hannibal directive.
In the subsequent 19 months the death toll of Gazan Palestinians killed by the Israeli military with weapons mostly provided by the US government has soared. According to the Aljazeera Live Tracker, Israel has killed at least 54,056 Palestinians in Gaza. Altogether 70 percent of the murdered are women, children (17,400), and elderly. Furthermore, Aljazeera also reports that at least 123,129 Gazans have been injured, and an estimated 10,000 dead are buried underneath the rubble. In addition, the Israeli military has destroyed nearly all farmable land, public and private infrastructure, hospitals, stores, restaurants, and schools and universities.
- In an unilateral violation of an agreed ceasefire since March 18, 2025, Israel has killed 3,901 Palestinians and wounded 11,088, as well as continued to bomb houses, infrastructure, hospitals, commercial areas, and schools.
- As of January 2025, the official number of Israeli soldiers killed in Gaza is 891. Other news sources, however, report the actual number is almost 6,000 dead, including Israeli soldiers killed in Lebanon, Syria, and the West Bank.
We do know that in Gaza the Israeli government’s slaughter of Palestinians has continued for the past 19 months, with full diplomatic and military support from the United States, including the former Biden and current Trump Presidential administrations. During this period, the UN’s International Criminal Court (ICC) and International Court of Justice (ICJ) determined that Israel’s actions in Gaza constituted genocide.
Political repression in the United States. The cases of foreign students who have been detained for pro-Palestinian advocacy and sometimes deported by the Trump administration has been widely reported. There is much more to this story though, and that is the 50501 movement. This is a pseudo-grass roots organization organized by Democratic Party operatives. It is opposed to the Trump administration’s domestic agenda, but never mentions the complicity of the US government in the Gaza genocide.
Even though the US public is opposed to endless Israeli attacks on the Palestinians in Gaza, this has not slowed down the bi-partisan top-down support for this genocide by the US government. Even if most Gazans are killed or starved to death, there is no chance, however, that Israel or the United States will control the Gaza Strip. Resistance will continue and probably increase since destroyed buildings and unexploded bombs create an ideal environment for an already reconstituted Hamas to battle the Israeli military in perpetuity.
(Victor Rothman is a California-based political analyst and a contributor to CityWatchLA.com.)
