The widely documented events in Israel and Palestine have been shared throughout the world via social media, news articles and news coverage. The United States has always been one of the closest allies to Israel, and a country that Israel has maintained good relations with. Since the start of the Israel-Hamas conflict on Oct. 7, 2023, the U.S. has aided Israel with $17.9 billion according to the Associated Press. By doing this, we are essentially helping Israel cause terror on innocent lives in Palestine. If the U.S. wants to keep their core values in place, then we should stop funding Israel. Otherwise, we are no better than the terrorists themselves.
The conflict between Israel and Palestine is over “land and sovereignty,” which dates back to the end of the 19th century. When the UN Partition Plan took place in 1947, this divided the Palestine territories into two separate Jewish and Arab states. Since then, both countries have had this political tension between each other.
The Palestinian movement known as Hamas and Israel have been at odds with each other constantly within the past year or so. Israel would say Hamas started this conflict when Hamas killed about 1200 people and took 254 hostage in the initial attack on Oct. 7. Hamas would say the conflict started with Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip following the Six-Day War. Since the beginning of the conflict, however, Israel has retaliated on several occasions by killing more than 44,000 innocent Palestinians, all this while being aided by the U.S.
Israel has a clearly malicious intent towards the people of Palestine. Everyday, new pictures are being published on various social media accounts, capturing the destruction of homes, hospitals, markets and more. What exactly is the point of attacking innocent people ? Why have we funded Israel with billions of dollars since the start of the conflict?
Benjamin Netanyahu is the prime minister of Israel. Netanyahu has voiced his conservative opinions and views on different political matters over these past years. Netanyahu has expressed on multiple occasions his disgust and distaste for not only the Palestinian people, but Arab nations in general.
“There is no way to solve [Israel’s] long-term challenges to provide lasting security,” Netanyahu said in a news briefing on Jan. 18. “And there is no way to solve the short-term challenges of rebuilding Gaza and establishing governance in Gaza and providing security for Gaza without the establishment of a Palestinian state.”
One of Israel’s most recent acts has been in the form of a quadcopter, or what the Palestinians in Gaza call a “sniper drone”. This article from NPR explains the sniper drones, specifically the experiences and hardships that some Palestinians have faced when dealing with them. Every week or so, Israel is trying to find new ways to terrorize innocent people who aren’t involved in the conflict.
The irony of this situation is that the U.S. once fought against genocide in World War II. The U.S. has always portrayed itself as being the superhero for the world. Now, we as a nation support the attacks being laid out on the Palestinas day after day, and silence anybody who tries to speak out against what is right by arresting participants of Pro Palestinian protests.
The funding of Israel changes the way other nations perceive the U.S. We are supposed to be seen as “the good guys,” or that is at least how we portray ourselves, but we constantly make decisions that the rest of the world sees as immoral. Why does the U.S. have to be involved in this conflict ? In my opinion, we should not be involved in anything that does not directly involve our country
Whether you support Palestine or Israel, we can all agree that the killings of innocent people every day is not right. We cannot ignore the damage and suffering that Israel is bringing to Gaza. The U.S. has no place in this conflict and if anything we are bringing more harm than good.
