It continues unabated. Infrastructure pulverized. Masses of humans obliterated, maimed or forever wounded. According to the Gaza Health Ministry, just the official death count is at over 32,900 as of this writing, with over two thirds of them women and children. 

Among the rubble is nearly all of Gaza’s healthcare infrastructure. The only fully operational facility is the European Hospital in Khan Younis. The venerated Al Shifa Hospital, one of the oldest institutions that also employed a large number of Gazans is now a barren wasteland after repeated raids and bombings.

There can no longer be any doubt that intentional mass starvation of Palestinians in Gaza is policy for Israel. So much so that there could be a new report by the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor titled “Killing starving Palestinians and targeting aid trucks: A deliberate Israeli policy to reinforce famine in the Gaza Strip.” The Israeli military is literally targeting and assassinating aid delivery workers. An incident among many that has caused the latest outrage is the murder of seven foreign aid workers. 

Nearly the bulk of the population of Gaza has been chased by US-Israeli brutality towards the southernmost city on the strip, Rafah. Before the war, Rafah was home to about 275,000 people. Now the US-Israeli genocidal war has as many as 1.4 million souls cornered and packed into the city. It has not been a safe haven. The Israeli military has besieged, bombed and raided the city. And that only as a prelude to a full scale ground invasion that may come in days or weeks. 

US Weapons Kill Palestinians

These horrors provide the backdrop for Joe Biden’s proposal for an additional $18 billion in military aid for Israel. This gives the lie to all the hand-wringing declarations of concern by the administration for the “humanitarian” crisis.

The devastation caused by US-made weapons isn’t abstract. We can see it splashed across all our social media feeds. Thousands of children turned to mist, entire bloodlines permanently ended, and centuries of history blown to pieces. All that’s left of the Al-Omari Mosque, built in the 7th century, is a small tower and some crumbling walls. 

With a whisper, Joe Biden’s administration authorized the transfer of an additional 1,800 MK 84 bombs, 500 MK 82 bombs, and 25 F-35A fighter jets to the Israeli military last month. One MK 84 bomb can kill someone standing 1,000 feet away in any direction – equal to 58 soccer fields in area. With a shipment of 1,800 of these bombs, the lethal area swells to 104,400 soccer fields.

Since the beginning of the Israeli state’s genocidal war on Gaza, the Biden administration has approved more than 100 separate weapons sales to the Israeli military. By the end of December, the US had sent more than 10,000 tons of weapons in 244 cargo planes and 20 ships. 

On April 1, the IDF bombed a humanitarian aid convoy that killed seven aid workers from World Central Kitchen. That very same day, the US had authorized over a thousand MK 82 bombs – and even after the attack happened, chose not to halt the transfer. Even as Biden changes his public posture, reportedly calling for an “immediate ceasefire” on the phone with Netanyahu in the days after the attack, he’s committed to arming Israel to the teeth, no matter the cost.

Taking Down The War Machine

All this death and destruction comes down to a question of dollars and cents for major weapons manufacturers in the US. There is a direct correlation between every Palestinian child killed and Lockheed Martin’s stock increasing. In the six days after October 7, both Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics – the manufacturer of the MK 84 bomb – saw their stock shoot up 10%.

The murderous feedback loop between major weapons manufacturers and the politicians at the head of US imperialism means that without profound systemic change, there will always be a down payment on war.

So far in the 2024 elections, Lockheed Martin’s PAC has spent just under a million dollars – with 41.6% going to the Democrats and 57.3% going to the Republicans. In 2023, they spent over $14 million on lobbying efforts.

Any struggle to end the genocidal war on Gaza will have to take aim squarely at the major pillars of US imperialism which includes these behemoth weapons manufacturers and the politicians who do their bidding. The merchants of death play their role in the core project of US imperialism which seeks to defend its waning global power and defeat Chinese imperialism’s bid to become the new hegemon. Both sides of this global New Cold War are enemies of the working class and the oppressed and their conflict means ramped up militarism, austerity and the threat of even more war. This is why we must oppose not just the sending of weapons to Israel but to killing fields of Ukraine and the massive military buildup in the Western Pacific.

We desperately need a new political party in the US which takes no money from big business or billionaires and stands in firm opposition to the US war machine. A new working-class party should put forward a bold program to dramatically cut military spending and redirect the money toward transforming the existing war industry into something socially useful. For example, the infrastructure that currently exists to make death machines like the MK 84 bombs could instead be used to develop and deploy green technology to slow down the devastation of the environmental crisis.

The mass anger at Biden for his complicity in this assault on Gaza needs to be organized into a sustained campaign for a genuine political alternative to the two parties of war.