US invokes ‘exceptionalist immunity’ in free pass to Zionist genocide

Alameen Templeton

Journalism professors in America might call it “cognitive dissonance”, the ability to believe two contradictory beliefs at the same time; others know it rightly as hypocrisy.

The US state department’s 3-month investigation into “israel’s” Gaza genocide – that’s been broadcast live onto social media now for over 216 days straight – says it’s reasonable to conclude “Israeli” use of US weapons is “inconsistent” with humanitarian law.

But, in the same breath, “credible and reliable” assurances from those same “Israelis” that they kill Palestinian civilians every day in cold blood in the right way, in accordance with humanitarian law., means the arms must flow. And keep flowing and flowing under the blind gaze of a somnolent, fading superpower.

Unlike US journalism professors, we don’t have to pretend to our students and to ourselves the US is a democracy that values truth and free speech. We don’t have to worry our chancellor is going to drum us out of academia under a new “antisemitism” definition for calling “israel” a Nazi state that is inflicting genocide on Gaza, aided and abetted at every turn by the US.

We don’t worry at night, like lawmakers on Capitol Hill, that Aipac might cut our funding for standing up for an end to the slaughter

“The results on the ground, including high levels of civilian casualties, raise substantial questions” Friday’s report muses euphemistically – without acknowledging it lacks the integrity to ask them. Or to demand credible answers.

Instead, hegemonic prejudice is brandished aloft as a clarion call to the faithful, compelling obeisance and grovelling submission – “israel’s” wehrmacht “has the knowledge, experience, and tools to implement best practices for mitigating civilian harm in its military operations,” the report intones.

Best practices presumably include leaving babies in incubators to rot while forcing tending nurses and doctors out of the hospital at gunpoint. Or blowing up an entire apartment block filled with civilians because we suspect one “terrorist” is residing there. Or deliberately destroying Gaza’s hospital infrastructure or allowing Zionist civilians to prevent the passage of vital aid to the enclave. All of that – the use of 2000-pound bombs in concentrated civilian neighbourhoods, of white phosphor and depleted uranium – all of it is “best practice”.

Public, humanitarian international law is a moveable feast, after all; it’s not cast in stone. All it needs is the steady nudge of “normalisation” to form and shape it into the kind of law America, “israel” and their allies prefer.

We don’t have to worry that holding “israel” accountable will also slip a noose around our necks.

The desired “Law of Exceptionalist Immunity” is not yet cast in stone. The “Exceptionalist Nations”, the white friends of Nato, the “international community” cannot yet count on getting a free pass every time.

Like Iron Man, or Batman, or any Avenger hero, they want to be able to bop the bad guy anywhere in the world and return home in time to watch it on the telly. Without question or accountability; only adulation and backslapping is expected in lieu of wreaths.

Thank God, we’re not there yet, much as the US and “israel” might like to pretend we are.

They have to, after all, pretend really hard. Kandahar, Fallujah, Mosul, Sirte, Homs, Raqqa, Aleppo all have bloody Nato fingerprints over their respective massacres that witnessed the total destruction of all infrastructure and life.

The “exceptionalist countries’” uncounted sins stretch back all the way to World War II. The Law of Exceptionalist Immunity only works as long as no one questions it, it would seem.

About 333 000 civilians were killed and over 473 000 wounded in the US firebombing of Japan with no questions asked at Nuremburg. Another 226 000 were killed in the atomic bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Again: “Pass!”

Body counts from one night of firebombing of Dresden just a few months before the end of the war in 1945 killed between 25 000 and 500 000, different reports say. Move  along, folks; move along.

The 2003 Iraq occupation killed anywhere between 110 600 and 1 033 000 civilian deaths, different studies have said. Like “israel”, Nato forces devastated infrastructure, threw around white phosphor and depleted uranium like candy and left devastation in their wake. Again: nothing to see here.

So, how can the US accuse “israel” of the same crimes it has committed with impunity in a spiralling holocaust against Islam since at least September 11?

How many Muslims have died as a result of or have been killed directly in the many US-backed wars since 2001? A few million? Six million? Ten million?

Only Al-Muhsi knows because no one else is counting.

After all, it’s just “collateral damage” that always accompanies the Exceptionalist Nations’ efforts to tidy up the world, to “cut the grass”.

In the mean time, we can rely on “best practice” to keep us all in line.