We need to take stock of horrendous American action or lack thereof in the Middle East | Opinion

Nov. 12 was the deadline for Israel to demonstrate that it was allowing humanitarian aid into Gaza. This “deadline” was provided to the Israeli government in an Oct. 13 letter from Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. The letter provided specific demands regarding the levels of food aid that Israel should be permitting to enter Gaza in order to prevent an impending famine. One demand was that a minimum of 350 aid trucks should be entering Gaza daily. The actual number of aid trucks entering Gaza, since the Oct. 13 letter, has been around 40 a day.

This letter was “leaked” and reported in the press, and the “deadline” provided was a date just after election day. The letter threatened that, if Israel didn’t begin allowing food into Gaza, its failure to do so might “have implications for U.S. policy.” In other words, the Administration was threatening to begin complying with federal laws which require the Administration to suspend shipments of weapons to Israel.

Of course, this meaningless “deadline” has come and gone, and Blinken has indicated that the U.S. will not suspend military assistance to Israel. This is not surprising. Blinken previously ignored findings made by the U.S. Agency for International Development that Israel has blocked aid to Gaza in violation of international humanitarian law.

Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute an ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people. While the 2000 lb. bombs provided by the U.S. have been the weapon Israel has used to destroy all of Gaza’s infrastructure and to kill thousands, famine is the weapon Israel will employ to utterly exterminate or ethnically cleanse the Palestinians in Gaza.

Thousands of children are starving. And the Biden Administration has never exercised its leverage to compel Israel to comply with its obligations under international humanitarian law. The U.S. has provided $17 billion in military aid to Israel over the past year, and this Administration has never suspended this aid in any meaningful way.

Meanwhile, President-elect Trump has chosen Macro Rubio for Secretary of State, Pete Hegseth for Secretary of Defense, Elise Stefanik for United Nations Ambassador and Mike Huckabee for Ambassador to Israel.

So we shouldn’t be deluded. While unimaginable, this genocide in Gaza will accelerate and spread to the West Bank, and the fate of the Palestinians, to which the fate of regional peace is tied, will become yet bleaker. But for a moment, in the waning hours of this Administration, before Trump and his picks are unleashed on our future, we should reflect on these names: Biden. Blinken. Austin. And also Kamala Harris, who never made clear, never gave so much as a hint that, if elected, she would steer our country away from complicity in this genocide. Before they get worse, I think it’s important to take stock of just how horrendous the actions of our government have already been.

Harry Fogler III is a lawyer in central Kentucky and holds an L.L.M. in international humanitarian law from the University of Geneva, Switzerland.