The assassination, which took place through an Israeli air strike on the party’s headquarters in southern Beirut, claimed dozens of civilian casualties in the process. Is it not odd for a senior government official, especially a head-of-state, to praise assassinations, which are illegal under all international laws and norms? Worse yet, this was not in some informal conversation or an off-the-cuff remark. It was an official statement released by the White House and posted on the official website of the president of the most powerful country in the world which, moreover, has appointed itself the global policeman whose mission, one would presume, is to maintain security and uphold the law.
In his statement Biden claimed that Hizbullah was responsible for the deaths of “hundreds of Americans” and described Nasrallah’s murder as “an act of justice”. In that case, if Hizbullah assassinated a senior American official — let alone the president — on the grounds that the official was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands, indeed, millions of Arabs in Iraq, Syria, Libya, and elsewhere, would that not likewise be “an act of justice”?
Biden’s statement attempted to frame Nasrallah’s assassination as part of the war that Israel is waging in Gaza, hastening to stress that it was Hamas that started it all on 7 October and list the atrocities Hamas committed. That Nasrallah immediately declared his support for Hamas and the people of Gaza was another justification for killing him, to Biden’s mind. But Nasrallah was not alone in coming out in support of Gaza and its people. Millions of people around the world took part in mass demonstrations to protest against Israel’s savagery. Will Biden cheer Israel on as it wages war against the whole world? Will he say Israel has the right to gun down all political leaders who are appalled by its actions and then to bomb and massacre their supporters?
The sham of that statement becomes clear when we recall that Biden, himself, had not previously considered Hizbullah a part of the war between Israel and Hamas. He and his secretary of state had continued to publicly urge Israel not to expand the scope of war in the region and not to attack Lebanon. But then, no sooner did Israel defy another of Washington’s red lines and bomb the Lebanese capital than Biden suddenly discovered that aggression was justified because Hizbullah had been a part of the war from the get-go. The statement is pure spin to cover up Israel’s treatment of Washington, but its substance — support for assassinations — would not be uttered by the lowest official of any country that has a minimum of respect for international law.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 10 October, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
Short link: