It’s official now. America’s closest ally, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the one accorded more than 50 standing ovations in Congress just months ago, is under indictment by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity and war crimes. America must take note: the US government is complicit in Netanyahu’s war crimes and has fully partnered in Netanyahu’s violent rampage across the Middle East.”

In an article titled “The ICC Arrest Warrant for Netanyahu Is Also an Indictment of US Policy and Complicity”, Sachs relates how, for 30 years, the Israel lobby induced the US to fight Israel’s battles to forestall the establishment of a Palestinian state, defying the consensus of the entire world. “The result has been a disaster for the US and a bloody catastrophe not only for the Palestinian people but for the entire Middle East.” The wars the US has led, with Netanyahu the “main cheerleader,” were not to defend Israel but to overthrow governments opposed to the Israeli oppression of the Palestinian people. Israel’s flouting of international law, its intransigence, and the brutality of its decades-long illegal occupation have given rise to militant resistance movements. But rather than the obvious solution, Sachs writes – rather than peace through the implementation of the two-state solution and demilitarisation of the resistance movements as part of the process – Israel has opted for forever war, using the resistance movements as its pretext.

“What is shocking,” Sachs continues, “is that Washington has turned the US military and federal budget over to Netanyahu for his disastrous wars… Netanyahu has been an unmitigated disaster for the American people, bleeding the US Treasury of trillions of dollars, squandering America’s standing in the world, making the US complicit in his genocidal policies, and bringing the world closer to World War III.” He then makes an appeal to the president-elect: “If Trump wants to make America great again, the first thing he should do is to make America sovereign again, by ending Washington’s subservience to the Israel Lobby.”

Sachs concludes: “The real issue facing the Trump administration is not defending Israel from its neighbours, who call repeatedly, almost daily, for peace based on the two-state solution. The real issue is defending the US from the Israel Lobby.”

* A version of this article appears in print in the 5 December, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly