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<a class="gmail-domain gmail-reader-domain" href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/tamara-nassar/israel-told-us-it-modeling-gaza-attack-hiroshima-and-nagasaki">electronicintifada.net</a>
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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Israel told US it is modeling Gaza attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki</h1>
<p class="gmail-node__submitted">
<span class="gmail-field gmail-field-author"><a href="https://electronicintifada.net/people/tamara-nassar">Tamara Nassar</a></span> -
<span class="gmail-field gmail-field-publication-date"><span class="gmail-date-display-single">1 November 2023</span></span> </p>
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<p>Protesters calling for a ceasefire in Gaza raise their hands covered
in red paint as Secretary of State Antony Blinken testifies at a Senate
appropriations committee hearing to ask for billions more in military
aid for Israel, on Capitol Hill, in Washington DC, 31 October.</p><small>
<span>SIPA USA</span></small>
<p>“It became evident to US officials that Israeli leaders believed mass
civilian casualties were an acceptable price in the military campaign,”
<em>The New York Times</em> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/30/us/politics/biden-israel.html">reported</a> on Monday.</p>
<p>“In private conversations with American counterparts, Israeli
officials referred to how the United States and other allied powers
resorted to devastating bombings in Germany and Japan during World War
II – including the dropping of the two atomic warheads in Hiroshima and
Nagasaki – to try to defeat those countries,” the newspaper added.</p>
<p>Despite this horrifying knowledge, the Biden administration still
adamantly opposes a ceasefire in Israel’s extermination campaign in
Gaza.</p>
<p>A visible symbol of that determination to let Israel kill as many
Palestinians as it pleases came when Antony Blinken sat stony-faced as
anti-war activists repeatedly <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7fHRmmZKQM&ab_channel=ForbesBreakingNews">disrupted</a>
the secretary of state as he put forward the case for billions more in
military aid for Israel and Ukraine at a congressional hearing on
Tuesday.</p>
<p>The Biden administration is asking for $14.3 billion for Israel – on
top of the minimum of $3.8 billion it already provides every year.</p>
<p>One by one, members of the audience rose from their seats, calling
for a ceasefire and denouncing Israel’s slaughter of Palestinians in
Gaza and the American role in it.</p>
<p>Activists with the anti-war campaign group CODEPINK also called for an end to US military aid to Israel.</p>
<p>Others sat silently with their arms raised, showing their palms covered in red paint.</p>
<p>Security officers removed protestors from the room, while Blinken maintained an indifferent demeanor.
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<h2>“No red lines”</h2>
<p>The United States is drawing “no red lines” for Israel in its genocidal slaughter of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.</p>
<p>Those were the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us-not-drawing-red-lines-israel-white-house-2023-10-27/">words</a> of White House national security spokesperson John Kirby last week.</p>
<p>Even as the death toll in Gaza <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/gaza-death-toll-reaches-8000">soared above 8,000 Palestinians – almost half children</a>, Kirby <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3osYUmITvE">asserted</a>
on Monday: “We do not believe that a ceasefire is the right answer
right now. We believe that a ceasefire right now benefits Hamas.”</p>
<p>Kirby said the Biden administration supports “temporary, localized
humanitarian pauses to allow aid to get to specific populations” –
though none of that has happened.</p>
<p>The Biden administration continues to talk about getting aid in through Egypt – a tiny trickly <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/bidens-gaza-aid-plan-fig-leaf-genocide/38976">that serves as a fig leaf</a>
for the ongoing US-backed starvation of the population by Israel, which
has cut off water, food, medicine, fuel and other life essentials to
the besieged territory.
</p>
Kirby reiterated that the US does “not support a ceasefire at this time.”
<p>On Monday, the Pentagon confirmed that Washington is flying more weapons to Israel on an almost daily basis.</p>
<p>“We are not putting any limits on how Israel uses weapons,” deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/pentagon-says-us-sending-almost-daily-weapons-shipments-to-israel/">told</a> reporters. “That is really up to the Israeli Defense Force to use and how they are going to conduct their operations.”
</p>
<h2>Americans want a ceasefire</h2>
<p>Meanwhile, two-thirds of Americans <a href="https://www.dataforprogress.org/blog/2023/10/19/voters-agree-the-us-should-call-for-a-ceasefire-and-de-escalation-of-violence-in-gaza">support</a> a ceasefire in Gaza, according to a Data for Progress poll published on 20 October.</p>
<p>Remarkably, that included more than half of all Republicans and 80 percent of supporters of Biden’s Democrat Party.</p>
<p>Only a quarter of all those surveyed said they oppose the US calling for a ceasefire.</p>
<p>Still, that hasn’t stopped the White House press secretary Karine
Jean-Pierre from comparing protesters supporting an end to the carnage
with <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/08/12/1116942725/the-charlottesville-rally-5-years-later-its-what-youre-still-trying-to-forget">neo-Nazi and white supremacist</a> crowds at a notorious far-right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia five years ago.
</p>
The revelation that Israeli officials are modeling their slaughter on
the American dropping of atomic bombs on Japanese cities and the
notorious British firebombing of <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-51448486">Dresden</a> can leave no doubt about their genocidal intent.
<p>And the fact that US officials continue to arm Israel unconditionally
to carry out this slaughter makes them just as culpable in this
genocide.</p>
<p>The bomb that the US dropped on Hiroshima in 1945 had the explosive power of 15,000 tons of TNT.</p>
<p>Israel has deployed at least 12,000 tons of explosive on Gaza since 7 October, <a href="https://www.aa.com.tr/ar/%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AF%D9%88%D9%84-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B9%D8%B1%D8%A8%D9%8A%D8%A9/%D8%AD%D9%83%D9%88%D9%85%D8%A9-%D8%BA%D8%B2%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A7%D8%AD%D8%AA%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%84-%D9%82%D8%B5%D9%81-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%82%D8%B7%D8%A7%D8%B9-%D8%A8%D8%A3%D9%83%D8%AB%D8%B1-%D9%85%D9%86-12-%D8%A3%D9%84%D9%81-%D8%B7%D9%86-%D9%85%D8%AA%D9%81%D8%AC%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%AA/3031529">according</a> to Hamas’ media office in Gaza.</p>
<p>Israel has <a href="https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/israel-drops-6-000-bombs-in-gaza-in-6-days-nearly-matching-us-total-in-afghanistan-in-1-year-report/3017833">admitted</a> to dropping more than 6,000 bombs on tiny Gaza in just the first few days of its attack.</p>
<p>But Israel’s modern high explosives are almost certainly more
powerful than TNT, so it’s very likely that what it has dropped already
matches or exceeds the Hiroshima bomb.</p>
<p>The Israeli army dropped six one-ton bombs on a housing block in the
Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza on Tuesday, killing and injuring
close to 400 people, <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/updates#node-39386">according</a> to Gaza’s health ministry.
</p>
Israeli army spokesperson Richard Hecht, making no apologies for the scale of death and destruction, <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/middleeast/live-news/israel-hamas-war-gaza-news-10-31-23/h_f5bb08977ddfffafaeaba47f832de861">claimed</a> on CNN that Israel was targeting “a very senior Hamas commander” in the area around the camp.
<p>Even CNN’s <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/wolf-blitzer">notoriously pro-Israel</a> anchor Wolf Blitzer had a hard time stomaching that.
</p>
<em>Ali Abunimah contributed reporting.</em>
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