This story originally appeared in Truthout on Aug. 20, 2024. It is shared here with permission.
In a speech at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) on Monday night, President Joe Biden said that “both sides” in Israel’s genocide of Gaza are experiencing civilian death — a blatant lie that ignores any semblance of reality on the ground in Gaza, where the Palestinian civilian death toll rises each day.
“Those protesters out in the street, they have a point,” Biden said, referring to the droves of pro-Palestine protesters demonstrating outside of the convention. “A lot of innocent people are being killed on both sides.” He once again touted the U.S.’s ceasefire negotiations that have done nothing but prolong Israel’s genocide so far.
It is patently untrue that there are people dying on “both sides” in Gaza and Israel. Since October 7, when Hamas forces killed 1,139 Israelis and foreigners, including roughly 700 Israeli civilians, almost zero Israeli civilians have been killed by Palestinian forces. Since then, a few dozen Israeli hostages have been killed — though it’s unclear how many are dead, and of those, how many were killed by the Israeli military.
On the other hand, according to the Palestinian health ministry’s official death toll, Israel has killed over 40,000 Palestinians since October. Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor estimates that at least 92 percent of those killed are civilians, meaning that at least 38,000 of those whose deaths have been reported to officials are civilians.
The true death toll is likely far, far higher, experts have said. But, even at the highly conservative estimate of 38,000 Palestinians killed by Israel, the ratio between Palestinian and Israeli civilian deaths since October 7 is 45 to 1.
Unlike the Israeli civilian death toll, the Palestinian civilian death toll rises each day due to Israel’s extermination campaign in Gaza — and rising violence in the occupied West Bank. Just on the day after Biden’s speech, Israel bombed a school in Gaza City, killing at least 12 people in the building that was housing at least 700 forcibly displaced families.
To say that there are two sides to Israel’s genocide of Gaza is, in itself, a farce. Israelis today are living in relative freedom, some of them terrorizing Palestinians directly, many living in homes stolen directly from Palestinians.
As Israeli citizens dine out or go shopping, Palestinians are living under full Israeli military control — with Gaza an open-air prison guarded by Israeli forces. Each day, Palestinians live in fear of being killed by an Israeli bomb or sniper; they scrounge for food amid a famine manufactured by Israel; they have little to no access to clean water, electricity, health care, or things like clean toilets; and they may even face being kidnapped by Israeli forces and being taken to a torture camp.
Though Biden feigns concern about Palestinian civilian lives and securing a ceasefire, he refuses to use any of the U.S.’s leverage to stop the genocide — including the tens of billions of dollars in military assistance that the U.S. has pledged to Israel that experts say fly in the face of international and domestic law.
To the frustration of advocates for Palestinian rights, Biden’s comment was one of the only mentions of Gaza from a speaker on the main stage at the convention, despite it being one of the most major issues in this election and of our time. Other mentions of the genocide at the DNC appeared to be aimed at praising Democrats for their policy of giving Israel carte blanche to kill and maim Palestinians as they wish.
In her speech, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) carried water for the Biden administration. As DNC attendees tried to drown out and abuse pro-Palestine protesters in the arena, Ocasio-Cortez claimed that Vice President Kamala Harris is “working tirelessly” for a ceasefire in Gaza. And yet, Harris has said nothing about the one thing that advocates say could secure a ceasefire: an arms embargo to Israel.
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