Did Western leaders visit Israel to justify ‘war crimes’ in Gaza?

While Gaza has been kept off limits by the Israeli blockade, Western leaders from US President Joe Biden to UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak visited Tel Aviv last week to display their unconditional support to the Israeli war machine.

On Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron also landed in Israel to join the immoral Western chorus to condemn Hamas while praising hardliner Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his government’s indiscriminate attacks on Palestinian civilians.

Czech and Austrian leaders also hit the road to visit Israel to convey their support to its corruption-ridden leader Netanyahu.

Beyond their one-sided approach toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, some Western leaders openly identify themselves as Zionist, the founding ideology of Jewish nationalism, which aims to destroy Palestinian existence in the occupied Palestinian territories. But the same leaders have also condemned Palestinian resistance, conflating it with terrorism.

"I don't believe you have to be a Jew to be a Zionist, and I am a Zionist," said Biden, a Catholic American, during his controversial visit to Israel in the ballroom of a Tel Aviv hotel, receiving praise from Israeli politicians and generals alike.

Biden’s reassurance of his Zionism came during a time when Israel continued to kill nearly 5,000 Palestinian civilians. Israeli attacks killed over 2,000 Palestinian children and targeted hospitals, churches, mosques, and aid organisations.

Biden’s Zionism is not a new thing. Years ago, the former US lawmaker, who looked like an old-timer US military officer going after some savage Native American fighters, angrily declared that “there is no apology to be made” supporting Israel as he opened his arms to the sides to show his unconditional support to Zionism.

"Were there not an Israel, the United States of America would have to invent an Israel to protect her interests in the region,” added Biden, proving that the Western colonial mindset continues to rule his political worldview. He also explicitly endorsed that Israel is a Western colonial project in the Middle East.

Support for Israel: is it more than enough?

Antony Blinken, the top American diplomat, also promised full support to Israel during his controversial remarks in Tel Aviv, reminding the fact that he is in Israel “not only as the United States Secretary of State but also as a Jew”.

Like Biden and Blinken, Sunak unequivocally showed his support to Israel during his visit to Israel. “We want you to win,” he told his counterpart Netanyahu, showing a total indifference to the Palestinian suffering at the hands of the hardliner prime minister who formed the country’s most far-right government ever.

As Netanyahu thanked Sunak for his “unwavering support” to Israel, he also praised the visit of another Western leader, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, some say, whose country’s dark Nazi past is primarily responsible for the creation of the Israeli state in Palestine. Like other Western leaders, Scholz gave the green light to Israel to attack Gazans, describing Hamas as “new Nazis”, according to Netanyahu.

Macron, like his English and German-speaking peers, promised “full support” and “solidarity” to Israel, even proposing to utilise the US-led anti-Daesh coalition against Hamas.

If Macron’s proposition is implemented, it means not only the Israeli army but also other Western forces will fight against Palestinian resistance groups in the occupied Palestinian territories, something which has never happened in the history of the Palestine-Israel conflict.

Why too much support to Israel

The unconditional Western support to Israel coming from three permanent members of the UN security council - France, the US and the UK – have been noticed by Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, who was the country’s longest serving intelligence chief.

“Of course, history notes that Biden came to Israel under conditions [in which Israel indiscriminately killed Palestinian civilians] and approved the destruction in Gaza,” said Fidan last week during a TRT interview.

Fidan also drew attention to the fact that Americans and their Western allies are not “acting in a strategic mindset” when it comes to the Palestine-Israel conflict.

“The issue of supporting the state of Israel, which has become a metaphysical belief among the evangelical base, has often become the biggest obstacle to American politicians following a rational policy,” Fidan told TRT.

The Evangelical belief refers to a Christian faith, which believes the existence of Israel in Palestine is important for “fulfilling end-times prophecy” in reference to Armageddon, the final battle between good and evil prior to the Day of Judgment.

“Jerusalem has been the object of the affection of both Jews and Christians down through history and the touchstone of prophecy,” said Pastor Robert Jeffress, an American Evangelical leader, insisting that “God gave Jerusalem — and the rest of the Holy Land — to the Jewish people.”

According to Evangelicals, which many also describe as supporters of Christian Zionism, “God’s promise of the Holy Land to the Jews is eternal. It’s not just something from antiquity,” said Elizabeth Oldmixon, professor of political science at James Madison University during a 2017 interview with Vox. As a result, the Jews have the right to kick non-Jews like Palestinians out from "the Holy Land", many Evangelicals believe.

It’s not clear how much Biden and pro-Israeli American leadership are subscribed to this Bible prophecy, which appears to push them to act in an irrational way when it comes to the future of Palestine as Fidan suggested.

But there is a greater geopolitical problem for both Jewish and Christian Zionists, who believe that apocalyptic time will start only after Israel will be reestablished ​​on both sides of the Jordan River, requiring the Jewish state to invade more territories including current Jordan, parts of Syria and Lebanon to create a greater Israel.

Jordan, Syria and Lebanon have Muslim-majorities just like Palestine prior to the emergence of the Jewish state in the Middle East.

“What kick-starts the end times into motion is Israel’s political boundaries being reestablished to what God promised the Israelites according to the Bible,” said Nate Pyle, another Evangelical leader during a 2018 interview with Newsweek.

It means a regional war with not only Palestinians but also other Arab states across the Middle East. But that’s what the core Evangelical base continues to believe strongly.

“So the sense of a greater Israel and expansionism is really important to this community. Jerusalem is just central to that. It’s viewed as a historical and biblical capital,” said Oldmixon, who sees the 2017 Western recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel as an inseparable step from this Evangelical conviction.

Surveys also show a strong Evangelical support on believing modern Israel’s role in the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy to which 80 percent of Evangelicals believed according to a 2017 LifeWay poll.

Last year, another poll by Pew Research Center found that more than 60 percent of American evangelicals believed that humanity has already entered the apocalyptical period.