To the Editor:
Steven Berner’s letter (SMN, July 15, 2026) was spot on in reminding us of the toxic impacts of our country’s uncritical support for Israel, and returning our focus to the ongoing U.S.-sponsored mass devastation of Gaza and its people.
During Israel’s two-year, all-out assault on Gaza, a credible 20,000 children were killed. Twenty thousand. That’s the equivalent of an entire classroom of kids (think: Sandy Hook or Uvalde) killed every single day for two solid years — you do the math. That’s not “self-defense,” those are war crimes. And, yes, your tax dollars provided an estimated 60% of the weapons and munitions used to wreak that unholy carnage. It’s a hard truth, but that’s exactly what our country was actively enabling, under both Biden and Trump, even after the horrors unfolding there became clear. That’s where blindly following Israel took us.
What will it take for Americans to realize that our country’s decades-long “special relationship” with the Israeli state has never reflected or advanced our higher values, and indeed has severely eroded the moral sensibilities of both peoples, Americans and Israelis alike?
In Gaza, over 73,000 died from direct military action, and thousands more from intentional starvation, disease or lack of medical attention. Medics, aid workers and journalists were all regularly targeted. The vast majority of Gaza’s homes, businesses, schools, hospitals, civil infrastructure and agriculture were all destroyed or damaged, with untold thousands of victims still lying beneath the mountains of rubble. So disproportionate, indiscriminate and cruel was Israel’s response to October 7 that the top international courts (which the U.S. and Israel both boycott) have found it a “plausible genocide.” That’s where following Israel has taken us.
And Israel’s assault on Gaza still grinds on. Since October’s so-called “cease-fire,” another 1,100 Palestinians have died, while Israel actively blocks rebuilding efforts and intentionally keeps critical aid to a trickle. Meanwhile, Trump’s self-declared (and Orwellian-sounding) “Board of Peace” stands poised to turn Gaza into an investors’ Riviera, placing the Palestinian population — stateless and repeatedly uprooted over the past 78 years — in greater danger than ever of being permanently expelled.
Make no mistake, the road to Iran passed directly through Gaza, reminding Israel yet again that they hold a free pass to commit the most egregious atrocities, and for one simple reason: America, in the end, always has their back.
About the joint U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, let’s remember that such unprovoked wars-of-choice are unequivocally illegal under international law — it’s the crime of “aggression,” the very thing Putin is guilty of in Ukraine. Secondly, neither Israel nor the USA would ever have launched this war alone. Smashing Iran was always Netanyahu’s agenda — a 40-year obsession — and Trump was groomed for this already in 2018, when Bibi persuaded him to trash the Obama-era multilateral agreement with Iran in the first place. Sadly, our commander-in-chief is so frightfully vain and easily manipulated that little selling was required, then or now, for his buy-in.
Amid the present tit-for-tat stalemate, let’s remember also that it all began with our assassination of dozens of Iran’s top leadership, the unleashing of death and destruction across the entire region and ongoing economic and political chaos worldwide. This is the behavior of global bullies, not respectable states — but this is where following Israel has taken us.
Understand that America’s slavish devotion to this sovereign, foreign state goes back over 50 years, played out via our airtight diplomatic protection of Israel on the world stage and obscene amounts of military aid — now some $10 million every day! For all this, the USA exerts almost no influence over Israeli policies and actions. Indeed, it’s hard to see what the U.S. has ever gotten from this supposed strategic alliance, except a perpetually destabilized Middle East and the mistrust, disdain or outright hatred of much of the Arab and Muslim world.
When critically examined, the arc of modern Israel’s history points to a certain unsettling truth, one that questions whether that state deserves our support at all — or ever did. The truth is this: from the very beginning until now, the Zionist colonial enterprise in Palestine has never dealt in good faith with the indigenous Arab Palestinian population who live among them. Never. Is it possible that all the while we should have been pushing for basic human rights for the Palestinian people — but instead aligned ourselves steadfastly with their oppressor? It’s a thought question.
For far too long Israel has received the mindless, cult-like adulation of our elected political leadership, but has this actually been in our nation’s best interest or aligned with our higher values? I believe a corrective is long overdue, beginning with a complete and permanent end to America’s offensive military aid to Israel — a first step toward rejoining the community of respectable, peace-loving nations whose actions are grounded in justice, international law and human rights. Yes, it’s time for America to move on, to declare our independence from the state of Israel.
Tom Powers
Haywood County