I'm nearly beyond words in trying to describe the extent of my utter revulsion toward the U.S. government's unwavering, bipartisan support for Israel's brutal and genocidal campaign against the Palestinian people. Both Biden and Trump, along with the vast majority of Congress, those who blindly serve the interests of AIPAC, are complicit in this unrelenting atrocity. I view them as nothing less than corrupt war criminals, responsible for the continued suffering of countless innocent lives.
I haven’t always felt this way. My disillusionment with Washington didn’t arrive overnight; it crept in slowly, like a crack in a windshield, small and ignorable at first, until it spread beyond repair. I once held many elected officials in high esteem. Back in the 1990s, while working as a broadcast journalist, I considered it a mark of professional pride whenever I had the rare opportunity to interview a member of Congress or a U.S. Senator. There was still, then, a sense of honor in the idea of public service.
But that sense of respect has eroded, first gradually, then completely. The lies that led us into the Iraq War marked the beginning of that descent. As the years unfolded, scandal after scandal, indifference after inaction, my faith in American leadership thinned to a thread. And now, with the horrors unfolding in Gaza, that thread has finally snapped.
The breaking point came when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, widely regarded as the driving force behind Israel’s ongoing campaign of ethnic cleansing, was welcomed to a nationally televised joint session of Congress. There, he was met not with protest or scrutiny, but with thunderous, repeated standing ovations. Applause echoed through the chamber, not for peace, not for diplomacy, but for genocide.
For me, it was the clearest signal yet that those who govern us no longer speak for human decency, let alone for me.
