There’s no mention of their duty to the people in the oath of office that members of Congress take. It says they will support and defend the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic. Maybe, in some regard defending the Constitution would mean doing their job: representing the people that elected them. But today, the architect of the genocide against the Palestinian people walked in and out of the “people’s house” to a standing ovation. He was given more time with our lawmakers than any of us will ever get in our lifetime and he used it to insist he was a good man that was commanding a moral army – insisting they have not killed anyone who did not deserve to have their life ended in the blink of an eye.
There are one thousand indications that our government has no obligation to us. This moment was just one – but it was one I will never let slip my mind. These people are no different than the settlers that gather in lawn chairs, eat popcorn, and cheer when the Israeli military drops bombs on apartment complexes in Gaza. For as long as they’ve been in office, they’ve had a front row seat to the carnage and all they do is gawk and cheer from the sidelines. Every once in a while, someone they are supposed to work for pesters them about their complacency and we are swatted away like flies.
The majority opinion in the United States is against continued support for Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza. Stories come out every week that push the needle further. Last week, the story of Muhammad Bhar surfaced and was circulated around the world. Muhammad was my age, 24, and had Down Syndrome. The Israeli military raided his home and let their dog attack him, tearing his arm to shreds. They separated him from his family, and left him in a room all by himself. They ordered his family to leave the house and left Muhammad to die – alone, bleeding, and scared. His family found Muhammad starting to decompose in the room the soldiers left him in. He still had a tourniquet on his arm from when they tried to stop the bleeding. And they just left him there, like he was nothing.
The Israeli military confirmed this story days later and Netanyahu gets a round of applause for his courage and leadership. They don’t even feel the need to lie to the world about their atrocities anymore – letting babies suffocate to death in incubators months ago was the litmus test for what the United States would let slide. Ordering an attack dog on a man with Down Syndrome and locking him in a room to die without his loved ones there to console him wasn’t the red line – because there will never be one.
They gave a standing ovation.
If a man like Benjamin Netanyahu had walked through their home and mangled their children’s bodies so much that they could never forget the way they looked afterward – I wonder if they would applaud still. I wonder if the screams of their family members burning alive in tents would potentially interrupt the thought that told them to clap, the thought that told them to give the man a standing ovation for his perfectly executed slaughter of thousands of human beings.
Some part of me still wanted to believe that these people may still be completely misled – that perhaps they don’t know about the 15,000 children that have been killed. Maybe they haven’t seen what I’ve seen – the little girl with her face falling off, the boy with a missing head, the child with no legs, the mother unwilling to wash her children’s blood off her hands because it is all that is left of them. Maybe they haven’t seen it at all. As thunderous applause rang out for the murderer, there were thousands of people outside trying to signal to the millions of people in Palestine that their turmoil isn’t being ignored. They were pepper sprayed, beaten, and arrested by cops that were trained in Israel.
When I saw the video of the standing ovation, something sunk in me – this is where I was born. This is where both of my parents were born. I have no nation to be loyal to but a nation tripping over themselves to kill my friends’ families. There is bloodlust in the US Congress – and bloodlust seems like the only thing they are loyal to. If there are “enemies” foreign and domestic, I fear they view us as the latter.
I clap for my friends at their comedy shows. I clap for people after they finish a speech at a community event. I sometimes clap when the plane lands, if someone else does it first. To clap for an executioner of children, mothers, fathers and friends – how much did they sell their souls for?
Danaka Katovich is one of CODEPINK’S National Co-Directors, based in Chicago, Illinois.
