Steven Sahiounie, journalist and political commentator
The late US President John F. Kennedy is not alive today to voice his opinion on the Israeli war on Gaza, but we know he would stand with the Palestinians, not the Israeli government.
While yet a young senator, Kennedy in July 1957 delivered a famous speech where he voiced his opposition to then-President Eisenhower's military and political support for French colonialism, and called on the US administration to support the fight for freedom and independence in Algeria.
The situation in Gaza, the Occupied West Bank, and Occupied East Jerusalem today is very similar to the events that marked the end of French rule in Algeria.
"The most powerful single force in the world today is neither communism nor capitalism, neither the H-bomb nor the guided missile - it is man's eternal desire to be free and independent," Kennedy said. "Thus the single most important test of American foreign policy today is how we meet the challenge of imperialism, what we do to further man's desire to be free.
"The time has come for the United States to face the harsh realities of the situation and to fulfill its responsibilities as the leader of the free world - in the UN, in NATO, in the administration of our aid programs and in the exercise of our diplomacy - in shaping a course toward political independence for Algeria."
On May 7, 1945, Nazi Germany signed the act of military surrender to the Allies. The next day, 5,000 Algerians marched in celebration of the end of WW2. About 134,000 Algerians had fought alongside the US and allied forces to defeat Germany, with 18,000 deaths among the Algerian veterans. They were also carrying banners as they marched calling for an end to French occupation. The French occupation forces opened fire on the marchers, and in retaliation to the deaths, 102 French settlers were killed.
During the next two weeks, the French forces along with French settlers massacred about 45,000 Algerians. The French air force bombed towns and villages thought to be sympathetic to the cause of freedom and an end of French occupation, with French settlers hunting down Algerians and hanging them.
The French authorities and the French settlers had dehumanized the Algerians and referred to them as animals, which morally justified their killing of thousands of human beings. The massacre of 45,000 Algerians in May 1945 secured another nine years of occupation, but it served to strengthen the Algerians' resolve to fight for an end of French occupation. On November 1, 1954, the war of liberation began in earnest. It took eight years for Algeria to win its independence over France; in what British historian Alistair Horne dubbed "a savage war of peace".
The Algerian people paid for their freedom with 1.5 million lives, which was 20% of the population.
As France was seeking to maintain its brutal military occupation of Algeria, then-US President John F. Kennedy clearly voiced his belief that French rule over Algeria was not sustainable in the long term, condemned colonialism, and openly rooted for Algeria's independence. Kennedy was voicing a core American value held dearly today, and one fought for by countless Americans since 1776. The US stance in the '60s played an important role in the success of Algeria's liberation struggle.
Israeli military leaders have said it would be impossible to crush the Palestinian desire for freedom and the will to resist occupation in every possible way just by killing Hamas fighters in Gaza. The Israeli right-wing government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is deluded in thinking the colony of Israel will be secure if the resistance group is degraded.
The Israeli colonial government seeks to strengthen its grip over the occupied Palestinians by showing them there are no legal consequences to the Israeli genocide, apartheid and atrocities carried out against the Palestinians. Because Israel has complete impunity, and the international community is impotent to stop them.
Israel ordered the Gazans to move south to Rafah, which was designated as a safe zone. Then the military said that Hamas is in Rafah and started an aerial and ground assault on the safe zone killing thousands of civilians, mainly women and children.
Experts have said the Israeli plan is to de-populate Gaza, so that the armed resistance can never return. Some feel the ultimate plan is to force any surviving in Gaza into the desert of Egypt, and then turn the Israeli military on the Occupied West Bank and repeat the Gaza operation there. Many analysts feel the Israeli end game is to annex all of the Palestinian lands, which would forever close the hopes of the two-State solution.
Israel will make sure to complete this plan unless the US will intervene to make the genocide stop. But, US President Joe Biden has seemingly abdicated the Oval Office, and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is operating on auto-pilot. The days of JFK and the moral high ground of America's commitment to freedom and independence are dead and buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
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