This week, Donald Trump blamed Kamala Harris for driving the world to the brink of World War 3. Trump has been repeating his fears regarding World War 3 many times in recent months. In his presidential debate against Harris in September, he closed by saying “We’re going to end up in a Third World War. And it will be like no other because of nuclear weapons.”
For once, Trump’s rhetoric is not as histrionic as it seems. As rockets pierce the night sky in Beirut and Tel Aviv, some are still asking whether the current conflict will spiral into World War 3. But the number of countries drawn directly and indirectly into the current conflict in the Middle East indicates it is becoming the most global conflict since World War 2. Israel is now bombing Gaza, Yemen, Lebanon and Syria. A parallel war is being waged in the Red Sea.
Writing for the Taipei Times, Andreas Kluth argues that the direct and indirect aggressors in the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine increasingly behave like an axis that could co-ordinate an attack against the US and its allies. But the escalating Middle East war, in itself, has grown into a global conflict. And far from being the potential victim of an attack, the US is as much an aggressor as Israel.
It is time to reconsider the idea that this is Israel’s war. It’s a US war through and through
Whereas the US only entered World War 2 in December 1941, more than two years into the war, it was intimately complicit from the start of the Gaza war. As the biggest arms provider to Israel, the US continues to be a major driver of the current war. The amount of weapons the US continues to provide to Israel makes it near impossible for the war to be sustained without US support. Since it provides weapons to Israel with full knowledge of how they’ll be used, there can be no doubt the US is fully complicit in every civilian death caused by Israel.
How much should then be made of Harris’s protestations against Israel’s actions? She has been consistently inconsistent in her response to Israeli aggression. She declined to preside over Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech before Congress in July, and skipped attending the speech altogether, a move widely interpreted as a sign of support for Palestine.
She was also one of the first US officials to demand a ceasefire. But she has never departed from her position that Israel has a right to defend itself, a position she repeated after the latest Iranian missile attack on Israel. And she has made it clear she won’t support an arms embargo on Israel.
All hope Harris would take a strong and meaningful stance on Gaza has dwindled. As much as she’s now strategically trying to differentiate herself from Joe Biden, their views on Palestine are the same. The furthest she has gone in acknowledging the severity of the bloodshed in the Gaza war was to refer to “the scale of human suffering”.
Whereas choosing Harris is widely considered to be not only the progressive choice but also the only rational choice, it is important to see through the ways in which the Democratic Party’s policies are shifting to appeal to voters across a broad spectrum. Whereas she has long been vocal on the need for tougher laws on gun ownership, for example, her position seems to have shifted to mainly supporting a ban on assault weapons. She has similarly changed her liberal rhetoric on immigration and now calls for tougher immigration control and stricter policing of the US border with Mexico.
Harris’s rhetoric on several hot button issues might appear inconsistent, but the US has been perfectly consistent when it came to arming Israel. Much of Israel’s ability to sustain a war on multiple fronts rests on US support. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute found that the US and Germany provide 99% of Israel’s arms imports between 2019 and 2023.
Germany has long been the second biggest arms supplier to Israel, providing 30% of its arms between 2019 and 2023. In 2023 Germany’s sales to Israel amounted to €326.5m (R6.2bn). It has, however, put a hold on arms exports to Israel while it is dealing with legal challenges, including a case decided by the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
When Nicaragua took Germany to the ICJ in April, it asked the court to order provisional measures that would urgently halt German arms exports to Israel. Nicaragua argued that by providing arms and other forms of support to Israel, Germany is facilitating breaches of the Geneva Conventions.
Nicaragua accused Germany of failing to honour its own obligation to prevent genocide or to ensure respect for international humanitarian law. It further accused Germany of profiting from aiding Israel. German companies involved in the military industry directly profited from the Gaza conflict as they’ve seen their share prices rise since October 7.
It’s not clear whether Germany’s halting of arms exports is merely temporary. Canada and the Netherlands stopped arms sales to Israel this year over concerns such weapons could be used to violate humanitarian law. But the US has shown no sign of easing its arms sales.
As the one-year anniversary of the Gaza war approaches, it is time to reconsider the idea that this is Israel’s war. It’s a US war through and through.
• Swart is visiting professor at the Wits Law School. She writes in her personal capacity.
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