Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: While US President Joe Biden is “withholding” the supply of some key weapons to Israel, which ignored it and invaded the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah bordering Egypt on Sunday to flush out Hamas terrorists, an American senator has shocked the world by saying Washington should allow Jerusalem to drop nuclear bombs on the war-ravaged enclave.
Likening the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict with the Second World War, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, according to the media reports on Tuesday, said the way the US dropped nuclear bombs on Japan to end the war in 1945 was the “right decision,” Israel should also be given the bombs “they need” to end the current war.
Graham, a staunch supporter of Israel, criticized President Biden for pausing the delivery of 3,000 heavy bombs to Israel.
During an interview on NBC News on Sunday, he said, “When we were faced with destruction as a nation after Pearl Harbor, fighting the Germans and the Japanese, we decided to end the war by the bombing (of) Hiroshima (and) Nagasaki with nuclear weapons…That was the right decision.”
Then he added: “Give Israel the bombs they need to end the war. They can’t afford to lose.”
Again, drawing a comparison with the 1945 bombing in Japan, which killed over 200,000 people and left many more wounded and traumatized, Graham said that Israel should do “whatever” it can to survive as a ‘Jewish state.’
“Why is it OK for America to drop two nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end their existential threat war? Why was it OK for us to do that? I thought it was OK,” Graham said.
He added, “So, Israel, do whatever you have to do to survive as a Jewish state. Whatever you have to do.”
The Republican Senator also blamed Hamas for civilian casualties throughout the conflict as it uses the civilians as ‘human shields.’
“I think it’s impossible to mitigate civilian deaths in Gaza as long as Hamas uses their population as human shields. I’ve never seen in the history of warfare such blatant efforts by an enemy — Hamas — to put civilians at risk,” Graham said. “The last thing you want to do is reward this behavior.”
Recently, President Joe Biden paused the delivery of nearly 3,000 heavy bombs to Israel and vowed to hold more offensive weapons if Israeli forces launch a major operation in Rafah, where more than a million Palestinians are sheltering.
President Biden’s pause on the heavy bombs, his criticism of Israel’s military campaign, and his threat to withhold more weapons in the event of a Rafah invasion in Gaza came amid college protests in the US and frustration with the war from some Democrats and his left flank.