by Amal Zadok
The question of whether America is better renamed “The United States of Israel” is no longer an exercise in rhetorical provocation, but rather a grim diagnosis of a nation’s profound ethical decline. As the world bears witness to Israel’s ongoing, well-documented acts against the Palestinian people—acts that have passed the threshold of war crimes to constitute genocide—American policy and discourse have not merely failed to intervene, but have actively enabled and legitimized these atrocities. What does it mean for a nation that once trumpeted itself as a vanguard of justice if it becomes the principal patron of genocide?
The Crisis of American Ethical Identity
The American project, since its inception, was undergirded by the ideal of universal moral responsibility—a “city upon a hill” illuminating the path of human rights and dignity. Yet, these foundations are shattered by American complicity in genocide. There is a yawning chasm between the United States’ self-conception as a beacon of democracy and its actual practice of underwriting the systematic destruction of another people.
Philosopher Hannah Arendt, in her critique of “banality of evil,” warned that unimaginable cruelty becomes normal not only through fanaticism but through the acquiescence and support of those who claim higher moral ground. America now finds itself not merely turning a blind eye, but offering material, diplomatic, and moral cover for acts—including forced displacement, starvation, mass killing, and cultural erasure—that meet the legal and scholarly definitions of genocide, as codified in the UN Genocide Convention.
Genocide as Policy: The Israeli Case, the American Backing
The evidence is not confined to activist rhetoric; it is established in official reports by the UN, human rights organizations, and international legal scholars whose investigations point to an orchestrated campaign to eradicate Palestinian existence and identity. Mass civilian targeting, the destruction of critical infrastructure, starvation blockades, and the evisceration of every means of communal survival are not merely collateral damage—they are instruments of policy.
Yet, America’s involvement goes far beyond passive observation. Billions in military aid, ongoing arms transfers, and the repeated use of the UN Security Council veto to shield Israel from accountability transform America from mere ally to primary enabler. This is not simply hypocrisy; it is complicity in the gravest crime defined under international law.
The Philosophical Consequence: A Nation Without a Soul
Political philosopher John Rawls articulated the idea of “justice as fairness.” What remains of that legacy when the United States engineers and sustains a humanitarian catastrophe of genocidal proportions? At issue is not merely foreign policy, but the existential question of what America has become. Its putative ideals are rendered hollow, its global image irreparably stained.
Moral philosopher Judith Butler reminds us that denying the grievability of certain lives is foundational to the logic of genocide.
By treating Palestinian suffering as disposable, American leadership abdicates its last claim to moral authority. The loss of soul is not metaphorical—it manifests in the normalization of atrocity, in the bureaucratic language of “defense,” “security,” and “shared values” that mask reality.
Conclusion: The Urgent Need for Reckoning
Does the “United States of Israel” formulation exaggerate? On the contrary, it exposes how profoundly American identity has become entangled with, and subordinate to, a genocidal project. The world regards American proclamations of justice and democracy with skepticism bordering on contempt; citizens at home struggle to recognize their nation in the mirror. Recovery is possible only through unrelenting honesty, radical re-evaluation of alliances, and a recommitment to principles that respect all human life—without exception.
Without such reckoning, America’s transformation from beacon to bystander to co-perpetrator will become enduring, and the memory of its higher purpose a historical footnote, lost to the darkness it helped create.
©️2025 Amal Zadok. All rights reserved
Think and be Free! 