Tel Aviv Tribune Net correspondents
Washington- Republican Senator Lindsey Graham surprised Americans with shocking statements in which he compared the ongoing Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip to the United States’ decision to drop atomic bombs on Japan in World War II, during an interview with the “Meet the Press” program on NBC News.
“When we faced devastation as a nation after Pearl Harbor, fighting the Germans and the Japanese, we decided to end the war by nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and that was the right decision,” Graham said.
The senator demanded that Israel be provided with the bombs they need to end the war, as they – he said – cannot afford to lose, so “do whatever you have to do to preserve the Jewish state.”
Graham, a staunch supporter of Israel who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, used this analogy several times while condemning President Joe Biden for threatening to withhold huge bombs weighing 2,000 pounds from Israel if it launched a military operation in Rafah, which is crowded with more than a million displaced people from various parts of the Strip. In addition to its estimated population of more than 300 thousand people.
Anger and criticism
Graham’s words sparked angry reactions from many organizations and commentators, while the White House remained silent.
The Code Pink movement, a feminist movement that began in America in 2002 in rejection of the decision to invade Iraq, referred to the pro-Palestine protests at American colleges and universities, and said, “It is shameful that the current senator can call – in a live television broadcast – for the bombing of Gaza with weapons.” Al-Nawawi, at a time when he sees students protesting genocide as a threat, Lindsey Graham received $1.5 million from AIPAC to say these words.
The senator’s comments were also widely shared on the X platform, with short video clips lasting about 30 seconds. Lawyer and political commentator George Conway retweeted the video and wrote, “Senator Lindsey Graham is a shame on us.”
A history of incitement
Graham has a history of inflammatory statements about the Middle East. Last December, Graham urged the Biden administration to bomb parts of Iran and erase it from the map during an interview on Fox News, in which he said, “I have been saying for 6 months… strike Iran.” They have oil fields in the open, and they have the headquarters of the Revolutionary Guard, which you can see from space. Erase it from the map.”
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons described Graham’s statements as “completely unacceptable” and warned that “any use of nuclear weapons will not end the war, and will only lead to mass murder and enormous suffering for hundreds of thousands of people.”
The campaign stressed that “a nuclear attack on Gaza would be catastrophic with unimaginable consequences, even for Israelis, because nuclear radiation does not respect borders, nuclear weapons are illegal under international law, and civilians and civilian infrastructure must not be targeted in war.”
A controversial relationship
Although Graham is ranked among the Republican Party’s hawks in the field of foreign policy, the majority traditional trend in the party does not support Graham’s extremist tendencies, even though it agrees on the necessity of providing full support for Israel.
“Some argue that Lindsey Graham is the worst member of the US Senate,” says Connor Nicholas, a former aide to the Republican senator. “I find it difficult to say anything positive about him. Since the death of his friend, Senator John McCain, Graham has become a troubled person, and he does what pleases him.” Trump, non-stop attacking the media and Democrats.
After Graham ran for president in the 2016 elections, he publicly admitted that he voted against former President Donald Trump in the 2016 general election. Graham described Trump as “a religious fanatic who spreads evil and xenophobia, and exploits religion.”
In the same month that Graham dropped out of the race, he told CNN, “Do you know how to make America great again? Tell Donald Trump to go to hell. He does not represent my party. He does not represent the values that men and women are fighting for.” Those wearing military uniforms.
But after Trump won the 2016 elections, Graham became one of his closest confidantes in the entire Republican Party. Since Trump lost the 2020 election, Graham has embraced the former president to a degree that astonished Trump’s allies.
