If I object, in the United States, to the Israeli government’s brutal occupation of Palestine, most people will not only know what I’m talking about but also understand immediately what a hateful antisemite I must be.
If, on the other hand, I object, in the United States, to Morocco’s brutal occupation of Western Sahara, most people will have no idea what I’m talking about. Isn’t that actually worse?
Remarkably, the Moroccan government is armed, trained, and supported by the U.S. government, and escalated its brutality in response to a tweet by then-President Donald Trump, never corrected by Joe Biden.
Yet the presence of unarmed U.S. civilian protectors in Morocco prevent rapes and assaults and all sorts of violence simply by virtue of their being from the U.S. Even in the midst of atrocities committed with U.S. weapons, it is U.S. lives that matter.
Meanwhile, virtually nobody in the United States has any idea what’s going on.