From Okinawa to Palestine: How the US military machine connects occupied territories: Opinion
In the past two weeks alone, Israel has perpetrated three massacres in Gaza that managed to shock the world and trigger widespread condemnation.
Flooding social media were scenes that the head of Unrwa called "hell on earth" and Doctors Without Borders described as "apocalyptic".
A raging inferno engulfing a camp for displaced Palestinians, a headless child, dismembered limbs, and scores of maimed and burnt bodies appeared against a soundtrack of explosions and the piercing screams of terrified women and children.
Even those who have closely followed the daily horror show in Gaza over the last eight months - the mass civilian casualties and total destruction of its infrastructure - could not fathom the savagery of dropping a 110kg bomb on plastic tents.
Yet for US officials, the 26 May Rafah tent massacre, which killed 45 people and injured more than 200 others, did not cross President Joe Biden's "red line" for halting weapons shipments.
With no accountability, Israel has continued its genocidal campaign in Gaza unabated - as part of a settler colonial project to eliminate native Palestinians that began seven decades ago.
The following week, on 6 June, an Israeli air strike on al-Sardi Unrwa school killed around 40 displaced Palestinian civilians, including children. Two days later, on 8 June, the Nuseirat camp was brutally assaulted by land and air, killing 274 Palestinians.
The harrowing attacks have placed a spotlight on the role of US-supplied weapons and munitions in perpetrating a war that has killed at least 37,296 Palestinians and injured more than 85,000 others since 7 October 2023.
Indeed, US weapons shipments are key to Israel's genocidal violence, and they reveal the sprawling network of the US military war machine that connects settler colonial and militarist violence on two occupied lands, Okinawa and Palestine.
READ MORE: From Okinawa to Palestine: How the US military machine connects occupied territories - Opinion by Adam Miyashoro and Nozomi Nakaganeku-Saito
