It has been 19 months now since the start of the Israeli war on Gaza. The International Court of Justice is investigating a “plausible genocide”, while the International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes. Scholars of genocide, major human rights organisations, and United Nations experts have identified what is going on in Gaza as genocide. People across the world have marched to call on their governments to act to stop it.

There is a single power that stands in the way of putting an end to this genocide: the United States. One administration has handed over to another, and yet there has been no change in policy. Unconditional support for Israel seems to be a doctrine that the US political establishment is unwilling to touch.

Various analyses have suggested that at the root of this “special relationship” are Judeo-Christian values and a shared democratic path; others have argued that it has to do with the two-party system and the donor class dominating US politics.

But the reality is far simpler. The US views Israel as a critical ally because it helps promote US global supremacy at a time when it is facing inevitable decline. Israel’s survival in its current settler-colonial form – the US elites believe – is closely tied to maintaining US supremacy.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, the US has been leading a unipolar world as the sole superpower.

As a continuation of Western imperial global dominance, the US empire holds much sway over global economic, political, and cultural matters, often with devastating consequences for the lives of millions of people around the world.

Like all empires, the US solidifies and expands its position of supremacy and hegemony in the world through its overwhelming military force. Through the US infrastructure of........

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