TEHRAN – The suggestion by Senator Lindsey Graham to drop nuclear bombs on Gaza is extremely astonishing. It also shows that he is not only out of his mind but also detached from reality.

Speaking on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, Graham drew comparisons between Israel’s war on Gaza and the decision by the United States to drop atomic bombs on Japan during World War II – urging Israel to “do whatever you have to do”. He called the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 the “right decision” for the US.

“When we were faced with destruction as a nation after Pearl Harbor, fighting the Germans and the Japanese, we decided to end the war by bombing Hiroshima, Nagasaki with nuclear weapons,” Graham said. “That was the right decision,” he concluded.

The inflammatory remarks by the Republican senator can be analyzed from different angles. Through his appalling and dreadful suggestion, Graham is indirectly creating a sense of fear among countries that they may also one day be threatened with nuclear bombs and this may prompt them to seek nuclear weapons to protect themselves against a possible atomic attack.  

Also, by suggesting to provide Israel with nuclear weapons, Graham is giving a wrong address. He wants to deny the fact that Israel has nuclear weapons despite the fact that the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) has announced Israel has about 90 nuclear weapons.

Graham is also indirectly acknowledging that Israel is losing the battle against the resistance fighters in the Gaza Strip despite more than seven months of relentless and indiscriminate war on the enclave, which is just 365 square kilometers (141 square miles).

“Give Israel the bombs they need to end the war they can’t afford to lose and work with them to minimize casualties,” Graham pointed out. 

Senator Graham and other like-minded zealots must know that even if they nuke Gaza, they will fail to defeat resistance fighters or weaken the will of the Palestinian people for justice. Therefore, comparing Hamas to Japan is fundamentally wrong.

Hamas is not a regular army. It is a guerrilla movement whose rebel fighters along with those from other groups are struggling against those who have stolen their lands and put them in a roofless prison. They are quite willing to sacrifice their lives to dismantle this suffocating prison.

Graham and other zealots may not understand that the situation that Israel has created for the Palestinians with the backing of the West naturally generates freedom fighters who are ready to die rather than give up to suppression, humiliation, and occupation.

When the youth in Gaza notice that Israel is established on the lands of their grandfathers but they have been crammed into a tiny territory that is surrounded from the land, sea, and air by Israel they are filled with anger.

Graham, pro-Zionist Western figures, and extreme rightists in Israel don’t understand that the Palestinians have nothing to lose. They have been deprived of their most basic rights for a normal life.

In part of his interview, Graham told Israel, “Do whatever you have to do to survive as a Jewish state. Whatever you have to do.”

Contrary to What Graham claims, no group, movement or Palestinian politician wants to destroy Israel. It has been proven that they just want a rather fair solution to their decades-long problems.

The developments are rapidly changing in favor of the Palestinians. The overwhelming vote at the UN General Assembly to recognize Palestine as a full member coupled with the rapidly increasing campus protests against Israel’s carnage in the Gaza Strip are strong evidence that the 1948 Nakba day in which about 700,000 Palestinians were driven out of their homes will not be repeated at any price.

Over the past seven months, Gaza’s 2.3 million population have been subjected to different barbaric and sadistic atrocities but they are still resisting and this shows that even dropping nuclear bombs on them will fail to silence their struggle for freedom.