Afrasianet - Those who believe that Israel is primarily responsible for what is happening in Gaza, should look at the unlimited support that America is doing to prolong this issue, because America has a long history of wars of extermination and starvation, since its inception, it has adopted this policy with the indigenous population and then repeated it in all the wars it fought in the way of domination and stealing the resources of the peoples.
Ironically, the flow of arms to Israel continues despite public pressure and the legal obligations of states. This is the result of a deliberate strategy of government disinformation, anti-democratic tendencies inherent in a capitalist system that prioritizes the accumulation of private profit over public power, the suppression of dissent of Israel with the pretext of anti-Semitism, and the pervasive influence of a powerful weapons industry that shapes policies for its own gain.
Together, these factors undermine the transparency, accountability, and responsiveness needed for an effective public authority that is subject to popular control, and marginalize dissenting voices.
But how do these mechanisms work?
The answer is that it starts first with government deception and legal violations regarding arms exports.
The U.S. is not alone in the genocide and war on the Palestinians: the Canadian government, for example, has engaged in systematic deception and a communication ploy to mislead public opinion about continued military support for Israel.
Despite repeated claims by former Secretary of State Jolie, former Prime Minister Trudeau, and current Prime Minister Mark Carney that Canada has restricted or halted arms exports, a steady flow of military goods to Israel has been revealed.
Canadian officials have downplayed the danger of exported goods and created a "non-lethal" designation for some military equipment — though without a legal basis — to mislead the public. The blackout is aimed at making Canada break its laws by arming Israel, even as it ships lethal materials, such as 175,000 military bullets.
The Canadian government has reportedly accelerated permit approvals for a record number of arms exports to Israel before publicly committing to a halt, and then quietly undermined that commitment through exceptions and loopholes.
For example, shipments of cartridges from General Dynamics in Quebec continued even after the secretary of state publicly pledged to ban such exports.
This pattern of disinformation means that the government has failed to provide transparency and accountability, which are fundamental to popular oversight. There is no clear process for verifying how and where the IDF uses Canadian-made munitions.
There are persistent efforts to silence criticism of Israel, often by equating it with anti-Semitism. This "McCarthyism" – as in France, Germany, and the United States – drives fear and self-censorship among intellectuals and politicians, undermining the freedom of expression that is the cornerstone of democracy.
By continuing to send weapons, Canada is violating its domestic law (the Export and Import Permits Act, EIPA) and its obligations under international law (the Arms Trade Treaty, ATT), which prohibits transfers if there is a significant risk that they will be used in serious violations of international humanitarian law.
The International Court of Justice has obliged governments to prevent crime after finding plausible evidence of genocide in Gaza, and UN experts have repeatedly urged a complete arms embargo on Israel.
The deep integration between North American arms manufacturers and the Israeli military-industrial complex means that technologies made in Canada and the United States are integrated into the weapons platforms used in Israeli airstrikes that have caused ongoing massacres in Gaza.
This includes the main structural, test and navigational components of the F-35 fighter jets, which are described as a "slaughtering tool" used against the civilian population.
The Canadian and other Western governments' stance is a blatant rejection of respect for and application of international law, undermining the authority of international legal frameworks and the domestic legal order itself.
Cannibal capitalism
Nancy Fraser, a renowned feminist philosopher of Jewish descent, defines "cannibalistic capitalism" as a societal system that allows a for-profit economy to prey on and consume its basic non-economic pillars, such as families, communities, ecosystems, state capacities and public authorities.
This system inherently tends to devour the social, political, and environmental underpinnings of its existence, and leads to crises by doing so.
Democracy is undermined and public power eroded by the complex interplay between the fundamental contradictions inherent in capitalism, especially in its financial form, and the deliberate actions of private entities and governments.
Capitalism relies primarily on strong public authorities and institutions to function. This includes legal frameworks that safeguard private property rights, enforce contracts, and resolve disputes.
Public authorities also work to suppress protests, maintain order, manage dissent, support monetary systems, and manage crises.
At the geopolitical level, capitalism relies on international law and transnational arrangements mediated by the world's dominant powers to facilitate the cross-border movement of capital and trade.
Capitalist societies are characterized by a structural division between the economic and political spheres. Economic power is privatized and largely transferred to capital, while the task of administering non-economic systems rests with the public authority, which uses political means such as law and state violence.
This separation inherently limits the scope of democratic decision-making, as large aspects of social life are confined to the "market" (i.e., big business), leaving them out of public control.
Despite capital's dependence on public power, it inherently tends to undermine and exploit it, driven by its thirst for profit. Segments of the capitalist class are periodically tempted to rebel against public power, discredit it, and plan to weaken it.
This is evident in efforts to evade taxes, weaken regulations, privatize public goods such as education and health, and move production out of the country. This leads to a political contradiction in which capital threatens to destroy the political conditions necessary for its long-term survival.
The current financial capitalist system creates "governance without government," as central banks, global financial institutions, and giant corporations increasingly replace elected governments as the rulers of the global economy.
It is these entities, not States, that now dictate many of the rules that govern the relations between labour and capital, citizens and States, debtors and creditors.
Ultimately, these entities become unaccountable to the public, acting on behalf of investors and creditors.
In this context, debt becomes an essential tool used by capital to exploit labor, discipline states, transfer wealth from the periphery to the center, and extract value from society and nature.
Global financial institutions are pressuring countries to cut social spending and impose austerity, which directly impacts public services and infrastructure.
States are becoming less responsive to the needs of citizens, while financial institutions are politically independent and unaccountable to the public.
Transnational governance structures (e.g., the European Union, the World Trade Organization, the North American Free Trade Agreement, etc.) create coercively enforceable rules, constitutionalizing neoliberal concepts such as free trade and intellectual property, preempting democratic labor and environmental legislation.
The overall effect is the emptying of public power at all levels. Political agendas are narrowed by external demands (markets) and internal co-optation (corporate acquisitions, privatization), and neoliberal political rationality, a specific way of thinking and governance, in which the state and society as a whole are reshaped according to the logic of the market and economic competition.
Things that were previously within the scope of democratic power are now prohibited, and delegated to markets in favor of finance and institutional capital. The capitalists may even cancel elections or block candidacies that challenge the prevailing neoliberal order.
The Impact of the Arms Industry on Politics
The U.S. arms industry is actively working to turn profit into political power, and political power into profit. This directly affects military spending and foreign policy, often independently of actual national security needs and citizens' priorities.
The industry uses a wide range of tools to influence Congress and the executive branch, including millions of dollars in campaign donations, hiring a large number of lobbyists (950 in 2024), funding think tanks, and placing current or former staff members on government policy-making committees.
There is a "revolving door" between companies and the government, with former Pentagon officials moving to venture capital firms that invest in military technology startups, allowing them to benefit greatly and use their connections to promote new weapons systems.
New military technology companies such as SpaceX, Palantir, and Andurel have gained enormous influence within administrations, with key figures embedded in the administration. This direct access enables it to push for a significant increase in the Pentagon's budgets, even for questionable or unrealistic systems, such as the Golden Dome missile defense system.
This dynamic ensures that profits drive policy, as the industry actively increases military spending and arms sales (such as those sold to Ukraine and Israel), further boosting its revenues.
The influence of the arms industry, especially Silicon Valley military technology companies, can go beyond public scrutiny and democratic deliberation, leading to wasteful spending and irrational decision-making.
The pseudo-battle between two competing groups of political forces (populists and conservatives) diverts attention from the dynamics of real power (capital), which exploits important strands of conflict and directs them to projects that ultimately benefit capital.
In essence, the genocide in Gaza, made possible by sustained military support, clearly illustrates how the structural contradictions of financial capitalism lead to the hollowing out of democratic governance, systematically disregard for international law, and the suppression of dissenting voices, all in the service of the insatiable drive for profit and accumulation by a powerful few.
This leads to a situation in which collective freedom to determine how society lives is drained, and replaced by decisions made by investors behind the public's backs.