Sen. Lindsey Graham Suggests Destroying Gaza, Calls Hiroshima ‘Good Decision’

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) offered a disconcerting comparison between Israel’s war on Gaza and the U.S. decision to drop atomic bombs on Japan during World War II, telling Israel to “do whatever it is necessary” to complete the military campaign.

Speaking to NBC’s Kristin Welker on Meet the press On Sunday morning, Graham made the argument that Israel would be justified in massacring civilians in Gaza by comparing the situation to the US-led war against Japan eight decades ago. He suggested that Israel would be justified in flattening the Gaza Strip – home to 2.2 million Palestinians, half of them children – simply because the United States did so in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the 1940s.

“So when we faced destruction as a nation after Pearl Harbor, fighting the Germans and the Japanese, we decided to end the war by bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki with nuclear weapons,” Graham began .

The senator continued to call the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki a “good decision” by the United States. This decision ended the war with Japan, but killed hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians between the initial explosions and the deadly radiation that followed.

“Give Israel the bombs it needs to end the war it cannot afford to lose, and work with it to minimize casualties,” Graham insisted.

It’s unclear how he thought the United States and Israel could work to “minimize casualties,” since bombs tend not to discriminate between civilians and militants when detonated.

Graham’s comments were so extreme that even Welker was surprised, attempting in vain to intervene while the senator spoke about him.

“Can I say that?” Graham continued. “Why is it acceptable for America to drop two nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end their war against existential threats? Why can we do this? I thought it was okay.

Of course, the presumption that the United States was justified in dropping nuclear bombs on Japan to end World War II has been disputed by historians and other critics for decades. These bombs also decimated almost all of Hiroshima and Nagasaki’s medical infrastructure, making it nearly impossible to deliver aid to the injured and dying, according to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.

Graham’s comments come as Israel appears ready to launch a full-scale invasion of Rafah, which the UN and the Biden administration have warned would be catastrophic for the 1.4 million people sheltering there . On Sunday, as Graham suggested on national television that Gaza be incinerated, the UN secretary-general once again pleaded to prevent the region from descending into total devastation.