The (American) Politics of Israel-Palestine
Pick a side. No nuance allowed.
Some loosely related reports and op-eds overnight in the US press.
Lisa Lerer, NYT (“Obama Urges Americans to Take in ‘Whole Truth’ of Israel-Gaza War“):
Barack Obama offered a complex analysis of the conflict between Israel and Gaza, telling thousands of former aides that they were all “complicit to some degree” in the current bloodshed.
“I look at this, and I think back, ‘What could I have done during my presidency to move this forward, as hard as I tried?’” he said in an interview conducted by his former staffers for their podcast, Pod Save America. “But there’s a part of me that’s still saying, ‘Well, was there something else I could have done?’”
Mr. Obama entered the White House convinced he could be the president who would resolve the decades-old conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. He left office after years of friction and mistrust with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, who was frustrated by the president’s masterminding of the Iran nuclear deal and by his demands that Israel suspend new settlements.
In his comments on Friday, delivered at a gathering of his former staff in Chicago, Mr. Obama acknowledged the strong emotions the war had raised, saying that “this is century-old stuff that’s coming to the fore.” He blamed social media for amplifying the divisions and reducing a thorny international dispute to what he viewed as sloganeering.
Yet he urged his former aides to “take in the whole truth,” seemingly attempting to strike a balance between the killings on both sides.
“What Hamas did was horrific, and there’s no justification for it,” Mr. Obama said. “And what is also true is that the occupation and what’s happening to Palestinians is unbearable.”
He continued: “And what is also true is that there is a history of the Jewish people that may be dismissed unless your grandparents or your great-grandparents, or your uncle or your aunt tell you stories about the madness of antisemitism. And what is true is that there are people right now who are dying, who have nothing to do with what Hamas did.”
Still, Mr. Obama appeared to acknowledge the limits of his musings about bridging divides and embracing complexity.
“Even what I just said, which sounds very persuasive, still doesn’t answer the fact of, all right, how do we prevent kids from being killed today?” he said. “But the problem is that if you are dug in on that, well, the other side is dug in remembering the videos that Hamas took or what they did on the 7th, and they’re dug in, too, which means we will not stop those kids from dying.”
POLITICO (“Scott: ‘Obama is dead wrong’ on Israel-Hamas conflict”):
Tim Scott on Saturday slammed Barack Obama as “dead wrong” after the former president called for a more nuanced approach to the Israel-Hamas war.
“From Obama to Biden, Democrats have a problem: supporting Israel always has an asterisk,” the South Carolina senator and presidential contender said in a statement to POLITICO.
“Obama is dead wrong and he has a legacy of aiding those who support terrorism,” Scott continued. “The truth is simple: Hamas is evil.”
Scott has repeatedly attacked President Joe Biden for being too weak in his support for Israel, claiming he helped fund Hamas’ attacks on Israel by releasing $6 billion to Iran in a prisoner swap — a claim disputed by the administration, which said the funds released to Iran had not yet been spent.
The Biden administration has offered strong support to Israel, sending near daily military aid shipments, but Scott and other Republicans have been critical of calls to consider the impacts of the Israeli offensive on Palestinian civilians.
Alex Thompson and Andrew Solender, Axios (“Scoop: Biden’s 2024 team roiled by Israel-Hamas war“):
Part of President Biden’s political team is in turmoil over the Israel-Hamas war, as some aides see the White House as abetting an immoral attack on Palestinians — while others believe Biden is showing “moral clarity” in protecting Israel from terrorists.
Why it matters: The strife within the Democratic National Committee (DNC) — which Biden is leaning on for his re-election campaign — reflects larger generational and political divisions among Democrats.
- Those divisions are chiefly between older pro-Israel Democrats and younger progressives who are more sympathetic to the plight of Palestinians.
- Their differences have been exposed by the war in Gaza that began Oct. 7, after Hamas’ surprise attack on Israel killed 1,400 people. Israel’s counter-attacks in Gaza have killed more than 9,000 people, the Palestinian Ministry of Health claims.
Zoom in: Some staffers at the DNC feel despondent about the scale and death toll from Israel’s response, and one staffer said they are considering resigning, citing Biden’s resolute support for Israel.
- A high-ranking DNC official who asked not to be identified told Axios: “The president centered his 2020 campaign on a ‘Battle for the Soul of the Nation,’ but it seems as though the administration is currently in a battle for its own soul.”
- “I don’t know how you can see supporting the large-scale killing of Palestinian civilians as anything but immoral,” the official added.
DNC chair Jaime Harrison told Axios in a statement that Biden “continues to display unparalleled leadership and moral clarity” — and that “Israel has a right to defend itself from terrorism and the continued threat posed by Hamas.”
- Harrison noted that Biden — who has called for a “humanitarian pause” in the fighting in Gaza, but not a ceasefire — has been “a strong advocate for both humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza as well as protecting civilian lives.”
Some DNC staffers say they’ve been rattled by emails and phone calls from Democratic grassroots donors angry about the administration’s policy, according to a person familiar with the matter.
- The DNC declined to comment on any discontent among staffers, supporters and donors.
- The 2024 cycle “promises to be a long, grueling campaign, and the president is making it even harder,” the high-ranking DNC official said.
On Friday, 51 DNC staffers — about 17% of the DNC’s roughly 300 employees — signed a letter to DNC leaders saying that “we feel it is the DNC’s moral obligation to urge President Biden to publicly call for a ceasefire,” The Huffington Post first reported.
[…]
Zoom out: The internal conflicts at the DNC also are playing out among Democrats in Congress — and their staffs.
- Former staffers for the presidential campaigns of Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) have penned letters urging the senators to call for a ceasefire.
- Warren called two of the organizers of the effort to hear them out, a person familiar with the matter told Axios.
- Sanders’ communications director did not respond.
Several House Democrats told Axios they expect more of their colleagues to begin speaking out about the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
- “It’s going to be very, very hard for Democrats, given what we are seeing on cable news … about what’s happening in Gaza to just turn a blind eye,” said one lawmaker, a supporter of Israel.
- Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) turned heads Thursday with a statement calling for Israel to “immediately reconsider its approach” to the war.
- The fight has seeped into the administration as well. One prominent State Department official has resigned and national security officials have hosted listening sessions for staffers, POLITICO first reported.
Michelle Goldberg, NYT opinion columnist (“When It Comes to Israel, Who Decides What You Can and Can’t Say?“):
Last week, the Anti-Defamation League and the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law sent a letter to nearly 200 college presidents urging them to investigate campus chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine for potential violations of federal and state laws against providing material support to terrorism. As evidence for these very serious accusations, the ADL and the Brandeis center offered only the student group’s own strident rhetoric, including a sentence in its online tool kit, which praised Hamas’s attacks on Israel and said: “We must act as part of this movement. All of our efforts continue the work and resistance of the Palestinians on the ground.”
Under the direction of Gov. Ron DeSantis, Florida has also ordered state universities to shut chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine. Citing the same tool kit, DeSantis said, “That is material support to terrorism, and that is not going to be tolerated in the state of Florida, and it should not be tolerated in these United States of America.” Virginia’s Republican attorney general has opened an investigation into American Muslims for Palestine, a national group that, according to the ADL, helps coordinate the activities of Students for Justice in Palestine, “for potentially violating Virginia’s charitable solicitation laws, including benefiting or providing support to terrorist organizations.” Several Republicans, including Donald Trump, have called for revoking the visas of pro-Palestinian student activists.
[…]
For Palestinian and Muslim students, the invocation of terrorism law is especially frightening. Attempts to curtail anti-Zionist activism are not new; about 35 states have laws targeting the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel. But now advocates for Palestinian rights describe a new level of repression. “The ADL is calling for the mass violation of students’ rights in a manner that’s reminiscent of the post 9/11 environment, but with a more intensely Palestinian twist,” said Radhika Sainath, a senior staff attorney at the civil rights organization Palestine Legal. She predicts that if federal and state governments follow through on the ADL’s demands, Palestinian activists will be subjected to an increase in surveillance, infiltration and investigation, even though their groups “pose zero threat and have done nothing but engage in speech 100 percent protected by the First Amendment.”
[…]
No one should underestimate how awful the campus climate is for many Jewish students, who’ve experienced a surge in violence and abuse. At Cornell, an engineering student was arrested after threatening to shoot up a kosher dining hall and calling for Jews to be raped and murdered. Demonstrators at a rally in support of Palestinians assaulted Jewish counterprotesters at Tulane; one student had his nose broken. In October, Erwin Chemerinsky, the law school dean of at the University of California, Berkeley, wrote an opinion essay headlined, “Nothing Has Prepared Me for the Antisemitism I See on College Campuses Now.” In it, he told of a student who insisted that she would feel safe on campus only if the school got “rid of the Zionists.”
This hostile environment stems, at least in part, from the nearly vaunted role played by the Palestinian cause in the left’s understanding of global dispossession. Because America helps underwrite Israel’s military occupation, Palestinians are often viewed as singular symbols of imperialist oppression. For decades, radical Black activists in America have seen, in Israel’s occupation of Palestine, a mirror of their own subjugation, and that identification was supercharged during America’s 2020 racial justice protests, when a mural of George Floyd appeared in Gaza City. In some social justice circles, then, support for Israel is viewed as something akin to support for the K.K.K.
This contempt for Zionism has only accelerated with the pulverizing bombing of Gaza and its thousands of civilian casualties. And too often, on hothouse campuses full of young people with half-formed ideas and poor impulse control, anti-Zionism segues into hatred directed at Jews.
[…]
As with the conflict between Israel and Palestine more broadly, there’s plenty of blame to go around. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a libertarian-leaning free speech organization, shared data with me showing that, since 2002, there have been more attempts made to de-platform pro-Palestinian campus speakers than pro-Israel ones. But attempts to shut down pro-Israel speakers, by disinviting or disrupting them, are more likely to be successful.
Both sides, then, have credible stories to tell about being censored and intimidated. The difference is where that intimidation is coming from. For supporters of Israel, it largely comes from peers and, in some cases, professors. For supporters of Palestine, it comes from powerful outside institutions, including the state.
Rather obviously, what the likes of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Tim Scott have to say—much less the use of state power to harass those who engage in free speech—are more important than what teenagers say and feel on college campuses. Still, the common thread here, aside from the crisis in Israel, is the lack of tolerance for acknowledging the complexity of an emotionally charged issue.
In the aftermath of the brutal slaughter of Israeli women and children by Hamas, any statement that begins “I condemn the attacks but . . . ” will be received as throat-clearing. There’s not a thing in Obama’s statement on the matter with which I disagree, other than to chuckle at the sheer hubris of thinking that he could solve an intractable problem. But that sort of ego is probably a necessary component to running for the most powerful job on the planet, much less serving two terms. Scott’s statement is simplistic but certainly works better as slogan.
We’ve seen division within the Democratic Party, including Biden’s staff, from almost the beginning of this crisis. That’s not surprising, really, since the party is simultaneously home to most American Jews (roughly 75% have identified Democrat in recent polls) and far more sympathetic to the Palestinian cause than the Republican Party going back to at least the Carter Administration.
It puts Biden in a tough spot. His literal embrace of Netanyahu and unwavering support of Israeli victory ties him to the destruction in ways that many younger Democrats find outrageous. At the same time, his calls for restraint and humanitarian pauses make him vulnerable to charges of being “soft on terrorism” and weak on antisemitism.
As to the various campus protests, I’m pretty much a free speech absolutist and that’s even more true in an academic environment. College is a natural time for activism and outrage over the state of a world students are struggling to understand. But, of course, heated speech can incite violence, intentionally or otherwise. How to balance free expression while simultaneously making Jewish and Palestinian students feel safe is beyond my expertise.
Unless there’s much more to it than Goldberg is letting on, though, it seems obvious that deporting Palestinian students for expressing their outrage over what’s happening in their homeland—much less charging them under antiterrorism laws for doing so—is beyond the pale.
Although Biden isn’t where I am on this issue, I have to say that – considering the political constraints at home and abroad – he is doing an excellent job of preventing this thing from completely spiraling out of control.
He couldn’t have managed to moderate Israel’s response in significant ways without first embracing Netanyahu.
He is also setting himself up to push Israel toward a viable two-state solution.
Until we know he far is willing or able to push Israel on a more permanent settlement, we can’t really judge Biden. But right now, he is making the right moves, I think.
@drj: He’s in an impossible situation and managing it about as well as it can be managed. That doesn’t mean he won’t be hit from both ends on the issue. What that means practically, when the alternative is Trump, I haven’t the slightest idea. I don’t even know if this is still a huge issue a year from now.
@James Joyner:
I’m not disagreeing, but here we have the paper of record:
Trump Biden 2024 Presidential Fantasy Match-Up (I kid you not):
I think we are in urgent need of grabbing a big-ass rocket and launching some people into the sun.
It strikes me that @Joyner and @Steven – two college professors – have created an ideal free speech environment right here. We discuss, we argue, we get mad, we get over it, rinse and repeat. And I’ve seen nothing quite like it anywhere else.
@Michael Reynolds:
You got over calling me an antisemite and useful idiot?
How brave of you. Must have been a real sacrifice.
@drj:
No, you’re still a useful idiot. But I have hopes that in time you’ll improve. Keep hope alive!
@drj:
@Michael Reynolds:
You both bring valid points and interesting perspectives here at the beltway, but lawd-o-mercy, sometimes the two of you remind me of Waldorf and Statler on The Muppet show.*
*Just a Luddite point of view. Limited time offer. Not valid in all locations.
While no doubt some young and dumb teenagers have rolled out for the party protests, the students of note are not even undergraduates, but rather law school students. Adults, with bachelors degrees, studying, not Angolan basketweaving for their major, but American and international law.
I saw a meme recently,
“Not to brag or nothing, but I never went to Harvard”
But you can insert Cornell, NYU, Columbia, etc. to for Harvard as things are going.
@drj:
Quit being an asshole.
Recent events made me curious as to how the Democratic party went from the party of slavery and Jim Crow segregation to being associated with the Civil Rights movement, when they voted against the Civil Rights Law of 1964.
My inkling is was the Jewish voters of the Northern Democrats. After all, the war against the KKK by Kennedy and Johnson was a war against the Southern Democrats such as George Wallace, Bull Conner, etc.
A somewhat cursory look revealed Jewish voters went Democrat after the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist fire via activism with the union movement that was heavily Democrat party. Jewish support for black civil rights started almost immediately
A black civil rights leader estimated that 90% of the lawyers that came south to support the movement were Jewish.
I am provoked to wonder what happens to the Democratic party is Jews drift away in the face of the current rampant antisemitism and support for the annihilation of Israel evident in these pro-Hamas protests.
These are times of change.
@JKB:
Um….how many Jews do you think there are in the United States, or were a century ago?
I think nuance in general is attacked. You can start off a post by saying that Hamas is evil and you hope they all get killed and if some civilians get killed along the way that is acceptable, but if you follow that with criticizing Israel in any way, you get call an anti-semite.
Also, since our politics is so tribal I dont think we should forget Netanyahu’s role in this. Besides his sheer, epic level of incompetence in not providing security for those living around Gaza, he long ago threw his lot in with conservative Republicans. I cant think of any other politician from another country who has intruded so much in our internal politics. I thought this was a terrible tactical mistake on his part. Time after time the only significant country to support Israel has been the US. Why would he want to try to alienate half of the country?
Steve
@JKB:
You might be interested in the following article:
I forgot to mention one thing. That article is from 2003.
@Kylopod:
“That article is from 2003.”
You’re right — JKB will reject it as being too new. He never looks at arguments less than 75 years old.
@Kylopod:
Far more than the antisemitic Hamas supporting Muslims that are declaring they won’t vote Biden if he doesn’t abandon Israel.
But less impactful than number of voters, seems many were active in moving the party away from the Southern Democrats.
@Kylopod:
No movement yet, but many are being provoke to thought and facing the true face of the Democrat party.
Problems arise when you are the party of special interests when the various special interest groups come into conflict.
@JKB: For the record, roughly 2.4% of the US population is Jewish, compared with 1.3% who are Muslim. So yes–there are more Jews than Muslims in this country, but both are pretty small.
The percentage of Jews in the US has decreased over the last century, but not massively–in the 1960s it was roughly 3-4% of the populace. Your theory that it’s enough to explain the Democratic Party’s shift on civil rights is absolutely bonkers, and borders on a common trope among white supremacists and neo-Nazis that blames the advancement of black people on Jews.
It’s also hardly necessary as an explanation. You began to stumble on the real explanation in your original comment, before getting sidetracked by your wildly inflated understanding of Jewish influence in the country (to be as charitable as possible). The main reason for the shift is because the party gained significant support in the North during the New Deal era, and Northerners as a whole, including white Northerners, were much more sympathetic to the aspiration of blacks than their counterparts in the South. I’m oversimplifying a little (there is still a long history of racism in the North), but it’s safe to say geography was a much bigger factor in the realignment than religion.
@JKB:
A few things to keep in mind. First, American Jews are most concentrated in non-swing states like New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. Second, they are hardly monolithic on Israel. I imagine that most would be offended by statements defending Hamas, but I also suspect that large numbers hold opinions that you would label as anti-Semitic. And a lot of American Jews just don’t care that much about Israel. A Pew poll from 2021 gives an indication of how complex their views are:
45% say “caring about Israel is essential to what being Jewish means to them”
34% “strongly oppose BDS”
33% say “Israeli government is making sincere efforts toward peace”
Keep in mind, also, that Jews who identify as strongly pro-Israel are disproportionately found among those who have been Republican for years, so the effect is somewhat baked in at this point. Of course there are still plenty of Jewish Dems who aren’t comfortable with the views of their party’s left flank and for the prominence of figures like Rashida Tlaib. But that doesn’t mean they’re all about to bolt the party en masse for a party whose leader talked about “fine people on both sides” of a neo-Nazi rally and who hosted at his Florida compound Kanye West and Nick Fuentes.
@drj:
If you run into an asshole every day, that means those people might be assholes.
If you run into several assholes every day, that means you’re probably the asshole, not them.
Your comment is a perfect example of the latter.
“Rather obviously, what the likes of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Tim Scott have to say—much less the use of state power to harass those who engage in free speech—are more important than what teenagers say and feel on college campuses. Still, the common thread here, aside from the crisis in Israel, is the lack of tolerance for acknowledging the complexity of an emotionally charged issue.”
How do you attribute that thread to what Obama said?
@Kylopod:
Yet, Tlaib is threatening Biden with the loss of the smaller Muslim vote and not every Muslim is a supporter of Hamas like she is. Yet, every Jewish person in the US can see the threat the current protests are to them personally regardless of their support of Israel. Last night Hamas supporting protesters tried to breach the gates of the White House. No worries, Biden was off adding to his 400 days in office in Delaware.
However, in 1916, first year of records, the Jewish vote went 55% to avowed segregationist Woodrow Wilson for his stance on immigration from Europe and the appointment of Louis Brandeis, the first Jewish Supreme Court Justice. From this we can ascertain that sometime the Jewish vote is very self interested.
In any case, I’m more interested in what happens to the Democratic party if the Jewish voters which seem to be the faction keeping the Democratic party’s historical roots of slavery and segregation muted, start pulling back. Right now the “extinction of Jews” faction of the Democratic party seems ascendant. And Muslims have a long history of slavery of sub-saharan Africans, so will they be as friendly to African-Americans when they feel they have the power?
How long before Joes senility has him spouting his segregation rhetoric of his 20s and 30s?
Fun times for the party of special interests.
I should add, that the Jewish vote went for the Democrat by 80+%….until Jimmy Carter was seen to have been unfriendly to Israel. There lower turnout (45% for Carter) is cited as why Reagan took NY in 1980.
Yet another similarity between Biden and Carter (circa 1979)
@EddieInCA:
Remember this?
If pushing back against this makes me an asshole, I’ll gladly be one.
But you know what? The pushback isn’t even the reason you call me an asshole. It’s because you (and Michael) have no arguments to offer. That’s why it’s “antisemite,” “useful idiot,” “idiot,” and now “asshole.”
Come on, man, explain to us why the West Bank settlements are OK, and not an Israel-created obstacle to peace.
I’m not holding my breath, off course.
Love,
drj
@Kazzy: As noted in the next paragraph, his nuanced words are easy to attack and have been.
@drj:
My argument is simple.
One group (Hamas – and many Palestinians) kills civilians with impunity and no remorse as part of their proclaimed objectives, and openly and repeatedly proclaim that their only mission in life is to wipe out Israel off the map.
The other group (Israel) kills innocent civilians by accident while going after the very people that repeatedly attack them.
Innocent civilians killed intentionally on one side.
Innocent civilians killed accidentally on the other.
One group targets civilians, hides among civilians, and creates danger for civilians.
The other targets combatants, warns civilians to get away, and then kills civilians as collateral damage.
Not hard for me to figure out which side I support. Not hard at all.
Wow! Lot of comments to skip over–trolling/troll feeding, people talking past each other, etc. I think Israel/Palestine is becoming yet another gun controlesque quarrel. So sad.
@EddieInCA:
Elegantly concise.
I’ll just add that one side believes in democracy, however flawed, freedom of speech and rights for women and minorities, and the other does not. All of us here in commentary land could live much as we do now, in Israel. And none of us would be happy to live in Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi, the UAE, Qatar, Iran, etc.. let a lone a Hamas state.
@JKB:
I would caution against making universal generalizations (“every Jewish person in the US”) about any group.
That aside, there’s definitely been a rise in anti-Semitic violence in this country since Trump came to power, and the bulk of it has come not from Hamas supporters but from white supremacists. The 2018 synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh was committed by a guy who, while attacking Trump as too Jew-controlled, was motivated by a conspiracy theory being promoted by Trump and many other Republicans at the time–that a caravan of migrants was an “invasion” being funded by George Soros.
Let me let you in on a secret: most voters are self-interested. Voters don’t always vote based on what’s good for them, but they usually vote based on what they think is good for them.
In any case, the record of the Jewish vote (and I’m a little wary of using data from before the introduction of exit polling in the late 1960s) shows they’ve been very consistently supportive of the Democrats over time. The only Republican presidential candidate to “win” the Jewish vote according to this data was Warren Harding in 1920–and that was simply a plurality with a majority of the Jewish vote being split between the Democrat and the Socialist Eugene Debs.
Again, that theory is utterly ridiculous. Why do you think the states of the former Confederacy are uniformly Republican today, and why the handful of exceptions (Virginia, Georgia, Florida) are the ones that have the most transplants from the North? Why is the GOP the party defending Confederate monuments and the flag? Why is the GOP pushing all those curricula removing references to the civil rights movement and teaching that blacks benefited from slavery?
You seem to have this bizarre idea that the pro-slavery/segregationists never left the Democratic Party, they just somehow retreated into the shadows, and now you’re suggesting that a group that’s no more than 2.4% of the population is the only thing keeping it from reappearing.
I would say Christians have a much more dominant role in that historically.
The Jewish vote was split between Carter and Anderson, the independent, who got 15%, compared with 6% in the overall populace.
I haven’t looked at the data on that, but I should note that NY was much swingier back then than it is today. Carter carried the state in 1976, but only by about 4.5%, and that was probably due at least in part to the “Ford to NY: Drop Dead” fiasco.
Pick a side, eh? Well, lemme see: Islam calls for killing Jews (yes, that is in the Koran) In Gaza, Hamas overthrew the Palestine Authority and does not allow elections. The Hamas charter calls for the total destruction of Israel. Hamas is “credited” with the death of 40 babies, massacred young folks at a music festival, and is clearly a terrorist group. Pick a side, eh? Well, for me, the only good Palestinian is a…..well, you know.
@drj:
That NYT article inspires all kinds of nausea. Paul Campos at Lawyers, Guns, and Money has some choice words.
@drj:
Bingo.
@Kingdaddy:
Thanks. Well said, clear and concise. Would that this would be read, understood, and harkened to. Unfortunately, that’ll get lost in the noise.
@Michael Reynolds:
What side is that? Not Israel.
Jewish and Arab Israelis detained, fired from jobs and even attacked for expressing sentiments interpreted as pro-Hamas:
Netanyahu’s Israel no more believes in democracy, however flawed, or free speech than Putin’s Russia. Just holding elections does not a democracy make.
But it is true of this conflict, that we have one side rightly condemned for its horrific acts, while the other side has its increasingly horrid human and civil rights record whitewashed by Westerners who do not want to face up to the reality of Israel’s looming descent into violent, racist, Iran-like, quasi-dictatorship — if Israelis do not quickly make a U-turn.
@DK:
Netanyahu is no more all of Israel than Trump is all of the United States. Israel at present has 10 Arab members out of 120 total. That’s a higher percentage than Blacks can claim in the US Senate.
Denying that Israel is a democracy is false. A lie. You know it’s a lie. Motive?
Oh, and let me add that overall Israeli voter turnout in 2022 was 70.6%. Arab/Druze turnout was 53. 2%.
Our 2020 turnout was 62.8%, significantly lower than the percentage of voters in your non-democratic, Israeli hellhole of oppression.
I’m starting to wonder about JKB. In past years he was annoying but he was a good speller and didn’t make typos or use incorrect grammar or syntax. More than once I felt that he was a true credit to his third-grade teacher. But lately there are mistakes in most of his posts. What’s up with that, JKB?
I’ve been saying elsewhere that we need to start treating Israel like any other nation like, say, France or Britain.
Specifically, that in 1940 France could honestly and fairly be described as a brutal colonial empire, which used atrocities and injustice to crush dissent and maintain a system of apartheid rule in its colonies.
None of this prevented us from acknowledging France’s right to exist and further, to come to its aid when it was attacked.
People seem to think that they can just list sins committed by Israel and the conclusion is obvious.
But…it isn’t.
Even acknowledging every criticism of Israel made here and on college campuses, the path for America to take isn’t obvious or clear. its muddled and filled with moral complexity where we have to choose between flawed actors.
Even after acknowledging all that complexity, I think the course Biden is on is the right one. Israel, flawed or not, is entitled to exist within secure borders and is entitled to take whatever measures necessary to defend itself.
Notice what this defense implies; It implies that like every other nation, Israel should be judged by a similar yardstick, which is that self-defense isn’t unlimited, and doesn’t make legitimate any sort of free-fire zone.
It also implies that Hamas needs to be judged by the same yardstick; If we put quotes from Hamas leaders in the mouths of Americans I doubt anyone would offer a defense or support.
Being the victim of injustice isn’t a carte blanche to just say or do any sh!t you want.
@Michael Reynolds: No, Trump is not “all” of America. That does not absolve the United States of responsibility for the outcomes of Trumpist extremism and white supremacy.
Doubly so for Israel. We booted Trump after one term. Netanyahu is Israel’s longest-serving prime minister.
Denial of Israel’s anti-democratic drift, government-sponsored terrorism, and documented attacks on free speech is a lie.
Your motive is that you are a proven liar, many times over.
@Michael Reynolds:
Which makes your pleas of Israeli innocence and blamelessness even less convincing.
Coming after Netanyahu argued for the bolstering and funding of Hamas in 2019, this means Israeli voters are even more directly complicit in their government’s violent extremism, including Netanyahu’s sponsorship of terrorism.
@Michael Reynolds:
The United States had a two-term Black president and currently has a Black vice-president, as well as a Black opposition-leader in its legislature.
Has Israel ever had an Arab head of government? Head of state? Second-in-line? Head of opposition? Anywhere near close to having Arabs or Palestinians in any these roles?
Nice try at implying the Israeli system grants Arabs status or democratic power greater than that of American Blacks, but please. Obvious and desperate lie.
@EddieInCA:
Except the Palestinian civilians in the West Bank being murdered by Israeli settler terrorism — with the sanction of Israel’s government — are not being killed by accident.
So there’s no reason to trust that a Gazan military campaign led by a corrupt, extremist thug like Netanyahu really seeks to minimize civilian deaths.
But I am relieved Netanyahu has finally decided to go after Hamas, rather than bolstering and funding them per his 2019 pledge.
The problem is there’s no reason to believe his government will see this task through with the surgical competence necessary, given that thus far Likud-led coalitions have only strengthened Hamas and make Israel less safe.
@Michael Reynolds: If you factor in the Palestinians living in the Israeli occupied territories, the voter turnout in Israel goes down a lot.
Similar to voter turnout in the Jim Crow South, or the Slavery South.
@JKB:
Psst — 30 is not 90.
But, while you’re wrong about a lot above, you are right about the disproportionate influence of Jewish activists in the Civil Rights struggles of the 60s. And, given that racism and antisemitism walked hand in hand with the KKK back then (still does, but it’s more complicated now), it was an act of exceptional bravery.
I think the Freedom Riders aren’t celebrated enough. We teach the 1960s civil rights movement as Martin Luther King and a bunch of Black folks, and leave out the role of others, making it Black history rather than American history.
The Jewish activists in particular pulled above their weight, while a lot of White America sat on their hands. They did good. Not “controlling the party” good as you imply, but good. Better than most.
And that is kind of the story of the modern Democratic Party, when it’s functioning well — disadvantaged groups of one stripe or another working together. The Democrats have lost a bit of their edge with non-college-educated working white folks, who are disadvantaged from an economic aspect while being advantaged from a social/racial aspect.
@JKB: “Yet, every Jewish person in the US can see the threat the current protests are to them personally regardless of their support of Israel:
Well, gosh, I happen to be an actual Jewish person and I don’t see any threat from the current protests. I do see a threat from the kind of MAGA maniacs who like to mass murder Jews, but I can’t imagine you have any problem with them.
I suspect you’ve never met a Jewish person and assume we have horns and a tail, and would happily put us all in camps if it didn’t take too much effort on your part. But you’ll happily scream “anti-semitism” if you think it will help your pathetic case.
@wr:
I’m sorry they hypnotized you so deeply. I hope you can overcome it.