If Netanyahu wasn’t more worried about his own future than his country’s, he’d find this alarming:
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 19 (Reuters) – The United States has proposed a rival draft United Nations Security Council resolution that would underscore the body’s “support for a temporary ceasefire in Gaza as soon as practicable,” according to the text seen by Reuters on Monday.
Washington has been averse to the word ceasefire in any U.N. action on the Israel-Hamas war, but the U.S. draft text echoes language that President Joe Biden said he used last week in conversations with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The U.S. draft text also “determines that under current circumstances a major ground offensive into Rafah would result in further harm to civilians and their further displacement including potentially into neighboring countries.”
Israel plans to storm Rafah in southern Gaza, where more than 1 millions Palestinians have sought shelter, prompting international concern that such a move would sharply worsen the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
The draft U.S. resolution says such a move “would have serious implications for regional peace and security, and therefore underscores that such a major ground offensive should not proceed under current circumstances.”
I think this represents a pretty significant break with the Netanyahu government since the U.S. usually shields Israel from U.N. resolutions aimed at restraining it, including a couple of times recently.
I have no idea what Israeli citizens’ perspective is on storming Rafah. Does anyone know? My guess is that matters to Biden more than what Netanyahu thinks.
Open thread.
Kay
Oh, I hope so. Rafah is going to be a slaughter. The food/water situation is getting much worse, too.
I’m glad to see them parry Netanyahu’s belligerent US interview. Someone or something has to check him, and fast.
kindness
Will it move the needle for some ‘Democrats’ to now consider voting for Uncle Joe for President?
No doubt there are patrons at Ohio diners that will tell you.
Yutsano
Fuck Bibi. Let’s hope the temporary ceasefire will become more permanent.
Kay
I hope they can get some relief in. That’s the part that makes me feel most hopeless – we can’t even get enough aid in.
geg6
Excellent. Wish it had come sooner, but better late than never.
Chief Oshkosh
Netanyahu will understand one thing: Actual loss of power. He’s like every other authoritarian grifter. He’s god on Earth until he’s not. The best that can happen here is his own people forcing him to leave, and US is nowhere near applying the kind of pressure to the rest of the Israeli powers in order for that to happen
ETA: But good for Biden to clarify his position. More and faster, please.
Kay
I think the GoP House proposal for Israel did not include humanitarian aid for Palestinians. Maybe Democrats could bring that up? (if my reading is correct, of course)
Make a comparison?
West of the Rockies
@Chief Oshkosh:
He needs to face four prison walls for life.
schrodingers_cat
@kindness: The people really concerned about Gaza might change their opinion. Cosplay socialists will find another reason to sit out the election.
VFX Lurker
No. Too many people want to rationalize their support for Trump, and they’ll keep pretending to care about this. Actual outcomes don’t matter to them.
EDIT – schrodingers_cat said it better than me.
Another Scott
Made me look…
JPost.com – Editorial:
Quite the negotiating position there, huh.
:-/
JPost is on the right side of the spectrum.
The vast majority of the comments on similar articles that I’ve skimmed are in the “Let’s Roll!” bin.
:-/
“Where you stand depends on where you sit.” But the reality distortion field is very, very strong there.
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
Doug Clark
Netanyahu is pretty clearly in the “wait out the clock and hope for Trump” camp along with Vlad the Bad.
That being said, Bibi WAS able to cobble up a governing coalition out of his supporters and right wing nut job Israelis, so my sympathy for the country being stuck with him is limited.
dmsilev
@schrodingers_cat: The cosplay types are irrelevant. Noisy, but irrelevant. I can fully understand why people who actually care about Gaza (and the West Bank, because let’s not forget that Israeli “settlers” are using this as an opportunity to continue to steal land there as well) would be frustrated with Biden and his administration, but this is at least a first step. Actual humanitarian aid would be a good follow-up.
Geminid
@Chief Oshkosh: The US isn’t going to pressure the Israelis to get rid of Netanyahu for at least two reasons. First, Israelis are going kick him out on their own before too long.
Second and most important, the next Israeli government will have some very tough and consequential decisions to make. Israelis have to see it as their government, not the Americans’ government.
Leto
@Another Scott: it’s essentially Afghanistan/Iraq War framing. A lot of the same rationalizations are being used, and it doesn’t seem like anyone has learned anything from that. Or they’ve taken all the wrong lessons from it. It need to be a multi-pronged approach that includes limits on military aid, and more humanitarian aid.
schrodingers_cat
@VFX Lurker: How did you get started in illustration? Did you go to art school? Or you self taught.
BTW did you say that you use Apple for Digital art?
NorthLeft
Good for Joe and the USA. Even better for the people of Gaza and Israel and the rest of the world TBH.
Jinchi
@kindness:
I think Democrats would be smart to stop trivializing the trauma many Americans are feeling about this war.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Another Scott:
Wow. That’s so disingenuous.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza have been forcibly displaced from the north by the Israeli assault, and have fled to cities like Rafah. This is where the Israelis were telling them to go!
From NBC News on Dec 30, 2023
Suzanne
@Jinchi:
Agreed.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon:
The Israeli War Cabinet has burned through most remaining international good will with their inhumane and illegal response to the Oct 7th attack. And that includes the US.
President Biden warned them about the dangers of this path.
“Don’t fuck up like we did after 9-11”, he told them. They didn’t listen.
Now it is up to President Biden to rein them in or cut them loose.
I don’t know exactly what that looks like, but push is coming to shove.
Kay
@Jinchi:
I think putting it in the basket of “things Leftists want” is just profoundly misguided. This isn’t Medicare for All or the public option. Biden is on the wrong side of pubic opinion.
I feel as if the Biden people are starting to get that too. Harris gets it:
Saving Joe Biden from his own blind spot. That’s why you have colleagues, right? Different set of eyes?
trollhattan
Meanwhile.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Jinchi: Yes, although I’m not seeing this trivialization from most elected Democrats.
Most elected Democrats, including our President, treat this situation with the gravity it deserves when they speak.
Rank and file? Comments on this blog? Unfortunately, yes.
wjca
Consider that, in the UN, the US has been reflexively pro-Israel. To have us not just not veto such a resolution but actually proposing it? That’s HUGE. Any Israeli who’s paying attention (and on something like this their citizens are a lot less oblivious that US voters are to foreign affairs) has to be freaking out.
Suzanne
@Kay:
A few things:
1) Leftists can be noisy PITAs, and not as reliable as we’d like, but they are a critical part of the Democratic coalition. We win when they’re on board.
2) On social issues, they’re usually correct before the centrists finally get comfy and make their way over.
3) Medicare for All and the public option would indeed be good public policy, even though much of the country isn’t ready for it. Someone has to be on the avant-garde. That’s how Overton-window-shifting happens.
4) It’s insulting to those who have wanted, for a long time, some positive resolution for Palestine — even if it is not from the river to the sea — to dismiss that concern as cosplay or pretentiousness. (See last week’s slagging on Jeff Merkley, for an example.)
5) There’s valid criticism to throw their way, but it’s disingenuous to find a few inconsequential dirtbags on Xhitter to constantly rage at.
glc
Climate policy
Omnes Omnibus
Obviously the public support and behind the scenes for counsel for restraint has not worked. This is a massive change. I hope the Israelis take note.
Omnes Omnibus
@glc: Nathan J. Robinson.
Eduardo
Wisconsin end to its Republican “managed democracy” is a huge victory. But as it often happens in a liberal democracy, is going almost unnoticed.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/19/us/politics/wisconsin-legislative-maps.html
Omnes Omnibus
@Eduardo: It isn’t going unnoticed in WI, and that’s where it matters.
Bill Arnold
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon:
A note: Israel regularly and currently engages in extraterritorial assassination, with national defense justifications (with religious supremacist overtones in the surrounding rhetoric). They are open/boastful about this. (Very few countries do this currently. The USA has a bad past, but has been clean (at least not getting caught or boasting about it) in the last several decades.)
Baud
@wjca:
That’s my uneducated take.
A further ignorant take, this will push the GOP to bang the war drums louder for Israel, but since Johnson is holding up the aid package, it puts them in an embarrassing spot. Much like with border security. We’ll see how it plays out.
Kay
@Suzanne:
I agree with all your points :)
The social media stuff is just unbearable – “oh, are your widdle feeligs hurt about this?” Excuse me? Is this a reference to the 25k dead civilians and humanitarian crisis?
VFX Lurker
I did consider art school, but I ended up getting a computer science degree. I did take art classes in high school and college, which helped. I also took night and weekend classes at the nonprofit American Animation Institute here in SoCal, which also helped.
The love of my life is storytelling art, so I lean towards comics and animation artists when it comes to books and videos. I try to watch Lightbox Expo and Schoolism videos when I can.
I do use an iPad and an Apple Pencil to draw in Clip Studio Paint. Many animation artists use Procreate, or they use Photoshop and a Wacom Cintiq. I recommend using whatever you find most comfortable.
Baud
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon:
Hey, they don’t call Balloon Juice the fifth branch of government for nothing.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus: I don’t know who that is, but I saw the url and saw no reason to click.
schrodingers_cat
@Omnes Omnibus: Ah the Berner trustfund socialist who doesn’t like his own employees to unionize but I am told by my blog betters that they are the leading edge of effective change!
Suzanne
@Kay:
It’s so goddamn offensive.
People when they are at their best are concerned with the welfare of others. Mocking that impulse is honestly what bullies do. It’s what the right does. It’s what bad people do.
Bill Arnold
@glc:
As Omnes says, “Nathan J. Robinson”. I stop reading soon as I hit that byline.
Eduardo
@Omnes Omnibus: Yep. Not sad for it to go unnoticed, super happy for it happening.
Too lazy to go into an explanation of my thinking that nobody is waiting anxiously to hear, but the comment came from a very optimistic place. I think you can see what I mean.
Eduardo
@Baud: https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2024/02/19/wisconsin-democrats-see-path-to-majorities-with-end-of-gop-gerrymander/72630273007/
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Cosplay socialist with a trustfund.
Baud
@Eduardo:
Good news, but why is it directed at me?
HinTN
@Geminid:
And Bibi wants very badly to be able to state that it was the Americans who forced him out.
Suzanne
@schrodingers_cat: Oh, for fuck’s sake. No one is saying that leftists are immune from valid criticism, no one is saying that there aren’t hypocrites, no one is saying that they are “better” than anyone else. No one’s even saying that some of them aren’t fucking annoying. What we are saying is that their political agenda has validity, and that the one American political party ostensibly concerned with making people’s lives better should engage with it.
Be smarter. Maybe that’s asking too much.
Eduardo
@Baud: Ha! I thought you were referring to the NYT link I had posted. Sorry.
(Some people have unsubscribed from the NYT for different acts of mendacity)
Baud
@Eduardo:
No worries.
narya
@wjca: @Baud: I was just thinking this–I think that the fact that the US proposed it is huge; I’ve been hoping for something like this for awhile, and I hope it’s only the first step in a positive direction.
Geminid
@wjca: The US negotiated the language of the ceasefire resolution passed by the Security Council last December, the one we abstained on. It was an extensive document because it defined mechanisms and initiatives to be implemented going forward from a ceasefire. We did not veto the resolution because we had gotten language calling for “creating the conditions for a ceasefire,” instead of the outright ceasefire other nations wanted.
Since then he US has been working with Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE on a plan for “the day after,” and I this new development may signal that the Biden administration thinks they have come up with a workable plan that can be incorporated into a Security Council resolution.
I think we are still pressing for the extended ceasefire that is being brokered by Qatar as a first step. The permanent ceasefire under a Security Council resolution would be the second step.
Baud
@narya: Biden has been signaling a shift for some time now, I think.
Eolirin
Wisconsin will need a few cycles for the senate map to potentially yeild a majority because of how seats come up, right?
Hopefully the house flips really fast though. Seeing a transformation similar to Michigan will do a lot of good not just for Wisconsin, but for the whole country.
Jinchi
I thought good news was always directed at you.
Bill Arnold
@Bill Arnold:
I should add that D.J. Trump did order the assassination of
Qasem Soleimani, an important leader in a branch of Iran’s government, and this assassination nearly ignited a large scale war with Iran. (The accidental shootdown of a civilian (Ukrainian) airliner by trigger-twitchy Iranian air defenses afraid of American F-35s tamped it down hard.)
Trump, one hopes, was an aberration.
taumaturgo
@Suzanne: 3) Medicare for All and the public option would indeed be good public policy, even though much of the country isn’t ready for it. Someone has to be on the avant-garde. That’s how Overton-window-shifting happens.
In 2024 most voters appears in favor of Medicare for All and single payer.
https://www.dataforprogress.org/blog/2024/1/12/voters-strongly-support-expanding-medicare-coverage-and-lowering-the-eligibility-age
Eolirin
@Suzanne: Some of them are legitimately Russian backed chaos agents though.
narya
@Baud: Yeah, I’ve been picking that up, too. And we know, from seeing his many other successes, that he and his people are typically working apace behind the scenes. One of the things I’ve really come to appreciate about him is his ability to do that, and then to start using public fora when whatever’s being worked on is getting closer to ready for a public reveal.
Omnes Omnibus
@Suzanne: One of the things that has been happening in the condemnation of the Israeli war crimes is that there has also been an increase in anti-Semitism in language and actions. People walking around wearing kippehs being harassed. Jewish organizations and businesses being vandalized. Blood libel images being featured in the protests. It is little wonder that some people can look at what is happening and be worried that it is not driven by concern for the Palestinians but rather old fashioned hatred of Jews.
Note: I am not saying that all people protesting are motivated by that, but there is an ugly side that should not be overlooked.
Baud
@narya: Pretty sure Biden’s biggest fear was triggering a wider regional conflict. Something like that could make the current devastation in Gaza look like a bad hair day.
Geminid
@Bill Arnold: We killed the leader of the Iraqi Kataib Hezbollah militia a week ago with a drone strike in Baghdad. That was retaliation for them killing three of our soldiers in Jordan.
Miss Bianca
@narya: It is, dare I say it, a BFBD (a big Biden Deal, the “f” is silent.)
Jinchi
@Eduardo: An underappreciated bonus of non-gerrymandered maps is that even the Republicans who do get elected will have to be sane enough to appeal to the district-wide electorate, instead of just Republican primary voters.
Baud
@Geminid: I thought the subject was assassinating government officials.
Omnes Omnibus
@Suzanne: Follow the links back. She was talking about Nathan J. Robinson and his piece about Obama and climate change.
Miss Bianca
@taumaturgo: Medicaid for all would be a way better deal than Medicare for all.
The more I’ve heard and seen about Medicare coverage, let’s just say I’m not looking forward to it.
Eolirin
@taumaturgo: That link does not support the idea that the majority of the US electorate supports Medicare for All or Singlepayer Healthcare.
I have no idea what the polling data on either of those things is, but the link doesn’t talk about either one. Dropping the eligibility age all of 5 years and adding dental and vision is not the same thing as the kind of massive and hugely disruptive overhaul a proper single payer system that covers everyone would be.
MisterForkbeard
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: I think I would enthusiastically agree that we need to follow more public opinion as well as the moral thing, and restrain Israel very publicly.
But I’d agree that I don’t think Dems are trivializing it, either.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus: This is why we need threaded comments.
Ivan X
@Kay: Yes, but social media stuff is always unbearable. Apart from documentation of personal life trivialities, the format is practically engineered for impulsive hot takes, bad faith taunting, bumper sticker righteousness, tribalism, and dogpiling. Sure, there is thoughtful content to be found, but we are talking about an atrocious signal to noise ratio.
I don’t think you’re at all wrong about the unbearableness, but I don’t know why you would look to social media as a broader indicator of humans being indecent. It’s where even normally decent people go to be indecent, or, at minimum, willfully ignorant.
Jinchi
This is true for literally every politically active group in the country.
Omnes Omnibus
@Eolirin: Assembly seats are up every two years.
Baud
@Ivan X:
Nominated!
Kay
@Suzanne:
Especially when it’s directed at college students. Were any of these people ever 20 years old?
HOW DARE they be so fucking idealistic, right? They should be as hopeless and cynical as everyone else, dammit. I could definitely see us losing our edge with young voters in the future. We don’t respect them.
“The kids are alright!” Right up until the kids disagree with us on a human rights issue, then we’re “oh, they’re all trust fund babies, fuck them”
I think Kamala Harris delivered reality to the Biden White House because she is tasked with campaigning at colleges and universities. She saw and heard them.
Ivan X
@Omnes Omnibus: Thank you. Well said.
schrodingers_cat
@Omnes Omnibus: I have a friend who was born in Israel and who lived in kibbutz during her formative years, she is traumatized by the events and the response of some people who she thought were her friends. One of her relatives is still a hostage. She is an immigrant who has been in this country since the 80s.
cain
@Suzanne: well said. I have my problems with leftists especially if there is evidence that they are more interested in punishing the Democratic party than the actual movement on an issue.
In this case, they have helped move the needle such that the U.S. is making more moves to keep Palestinian’s humanity in mind. It’s good action because a) it is the moral thing to do b) the younger generation of which we need our future votes – we are addressing their concerns.
My daughter is in her early 20s and she talks to me and my wife about U.S. stance on Palestine. I think her Tiktok is filled with images of suffering. My daughter isn’t a leftist. She’s just a highly empathetic person and she’s been disappointed with how we are doing with Palestine.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Fuck you very much.
cain
@Omnes Omnibus:
Absolutely, using this to get your Jew hatred on is not a good look.
Bibi’s position in power in Israel though have ruined Israel’s perception around the world.
eclare
@Miss Bianca:
My parents were very happy with Medicare while they went to drs, etc. They each spent weeks in hospital/rehab before they died, and I was petrified opening mail from Medicare after that. Each statement ended with no amount due.
cain
@Baud: our blogfather probably would not go for that. I’m not sure either – to be honest.
Miss Bianca
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yeah, this.
I mean, I’ve been following IP issues since the first intifada…way back in the 80s…and let’s just say that my opinions about the righteousness of Israel’s cause got a rude shock when I started indexing the Guardian (back when it was still The Manchester Guardian and still a *stellar* paper). Compared to American press coverage, it was pretty savagely unsparing about just what Israel was doing to the Palestinians.
So, there’s part of me going, to some of the activists loudly decrying Israel now, “where the hell have you been? Have you just NOW started to notice what’s been going on over there for the past, oh, 60-odd years?” and there’s part of me going, “Wow, this is sure pivoting fast into anti-Semitism, isn’t it? What a shocker.”
Baud
@cain: Nor would I. I was just tweaking Omnes.
cain
@eclare: One great thing about medicare for all is that those of us who are first gen immigrants who have old parents living back in the motherland – bringing them here could be a financial disaster because of the cost of care.
My brother is bringing his mother-in-law here – but she’s kind of sick so it’s going to be painful if anything happens.
It forces families apart.
Suzanne
@Omnes Omnibus:
Sure. Completely reasonable to be concerned about anti-Semitism. Sneering about “cosplay leftists” and talking shit about Jeff Merkley isn’t concern about anti-Semitism, though. It’s just middle-school level contrarianism.
cain
@Baud: ha! Looks like Mission Accomplished!
Tony G
@kindness: I’ve never been to an Ohio diner but, for what it’s worth, my opinion is that most of the people who are telling journalists that they will refuse to vote for Biden because of Gaza were not going to vote for him anyway.
Soprano2
@schrodingers_cat: It doesn’t help when people like Bill Maher label everyone who is concerned about what’s happening in Gaza as “pro-Hamas” and cites a whole 2 college professors to back that up. 🙄 Neither of his guests objected to that, and one of them was Adam Schiff!
Baud
@Soprano2: It seems to me that each side of this conflict has its asshole partisans.
Ivan X
@Soprano2: There is an awful lot of bad faith on all sides of this discussion, unfortunately, and I say that as someone with a clear bias.
Suzanne
@Eolirin:
So what?
eclare
@cain:
I think Medicare for all would be great. I was responding to the commenter who said Medicaid for all would be better.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@schrodingers_cat: There is so much trauma suffered, by so many.
That’s why I believe that a glib, black and white, good vs evil binary framework is so inappropriate for this horrific situation.
Alison Rose
@Omnes Omnibus: Friend of a friend was called a “zionazi” by a group of teenagers because he had a Star of David keychain on his bag. This is the kind of discourse and treatment some of us are confronting, American Jews who have never set foot in Israel and have done nothing in a given moment but exist as a Jew. For a lot of people — more than some folks want to believe — that is enough to be condemned.
Tony G
@Soprano2: Bill Maher has been very bad for a very long time. I remember watching his little show one time in the mid-nineties and his guests were discussing the Vietnam War (about 20 years after the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam). Maher made a remark to the effect that the deaths of all of those Vietnamese civilians were an acceptable price for showing the Soviet Union who was boss. He’s been an asshole from day one.
cain
@Tony G: He’s a smug prick for sure.
Chief Oshkosh
@Geminid: Conversely, we could pressure them to boot Bibi out or continue to bleed support of Western nations. The choices should be clarified for them so that they choose their next government with a better understanding that there are no longer “friends” who will provide unconditional support, just interests.
Geminid
@Baud: I figured the subject was assasinations in general. Solemeini was a very powerful Iranian official, but many of the Iranians Israel targeted were more like employees of the Iranian regime, mainly nuclear scientists and engineers.
Israel has killed IRGC officers in Syria recently, but they don’t boast about it or even claim the attacks even though they abviously did them. Israel and Iran have been fighting an undeclared war in Syria for years now. A couple years ago the IDF briefed reporters and acknowledged they had carried out over 200 strikes in Syria in the two years previous. They’re mainly trying to stem the flow of Iranian missiles to Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. An Al Jazeera article last year estimated that Hezbollah had stockpiled 130,000 rockets of various sizes and ranges.
Soprano2
@Ivan X: I was appalled that Schiff didn’t call him out about that. Caring what happens to Palestinians in Gaza is not being “pro-Hamas”.
Chris
@Doug Clark:
Not to make it all about us again, but it’s definitely concerning to me that basically every major player in the region severely wants Biden gone and Trump back. Israel will as long as Bibi’s running it, but even beyond him there are lots who prefer Republicans because they mean endless blank checks for settlements and military action. The Hamas/Houthi/Iran alignment does, if only because their biggest patron outside the region is Russia. And the Gulf kingdoms led by Saudi Arabia do, because Republicans are the candidates of more fossil fuels and less human rights promotion.
Baud
@Chris: Everyone in that region is right-wing. The conflicts are all right-wing conflicts. It’s no surprise that they all want Trump.
VFX Lurker
Here in California, protestors dumped 300lbs of manure in the street for San Francisco city workers to clean up.
In Ojai, protestors interrupt city council meetings to demand a ceasefire from Hamas:
I am not convinced that these performative protesters care about outcomes for Palestinians.
Meanwhile, Joe Biden shields Palestinians from deportation and grants them work permits. I think Joe cares about Palestinian lives.
TBone
This subject is one of the topics in the Michael Moore podcast I linked to in the last thread. Interesting is a word I sometimes detest when pundits use it, but nevertheless I found the podcast quite interesting. He usually has a text version posted within 24 hours, but I don’t know if the text is free if you don’t subscribe.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: India’s RWNJs also want the Orange Error back.
Jinchi
Which is why Biden and the Democrats should have been clear in their words after October 7th.
Netanyahu is a chaos agent as much as Hamas is, and his rhetoric and actions regularly conflate Hamas and Palestinian, as if there is no distinction. He wants us to choose a side between the people of Israel and the people of Gaza. Antisemitism is baked into that equation.
It was obvious from the start that the Likud government would react out of vengeance more than justice. And so we ended up with people like Senator Lindsay Graham talk about ‘flattening Gaza’ and ‘bouncing the rubble’ with no pushback, compared to the censure of Rashida Tlaib on the floor of the House, followed by Blinken and Pelosi waving away all calls for a ceasefire to protect the civilian population. It’s no surprise that Netanyahu took the American reaction as a green light.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat: Trump is especially valued because he’s not only right-wing but weakens the US.
schrodingers_cat
@VFX Lurker: Nope they flit from cause to cause. They are the Rod Drehers of activism.
Ivan X
@Soprano2: I’ve been pretty recently disappointed by Schiff in other domains too, despite the good work he’s done.
Alison Rose
@VFX Lurker:
Makes sense, since they all have the brainpower of a dried up cowpat. Worthless jackasses.
Suzanne
@VFX Lurker:
I am completely convinced that the morality of caring about outcomes for Palestinians — and Jews — should be reckoned with, even if some of these protestors are ridiculous.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Yes indeed. And FWIW they also hate Kamala Harris as much as they do Joe Biden.
Bill Arnold
@Geminid:
Yeah, I edited that in and out of the comment a few times. It was billed as precisely targeted direct retaliation against militant leadership directly supervising those killing Americans. Grey area (assuming truth), arguably similar to killing officers in an enemy force. Not like, e.g. killing scientists involved in a weapons program.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jinchi: “Don’t make the same mistake we made after 9/11” seems pretty clear to me. If you want to argue that what the Biden Admin is doing now should have been done sooner, I am not prepared to argue with you.
schrodingers_cat
Rashida Tlaib is telling people not to vote for Biden in the primaries. I wonder how she would react if Joe Biden campaigned for her primary challenger if she gets one.
BTW she didn’t endorse Biden-Harris in 2020 as well.
TBone
@Suzanne: 👍 hard agree
Alison Rose
@schrodingers_cat: Another person who is easily willing to throw tens of millions of people in this country and others under the bus. How very progressive.
Chris
@Miss Bianca:
Well, a fair amount of them have been there all along, and particularly the “politically active college student with left-wing politics” demographic that’s always identified with the cause. My college years were almost twenty years ago. Justice for Palestine was a big campus cause back then too. Pretty sure it already would have been true twenty years before that, as well. Most of society just wasn’t interested in listening, or in amplifying what they were saying unless it was to shit on it and prove that The Left Is In Bed With Terrorists.
Why has the message finally started getting out to more than just college anti-war protesters and Americans of Arab and/or Muslim background? Could be the antisemitism, but I suspect the fact that 1) changing demographics mean that views of Israel are finally no longer defined by the “Israel is always the plucky underdog on the verge of being wiped off the map” crowd, and 2) people have noticed that one of the two aforementioned demographics is sitting right on one of the biggest swing states in contemporary elections, which means their opinion suddenly matters a lot more than it historically has… it also contributing.
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodingers_cat: There is an argument to be made that a protest vote in a primary is a way of registering dissatisfaction while, in the end, voting for Biden in the general. A primary is time to vote your heart; the general is the time to vote your head.
schrodingers_cat
@Alison Rose: These self anointed progressives are against progress. They usually pooh-pooh any progress and their maximalist goalposts are always shifting.
Chris
@Baud:
This.
America’s enemies suddenly have the kind of friend inside the gates that they haven’t had since 1941.
Baud
@Chris: Who did they have in 1941?
schrodingers_cat
@Omnes Omnibus: She wouldn’t be happy if other Congressional Ds did the same to her, i.e. endorse her opponent or campaign against her in the primary. Also, you missed this part
Jinchi
@Omnes Omnibus:
Can you honestly look at the ground in Gaza and tell me those words got through to Netanyahu?
prostratedragon
Kenny “2rawtooreal” Walden speaks on who should run for President.
Chris
@Baud:
Until 1941? Most of Congress. The isolationist movement was very strong.
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodingers_cat: I am not particularly worried about her as an individual. If the protest vote in the primary lets people register their dissatisfaction in a way that allows them to vote for Biden in the general, I am all for it.
Fair Economist
@Kay: The Senate bill includes 9.15 billion in humanitarian aid, and Palestinians are named as one of the recipients.
Kay
@Chris:
This is a long running theme on this blog – “the protestors” are always insincere or doing protest wrong or not pure enough or not “good enough Democrats” even though a huge group of young people who vote for Democrats don’t indentify as Democrats so telling them they’re out of The Cool Club won’t matter to them.
They’re 20 and 21, so they would have had to have supported Palestinian human rights since they were in first grade or they are “unserious”. “How does age work?”
Of course they’re new at it. They’re 20. They’re new at everything.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jinchi: As I said, “if you want to argue that what the Biden Admin is doing now should have been done sooner, I am not prepared to argue with you.”
Suzanne
@Chris: I’m right about your age, and I was that college kid who joined Amnesty International and Students for a Free Tibet, and I also remember Palestinian statehood being a concern. (And the Kyoto Protocol, and No More Deaths, because I went to college in the desert north of the border.) And I will note that I remember being called un-American for not supporting going to the Middle East and killing Muslims. A fringe left-wing position at the time. And that was when lots of Democrats were not standing on the side of prudence and rightness.
So lefty activists can be annoying. I literally do not give a shit.
Kay
@Fair Economist:
Thank you I saw that. I was referring to the stand alone “just Israel” House bill. I thought it would be a nice contrast if Democrats point out Republicans don’t want to fund aid.
Jinchi
@Omnes Omnibus: Agreed.
Another Scott
@schrodingers_cat: AFAIK, she’s urging people to vote “uncommitted”.
Made me look about 2020 – MichiganAdvance.com:
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
Geminid
@Chief Oshkosh: We should do what you say to this government, irrespective of who leads it. That is what we are doing, just not with the urgency and intensity people want to see. Israeli politicians and Israeli citizens can see what the U.S. wants, and it’s a course of action, not a particular set of officials. Israelis tend to pay a lot of attention to the posture of the US government towards their country, and right now its a big topic on Israeli news sites and social media.
And I’ll point out that Netanyahu shares decision making. People talk like he’s running the show but since October 12 he’s shared authority over major decisions with Gantz and Gallant. Members of Netanyahu own Likud party are planning a future without him, and leaders of his two Ultra-Orthodox coalition partners are figuring out where they’ll jump when the time comes.
glc
@Omnes Omnibus: Not familiar. I had to go to Wikipedia for that.
That’s interesting. Offhand it’s not clear how that can be a thing.
Alison Rose
@prostratedragon: The video won’t play for me in the Threads post on desktop. Here’s the Twitter link if others are having the same issue. Not sure if that’ll be viewable to everyone though.
Kathleen
@Omnes Omnibus: I appreciate your illuminating and elegant response. I’m not disciplined enough which is why I do a lot of keyboard biting.
wjca
I think that it will be important to be very clear that we are not calling (at least not explicitly) for the ouster of Netanyahu or for a new Israeli government. Rather, we are demanding a change in policy.
That said change would require dumping Bibi and a new government? That is best “left as an exercise to the reader.” That way, the Israelis own the change of government, rather than feeling that us, in their eyes, owning it. Which, in turn, reduces the chances of the change being reversed.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kathleen: I am not sure that is good for either your keyboard or your teeth.
Yutsano
@Omnes Omnibus: I’m as chuffed as Ben Wikler is right now, and I live in a different state! I just really want to see Wisconsin do better. I’m hoping this map will make some good things happen.
EDIT: I also hope Reince Priebus, Scott Walker, and Paul Ryan are rending garments right now. Just because I feel that vindictive and petty about this.
Bill Arnold
@glc:
See e.g. Chomsky’s On Anarchism. A short collection of essays. (I enjoyed it, and branched out from it a bit to read a few other people.)
Tony Jay
Good to see the pressure exerted upon the White House by groups inside and outside the Administration is starting to drag US policy in the direction of public opinion. It’s been a long time coming, but it’s very welcome. The longer Netanyahu and Co were given free rein to paint all criticism of Israel’s attack on Gaza’s civilian population as ‘pro-Hamas’ and ‘antisemitic’’, the easier it was for chaos agents and the Far Right to feed genuine antisemitism into the general discourse under cover of “saying what ‘They’ don’t want you to hear”. Hopefully that mutually supportive feedback will be harder to pull off now for the Right’s pantomime cheerleaders in whatever hat they wear.
You can tell the Biden Administration is serious by the reaction from newnewlabour’s invertebrate leadership. The puffed-up condom with a face drawn on it that goes by the name of Wes Streeting was all over the TV this morning gaslighting that of course he and his fellow furrow-wetters had always wanted a ceasefire, blah blah blah Israel’s actions are no longer self-defence blah blah blah protecting civilian lives in Rafah is paramount blah blah blah, and so on. A complete 180 from what they’ve been saying for months, of course, but when the Big Dog growls, the little runts squat down and piss.
Maybe newnewlabour will manage to avoid another damaging rebellion amongst the Party’s MPs over the SNP’s call for an immediate ceasefire. Any capable political leadership would be able to do it, but this is the Savvy Satraps of the Starmerpartei we’re talking about here. All it will take is one offhand comment from British History’s Greatest Monster that an immediate end to mass killings might be a nice thing to see and they’ll have no choice but to vote for the opposite policy, they’re simply that pathetically contrarian.
Baud
@glc:
Universal health care + weed.
Cacti
This might have mattered 2 months ago. Arab Americans aren’t going to turn out for Biden. The damage is done.
eclare
@Yutsano:
I still don’t understand how Ron Johnson won re-election.
Kathleen
@Miss Bianca: I pay monthly for Medicare. It comes out of my Social Security (yes I’m a reviled “centrist” old person). It is not “free” like so many of its supporters seem to think. That being said, I have a Medicare Advantage Plan so I don’t pay additional monthly premiums for coverage. It works for me because I’m healthy.
So to your point I think Medicaid for all would be more beneficial in some ways but the medical “supplier chain” has to also be addressed at the same time or we won’t have enough doctors who will accept government contracted rates.
Fair Economist
@Kay: This link indicates the Republican Israel-only bill is only for Israeli military aid, so it does indeed seem to be as you surmised: the bipartisan bill helps Palestinians and the Republican bill doesn’t.
schrodingers_cat
I did not know that the Queen of Cosplay Socialists, Susan Sarandon was 20. Also being young is no excuse for being ignorant. Any minor inconvenience to your cushy life is not “Late Stage Capitalism”.
@Another Scott: She did not endorse Biden though
Suzanne
@Kay:
It’s easier to dismiss people who make you feel uncomfortable as “insincere” or point out their hypocrisies/frailties than to engage with them in good faith. It lets you avoid measuring yourself and your own in-group.
schrodingers_cat
@Kathleen: I am to the left of socialist Messiah on guns and immigration
@VFX Lurker: Thanks! I will subscribe to them. I have a Wacom intuous and XP-Pen tablet that’s fairly big. And am thinking of getting an iPadAir for an on the go tablet.
Another Scott
@schrodingers_cat: That story’s from August. My link is from October.
Cheers,
Scott.
Miss Bianca
@Chris: Points taken.
Back in the 80s (again), when I was a college student and young adult, the Palestinian issue wasn’t getting very much oxygen on campuses compared to apartheid in South Africa. But as you point out, the times they are a-changin’.
Ksmiami
@Suzanne: their actions aren’t helping- their pot shots at Biden will result in Gaza being destroyed. That is why I find them foolish and not worth listening to.
wjca
Doesn’t mean they have to be utterly ignorant of history. Lots of schools (high schools, not just colleges) provide history classes. Whatever shortcomings you may find with those classes, even just listening there would shortstop some of the dumb things they do.
Kathleen
@Omnes Omnibus: True.
Chris
@Cacti:
That is indeed my fear. We’ll see how it works out.
Miss Bianca
@Kathleen:
True dat.
Tony Jay
@Suzanne:
Amen to that. Some people just define themselves through Hippy Punching and get knotted up like wrung out underwear whenever those damned longhairs turn out to have been squatting on the actual centre ground all along.
Nothing you can do about it but shake your head and take the win.
schrodingers_cat
@Another Scott: Yes she did campaign for him but I don’t see anything about her endorsement in that article you posted. Or anywhere else for that matter.
But many stating categorically that she won’t endorse Biden for 2020 general elections.
Suzanne
@wjca: How many history classes does one have to take before one’s belief that Palestinians should also have a state is considered a valid opinion to you?
Kay
@Suzanne:
They’re okay with protesting as long as it doesn’t upset or incovenience anyone in any way, or get in the way of any Democratic political campaign strategy. Since there’s always a Democratic political campaign, it’s never a good time to protest.
trollhattan
Zombies that do not seek your bwaaaains.
Recall learning in classes for the Boy Scouts forestry merit badge, that fires would overwinter in the Cascades and Olympics, and a springtime danger was falling into a below-grade smouldering tree stump half a year after the fire was “out.” This sounds similar but on a massive scale.
Miss Bianca
@Cacti: If they’re stupid enough to say, “that’s it, I’m not voting for Biden” EVEN IF they end up getting what they say they want from him – a ceasefire – and EVEN IF what that means is that they’re enabling a Trump comeback, with even more disastrous results for the Palestinians – then, frankly, they’re too stupid to even be voting in the first place.
However, having grown up in Michigan and gone to school with a lot of the Arab American citizenry there, I actually think better of them than that. So let’s just say, “I find your pre-determined lack of faith…disturbing.”
Geminid
@Chris: I am not so sure the Gulf Arab countries want Trump. They need stability more than anything else, and he is a chaos agent. Right now they likely are very relieved it’s the steady Biden in charge and not the fickle Trump. They have a lot to lose if this war gets out of hand, and so far Biden has done a good job keeping it contained.
I doubt if the Arabs respect Trump, or trust him either. It was pay-for-play under him and his son-in-law, and the Arabs went along. But I think they would rather have the relationship they had before him, where American governments watched out for them without personal quid pro quos.
Israel is another major player, and Joe Biden is much more popular there than is Netanyahu. As for Netanyahu, I expect he will be watching the November election as a private citizen whose main concern will be his criminal case. Benny Gantz will be PM, and Gantz is probably Biden and the other Democrats’ favorite Israeli politician.
Suzanne
@Tony Jay:
Yeah, no shit.
Many of the good things that we have in this country were left-wing fever dreams first. And then the normies came around, and we got to have Nice Things. Like LGBT marriage, and clean air and water, and national parks.
You know, maybe if people took more history classes, I could accept their position that annoying protestors are Russian bots or something.
Manyakitty
@Ivan X: fair. Same bias as you.
glc
@Bill Arnold: I tend to think the first word in the definition of “socialism” is “state” but I’m frequently out of date. Wikipedia thinks the first word in the definition of “socialism” is “social” which certainly opens up the field.
And in fact even Merriam Webster, which is not the fastest-moving force linguistically, has a lot to say about it, and, explicitly: “ranging from statist to libertarian.”
All righty then. Libertarian socialist. I’ll write it 50 times.
Gretchen
@schrodingers_cat: what does your friend think Israel should do next? I’m sure Israel was traumatized by the attack but am unclear what the average citizen thinks should happen next. I would have thought that people who want the hostages back would be opposed to bombing the places they are being kept.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay: @Suzanne: Everyone’s PTSD from 2016 is different. Some of the people you are mocking in this thread are from populations that that would be very vulnerable in a second Trump admin. They might view the risk/reward calculation with respect to certain types of protest differently from others.
Tony Jay
@Suzanne:
Eventually it’ll turn out like that Neil Gaiman story where all of the inhabitants of The City were just spies for one country or another all locked up in there by the world’s benevolent dictators because people seeped in double-dealing and mistrust just couldn’t hack it in the Golden Age.
Except here, it’ll turn out we’re all Russian bots*, we were just brainwashed into forgetting about it!
*Except for Baud, he’s actually the sole operative of Lichtenstein’s Secret Infiltration Directorate.
Jay C
@eclare:
In 2022, it was by edging by with a 27,000-vote margin (out of 2.64MM) – and it likely didn’t help that his D opponent was one of Those People From Milwaukee. (and in a non-Presidential election year)
Worse that the people of Wisconsin are stuck with this clown in the Senate for another four years…..
Kay
@wjca:
I don’t think they’re “utterly ignorant of history”. You should know, too, that they think older people are swayed by a sentimentalized view of Israel that does not fit with their lived experience. If you’re 20 years old Israel has been a far Right wing country your whole adult life. They think YOU are naive.
VFX Lurker
A few weeks ago, I saw an anti-Trump Instagram acquaintance unthinkingly repost pro-Trump propaganda because it came wrapped up in pretend sympathy for Palestinians.
It was something along the lines of: don’t judge us white women who vote for Trump because Democrats are SO awful
It wasn’t the first time this big-hearted person, who hates Trump, had posted pro-Trump propaganda disguised in a leftist wrapper. She just doesn’t thoroughly read or vet the leftist feeds and propaganda she reposts. She glances at things and misses the hidden pro-Trump messaging.
I had pointed out this problem before, but not that time. I just unfriended her on Instagram and moved on. She never noticed.
I think she does care about Palestinians…but her thoughtless social media activity will harm them.
Kay
@Omnes Omnibus:
Omnes there is never a good time to protest on this blog. There’s a fucking election every two weeks. If people actually followed the BJ directive on “Rules of Protesting” no one would ever dissent from anything.
Chaos” is the entire lived reality of US 20 year olds. They never had a normally functioning political system. They never had an election where it was a choice of two normal people. Telling them “wait until things get back to normal and then we can have dissent”? They know things aren’t going bacl to normal. This IS normal to them.
Geminid
@Gretchen: Do you mess with Twitter? If you do and want to sample Israeli opinion,, the hostages are a very hot topic on Israeli Twitter now. Nogo Tarnolpolsky’s account is a good place to start. She retweeets other reporters and there are a lot of Israelis chiming in. Some is in Hebrew so it takes a little longer to access.
The Qataris are trying to broker ceasefire/hostage deal. They are acting in effect as Hamas’s attorney in the negotiations. The framework was devised by the Qarari Prime Minister, CIA Director William Burns and his Israeli and Egyptian counterparts, at a meeting in two weeks ago in Paris. It’s basically a stretched-out version of the 10-day ceasefire last December.
Axios reporter Barak Ravid keeps readers caught up on new developments. Ravid is also a good source for Israeli politics. He concentrates on diplomacy, but he reposts Israeli journalists talking about political developments. Laura Rozen (@lrozen) is a good aggregator of reporting from Israeli, Arab and other sources.
Suzanne
@Omnes Omnibus: Annoying protestors are not the anointed spokespeople for the geopolitical position that there should be a two-state solution. If we want to have a good faith debate about that, by all means. Let’s do it. Let’s engage seriously, as a political party, with the Israel/Palestine issue and what we want the future to be like and how to use American power and resources to get there. I’m all for that discussion.
That’s not what’s happening. It is gross characterization of fringey, annoying people, as an attempt to sidestep uncomfortable issues and to discredit what they stand for. It is bad faith, it is mean, and, quite frankly, it is harmful.
I know! Let’s alienate a significant portion of our coalition because Susan Sarandon is annoying! Brilliance.
Miss Bianca
@Suzanne: Speaking as someone who has, in fact, taken a lot of history classes – to the point of having an advanced degree – I think I can state, for the record, that it is in fact possible to hold views that you apparently consider absolutely mutually contradictory: that what Israel is and has been doing to the Palestinians is unconscionable and inhumane – and has been for years – AND that a lot of the anti-Israel protestors may be, if not Russian bots per se, certainly influenced by a lot of psyops from bad-faith actors.
Not all protest is genuine, constructive, or well-thought-out. Just like not all Boomers are part of a greedy, vicious generational cohort designed to keep everyone else down. It’s not that fucking simple. A lot of “protest” is just plain performative wankery.
As an actor *and* activist of long-standing, let me just say that I have witnessed a shit-ton of performative “political” wankery in my time. Wasn’t impressed with it back in the day, even less impressed with it now.
People have a right to protest. Indeed, I would say they have an obligation to protest if they feel strongly about an issue. But that doesn’t mean *I* have to presume that all protest is in good faith, lest I be accused of just not caring about that issue.
Suzanne
@Kay:
I’m 44, and Israel has been a far right-wing country my whole adult life.
And I still want a free and democratic Israel.
Bill Arnold
@glc:
Wikipedia has a hive of pages that are a quick intro (with plenty of references). Here are a couple:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_socialism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_anarchism
Suzanne
@Miss Bianca: I don’t hold those views contradictory at all. In fact, I share them.
But I try really hard to separate my feelings about an issue from the way I feel about the messengers. That’s what isn’t happening here.
ETA: There’s plenty of good-faith support for Palestinian statehood.
Bill Arnold
@Tony Jay:
Is that (Neil Gaiman’s) “Spy Story”? (Looking to maybe buy the collection it is in.)
There is also a TV Tropes page: City of Spies
Suzanne
I remember when we mocked “Al Gore is fat!” as the asinine, avoidant commentary that it is.
Ksmiami
@Cacti: ok then they can enjoy being deported etc. I mean in a 2 party system you never get everything you want
Tony Jay
@Bill Arnold:
I took it from his Miracleman graphic novel ‘The Golden Age’, the one he did with Mark Buckingham. The super people have set themselves up as Gods and, frankly, the spies can’t cope with living in a managed utopia, so they’re put where they can plot, scheme and conspire to their heart’s content.
Cacti
@Miss Bianca: You should definitely go give them a good tut tutting about how Biden is really a great guy despite supplying the bombs and dollars to kill their family members and scuttling numerous previous peace efforts.
I’m sure it will turn them right around. 🤣
Miss Bianca
@Cacti: And you should fuck off into the sun, you supercilious twit, but we can’t always get what we want, can we?
And what, exactly, do you mean by “scuttling numerous previous peace efforts”? Like what, precisely? Can you show your work, or are you just indulging in your usual shallow, shoddy negativism?
Geminid
Netanyahu formed a far-right government January 1 of last year. He had headed right wing and right-center coalitions over the past 12 years but this time he formed a hard-right coalition with Smotrich and Ben-Gvir because he wanted to fix his criminal case and no other party would go along.
The government before that one was a left-center-right, anti-Netanyahu coalition. Naftali Bennet was the Prime Minister from June of 2021- right after the last, 11-day Gaza war- until the following June, and then Yair Lapid was a caretaker PM through December. This seemed like a very promising development, especially with the participation of Mansour Abbas’s Arab party. But it was a precarious 8-party coalition and Bennet’s party fell apart.
I think a lot of Americans did not even notice that government; at least I see people talk about how Israel has had a far-right government the last 20 years when that is not the case. But I’ve noticed that many people pay little attention to Israeli politics unless and until they start bombing people.
The governments before that were center-right coalitions of one type or another. The current one is the only one I would characterize as hard right, except that Gantz’s 12 center-party MKs joined it on an emergency basis last October 12..
Chief Oshkosh
@HinTN:
Great! I think Biden should have him shackled wrist and ankle and delivered to The Hague. I would LOVE to have us Americans given credit for forcing Bibi out of the ME and right into a jail cell.
Alison Rose
@Miss Bianca: The same way Cacti managed to scuttle his way around being banned.
Kay
Four years from now won’t be a good time for them to protest either. In the current US political climate, every single election of their lives is and will be “the” most important election so demanding that they sit down and shut up until “the election is over” means “forever”.
They know this. They know our current political situation is not a short lived fluke or something that will pass. This is how the United States is now. This is their future.
Cacti
@Miss Bianca: I’m sure you’re right and they’ll all be completely sanguine about the Zionist warmongering of the octogenarians in charge of the Dem Party.
“Vote Joe because he’ll kill you more politely than Trump!”
Who could say no that? Print up the bumper stickers now. 🥴
Maybe Nancy Pelosi can recommend another FBI investigation if they object
ETA: The peace efforts he scuttled with UNSC vetoes. Did you forget those?
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay: I recall a lot of people going to and approving of protests including the women’s marches, protests against the Muslim Ban, protests against child separation, protests after Dobbs, and a bunch of others. I remember people posting photos from those protests. So, no, I don’t think that people don’t think it’s ever right to protest.
Kay
@Omnes Omnibus:
All of those were under a GOP President. Ballon Juice was vehemently defending Biden’s rhetoric on this conflict AS Biden himself was apologizing for it. You’re more Joe Biden than Joe Biden!
I’m grateful to the protestors. If it took protestors to tell the Biden Administration that they sound like monsters when they mark 100 days of this war without mentioning 20,000 dead civilians then hooray for protestors.
Ksmiami
@Omnes Omnibus: the elephant in the room is this. Hamas really are the bad guys. Who is the future of Palestine.? What does a reasonable government there mean? There’s no real future partner and all Hamas has deliberately accomplished is more death and destruction.
Geminid
@Chief Oshkosh: It sounds to me like you value your personal gratification more than the interests of the people caught up in this conflict, including the Palestinians as well as the Israelis.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay: I am pretty sure Balloon Juice doesn’t have an official policy position on the matter. Is there are group of commenters who broadly fit your description, sure. Is there another group who do not? As you and Suzanne prove, yes, there is.
schrodingers_cat
@Ksmiami: According some here only Biden has agency. He can just tell Netahyahu and he will fall in line.
Cacti
@Kay: You might as well be talking to a wall. The Zionist commenters here have no idea how repulsed young voters and Arab-American voters are with Biden’s handling of this conflict.
Two groups that voted big for him in 2020.
Soprano2
@Kay: They should have dumped the manure in the yards of the council members rather than in the street where public works employees who make no decisions have to clean it up. That didn’t hurt the council members at all.
Kay
@Cacti:
Kathy Hochul “it’s like if the US retaliated against Canada”
There’s 40 million people in Canada and 2 in Gaza. Only if the US then killed half a million Canadian civilians, Kathy! Then we’d have a comparison!
Gretchen
@Geminid: thanks. I’ll look into that.
Alison Rose
@Cacti: So in your mind, anyone who cares about Jewish lives in a Zionist? No matter if they also care about Palestinians? You could just change your handle to “Raging Antisemite” and that would get your point across more quickly. I don’t know how or why your ban expired but I hope you trip and fall into a volcano one day.
Geminid
@Gretchen: Be sure to check this coming Saturday. There are demostrations every day, but the really big ones begin at sunset on Saturdays. They started again early last month and have been getting bigger every week.
Kay
The protestors are also asking the Biden Administration to extend the sanctions on settlers who harm Palestinians to include US funders of settlers, akin to what we did with Irish Americans who were funding the IRA. Biden can do this with existing authorrity and without Congress. It would show we mean business on this – block US Right wingers from funding that conflict.
Again- it is really not true that they are “demanding’ Biden get Netanyahu do or not do something. They limit their demands to the US position, policy and actions. Biden, as President, is absolutely in charge of US foreign policy and I think Biden would be the first to admit that.
Gretchen
@Geminid: so there’s a strong ceasefire sentiment among Israeli citizens? I hope that will hurry a ceasefire. Supposedly Netanyahu is refusing to consider one now, but this situation can only make Israel less secure in the long run.
Kay
I frankly also think it”s amazing that somehow The Left are to blame for any bad thing that happens to Democrats when we are right in the middle of Ezra Klein, David Axelrod and James Carville not only trashing the sitting D President but trying to remove him!
75 protestors at MSU are not your problem! The call is coming from inside the house and the centrists are behind it. As per usual, I might add.
Cacti
@Alison Rose: And there it is.
Cry “anti-semite” when you can’t defend the indefensible.
I spent time in Rafah saving lives. What the fuck have you done except clack on your keyboard?
Alison Rose
@Cacti: I am not “crying antisemite” except when someone calls anyone and everyone saying “Jewish people don’t deserve to be murdered” a Zionist. I am wholly against the Israeli government and I think what they are doing is atrocious and repugnant. I want our government to do far far more to lambast them and to support and protect Palestinians. I care about the innocent lives on both sides of this war.
YOU on the other hand clearly are getting some serious glee out of Jewish deaths, which yes, does make you an antisemite. I don’t even believe your “I’m the great savior of lives” bullshit here, but even if it were true, that doesn’t make bigotry okay.
Fuck back off to the cave you slithered out of, you sack of trash.
Geminid
@Gretchen: Netanyahu is trying to salvage his wrecked political position and anything he says can be viewed in that light. Right now Hamas is helping him by demanding that an exorbitant amount of prisoners be exchanged for each hostage, but they are under a lot of pressure to accept a more reasonable offer. If they do, Netanyahu will come under intense pressure to accept it, from both inside and outside Israel.
Suzanne
@Kay: The problem that I have is this: stop finding random-ass freaks on Twitter or on a college campus somewhere and using their shitty aesthetics to avoid interrogating the issue of How America Should Act In The World.
Online randos don’t own this issue. There are terrible and annoying people, and Russian bots, and anti-Semites out there, and they should be duly ignored and deplatformed. But conflating those people with the valid and important position that there needs to be a political solution in the Middle East that provides freedom, prosperity, and security for Palestinians is a goddamn category error. We should be smarter than that. We should be more principled than that.
They don’t own that position. They don’t even own the political left.
Cacti
@Alison Rose: If you support the ongoing settler colonial project in the Levant, you are a Zionist. There isn’t an alternative definition.
Geminid
I really appreciate Ms. Cracker putting up this post. I think it takes guts to post on such a contentious subject.
I have one quibble though, about the first sentence:
I think if Netanyahu was concerned about his country’s future he would welcome this development. The PM has dragged his country into a big, fucking mess, and that’s not even considering the harm that’s been done to the Palestinians. Joe Biden is trying to drag Israel out and this prospective UN resolution may prove to be a lifeline.
schrodingers_cat
The panic about Biden’s age is not based on ideology, right, left or center but it is the unease with Biden’s successor being a woman whose parents were non-white immigrants.
Kay
@Suzanne:
I don’t think even Democratic electeds are comfortable discussing this. Pelosi’s mention of the FBI re: the protestors was unhinged. She’s usually so controlled and disciplined. They know damn well this is bad and they know how bad it is. Well, BIDEN might not. I genuinely believe he has a blind spot. He was a war on terror guy for years. I think some of the anti Arab energy from that time might have stuck.
But the broader Biden Adminstration know this is a disaster, for the US, for Israel, for Palestinians. Remember Biden had people resign over this. I think he’s got a war over it in his own government.
Kay
@Suzanne:
I’m going to a Sherrod event tonight. I might bring it up (in a calm manner!) just to see if Brown is any better than the rest of them defending it. He really is a “straight shooter”, Sherrod Brown- he may raise it himself.
wjca
A better question might be, How many history classes does it take before you realize that Israel has not been dealing in good faith, even with those Palestinians who accept its right to exist?
To which the answer is: 1, provided it touches on the period after about 1970.
wjca
@wjca: Just to be clear (before someone brings up various Israeli governments which they think don’t fit the “bad faith” negotiators label): Any Israeli government which did not act forcefully to remove ALL of the settlements (which, be it noted, are illegal under Israeli law) can’t really be characterized as acting in good faith with respect to the Palestinians.
suzanne
@Kay: Those of us who were coming of political age right around 9/11 were, I think, formed by the Islamophobia and xenophobia of that time. And that dizzying sense of watching the country overcome with bloodlust, salivating to go to a terrible war, and being what felt like totally alone in opposition.
I voted for Gore, and Kerry, and HRC, and Biden…. but honestly, I was the most excited about voting for Obama, because he was against the Iraq War.
Watching Israel wage war on a civilian population –this time with American money and weapons — is incredibly difficult to watch.
glc
@Bill Arnold: Apropos (kind of) … if this thread is still alive, have you seen Malka Older’s Infomocracy series?
brantl
@Jinchi: Nobody’s trivializing the trauma that anybody’s facing, as far as I know, except the portion of the Israeli government ( arguably a very sizeable portion) that wants to bomb as many Gazan civilians as possible.
Starfish
@schrodingers_cat: You are describing Marx.
Chris
@Kay:
Honestly, the FBI thing is just reflexive at this point. In a hundred years since the Palmer Raids, what the hippies used to call “the establishment” has just completely absorbed the notion that siccing the cops on any movement to your left that’s saying anything that you find distasteful is a completely normal and appropriate use of police power. The farther left you get, the less this happens, because at some point “any movement to your left” becomes people whose vote you actually need, but even liberal Democrats aren’t immune from falling into the reflex from time to time.
Geminid
@Kay: I hope you will tell us what Senator Brown has to say on the subject.
Starfish
@Kay:
They were complaining that they haven’t supported the issue since the 80s. The children of the 1980s are now in their 40s and remember Rachel Corrie being killed by an Israeli bulldozer when she was trying to block a settlement.
The children in college weren’t even born.
Starfish
@wjca: Oh honey. I don’t think you are familiar with the public education that a lot of us received.
Starfish
@schrodingers_cat: She is from Michigan. She has a lot of Muslim voters who are pissed at Joe Biden.
His nomination is inevitable, but having voters on her state choose uncommitted will potentially get their concerns heard just a little more.
Quadrillipede
@glc: wrt libertarian socialism, I certainly hope that it’s more redeemable than national socialism was…
Quadrillipede
I can’t even be bothered to feign surprise at this revelation.
Starfish
@Omnes Omnibus: Muslim travel ban was day one of the Trump administration so something is going very wrong if a whole bunch of Muslim Americans are considering staying home with him on the ballot, and yet that is what is going on.
Geminid
@Geminid:
@Gretchen: Another good source is Jerusalem attorney Daniel Seideman (@DanielSeideman). Adam Silverman has linked to Seideman’s political analysis.
Quadrillipede
I’d expect the history class takers would be able to provide better evidence to support their claims, if nothing else.
YY_Sima Qian
“support for a temporary ceasefire in Gaza as soon as practicable” is a far cry from permanent ceasefire ASAP, which is what the most of the world is calling for, especially if it is up to Israel to define what is “practicable”. Of course, the fact that the US is doing the proposing is a warning shot to the Israeli government that the US’ patience is wearing very thin, & its ability to run cover for Israel is wearing out, & that the repetitional damage to the US for continuing to do so is becoming unacceptable. I expect that the Israeli government also knows if a temporary ceasefire is in place, the pressure for making it permanent will be immense.
It is very important to keep in mind that, while the diplomatic track involving the regional players & the US is slowing grinding forward, Israel & the IDF are creating new realities on the ground in Gaza much more quickly. See the IDF bulldozing all Gazan farms & structures w/in 1 km of the border, as well as 1 km on either side of a “security” corridor that bisects the Gaza Strip at its waist, to create exclusion zones. These actions are already done, in expressed opposition to official US position that Israel must not permanently reduce the size of Gazan territory or permanently displace Gazan residents. Multicultural heritage is being erased (mosques, churches, museums, universities, libraries, archives, etc.), most Gazans are starving & suffering from nonexistent healthcare. The urgency is more than justified, not only on moral grounds but also practical ones. If a ceasefire does not come until after the IDF has bombed, fought & bulldozed its way across Rafah, there will not be much of Gaza left to be saved, including the remaining Israeli hostages.
Yes, there are vile actors mixed in w/ the Pro-Palestinian protests cynically looking to take advantage, whether they be Anti-Semites (Christians or Muslims), declared Neo-Nazis, or the “dirtbag Left”, or the former 2 disguised as the last. Any Pro-Palestinian protest movement absolutely need to identify, cast out & condemned the bad actors looking to hijack their legitimate cause. However, one cannot discredit the legitimacy of the Pro-Palestinian cause (as long as that cause recognizes the right of Israel to exist) because of the bad faith actors that seek to take advantage. Indeed, Israeli actions (since the convening of the war cabinet these are more than just Bibi’s actions) are making it easy for the bad faith actors. So is the misguided attempt by European governments to censor any & all voices critical of Israel on “Anti-Semitism” grounds, even though many of the critics are Jewish themselves & their criticism not out of place on the pages of the Haaretz.
The “Left” is also a diverse cast of characters. I don’t understand this fixation on the so called “dirtbag Left”. They are loud on social media, & the odd person likes to show up & heckle Dem. politicians more than Rep. ones. However, they are also irrelevant to US policymaking, or the world’s perception of US actions. Who has more power & influence in the Dem. Party, let alone the US body politic as a whole, the “dirtbag Left” (Code Pink) or the “adults” (Hillary Clinton) who voted for the AUMF for Iraq & have singularly failed to hold Israel to account for its war crimes & violations of international law through the decades? Trying to discredit all of “Lefty” voices (on the economic fairness, social justice, peaceful foreign policy) because of the fringiest elements that are Putin/Hamas/CPC apologists is itself acting in bad faith, & weakening the coalition needed to defeat the Fascists & reactionaries, especially since the domestic & foreign policies promoted by “Lefty” voices are more likely to address the underlying socio-economic factors that provide fertile soil for Fascists & reactionaries to thrive.
As convenient as lumping voices into groups is, at some point we need to identify who are the bad faith actors we need to ignore/condemn, and who are bringing wisdom we need to consider, & not paint large & diverse movements w/ a broad brush.
Misterpuff
@Baud: Most of the isolationist Republican Legislators?
Suzanne
@YY_Sima Qian: I will co-sign everything you wrote here. Thank you for being a voice of reason, and intelligence, and discernment.
Ivan X
@Miss Bianca: Wow. I wish I could nominate a whole comment. Really well said.
Paul in KY
@Cacti: We shall see. Give TFG 5 or 6 more months to disgust them.
Paul in KY
@Tony Jay: I knew it! There was always something about ‘Baud’, if that’s his real name, that always seemed a bit off…
Paul in KY
@Cacti: Like Likud Israel would never get bombs from somewhere else or mcgyver up their own.
Bottom line: Biden is a better POTUS for Palestine than TFG. Much, much better. Is he the ‘Dream POTUS’ ™ they’d like to have? Probably not, but it’s either him or the deluge. Vote for Biden or get it good and hard from TFG.
Paul in KY
@Ksmiami: True. Palestine (independent nation) will never exist until Israel allows it to happen. Thus, Hamas must be out of the way/completely defanged for this to occur (as the Palestinians will have to be ‘good’ for a number of years for this to happen).
So, destroying Hamas is good for the 2 state solution, as it will never happen if Hamas can function as it has.
Paul in KY
@Kay: I would be fine with blocking settler funding.
Paul in KY
@wjca: The last guy who tried that got shot. Forced settlement removal would certainly be a big sign that the Israeli government was more serious than usual about the peace process.