Good news if true from CNN:
President Joe Biden plans to announce Friday that the US will airdrop humanitarian aid and supplies into Gaza, according to people familiar with the plans.
A White House official told CNN earlier on Friday that Biden plans to discuss the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the efforts that the US is making to address the dire situation that civilians are confronting there.
Those comments are expected to come when Biden speaks ahead of his meeting with the Italian prime minister in the Oval Office Friday, according to that official.
I’ve wondered about this option since I grew up reading about stories like the Berlin Airlift. According to USAID Administrator Samantha Power, it’s “a matter of life or death” in Gaza now. The article says several other countries have already airdropped humanitarian aid, including France and Jordan.
Open thread.
TheOtherHank
Airdrops are good. Sending more bombs and bullets to Israel so they can kill the people gathering the dropped aid is not good.
Leto
Updated Berlin Airlift. Good.
Kay
Oh I’m glad. I think it’s so important he comment on what the US is DOING. People feel hopeless and helpless.
Kay
“Pulling out every stop”
I hope so. It’s catastrophic and it gets worse every day.
Baud
A little different than Berlin since we controlled West Berlin. But good.
cain
We need to do a lot more, a LOT more for the Palestinians in Gaza. Gaza people need hope. I wish there was a way to airdrop that.
Bostondreams
Over the objections of Netanyahu apparently. Good.
Baud
@Bostondreams:
I wish we could airdrop him.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Into the sea? (with a life jacket, of course)
Baud
@WaterGirl:
Bibi and the head of Hamas should fight it out one on one on the.battlefield, the way they did in the olden times.
topclimber
I saw a CNN(?) clip with an IDF spokesman who said the Israelis did not fire live ammo but only non-lethal stuff. So the deaths were by trampling among the Palestinians, who I guess were to magically know that the guns pointed at them couldn’t hurt them and there was NO reason to get away quickly.
Whatever. Starve people for three months, effectively shut out neutral parties from distributing aid and make no bones about your indifference to Palestinian casualties and SURPRISE–folks panic when you start shooting.
Colin Powell told the truth at least once: Occupy a place and you are subject to the pottery barn rule. You break it, you own it.
ETA: This re: reports Israelis opened fire yesterday on folks mobbing a food convoy.
Betty Cracker
In a TPM subscriber newsletter, Josh Marshall shared his thoughts on what the U.S. can do (gift link). An excerpt:
I’m no expert on the situation, but that sounds like a good recommendation to me.
Manyakitty
@WaterGirl: why waste a perfectly good life jacket? Let him swim.
Ryan
This is a distraction if it’s not to scale. Pre-war, there were, what, 500 trucks going into Gaza a day? We want to replicate that by air? For what, with what money? Open the crossings; get the convoys moving again.
trollhattan
Safety of said airplanes can be guaranteed by everybody, how?
“They would never shoot at US aircraft.”
First discussion point: how many “they” are there?
Baud
@topclimber:
I don’t know if I agree with your “Whatever,” if in fact they didn’t fire live rounds.
@Betty Cracker:
IMHO, there are two things holding Biden back from that. The first is if he believes the ceasefire talks have not yet run it’s course. The second is if he believes that the House can still be pressured to vote for the Ukraine aid package.
But at some point, he will believe those things.
trollhattan
@Manyakitty: Drop a life ring with him, one fitted with a little motor keeping it juuust out of reach.
Harrison Wesley
So USA will be air dropping the rolls of paper towels instead of President Biden throwing them himself?
Freemark
@Baud: With numerous reports of people being treated for gunshot wounds you probably don’t have to worry about the ‘whatever’.
Baud
@Harrison Wesley:
Absolutely. No difference.
Baud
@Freemark:
Yes, that was a big if.
raven
Remember the USS Liberty? Watch these fuckers.
JCNZ
Leon Uris’s novel about the Berlin airlift – Armageddon – was pretty good, from memory.
I feel my romance with Israel began via his Exodus
It may be ending via his Mila 18.
cain
@Baud:
In gaza.
Freemark
This was heartbreaking to read and watch. The IDF slowly murdered her family and then murdered the ambulance crew that the IDF gave permission to come and rescue her.
https://www.aljazeera.com/program/birds-eye-view/2024/2/22/the-killing-of-6-year-old-hind-rajab
Baud
@trollhattan:
A tantalizing suggestion.
rikyrah
IOWA HOUSE BACKS TRAVEL NURSE PAY CAP AMID CONCERNS
February 29, 2024
The Iowa House of Representatives voted to set pay limits for temporary nursing staff working in Iowa hospitals and nursing homes. The bill was passed on an 80-17 vote, according to legislative records.
The legislation, Iowa House file 2391, would prohibit healthcare staffing firms from charging more than 150% of the statewide average wage for nurses. However, the total amount would not just include the temporary nurse’s hourly wage but also include administrative fees, contract fees, transportation or travel stipends, per diems and any other costs such as overtime and taxes that a healthcare staffing firm is authorized to charge clients.
The industry is fighting the regulation.
“We’re still working on the bill in the Senate to either defeat it or mitigate the cap because the House version is not workable,” Toby Malara, VP of government relations at the American Staffing Association said.
“The 150% is just not a realistic number,” Malara said. It will make getting travel nurses into Iowa more difficult and will have a negative impact especially on rural areas, he added.
https://www2.staffingindustry.com/Editorial/Daily-News/Iowa-House-backs-travel-nurse-pay-cap-amid-concerns-68526
sab
@topclimber: If they didn’t open fire then how did so many people get shot?
Starfish
@rikyrah: I think we need some more regulation of travel nurses, but this is not it.
The thing with the travel nurses being thrown in bad situations and not having anyway of reporting their situations to any regulatory bodies is not great.
WaterGirl
@Baud: You really think there is no difference between Trump throwing paper towels to hurricane victims and what Biden is doing here?
If that was supposed to be sarcasm it didn’t come through.
If it’s not sarcasm.. really?
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
It’s been quite clear for awhile now that this is not just Netanyahu. I really appreciate Josh Marshall’s clear eyed view of this – he refuses to look away.
They won’t be able to do airdrops at anything like the scale needed but they have to do something- Israel is blocking all aid. It would just be unconscionable at this point for the United States to pretend this large scale slaughter isn’t happening. It kills our credibiity everywhere else in thw world.
zhena gogolia
@WaterGirl: It was sarcasm.
Freemark
@rikyrah: I thought capitalism solved all problems? /s
I’m assuming some rich Republican donors hate having to pay the peasants to work. I mean capitalism is only supposed to make them richer not actually ever work to labor’s advantage.
WaterGirl
@Freemark: They have turned into monsters. (The IDF.)
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
I ceasefire and peace keepers are absolutely needed here. Bibi’s government is completely out of control.
Manyakitty
@trollhattan: okay, I guess. Can there be sharks?
Kay
@Baud:
I think they should explain,if they can, why the United States believes that a ceasefire can be brokered. Isn’tit just as likely that one or both sides are simply not negotiating in good faith? Week after week we are told there is hope for a ceasefire and week after week the civilian casualties mount. We are approaching 30k dead civilians out of a population of 2 million. At what point does the US ratchet up the pressure? Is there a benchmark?
Why wouldn’t Netanyahu just refuse to deal in order to remain in power?
Geminid
@trollhattan: If Hamas or Islamic Jihad had ground-to-air missiles they’d have used them already.
As for the Israelis, they seem to adhere to an unwritten rule among nation states not to shoot down non-combat aircraft. They’ve struck weapons shipments once they have been unloaded at the Damascus or Aleppo airports, but they let the Iranian cargo planes hauling them come and go unscathed. They know that what goes around, comes around and that their own civil aviation is a very soft target.
Mike in NC
When we were in Germany in 2015, I was surprised that there still existed a monument to the Berlin Airlift. Looked it up and it’s called Luftbrückendenkmal, located at the old US airbase in Frankfurt that closed in 2008.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
Sarcasm.
Dangerman
@Bostondreams: Netanyahu can pound sand. He needs to learn that pissing us off is bad.
Freemark
@WaterGirl: I would say that has been true for a long time. (Not as individuals but as part of the Israeli government) The ethnic cleansing∗ (this isn’t debatable) of the West Bank has been going strong for the well over a decade. The IDF has been a key part of that. Hamas was mostly ‘successful’ in their attacks because IDF forces were diverted from the Gaza border to help settlers in their ethnic cleansing.
∗EU definition of ethnic cleansing Rendering an area ethnically homogeneous by using force or intimidation to remove from a given area persons of another ethnic or religious group, which is contrary to international law.
Baud
@Kay:
The Arab countries are still in it, as far as I know. No doubt there’s a big risk of bad faith among the principals.
trollhattan
@Geminid: Oh, I think Iran is more than happy to get more into their hands. Their motivation to do so is already established.
I can see this going pear-shaped five ways to Sunday.
Geminid
@Baud: Barak Ravid made a series of posts thos morning about the current status of negotiations. He may have posted an article about this in Axios already.
WaterGirl
@Kay: Biden got Bibi to agree, there Hamas said hell no.
I also think that Biden can’t rock the boat too much while the Republicans are still holding Ukraine hostage.
That’s a helluva rock, and a helluva hard place. People dying and lives being sacrificed daily in Gaza and Ukraine.
Kay
So they told the US offocials to fuck off and we still have no real aid going in.
Is there a Plan B? Or do we just let these people starve to death after we’ve been funding this indiscriminate carpet bombing for the last 4 months? No rush! It’s only a million people headed for starvation!
I hope like hell Joe Biden isn’t being jerked around on this.It isn’t just Israel. If he loses the election over this it’s the United States in the crapper too. I’d prefer not to go down with them, myself.
Kay
@WaterGirl:
Well, no rush from where Netanyahu is sitting. Every day he puts them off with more bullshit is a good day for him.
Just a couple more weeks, right? Since October. A million people will be starving in a couple more weeks.
Geminid
@trollhattan: Hamas and Palestinian Jihad have used some high grade anti-tank missiles and some sizable ground-to-ground rockets smuggled in from Iran, but they haven’t fired any ground to air missiles so far as I know. I think Iran may have drawn a line there.
I don’t know if Iran can smuggle any weapons in now. Over the past couple years, Egypt has really cracked down on smuggling from its side of the Gaza border. They’ve blown up tunnels and flooded them with deawater. I think they’ve also cleared out the civilian population including in the Egyptian portion of Rafah city.
WaterGirl
@Kay: Any way I look at it, it’s Republicans in cahoots with Russia.
Even in the middle of the Hamas-Israel mess, it all comes back to helping Russia against the U.S.
Harrison Wesley
@Kay: US humanitarian kayfabe isn’t designed to mesmerize the furriners. It’s purely for domestic consumption. And, no, this isn’t some special personal failing of President Biden. It’s been pretty much American West Asia policy for many years, and across party lines.
Warblewarble
The problem is not the Israeli government is out of control, it is that they are allowed to control too much of what the US does.
zhena gogolia
The closed caption on the CNN report on Navalny’s funeral translated “Evan Gershkovich” as “Avengers comic.”
Kay
@WaterGirl:
I don’t understand the reluctance to directly address this issue, WG. What does the United States’ inability to get aid into Gaza have to do with either Russia or Republicans? We can’t get aid in because Israel is blocking it, which, incidentally, not that it matters, is a crime. Legitimate warfare does not include deliberately starving a decimated, broken population you’ve been bombing the shit out of for 4 months. It’s an emergency. That’s the issue. 500 trucks a day. That’s the issue.
Bill K
I’m not sure everyone realizes how messed up this is that we are air-dropping supplies. This is not the Berlin Wall. The U.S. is the closest ally of Israel. Why can’t we just dock at the ports and roll trucks into Gaza? The amount of supplies we can move via boat/truck is MUCH greater than what we can achieve with airdrops. Why aren’t the Israelis allowing this?
Uncle Cosmo
@Mike in NC: Also one in Berlin, at the Platz der Luftbrücke. (Sorry, page seems to be auf deutsch only.) Saw this in 1990. IIRC it’s not far from where Tempelhof airdrome used to stand (it’s now a park IIUC).
trollhattan
@Bill K: Berlin at least had an airstrip, no parachutes required.
This sounds performative, lacking technical information.
Kay
@Harrison Wesley:
I just hope the magical unicorn ceasefire/peace agreement doesn’t actually stop serious people from trying to figure out how to get aid in, now, and not some token airdrop either.
It won’t matter what the US does pretty soon. The damage will be done.
WaterGirl
@Kay: I can only assume that these are not unrelated in terms of trying to get something done in a world where Republicans are nihilists.
If Biden pushes past a certain point on Israel, then will the Rs never allow aid to Ukraine to get through? Because that’s a disaster, too.
sdhays
@Baud: I think the third thing that Biden and his team are juggling with all of this is the desire to prevent any broadening of the conflict. Any public break with Israel potentially sends a signal to others (e.g. Hezbollah) that Israel is isolated and vulnerable and now is the time to try something. That would likely be a miscalculation (since the US under Biden would still do whatever’s necessary to back Israel up in that event), but a miscalculation that would immiserate everyone involved, including the US (since it could involve US troops involved in some kind of hot war).
The genocidal racists running the Israeli government don’t make this easy, of course.
Baud
@sdhays:
I agree with you, but that’s going to be a constant for a long time. I think the other things I mentioned have a shorter shelf life.
Harrison Wesley
@Kay: There are already reports of starvation deaths. And if the next diplomatic move is to send Susan Collins as a special envoy to give the Israeli prime minister a Formal Furrowed Eyebrow of Concern, well….won’t Bibi’s face be red! That’ll show him!
PaulWartenberg
We should have been doing these air drops since December when it became clear Netanyahu wasn’t going to control himself.
We should have sent in peacekeepers – our own, not UN – to dare the IDF to fire on American personnel.
Anonymous At Work
Highly recommend The Candy Bombers by Andrei Cherny. Powerful stuff.
p.a.
Well it’s something. Maybe the Michigan vote, especially the day-of vote, got someone’s attention.
How much lime are we airlifting, to help with the bodies?
Warblewarble
Airdrop at what scale? Does the US Navy have no landing ships? Or perhaps this is more about appeasing a section of public opinion, and a whole lot less about doing anything realistic about the plight of the Palestinians.
Baud
@PaulWartenberg:
US peacekeepers in Gaza would end up fighting Hamas. As bad as things are, I’m not sure that would be a better situation, at least not for us.
raven
@PaulWartenberg: We should be the land of the free and the home of the brave too. So what?
Geminid
A post by journalist Shalom Lipner:
Ravid reported that the Netanyahu told Gantz he violated government policy that ministers traveling abroad get approval from the PM first, but did not report Gantz’s response.
I found this on Laura Rozen’s Twitter feed. She is a good aggregator of reporting by knowledgeble observers.
The very anti-Netanyahu reporter Noga Tarnoplosky is alone good source for Israeli politics. Her posts will be worth checking tomorrow; there will be some more large demonstrations in Israel Saturday, likely the biggest yet. They’ll be in full swing this time tomorrow.
Omnes Omnibus
@PaulWartenberg: The US cannot send peacekeepers to Gaza. We have a formal alliance with Israel. We would not be seen as neutral.
Gravenstone
@WaterGirl: I dunno. I thought the sarcasm was quite thick and apparent. Miles better than my reply to the poster would have been.
Baud
@Geminid:
🖕
JCJ
@trollhattan:
Amerika, Du hast viel für uns getan
Amerika, bitte tu uns das nicht an
Viele Carepakete hast du uns geschickt
Heute Raketen, Amerika
Herbert Grönemeyer
taumaturgo
I/3 of the people killing 1/3 of the people while 1/3 of the people passively watches. To think, it just takes a nudge to be a part of any 1/3 group.
Noskilz
Airdrops seem like a positive development. Obviously just a stopgap measure and not a real solution to the humanitarian relief effort, but something worth doing until something more substantial can be managed.
Kay
@Harrison Wesley:
Hey, silver lining- if we “negotiate” long enough the entire civilian population will be decimated by either bombings, demolished buildings falling on their heads or famine and then we’ll get a peace deal because there won’t be anyone left on the other side. Victory! Peace at last!
topclimber
@Baud: Whatever means:
1. I don’t believe these MOFOs.
2. Folks are dead because of Israeli actions, and predictably so.
If you are saying intentional firing of live ammo is what happened, then “whatever” is not enough. How about WTF are we doing putting unconditional aid for them into the UKR/Israel/Taiwan package
Kay
@Geminid:
So we’re now relying on Israelis to finally get rid of their Prime Minister for Life before we can get food in to a million starving people? This just gets better and better. Polling? We’re relying on political polling?
Warblewarble
@Noskilz: Something more substantial needs be a priority,not this PR.stunt. Already there are deaths for malnutrition, airdrops cannot meet the scale of need.
Kay
Maybe issuing the original blank check and assuring them we would back them no matter what they did was unwise.
Can’t take it back now. Perhaps we should have made an initial offer of slightly less than “literally everything and anything”. They probably took that as a green light for whatever the fuck they feel like doing to these people, and who can blame them?
We offered them 100% immediately, they grabbed it, and now we want to go to 90%? Fat fucking chance of that. They’ll just continue to bet on Trump being next. It’s win/win for them.
Another Scott
@Warblewarble: Landing ships are a problem because there aren’t any facilities.
Comment from January with links and stuff – it’s worse now, of course, because Israel has blown up (mostly) everything.
:-(
Cheers,
Scott.
Geminid
@Kay: Who said we are relying on the Israelis to get rid of Netanyahu before we get relief to Gaza? I certainly did not, and neither did Ravid or Lipner.
As for polling, you bring up Israeli politics but you resent other people bringing them up. It’s like you care a lot about the situation but at the same time you’re not really interested in it.
Warblewarble
@Another Scott: There were not a whole lot of useful facilities on the Normandy beaches as I recall.
KatInBuffalo
@WaterGirl: At least paper towels are not as lethal as the 2,000 pound bombs we are providing the IDF to drop on the Palestinians of Gaza.
Citizen Alan
@Bill K: I support us giving humanitarian aid to Gaza however we can. That said, here is my concern: What happens if a US helicopter flying in food and supplies to Gaza gets shot down by Hamas? Because both Hamas and Netanyahu’s people want this to continue. And, I truly believe, both of them want to see Biden fail, (and Putin and the GOP succeed), and US troops dying under his watch because he sent in humanitarian aid in defiance of the Israeli government would be a huge club in the hands of the GOP Fifth Column.
Gretchen
@Ryan: Someone said if you have to airlift into an area controlled by an ally rather than trucking it in, that’s a political problem, not a logistical one.
Kay
@Geminid:
I don’t bring up Israeli politics. I am not, in fact, interested in Israeli politics. I am interested in what the United States IS DOING to get these people some relief – I don t care who Israelis elect.
Joe Biden should worry less about who Israelis elect and more about his own election. Burying this issue in Israeli politics is just another way to avoid the issue, which is how the United States is apparently now barred from feeding a million starving people.
Attempted Chemistry
@zhena gogolia: like Trump lawyer Patsy Baloney! (Pat Cipollone)
Another Scott
@Warblewarble:
If it were easy, it would have been done already. Putting a boat on the beach is just a tiny part of the process, as the paper at the link points out.
Almost anything is possible with enough time and money and …
Cheers,
Scott.
Kay
@Citizen Alan:
What if this question isn’t complicated at all? What if it’s just “get these people some food or tens of thousands will die?”
Do the next right thing. Save them. Because not saving them is something we can ever, ever rectify.
Gretchen
@Kay: Im starting to think that Israel is wiping out the infrastructure in Gaza so they’ll have a clean slate to build settlements there. I hope someone can figure out how to get them to stop without sending UN troops.
Kay
@Gretchen:
Who knows? We’ve made it clear they can do literally anything with no repercussions at all – we thought that blank check would lead to restraint and compliance with humanitarian norms and laws?
Warblewarble
@Another Scott: Airdrops cannot meet the scale of need, that much is clear.
Another Scott
@Warblewarble: Yes.
Israel has strangled Gaza for decades (blew up their airport, prevented them from having a decent seaport, etc.). The war has made things orders of magnitude worse.
There’s no good solution for getting aid in – only incremental help – until the war stops (either temporarily or permanently).
Cheers,
Scott.
Jay
@Warblewarble:
in order to support the Landing Forces, beyond the initial waves of troops wading ashore, tanks swimming ashore, (many didn’t make it and sunk), and a few spots on the beaches where LST’s could make it close enough to shore that tanks and trucks could wade ashore,
we had pre-built Mulberry harbours, concrete precast that could float, be towed into position and anchored to create an artificial harbour.
we had also pre-laid all but the last few hundred yards of undersea pipelines, from Britain, to carry fuel and water.
over a year had been spent planning, building landing ships, stockpiling food, ammo, fuel, lubricants, etc.
and that was just a short crossing from Britain across the channel.
So, even if the USN and the Marines had the ships, (they don’t have enough), and had them in the Med, (they arn’t), where in the Med are these “vast stockpiles of food, water and medicine” stockpiled near a allied port?
Jay
@Citizen Alan:
the airdrops will be parachute drops, from aircraft like the Herc, at altitude outside the range of small arms, not helo landings.
Kay
Despite the Balloon Juice spin and comparison to an outlier primary so we could all feel better, 100k voters at “uncommitted” in MI is a horrible number for Biden and one that should concern him. A lot. He cannot lose 100k voters in MI. I thought uncommitted would be 20 or 30k. 100k is a wildly successful protest vote.
But I think the Biden camp know that. I’m just afraid it won’t matter because we either feed starving people or we don’t and it’s a failure. A US failure. A Biden Administration failure.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: I think there’s time to turn it around. Tick tock.
Leto
@raven: hours late to thread, but this is what I thought of as well. Liberty happened when I was in 5th grade, and my 5th grade teacher, Mrs Slay, spent the entire day crying because one of her former students was one of the casualties. I would not put it past this Israeli right-wing gov to do something like that, or try to shoot down planes.
Warblewarble
@Another Scott: Thank you . Your thoughtful comments are much valued and appreciated,as has been noted elsewhere the problem is more political than logistical.
WaterGirl
@Kay:
Isn’t that what Biden is doing with this airlift?
Geminid
@Geminid:
@Baud: Barak Ravid’s reporting on the Israeli side of the ceasefire negotiation (it’s machine translated from Hebrew and a little clunky in places):
Like I said, Ravid is reporting what the Israeli side tells him. Qatari officials may give their version through Al Jazeera. Qatar intends that this truce be extended and converted to a permanent ceasefire.
The Paris meeting referred to was attended by CIA Director William Burns, who has attended most of these talks as President Biden’s representative. The Israeli and Egyptian intelligence chiefs were the other representatives, with the Qatari Prime Minister serving as interlocutor for Hamas.
* The “keys” referred to are the ratio of exchange: so many Palestinian prisoners for say, the one year child who was abducted, so many more prisoners of a higher security classification for the senior-most IDF soldiers in Hamas’s hands, and numbers in between for the various other abductees. Israel says that 136 hostages remained after the ceasefire and prisoner exchange last December. Some are known to be dead and as many as half might be.
Barry
@Mike in NC: “I was surprised that there still existed a monument to the Berlin Airlift. ”
I am not.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
I thought “well, the uncommitted vote will be good because it’s an actual number – some measure of how bad it is with Arab Americans in MI”. Then it comes back at 100k (!) and we all shrug and insist it doesn’t matter. It matters. We were given information about what a group of our voters are thinking – a group who happen to matter in an outsize way because of where they live- and we didn’t like the information so we decided we could just completely dismiss it.
WaterGirl
@Kay: Who is the we the is dismissing the 100k? I’m really not sure if you mean on Balloon Juice, or all democrats, or the Biden Administration?
The figure I saw was 13% and that was in line with the results of most elections.
When I heard the 100k figure, it was on the Beau podcast a couple of nights ago. I hadn’t seen that figure discussed on BJ until you mentioned it just now. But it’s true that I haven’t followed all the threads lately, so maybe I missed it?
Kay
@WaterGirl:
Oh, WG it’s not enough. They won’t even be able to make a dent in the suffering. I don’t even think they’re announcing it for the truth of it or the value of it – I think they’re announcing it 1. for a domestic political audience and 2. to put pressure on Israel.
It doesn’t matter what I think. We either do something sufficient to save these people or they will die. The “discussion” phase is over. This is action or inaction phase. That’s where we are. That’s where we have gotten ourselves.
Kay
@WaterGirl:
Because you used a 13% figure that was 1. an outlier from one year and 2. represented 20,000 votes. The percentage doesn’t matter. The number matters. It doesn’t matter if it’s 1% if that 1% = 100k votes. He won by 140. 100k is huge. It’s nearly his margin.
WaterGirl
@Kay: Yeah, I get that.
The point I was making was that when it was 13% I thought no big deal.
When I heard that it was actually 100,000 votes, that is a seriously big number.
The point I was trying to make is that maybe the people who are dismissing it have only heard the 13% and not the actual number. One is ho-hum, the other is hugely alarming.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@WaterGirl:
Toss Bibi into a volcano along with Likud and the settlers. That unholy trinity can burn in hell for all I care.
Hamas can be the plug to stop up the volcano.
Geminid
@Kay: You have talked about Netanyahu and his political calculations on this and other threads, and that is bringing up Israeli politics.
At this point I think you ought to pie me because I am going to keep talking about Israeli politics even you don’t care about them. You’d save us both a lot of heartburn that way..
topclimber
@Kay: It matters too that this was a focused uncommitted vote. It was not the conglomeration of various disappointed interests or supporters of miscellaneous candidates who did not qualify for the ballot.
100K is the number normies will notice, not percentages in years that may not be comparable.
Also, there are now two Convention, delegates who can drive more press coverage of the Palestinian position, even if they are lucky to get 10 minutes of floor time to talk about it at the Convention.
Geminid
@WaterGirl: This post was about Biden’s comments in prospect. He’s made them now.
I found them reported on both Laura Rosen’s and Barak Ravid’s social media feeds and they considered Biden’s comments to be significant. I might put them up tomorrow morning but I’m posted out right now.
Kay
@WaterGirl:
20,000; 20,000; 20,000 then 100,000. So the Tweets that were posted that dismissed the “13%” as business as usual in a primary are not even relevant to this discussion and were a misleading comparison, at best. The % never mattered and still doesn’t. The vote total did and will be the only thing that matters in November. For Joe Biden. Not Netanyahu.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@WaterGirl:
No, the IDF have been monsters for some time now. We are seeing what they really have wanted to do for some time now that they’ve been unleashed by Bibi. The wanton killing is over the top and I don’t understand why they think that the world is just going to accept what they are doing. The only thing that can explain their indifference to what the world thinks is because they really don’t give a shit. Public opinion of Jewish people in general is taking a beating due to the actions of the right wing Israeli government and the military pitbull they have unleashed on the Palestinian people.
But Bibi don’t care about the hostages nor does he care what the world at large thinks about Jewish people. He can stay in Israel and hide while everyone else suffers.
YY_Sima Qian
Posted this article in Adam’s daily Ukraine thread yesterday:
Not a long article from the Economist, but very worthwhile read:
The last line is really damning as far as the Biden Administration’s approach to Israel’s War on Gaza is concerned, what it helped to enable because the Administration has been paralyzed by its conservatism & conventionalism based on a set of beliefs wrt to Israel, the Israel lobby in the U.S., the GOP, & US voter sentiments. Much like the Administration’s conservatism/conventionalism based on a set of beliefs wrt Putin’s bluffing w/ nukes really slowed military aid to Ukraine.
BTW, the U.S. & a couple of dozen Western nations immediately suspended funding to the UNWRA, the one organization currently existing w/ the infrastructure to deliver aid to Gaza, upon the 1st instance of Israeli accusations that a few UNWRA employees (out of > 10K) were involved in the 10/7 atrocities. Accusations that Israel still has not furnished convincing evidence of.
Kay
@WaterGirl:
Sorry- I didn’t see that you got it until after I posted my link. I see that you understand the problem.
Warblewarble
It is not just Netanyahu, every “reasonable member of his war cabinet ” that the US is pleased to do business with also wants the Palestinians gone by whatever means. Every. Single. One.
Geminid
@Odie Hugh Manatee: The Saudis, Emiratis and Egyptians have a more realistic plan for Hamas’s fighters in Gaza: surrender on terms and be evacuated to Algeria like Arafat and the PLO were evacuated from Beirut to Tunis in 1982. Representatives of those countries have met with Hamas officials in Doha to press that option.
This is part of a more comprehensive plan to resolve this war and lay some groundwork for a resolution of the larger conflict. These Arab countries, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority are coordinating a common strategy in this area. It involves “reinvigorating” the Palestinian Authority and this week’s resignation of the PA’s Prime Minister and his cabinet was part of that.
This strategy tracks U.S. policy and could be the template for a settlement of this war, ratified by a Security Council resolution.
sab
@Geminid: But the Gazans will all be dead by then.
Subsole
@Baud:
That would require Hamas’ leadership to put aside their lobster dinners in Cyprus and actually, y’know, go to Gaza.
Subsole
So I hate to be the doofus, but…
We all understand that we aren’t feeding Gazans here. Right?
We are all very clear that the food and aid is just going to get swiped by Hamas. Because they have the guns and they have amply demonstrated they don’t care jack shit about Gazans.
We all realize that, yes?
I want to help Palestinians. I don’t see how we do that while Hamas is in charge. Or are we not allowed to mention Hamas anymore because reasons?
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Geminid:
That would be a great end to this but I don’t think the Israeli government is interested in ending this soon. IMO they are going to delay, hamper and drag this out. I understand the government is not united there but there are enough of the hard liners in power that they are getting their way.
We need to cut off all aid to Israel until they pull their heads out of their asses. Assist the Palestinians in every way we can and tell Israel to stand back.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Subsole:
I’m willing to bet that there are a lot of hungry men who aren’t in Hamas and who are more than willing to kill Hamas to get food for their families. Sure there will be some diversion of goods but would you prefer we do nothing at all just because of this?
Perfect, enemy of good, etc.
Warblewarble
“we have had a much longer window of legitimacy from the Americans than we could have expected” Should be posted over the burying place of all the innocents.
YY_Sima Qian
@Subsole: By your reasoning, it would be lawful to deliberately starve populations under enemy control. By extension of that kind of reasoning, Hamas was fully justified in massacring unarmed civilians under the age 50 during the 10/7 atrocities, because such unarmed civilians are most likely IDF reservists who can be recalled into active service at any moment.
Geminid
@Odie Hugh Manatee: The Arab nations involved know the Israelis and the overall situation better than you or I, and they have far more reason to take this problem seriously than people living thousands of miles away. So I take their proposal seriously. Not saying it will happen, but it’s a realistic one I think.
Betty
@Kay: Enough with the talk. People want action.
Kay
@Geminid:
I think Israel has been utterly taken over by the hard Right and a few tweaks in leadership aren’t going to change that. We beat our Trump. I’m sorry that they didn’t beat theirs but I don’t want to go down with them. You have a window to beat fascists in elections and it doesn’t remain open forever. IMO that window has closed in Israel. They’ll need a revolution to get rid of the hard Right now. I wish them all the luck in the world but I suggest Biden figure a way out of this mess or we’ll have our own far Right takeover in the US, one that we can’t remove with an election.
Geminid
@Kay: I guess we get to see if your analysis is in fact accurate. I think we’ll know before too long, maybe after this war is settled, maybe before.
Subsole
@YY_Sima Qian:
That all sounds true at first blush, but it doesn’t feel like it actually answered my question.
If the bulk of the food is going to get snapped up by armed combatants, it doesn’t matter what I reason. Nor does it matter what logical or legal extrapolations some professional government debate team crafts to justify who-the-fuck-knows-what.
If the aid keeps getting taken by armed men who want the war to keep going (the war that we all agree is a very bad thing for everyone involved) then I am not actually helping anyone, am I? Not the people I am trying to feed, nor the people getting killed by the continued conflict that is, again, being prolonged by the aid that I am sending over to get misappropriated.
I am not trying to craft legal arguments here. I am not trying to have a debate. I am saying I want the help I offer to actually, y’know, help.
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
I would prefer we not let the impulse to “do something!” propel us into a fuckup. If we are going to help, let’s make sure we are actually helping.
I don’t know the people of Gaza. But (speaking in broad patterns here) if I have to bet between ‘unknown number of angry civvies’ and ‘armed, violent, experienced combatants’…well, betting long odds can make for a long night at the table.
Betty Cracker
@Subsole: To underscore what I said in an earlier comment, I’m not an expert, and I have no idea how this will play out. The scale of aid needed in Gaza is larger than would typically be needed by a besieged enclave because almost all goods were shipped in before the war, if what I’ve read is correct. That said, if you follow the link in the original post (and read the last sentence), aid drops are already ongoing, and as far as I’ve heard, there hasn’t been a ton of violence linked to that. At least so far.
Subsole
@Betty Cracker:
Thank God.
And thank you for the response. Hopefully the food actually goes to Gazans who need it.
I am, after watching how Somalia and Rwanda played out, very often less than sanguine about help getting to the people who actually deserve it.
VFX Lurker
He’s got a tough row to hoe. As a white woman, I hope my demographic might vote less Republican this November. My friends and family in Michigan all vote Democratic…but we do not represent the majority of white people.
Jay
@Subsole:
the only claim that armed Hamas members are stealing the aid. comes from the IDF whom are lying liars and genociders. Nobody on the ground, UN, UNHCR, various NGO’s, truck drivers has witnessed that.
In the first IDF claims about the mass shooting of the Palestinian seeking aid, they claim that their troops were attacked by Hamas troops.
In their second claim, they said it was a mass riot and were afeared, so they opened fire and everybody was killed in the stampede.
In their third claim, they said it was only sporadic fire with non-lethal weapons.
So far no mention by the IDF about how they cleared the square with tanks, tank fire, IFV,s running over the dead and wounded. I am sure they will come up with a “justification” for that too.
Kay
@Geminid:
We had plenty of huge protests after Trump was elected. They don’t mean shit unless you follow them up with a majority vote. Polls are just polls – and Netanyahu and the far Right remain in power despite years of low polling. Either the polling is unreliable or their elections are – for their sakes I hope the polling is unreliable, because if it isn’t their democracy is already gone.
Hopefully we can hang on to ours.
Subsole
@Jay:
Then consider my protest answered, I guess.
Hope it stays that way.
Gvg
@Kay: uh what? You don’t make any sense.
Of course Biden has to care about who the Israelis elect. Not just Prime Minister, either, as I think a lot of Israelis are just as all in on never negotiating with the Palestinians. we can’t do much. Influencing though because we still object when others try to influence our elections. Still realistically this government has unrelated reasons not to want the situation resolved. Criminal trials and loosing elections.
Unless we are going to break the international rules that have applied since the end of WWII and invade and occupy Israel forever, there is no solution at all that does not involve negotiation with Israel, and they have the final say on what happens there. We can pressure them, but not all that much. We’d be stupid to allow the world to decide to invade to stop the genocide because past history shows it would let loose a flood of antisemitism that would go well past stopping one government of a small country from killing the Palestinians. I bet an invasion would kill more Palestinians too and starve more. Would unleash more attacks on Jews worldwide including our own citizens who don’t support what the IDS is doing. So we can get mad and vent, but we aren’t in a position of power. That’s real life. Happens to other countries a lot more than us, so we aren’t used to it.
The other issue is the problem that this war started with a horrific attack by Hamas and all the resulting anger against Israel rewards that behavior. We don’t want to set off a lot of copycats for the next decade.
YY_Sima Qian
@Subsole: A trickle of aid has been entering Gaza, there is no reporting that Hamas has been seizing the bulk of it. The expressed rationale for IDF restricting aid entering Gaza is to prevent arms from reaching Hamas. No one has suggested any concerns along the lines that you have raised.
Kay
@Gvg:
If your position is we have zero leverage with Israel and none of our actions matter then it shouldn’t matter who the US President is – the only thing that matters is who runs Israel. I don’t think the “completely powerless US President” argument is the BEST one to make given that we’re telling people this is the most important election of their lives, but Biden can certainly try it. I wouldn’t though.
Jay
@Kay:
Like the TIFG wouldn’t arrest and deport everyone of Palestinian, Arab ancestry and every Muslim in the US to Gaza, then give Israel enough willie pete to burn Gaza down with no survivors, and give Israel carte blanche to kill every single Palestinian living in refugee camps across the Middle East.
It matters who the US President is, even if they can’t control what Israel does.
YY_Sima Qian
@Jay: The comment by the Israeli official in the Economist article suggests that the U.S. does indeed have leverage, leverage that it has failed to exercise to influence events.
YY_Sima Qian
@Gvg: The US may not be able to dictate Israeli actions, but the U.S. has agency over its own actions, such as unconditional rhetorical support, failure to forcefully criticize Israeli misconduct, failure to hold Israel to account for its war crimes or allow international organizations to hold Israel to account, providing munitions w/o any restrictions on their use, or in general be complicit in Israeli conduct.
Jay
@YY_Sima Qian:
President Joe Biden and his Administration, (up until the airdrops) have gone with “soft power” so far, Bibi, his War Council, and Bibi’s Cabinet don’t give a shit. So what if a dozen Settlers and Politician’s can’t vacation at Disneyland. So what if some of them can only travel to ruZZia with out being arrested and tried for war crimes.
The US is going to have to switch to using hard power to have an influence.
First will have to be money, and sanctions.
then military aid,
then military action.
And these actions will have to be international.
While Israel is busy digging a grave for the Palestinians, they are also digging a grave for Israel.
Geminid
@Kay: If you are at all interested in this I suggest you check out reporting by Noga Tarnolpolsky and others tomorrow, and see how these protests compare to the ones held here after Trump was elected. They’re pretty damn big, especially for a country with less than one thirtieth the population of the US.
There was a hiatus in Israeli protests for the first 12 weeks of this war. Since New Year’s they have become pretty much an everyday affair, but the real action starts on Saturdays after sundown in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa and other cities. That’s about 1 p.m. Eastern Time.
Last Saturday police used a water cannon and mounted cops to try to suppress the Tel Aviv rally, and the protesters vow to come back in greater numbers tomorrow night. They likely will, and pnumbers nationwide will probably increase also because this government does something else stupid to protest about every day.
Ksmiami
@Jay: I’ve said for a long time that Netanyahu will be the death of Israel.
JCNZ
@Warblewarble: Yes! Doesn’t Gaza have a coast on, y’know, the Mediterranean? Couldn’t ships drop anchor there?
Nash
Historically, the US has only resorted to aid airdrops when they were attempting to circumvent the actions of an enemy nation.
Geminid
@Jay: It’s the “War Cabinet,” and it’s not Netanyahu’s to command. He has one of three seats and Yoav Gallant, the current Defence Minister, and his predecessor Benny Gantz have the other two. They do not trust Netanyahu- nobody does- and they can outvote him.
These are the terms under which Gantz and his party joined the emergency government and they were ratified by the Knesset on October 12, so they have the force of law.
This did not alter Israel’s basic mlitary goals nor was it intended to. Its practical effect has been to keep the PM off of Gallant’s and IDF Chief of Staff Halevi’s backs.
It also has kept other Ministers from doing something too dangerously stupid, like when Justice Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir announced restrictions on Arab Israelis attending services on top the Temple Mount during Ramadan. The War Cabinet took authority over Temple Mount security out of Ben-Gvir’s hands.
Gantz and Gallant can also be confident they will be in government and Netanyahu will be a private citizen and very likely appealing a couple corruption convictions.
Geminid
@Geminid: Actually, the War Cabinet took authority for Temple Mount security policy out of the Justice Minister’s hands. Ben-Gvir still has at least nominal control over the police, at least for now.
Subsole
@Jay: Don’t look now, but a large chunk of folks have already stated they plan to hand power to that bemakeupped maniac.
Because that’ll goddamn sure teach us all a lesson.