You have likely heard that President Biden was “caught” on a hot mic after the State of the Union address, saying that he would be holding a “come to Jesus” meeting with Bibi. Barak raved follows up.
1 \ BREAKING: President Biden said in an interview with MSNBC that he would like to come to Israel again to address the Knesset and speak to the Israeli people. Biden refused to specify whether there are discussions on such a possibility and refused to discuss it further
— Barak Ravid (@BarakRavid) March 9, 2024
1 \ BREAKING: President Biden said in an interview with MSNBC that he would like to come to Israel again to address the Knesset and speak to the Israeli people. Biden refused to specify whether there are discussions on such a possibility and refused to discuss it further
2 \ Biden was asked what he meant when he was caught on a hot mic saying that he would hold a “come to Jesus meeting” with Netanyahu. He answered that It’s a phrase that is used in a serious way. “Bibi knows what I meant”, Biden added
3 \ Biden noted Israel has the right to defend itself & go after Hamas, but emphasized that Netanyahu “must, must, must” pay more attention to preventing civilian casualties in Gaza. “He hurts Israel more than he protects her (by killing civilians). This is a mistake,” Biden said
4 \ Biden said he wants a 6-week ceasefire during which hostages will be released & a wider strategy could be advanced. He said many Arab leaders, including in Saudi Arabia, are ready for peace with Israel. “What happens after the war is what we need to focus on,” Biden said
5 \ Biden was asked if he has a red line in the Gaza war & whether an operation in Rafah would be such a red line. He replied that he has a red line, but emphasized he will not abandon Israel & will not stop the supply of weapons like Iron Dome so that Israel can’t defend itself
6 \ Biden then stressed: “We can’t have another 30,000 Palestinians die in the war. After the carpet bombings of World War II, the rules of war were changed. The rules of war must be respected”
7 \ Biden said he still believes that a deal can be reached to release the hostages in Gaza. “My CIA director in that region right at this minute still talking about it. I think it’s always possible. I never give up on that”, he said
Interesting. To say the least.
rk
Not related to this at all, but I just read that Trump mocked Biden’s stutter in his Georgia speech today. I’m guessing that since “sleepy joe” can’t be used this is what we’ll see till election time.
Baud
I think he means a Come to Brandon moment.
Baud
@rk:
I can’t believe someone who mocked autism in 2016 and won would mock stuttering in 2024.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Didn’t he also mock Michael J. Fox?
Melancholy Jaques
Calls to mind an episode of The West Wing.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
I don’t remember that. He’s done so many awful things.
WaterGirl
“The rules of war must be respected.”
That sounds a lot like like not respecting the rules of war. How is that different from war crimes?
WaterGirl
@Melancholy Jaques: Which one?
karen marie
@rk: When you have nothing else, you go after irrelevancies.
While Democrats among the populus make fun of Trump for being orange, fat and having fucked up hair, Biden does not, because he is focused on issues. But Trump has nothing but personal insults.
Apparently setting a good example for children is no longer a concern for Republicans.
lowtechcyclist
Having a ‘come-to-Jesus’ meeting with Netanyahu? Shouldn’t that be a ‘come to Moses’ meeting, given his religion? (For all his faults, Bibi is at least unlikely to confuse Mike Johnson with Moses.)
And if they had that ‘come-to-Jesus’ meeting, would the objective be to have Bibi join “Jews for Jesus”? Boy howdy, the gloating of the evangelicals would know no end. Not that that would matter anyway, they’re so deep in Israel’s corner that you couldn’t pry them out with a crowbar. Gotta make that Rapture happen, after all! (Please, Lord, take them out of here! If you do that, I’ll be joyfully Left Behind!)
WaterGirl
@karen marie: With all the slurring and inability to finish words that we see in Trump more and more frequently, it seems like an odd choice for Trump to call attention to those stutter slips by Biden.
Melancholy Jaques
@WaterGirl:
I thought it was Thomas F Wilson
WaterGirl
@lowtechcyclist: Just a figure of speech; not meant literally. But of course you know that!
Tony Jay
By the smouldering balls of Baal but I do hate the fucking Guardian.
Two articles today represent significant signposts in that rag’s speedy, highly predictable, and at root pathologically cynical ‘readjustment of narrative direction’ where issues vis a vis Israel and matters appertaining to Jewish opinion are concerned. Both timely, both well (enough) written and both containing important push-back against the Tory Government’s opportunistic attempt to paint all pro-Palestinian activity as a form of violent extremism and a precursor to terrorism by claiming that any and all pro-Palestinian symbolism or expressions of support for Palestinian sovereignty are tantamount to daubing Juden Raus! across posters for Maestro and shopping exclusively at Hugo Boss.
The thing is, the thing is, the reason there urgently needs to be pushback in the media against the pro-Israeli lobby groups busy claiming that London is now a no-go area for British Jews is because that very same media – with the FTF Guardian vanguarding the hell out of the effort – spent the period between 2016 and last October quite relentlessly promoting the false narrative that those pro-Israeli lobby groups were the one and only legitimate voice representing every Jewish person in Britain, and that all those other Jews, the ones with opinions on Palestine that wouldn’t be welcome at a Labour Friends of Israel fundraiser, well, they weren’t really proper Jews, were they?
The opinions expressed in the articles by Natasha Walter and Tim Adams would have been absolutely verboten only a few months ago, when simply suggesting that right-wing lobby groups shouldn’t have the final word on what is or is not antisemitism was a calumny that could get you struck off the acceptable opinion list in the blink of an eye.
Case in point, readers of those articles are left with the distinct impression that the FTF Guardian wants them to see the spokesman for the Jewish Chronicle as being full of shit and guilty of spewing inflammatory nonsense about antisemitic hordes rampaging unchecked around central London solely to make British Jews feel frightened and insecure enough to vote for the Tories, who are at least promising to protect them by banning pro-Palestinian marches. Which, by the way, is true. That’s exactly what he’s doing. Terrifying Europe’s Jewish populations into seeing Israel as the only safe refuge for them right the fuck NOW has been a strategic aim for the Israeli Right (and its Christian Apocalyptarian allies) for decades, and the Jewish Chronicle has been their mouthpiece for quite a while.
But let’s not beat around the bush here, this is the same Jewish Chronicle that was effectively the assignment editor for the FTF Guardian’s coverage of Labour’s whipped-up ZOMG!!! Antisemitism Crisis when Corbyn was in charge. The same Jewish Chronicle that was presented as a respected and unimpeachable exemplar of journalistic rectitude when it was savaging the Labour Left as irredeemably Nazi-inclined, even though it was perpetually on the edge of bankruptcy due to all the libel cases it was losing against people it had falsely accused of antisemitism. The same Jewish Chronicle that was only saved from total collapse in the weeks following Flobalob’s media-assisted victory at the polls in 2019 by a coalition of nameless investors whose first order of business was to install a new editorial board consisting of a who’s who of figures (like the BBC’s pro-Tory fixer Robbie Gibb, the odious anti-Islamic journo-hack John Ware, and ex-Labour asset for the Arms Industry John Woodcock) who had been major noisemakers in the hatchet-job on Corbyn. Even hinting at any of this in the FTF Guardian’s online oasis of ‘Free Speech’ was a surefire route to permabanning for years, but now that the Labour Right is safely back in charge of the Opposition, well, how fickle those transactional friendships can be.
It just really, really grinds my gears to see that pestilential rag two-stepping across the gaping chasm between the viewpoints it’s presenting now and it’s own history of aggressively silencing those viewpoints back when it was aligned with the Tories in presenting the belief that Palestinians were human beings with rights that were being trampled on by Israel as virulently genocidal hate-speech. All just so that a centre-left Government wouldn’t get into power and make rich people pay a few pennies more in tax to keep kids from starving.
I really, really fucking hate the FTF Guardian.
Rant over.
Timill
@WaterGirl: It signals a forthcoming summit in Mexico City…
SiubhanDuinne
@Tony Jay:
But their crossword puzzles are great!
Tony Jay
@SiubhanDuinne:
I see what you did there and I applaud it.
schrodingers_cat
@WaterGirl: That was a NYT reporter that he mocked IIRC. Serge Kovaleski
Melancholy Jaques
@WaterGirl:
The U.S. Poet Laureate – Season 3, Episode 16
The scene
Maybe President Biden saw the green light.
lowtechcyclist
@WaterGirl:
Oh, of course I do! But it was an odd figure of speech to use in this particular context, and I just couldn’t help but have a little fun with that!
Jackie
@WaterGirl: He’s mocked everyone who ever dared to challenge him in any way. Even if it’s only in his adrenaled mind. Sniff.
Jackie
@WaterGirl: He’s desperately trying to draw attention away from his flaws. And his sycophants and MAGAts support that.
Bill Arnold
@WaterGirl:
It is not different from war crimes. Diplomacy reasons, I presume.
I was mildly surprised to see that from Biden. The laws of war re civilians were indeed strengthened post WWII, in part because of the massive aerial attacks on civilians. Those were mainly because bombers could not really hit targets smaller than cities, but still.
Currently codified as
Article 51 Protection of the civilian population, and 52,53,54,55,56,57, and some others as well.
Israelis get angry when accused of “Article 54 – Protection of objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population” violations.
“1. Starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is prohibited.”
Fuck ’em. They should stop committing black-letter-law-of-armed-conflict war crimes.
Geminid
Barak Ravid also posted an Axios article about the hostage/ceasefire talks titled, “Ceasefire, hostage talks intensify as Ramadan approaches”:
https://www.axios.com/2024/03/09/ramadan-israel-gaza-ceasefire
There was no deal in immediate prospect when Burns and Barnea conferred. That was on the eve of Ramadan, so I expect much of their discussion centered on damage mitigation.
Jackie
@schrodingers_cat: Just remembering that disgusting moment sickens me.
TIFG has done/will do a lot of disgusting things, but him mocking that reporter’s disability is at the top of my list. I still can’t believe he was allowed to get away with that and celebrated for it by his supporters.
HumboldtBlue
Wow, you do not want to get into a vehicle collision with the President’s Secret Service detail.
Frankensteinbeck
@Tony Jay:
I am guessing you are not a Jew and don’t know just how funny this line is, even if it’s gallows humor in this context. In Judaism, everyone else is doing it wrong. Except the goyim, who don’t know any better.
Or as the tl;dr saying goes, “Two Jews, three opinions.”
Geminid
@WaterGirl: Israeli journalist Noga Tarnopolsky discussed Biden’s “hot mike” statement in the lead of an Intelligencer article about US/Israeli relations titled, “The Biden Plan to Ditch Israel’s Netanyahu”:
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/the-biden-plan-to-ditch-israels-netanyahu.html?utm_source=tw&utm_campaign=nym&ulm_medium=s
Tarnoposky is pretty contemptuous towards the PM.
Soprano2
@WaterGirl: That was Rush Limbaugh.
Geminid
@Geminid: In her article, Tarnopolsky talks some about the sanction regime the Biden regime is imposing on violent West Bank settlers, and how the UK and France quickly followed suit. Germany did a few days later.
Biden’s Treasury Department placed sanctions on only four Israelis to begin with; the UK named 24. The sanctions regime is far reaching potentially, and can easily extend to financial institutions and government ministers. I suspect that when it comes Netanyahu allies Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, Janet Yellen has an itchy trigger finger.
VFX Lurker
I saw a random anti-Biden Facebook post today that dismissed a six-week ceasefire as a political ploy for Muslim-American votes and implied that Biden “vetoed 3 real ceasefires.” It was not a statement from anyone I know, but it was reposted uncritically by someone I know.
I wrote five Postcards to Voters in Florida, mailed them out, then unfollowed my Facebook contact.
Darkrose
@Tony Jay: I hate the FTF Guardian too, but probably not for the same reasons you do. Despite having been called out by their US-based writers, their coverage of trans issues is still appalling and gives way too much credence to the “gender critical” bullshit. They’re also right there with the US media in pushing “Biden is old,” with an extra sauce of “Kamala Harris is awful and nobody likes her.”
Their science writing makes me want to scream and throw shit; they constantly hype up studies that they don’t actually link to, and if you dig up the study you’ll find that their headline usually misrepresented the study’s findings. Since watching HBomberguy’s video on vaccines and autism, I find this especially galling given that Melanie Phillips was working for them and faithfully repeating Wakefield’s lies. They have apparently learned nothing from that.
As far as the Israel-Hamas war is concerned, they seem to be firmly on the side of “only the US has agency; Biden could impose a ceasefire tomorrow but he hates Palestinians so he won’t.” The only reason I still read them occasionally is because I can only yell at the (FTF)NYT so much.
WaterGirl
@Geminid: Not sure it was the whole thing, but I like what I was able to read of that article.
WaterGirl
@Soprano2: The slimebalms all run together, apparently.
WaterGirl
@VFX Lurker:
I had seen that reporting somewhere, too. Never let the truth stand in your way.
Peke Daddy
@WaterGirl: Think that was Rush Limbaugh. He implied that Fox didn’t take his medication before testifying to Congress about Parkinson’s research so he would look “really” shaky and disabled so that this Hollywood elite could sponge off taxpayers dollars for treatment of his disease. Trump mocked a reporter with a degenerative muscle disease, Serge Kovaleski.
theturtlemoves
@VFX Lurker: I mean, I get the optics but UN resolutions with no teeth that Israel would just ignore anyway aren’t really going to solve anything. It’s just performative bullshit.
WaterGirl
Test comment, not logged in.
WaterGirl
@Peke Daddy: Disgusting pigs, both of them. Thanks for the correction.
Bill Arnold
@Geminid:
:-).
She also wields a BFG.
Soprano2
@WaterGirl: Do you notice how they never mention that Hamas has to agree to a ceasefire too?
Jackie
@WaterGirl: test
Oh, I’m back!😊
WaterGirl
@Soprano2: My personal favorite is when people act as though there is no difference between Hamas and innocent Palestinians who had the misfortune of being born into a hellish situation.
WaterGirl
@Jackie: I made a new post, hoping that would somehow help. I don’t know if this was just a hiccup and we’re past it, if having a new post up helped, or if we’ll see it again.
Hopefully not, because I was about to go to bed when I got your message. :-)
Geminid
@WaterGirl: The US has vetoed at least two Security Council resolutions mandating a ceasefire, based upon our objection to the terms: a permanent ceasefire that would in effect leave Hamas in control of the Gaza Strip.
WaterGirl
@Geminid: I’m aware of that, but two is not three.
Soprano2
@WaterGirl: That fucking Bill Maher called all the college students demonstrating for a ceasefire “pro Hamas”. The worst thing was that no one there protested, including Adam Schiff. I was disappointed.
It’s so weird how they all think if Israel says “now there’s a ceasefire” Hamas would automatically go along with it.
Thor Heyerdahl
@WaterGirl: Nice of Limbaugh to be 3 years sober though.
Geminid
@Bill Arnold: I lack the patience to get into the nitty-gritty of sanctions regulations. But I saw this matter discussed recently by someone who does, and they said “Uh-oh, Treasury’s threatenening to use Section ___. That’s their big gun.”
WaterGirl
@Geminid: Not knowing anything about that myself, I will just say that I hope that turns out to be true
Bring out the big guns. I’m tired of Bibi flipping us the bird. Israel is the client state, not the other way around,
Geminid
@WaterGirl: It might be three vetoes by now. Algeria sponsored a resolution a resolution last month that we vetoed, and that could have been the third. The proposed terms track the ones advocated generally by many of the people calling for a “ceasfire now”: an immediate and permanent ceasefire, followed by an Israeli withdrawal fom Gasa.
The ceasefire the U.S. is trying to push through would track the temporary ceasefire of last December, that was originally set to last 7 days but was extended for several more. It included the release of a number of abductees held by Hamas in exchange for Palestinians held in Israeli prisons. These “security prisoners” were released to the West Bank on a 3 prisoner for 1 abductee basis.
The framework the US, Israel, Egypt worked out with Qatar in Paris some weeks ago would have one abductee a day released for 40 days, during which time it’s hoped that parties would agree to extensions and further realeases. There would be a higher number of Israeli prisoners released for each abductee than in the December ceasefire
Aided by Qatar’s intelligence service, Qatar’s Prime Minister has acted both as mediator and Hamas’s attorney in these negotiations, while the US, Israeli and Egyptian intelligence chiefs have represented their countries. The Qataris intend to use the opportunity of a break in the fighting to work out a more permanent settlement.
Geminid
@WaterGirl: Personally, I do not consider Israel to be a client state and Israelis certainly do not think they are. But I know a lot of people do think this
mvr
I’ve tended to think the situation with respect to us and Israel is too complicated for me to figure out exactly how to weigh in (in the only way I can which is by saying what I think in places like this) in a productive way, at least partly because I suspected that Biden’s maintaining his closeness to Israel gives him more leverage to rein in the kind of overreaction that we have seen and that we ourselves engaged in in 2002. So I am happy to see Biden saying this kind of thing on a hot mic, since it somewhat confirms the suspicion and also my sense that he actually is aiming at what decency would require – minimizing deaths and especially civilian deaths. Also that he actually knows about what international law about war requires.
Geminid
@Soprano2: If Israel declared a ceasefire Hamas might go along because they are getting beaten badly. They haven’t been able to inflict nearly the casualties upon the IDF that they had hoped to, while they and allied militia have had several thousand members killed or captured, and others wounded.
Plus, Hamas hoped this war would become regionalized and it hasn’t yet (although that could change). And while civilian casualties have met and maybe even exceeded Hamas’s expectations, this haven’t had the desired effect, which would be to separate Isrsel from its allies including their Arab and European supporters.
Reports are that Egyptian, Saudi and Emirati officials have urged Hamas leaders in Qatar to get their remaining forces in Gaza to surrender on terms. These would include being evacuated to Algeria, like Yasser Arafat and the PLO were evacuated from Beirut to Tunis in 1982.
When this proposal was floated a couple months ago, I saw reactions among Israelis that ranged from “No way!” to “Do it! It will save our soldiers’ lives.” But its not going to happen soon if ever, because right now Hamas evidently believes that Ramadan presents an opportunity to reverse their fortunes.
The Lodger
@Geminid: Israel may not consider itself a client state, but the US is spending our tax money as though it’s buying one.
Tony Jay
@Frankensteinbeck:
Sorry, been a’bed. But yes, you’re right, in both cases. It’s partly the privileged, exploitative, we will pretend to care while actually just using the horrors of the Holocaust as a shield behind which to wage small-scale partisan fuckery that grinds my gears so much. Jewish people have a multitude of opinions because, d’oh, people, but the FTF Guardian elevated one malignant strand to untouchable prominence because they wanted the Labour Left to lose elections, and now they want to pretend that never happened.
Fuckers.
@Darkrose:
Couldn’t agree more. I’ve been saying for a while that the FTF Guardian sees the FTFNYT as the model it aspires to, and as far as condemnatory insults go that works perfectly well for me.
Darkrose
@Tony Jay: One of these days when I don’t have much to do I’m going to send FTFG an email explaining in detail why I’m not giving them money.
Tony Jay
@Darkrose:
Which they will mine for contact details they can sell on.
It’s all about the return on the return on investment with these people. Filling Liberal Media niche with anti-progressive product that just so happens to keep the Right in power, the readership coming back for news about the latest scandal, and corporate taxes for the rag’s corporate owners as low as possible.
It’s a racket.
Geminid
@The Lodger: By that standard, one could call Ukraine a client state and some people do. We’ve certainly spent a lot of money on them last couple of years, over $100 billion. But others would object to the label and would be highly offended because it expresses contempt, and Ukrainians and their country are considered heroic.
Invidious labels like “client state” typically are used more to express animus and resentment than to define the relationship. Like with “Apartheid Israel or “Puppet Israel,” the effect of the term is to delegitimize that nation and that is often the intent as well.
BellyCat
HA!
wjca
So set up a dummy email account, use it once to send the email to the Guardian, and never look at it again. You don’t have to use your usual account.