Dammit. They could make military support contingent on kicking Bibi and Likud to the curb at the very least.
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Oh, but that would mean interfering with a democratically elected government, and the US never ever does that.
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Yeah, sarcasm, I know.
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They won’t because that will be seen as intervening in another country’s elections in a very public way. I know that’s ironic, given our very checkered history of over-turning elections and interventionism, but there it is… The Israeli people are going to have to do that themselves, just like we need to get rid of our own extremists. I know that there are people there who are tired of Likud’s fuckery, and they’re tired of living in a war zone. They need to put two and two together, get over blind patriotism, and vote for someone who promises to deal directly with the Palestinians and work towards a solution (either 2 states, or a single, democratic state). Until that happens, they’re gonna keep getting the same results here.
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I mean, @FGD135 isn’t wrong - the US has displaced dictators for a lot less justification than this. And I’m not really joking about Bibi being an extralegal dictator at this point. He maneuvered into power despite only a minority of a minority vote for Likud, already sketchy, then bypassed the due process mechanism that would have legally removed him from power.
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Absolutely. But nonetheless, it’s considered “wrong” to do that to what’s considered a strong ally. It’s not on the table. The government there will get backing, whatever Biden thinks of Bibi personally. What does give me hope is that the Israeli public is really pissed about Oct. 7th, and not just as the perpetrators of the massacre. They seem to blame Netanyahu’s government for it, too.
Oh, I agree. This war has interrupted his plans to shield himself from prosecution via his attack on judicial independence. That’s not gonna happen now, I don’t think. I don’t see how he can survive the next election…
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Consider the fact that for the past several decades the Democratic Party has spent much time and energy cultivating its multi-ethnic image—including an alliance with the nation’s Arab and Muslim population. This particular political context, whether considered at all by Biden, seems to have gotten as short shrift as the historical context of Gaza’s Palestinians. The result is a sense of betrayal on the part of most Arab Muslim and Christian Americans (and many Jews as well). These voters are presently “furious with the White House, feeling that Palestinian lives are being disregarded and international law and norms trampled.”
Here is how Eman Abdelhadi, a University of Chicago professor of comparative human development, describes the moment for this Arab and Muslim American community, “This generation was raised in a time when [American] Muslims and Arabs were constantly in contact with Democrats, felt and were part of the progressive coalition. Now they are completely disillusioned. … It’s really crazy to me that the Democratic party destroyed 20-years … worth of good will with Muslims and Arabs in just 2 weeks, losing an entire generation that was raised in the progressive coalition, possibly forever. … Young people are already talking about sitting out the election in protest. I think Biden has lost the Muslim vote.”
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For example, George Lee Jr., who has 2.4 million followers as The Conscious Lee on TikTok, says,
"Joe Biden is really shooting himself in the foot. . . . When we start talking about the lesser of two evils, a lot of my followers — all 3 million of them — are literally asking the question, like, ‘Damn, so the lesser of the two evils is the one that is supporting genocide? Noted, noted, noted.’”
“How I talk to my followers about it is like — and excuse my language, I’m gonna cuss — ‘Goddamn, Biden. Your weak ass is gonna rally the entire of America to be against right-wing governments? Meanwhile, you are being unrelentless, unconditional in giving support to a right-wing government?’ That’s funny.”
Lee says he would never sit an election out — “Shit, my life is impacted by policy. I’m gonna be voting” — but Joe Biden has not locked his vote in for 2024. He’s seriously considering throwing his support behind the academic and activist Cornel West, who is running an independent bid. “He’s very critical of American imperialism,” Lee says.
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I feel the first one, but not so much the second one… I think their frustration and anger at his lack of support for Gazans is really something to be pissed about. But yeah, Trump would be worse, because I get the sense that they are least working behind the scenes to change what Israel is doing in Gaza and Trump would just cheer it on.
I don’t know. It’s a shitty situation.
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Something to consider:
Most voters don’t have the wealth that allows them to bribe um, “contribute” to a campaign in order to gain a candidate’s attention. That means the only possible leverage they have is their vote.
Saying “if you continue to follow policy […], you will lose my vote” is a risky strategy, especially now, when the alternative is clearly worse. Some folks chose to vote for Biden because they believed he could be pushed to do better things, and now… well, they’re pushing him. It’s nowhere near ideal, but the political situation we’re in is nowhere near ideal either. Like Mindysan says, it’s shitty. I don’t have a solution for it. I wish I did.
I’m as concerned about the end result as much as anyone else… but I also acknowledge that there’s a long time between now and the election, almost a year, and many things can change in that time frame. Depending on how things play out, attitudes will likely be re-evaluated before the vote comes due. (Who knows, with Covid still running rampant, one or both candidates might wind up the prize in Death’s claw-machine game before the election. It could happen. We don’t know. 
)
Right now, people are reacting to the horror and tragedy playing out before us all in real time-- we’re hurting, we’re scared, we’re mourning. We still have time for empathy, I think, and in the long run I do believe a softer approach will make more of an effect than namecalling and blame-and-shame tactics.
I’m actually a little hopeful that the feelings of outrage expressed now can be translated into greater civic engagement and organization for much-needed changes in the system… but time will tell.
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Obviously this is near the edge of things we have been asked not to discuss, but I feel like “pro-Israel” is a deliberately anodyne way to describe his position. Imagine for instance how completely different it would read just by saying “pro-Netanyahu”.
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Which brings us back to the need for the puke emoji.
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