Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/05/11/us-israel-may-have-broken-international-law-with-our-weapons-and-we-will-keep-sending-them-more.html
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I’m honestly puzzled about all the reporting now about how Biden pausing a small amount of weapon shipments to Israel is “hurting him” and that’s he’s now politically isolated.
I mean he’s finally standing up a little the to IDF’s continued civilian killings (after months of inaction) and now no one - at least in the media (and I’m also looking at you, Boing Boing) - seems to back him.
I for one am proud he’s finally making a stand.
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And I, among many, don’t find this “too little too late” whimper anything at all something to be proud of.
Did you read the CNN piece linked in the OP? Biden’s out of touch cozying up to a quasi- fascist is something I’m all kinds of opposite of proud about.
“I signed a picture for Bibi a long time ago—I have a bad habit of, no one ever doubts I mean what I say, sometimes I say all that I mean, though—and I signed a picture a long time for Bibi,” Biden continued. “He’s been a friend for over 30 years. I said ‘Bibi I don’t agree with a damn thing you say but I love you.’”
Granted the article is from 10 years ago, but it doesn’t appear that Biden’s man love for Bibi has lessened much, at all.
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I’ll be glad if he really does take a meaningful stand that goes beyond a symbolic finger-wagging. It’s not yet clear if he will.
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The difference between Israel and Ukraine is - Israel can afford to wage their own wars. While yes, they were initially attacked, their response has been greatly disproportionate. I don’t think we should be selling them weapons. I guess they would end up buying them somewhere else, but ok, let them do that. Also, while there MAY be a threat from Iran or some other outside country, Hamas isn’t going to “invade” or otherwise cause significant damage because we don’t supply them with weapons.
Biden has done the mildest of push back that isn’t having an effect. I don’t know if he is acting against his personal feelings about it, or if he’s a true believer that Israel should be able to do whatever they want, or if he feels the realities of the politics means that he can’t really do anything directly.
All I know is: while I have found Israel to be sliding towards authoritarianism for awhile, and they had been trampling Palestinians for decades, They clearly have turned a corner where they don’t mind doing a little genocide, get some finger wags for the next decade, and then everyone will forget it while they open up beach side tourist spots in what was Gaza. 
The West Bank may be next (they already are creeping into it like a vine).
Also - WTF is the point of “International Law” if it literally almost never enforced? Has it ever been enforced? I imagine someone somewhere is in a prison for gun running or something, but heads of state breaking it? It may as well be non-existent.
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I’m in agreement with all you’ve stated. I’m also embarrassed that Biden has read the room so badly regarding the feelings many, many Americans have towards Israel’s despicable actions. Perhaps he, like far too many others, assumed antisemitic thinking was behind it, rather than anti-Israel…not to mention the absurd amounts of our tax dollars going there. Makes us ALL look complicit.
As far as why Joe backs Bibi, I assume that Israel’s geography plays a large part in any CIA intel-gathering-ability in the Middle East. Not only that, but the US has, over the years, no doubt trustingly shared a ton of tech knowledge with Israel. Do we need to worry that it will be used against us in the long run? Is that why the US continues to cozy up to the nastiness that Netanyahu exhibits and fosters? If so, there needs to be some rethinking and reestablishing of the relationship, and who should be in control.
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He’s a Zionist. He believes that Israel has the right to exist and the right to defend itself (with a very generous view of what counts as legitimate self-defence), and that the US has a duty to support Israel.
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Yeah, but you can think that and disagree with giving them carte blanche to commit war crimes.
it really feels like peoples’ attitudes about Israel is stuck in the past when they were more vulnerable than they are now.
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People stuck in the past…true. Times have changed and BibNet vastly overstepped his bounds (as has been done by Israel for decades), abusing the good faith of American tax dollars that there was something to defend. Ha! I think Israel does itself no favors in arrogantly thinking its genocidal actions are ever going to quell the wrath of neighboring countries, and Palestinians, themselves. They will not forget, and they will bide their time in seeking revenge. The sh*t they’ve endured is utter inhumane bigotry coming from a people who should know better. The world’s eyes are now fully open to the atrocity committed by Israel - and the hypocrisy of it all.
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I don’t think he’s a zionist. Just a man who has lived in the political spectrum for a very long time while managing to, more often than not, be on the side of sanity and progress, Right now he’s concerned with winning the next election and keeping the world from more Drumpf.
The Israel issue has many dimensions which, by now. are intertwined with more potential repercussions than we realize on the surface. Netanyahu must Go…bottom line.
He has a emotional attachment to Israel that is deeper than the routine pro-Israel attitudes of mainstream American politics. As the article I posted explains, he belongs to a generation that admired Israelis as plucky underdogs who had to fight for their freedom against stronger enemies determined to destroy them.
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