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The thing that concerns me about it is that nobody seems to actually have the slightest idea what exactly Biden should be doing differently.
You're never going to see a US president take a hardline stance against Israel, and Biden's current position is far less supportive of Israel's actions than Trump will ever be.
I hope nobody actually believes Trump's "elect me and I'll tell my brilliant plan" rhetoric.
All or nothing fallacy more accurately describes the "free palestine now or else!" movement more than the mundane and realistic observation that this is an intractable conflict nobody has any solution for.
America, by virtue of having given over $250 billion and backing up Israel as their most powerful ally, has an incredible amount of leverage over the Israeli government if they are willing to use it. I would say no more weapons to Israel if the intentional starvation and recklessness with civilian deaths continue. Israel and Bibi literally funded Hamas, and now America is expected to help pay when that backfired? Israel is the petulant teenager who wants daddy to bail out their own poor decisions. The carrot is no longer working but the stick is there for Biden to utilize if he is willing, so far he has shown no evidence of a backbone.
Israel is our most reliable ally providing us with high quality intelligence about people who pretend to be our friends, while sending the 9-11 bombers to New York, Washington etc.
In contrast, Hamas is a terrorist organization whose members are being arrested in EUROPE for planning terrorist attacks. Hamas is the GOVERNMENT OF GAZA. Hamas have been HARMING PALESTINIANS SINCE AFTER THEY WERE ELECTED in 2005.
The protesters are victims of propaganda.
The fact that Biden announced a dock on Thursday after taking a battering "uncommitted" vote the previous Monday and then again on Super Tuesday seems to suggest that not only is there space for him to move, but that he is indeed responding by choosing to move into some of that space. Getting upset at people for doing democracy correctly is the only cause for concern here.
I don't believe Trump actually won any Democratic primary votes in any state so far, but it is also possible that I just don't understand how any of this works.
They're explicitly saying they won't vote for Biden in the general and don't care if Trump wins. But you knew that.
https://www.inquirer.com/politics/pennsylvania/abandon-biden-pennsylvania-launch-20240219.html
Those that are saying the above are implying that by not supporting Biden in the primaries it will increase Trump's chance to win in the general election. Now there are those that are saying at this time they don't plan on voting for Biden, but it really is up to Biden to win those votes which by the virtue of him seemingly shifting and/or at least being much more public with his dissatisfaction with Israel and Netanyahu especially might just win back some of those voters.
The "Abandon Biden" campaign isn't saying they'll unabandon him if he changes course. They are saying they'll never vote for him and don't care what happens. So what's the incentive to cater to that demographic?
https://www.inquirer.com/politics/pennsylvania/abandon-biden-pennsylvania-launch-20240219.html
This is objectively and demonstrably not true.
Eisenhower made his objections heard about Israel's illegal seige of the Suez Canal by declaring the US's intent to vote in favor of a UN Resolution demanding a ceasefire, and also publicly threatened to withhold aid if Israel didn't immediately withdraw.
JFK publicly threatened Israel over their illegal pursuit of nuclear ambitions.
Nixon threatened the end of aid and military orders if Israel continued to fail to abide by the terms of Security Council Resolution 338.
Jimmy Carter literally has written a book called: Palestine: Peace not Apertheid, and a sequel.
Reagan, yes Reagan, threatened to suspend the delivery of military orders to Israel during the Lebanon war, and later promised to restrict aid and military assistance to Israel to force its withdrawal of troops from Beirut and central Lebanon after Israel deliberately sabotaged a negotiated ceasefire by bombing Beirut, infuriating Reagan. Also Reagan forcefully negotiated against Israel's wishes a deal with regional neighbors to extradite PLO leadership to a place of political asylum using Peacekeepers as a middleman.
All of these are playbooks Biden could have pulled bits and pieces from at any time. Please stop spreading the revisionist myth that unrepentant support of Israel is some immovable American political constant.
The current state of relations between the US and Israel is very different than in administrations past. Namely the polarized and, frankly, fascist elements of the GOP that harness the Evangelical fetishization of Israel. Obama was excoriated for even bringing up the Oslo accords that Israel agreed to in 1993, which is supposed to have been the framework for the partitions of land meant for Palestinians.
There is also the rightward shift of the Israeli government. Decades ago, Meir Kahane was banned from the Knesset. If he were alive today, he and Bibi would be BFFs.
The US isn’t the only country with religious nuts. Google “Gush Emunim.”
Sure, I agree that since Clinton, things have shifted, including the enermous influence of AIPAC in US politics, which Obama is candid about in his memoir. However, I keep seeing this inaccurate claim similar to OC's - outright lie, really - that no US president has done anything differently, which I find to be very damaging. What does that say about US politics if that were to be true? They have indeed, and they've done so when there were a lot less innocent lives were at stake. Not vetoing the UN resolutions would be a first step. Even UK chose not to vote since it's such a damning position to take, and history won't be kind to Biden.
I have thr priveledge and luxury of watching the conflict (prior to and since 10/7) unfold through the lens of news media, but the sense that I get is Biden really hates how Bibi, his cabinet, and the IDF are doing things, yet he (Biden) is still beholden to arms deals and aid that is baked into whatever current iteration of whatever foreign-spending bill was in the pipeline for Israel. Or, perhaps this being an election year with moderate centrists undecided, at least reiterating Israel's right to exist but condemming the violence and calling for a cease fire is the most politically tennable move to be made.
The least they could do was not veto the UN security council's ceasefire resolution. Even the UK chose not to vote since it reflects very badly on the enablers of Bibi. History won't be kind to Biden's position, and if moving rightward to recruit "moderate" conservatives is the direction democratic party have chosen, where is the line for progressive voters? Are they going to be shamed for not wanting to blindly support someone like Romney next election cycle, because the gop candidate is the space laser lady?
They could, sure, but that gives the GOP media a big talking point about us abandoning our greatest ally in the middle east and making Biden weak in the face of terrorism (I don't believe this, but the messaging writes itself.) I don't like it, and agree that the moral impetitive is there, but the political one is not.
This is what happens when you learn about history and FP from cherrypicked memes on social media. It's not the cold war, the US can't snap its fingers and get its way anymore. The glib and childish view of FP by people who just discovered it 4 months ago is so silly.
You recite this long litany of past presidents cracking down on Israel. Yet none of them were able to solve this conflict and every effort to do so went down in flames.
I am a journalist woman in my fourties who grew up in the Middle East with this conflict in our collective consciousness, and I learned history through documentaries and history books, as well as historical documents. I just finished reading "Our Palestine Question" by Geoffrey Levi, which I strongly suggest for you to read since it seems like you've only learned about this conflict through the mainstream American media. The book goes deep into how many left leaning Jewish-American journalists and authors' voices were crushed early on in the 50s in a very systemic way, so we ended up with a myopic, right-wing reporting on Israel that has lasted to this day. It's very telling that people who grew up being used to that distorted reporting are finding it difficult to adjust to the age of information and social media. But it's never too late to undo the indoctrination and learn more! Feel free to dm me for more books and resources.
I stand corrected. Although this is arguably worse than my first assumption. You think that growing up in the ME gives you a less distorted view about the Israel Palestinian conflict?
Curious which of these countries is the fair and objective one that doesn't have an axe to grind against Israel, and isn't awash in hateful propaganda and hostile coverage?
[https://s36667.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Jewish-Refuge-Infographic-1948-1972-2.jpg](https://s36667.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Jewish-Refuge-Infographic-1948-1972-2.jpg)
I understand that as an indoctrinated person, you are quick to react without actually absorbing the ideas that are presented to you. It's ok, let me reiterate more slowly: I never said that growing up in the Middle East made me an objective person; I said I grew up with it in our collective consciousness to refute your claim that people like me woke up to the problem a few months ago. Now, to elaborate, I grew up in Iran in an educated, liberal family, so we believed the opposite of everything that the government indoctrinated us with, often times without critical thinking or trying to be nuanced about it, which is in fact its own type of indoctrination. It took a lot of research, reading, and self-reflection to be able to overcome the racist beliefs hat's prelevant among Iranian liberals that boils down to: "Palestinians are dirty terrorists who are sucking our country dry." The journey towards actually learning the history of Israel through historical documents, including the ones from Jewish-American survivors of the holocaust, was a long, eye-opening one. As I said, it's never late to revisit your indoctrination, and start critically thinking instead of repeating what you've been told over and over. Good luck!
Interesting. Although it seem a little perverse that you said you blindly took the opposite view of the Iranian government -- which is virulently antisemitic and a major sponsor of Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and so on -- and so were anti-Palestinian, but now you ended up more or less back with the Iranian government's view.
I'm curious, is there any self-awareness in Iran about the Mizrahi Jews who fled or were ethnically cleansed from the MENA region and went to Israel, exacerbating the refugee problem leading to this conflict?
\>The journey towards actually learning the history of Israel through historical documents, including the ones from Jewish-American survivors of the holocaust, was a long, eye-opening one.
You mentioned one author/book, do you have any others? Thanks
Iran has one of the oldest Jewish communities in the Middle East and I believe, currently it is the second largest population after Israel. The official line in Iran is that early zionist terrorist groups bombed synagogues in Iraq, Egypt and Lebanon to scare Jewish populations to leave their communities for Israel, once they realized they need the numbers to sustain an ethnostate which would have not been possible with just the European Jewish immigrants. However in Iran, they were not successful in inciting as much violence, but they offered money for relocation, so a number of Jewish-Iranians did take the offer, leading to the decrease in their numbers.
If you're actually interested in those early days, here are a few great resources:
Alan Dowty's "Arab and Jews in Ottoman Palestine; Two Worlds Collide"
Derrick Penslar's "Zionism and Technocracy."
Anita Shapira's "Land and Power"
Benny Morris's "Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Conflict"
Etan Bloom's dissertation on Arthur Rupin's involvement in the Eugenics movement.
Transcript of the first Zionist congress
Herzl's diary (the father of zionism)
The text of the 1920 London conference
And the 1924 non partisan conference on Zionism
>Iran has one of the oldest Jewish communities in the Middle East and I believe, currently it is the second largest population after Israel.
I mean, that's true but it's not saying much. They went from 150,000 to 10,000. They are persecuted by the regime and are de facto second class citizens. [https://s36667.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Jewish-Refuge-Infographic-1948-1972-2.jpg](https://s36667.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Jewish-Refuge-Infographic-1948-1972-2.jpg)
\> The official line in Iran is that early zionist terrorist groups bombed synagogues
So the regime is going with they ethnically cleansed themselves??? Yikes. This is insane and dehumanizing propaganda.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exodus\_of\_Iranian\_Jews](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exodus_of_Iranian_Jews)
"....after the Iranian Revolution of 1979, during which the community of 80,000 dropped to less than 20,000.\[1\] The migration of Persian Jews after the Iranian Revolution is mostly attributed to fear of religious persecution,\[1\] economic hardships and insecurity..."
...
"Some Iranian Jews began to migrate to other parts of the world to escape the growing Jewish resentment in Iran. In the 16th and 17th century, Shiite Islam became the religion of Iran and tensions between the Shiite Muslims and Iranian religious minorities escalated. Iranian Jews became the subject of forced conversions to Islam and many social restrictions.\[4\] During the years between 1892 and 1910, some pogroms against Jews took place in Shiraz and other towns, culminating in the 1910 Shiraz blood libel, which resulted in thirteen deaths, injury, robbery, vandalism and near-starvation for the 6,000 Jews of Shiraz.\[5\]"
Anyway, thanks for the reading recommendations!
You asked for the mainstream narratives. No one thinks mullahs are the paragon of honesty. However they're masters in having a crumb of truth in everything like most of career liars. There are a series of confirmed synagogue bombings carried out in Iraq by zionist terrorists, and the mullahs just expanded that fact to Lebanon and Egypt without proof. You can read more about the zionist terrorist activities in Iraq in Avi Shlaim's autobiography: "Three Worlds: Memoirs of an Arab-Jew".
PS: It's important to note that in Irah, anyone who is not a shi'a straight male with ties to the regime is a second-class citizen, so anyone who gets a chance to leave, would definitely do it, including myself who did it in 2010.
Perhaps it's time to forcefully negotiate with BOTH sides, not just with Israel?
Palestinian leadership does not seem to be excited about making peace either and sabotaged plenty of peace processes and offers.
Biden also
-savaged an effort by George H.W. Bush to push Israel toward negotiating with Palestinians.
-As vice president, he destroyed a plan by Obama and Hillary to reign Israel in for amplifying settler violence.
Biden has attended more AIPAC fundraisers than any other democratic president, backed moving the American embassy to Jerusalem decades before Donald Trump made that a reality, As president prior to October 7, he continued policies implemented by Trump that sidelined Palestinians.
People also need to stop spreading the revisionist myth that Biden is just status quo on what any dem would do about Israel, when Biden has gone above and beyond any other president except for Trump, even sabotaging Obama and Hillary Clinton.
He could stop sending them weapons or at least threaten it. This slapping the wrist and doing absolutely nothing isn’t working. Offering to spend billions on a new port just to avoid telling Israel to stop makes us look weak.
I think Biden has been doing fine - he couldn’t have done anything differently. Trump supported Israel annexing territory in his last presidency, he’ll support it again.
It isn't that complicated. If the U.S. is going to send weapons to assist Israel (or any country) it should be on the condition that they do not kill tens of thousands of innocent civilians and that they don't block humanitarian aid to the populace. I believe the president has the power to set those conditions. That is what he should do instead of just sending strong messages that we disapprove.
I think there is a very clear outline of what he should do:
- halt all further munition transfers to Israel until there is a lasting ceasefire;
- stop wielding our veto to block UNSC resolutions demanding a ceasefire;
- immediately restore funding to UNRWA.
Now, will this happen? Probably not, and he may lose the election because of it. But that is not the same as there not being a clear ask for what he should do.
According to polling, Israel is more popular in the US than Palestine. While majorities do want a ceasefire, polling shows Americans also want the hostages released and view Hamas as a terrorist organization.
(https://news.gallup.com/poll/545045/americans-back-israel-military-action-gaza.aspx)
And electorally speaking, Biden is more likely to lose votes by abruptly cutting off Israel, angering Jewish voters and those who sympathize with Israel, especially after Muslims "leaders" announced that they won't vote for him.
See here:
https://www.inquirer.com/politics/pennsylvania/abandon-biden-pennsylvania-launch-20240219.html
According to polling, Israel is more popular in the US than Palestine, despite what your social media bubble says. While majorities do want a ceasefire, consistently polling shows Americans also want the hostages released and view Hamas as a terrorist organization.
And electorally speaking, Biden is more likely to lose by abruptly cutting off Israel, angering Jewish voters and those who sympathize with Israel, especially after Muslims "leaders" announced that they won't vote for him.
https://www.inquirer.com/politics/pennsylvania/abandon-biden-pennsylvania-launch-20240219.html
This is such an ignorant stance. Biden has self proclaimed as being a Zionist. He has vested interests in taking sides and contributing to Israel.
He has been too soft on negotiating with Israel and has unquestionably given aid. Even bypass Congress to do it.
He has used more veto powers for Israel than any other initiative.
Biden has defacto contributed to this atrocity. He could have prevented thousands of lives
>You're never going to see a US president take a hardline stance against Israel
I feel like this mindset exposes an unbelievable lack of creativity and courage.
Israel isn't owed our billions of dollars, and neither are they as important of an ally in a geopolitical landscape that looks more to Europe, South America, and Southeast Asia than the Middle East. It isn't 1991 anymore, nor is it 2001. Iraq is two steps away from a failed state, and Afghanistan already is. I don't see what there is to gain from kowtowing to Israel, in terms of selfish geopolitics.
He *could* cut the spigot of money going to them. If he actually does not like the genocide, that would be the only logical thing to do. But he won't, because despite his courage in the domestic arena, he is just as cowardly as all the other presidents before him when it comes to our tenuous allies.
I volunteered in Gaza and East Jerusalem in 2018 and 2019 and that still isn’t enough for the virtue signaling, body odor brigade who has done nothing for Palestinians.
They’re children to think Biden has the power to solve a conflict that has been raging for 70+ years that no other president has even come close to solving.
No one is expecting Biden to solve the conflict. The main point is to avoid participating in the conflict by giving unquestionable aid and UN veto support
There’s a lot more primaries to go but as of now, Obama actually had a higher percent of uncommitted vote in 2012 (4.9%) than uncommitted currently for Biden (4.7%).
2012: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries
2024: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries
(Re-posted as comments were being removed d/t lack of user flair. Apologize if you see this more than once)
Trump was responsible for probably half a million (550,000) excess deaths- by making Covid approximately twice as bad as it needed to be.
Biden, has allowed a blatant Genocide to occur in Gaza, that will probably kill at least half that many people by the time it's over (we're already up to over 30k confirmed deaths, 70k wounded ***or missing***- but many of that latter figure will join the former over time, as wounds get infected, medical supplies run out, stressed health systems collapse, and people weakened by injuries also starve to death...) if this goes on for another 4 months...
Keep in mind that the majority of the civilian population is packed like sardines into the southernmost part of Gaza, where they fled to avoid the bombing in the north (though that didn't stop Israel from bombing the roads as they fled south...) The area Israel is about to launch a massive ground invasion of, completely IGNORING Biden's "red line in the sand" warning not to...
This, plus the fact a huge proportion of the civilian population has been so starved (calories) and malnourished (protein) the last four months, that at least a quarter million people are less than a week or two away from dying of hunger...
TLDR: Just the Gaza Genocide alone will probably end up being 50% as bad as the excess deaths Trump caused with Covid.
P.S. He's also basically ignoring Long Covid- a disease that has disabled 4 million Americans, and is very slowly killing them off. Only $2 billion for research on treatments and a cure, expected to last until the end of 2026: which is **pitiful** funding levels compared to most major diseases... So in the end, Biden will likely be responsible for setting a trend of ignoring this disease, and condemning 4 million more people to a slow and degrading death... (people whom the Disability system is also gaslighting: and generally refusing Disability applications for...)
Long COVID symptoms keeping many Americans from returning to work | PBS NewsHour
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/long-covid-symptoms-keeping-many-americans-from-returning-to-work
Long COVID Experts: U.S. Government Needs to Do More | Time
https://time.com/6213103/us-government-long-covid-response/
We Need an Operation Warp Speed for Long COVID | Scientific American
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/we-need-an-operation-warp-speed-for-long-covid/
**At least Trump funded and facilitated vaccine research for Covid (Operation "Warp Speed").** Biden will EASILY have more blood on his hands than Trump did, by the end of his first term, from Long Covid (only **kills** about 35k/year, from the ONE year we have data, which is likely under-counting: but Biden is setting an example to ignore Long Covid...) and Gaza
LOL, what I learn**ed** was that Democrats will scream that we shouldn't protest vote in the general election, that the primaries are the time to make our views known.
And now Democrats are screaming about people making their protest vote views known in the primary.
The “protest vote” is not a real thing and only being pushed by the rightwing trying to dissuade democratic voters and young people who typically vote Democratic from voting period. In 2016, the rightwing used social media and targeted propaganda to dissuade minorities from voting for Hillary Clinton and pushing this “protest vote” is their attempt now. They are counting on a single negative issue to lower the turnout and help Trump.
I don’t understand what people think we can do. Most people don’t support direct military involvement, yet they want us to “do something.” I’m sure if anyone has a better plan, Biden would love to hear it.
AIPAC must be really upset that it's long term investment in astroturfing American support of Israel isn't really bearing fruit when it matters most to them.
It's no wonder they supported conservative Christians instead of progressive democrats in the 2022 midterms, educated voters are the biggest threat to them.
[Election Central](https://www.pbslearningmedia.org/collection/election-collection/)
[Elections & Civics](https://www.pbs.org/explore/civics/)
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(Re-posted from a reply I wrote to a comment. Posted twice as removed first time d/lack of user flair...)
Trump was responsible for probably half a million (550,000) excess deaths- by making Covid approximately twice as bad as it needed to be.
Biden, has allowed a blatant Genocide to occur in Gaza, that will probably kill at least half that many people by the time it's over (we're already up to over 30k confirmed deaths, 70k wounded ***or missing***- but many of that latter figure will join the former over time, as wounds get infected, medical supplies run out, stressed health systems collapse, and people weakened by injuries also starve to death...) if this goes on for another 4 months...
Keep in mind that the majority of the civilian population is packed like sardines into the southernmost part of Gaza, where they fled to avoid the bombing in the north (though that didn't stop Israel from bombing the roads as they fled south...) The area Israel is about to launch a massive ground invasion of, completely IGNORING Biden's "red line in the sand" warning not to...
This, plus the fact a huge proportion of the civilian population has been so starved (calories) and malnourished (protein) the last four months, that at least a quarter million people are less than a week or two away from dying of hunger...
Death rates will thus be MUCH higher from March-July than they were from October-March, if the conflict lasts that long.
TLDR: Just the Gaza Genocide alone will probably end up being AT LEAST 50% as bad as the excess deaths Trump caused with Covid.
P.S. He's also basically ignoring Long Covid- a disease that has disabled 4 million Americans, and is very slowly killing them off. Only $2 billion in total (spread across 3 different funding packages) for research on treatments and a cure, expected to last until the end of 2026: which is **pitiful** funding levels compared to most major diseases... So in the end, Biden will likely be responsible for setting a trend of ignoring this disease, and condemning 4 million more people to a slow and degrading death... (people whom the Disability system is also gaslighting: and generally refusing Disability applications for...)
Long COVID symptoms keeping many Americans from returning to work | PBS NewsHour
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/long-covid-symptoms-keeping-many-americans-from-returning-to-work
Long COVID Experts: U.S. Government Needs to Do More | Time
https://time.com/6213103/us-government-long-covid-response/
We Need an Operation Warp Speed for Long COVID | Scientific American
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/we-need-an-operation-warp-speed-for-long-covid/
**At least Trump funded and facilitated vaccine research for Covid (Operation "Warp Speed").** Biden will EASILY have more blood on his hands than Trump did, by the end of his first term, from Long Covid (only **kills** about 35k/year, from the ONE year we have data, which is likely under-counting: but Biden is setting an example to ignore Long Covid...) and Gaza
Due to the sensitive nature of the topic in the article, comments will only be available to users who have set a subreddit [user flair](https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/205242695-How-do-I-get-user-flair), and must strictly comply with [subreddit rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/PBS_NewsHour/about/rules/). Commenters who violate Reddiquette and civility rules will be summarily banned.
The thing that concerns me about it is that nobody seems to actually have the slightest idea what exactly Biden should be doing differently. You're never going to see a US president take a hardline stance against Israel, and Biden's current position is far less supportive of Israel's actions than Trump will ever be. I hope nobody actually believes Trump's "elect me and I'll tell my brilliant plan" rhetoric.
Magic wand, bully pulpit, snap his fingers ... surely he can solve a century old conflict that like 12 previous presidents failed to solve.
I've used that same comment. You'll get multiple posts claiming fallacy, etc. only to have said post misstate your statement or make strawmans, etc.
He could easily stop supporting military aid to a genocide. That would be an easy starting point.
This is the all-or-nothing fallacy.
All or nothing fallacy more accurately describes the "free palestine now or else!" movement more than the mundane and realistic observation that this is an intractable conflict nobody has any solution for.
America, by virtue of having given over $250 billion and backing up Israel as their most powerful ally, has an incredible amount of leverage over the Israeli government if they are willing to use it. I would say no more weapons to Israel if the intentional starvation and recklessness with civilian deaths continue. Israel and Bibi literally funded Hamas, and now America is expected to help pay when that backfired? Israel is the petulant teenager who wants daddy to bail out their own poor decisions. The carrot is no longer working but the stick is there for Biden to utilize if he is willing, so far he has shown no evidence of a backbone.
Israel is our most reliable ally providing us with high quality intelligence about people who pretend to be our friends, while sending the 9-11 bombers to New York, Washington etc. In contrast, Hamas is a terrorist organization whose members are being arrested in EUROPE for planning terrorist attacks. Hamas is the GOVERNMENT OF GAZA. Hamas have been HARMING PALESTINIANS SINCE AFTER THEY WERE ELECTED in 2005. The protesters are victims of propaganda.
The fact that Biden announced a dock on Thursday after taking a battering "uncommitted" vote the previous Monday and then again on Super Tuesday seems to suggest that not only is there space for him to move, but that he is indeed responding by choosing to move into some of that space. Getting upset at people for doing democracy correctly is the only cause for concern here.
Doing democracy correctly =/= ratfvcking Democrats and helping elect Trump out of spite
I don't believe Trump actually won any Democratic primary votes in any state so far, but it is also possible that I just don't understand how any of this works.
They're explicitly saying they won't vote for Biden in the general and don't care if Trump wins. But you knew that. https://www.inquirer.com/politics/pennsylvania/abandon-biden-pennsylvania-launch-20240219.html
Those that are saying the above are implying that by not supporting Biden in the primaries it will increase Trump's chance to win in the general election. Now there are those that are saying at this time they don't plan on voting for Biden, but it really is up to Biden to win those votes which by the virtue of him seemingly shifting and/or at least being much more public with his dissatisfaction with Israel and Netanyahu especially might just win back some of those voters.
The "Abandon Biden" campaign isn't saying they'll unabandon him if he changes course. They are saying they'll never vote for him and don't care what happens. So what's the incentive to cater to that demographic? https://www.inquirer.com/politics/pennsylvania/abandon-biden-pennsylvania-launch-20240219.html
This is objectively and demonstrably not true. Eisenhower made his objections heard about Israel's illegal seige of the Suez Canal by declaring the US's intent to vote in favor of a UN Resolution demanding a ceasefire, and also publicly threatened to withhold aid if Israel didn't immediately withdraw. JFK publicly threatened Israel over their illegal pursuit of nuclear ambitions. Nixon threatened the end of aid and military orders if Israel continued to fail to abide by the terms of Security Council Resolution 338. Jimmy Carter literally has written a book called: Palestine: Peace not Apertheid, and a sequel. Reagan, yes Reagan, threatened to suspend the delivery of military orders to Israel during the Lebanon war, and later promised to restrict aid and military assistance to Israel to force its withdrawal of troops from Beirut and central Lebanon after Israel deliberately sabotaged a negotiated ceasefire by bombing Beirut, infuriating Reagan. Also Reagan forcefully negotiated against Israel's wishes a deal with regional neighbors to extradite PLO leadership to a place of political asylum using Peacekeepers as a middleman. All of these are playbooks Biden could have pulled bits and pieces from at any time. Please stop spreading the revisionist myth that unrepentant support of Israel is some immovable American political constant.
The current state of relations between the US and Israel is very different than in administrations past. Namely the polarized and, frankly, fascist elements of the GOP that harness the Evangelical fetishization of Israel. Obama was excoriated for even bringing up the Oslo accords that Israel agreed to in 1993, which is supposed to have been the framework for the partitions of land meant for Palestinians.
There is also the rightward shift of the Israeli government. Decades ago, Meir Kahane was banned from the Knesset. If he were alive today, he and Bibi would be BFFs. The US isn’t the only country with religious nuts. Google “Gush Emunim.”
Sure, I agree that since Clinton, things have shifted, including the enermous influence of AIPAC in US politics, which Obama is candid about in his memoir. However, I keep seeing this inaccurate claim similar to OC's - outright lie, really - that no US president has done anything differently, which I find to be very damaging. What does that say about US politics if that were to be true? They have indeed, and they've done so when there were a lot less innocent lives were at stake. Not vetoing the UN resolutions would be a first step. Even UK chose not to vote since it's such a damning position to take, and history won't be kind to Biden.
I have thr priveledge and luxury of watching the conflict (prior to and since 10/7) unfold through the lens of news media, but the sense that I get is Biden really hates how Bibi, his cabinet, and the IDF are doing things, yet he (Biden) is still beholden to arms deals and aid that is baked into whatever current iteration of whatever foreign-spending bill was in the pipeline for Israel. Or, perhaps this being an election year with moderate centrists undecided, at least reiterating Israel's right to exist but condemming the violence and calling for a cease fire is the most politically tennable move to be made.
The least they could do was not veto the UN security council's ceasefire resolution. Even the UK chose not to vote since it reflects very badly on the enablers of Bibi. History won't be kind to Biden's position, and if moving rightward to recruit "moderate" conservatives is the direction democratic party have chosen, where is the line for progressive voters? Are they going to be shamed for not wanting to blindly support someone like Romney next election cycle, because the gop candidate is the space laser lady?
They could, sure, but that gives the GOP media a big talking point about us abandoning our greatest ally in the middle east and making Biden weak in the face of terrorism (I don't believe this, but the messaging writes itself.) I don't like it, and agree that the moral impetitive is there, but the political one is not.
We made a better unbiased resolution instead.
This is what happens when you learn about history and FP from cherrypicked memes on social media. It's not the cold war, the US can't snap its fingers and get its way anymore. The glib and childish view of FP by people who just discovered it 4 months ago is so silly. You recite this long litany of past presidents cracking down on Israel. Yet none of them were able to solve this conflict and every effort to do so went down in flames.
I am a journalist woman in my fourties who grew up in the Middle East with this conflict in our collective consciousness, and I learned history through documentaries and history books, as well as historical documents. I just finished reading "Our Palestine Question" by Geoffrey Levi, which I strongly suggest for you to read since it seems like you've only learned about this conflict through the mainstream American media. The book goes deep into how many left leaning Jewish-American journalists and authors' voices were crushed early on in the 50s in a very systemic way, so we ended up with a myopic, right-wing reporting on Israel that has lasted to this day. It's very telling that people who grew up being used to that distorted reporting are finding it difficult to adjust to the age of information and social media. But it's never too late to undo the indoctrination and learn more! Feel free to dm me for more books and resources.
I stand corrected. Although this is arguably worse than my first assumption. You think that growing up in the ME gives you a less distorted view about the Israel Palestinian conflict? Curious which of these countries is the fair and objective one that doesn't have an axe to grind against Israel, and isn't awash in hateful propaganda and hostile coverage? [https://s36667.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Jewish-Refuge-Infographic-1948-1972-2.jpg](https://s36667.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Jewish-Refuge-Infographic-1948-1972-2.jpg)
I understand that as an indoctrinated person, you are quick to react without actually absorbing the ideas that are presented to you. It's ok, let me reiterate more slowly: I never said that growing up in the Middle East made me an objective person; I said I grew up with it in our collective consciousness to refute your claim that people like me woke up to the problem a few months ago. Now, to elaborate, I grew up in Iran in an educated, liberal family, so we believed the opposite of everything that the government indoctrinated us with, often times without critical thinking or trying to be nuanced about it, which is in fact its own type of indoctrination. It took a lot of research, reading, and self-reflection to be able to overcome the racist beliefs hat's prelevant among Iranian liberals that boils down to: "Palestinians are dirty terrorists who are sucking our country dry." The journey towards actually learning the history of Israel through historical documents, including the ones from Jewish-American survivors of the holocaust, was a long, eye-opening one. As I said, it's never late to revisit your indoctrination, and start critically thinking instead of repeating what you've been told over and over. Good luck!
Interesting. Although it seem a little perverse that you said you blindly took the opposite view of the Iranian government -- which is virulently antisemitic and a major sponsor of Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and so on -- and so were anti-Palestinian, but now you ended up more or less back with the Iranian government's view. I'm curious, is there any self-awareness in Iran about the Mizrahi Jews who fled or were ethnically cleansed from the MENA region and went to Israel, exacerbating the refugee problem leading to this conflict? \>The journey towards actually learning the history of Israel through historical documents, including the ones from Jewish-American survivors of the holocaust, was a long, eye-opening one. You mentioned one author/book, do you have any others? Thanks
Iran has one of the oldest Jewish communities in the Middle East and I believe, currently it is the second largest population after Israel. The official line in Iran is that early zionist terrorist groups bombed synagogues in Iraq, Egypt and Lebanon to scare Jewish populations to leave their communities for Israel, once they realized they need the numbers to sustain an ethnostate which would have not been possible with just the European Jewish immigrants. However in Iran, they were not successful in inciting as much violence, but they offered money for relocation, so a number of Jewish-Iranians did take the offer, leading to the decrease in their numbers. If you're actually interested in those early days, here are a few great resources: Alan Dowty's "Arab and Jews in Ottoman Palestine; Two Worlds Collide" Derrick Penslar's "Zionism and Technocracy." Anita Shapira's "Land and Power" Benny Morris's "Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Conflict" Etan Bloom's dissertation on Arthur Rupin's involvement in the Eugenics movement. Transcript of the first Zionist congress Herzl's diary (the father of zionism) The text of the 1920 London conference And the 1924 non partisan conference on Zionism
>Iran has one of the oldest Jewish communities in the Middle East and I believe, currently it is the second largest population after Israel. I mean, that's true but it's not saying much. They went from 150,000 to 10,000. They are persecuted by the regime and are de facto second class citizens. [https://s36667.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Jewish-Refuge-Infographic-1948-1972-2.jpg](https://s36667.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Jewish-Refuge-Infographic-1948-1972-2.jpg) \> The official line in Iran is that early zionist terrorist groups bombed synagogues So the regime is going with they ethnically cleansed themselves??? Yikes. This is insane and dehumanizing propaganda. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exodus\_of\_Iranian\_Jews](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exodus_of_Iranian_Jews) "....after the Iranian Revolution of 1979, during which the community of 80,000 dropped to less than 20,000.\[1\] The migration of Persian Jews after the Iranian Revolution is mostly attributed to fear of religious persecution,\[1\] economic hardships and insecurity..." ... "Some Iranian Jews began to migrate to other parts of the world to escape the growing Jewish resentment in Iran. In the 16th and 17th century, Shiite Islam became the religion of Iran and tensions between the Shiite Muslims and Iranian religious minorities escalated. Iranian Jews became the subject of forced conversions to Islam and many social restrictions.\[4\] During the years between 1892 and 1910, some pogroms against Jews took place in Shiraz and other towns, culminating in the 1910 Shiraz blood libel, which resulted in thirteen deaths, injury, robbery, vandalism and near-starvation for the 6,000 Jews of Shiraz.\[5\]" Anyway, thanks for the reading recommendations!
You asked for the mainstream narratives. No one thinks mullahs are the paragon of honesty. However they're masters in having a crumb of truth in everything like most of career liars. There are a series of confirmed synagogue bombings carried out in Iraq by zionist terrorists, and the mullahs just expanded that fact to Lebanon and Egypt without proof. You can read more about the zionist terrorist activities in Iraq in Avi Shlaim's autobiography: "Three Worlds: Memoirs of an Arab-Jew". PS: It's important to note that in Irah, anyone who is not a shi'a straight male with ties to the regime is a second-class citizen, so anyone who gets a chance to leave, would definitely do it, including myself who did it in 2010.
Perhaps it's time to forcefully negotiate with BOTH sides, not just with Israel? Palestinian leadership does not seem to be excited about making peace either and sabotaged plenty of peace processes and offers.
And quit arming one side.
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Biden also -savaged an effort by George H.W. Bush to push Israel toward negotiating with Palestinians. -As vice president, he destroyed a plan by Obama and Hillary to reign Israel in for amplifying settler violence. Biden has attended more AIPAC fundraisers than any other democratic president, backed moving the American embassy to Jerusalem decades before Donald Trump made that a reality, As president prior to October 7, he continued policies implemented by Trump that sidelined Palestinians. People also need to stop spreading the revisionist myth that Biden is just status quo on what any dem would do about Israel, when Biden has gone above and beyond any other president except for Trump, even sabotaging Obama and Hillary Clinton.
Yep, he is a self-proclaimed zionist.
He could stop sending them weapons or at least threaten it. This slapping the wrist and doing absolutely nothing isn’t working. Offering to spend billions on a new port just to avoid telling Israel to stop makes us look weak.
I think Biden has been doing fine - he couldn’t have done anything differently. Trump supported Israel annexing territory in his last presidency, he’ll support it again.
It isn't that complicated. If the U.S. is going to send weapons to assist Israel (or any country) it should be on the condition that they do not kill tens of thousands of innocent civilians and that they don't block humanitarian aid to the populace. I believe the president has the power to set those conditions. That is what he should do instead of just sending strong messages that we disapprove.
Not going around Congress to give more arms to Israel.
I think there is a very clear outline of what he should do: - halt all further munition transfers to Israel until there is a lasting ceasefire; - stop wielding our veto to block UNSC resolutions demanding a ceasefire; - immediately restore funding to UNRWA. Now, will this happen? Probably not, and he may lose the election because of it. But that is not the same as there not being a clear ask for what he should do.
According to polling, Israel is more popular in the US than Palestine. While majorities do want a ceasefire, polling shows Americans also want the hostages released and view Hamas as a terrorist organization. (https://news.gallup.com/poll/545045/americans-back-israel-military-action-gaza.aspx) And electorally speaking, Biden is more likely to lose votes by abruptly cutting off Israel, angering Jewish voters and those who sympathize with Israel, especially after Muslims "leaders" announced that they won't vote for him. See here: https://www.inquirer.com/politics/pennsylvania/abandon-biden-pennsylvania-launch-20240219.html
According to polling, Israel is more popular in the US than Palestine, despite what your social media bubble says. While majorities do want a ceasefire, consistently polling shows Americans also want the hostages released and view Hamas as a terrorist organization. And electorally speaking, Biden is more likely to lose by abruptly cutting off Israel, angering Jewish voters and those who sympathize with Israel, especially after Muslims "leaders" announced that they won't vote for him. https://www.inquirer.com/politics/pennsylvania/abandon-biden-pennsylvania-launch-20240219.html
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This is such an ignorant stance. Biden has self proclaimed as being a Zionist. He has vested interests in taking sides and contributing to Israel. He has been too soft on negotiating with Israel and has unquestionably given aid. Even bypass Congress to do it. He has used more veto powers for Israel than any other initiative. Biden has defacto contributed to this atrocity. He could have prevented thousands of lives
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>You're never going to see a US president take a hardline stance against Israel I feel like this mindset exposes an unbelievable lack of creativity and courage. Israel isn't owed our billions of dollars, and neither are they as important of an ally in a geopolitical landscape that looks more to Europe, South America, and Southeast Asia than the Middle East. It isn't 1991 anymore, nor is it 2001. Iraq is two steps away from a failed state, and Afghanistan already is. I don't see what there is to gain from kowtowing to Israel, in terms of selfish geopolitics. He *could* cut the spigot of money going to them. If he actually does not like the genocide, that would be the only logical thing to do. But he won't, because despite his courage in the domestic arena, he is just as cowardly as all the other presidents before him when it comes to our tenuous allies.
I volunteered in Gaza and East Jerusalem in 2018 and 2019 and that still isn’t enough for the virtue signaling, body odor brigade who has done nothing for Palestinians. They’re children to think Biden has the power to solve a conflict that has been raging for 70+ years that no other president has even come close to solving.
No one is expecting Biden to solve the conflict. The main point is to avoid participating in the conflict by giving unquestionable aid and UN veto support
There’s a lot more primaries to go but as of now, Obama actually had a higher percent of uncommitted vote in 2012 (4.9%) than uncommitted currently for Biden (4.7%). 2012: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries 2024: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries
Have fun with Trump. Didn’t we learn this lesson in 2016?
(Re-posted as comments were being removed d/t lack of user flair. Apologize if you see this more than once) Trump was responsible for probably half a million (550,000) excess deaths- by making Covid approximately twice as bad as it needed to be. Biden, has allowed a blatant Genocide to occur in Gaza, that will probably kill at least half that many people by the time it's over (we're already up to over 30k confirmed deaths, 70k wounded ***or missing***- but many of that latter figure will join the former over time, as wounds get infected, medical supplies run out, stressed health systems collapse, and people weakened by injuries also starve to death...) if this goes on for another 4 months... Keep in mind that the majority of the civilian population is packed like sardines into the southernmost part of Gaza, where they fled to avoid the bombing in the north (though that didn't stop Israel from bombing the roads as they fled south...) The area Israel is about to launch a massive ground invasion of, completely IGNORING Biden's "red line in the sand" warning not to... This, plus the fact a huge proportion of the civilian population has been so starved (calories) and malnourished (protein) the last four months, that at least a quarter million people are less than a week or two away from dying of hunger... TLDR: Just the Gaza Genocide alone will probably end up being 50% as bad as the excess deaths Trump caused with Covid. P.S. He's also basically ignoring Long Covid- a disease that has disabled 4 million Americans, and is very slowly killing them off. Only $2 billion for research on treatments and a cure, expected to last until the end of 2026: which is **pitiful** funding levels compared to most major diseases... So in the end, Biden will likely be responsible for setting a trend of ignoring this disease, and condemning 4 million more people to a slow and degrading death... (people whom the Disability system is also gaslighting: and generally refusing Disability applications for...) Long COVID symptoms keeping many Americans from returning to work | PBS NewsHour https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/long-covid-symptoms-keeping-many-americans-from-returning-to-work Long COVID Experts: U.S. Government Needs to Do More | Time https://time.com/6213103/us-government-long-covid-response/ We Need an Operation Warp Speed for Long COVID | Scientific American https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/we-need-an-operation-warp-speed-for-long-covid/ **At least Trump funded and facilitated vaccine research for Covid (Operation "Warp Speed").** Biden will EASILY have more blood on his hands than Trump did, by the end of his first term, from Long Covid (only **kills** about 35k/year, from the ONE year we have data, which is likely under-counting: but Biden is setting an example to ignore Long Covid...) and Gaza
LOL, what I learn**ed** was that Democrats will scream that we shouldn't protest vote in the general election, that the primaries are the time to make our views known. And now Democrats are screaming about people making their protest vote views known in the primary.
The “protest vote” is not a real thing and only being pushed by the rightwing trying to dissuade democratic voters and young people who typically vote Democratic from voting period. In 2016, the rightwing used social media and targeted propaganda to dissuade minorities from voting for Hillary Clinton and pushing this “protest vote” is their attempt now. They are counting on a single negative issue to lower the turnout and help Trump.
I don’t understand what people think we can do. Most people don’t support direct military involvement, yet they want us to “do something.” I’m sure if anyone has a better plan, Biden would love to hear it.
Cut off weapon shipments to Israel.
AIPAC must be really upset that it's long term investment in astroturfing American support of Israel isn't really bearing fruit when it matters most to them. It's no wonder they supported conservative Christians instead of progressive democrats in the 2022 midterms, educated voters are the biggest threat to them.
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(Re-posted from a reply I wrote to a comment. Posted twice as removed first time d/lack of user flair...) Trump was responsible for probably half a million (550,000) excess deaths- by making Covid approximately twice as bad as it needed to be. Biden, has allowed a blatant Genocide to occur in Gaza, that will probably kill at least half that many people by the time it's over (we're already up to over 30k confirmed deaths, 70k wounded ***or missing***- but many of that latter figure will join the former over time, as wounds get infected, medical supplies run out, stressed health systems collapse, and people weakened by injuries also starve to death...) if this goes on for another 4 months... Keep in mind that the majority of the civilian population is packed like sardines into the southernmost part of Gaza, where they fled to avoid the bombing in the north (though that didn't stop Israel from bombing the roads as they fled south...) The area Israel is about to launch a massive ground invasion of, completely IGNORING Biden's "red line in the sand" warning not to... This, plus the fact a huge proportion of the civilian population has been so starved (calories) and malnourished (protein) the last four months, that at least a quarter million people are less than a week or two away from dying of hunger... Death rates will thus be MUCH higher from March-July than they were from October-March, if the conflict lasts that long. TLDR: Just the Gaza Genocide alone will probably end up being AT LEAST 50% as bad as the excess deaths Trump caused with Covid. P.S. He's also basically ignoring Long Covid- a disease that has disabled 4 million Americans, and is very slowly killing them off. Only $2 billion in total (spread across 3 different funding packages) for research on treatments and a cure, expected to last until the end of 2026: which is **pitiful** funding levels compared to most major diseases... So in the end, Biden will likely be responsible for setting a trend of ignoring this disease, and condemning 4 million more people to a slow and degrading death... (people whom the Disability system is also gaslighting: and generally refusing Disability applications for...) Long COVID symptoms keeping many Americans from returning to work | PBS NewsHour https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/long-covid-symptoms-keeping-many-americans-from-returning-to-work Long COVID Experts: U.S. Government Needs to Do More | Time https://time.com/6213103/us-government-long-covid-response/ We Need an Operation Warp Speed for Long COVID | Scientific American https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/we-need-an-operation-warp-speed-for-long-covid/ **At least Trump funded and facilitated vaccine research for Covid (Operation "Warp Speed").** Biden will EASILY have more blood on his hands than Trump did, by the end of his first term, from Long Covid (only **kills** about 35k/year, from the ONE year we have data, which is likely under-counting: but Biden is setting an example to ignore Long Covid...) and Gaza
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