Biden under pressure to act amid new fears of ‘ethnic cleansing’ in Gaza
Rights advocates in the United States are urging President Joe Biden to end his administration’s “complicity” in Israeli rights abuses after key members of Israel’s government backed the idea of pushing Palestinians out of Gaza.
Far-right Israeli ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich said this week that Israel should “encourage emigration” from the coastal enclave, home to an estimated 2.3 million Palestinians.
“If there are 100,000 or 200,000 Arabs in Gaza and not two million Arabs, the entire discussion on the day after [the war ends] will be totally different,” Smotrich said on Sunday, calling for the “voluntary migration” of Palestinians.
A day later, Ben-Gvir, who oversees national security, made a similar appeal, saying it was “a correct, just, moral and humane solution”, Israeli media outlets reported.
For literal decades Biden has been telling Israel he'll support them no matter what, but they need to worry about the optics of their actions...
He's 100% ok with what's happening, he just wishes they were quieter while doing it.
He's not going to hold Israel accountable, because he knows the only other person Americans can vote for is trump.
So Biden sees no reason to stop supporting Israel, in a moderates mind it literally doesn't matter because the Republicans would be even shittier. Which by some twisted logic means Biden can be just as bad and it's not a negative.
It's a great example of why "not a Republican" can't be the bare minimum for the dem candidate.
'dissolve your democracy' or 'support ethnic cleansing'
Not a great set of choices at the ballots for Americans this election.
I mean ... has America ever halted it's eugenics program?
Founded upon genocides by slaveholders.
Or here's a novel idea: the candidate who doesn't want to dissolve democracy could dramatically increase his chances of winning by NOT enabling genocide including ethnic cleansing and domicide.
I'd set the likelihood of THAT ever happening at zero a month or two ago, but now it seems he's slowly realizing that enough people actually care more about human rights than empty platitudes and slavish devotion to what's become an apartheid state that he has to change course.
I'd say there's now a 10-20% chance he's going to at least PRETEND to agree that Palestinian lives matter between now and November.
As a someone on the left, few things are as persuasive and soothing as wrung hands.
I'm gonna have to ask you to elaborate on what you mean by that.
Biden is likely to go out and wring his hands about the difficult situation for everyone involved in the conflict. He'll show it is something he thinks about, then it will (likely) decrease the pressure on him.
Because he wrung his hands on a stage and/or into a microphone.
My theory is that people think that counts as being heard.
Edit: my apologies if my earlier brevity sounded like a dismissal of your point. I was attempting to agree and, well... didn't provide enough context.
Thank you for the question.
I don’t know why he bothers, i have never had a choice in an election in the first place. I can’t imagine someone being on the fence at this point unless they are cloaking for an argument.
Yeah, you're probably spot on 😮💨
I got 2 choices comes November. And nothing significant is going to change our voting system between now and then.
FUCK do these moralists propose I do?! After 01/06, I am more than a little wary.
"I don't like what Biden is doing!"
"Well fuck me, I hate it. Still want a functioning democracy come January 2025?"
Because I'm not liking having an AR-15 leaning on my desk, and a 12-gauge on my nightstand, for when the local Brown Shirts decide I'm "vermin" and they need to raid my house "for my own good". Anyone think that's "radical" or "paranoid"? Got steep yourself in some WWII history lessons.
And BTW, the Brown Shirts will be local, on your street, if Trump wins. It won't be, "Your machine gun gonna fight the military?!" No. All politics are local. Wait and see.
"Mr. Shalafi, look, we're your neighbors, and we know you love you some guns! But times have changed. We just need to collect those up for your own protection. You can have them back once things calm down, pinky swear."
Fuck me. I just got a buncha guns because I like shooting and gunsmithing old crappy stuff. Now that hobby is turning serious. And I fucking loathe that change.
I'm 53 soon, and I cannot begin to express how fucking angry I am to have typed those last sentences.
I know, I know, I was complacent, didn't see it coming. But fuck me, I voted these past decades. And here we are.
I am a peaceful man, but I am not harmless. I'd suggest you gun-grabber libs think on that a moment. Because the other side already has thought on it.
The care bear Dems will hold hands and care the situation away.
Fighting for anything is only just starting to be considered. But it's so very late, now.
Hope we never get to what you describe. We need the laws and LEO to do what's right and keep things from sliding. Very hard to know that may not happen and I deeply wish Biden held himself to one term.
He has a considerable polling and enthusiasm gap now - and this isn't the time for that to be true.
This is indeed both radical and paranoid.
Who is the more accelerationist candidate? The one who openly calls himself a dictator (‘on day one only, teehehehe’) or the status-quo octogenarian who continues the moral bankruptcy and refuses to stop lethal support or even public condemnation towards Israel even slightly? And I’m supposed to be thankful that Biden-Harris check the “not Trump lol” box and ignore the rest? Remember the hemming and hawing about Ukraine getting last gen/expiring tech? And we’re just GIVING Israel hardware from active US inventory???
I’d LOVE a viable third party or AVP/STV/etc voting, but electoral reform is a threat to DNC & RNC hegemony, so that never happening without a constitutional convention. So tell me, do you really have a choice at the ballot? Federal and primary races are littered with corporate and party money, there is no organic change coming from DC anymore.
You vote Republican to sink into the muck. You vote Democrat to stand there to let the tide take you. But you don’t have a choice other than to stall and hope that something changes.
Let me help, it’s more nuanced than that
It’s “dissolve our democracy and support ethnic cleansing at home and abroad” or “support ethnic cleansing abroad only”
The reason he's starting to pretend to listen is that he's losing in the polls.
Turns out that the electorate has a ridiculously short memory.
Turns out that the "I'm not the other guy" tactic is much less effective for an incumbent than a challenger.
Most shockingly, it turns out that continuing to ignore the rightful moral outrage of as many as half of your potential voters, maybe even more, is an extremely bad idea even if your opponent is objectively many times worse than you.
So yeah, as much as he hates it, he's gonna have to do something different, or at least pretend to, and he knows it.
He's been polling bad this whole time...
And just illegally went around Congress to "sell" weapons to Israel in exchange for a small slice of the billions we've given them this year.
I wish what you were saying was true, because its optimistic
But it's just not what's actually happening...
It's gone from bad to worse in the last couple of months, though.
I'd say that giving it a 10-20% likelihood of happening in spite of him almost certainly being forced to do it or lose is rather pessimistic tbh..
I'm not saying it's happening. I'm saying that the likelihood of it happening in the future has increased from nonexistent to very small, theoretically.
Factually incorrect...
https://www.270towin.com/2024-presidential-election-polls/national
They've been 2-3% away from each other all year.
Even before this Israel shit, Biden doesn't have a good chance.
That doesn't mean I agree with anything else you're saying, I'm just not going to provide a source that disproves every single thing you just said, because it's not a good use of time so I'm trying to focus on just one thing.
The election year just started, and these numbers are going to change dramatically
Strong disagree on this language.
https://jcpa.org/new-u-s-poll-raises-questions-about-americans-support-for-israels-war-against-hamas/
Anyone in the 10% that thinks hostages or sexual assault is a lie, or that Jews overplay the fucking Holocaust, are not "rightful" and their concerns do not come from empathy, because they lack empathy as a concept.
Is it right to be morally outraged by an ongoing genocide, ethnic cleansing and domicide? Yes or no?
The indisputable facts that Hamas has committed heinous terrorism and that the holocaust happened and was unimaginably awful doesn't excuse the crimes against humanity committed by the Israeli government, so please pack your fucking whataboutism away.
That's not whataboutism. Whataboutism is changing the subject to derail the conversation. This is simply addressing a different point of view in the same discussion.
No. Mentioning the opinions of uninvolved people IS changing the subject of whether or not genocide is bad and should be stopped.
A comparable if much lower stakes example would be if we were discussing whether or not it's ok to say that Wings were better than The Beatles and then some rando chimes in to inform us that 10% of techno fans think that the world doesn't need guitars.
Fun had, let's return to the actual: 10% of the respondents of a poll saying ANYTHING doesn't make genocide more or less acceptable and bringing it up in spite of that is a whataboutism, a distraction and a very crass way to try to derail the conversation.
It's not whataboutism to demonstrate that an election-significant number of Democrats believe Hamas bullshit over reality, and that the number of people who believe that is enough to change Dem support from strong majority agreement with the President to disagreement.
It's also not whataboutism to point out that nearly a third of people polled have generally no opinion on such basic things as "did the Holocaust happen" or "was the Hamas terror attack a big deal" or "does Hamas target civilians."
War does indeed suck and you're allowed to not like it and even use your irresponsibly inflammatory language, but it's absurd to suggest these comments are whataboutism.
Even if the pro-IDF propaganda piece you linked to had successfully demonstrated that, yes it would still be a whataboutism.
What Americans believe has no bearing on whether the Israeli government should be allowed to systematically slaughter and demolish their way through Palestinians, including children, at a rate completely unheard of anywhere in the world in recent years.
Yes it is. That is by definition whataboutism. Maybe you need to look up what whataboutism is. While you're at it, look up "bad faith arguments" and several logical fallacies.
And war crimes perpetrated against a mostly defenseless civilization population of over 50% children are much worse.
Gee, thanks! So generous of you!
Fixed that for you
Again, just Google it. You can also use a better search engine, but PLEASE look up the word you keep pretending you know the meaning of.
Again, while I don't necessarily otherwise disagree with you, you are a little confused on whataboutism.
Nope, I'm not. Those comments mention things that have absolutely no bearing on the topic at hand but the one bringing them up tries to derail the discussion by insisting that they're not only relevant but in fact crucial to the matter at hand.
That's textbook whataboutism.
You do understand that you are literally expressing a thing that some Americans believe, yes? Like, you get that your position is an opinion, right?
Yes, it is indeed an opinion that committing atrocities is a bad thing to do. Well done on finally getting something right.
It's a VERY popular opinion though, one shared by so many people that the world has decided that people are not allowed to do that bad thing.
That the Israeli Apartheid regime is committing genocide, ethnic cleansing and domicide isn't an opinion, though. It's an objective fact by all definitions of all the words.
A fact not changed by whether or not some misguided Americans think or pretend to think that the atrocities of Hamas are justified or that the holocaust didn't happen.
You're not dumb. You know that people disagree with you on the atrocities you claim.
For instance, it's impossible to have an apartheid system against another country. Israel is, by definition, not an apartheid state.
It's hilarious to me that you'll try to bring up the definitions of words after that - perhaps this is why your opinion is so extreme.
Wow, you've already doubled the number of things you've been right about! At this rate we'll only have to keep arguing a couple months more until you stop being an insincere moron!
I know that some people deny objective reality, yes, but that doesn't make objective reality any less real or any more subjective.
Palestinians, Muslims and Arabs living in Israel and Israel-occupied and/or -controlled Palestine are treated as, at best, second class citizens. Desmond Tutu agreed that Israel is an Apartheid state and he of all people should know.
I guess the truth sometimes looks like hilarious comedy to those who believe in ridiculous gaslighting such as that coming from Times of Israel, AIPAC and Faux News 🤷
Yeah, it's SO extreme to think that the lives of Palestinians matter! Such an audacious notion! 🙄
You went to all the effort to cite Tutu and yet provide no evidence for this, because they're not, and they literally have representation in Israel's government.
Yeah, because everyone knows that having 1/12 of the knesset be Arabs means that there's not systemic inequality and oppression of Arabs and other minority groups! 🤦
here's some evidence you're gonna ignore or pretend to refute.
It's proportionate to their population.
This article is about the Palestinian territory, a different country than Israel.
Lol they literally acknowledge it.
What other country has their roads, electricity, water, trade, and police controlled by another?
Like there are words, and then there are facts on the ground. It walks and quacks like an apartheid.
What other country is blockaded by all of their neighbors (including Egypt and Lebanon, and even Jordan which is just nearby) for 30-60 years of terrorism?
If words don't have any meaning to you, then your argument admittedly makes more sense. When you say "apartheid" you just mean "shit I don't like." It's basically the "neoliberal" of Israel lol
No. The best information is that they've been putting a ton of pressure on Netanyahu to back the fuck off, but it hasn't done any good because he's a legitimate asshole and always has been. (Remember, this is the same guy who deliberately embarrassed Obama by accepting a GOP invitation to address Congress without consulting the White House or making an official state visit to the president. He's the scum of the earth and always has been. There's zero question that he's hoping for a Trump win.)
They don't want to go public with demanding restraint or a cease fire because they are afraid it will widen the war by encouraging Iran and its other proxies such as the Houthis and Hezbollah which could further hinder freight traffic through the Red Sea, thus bumping global inflation back up and giving Trump a campaign gift. I think at this point it's a lost cause and they need to cut their losses and tell Israel to knock it the fuck off, but I expect they will continue to drag their feet and work on back channels.
We also know that every time Iran has been met with real force rather than empty threats, they have backed off. Ultimately it would still be a big gamble to openly threaten them, but it's something to think about, especially if you don't fancy another Trump presidency/dictatorship.
Most of what we see on Lemmy is pure amateur hour speculation that has only a very tangential relationship with what's actually happening.
Lol what pressure? Him and Blinken only barely proclaimed talking about reducing civilian casualties. Meanwhile, several of Biden's officials have resigned in protest of his policy.
Sending weapons immediately and bypassing congress twice is anything but pressure.
Why would it? Houthis would easily stop if the USA negotiates a ceasefire, especially after they removed their terrorist label. Iran has no reason to get directly involved because they don't want to directly face the US or Israel. Everyone else surrounding Israel doesn't care because they're all shill nations anyway. About the only unsatisfied party might be Hamas, but they entered this thing knowing it would be their final stand, so it would technically be an improvement from guaranteed death.
Israel is a strategic defense partner and basically a military outpost for the US. The fact that the USA is complacent in letting Israel do whatever is not surprising whatsoever because they've already pulled this exact scenario like hundreds of times before. The only difference is the scale and the optics. Biden only cares slightly more because it's election season, so he can't just blindly deny everything and expect people to believe him.
I agree with this but also I'm not sure if this isn't already a proxy war with iran-russia, and it also seems to benefit china too.
And even if netanyahu wasn't an arse, he's totally reliant on some awful people to stay in power, and out of prison, for however long he can manage both.
Pushing back publically against his actions now is equivalent to demanding regime change in Israel and while I think it would be a good thing I can see why geopolitically it's difficult for the US to do.