Biden calls for 'immediate ceasefire' in Gaza

AbsentBird@lemm.ee to World News@lemmy.world – 560 points –
'No excuses': Biden calls for 'immediate ceasefire' in Gaza
newshub.co.nz

The US will begin air dropping food aid to the people of Gaza, President Joe Biden announced on Friday, as the humanitarian crisis deepens and Israel continues to resist opening additional land crossings to allow more assistance into the war-torn strip.

Speaking in the Oval Office, Biden said the US would be "pulling out every stop" to get additional aid into Gaza, which has been under heavy bombardment by Israel since the October 7 Hamas terror attacks.

"Aid flowing to Gaza is nowhere nearly enough," the US President said, noting "hundreds of trucks" should be entering the enclave.

Biden said the US is "going to insist that Israel facilitate more trucks and more routes to get more and more people the help they need, no excuses".

He also noted the efforts to broker a deal to free the hostages and secure an "immediate ceasefire" that would allow additional aid in.

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He had to. He should have done it months ago tbh.

The mowing down of 700 people and killing 100 who were trying to get food and water is the last straw. Bibi is toast now. You'll see a speech in the Knesset soon calling for his ouster and an end to the veto coverage Israel had in the UN.

Pretty sure the government has been trying to talk Israel down since things got way out of scope in November. But Bibi wants blood.

Bibi is now Hitler Lite in my opinion. The number of deaths aren't quite there or the level of cruelty, but the intent and mindset is exactly the same and he could easily get to that cruelty and deathcount if not stopped.

I don’t think there are enough Palestinians on the planet to hit the body count of the holocaust… but that doesn’t mean that Israel’s actions are a lesser evil. Genocide is genocide

Yeah which is why they said the scale is different. They're talking about the mindset because let's face it, Israel wants to turn Gaza into Lebensraum. They've been pretty clear about that.

The amount of children being killed in Gaza every day matches that of a big concentration camp at the peak of the Holocaust.

Don’t call him Bibi. He deserves no cute nicknames which downplay these atrocities.

Pretty sure the government has been trying to talk Israel down since things got way out of scope in November.

Wrong, government backed israel and provided them military aid and weapons.

Talking him down while sending more weapons in violation of US law?

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He could have done this in October.

Is it too little too late to save his presidential run?

We'll see. He has to get the ceasefire first.

(There was another time Israel bombed and aid convoy (waiting till the aid was in a position to be destroyed), back in October, so its not like the first time they've done this even in this conflict.)

Honestly if he stops this mess now he should get enough lesser evil votes. Gotta also revert his position on the border and other things, but he still has time to save his campaign.

His actually al strategy right now is just so fucking stupid.

It's like he thinks he's going to appeal to voters by taking in Trump's policies.

He's got no read on the country ATM.

He had to. He should have done it months ago tbh.

The plan was to do it after gaza has been destroyed

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Congratulations "Uncommitted" voters and other protesters, it looks like you are at least part of making Biden's "blank check" support of Israel too politically expensive to continue. It will be interesting to see how this plays out as Biden tries to balance actions around an angry electorate vs. pro-Israel factions and money (which non-profit watchdog Open Secrets says he's the largest recipient of). Especially with the unofficial cease-fire deadline of Ramadan only 10 days away which is expected to be the launch of an Israeli offensive in Rafah barring a temporary cease-fire agreement. I say temporary because Netanyahu is cited in that article as saying, "If we have a deal, it will be delayed somewhat, but it will happen. If we don't have a deal, we'll do it anyway".

I hope this "no excuses" change in tone will yield meaningful results and most importantly relief for the civilians in Gaza.

I feel like it was that gunning down incident with the humanitarian aid that ultimately tipped the scales.

I know I've been going on defense for Israel a lot recently, but I am kinda playing messenger boy as a neutral for being both here and some pro-Israel groups. The Michigan vote didn't really phase them, that incident did. Seen them even sharing more info about how ridiculously strict Bibi is with aid in general.

I think the Michigan vote and subsequent media coverage was meaningful, but I agree there's no denying the shooting had a big impact. Thank you for adding that perspective. My guess is having both happen so close to each other increased the total effect. Regardless, it's going to be an important 10 days coming up.

Realistically it’s probably both in some sort of confluence, the campaign hears the uncommitted vote news and then the massacre happens and they see it as an opportunity to about face without making it look like they are back tracking previous moves. It’s cynical as hell but I think it’s probably likely

Nah israel did shootings like that every week. Biden doesn't care about brown people dying. I'd argue that the hospital massacre israel committed was far worse optically

Michigan did this. All the people that refused to bend the knee and vote for Biden in December if he continues the Genocide.

And Aaron Bushnell. His sacrifice was a huge turning point.

You'd think that, but humans can be weird with what actually causes introspection.

The hospital thing they just took the official line for. They actually mocked Aaron, or were actually grateful he took his own life thinking he was a disturbed individual.

Edit: If you want to understand the logic: they're willing to turn a blind eye if they can "both sides" incidents so they can simply keep their position of "Israel has a right to defend itself, regardless if they're not saints about it".

The humanitarian aid story is getting them because Bibi won't even let them do that! Hence why I mentioned the story sharing, since they know Bibi had made it clear he wants to starve Palestinians.

Oh it's absolutely from the mass shooting and terror incident at the humanitarian aid delivery.

The optics on that are awful and being repressed pretty hard since there really ain't going to be a good look for that.

"The IDF soldiers were scared" oh grow up.

But Biden was insistent that he was heading towards a cease fire that probably got massively pushed back because of that incident crushing even more of the little remaining trust in Israel by citizens of Palestine.

Air dropping food in away from soldiers makes it so it's an obvious sign that it's not a trap from IDF shows they understand there is starvation and tries to claw back the trust at least in the US of being helpful. Probably expect a lot more aid and some heavy pushing from the US to look trustworthy to start talks through.

This is what pisses me off about "moderates". All they give a damn about is optics and winning the next election. The rest of us understand that the only power we have is our vote, and if we don't use that power to its full extent, which means threatening to withhold it, we'll never get any concession from any politician.

The rest of you are quite literally shills who simply don't give a shit about what's happening in Palestine. You just do what you're told to and act like that makes you a good person. You weren't even willing to do the bare minimum of using your voice, because you dummy actually care.

You must be some Russian/MAGA spam bot!! How dare you encourage them to just hand over the election to trump!

/s

I know you're making a joke, but it really is a crazy year to be an American voter. I laughed at Bill Burr's take in December when he said (among other funny things) "I want someone in their 40's. Someone who is going to have to live with their decisions". I'm biased though because I've enjoyed Bill's brutal comedy for years.

Trump would be a disaster in all respects, so I guess that decides things. Biden's domestic policies don't feature destroying checks and balances on power and revenge/witch hunts as key features. Democracy is supposed to be rule of the people via elected officials who genuinely represent them, so I'm happy to see the beginnings of a change in tone at least (and I dearly hope policy) from Biden. I'm definitely not cheering for another 2016.

Man that audio/video of Bibi saying genocide would continue and they were gonna level Gaza because the American people have given them a blank check and full support ..yea ..that was everything I expected from that fascist.

And as fascists (and corporatists; tho any difference is arguable) always do, he said the quiet part out loud, insinusting Israel's stretched past their compacity while invigorating the anti-genocide (which I would hope is all of us, but clearly isn't. I don't see how a moral person rationalizes killing 20000 children) center/left to bolder action against Biden.

The news getting out of Bibi's forces beating down the Orthodox in Jerusalem for protesting is indicative of a few things, mainly that dissent at home is greater than his propaganda machine can keep the lid on. His propaganda machine has been busch league, AT BEST. Obviously lying with AI generated photos. Idk about you, but I can't believe a single thing that comes out of a zionists mouth. If the world didn't stop their aggression, I think we all know full well they would've killed every single Palestinian down to the last.

Zionist has become as negative a word to me as Nazi. The only difference being pro-jew or anti-jew. I spit at them both.

Wait what? Can you link to this video?

Yes, please give us the video link. B.N. and members of his government have said home very bad things, but I've not heard that quote. We would join your sentiment if you could be more factual.

Unfortunately it’s been a few days so I’m not sure we’re going to get it. I looked but couldn’t find any quote like this. I suspect this is a distorted version of something he did say but without knowing his exact words I would take the above comment with a large grain of salt.

It's in Netanyahu's interest to drag this out until November and do everything he can to make Biden lose to Trump. After that, all he has to do is mention the chonky fascist's "big manly hands" and he gets to do all the genocide he wants while continuing to keep his corrupt ass out of jail.

Biden needs to wake the fuck up.

Trump will offer Netanyahu the full services of the 6th fleet within days of taking office.

"war-torn strip"???

More like, "massacred and obliterated strip". Not much of a "war" going on here

Cool, cool. Are we still supplying weapons to Israel? Give the weapons to Ukraine and tell Israel that's enough genocide for now.

Didn't he claim he will airdrop humanitarian aid in Ukraine.

Damn you guys behind the pond should introduce a law setting the max age a person can hold a presidential position. There is a reason why old people are not given a driver's license and you should take the cue and do something about it.

Oh we let old people drive too, there's not really any tangible system for ensuring they're still capable. There's a way your doctor can have it pulled but healthcare is privatized so they'll just shop around for the guy who'll say it's totally fine if they have to.

My ex's mom randomly passed out completely multiple times a day sometimes, it never got pulled - until some innocent pedestrian paid the ultimate price for eagle fuckin American "freedom."

We're trying but we're up against hateful shitty old fucks who have a deathgrip on positions of power, absolutely stupid masses who enjoy a steady diet of warped theocratic leadership mixed in with batshit conspiracy, an alarming growing group of outright fascist af young people, and then a rather large contingent of apathetic cunts who can't be bothered with doing the bare minimum in civic duties. It's a fucking mess here. Not looking great.

I don’t disagree with you but at least along the issue of Gaza, young people are OVERWHELMING on the side of reason and that is heartening even while it is heartbreaking to see it doesn’t fucking move the needle on Biden’s actions even a nanometer.

It seems to be moving his actions somewhat. He's calling for a ceasefire and airdropping aid to Gaza. I feel like a lot of that is due to pressure from constituents.

Yeah kinda feels like he is airdropping hotdogs into a baseball stadium though, like, ok those people needed hot dogs but what about the whole hot dog distributing apparatus that is surrounding all those people with multiple concession stands distributed strategically throughout the stadium to minimize congestion and even people walking around who specialize in just distributing hot dogs. Kinda feels like you are beating around the bush buddy when you plan to airdrop hotdogs into the baseball stadium instead of just having all of those people and systems start giving people hotdogs who need them.

I hope the pressure keeps making him take concrete steps though.

Gotta wonder if he'd care if it weren't election season, though. After his whole four year term he finally got around to wiping my student debt a week ago. I know that was election driven.

Sadly, this headline seems to be misleading. Checking for additional sources, I can find none that confirm that he actually called for a ceasefire.

According to the Associated Press, he did decry the loss of life in Gaza and announce that the US are about to commence airdrops of humanitarian aid, but at no point did he seem to do what this headline implies.

A Reuters article covering the same conference mentions the possibility of a ceasefire, but this apparently referred to a previous conversation a few days ago.

Unless anyone can find evidence to the contrary, I have to assume that this Newshub article is clickbait.

Thanks, I couldn't find that part anywhere.

I'm personally not sure that saying "We're trying to work out ... an immediate ceasefire" has nearly the same urgency as as calling for one, but hey at least it's something.

Well, especially considering he has the leverage to just go "you stop that now or no more arms" and Israel would have no choice but stop that instant, "trying to negotiate a deal" is a particularly weak choice of words.

I'm not sure that Israel actually would have to stop in that circumstance. It's a wealthy country with one of the world's biggest arms industries, and it's not like this is a peer conflict

That's why I did a double take when I saw the above headline. Biden finally putting his foot down and strong-arming Israel into a ceasefire would be huge.

But alas...

"For at least 6 weeks"

That's a start at least.

He's taking the Michigan numbers seriously. Let's hope it's not too little too late.

If we can get a similar result in another swing state, we might see real progress

Too little, too late. Military intervention or nothing, Israel and Gaza need to be taken in by UN peacekeeping forces and a new dialogue needs to be started about how to find a permanent solution for the coexistence of Palestinians and Israelis. If the need exists, maybe even deconstruct the current Israel to make way for a more tolerant and democratic nation that respects people of all origin.

They absolutely need a 2-state solution.

And neither of the 2 states should be the current states of Israel or Palestine.

A 2 state solution is effectively impossible at this point. Israel won't let their settlements go and the Palestinians will not accept anything less than the 1967 borders. There's also the split country problem. Bangladesh used to be East Pakistan. Split countries have a bad habit of one part getting exploited pretty hard.

So what you're saying is the problem with the 2-state solution is the 2 existing states that I specifically said shouldn't be part of the solution?

You can't just do a rebrand. These are thousand year old ethic identities. There has to be a structural change as well.

It's about re-election optics, not about helping Gazans.

Ding ding ding!

They started seeing everyone posting on social media that they're not voting to support us paying for a genocide.

Vote “uncommitted” in the primaries, all the centrists shaming progressives for having a red line at “genocide” are so desperately wrong about now being not the time to raise our voices, fuck them.

The only way to get Biden to care about the horrific mass slaughter of an entire population is to directly make him afraid he won’t get his power trip again if he doesn’t capitulate because it is blindly obvious nothing else will sway him until it’s farrrrrrrrr too late.

After the election is the worst time to do it, if Biden wins he will just completely ignore progressive/almost unanimous international outcry over Israel’s genocide and continue handwringing because why would he do otherwise given his ideology and the fact that he doesn’t need the votes anymore?

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Just had to wait for there to be 30,000 Palestinian deaths first.

9/11 had 2,996 deaths for a little bit of context. Just imagine what would be happening right now if there were 30,000 dead Americans.

America has 9/11s of covid deaths monthly, long after Biden "ended covid" with Trump's strategy of "just stop reporting the numbers". That's what our journalists also do with all of the people murdered by Israel. Keep them out of sight, out of mind.

To be fair, it is medically hard to determine whether elderly people die with covid or from it.

I'm sure that it is, but it's not just elderly dying, plenty of kids and their parents are suffering. I just read a NPR puff piece about a landlord who finally got their investment property 'back' by evicting their tenant... a recently widowed healthcare worker with a child. It's almost like we shouldn't be trying to just return to 'normal' with an uncontrolled pandemic raging.

As many people die from covid as do from influenza or RSV at this point. I'm not saying it's not a serious illness but I am saying it's very far from "an uncontrolled pandemic" and saying it is is hyperbolic to the point of disregarding any other point you made.

As many people die from covid as do from influenza or RSV at this point.

I understand you don't feel affected by covid anymore, but you're incredibly wrong.

CDC estimates for influenza deaths in the 2022-2023 flu season: 21,000

CDC cumulative covid deaths from Sep 9, 2023 minus Oct 1, 2022: 84,560

Honestly, I'm not seeing a death count for RSV, but based on this RSV Burden Estimates, it's at most: 10,300 per year.

And this is all shown pretty well in the Trends in Viral Respiratory Deaths in the United States graph.

Not denying covid is more deadly than influenza or RSV, but you still have to account for the fact that covid might kill an old person that would otherwise die to influenza in a month or two (or something else, they are old and their bodies are degrading inevitably). That is why sustained increased death rates in corrolation to covid numbers is a better qualifier for the argument that we have to take precautions to limit people dying. I have been of the understanding that after the major initial waves, death rates are not higher than usual and hence unsustained.

Even if I ignore you moving the goalposts, would you really look at a graph like this

that's a few years out of date and assume the total deaths settled back down into the old pattern?

I'm not finding a more up-to-date data source for deaths per month, but it's not like you're providing any kind of data that covid isn't still killing a lot of extra people per year.

I am not from the US, but here are the statistics from Norway where no covid measurements have been in place since the start of 2022. The table below is official statistics on mortality nationwide:

Also, I got this first from discussions with some newly graduated medicine students. It is not like I was pulling it from my ass in the first place.

If there is any discrepancy in mortality rates, it could very well be caused by different ratios of vaccinated populace:

It looks like you're getting the data from here (except the Norwegian language version), so I have to ask: is there a reason you're cutting off the part of the graph showing "Deaths per 1000 mean population" spiking in 2022?

This new table is from here, and you can click "Choose variables" at the top if you want to see different data. But even just the graph you provided shows that total deaths for both sexes jumped up dramatically in 2022, the year you say covid restrictions were lifted. What are you trying to prove here exactly?

The population is slowly increasing but for the purposes of calculating the mean mortality can be treated as a constant, which is why I did not care about the weird cut off caused by me using my mobile phone and the table not adjusting for it. The increase of 2022 and 2021 was expected due to general decline of normal viruses (caused by covid measurements), which in turn made the general populace more susceptible to being sick later through decline in antibodies (due to smaller contagion, not some collective breakthrough in immune systems) through large parts of the pandemic. Either way, the point that I am making is that vaccines and effective health care to those sick with covid provides a highly effective measurement against it. This so much to the point that there is not, by Norwegian consitutional law, enough reason to keep the temporary measurements going any longer.

It was right to stop social contact. It was right to vaccinate everyone that could and wanted to (should have made it mandatory for all that could in my opinion). Then, afterwards, it was right to open schools and other parts of society gradually.

What are you trying to prove here exactly?

That it was right to open up after a critical percentage of the populace had been vaccinated with what has proven to be highly effective vaccines (better than we could have hoped, to be honest). Also I want to discredit the point that there is a raging pandemic. Even if it was raging in the US, which is not strictly true either, it would be more correct to call it an epidemic at this point caused by ineffective vaccination rates and shitty access to public health care for way too many people.

So if I'm understanding you correctly, you went from

you still have to account for the fact that covid might kill an old person that would otherwise die to influenza in a month or two

thinking covid wasn't causing any/many additional deaths per year, just speeding them up a little

to providing a graph that shows thousands of extra people are dying each year

The increase of 2022 and 2021 was expected due to general decline of normal viruses (caused by covid measurements)

to saying all those extra deaths were because people weren't getting sick from normal diseases, despite us not seeing much of a drop in 2020 from people not getting those diseases during the covid restrictions. But now that the restrictions are lifted and they're being exposed to those normal diseases (and covid) again, all/most of theses extra deaths are from the normal diseases and have nothing to do with covid.

Norway absolutely did a better job at handling covid than the US, but the US's death rate seems to just be permanently higher now as a direct result of covid. Maybe removing all restrictions was the right thing to do, but we shouldn't ignore the fact that it comes at the cost of several thousand more people dying each year, just in Norway.

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We've given up on all testing, masking, vaccination and even quarantining at this point. 9/11s of people are dying monthly from all manner of respiratory diseases (after getting wrecked by covid). What exactly would uncontrolled look like to you then?

Uncontrolled would be the very start of the pandemic, with neither masking nor immune people. It's not a wildfire any more, not even in the US with their proclivity to shoot themselves in the foot. It's better controlled than influenza simply because more people got shots against it.

That's all I'm saying. Yes it's a dangerous illness, but ERs aren't overwhelmed by patients like they were late 2020. I think part of the issue is semantics and a lot of people not realizing just how dangerous full-on influenza is, it's absolutely a deadly virus and 10s of thousands of people die from it every year right here in the first world; much less in the 3rd world.

edit: get mad about it but I guess you don't remember lockdowns and toilet paper shortages. I never got to work from home (medical-related field yay), I know exactly what uncontrolled looks like. If you want to panic about something start reading into microplastics, way more long term damage we're only beginning to understand. Plastics are everywhere.

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It's sometimes hard to say an individual death was for sure caused by COVID, but it's easy to compare the number of deaths to the historical average and see how many more happened. It's really the only way to get a good count of COVID related deaths, because looking at excess deaths will also reveal how many people are being killed indirectly, such as dying due to lack of medical care because COVID was overwhelming the hospitals.

I agree with you and actually argued for this further down some comment chain. However, mortality increase was temporary in Norway where I am from (and AFAIK mostwhere in Europe), hence indicate that there is no uncontrolled pandemic here.

Here is an infographic from the start of 2023:

You should probably be looking at trends over a longer period of time, rather than just a single month.

From here. There was a dip below the 2016-2019 average in January through March of 2023, but time marches on.

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They waited and will wait until the goal is achieved which is destroying gaza and drive as many palestinians away so that israel can extend its state.

Theyve returned the hostages right? Did we forget about the hostages?

Jesus you people are never happy.

Biden gave material support to Israel’s genocidal campaign which has killed over 30,000 people. You’re delusional if you think paying lip service to a ceasefire while still actively supporting the genocide is going to satisfy anyone.

How many non-Americans died as a result of 9/11? How many in Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries in the global war on terror? I'm guessing a shit ton more than 30,000.

It's only going to increase every day the hostages aren't returned.

Like a million just in Iraq I think.

Lol no. Most studies are in the 250,000 to 500,000 range and include deaths because of coalition forces, the civil war ("sectarian violence"), and AQ.

This is also over a much larger population, time period, and area.

Bunch of children died due to a reduction in quality of diet, healthcare, education. A lot of it was sanction related. Believe it or not, didn't pull the number out of my arse.

So you're using the study that adds in assumed deaths in the ten years before the Iraq war as a misleading figure for the Iraq war. Just so we're clear that isn't an apples to apples comparison. Unless you want to put the work in to check those numbers for Gaza since the mid 2000's when Israel began it's blockade.

But that would require acknowledging the last 15 to 20 years of Israeli fuckery. So instead you went and found the biggest possible number to tag the US with as some kind of perverse shield for Israeli war crimes.

What a stunning fucking number, it isn’t just murder on a mass scale, it is the denial of an entire future reality for a country because of the massive empty spaces all that destruction and death cause.

Well, this is what is happening right now because there were 1319 dead Israelis.

https://www.memri.org/tv/palestinians-gaza-west-bank-celebrate-october-seven-massacre-hand-out-sweets-fire-guns

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Everyone's in here giving Biden shit like not voting for him and letting Trump win will make things better for anyone.

You know that you can vote for someone AND be critical of their future, past and/or present decisions right?

You're right, but there are a lot of people (that I've seen, at least) who are willing to abstain from voting over Biden's handling of this.

Then that is their democratic choice. And it's Bidens loss for not listening to his voters.

Don't blame the voters for using their votes

People who are able to vote and specifically choose not to should absolutely be blamed. Voting third party is perfectly reasonable, but you have no right to complain about the state of politics and deserve to be ridiculed if you make the conscious decision not to vote even though you are fully able to.

We're not. We're blaming them for being fucking idiots who will vote in a literal dictator because they're mad at Biden. Someone who will do far more damage to and destroy hundreds of millions of lives in the US and the rest of the world.

30,000 deaths in another country is nothing compared to US deaths little orange is responsible for when you only consider his one choice to fuck over pandemic response at the beginning of the pandemic. Dude has the deaths of millions on his hands already.

Anyone, any human being alive, that would vote for him is a fucking idiot that needs to give their head a bashing

I love that you used the phrase democratic choice to describe it too. A+

America’s path to fascism doesn’t begin and end with Trump. Forcing people to vote for someone they do not morally support is fascist. The last time he was president the world didn’t end. Millions of peoples lives in the United States are already horrible and the US regardless of who is president , democrat or republican, murder people all over the world. This narrow minded take of how the world works is part of the problem not the people abstaining from voting for Biden.

Okay, sure, but voting on a single issue is what fucking morons do.

And children without a lot of life experiences to understand. Imagine coming of age in the last decade. This is their "normal". Its awful and terrifying.. exactly what all the people working to divide and and destroy democracy around the world have been working for.

As much as I'm angry at their ignorance, it's also really fucking sad.

No. It is not, this is a scary and extremist perspective and I'm sorry you feel like that. The media in America and the propagandist dismantling democracy have done so much damage.

So many bots, so many promoters of disjunction. It's overwhelming.

You're being asked to make a choice between eating a gross vegetable and a the barrel of a shotgun and you're arguing for the shotgun.

First you say "were not" and then in the next sentence you say "we do". Good one.

Best part about a democracy is that everyone gets to vote.

Worst part is that everyone gets to vote.

This is how it works. Just because you're afraid of being on the losing side doesn't mean anything has changed.

And before you start yapping on. I'm not American. We don't work on a 2 party system. I'm just saying what everyone else can see looking in.

You can't support democracy ONLY when your side gets what they want.

It's the unalienable right of every US citizen to say whatever dumbass shit they want. I'm still gonna call them a dumbass for saying dumbass shit though.

It's the trolley problem. It is much more difficult for people to be an active part of genocide by voting for Biden than simply not voting and allowing a worse outcome to happen if Trump becomes president..

Seems like they missed the lesson of the trolley problem, then.

Perhaps we should work to make sure no one is on the tracks instead of pulling the lever?

We should do whatever we can to keep people off of the tracks in the future. But that’s not mutually exclusive with pulling the lever right now, since the trolley is already heading towards people.

It’s an easy decision to make if you aren’t the one tied to the tracks. Palestinian Americans are losing their families and flipping that lever will neither bring them back nor make the situation better. Not only that, but flipping the lever without any real change of action from the DNC just means they can just trust their base to overlook genocide again and again in perpetuity as long as republicans remain the worse choice (which will be always).

Maybe read up on what the trolley problem (together with its variations) is about then.

I'm not abstaining. I'm voting for Jill Stein.

Jill's currently polling at 5%. If the Green Party could get 5%, we'd qualify for millions of dollars in federal grant money, which would go a long way towards helping us fight the corrupt two-party system.

Exactly, I demand better of him and I will probably vote for him. I really wonder though how someone that's a Muslim or Palestinian can stomach voting for him. His policies around Israel are pretty much identical to what Trump would do which is a big deal for a lot of people. He's basically saying "Forget that I let Israel murder and starve to death your loved ones, I've been pretty good when it comes to monopolies right?!?".

I'll vote for him because he's the better of two options, however, he has blood on his hands and that may just lose him a second term.

Tell that to the terminally online edgelord jimmy Dore "left" crowd

There's a time and place to be critical of dumbass politicians taking half-measures on important issues, but doing it now is potentially undermining the election in favor of fascist criminals.

Seems like Biden should listen to his constituents if he wants to win re-election.

honestly doesn't it seem like this change of direction is him listening? Even weeks ago I would have never thought I would have heard the words ceasefire out of his mouth.

to me this seems like a direct response of the message people sent to him with the Michigan primary and I am happy to see it.

doesn't mean I'm happy with what he's done so far or even that he has not immediately taken direct action but this is a pivot and failing to acknowledge it weakens protest actions like this in the future.

If you read the article, he still wants the hostages released as a pre condition to any ceasefire. His position there hasn't actually changed.

maybe I am missing something that I don't see why that is an objectionable position? like obviously the ceasefire needs to happen immediately but what is wrong with hostage release as part of it?

not that long ago politicians were doing anything they could to avoid the word ceasefire and now they're actively calling for it I'm really not thinking that this is an unchanged position but I am willing to listen if I have some drastic misunderstanding.

Because the hostages aren't why we need the ceasefire. We need it to deliver aid. Also it's an Israeli pre-condition. So what the white house is doing is putting the one big thing Israel wants and telling Hamas they'll get a temporary peace out of it. Hamas has no reason to take that deal. Israel would similarly tell the white house to pound sand if they showed up in Tel Aviv to say Hamas has a deal that just requires the removal of all IDF troops from Palestinian territory.

thank you for the explanation that is a lot more understandable now.

hostages being released in order to stop the violence is what I was thinking.

but you're saying it's more like losing leverage in order to temporarily pause the violence.

they would have nothing left to bargain with and would just have to hope the world actually cares enough to step in.

I can definitely see why they wouldn't want to do that

I mean, wouldn't it be a good thing if hostages were released? Also, surely getting a ceasefire like this is one of the reasons Hamas took hostages, right?

In a vacuum, yes. But we aren't in a vacuum and Hamas needs something more than a shaky ceasefire to release all of the hostages. Israel isn't agreeing to a ceasefire unless every hostage is released. At that point Hamas loses all leverage.

It's also an incredibly partisan move by a mediator who says their main concern is getting aid into the area. You need cooperation for that and you don't get cooperation by backing the demands of just one side.

It sounds like he's starting to. He's gone from full-throated support to silent complicity to actually calling Israel out. I hope he can do more.

When the options are that or try to capitulate to fascists to gain favor, this should be a super easy choice.

Oh, but wait...he's a Catholic, and Democrats are Zionists.

We are super screwed

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And they are never satisfied.

“Biden must demand an immediate ceasefire!”

Biden: I demand an immediate ceasefire!

“Biden isn’t doing enough!”

Ok, read what actually was said then come back.

The headline is misleading. Biden simply said "I hope a ceasefire happens one day". Which is a FAR cry from "demanding a ceasefire now". He isn't doing enough because he hasn't been saying things like "We are planning on withdrawing aid from Israel if they keep up this offensive". Instead it's "Well golly gee I hope Hamas returns all the hostages for a 2 week ceasefire and no troop withdrawals by Israel."

But hey, at least he's decided that he can say the word "ceasefire" Up until maybe a couple of weeks ago that was a forbidden word by the administration.

When Biden ran in 2020, this was the argument I heard from Biden supporters: sure, Biden may not be perfect, but we should support him anyway, and then, once he gets elected, we'll hold his feet to the fire.

Yet now, when people try to hold his feet to the fire, they're accused of supporting Trump. Funny how that works.

My argument is: Biden may not be perfect, but he's a whole hell of a lot better than the guy that tried to start an insurrection and appointed a Supreme Court justice that got rid of Roe v. Wade. Holding his feet to the fire is a waste of time because the house always wins; the People will be the ones to bear the burden of any sort of loss for the Democrats. All I can do is hope that people will finally be pushed too far and revolt against the government, but that will be a whole hell of a lot harder if the 1st and 2nd Amendments are infringed on any more than they already are.

Revolting against the government is far less feasible (and far more ethical) than simply voting for an alternative party.

1996 had the lowest recorded percentage of voter turnout in the past century, at 51.7%. Assuming there's currently about 250 million eligible voters in the US, that is equivalent to about 129 million voters.

Imagine you were a wizard and could force everyone on Lemmy to vote for a single third-party candidate. Also assume every account on every instance of Lemmy is a US citizen capable of voting. Lemmy has about 421 thousand users. Even if each account on Lemmy could magically convince 50 other eligible voters to vote for the same independent candidate, that would only amount to about 21 million votes, or about 16.3% of all votes in the election going towards that candidate.

Voting in an independent party is nothing short of impossible in the US.

What does Lemmy have to do with it? I never brought up Lemmy!

My point is that the numbers are so unbelievably stacked against a third party winning that you're not achieving anything by voting for a third party.

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calling for a ceasefire when it matters the most: before the elections. good job Biden.

when he realizes he is probably going to lose the election because a lot of his former voters don't support genocide as much as he does

When those same former voters watch Israel murder every Palestinian while Trump actively cheers them on and rounds up all Palestinian Americans to deport them for further ethnic cleansing.

I mean, it's pretty hard to make an argument that Trump would be materially worse for Palestinians than Biden if both are going to defund UNRWA and give Israel military aid. What Biden is doing now is definitely a step in the right direction; I hope he keeps this up, even when the Republicans inevitably say he's being, "soft on terrorism," (or whatever the talking point becomes).

2024 where the harm reduction vote goes to whoever supports genocide less fervently. Thanks DNC!

It isn't the dnc's fault a third of the country is apparently fascist these days. Nothing moves left until the ultra right is thoroughly defeated and sent back to the shadows.

Yes it is. The Democrats have had plenty of opportunities to step away from their pro-corporate stance and start doing things to help people. Every single time they cave to Republican pressure in the name of "bipartisanship". Look at the border policy they just proposed that was everything that Republicans wanted. Democrats will give the whole game away just to keep that sweet sweet donor money coming in.

"Republicans are worse" is a shitty argument when Democrats already give them everything they want.

In fact the Democrats LOVE the far right because they can just point to them and go "well you don't want THOSE guys in charge do you?", while doing absolutely nothing to help the populace who are suffering under greedflation.

Bullshit. They can absolutely move left and pick up all the voters they left behind over the decades.

There are nowhere near enough left behind voters to make up for one's they'd lose. We have to marginalized the ultra right first.

So we have to keep moving right to marginalize the right? We keep running party propaganda further to the right, and expect that makes less people vote to the right?

That's the most insane shit I've heard all day.

Right and at this rate the Democrat will be doing that in 2028 while telling us it's okay, we can still vote and the other guy is worse!

Harm reduction only works so long as there is remediation between elections. Just ratcheting shit further to the right and telling everyone they have to vote for you because you're still not as far right as the other guy isn't a scenario I want to participate in. If they want my vote the least they can do is not be worse than GW Bush.

If you think Biden is no better than GWB then I don't even know what to say. You're living on a different planet.

Sucks because Trump is going to stay behind Isreal too. The people that refuse to vote for Biden because of this likely just won't vote. Which = Trump.

And again we'll blame it on the voters that failed to "fall in line" instead of the establishment that gave them no reason to.

Didn't the US just recently block another UN resolution calling for a ceasefire?

This made me laugh through my nasal passages because I read it in the sarcastic tone I would've delivered it in.

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I know this is way later than I or anyone whose been screaming for ceasefire wished for, but I'm so glad something has changed. I hope this is the just a start.

In all likelihood, Biden is starting to pay lip service to the call for a ceasefire as the people around him realize his support for Israel’s genocide may hurt his chances of reelection. I’m not holding my breath for him to actually do anything about it. Words are cheap.

If he wanted to wrap up the election rn, he'd break formal relations with Israel and target IDF forces entering any UN green zones.

I'd also love to see what an F-35 would do to a Merkava

Hamas' RPGs are already fucking them up, I don't think it takes an F35.

Well it didn't require one buttttt a GBU-12 would be pretty spectacular

This is the dumbest thing I will hear all day, by far.

In what delusional world do you think that this would be a reasonabke thing to do?

A world that respects the rights and sovereignty of the Palestinian people, and opposes Israel’s genocide and occupation of Palestine.

Yes, we have to respect the right of a non-state actor to put terrorists in charge and cancel all future elections so they can continue living in a rich culture of stoning infidels to death? No thanks.

If only the president of the united states had power to do something about this!!!!

Plenty of countries would have been capable of forcing themselves into the situation, if only they weren't legitimately afraid of Israel retaliating and the US backing them in their retaliation.

Calls? Did he call Netanyahu and threaten him to withhold weapons? We've heard this one before. Time to start showing results.

Israel has two weeks to sign a letter that says "we won't commit war crimes"? This is after the date israel said they are going to invade Rafah.

Furthermore israel has violated like 8 "red lines" Biden gave them and no consequences ever happened.

Israel didn't even show up to the talks in Cairo today. Netanyahu isn't feeling an ounce of pressure from Biden.

He's doing the thing where he calls a temporary pause a "ceasefire" with the only leverage getting handed over.,. So the genocidal ethnostate can continue the slaughter at its leasure.

Sounds like a shit deal.

Netanyahu won't agree to a permanent ceasefire. The hope seems to be to get any sort of long pause then push to extend and extend it so it is de facto permanent (and hope Netanyahu gets kicked out of power somewhere in there).

So you’re supportive of kidnapping and using civilians as human shields? Cool.

Well they are only using human shields because Israel insists it's still fine to fire up on them if maybe they take out a Hamas member with them.

Like, we shouldn't actually be still killing the civilians right? That would be gross and fucked up right?

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The only leverage Hamas has is to keep being terrorists? No. Hamas can either surrender and give up or keep being bombed until they are gone. It is the only thing still killing people in Gaza at this point.

It must be so exhausting to carry water for a settler-colonial ethnostate whose very foundations are genocidal violence.

Not really. Israel didn't build the terror tunnels under everyone's houses and then tell everyone not to evacuate. Maybe your thinking of Hamas, and it's regressive and religio-authoritarian genocidal violence?

And maybe you’ve run the numbers to realize that those “terrors tunnels” would cost too much to be real. It’s a good excuse to ethnically cleanse a region you have no right to.

Ridiculous take. Even Hamas doesn't deny they are real. Like gtfo with that conspiratorial nonsense that you pulled out of your ass.

You have zero understanding of cause and effect or you are looking at this conflict through a pinhole. Stop supporting and lapping up the propaganda of genocidal settler-colonialists like an useful idiot. Learn history and have some morals.

"Genocidal settler-colonialists" sounds like you've been lapping enough propoganda for the both of us.

I'm aware of the long history of two way violence. I'm aware that even if Israel stopped the violence now and forever, Hamas is still an ideology that exists as antithetical to democracy and peace. They'll still be stoning people to death. They'll still have zero elections. And whatever, that's wildly popular in Gaza. But when they leave Gaza and start doing international terrorism, accepting money and weapons from Iran and North Korea, that's not being very neighborly and I'm sorry but Hamas needs to go. They have no right to be terrorists. They can practice nok violent resistance if their lives are important to them. If not...

You're not aware of the history because you choose not to

The second link you posted is a study by a Zionist think tank lobbyist called Robbie Sabel

Prof. Robbie Sabel is the former legal advisor to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Deputy Director General for Arms Control of the Ministry, and former Israeli counselor in Washington

Yes... totally unbiased and free of emotion!

Is any article you read not written by some propaganda arm of the Israeli government?

The first paper you linked to basically makes the argument and it's not an apartheid system because Gazans are not citizens of Israel... never stopping for a moment to wonder how they ended up refugees in Gaza instead of citizens of Palestine...

Do you not understand that Israel stole land from Palestinians using law, using force, and using ethnic cleansing? Do you not understand that Gazans SHOULD be citizens and have full rights and tjat denying them this while also building a gisnt siege wall around a little strip is the apartheid part, right?

That paper sounds like it was written by a stinky slithering lying lawyer who thinks this "loophole" cancels human rights for Palestinians. It ignores how the West Bank is made to shrink under zones.

And also, Palestinian citizens of Israel do have it shit.

Btw turns out the two people who wrote the paper also wrote this one: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4087694

This is the kind of intellectual smut that you read... lawyers who want to make it legal to steal land from the native population.

Both those 'papers' on apartheid don't consider any of the overwhelming evidence brought forth by the Reports by three Major Human Rights Organizations, and completely ignore the International Law of the Crimes of Apartheid laid out by International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid (Apartheid Convention) and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (Rome Statute).

This "Lawfare" argument requires being unaware of the history of Zionism as Settler Colonialism, The History of Israeli Occupation, and the abhorrent material conditions Palestinians as subject to on a daily basis due to the Apartheid. It hinges on the premise of human shields. In bad faith of course, as it ignores all IDF use of Human shields and assumes all Hamas as a given despite any verified evidence. It's a way for US State Department Propaganda to justify its military and international support of Israel's ethnic cleansing campaign and genocide.

When it comes to human shields, the only independent verification back in 2014 (Amnesty link) is of Weapons (not rockets) hidden at a vacant school, situated btwn 2 UNRWA schools housing displaced people, by a Palestinian armed group.

The Guardian journalists had encountered a couple individuals in 2014 too.

HRW on Laws-of-War Violations 2009

Amnesty on Hamas War Crimes 2023

Yet none of those come remotely close to making hospitals and schools bombing targets. Even if all the IDF claims were true, that does not exempt those hospitals and schools as protected under international law.

While we're on the subject, let's look at how the IDF uses Human Shields including Children (2013 Report)

This kind of apologia for Israel, where you blame the violence imposed on the Palestinians by their occupiers to be the fault of the Palestinians, shows you don't genuinely care about resolving the conflict or bringing an end to the violence. Whether you know it or not; you're justifing the brutal occupation, the apartheid, the martial law, the military courts, the theft and extortion of water, the exploitation of Palestinians as a workforce without rights, the settler violence, the deprivation of human rights for Palestinians, the destruction of schools, the destruction of hospitals, the destruction of homes, the starvation of children, the execution of women and children, the inhuman torture and abuse of Palestinians and yes even children in Israeli prisons. You don't see Palestinians as human when you justify all this, that's the point of this dehumanizing rhetoric, to justify the human rights abuses and destruction of Palestinians. If you do see palestinians as human, the same as Israelis or anyone else. It's completely clear that this shit is completely unacceptable, yet it's been the reality for decades and decades.

Okay I'm obviously not going to read all this and click all these links, but what the hell do you mean by this:

The only independent verification of Hamas using human Shields was in 2014.

Look at your television right now and you can see with your own eyes Hamas using entire cities as human shields.

Plenty of recent evidence of tunnels under cities and of Hamas directing people to ignore evacuating warnings.

How can you explain your double standard on this if it's not anti-semitism?

I'll start giving a shit what happens to Hamas when they reinstate elections, release all the hostages, and stop taking money from Iran and North Korea to kill Jews. Or maybe if they start following any international law: they can start by wearing uniforms and not purposefully targeting civilians, at a minimum. Until then, they are enemy combatants and not entitled to equal rights under the law.

And that's another reason why it's not apartheid, as cited by the authors of my first two links. If you want to say Israel is Apartheid, your argument is limited to its statutory laws that apply to Israeli citizens, not to non citizens; every country discriminates against non citizens and it's not a war crime. But suddenly with Israel it's a war crime? How do you explain your double standard on this if it's not anti-semitism?

Sounds like denial, this is a war on children by Israel.

If you want to know the answers to those questions, read the first few pages of the Amnesty International Report. It's answered there in detail.

Here is an alternative Piped link(s):

denial

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.

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I will tell the repressed how to protest my oppression and they will be grateful for the chance for me to ignore them.

Man, yeah that always works out.

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mmm "insist", really a strong word that will surely bring a change.

inb4 the air drop supplies get bombed too since it'll light up more civilians for Israel to shoot at.

This is such a misleading headline, it's propaganda. Biden Did not say "Immediate ceasefire, no excuses" Boy I wish he did. Instead he said "Boy I hope we have a cease fire. There's no excuses for Israel keeping aid from going in".

Egypt and Qatar promised Israel that if it sent a delegation to Doha this week for talks on the humanitarian aspects of the proposed deal, they would bring answers from Hamas on which hostages are still alive and put pressure on the group to be flexible on the number of Palestinians prisoners it demands to be released as part of any agreement.

From an article that came out today. Hamas won't even attempt to confirm the hostages it has.

Wah, slow down there Skippy. Let's give this some time to see it can resolve organically.

/S

wow don't be rushing Biden! I'm sure there are still some munitions you have provided Israel that hasn't been used on children yet!

Isn't funny how they were an arms dealer and NOW, after what feels like total anahilation, do they say enough is enough?

And if they DON'T then SURELY more Bombs and Billions of Dollars to Israel will stop them!

Bro do you want the fucker to change course or not?

Yes. Yesterday.

Well shit, let’s just hop in the Time Machine!

Some people are literally never going to be satisfied.

News flash: if you tell everyone that you won't be satisfied with anything remotely possible, people will stop listening to you.

Stop being like MAGA chuds who don't even know what they want. They just want "to win".

He hasn't accomplished anything yet.

Why are you all still talking? Biden has your votes. Be quiet and let the people who are on the fence have the floor. Stop fighting us.

Stop pretending Biden achieves anything before he does it.

We heard this dumb excuse of "we're trying" for months while Biden keeps sending israel more bombs.

Lol moving goal posts again. Love this propaganda account

Or up the timeline. Biden is thinking this statement is enough to get him over the line. It's not. He's too slow. This call should have been made months ago. Cutting off arms shipments should be happening today.

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We're going to pull out EVERY Stop! Like Air Dropping food to Palestine and Bombs also to Palestine!

I'm a bit out of the loop. Did he stop funding Israel or is the USA helping both sides?

Congress controls the purse, they have been providing foreign aid to Israel since long before he was elected. Biden directs the armed forces, and is using them to supply aid to Gaza.

That said, the US has been 'helping both sides' for ages. We provide more money to Israel than any other country, and also contribute more to UNRWA than any other nation. The goal of the US has been to reach a two state solution, so it makes sense to fund both states.

Dont get hopes up, its a a stunt for reelection

Almost everything any politician does is because they think it will help them get reelected. That doesn't mean it's not the right thing to do.

That just means to me that they dont really care about what people wants until they need people. Thats very hypocritical honestly.

Immediate but not permanent. Stop giving them bombs and ammo if you are sincere Joe. Oooooooh nooooes you're not.

Also where does it say in the article that he calls for an immediate ceasefire besides the title ??It is all about dropping humanitarian aid, which in fact is to allow IDF continue the massacre. It is nowhere in other news outlets that he calls for a ceasefire. Also also also, I would expect he is the only one who could enforce it, rather than ask it. Nice distraction attempt. .

Anyway damage is done, good luck with Donut T fellow Americans. The not

They haven’t sent them either of those things since last year. Only aide for Gazans recently.

If you were sincere in caring for gazans you’d be aware that when you say good luck with trump, you’re saying good luck with him to Palestinians, who will definitely suffer much worse under him. He will encourage bibi to finish them off. He’s very vocal about this.

Ohhh nooooos you’re not

Biden has been trying his very best this year to give israel 15 Billion in weapons as fast as possible.

Trump can't do much worse than this Nazi style Genocide. If there's still Palestinians left to Genocide after November that is.

I am well aware of that thank you. But I am not able to show any satisfaction for Biden's less than bare minimum action. It's genocide we are talking about and his "call" for a ceasefire is a discussion with Italian PM that started with "we are trying to work out a deal that...". Is that the best he can do?? Bibi's gonna say fuck you again. I really don't see where the enthusiasm for that "news" comes from

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It's important to note that we can essentially do this because we're providing aid to Israel. In my mind it's sort of the best of a horrible situation, but at least with us aiding them, we can insist on certain conditions. Rare Biden W, in my mind.

The engine of this genocide would have ground to halt before tens of thousands of innocent people were doomed to death if Biden hadn’t specifically blocked other UN powers from forming a coalition with overwhelming international leverage to force Israel to stop slaughtering Palestinians.

This isn’t a “glad Biden is in the room to temper a bunch of insane, violent people” situation, Biden specifically allowed this entire situation to happen more than any other international figure outside of Israel.

Biden has an immense amount of blood on his hands.

They need to make the aid conditional. It won't do much immediately but it is an essential step to stopping the genocide that is currently happening.

Except Netanyahu already told him to go piss in a pot on any deal.

Ah but he won't stop military aid from going to Israel will he?

Has Israel received any military aid since December? Last I heard they were facing a pause in weapon transfers from the US until they could confirm the weapons were being used in accordance with international law.

There was a sale that Biden bypassed Congress on Dec 29th or 30th. It still takes time to deliver so probably they still received stuff in February but definitely January so within the last month or so for sure.

That was noted as it was above the billions in military aide given annually that are already budgeted. We can still give them that close to 4 billion in aide without announcing as it is already in the budget so yes, we are probably still in February and March giving them aide as it is in our budget (I don’t like it, but say our as I am a US citizens).

I saw the EO that would set the stage for that action but I didn't think it was put into effect yet.

Did the recent combined Ukraine/Israel aid bill flounder?

So far it's passed the Senate, but is being refused a vote in the house. Republicans are attempting to pass an Israel only bill, but Biden has vowed to veto it.

Two faced bastard. Billions of aid in ammo for israel then says lets give an airdrop of murder to palestine LMAO what a bitch

"How dare Biden not call for a cease fire. Genocide Joe strikes again!"

Biden: calls for a cease fire

"Wow what a fucking nerd calling for a cease fire, nobody cares shup up"

Bit of a strawman, the initial complaint wasn't that he didn't say some words, the initial complaint was the billions in military aid and actual physical support the administration gave Israel.

The only reason words matter is if they have any impact on reality. Israel knows the U.S is giving them a lot of leeway to commit this genocide because that's what the administration's actions say, hence they're two-faced.

If they decide to stop materially supporting genocide, good. They were still wrong to do it at all, and they can't undo that, so they're still shit-libs, but better late than never I guess, and all those dead children will just have to stay dead.

A good analogy is the apple repair for everyone bill. Its very easy to say ceasefire after just passing the bill for billions in weaponry to israel. This is just a facet. Sorry but i dont believe its genuine. Its not even happening he is just “calling” for it. In the end this is just talk. The action is what we see in front of us.