They Used to Say Arabs Can’t Have Democracy Because It’d Be Bad for Israel. Now the U.S. Can’t Have It Either.
A serious red line has been crossed: America’s democratic freedoms, expansive on paper, will simply not tolerate serious dissent on the U.S.–Israel relationship. As criticisms of Israel have become more mainstream, the attempt to shut them down entirely has become more extreme.
In pursuit of this blank-check relationship with an Israeli government that is becoming ever-more intransigent with each passing year, pro-Israel forces in the U.S. are attacking our own democratic freedoms in order to suppress public outcry about apartheid and potential genocide 6,000 miles away. And, if the recent campus crackdowns are any indication, these forces are winning their battle.
With tens of thousands of Palestinians left dead and the Israeli assault on Gaza ongoing, the U.S. protests targeting university ties with Israel over the last month — voluble and outspoken — have been overwhelmingly nonviolent.
Yet these nonviolent protests have met with the full brutal force of the U.S. security state. Dispersing the protest encampments, police have viciously beaten protesters, fired rubber bullets, and enveloped students in dense clouds of tear gas.
Anyone remember the war in Iraq? How people criticizing that war were treated as anti patriotic?
I protested that
Halliburton cash grabwar and it was rough. People young and old would treat us as if we were pissing on the flag. Still waitin’ on them WMDs Dubya!Thank you for your service!
It was unfortunately fruitless. That’s when I learned that Republicans don’t listen to protesters. They just vilify them in the news and call the police. Now we know they don’t even flinch at an insurrection. They may even call you a patriot.
The best part was in 2006 when Democrats retook congress and demonstrated that they were just as much a rubber stamp for war as Republicans had been.
The US pulled out of Iraq in 2007.
And then stayed until 2011.
It took a while to hand full control back to their government after having destroyed and compromised so much of their nation.
Making up excuses after the fact doesn't change what it was at the time.
It’s not an excuse. Bush knocked them back to the Stone Age and Halliburton got the contract to rebuild the nation while the US military supplemented their system of order. We created the problem.
We created the problem and continued to hang out and make it worse till we effectively were kicked out by the Iraqi govt that was supposedly "on our side."
It's an excuse. We shouldn't have been there in the first place, and when your puppet says "nah y'all need to get the duck outta here" you done fucked up.
It would have been great if in 2007 when we called it, if instead of continuing to worsen the situation rebuilding actually occurred, maybe things would be different. But they aren't.
I don't need you gaslighting me about something I saw unfold.
Democrats overwhelmingly voted for the Iraq war. They made encouraging noises about stopping, but they did not get out in 2007 like you lied. They took until 2011, and if they had a Republican president to capitulate to at the time, they would have kept it going longer.
I distinctly remember the way liberals enthusiastically villified antifa when they were the only ones willing to throw down with the neo-nazis and their police protectors in the streets a few years ago. Stop pretending that liberals' overtly fascist cousins are the only anti-democratic faction in the US political establishment.
What a photo. A guy clad head to toe in black squared up with a club in front of the ruins of a protest, the only color in his uniform a big gold star and an American flag.
Why do they have flags on their uniform? Is someone going to mistake which country they're in? Are they soldiers at war? Bringing righteous patriotism into a career that mostly attacks US citizens is a really chilling idea.
Cops don't have any direct association with America as a whole. They're a civilian organization employed and directed by local officials. I believe those are California Highway Patrol officers. If they absolutely have to wear a flag, they can have a bear.
The flag is being used as a symbol of government authority. Governments are big on symbols (YT link) because they work.
It seems they are utilizing it the way people on the right do. If you are queer for instance and you come across a gathering where a bunch of people are flying the stars and stripes you remove yourself from that situation because those people are almost always not safe. Those people have used it as a symbol of fear and intimidation wrapped up cloak of patriot rhetoric for a good decade now.
Is that a Star of David? Oof…
No, it's a seven-pointed star used by the CHP.
Of course the US will have democracy, it's just that poor people having it would be bad for the US
Israel itself means little to the US. It's merely the conduit through which the US Geo-political power gets channeled through in the Middle East at the moment. The moment that Israel become more burden than value, they will be dropped and abandoned like many of nations/regions across the planet.
That's not even it though. The US has so many military bases around the world that Israel is hardly worth maintaining a presence in, much less giving them billions in aid a year. I don't think the US even used Israel for any significant staging for the gulf war and they were all but involved.
It is still the focal point of US presence in the middle east for all the surrounding nations. Israel is synonymous with US power in the region.
Only because the US is their babysitter and sugar daddy.
The same can be said of any place the US has a political/military presence.
No. The US has given 100 billion more to Israel than any other country since WWII, while receiving basically no assistance in any military action aside from using space. Israel is uniquely coddled.
Well... there's always Saudi Arabia - another shining example of "succesful" US foreign policy.
You know what they say... fascism is just colonialism coming home to roost.
Gee, who could have predicted electing someone that spent 50 fucking years loudly declaring that there is absolutely nothing that would ever make him support Israel any less....
Biden talking about current protestors sounds a hell of a lot like trump talking about BLM tho
Yup. Indistinguishable.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/02/us/politics/biden-campus-protests.html
It's peaceful protests to get him to stop funding a genocide, and he's saying the protestors are the violent ones...
Like, you realize racists said the same thing about MLK and the civil rights movement?
Biden was friends with most of those senators. When he talks about the "good ole days" he's talking about hanging out with Strom Thurmond and fighting school integration.
This is who he's always been.
If protests arent inconvenient, how is it going to work?
He’s not talking about peaceful protest there. He’s clearly addressing attacks on Jewish people. In case you’re not aware, antisemitism is prejudice against Jews, prejudice against Israel is nationalism. I know Netanyahu likes to conflate the two, but Biden knows the difference.
But those haven't been happening...
And cops are getting violent with all of them. Even the protestors who are also Jewish and carrying signs saying so.
This isn't a religious thing. It's a genocide thing.
That’s outrageously incorrect. We’re not talking about attacking pro-Israel protesters, or attacks by pro-Palestinian protesters. We’re talking about people ignorantly attacking Jewish students simply because they’re Jewish. They’re being attacked verbally and physically, receiving harassing emails, and being doxxed for being Jewish.
Antisemitism in the US is up 400% since October. College students across the nation have been targeted.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-antisemitic-incidents-up-about-400-since-israel-hamas-war-began-report-says-2023-10-25/
https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/29/business/antisemitism-college-harvard-upenn/index.html
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/73-jewish-college-students-experienced-seen-antisemitism-start-school-rcna127014
https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-jewish-students-say-pro-israel-violence-at-ucla-protest-camp-undercuts-advocacy/
That’s exactly the ignorance that is causing the problem. Jewish is both an ethnicity as well as a religion. That’s why antisemitism is uniquely different, it’s both religious persecution and racism. You should be more informed or you may unintentionally promote hate.
Jews are not committing genocide. Israel is.
The ADL has defined anti-Zionism to be antisemitic, so of course they will say antisemitism has rocketed. I don't doubt that there has been some increase in antisemitism, which is awful, to be clear. But when there are such widespread, deliberate efforts to muddy the waters by conflating anti-Israel sentiment with anti-semitism, the accusation loses its power. And that conflation happens in the articles you posted.
https://www.adl.org/antisemitism
https://www.adl.org/resources/tools-and-strategies/what-antisemitism-anti-zionism-anti-israel-bias
Yes, anti-Zionism is antisemitism, but antisemitism is not anti-Zionism.
Also, the other links are clear accounts of Jewish students, not pro-Israel protesters, being attacked verbally and physically, receiving harassing emails, and being doxxed for being Jewish. Comments like yours are the problem. Read before you type.
Anti-Zionism is NOT antisemitism
According to the ADL it is. I don’t agree, but that’s how they define it.
People want their side to be all good and the opposition to be all bad.
I mean, the opposition is all bad in this case, but one's own side is rarely all good. People more often engage in hagiography than analysis.
It’s just important to know that the side that is at fault is Israel and not Jews. If people understood that, then antisemitic hate crimes wouldn’t be up 400%. The real ignorance is people hearing Biden and Congress condemning antisemitism and conflating it with judgement of anti-Israel protest. They are not the same. Biden knows that, as do the thirty-something Jewish members of Congress. I blame Netanyahu for manipulating that term in defense of Israel, but that doesn’t excuse the ignorance of Americans.
If Biden wasn't trying to imply that the protesters were doing the antisemitism, why did he bring it up every time he talked about the protesters? You don't muddy concepts like that at that level by accident.
How do you not see that one leads to the other without understanding the difference between Israel and Jews?
I can't follow the ones and the others you're intending or make sense of the point you're trying to make.
Biden reliably brought up antisemitism whenever talking about protests. This wasn't Biden overestimating whether the public understood that anti-Zionism is different from anti-semitism. He did it on purpose because he wanted to smear them, because the protests are effectively against his actions (even though their short-term target was their schools) and he wanted the general public to think they're illegitimate and a valid target for administration and police crackdowns. If he wanted to draw a clean distinction between criticism of Israel and hate against Jews, he would have.
"If there wasn't any racism, there wouldn't be racism"? I'm not sure what the point is here.
You're really not seeing the conflict between "There has been a spike in antisemitic activity, yes" and "Biden objecting to antisemitism in the protests while acknowledging their right to voice their grievances with Israel is ignorance"?
I hear it as condemnation of hate crimes that are propelled by the false narrative that protesting Israel is the same as protesting Jews. He’s also saying there’s a difference between protest and attacks.
The spike coincided with the response to October’s attack. It’s a direct correlation that clearly needs to be clarified to some.
Well, cops have beaten the shit out of a lot of Jewish students, so there definitely have been attacks on Jewish people. Don't think that's what Biden was referencing though.
Have you seen any videos of people attacking Jewish people?
If it’s that prevalent then there must be hundreds of such videos.
The articles I shared above have first hand accounts as well as statistics. Most of the attacks are verbal, some physical, harassing emails, and doxxing. Are you suggesting it’s not happening without video?
Im suggesting it’s not happening at a level which would be more than 1% of protesters.
Verbal isn’t worth shit. People have something to gain by lying.
How come we can find videos of people peacefully protesting but all this violence seems to be done off camera?
Are you suggesting that the protesters actually hate Jews and they don’t care about Palestinians?
Not at all. I’m stating, as well as the articles I’ve provided, that there are people that confuse Israel with Jews, and then attack Jews out of ignorance. That’s what Biden is speaking against.
You’re taking the criticism personally, but it’s not directed at all protestors. It’s directed at the ones that can’t discern the difference between protests and attacks, or Israel and Jews. It’s that simple.
And would you like to put a percentage on the protesters with ill intent?
To me it seems like an insignificant amount, and perhaps we should be focusing on the people with a good message and not focus on the few assholes.
As someone who has attended many protests, I can say wholeheartedly that zero is the only acceptable percent.
I too attend protests, every Saturday in Manchester. Nobody here is being antisemitic.
Sure we should strive for zero, but should we let 1 out of 1000 people define our protest?
That seems to allow the MLM to portray us all as antisemite bigots and not people who want Israel to stop murdering people and using our tax money to do so.
It’s strange how during pro Islam marches that they don’t want to do anything about the bigots being racist. Suddenly that’s free speech.
Nah
coming from a true democratic country is kinda sad read this, just accepting the lesser evil of the two options, both paid by billions dollar companies, and still calling itself democratic
It's still a republic with democratic features.
Those features involve lots of money.
Which one is that?
Let me translate that for those who don't understand liberal pretend-democracy schtick.
"We will tolerate dissent as long as it doesn't threaten the status quo with actual change - if it does, we sicc our pet fascists on you."
So you define “actual change” as attacks or violence. That’s fine, but not constitutionally protected. Peaceful protests work. There’s no reason to take them into criminal behavior.
"Law & Order" isn't just the name of a popular pigprop show on television, liberal - it is also the rallying cry of fascism. In fact, it's the fascist's most tried and tested narrative to get gullible liberals onboard the fascism train.
I might be wrong about the last part, though... you never see liberals around when antifa is fighting neo-nazis and klan-boys in the streets. Maybe you're not gullible at all.
Your proof of this?
🥱