No surprises here; no reasonable person opposes Israel's preservation of its national integrity, any more than they do that of Ukraine, Taiwan, or this country. Biden suffers from the ongoing desire of Americans for their President to have a magic wand that, by waving it, will make all the bad stuff go away. These folks will start wondering sometime Friday why the Key Bridge hasn't been reopened yet and criticize Biden for that. The breaks on Israel policy come from a difference of priorities and perception: most of us prioritize Israeli territorial integrity and the minimization of Gazan civilian casualties while being less concerned about Mr. Netanyahoo's continuation in office. Those who, like the Israeli PM, confuse his integrity (non-existent) with that of his country and who toss in a bit of anti-Palestinian cultural bias, don't have as much trouble accepting the idea that several tens of thousand of dead Gazans is simply the price of eliminating Hamas as an effective player in the Middle Eastern Game of Thrones. Until the financial support that keeps Hamas going is eliminated, they, no more than ISIS or al-Queda, or any of the various other terrorist groups currently muddying the international waters, have any incentive to stop what they're doing and the notion that all of their operatives can be eliminated (killed) is as fanciful now as it has ever been. The two-state idea is probably the only potentially workable approach to 'peace' in the area but that is contingent on having effective policing of both the West Bank and Gaza that necessarily includes restraining the radical Israeli settlers who continue to push into land that is, by international agreement, not theirs. The best that Mr. Biden will be able to do is manage the tension and hope for something of a miracle.
This whole sad and tragic episode has played out far better than Hamas could have imagined..... The scenes of the IDF reenacting the Warsaw Ghetto in Gaza are gold in Islamic propaganda, and the irony is that most of the Muslim world does not particularly care about the Palestinians politically - Bibi's self-serving over-reaction and the IDF's excessive destruction of civilian lives and infrastructure are playing into Hamas's hands. Israel will pay a heavy price internationally for their actions in Gaza, however justified a response was to the horrific Oct. 7 Hamas assault in Israelis.....
Israel's mistreatment of the Palestinians long predates Netanyahu. The Netanyahu government's lack of preparedness surely played a role in the death toll of the 7 October Hamas attack, but Hamas didn't come out of nowhere.
Of course not. My point is that the Israelis took what they found and manipulated it, only to find they had outsmarted themselves and created their own Frankenstein's Monster
This seems to be a tradition in the Middle East. Like "regime change" splintered Iraq and removed Iran's #1 obstacle to regional influence. Guess who's been indispensable to Hamas and Hezbollah? Oops. Has anyone done an alternate history on the premise that the CIA failed to remove Mossadegh? Probably not, but I do think wonder about it.
I've had a thought about it. A w4estern-influenced democratic regime is able to regain control of its natural resources and put the profits of the sales into developing the country in a democratic manner than benefits the majority of the citizenry and really does lift the lowest. With the support of the U.S., this becomes the model for modernization in the Middle East and it sweeps the region in the 1950s and early 60s, throwing aside all the autocratic oligarchic regimes and spreading democracy through the region. It becomes a force so strong it forces France to voluntarily leave the North African provinces and grant them independence. By the mid-60s, the Middle East is 180 degrees opposite to what we know.
This, of course, follows the decision by FDR (who didn't die - and this is the policy he intended to follow post-war) to prevent the French and Dutch from returning to their Asian colonies, placing those countries under a US-led UN trusteeship to develop the civil mechanisms for independence, gained in the early 1950s. There are no wars in Southeast Asia; 58,000 Americans don't die and their descendants do amazing things. Several million Southeast Asians also don't die with similar but larger result. US pressure on Britain gets the British Asian Empire independence. With its influence in the formerly-colonial world high as a result, the world's first anti-colonialist country also uses its influence to transform sub-Saharan Africa, with UN-led mandates for the former colonies to develop the mechanisms of independent government that had been suppressed and destroyed by the former colonial powers.
By now, the nations of the South have had 50 years of peaceful, democratic development. There's a truly international base on the moon.
A boy can dream, yes? This is an alternate history that could have happened, had the US ruling class that saw themselves as the inheritors of the Pax Britannica had been stymied by FDR and a couple of strongly FDR-influenced US presidents. (which unfortunately means don't go trying to live in cloud land)
While I still distrust polls I tend to agree with this one. But why on Earth should Joe Biden be held to any level of responsibility. He has made clear in his speeches, and the number of visits by Antony Blinken to the war arena, that he wants a two State solution and an end to this war; we are even building a temporary pier on the Gaza Mediterranean shore to provide humanitarian aid and relief for the Palestinians. Joe also warned both Netanyahu and Hamas not to interfere with the distribution and medical assistance. The one person most responsible for the death and destruction of Palestinians is Netanyahu. Neither Biden nor Blinken favor Netanyahu - who, like our very own trumpster, is clinging to office as a stay out of jail free card.
The second responsibility for the destruction of Gaza lies with Hamas and Iran. Hamas has NEVER been kind or considerate of the Palestinian people - who do you think herded the Palestinians into concentration camps - I know they call them refugee camps - they lie. And where do you think the sacrificial suicide bombers came from? the Hamas elite? Hell, no, they were teen age boys and a few girls from those same concentration camps.
I agree, I am disgusted by the Gaza/Israeli war - buts lets put the blame where it belongs: Hamas/Iran/Netanyahu
I just don't believe we have the luxury to do that this time around. I really don't. The amount of disinformation out there is staggering and people who mostly get their news television or from Facebook feeds are getting a pretty unfortunate diet. You are never going to have a perfect candidate with a magic wand and crystal ball who will save us from the wicked world, but having a competent leader who is surrounded not by sycophants, but by intelligent and competent people beats the pants off a wanna-be Mafia don.
To someone who's been following the story for decades, this is a pleasant surprise. I hope it's mainly due to increasing awareness of the situation, not to antisemitism (though I'm pretty sure that's a factor in some quarters). The downside is that those who've started paying attention in the last few months are blaming much too much on Biden and the Biden administration. U.S. policy in the Levant has a long history, and if you're aware of the history, you probably realize that the U.S. abstention in a Security Council vote is a big deal: the U.S. has been blocking all attempts to hold Israel to account for decades. (Has the U.S. been seriously critical of Israel since it stood against Britain, France, and Israel's invasion of Egypt over the nationalization of the Suez Canal in 1956?)
U.S. foreign policy doesn't turn on a dime, people. You know this. You know that the defense contractors (aka the "military-industrial complex") are well entrenched and can't be removed in a day. You know that this is an election year, and that AIPAC is a serious factor in Democratic fundraising -- it's currently trying to dis-elect some of the most effective, and vulnerable, members of Congress. So hold your nose if you have to, but for the good of the country, and the world at large, keep working for a blue tsunami in November.
Actually, the solid support of Israel didn't really manifest until after the Six Day War, when the US began supplying Israel with US aircraft in the wake of DeGaulle's moratorium on further sales to Israel. You can see the truth of this in every photo of Israelis in the Six Day War. The US equipment visible is all World War II surplus - upgraded (by the French) Sherman tanks, half-tracks, jeeps, etc. It's only post 1968 that you see first-rate US equipment in military photos. In fact, during the Six Day War, the US was seen by Israel as a potential enemy, resulting in the attack on USS Liberty which the Israelis knew was spying on their comms in the Sinai. The result of that was the US Sixth Fleet prepared an attack on the Israeli air force, on all its bases, that was only stopped at the last minute by LBJ, in the wake of the Soviet announcement that morning that they were going to provide Soviet pilots and aircraft to defend Egypt and were prepared to send troops. The Soviet involvement in the Continuation War solidified US support and led to what we have today.
This is very useful info. I turned 16 during the Six-Day War and was already aware of the Nakba, but I was just beginning to understand international intrigue, about Vietnam as well as the Middle East. (At the time, I knew more about WWI, Sykes-Picot, and the Balfour Declaration than I did about what was going on in the '50s and '60s. Have learned a lot since but there are still serious gaps.)
No need to hold our noses on this one. Biden’s doing a good job with competent people working with him under enormously complicated and difficult. circumstances. While we can offer constructive criticism, which is our right and responsibility in a democracy, we need to back him up.
I don't need to hold *my* nose, but some members of my Israel/Palestine group are considering sitting out the election over the administration's (ongoing, evolving) policy, and I doubt they're unique.
True, but I wouldn't call these particular people or the group "the Left." Several of us have experience with the Left going back decades, but we're not the ones who are talking about sitting out the election. Those who are, are totally focused on this one issue and don't seem all that aware of either the history or the wider world.
What surprises me is that they aren't among the younger members of the group. They're closer to my age. When I was in my 20s (basically the 1970s), I was partly in the "if voting could change anything, it would be illegal" camp, but I also thought voting was primarily about voting one's conscience. Reagan's election in 1980 cured me of that one, and I've been a regular voter ever since (and since 2017 a poll worker in my town).
While the scenes from Gaza are heart wrenching, isn't it incumbent on those proposing a cease-fire to come up with a plan for the "day after"? Given that there have been a total of 15 cease-fires from the time Israel voluntarily pulled out of Gaza until Oct 7, each broken by Hamas, how do we escape just mowing the same lawn yet again, this time just a little shorter?
Who will police the cease fire and distribute the aid? Certainly NOT any of the parties involved in the past. They have proven to be either incompetent or complicit. Or both. Further who will disarm Hamas and the other radicals? Who will run Gaza politically, at least until some civic body is able to stand up? Who provides security for Gazans and Israel, to assure a solution is permanent?
These are not simple problems, but ones which must be defined and resolved before there's any hope of a permanent cease fire. Otherwise we're just merely exchanging today's dead for tomorrow's.
The UN has had a lot to say about the war as it's unfolded, so why not send in the blue hats for peacekeeping? As for establishing a governing body to rebuild Gaza, that is much, much trickier, mostly because none of the surrounding Muslim countries has expressed a willingness to deal with the refugees much less help with policing and a rebuild, and also because Israel is intransigent regarding a two-state solution. No one can identify any leaders or diplomats on either side who could actually begin good-faith and onsite peace talks. Still, efforts must be made because Israel seems to have checked all the boxes that define genocide.
What's happening is called war, urban war. Not genocide.
The UN is a big reason we're in this situation, and it speaks volumes about the Palestinians that no surrounding Muslim country wants to touch them with a 10-ft pole, with or without incurring any refugees. Israel seems out of "good faith" as its never paid off in the past (the only possible exceptions being peace with Egypt and Jordan)
So basically, there is no plan for the day after. Wonderful.
Biden does have a mess of a situation to address, especially because Israel is probably our key source of reliable intel in that part of the world and one of the big buyers of US arms. On the one hand Biden wants the US to backstop Ukraine and its democracy, on the other hand he'd be failing to backstop another democracy and ally by backing away, mixed messages on the world stage. And the dark shadow cast over this is Iran. It's Tetras, three-dimensional chess, and landmines all in one.
No surprises here; no reasonable person opposes Israel's preservation of its national integrity, any more than they do that of Ukraine, Taiwan, or this country. Biden suffers from the ongoing desire of Americans for their President to have a magic wand that, by waving it, will make all the bad stuff go away. These folks will start wondering sometime Friday why the Key Bridge hasn't been reopened yet and criticize Biden for that. The breaks on Israel policy come from a difference of priorities and perception: most of us prioritize Israeli territorial integrity and the minimization of Gazan civilian casualties while being less concerned about Mr. Netanyahoo's continuation in office. Those who, like the Israeli PM, confuse his integrity (non-existent) with that of his country and who toss in a bit of anti-Palestinian cultural bias, don't have as much trouble accepting the idea that several tens of thousand of dead Gazans is simply the price of eliminating Hamas as an effective player in the Middle Eastern Game of Thrones. Until the financial support that keeps Hamas going is eliminated, they, no more than ISIS or al-Queda, or any of the various other terrorist groups currently muddying the international waters, have any incentive to stop what they're doing and the notion that all of their operatives can be eliminated (killed) is as fanciful now as it has ever been. The two-state idea is probably the only potentially workable approach to 'peace' in the area but that is contingent on having effective policing of both the West Bank and Gaza that necessarily includes restraining the radical Israeli settlers who continue to push into land that is, by international agreement, not theirs. The best that Mr. Biden will be able to do is manage the tension and hope for something of a miracle.
This whole sad and tragic episode has played out far better than Hamas could have imagined..... The scenes of the IDF reenacting the Warsaw Ghetto in Gaza are gold in Islamic propaganda, and the irony is that most of the Muslim world does not particularly care about the Palestinians politically - Bibi's self-serving over-reaction and the IDF's excessive destruction of civilian lives and infrastructure are playing into Hamas's hands. Israel will pay a heavy price internationally for their actions in Gaza, however justified a response was to the horrific Oct. 7 Hamas assault in Israelis.....
There needs to be a distinction made: Israel is not Netanyahu.
Netanyahu is a right wing criminal, much like tRump. THEY provoked the Hamas attack by moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem.
Israel's mistreatment of the Palestinians long predates Netanyahu. The Netanyahu government's lack of preparedness surely played a role in the death toll of the 7 October Hamas attack, but Hamas didn't come out of nowhere.
As a matter of fact, Hamas was created by the Mossad, to split the Palestinians and reduce support for the PLO.
OK, but Hamas didn't come out of nowhere. Israel didn't either, for that matter.
Of course not. My point is that the Israelis took what they found and manipulated it, only to find they had outsmarted themselves and created their own Frankenstein's Monster
This seems to be a tradition in the Middle East. Like "regime change" splintered Iraq and removed Iran's #1 obstacle to regional influence. Guess who's been indispensable to Hamas and Hezbollah? Oops. Has anyone done an alternate history on the premise that the CIA failed to remove Mossadegh? Probably not, but I do think wonder about it.
I've had a thought about it. A w4estern-influenced democratic regime is able to regain control of its natural resources and put the profits of the sales into developing the country in a democratic manner than benefits the majority of the citizenry and really does lift the lowest. With the support of the U.S., this becomes the model for modernization in the Middle East and it sweeps the region in the 1950s and early 60s, throwing aside all the autocratic oligarchic regimes and spreading democracy through the region. It becomes a force so strong it forces France to voluntarily leave the North African provinces and grant them independence. By the mid-60s, the Middle East is 180 degrees opposite to what we know.
This, of course, follows the decision by FDR (who didn't die - and this is the policy he intended to follow post-war) to prevent the French and Dutch from returning to their Asian colonies, placing those countries under a US-led UN trusteeship to develop the civil mechanisms for independence, gained in the early 1950s. There are no wars in Southeast Asia; 58,000 Americans don't die and their descendants do amazing things. Several million Southeast Asians also don't die with similar but larger result. US pressure on Britain gets the British Asian Empire independence. With its influence in the formerly-colonial world high as a result, the world's first anti-colonialist country also uses its influence to transform sub-Saharan Africa, with UN-led mandates for the former colonies to develop the mechanisms of independent government that had been suppressed and destroyed by the former colonial powers.
By now, the nations of the South have had 50 years of peaceful, democratic development. There's a truly international base on the moon.
A boy can dream, yes? This is an alternate history that could have happened, had the US ruling class that saw themselves as the inheritors of the Pax Britannica had been stymied by FDR and a couple of strongly FDR-influenced US presidents. (which unfortunately means don't go trying to live in cloud land)
While I still distrust polls I tend to agree with this one. But why on Earth should Joe Biden be held to any level of responsibility. He has made clear in his speeches, and the number of visits by Antony Blinken to the war arena, that he wants a two State solution and an end to this war; we are even building a temporary pier on the Gaza Mediterranean shore to provide humanitarian aid and relief for the Palestinians. Joe also warned both Netanyahu and Hamas not to interfere with the distribution and medical assistance. The one person most responsible for the death and destruction of Palestinians is Netanyahu. Neither Biden nor Blinken favor Netanyahu - who, like our very own trumpster, is clinging to office as a stay out of jail free card.
The second responsibility for the destruction of Gaza lies with Hamas and Iran. Hamas has NEVER been kind or considerate of the Palestinian people - who do you think herded the Palestinians into concentration camps - I know they call them refugee camps - they lie. And where do you think the sacrificial suicide bombers came from? the Hamas elite? Hell, no, they were teen age boys and a few girls from those same concentration camps.
I agree, I am disgusted by the Gaza/Israeli war - buts lets put the blame where it belongs: Hamas/Iran/Netanyahu
And the blame is in that descending order.
Good call 👍
I just don't believe we have the luxury to do that this time around. I really don't. The amount of disinformation out there is staggering and people who mostly get their news television or from Facebook feeds are getting a pretty unfortunate diet. You are never going to have a perfect candidate with a magic wand and crystal ball who will save us from the wicked world, but having a competent leader who is surrounded not by sycophants, but by intelligent and competent people beats the pants off a wanna-be Mafia don.
Bibi has done the impossible. Be more of a terrorist than Hamas. Well, at least as bad.
Close, but he’s still trailing.
To someone who's been following the story for decades, this is a pleasant surprise. I hope it's mainly due to increasing awareness of the situation, not to antisemitism (though I'm pretty sure that's a factor in some quarters). The downside is that those who've started paying attention in the last few months are blaming much too much on Biden and the Biden administration. U.S. policy in the Levant has a long history, and if you're aware of the history, you probably realize that the U.S. abstention in a Security Council vote is a big deal: the U.S. has been blocking all attempts to hold Israel to account for decades. (Has the U.S. been seriously critical of Israel since it stood against Britain, France, and Israel's invasion of Egypt over the nationalization of the Suez Canal in 1956?)
U.S. foreign policy doesn't turn on a dime, people. You know this. You know that the defense contractors (aka the "military-industrial complex") are well entrenched and can't be removed in a day. You know that this is an election year, and that AIPAC is a serious factor in Democratic fundraising -- it's currently trying to dis-elect some of the most effective, and vulnerable, members of Congress. So hold your nose if you have to, but for the good of the country, and the world at large, keep working for a blue tsunami in November.
Actually, the solid support of Israel didn't really manifest until after the Six Day War, when the US began supplying Israel with US aircraft in the wake of DeGaulle's moratorium on further sales to Israel. You can see the truth of this in every photo of Israelis in the Six Day War. The US equipment visible is all World War II surplus - upgraded (by the French) Sherman tanks, half-tracks, jeeps, etc. It's only post 1968 that you see first-rate US equipment in military photos. In fact, during the Six Day War, the US was seen by Israel as a potential enemy, resulting in the attack on USS Liberty which the Israelis knew was spying on their comms in the Sinai. The result of that was the US Sixth Fleet prepared an attack on the Israeli air force, on all its bases, that was only stopped at the last minute by LBJ, in the wake of the Soviet announcement that morning that they were going to provide Soviet pilots and aircraft to defend Egypt and were prepared to send troops. The Soviet involvement in the Continuation War solidified US support and led to what we have today.
This is very useful info. I turned 16 during the Six-Day War and was already aware of the Nakba, but I was just beginning to understand international intrigue, about Vietnam as well as the Middle East. (At the time, I knew more about WWI, Sykes-Picot, and the Balfour Declaration than I did about what was going on in the '50s and '60s. Have learned a lot since but there are still serious gaps.)
No need to hold our noses on this one. Biden’s doing a good job with competent people working with him under enormously complicated and difficult. circumstances. While we can offer constructive criticism, which is our right and responsibility in a democracy, we need to back him up.
I don't need to hold *my* nose, but some members of my Israel/Palestine group are considering sitting out the election over the administration's (ongoing, evolving) policy, and I doubt they're unique.
Further proof that the Left never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity (unfortunatly).
True, but I wouldn't call these particular people or the group "the Left." Several of us have experience with the Left going back decades, but we're not the ones who are talking about sitting out the election. Those who are, are totally focused on this one issue and don't seem all that aware of either the history or the wider world.
What surprises me is that they aren't among the younger members of the group. They're closer to my age. When I was in my 20s (basically the 1970s), I was partly in the "if voting could change anything, it would be illegal" camp, but I also thought voting was primarily about voting one's conscience. Reagan's election in 1980 cured me of that one, and I've been a regular voter ever since (and since 2017 a poll worker in my town).
Yes, the other name for them is The Irrelevant Left.
While the scenes from Gaza are heart wrenching, isn't it incumbent on those proposing a cease-fire to come up with a plan for the "day after"? Given that there have been a total of 15 cease-fires from the time Israel voluntarily pulled out of Gaza until Oct 7, each broken by Hamas, how do we escape just mowing the same lawn yet again, this time just a little shorter?
Who will police the cease fire and distribute the aid? Certainly NOT any of the parties involved in the past. They have proven to be either incompetent or complicit. Or both. Further who will disarm Hamas and the other radicals? Who will run Gaza politically, at least until some civic body is able to stand up? Who provides security for Gazans and Israel, to assure a solution is permanent?
These are not simple problems, but ones which must be defined and resolved before there's any hope of a permanent cease fire. Otherwise we're just merely exchanging today's dead for tomorrow's.
The UN has had a lot to say about the war as it's unfolded, so why not send in the blue hats for peacekeeping? As for establishing a governing body to rebuild Gaza, that is much, much trickier, mostly because none of the surrounding Muslim countries has expressed a willingness to deal with the refugees much less help with policing and a rebuild, and also because Israel is intransigent regarding a two-state solution. No one can identify any leaders or diplomats on either side who could actually begin good-faith and onsite peace talks. Still, efforts must be made because Israel seems to have checked all the boxes that define genocide.
What's happening is called war, urban war. Not genocide.
The UN is a big reason we're in this situation, and it speaks volumes about the Palestinians that no surrounding Muslim country wants to touch them with a 10-ft pole, with or without incurring any refugees. Israel seems out of "good faith" as its never paid off in the past (the only possible exceptions being peace with Egypt and Jordan)
So basically, there is no plan for the day after. Wonderful.
It seems to be sinking in that you can be Pro Palestinian without being pro Hamas.
Biden does have a mess of a situation to address, especially because Israel is probably our key source of reliable intel in that part of the world and one of the big buyers of US arms. On the one hand Biden wants the US to backstop Ukraine and its democracy, on the other hand he'd be failing to backstop another democracy and ally by backing away, mixed messages on the world stage. And the dark shadow cast over this is Iran. It's Tetras, three-dimensional chess, and landmines all in one.