No, this is not exaggeration. This is real. This is happening. People like Joe Biden, Antony Blinken and John Kirby may deny that it’s happening. But it is. Right before our very eyes. Is that what Europe was like in 1938? In denial? Believing that the rhetoric they were hearing could not possibly mean what Hitler said it does. Are we there? Yes, I’m afraid we are.
Israeli columnist, Daniella London Dekel, wrote this in Yediot Achronot (full text):
“Remember what Amalek did to you.”
Outline an agenda and plan of action [for Gaza]. Don’t be satisfied with eliminating terrorists and their entire leadership through widespread destruction; nor be satisfied with destroying the terrorist infrastructure–or with those who advocate renewed Israeli rule over the entire enclave at the war’s end.
But rather erase it in the literal meaning of word. Everything. Including woman and children. Including every last ounce of sperm in the testicles and the wombs that carry them. Including property, provisions, commerce. Including all of Gaza.
Amalek is the disturbing idea of Amichai Eliyahu: an atom bomb. Nazis? What Nazis? Amalek [Hamas] is a thousand times worse than the Nazis (whose descendants stand with Israel more than any other European nation).
NSC’s John Kirby: “Israel isn’t trying to wipe the Palestinian people off the map. Israel isn’t trying to wipe Gaza off the map. Israel is trying to defend itself against a genocidal terrorist threat. So if we’re going to start using that word, Fine. Let’s use it appropriately.” pic.twitter.com/fRjKXJN6Tv
— Shelley Greenspan (@ShelleyGspan) November 20, 2023
When I first started calling the Gaza war a genocide, it wasn’t as accepted an idea as it has become, alas. But while the world has come to understand that it is, those who rule maintain a facade: genocide? What genocide? This is Israel defending itself from terrorist animals. And we will never deny Israel the right to do so.
Genocide backlash
Case in point: John Kirby, spokesperson for the US National Security Agency. He’s the one who claims that US intelligence has discovered incontrovertible evidence that al-Shifa was actually a Hamas command and control center.
A few days ago, he put on this dog and pony show and specifically addressed the genocide claim:
“Israel isn’t trying to wipe the Palestinian people off the map. Israel isn’t trying to wipe Gaza off the map. Israel is trying to defend itself against a genocidal terrorist threat. So if we’re going to start using that word, Fine. Let’s use it appropriately.”
Guess what, John? Yes, Israel is doing precisely that. Not just “trying.” Doing. Northern Gaza is gone. Nothing remains. No people, no homes, no trees, orchards, farmland, no livestock. Just a barren wasteland. It threatened death to anyone who refused to go south, which Israel claimed was a safe zone. Until it started bombing it. Now it tells those refugees in southern Gaza to evacuate (again) because it will commence military operations there. Where should they go, John? To Egypt? Never to return to their homes in Palestine? So no, John, don’t claim Israel isn’t wiping Gaza off the map. It is doing so. Even as you spoke those clueless words, Israel was doing precisely what you said it wasn’t.
And let’s talk about that what constitutes an “appropriate” use of “genocide.” While killing 1,200 Israelis is horrendous it is not genocide. Genocide requires a pattern of acts and behavior. Neither Hamas nor the Palestinians have come anywhere close.
But note that Kirby calls Hamas’ 10/7 attack a “genocidal terrorist threat.” This is a calculated strategy by the Lobby and Biden administration. Israel’s attack is clearly genocide. But to confuse people, they throw that term back in the faces of Palestine supporters, accusing Hamas of engaging in genocide. How about the slogan: “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free?” Clearly genocidal, right?. That is, if you deliberately ignore the actual meaning of the phrase and the intent of those who embrace it.
This is entirely cynical strategy. One that won’t work ultimately. But they only need it to work for a short time. Just long enough to confuse enough people. They count of people having a short attention span. By then, they expect the world will have moved on.
Regarding the claim of genocide against Hamas, the US General Assembly passed a resolution calling armed resistance against Occupation legitimate. Palestinian resistance is a response to Israeli occupation, killings, land and water theft, etc. A response, even an armed response to Occupation, is not genocide.
What is genocide? Israeli murder of 50,000 Palestinians since 1920. 1948 Nakba, Israeli murder of 15,000 Gazans including 5,000 children in the current war. Forced expulsion of 15 Palestinian villages (1,500 residents) in the West Bank by Judeo-terrorists, under threat of death. Theft of Palestinians lands. Destruction of universities, schools, water and sewage treatment plants. Refusal to provide food to starving refugees. That’s what genocide is.
Opinion polls show opposition to Biden’s approach
If Joe Biden, Tony Blinken, John Kirby and Jake Sullivan want to bury their heads in the sand, be my guest. You can be an apologist for genocide. You can be a tool of the Israel Lobby. But know this: there will be a reckoning. A plurality of the American people do not support what Israel has done in Gaza. While 32% say the US should support Israel. 39% say the US should be a neutral mediator. 68% said Israel should observe an immediate ceasefire. That of course contravenes current US policy. The numbers from that November 15th poll have undoubtedly swung even farther away from supporting Israel over the past 10 days. Separately, Biden’s approval rating slipped by 11% last month, largely because of opposition to his Gaza approach. His approval rating among Arab Americans went from 49% to 17%.
Youth voting rights groups who got out massive numbers of young voters for Biden in 2020 have made clear that his policy is unacceptable. They warned that they will sit out the 2024 election. They’d be right to do so.
Biden’s poll ratings are abysmal. He’s losing to Trump according to every major poll. And not by small margins. He is going to need every vote he can get. Even then he still may come up short. One constituency he’s lost is the progressive Democratic vote. This group wants less Israel and more Palestine. Less cheerleading and more even-handedness.
Biden has made a clear choice: voters or campaign cash. The voters only have their votes. But the pro-Israel donors have the hundreds of millions I’ll need to win. So I’ll stick with the billionaires in the hopes that by the time the election comes voters will forget. I’ve got news: maybe some will forget, but many won’t. And you’ve essentially lost them. I count myself among them. I didn’t vote for Biden in 2020. I definitely won’t vote for him in 2024.
There is a battle for the heart and soul of the Party. Progressives under the banner of the Squad and key members of the House Progressive Caucus are opposed to much of the Lobby’s agenda. The latter responded with $50 million in 2022 to defeat primary candidates deemed hostile to Israel. This coming cycle the number could be closer to $100-million or more.
But members of the Squad like Jamaal Bowman and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez have fought back, launching full frontal attacks on the Lobby for poisoning the American electoral system with boatloads of campaign cash. Not to mention the misogynist, homophobic and Islamophobic nature of targeting women of color, LGBTQ and Muslim American candidates.
The Lobby has recruited primary opponents for all of them. Choosing largely minority candidates in order to mollify minority constituents. But the only agenda the Lobby cares about is Israel. And it tells its candidates what to do, what to say and how to vote when it comes to Israel. Cash gives you access, and access gives you votes.
Consider that an African-American state senator in Michigan was offered $20-million (an offer that may be illegal) by a Lobby donor if he would run against Rep. Rashida Tlaib. Instead of taking the money and running, he turned around and said No. Word leaked and he became a hero overnight. But the Lobby will not forget. They will hound him out of electoral politics if they can.
But Congressional Party leaders have come to the slow realization that if they abandon members of the Squad and progressive primary candidates to Lobby PACs like Aipac PAC, Democratic Majority for Israel and United Democracy Project, it will widen the internal split and cost it majority control in the upcoming election. So Hakeem Jeffries has to weigh how much he money he can raise from Lobby donors vs. how much he could lose if progressive voters stay home. Biden has made his choice. Jeffries will hopefully make a different one.
I think it’s going to be a binary choice in 2024. I will vote for Biden to prevent Trump… but it won’t matter in my state, probably Democratic for Biden… I presume.
Isaac Chotiner has an interview with Democrat Ben Cardin, senior on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He is amazingly cluelessly (knee -jerk) “pro-Israel” in his reasoning. He is supposedly concerned about human rights.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/should-us-aid-to-israel-be-contingent-on-human-rights
The NYTimes has an astonishing article about more Gazans being killed by Israel and at an historic pace…comparing to other wars including our wars. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/25/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-death-toll.html
Truly astonishing.. and that we are complicit. Hamas,in their brutality, inhumanity, has performed an enormous reveal. This repercussions may very well stretch here and decide a close election.
How right-wing extremism leads to Geert Wilders becoming Dutch Prime Minister … now and then …
The Ascendance of Israel’s Radical Right by Ehud Sprinzak | published 1991 |
C-span interview in Washington DC
Biden is not finished with Gazans today …
I have written about Biden’s complicity in Palestinian massacres in May 2021 – May 2022 – May 2023 …
Biden calculates in his feeble mind he still has time to turn the opinion polls around from mid-2024 and beyond.
President Joe Biden has moved to permanently repeal nearly every restriction on Israel’s use of the stockpiles of weapons stored by the United States in Israel, according to The Intercept.
The War Reserve Allies of Israel (WRSA-I) was created in the 1980s to supply the United States in the event of a regional war, and is the largest link in a complex network of caches of virtually foreign American weapons.
Caretaker Dutch PM Rutte, seeking to succeed Jens Stoltenberg, is all in for support for Biden and Israel by supplying unlimited spare parts for Israeli F-35 fighter planes from U.S. stocks (NATO) in Woensdrecht.
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-11-20/ty-article/.premium/u-s-to-push-israel-to-allow-gaza-offshore-gas-reserves-to-revitalize-palestinian-economy/0000018b-ed90-ddc3-afdb-fdd1ff250000
“There is an opportunity here to develop the gas fields in offshore Gaza, on behalf of the Palestinians,” Hochstein told The National, adding “as soon as we get to the day after and this horrible war ends, there are companies willing to develop those fields”…………
……..”Senior Advisor to U.S. President Biden, Amos Hochstein, gives a statement to the media after his meeting with Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri in Beirut, Lebanon, earlier this month.Credit: Bilal Hussein / AP
“We shouldn’t exaggerate its potential, but it can absolutely be a revenue stream for a Palestinian government, and to ensure there is an independent energy system for Palestine,” he continued, adding that there is “clear mechanism that we have developed, that would pose no threat and would maximize the effectiveness for the Palestinian people”.
Hochstein noted that he is “100 percent” sure Israel would allow this, adding that “I am very confident, there is no reason for them not to, it is not theirs [the Israelis], the gas belongs to the Palestinian people.”
I do not agree with Biden’s avoidance of admitting our complicity in what I consider may very well be war crimes and re unconditional support of Israel over the years—- especially now in assessing Oct 7. He is not going to do that. The aftermath, the situation now, one we approved of, made thing worse for Israel and the US. We have an Israel-made humanitarian disaster no doubt in it’s use of disproportionate firepower and indiscrimination. It was revenge/retaliation in measure. This undertaking, is an almost if not impossible goal of getting rid of Hamas while at the same time getting rid of Gazans altogether. Hopefully it will end now.
Biden weakly in such statements (below) departs from the right wing in Israel in power now and perhaps the feeling of many regarding resolution of this long conflict. But Biden really believes, it seems, that Israel must destroy much of Gaza to save it from Hamas and cause this amount of human suffering and death. It was not unavoidable, Sir.
There is much in Biden’s statement below. He is trying to walk a line that perhaps cannot be walked. Note the “two state solution” is now back in full force everywhere in analysis. This is because there is a realization that these two peoples cannot live in one country peacefully after this. But we are a long, long way from two states and there is a lot of suffering and anger and hate to resolve in between. And Biden will not be around for this length of time needed I blieve.
Still beating up on Biden for us here in the USA is shooting ourselves in the foot. Trump is much much worse and we cannot afford to have people so angry that might have voted for Biden otherwise, sitting it out. So I am not happy about arguments that raise Biden’s faults that push this result.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/11/19/icymi-joe-biden-the-u-s-wont-back-down-from-the-challenge-of-putin-and-hamas/
😂
Biden and his security team is still full throttle in support of Israel, complicity to war crimes … the 2-state option already evaporated during 8 years of the Obama-Biden administration … hard lessons not learned … Biden team had the chance to better the situation of the Palestinian people for nearly three years and failed. Supporting the ill-conceived Trump-Kushner-Abu Dhabi Abraham Accords … bypassing rights of Palestine … Joe now partner in erasure of Palestinians in Gaza and West Bank. SHAME
Crying or laughing?
This is what we have. Reality. You over there are not going to change that and have your own problems with right wingers/populists.
So how could Biden have bettered the situation for the Palestinians other than deny aid to Israel at a high cost politically here?
Hamas has changed the equation. What’s the point of blaming? It’s useless unless there is really a lesson and can be acted upon.
We were saying that the 2 state solution is dead. The one state solution seems dead now. What is really dead,we hope or should, is the status quo… which is already changing. Will it change fast enough? People are tired of this. Israeli’s not so carefree as they were. Palestinians are gaining street support.. and even amongst Jews. Now the wisdom is that 2 states is the only way forward. We can look at history and blame.. be my guest. I do it too. The past is what got us to today. We need a way forward. You can’t go forward looking backward and blaming.
… own problems with right wingers/populists …
Add-on effects of 9/11 Al Qaeda attacks on America and Netanyahu declaring Palestinians are same as AQ terrorists and Israel should wipe them out … got a free hand. Palestinian resistance is not illegal. The same persons and organizations in the US considered the Israel lobby, funding right-wing populists across Europe for anti-Islam provocation …creating division on a path of so-called “Clash of Civilization”.
The single member party of Geert Wilders gets large sums from groups like Daniel Pipes, Gatestone Institute, Mercer Family, Robert Shillman (UK Tommy Robinson), David Horowitz Freedom Center, Koch Bros., … see links to FEAR Inc. Richard has blogged on this topic many times over.
John Bolton chairs the Islamophobic Gatestone Institute
Rosenwald is the heiress to the Sears Roebuck fortune. A 2011 report by the Center for American Progress found that since 2001, Rosenwald, through her family foundation, the William Rosenwald Family Fund, donated more than $2.8 million to “organizations that fan the flames of Islamophobia.” Donations are received by the German AfD party surging in the polls today.
My only wish for many decades for leaders directly involved to show courage … my conclusion today is as long as the “Biblical claim” for Eretz Yisrael gets a nod above International law and UNSC Resolutions for a Palestinian State, the ugliness will endure for many years. The destruction in Israel’s domestic politics by the present Netanyahu-Ben Gvir administration has shut the door for any viable peace.
I watched and listened to Yossi Kuperwasser interview on BBC News today. 😡 so sad. No hope whatsoever.
Listen to the views and policy of our Islamophobe politician Geert Wilders … Dutch people of the Islam faith have lived in fear from racism and discrimination, now fear pogroms and indiscriminate killings. Same already happened in Germany with the Turkish community and extreme rightwing terror.
Geert Wilders in 2010: Transfer Palestinians to Jordan
Simply put …
Biden needs to Dump his War Hawks
The president’s refusal to draw any red lines for an Israeli response endangers the entire rules-based international order, of the United Nations Charter, the Nuremberg Trials, the Geneva Conventions, the UN Declaration of Human Rights, and the Rome Statute.
Juan Cole still at it! He has been for years. The other side of the coin, and there are others. Euros have to stop blaming the US. They’ve been “me too” and guilt ridden especially Germany, ennabling these elements in US and the US pro-Israel imbalance. Hopefully this is changing. There are many on the other side of this issue than those that you link. And since October 7th the NYTimes and the WAPO have opened up more to the Palestinian cause and the harm this one-sidedness has been doing to our security as well if nothing else.
This morning’s WAPO https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/11/27/israel-palestine-detention-adminstrative-prisoners-jail/ Ishaan Tharoor has been delivering consistently.
Heather Cox Richardson who has a popular substack and is in Biden’s corner a lot about all the good he has been quietly doing at home, wrote this morning of the Biden/Blinken’s plan for Palestinians. But of course we need to see action. Nothing happens dramatically regarding peace. This is why Hamas belief came to the action of October 7th about which we all, or the grand most of us, would not be aroused.
*In that November 8 address, Blinken outlined the U.S. administration’s policy for the future of Gaza. “[K]ey elements,” he said, are “no forcible displacement of Palestinians from Gaza—not now, not after the war. No use of Gaza as a platform for terrorism or other violent attacks. No reoccupation of Gaza after the conflict ends. No attempt to blockade or besiege Gaza. No reduction in the territory of Gaza. We must also ensure no terrorist threats can emanate from the West Bank.”
Blinken said that “the Palestinian people’s voices and aspirations” must be “at the center of post-crisis governance in Gaza” and that “Palestinian-led governance and Gaza unified with the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority” are U.S. requirements.
Gaza will need a “sustained mechanism for reconstruction,” Blinken said on November 8, “and a pathway to Israelis and Palestinians living side by side in states of their own, with equal measures of security, freedom, opportunity, and dignity.”*
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/november-27-2023?
I meant to write: This is why Hamas belief came to the action of October 7th about which we all, otherwise the grand most of us, would not be aroused.
Thanks