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Sanders calls for conditioning US aid to Israel
(www.politico.com)
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this post was submitted on 19 Nov 2023
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Sanders is unfortunately not great on this issue. He’s been opposed to supporting a ceasefire. I find that’s unforgivable given the war crimes Israel is carrying out.
Also if Sander’s really believes that conditioning aid will do anything then he’s being incredibly naive. This is Israel we’re talking about. It’s been the same ethnonationalist project for 75 years. They can not be trusted.
This would be like handing weapons to a known murderer and serial liar but only if they promise not to use them to kill people. Sure Bernie, that will totally be more effective than just not giving them the weapons in the first place.
He's been better than Biden on it.
Sure but that’s not saying much.
He is literally parroting Biden's exact stance here.
You mean Biden's "Israel, you are not alone. The United States stands with you. I’m here to tell you that terrorists will not win." stance? Cause it isn't even close.
Do you think there could ever be a deal reached with Republicans on Ukraine aid without Israel being on the table? I seriously doubt it. Sometimes, you have to dance with the devil. Israel has enough money and weapons to exterminate Palestine whether we give them more or not. Ukraine does not.
Not giving Israel funding will not stop the genocide. Giving Ukraine funding will help stop Russia. The only way you're going to get Republicans to agree to fund Ukraine is to agree to fund Israel. I don't like it, but that's just the only way to get it to work.
If you're at the point where you're ok with your tax dollars going toward funding and sanctioning indiscriminate genocide in Palestine in order to get around a political issue where the opposite side's pitch is to let the Russian war and genocide against Ukraine get out of hand if you don't bless the other genocide...then wtf are we doing? Just trading genocides to score fucking political points. Is that "compromise"? Absolutely fuck that shit. It's possible to completely stop all funding to Israel until they stop and redirect those resources and funding to Ukraine where they're actually fighting for their land and country. Our political fulcrum has been fucked in this country.
I’m ok with my tax dollars going to help Israel defend itself from the government of a neighboring territory that vows to destroy it and conducted a massive terrorist attack killing over 1,000 civilians
I’m even more ok with my tax dollars going toward helping the oppressed people of that territory victimized by both their own government and their neighbor, with meddling by other regional powers, and with other neighbors unwilling to help much. It would be much easier if they didn’t support a terrorist government though
And yes I’m ok with my tax dollars helping a European country defend themselves from a huge neighbor with imperial ambitions
Hamas did not kill over 1000 civilians on October 7th. Not even Israel claims this. Many of the deaths that Israel reported were active IDF soldiers. Furthermore, there is some evidence that the IDF went in guns blazing to territory Hamas had captured. As such, it’s not clear how many civilians died in the crossfire or were massacred by Hamas as Israel claims.
That’s not to say that civilians were not massacred by Hamas militants. However, it’s dangerous to simply trust Israel when they tell you that the purpose of the October 7th attacks was to murder civilians. That rhetoric is meant to paint Hamas as equivalent to ISIS and thus foreclose the possibility of any negotiation and an end to the violence.
An, right. I’m sure it was just innocent Palestinians trying to get to that concert, and it was all just a misunderstanding with Ticketmaster
What on earth are you talking about? You made a false claim about the number of civilian casualties. I pointed out why that was incorrect and why you shouldn’t just trust the IDF’s narrative. I never said Hamas militants didn’t kill civilians.
As for the concert there’s some reporting that suggests the IDF may have fired indiscriminately on Hamas and civilians alike. As I said, it remains unclear how many civilians died in the crossfire or were intentionally murdered.
https://archive.ph/xNMVm
Of course I'm not okay with it. But it's that or abandon Ukraine. Should we do that?
Of course not.
Edit: What I'm saying is it's a false dichotomy driven by our shitty political system that's more focused on political points than actual leadership and governance.
Political realities are, um, real. There's no false dichotomy here.
Sorry, let me rephrase: it's a manufactured reality. I'm not denying that it's one that's been sold as "the real" one, but at the end of the day it's all manufactured and presents a false dichotomy which is only "real" because the people have been told that it is such and have accepted it. We can conceive of better and more rational systems. And I would argue it's on us to do so and to push back against these false dichotomies
Yeah, my first thought was "why give Israel any aid?", then I realized that trying to get the US to stop giving aid entity was probably impossible. A compromise like conditional aid is better than unconditional aid. Compromises are unfortunately often necessary in politics, especially with how divided the US is and their historic support for Israel.
The problem here is that there is nobody to actually compromise with. Alongside republicans many if not most democrats also support unconditional military support for Israel.
There’s frankly no reason Bernie can’t take a principled stance against a country that’s committing war crimes with US weapons. He’s usually comfortable advocating for policies he knows won’t pass. As such, I think it’s clear he actually believes in the compromised position to begin with.
Sanders is not playing the role of a strategic negotiator here. He’s a liberal Zionist. He legitimately believes in arming Israel despite their history of and ongoing support for ethnic cleansing. He just wants Israel to be less obvious about it.
Ceasefire would be an idiot move, so it's nice to see the rare Bernie W.
If your goal is to exterminate Palestinians then yes a ceasefire is an idiot move. Thankfully most of the world isn’t so bloodthirsty.
Hamas has explicitly said they will never stop. So if they just ignore the ceasefire, what is Israel supposed to do, just let their citizens be killed? Regardless of why hamas is doing it, it's going to happen.
It's almost like this is a very complicated situation that literally nobody on this website is capable of even coming close to fixing, but because life only exists as a binary now, anyone who doesn't think identically to me is evil.
The situation isn’t complicated. Israel is an ethnostate responsible for apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and countless other war crimes. The body count is entirely one sided with many more Palestinians dead and displaced. Of course Palestinians won’t stop trying to resist through whatever means are available to them. If it weren’t Hamas it would be some other group.
The solution then is also not complicated. Israel can stop the indiscriminate bombing campaign. They could negotiate a settlement that would actually bring the hostages home. To end future conflict, they can dismantle the apartheid system.
The complicated part is getting the Israeli state to actually do that. If the US continues to provide them with the resources they need to continue oppressing Palestinians, the Israeli government will never back down.
Well, they could stop bombing innocent civilians as a start.