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Even Biden’s Lawyers Are Urging the White House to Change Course on Gaza
(theintercept.com)
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this post was submitted on 10 May 2024
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Politically, he can't. I think he's actually going further than 90% of other presidents would be prepared to do by delaying arms. He's even leaned into the 'pro-Israeli' crowd and given Israel so much benefit of the doubt lest he be called out as anti-Semitic.
Realistically, I don't think he enjoys being in this position either, but if the Israeli lobby switch to the Republicans, its cuts off a lot of support.
Don't forget that Hamas are terrorists, they condoned and supported the October 7th atrocities and from what I've heard from the hostages, some of them were not great to their captives to say the least. Hamas do need to be removed from power.
Is Israel going too far? Yes, yes they are... can you win the next election by being seen to support Hamas? Even if what you're actually doing is trying to protect civilians? Nope. Until someone makes a decision that Israel are actually committing genocide (and in my opinion based on the evidence I've observed, this seems very likely), I don't think the president has a political leg to stand on. Once that decision is made, I believe Israel will see international support begin to fade.
Disclaimer: The use of the word "Israel" is limited to Benjamin Netanyahu, the IDF, the ruling government the Likud party.
Compared to Israel they're just a bunch of amateurs.
Terrorism is not an ideological choice, it is a military strategy employed by groups that do not have the means to fight a more traditional conflict.
Hamas uses “terrorism” but the IDF doesn’t need “terrorism” because it has tanks, advanced fighter jets and one of the most advanced and well armed militaries in the world. It can just slaughter innocent tens of thousands of Palestinians and claim it is doing “military operations” and the world media will shake their heads and agree.
"Stopping the genocide of women and children might cause Biden to lose in the fall. No can do bucko!"
I especially can’t stand that people keep treating it as a fact here that US voters are split 50-50 on Israel’s genocide to stop. The polling is clear, US voters with a decisive majority support Palestine and ending this genocide.
People in this thread asserting that most Americans support Israeli’s actions in this genocide rather than support Palestinians as a some kind of indisputable fact as part of their rhetorical arguments is a self fulfilling prophecy of attempting to manufacture consensus where it doesn’t exist.
The popular vote doesn't matter in America. Just ask Trump who lost the popular vote yet won the presidency. Biden needs the electoral college votes to be elected and some of those are deep in Israeli pockets.
I can certainly appreciate the point, but realistically what can he actually do? Israel have already shown that they don't actually give a toss about what the US of A thinks. The US have said stop hundreds of times already and Israel have carried on bombing refugee camps. Even if he stops sending any weapons right this minute or even at the start of the war... would that have actually stopped Israel no, would Iran have actually launched a straight up invasion, you betcha.
The next option is to go to war with Israel and return Israel back to the mandate. This will take well over a few months, in which time if Trump is elected, as another commentator said, he's likely just to authorize Israel to and I quote "glass Palestine". Thousands of people verse Millions of people, it's a horrifying choice.
Israel is literally existentially dependent on the US along multiple vectors including material military aid and diplomatic cover (especially now that they have made themselves a pariah state globally), this means that Biden has holds ALL of the leverage. Biden just has to actually demonstrate to Netanyahu he isn’t playing around, which Biden has being doing the opposite of.
You make it sound like Israel have no cards to play. Russia, China and other states have made it clear that they are prepared to back Israel, even more so if that means an ally turning away from the US.
Of course Biden cannot hold Netanyahu's feet to the fire, because otherwise it means withdrawing military support etcera. If Biden does this he will 100% lose electoral college votes and then we have trump in office.
I'm no fan of Netanyahu or current Israeli policy and if I could see a perfect solution where Hamas get evicted, Netanyahu gets thrown under a bus and unelected, to work towards a proper two state solution, I would happily support that... it just isn't there and the Israeli lobby is stupidly powerful in American politics.
Do you think the risk of losing is preferrable?
It's a fucked up situation, but until enough of the voterbase is convinced or he no longer has to worry about the election, he's in an awful bind.
The unpleasant truth is that, to some extent, the US is still a democracy, and the opinion of the people matters. If the majority of the US populace doesn't see it as genocide, it is democratically right for him to act on that opinion.
Which means the fault isn't with him alone - arguably, he could take the risk and attempt to inform people - but also with the voters, the propaganda that misled them and the fucked up election system.
The mass graves for starters that were discovered after the IDF left the area. The indiscriminate bombing of hospitals, UN assigned refugee camps don't go amiss either. The forceful expulsion of millions of people from their homes to ever smaller and smaller parts of Gaza. Perhaps where the IDF told people to go to certain places for safety and then promptly bombed those places.This is supported by statements made my ministers or representatives in the Israeli legislature and government, including current and former ministers. The denial/restriction of aid and water.
This is completely aside from using trumped up evidence absent charges that members of the UN agency were supporting Hamas in order to disrupt funding to a UN refugee agency. They also used this as an excuse to raid hospitals providing necessary medical care, doctors and nurses have been killed. Oh and killing aid workers... repeatedly. I think the first excuse was "it wasn't us" which turned into "it was us but it was an accident" to "it was us, we deemed them a thread"... another incident was... World Kitchen? That was just such a shitshow for the IDF that someone actually got the boot.
There's plenty of evidence available, it's literally everywhere and often published/reported on by international media.