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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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politics
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"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.