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this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2024
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He's even older than Biden...
Age was never the issue. The issue was support for genocide
It's certainly an issue. How is he going to negotiate peace if he's physically impaired?
I also don't think Bernie Sanders would do anything meaningful to change things in Gaza. His statements on the matter have basically been, "there's no easy solution, so let's just push for a temporary ceasefire to get humanitarian aid in." He doesn't have a plan to end the conflict, nor do I think he could do the job of a diplomat to bring both sides to the table (and would Hamas even listen to him, he's a Jew and, even if he doesn't have ties to Israel, that's still likely an issue for them).
Sanders isn't a hawk. He's opposed to spending money on war when those funds would be better spent on social programs. He would end the funding of the genocide, which would cease without US funding.
Also, don't be antisemitic. This issue has nothing to do with religion. End the occupation, free the thousands of hostages being tortured by Israel, and you'll be much, much closer to peace
Yeah, I know Sanders isn't a hawk, and I probably would've voted for him in 2016 largely on that issue despite disagreeing with him on most other policies. But that doesn't mean he'd pull funding from Israel, he'd just put conditions on it (only used for defense, and maybe require not targeting humanitarian aid trucks), but money is fungible so I don't think it would help much.
And to say the issue has nothing to do with religion is fanciful thinking. Yeah, Hamas claims that in their manifestos, but their manifestos are absolutely religious. They're not necessarily anti-Judaism, but they're justifying the conflict in religious terms. They're anti-Zionist, and Bernie sharing a religion (on paper at least) with the US' Zionist ally could be a significant issue for credibility if the US is to try to get involved in peace talks.
At the end of the day, Hamas wants Jerusalem, which isn't happening because it's such an important site to both Judaism and Islam. That has everything to do with religion, and it's why neither Israel or Hamas are interested in a two-state solution. Ending the occupation and freeing hostages wouldn't end the conflict, things would just go back to how they were: terrorist attacks by Hamas against Israel. That won't end until Hamas controls Jerusalem, and it might require elimination of the state of Israel.
It has nothing to do with religion. The genocide is against Palestinians. Christian Palestinians are murdered the same as Muslim Palestinians. Atheist Palestinians are murdered the same as other Palestinians.
There are more hawk US American Zionists who are christian and atheist than there are Jewish. And the police beat the shit out of Jewish antizionists as hard as they best the shit out of Muslim antizionists.
This is a colonial project that is after land and water. The target of the genocide is Palestinians and their land. This is not about religion.
I'm not talking about Israel's motivations, I'm taking about Hamas. The US has sway over Israel, but not so much Hamas. If we're to bring an end to the conflict, it'll require talks between Hamas and Israel, so an external facilitator needs to be trusted by at least Hamas. I think Bernie Sanders has some fundamental issues there, and him being old isn't helping matters (though he's certainly a better option than Biden).
The conflict is caused by Israel, though. Most Palestinians aren't motivated to violence because of religion. They're pushed to violence by violence.
Remove the boot on their neck, and hamas would cease to exist.Through its going to take a few generations because Israel seems insistant on creating more and more violent extremists.