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this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2024
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Not sure who you think The Left™ is but we're mostly angry about him supporting genocide. I guess because he did so those good things we should just ignore that?
I never really got informed on the whole situation. Do you have a good snyopsys of it?
Israel indiscriminately bombed 80% of homes in Gaza as well as hospitals and schools where people were seeking refuge, killing upwards of 24,000 people, 12,000 of which were children. The casualties used to be counted by the hospitals but after Israel bombed and destroyed many of them and put the others out of order, there is no mechanism for the casualties to be counted, so hundreds are dying and no one is able to keep track. The official numbers were based off the bodies that reached the hospitals so they are missing all of those who couldn't be recovered from under the rubble, which are a large number because people recovering victims are doing it barehanded with no tools or vehicles. Israel cut off water, food, and medical aid from reaching Gaza. People have died from starvation, illness, and are being forced to ration water 2 liters a person per day for bathing, drinking, and washing meaning there is risk of death from dehydration.
The United States provided Israel with unlimited bombs in order to conduct this genocide. The US also provided direct military support by stationing its aircraft carrier near gaza in the Mediterranean in order to ward off any intervention against the genocide. Joe Biden bypassed congress in order to provide Israel the weapons and funding, not to mislead you that congress would have done anything differently, the entire United States government is genocidal.
Is there any back and forth or has it been one sided?
Inside the Gaza strip Hamas's Al Qassam brigade has been engaging the invading Israeli military with small arms, mortars, and rocket launchers. The numbers of Israeli military casualties are not known because Israel censors them. Early on in the genocide Hamas offered to release its prisoners in exchange for a permanent ceasefire but Israel refused. Israel opted to continue its genocide, recovering none of its prisoners. In fact the Israeli military killed 5 of their own hostages. 3 were shot while waving a white flag in the street. 2 were killed in airstrikes.
Additionally, the initial civilian casualties on the Israeli side were also largely self-inflicted due to their indiscriminate use of force:
https://popularresistance.org/how-israeli-forces-trapped-and-killed-ravers-at-the-nova-festival/
Yes, Israeli eye witness testimonies point to the Israeli military shelling homes in the be'eri settlement with tank fire, firing onto festival goers from helicopters, and shooting at Al Qassam operators with Israeli civilians in the way. Israel confirmed that 200 of the 400 burnt bodies found were not israeli, meaning that israel bombed both Al Qassam operators and 200 of their own civilians during the operation, killing them and burning their bodies.
People do not understand diplomacy or war , don't care about informing themselves or understanding nuance, and like acting and feeling smart. Most of this criticism is purely emotional.
The US and Israel have a very tight strategic relationship and part of it is the US delivering weapons to them. Now the Israelis are annihilating Gaza/Palestine because of the Hamas, and many are demanding a "ceasefire" and holding the US responsible for not stopping the weapons deliveries.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/dec/07/us-israel-military-support-scrutiny-human-rights
Now, there's certainly a lot to criticize about Israel's lack of care against civilian casualties. However, the calls for a ceasefire agreement with the Hamas, who literally do not care about anything other than sowing chaos and discord and destroying Israel, is naive at best and completely dumb and malicious at worst.
If the US stops all weapons deliveries, the Hamas will just recoup and continue to harass Israel. It should be noted as well that the Hamas have shown time and time again to not care about their own population and that they just love using them for their personal gain, especially in international appearances (like this "Genocide Joe" circle jerk).
Because of Israel's lack of care for civilians the US is now, at least according to the media, putting more and more pressure on Israel to watch human rights if they want to keep the endless weapons supplies.
It's quite a complicated topic and I'm not an expert myself, but many takes on it out there just completely disregard reality in favor of catchy slogans and appeals to emotion.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/frustrations-biden-israeli-pm-netanyahu-mount-rcna134263
It's really not, ethnostates are categorically shit and there's no fucking nuance there. You said it yourself "Israel" is a geostrategic interest of the US, because of its location.
if "Israel" didn't exist, the US would have to create it. That's a direct quote from Joe Biden.
The "pressure" they're applying is just for the cameras to spin and gullible rubes to believe. The actions speak far louder. 3 aircraft carrier groups mobilized because the second-poorest country in the middle east was trying to interfere with "Israels" genocide. They could stop weapons shipments at any time, they have instead sped them up.
There's always nuance, you're very wrong here. Israel is an ethnostate for very good reasons and (excluding the occupied areas) it's clearly no apartheid state. Although it's a Jewish state, the arabic Israelis within Israeli territory are not 2nd class citizens.
If just one of the countless "Genocide!" screamers on the internet could explain the discrepancy between the criticism of Israels behaviour and the concurrent absolute non-existence of any Jewish minority whatsoever in any of Israels neighbours.... That would be great. While these are not all ethnostates they have eradicated or expelled their respective Jewish minorities a long time ago. But Israel is shit because it's an ethnostate? Lol
the ethnostate apologizer has arrived. It is an apartheid state, that's why South Africa has felt so compelled to call it out for its actions.
Before the british and french showed up, there were muslims, christians, and jews living side by side across the ottoman empire. Sure it had its problems, but consolidating all the jews into a US-backed military ethnostate is not the answer.
It served British, and now US geostrategic interests.
I also don't think that it's a good answer and I fully agree that the status quo of the ottoman empire was better and by a lot. Nevertheless there are double standards in how Israels actions are viewed by many self-proclaimed progressives or leftists when compared with the conditions in other countries in the middle east.
And just stating that this state of affairs is the fault of the US and European colonialist nations is devoid of nuance, obviously wrong and does not lead to any solutions at all.
I have lots of issues with the social conditions of the various colonized countries surrounding Israel, but I still offer them critical support in their resistance against colonial occupation.
I really don't think that highlighting the historical culpability of the US/european interests in the current situation is robbing any nuance from the discussion. Across many different colonial occupations there has often been some social issue pointed to as the "reason" why it's "ok" for the savages to be colonized, because it's bringing civilization.
It may sound benevolent, but it that's just european chauvinism, creating the terrain for poverty, then acting like the social reaction rising from poverty and occupation as some sort of inherent characteristic in a post-hoc justification.
Mentioning or highlighting these historical facts does of course not remove nuance. Excluding the many other factors at play however and focusing exclusively on this single issue does. And I see this happening a lot.
Politics should formulate utopian visions as long-term goals but must adhere to workability for getting there. Playing blame games and formulating maximum demands that have no chance of realisation in decades to come does not comply with this principle. Many discussions I see online are out of touch with this reality of politics IMO.
From my perspective the people out of touch are the ones who are asking everyone else to disregard the extremely obvious horrors being perpetrated as if there's some nuance which ever could excuse what's happening.
The occupation is enforcing its "maximum demand" every day under the protection of the US and accepting that as a given is itself a position which you are taking.
No, nuance would be for example to understand that while the US are a country with lots of influence and power, its president is actually not that powerful given the current situation. The president is bound by so many conflicting interests, contracts, party politics, strategic considerations etc. pp. that his leeway is probably quite small.
In my eyes it's not just out of touch with reality but also naive to think along the lines of: "Why don't the politicians just do the good thing? It's so simple, just do the good thing. Now because I care about this topic so much that I'm very disappointed that he hasn't used his supreme powers to change the world, I'm not gonna vote for him. Actions have consequences".
Sure, everyone is allowed to practice wishful thinking. But politics won't change.
So from this perspective, Trump is a better alternative because he will continue the genocide while not having any of the benefits listed above.
Got it.
We should be expecting better from Biden. We should be critical when he does evil things. He is definitely the superior candidate over Trump, but to blindly just accept the atrocities that he's contributed to is an insane position to take.
I don't think most people voting for Biden instead of Trump are just blindly accepting what he's doing. I think they don't want a repeat of the social and political events of 2016.
Quite frankly, this is where we are right now. We get a dictator party who will do everything they can to prevent people from voting and certain demographics from holding office, who likely will continue the exact same situation we are already in if not make things worse, and has absolutely no regard for our future by lifting pretty much any restrictions in place for companies. Among a litany of other things.
What doesn't make sense to me is all the people being critical of Biden for his response as if literally any presidential option in the same position wouldn't be doing the same thing. The events happening likely would be the same whether we had Trump or Biden for 2020. So to me the insane position to take seems to be letting perfect be the enemy of progress.
To be clear: I wish we had an alternative. I wish the DNC would not choose Biden, I wish that we had a viable candidate who actually held the values that you and I likely share. I am also extremely critical of Biden's stance on this and the weaker follow throughs from other campaign promises, and yet I understand that his candidacy is what will allow younger politicians to actually get things done. We aren't voting for Biden because he's status quo or supports war, we vote for him for chance of us being able to hold political positions so that we can make a future.
I have heavy doubts that a Trump presidency paves that path. I have heavy doubts that a 3rd party candidate doesn't split a vote (that goes for both candidates). And I have heavy doubts that most people are blindly accepting Biden's response to Israel, it seems most are actually quite upset just like we were with Obama and the drone strikes.
The issue is that we have to deal with reality. Is it turning a blind eye? Or is it recognizing that it likely would be happening regardless and thus the focus should be on what we gain as a country from the president. Say that Trump won in 2020, does anyone think we wouldn't be in the exact same situation we're in now, but with Trumps advisory committee? Does anyone genuinely think that the bombing of Gaza would have somehow been avoided?
No, of course not because that's as insane as thinking that Biden would do anything different towards our historical political ally. It's the same as thinking that Mitt Romney wouldn't have done the same drone strikes Obama did.
I like to think of the U.S. as being on the sea, when we have a set course it doesn't matter if we begin stopping, we're on water so we will continue down that course for a short while. Each presidency historically has 2-3 years of recovery from the previous office, by the end of the 3rd year is usually when you see the current presidency policy changes affecting things. That was the case for Bush's war, the case for Obama's war, the case for Trump's operation in Syria, Somalia, and Yemen. And it's the case now for Biden with Russia and Israel - all of these were events happening prior to their presidency that they needed to make decisions on during.
So the way I see it, each election is the opportunity to set the next 2-3 years course towards something positive. Yes, Biden's response to these events is abysmal. The course we're set on is exponentially better.
Trump's response to these events likely would be just as bad, if not worse. The course we get set on as a country is about as anti-humanitarian as you can get. You're right, Trump is exponentially worse than Biden. So why even give him the time of day - why even have the notion of a chance that he could even possibly be an alternative to Biden?
That's what seems insane.