Biden Was Right About Both Antisemitism and the Palestinians Sometimes basic humanity means seeing “both sides.”
"Israel Is Facing an Iraq-like Quagmire "The War Games of Israel and Iran "‘Buying Quiet’: Inside the Israeli Plan That Propped Up Hamas "How Netanyahu's Hamas policy came back to haunt him — and Israel" Six months in, there’s still no plan for after the war, U.S. officials say."
[...]How Israel Quietly Crushed Early American Jewish Dissent on Palestine “Our Palestine Question,” an explosive new book by Geoffrey Levin, delves into American Jewish McCarthyism from the 1950s through late 1970s. https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=173965072
Netanyahu’s Betrayal of Democracy Is a Betrayal of Israel January, 2023 - https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=170949384 [...] Ehud Barak says more than two decades ago he was new enough in Israeli politics to tell the truth. He declared then that if he was a Palestinian, he’d probably be a terrorist.
That comment could have derailed a spectacular military and political career, but the former general chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) went on to become prime minister and defence minister. https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=174018497 ----------
By Jonathan Chait, who’s been a New York political columnist since 2011.
In the wake of the most recent spree of antisemitic harassment .. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/columbia-protest-anti-semitism-campus-israel-jewish-students-justice-palestine.html , President Biden made a statement denouncing the harassment of Jews, while gesturing toward sympathy for the plight of Palestinian Arabs: “I condemn the antisemitic protests. That’s why I’ve set up a program to deal with that. I also condemn those who don’t understand what’s going on with the Palestinians.”
Unsurprisingly, this caused an outrage response from the eliminationist left. Somewhat more surprisingly, unless you are familiar with this particular pathology, Biden’s statement also generated outrage on the political right.
This is a familiar anti-anti-Trump tactic: finding Trump’s most indefensible moments and then attempting to blow up a minor or imagined Biden infraction to an equivalent size to neutralize the issue. In this case, they are pretending Biden’s expression of sympathy for Palestinians is the equivalent of Donald Trump calling the pro-Confederate demonstrators in Charlottesville “very fine people.”
But there was nothing in Biden’s remark that hinted of sympathy for the antisemitic protests he was denouncing. He was remarking that Palestinian people are suffering and deserve sympathy and attention, and not allowing his radical critics to take ownership of that sentiment.
Since both sides has now become an epithet used by, well, both sides, it is worth making a defense of the general construct. The term both sides became sarcastic shorthand for a common practice in the mainstream media of pretending offenses that were solely committed by the Republican Party were being shared by Democrats. You could find this trope in stories about subjects like, say, the debt ceiling, where fake neutrality would cause reporters to pretend both parties were using hostage tactics .. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/05/debt-ceiling-congress-blame-republicans-democrats-default-new-york-times.html .
Yet the general idea of adopting a broad moral framework and balancing competing moral principles remains correct. The error is to misapply it to situations in which all fault is concentrated in a single party. But I do not think that is a useful way to approach all political conflict. And it is an especially poor one for the conflict in the Middle East.
Biden has taken abuse from all directions for attempting to hold multiple values in his head at once. The president has, at various times, expressed the following ideas:
1. Terrorist attacks on civilians are wrong. 2. Israel has a right to self-defense that is bounded by a requirement to minimize civilian casualties. 3. Bigotry against Jews, Muslims, or Arabs is categorically wrong.
Now, one might object that, in praising Biden for these morally intuitive positions, I have set the bar too low. And it is a low bar indeed. But the pertinent thing is that Biden and his allies are the only faction in American politics that has managed to clear this low bar.
Mr. Biden should unqualifiedly condemn antisemitism and harassment and violence against Jews. Trying to balance that justified condemnation by suggesting a false moral equivalence is wrong and will hurt him politically. Most Americans understand the difference between the murderers and rapists of Hamas and the defenders of Israel, even if they sometimes fault Israeli actions. If Mr. Biden fails to understand that difference — or, worse, understands but deliberately blurs it — voters will see through his politicization of a clear moral issue.
Many of these antisemitic rioters are as anti-American as they are anti-Israel. Their chants include “Death to America,” “Revolution,” and “Genocide Joe.” Some openly support Iran.
The sheer chutzpah of this passage is astonishing. They are blaming the president for slogans being used by anti-Biden protesters. Meanwhile, Trump has been delighting .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/04/14/genocide-israel-gaza-iran-trump-biden/ .. in chants of “Genocide Joe” at his rallies. Yet Trump’s defenders have somehow transmogrified the blame for an attack line used against Biden, and taken up by Trump, onto Biden himself.
Devising an effective and moral response to a terrorist group that deliberately maximizes civilian casualties is hard. Influencing policy in another country, even one that is subject to your leverage, is even harder. It is fair to fault Biden for having failed to stanch the conflict.
But it’s easy to devise a solution when you’re free to ignore the humanity of one side of the conflict. Biden is struggling to create and carry out a vision because he is trying to do something morally complex. That is a basic standard of decency his critics on the left and right alike have failed to clear.
10min update: Biden is right: It’s time to end the awful Gaza war
"Israel Is Facing an Iraq-like Quagmire "The War Games of Israel and Iran "‘Buying Quiet’: Inside the Israeli Plan That Propped Up Hamas "How Netanyahu's Hamas policy came back to haunt him — and Israel""
---- Related: brooklyn13, There are responses to attacks, and responses. I'll remind you of positions of two very prominent and respected Israel leaders. One late, one still with us. [...]Mr Barak believes that the optimal outcome, once Hamas’s military capabilities have been sufficiently degraded, is the re-establishment of the Palestinian Authority in Gaza. [...]As Peres told them so many decades ago: That is, Peres thinks that the Likud Party and its partners are living in a fool’s paradise if they believe they can annex the whole of Palestinian territory without getting the Palestinians as Israeli citizens eventually. And then, Peres says, no more Israel as a Jewish state. https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=174298978 [...] Reminder: Related: Ehud Barak: the military mast aring a US television interview last year that he would "probably" strive for nuclear weapons if he were in Iran's position. https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=173530549 With more -- https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=174402440 [...]Netanyahu wants it all, yes - river to the sea - and to stay out of jail. And Netanyahu wants the Palestinian National Authority .. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_Authority .. out of the picture too. You are at odds with both the Peres and the Barak thoughts. It's only right and realistic to also consider what the Palestinians want, to end this war. P - There is an old saying .. put yourself into the other's shoes... https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=174567534 ----
The biggest unanswered question: Will Hamas do what’s best for the Palestinian people?
By David Ignatius Columnist| June 5, 2024 at 6:54 p.m. EDT
An Israeli tank near the Israel-Gaza border in southern Israel on Wednesday. (Tsafrir Abayov/AP)
So here’s a blunt question: Why aren’t Palestinians demanding that Hamas’s leaders, who are hiding in tunnels under the ravaged enclave, accept this agreement so that reconstruction can begin? Hamas’s existence has been predicated on saying no to peace with Israel. But surely, it’s in the interest of Palestinians civilians who have suffered so much in this conflict to say yes.
[Insert update: Disappointed Ignatius here did not give a couple of reasons in answer to his question. One that Palestinian citizens are so pissed off with Israel's refusal to work for a two state solution which has been seen as the only possibility for lasting peace since 1947. That's 77 years of obstructionist Fuck You's from Israel and chiefly why Hamas gained control in Gaza in the first place. Two, Israel's continuing rape and pillaging of Palestinian lands in teh West Bank. For more see one and two. Ignatius could have done better on this point.]
The agreement is still fuzzy on some details. Although Israel’s war cabinet endorses it, some members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition don’t. The transition from Phase 1’s initial cease-fire to a permanent one in Phase 2 will require negotiations, though the truce will continue as long as those negotiations do. The process is fragile and imperfect, but it’s backed by an implicit guarantee by the United States and its Group of Seven allies.
The “deliverables” for Palestinians are spelled out in an unpublished document prepared by negotiators. A person who’s familiar with the talks summarized the fine points for me this week. It provides a well-marked path to immediately begin repairing the devastation of the conflict. Here are some details about how it would start:
* From the first day of the cease-fire, Israel would facilitate a surge of humanitarian aid. Specifically, the agreement calls for 600 trucks moving daily into Gaza, including 50 fuel trucks. Northern Gaza would get 300 of those trucks, including fuel needed to eventually resume operation of the power plant in central Gaza.
* To start sheltering Palestinians who were forced to flee their homes, the agreement calls for provision of at least 60,000 temporary mobile homes and 200,000 tents. The rubble of war strewn across every kilometer of Gaza would be cleared, starting immediately, using civilian bulldozers and other heavy equipment.
* Hospitals, medical centers and bakeries would be rehabilitated throughout the strip, and these essential services would be maintained through the subsequent stages of the agreement.
4. Gaza’s infrastructure — the roads and the electrical, water, sewage and communications systems destroyed by war — would gradually be rebuilt across the enclave, with Israel agreeing to allow entry of necessary equipment.
5. The United Nations, Egypt and Qatar would lead an international effort for comprehensive reconstruction of homes, schools and the other essentials of life that have been destroyed.
If the deal works, a new Gaza would eventually emerge. Months of desperation and near-starvation would gradually give way to recovery. With so much international assistance flowing into the enclave, Gaza could actually experience something of a postwar boom.
What does Israel get from this agreement? First and most important, over the three phases, all Israeli hostages and bodies would be returned. It might not look like the “total victory” that Netanyahu’s coalition wants. But as a senior Biden administration official put it .. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2024/05/31/background-press-call-on-president-bidens-remarks-on-the-middle-east .. last Friday: “Hamas is no longer capable of carrying out another Oct. 7. Its military capacity has been significantly eroded. And its leaders are dead or in deep hiding.”
Governance in Gaza is still to be determined, but dictatorial rule by Hamas is finished. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and other members of the Israeli war cabinet share Biden’s view that Palestinian governance is essential and that the framework for it will be built by supporters of the Palestinian Authority.
Active Hamas fighters will remain targets for Israel even after the truce. As the senior official put it, “Israel always retains the right, as does any sovereign country, to act against threats against its security.”
Lebanon looms as the next battleground, but this problem, too, would be eased by the Gaza truce. As soon as a cease-fire is agreed to, U.S. officials say they will push to implement a tentative agreement with Hezbollah to withdraw its fighters up to 10 kilometers from the Israel-Lebanon border. The aim is to make northern Israeli towns safe again so that families who fled after Oct. 7 can return home before school starts in September. The crossfire between Israel and Hezbollah will also be limited by specific measures, U.S. officials expect.
There’s the promise, too, of a much wider truce: the normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, which for generations has refused to recognize the Jewish state. As Biden said, with the Gaza pact, “Israel could become more deeply integrated into the region” and “part of a regional security network to counter the threat posed by Iran.”
There’s a cynical trope about past peace efforts that “the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.” That’s a harsh and one-sided judgment about a history of failure on both sides. But right now, Hamas’s leaders have a chance to do the right thing for the Palestinian people they claim to be fighting for. I hope the Palestinian people can prod them to do it.
Opinion by David Ignatius David Ignatius writes a twice-a-week foreign affairs column for The Washington Post. His latest novel is “The Paladin.” Twitter
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