Joe Biden will not be the Democratic nominee in November’s presidential election, thankfully. He is not withdrawing because he’s being held responsible for enabling war crimes against the Palestinian people (though a recent poll does have nearly 40 percent of Americans saying they’re less likely to vote for him thanks to his handling of the war). Yet it’s impossible to extricate the collapse in public faith in the Biden campaign from the “uncommitted” movement for Gaza. They were the first people to refuse him their votes, and defections from within the president’s base hollowed out his support well in advance of the debate.

The Democrats and their presumptive nominee Kamala Harris are faced with a choice: On the one hand, they can continue Biden’s monstrous support for Netanyahu, the brutal IDF, and Israel’s genocide of Palestinians. That would help allow the party to cover for Biden and put a positive spin on a smooth handoff, even though we all know this would mainly benefit the embittered president himself and his small coterie of loyalists. Such a choice would confirm that the institutional rot that allowed the current situation to develop still characterizes the party.

  • just_another_person@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    64
    arrow-down
    14
    ·
    3 months ago

    At this point it’s very clear it’s not Biden’s policy that is holding things up. It’s very clearly Netanyahu and his cabinet. This isn’t even a question anymore as Benny Gantz straight said so when he resigned, and then Netanyahu dissolved his war cabinet, so he’s basically acting in direct control of Israeli forces it seems.

    Biden and team had a ceasefire agreement, Israel said they agreed, Palestine said they agreed, yet Israel refuses to sign or stop military assault. As far as the “undecided” voters go, they aren’t going to get their way. The US as a nation is not going to jeopardize ties with Israel as a proxy military force and ground position in the Middle East for a small percentage of voters. It is what it is, but put the blame where it belongs in the here and now.

      • HappycamperNZ@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        9
        arrow-down
        13
        ·
        3 months ago

        The United States would be throwing its own strategic interests under a bus.

        I know this may come as a shock, but the US government is well aware what is happening over there, and knows considerably more that the average person. They aren’t doing nothing because of lack of evidence, or death, or allegations (both proven and otherwise). They do nothing because its in their interests to do so.

        I use the example of “no blood for oil”. They only said that because they still had oil - start losing access to key parts of your strategic access and absolutely we would be crying for war.

            • Maggoty@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              3 months ago

              Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq, Qatar, Djibouti, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Turkey.

              Just to name a few countries with large American military bases, extant militaries, and intelligence agencies.

      • PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        6
        arrow-down
        11
        ·
        3 months ago

        The US has little to no influence over Israeli domestic politics. Pretending that Israel is a puppet state of the US is… delusional.

        • itsgoodtobeawake@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          6
          ·
          3 months ago

          Well then they won’t mind when we stop providing US made weapons to continue their aggressions, cutoff the billions in annual support, and stop blocking international efforts at holding them accountable. Why would Netanyahu be addressing our government if we had no skin in the game?

          You’re either uninformed or trolling, we are Israel’s largest ally and we constantly shield them from international repercussions.

        • YeetPics@mander.xyz
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          arrow-down
          3
          ·
          3 months ago

          You don’t understand, this is the only chance for the east to eradicate Israel AND the USA.

          It doesn’t matter if their moral stance is built on lies and dishonesty. Morality was never their lynchpin.

    • subversive_dev@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      23
      arrow-down
      9
      ·
      edit-2
      3 months ago

      Ronald Reagan made one phone call and the Israelis immediately stopped bombarding Lebanon. The vassal state has to do whatever the fuck the US president wants. It’s a complete joke to think otherwise. Joe Biden could go on TV right now and publicly withdraw support for the occupiers and their government and military would collapse overnight.

      • just_another_person@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        11
        arrow-down
        12
        ·
        3 months ago

        Oh, awesome. Let’s time travel back then and act like it’s now, OH WAIT.

        The Israeli state of 40 years only existed due to the US and it’s money. That’s not necessarily the same situation now. They can buy their own toys, and not be a puppet of the US if they didn’t want to now.

        • subversive_dev@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          10
          arrow-down
          6
          ·
          edit-2
          3 months ago

          You seriously think the Israeli state could survive a loss of US support? They are just as much a vassal as they were then, if not more. They are completely isolated on the world stage and surrounded by geopolitical rivals. Their society is crumbling as we speak. Without the US playing defense, the international community would have come down on Israel decades ago. Do you remember how much they freaked out when Joe Biden kinda sorta hinted that he might possibly not send them all the bombs they wanted?

          • SaltySalamander@fedia.io
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            2
            ·
            3 months ago

            The US gives israel what, like 3-4billion a year? Their defense budget was like 24b in 2023. They’d be fine without us.

          • just_another_person@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            5
            arrow-down
            6
            ·
            3 months ago

            That’s not the issue. In fact, if the US didn’t pay their bills, we already know what will happen, and it’s a national security scenario that is gamed and updated regularly.

            So say Israel is like “fuck you, pay me” to the US, and we cut them off. They are surrounded by hostile territories that will immediately put all their resources into attacking them and trying to wipe them off the map. Russia and China will probably proxy war this out as well. Then what? Maybe a coalition is made from a few of the Middle Eastern countries, groups hostile towards the US are fully enabled and encouraged to fuck with us, so now you have a new Middle East united group aligned with Russia and China to fuck around with Europe and Africa. Doesn’t sound super great to me. You’re pretty much kicking off a precursor to another world war, and Israel knows this. I’m sure they’ve probably just flatly said it behind closed doors.

            • subversive_dev@lemmy.ml
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              8
              arrow-down
              3
              ·
              edit-2
              3 months ago

              “According to our simulations that we ran for ourselves, very bad things will happen if we are not in charge. Therefore anything we do to maintain hegemony is justified.”

              Forgive me for sleeping on some sort of Orson Scott Card geopolitics fantasy, based on assumptions that other countries will be just as imperialistic as the USA. I’m much more concerned about the current ongoing genocide of the Palestinians that has continued for over 50 years.

            • Pfeffy@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              2
              ·
              3 months ago

              That is delusional. Israel has a shitload of nuclear weapons and they have already expressed complete willingness to use them against Innocent civilians. If Israel is ever going to be destroyed by its neighbors they will try to nuke everyone they can on their way out. It’s called the Samson option.

              When they lost the Yom Kippur war, they openly armed nuclear weapons and used them to force Nixon into replacing their Air Force and help recover from the loss.

          • PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            3
            arrow-down
            5
            ·
            3 months ago

            Israel has in many ways closer ties to Russia today than to the US. Roughly a million Israelis are from Russia.

        • subversive_dev@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          6
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          3 months ago

          I wouldn’t personally go with “Jewish Money” as the terminology…😬

          That aside, certainly the effect of AIPAC and friends is a part of the pathology. That doesn’t change the fact that Joe Biden could end the genocide anytime he wanted. The Zionist entity cannot survive without US hard power backing.

          • FenrirIII@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            3
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            3 months ago

            I mean, it comes from people who identify as Jewish and who support the state of Israel. How is that not correct?

            Joe Biden cannot stop Israel. They have openly and repeatedly made known their plan to conquer Gaza. They’re already allowing “settlers” (terrorists) in to attack the local Palestinians and steal their land. American citizens, including many who donate to AIPAC, are getting involved in land deals for the conquered territory.

            The entire powerbase of the western world is either taking part in the genocide and/or profiting from it or unable to do the right thing because of the political and financial power of the former.

            Even if that wasn’t the case, Israel is the only friendly nation in the middle east for western powers. Iran regularly starts shit and Saudi Arabia committed 9/11 (which we ignore because they have oil). A Jewish state is much friendlier to the (mostly white, Christian) government of the US.

            • subversive_dev@lemmy.ml
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              3
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              3 months ago

              Joe Biden could order a blockade on the single functioning port. Joe Biden’s Treasury department could instantly destroy the occupier economy with sanctions, as they should be doing under US and international law. Joe Biden could signal to the Iranians and Hezbollah that Israel is no longer allowed to operate with impunity.

              Don’t make the mistake of confusing pretend impotence for true impotence.

              I agree that the entire West is complicit in the genocide.

              Regarding “friendly nations,” what happened to make the Iranians unfriendly to the United States?

      • BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        8
        arrow-down
        15
        ·
        3 months ago

        And do you know how many American lives are being saved by letting Israel fight Iran as a proxy rather than letting it fall and having to deal with the headache afterwards?

        Israel is a strategic asset in a larger war, and a lot of people are clearly missing that concept because they don’t think the US and Iran are actually at war with each other. It’s the same reason why the embargo of Cuba still exists.

        Geopolitics is complicated, and most of it is not out in the open for the public to see.

        • subversive_dev@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          11
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          3 months ago

          And do you know how many American lives are being saved by letting Israel fight Iran as a proxy rather than letting it fall and having to deal with the headache afterwards?

          Wow, what an argument. Look the other way and prop up the genocidal apartheid state because otherwise we might have to use blood in addition to treasure to defend imperial interests in the Middle East. Just…wow.

          It’s the same reason why the embargo of Cuba still exists.

          What reason is that exactly?

          • BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            4
            arrow-down
            6
            ·
            3 months ago

            I mean, yea. You think the world is some happy go lucky place where people don’t fight each other?

            The US dropped two nuclear bombs on civilians in Japan to end a war quickly, and despite the backlash they’d kill civilians again in a heartbeat if it was beneficial to America. The number of civilians that died from the American invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan after 9/11 shows that very clearly. The current Palestinian death toll is less than 10% of that 20 year conflict, and it was done by Americans directly.

            Cuba is being used as a pawn by other countries to threaten the US, the same as it was during the cold war. Russia and China didn’t write off $40 billion dollars for free over the last decade.

            • subversive_dev@lemmy.ml
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              5
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              edit-2
              3 months ago

              I mean, yea. You think the world is some happy go lucky place where people don’t fight each other?

              Umm…lol no. I think the world is run by military forces and their obedient governments.

              The US dropped two nuclear bombs on civilians in Japan to end a war quickly

              Vaporize civilians for peace!

              they’d kill civilians again in a heartbeat if it was beneficial to America

              If by America you mean imperial warmaking and profits then yes, “they” have, would, and will continue.

              The number of civilians that died from the American invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan after 9/11 shows that very clearly. The current Palestinian death toll is less than 10% of that 20 year conflict, and it was done by Americans directly

              This point is really confusing but…yay America?

              Cuba is being used as a pawn by other countries to threaten the US

              Wow what a take. Other countries support Cuba, so the USA gets to perpetuate invasions, assassination attempts, terrorism and eternal economic warfare. The Cubans have no autonomy but also they brought this on themselves.

            • Maggoty@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              3 months ago

              If you want to compare casualties then you need to compare the same periods. The average monthly casualties for the period we had data was far higher than the war on Iraq. Which is kind of to be expected since we were there for 10 years. It’s also a much larger country with more people exposed to proportionally larger forces fighting.

              So let’s do this the right way. According to the Iraqi Body Count project around 200,000 civilians were killed. Or 0.8 percent of civilians in Iraq. In Gaza that number is 2 percent. More than double. And that’s just the bodies that made it to a morgue while the health ministry was still capable of accurately counting bodies. Estimates of people who are missing, presumed dead, under the rubble are in the six figure range. So let’s be generous and set the total at 100,000, so 60k under rubble, far below the estimates. That’s 5 percent of the civilian population dead.

              This is not a road you want to go down. Any analysis beyond the most shallow reflects extremely poorly on Israel.

              • BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                3 months ago

                Percentage of the total population is a bad stat, a dead person regardless of how many people you started with.

                The point I was trying to make is that the US is clearly okay with killing civilians.

                • Maggoty@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  ·
                  3 months ago

                  Right. Those two ratios are clearly the mark of countries with the same attitude towards civilian deaths.

                  • BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca
                    link
                    fedilink
                    English
                    arrow-up
                    1
                    arrow-down
                    1
                    ·
                    3 months ago

                    If you only murder one person, does it not matter?

                    Death percentages do not matter to the families involved.

          • BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            arrow-down
            6
            ·
            3 months ago

            They CAN’T come out and say it or it turns into a real war rather than a background proxy war and that ends up causing more problems. The world is not a nice place, there are a lot of people (and governments) out to try to gain an advantage, including the US itself.

            The Truth can be extremely offensive, and offending certain people can be dangerous. Some things need to remain a secret, or at least somewhat hidden, even from the American people.

            American people don’t want to know how much their individual life is valued at for example. The government makes that decision every single day when it sets regulations or funds various programs, but people would be extremely pissed off to find out. That doesn’t help people, and it doesn’t help the government, so they bury that information under piles of statistics.

            • Psychodelic@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              5
              ·
              3 months ago

              Gotta admit, it’s interesting how I specifically mentioned politicians and media networks and you responded by alluding to a vague “government” entity that seemingly acts on its own.

              In my mind, the government is just a name for the politicians people elected. It’s like saying corporations seek profit like they have feelings and desires or something, and not like they’re falling explicit laws and instructions set forth by politicians, which again are human beings that we’ve specifically elected.

              That said, at least you answered my question, albeit without ever actually considering it

    • gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      3 months ago

      I mean, yeah, that’s largely true with regard to who’s holding progress on peace talks up, but I want to see any and all military aid that’s not purely defensive that we’re sending to Israel cut off, like, yesterday. There is zero reason why we should be selling and delivering new F-35s and JDAMs to the IDF when they’re just using them to flatten the Gaza Strip.

    • mozz@mbin.grits.dev
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      3 months ago

      While at the same time pursuing policies and choices that will actually stand some chance of benefiting the Palestinian people – among them, being vocal with congress, doing direct demonstrations, doing things like the “uncommitted” vote to make it clear to those in power that the minority that wants decent treatment for the Palestinians is also not a trivial constituency, oh and also:

      MAKE SURE HARRIS WINS IN NOVEMBER SO THAT THE IDF DOESN’T START GETTING UNEQUIVOCAL US SUPPORT AND AMP UP THEIR WAR CRIMES TENFOLD

      The others are optional; the last one is critical.