Joe Biden will not be the Democratic nominee in Novemberās presidential election, thankfully. He is not withdrawing because heās being held responsible for enabling war crimes against the Palestinian people (though a recent poll does have nearly 40 percent of Americans saying theyāre less likely to vote for him thanks to his handling of the war). Yet itās impossible to extricate the collapse in public faith in the Biden campaign from the āuncommittedā movement for Gaza. They were the first people to refuse him their votes, and defections from within the presidentās 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 Bidenās monstrous support for Netanyahu, the brutal IDF, and Israelās 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.
If you want to really squint and generously apply false equivalence, you could compare the decades-long ecocide, driving indigenous people off the land, deprivation of rights, apartheid and more to the possibilities I outlined I guess.
Funny how the supposed theoretical genocide of an extremely militarized society somehow justifies the continued perpetuation of a genocide against an impoverished society and people.
The occupier is always the victim in the eyes of the media they control.
Or, I could read about that impoverished societyās goals Right column, first new paragraph.
One side getting it worse than the other doesnāt matter. Itās the zero wiggle room either side provides that does.
Thatās it? Your big trump card is that they call for the destruction of the occupier state? After 70 years of land theft and genocide, wouldnāt you? Would you call for ācivilityā and ādialogueā?
Yes I would and do.
More importantly, not only do your agree that both sides are trying to genocide, you support Hamasā goal. Thatās all I wanted. Honesty regarding what is really being called for here.
I certainly donāt grant āIsrael has a right to existā from the jump. What right? From whom? For the record, I donāt think the settlers in the United States have any right over stolen native lands.
I donāt grant that the dissolution of a colonialist theocracy state is the same thing as a genocide. States are not peoples. Decolonization is not genocide.
One of the elements of genocide per the ICC: The perpetrator intended to destroy, in whole or in part, that national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.
Again, this is an essential distinction. States are not peoples. A national group is the people of a state, not the state itself.
The axis states ceased to exist after world war II. Despite gratuitous bombing by allied forces, the peoples of the states continue to exist, and largely inhabit the same territory.
Seemingly by your argument, land can be seized, people expelled, war crimes committed, but if you have created a state, it would be inherently wrong to dislodge you. I personally donāt regard states as a magic blanket that rules out decolonization by definition.
Um, the axis states all continued to exist. They just had a regime change. That is not what Hamas wants.
Iām sorry, but the definition is clear and it encapsulates Hamasā goals entirely.
Now it seems weāve reached a āverbal argumentā where itās just an argument over definitions, which Iām not interested in.
This is where Iām personally going to leave this:
Some people see the 70 -year genocide of the Palestinians as an unspeakable atrocity that plainly justifies violent and non-violent resistance.
Some people want to center the fears of the occupiers in the discussion, and use that to throw up their hands and shut down any action or solution that isnāt on the occupiersā terms.