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
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    2 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.

    • subversive_dev@lemmy.ml
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      2 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
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        2 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
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          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?

          • just_another_person@lemmy.world
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            2 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
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              2 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
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              2 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.

          • SaltySalamander@fedia.io
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            2 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.

        • subversive_dev@lemmy.ml
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          2 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
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            2 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
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              2 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?

      • PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee
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        2 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
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          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
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          2 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.

    • Psychodelic@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      I want to agree with you. I’d be with you if you’d at least mentioned the impact this has on actual American citizens.

      My understanding is plenty of people have been silenced for expressing their support for Palestine. I mean, hasn’t Congress literally proposed/passed bills saying they can’t even talk about the number of people dying?

      It’s fascinating how people are so eager to sweep it all under the rug Americans themselves are ignored just to protect Israel, and more importantly, to protect American politicians that refuse to even learn about the situation. That’s not even mentioning the absolute infuriating trash that passes as corporate news nowadays (including anything pushed to the masses by large social media publishers). It’s like in order to protect Israel… err I mean, stop caring about this issue because it makes us uncomfortable, we’re entirely willing to allow news organizations to be straight-up propaganda, feeding blatant misinformation. It’s weird how we have zero criticism for them because that might invite someone to mention Gaza

    • gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works
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      2 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
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      2 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.