As I have said from at least since the '67 Six days War, if Israel wants the right to exist they need to grant Palestinians the right to exist and and not grant themselves a right to exist any land that was not given to them the right to exist in.
I might (not being Islamic) grant them a greater claim to Jerusalem; but that is a bargaining point. and perhaps should have been not divided when Israel became a UN authorized state; but an independent internationally sponsored city state; sort of a multi-religious Vatican State.
And as a person who was studying at Hebrew Union in Cincinnati in 1967, my argument was especially not well received then. I agree Nassar was a pretty nasty piece of work, but only because he was sort of a damnable proponent of such a silly idea that the Suez belonged to Egypt and not the French and English.. Ohmigod the horrors! of such an idea. And to actually think Israel thought they were kind of doing the world a grand service by invading Egyptian territory to help prevent such a dastardly piece of nationalism from occurring. Of course that was the second, not the first time Israel attacked that damnable anti-Western madman.
But yet despite all of that certainly Israel must have been justified in attacking Egypt in '67 because Nasser was trying to create a greater Pan-Islam state all around Israel to oppress poor Israel and threatened to existence,. The fact that Nasser's larger state to fight Israel of course had nothing to do with Israel having already attacked Egypt twice in less than eight years of Israel's sovereignty.
And since Israel has continued to be threatened remains the important thing; we simply can't blame Israel for feeling threatened when they have been threatening to their neighbors since 1948, can we?
Come on Qasim, are we going to expose Israel's atrocities in the year before OCT 7, when we haven't exposed their threats to the Muslim countries around them for seventy-six.
Shame on you Qasim! for thinking such a horrid thought that they might even slightly be to blame for what happened on OCT 7. Oh the shame of it all! How dare Muslims point the finger at them!
And so long ago in 1967 I learned my lesson (hah!) when I was informed I was no longer welcome at Hebrew Union. And now students across America are learning the same lesson fifty-nine years later.
Israel can't be responsible for persecuting others, 'cause damn it all! they're a beacon of democracy in the autocratic middle east. Of course Lebanon was a democracy, Syria was a democracy, and even Iraq had a flirtation with democratic government long ago before Israel desettled middle eastern democracies with displaced populaces, now sponsored by nasty Iran instead of Egypt.
And isn't Iran itself a democracy (a religious one of course) that was created from trying to liberate themselves from a western installed tyrant? And if Jordan and Saudia Arabia are non-democratic, who installed those dynasties.
But we must support Israel mustn't we? because they are after all, a democracy aren't they, the only (didn't't the Iranians just elect a government to lead towards a more poro-western democracy. Damn it all, don't you realize if Iran was allowed to not be a pariah and create detente with the west how much that in itself threatened Israel? No they had to kill on Iranian soil to prove they were really only fooling about detente didn't they.?
Come on Qasim, be a little realistic, and don't try to tell us Israel is a terroristic state and has used terroristic tactics long before they were ever a state.
How can you really even suggest Israel may not be the good guys here? How could you do that? How?
Your well presented evidence mounts. I hope you will publish this elsewhere too for as wide an audience as you can find. I have no answers to add except Saving democracy here in the next month has to occur before we can really influence the war in Gaza as you show. Trump would just make it worse so we have some priority work in our own backyard. We don’t know what president Biden knows or why his behind the scenes efforts seem to get nowhere. I imagine it has something to do with Netanyahu’s continuing rejection of the any so-called two state solution that most of us thought was somehow progressing forward until we learned of all the atrocities “occupation” has brought by Israeli authorities that happened before the retaliatory attack on other innocent people in Israel. I don’t think most of us realized how ineffective the government structure was in Gaza but maybe we had compassion fatigue and didn’t pay close enough attention as the planet melts, as Putin tries to put his empire back together, as our own society is split with the 1984 effects of Trump and his big and constant pollution fueled lies -so many issues overwhelm us. We need our public to understand the evidence you present to develop the pressure for near future policy change here. Of course the people in the region have to be part of their own solution by not wanting what hamas wants. Forgiveness can be developed through autonomous governance with no motive to kill their neighbors or oppress them to keep from being killed. Freedom from harm and mutual respect will win the day when everyone looks in the mirror and reforms, after recoiling from what they see.
The costly Afghanistan war astounded me by the never discussed strongly held assumption that everything - including support of just and unjust wars- should fall to us but we do stand for liberty and justice for all. We have again learned how dysfunctional and horrible terrorist run and terrorist tolerant governments are too. I don’t see sides here- just an escalation of destruction and a continuation of a long time chaotic mutual disrespect and the oppression over people from often violent repression, fears of reprisals that would take more innocent lives, and lack of cohesion in holding a battered society together by working for progress and freedom rather than having to fear and fight just to exist.
How poignant that the report on increased civilian Palestinian deaths (children!) came out the day before hamas aggression boiled over into war. And the number detained without information or charges is not tolerable either for modern civil society. People will rebel as freedom from oppression is a basic human right and need.
Again I have no answers to add other than put the oxygen mask on our nation before we can save other nations and people. The next month is crucial for tipping people in the direction of sanity and normalcy. While we manage to pick sides on everything using our combined tax dollars to fund and influence what who and how we pick too, all of the people of the historic region discussed here need to step up in their own way by demanding, developing, picking, and becoming better more receptive, more effective and astute leaders. The motives need to be affected as well as the conduct on all sides too. That is my biggest understatement in this comment. Love and curiosity has to replace hate and oppression. And fear, which requires real security and real governance.
Let’s hope we help not hinder but let’s hope it is realized that we are not the savior or solution to conflicts in the Middle East or Europe, a well-informed electorate endowed with legal rights and a functioning legal and government system with intelligent effective fair minded leadership is what will be needed too. And a change or containment of bad intent and intenders.
As your evidence proves, the issues have been more than festering for a long time and have obviously gotten way worse at high cost to life we profess to cherish. The boiling over is full of opportunities but only if hate and distrust get removed from the equation. I’m back to having no answers and this is the same ultimate challenge we face in the US this election. I appreciate pondering at a higher level because of the digging work you have done and the experience you bring and share.
Congress to stop us. Over fifty adulatory applauses to your god Bibi? Come on. Get real. The hell hole of Gaza and the hell hole of the West Bank must be eliminated. I for one do not care how. Either the two state solution or the Haifa Republic of one man one vote is fine with me. One thing is certain. Bibi and his fellow crack pots have no restraint. Neither do the crack pots polluting the current administration. Call me a dumbbell, but don’t betray us all to the unimaginable chaos and horror of WW III.
Bibi may be flying over the cuckoo nest, but no reason exists for the rest of you to follow.
To those paragons of the brain dead who pretend to lead the countries of the Muslim world, your words are damn cheap. How long do you speculate you can ride the tiger of incandescent rage boiling among your populace? I and mine had nothing to do with the concept of the Ummah, but I think it possesses more truth than you do. May your days be numbered. Let’s look at the dominos. The monarchy of Jordan will probably be the first to go the way of all flesh. My dearest King, who are you trying to kid? Egypt, I thought the Philadelphia Corridor was by treaty subject to your jurisdiction? Bye, bye Sissi. Turkey, you have visions of leading the Muslim world. Shut the supply of oil off or abandon your fond pretense. All of you have made a really bad bet that your powers to repress the will of your people are greater than the immense atavistic fury, building in an ever mounting crescendo, among your Ummah. There is a saying I enjoy. Never feel sorry for those in charge. Look deep into my eyes and see how little sympathy I have for those who may be overthrown because of their pathetically weak opposition to GENOCIDE.
The United States will be clueless for what is about to happen. The end of Western hegemony through the rise of the BRIC condominium. The eclipse of dollar supremacy and with it the ability of the US to live beyond its fiscal means, by piling on debt. Bid farewell to garrisoning the globe with 800 plus military bases and squandering one trillion dollars per year in power projection and in pursuit of the sugar plum fairy of full-spectrum dominance now and forevermore. Oh My God, we may have to act as a normal country, first employing diplomacy to persuade fellow human beings, not bludgeoning them with forever sanctions (which seldom work) and with our military hammer. We may have to exercise our brains and live by our wits and our understanding, not our brain-dead use of our rifles, as if we can shoot our way to peace. It has not worked during the last thirty years, and, guess what, it will not work during the next thirty years.
And if any American is surprised if terror hits our shores, you have not been paying attention. Nat Turner is real. Slaves do revolt and go on killing sprees. Who is morally culpable, the slave at the end of his rope, or the slave master who brutalized him to the point of murder? BOTH are, but today we know that slavery must be eliminated, or slavery will corrupt and consume us all. So what must be done is staring us in the face, and we cannot permit the
I was on the brink of tears while I was reading this essay, and then the floodgates opened as I was reading the poem at the end of this piece. Netanyahu is a war criminal and he must be tried for his crimes against humanity. I am voting for Kamala Harris because she is the only and best choice, and I pray that she has enough sense and vision to appoint a new Secretary of State immediately, who will be hard on Netanyahu and help to bring this senseless war to an end. I have petitioned the Biden administration several times to stop the arms shipments to Israel.
A lovely poem if tragic. This piece was a slap in the face, a major wake up call. I had no idea, I am ashamed to say, of so much you write about. I wanted peace before. Now I am heartbroken again. A two-state, and real states, must be constructed and Gaza rebuilt swiftly.
Sadly Gaza is so uninhabitable it may never go back to having the level of functioning infrastructure. Israel cannot in it's current form-culturally or politically-continue to exist. I've been listening to those who call for a one state solution, dismantling the ethnostate of Zionism and apartheid. To me that's the only path forward that could give any hope of long term success.
I'm no expert in dismantling apartheid, but I imagine first Netanyahu would need to be unseated at the very least if not tried at the Hague. Sanctions would need to be implemented until any new government agrees to end any disparate laws between Israeli Jews and Arabs in the region. The right to return would need to be extended to Palestinians, and similar compensation that Israeli Jews recieved as refugees must be extended to Palestinians by Israel and the West. Any new resources haevested could go towards that end.
Even if the distribution is heavily regulated, I imagine there will be corruption. Which should also be equitably shared between Palestinian and Israeli actors in a shared government. Nothing brings government together like a little good old fashioned greed and corruption.
Sad that there has been no solution for this conflict. Harris must distance herself from Biden on this issue. We all know trump is all for the killing of Palestinians. The lies told by the corporate media don’t help! We clearly need our government to stop arming Israel! We need to hold Israel accountable for war crimes, as well as their soldiers and leadership!
The ultimate repercussions for the developing three ring horror—Palestine, Lebanon, now Iran—will be devastating for Israel, the United States, particularly its elite, and for the feckless leaders of the Muslim world who are all pious rhetoric, but no concrete acts. Israel cannot absorb the fact that just as the world rejected apartheid and white supremacy in South Africa, it rejects apartheid, mass slaughter, and Zionist supremacy in Palestine. My evidence? The many votes in the UNGA that have utterly isolated Israel and the US from the decent, and just, opinion of mankind; the remarkable briefs the South Africans submitted to the ICJ, and the findings of the Court, following inevitably and conclusively from those definitive briefs. Israel, your game of perpetually playing the victim is over. Lay down the sword you picked up 1948. You all may despise me and my words, but friends intervene when a friend is on the cusp of suicide. Gaza, Lebanon, and Eighty million strong Iran, all at the same time? Really? Are you nuts?
I forgot to mention that part of Biden's, Trump's, and Harris' vision is that they want to get or stay elected, and they're afraid that if they make a serious complaint about Israel's annihilation of Palestinians, they'll either distance American Jewish voters or incur antipathy from AIPAC.
That's unquestionable vision. The fact that most Americans don't approve of Netanyahu's bellicosity, or that history from 11 months ago showed that a ceasefire gets hostages back, and continued assault doesn't (which is not of interest to Netanyahu anyway) is either not realized by "leaders," or they don't care. But they do have vision. I wouldn't argue with anyone who said they need glasses, because their vision is faulty.
It's maddening. Trump won 2016 with 70k votes. Between THREE SWINGSTATES! I don't know whose votes they think they will lose if they do the minimum of using Netanyahu as an offramp. Laura Loomer? Stephen Miller? Zionists were voting for Trump not only in 2016, but AFTER the "Blood and Soil-Jews will not replace us!" rally in Charlottesville. But sure. Ignore MI #uncommitted activists 100k+ strong. See how that goes.
I don't know, either, whose votes they think they'll lose. Qasim did a post a week or two ago about Georgia, and how stopping enabling this action gains votes; it doesn't lose them. As I said, if pleasing voters is the vision, then I think the candidates need glasses.
Also, it is said that Biden, like Romney, is a long time buddy of Netanyahu's. Maybe that's the vision: not disappointing your buddy.
As for where this takes them, as much as I disapprove of Biden, and in some respects of Harris, Trump is vastly worse. There have been lots of polls showing tight "horse races." The public like horse races. So the media like to offer them. But the polls are of few people. My secret guess, which I'll share only with you (so you can't tell anyone), is that Trump is going to get murdered in the election, as will many Reps. (The view I will take of Americans will be considerably dimmer than it already is if that doesn't happen.) And if Harris and Dems do wipe the floor with Reps, even though they all want to get re-elected, I hope they'll recognize and respond to Qasim's tap on the shoulder. Of course tens or maybe hundreds of thousands of innocent Palestinians and others have already been killed, and more will be in the next month or more, so the best we can do now is close the barn door after the horse has already partially run away.
Some of the "leaders" absolutely have vision. Netanyahu wants to annihilate all Palestinians, so he can finish taking their land. Biden, Trump, and seemingly Harris, want to back Israel, without question or hesitation.
The people are perishing not because of lack of vision, but because of vision.
why indeed?
As I have said from at least since the '67 Six days War, if Israel wants the right to exist they need to grant Palestinians the right to exist and and not grant themselves a right to exist any land that was not given to them the right to exist in.
I might (not being Islamic) grant them a greater claim to Jerusalem; but that is a bargaining point. and perhaps should have been not divided when Israel became a UN authorized state; but an independent internationally sponsored city state; sort of a multi-religious Vatican State.
And as a person who was studying at Hebrew Union in Cincinnati in 1967, my argument was especially not well received then. I agree Nassar was a pretty nasty piece of work, but only because he was sort of a damnable proponent of such a silly idea that the Suez belonged to Egypt and not the French and English.. Ohmigod the horrors! of such an idea. And to actually think Israel thought they were kind of doing the world a grand service by invading Egyptian territory to help prevent such a dastardly piece of nationalism from occurring. Of course that was the second, not the first time Israel attacked that damnable anti-Western madman.
But yet despite all of that certainly Israel must have been justified in attacking Egypt in '67 because Nasser was trying to create a greater Pan-Islam state all around Israel to oppress poor Israel and threatened to existence,. The fact that Nasser's larger state to fight Israel of course had nothing to do with Israel having already attacked Egypt twice in less than eight years of Israel's sovereignty.
And since Israel has continued to be threatened remains the important thing; we simply can't blame Israel for feeling threatened when they have been threatening to their neighbors since 1948, can we?
Come on Qasim, are we going to expose Israel's atrocities in the year before OCT 7, when we haven't exposed their threats to the Muslim countries around them for seventy-six.
Shame on you Qasim! for thinking such a horrid thought that they might even slightly be to blame for what happened on OCT 7. Oh the shame of it all! How dare Muslims point the finger at them!
And so long ago in 1967 I learned my lesson (hah!) when I was informed I was no longer welcome at Hebrew Union. And now students across America are learning the same lesson fifty-nine years later.
Israel can't be responsible for persecuting others, 'cause damn it all! they're a beacon of democracy in the autocratic middle east. Of course Lebanon was a democracy, Syria was a democracy, and even Iraq had a flirtation with democratic government long ago before Israel desettled middle eastern democracies with displaced populaces, now sponsored by nasty Iran instead of Egypt.
And isn't Iran itself a democracy (a religious one of course) that was created from trying to liberate themselves from a western installed tyrant? And if Jordan and Saudia Arabia are non-democratic, who installed those dynasties.
But we must support Israel mustn't we? because they are after all, a democracy aren't they, the only (didn't't the Iranians just elect a government to lead towards a more poro-western democracy. Damn it all, don't you realize if Iran was allowed to not be a pariah and create detente with the west how much that in itself threatened Israel? No they had to kill on Iranian soil to prove they were really only fooling about detente didn't they.?
Come on Qasim, be a little realistic, and don't try to tell us Israel is a terroristic state and has used terroristic tactics long before they were ever a state.
How can you really even suggest Israel may not be the good guys here? How could you do that? How?
Your well presented evidence mounts. I hope you will publish this elsewhere too for as wide an audience as you can find. I have no answers to add except Saving democracy here in the next month has to occur before we can really influence the war in Gaza as you show. Trump would just make it worse so we have some priority work in our own backyard. We don’t know what president Biden knows or why his behind the scenes efforts seem to get nowhere. I imagine it has something to do with Netanyahu’s continuing rejection of the any so-called two state solution that most of us thought was somehow progressing forward until we learned of all the atrocities “occupation” has brought by Israeli authorities that happened before the retaliatory attack on other innocent people in Israel. I don’t think most of us realized how ineffective the government structure was in Gaza but maybe we had compassion fatigue and didn’t pay close enough attention as the planet melts, as Putin tries to put his empire back together, as our own society is split with the 1984 effects of Trump and his big and constant pollution fueled lies -so many issues overwhelm us. We need our public to understand the evidence you present to develop the pressure for near future policy change here. Of course the people in the region have to be part of their own solution by not wanting what hamas wants. Forgiveness can be developed through autonomous governance with no motive to kill their neighbors or oppress them to keep from being killed. Freedom from harm and mutual respect will win the day when everyone looks in the mirror and reforms, after recoiling from what they see.
The costly Afghanistan war astounded me by the never discussed strongly held assumption that everything - including support of just and unjust wars- should fall to us but we do stand for liberty and justice for all. We have again learned how dysfunctional and horrible terrorist run and terrorist tolerant governments are too. I don’t see sides here- just an escalation of destruction and a continuation of a long time chaotic mutual disrespect and the oppression over people from often violent repression, fears of reprisals that would take more innocent lives, and lack of cohesion in holding a battered society together by working for progress and freedom rather than having to fear and fight just to exist.
How poignant that the report on increased civilian Palestinian deaths (children!) came out the day before hamas aggression boiled over into war. And the number detained without information or charges is not tolerable either for modern civil society. People will rebel as freedom from oppression is a basic human right and need.
Again I have no answers to add other than put the oxygen mask on our nation before we can save other nations and people. The next month is crucial for tipping people in the direction of sanity and normalcy. While we manage to pick sides on everything using our combined tax dollars to fund and influence what who and how we pick too, all of the people of the historic region discussed here need to step up in their own way by demanding, developing, picking, and becoming better more receptive, more effective and astute leaders. The motives need to be affected as well as the conduct on all sides too. That is my biggest understatement in this comment. Love and curiosity has to replace hate and oppression. And fear, which requires real security and real governance.
Let’s hope we help not hinder but let’s hope it is realized that we are not the savior or solution to conflicts in the Middle East or Europe, a well-informed electorate endowed with legal rights and a functioning legal and government system with intelligent effective fair minded leadership is what will be needed too. And a change or containment of bad intent and intenders.
As your evidence proves, the issues have been more than festering for a long time and have obviously gotten way worse at high cost to life we profess to cherish. The boiling over is full of opportunities but only if hate and distrust get removed from the equation. I’m back to having no answers and this is the same ultimate challenge we face in the US this election. I appreciate pondering at a higher level because of the digging work you have done and the experience you bring and share.
Thank you for reading, Penni, and for your thoughtful comprehensive response. This is how we can continue to build a coalition for justice.
Congress to stop us. Over fifty adulatory applauses to your god Bibi? Come on. Get real. The hell hole of Gaza and the hell hole of the West Bank must be eliminated. I for one do not care how. Either the two state solution or the Haifa Republic of one man one vote is fine with me. One thing is certain. Bibi and his fellow crack pots have no restraint. Neither do the crack pots polluting the current administration. Call me a dumbbell, but don’t betray us all to the unimaginable chaos and horror of WW III.
Moral pigmies infesting this administration and
Bibi may be flying over the cuckoo nest, but no reason exists for the rest of you to follow.
To those paragons of the brain dead who pretend to lead the countries of the Muslim world, your words are damn cheap. How long do you speculate you can ride the tiger of incandescent rage boiling among your populace? I and mine had nothing to do with the concept of the Ummah, but I think it possesses more truth than you do. May your days be numbered. Let’s look at the dominos. The monarchy of Jordan will probably be the first to go the way of all flesh. My dearest King, who are you trying to kid? Egypt, I thought the Philadelphia Corridor was by treaty subject to your jurisdiction? Bye, bye Sissi. Turkey, you have visions of leading the Muslim world. Shut the supply of oil off or abandon your fond pretense. All of you have made a really bad bet that your powers to repress the will of your people are greater than the immense atavistic fury, building in an ever mounting crescendo, among your Ummah. There is a saying I enjoy. Never feel sorry for those in charge. Look deep into my eyes and see how little sympathy I have for those who may be overthrown because of their pathetically weak opposition to GENOCIDE.
The United States will be clueless for what is about to happen. The end of Western hegemony through the rise of the BRIC condominium. The eclipse of dollar supremacy and with it the ability of the US to live beyond its fiscal means, by piling on debt. Bid farewell to garrisoning the globe with 800 plus military bases and squandering one trillion dollars per year in power projection and in pursuit of the sugar plum fairy of full-spectrum dominance now and forevermore. Oh My God, we may have to act as a normal country, first employing diplomacy to persuade fellow human beings, not bludgeoning them with forever sanctions (which seldom work) and with our military hammer. We may have to exercise our brains and live by our wits and our understanding, not our brain-dead use of our rifles, as if we can shoot our way to peace. It has not worked during the last thirty years, and, guess what, it will not work during the next thirty years.
And if any American is surprised if terror hits our shores, you have not been paying attention. Nat Turner is real. Slaves do revolt and go on killing sprees. Who is morally culpable, the slave at the end of his rope, or the slave master who brutalized him to the point of murder? BOTH are, but today we know that slavery must be eliminated, or slavery will corrupt and consume us all. So what must be done is staring us in the face, and we cannot permit the
there is no peace in war
there is no heart in war
there is no solution in war
flattened buildings
rubble hiding death
no homes left
grief overwhelming
hungry and thirsty
untended : intended?
I was on the brink of tears while I was reading this essay, and then the floodgates opened as I was reading the poem at the end of this piece. Netanyahu is a war criminal and he must be tried for his crimes against humanity. I am voting for Kamala Harris because she is the only and best choice, and I pray that she has enough sense and vision to appoint a new Secretary of State immediately, who will be hard on Netanyahu and help to bring this senseless war to an end. I have petitioned the Biden administration several times to stop the arms shipments to Israel.
Thank you for reading. I'm only hopeful Harris will distance herself from Biden's disastrous policies on Israel/Palestine.
She must do that. It is essential and I am counting on it.
A lovely poem if tragic. This piece was a slap in the face, a major wake up call. I had no idea, I am ashamed to say, of so much you write about. I wanted peace before. Now I am heartbroken again. A two-state, and real states, must be constructed and Gaza rebuilt swiftly.
Thank you for informing us.
Sadly Gaza is so uninhabitable it may never go back to having the level of functioning infrastructure. Israel cannot in it's current form-culturally or politically-continue to exist. I've been listening to those who call for a one state solution, dismantling the ethnostate of Zionism and apartheid. To me that's the only path forward that could give any hope of long term success.
How would that work?
I'm no expert in dismantling apartheid, but I imagine first Netanyahu would need to be unseated at the very least if not tried at the Hague. Sanctions would need to be implemented until any new government agrees to end any disparate laws between Israeli Jews and Arabs in the region. The right to return would need to be extended to Palestinians, and similar compensation that Israeli Jews recieved as refugees must be extended to Palestinians by Israel and the West. Any new resources haevested could go towards that end.
Even if the distribution is heavily regulated, I imagine there will be corruption. Which should also be equitably shared between Palestinian and Israeli actors in a shared government. Nothing brings government together like a little good old fashioned greed and corruption.
Thanks for your.thoughts. So very difficult—but something must be done.
Alexandra - Thank you for reading and for keeping your mind committed to understanding and justice. That's how we move forward.
Sad that there has been no solution for this conflict. Harris must distance herself from Biden on this issue. We all know trump is all for the killing of Palestinians. The lies told by the corporate media don’t help! We clearly need our government to stop arming Israel! We need to hold Israel accountable for war crimes, as well as their soldiers and leadership!
The ultimate repercussions for the developing three ring horror—Palestine, Lebanon, now Iran—will be devastating for Israel, the United States, particularly its elite, and for the feckless leaders of the Muslim world who are all pious rhetoric, but no concrete acts. Israel cannot absorb the fact that just as the world rejected apartheid and white supremacy in South Africa, it rejects apartheid, mass slaughter, and Zionist supremacy in Palestine. My evidence? The many votes in the UNGA that have utterly isolated Israel and the US from the decent, and just, opinion of mankind; the remarkable briefs the South Africans submitted to the ICJ, and the findings of the Court, following inevitably and conclusively from those definitive briefs. Israel, your game of perpetually playing the victim is over. Lay down the sword you picked up 1948. You all may despise me and my words, but friends intervene when a friend is on the cusp of suicide. Gaza, Lebanon, and Eighty million strong Iran, all at the same time? Really? Are you nuts?
Thank you for your post, yes, let's hope that America has the courage to do what you've described as the clear choices for the future. Sharing this.
Thank you, Jennifer.
🤲🏾🇵🇸🤲🏾🇱🇧🤲🏾🇾🇪لا تتوقف عن الحديث أبدًا🤲🏾🇵🇸🤲🏾🇱🇧🤲🏾🇾🇪💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯NEVER STOP TALKING 🇵🇸 🤲🏾 🇱🇧 🤲🏾🇾🇪🤲🏾✌🏾✌🏾✌🏾✊️✊️✊️💪💪💪🤲🏾🤲🏾🤲🏾WE WLL BE HEARD☝🏾☝🏾☝🏾
When leaders have no vision, the people perish
I forgot to mention that part of Biden's, Trump's, and Harris' vision is that they want to get or stay elected, and they're afraid that if they make a serious complaint about Israel's annihilation of Palestinians, they'll either distance American Jewish voters or incur antipathy from AIPAC.
That's unquestionable vision. The fact that most Americans don't approve of Netanyahu's bellicosity, or that history from 11 months ago showed that a ceasefire gets hostages back, and continued assault doesn't (which is not of interest to Netanyahu anyway) is either not realized by "leaders," or they don't care. But they do have vision. I wouldn't argue with anyone who said they need glasses, because their vision is faulty.
It's maddening. Trump won 2016 with 70k votes. Between THREE SWINGSTATES! I don't know whose votes they think they will lose if they do the minimum of using Netanyahu as an offramp. Laura Loomer? Stephen Miller? Zionists were voting for Trump not only in 2016, but AFTER the "Blood and Soil-Jews will not replace us!" rally in Charlottesville. But sure. Ignore MI #uncommitted activists 100k+ strong. See how that goes.
I don't know, either, whose votes they think they'll lose. Qasim did a post a week or two ago about Georgia, and how stopping enabling this action gains votes; it doesn't lose them. As I said, if pleasing voters is the vision, then I think the candidates need glasses.
Also, it is said that Biden, like Romney, is a long time buddy of Netanyahu's. Maybe that's the vision: not disappointing your buddy.
As for where this takes them, as much as I disapprove of Biden, and in some respects of Harris, Trump is vastly worse. There have been lots of polls showing tight "horse races." The public like horse races. So the media like to offer them. But the polls are of few people. My secret guess, which I'll share only with you (so you can't tell anyone), is that Trump is going to get murdered in the election, as will many Reps. (The view I will take of Americans will be considerably dimmer than it already is if that doesn't happen.) And if Harris and Dems do wipe the floor with Reps, even though they all want to get re-elected, I hope they'll recognize and respond to Qasim's tap on the shoulder. Of course tens or maybe hundreds of thousands of innocent Palestinians and others have already been killed, and more will be in the next month or more, so the best we can do now is close the barn door after the horse has already partially run away.
Some of the "leaders" absolutely have vision. Netanyahu wants to annihilate all Palestinians, so he can finish taking their land. Biden, Trump, and seemingly Harris, want to back Israel, without question or hesitation.
The people are perishing not because of lack of vision, but because of vision.
Thank you for reminding us, hard though it is, and for Refaat Alareer's heartbreaking poem.