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.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    15 months ago

    they call for the destruction of the occupier state? After 70 years of land theft and genocide, wouldn’t you? Would you call for ‘civility’ and ‘dialogue’?

    Yes I would and do.

    More importantly, not only do your agree that both sides are trying to genocide, you support Hamas’ goal. That’s all I wanted. Honesty regarding what is really being called for here.

    • subversive_dev
      link
      fedilink
      English
      15 months ago

      I certainly don’t grant “Israel has a right to exist” from the jump. What right? From whom? For the record, I don’t think the settlers in the United States have any right over stolen native lands.

      I don’t grant that the dissolution of a colonialist theocracy state is the same thing as a genocide. States are not peoples. Decolonization is not genocide.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        15 months ago

        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.

        • subversive_dev
          link
          fedilink
          English
          1
          edit-2
          5 months ago

          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 don’t regard states as a magic blanket that rules out decolonization by definition.

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            English
            15 months ago

            Um, the axis states all continued to exist. They just had a regime change. That is not what Hamas wants.

            I’m sorry, but the definition is clear and it encapsulates Hamas’ goals entirely.

            • subversive_dev
              link
              fedilink
              English
              15 months ago

              Now it seems we’ve reached a “verbal argument” where it’s just an argument over definitions, which I’m not interested in.

              This is where I’m 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 isn’t on the occupiers’ terms.

              • @[email protected]
                link
                fedilink
                English
                15 months ago

                It’s not ‘fears’. It’s 80 years of constant assault with intent to annihilate. The issue isn’t semantics. It’s your refusal to acknowledge the fact that Israel aren’t exactly fighting angels here. Both sides are fighting an existential war. You just think the wrong side is winning and the UN mandate which created Israel, giving it a right to exist, says otherwise.

                • subversive_dev
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  1
                  edit-2
                  5 months ago

                  assault with intent to annihilate

                  So we’re just making up serious sounding phrases to try and balance the scales? Which side is bulldozing houses and stealing land? Which side is practicing brutal apartheid? Which side FUCKING BOMBS SCHOOLS AND HOSPITALS?

                  Jesus fucking Christ get outside of your media bubble every once in awhile.

                  I suspect that you can’t because you have built a comfortable occupier existence for yourself, so you can’t look at the pile of bodies forming the foundation of your existence.

                  • @[email protected]
                    link
                    fedilink
                    English
                    15 months ago

                    I’m not justifying anything. I’m explaining reality. It doesn’t matter who is when both sides would if they could. All radical islamists need to do to overcome this critical detail is to stop with the wanting to destroy Israel. It’s that simple. If all Imams proclaimed Israel had a right to exist and Hamas, etc all swore to lay down their arms and obey the edict I would sign up for the UN peacekeeping forces to go arrest all war criminals and force a 2 state solution myself.