Say no to authoritarianism, say yes to socialism. Free Palestine 🇵🇸 Everyone deserves Human Rights
I think you accidentally double posted.
Yeah that’s fair, I agree. I think it’s important to highlight the rachet effect when it comes to Democrats, especially on harmful policies like immigration and foreign policy, but it’s also important to recognize the difference between them and the Republicans. The only avenue for progressive change is with the Democratic Party, but only with enough voters demanding better representation
Trump’s mass deportation and ‘poisoning the blood of our nation’ rhetoric is literally Hitlerian. Nazi as a term is not being watered down here.
I wouldn’t consider Harris a Nazi though, just another Neo liberal. Although the Democrats shift on the border, conceding to the republican narrative, and the current stance on Israel/Palestine is still concerning
Hamas has already agreed to no longer govern the Gaza Strip, as long as Palestinians receive liberation and a unified government can take place.
During the current war, Hamas officials have said that the group does not want to return to ruling Gaza and that it advocates for forming a government of technocrats to be agreed upon by the various Palestinian factions. That government would then prepare for elections in Gaza and the West Bank, with the intention of forming a unified government.
Both Hamas and Fatah have agreed to a Two-State solution based on the 1967 borders for decades. Oslo and Camp David were used by Israel to continue settlements in the West Bank and maintain an Apartheid, while preventing any actual Two-State solution
Oslo Accord Sources: MEE, NYT, Haaretz, AJ
The settlements represent land-grabbing, and land-grabbing and peace-making don’t go together, it is one or the other. By its actions, if not always in its rhetoric, Israel has opted for land-grabbing and as we speak Israel is expanding settlements. So, Israel has been systematically destroying the basis for a viable Palestinian state and this is the declared objective of the Likud and Netanyahu who used to pretend to accept a two-state solution. In the lead up to the last election, he said there will be no Palestinian state on his watch. The expansion of settlements and the wall mean that there cannot be a viable Palestinian state with territorial contiguity. The most that the Palestinians can hope for is Bantustans, a series of enclaves surrounded by Israeli settlements and Israeli military bases.
How Avi Shlaim moved from two-state solution to one-state solution
‘One state is a game changer’: A conversation with Ilan Pappe
Hamas officials should be held accountable for all war crimes committed, same as all Israeli officials. That said, there are many parallels between the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and Gaza.
In the Shadow of the Holocaust by Masha Gessen, the situation in Gaza is compared to the Warsaw Ghettos. The comparison was also made by a Palestinian poet who was later killed by an Israeli airstrike. Adi Callai, an Israeli, has also written on the parallels in his article The Gaza Ghetto Uprising and expanded upon in his corresponding video
I think it’s valid to be skeptical of any one poll, but there are multiple polls with this trend, including the one you linked. I would not argue that the data from the AAI poll is cherry picked, but if we assume it is, we can still look at other polls. From the poll you linked:
Young Americans support a permanent ceasefire in Gaza by a five-to-one margin (51% support, 10% oppose). No major subgroup of young voters opposes such action.
This is the full YouGov Report that details it’s methodology
You can also see the same trend in this Data For Progress Poll
I don’t see your point about about the 44-28 plurality. The 3-stage UN Ceasefire proposal, that was put forth by the US and passed, has been accepted by the US and Hamas for months, and includes the full release of the hostages. The hostage exchange was one of the main reasons for Hamas’ decision to take hostages, as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are held hostage by Israel in torture prisons, including thousands of children.
Palestinians denied civil rights (HRW) including Military Court (B’TSelem)
Palestinian Prisoners in Israel (wiki)
Children are jailed and abused in Israeli prisons (Save The Children)
Torture and Abuse in Interrogations (B’TSelem)
Thousands of Palestinians are held without charge under Israeli detention policy (NPR)
In terms of the reasons why they chose to attack, these articles detail the three main reasons. The realities of the Occupation and Apartheid are critical to understand how this kind of violent retaliation is developed.
Full Military withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza is a bare minimum. How is it reasonable for the force currently engaged in genocide to continue it’s control? That’s not a ceasefire, that’s continued occupation.
The US is already aiding and abetting Israel’s genocide. If the Democrats switch course, like many Democratic voters want, it would significantly improve Harris’ support nationally, especially in swing states
In a new research briefing submitted to the U.S. government today as part of the National Security Memorandum on Safeguards and Accountability with Respect to Transferred Defense Articles and Defense Services (NSM-20) process, Amnesty International USA details civilian deaths and injuries with U.S.-made weapons, as well as other cases that highlight an overall pattern of unlawful attacks by Israeli forces. The briefing also details practices by Israeli forces inconsistent with best practices for mitigating civilian harm and provides clear examples of the misuse of defense articles, the commission of torture, and the use of unlawful lethal force. Lastly, the briefing also details the denial of humanitarian assistance to the civilian population of Gaza.
“It’s shocking that the Biden administration continues to hold that the government of Israel is not violating international humanitarian law with U.S.-provided weapons when our research shows otherwise and international law experts disagree,” said Amanda Klasing, National Director for Government Relations with Amnesty International USA. “The International Court of Justice found the risk of genocide in Gaza is plausible and ordered provisional measures. President Biden must end U.S. complicity with the government of Israel’s grave violations of international law and immediately suspend the transfer of weapons to the government of Israel.”
“The evidence is clear and overwhelming: the government of Israel is using U.S.-made weapons in violation of international humanitarian and human rights law, and in a manner that is inconsistent with U.S. law and policy, said Klasing. “In order to follow U.S. laws and policies, the United States must immediately suspend any transfer of arms to the government of Israel.”
Polls:
In that scenario, how should the US respond?
That’s a very different argument than before, and not one against conditional military aid. If Israel decides to continue, regardless of the US ending unconditional military aid, their military capacity would become significantly reduced, seriously weakening their genocidal campaign in Gaza but also the Golan Heights. There is no nation on earth that could replace the role the US has in military aid to Israel, especially not as Israel becomes increasingly a pariah state.
This move of the US ending unconditional aid would also open the floodgates for European countries to stop their (relatively small) military aid to Israel. It would also change the international stage, as Israel would be far more vulnerable to UN Resolutions, ICC rulings, and ICJ arrest warrants. This increase in international pressure, alomg with the increase in internal pressure as Israel spreads itself thin with offensive fronts in Gaza, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights, could very likely be the catalyst for a regime change.
It’s a long read so I’ll try to hide it with spoilers, but this article has a great analysis on how much US influence has had and how it’s changed. There is certainly a chance that Israel may continue regardless, but even so, ending our support and complicity in the genocide is still the moral, political, and lawful thing to do. Plus, it changes the international stage drastically, making Israel vulnerable to International Organs of Justice for once.
First, although Israel is not as dependent on U.S. support as it was in earlier eras, it is still heavily reliant on access to U.S. weaponry, both advanced weapons systems such as F-35 aircraft or Patriot air defense missiles as well as precision-guided bombs and artillery shells. The United States is not the only country that produces advanced weapons, of course, and Israel has sophisticated defense industries of its own, but reequipping its forces in the unlikely event of a U.S. cutoff would be a difficult and costly process. Israeli strategists have long believed it is vital to maintain a qualitative edge over potential opponents, and the loss of U.S. support would jeopardize its ability to do so over the longer term. Add to this the value of U.S. diplomatic protection—whether in the form of U.N. Security Council vetoes or pressure on other states to refrain from criticizing Israel—and it’s clear that the support Israel gets from the United States would be difficult if not impossible to replace. That’s why many observers believe that all Biden needs to do is threaten to reduce U.S. support and Netanyahu will have no choice but to comply.
Second, although weaker clients are hard to pressure when they care more about the issues at stake, the balance of resolve may now be shifting in ways that strengthen the U.S. hand. The United States has been able to get Israel to alter its behavior when its own interests were more heavily engaged, as was often the case during prior Middle East conflicts. President Dwight D. Eisenhower successfully pressured Israel to withdraw from the Sinai after the Second Arab-Israeli War in 1956, and U.S. officials were able to help persuade Israel to accept cease-fire agreements during the 1969-70 War of Attrition and the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. An angry phone call from President Ronald Reagan to Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin also ended a massive Israeli bombing campaign on west Beirut during its 1982 invasion of Lebanon. In each of these cases, U.S. leaders acted forcefully and successfully because they believed that broader U.S. interests were at risk.
This situation may be gradually changing as well. Defending a state that is running a system of apartheid is not an easy task, especially when it now faces plausible though unproven accusations that it is conducting a genocide. No amount of full-court hasbara can fully negate the visual images streaming out of Gaza, or the disturbing TikTok and YouTube videos that have been posted by IDF soldiers themselves, making it harder for groups like AIPAC to retain influence. When Sen. Chuck Schumer, long one of Israel’s staunchest defenders, gives a speech on the Senate floor declaring that Netanyahu’s policies are bad for Israel, you know that the political winds are shifting. Attitudes in the American body politic are shifting, too, especially among younger people. Although there are still formidable political obstacles to making U.S. support conditional on Israel’s conduct—especially in an election year—it is not as unthinkable as it was a few years ago.
I conclude that Washington does have lots of potential leverage here, and the barriers to using it are lower than they have been in the past. But because Israel’s current leaders remain highly resolved on this issue, even credible threats to reduce U.S. support might not lead them to alter course significantly. Nor is it clear if Biden or his advisors can make the mental adjustments necessary to move from their current failed approach to something more effective. Instead of focusing on whether pressure on Israel would work, the real question to ask is simply whether it is in America’s strategic or moral interest to be actively complicit in a vast and worsening humanitarian tragedy. Even if the United States cannot stop it, it doesn’t have to help make it worse.
It’s certainly not ‘outside our influence.’ That’s a ridiculous notion that even if true, does not absolve the US of it’s violation of International Law, US Law, and complicity in this genocide
Do you genuinely think the US Defense Department doesn’t know what the arms we give for military aid are for? Israel is currently engaged in war. That war is the genocide of Gaza. The US has repeatedly sent military aid during this war. Yet you think the US doesn’t know that it’s weapons are being used in Gaza? Or that the US doesn’t know Israel is violating international law with it’s use of US weaponry?
I genuinely don’t understand why you are defending the US, when it comes to complicity in Genocide, from providing the military weapons used in said genocide.
Israel has a long history of war crimes, especially in Gaza.
The US has long been the main supplier of those weapons
The lack of transparency of the military aid is to help provide plausible deniability about their use
U.S. Weapons Transfers to Israel Shrouded in Secrecy — but Not Ukraine
Additionally, the Pentagon has explicitly said that the US is not putting limits, as in forcing Israel to abide by International Law, on US military aid used in Gaza
On Oct. 30, Pentagon Spokesperson Sabrina Singh said that the U.S. is not putting any limits on how Israel uses U.S.-provided weapons in its war against Hamas. Even so, officials including Secretary of State Antony Blinken have said that they are in contact with their Israeli counterparts about the need to minimize civilian harm.
Despite that, it’s gotten to the point where plausible deniability doesn’t work any more. Instead, delay tactics are used while we continue to send military aid.
The US says Israel may have used American-supplied weapons in breach of international humanitarian law in some instances during the war in Gaza.
The entire point of conditional aid to to stop supplying weapons to Israel that are used for crimes against humanity in violation of international law. That means if Israel abides by international law, they still get and use those weapons. The issue there is that Israel routinely commits war crimes, and probably can’t help breaking international law considering it’s war goals.
In a new research briefing submitted to the U.S. government today as part of the National Security Memorandum on Safeguards and Accountability with Respect to Transferred Defense Articles and Defense Services (NSM-20) process, Amnesty International USA details civilian deaths and injuries with U.S.-made weapons, as well as other cases that highlight an overall pattern of unlawful attacks by Israeli forces. The briefing also details practices by Israeli forces inconsistent with best practices for mitigating civilian harm and provides clear examples of the misuse of defense articles, the commission of torture, and the use of unlawful lethal force. Lastly, the briefing also details the denial of humanitarian assistance to the civilian population of Gaza.
“It’s shocking that the Biden administration continues to hold that the government of Israel is not violating international humanitarian law with U.S.-provided weapons when our research shows otherwise and international law experts disagree,” said Amanda Klasing, National Director for Government Relations with Amnesty International USA. “The International Court of Justice found the risk of genocide in Gaza is plausible and ordered provisional measures. President Biden must end U.S. complicity with the government of Israel’s grave violations of international law and immediately suspend the transfer of weapons to the government of Israel.”
“The evidence is clear and overwhelming: the government of Israel is using U.S.-made weapons in violation of international humanitarian and human rights law, and in a manner that is inconsistent with U.S. law and policy, said Klasing. “In order to follow U.S. laws and policies, the United States must immediately suspend any transfer of arms to the government of Israel.”
I agree with the views of Israeli Historians Ilan Pappe, Avi Schlaim that a One-State solution is the only permanent solution. I still support a Two-State solution in the meantime, as a foundation for Palestinian emancipation, but the on-the-ground reality of the settlements dividing the West Bank into hundreds of enclaves eats away at the viability of a permanent Two-State solution. Religion is not the primary element of the conflict, despite the religious ferver of many settlers and rhetoric of Israeli officials. The primary element is still the expulsion and domination of the native Palestinians through the use of Settlements and Apartheid. There cannot be a ‘democratic’ Jewish State (an ethnostate), without a Jewish majority, which presents what is called the ‘demographic problem.’ in the words of Ben-Gurion:
There can be no stable and strong Jewish State so long as it has a Jewish majority of only 60 percent. - Ben-Gurion in an address to the central committee of the Histadrut on 30 December 1947
I don’t believe the Israeli Government would ever agree to a One or Two State Solution, not unless there is enough internal secular and external international pressure.
How Avi Shlaim moved from two-state solution to one-state solution
‘One state is a game changer’: A conversation with Ilan Pappe
Claiming ancestral history does not justify ethnic cleansing, Settler Colonialism, or the existence of an ethnostate. ‘Transfer’ has always been fundamental to Zionism. Zionism is not Judaism, despite, as Israeli Adi Callai puts it, its weaponization of antisemitism. Jewish people have lived in historic Palestine for generations, despite the mass ethnic cleansing of Jewish people by the Romans during the Jewish-Roman Wars. Which is exactly why a Secular State, based on religious tolerance and equal rights, is the right way to end this conflict.
10 myths of Israel by Ilan Pappe, summerized and full book
Oh my bad, I thought “I see an argument in favor of the settlements that I’m actually agreeing with” meant you agreed with the settlements.
My view on Zionism is that it is fundamentally a settler colonial ideology, one founded and currently engaged in ethnic cleansing. And that the Apartheid Regime needs to change into a Secular One-State with equal rights and right of return for everyone
Can I ask which part of the settlements you agree with?
I don’t know what constitutes leftist in Israel right now, but I do respect Ofer Cassif, Ilan Pappe, Norman Finkelstein, Avi Schlaim, and any anti-zionist Israelis who are fighting for the equal rights of Palestinians.
The slogan From the River to the Sea is about Palestinian liberation that started in the 60s by the PLO for a democratic secular state, not Genocide. The Syrian leader Hafez al-Assad in 1966 maybe, but he’s not Palestinian.
Additionally, Netanyahu has explicitly said “between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty.”
I won’t ascribe these views as yours, but I will argue against them from a pro-palestinian standpoint.
Settlements and Security:
Israel does justify the settlements and military bases in the West Bank in the name of Security. However, the reality of the settlements on-the-ground has been the cause of violent resistance and a significant obstacle to peace, as it has been for decades.
This type of settlement, where the native population gets ‘Transferred’ to make room for the settlers, is a long standing practice. See: The Concept of Transfer 1882-1948, the Transfer Committee, and the JNF which led to Forced Displacement of 100,000 Palestinians throughout the mandate, before the mass ethnic cleansing campaign of 1948: Plan Dalet, Declassified Massacres of 1948, and Details of Plan C (May 1946) and Plan D (March 1948) . Further, declassified Israeli documents show that the Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip were deliberately planned before being executed in 1967: Haaretz, Forward; while the peace process was exploited to continue de-facto annexation of the West Bank via Settlements (Oslo Accord Sources: MEE, NYT, Haaretz, AJ). The settlements are maintained through a violent apartheid that routinely employs violence towards Palestinians and denies human rights like water access, civil rights, etc. This kind of control gives rise to violent resistance to the Apartheid occupation, jeopardizing the safety of Israeli civilians.
The settlements represent land-grabbing, and land-grabbing and peace-making don’t go together, it is one or the other. By its actions, if not always in its rhetoric, Israel has opted for land-grabbing and as we speak Israel is expanding settlements. So, Israel has been systematically destroying the basis for a viable Palestinian state and this is the declared objective of the Likud and Netanyahu who used to pretend to accept a two-state solution. In the lead up to the last election, he said there will be no Palestinian state on his watch. The expansion of settlements and the wall mean that there cannot be a viable Palestinian state with territorial contiguity. The most that the Palestinians can hope for is Bantustans, a series of enclaves surrounded by Israeli settlements and Israeli military bases.
How Avi Shlaim moved from two-state solution to one-state solution
‘One state is a game changer’: A conversation with Ilan Pappe
State violence – official and otherwise – is part and parcel of Israel’s apartheid regime, which aims to create a Jewish-only space between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. The regime treats land as a resource designed to serve the Jewish public, and accordingly uses it almost exclusively to develop and expand existing Jewish residential communities and to build new ones. At the same time, the regime fragments Palestinian space, dispossesses Palestinians of their land and relegates them to living in small, over-populated enclaves.
The apartheid regime is based on organized, systemic violence against Palestinians, which is carried out by numerous agents: the government, the military, the Civil Administration, the Supreme Court, the Israel Police, the Israel Security Agency, the Israel Prison Service, the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, and others. Settlers are another item on this list, and the state incorporates their violence into its own official acts of violence. Settler violence sometimes precedes instances of official violence by Israeli authorities, and at other times is incorporated into them. Like state violence, settler violence is organized, institutionalized, well-equipped and implemented in order to achieve a defined strategic goal.
Civilian Deaths and Human Shields:
Israel does deliberately targets civilian areas. From in general with the Dahiya Doctrine to multiple systems deployed in Gaza to do so: ‘A mass assassination factory’: Inside Israel’s calculated bombing of Gaza, Lavender, and Where’s Daddy. When it comes to Israeli Soldiers and Civilians, there is also the use of the Hannibal Directive, which was also used on Oct 7th.
Hundreds of Genocide Scholars have described this ethnic cleansing campaign as genocide because of the deliberate targeting of children/civilians and expressed intent by Israeli officials: “A Textbook Case of Genocide”: Israeli Holocaust Scholar Raz Segal Decries Israel’s Assault on Gaza, 800+ Legal Scholars Say Israel May Be Perpetrating ‘Crime of Genocide’ in Gaza , Law for Palestine Releases Database with 500+ Instances of Israeli Incitement to Genocide – Continuously Updated.
On the subject of Human Shields, there are some independent reports for past conflicts of Hamas jeopardizing the safety of civilians via Rocket fire in dense urban areas, two instances during Oct 7th, but no independent verification since then so far. None of which absolve Israel of the crime of targeting civilians under international law:
Intentionally utilizing the presence of civilians or other protected persons to render certain areas immune from military attack is prohibited under international law. Amnesty International was not able to establish whether or not the fighters’ presence in the camps was intended to shield themselves from military attacks. However, under international humanitarian law, even if one party uses “human shields”, or is otherwise unlawfully endangering civilians, this does not absolve the opposing party from complying with its obligations to distinguish between military objectives and civilians or civilian objects, to refrain from carrying out indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks, and to take all feasible precautions to spare civilians and civilian objects.
Additionally, there is extensive independent verification of Israel using Palestinians as Human Shields: IDF uses Human Shields, including Children (2013 Report), and in the latest war Israel “Systematically” Uses Gaza Children as Human Shields, Rights Group Finds
I share your frustration with the Democratic party, the Republican party, and even American politics as a whole. At least as much as I can, I don’t have the same kind of lived experience as someone who’s directly connected to victims of western Imperialism. I’ve only spent the last couple years learning about the real history of Palestine.
If you think the BDS Movement and the Uncommitted Movement are your enemies, I genuinely hope you reconsider. They are the spearhead of pro-palestinian support that has made massive gains in even just the last few months. The pressure is mounting. These kinds of non-violent protests for the liberation of people long oppressed is exactly the kind of protests MLK envisioned and practiced to create genuine change.
I first learned about Palestine from Hasan Piker, here he goes into what the Uncommitted movement in detail. I hope you give it a watch, I think it might change your mind
The anti-genocide protestors are pressuring the Democratic party, they are Democratic voters. Only the Democratic party has the opportunity to change policy on Israel. By pivoting and forcing conditional military aid / arms embargo, they can secure an actual ceasefire.
The people who are mad at the protestors, acting as if they’re doing it for selfish reasons or secretly want trump to win, are being completely disingenuous. If they cared about ending the genocide in Gaza, they would also be advocating for the end of US directly funding Israel’s crimes against humanity, but instead they’d rather complain about the protestors.
In Matt Nelson’s words: