DL Open Thread: Sunday, December 10, 2023
Biden: ‘Screw Congress, I’ll Send More Lethal Weaponry To Israel Because I Can.’ He’s not just ineffectual, he’s now complicit in a genocide:
Demanding that recipients of US military assistance comply with the laws of war is entirely unremarkable in every other context. There are multiple US laws that require monitoring and cutting off military aid to countries that use it to violate human rights and commit war crimes – which raises the question of why Biden is creating an entirely separate mechanism to enforce the same standards American lawmakers and his own administration created.
One such law is the Leahy Law, which requires that the US government vet any foreign military unit receiving US training or arms to ensure it has not been responsible for “gross violations of human rights”, a term the law doesn’t bother to define. With Israel, however, the US provides so much military aid that it has become impossible to track down to an individual unit. So the vetting doesn’t actually happen before the provision of military aid to Israel as the law requires.
Instead of using those existing frameworks with tried and tested enforcement mechanisms, Biden is communicating conditions behind closed doors where there can be no oversight or accountability.
All of this becomes especially troubling when considering the reasons Biden felt the need to break from decades of exempting Israel from similar scrutiny. To make such specific demands suggests that the US government believes – and finds it deeply disturbing – that Israel is not taking into sufficient consideration how many civilians it kills and is forcibly displacing civilians far beyond what’s necessary.
Despite that conclusion, and instead of immediately halting arms transfers, the Biden administration is still sending a bottomless tray of armaments to Israel. The US-Israel relationship needs to be reformed when this war is over and that begins by uniformly applying existing laws and regulations on arms exports – even with Israel.
The Biden administration faces mounting pressure over its provision of powerful weapons to Israel, with the spiraling death toll in Gaza deepening questions about whether the United States, as the country’s chief military backer, must do more to ensure civilians’ safety.
Rights groups, along with a growing bloc from within President Biden’s Democratic Party, are intensifying scrutiny of the arms flow to Israel that has included tens of thousands of bombs since Hamas militants’ bloody attacks of Oct. 7. Local authorities say that at least 17,700 people, many of them civilians, have been killed in Israel’s operation to dismantlethe Palestinian group.
Retire, you fucking old fart. And take your outmoded realpolitik foreign policy approach with you…
…Especially Since You’ve Alienated The Youth Of America:
Since the start of Israel’s war in Gaza nearly two months ago, outraged young Americans have been at the forefront of a growing Palestinian solidarity movement.
They have led protests in Washington and across the country to demand a permanent ceasefire and to voice their disapproval of Joe Biden’s support for Israel’s military campaign, which has killed thousands of Palestinians, mostly women and children, and plunged Gaza into a humanitarian catastrophe.
A generational divide on the conflict is shifting the terms of the foreign policy debate in Washington, where support for Israel has long been bipartisan and near-unanimous. And, ahead of an already contentious election year, there are signs the issue could pose a threat to Biden’s prospects of winning re-election in 2024.
Retire, you fucking old fart. And take your outmoded realpolitik foreign policy approach with you.
For those of you wondering just how much weaponry Biden has sent Israel since Oct. 7…:
The US has supplied long-term ally Israel with 10,000 tonnes worth of arms and weaponry since 7 October when a brutal onslaught on the Gaza Strip was launched, the Israeli ministry of defense said on Wednesday.
The ministry went on to add that the 200th cargo plane carrying military equipment from the US had arrived in the country, as Israel’s onslaught in Gaza continues to wage for a third month in a row.
Washington has provided weaponry including armoured vehicles, armaments, ammunition, and medical supplies to the Israeli army.
Protective personal equipment was also provided, the ministry wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
This works out at 159 tonnes of weaponry to Israel every day of the conflict.
You wanna help stop the conflict, Joe?: Starve weaponry to Israel, provide humanitarian aid to Gaza.
Retire, you fucking old fart. And take your outmoded realpolitik foreign policy approach with you.
What do you want to talk about?
What makes you think Joe’s retirement would change US government policy? Did changing House speakers change GOP policies?
Well, my dream candidate is Gretchen Whitmer, who represents a state with a large and active Muslim population.
To your point–a president is far more able to unilaterally change policy than a House Speaker.
Besides, it’s now more realistic that Biden can be defeated by Trump than it was before October 7. Because he has alienated a key group of essential supporters–young idealistic voters.
Do you now think that Biden is more vulnerable than he was before Oct. 7?
What makes you think the identity of a Democratic president would change the pressures that led to this policy?
Funny thing about Muslim solidarity – it doesn’t extend to taking in the population of Gaza.
Because, while the policy has traditionally been consensus-driven, a significant portion of the population, including a significant portion of Jewish-Americans, are pushing for change at a level that was not seen before Oct. 7.
The consensus is not holding, and a Democratic president who did not adhere to maintaining the status quo can change the policy.
You mention ‘pressures that led to this policy’. There are now countering pressures to change the policy, coming largely from voters, not AIPAC and its ilk.
The pressures I’m talking about don’t enter the public sphere. Public opinion plays no part.
There is no US response to the Israel-Hamas war that wouldn’t alienate some voter bloc. To win, Biden needs enough votes from young clueless Hamas apologists, and also from enough old pro-Israel liberals. If either bloc holds back, the Putin-Trump ticket wins.
‘Young clueless Hamas apologists’. There is no such thing.
They like to tell themselves that.
Puck, this is the last time I intend to respond to you.
I find your position utterly despicable. You might as well carry on a conversation with yourself.
And how does a two state solution ever become reality when Hamas and others only solution is to kill all Jews and abolish the State of Israel
Why do people think it’s their job to figure out the answer to this? It’s not your job, sport. If people who have devoted their lives to this can’t find a solution, why do randos in America think they can? I don’t mean to pick on you, I mean anyone.
Netanyahu propped up Hamas to discourage momentum towards a two-state solution:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/10/world/middleeast/israel-qatar-money-prop-up-hamas.html
A snippet:
“For years, the Qatari government had been sending millions of dollars a month into the Gaza Strip — money that helped prop up the Hamas government there. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel not only tolerated those payments, he had encouraged them.
During his meetings in September with the Qatari officials, according to several people familiar with the secret discussions, the Mossad chief, David Barnea, was asked a question that had not been on the agenda: Did Israel want the payments to continue?
Mr. Netanyahu’s government had recently decided to continue the policy, so Mr. Barnea said yes. The Israeli government still welcomed the money from Doha.
As far back as December 2012, Mr. Netanyahu told the prominent Israeli journalist Dan Margalit that it was important to keep Hamas strong, as a counterweight to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. Mr. Margalit, in an interview, said that Mr. Netanyahu told him that having two strong rivals, including Hamas, would lessen pressure on him to negotiate toward a Palestinian state.”
Just read the whole thing.
Alby – Mental recreation? Thought exercise? Humans like to think about things. It’s why we read books or watch movies or follow sports or even blogs. I happen to be mentally rec-reating this afternoon about the Eagles-Cowboys game!
Not saying there’s anything particularly noble about all this, and I don’t mean to trivialize the subject matter. It’s just an interesting way to pass the time. Unless it makes you unhappy, of course. Then don’t do it.
It might even, by some long shot, help in a minor way. Maybe generate some ideas about how to vote or sway other voters or activists. But it’s OK if it doesn’t.
Thus my thought exercise for 5:50 p.m.