How news sites classify columns as news or opinion seems often to be quite arbitrary. Rather often, a fact-based account is consigned to the opinion section mostly because it is examining the situation from a point of view other than that of the currently dominant political perspective. Such was the case with a recent piece by Guardian columnist, Nesrine Malik:
From The Guardian:
Biden is about to leave office with his catastrophic policy of unconditional support for the Israeli war intact. He has backed away from the anemic threat to withhold some American bombs which have already killed tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians. Harris' failure to separate her campaign from Biden's policy certainly contributed to her defeat. Time to send a clear message to the Democrats.
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See Owen Jones' opinion piece in The Guardian: Is there any red line that Israel will be held to? Biden has just confirmed the answer is no
I've been getting half a dozen emails daily from the Harris-Walz campaign asking for money.
I decided it was time for a reply:
This last issue of the NY Review has some particularly good book reviews and articles, including an extraordinary account of the the atrocities currently taking place in the West Bank against the Palestinian population by right-wing Israeli settlers with the full cooperation of the Israeli Defense Forces.
An 'Unlawful Presence' is by David Shulman, an Israeli human rights activist who works on the ground to try to combat the endless, horrific persecution of the rural Palestinian people. He also, in this article, describes how it is that so many of his fellow citizens have become numb to the facts of the genocidal assault in both Gaza and the West Bank. He mentions in regard to that skewed perception of reality that it is attributable in part to the dereliction of the Israeli news sources, with the sole exception of the Haaretz newspaper; how that paper's willingness to persevere in the country's climate of right-wing terror is another story that needs telling.
My expectation for the Democratic Party Convention is that there will be a lot of balloons and confetti. Beyond that, I'll be surprised if there are any really new policy initiatives. Harris will mostly be careful not to step on any toes, the foremost of those being the American Israel Public Affairs Committee(AIPAC) which has already deployed millions of dollars against progressive Democrats supporting Palestinians facing Israel's genocidal war in Gaza. At the same time Kamala will need to signal some willingness to push for a ceasefire as soon as possible. A lot will depend on the numbers of pro-Palestinian delegates and demonstrators who show up and how the protestors are handled by the Convention's security and Chicago police forces.
Joe Biden could have taken action to avoid Harris' dilemma over Gaza by demanding an immediate ceasefire. He did not do that and it is unlikely that he will make that part of his convention message, or even that he will push effectivly on Israel for a movement toward peace during his remaining months in office.
The pro-Palestinian demonstrators, of course, have their own dilemma to confront as Trump's pro-Israeli record has been even more radical in some ways than Biden's decades-long unconditional support of Israel and the resultant disaster.
Palestinians continue to die under Israeli bombs and from lack of food, shelter and health care. Kamala Harris as President may follow a different course than Biden has taken, but the election is still months away. How many people will die in Gaza before then? Surely, it will be in the thousands if there is no ceasefire.
One thing to bear in mind is that Biden is still the President. Harris can express discomfort at the situation, but Biden is in a position to do something about it, and he himself has nothing to lose by taking action. It would be a chance for him to erase some of the stain on a record of accomplishment in regard to many domestic issues.
Biden keeps making vague complaints that Israel has not produced a plan for what comes after the Gaza war ends. Why not get more specific and initiate the process with requirements and sanctions that are in the power of the U.S. and its allies to undertake?
Thomas Piketty describes the dilemma and its possible resolution in his blog:
...The challenges may seem immense, but what’s the alternative? To wait peacefully for the open slaughter of Palestinian civilians to reach 40,000 dead, then 50,000 dead, then 100,000 dead? The moral and political cost of Western inaction is exorbitant. It can be explained first and foremost by the navel-gazing of European and American societies, too preoccupied with their own divisions to take any real interest in constructive solutions in Israel-Palestine...
Netanyahu clearly wants to stretch out the war as long as possible to forestall corruption charges. That cannot be allowed.
* Bernie Sanders breaks from Biden and Blinken to support ICC's arrest warrant request *
Biden has chosen to not withhold arms shipments to Israel which have contributed substantially to the deaths of 35,000 Palestinians. He is now also trying to obstruct the effort of the International Criminal Court to hold those responsible on both sides for their actions in the war in Gaza.
Biden needs to be held accountable.
Biden's response to Israel's actions in Gaza is wholly inadequate. He should resign.
UPDATE:
For a good explanation of why now is the time to dump Biden see the TNR article,
The Democrats Have a Joe Biden Problem
And this at The Nation,
The Media Keeps Asking the Wrong Questions About Biden and the “Uncommitted” Vote
It was not particularly surprising to see House Speaker Mike Johnson at Columbia calling for the resignation of the college's president. However, to hear him demand that Biden send the National Guard to suppress the pro-Palestine demonstrations seemed extraordinary to me. I suppose Johnson was a child when National Guardsmen opened fire on the student protesters in 1970 at Kent State, killing four and wounding nine. That seems a poor excuse for a national leader for such a level of ignorance or disregard about such an historic and consequential event.
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| Mary Ann Vecchio screams as she kneels over the body of Kent State University student Jeffrey Miller on May 4, 1970. Photo by John Filo |
Robert Reich, in today's Guardian, has a few suggestions for what Biden might want to say in this evening's State of the Union address. Reich's list is essentially an outline for a coherent Democratic Party platform based on FDR's 1936 summary of his first term accomplishments. I thought it was a good list as far as it went. Missing was any mention of Gaza, or the complicity of the U.S. military-industrial complex in the ongoing Genocide. We'll see what Joe has to say on those topics.
Israeli forces are massing for an invasion of Gaza with the objectives of recovering hostages and dismantling the Hamas organization directly responsible for the horrific attacks on Israel. To what extent the invasion will accomplish those objectives is uncertain. What is certain is that the destruction of cities and the displacement of huge numbers of Palestinians will breed the conditions which produce hopelessness and extremist violence for many, many years to come. There is no turning back now of the momentum for violent retribution, but at some point it will have to be admitted that the failure was not just of defensive preparations, but also of the loss of opportunities to create an environment of hope which is ultimately the only real insurance against extremist violence.
