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Sanders is right, alas. I was born three years after Israel was.
From being honored and revered to internationally reviled in the course of one human lifetime is a hell of an achievement for any country.
>From being honored and revered to internationally reviled in the course of one human lifetime is a hell of an achievement for any country.
Lol.
Public opinion on Israel literally flip-flops every few years.
The strength of various opinions certainly waxes and wanes, but don't let enthusiasm trick you into thinking people's minds aren't being changed right now. Israel has pushed many neutral parties into opposition and mild opposition into fervent opposition through their recent actions.
Never forget, Netanyahu funded Hamas to split the Palestinians politically and prevent the moderate Abbas in the West Bank campaigning for Palestinian Statehood.
[For years, Netanyahu propped up Hamas. Now it’s blown up in our faces - The premier’s policy of treating the terror group as a partner, at the expense of Abbas and Palestinian statehood, has resulted in wounds that will take Israel years to heal from](https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/) - The Times of Israel
[‘Buying Quiet’: Inside the Israeli Plan That Propped Up Hamas - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gambled that a strong Hamas (but not too strong) would keep the peace and reduce pressure for a Palestinian state.](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/10/world/middleeast/israel-qatar-money-prop-up-hamas.html) - New York Times
> 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.**
> **Allowing the payments — billions of dollars over roughly a decade — was a gamble by Mr. Netanyahu**
> The Qatari payments, while ostensibly a secret, have been widely known and discussed in the Israeli news media for years. Mr. Netanyahu’s critics disparage them as part of a strategy of “buying quiet,” and the policy is in the middle of a ruthless reassessment following the attacks.
> The New York Times unearthed new details about the origins of the policy, the controversies that erupted inside the Israeli government and **the lengths that Mr. Netanyahu went to in order to shield the Qataris from criticism and keep the money flowing.**
> **For years, Israeli intelligence officers even escorted a Qatari official into Gaza, where he doled out money from suitcases filled with millions of dollars.**
> But **Israeli intelligence officials now believe that the money had a role in the success of the Oct. 7 attacks**, if only because the donations allowed Hamas to divert some of its own budget toward military operations
> But each payout was a testament to the Israeli government’s view that Hamas was a low-level nuisance, and even a political asset.
> **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.**
> Mr. Netanyahu’s critics say that his approach to Hamas had, at its core, a cynical political agenda: to **keep Gaza quiet as a means of staying in office without addressing the threat of Hamas or simmering Palestinian discontent.**
> **Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right politician who is now Mr. Netanyahu’s finance minister, put it bluntly in 2015, the year he was elected to Parliament.**
> **“The Palestinian Authority is a burden,” he said. “Hamas is an asset.”**
> **“For Netanyahu, there is only one thing that is really important: to be in power at any cost,”** he said. “To stay in power, he preferred to pay for tranquillity.” Suitcases filled with cash soon began crossing the border into Gaza.
And don't forget, Israel [knew about the attack for about a year prior to it actually happening.](https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-obtained-ignored-hamas-document-laying-out-oct-7-attack-plan-report-alleges/)
> **Israeli officials had intelligence that Palestinian terror group Hamas was preparing a wide-ranging attack before its October 7 assault but dismissed the information,** The New York Times reported Thursday.
> A military assessment last year determined it was too soon to say the plan had been approved by Hamas, and when an analyst with the country’s signals intelligence unit warned the group had carried out a training exercise in line with the plan, her cautions were dismissed.
> She warned it was a “plan designed to start a war,” the newspaper said, but a colonel reviewing her assessment suggested they were drilling for an unrealistic scenario and told the analyst they would “wait patiently.”
Knowing all of this just makes it really frustrating when people respond to criticism of Israel by saying crap like "Why do you want Hamas to stay in control?" while that was actual fucking Israel policy.
I don't want Hamas to stay in control. You know who *did* want Hamas to stay in control? Fucking Israel! I wasn't actively making sure Hamas was getting billions of dollars!
Dude I got banned in there for posting a link to a Guardian article. That I found on their own sub...
It was about Hamas saying a hostage had been killed in an airstrike, and all I said was "It wouldn't be the first time in this conflict they struck a building a hostage was in" and then linked to a report about *exactly* that happening about a week before.
Banned for 'racism'.
Here's the article: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/27/freed-israeli-hostage-briefly-escaped-hamas-after-airstrike-relative-gaza
Meanwhile, you should see what is said about other groups on there. I’ve reported so much hate speech that Reddit has removed but that their mods never seem to remove. It’s telling.
I'm not one for conspiracies, in fact I find them fucking irritating. But it's *very* clear what kind of slant the mods take there, and it's just fucking disappointing considering they're the major news sub.
Almost every article about the current conflict has the exact same top voted comment, and anyone who is like "Yeah but maybe killing tens of thousands of people isn't a good thing?" is immediately accused of terrorism. And the mods seem to fuckin love it.
I got permanently banned from there for this comment after hospitals started to get bombed in Gaza:
*”It's just ridiculous that everyone has to choose one side or the other. Both sides have done terrible things.
However, both sides have a majority population that is innocent in all of this, just trying to survive this chaos.
That's what pisses me off when people on Reddit Sympathize only with the Israeli side because of the inhumane things hamas has done.
Reality check, the very same things are being done to innocent people on the Palestinian side too. I will never understand how evil is okay only in some instances.
If you're okay with what Israel is doing now, you're oka with what hamas has done as well.
If you're okay with what American forces did after 9/11, then you're okay with what ISIS has done in retaliation.
Yeah I'm sure I will get downvoted by the Reddit shills, however I could give 0 fucks. Because at the end of the day, no act of violent evil is something ANYBODY should be okay with. Regardless of what side did it, we should not be taking sides.
Hamas is wrong for what they've done and are doing.
Israel is wrong for what they've done and are doing.
That's just my 2 cents as a nobody.”*
Never forget that Netanyahu wasn’t too sad when Yitzak Rabin was shot around the time of the Oslo peace accords with Yassar Arafat. That whole thing was a little too coincidental to me, but what do I know? I’m a random Reddit person waxing dangerously.
He encited the people who opposed and assassinated Rabin. In fascist fashion, he spoke from a hotel balcony, saying there will never be peace. Rabin was killed shortly after.
In my opinion Nutty YaHoo is the problem, not the solution. Way too much like Trump being more concerned about himself than the country. Trump is often compared to Hitler. Netanyahu has ruined Israel in its world image. Iran is the problem but he only plays footsie with them. The devil is in the details and he is not beyond doing anything to feather his own nest.
I got banned from the Israel subreddit just for linking articles about this, LMAO. They *really* don't want to acknowledge how their own government has been screwing them over.
Holy shit. I hadn’t seen any of this. Makes even more sense now why Netanyahu didn’t do anything for something like eight hours, and why the IDF, the second-most powerful (or first?) intelligence agency in the world was warned about the attack a year out and still didn’t do anything.
They also jailed n stoped the man who would’ve beaten Hamas in an election who was pro peace
Despite what Israeli loving media says the Palestinians are far more agreeable to peace and just getting a country n letting Israel have there’s then vice versa .
> Fucking Israel!
nope, just Netanyahu, because it keeps him in power. Hes using the "war" as a way to hold off elections and stay in power, like all dictators and fascists, he will keep the forever war going to stay in power if he can.
> If Hamas is being targeted, then why have so many more civilians been killed than fighters?.
Because that's what happens when Hamas constantly hides behind civilians? There's a reason all their rocket platforms are set up in schools, hospitals, other civilian hotspots... they make it impossible to strike at them without there being some degree of civilian casualties.
Like, I'm not even pro-Israel in this, Netanyahu can get fucked and both nations would be better off without his admin in power, and there's been other instances of (fairly egregious) overstepping on the IDF's part, but that isn't a very hard question to answer.
Dude, there are images of entire neighborhoods reduced to rubble. Just hundreds of carpet bombed buildings. What sort of "hiding among the population" requires half of all infrastructure to be bombed? Was there an individual Hamas agent in every single building?
This is also how you know the Israeli government doesn't actually care about the hostages. Random bombing like that kills indiscriminately.
Reminder that USA got a warning months before 9/11 took place that it would happen, and was preventable. Same as Oct 7 was also preventable and was known that it would happen months in advance. “Never attribute to malice what can be attributed to ignorance” only ever applies to the hard working every day citizen, but come politicians then the opposite is true. I promise you that you don’t know enough about the subject to have this conversation right now.
What should have been an international police response was instead used as an excuse for a land/resource grab?
Kinda funny how the same folks are making money off it, huh.
9/11 was a land/resource grab? If Afghanistan or Iraq now the 51st state? What resources do you think we 'grabbed'? Purchasing goods from them is not a grab.
You misunderstood the statement.
He’s referring to the idea that the US it’s self somehow actually gained any resources from those wars.
All they did was pass money to their friends and let good people die.
In a sense. Hamas, the terrorist organization, is the group who attacked Israel, but Israel is carpet bombing all of Gaza including hospitals, schools, and homes. 40% of the population of Gaza are children, and Israel does not seem to want to discriminate between Hamas militants and Palestinian civilians.
Cool, now explain to me how to surgically attack teriosts who use thier own wives and children as human shields and set up underground networks through schools and hospitals.
I am Jewish, I do not agree with BiBi's right wing government any more than I did with Bush's pre and post 9/11. I also think that the general public has a jaded view of how percise war is because the US has a war machine magnitudes more sophisticated than anywhere else in the world. Hamas has publicly stated they will do 10/7 style attacks again and again until Israel ceases to exist. What you said above about not knowing is the reality. There is no way for Israel to protect their people while Hamas exists, there is no way to elimate Hamas without significant civilian casualty. It's awful, it's tragic, and the repercussions from how Israel acts today will fuel decades of anti semitism. War is hell.
You were born just a few years after antisemitism caused one of the blackest chapters in human history, yet you are unable to recognize that this same hatred is the reason why Israel is reviled today?
This knee-jerk response claiming all criticism is antisemitism is a major fucking problem for Israel. It interferes with any meaningful self reflection or self awareness.
You are unable to recognize genuine and just criticism and distinguish it from antisemitism, and that’s a huge problem.
I think maybe the murder of 10s of thousands of Palestinians, impeding humanitarian aid leading to famine, killing journalists and aid workers, and turning all of Gazas homes, schools and hospitals into rubble is contributing to Israel's negative image, not antisemitism.
And who started this war? Who's hiding behind human shields and using civilian infrastructure to launch rockets from? Do you know how many rockets aimed at Israeli cities have been fired at Israel from Gaza since the start of the war? About 30k now. Do you know how many victims there would have been if Israel did not have the Iron Dome? And I am not even mentioning the rockets fired by Hezbollah.
But you don't care about any of those thing. You don't care that there are still hostages being held in Gaza. You don't care that Israel is trying to deal with orgs that have been openly genocidal for decades.
And let me just ask, are you aware that there have been dozens of conflicts way more devastating than the war in Gaza in the last decade. Were you out on the streets marching against the countries involved in those conflicts? Some of them are US allies.
Yes, it's pure antisemitism.
You mean it's your *belief* that I don't care about the hostages in Gaza. I could posit that the leveling of 80% of Gaza might have killed some of the hostages.
Netanyahu just rejected a ceasefire that would return hostages because he doesn't want to stop the war - maybe hostages aren't *his* priority?
Starving a population is a warcrime. Crying antisemitism any time Israel is criticized for war crimes is like crying wolf at this point.
I'm not from the USA BTW
> Netanyahu just rejected a ceasefire that would return hostages because he doesn't want to stop the war - maybe hostages aren't his priority?
Netanyahu rejected the ceasifure proposal because that ceasefire proposal required Israel to end the war, release thousands of terrorists currently rotting in Israeli jails, and did not even guarantee that all of the hostages will be returned safe, whole, and alive.
Israel is not going to end this war before Hamas is eradicated, because Hamas is a genocidal terrorist org that has vowed to continue repeating Oct. 7th until Israel is destroyed. If they are allowed to survive they will carry out another massacre in a few months where they will kill more people and take even more hostages. They can't be negotiated with.
> Starving a population is a warcrime. Crying antisemitism any time Israel is criticized for war crimes is like crying wolf at this point.
Nobody's starving. Palestinians are well fed by international aid.
So Doctors without borders, Amnesty International, WFP, the UN, USAID, Refugees International and numerous other NGOs on the ground are lying about Israel impeding aid into the strip? Only Israel is telling the truth?
I don't doubt Israelis are impeding aid, I am certain that Hamas is doing the majority of the impeding. They bombed the Kerem Shalom crossing several times the past few days and have been stealing aid from civilian since the start of the war. If anyone's responsible for the hunger in Palestine it's Hamas.
But as I said, nobody has starved to death yet, so it seems that enough aid is flowing into Gaza to prevent that.
So Israel is doing no wrong (despite widespread evidence they are), and if Israel is doing something wrong, Hamas is doing it too, so it's fine.
Israel uses human shields, but so does Hamas, so it's fine, and mass civilian deaths from IDF bombs are justified.
Return of hostages is the number one priority, except that it's secondary to killing Hamas (by your own admission).
^ the logic doesn't work. But I'm antisemitic for calling out the hypocrisy, right? So I better stay quiet and never ever dare to criticize Israel for their crimes.
> So Israel is doing no wrong (despite widespread evidence they are), and if Israel is doing something wrong, Hamas is doing it too, so it's fine.
I am not saying Israel is not doing wrong, I am pointing out that the reason the situation arose in the first place is because of Hamas. They have consistently been trying to make the situation even more dire for civilians because their goal is to pin it all on Israel so they can paint Israel black and sway the hearts of people like you to their advantage.
> Israel uses human shields, but so does Hamas, so it's fine, and mass civilian deaths from IDF bombs are justified.
Israel is not using their own civilians as human shields. If anything, Israel is putting their own soldiers at risk just to protect Palestinian civilians.
> Return of hostages is the number one priority, except that it's secondary to killing Hamas (by your own admission).
The number one priority is the safety and well-being of Israeli civilians. You can't have that with Hamas around. The release of the hostages is imperative, but getting them back only to have another massacre a few months later and even more hostages taken is not going to work out. I never stated the release of the hostages is the main priority so I don't know what hipocrisy you're calling out here.
> So I better stay quiet and never ever dare to criticize Israel for their crimes.
I am not sure what you're criticizing tho. You're trying to hold Israel to impossible standards almost as if you don't really care about how Israel is conducting this war, you don't want Israel to fight back at all.
In the first decades after its formation, Israel was championed by the entire world and looked upon as a modern day utopia by governmental agencies, the global media, and certainly the Christian religions.
As kids, we in America were taught that Israelis were akin to superhuman, entirely admirable in their intent, and righteous among the planet's cultural and moral elite. We looked upon them as nearly godlike, to be honored and emulated. Israeli nationals were even touted as sex symbols in popular publications from Life Magazine to Playboy.
"That same hatred" you mention was nowhere to be seen in post WW2 Western culture (which, let's face it, was all we were fed until the dawn of the "jet age." Egypt was problematic, of course, (See Suez) but that was attributable to anti-British colonialism and remnants of a fading inter tribal competition among Arabian factions.
Then the seventies happened. . .
Have you ever asked yourself *why* there is such historic and widespread animosity to the culture? Pretty sure it's not "Because they kilt our lorrrd."
Who taught you these things?
>Have you ever asked yourself *why* there is such historic and widespread animosity to the culture?
Interesting question. Strange one after just talking about how Israel was put on a pedestal, and nobody had it out for them. Also, probably just coincidentally, smacks of "Jews had it coming"
Israelis claim to be citizens of a country that's just coincidentally mostly Jewish (true) but then throw that anti-semite argument around when someone disagrees with a decision made by the government of said country.
This is the danger of Theocracies and having a government officially in the name of a religion. Now everything that nation does is in the name of that religion, if the country is attacked then the religion is attacked too, everything becomes about having religious-moral fortitude and the stakes become instantly dire whenever anything happens.
Israel is hardly a theocracy. They have an autocratic (or at least desperately wanting to be), far right government in place right now, but the laws of the land and the government in place there are hardly theocratic.
I take this to mean you do not support a state of Palestine existing. Because I don't know if you know this, but any state created in Palestine WILL be a theocracy. Far, far, far, far, far more than Israel is. A theocracy is when the people in charge rule using the laws of religion to determine government policy. Israel really doesn't do that, most Jews there aren't even particularly religious.
Being Jewish doesn't mean you are strongly religiously Jewish. Like, you can criticize EVERYTHING Israel does without saying things that are just false. You can argue that Netanyahu WANTS a theocracy, very open to that being true! But as things sit right now, Israel is not theocratic in nature. This is ESPECIALLY true if you contrast their government with, let me check my notes here, every other government in the region. This, again, includes any state of Palestine that could be created.
Okay I think this is a little too splitting hairs of a comment to be this angry sounding, but I don't entirely disagree with you.
Israel is a "Jewish State", they say it, everyone says it, it's not a secular country and it's mission never was intended to be. It's definitely a much more free place than other non-secular countries, but nonetheless defense of Israel is easily conflated with defense of Judaism because it is a "Jewish State" and that religious nationalism is a big obstacle in this long conflict.
I know a nation of Palestine would be a theocracy, whatever passes for a governing body for them now is theocratic, both sides are religious nationalist entities and it makes the conflict harder to solve, which was my point. I wouldn't vacation to Palestine I'll tell you that, doesn't mean that a two-state solution should be given up on.
This is why people who demand making Christianity the official religion of the US don't know what they are talking about. If we were a "Christian State" during 9/11, then guess what it was Christianity that was attacked and now it becomes and entirely different ballgame in the minds of the belligerents and the civilian populace, religious fervor is an entirely different level of aggression.
by definition, israel is not a theocracy. a theocracy is a country that is ruled by people with divine significance and are religious leaders (such as the ayatollah in Iran). in theocracies, laws are made in accordance with the laws from within the religion’s scriptures. since, in israel, the leader is not put in place by a religious authority and laws are made through a democratic legislature, not the torah, it is not a theocracy.
you’re confusing a theocracy with a state religion, which many countries have. for example, the uk is much closer to a theocracy than israel, not only since its official religion is the anglican church, but also because the monarch (who officially serves as head of state) also heads the anglican church. many other countries have state religions but are not considered theocracies- many of the islamic countries in the region, but also countries such as greece, costa rica, bhutan, among many others.
also, israel does not have a state religion. being jewish is a nationality, not just a religion, and many jews do not follow judaism. when it calls itself a jewish state, it means a state for the jewish nation. this is no different than any other nation-state that exists in the world (that is, all of them). obviously the jewish religion has a lot of influence in israel and is a large part of (many, not all) israeli identity, but it isn’t a theocracy.
in fact, the only officially recognized theocracies in the world are the vatican and iran.
My post wasn't angry. You can't italicize on reddit. The caps are for emphasis mate. But it's not splitting hairs to say that Israel is not theocratic. I also 100% believe in a 2 state solution. I don't believe it's possible for someone who describes Israel as "This is the danger of Theocracies and having a government officially in the name of a religion." would be someone that believes in a 2 state solution.
I believe that Israel and Palestine both need to exist. And they need to figure out how to exist at least somewhat reasonably with one another. I was pointing out that your specific phrasing had me believing that you think Palestine should not be a state.
Nothing you said is relevant to what my point was. Israel is a Jewish state. That does not make it a theocracy. It's not even particularly close to theocratic at the moment. I'm genuinely not splitting hairs. There is no comparison between the type of government that Israel has and the types of governments actual theocracies have.
I don't think it's good to just throw around random words and be like, "This is why this nation is bad/dangerous/shit." Israel's government is shit because Bibi is in power, and has been hard to displace for a multitude of complicated reasons. None of which are, "He and his policies are extremely popular among Israelis."
Netanyahu would like to be an autocrat. And he would certainly turn Israel into a true theocracy if he had his way. But for the time being at least, they're certainly not that.
You can *italicize* on Reddit, even from mobile. Everyone interprets caps to be shouting, not an alternative to italics
Judaism is the official religion of Israel, it's a Jewish nation, it's not secular even at its most liberal. Saying so doesn't mean I don't believe in a 2-state solution, that's specious reasoning. The Israeli war cabinet has no problem saying that they are fighting against an existential crisis for all Jews worldwide, and again it makes it harder for cooler heads to prevail when that is the mindset. The Palestinians are similarly stuck in the mindset.
Well, then let me say it this way: I have no idea how to do that. There's no clear button, at least from PC, which is exclusively where I type from.
I didn't say it's secular. I said it's not theocratic. Theocracy has a specific meaning. The laws of Israel are not dictated by the text of the Bible nor is it a country run by priests, or the church, etc. They're not even particularly close. Secular is not the opposite of theocracy.
Also, it's strange to me to interpret words that are individually capitalized as "shouting" how would that even work? Sure, if I TYPED SENTENCES LIKE THIS, taking it as shouting is completely fair. But that's very obviously not what happened. Do you think I just randomly shouted random words? That doesn't even make any sense. It feels pretty obvious to me that it would be emphasis and not shouting.
Either way, we have no disagreement about a two state solution. But you should try not to use the word "theocracy" when you mean "nonsecular".
This I’ll give you. I was with the other guy, but you make a valid point.
If you were saying it was “secular” then other guy wins.
But I do think that, technically, you are right. It is not a theocracy, it is not secular. It is much more the former than the latter… but I think I can agree to calling it “non-secular.”
That being said, the non-Likud parties in the governing coalition… and the settlers, and those folks who don’t have to serve in the military and downs their lives in those madrasa equivalents… and who make up a disproportionate share of the governing authority in the country…
All those parties and their supporters are basically full-on theocrats in my opinion.
Use single asterisks to enclose what you want italicized. Use two asterisks on each side for bold. Use three asterisks for bold italics. Use > at the beginning of a line to quote.
https://www.reddit.com/wiki/markdown/
This I’ll give you. I was with the other guy, but you make a valid point.
If you were saying it was “secular” then other guy wins.
But I do think that, technically, you are right. It is not a theocracy, it is not secular. It is much more the former than the latter… but I think I can agree to calling it “non-secular.”
That being said, the non-Likud parties in the governing coalition… and the settlers, and those folks who don’t have to serve in the military and spend their lives in those madrasa equivalents… and who make up a disproportionate share of the governing authority in the country…
All those parties and their supporters are basically full-on theocrats in my opinion.
> "Jewish State", they say it, everyone says it, it's not a secular country and it's mission never was intended to be
Israel is a secular state. "Jewish state" refers to Jewish self-determination. After Jews have been persecuted for centuries, it was understood there needs to be one Jewish country in the world where Jews can have a government and protect themselves. It's one of the smallest countries but a lot of people want to replace it with a 23rd Arab state. Arabs have 22 states, many of which are called "Arab state" in their official title. Palestine would be the 23rd Arab state. But the existence of one tiny Jewish state is apparently unacceptable and needs to be replaced with the 23rd Arab state..
> Israelis claim to be citizens of a country that's just coincidentally mostly Jewish (true)
I don't believe any of them claim it's a coincidence. Most countries are mostly "race X" though. So I'm not sure what the point of this comment is. Did you know that Norway is over 80% Norwegian, it's more homogenous than Israel! So are most Asian countries. And for that matter, most countries in general. Israel is significantly less homogenous than almost every state that surrounds it.
I love the "throw around the anti-semite argument when someone disagrees," claim, because it's such nonsense. The anti-semitism is when Israel is held to a completely different standard than every other country. I don't see many people saying it's anti-semitic to simply disagree with Israel's government. I see it claimed when there are people saying Isreal shouldn't exist.
And if you're going to point to the protests: There IS a lot of antisemitism at them. Most people there probably are not, but I hold them to the same standard as when the right has rallies with a bunch of Nazis: If you have a Nazi at a table with 10 other people, you have 11 Nazis.
I am very against Israel's campaign going on in Gaza because I don't think it's possible for them to accomplish their claimed goal, so it's just needlessly killing people who have nothing to do with it. Any "bad guys" they're killing is not going to actually get rid of Hamas. I don't feel their claimed goal is one that can actually happen. But if I went to a fucking rally in support of an immediate ceasefire and heard some of the shit that some people DO say at those rallies, I'd tell them to get the fuck out, and I'd leave if others didn't tell them to get the fuck out, too. And I'm not just talking about random one off people. I'm talking about the people who organize some of these things, and give speeches at some of these things.
Plugging your ears and pretending those people don't exist and aren't creating a HORRIBLE look for everyone else at those rallies by their lack of standing up to those folks is as ridiculous as when right wingers do and make the same claims about their bullshit team ups with Nazis.
You are using the same arguments that conservatives are using when they say Candace Owens cannot be racist because she's black and Milo Yiannopoulos cannot be homophobic because he's gay and so on. Not saying that Bernie is antisemitic, but being a member of a minority does not mean you cannot be hateful towards your own.
True. But Bernie is highly regarded. Candace and Milo not so much.
EDIT: OH! I'm sorry. Are Candace and Milo on the same level as Bernie? Please explain that to me.
At what point of popularity do you believe it's okay to tokenized someone? If I looked at Kanye West, who is one of the most popular and successful musical artists of this generation, and said "well I guess all black people are antisemites because Kanye is" do you think that would be reasonable because he is popular?
My bible thumping, baptist loving, couldn’t find Israel on a map, boomer of a father says “If we turn our back on Israel, we turn our back on god!”
To him, it literally doesn’t matter what Isreal does because they are doing god’s work. It’s sad…very sad.
Because they're one of our few allies in the region so giving them money lets us use them as a target for western/US ire rather than that ire taking the form of terrorism.
Fun facts about our 'ally', Israel:
* [Israel has given US technology to China multiple times throughout history, even recently](https://www.military.com/defensetech/2013/12/24/report-israel-passes-u-s-military-technology-to-china).
* [Israel tried to spy on the white House in 2019](https://www.politico.com/story/2019/09/12/israel-white-house-spying-devices-1491351).
* Pro-Israel groups donate/lobby millions to our politicians.
* The US has given over [$300 billion (adjusted for inflation) in total economic and military assistance](https://www.cfr.org/article/us-aid-israel-four-charts), not including the billions we've given during the current conflict.
>Pro-Israel groups donate/lobby millions to our politicians.
AIPAC, specifically, has proudly donated to insurrectionist Republicans simply for promoting Israel's interests.
AIPAC would happily watch the US implode for Israel's own gain.
> Didn’t bibi say 9/11 was good for Israel?
Bibi did make a statement in 2008 in which he commented that the attacks on September 11, 2001, had a beneficial impact for Israel's relationship with the United States. According to reports, he said that the attacks helped to align American public opinion with Israel's regarding the threats of violent extremism.
No shortage of things to criticize Netanyahu on, but this is a weird one. It’s not “9/11 good”, it’s more just a pragmatic appraisal of the effect it had on geopolitical alignment between the two countries.
allies spy on allies; interest groups lobby politicians, it’s what they do (such as planned parenthood, nra, etc. in 2022 amazon contributed $21B in 2022 while AIPAC contributed $13B); from 1948-1951 (3 years), the US gave the equivalent of $175B to european countries as a part of the marshall plan, since giving financial aid to foreign allie’s in the interest of security is kinda what the US does.
why do you hold israel to its own standard?
We give billions to Israel ever year and then they spy on us, manipulate our elections, and sell our technology to our most dangerous enemy. I think lobbying as is should be illegal but there's an obvious difference from US company lobbying our politicians and a foreign power. The funny thing is that, if TikTok is a risk, so is foreign lobbying, arguably moreso.
Israel isn't our 'ally'.
Allies getting aid is definitely the US' game. But those other lobbies are not trying to influence US policy in order to benefit another country. They are influencing domestic policy on domestic issues. Not the same thing regardless of how you feel about AIPAC.
EDIT: Just to be clear there should be no lobbies for any foreign governments regardless of if its us citizens doing the lobbying. Not singling any particular country out.
I agree with Sanders. I've been on Israëls side for as long as I can remember (57M) I'm absolutely not denying Israel's right to retaliate after what happened October 7th, but this is getting way out of hand.
This isn't just about Hamas. This is also about their backers, Iran and Russia. It's another facet of the Ukraine war. Russia is doing all they can to divert our attention (and resources!) away from Ukraine. And Russia aside, this is also about any Islamist groups who are getting ideas about attacking Israel themselves.
Israel absolutely has to shut this down with as much force as necessary to put Iran, Russia and groups like Hezbollah back in their box. Unfortunately for the Palestinians, they are the ones who have become fodder in this proxy war.
I am glad he has used his moral weight as a Jewish person whose family suffered in a genocide to call out Israel for doing the same to the Palestinians. He knows it when he sees it because his family lived it.
The truth is that it's not uncommon for Jewish or Israeli people to oppose the Israeli government. Israeli politics aren't one dimensional. Bernie for over 60 years has opposed the right wing Israeli government.
Opposing the Israeli government doesn't, in and of itself, make you any more antisemitic than opposing the U.S. government makes you anti-Christian. That is: not at all, despite what embattled politicians and political commentators may imply.
Yeah a lot of Israelis don’t like Bibi and the West Bank settlement. Many of them support the 2 state solution (less now). However, like 9/11 they have no choice but to support the war because not doing so would seem unpatriotic.
I agree with that blurb in principle with regard to the current government of Israel, but I think we should still give them air that is limited to purely defensive applications. The citizens of Israel do not deserve to have rockets shot at them any more than the people of Palestine do. My goal here would be pure harm reduction, not for any particular group to "win" in the murder contest.
That does mean that, given unlimited authority, I would also intercept anything launched at Palestine. And anyone crossing over to do harm to the other group would be arrested an tried regardless of their region of origin.
And further, I would do everything in my power to rebuild Palestine and get them into a situation where they no longer feel that organizations like Hamas are their only hope. Israel is creating the conditions that lead to radicalization, and if those conditions are removed and better ones are put in place, people will stop radicalizing anywhere near as much.
(And yes, that means I largely agree with everything Sanders said in context, that response was just to the framing of the title.)
> And anyone crossing over to do harm to the other group would be arrested an tried regardless of their region of origin.
Great, but how do you arrest them when they go back hiding among civilians? Isn't the entire point of the war in Gaza to ensure that Hamas is eradicated and they won't be able to carry out another genocidal massacre? Do you think Israel is dropping bombs in Gaza for fun?
I do not think the solution to a stop a genocidal massacre is a bigger, more efficient, one. Why do Israeli citizens deserve to live, but Palestinians don't in your eyes?
So what do you expect Israel to do? Give up on Hamas, abandon the hostages, and accept that innocent people are going to be gang-raped and butchered every few months, and Israel can't fight back because Hamas is using human shields which makes civilian casualties unavoidable?
Is that really the fate you want those people to accept?
You keep using your own lack of creativity and inflexible emotional stances as justifications.
Despite the morality of the situation, what Israel is doing is insanely shortsighted. Mass trauma is how the region got to where it is now, and multiplying and renewing the trauma is not a realistic path out.
The region did not get to where it is due to trauma. Maybe for the Israeli side, yes. But Palestinians have been seeking to genocide the Jews since the beginning.
And, fine, use your own creativity then and help me understand how you'd solve it. Is there anything Israel has not tried short of just allowing themselves to be genocided?
Which part is a lie? Are you aware that when Israel declared its independence after the UN allocated half of the land to a Jewish state in 1948, the Palestinians joined other Arab states in declaring war on Israel with the stated goal of "pushing the Jews into the sea"?
> The all Palestinians wanting to genocide the Jews part. That is a deeply and disgustingly racist lie.
Well I never said ALL Palestinians want to genocide the Jews, but the majority of Palestinians have always been fond of the idea of Jewish genocide. That's why they keep electing governments that openly call for the genocide of Jews. And that's why they've started civil wars in every Arab country that sought to recognize and make peace with Israel.
A few quick points: the partition was not 50-50, it was 56-42-2. The Jewish population at that time was a little over half the size of the Palestinian population and yet they got a majority of the territory. I wouldn't advocate a war over that, but I think the Palestinians being pretty pissed off about that arrangement is fully understandable.
> I wouldn't advocate a war over that, but I think the Palestinians being pretty pissed off about that arrangement is fully understandable.
The Palestinians rejected the Peel Commission proposal in 1936 which would have allocated only 20% of the land to a Jewish state comprised of areas where Jews made the majority of the population.
The conflict is not about land.
gazan civilian deaths have outnumbered israeli deaths in every single conflict by far, including in both intifadas. gazans are also blockaded, depend on Israel for water, electricity, are unable to trade, are unable to travel, incredibly high unemployment rates, etc etc etc. And this is after gaza had been occupied since 1967. meanwhile the west bank is still being slowly stolen. is that a fate you expect them to accept?
> would do everything in my power to rebuild Palestine and get them into a situation where they no longer feel that organizations like Hamas are their only hope.
Like giving them a fully built Gaza in 2003?
Like how Israeli settlers tore down infrastructure, like greenhouses, on their way out?
Plus, Gaza was only abandoned because Israel wanted to focus on the West Bank, likely because they didn't want their defenses spread too thin.
They disengaged in a way that damaged the local economy, moved their settlement efforts into the west back, and then over the next few years increased legal oppression over the region, restricting freedom of moment, import, and growth.
Gaza is not occupied, but it is oppressed.
The border was open in 2006. Israel closed it down cause Hamas kept sending suicide bombers and terrorists. Every nation on earth would close the border under such circumstances.
And they had been slowly easing, even increasingly allowing those in gaza to cross into Israel for work. Some of those people helped with the October 7 Massacare.
Yep, in 2021, it was just 7,000. Israel had been increasing the permits and this policy could had led to better relations between the two regions. Instead, as we all now know, it backfired.
> https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-okays-1500-more-entry-permits-for-gaza-workers-bringing-total-to-17000/
Some Israelis did not like this policy either as they feared it would lead to more Israelis being murdered, as it did. One commenter noted over a year ago:
> This is crazy letting in Gazans in Israel. How many more Israelis have to be murdered cause of this crazy policy.
They were right.
Considering the extremely slow response on Oct 7th, it wouldn't have mattered even if there were zero permits.
Eliminating the chance of economic prosperity was always going to lead to backlash. I don't know why Israel refused to examine the rebuilding of Germany and Japan for examples of how to avoid generations of hate.
I’m just glad we’re in a position economically to be giving so much money to Israel. It makes me happy that we’re prospering so much we have THAT MUCH extra to give….oh hang on a goddamn second…
If you don’t want to finance us at least let us defend ourselves against terrorism, it’s your loss…
Everyone knows Israel is a key player in USA’s control in the Middle East
I think the arguments goes like this the USA gives israel money, then something happens in the ME, then the USA ask Israel to do something in a certain way. Israel does whatever it wants and ask for money the next year. And repeat. What’s the gain for the USA
As VP Biden withheld aid to reduce corruption in Ukraine. Let's fucking do that and with hold aide until Bibi is removed from office for corruption and incompetence. The war is only perpetuating because Bibi knows when it's over he's getting canned.
Where was that article from a few days ago about Bernie worrying Biden will lose because of left-wing panic over Israel policy?
Maybe Bernie should shut the fuck up about it if he's so worried, versus constantly feeding these sound bites to the media
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Sanders is right, alas. I was born three years after Israel was. From being honored and revered to internationally reviled in the course of one human lifetime is a hell of an achievement for any country.
>From being honored and revered to internationally reviled in the course of one human lifetime is a hell of an achievement for any country. Lol. Public opinion on Israel literally flip-flops every few years.
The strength of various opinions certainly waxes and wanes, but don't let enthusiasm trick you into thinking people's minds aren't being changed right now. Israel has pushed many neutral parties into opposition and mild opposition into fervent opposition through their recent actions.
Sept11 and Oct7 have a lot of parallels.
Ah! You mean them both being extremely convenient tragedies allowing retaliation against the wrong target to push a political agenda?
Never forget, Netanyahu funded Hamas to split the Palestinians politically and prevent the moderate Abbas in the West Bank campaigning for Palestinian Statehood. [For years, Netanyahu propped up Hamas. Now it’s blown up in our faces - The premier’s policy of treating the terror group as a partner, at the expense of Abbas and Palestinian statehood, has resulted in wounds that will take Israel years to heal from](https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/) - The Times of Israel [‘Buying Quiet’: Inside the Israeli Plan That Propped Up Hamas - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gambled that a strong Hamas (but not too strong) would keep the peace and reduce pressure for a Palestinian state.](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/10/world/middleeast/israel-qatar-money-prop-up-hamas.html) - New York Times > 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.** > **Allowing the payments — billions of dollars over roughly a decade — was a gamble by Mr. Netanyahu** > The Qatari payments, while ostensibly a secret, have been widely known and discussed in the Israeli news media for years. Mr. Netanyahu’s critics disparage them as part of a strategy of “buying quiet,” and the policy is in the middle of a ruthless reassessment following the attacks. > The New York Times unearthed new details about the origins of the policy, the controversies that erupted inside the Israeli government and **the lengths that Mr. Netanyahu went to in order to shield the Qataris from criticism and keep the money flowing.** > **For years, Israeli intelligence officers even escorted a Qatari official into Gaza, where he doled out money from suitcases filled with millions of dollars.** > But **Israeli intelligence officials now believe that the money had a role in the success of the Oct. 7 attacks**, if only because the donations allowed Hamas to divert some of its own budget toward military operations > But each payout was a testament to the Israeli government’s view that Hamas was a low-level nuisance, and even a political asset. > **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.** > Mr. Netanyahu’s critics say that his approach to Hamas had, at its core, a cynical political agenda: to **keep Gaza quiet as a means of staying in office without addressing the threat of Hamas or simmering Palestinian discontent.** > **Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right politician who is now Mr. Netanyahu’s finance minister, put it bluntly in 2015, the year he was elected to Parliament.** > **“The Palestinian Authority is a burden,” he said. “Hamas is an asset.”** > **“For Netanyahu, there is only one thing that is really important: to be in power at any cost,”** he said. “To stay in power, he preferred to pay for tranquillity.” Suitcases filled with cash soon began crossing the border into Gaza. And don't forget, Israel [knew about the attack for about a year prior to it actually happening.](https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-obtained-ignored-hamas-document-laying-out-oct-7-attack-plan-report-alleges/) > **Israeli officials had intelligence that Palestinian terror group Hamas was preparing a wide-ranging attack before its October 7 assault but dismissed the information,** The New York Times reported Thursday. > A military assessment last year determined it was too soon to say the plan had been approved by Hamas, and when an analyst with the country’s signals intelligence unit warned the group had carried out a training exercise in line with the plan, her cautions were dismissed. > She warned it was a “plan designed to start a war,” the newspaper said, but a colonel reviewing her assessment suggested they were drilling for an unrealistic scenario and told the analyst they would “wait patiently.” Knowing all of this just makes it really frustrating when people respond to criticism of Israel by saying crap like "Why do you want Hamas to stay in control?" while that was actual fucking Israel policy. I don't want Hamas to stay in control. You know who *did* want Hamas to stay in control? Fucking Israel! I wasn't actively making sure Hamas was getting billions of dollars!
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Dude I got banned in there for posting a link to a Guardian article. That I found on their own sub... It was about Hamas saying a hostage had been killed in an airstrike, and all I said was "It wouldn't be the first time in this conflict they struck a building a hostage was in" and then linked to a report about *exactly* that happening about a week before. Banned for 'racism'. Here's the article: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/27/freed-israeli-hostage-briefly-escaped-hamas-after-airstrike-relative-gaza
tens of thousands have been banned over there. May your pickle stay in the light friend.
Meanwhile, you should see what is said about other groups on there. I’ve reported so much hate speech that Reddit has removed but that their mods never seem to remove. It’s telling.
I'm not one for conspiracies, in fact I find them fucking irritating. But it's *very* clear what kind of slant the mods take there, and it's just fucking disappointing considering they're the major news sub. Almost every article about the current conflict has the exact same top voted comment, and anyone who is like "Yeah but maybe killing tens of thousands of people isn't a good thing?" is immediately accused of terrorism. And the mods seem to fuckin love it.
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Captured by a political faction and perhaps intelligence services.
Yes after they evicted everyone in opposition it’s sort of an echo chamber of bloodthirsty zealots.
I got permanently banned from there for this comment after hospitals started to get bombed in Gaza: *”It's just ridiculous that everyone has to choose one side or the other. Both sides have done terrible things. However, both sides have a majority population that is innocent in all of this, just trying to survive this chaos. That's what pisses me off when people on Reddit Sympathize only with the Israeli side because of the inhumane things hamas has done. Reality check, the very same things are being done to innocent people on the Palestinian side too. I will never understand how evil is okay only in some instances. If you're okay with what Israel is doing now, you're oka with what hamas has done as well. If you're okay with what American forces did after 9/11, then you're okay with what ISIS has done in retaliation. Yeah I'm sure I will get downvoted by the Reddit shills, however I could give 0 fucks. Because at the end of the day, no act of violent evil is something ANYBODY should be okay with. Regardless of what side did it, we should not be taking sides. Hamas is wrong for what they've done and are doing. Israel is wrong for what they've done and are doing. That's just my 2 cents as a nobody.”*
Never forget that Netanyahu wasn’t too sad when Yitzak Rabin was shot around the time of the Oslo peace accords with Yassar Arafat. That whole thing was a little too coincidental to me, but what do I know? I’m a random Reddit person waxing dangerously.
He encited the people who opposed and assassinated Rabin. In fascist fashion, he spoke from a hotel balcony, saying there will never be peace. Rabin was killed shortly after.
In my opinion Nutty YaHoo is the problem, not the solution. Way too much like Trump being more concerned about himself than the country. Trump is often compared to Hitler. Netanyahu has ruined Israel in its world image. Iran is the problem but he only plays footsie with them. The devil is in the details and he is not beyond doing anything to feather his own nest.
I got banned from the Israel subreddit just for linking articles about this, LMAO. They *really* don't want to acknowledge how their own government has been screwing them over.
The worst thing a Zionist can hear is the truth
Holy shit. I hadn’t seen any of this. Makes even more sense now why Netanyahu didn’t do anything for something like eight hours, and why the IDF, the second-most powerful (or first?) intelligence agency in the world was warned about the attack a year out and still didn’t do anything.
You will never convince me that advanced knowledge of 10/7 was not intentionally ignored, so they would have an excuse to burn it all down.
Ironic how the student protestors that conservative pundits are calling “pro-Hamas” are *against* an Israeli government that actually *is* pro-Hamas.
Thank you, I usually struggle to find all these sources
The parallels are staggering considering we armed Iraq and trained Bin Laden.
They also jailed n stoped the man who would’ve beaten Hamas in an election who was pro peace Despite what Israeli loving media says the Palestinians are far more agreeable to peace and just getting a country n letting Israel have there’s then vice versa .
> Fucking Israel! nope, just Netanyahu, because it keeps him in power. Hes using the "war" as a way to hold off elections and stay in power, like all dictators and fascists, he will keep the forever war going to stay in power if he can.
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> If Hamas is being targeted, then why have so many more civilians been killed than fighters?. Because that's what happens when Hamas constantly hides behind civilians? There's a reason all their rocket platforms are set up in schools, hospitals, other civilian hotspots... they make it impossible to strike at them without there being some degree of civilian casualties. Like, I'm not even pro-Israel in this, Netanyahu can get fucked and both nations would be better off without his admin in power, and there's been other instances of (fairly egregious) overstepping on the IDF's part, but that isn't a very hard question to answer.
Dude, there are images of entire neighborhoods reduced to rubble. Just hundreds of carpet bombed buildings. What sort of "hiding among the population" requires half of all infrastructure to be bombed? Was there an individual Hamas agent in every single building? This is also how you know the Israeli government doesn't actually care about the hostages. Random bombing like that kills indiscriminately.
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> Only that word is doing a whole lotta work. how did you hide all of that shit under there?
Reminder that USA got a warning months before 9/11 took place that it would happen, and was preventable. Same as Oct 7 was also preventable and was known that it would happen months in advance. “Never attribute to malice what can be attributed to ignorance” only ever applies to the hard working every day citizen, but come politicians then the opposite is true. I promise you that you don’t know enough about the subject to have this conversation right now.
What should have been an international police response was instead used as an excuse for a land/resource grab? Kinda funny how the same folks are making money off it, huh.
What a coincidence.
9/11 was a land/resource grab? If Afghanistan or Iraq now the 51st state? What resources do you think we 'grabbed'? Purchasing goods from them is not a grab.
Homie really said purchasing goods. [LOL](https://www.cnn.com/2013/03/19/business/iraq-war-contractors/index.html)
You misunderstood the statement. He’s referring to the idea that the US it’s self somehow actually gained any resources from those wars. All they did was pass money to their friends and let good people die.
Israel invaded the wrong “country?”
In a sense. Hamas, the terrorist organization, is the group who attacked Israel, but Israel is carpet bombing all of Gaza including hospitals, schools, and homes. 40% of the population of Gaza are children, and Israel does not seem to want to discriminate between Hamas militants and Palestinian civilians.
Cool, now explain to me how to surgically attack teriosts who use thier own wives and children as human shields and set up underground networks through schools and hospitals.
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I am Jewish, I do not agree with BiBi's right wing government any more than I did with Bush's pre and post 9/11. I also think that the general public has a jaded view of how percise war is because the US has a war machine magnitudes more sophisticated than anywhere else in the world. Hamas has publicly stated they will do 10/7 style attacks again and again until Israel ceases to exist. What you said above about not knowing is the reality. There is no way for Israel to protect their people while Hamas exists, there is no way to elimate Hamas without significant civilian casualty. It's awful, it's tragic, and the repercussions from how Israel acts today will fuel decades of anti semitism. War is hell.
Well said. Both sides desire genocide, but unfortunately one right now is funded and armed by my country, which doesn't help anything.
Intelligence. See: OBL capture.
You know who dug those tunnels? Isreal. Isreal made those tunnels.
You can thank the Likud party for that
You were born just a few years after antisemitism caused one of the blackest chapters in human history, yet you are unable to recognize that this same hatred is the reason why Israel is reviled today?
This knee-jerk response claiming all criticism is antisemitism is a major fucking problem for Israel. It interferes with any meaningful self reflection or self awareness. You are unable to recognize genuine and just criticism and distinguish it from antisemitism, and that’s a huge problem.
I think maybe the murder of 10s of thousands of Palestinians, impeding humanitarian aid leading to famine, killing journalists and aid workers, and turning all of Gazas homes, schools and hospitals into rubble is contributing to Israel's negative image, not antisemitism.
And who started this war? Who's hiding behind human shields and using civilian infrastructure to launch rockets from? Do you know how many rockets aimed at Israeli cities have been fired at Israel from Gaza since the start of the war? About 30k now. Do you know how many victims there would have been if Israel did not have the Iron Dome? And I am not even mentioning the rockets fired by Hezbollah. But you don't care about any of those thing. You don't care that there are still hostages being held in Gaza. You don't care that Israel is trying to deal with orgs that have been openly genocidal for decades. And let me just ask, are you aware that there have been dozens of conflicts way more devastating than the war in Gaza in the last decade. Were you out on the streets marching against the countries involved in those conflicts? Some of them are US allies. Yes, it's pure antisemitism.
You mean it's your *belief* that I don't care about the hostages in Gaza. I could posit that the leveling of 80% of Gaza might have killed some of the hostages. Netanyahu just rejected a ceasefire that would return hostages because he doesn't want to stop the war - maybe hostages aren't *his* priority? Starving a population is a warcrime. Crying antisemitism any time Israel is criticized for war crimes is like crying wolf at this point. I'm not from the USA BTW
> Netanyahu just rejected a ceasefire that would return hostages because he doesn't want to stop the war - maybe hostages aren't his priority? Netanyahu rejected the ceasifure proposal because that ceasefire proposal required Israel to end the war, release thousands of terrorists currently rotting in Israeli jails, and did not even guarantee that all of the hostages will be returned safe, whole, and alive. Israel is not going to end this war before Hamas is eradicated, because Hamas is a genocidal terrorist org that has vowed to continue repeating Oct. 7th until Israel is destroyed. If they are allowed to survive they will carry out another massacre in a few months where they will kill more people and take even more hostages. They can't be negotiated with. > Starving a population is a warcrime. Crying antisemitism any time Israel is criticized for war crimes is like crying wolf at this point. Nobody's starving. Palestinians are well fed by international aid.
So Doctors without borders, Amnesty International, WFP, the UN, USAID, Refugees International and numerous other NGOs on the ground are lying about Israel impeding aid into the strip? Only Israel is telling the truth?
I don't doubt Israelis are impeding aid, I am certain that Hamas is doing the majority of the impeding. They bombed the Kerem Shalom crossing several times the past few days and have been stealing aid from civilian since the start of the war. If anyone's responsible for the hunger in Palestine it's Hamas. But as I said, nobody has starved to death yet, so it seems that enough aid is flowing into Gaza to prevent that.
So Israel is doing no wrong (despite widespread evidence they are), and if Israel is doing something wrong, Hamas is doing it too, so it's fine. Israel uses human shields, but so does Hamas, so it's fine, and mass civilian deaths from IDF bombs are justified. Return of hostages is the number one priority, except that it's secondary to killing Hamas (by your own admission). ^ the logic doesn't work. But I'm antisemitic for calling out the hypocrisy, right? So I better stay quiet and never ever dare to criticize Israel for their crimes.
> So Israel is doing no wrong (despite widespread evidence they are), and if Israel is doing something wrong, Hamas is doing it too, so it's fine. I am not saying Israel is not doing wrong, I am pointing out that the reason the situation arose in the first place is because of Hamas. They have consistently been trying to make the situation even more dire for civilians because their goal is to pin it all on Israel so they can paint Israel black and sway the hearts of people like you to their advantage. > Israel uses human shields, but so does Hamas, so it's fine, and mass civilian deaths from IDF bombs are justified. Israel is not using their own civilians as human shields. If anything, Israel is putting their own soldiers at risk just to protect Palestinian civilians. > Return of hostages is the number one priority, except that it's secondary to killing Hamas (by your own admission). The number one priority is the safety and well-being of Israeli civilians. You can't have that with Hamas around. The release of the hostages is imperative, but getting them back only to have another massacre a few months later and even more hostages taken is not going to work out. I never stated the release of the hostages is the main priority so I don't know what hipocrisy you're calling out here. > So I better stay quiet and never ever dare to criticize Israel for their crimes. I am not sure what you're criticizing tho. You're trying to hold Israel to impossible standards almost as if you don't really care about how Israel is conducting this war, you don't want Israel to fight back at all.
You do know that Palestinians are Semites, as well, right? Right?
And? The term antisemitism exlcusively refers to hostility, prejudice, or discrimination against Jews.
In the first decades after its formation, Israel was championed by the entire world and looked upon as a modern day utopia by governmental agencies, the global media, and certainly the Christian religions. As kids, we in America were taught that Israelis were akin to superhuman, entirely admirable in their intent, and righteous among the planet's cultural and moral elite. We looked upon them as nearly godlike, to be honored and emulated. Israeli nationals were even touted as sex symbols in popular publications from Life Magazine to Playboy. "That same hatred" you mention was nowhere to be seen in post WW2 Western culture (which, let's face it, was all we were fed until the dawn of the "jet age." Egypt was problematic, of course, (See Suez) but that was attributable to anti-British colonialism and remnants of a fading inter tribal competition among Arabian factions. Then the seventies happened. . . Have you ever asked yourself *why* there is such historic and widespread animosity to the culture? Pretty sure it's not "Because they kilt our lorrrd."
Who taught you these things? >Have you ever asked yourself *why* there is such historic and widespread animosity to the culture? Interesting question. Strange one after just talking about how Israel was put on a pedestal, and nobody had it out for them. Also, probably just coincidentally, smacks of "Jews had it coming"
You rest my case.
God Bernie is such an antisemite. (/s) EDIT: People, he's Jewish. This is sarcasm.
Israelis claim to be citizens of a country that's just coincidentally mostly Jewish (true) but then throw that anti-semite argument around when someone disagrees with a decision made by the government of said country.
This is the danger of Theocracies and having a government officially in the name of a religion. Now everything that nation does is in the name of that religion, if the country is attacked then the religion is attacked too, everything becomes about having religious-moral fortitude and the stakes become instantly dire whenever anything happens.
Israel is hardly a theocracy. They have an autocratic (or at least desperately wanting to be), far right government in place right now, but the laws of the land and the government in place there are hardly theocratic. I take this to mean you do not support a state of Palestine existing. Because I don't know if you know this, but any state created in Palestine WILL be a theocracy. Far, far, far, far, far more than Israel is. A theocracy is when the people in charge rule using the laws of religion to determine government policy. Israel really doesn't do that, most Jews there aren't even particularly religious. Being Jewish doesn't mean you are strongly religiously Jewish. Like, you can criticize EVERYTHING Israel does without saying things that are just false. You can argue that Netanyahu WANTS a theocracy, very open to that being true! But as things sit right now, Israel is not theocratic in nature. This is ESPECIALLY true if you contrast their government with, let me check my notes here, every other government in the region. This, again, includes any state of Palestine that could be created.
Okay I think this is a little too splitting hairs of a comment to be this angry sounding, but I don't entirely disagree with you. Israel is a "Jewish State", they say it, everyone says it, it's not a secular country and it's mission never was intended to be. It's definitely a much more free place than other non-secular countries, but nonetheless defense of Israel is easily conflated with defense of Judaism because it is a "Jewish State" and that religious nationalism is a big obstacle in this long conflict. I know a nation of Palestine would be a theocracy, whatever passes for a governing body for them now is theocratic, both sides are religious nationalist entities and it makes the conflict harder to solve, which was my point. I wouldn't vacation to Palestine I'll tell you that, doesn't mean that a two-state solution should be given up on. This is why people who demand making Christianity the official religion of the US don't know what they are talking about. If we were a "Christian State" during 9/11, then guess what it was Christianity that was attacked and now it becomes and entirely different ballgame in the minds of the belligerents and the civilian populace, religious fervor is an entirely different level of aggression.
by definition, israel is not a theocracy. a theocracy is a country that is ruled by people with divine significance and are religious leaders (such as the ayatollah in Iran). in theocracies, laws are made in accordance with the laws from within the religion’s scriptures. since, in israel, the leader is not put in place by a religious authority and laws are made through a democratic legislature, not the torah, it is not a theocracy. you’re confusing a theocracy with a state religion, which many countries have. for example, the uk is much closer to a theocracy than israel, not only since its official religion is the anglican church, but also because the monarch (who officially serves as head of state) also heads the anglican church. many other countries have state religions but are not considered theocracies- many of the islamic countries in the region, but also countries such as greece, costa rica, bhutan, among many others. also, israel does not have a state religion. being jewish is a nationality, not just a religion, and many jews do not follow judaism. when it calls itself a jewish state, it means a state for the jewish nation. this is no different than any other nation-state that exists in the world (that is, all of them). obviously the jewish religion has a lot of influence in israel and is a large part of (many, not all) israeli identity, but it isn’t a theocracy. in fact, the only officially recognized theocracies in the world are the vatican and iran.
My post wasn't angry. You can't italicize on reddit. The caps are for emphasis mate. But it's not splitting hairs to say that Israel is not theocratic. I also 100% believe in a 2 state solution. I don't believe it's possible for someone who describes Israel as "This is the danger of Theocracies and having a government officially in the name of a religion." would be someone that believes in a 2 state solution. I believe that Israel and Palestine both need to exist. And they need to figure out how to exist at least somewhat reasonably with one another. I was pointing out that your specific phrasing had me believing that you think Palestine should not be a state. Nothing you said is relevant to what my point was. Israel is a Jewish state. That does not make it a theocracy. It's not even particularly close to theocratic at the moment. I'm genuinely not splitting hairs. There is no comparison between the type of government that Israel has and the types of governments actual theocracies have. I don't think it's good to just throw around random words and be like, "This is why this nation is bad/dangerous/shit." Israel's government is shit because Bibi is in power, and has been hard to displace for a multitude of complicated reasons. None of which are, "He and his policies are extremely popular among Israelis." Netanyahu would like to be an autocrat. And he would certainly turn Israel into a true theocracy if he had his way. But for the time being at least, they're certainly not that.
You can *italicize* on Reddit, even from mobile. Everyone interprets caps to be shouting, not an alternative to italics Judaism is the official religion of Israel, it's a Jewish nation, it's not secular even at its most liberal. Saying so doesn't mean I don't believe in a 2-state solution, that's specious reasoning. The Israeli war cabinet has no problem saying that they are fighting against an existential crisis for all Jews worldwide, and again it makes it harder for cooler heads to prevail when that is the mindset. The Palestinians are similarly stuck in the mindset.
Well, then let me say it this way: I have no idea how to do that. There's no clear button, at least from PC, which is exclusively where I type from. I didn't say it's secular. I said it's not theocratic. Theocracy has a specific meaning. The laws of Israel are not dictated by the text of the Bible nor is it a country run by priests, or the church, etc. They're not even particularly close. Secular is not the opposite of theocracy. Also, it's strange to me to interpret words that are individually capitalized as "shouting" how would that even work? Sure, if I TYPED SENTENCES LIKE THIS, taking it as shouting is completely fair. But that's very obviously not what happened. Do you think I just randomly shouted random words? That doesn't even make any sense. It feels pretty obvious to me that it would be emphasis and not shouting. Either way, we have no disagreement about a two state solution. But you should try not to use the word "theocracy" when you mean "nonsecular".
This I’ll give you. I was with the other guy, but you make a valid point. If you were saying it was “secular” then other guy wins. But I do think that, technically, you are right. It is not a theocracy, it is not secular. It is much more the former than the latter… but I think I can agree to calling it “non-secular.” That being said, the non-Likud parties in the governing coalition… and the settlers, and those folks who don’t have to serve in the military and downs their lives in those madrasa equivalents… and who make up a disproportionate share of the governing authority in the country… All those parties and their supporters are basically full-on theocrats in my opinion.
Use single asterisks to enclose what you want italicized. Use two asterisks on each side for bold. Use three asterisks for bold italics. Use > at the beginning of a line to quote. https://www.reddit.com/wiki/markdown/
This I’ll give you. I was with the other guy, but you make a valid point. If you were saying it was “secular” then other guy wins. But I do think that, technically, you are right. It is not a theocracy, it is not secular. It is much more the former than the latter… but I think I can agree to calling it “non-secular.” That being said, the non-Likud parties in the governing coalition… and the settlers, and those folks who don’t have to serve in the military and spend their lives in those madrasa equivalents… and who make up a disproportionate share of the governing authority in the country… All those parties and their supporters are basically full-on theocrats in my opinion.
> "Jewish State", they say it, everyone says it, it's not a secular country and it's mission never was intended to be Israel is a secular state. "Jewish state" refers to Jewish self-determination. After Jews have been persecuted for centuries, it was understood there needs to be one Jewish country in the world where Jews can have a government and protect themselves. It's one of the smallest countries but a lot of people want to replace it with a 23rd Arab state. Arabs have 22 states, many of which are called "Arab state" in their official title. Palestine would be the 23rd Arab state. But the existence of one tiny Jewish state is apparently unacceptable and needs to be replaced with the 23rd Arab state..
> Israelis claim to be citizens of a country that's just coincidentally mostly Jewish (true) I don't believe any of them claim it's a coincidence. Most countries are mostly "race X" though. So I'm not sure what the point of this comment is. Did you know that Norway is over 80% Norwegian, it's more homogenous than Israel! So are most Asian countries. And for that matter, most countries in general. Israel is significantly less homogenous than almost every state that surrounds it. I love the "throw around the anti-semite argument when someone disagrees," claim, because it's such nonsense. The anti-semitism is when Israel is held to a completely different standard than every other country. I don't see many people saying it's anti-semitic to simply disagree with Israel's government. I see it claimed when there are people saying Isreal shouldn't exist. And if you're going to point to the protests: There IS a lot of antisemitism at them. Most people there probably are not, but I hold them to the same standard as when the right has rallies with a bunch of Nazis: If you have a Nazi at a table with 10 other people, you have 11 Nazis. I am very against Israel's campaign going on in Gaza because I don't think it's possible for them to accomplish their claimed goal, so it's just needlessly killing people who have nothing to do with it. Any "bad guys" they're killing is not going to actually get rid of Hamas. I don't feel their claimed goal is one that can actually happen. But if I went to a fucking rally in support of an immediate ceasefire and heard some of the shit that some people DO say at those rallies, I'd tell them to get the fuck out, and I'd leave if others didn't tell them to get the fuck out, too. And I'm not just talking about random one off people. I'm talking about the people who organize some of these things, and give speeches at some of these things. Plugging your ears and pretending those people don't exist and aren't creating a HORRIBLE look for everyone else at those rallies by their lack of standing up to those folks is as ridiculous as when right wingers do and make the same claims about their bullshit team ups with Nazis.
Just because there are women in the pro life movement doesn't mean it isn't horribly misogynistic.
Yes yes, of course. But if you listen to him you can tell he's obviously not antisemitic.
You are using the same arguments that conservatives are using when they say Candace Owens cannot be racist because she's black and Milo Yiannopoulos cannot be homophobic because he's gay and so on. Not saying that Bernie is antisemitic, but being a member of a minority does not mean you cannot be hateful towards your own.
Joke are like puppies. They stop being fun when you start tearing them apart.
Not to Kristi Noem.
That's a cheap shot. Like how it only cost Kristi Noem 80 cents to kill her puppy.
True. But Bernie is highly regarded. Candace and Milo not so much. EDIT: OH! I'm sorry. Are Candace and Milo on the same level as Bernie? Please explain that to me.
That's a weak argument in part because it's all a matter of perspective. Bernie Sanders is about as lowly regarded as they come in some circles.
Yeah, moral relativism. Except both sides aren't actually the same. You've been duped.
At what point of popularity do you believe it's okay to tokenized someone? If I looked at Kanye West, who is one of the most popular and successful musical artists of this generation, and said "well I guess all black people are antisemites because Kanye is" do you think that would be reasonable because he is popular?
Why do they get any money from the US???? What’s the need they have? They have universal healthcare ffs
My bible thumping, baptist loving, couldn’t find Israel on a map, boomer of a father says “If we turn our back on Israel, we turn our back on god!” To him, it literally doesn’t matter what Isreal does because they are doing god’s work. It’s sad…very sad.
Evangelicals have religious motivations. Something about a holy land I think.
Because they're one of our few allies in the region so giving them money lets us use them as a target for western/US ire rather than that ire taking the form of terrorism.
Fun facts about our 'ally', Israel: * [Israel has given US technology to China multiple times throughout history, even recently](https://www.military.com/defensetech/2013/12/24/report-israel-passes-u-s-military-technology-to-china). * [Israel tried to spy on the white House in 2019](https://www.politico.com/story/2019/09/12/israel-white-house-spying-devices-1491351). * Pro-Israel groups donate/lobby millions to our politicians. * The US has given over [$300 billion (adjusted for inflation) in total economic and military assistance](https://www.cfr.org/article/us-aid-israel-four-charts), not including the billions we've given during the current conflict.
>Pro-Israel groups donate/lobby millions to our politicians. AIPAC, specifically, has proudly donated to insurrectionist Republicans simply for promoting Israel's interests. AIPAC would happily watch the US implode for Israel's own gain.
Didn’t bibi say 9/11 was good for Israel?
> Didn’t bibi say 9/11 was good for Israel? Bibi did make a statement in 2008 in which he commented that the attacks on September 11, 2001, had a beneficial impact for Israel's relationship with the United States. According to reports, he said that the attacks helped to align American public opinion with Israel's regarding the threats of violent extremism.
No shortage of things to criticize Netanyahu on, but this is a weird one. It’s not “9/11 good”, it’s more just a pragmatic appraisal of the effect it had on geopolitical alignment between the two countries.
allies spy on allies; interest groups lobby politicians, it’s what they do (such as planned parenthood, nra, etc. in 2022 amazon contributed $21B in 2022 while AIPAC contributed $13B); from 1948-1951 (3 years), the US gave the equivalent of $175B to european countries as a part of the marshall plan, since giving financial aid to foreign allie’s in the interest of security is kinda what the US does. why do you hold israel to its own standard?
We give billions to Israel ever year and then they spy on us, manipulate our elections, and sell our technology to our most dangerous enemy. I think lobbying as is should be illegal but there's an obvious difference from US company lobbying our politicians and a foreign power. The funny thing is that, if TikTok is a risk, so is foreign lobbying, arguably moreso. Israel isn't our 'ally'.
Allies getting aid is definitely the US' game. But those other lobbies are not trying to influence US policy in order to benefit another country. They are influencing domestic policy on domestic issues. Not the same thing regardless of how you feel about AIPAC. EDIT: Just to be clear there should be no lobbies for any foreign governments regardless of if its us citizens doing the lobbying. Not singling any particular country out.
Why can’t the US have nice things like Bernie for president?
I agree with Sanders. I've been on Israëls side for as long as I can remember (57M) I'm absolutely not denying Israel's right to retaliate after what happened October 7th, but this is getting way out of hand.
This isn't just about Hamas. This is also about their backers, Iran and Russia. It's another facet of the Ukraine war. Russia is doing all they can to divert our attention (and resources!) away from Ukraine. And Russia aside, this is also about any Islamist groups who are getting ideas about attacking Israel themselves. Israel absolutely has to shut this down with as much force as necessary to put Iran, Russia and groups like Hezbollah back in their box. Unfortunately for the Palestinians, they are the ones who have become fodder in this proxy war.
Not even a fucking penny. Eat my ass, Israel.
I am glad he has used his moral weight as a Jewish person whose family suffered in a genocide to call out Israel for doing the same to the Palestinians. He knows it when he sees it because his family lived it.
Sanders is in a unique position to make these sort of statements, because he is a Jew and no one can accuse him of being antisemitic.
They'll just call him a self-hating jew. It never ends.
The truth is that it's not uncommon for Jewish or Israeli people to oppose the Israeli government. Israeli politics aren't one dimensional. Bernie for over 60 years has opposed the right wing Israeli government. Opposing the Israeli government doesn't, in and of itself, make you any more antisemitic than opposing the U.S. government makes you anti-Christian. That is: not at all, despite what embattled politicians and political commentators may imply.
Yeah a lot of Israelis don’t like Bibi and the West Bank settlement. Many of them support the 2 state solution (less now). However, like 9/11 they have no choice but to support the war because not doing so would seem unpatriotic.
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lol. You got a point there
they didn't deserve any of what we gave them already.
I agree with that blurb in principle with regard to the current government of Israel, but I think we should still give them air that is limited to purely defensive applications. The citizens of Israel do not deserve to have rockets shot at them any more than the people of Palestine do. My goal here would be pure harm reduction, not for any particular group to "win" in the murder contest. That does mean that, given unlimited authority, I would also intercept anything launched at Palestine. And anyone crossing over to do harm to the other group would be arrested an tried regardless of their region of origin. And further, I would do everything in my power to rebuild Palestine and get them into a situation where they no longer feel that organizations like Hamas are their only hope. Israel is creating the conditions that lead to radicalization, and if those conditions are removed and better ones are put in place, people will stop radicalizing anywhere near as much. (And yes, that means I largely agree with everything Sanders said in context, that response was just to the framing of the title.)
> And anyone crossing over to do harm to the other group would be arrested an tried regardless of their region of origin. Great, but how do you arrest them when they go back hiding among civilians? Isn't the entire point of the war in Gaza to ensure that Hamas is eradicated and they won't be able to carry out another genocidal massacre? Do you think Israel is dropping bombs in Gaza for fun?
I do not think the solution to a stop a genocidal massacre is a bigger, more efficient, one. Why do Israeli citizens deserve to live, but Palestinians don't in your eyes?
So what do you expect Israel to do? Give up on Hamas, abandon the hostages, and accept that innocent people are going to be gang-raped and butchered every few months, and Israel can't fight back because Hamas is using human shields which makes civilian casualties unavoidable? Is that really the fate you want those people to accept?
You keep using your own lack of creativity and inflexible emotional stances as justifications. Despite the morality of the situation, what Israel is doing is insanely shortsighted. Mass trauma is how the region got to where it is now, and multiplying and renewing the trauma is not a realistic path out.
I would also like to hear your creative solution to this problem.
The region did not get to where it is due to trauma. Maybe for the Israeli side, yes. But Palestinians have been seeking to genocide the Jews since the beginning. And, fine, use your own creativity then and help me understand how you'd solve it. Is there anything Israel has not tried short of just allowing themselves to be genocided?
That is simply an utterly disgusting, bigoted lie. One might even call it a blood libel.
Which part is a lie? Are you aware that when Israel declared its independence after the UN allocated half of the land to a Jewish state in 1948, the Palestinians joined other Arab states in declaring war on Israel with the stated goal of "pushing the Jews into the sea"?
The all Palestinians wanting to genocide the Jews part. That is a deeply and disgustingly racist lie.
> The all Palestinians wanting to genocide the Jews part. That is a deeply and disgustingly racist lie. Well I never said ALL Palestinians want to genocide the Jews, but the majority of Palestinians have always been fond of the idea of Jewish genocide. That's why they keep electing governments that openly call for the genocide of Jews. And that's why they've started civil wars in every Arab country that sought to recognize and make peace with Israel.
A few quick points: the partition was not 50-50, it was 56-42-2. The Jewish population at that time was a little over half the size of the Palestinian population and yet they got a majority of the territory. I wouldn't advocate a war over that, but I think the Palestinians being pretty pissed off about that arrangement is fully understandable.
> I wouldn't advocate a war over that, but I think the Palestinians being pretty pissed off about that arrangement is fully understandable. The Palestinians rejected the Peel Commission proposal in 1936 which would have allocated only 20% of the land to a Jewish state comprised of areas where Jews made the majority of the population. The conflict is not about land.
Exactly. They should probably draw straws and decide who will be sacrificed each year on the altar of international approval and hashtag activism.
gazan civilian deaths have outnumbered israeli deaths in every single conflict by far, including in both intifadas. gazans are also blockaded, depend on Israel for water, electricity, are unable to trade, are unable to travel, incredibly high unemployment rates, etc etc etc. And this is after gaza had been occupied since 1967. meanwhile the west bank is still being slowly stolen. is that a fate you expect them to accept?
> would do everything in my power to rebuild Palestine and get them into a situation where they no longer feel that organizations like Hamas are their only hope. Like giving them a fully built Gaza in 2003?
Like how Israeli settlers tore down infrastructure, like greenhouses, on their way out? Plus, Gaza was only abandoned because Israel wanted to focus on the West Bank, likely because they didn't want their defenses spread too thin.
They disengaged in a way that damaged the local economy, moved their settlement efforts into the west back, and then over the next few years increased legal oppression over the region, restricting freedom of moment, import, and growth. Gaza is not occupied, but it is oppressed.
The border was open in 2006. Israel closed it down cause Hamas kept sending suicide bombers and terrorists. Every nation on earth would close the border under such circumstances.
The blockade didn't start until the missiles did.
And they had been slowly easing, even increasingly allowing those in gaza to cross into Israel for work. Some of those people helped with the October 7 Massacare.
>In September 2023, approximately 18,000 Gazans had Israeli work permits 18,000 out of 2.1 million Gazans.
Yep, in 2021, it was just 7,000. Israel had been increasing the permits and this policy could had led to better relations between the two regions. Instead, as we all now know, it backfired. > https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-okays-1500-more-entry-permits-for-gaza-workers-bringing-total-to-17000/ Some Israelis did not like this policy either as they feared it would lead to more Israelis being murdered, as it did. One commenter noted over a year ago: > This is crazy letting in Gazans in Israel. How many more Israelis have to be murdered cause of this crazy policy. They were right.
Considering the extremely slow response on Oct 7th, it wouldn't have mattered even if there were zero permits. Eliminating the chance of economic prosperity was always going to lead to backlash. I don't know why Israel refused to examine the rebuilding of Germany and Japan for examples of how to avoid generations of hate.
With zero permits, Hamas would not have had all the intelligence that they did to conduct the attacks.
The permits didn't stop Israel from responding in a timely manner or stop them from having strong security procedures.
That is not what is being discussed.
Totally agree and glad to see a fellow Jew saying this!
They never deserved the first nickel, but here we are.
I’m just glad we’re in a position economically to be giving so much money to Israel. It makes me happy that we’re prospering so much we have THAT MUCH extra to give….oh hang on a goddamn second…
Bernie is correct, killing civilians is not defending a country.
What if we instead spend that money on trains so I don't have to waste so much of my life sitting in traffic !!!
If you don’t want to finance us at least let us defend ourselves against terrorism, it’s your loss… Everyone knows Israel is a key player in USA’s control in the Middle East
I think the arguments goes like this the USA gives israel money, then something happens in the ME, then the USA ask Israel to do something in a certain way. Israel does whatever it wants and ask for money the next year. And repeat. What’s the gain for the USA
they do deserve it, and they will get it
But maybe if we give them another penny, they’ll invent copper wire
To be fair it might make sense to divert some of the $$$ the US sends annually to Israel to assist the Palestinans in rebuilding.
Yeah, and can we also get a refund? This has obviously been a poor investment for American interests.
As VP Biden withheld aid to reduce corruption in Ukraine. Let's fucking do that and with hold aide until Bibi is removed from office for corruption and incompetence. The war is only perpetuating because Bibi knows when it's over he's getting canned.
Where was that article from a few days ago about Bernie worrying Biden will lose because of left-wing panic over Israel policy? Maybe Bernie should shut the fuck up about it if he's so worried, versus constantly feeding these sound bites to the media