#Palestine under trumps rule would be worse?

[mickeym4ndy]

watchng a US election from outside of the states is so insane bc HOW is it this close

[ahaura]

i saw someone point out the frequency with which liberals back social justice movements... how, for instance, when ferguson happened under obama it was not popular and there were many, many liberals who found the blm movement, in a sense, "in violation of [liberal] sensibilities" (when liberalism as a rule does not challenge the status quo, only maintains it and sees any call for revolution or real change as disruptive or 'bad for optics' and therefore not acceptable) but then when trump became president and he opposed blm a lot more liberals decided that the blm movement had merit because they viewed it from a team-sports perspective rather than a worldview based on morals and an understanding of the systems in place in the U.S. - that it was more comfortable for them to operate from a "trump bad" basis rather than "the american justice system and the police are inherently white supremacist, which are inherently, automatically, and always violent"

+ that, if trump was president while israel is carrying out its genocide, liberals would have NO problem denouncing israel and demanding for a ceasefire because they're comfortable operating from the 2-party system basis, NOT from a framework based on material conditions or factors or any acknowledgement or analysis of imperialism, colonialism, or capitalism. but because biden is a democrat, and democrats are supposed to be "the decent party" "the lesser evil" "more respectable" when, in functionality - in real practice, they don't want to disrupt the status quo. (internally, maintaining systems of white supremacy and capitalism; externally, furthering U.S. imperialism by maintaining hegemony and continuing the practice of exploitation and extraction of labor+capital+resources from the global south)

which is why we're here, a month into a genocide, and liberals are so cowardly and gutless that, in the face of our democrat president allowing and funding the genocide of palestinians in order for the U.S. to maintain its military base in the middle east, liberals IMMEDIATELY jump to "well, you HAVE to vote for him still, because trump will be worse!" and go "well im powerless there's nothing i can do", immediately folding like a wet paper bag in the face of the american empire rearing its ugly head in the most blatant, naked way in years, instead of thinking "this is unacceptable, i should pressure my elected officials and do everything i can - be it combating propaganda, contacting my congresspeople or senators, protesting, or engaging in direct action - to ensure this stops as quickly as possible".

there are liberals STILL IN MY NOTIFICATIONS who go "well you'll be electing a fascist if you vote for trump" not realizing that YOU CAN'T SIMPLY VOTE FASCISM AWAY. (which is not to say you should vote for republicans; that's not what i'm saying. none of us have said it.) we're pretty much already there. it's 2003 all over again, with the patriot act and all. the american war machine is pumping out racist, orientalist, pro-colonial, pro-genocide propaganda on behalf of the ethno-state america and its allies have backed since the so-called state's inception. people are being doxxed, fired, harassed, and attacked for visibly supporting palestine/opposing israel. islamophobic hate crimes are on the rise; a 6 year old boy was murdered not one month ago, an arab doctor in texas was stabbed to death. antisemitism is on the rise as well, thanks to the conflation of antisemitism with anti-zionism (which nazis have and will attempt to co-op in order to 'justify' + then act on their antisemitism, racism, and genocidal worldviews). our government is silencing people, brutalizing protestors, and arming and funding an ethno-state committing genocide - everything that would have been called fascist if it was under trump. but because it's a *democrat* liberals place "vote blue no matter who" and "optics" over the extremely basic moral stance that "genocide is wrong and people have the right to self-determination, autonomy, and life". arabs and muslims are already so dehumanized in the west that liberals (whether they consider themselves liberals or not) consider it an inconvenience to talk about the ongoing genocide that is happening with the blessing of OUR government. in this they expose their selfishness, the shallowness of their morals, their chauvinism, and their racism/orientalism/islamophobia/et cetera.

for example, if you see israeli troops waving a gay pride flag and the israeli state touting its support of gay people while said iof soldiers are murdering men, women, and children en masse every single day and you somehow????? think that because gay people are the ones doing the killing or a state claims to support gay people is doing the killing is ok then 1) you have fallen for pinkwashing propaganda and 2) that you find the murder of palestinians, or any people, permissible by a colonial force that uses causes liberals may genuinely care about in order to disguise, whitewash, or "lessen" the severity of the injustices it does unto usually black and brown people outside of the U.S., then you are just as bloodthirsty and depraved as anyone you would personally assign those descriptors of.

once again, it goes back to resorting to a team-sport understanding of the world rather than approaching it from a material one.

[eowyntheavenger]

Palestine and the US election

I’m done with Twitter soundbite takes that voting blue = supporting genocide. I see a lot of people making an argument that goes like this: "Biden has sent arms to Israel, helping its government commit genocide against Palestine. Therefore, voting for him in the 2024 US election, if he is the Democratic nominee, is supporting genocide, and NOT voting for him helps Palestine." There's a lot wrong with this view, so let's break it down.

It's true that Biden has sent a lot of arms to Israel and bypassed Congress multiple times to do it, and it's indefensible. I'm ashamed that any US politician would help Israel wage its brutal, genocidal war against the Palestinian people. As one of Israel's closest partners, the US could actually be using its leverage right now to put pressure on Israel’s government—I’m thinking about how apartheid in South Africa fell, in part, because of international pressure. That's what should be happening, but instead the US government is literally just helping Israel kill Palestinians.

I wish there were a strong pro-Palestine candidate in the upcoming election. The best bet in that regard would probably be Bernie Sanders, since he's prominent enough, well-liked enough, and has good ideas, not just on this issue but on many things (and yeah, he's way too old, but so are the current frontrunners). But he's already ruled out another run. Unless an amazing candidate materializes and wins the Democratic nomination (please vote in the primaries where you live), it will probably be Biden running against Trump. It’s not guaranteed, but it’s likely.

Here's what people need to understand: the election will not be "genocide Joe" vs. "pro-Palestine candidate." It will most likely be a choice between these two candidates:

On the one hand, Biden, who has armed Israel, but can be pressured to change his policies because he can be pushed left; who is not a wannabe dictator; who will not destroy what's left of the country's democratic norms; who will not encourage coups, political assassinations, or jail his political opponents; who will not utterly stifle dissent.

Or on the other hand, Trump, who is beholden to a fanatical evangelical base that backs Israel no matter what, that actually wants more conflict because they are part of a death cult. Trump, who is not susceptible in any way to pressure from the left, but is susceptible to pressure from the right and the far right. Trump, who has been clear all along about his desire to be a dictator; who will destroy what's left of democratic norms; who has already encouraged a coup to overthrow a democratic election, encouraged the assassination of his own vice president, and is openly planning to jail his political opponents if he returns to the White House.

(This isn't even touching on Trump's positions on trans rights, gay rights, women's rights, the environment, policing, immigration, or his racism against every group he could be racist against, or his liability for sexual assault, or a whole bunch of other issues).

There's a very convincing argument that Netanyahu actually wants Biden to lose the US election and Trump to win. That's because Netanyahu knows that Biden has in the past responded to pressure from his own party and the public. If there are a lot of people criticizing his policies, it gives him pause. Trump doesn't operate like that. If millions of Americans criticize his policies as inhumane he just lashes out at them. In short, Biden views criticism from the left as a liability that he has to act on. Trump views criticism from the left as an incentive to be even worse.

Biden is not the candidate I want. But you need to understand that if Trump wins the election, he won't just arm Israel like Biden is doing now: he will do that and more. Not only will he help Israel escalate its war, your very freedom of speech to support Palestine will be under attack. Trump might even decide that financial support for Palestinians or charities that help Palestine = financially supporting terrorism, and use that as a pretext to arrest and jail people. You think he and his far right goons wouldn't go that far? If Trump wins this election, you shouldn't be surprised if this kind of thing happens, and much worse.

Do you want the US to accept Palestinian refugees? Because it won't accept them under a Trump presidency. A key Republican talking point in this election is "the US shouldn't take Palestinian refugees because they're probably all terrorists." This isn't just a Trump thing, it's something other Republicans are saying, but obviously you can imagine where Trump would fall on this issue given his infamous Muslim ban and conflating refugees with terrorists. These are just a few examples of how Trump would actually be even worse for Palestine than Biden—which is saying something.

In this upcoming election there is no neutral option. There is no morally pure option. There just isn't, I'm sorry. Refusing to vote will not help Palestine. Refusing to vote will only help Trump win, and will give every single person in the United States who is fighting for a better world a significantly harder battle to fight.

It goes without saying that there are things everyone should do to help Palestine besides voting in an election. But I'm writing this post that is about voting because I'm genuinely worried by how many so-called leftists want to give up their right to vote—a right that older generations had to fight tooth and nail for—because they think it won't achieve anything. If voting didn't achieve anything, Republicans wouldn't be trying so hard to suppress your vote.

I'll conclude by saying that nuance is not this site's specialty, but please try to understand what I'm actually saying here before attacking me in the notes. Finally, people being antisemitic or islamophobic on this post will be blocked. People denying that Israel is committing genocide against Palestine will be blocked. Trump supporters, tankies, and people who say that Biden and Trump are the same will be blocked. So will people who say "voting is pointless" or "but Biden did this bad thing—" Biden fucking sucks, I know that very well, so if you're going to try to make that argument to me then stop right now and read the post again.

[neptunescore]

Literally started this blog just to say how hypocritical F1 – both the people working in it, and the sport itself – is becoming. The main 3 things I want to address is: no.1 women in motorsport, no2 the ongoing genocide in palestine and no3 F1's disallowance of anything political, yet enabling the absolute political shitshow that was the 2024 miami gp.

Numéro 1: I just think its absolute bullshit that the FIA genuinely created a whole ‘Women in Motorsport Commission’, assigned SIX STRONG ambassadors to it, and THEN proceeded (come 2023) to launch a wholeass unfair investigation onto one of them, based on the MOST groundless claims?? Like wtf?? (Talking abt Susie Wolff here). Also, the whole Cristian Horner situation really showed just how much they care about women working under them, bc tell me why the possible victim in his situation was the one getting SUSPENDED, while this possible filth of a man is still parading shamelessly around the paddock?? Like??? AND SOME OF THE DRIVERS COMMENTS ON THE SIRUATION?? pissed me off so much u dont even understand. Anyway, my last point on this convo is how women should ALSO be taken accountable of their actions, and not just glossed over because they’re ‘women’, over here im specifically talking abt Bianca Bustamante and her liked tweet which calls lance stroll autistic… girl :| and her apology was so atrocious as well. T-T

Numéro 2: The fact that not ONE driver (excluding Lewis Hamilton — that man is so much more than a driver) has spoken up/ posted about the situation pisses me off SO much bc?? THOUSANDS of people are dying, and with the platform you have, the fans you have, you could have such a positive effect! This is ESPECIALLY targeted on the drivers so I FULLY KNOW have control of their accounts (Charles Leclerec, Esteban Ocon, Lando Norris [GOD DO I HAVE ALOT TO SAY ABT HIM], Pierre Gasly, etc) bc tell me why drivers are fully capable of uploading a post 2 years ago stating how the WHOLE of F1 stands with Ukraine (which i do applaud them for) but cant say SHIT abt the same situation occuring in Gaza, but SO much worse?? Lando can genuinely go f himself, bc as much as i used to adore him there’s no way he did NOT know abt the atrocities happening in Palestine, no way he did not know abt the company boycott when he decided to fully display that Starbucks logo on his little reel. And IF (literally a 0.0000001% chance, bc by then a 1000 articles were already written on it and the WHOLE world was aware) he genuinely didn’t know, then that is just ignorant as fuck. Icel. Anyway, literally all drivers should be held accountable, no matter if they’re ur favs or not; I like Carlos a lot but that doesn’t mean i dont get the ick every time i think abt the fact he’s stayed completely silent on the matter. OH MY GOD, DONT get me started on lance stroll and his confirmed (yes, i DO fact check) Zionist girlfriend, like?? Ew.

Can i also just say, that if any of u are gonna msg me saying ‘oH bUt NeP, thE FIA BanNeD AnY anD aLl PoliTiCaL StAtEmEnTS’ Shut up. If you guys could just READ the rest of the statement, you'd know that this rule only applies to when the drivers are ACTIVELY in the paddock. The FIA has literally included the fact that driver can do WHATEVER the want, stand up for WHOEVER they want in their personal lives – which brings me to my next point,

Numéro 3: The FIA bans any and all political statements in the paddock, (without their written consent) YET INVITES TRUMP (a man who has been charged with EIGHTY EIGHT criminal offenses) to the race, is the most disgusting and hypocritical thing ive seen in all my years of watching F1. And don't even get me started on all the shit lando said abt him, like bro?? What are you saying?? Why are you saying these things?? I get u cant speak bad abt him, but that does NOT mean u need to praise him to the sun and back. T-T

That's my rant! Additional reminder abt ppl bringing up how '*retired driver (insert name)* would NOT stand for this, and would post and talk ALL abt palestine if they were still racing,' this is a reminder that those drivers are still alive and well, with WORKING platforms and can STILL do all those things now if thry CHOOSE to :]

-Nep○~

[marzipanandminutiae]

Hello I was just wondering if you've seen Imani Barbarin talk about not voting (https://x.com/imani_barbarin/status/1747723080917492020?s=46&t=55h0eHrgY7FtQI8ej54maw)? I saw you reblog the post about "not waiting for the morally pure candidate" and I think that's a willful misrepresentation of what Gen Z is feeling

We've not seen Biden address ANY of the things the post claims (climate change is the only one I remember without scrolling back) but we have seen him approve more oil licenses than trump, drop more bombs than trump, support a genocide, abandon disabled people and any Covid mitigations during the second highest surge since the start of the pandemic (with less testing so odds are things r even worse than we can tell), bring back student debt, etc etc

As a Gen Z'r, I genuinely want to understand how y'all can believe "no vote is a vote for fascism" when both candidates are horrendous? Why is the onus on us and not the politicians to do better instead of pointing fingers and saying "at least we're better than Trump" when that is categorically untrue?

I'm sorry if this is too rant-y I'm just so furious and frustrated with my perception of older voters' complacency with being given utter shit instead of organizing for better

I am trying very hard to be reasoned and understanding about this- bearing in mind that we want the same things in the end and I'mnot jazzed for Biden either -when it's extremely, EXTREMELY obvious to me that Trump is worse.

Like.

If he gets elected there might not be another election. The man was theoretically willing to use military force to quell protests if he lost the 2020 election (why he didn't, I don't know; but I'm not willing to give him that chance a second time).

Trump has called himself a dictator, proudly, in the same breath as saying "we're closing the border and we're drilling, drilling, drilling." Biden does NOT remotely have a perfect record on either of those things- he was locked into some construction of the border wall by how the funds had already been allocated by Congress during the Trump administration, but not everything he's done in relation to it, which also pisses me off. As for the oil thing, it's a bit more complicated than it seems on the surface: not as simple as "he doesn't actually care about the environment" even as it's definitely not a good move or in line with his stated climate goals.

As for those climate goals, I found this interesting article that rates key areas of climate action and how they've fared during the Biden administration. It was updated in January, and it is not sycophantically uncritical across the board. But that is LEAGUES more progress than we'd get under a system of "drilling, drilling, drilling" with absolutely no concessions to the climate crisis at all.

His handling of the situation in Palestine...yeah, I struggle with that, too. I know he's been trying to talk their leaders down, to some degree, but it's not nearly enough to me. And I STRONGLY disagree with us selling them weapons. However, Trump's statements on the matter- calling for a ban on Gazan refugees in the US, calling pro-Palestinian protestors "barbarians," and saying he'd revoke the student visa of anyone he deemed "anti-American" -makes me believe that letting him get into power is not something my conscience would allow, vis a vis the fate of the Palestinian people. Because it would be exponentially worse.

I also think the material good that has happened under the Biden administration has been...MASSIVELY under-publicized. Because like. He HAS addressed things. Lots of things, in fact.

this article from last year was too early to include pardoning thousands of people federally convicted of simple marijuana possession (again, not perfect, but still very good), setting new rules to limit methane emissions, capping prices for at least some major insulin producers, partial student loan debt forgiveness (tried to do more, but got hamstrung by Republicans), cancelling oil leases granted by Trump in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (not enough given the leases HE granted, but it's not nothing either), and much more I'm sure I'm overlooking. Because, again, nobody's been talking about it. It sells more news subscriptions to feed readers an endless stream of what Biden is doing wrong- which I am not denying! -leaving people with the dangerous impression that both sides are the same. Republicans would not have done any of this. That's just the truth of the matter.

Look, I would like a better option, too. I would love to actually LIKE a presidential candidate in my lifetime. I'd love one who wouldn't make concessions to the interests of selfish, heartless people with ledgers where their sense of human compassion should be. I just don't see that person coming to power between now and November.

And I'll take someone who is Standard US Politician Slimy but at least makes some improvements (unfortunately, I doubt there's anyone with a chance of winning in less than a year who doesn't support Israel to some degree, since this country have a long history of that) over someone who might actually stage a right-wing military coup, and who would kill me and other marginalized people himself if he thought it would get him more fame and fortune.

Some people say their conscience won't let them vote Biden. I can't tell them what to do. But if he gets the Democratic nomination, my conscience wouldn't let me do anything else.

[a-realclassact]

"What happens when a genocide falls out of the news cycle?

For those of us in the West? …Relief. Don’t shy away from these thoughts. It’s my job, as an artist, to force us to be honest. We silently feel relieved. We feel exhausted by the weight of having to care about people we ultimately feel we can do nothing for. True radicalization, the kind of change of thought that translates into changed action, only happens for a precious few. The vast majority of onlookers never really wanted to move from their position as spectator; they just fervently wished for a happier ending. So when there is less to look at (because the news cycle needs fresh blood; because the people providing live, on the ground coverage have been killed; when there’s less to look at because we have seen so many clips and photographs and accounts of visceral deaths that looking only makes us numb anyhow), we turn our eyes to the easiest narrative of hope that our screens can provide. We accept a manufactured happy ending.

And now, I am watching a happy ending be manufactured. Because the empire has allowed us our small, Western tantrums at the genocides necessary to keep the machines of imperialism going. It is now time to move on and be placated with a victory story— something we feel we have a sense of control over! Never mind the fact that we don’t live in a direct democracy! Vote! Vote out the fascism! The bombs will still drop and the children will still starve to death (if they survive the Israeli snipers aiming for their heads) and the famines will still be manufactured and the raw resources stripped from the colonies but we did it! We managed to keep ourselves comfortable.

This is the part where everyone boos me. There’s usually one section in essays like these that get under people’s skin, so just to set the tone: I’m not saying this because I want to make you angry, I am saying it because I think it’s a useful truth to consider.

We, the “reasosnable” US masses, only dislike Trump because he embarrasses us.

He has a flagrant disregard of the rules of presidential diplomacy that disgraces our reputation. Policy-wise, his era was really not distinct from the current Biden administration or presidents beforehand. He’s someone who says the quiet parts of running an imperialist ethno-state out loud, which emboldens the radicalized right, and it’s overtly racist, and those people were already organizing for a hostile takeover! We need someone to blame for the radical left’s lack of concrete, sustained mobility and so we love to hate him. We hate him because he embarrasses us, not because he’s worse! Harris is only the better choice because she’s prettier, and more relatable, and has the right sort of gravitas. She doesn’t embarrass us. We are willing to trade liberation for spectacle, but it must be a spectacle that makes us feel good at the end of the day.

Do you know how I know?

We should be outraged that the Vice President of an administration aiding an abetting the most documented genocide in human history can peacefully run for office. That is a sham. That is embarrassing. Especially when that person has stated they do not plan on enforcing any sort of concession from the murderous Israeli regime. There has been absolutely no mention of the other human rights crises and violations happening elsewhere amongst the colonized world— the ongoing conflicts in across Black and Indigenous nations that we tend to tack onto Free Palestine to show we absolutely do care about Black people outside of Western imperial cores. haha. We have made no demands because we, the masses, have no demands outside of feeling like everything will be okay again. We don’t actually care about these people as people. We care about them as symbols of liberation and as litmus tests to prove we, in the hard times, would “do the right thing.” If we cared about them as people, submitting to someone still pleased to orchestrate their deaths, which VP Harris is doing right now, would be unthinkable. We would be using this time of mass disillusionment to destabilize the empire’s business as usual. We want spectacle more than we want actual liberation for ourselves or for the people that we say we are in solidarity with. It doesn’t make any sense.

The only thing guaranteed to be worse under Trump is the spectacle. And we care more about spectacle more than we care about tangible, material change. Another Trump presidency is not a happy ending that will allow us to take our minds of the incessant dying of the third world. And we want something to distract us. We want something comfortable. We want something that we can look to and say, “We did it!! And we already went to all these marches. We're so tired.”

We are supposed to, we are primed to want to accept whatever happy ending the empire orchestrates, because most of us believe in the ability to be comfortable as a divine right. If we're powerless except for the vote, and we usher in somebody that does the spectacle better, that brings us back to a state of psychological comfort: even if we know that everything's not all right, we can feel like everything's all right. IImagining ourselves as powerless is uncomfortable in a way that a new, smiling, voted-in happy ending can solve. Imagining ourselves as powerful enough to stop the machine is excruciating— that means we would have to forgo comfort altogether. And consistent comfort is the only thing that we have. It's consistent running water and no power outages and subsidized corn and subsidized fuel, okay?

I think a lot of us have given up the desire to imagine ourselves as temporarily embarrassed millionaires. Soaring homelessness, economic depravity, the rising cost of food essentials makes it difficult to delude ourselves we’re this close to being rich. It’s become commonplace in pop culture to disparage the ultra-wealthy; most of us don’t imagine we will make it there in our lifetime. Most of us do imagine ourselves just a few steps from comfort. “I don’t want to be rich! I just want to be comfortable.” Conveniently forgetting the price of US comfort is depravity in the colonies. We want to forget what that comfort costs. We want to laugh. We want that head empty Kamala laugh! Girl, we want to laugh. We as a whole never wanted liberation because it's uncomfortable. And I would actually respect everybody cheering for Kamala Harris a whole hell of a lot more if you were just willing to admit that outright instead of pretending like we're actually doing something good.

The foolish concede to corruption.

I am reading Mama Ellen’s memoir at the moment and it is rivoting. Most definitely a text I will read twice. If you are not new to Threadings., I have spoken on more than one occasion on how we in the US are slowly gearing up for civil war. Right now, war is enacted in courts and in policymaking in various attacks on healthcare, reproductive rights, rights to education, the gutting of public school systems, the systematic underpaying of teachers, and actually of all care workers. Thinking about the chronic nurse strikes that have cropped up and been left mostly ignored since COVID has continued to decimate our healthcare infrastructure. More and more of our taxes are going to making sure that we keep the US armed to the teeth and not to making sure that life in the US for the working class is bearable in any way. We're watching the slow deterioration of society and (as Dr. CBS pointed out), the increased militarization of everyday happenings.

Conceding to corruption does not keep the peace. It allows for said corruption to continue its abuses.

I am not usually so cynical.

But truly, what the fuck. What the fuck. Remember when I said that every American is addicted to something?

The only perk of being working class in the Western world is our unlimited access to comfort? The comfort of denial continues her reign as the sweetest drug of all. We choose to cast our eyes towards the fiction of a happy ending rather than disrupting the machines that cause all this misery in the first place. It’s been a good couple months of us looking in the eye the costs of imperialism, the price of all this endless comfort, and instead of looking towards the growing rebellions across the colonies— something that should actually bring us comfort and joy, the knowledge that others bite back their regimes— we cast our gaze to these ludicrous what if scenarios. What if we can just push Harris left? What if we call her a war-mongering arbritor of the police state after she’s elected? Won’t she be better than Trump?

I don’t care who the hell is wielding all the blood money. What I want is a child. I want children in this life. And I am not, I simply refuse to tell my kid, “Yes, I did voluntarily cheer on this woman who I knew would happily continue to suck the bone marrow from the colonized world, even while knowing she would do that very thing! The other option embarrassed me.” Because that’s all this is. The other option embarrasses us.

There is no popular president that would create the revolutionary policy and world-making that guarantees our collective safety. Does not exist. The job of the president of the United States is quite literally antithetical to that idea, and any progessively minded one would be working to make the position obsolete. There is no such thing as a good president. I am watching the youth of Kenya rise over and over again to force their federal bodies into caring for them. And they are dying at these protests, literally under live ammunition, going missing, bodies turning up in slums. And here we are raising money for Kamala. Trump doesn’t embarrass me! Y’all do! Those of Myanmar have been fighting a revolutionary war for years that much of the professional class has decided to take active part in rather than fleeing. And our professional class is raising money for Kamala.

EMBARRASSING!

We (in the West, as a whole) do not actually care about freedom, really because most of us cannot imagine what it would be like to be uncomfortable for the rest of our lives. It humbles me that we offer ourselves— we offer our minds— to be sold like this. I have so much revolutionary optimism until I open fuckin twitter."

-Ismatu Gwendolyn on Substack from Harris, Palestine, and the Spectacle of Liberation

[thatstormygeek]

I'm so irritated that I'm feeling the need to stand up for Biden - a president I really do not care for - because apparently we all have the attention span of gnats.

Read some history. Please. The most likely result of running anyone other than Biden on the Dem ticket now would be to hand the election to Trump.

Oddly enough (though not really, if you think about it) it's other leftists saying this as well, while partisan Dems fall all over themselves trying to force a predictable disaster.

Democratic donors and insiders are allegedly in full blown panic mode and searching for a replacement. They’re musing about potential white saviors who can somehow come in at the last second, less than five months from the election, and magically push Democrats over the top. We’ve heard about Gavin Newsom and Gretchen Whitmer. A name that is rarely mentioned is Vice President Kamala Harris. This is after Democrats have spent the past four years doing absolutely nothing to help bolster her profile or image. How do you think all of this will go over with Black voters, especially Black women, who make up the Dem base?  Meanwhile, the New York Times Editorial Board did not ask Donald Trump to step down. Not after he was held liable for rape or fraud or defamation. Not after he was convicted on all 34 counts by a jury of his peers. Not even after he vomited lie after lie at the debate and refused to admit that he’d accept the results of the 2024 election. No one is asking him to step down or pressuring the GOP to find another candidate. Why not? This absurd double standard reflects the utter asymmetry between both parties and how they are treated by our institutions. The bar is so low that Donald Trump merely has to slither underneath it. Most Democrats, unlike the cult of MAGA, actually have fidelity to the Constitution and rule of law instead of worshiping at the altar of personality. The fact they’re even openly entertaining this debate of replacing their candidate a few months before the election is a healthy sign of internal diversity.  But the demand is also unrealistic.  I’m not excited that Joe Biden is running for President in 2024. I wasn't excited when he ran in 2020. However, I do remain excited about protecting U.S. democracy which is under a full-frontal assault from MAGA Republicans and right-wing authoritarians both here and abroad. Yes, I saw the awful, no-good, terrible debate. Yes, President Biden looked old, sounded rough, had a hoarse voice, and lost his train of thought a few times. His most embarrassing moments were when he fumbled a slam dunk question on abortion and went on a strange tangent about undocumented immigrants, and the other is when he made the gaffe that he beat Medicare. Meanwhile, Trump just lied for ninety minutes without any fact checks, decided to amp up the xenophobia, and was his usual vulgarian self.  Yes, President Biden has been a moral failure on Palestine. Currently, the extremist Netanyahu government is committing a genocide in Gaza according to most Biden voters. And, shockingly, Trump would even be worse on this issue. During the debate, not only did Trump not commit to supporting a Palestinian state he also used Palestinian as a pejorative to smear Biden. He has also promised to bring back the Muslim Ban and institute litmus tests for immigrants, turning away those immigrants who don’t “like our religion.” It remains to be seen if he was referring to white Christian nationalism or Trumpism.

[im-a-simp-for-my-ships]

I've been seeing a lot of posts talking about the upcoming election, and that because of the atrocities happening in Palestine, which are genuinely horrific and need to stop, that voting for Biden is the same as voting for Trump, because they're both terrible people, Biden doubly worse because he's put the US on Israel's side. I'm not Palestinian, I can't even imagine the horrors they're going through and do not deserve. Palestine deserves to be free, full stop.

And to be supportive of a free Palestine may mean not siding with either Trump or Biden, but for me, yes, Biden is no better on this policy than Trump would be, I honestly think if you're the president of the US, no matter who it's been, there's never been a policy that I can remember that's made the middle east a better place, or hasn't been selfish in nature. The US's policy towards Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan, for instance, has never been a policy of peace or support for the people who have to live under oppressive/muderous regimes. So I don't care if it's been Carter, Bush, Clinton, Obama, Trump, or Biden, the innocent civilians in those countries will always be canon fodder and unimportant in the grand scheme of things.

But as someone who is a citizen of the US, while I can hate what my country is doing with their foreign policy, I also have to worry about what happens HERE. With women's rights, lgbtq rights, minority rights, voting rights, the list goes on.

If Republicans gain control of the White House again, if they gain control of congress, we are done. That's it, game over. Trump and his cohorts have made it abundantly clear that if they get it back, they will do everything they can to never give up that power up again. And if you don't think they' have the balls to do it, just remember January 6th.

If you think roe v wade repeal was bad, just look at what else they've done to reproductive rights on the state level, imagine if they could ban abortion or other reproductive services on a federal level! Don't forget the book banning here, anti lgbtq laws there, and it can't be missed that the Supreme Court, which is full of Trump appointees, have shown that they're not afraid to throw the constitution or precedent under the bus and rule according to their own, and right wing MAGA, whims!

So yes, it may seem contradictory on my part, to say I'm pro Palestine but still voting blue across the board, and I'm probably going to get a lot of hate for saying any of this, but for me, and this is partly selfish and partly for the future of so many different communities in the US, if there is no difference in foreign policy between Trump and Biden, there at least is an EXTREMELY BIG DIFFERENCE in domestic policy when it comes to rights for the people who live here too.

If anyone really thinks those with a MAGA mindset are no different than the party that doesn't actively want to take away reproductive rights or want to protect our right to vote or don't want to make trans people disappear, then I'm sorry, your rightful indignation at what's happening to the Palestinian people is making you forget what can happen to you, your family, your friends, and strangers across this country if Trump and his cohorts win this upcoming election. And I understand why, because the genocide that's happening is beyond atrocious, and the country I live in is playing a part in it. Maybe I'm wrong, but I feel that you can want the atrocities to stop, to care about what's happening, but also care about what's happening in your own backyard, in your own country too.

Remember, no one thought Trump could win, and he did. And he did what we all feared. He pushed through like-minded people into one of the most powerful institutions in this country, and they reversed a nearly 50 year old ruling protecting the right to choose. Then they took Affirmative Action. And even though state law prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation, they ruled in favor of homophobes who don't want to create sites for same-sex weddings. And as of now, they'll be hearing cases on access to medication for abortions, and emergency abortion care at hospitals. Who knows what else will land at their feet next, and who else they may try to appoint if an opportunity comes to get another one of his people in there.

This got way too long, but I wanted to get out my feelings on this. I know this is not a both sides issue, just like reproductive rights are not a both sides issue, or racism isn't a both sides issue.

Palestine deserves to be free. Palestinians deserve to live a life without fear of death and persecution. They deserve to live, period.

I also can't ignore what happens here either. So I will continue to vote blue no matter who, because that's what I can do right now, and that's the only choice I feel I can make with the shitty cards we've been dealt.

[thereallifecath]

I doubt I can reason with you, but truly, we are voting for an administration we can protest. An administration we can criticize. One that may actually change if pressured enough. You said yourself you don’t know how the ballot works. Here’s how it works: there’s two candidates that could possibly win. That’s it. Harris, or Trump. Third party is statistically impossible. This isn’t how it should be, but it is. A lot of vulnerable people (see: those listed in your pinned post) would be devastated under a second Trump admin. With Harris, we have a fighting chance at maintaining or improving our rights, and can continue to fight for Palestine without unfathomable repercussions. This would be all but impossible under Trump. Please don’t weigh in on USAmerican elections online when you admittedly don’t understand them. Thank you for listening, and understand I mean no disrespect by any of this, just hope I can give some insight on the unfortunate reality of our choice. Not voting for Harris is a vote from Trump and essentially my own death warrant as a marginalized USAmerican.

Starting any response off with ‘I doubt I can reason with you’, is immediately disrespectful and a cop out. You don’t know me, we’ve, as far as I’m aware, never conversed before and so I am confused as to why you feel ready to make that assumption - that I’m an unreasonable person.

I am Australian, so I am aware of how frustrating it is to be constantly told to vote for the lesser of two evils because statistically the other parties won’t win… but I also understand that that statement is very much a ploy to keep us voting for the same two parties. Here in Aus, there is a ranking system on the ballot, so you can vote for your first choice, second, third, etc. So that is very different, to my understanding of how the US American’s ballot works. You claim that I admitted to not understanding how American elections work, when I didn’t - I stated that I don’t know how specifically the ballot works - as in what it looks like. I was having a hard time getting a straight answer on whether there is other parties on the ballot other than Republican and Democratic, and I understand now that there is but like here, it’s unlikely that anyone else will win. It is of course, easier for me to say that I would vote someone else, as again here it’s different but I also don’t know how real change is supposed to happen if we (globally) just shrug our shoulders and accept the system instead of fighting it or trying to change it. How is anyone other party ever going to have a chance if everyone collectively just agrees to that shitty vote for the lesser of two evils bullshit. I’m not telling you - and I didn’t once say that I hate Americans for voting for Kamala, I was mainly criticising celebrities and people in power for supporting this rhetoric instead of trying to invoke real change.

You say a lot of vulnerable people would be devastated under Trump rule as if no one is being devastated now. I am very much aware of the struggles the American people face, as the Australian government/parliament follows and kisses USA’s ass more often than not. What happens in America doesn’t just happen in America, it’s a ripple effect that affects life and laws here too. The police here take inspiration from the USA’s police, and Prime Ministers always buddy up to the Presidents. In saying that it’s not as overtly bad here as it is in America, but USA news is constantly broadcasted here. There is of course one candidate that is worse than the other, and in no way am I saying that you shouldn’t vote or that voting for Trump would end up better than Kamala, but talking about it like Kamala is going to be better than him, feels wrong. The Democratic Party and the Republican Party are basically the same at this point, they both want the same things, except one is just a lot more open and honest about it than the other. Kamala first and foremost will always be a cop, and she is not going to go easy on protesters and that’s evident in the last four years - hell - the last eleven months with Palestine Protests and police’s abhorrent behaviour towards students and other protestors. She may not have been President, but she was Vice, and I wonder how much in the past two years has been Biden, and how much has fallen to her because of his age and physical state at the time. By vulnerable people, I wonder if Muslim, Palestinian, and Middle Eastern citizens of the US as a whole, are considered under your definition, because if you ask them their lives don’t get better with either option. Same goes for the black community, it’s been horrible for decades, Kamala isn’t going to actively make it any better. And considering a high portion of violence against African Americans and people of colour is done by the police, why do you think Kamala is going to listen? I don’t want anyone to die or get hurt, and I understand that under Trump more people will be in danger, but Palestinians don’t have a threat of danger - they’re past that - the danger is a constant, almost a certainty that they will die sooner or later… if no one stops it now. I’m not telling you that whole stupid thing of ‘you can’t complain cause it’s worse in x’ I’m saying that I don’t see how just voting for the lesser of two evils is going to help anything, when you could band together and vote for a third party instead. Statistically it may be impossible but physically it’s not? You could invoke real change.

And the ‘you’ part isn’t even the main issue I had. I am more than allowed to criticise celebs for their engagement in an active genocide and how their behaviour and influence affects real issues. I have lost all hope in celebrities this past year and to see two celebs I loved, especially Misha Collins, endorse a woman who supports the genocide is disheartening for sure, and considering the fucking emotional wreck you naturally become when you see burnt body parts of kids on the fucking daily, yeah I’m gonna be angry, and yeah I’m gonna be angry at the people who are putting their hand in to help the wrong side. Both Trump and Kamala want Israel to succeed, and I don’t see how standing on the side of either can be seen as the right choice. I don’t want Trump to win, but shit has been fucked under the Biden/Harris administration and I of course get angry when I see people praising her. And really, a whole GEEKS FOR HARRIS/WALZ event when you have not done a single fundraiser for Palestine? Fuck that, that’s just openly being ignorant of the people suffering because of Israel yes, but also because of the USA’s involvement as well as Canada’s, Australia’s and Britain’s too. The western imperialist countries have done NOTHING to help Palestine, instead we have disgusting officials encouraging the killing of babies - celebrating it even, and we just have to sit back and stay partial to the bullshit. I’m tired of the system and you should be too, be radical, try to change the system because it’s not working for anyone and Kamala isn’t going to change that. The least we can do is demand that Kamala understand that the president should serve the people, and that to get the people’s vote she must divest from and sanction Israel.

And look I’m not going to fault you for voting for her, in complete honesty, I get it, it’s a fucking difficult situation. But I am going to fault everyone involved in creating this stupid event, because they could’ve put on a fundraiser or sanction Israel event sometime in the past eleven months, but they didn’t and they still could’ve put on an event to convince the people that they do have a choice and they can actually change things by voting third party. Yeah people aren’t going to vote third party if they are told they can’t or their vote doesn’t matter if they do. And I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings in any way, I genuinely am, but I am fucking tired of seeing people in so much pain and not being able to do much about it. The least these celebs can do is openly campaign against Israhell but they don’t, and I’m more than entitled to tell them to fuck off when instead they support Kamala Harris.

The protests for Palestine have been going on for 75 years, there is very little tiny chance that Kamala is going to somehow listen to protestors when she’s elected and change things. We have to change things, the people, and I get it, you can’t change things is you’ve got a dictator preventing you from doing so, but talking about Kamala like she is going to help… isn’t it.

[juliaaurelia-blog]

If you vote for somebody else or don't vote, that's a vote for Donald Trump and the Republican party. I'm not going to go into his crimes and what he would turn the presidency into--a white Christian Dictatorship--because presumably you can use Google to find these out.

THEY WANT TO PASS A NATIONAL ABORTION BAN. No exceptions for rape, incest, or the life of the mother.

3 more Supreme Court Justices are due to retire. Trump will appoint, and a Republican-controlled senate would approve, more people like Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. The court is already packed with conservative justices who are proving they are no more than Trump cronies. 3 more Trump justices would ensure an arch-conservative court for the the next half-century.

So don't be an asshole unless you are prepared to live under a Christofacist dictatorship where the rights of women and POC are stripped away, LGBQT people will lose what little rights they have, immigrants will be put in camps and then deported, and all rules in place to protect the environment will be swept away. Tax cuts for the rich and corporations, social security and medicare cut, social programs like SNAP cut or eliminated. The poor will suffer, and what remains of the middle class will be squeezed out of existence. No student loan forgiveness. Nothing will be better under a Republican admin--it will all be much, much worse.

And oh yeah, they won't do shit to help Palestine.

If you can't comprehend why young people would vote democratic, you need to take off those PaLEstINe iS ThE OnLY ThING ThaT MAttERS goggles and have a look at the whole picture.

genuinely cannot comprehend how democrats are gonna convince the youth to vote for them again in november after they literally let the police beat the shit outta them for protesting against genocide

[expatimes]

What is Israel's secret weapon against Iran?

There is much reason to believe, but obviously no hard evidence to prove, that Israel is behind the most recent assassination of yet another high-ranking Iranian scientist.

Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who was seen by United States and Israeli intelligence services as the mastermind of a covert Iranian program to develop nuclear weapons capability, was evidently killed on November 27 in an ambush on a highway near Tehran “with remotely controlled smart devices”.

It is, of course, impossible to know what exactly happened on that highway. The Israelis have reasons to exaggerate their capabilities in conducting deadly covert operations in Iranian territory. Iranians, meanwhile, have reasons to conceal the manner in which their prominent official was killed, and engage in their own reciprocal disinformation campaign.

What we are left with is the evident fact that Israelis, perhaps in cahoots with the Americans, the Saudis or even the Emiratis, were behind yet another targeted assassination of a prominent Iranian official.

But how does Israel do it? How does this puny little settler colony get away with murder, repeatedly?

Projecting more power than they actually possess

Although Israel wants to project an image of an omnipotent and omniscient force that can kill and destroy with the flick of a finger, the fact is that it is all a bogus, cliché, and gaudy posture. There is not much mystery surrounding this cowardly operation: we have the Israeli-US intelligence, Saudi-Emirati finances, and the sleeper cells of the treacherous Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) - the ex-Iranian terrorist outfit - operatives inside Iran as the most likely combination of factors that allowed Israel to commit this murder.

Targeted assassination is a common feature of Israeli behavior. The murder of prominent Palestinian revolutionary writer Ghassan Kanafani in Beirut on July 8, 1972, together with his 17-year-old niece, Lamees Najim, is perhaps the most infamous and iconic of such assassinations.

Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was not the first and likely will not be the last Iranian scientist presumed murdered by the Israelis. At least half a dozen Iranian scientists have been murdered over the last decade, and Israel is to have been chiefly responsible for half of these murders.

To be sure, Israel is neither the first nor the only state that has eliminated its perceived enemies with assassinations outside its borders. Earlier this year, Donald Trump ordered the US military to murder Qassem Soleimani, a high-ranking Iranian military official, in Iraq. Just two years ago, Saudi Arabia chopped to pieces Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi dissident journalist, in Turkey.

The Iranians themselves have a long history of brutally murdering their perceived enemies around the world. They, for example, stabbed prominent opposition figure Shapour Bakhtiar to death in France in 1991. They do not hesitate to murder dissidents inside Iran either, as in the notorious case of the so-called “chain murders” of the 1980s and 1990s.

So no state can assume a holier than thou posture here. They are all guilty as sin. It is a dog eat dog world out there among these ruling regimes of terror and murder, each one worse than the other.

But still, the bald-faced incursion of a colonial settlement into a sovereign nation to murder one of their high-ranking scientists requires some examination.

What is Israel's secret weapon?

The specific question I wish to raise here is how could Israel murder Fakhrizadeh, then cowardly assume a stance of “neither denying nor confirming”, and get away with it?

The issue at hand here is not the Israeli behavior, which is systematically criminal. All you have to do is read Ronen Bergman's Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel's Targeted Assassinations (2018) to learn chapter and verse the sustained and systematic history of the settler colony being founded and kept in place with such targeted assassinations.

There is a link, I wish to propose, between the fact that Israelis can just move into Iran and murder anyone they want and the cowardly sellouts like the rulers of the UAE, Bahrain or Sudan “normalising” the historic theft of Palestine and entering into diplomatic relations with the settler colony.

That link spells out the scandalous incompetence of ruling states on all sides of the Gulf and beyond having no trust in their own people and degenerating the state apparatus into the instrument of tyranny against their own populations instead of learning how to protect their national sovereignty. On this score, there is no difference between the rulers of the UAE and Iran: they are both pathetically weak towards American-Israeli militarism because they are pathetically tyrannical towards their own citizens.

Let us talk specifically about Iran. The ruling state dedicates an overwhelming segment of its security and military apparatus to keeping Iranians themselves in line. It is so conscious of its own illegitimacy that its single most important function is to grab power, control the economy, and systemically subjugate Iranians to oppressive surveillance.

The ruling military, intelligence and security apparatus of the Islamic republic does not want to accept how utterly ridiculous it looks that Israel can infiltrate their country and point-blank murder one top scientist after another, while they are busy brutalising a teenage child into wearing her scarf one way and not the other. The sheer stupidity of this state just boggles the mind.

Stateless nations, illegitimate states

Israel is a garrison state - a state without a nation ruling over the Palestinians, a nation without a state. And so is precisely every single other state around it, chief among them Iran that has long since lost the trust and support of the nation over which it rules with wanton cruelty.

Imagine for a minute if people in Iran or anywhere else in the Muslim world were the masters of their own destiny. Imagine if the dungeons of the Islamic republic were not filled with political prisoners and human rights activists. Imagine if the ruling state did not waste much of its resources and abilities to surveil the Iranians and punish them for the slightest sign of life and liberty.

That is the secret weapon Israel has against Iran and all the other corrupt regimes in the region. That these illegitimate rulers do not see the strength of their countries is in their own population; that freedom, liberty, the ability to stand up proudly and claim national sovereignty is the true source of power for any country. Instead these pathetic incompetent fools who cannot even protect their most precious assets are trying in vain to keep an entire nation prisoner of their outdated, corrupt and moronic politics.

Israel is a military base created by a gang of European adventurists. They would not even dare to imagine infiltrating Iran, or Turkey, or Egypt, or any other real country, and murdering one of their citizens if they realized they had the will of an entire nation confronting them. They know the entire apparatus of the Islamic republic from top to bottom is irredeemably foreign to the defiant will of the Iranian people, that after 40 years they have miserably failed to become integral to the will of their nation, that they and their entire propaganda machinery has become parasitic to the organic integrity of an ancient but young, proud and competent nation, over which the ruling clergy has much power but little authority.

Nations against states

What can Iran do in retaliation for their top scientists being murdered by Israel? Nothing. Can they reciprocate and go and kill an Israeli nuclear scientist? Of course not, they do not have the wherewithal to do anything remotely similar to that. So they huff and they puff and ultimately shoot a few useless missiles in one direction or another and continue abusing their own population and supporting Hamas, Hezbollah or the murderous al-Assad regime for one useless act of “resistance” or another.

But at the same time, the habitual chicaneries of Israel will ultimately have to face not these feeble and pathetic states but the root of the power of resistance to its murderous deeds which is the will of the Palestinians and the Iranians alike.

What is lost to Israel and its sustained course of criminal activities is how utterly futile they are. They mobilize all their evil means and assassinate a few Iranian nuclear scientists - so what? Iran has literally thousands upon thousands of such unclear scientists, more than half of them women physicists from top Iranian universities. What is Israel going to do? Kill them all? Drop a couple of their pathetic and useless atom bombs on Iran as its American godfather Sheldon Adelson wants to do?

Is it possible to prevent Iranians from achieving nuclear knowledge or technology for peaceful or even non-peaceful purposes if that is what Iranians decide to do? Do they think a puny little settler colony can stop an entire nation that has given Maryam Mirzakhani to the world? Where do they think the late genius mathematician came from? Tel Aviv University? Israelis will fail miserably in this as they fail in everything else they touch - from stealing Palestine, to convincing anyone with an iota of decency and empathy to accept this blatant theft.

Both the ruling Islamic republic and the settler colony of Israel will ultimately fail to silencing the will of Palestinian and Iranian peoples. The repressed but defiant will of nations, Palestinians under the boots of Israeli soldiers and Iranians under the cruelties of their ruling regimes, will prevail.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial stance.

. #world Read full article: https://expatimes.com/?p=15357&feed_id=22325

[arcticdementor]

Both racial war, and its close cousin, ethnic war, result from contact between groups of different kinds—that is, diversity, which causes most of the world’s bloodshed. Americans seldom notice this. One reasons is that they are constantly told that diversity is a blissful state. But it isn’t. Consider: Catholics and Protestants in Ireland, Sunnis and Shia in many places, Jews and Moslems in Palestine, Hutus and Tutsis in Burundi, Hindus and Moslems in India and nearby, Tamils and Sinhalese in Sri Lanka, Chinese and Indonesians in Indonesia, French and Africans in Paris, and so on. The assertion that “diversity is our strength” seems an attempt to avoid realizing that it isn’t.

Racial and ethnic conflicts are cruel, often explosive, and irrational. They seldom make sense because the devastation and hideousness are disproportionate to the assigned causes. For example, the differences between Protestants and Catholics in Ireland are so slight as probably to be undetectable to you and me, yet the two fought murderously for years, blowing up pubs packed with member of the other faction. In the American case, nice and good-hearted people will point out that blacks are warm and friendly people if they like you, immensely talented in this and that, have legitimate grievances’ against society, and so on. All true. And irrelevant. Similar things can be said about both sides in most ethnic conflicts.

The prospect for bloodshed grows in the presence of other forms of social tension and is probably proportional to suppression of mention of the frictions. You can’t solve a problem if you don’t admit that it exists. The United States today is bent to the breaking point under many stresses other than racial. Severe economic uncertainty, declining standards of living, growing economic inequality, crushing debt loads to include student debt that hinders normal formation of families, hatred—not too strong a word—between Trump people and the coastal elites who rule the country, actual poverty in Appalachia, the Rust Belt, and the rural South, large and growing homeless populations, immigration, and the recent discovery that America consists of many cultures that do not like each other: New England, Alabama, West Virginia, Jews, Latinos, These constitute a poisonous accelerant that will detonate easily and intensify any conflict.

…

The danger is that a flashpoint will come, that for example BLM will mob the wrong house in the wrong state and the occupants will open fire, leaving a dozen dead. The entire country would explode. Nice well-intentioned whites would not be able to protest that they supported the fight against systemic racism. That is not how racial and ethnic wars work.

We are seeing a ferocious attack on the underpinnings of white European civilization , and for that matter of all actual civilizations. Japan, India, China, South Korea—none would buy into the enstupidation and degradation. Neither would Argentina or Mexico, which try to raise their cultural levels. Only America is on a downward path, in search of social justice.

Consider: Math curricula are being dumbed down because blacks do poorly at math, English grammar instruction eliminated because blacks can’t or won’t learn it, entrance exams for the elite and demanding high schools eliminated because blacks don’t pass them, SATs dropped because blacks score poorly on them, promotion exams in police departments eliminated because blacks don’t pass them. Entrance requirements at medical school are lowered because not enough blacks pass them, AP courses in high school eliminated because too few blacks get into them.

Dangerously, the government forbids white parents to have schools teaching what they regard as desirable material at what they regard as acceptable academic levels while requiring what they regard as civilized behavior. White parents are forced to see their children subjected to what they regard as obscene, semiliterate, violent, stupid, a culture dominated by what seems to them, (and would to any First World country) the opposite of cultivation. When parents whose daughter wants to go into electronic engineering see her forced into pseudo math taught by teachers who couldn’t recognize a partial derivative if it spoke to them in tongues, when she ought to be in AP calculus, they are not happy. But there is nothing they can do about it. Yet.

…

The renaming of streets and buildings, the toppling of statues, the near worship of a negligible armed robber and semi-derelict, the renaming of military bases in narcissistic self-abnegation are winding a spring. It is dangerous that those angrily promoting the appeasement, the media, the talking heads in New York, do not see the advancing fury. These people, substantially congruent with the coastal elites, elected Trump by being contemptuous of Middle America and blandly unaware of the brewing storm. They are doing it again.

Yet it is black crime that is likely to provide the ignition. The figures are stark, undeniable, at the level of states, municipalities, FBI. These numbers are unknown in any other civilized country. It is perilous that black men rape white women at a high rate, while the reverse barely happens. Sexual transgression pushes primordial buttons that are not wise to push. At what seem shrinking intervals black mobs burn cities, loot and destroy stores., wreak havoc on neighborhoods, and go largely unopposed. Governments at all levels fear them, know that if they respond forcefully, the entire country will go up in flames. The police are cowed and neutered, so crime rises sharply. Whites, intimidated—intimidated so far—flee. Many cities are now only formally part of the United States. The black mobs do as they please without consequence.

The appeasement of blacks, fear that they might riot, runs through society. Increasingly jurisdiction simply give up on enforcing the law. Cities like Chicago and New York have abolished cash bail to that criminals immediately go free, and immediately often offend again. Baltimore and Chicago no longer prosecute minor offenses such as prostitution and urinating in public. San Francisco has made shoplifting of goods worth less than $950 a misdemeanor, the shoplifters not being Asians, with the result that to this date seventeen Walgreens have closed (video). Cities stop prosecuting the jumping of subway turnstiles as this is done only by blacks and Hispanics. The latter won’t riot. The former will, and governments know it. When blacks very often racially attack whites, the media suppress the story. There are many, many of these attacks, covered briefly in local media but ignored by the majors, caught on video that circulates widely online.

…

Twenty-four Black on White Homicides in a Month. Read it. This goes on all the time. Over and over.

The racial attacks on whites and Asians share an unsettling explosiveness, an apparent lack of impulse control or awareness of consequences. A black shoots a store clerk for telling him to pull up his mask. Or black man stabs 96-year-old Asian woman. A black man shoots a white woman because she cut him off in traffic. Black man throws white five-year-old off third-floor balcony. Black man stabs four-year-old to death. Black man shoots white five-year-old in head.

The psychology here is strange. Shooting a child with no provocation in front of witnesses, or throwing one off a balcony in front of witnesses, or shooting a clerk for saying “Please pull up your mask,” all certain to lead to life in prison or close to it, is baffling.

…

What the country is doing hasn’t worked, isn’t working, and shows no sign of working. Things get worse by the month. With Biden, Harris, Pelosi, and so on apparently doing everything they can to infuriate the other half of the country—gun control, open borders, erasing the South, anti-white indoctrination in the schools, promotion of sexual curiosities, on and on, anger will grow. As the man associated with Finland Station asked, “What is to be done?”

Unfortunately nothing can be done. Anything that might work is politically impossible, and anything that is politically possible won’t work. Cosmetics, moral preening, lowering of standards, party politics—none of these will fix the country. In calmer times, saner heads might prevail. Partial alleviation might be achieved by allowing, or encouraging, voluntary segregation, taking white police out of black neighborhoods, letting black neighborhoods decide what laws to enforce within their own boundaries, letting the races decide for themselves what to teach their children, and to the extent possible allowing racial autonomy. Instead, the elites will double down on what isn’t working and nothing will get better, except the monthly sales at gun shops.

[jacobsvoice]

Israel’s Three B’s

Jerold S. Auerbach

(July 7, 2021 / JNS)

Any debate over who was Israel’s best prime minister—David Ben-Gurion, Menachem Begin or Benjamin Netanyahu—would most certainly provoke heated conversation. Was it the first prime minister; the first prime minister to sign a peace treaty with an Arab state (Egypt); or the longest-serving prime minister?

Disagreement over the best—or, these days, whether Netanyahu should or should not be included among them—prompts initial scrutiny of who was the worst. It would be difficult to avoid the conclusion that this prize-winner would be Ehud Olmert, who served between 2006 and 2009.

Meeting with Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas, Olmert offered a nearly total Israeli withdrawal from what had been, until the Six-Day War, Jordan’s “West Bank.” Millennia earlier, this Jewish holy land was divided between biblical Judea, where the patriarchs and matriarchs of the Jewish people were entombed, and King David ruled from Hebron before relocating his throne to Jerusalem; and Samaria, the second capital of the northern Kingdom of Israel. For Olmert, however, the historic attachment of Jews to their biblical homeland was irrelevant.

Olmert’s generosity or, more precisely, folly would have resulted in no more than a handful of Jewish settlements, confined to 6.3 percent of that land. If that was insufficient to satisfy Palestinian demands, Olmert was willing to divide Jerusalem into separate Israeli and Palestinian cities. It got worse: He also would have relinquished Israeli control over the entire Old City, including the Temple Mount where the First and Second Temples had stood, and the Western Wall, the holiest Jewish site ever since. His offer surely ranks as the most stunning surrender in Jewish history. Fortunately for Israel, Abbas rejected Olmert’s absurd fantasy.

Undeterred, Olmert agreed to accept a “symbolic” number of Palestinian refugees from the 1947-48 Arab war against the existence of a Jewish state. According to Palestinian and UNRWA (the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees) false arithmetic, there were millions of “refugees” when, in reality, there had been no more than 700,000. At least Olmert, who described Abbas as “a very qualified gentleman,” rejected his preposterous notion that descendants of Palestinian refugees yet to be born in 1947-48 should also be permitted to “return.” If so, it would destroy Israel as a Jewish state.

By comparison, what defines the best Israeli prime ministers? Surely, Ben-Gurion, a founding father who had the honor of proclaiming the birth of the State of Israel and presided over its war of independence, tops the list. “Operation Magic Carpet” in 1949 airlifted Jews from Yemen. Making his home in Kibbutz Sde Boker in the Negev Desert, he also encouraged the settlement and development of that barren land.

After briefly leaving the government, Ben-Gurion was re-elected. Authorizing the invasion of the Sinai Peninsula to end its Egyptian blockade, he also ordered Mossad to capture Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann for trial in Israel. Although Ben-Gurion led the left-wing Labor Party, his tolerance of political diversity—provoking sharp criticism from both the left and right—testified to his determination to do whatever would assure the survival of the world’s only Jewish state.

Begin’s paring with Ben-Gurion might offend Israelis on the political left. But there can be little doubt that Israel’s first right-wing prime minister qualifies for inclusion. His signing of a peace treaty with Anwar Sadat of Egypt, the first Arab country to do so, was a momentous achievement that assured peace on Israel’s southern border and rewarded him with the Nobel Peace Prize. Begin authorized the bombing of the 1981 Osirak nuclear plant in Iraq, eliminating a major threat to Israel’s security. His appeal to Sephardi, Mizrahi and religious Jews brought these outsiders into the Israeli political mainstream.

The final, and assuredly contested, inclusion in the top three is Benjamin (“Bibi”) Netanyahu. His first term as prime minister in the mid-1990s was hardly promising. With Israel under intense pressure to make amends for the horrific murder by Kiryat Arba doctor Baruch Goldstein of 29 Muslims at prayer at the Machpelah burial shrine in Hebron, Netanyahu signed the Hebron Protocol that drastically limited Jewish housing in the ancient Jewish Quarter. It also sharply restricted prayer in the magnificent Isaac Hall, site of the Goldstein massacre. His capitulation contributed to his re-election defeat in 1999.

Subsequently appointed Minister of Finance by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Netanyahu presided over soaring economic growth and became the leader of the right-wing Likud Party. Re-elected prime minister in 2009, he would become Israel’s longest-serving leader. Under pressure from former President Barack Obama, he agreed to a long-term settlement freeze that infuriated right-wing Israelis. But with the conspicuous exception of Hebron, Netanyahu resisted White House pressure to limit where Jews chose to live, whether in Jerusalem or settlements.

In foreign relations, Netanyahu’s close alignment with former President Donald Trump brought striking diplomatic victories for Israel. Recognizing its sovereignty over the Golan Heights, Trump also embraced the Abraham Accords, which agreed to full normalization of relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco—the first time that any Arab country since Jordan had done so in 1994. The U.S. embassy was relocated from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and the decades-long American opposition to Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria—the biblical homeland of the Jewish people—was abandoned.

The successes of Israel’s three Bs, regardless of their political identities, tower over their predecessors and followers. The current “B”—Prime Minister Naftali Bennett—shows little inclination to follow in their footsteps.

Jerold S. Auerbach is the author of Hebron Jews: Memory and Conflict in the Land of Israel and “Print to Fit: The New York Times, Zionism and Israel 1896-2016,” which was recently selected for Mosaic by Ruth Wisse and Martin Kramer as a “Best Book” for 2019.

[khalilhumam]

Around-the-halls: Experts analyze the normalization of Israel-UAE ties

New Post has been published on http://khalilhumam.com/around-the-halls-experts-analyze-the-normalization-of-israel-uae-ties/

Around-the-halls: Experts analyze the normalization of Israel-UAE ties

By Natan Sachs, Bruce Riedel, Jeffrey Feltman, Tamara Cofman Wittes, Suzanne Maloney, Shadi Hamid On August 13, Israel and United Arab Emirates (UAE) struck a major diplomatic agreement, with a joint Israel-UAE-U.S. statement announcing that in exchange for “full normalization of relations” between the two countries, Israel would forgo, for now, “declaring sovereignty” over disputed territory in the West Bank. Brookings experts on the Middle East analyze the news and its implications.

Natan Sachs (@natansachs), Director and Fellow in the Center for Middle East Policy: Normalization between Israel and the UAE is an excellent thing, in and of itself. It’s high time these countries have open, normal relations. But the context is of course key: the Israeli plan to annex parts of the West Bank, along the lines to be delineated by the U.S. and Israel after the release of Trump administration plan. The UAE-Israeli-U.S. deal allows everyone to climb down: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can avoid the terrible mistake of annexation while claiming he got something big for it (he did!). The UAE can claim it prevented annexation from happening — from UAE Ambassador Yousef Otaiba’s Hebrew-language op-ed warning of the move, to the big carrot of diplomatic normalization. Trump gets to avoid the annexation he himself sanctioned, and all the complications it could have produced, while showing a big win for two of his favorite allies. There is, of course, something odd about rewarding a non-blunder. Annexation could have been (and perhaps already was) avoided easily with a decision in Washington or Jerusalem alone, but the countries can now move forward with what they’ve long wanted: cooperation among two often-like minded countries, with common regional concerns. The losers, as often, are the Palestinians. The impatience in the Gulf with the Palestinians now comes to full daylight. The Gulf won’t wait for them any longer, asking of Israel only to avoid declarations of a major change to the status quo. A question is whether anyone else, and especially the Saudis, might follow. For now, though, the camp of Arab countries with peace or normalization with Israel grows to four: following Egypt (1977), Jordan (1994), and Lebanon, whose nominal leaders signed a meaningless peace treaty with Israel during the Israeli invasion in 1983. This latest agreement to normalize is not nearly as consequential as the first two. Hopefully it will have more meaning than the latter one.

Bruce Riedel, Senior Fellow in the Center for Middle East Policy: Jordan’s King Abdullah is a big beneficiary of this deal. Annexation of the Jordan Valley by Israel would have required a harsh Jordanian response. The king had pointedly not ruled out suspending the peace treaty his father had signed with Israel 25 years ago. Many Jordanians wanted him to cancel the gas deal with Israel, which would have cost Amman a fortune it doesn’t have. So the suspension of annexation takes a ticking time bomb off the king’s plate. Adding another (very rich) Arab country to the peace camp, with an embassy in Tel Aviv, is also good for Jordan. It eases the isolation of Amman and Cairo. The king has been praising Muhammad bin Zayed for months.

Jeffrey Feltman, John C. Whitehead Visiting Fellow in International Diplomacy: Anticipating a potential Joe Biden victory in November, Netanyahu may have had second thoughts about large-scale annexation. But even smaller-scale annexation, while rejected internationally, would have established yet more Israeli facts on the ground that are difficult if not impossible to reverse. The UAE normalization offer provides Netanyahu a ladder to climb down from his annexation tree. Critics complain that this dissolves the Arab solidarity of the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative. But the presumed leverage of the Arab Peace Initiative has never translated into tangible gains for the Palestinians. Suspending annexation at least prevents a bad situation on the ground from becoming worse.

Tamara Cofman Wittes (@tcwittes), Senior Fellow in the Center for Middle East Policy: Abu Dhabi and Jerusalem each had their own good reasons for finding a way to open the door to formal relations, but there’s no question the announcement today is also a boon to Donald Trump as he faces a re-election with few concrete accomplishments to his name and many policy failures. Still, the White House should not take too much comfort from this outcome: Among other things, Netanyahu and Emirati Foreign Minister Muhammed bin Zayed (MBZ) have now positioned themselves well for the possibility of a post-Trump Washington. Netanyahu has taken off the table a step that the Democratic presidential candidate has said he firmly opposes, and for which other Democrats in Congress are threatening to impose consequences. And MBZ has taken a step that can only win praise and plaudits from any incoming U.S. administration, while separating his nation from Saudi Arabia in the minds of Democrats who are ill-disposed to Riyadh. It seems both Bibi and MBZ have placed their bets for November. The big losers in today’s announcement, of course, are the Palestinians — who are supposed to be grateful at being spared a de jure annexation of territory in the West Bank that many would say has been in place de facto for years already. Abu Dhabi, like Anwar Sadat’s Egypt in 1978, is putting its national interests above Arab solidarity with the Palestinian cause. The Emiratis are betting they can easily weather the storm of unwelcome reactions in the Arab world — and they have far more reason than Sadat did to make that judgment. The dynamic between the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Arab states has been shifting for a long time. Ever since the end of the Cold War and the Gulf Crisis 30 years ago, Arab governments have become less concerned about Israel’s impact on regional stability and more focused on Iran and on their own internal troubles. Palestinian politics have become fractured, and have also been caught up in the regional power rivalries that now obsess Abu Dhabi and other capitals. When the Arab Peace Initiative was launched in 2002, amidst the violence of the second intifada and Israel’s reoccupation of Palestinian cities in the West Bank, the assembled Arab governments in Beirut put the power of the Arab states’ normalization offer at the service of the beleaguered Palestinians, led by Yassir Arafat. Today’s announcement cements a reversal of the dynamic. Now the Emiratis can claim that they have saved Palestine from annexation, when what they’ve really done is used a suspension of annexation (which was probably suspended anyway) as cover for their pursuit of their own national interests in ties with Israel. Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas may not be able to do much about this betrayal of Palestinian interests — but Palestinians will remember.

Suzanne Maloney (@MaloneySuzanne), Interim Vice President and Director of the Foreign Policy program: The historic breakthrough between the United Arab Emirates and Israel would not have come without an assist from Iran’s Islamic Republic. The quiet ties developed over years of pragmatic cooperation between Israeli and Emirati officials around the threats posed by Tehran helped to overcome one of the most stubborn diplomatic schisms. The Israeli government’s suspension of the immediate threat of annexation was a relatively small price to pay in exchange for formalizing its security partnership with the Gulf states, and the move positions both countries — as well as those who may follow the Emirates’ lead — to simultaneously curry favor with the Trump administration, which sorely needed some tangible diplomatic achievement, as well as a possible Biden administration that would be more hostile toward the prospect of annexation. Tehran has already responded with predictably scalding rhetoric, no doubt hoping to exploit residual support for the Palestinian cause among Arab public opinion to enhance its own regional reach. For that reason, some within the Islamic Republic will view this as a victory for the regime’s abiding ideological opposition to Israel, especially since today’s move was preceded by a thaw in the Emirates’ approach to Tehran and coincided with the Iranian foreign minister’s triumphal visit to a shattered Lebanon. But for all the fulminations that will be delivered at Friday prayers around Iran, the creeping normalization of Israel within the Arab world exposes the fundamental disconnect between Tehran and the region it seeks to dominate. And even as Iranians wait expectantly for the prospect of a diplomatic opening under a more sympathetic Biden administration, the landmark new ties between the Emirates and Israelis mean that the strategic and financial environment will remain challenging for Iran no matter what happens in November.

Shadi Hamid (@shadihamid), Senior Fellow in the Center for Middle East Policy: In theory, who can argue against peace? In practice and principle, though, Israel is being rewarded for not doing something it should have never considered doing in the first place — annexing parts of the West Bank. This isn’t diplomacy, and it isn’t peace. It’s cynical, and it shows, once again, that Arab authoritarian regimes can’t be bothered to pretend they care about Palestinian rights. For the UAE, it’s a means to an end, formalizing increasingly warm feelings toward Israel, due to their shared enemy of Iran and their shared (and unusual) preference for President Trump over President Obama. The word “authoritarian” is worth highlighting here. It’s hard to imagine an Arab country, if it were democratic, striking a peace deal with Israel today. Whether that’s a strike against — or for — democracy is another question. Of course, it’s not exactly an accident that Israel, one of the region’s few democracies, prefers that its Arab neighbors not be democratic, and the deal with the UAE is a reminder why.

[newstfionline]

As the U.S. mulls recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, here’s what some Palestinians and Israelis think

By Loveday Morris and Ruth Eglash, Washington Post, December 1, 2017

The Trump administration has until Dec. 4 to sign a waiver that delays moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem for another six months. Every U.S. president since Bill Clinton has signed it twice a year after Congress passed a bill in 1995 that called for the mission to be relocated. They have cited national security concerns and the potential for an embassy move to upset a peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians.

Israel sees Jerusalem—both east and west—as its undivided eternal capital, citing spiritual and historic claims dating back to the Bible. After the Jews were largely expelled, the city remained under Muslim rule for 1,300 years, until the end of World War I and the breakup of the Ottoman Empire. It was then placed under British mandate. In 1947, after Britain announced its withdrawal, the U.N. General Assembly voted to partition the territory into Arab and Jewish states make Jerusalem a corpus separatum—or “separated body”—with special international status, but that never happened. Instead, the city was divided.

Palestinians were expelled or fled neighborhoods in West Jerusalem during Israel’s 1948 war of independence, when Jewish communities were also displaced from the Old City and East Jerusalem. Following the 1967 war, Israel captured East Jerusalem from Jordan and annexed the area, a move considered illegal by the United Nations. East Jerusalem it is still largely Arab, and Palestinians hope to see it as the capital of a future Palestinian state.

Given the controversy surrounding the city, no foreign embassies are located in Jerusalem. However, President Trump promised to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem during his campaign. A U.S. official said the administration is “seriously considering options” but that no final decision has been made yet. Unconfirmed press reports have said that instead of moving the embassy, the United States may recognise Jerusalem—or go as far as calling it the “undivided” capital of Israel. Coming at a time when the administration is attempting to craft a peace plan, it could be particularly contentious.

Here is what some Israelis and Palestinians think of the rumblings:

QAIS ABDUL KARIM, Palestinian Legislative Council member

What would a move of the U.S. Embassy move mean for Palestinians?

I understand there is no such decision yet, so I can only see this as a gesture of continued blackmail in order to press Palestinians to accept demands concerning the peace process and provide encouragement for Israel. It would mean that the U.S. is the only international power that took a position contrary to international law and consensus, which is that Israel has no right to declare Jerusalem as a capital; it’s a violation of the status quo.

What about if it declared Jerusalem the “undivided” capital of Jerusalem?

This would be even more problematic, as this would involve direct recognition of the Israeli annexation of East Jerusalem. It would also be recognition of the illegal Israeli move to announce Jerusalem as a capital.

What would a move like this mean for the prospect of peace?

The U.S. will lose its status as a broker and declare itself as an ally to Israel. It will be a complete catastrophe and perhaps a final end to the attempts by the U.S. administration to start a process. They’ve been threatening enough; the threat itself is an instrument of pressure. If they make a real move, it will have a catastrophic impact.

NACHMAN SHAI, member of the Israeli Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee with the Zionist Union Party

What would moving the U.S. Embassy mean for Israelis?

Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, and we want it to be internationally recognized. When Israel was declared in 1948, some world countries did recognize Jerusalem, and they even had their consulates and embassies here. But after the 1967 war, some of them moved, and later, following each crisis, even more left.

I understand the issue with territories, but Jerusalem will always be Israel’s capital. And what does it really mean if the embassy is in Jerusalem? Why should it not be in Jerusalem? I think every country in the world would expect foreign embassies to be in their capital.

How about if the United States were to recognize Jerusalem as the “undivided” capital of Israel?

I think it would be like moving one step forward and then one step back, but it is better than nothing, although less than what I expect to see.

If they want to eliminate all ramification of physically moving the embassy to Jerusalem and go step by step, then it is definitely a significant step, although I am sure the right-wing parties will be upset because they had high hopes about the embassy moving. I thought from day one it would be impossible to move the embassy unilaterally to Jerusalem without doing anything for the Palestinians and maintaining a balance.

What would a move like this mean for the prospect of peace?

As far as I can judge, they mean this to be part of a future plan. In order to attract Israelis to the negotiation table, they need to go with this step or gesture beforehand, but I am still waiting to see what the Americans are preparing for us and the Palestinians.

GHASSAN AL-KHATIB, political science professor at Bir Zeit University

What would an embassy move mean for the Palestinians?

It will lead to bitterness and frustration on the Palestinian side and give rise to extremism. It would also strengthen extremists on the Israeli side. It will encourage Israeli extremists and enhance the more radical Israelis who will say, ‘Look, it pays off.’ It’s contrary to international law. You can’t be selective as a superpower, if you have to have respect for international law.

What about if the United States were to recognize Jerusalem as the “undivided” capital of Israel?

It’s probably worse, but both are bad. It would indicate that from America’s point of view, they don’t recognize the Palestinian claim to East Jerusalem.

What does it mean for the prospect of peace?

It complicates the situation in several ways. It will weaken the peace camp in Palestine. [Palestinian President] Mahmoud Abbas has been gambling on a U.S. peace process; this will undermine his position and undermine the moderates in Palestine. It will also reduce if not expend any possibility of a mediation role for the United States, as it will be perceived as too biased towards Israel.

SHMUEL ROSNER, senior fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute and expert on U.S.-Israel relations

What would moving the U.S. Embassy mean for Israelis?

Firstly, it will mean that Israel can yet again have trust in having U.S. backing. I think the most important aspect of such a move will be for Israelis to feel that the U.S. is the great ally and is indeed ready to take action even if it is somewhat controversial in a global sense to show support for Israel. In this sense, it is significant move. Living in a volatile area, having American support is very important to Israel. Secondly, it will strengthen the position held by most Israelis—almost all Israelis—that Jerusalem is the eternal capital of the State of Israel. Whether you agree with the current boundaries of the city or not, keeping the embassy away from the capital makes little sense to Israelis.

How about if the United States were to recognize Jerusalem as the “undivided” capital of Israel?

It is better than nothing. It will signal to Israel that Trump is serious when he says that he ultimately wants the embassy to move and he that he is doing it in gradual steps. The language of the statement will also be of some significance. If they say Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, that is not new, that is something they already say. But if they say Jerusalem is the undivided capital, that is more significant.

What would a move like this mean for the prospect of peace?

Whether this will improve the chances for peace? I don’t think the chances for peace are high to begin with, so I don’t know if that will reduce them further. It will add a controversial component to the American position and will probably demonstrate to the Palestinians that the U.S. is indeed taking a certain side on this issue.

Now, whether taking sides is problematic for the peace process or helpful? I think it will be helpful—better to clarify things now and give both sides time to adjust their position according to reality.

[xtruss]

North Atlantic Terrorist Organization’s (NATO’s) nemeses Russia & China help its member-states amid Covid-19 pandemic FAR MORE than the alliance itself

— By George Szamuely | RT | April 6, 2020

A crew member of a military transport helicopter of type NH90 (NATO Helicopter 90) sits in the door of the helicopter after landing at Dresden International Airport.

NATO, struggling to justify its existence, has found a new role for itself — as an indefatigable fighter against the Covid-19 pandemic. But so far, it has contributed significantly less to this fight than its supposed rivals.

During a NATO foreign ministers meeting, held earlier this month by secure video conference, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg declared, “NATO was created to deal with crises. So we can help and our Alliance is playing its part.” NATO was on the case. But what exactly was it doing? Here Stoltenberg became vague: NATO would apparently offer “logistical, transport and medical help” to member-states fighting the pandemic.

Russia and China have of course been providing “logistical, transport and medical help” all over the world for weeks, but NATO makes it sound as if it alone is doing anything, and rushes to take credit for aid that in reality has nothing to do with the alliance.

On March 30, a cargo aircraft from China landed in the Czech Republic to deliver respirators and face masks. “This was the third such transport flight from China to the Czech Republic…under the NATO supported Strategic Airlift International Solution,” NATO proudly announced. So, China delivers medical equipment, and NATO takes the credit?

Recently, NATO member-state Turkey was supposed to deliver medical supplies to NATO member-states Spain and Italy. Once again NATO rushed to take credit. Stoltenberg was “proud to see NATO Allies supporting each other through our disaster relief centre.” Understandably, Stoltenberg didn’t address Spain’s complaint that Turkey had seized hundreds of ventilators and sanitary equipment that Spain had already paid for. The ventilators had reportedly been manufactured in Turkey on behalf of a Spanish firm that bought the components from China. Subsequently, Turkey ordered all domestic mask producers to produce exclusively for the Turkish state.

Lack of cooperation among NATO member-states has become endemic. In the US, the Trump administration ordered healthcare equipment firm 3M to stop exporting N95 respirator masks to Canada and Latin America. In response, Justin Trudeau, Canada’s prime minister threatened retaliation: “We have an enormous number of products that are essential for the United States in their fight against Covid-19.” Canada, he said, provides the US doctors, nurses, testing kits and key ingredients for the N95 masks.

Russian aid to Italy, dubbed an ‘influence operation’ by EU-partnered media outfit, is indeed shameful — for Europe

Meanwhile, Germany accused the US of engaging in “modern piracy” by diverting in Bangkok, Thailand, 200,000 facemasks that were destined for Germany. France also complained when the US seized a consignment of masks bound for France from China. “The masks were on a plane at Shanghai airport…when the U.S. buyers turned up and offered three times what their French counterparts were paying,” the Guardian reported.

Germany, in turn, had initially banned the export of medical masks and other protective gear to Italy. Though Germany did eventually relent, there was no relenting on Spain, Italy and France’s plea that coronavirus-incurred debt be shared out in the form of corona-bonds. Germany’s refusal infuriated the Italians so much, that a group of Italian mayors and politicians bought a page in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung to remind Germany that it had not been forced to pay back its debts after World War II.

In stark contrast to the reluctance of NATO member-states to do much for one another, China and Russia have been delivering aid all over the world, including NATO countries. Russia sent masks and ventilators to the United States; and ventilators, medical equipment and military virologists and epidemiologists to Italy. Russia also sent coronavirus testing kits to Iran, North Korea and Venezuela, as well as to former USSR republics such as Armenia, Azerbaijan and Belarus. Russia has also sent military doctors and virology and epidemiology specialists to Serbia.

China also stepped up to the plate. It sent coronavirus testing kits as well as ventilators, masks and doctors to Italy; testing kits to Spain; and facemasks to Holland. It also delivered coronavirus testing kits to Palestine, and aid to Cambodia and Malaysia.

‘America First’: Covid-19 exposes cracks in Trans-Atlantic solidarity as US snatches up France-bound masks

NATO as Useless Now as in 2008 & 2015 Crises

Contrary to Stoltenberg’s claims then, the most striking feature of the coronavirus crisis is the absence of a NATO contribution to its solution. Pandemics are as old as humanity. Sooner or later, something like Covid-19 was bound to come along. Yet, despite all of the resources NATO had eaten up over the years, it has undertaken no emergency planning for a possible pandemic or a biological weapon attack. Its military hardware, vaunted command structures and constant military exercises are as useless today as they were in 2015 when Europe faced its last serious crisis.

Of course, it was NATO itself that triggered the 2015 migration crisis. Its reckless intervention to overthrow the government of Libya’s Muammar al-Qaddafi threw the previously stable North African country into chaos and caused the massive flow of migrants into Europe. The same sequence followed the subsequent intervention of key NATO powers in the civil war in Syria.

In 2015, Europeans woke up to discover not only that their most urgent security problem was not Russia, Ukraine and Crimea (NATO’s obsessive concern), but Europe’s open borders, a problem NATO had done nothing to address and, worse, had exacerbated by fueling instability on Europe’s periphery. Yet NATO offered no explanation as to why Europe’s borders had remained so porous for decades. Similarly, in the face of a spate of terrorist attacks in Europe in 2015, NATO was unable to explain why, after supposedly fighting terrorism for the better part of two decades, it had done so little to safeguard Europe from the scourge of terrorism.

In a speech delivered in Wellington, New Zealand, on Aug. 5, 2019, a few months before the Covid-19 outbreak, Stoltenberg declared that the greatest challenge the West faced was “increased competition between great powers” and that “a more assertive Russia, is putting the rules based order under pressure.” Russia was everywhere, threatening everyone, “trying to meddle in and undermining the trust in democratic institutions.” And then there was “the rise of China.” China and Russia, Stoltenberg warned, “represent challenges for all of us, both NATO Allies and…many other countries.”

So there it is. A few months before the onset of a global pandemic, the full ramifications of which we can today barely grasp, NATO was expressing alarm about Russia and China, the two powers that have done far more to help NATO countries out during this pandemic than NATO itself has.

Meanwhile, Europe and the United States careen toward an economic catastrophe that will dwarf the 2008 crisis by several orders of magnitude. NATO’s contribution to solving that crisis will be as useless as its contribution to solving the 2008 crisis. What will it be? It will plead with member-states not to skimp on their contributions to a security organization from which they derive no security.

George Szamuely is a senior research fellow at Global Policy Institute (London) and author of Bombs for Peace: NATO's Humanitarian War on Yugoslavia. Follow him on Twitter @GeorgeSzamuely