cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/17956865

‘It is time for this war to end,’ Harris tells Netanyahu; ‘I will not be silent’ on Palestinian suffering

    •  prole   ( @prole@beehaw.org ) 
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      2 months ago

      It’s almost as if politicians (particularly at this level) often need to walk a rhetorical tightrope so as to avoid alienating large swathes of voters. Crazy.

            •  millie   ( @millie@beehaw.org ) 
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              2 months ago

              Are those voters likely to vote for Trump instead? Or do you think the centrists that Democrats tiptoe around during election years are?

              Once she’s in, once the immediate danger to the basic functioning of our government is over, I’ll be interested to see how she handles it. Right now though? She seems to be providing criticism while walking a careful line and trying to play it safe.

              If she doesn’t come firmly down on refusing to materially support the IDF after the election, I’ll be first in line to start making noise about it. But at the moment? We need to secure our ability to have future elections first or it’s going to get a whole lot worse. I get it.

        • I love how simple people here think this is. Just say fuck Israel, go full force against them and when Trump wins we will… Wait, what?oh yeah, now we don’t get the votes we need to win and now Trump wins and now Trump will make it exponentially worse for Gaza and Ukraine and the entire fucking world.

          It. Is. Not. That. Easy.

          Let her win first, shall we, please? Pretty please? Once she wins you can throw all this anti genocide stuff on her head but until then please realize that she’ll have to appease large groups of people who are so pro Israel that they ignore the genocide.

      • This. I say this every time and somehow it doesn’t help, nobody gets it. Politics, any politics, is walking tightropes. Even dictators have to walk certain tightropes to not get toppled within minutes. Democracies are so much worse (and thus better, in the end) when it comes to tightropes everywhere

        • So, this “tightrope walk” gives politicians a free pass to lie to voters about what they intend to do once they’re in office? How is that fair? No one is able to make an informed decision that way.

          How can deceiving citizens possibly improve the quality of leadership in any country, democratic or otherwise? It’s called manipulation and that’s what you do when you don’t want the other party to have a choice in the matter. It’s what you do when you want to seize control.

    • When I read the article it didn’t seem like all, it was the violent ones and the ones who were tagging about Hamas on near/on government property (which like, kinda whatever to that one).

      In that same article she condemned Hamas while talking about the lives of Gazans. I feel like people have been talking about the difference between Gaza and Hamas here on Lemmy, but when it’s talked about by VP/Presidential Candidate it’s suddenly not possible to have that be distinguished?

      The only thing that she’s missing here is our perspective, which overall seems to come down to, “yes the actions of Hamas are abhorrent and terroristic, however they also are doing so somewhat out of necessity due to the Israeli state working so hard to kill them. That doesn’t make the actions of Hamas okay, it simply makes the citizens of Palestine stuck between two organizations.” Hence our support for Palestine, because what are they going to do? It’s death either direction, and at least one is wanting to give them statehood and the other wants them extinct.

      She is partway there. She has recognized a difference between Gaza and Hamas, she has condemned the death put forth by both Hamas and Israel, while also speaking out against violent protesters and flag burners. Obviously, she is missing the fact that Israel wants Palestine the way Russia wants Ukraine the way China wants Taiwan. And that U.S. citizens are against that. Hence our protests.

      So frustrating.

        • And the same was said towards violent protesters throughout 2016. Almost like when violence and destruction of public property is disliked by politicians and they say something about it! It’s bullshit for sure, because the “perfect” protest is not something that will always happen. It must be composed of “perfectly polite people doing and saying perfectly perfectly polite things” which is just not going to happen.

          Where I grew up our protests weren’t antagonized as much (just by cops) but where I moved the cops are legitimately Nazis. Here we’ve had bricks thrown at us, media spin us as Antifa being suppressed by tear gas when we protest the literal Nazi rally - I’m on the go but I can post the article in an edit later. So tell me, how can we be perfectly peaceful when our peaceful protests are met with violence. Even if we stood still and were attacked without defending ourselves it would probably still be our fault for having started a peaceful protest.

    • Protests themselves often tend to be less popular than the causes they promote. Politically it can make sense to distance from a protest, but still align with a cause itself that is more popular

      It’s strange, but ultimately the cause itself is what matters here

      • I’m committed to posting this MLK quote as often as it is relevant:

        First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action;” who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a “more convenient season.”

        Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

        I’m at the point that I find this quote whenever I need it by opening my profile and sorting by controversial.

      • She could’ve easily just ignored that protest, because it doesn’t have anything at all to do with her. The only reason this is still getting democratic backing is because of institutional reasons. The rhetoric about, desert rose, shining star of democracy in the middle east, rings hollow when israel has done jack shit as a strategic ally for us for the past 70+ years other than get us wrapped up in multiple conflicts, use us as a weapons manufacturing base to keep the military industrial complex spinning constantly, and train our cops more and more poorly. I don’t think your average democratic voter wants to keep hearing about this shit, I think your average voter wants to ignore this, or has bigger fish to fry in their immediate future, and I don’t think outside of the republican party, which is swamped by doomsday cult evangelical zionists, there are any real hardline make or break “support israel or bust” guys in the democratic voter base. Maybe your super extremist brainbroken libs, but you’re pretty much guaranteed to have their vote anyways, I think. It’s that phantomic undecided voter that they always come back to. Real Hotelling’s law shit, but they’re like, stuck in a fucked up version of the centrism from the 80’s, eternally, only changing the window dressing.

        This is purely an institutional concern, and the more this comes up, the less time she has to actually show anything substantive to people. She doesn’t understand how tenuous and ethereal her meme momentum is. People are satisfied with her now because she’s not joe biden, and because she actually has a chance to beat trump, maybe, but after that satisfaction evaporates and the coconut tree and brat memes fall off with their half life of like, probably two weeks or less, she’s gonna need something better than just “vote blue no matter who or else fascism will destroy democracy”, or else it’s just going to fucking beam us with the exact cynicism that’s been the case for like the last two elections. She could even just fucking lie, and say as president she’ll appoint more people to the supreme court, and reverse the reversal of roe v. wade, and even if she doesn’t do that, the issue would probably still be a huge winner for her and help get her elected. But the more time she spends on israel’s fuckups the more she’s going to tread water, and if you’re not moving forwards, you’re sliding backwards.

      • i hope you’re right.

        i haven’t been able to vote democrat since obama’s 2nd term and kamala seemed like it was possible again until i saw that distancing yesterday.

        i also hope that it’s not just lip service; but there’s no way to know.

  •  pingveno   ( @pingveno@lemmy.ml ) 
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    42 months ago

    She didn’t attend Bibi’s Congressional political rally (it was mainly for the majority of Israelis who want Bibi gone), which is unusual for her. Then she punctuates her meeting with Bibi with this. Maybe it’s just rhetoric. She will need to outline what sorts of consequences she’s willing to impose on Israel.