Interesting. Most liberals I know already agree with that sentiment without having to be told.
It’s true not all liberals support this, but I’ve certainly seen a fair number hand-waving Biden’s vocal support of this genocidal state as if it’s no big deal.
It’s not that it’s “not a big deal.” It’s that he’s still the better of the two realistic possibilities. No Republican running for president will be harder on Israel than Biden is being (which is, admittedly, in no way hard), and they are all far worse on other metrics important to the left.
But that’s another hand-waving deflection. When can we discuss the deeply problematic words and actions of our current president without establishment liberals popping out of wells to tell us he’s not as bad as Republicans? He’s still doing and supporting some unacceptably fucked up shit.
We can do that once the threat of right wing extremism is not so imminent. We lashed out at Hillary and got Trump. Now women can’t get abortions without dying first. Corporations have their record profits and record tax breaks. We don’t want another four years of constant stress
Lol. Do you really think that Trump became president because the Left critizized Clinton too much?
It surely didn’t help. At this point I don’t think people can be blamed for being spooked and leery of anything that might help Trump.
You raise a good point, and just as a disclaimer I’m not American, but I feel like there’s space for a) voting and campaigning for the democratic candidate, while also b) decrying your poverty of choice in the matter.
But maybe the stakes are just so existential (clearly), that any disent has to take a backseat to just getting the less shitty party in power.
The right wing extremism will always be imminent. It’s like a show that ends every episode on a cliffhanger to try to keep audiences watching. Hillary gave us Trump: https://www.salon.com/2016/11/09/the-hillary-clinton-campaign-intentionally-created-donald-trump-with-its-pied-piper-strategy/
Then she positioned herself as the only solution. It’s funny when people say “OMG HILLARY WAS RIGHT” yeah, of course she could tell the outcome of a situation she was key in creating. She wanted that presidency and she was willing to promote fascists to get there. Vote for her or die. This is basically the only democrat strategy now. I’m going to keep voting for democrats anyway because our system has no real choice, but don’t use this situation to shield democrats from criticism, they deserve plenty of it.
This is all 100%.
Criticizing them doesn’t matter though. They’re still happy and rich if they lose.
The fight won’t be small jabs, it will be big and all at once
You mean the threat that he has basically only delayed? That as a party, historically, the democrats have only ever delayed because their shitty centrist candidates do nothing to progress beyond; leading to an America that is on the brink of fascism?
You should probably retire that macro… it’s getting a little musty.
We can do that once the threat of right wing extremism is not so imminent
Is exactly the kind of attitude that results in the kind of right wing democrats that gave the extreme right wing enough leeway to take over the GOP rather than be shunned by society like they were before the DNC and their media arm elevated Trump.
It’s coming from a place of privilege to think we can wait until then. It’s coming from a position in which you can stand back and look at everything through the lens of a campaign rather than being deeply hurt by his policies. People in the border camps need to be freed NOW. We need to give the land back NOW. Israel needs to stop committing genocide NOW.
I’m sorry if it causes you “constant stress” to think about this. I’m sure other people’s pain and suffering is so hard for you to bear, but we need to talk about this. We need to somehow stop Biden and his party from continuing to support and bolster these atrocities.
Wow you assume a LOT
Yep, and all based on experience with US liberals
And voting for Trump or DeSantis or Halley is going to do what, exactly, to help?
Here’s another thing you do that really pushes people away: No one said a damn thing about voting Trump, or DeSantis, or anyone else.
In fact, I don’t think I even mentioned voting at all.
Who’s president right now? Let’s talk about him. We need to be able to demand he cease his genocidal actions without having people like you constantly deflecting criticism with this pointless whataboutism. It’s as pointless as it is exhausting.
You are badly confused in your vision of what’s possible.
OK. I’ll be that vs. someone who excuses atrocoties like fascism and genocide. I’ll be that vs. someone who clothes their speech in tolerance while building camps and walls at the border.
That’s still much better than what you are.
Lol, Biden himself has admired that there are 50 other democrats that could also beat trump.
So try again there, bub.
At least 40 of which would probably be more likely to than himself.
Yup.
I think a lot of people are just frustrated by the religious extremism which drives the conflict.
Yet the guy who says this shit is the liberal choice for president: “Folks, were there no Israel, there wouldn’t be a Jew in the world that was safe.”
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/biden-alludes-disagreements-with-israels-netanyahu-2023-12-12/
That comes with the boldest admission I’ve ever seen, that we as the entire rest of the world are uniformly unwilling to stand by and protect the Jewish people in our communities and countries. Fuck that. No, we must protect our Jewish neighbors, we must be willing to take in Jewish refugees of antisemitism. We must take it upon ourselves be the place where Jews are safe. Saying Israel is the source of Jewish safety is a fucking cop out and it’s a disgusting one at that.
But if past performance is any indication, it’s also true.
There are lots of marginalized groups that do not have the benefit of having a homeland country that are continuing to survive. Maybe we were more barbaric in the past, and there’s certainly still antisemitism to root out, but I don’t agree with the take that countries couldn’t protect their own Jewish populations.
What total horse shit. Mark Zuckerberg’s safety is in no way conditioned on the existence of Israel.
But Biden isn’t a liberal (in conventional US usage anyway) and I doubt he’d describe himself as one. He’s an establishment centrist if there ever was one.
He’s a neoliberal Clintonite. He’s in the most right wing part of even that right wing form of liberalism, but still a neoliberal, which is the DNC default kind of liberalism and has been since 1992.
this is another meme using the European/PolSci definition of Liberals, meaning classic/neoliberal, as in ‘capitalists’. Definitely confusing and generally wrong in a modern US context.
Not necessarily. It’s genocide because they’re being specifically targeted for their race, religion, ethnic group, or other genetic or cultural characteristics. Which they absolutely are. If you lock the doors at rock concerts and kill everyone in attendance it’s just mass murder.
It’s genocide because their culture is slowly getting wiped out. Genocide happens not only in the giant open air concentration camp called Gaza, but also in the West Bank, where the Palestinians are supposedly living in peace with the Israelis. Check out Anna Baltzers documentary about her experience in the West Bank. She went there as a sceptic upon hearing from friends about gruesome stories of how the Israelis treat Palestinians.
Video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_MDC2Gty4I&si=DWDaLQmvkl2Tv27a
“just” feels weird here, idk why
Imo the just feels weird because mass murder shouldn’t be a “just”. It should be somewhat near a penultimate, but compared to genocide…
Genocide = mass murder + the attempt to wipeout a characteristic people.
So “just” mass murder could be considered one step less worse than genocide.
No disagreement at all, still feels like we shouldn’t be applying that word to something so severe.
Religion is just an excuse to get people on board. This is a territory war, religion is just the thing dividing the two sides, but this is not about religion or race, this is about land and power.
It’s not a genocide because there’s no attempt to eradicate a whole people.
That’s illegal to say.
It’s just untrue.
Gaza borders Egypt, populated by their Arab brothers, and Egypt could allow them to leave without Israel’s permission. Egypt can also allow in humanitarian aid.
The image implies Israel has sole control over who and what comes and goes, but they don’t. Every time I see this claim made, no one wants to talk about Egypt’s role in this.
Israel I’m sure would love it if all the Palestinians they couldn’t kill were forced into Egypt.
Your point presumes Palestinians SHOULD cede Gaza to Israel to escape being killed.
Not at all. In fact, far from being risky, it’s the received wisdom here on Lemmy. I will get far more downvotes for merely questioning the framing of it as a genocide than will OP.
I can’t believe the Israeli government of all entities drank the fascist Kool-Aid.
They went aggressive defense, after the effects of WW2. They built an impressive machine to both keep themselves safe (by all means necessary) and hunt down Nazis who fled into hiding.
Unfortunately, they ran out of targets, on the nazi front, and really pissed off their neighbours. Rather than risk de-escalating, they’ve gone all-in.
The intergenerational changeover, and the political games that entailed lead to the current situation.
Stare too long into the abyss, and the abyss will stare back into you.
The trick is to wait until the abyss stares back, and to smile at it.
EDIT: My bad, I thought this was from another Israel Palestine thread I roped myself into.
I feel bad for everyone involved though.
The whole point of the state of Israel is to have an ethnostate - at the minimum, apartheid, at the maximum, genocide - which is why there is a huge split among Jewish people worldwide as to whether or not be Zionists.
Welcome to 1995. You’ll catch up.
Funny. I looked at my calendar and thought it was 1356 with the way you all are talking and acting.
You’ll learn to take a step back and view situations objectively one day, far in the future, when you grow up. Perhaps 2095.
Lots of people seem to have learned what “war” is in the last few months and are shocked that it includes large numbers of civilian casualties.
Israel has the equipment and capability to wipe Gaza off the map if they wanted to. If this were an actual genocide and killing Palestinians was the only goal, there would be way, WAY more casualties.
Now, is Israel committing war crimes? Absolutely. So is Hamas. So is nearly any armed group that finds themselves in a conflict. War is brutal and turns men into monsters capable of horrendous things. But this doesn’t fit the definition of genocide and it cheapens the word to try and frame it that way.
It’s not “large numbers of civilian casualties”
It’s “the VAST majority of deaths are innocent civilians”. It’s like if Texas kidnapped 5 random citizens to kill every time someone was given the death sentence. Would you say that’s acceptable because it’s just “collateral damage”?
This is by design on the part of Hamas though. It doesn’t excuse the situation, but it does make it more complicated especially with regard to intent, which has to matter when considering charges of genocide.
Mate if they orchestrated a complete mass murder in an instant, absolutely no one would be able to defend it. This way, people get to just say “well, it’s war”.
Genocide: the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group.
It’s a genocide. Your point is they could probably be more efficient and obvious about the civilian murder. Therefore, it’s not a genocide.
Your point is moronic.
Right. Because if their goal was to wipe out all Palestinians, they would of course put all of their efforts and resources towards that without letting international politics affect what they do and how they do it… /s
“Everyone warcrimes actually” is a pretty weak take.
Oooo, now do Ukraine
Aren’t the Ruskies the ones invading them and kidnapping their children and such?
Exactly. “Leftists” refuse to acknowledge that Russia is doing genocide in Ukraine.
We do?
I don’t really think that’s true, lol. It may just be my own bias as a leftist that heavily condemns Russia’s invasion, but the vast majority of leftists condemn Russia invading, with some also condemning NATO’s historical treatment of the Russian Federation, leading to an unjust invasion in the first place.
It’s kind of like people that say the US government caused 9/11 by being an absolute villian on a global stage, especially with respect to the Middle East. That’s not saying 9/11 was justified, but that the US government shouldn’t have held their foreign policy the way they have for centuries in the first place.
Maybe I’m blind, but I really don’t see anyone saying Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is justified.
Leftists are anti-Imperialism and Anti-Colonialism as a rule, so being pro-Imperialism is a decidedly not leftist take.
I’m just basing this on what I see all over hexbear and lemmygrad in particular. I have, in fact, gotten a ban for “genocide denial” on hexbear for suggesting that Russia is perpetuating genocide against the Ukrainian people. The absolute irony.
I wouldn’t call those people lefties. That’s more like some twisted tankie ideology, based on some absurd notion that Russia is still communist.
Russia has done some truly horrific acts to the people of Ukraine, but isn’t being classified as genocide by human rights groups.
Isn’t the kidnapping of Ukraines children count as a cultural genocide or something?
Certainly a war crime.
I see, I just want to state that there’s an odd use of terminology you’ve used. I’m assuming that you’re referring to marxists, socialist, etc, as the “leftists”, I just wish to point out that they absolutely HATE liberals, like the Democratic Party and such. The liberals actually support Ukraine while those leftists are more “eh” on the subject.
You keep using that word, I don’t think it means what you think it means. https://youtube.com/watch?v=L9n77DPJ7AE
What’s happening in Ukraine, Gaza, as well as countless other places, are frigging tragedies, but it’s not genocides.
There is actually a genocide being perpetrated presently, but as nobody wants to piss of China nobody’s talking about it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyghur_genocide
Cool it with the antisemitic remarks.
I guess if you don’t support Isreal you’re an antisemite. Does that mean if you don’t support Palestine you’re an antiislamist?
Wat…
Big Lebowski reference I think?
Nope my b it’s American Psycho
