Biden is older than Israel, he was 6 when it was created, and he has said he will always support them no matter what because when he was a child his father made him promise to.
Elderly people often don't realize how much has changed. In Biden's eyes Israel will always be the victims because of WW2.
For him to accept that was generations ago and lots has changed, he'd have to come to terms with how old he is.
And if he could do that, he wouldn't be trying to increase his record for oldest president ever.
It's a normal thing our brains do if we're lucky enough to live that long.
Humans didn't evolve to live in such fast pace worlds. So if someone made it to 60, running on "autopilot" wasn't as big of a deal. So as we lose critical thinking skills (again, completely normal) we fall back on stuff we learned as kids and stereotypes to be able to keep up.
It's why not having an age limit on elected representives is so crazy.
It's outright denial of science to pretend an 80 year old is still capable of leading a country. For more reasons than just that one.
I don't think this applies to all 80 year olds though. Some of the smartest, most open-minded people I've met have been 70+ year old university professors. These are the kind of people who retired, and then came back to teach because they were bored. It's definitely possible for humans to retain their critical thinking well into that late stage of life, but I'll grant you that most who make it to that age don't seem to manage it.
I can only hope that if and when I reach that many decades on this planet, I'll still have the kind of clarity of mind to not get stuck on 'autopilot'...
Sure, Roger Penrose is a decade older, and he's probably the most intelligent living person
But a professor working out a few more tweaks to their life's work is not the peak of their career. And the mental abilities for that is not reacting to a million shitty things at once as the president of America.
It's kind of high stressed.
The standards are just that much lower for elderly teachers too, and if they're actually intelligent then they'd freely admit that their age is a negative.
That's just biology, there's no way around it. No one peaks at 70 years old...
Let's not just blame it on someone being old. They know exactly what's going on they simply don't care about a bunch of poor people dying when these are in between their ambitions.
I doubt the reason "why" the west is supporting a genocide is a promise the current ceo of usa made as a child, especially given that the same policy has been going on for a century. I also doubt it has much to do with them being old since again the same war policies have been applied for a century.
True. As an outsider to US politics, it painfully obvious to me that the only difference between DEM and GOP is rhetoric, but when it comes to action, they all do the same thing.
EU politics is no different. It doesn't matter what the people want, "democratically elected leaders" will do what they want, or rather what they are told to do, regardless of what the people think.
Aside from one party trying to make being trans illegal, or trying to make pollution legal, or trying to cheat at elections, or ignoring global warming, or make abortion illegal, or crushing unions, or trying to defund Ukraine, or trying to teach creationism....
Do the Democrats have policy and action problems? Absolutely. Are they the same as the Republicans? Of course not.
Both red and blue parties are ruled by corrupted criminals with blood on their hands and that's enough not to want to vote for any of them.
Human rights have never been a US government priority, look at the war crimes they committed around the world and how they are supporting a genocide right now or look at their support for evil corporations and how little they care about poor people.
USA army is one of the biggest polluter in the world and the government has 0 plans to shut it down. The government has always been linked and tied to polluting companies.
The government has always cheat at elections, see how much money they spend on propaganda, mass surveillance and how they have a tight grip on media.
Ukrainian government is an authoritarian regime now seeking to repatriate these who fleed the country to force them to fight.
Yes. And it accomplished its mission in 1948 with the creation of Israel, and the state’s continued existence.
The deluded Zionist sub-groups want ‘back’ Transjordan and the rest of Palestine - ignoring the political reality that doing so means war with and annexation of parts of Jordan and Lebanon, all of Palestine and parts of Egypt too.
I like to think biden has, to a good extent. From what I'm seeing in the news, his administration is internally pushing a lot harder on israel than they show externally. Of course he still sends billions through, maybe I'm just projecting
Why? Well the TL;DR is that it's very fucking complicated.
Israel is a useful military proxy for the US. They probably do a lot of advantageous things for us. (the US isn't just the tooth fairy after all) i've heard on the grape vine that we have existing established weapons deals with israel that could very iffy to overturn (as per usual with this shit)
zionist as a term is also very broad. It can be used to mean quite a lot, though specifically with islam, it seems to be a pretty generic term of "we want our own state" and that's about it.
hamas is funded/supplied by iran (unless this has changed?), last i checked we bombed the ever living shit out of iran in the war on terror, so they probably don't like us, and we probably don't like them, so as far as the US is concerned, this is just a proxy war on iran with israel buying our military equipment. We've seen iran strike israel, and israel strike iran, so this is basically just a proxy war at this point.
strategically, from a military perspective, there is probably a "good" reason to be doing this, good as in the sense of keeping your military power healthy. This is technically a way of the US testing equipment in war time, though who knows how much of that is true. military hardware investigation is a fucking nightmare so i might just be pulling that one out of my ass honestly. There are almost certainly other benefits, like the aforementioned proxy war, it allows us to keep an eye on how war tends to work in the middle east, which gives us a technological leg up, because we can prepare for that.
the israel/palestine conflict itself goes back quite far, and continues into even murkier waters. If you look into some of the history it's pretty fucked up. And incredibly hodge podge. This shit has never been clean, will never be clean, and can never be clean. This is just an unfortunate fact of long term disputes.
israel has kind of pushed palestine into a hard space over the years. Palestine has reacted by creating a hard space to push israel into, which israel is obviously pushing back on. And now we have warfare in an urban setting.
This shit sucks, it's awful, there's almost no way to have a set opinion on anything except for the fact that "it's bad"
oh and need i mention we're in between what is essentially two marginally different accounts of history through religion? To my knowledge, israel, and palestine refer to the same plot of land (at least roughly) in a historical sense (religious texts lmao, but probably even outside of them) so now we have two parties, who are basically the same party, fighting over what is basically the name of a place, but actually because israel decided they don't like palestine? (probably, i dont know why they did this shit, could be a multitude of reasons) now it's essentially escalated into what can only be described as a war.
now to be clear here, i'm not supporting any one party here. I'm just pointing out a handful of complex reasons as to why this might be the case. I hate when people take incredibly complex geopolitical conflicts and rivalries and go "well actually bad dumb and good smart"
It's just another proxy war with China.
US supports Israel.
China supports Iran.
If the US stops giving Israel the weapons to bomb Palestine, Israel will find someone else to sell them weaponry (China).
Kompromat is damaging information about a politician, a businessperson, or other public figure, which may be used to create negative publicity, as well as for blackmail, often to exert influence rather than monetary gain, and extortion. Kompromat may be acquired from various security services, or outright forged, and then publicized by use of a public relations official.[1]
Historically associated with Russia, but Israeli intelligence has been shown to use blackmail and extortion as well. Thus Ghislaine Maxwell etc.
I would think there is something very damaging, likely illegal, that Israel has on Biden to make him behave like such a good lapdog.
Could it be that a politician is just simply looking at voting statistics on what’s likely to win favor with people likely to vote? Nahhhh… they have to somehow be involved in something illegal…
Look, Biden is an old dude. His ideals are ancient and he’s for sure not in touch with what younger people want. The stats show though that what he’s doing is popular with voters. Take out people, just voting age people are more likely to support Israel. I’m completely against what Israel is doing, come from a family of Israeli die hard supporters, but even I have to recognize that a majority of my country wants this.
Yes, it's possible to make up whatever statistics you want, that is true.
The reality is most people who are going to vote for him don't care about foreign affairs or that he's committing genocide, which is different than actively being pro-genocide. Foreign policy is towards the bottom of many people's list during elections.
He could stop his support for genocide tomorrow and the "vOtE bLu nO mAtTeR wHo" morons would still vote for him like trained seals. So he has little to lose by going anti-genocide and a lot to lose by cintinuing to support it and alienating huge swaths of his base.
I hope you realize I cannot change American opinions and popularity of supporting Israel and their war. I have no power over that. None.
If Biden loses the election I hope you’re ready to see what America can really do to help speed up the violence. It’s bad enough we’re providing material support, but Trump will stop the investigations we have into Israeli command and groups within the military that we have been sanctioning.
It’s important you again read the statistics. In swing states people are HIGHLY likely to support Israel. There is no way that this near unwavering support isn’t calculated into the re-election campaign. Just because some people voted uncommitted doesn’t suddenly mean jack shit. You’re letting your feelings dictate reality.
While Biden won the state with more than 618,000 votes, more than 100,000 Michigan Democratic primary voters cast ballots for “uncommitted” in the race, enough to pick up the pair of delegates. The vote totals raise concerns for Democrats in a state Biden won by only 154,000 votes in 2020. Biden was beaten by the “uncommitted” vote in both Dearborn and Hamtramck, where Arab Americans make up close to half the population.
So he won the state by 154,000 votes last time. If those people vote uncommitted in the 24 election (and I’m betting 70% will vote Biden anyways) he is still up 54,000 votes. Of which those could be heavily rural voters who are likely to support Israel. This is also not the actual election, in which people are likely to vote for the lesser of two evils than the moral vote they made in a non-critical race.
The reality of our current situation in the US means we’re needing to go slightly left of ultra right, with the hope of eventually, in a few elections, being back on the hardcore progressive train (come back Teddy Roosevelt). We have a lot of olds that are still voting heavier than younger people.
but Trump will stop the investigations we have into Israeli command and groups within the military that we have been sanctioning.
What investigation? We don't need an investigation, the Israeli command told us exactly what they were going to do before they did it. They said they were going to starve Gazans, they said Gazans were collectively guilty, they said they were going to target hospitals and schools, they said they were lifting restraints on IDF soldiers. The soldiers are literally posting their war crimes to social media. This is some clown cope shit. Don't talk about this kind of nonsense to me again. An investigation, jesus christ.
What else? We might not have a leader who bothers to wring their hands over the genocide they're funding? Or let me guess, Trump will send them 2,000 lb bombs instead of 1,900 lb ones.
Just because some people voted uncommitted doesn’t suddenly mean jack shit. You’re letting your feelings dictate reality.
Also you two seconds later:
If those people vote uncommitted in the 24 election (and I’m betting 70% will vote Biden anyways) he is still up 54,000 votes.
Your complete guess that 70% will flinch is not worth anything. And 50k is not a margin of victory that indicates popularity of genocide and it certainly doesn't guarantee his win, particularly as primaries played similarly across multiple states. Even NYC, where they don't let you vote uncommitted, 15% of people went out to explicitly leave the ballot blank. 12% statewide. And those are the people who could be arsed to come out, how many people do you "bet" aren't going to bother at all in November?
Considering your desperation here to try and explain how popular support for genocide is, I somehow doubt you're as cocksure about how well it will serve as a motivating factor for Biden support as your words try to make out.
in a few elections, being back on the hardcore progressive train
This bullshit doesn't convince anymore. No one believes this when it's been 40 years of "just a few more elections and we'll stop moving to the right, pinky promise lol".
No. This is the end of neoliberalism and of Israel controlling the narrative, one way or another. People see through it.
Biden may indeed try to crash our democracy fullspeed into the wall, but the people persist regardless and they're stronger than a bunch of empty corporate suits wringing their hands over where they're going to get their lobby money if things get disrupted. So yeah, I hope you're ready too, because you certainly don't sound ready even for what's already happening right at this very moment.
If you call Palestine what British Empire called Palestine, which is the territory of modern Jordan, modern Palestine and Israel, that’s right, the West supports Israel (democratic state, by the way, where Arabs and Muslims have the same rights, as opposed theocracies or monarchies of surrounding countries) right to exist. The West does not support annexation of the occupied territories, and in general the West supports two state solution. And so is Biden.
While the Arab citizens of Israel are treated much better than non-citizens in Gaza, Golan Heights, and the West Bank (and arguably have better rights than even other Muslum states), they are still subject to systemic racism. Their political voice is actively surpressed, not surprising as a Zionist Israel cannot otherwise survive if Jews became a political minority within the country, which is another reason Arabs do not have the "Right to Return". Here's one source for you: https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/what-know-about-arab-citizens-israel
While the Arab citizens of Israel are treated much better than non-citizens in Gaza, Golan Heights, and the West Bank (and arguably have better rights than even other Muslum states), they are still subject to systemic racism.
You know, I probably agree with all that, but when a person denies right of Israel to exists on the grounds that it is ethnostate, while obviously supporting the right of full Palestinian state to exist, I have to point to this hypocrisy. And it is not just that non-citizents of Gaza are treated worse than non-jews of Israel. Citizens of Gaza are treated worse (have less rights) than Arabs in Israel.
Same by the way goes for blaming Israel to be Zionist, and at the same time supporting Islamist goal of destroying Israel.
Do I personally defend and support Zionism? No. But for sure I support Islamism of Gaza government (Hamas) even less.
I'm not calling it an ethnostate or saying they are living under apartheid, nor saying River to the Sea. Just making a point. I don't know how to balance freedom vs Sharia law, or even if it is possible in a secular democratic country in that region. It would eventually come to that if Arabs had a majority of citizenship. But i do believe Israel deserves to exist for the Jews. And that the Arabs in Gaza, Isreal, and everywhere else deserve freedom to live their lives. l feel I know the history pretty well, and I think Biden is doing as well as he can with the situation. But the whole situation is fucked. The US killed a lot more civilians in the war on terror, and I hate that, but I am content that Bin Laden sleeps with the fishes. It's hard for me to criticize Israel, while at the same time believing Hamas should be destroyed. But that means they go into Rafah and more kids die. War is hell. Simple as that. Fuck Netanyahu and fuck Hamas.
When Joe Biden met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his war cabinet during his visit to Israel, the U.S. president assured them: "I don't believe you have to be a Jew to be a Zionist, and I am a Zionist."
I want to be with you on this, but the West is clearly materially supporting expansion. If they're expanding and we're still sending ammunition, then we're supporting Zionism.
I do believe there's also quite a bit of anti-Biden agitprop here. Which can have a grain of truth without being completely true.