In How Gaza Protesters Are Challenging Democratic Leaders, the New York Times reports that “From President Biden to the mayors of small cities, Democrats have been trailed by demonstrators who are complicating the party’s ability to campaign in an election year.” But they are not protesting Republicans.
Some of this is ridiculous:
Some of the most contentious clashes have taken place on deeply Democratic terrain. A recent City Council meeting in Berkeley, Calif., turned ugly, with protesters interrupting a Holocaust survivor at a meeting where members discussed a bill marking Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Representative Shri Thanedar, a Democrat from Michigan, said he had been shocked when more than two dozen attendees at his holiday party at a crowded restaurant in Detroit removed their jackets to reveal pro-Palestinian shirts. As they began chanting through a bullhorn, physical altercations broke out. One older woman was sent to a hospital with a broken nose.
“To see the deaths happening in Gaza is heartbreaking,” said Mr. Thanedar, who supports a “negotiated cease-fire” that would release Israeli hostages and end the military campaign. “But if they’re trying to draw attention to that, hurting elderly people isn’t necessarily going to help them get the support that they need.”
And in Danbury, Conn., the president of the City Council described being surprised by demonstrators demanding a cease-fire call from the city of roughly 90,000 people.
“In my mind, where are you addressing that concern?” said Peter Buzaid, the council president. “You would go to the senator’s office. You could go to the congressman’s office, you’d protest outside the White House. Right? You might go to the U.N. It’s not something that I thought would happen at our local council chambers.”
I certainly appreciate the importance of letting President Biden know that his Israel policies are really, really unpopular. But this is sounding more like narcissistic people getting high on their own self-righteousness. Or perhaps some of this is being organized by individuals who don’t exactly have the best interests of the Democratic Party at heart.
And Republicans are being let off the hook? A lot of them are openly opposed to any humanitarian aid for Gaza. See The Vicious Things Republicans Have Said About Palestinians Since October 7 at The Intercept. It begins,
MICHIGAN REPUBLICAN REP. Tim Walberg recently declared at a town hall that the U.S. “shouldn’t be spending a dime on humanitarian aid,” in Gaza. Instead, he posed, “it should be like Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Get it over quick.”
And also,
On October 11, Ohio Rep. Max Miller lambasted Tlaib for planting a Palestinian flag outside her congressional office. He refused to recognize Palestine as a state, calling it “a territory that’s about to probably get eviscerated and go away here shortly, as we’re going to turn that into a parking lot.”
A few days later, Miller’s colleague Rep. Brian Mast, R-Fla., took the unusual step of donning the military garb of a foreign country in the halls of the Congress — wearing an Israel Defense Forces uniform he earned while volunteering for the country’s military in 2015. Shortly thereafter, he introduced an amendment that would slow down humanitarian aid to Gaza. “Any assistance should be slowed down — any assistance,” Mast said in a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on the bill.
But for some reason the protesters are giving Republicans a pass and instead are protesting Democrats, including at state and municipal level? On what planet does this make sense? And let us not forget —
But, according to the Gaza protesters, this is all fine. It’s only Democrats who are bad. My comment to the Times:
I do wish Democrats in general had gotten tougher with Netanyahu a long time ago. But if Biden loses to Trump because of the Gaza protesters, Trump will give Netanyahu a green light to do whatever he wants in Gaza. No more food drops or piers or using leverage to allow humanitarian aid. And as the remaining Palestinians are being bulldozed into mass graves, I will find those Gaza protesters and ask, “Happy now?”
Another commenter — and I’m sorry I can’t find the comment now — compared the current Gaza protesters to anti-Vietnam protesters in 1968 who, angry with LBJ, turned their righteous anger on Hubert Humphrey (who was actually against the war, but didn’t say so loudly enough for some) and helped Richard Nixon become POTUS. I’m sure most of us remember how that turned out.
In other news: Some time this week Trump has promised to release his “deal” on abortion policy that is going to make everybody happy.
The presumptive Republican nominee, who has pledged to make a statement on abortion this week, has said for months that if elected he would “come together with all groups” and “negotiate something” that would “make both sides happy,” suggesting that “15 weeks seems to be a number that people are agreeing at.”
“We’ll end up with peace on that issue for the first time in 52 years,” he said.
The tactic has drawn praise from conservatives including Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s former counselor, who called it “a reasonable conversation starter.”
“It reflects consensus,” she said of a 15- or 16-week ban, citing her own firm’s polling. “People recognize that the lack of compromise, moderation and reasonableness is on the side of the professional, political left, and the Democrats.”
Kellyanne Conway has been pushing the 15-week ban for a while. She also had a brilliant idea that Republican politicians should reassure women voters that they won’t ban contraceptives. I guess Trump is listening to Conway. Brilliant.
No one with half a brain would believe there is any compromise that would work. The abortion criminalizers will go along with a 15-week federal ban until it passes, and the next morning they’ll get up and start pushing for a 6-week ban. They aren’t going to rest until all abortions are illegal everywhere. And we’ve seen how open Republican politicians are to reasonable exceptions. A lot of them would prefer to let women die than let them get away with abortions.
And the 15-week ban isn’t going to mean much if misoprostol is banned and clinics are shut down. The only “peace” on this issue will happen when the criminalizers are absolutely crushed and no longer have political influence, and then they wll go the way of the Temperance Movement. But let’s see if Trump really makes an announcement or if he just keeps promising one eventually.
In more other news: Trump is taunting Judge Juan Merchan to put him in jail.
Former President Trump said Saturday that going to jail for violating his gag order in his New York hush money trial would be his “great honor.” …”If this Partisan Hack wants to put me in the ‘clink’ for speaking the open and obvious TRUTH, I will gladly become a Modern Day Nelson Mandela,” Trump said Saturday in a Truth Social post.
Give me strength.
"But for some reason the protesters are giving Republicans a pass"
Well it might not be fair but Republicans are not in charge of foreign policy, they are not signing off on the arm sales, they may support it but Biden has the final approval. 35,000 slaughtered civilians tends to strip away the political loyalties of most liberals, this isn't some war where two armies are at battle like Ukraine, this is a one sided massacre where tens of thousand of civilians are being sacrificed to kill a few thousand Hamas members. Biden went over and embraced this whole thing, he approved of the initial bombing campaign and the ground invasion he has yet to pull back any support so I'm not surprised the protests are getting more intense. This is how Stump gets back to the WH.
Many pro-Palestinian protesters seem to be taking their lead from Islamic radicals who hate the United States, and do not care if their own people die as a result. There's also antisemites who find the protests an excuse to abuse Jews.
Charles Blow quotes CAIR leaders to the effect that they want to hurt Biden, and don't care about the fallout; for them it's personal. Josh Marshall comments that they "are sympathetic with Hamas’ worldview if not its methods."
I have the feeling that many anti-Biden people, not only Islamic leaders, want to punish him for not being their messiah. And if Trump becomes President, we will probably end up trying to protect them.
"Republicans are not in charge of foreign policy," The Berkeley City Council isn't in charge of foreign policy, either. And House Repubicans are very much in charge of appropriations, including appropriations for humanitarian aid to Gaza. Some of them have said they won't support that. Also House Republicans have scheduled a vote for this coming week to rebuke Biden for calling for a humanitarian cease-fire. Anyone who cares about what happens to Palestinians in Gaza wants to be sure Biden wins in November, and a Democratic majority in the House will be necessary also.
Evangelical Zionists have heavily influenced US policy towards Israel for decades, and most of them are Republicans.
I don't agree with all the protestors or their tactics but it is only natural to blame the President for this debacle. I'm not sure he could have stopped it but he certainly didn't need to give it his full-throated endorsement. The carnage was evident weeks after it started and only in the last couple weeks has he shown any real desire for a change of course, and he still has not drawn a red line. Of course Trump and the GQP would be far worse for the people of Gaza but that's not what the protests are really about. Liberals in general are not down for this totally one-sided massacre by the IDF using weapons we supplied. I think that if Stump was in the white house the protests would be much larger. I don't think that is a good look for the democratic party right now.
Trump is taunting Judge Juan Merchan to put him in jail.
I hope the judge takes Trump up on the offer. It's not a big problem to transport Trump back and forth from Rikers for 30 days. It would shake Trump to his core and he wouldn't be holding campaign rallies outside the courtroom for the duration of his incarceration. Trump has got to learn his bullshit has got to end. It's not like it would be coming from left field, he has been told that jail is an option if he doesn't obey the court's orders. Trump is openly and directly challenging the court's authority. He needs to be brought under control, and jail would be the best remedy to try to achieve that control.
"People recognize that the lack of compromise, moderation and reasonableness is on the side of the professional, political left, and the Democrats." – Kellyanne Conway
What a howler! Kellyanne's been off the national stage for a while, and I'd forgotten her amazing ability to shamelessly lie and push her agenda at any cost. Thank God I no longer have to take a shower after listening to her, she's easy enough to tune out.
Yeah, I'm sure compromise will be easy. "We'll do it my way".
My daughter who is in college (and not stupid) is against Biden because of Israel. This is cognitive impairment, We have four years of Trump on the mid-east. There was no dialogue with the Palestinians. Bibi did what he wanted with no push-back. What was touted as a breakthrough was Arab countries who are not adjacent to Israel recognizing Israel’s right to exist. BFD. Two-state solution? I don't think Trump has a clue what that's about.
So of the two candidates, one of whom will be president in 2025, Biden has done less than I want but as much as he thinks he can get away with after Aug 7. But my daughter wants absolute purity – she will put Trump in office the same way people disgusted by HRC put Trump in office. If the election was between Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, I like Bernie better. But that's not the choice.
The only thing that may save us is that Republicans also employ this purity test going for MAGA nuts with racist pedigrees or religious kooks out to regulate women's ssex lives. (Not men's indiscretions – just evil women.) In Florida, the six-week ban may cost Rick Scott his seat and maybe the difference in keeping the Senate blue.
Trump has signaled a grand bargain on abortion will happen. Unfortunately, I have not heard that any pro-choice people have been part of the discussion of the deal. ANYTHING Trump proposes is DOA in the Senate unless the GOP repeals the filibuster. So on the one hand, it's a worthless campaign promise EXCEPT that the proposal will/should define Trump's position. He only wants to soften his image on the issue (after taking a victory lap for striking down Roe.)
Trump thinks women voters are more stupid than they are. I really, really doubt that Trump will propose a federal abortion ban that strikes down the state bans. (And there's a question if the USSC would suddenly reverse and ignore the decision that abortion is an issue for the STATES.) But Trump (I predict) won't propose a 15-week federal ban with exceptions that will reverse Texas law. He can't without causing the fetus people in TX to argue for Trump's impeachment before the election. Trump's proposal will affect blue states like CA & NY, forcing them to be closer to TX than the Roe standard.. But Trump will claim he's protecting women's rights when in fact he's only offering to curtail women's rights in blue states. Here the master of the forked tongue will try to spin the ban one way for Evangelicals while he tries to package the SAME proposal for independent women voters as a guarantee of access.
It is gonna get pitched this month, but probably not next week. Trump wants the debate over his grand bargain to distract from the criminal trial, which does not start for two weeks.
Judge Merchan seems to have learned from the antics of other trials Trump has disrupted. He's not giving Trump the benefit of the non-existent doubt. By now, Trump knows that gag orders are a real "thing" with a long history upheld by higher courts. All his appeals on gag orders have been struck down except for minor tweaks around the edges. I hope that Merchan gives Trump one warning with the promise that the next violation will land Trump in jail for three days. Trump is a wimp who can't take confinement and prison food. (There's no Uber delivery of Big Macs.) The criminal trial will happen in an orderly way – if Trump has to spend time in lock-up for that to happen, OK. Bring your jammies in an overnight bag.
I've read that young people are especially taking your daughter's position, because their worldview is shaped a lot by TikTok – which shows endless videos of the brutality going on in Gaza. They're not seeing the whole picture.
It's youthful rebellion. But oh, the cost if Trump becomes President. These young supporters of Palestinians literally cannot imagine how much worse matters could be – the deaths so far could be just a drop in the bucket. They are also bought into the idea that Israel is a helpless US puppet, which is just nonsense – Israel has its own huge military and munitions industry, and while Israel does purchase US armaments, Israel is not dependent on them.
But US foreign policy ignorance is invincible.
An activist friend in Arizona conducted civil disobedience at the office of Mark Kelly. At first, Kelly did not want to engage. As I recall, he did not agree to the demand of a cease-fire after the first meeting. They continued to protest at his office, with arrests. Finally, he changed position and signed on to support a cease-fire.
THAT'S how you conduct activism with a goal. The right target, a tight message, and the willingness to go to jail until you 1) get a meeting and 2) eventually persuade the Senator to change. Biden undoubtably keeps score of the position of Senators and probably recognized the change in the force and direction of political winds.
To be fair, there really isn't much Joe Biden can do about it. Israel has led us around by the nose for so long we're domesticated, better than pigs but no better than cows
I don't know why but in all these years of looking at The Revelation I assumed someone else would start Armageddon, bring on the Apocalypse. Probably result of Cold-War Anglo-Centrism. It's not clear who starts it, but it's also not clear that Israel doesn't start it … though in the end two thirds of it, two of them get destroyed
This is one of those things that's gonna' play out The Way it plays out, I don't think there's anything we can do to stop it. We've got bloodstains on our fingers
I look at the pro-Palestinian protests and I think, how to lose friends and not influence people. Is that due to incompetence? Fanaticism? Death wish? Corruption? All four?
The tragedy of Israel is that it has real enemies. The far worse tragedy of Palestine is that it has no real friends. This includes Fatah and Hamas.
Yes, I think you’re right.
The Gaza war is complicated.
1) For the younger generations protesting the US aid to Israel that Biden implemented recently: Someone needs to figure out how to get some influencers on TikTok to explain reality. Yes, what the IDF has been doing is horrendous. But it's not our military that's killed a quarter gazillion civilians. Israel is a sovereign country and our government doesn't call the shots over there. The protesters here will say, "But Biden's aid package was arms to help the IDF kill civilians! I can't condone that being done by my government." Protesters don't realize a significant part of that package was Iron Dome stuff, used to intercept that constant stream of crude rockets coming from Gaza into Israel. And, I think, some other stuff that has nothing to do with IDF's bombing. And it was approved by our Congress so, why are the protesters … well someone already pointed that out. I graduated from high school in 1969; we were protesting a war that OUR government was conducting. I'm fine with people expressing their views on the Gaza war, but they should be protesting Netanyahu, whose government makes the decisions on the conduct of that war (which Hamas started).
2) What is our government supposed to do? For decades, Israel has been our "Northern Watch" in the Middle East, where plenty of Arab nations would love to see the US destroyed. The problem is BiBi, not the nation of Israel. Are we supposed to cut our ties with Israel? What would happen if we declared that we no will longer support Israel militarily? What if we stop supplying them with the most modern weaponry? Wouldn't that open the door to an all-out Iranian offensive against Israel, starting with Hezbollah in Lebanon? And would we then sit on our hands because we just declared a split with Israel? If we wash our hands of Israel does anyone think that Russia and Syria would just twiddle their thumbs? My point is not that we should simply say that we support Israel whatever they do. I don't like people getting killed. I don't like the whole mess over there. But the real question is: "What the heck should we do?" If we had the ability to end that war tomorrow and kick the IDF out of Gaza, Hamas would still be the government of Gaza. They're still dug in under Raffa, and after the IDF leaves, they'll rebuild their capability (thanks to Iran) and the continuous rocket attacks on Israel will never end. UN peacekeeping? Well, if that's your solution, college kids, then you should be protesting at the UN.
3) I would like to see the war end tomorrow and elections for a new government in Israel shortly following. And I'd like to see some coalition of some European nations with a few moderate Arab nations in the region to engage in a non-military process to root out Hamas, destroy all their military and terrorist capability, and establish a new government in Gaza that is not terrorist. I'd like to see all of the hostages released, but I doubt that can happen, not all of them. If the war is going to end with a regional commitment to get rid of Hamas, then Hamas will murder the rest of the hostages. I hate that, but I don't know any way to stop it. And since figuring out how to engineer a "graceful" end to that situation is way beyond my skillset, I tend to feel that our current administration is likely doing about as much as CAN be done without having a whole bunch of unintended really bad consequences.
Trump punted on abortion. "Up to the states." No grand bargain… no federal legislation of any kind, no 15-weeks. No federal legislation to guarantee protection for the health of the mother in a dangerous pregnancy. Even this is not pleasing the fetus people who are (so far) protesting the non-decision decision to support the status-quo.
Hubert Humphrey didn't lose his election because of Vietnam.
He lost it due the violence in the streets at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
Like I said: how to lose friends and not influence people.
It's the filthiness of Purity.
“He lost it due the violence in the streets at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.” Yes. And why were the young folks being violent? (Big hint: starts with a V. Duh.) The protesters went after the Democratic Party hammer and tongs over the war in Vietnam, but initially they gave Republicans a break, even though most Republicans supported the war also. I have long said that the primary accomplishment of the Vietnam era anti-war movement was electing and then re-electing Richard Nixon. Note that I took part in some of those protests; I was in college during the Nixon Administration, and I was engaged with it all pretty closely. And you kind of whiffed on that one, big time.