I’m hopeful that this is too big a moment for some westerners to turn back to complicit persecution. I’m hopeful that the long Palestinian spirit of sumud, or steadfastness, is an infectious spirit.
When Biden faulted Israel for “indiscriminate bombing,” Netanyahu bridled, the president says. “Well, you carpet-bombed Germany. You dropped the atom bomb. A lot of civilians died.”
The Jewish establishment has been consigned to the support of genocide, and it has accepted that role eagerly. The effect on Judaism of this moral collapse is unfathomable.
Democrats are terrified because they are losing their grip on the young. A new poll says half of Americans under 35 see Hamas’s October 7 attack as justified by Palestinian grievances. Young Americans are seeing the enormity of genocide.
Why is Biden helpless to do what any decent person would do and call for an end to Israel’s apocalyptic destruction and massacres in Gaza? Because he worries about losing the organized Jewish community’s support.
The Israeli ambassador to the U.S. spouts propaganda on CNN about Israeli aims in Gaza, and Dana Bash thanks the ambassador for taking time out of his busy schedule to come on the set.
As Israel’s kill-count in Gaza tops 12,000, including 5,000 children, Biden sinks further into a “moral abyss,” calling this a war for “democracy.” Our leaders are cracking down on opposition to the war, and trying to push the story under the carpet. But consciousness is rising in the Democratic base, including vigorous antiwar demonstrations.
Former ambassador Tom Nides quit his banking job last month to work as an Israel lobbyist but he can’t even convince his own kids. “They’re for the perceived underdog,” he told PBS.
Everyone from the Congress to the Harvard president is obsessing about a fantasy of genocide — the claim that the chant “From the river to the sea” is a call for Jewish extermination, while ignoring the actual genocide unfolding in Gaza.