As soon as Joe Biden announced that he was dropping out of the 2024 presidential race, the paeans began pouring in.
“Joe Biden has been one of America’s most consequential presidents, as well as a dear friend and partner to me. Today, we’ve also been reminded – again – that he’s a patriot of the highest order,” said former president Barack Obama.
California Governor Gavin Newsom said, “He will go down in history as one of the most impactful and selfless presidents.”
“I cannot overstate the gravity of the noble and history-making decision that President Biden just made,” tweeted New Jersey Governor Cory Booker. “The feeling that I have right now is one of profound gratitude. I am grateful that Joe Biden has been a friend, the most dedicated of public servants, and an extraordinary president.”
“The framers of our Constitution knew that our republic would endure only if our presidents have the character and honor to put duty ahead of self-interest,” said former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney. “President Biden deserves our gratitude for his decades of service to our nation and for his courageous decision today.”
CNN Van Jones started crying on the air after the announcement. “You just cry, because this is someone that you love, this is somebody that you care about,” he explained to viewers. “This is somebody that was there for you. You wouldn’t be here without him.”
After the President expanded on his decision in remarks to the American people on Wednesday night, former Biden advisor and MSNBC commentator Symone Sanders-Townsend tweeted, “Again, we do not deserve Joe Biden.”
It’s not surprising that Democrats are praising a Democratic President or constructing a narrative of personal sacrifice as they head into a showdown with Donald Trump.
However, it does raise some questions about Biden’s actual legacy. When people look back on this era, will be the defining moment of his political story?
My guess would be no.
We’ve seen unspeakable terror rained down on the people of Gaza over the last ten months, and there’s no end in sight. Addressing the U.S. Congress yesterday, Netanyahu vowed to keep dropping bombs on Palestine until “total victory” achieved. Hamas isn’t close to being defeated, so there’s no reason to believe that Israel’s brutal strategy is about shift.
Israel has gotten everything it’s wanted from the Biden administration throughout this ordeal. Biden temporarily paused a weapons shipment in May, to the horror of Republicans and hawkish Democrats, but The White House has done nothing to stop the atrocities or hold Israel accountable for them in any way.
People like to say that every modern president is bad on Israel. Yes, that’s obviously true. However, occasionally some action gets taken. George H.W. Bush holding up loans guarantees to stop settlements, Reagan standing up to Begin over the massacre in Lebanon, or Obama allowing a resolution condemning West Bank settlements to be adopted.
You can even find examples like this during the Biden years. In Franklin Foer’s book on Biden, The Last Politician, he recounts Israel’s 2021 assault on Gaza. Bibi wanted to keep bombing, but Biden instructed him to pull the plug.
“Hey, man, we are out of runway here,” the President reportedly told Netanyahu. “It’s over.”
Netanyahu begrudgingly wrapped things up.
This anecdote says something profound about the power dynamic between the two countries, but it also proves that how much leverage Biden has.
Every few months there’s a new story about how Biden is allegedly frustrated with Israel. He’s mad at Netanyahu. He’s talking stern to him during a phone call, or some such thing. Pundits wonder whether we are seeing the beginnings of a policy shift.
Every week a featureless State Department spokesman tells reporters that the U.S. government is looking into this calamity, or that monstrosity. They’re talking to their partners. They’re investigating. They’re expressing their concerns to Israel. They don’t have the information in front of them at this time, they wouldn’t want to speak upon that issue right now. They’re not going to get into specifics, they can’t talk details. They condemn every act of violence. They believe in a two-state solution.
However, nothing ever changes. No action is ever taken. None of the unspeakable videos or photos or testimonies has ever moved them to act.
The Lancet recently published a study estimating that the death toll in Gaza will reach at least 186,000.
That’s Biden’s legacy and it’s how he should be remembered.
Netanyahu Goes to Washington
This week Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed a joint meeting of Congress.
It’s the fourth time he’s done this, a new record among world leaders. He was previously tied with Winston Churchill.
The sick speech didn’t feature many surprises. Netanyahu tried to bolster support for his war by playing the usual hits: the evil of Hamas, the threat of Iran, and the need to preserve the special relationship between the United States and Israel.
There was one new element: an attack on pro-Palestine protestors. Netanyahu referred to them as “Iran’s useful idiots.”
Netanyahu didn’t have to say that kind of stuff when he addressed congress in 2015 because there weren’t tens of thousands of people in the streets demanding an end to to his violence and calling for him to be arrested for war crimes.
His visit to DC was marked by mass protests all around him. The Prime Minister’s motorcade was forced to reroute after people blocked streets around the Capitol. Thousands stood in front of the Watergate, where he was staying, chanting in support of Gaza. A group of activists even dumped maggots on a conference table that was supposed to be used for one of his meetings at the hotel.
Yes the congressional members who attended this spectacle repeatedly gave Netanyahu standing ovations, but nearly half the Democrats skipped. Some very big names, like Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and former House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-SC) stayed away. Some lawmakers cited scheduling conflicts, others made it well-known that they were boycotting.
“By bestowing Prime Minister Netanyahu with a joint address, Congress is not only continuing to green-light genocide; it is actively celebrating the man at the forefront of that genocide,” said Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO). “Instead of platforming a war criminal, Congress should be imposing an arms embargo and using its leverage to force Netanyahu to end the bombing and bloodshed that has already killed over 39,000 Palestinians and failed to ensure the safe release of the vast majority of hostages, all while decimating schools, hospitals, homes, and humanitarian convoys.”
In 2015, around 50 Democrats didn’t show for Netanyahu’s speech. This time it was about 136. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) held up a sign while Bibi spoke that said, “War Criminal.” The other side said, “Guilty of Genocide.”
Netanyahu’s brand has diminished over the past decade, and by extension so has Israel’s. The speech was awful, but the reaction shows that popular opinion has changed in this country.
On the day of Netanyahu’s speech more than 40 Palestinians were killed by indiscriminate airstrikes in Khan Younis. The carnage continues, as does the opposition.
Odds & Ends
🇵🇸 Pro-Palestine orgs and lawmakers react to Biden dropping out
🇮🇱 Looking at Kamala Harris’s record on Israel
🇺🇸 The Guardian: I worked to elect Kamala Harris. She must break with Biden on Israel and Palestine
🇺🇸 Electronic Intifada: Kamala Harris won’t stand up to Netanyahu in Washington
🚔 Common Dreams: Tlaib Says Netanyahu ‘Should Be Arrested’ in DC
🏫 Counterpunch: US Academia and the Censoring of an Anti-Zionist Professor
🇮🇱 Truthout: Netanyahu’s Speech to Congress Is a Desperate Ploy to Rally Support for Genocide
🇺🇸 Middle East Eye: Even the US propaganda machine can’t whitewash Biden’s sordid record
“We’ve seen unspeakable terror rained down on the people of Gaza over the last ten months…”
Dozens of US doctors and nurses who worked in Gaza have written to Joe Biden claiming that the true death toll from Israel’s months-long assault is much higher than previously reported, demanding the US withdraw diplomatic and military support for Israel until there is a ceasefire….The eight-page letter, delivered on Thursday and addressed to Biden, the first lady, Jill Biden, and the vice-president, Kamala Harris, said the medics saw evidence of widespread violations of laws governing the use of US weapons supplied to Israel, and of international humanitarian law….Forty-five surgeons, emergency room physicians and nurses who volunteered in several Gaza hospitals over recent months laid out what they described as the “massive human toll from Israel’s attack on Gaza, especially the toll it has taken on women and children”….Several of the signatories previously told the Guardian they believed Israeli snipers were targeting children and reported the devastating impact on civilians of weapons designed to spray high levels of shrapnel….The medics, who volunteered with the World Health Organization and other relief groups, told the president the real death toll is much higher than the Palestinian ministry of health’s casualty figure of more than 39,000 people killed, the majority being women and children….“It is likely that the death toll from this conflict is already greater than 92,000, an astonishing 4.2% of Gaza’s population,” they wrote.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jul/25/israel-gaza-war-biden-letter
The letter:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/bf4mfymnmn4t1wyvdkx4h/Letter.pdf?rlkey=z3ekl4u9gtya2p33ek6ud2zet&e=2&dl=0
Brigadier General Patrick J. Hurley, Personal Representative of President Roosevelt, to the President
Cairo, May 5, 1943.
Dear Mr. President:
….
For its part, the Zionist organization in Palestine has indicated its commitment to an enlarged program for (1) a sovereign Jewish State which would embrace Palestine and probably Transjordania, (2) an eventual transfer of the Arab population from Palestine to Iraq, and (3) Jewish leadership for the whole Middle East in the fields of economic development and control.
….
Jewish communities in the Middle East, outside of Palestine, are long established and important, socially and economically. Leaders, and I believe a majority of members of these communities, view the Zionist program with a degree of distrust and alarm based on (1) fear that it may imply forced migration to Palestine, (2) fear that any attempt to implement the program would lead to persecution, and (3) religious differences among the Jews themselves.
…
There is hostility also toward the Jewish claim that they are the “chosen people” and hence entitled, even though they are a minority, to special privileges. One leading Arab spokesman described this “chosen people” concept as kindred to Nazi doctrine.
….
Ben-Gurion, the Zionist leader in Palestine, discussed at length and with unusual eloquence the Jewish claim to political control of Palestine. Throughout his argument, Mr. Ben-Gurion assumed and asserted that the Government of the United States is committed and obligated, repeat obligated, to establish a Jewish Political State in Palestine.
….
These Zionist arguments, intended to prove that the United States is obligated to establish a Jewish Political State in Palestine, do have an appeal and do encourage acceptance but they are in fact incorrect. It seemed wise, therefore, to point out to Mr. Ben-Gurion that none of the evidence offered revealed any obligation of the U.S. Government or the American people to support the present Zionist demand for creation of a Jewish majority and establishment of a Jewish Political State in Palestine. The documents involved were produced and it was shown clearly that the U.S. Government merely consented to the British Mandate for Palestine and, in the joint Resolution, favored only the establishment of a National Home for the Jews insofar as such a home would not trespass on the rights of Christian and other non-Jewish community in Palestine.
Speakers opposing the Zionist position emphasized to me that the handing over of the Government of Palestine to the Jewish minority would violate the fundamental principles of Americanism, the Atlantic Charter and the four freedoms. They pointed out further that if it is admitted that a minority has a perpetual right to restitution of territory taken from it by conquest, the enforcement of that principle would destroy the British Empire and would require the United States to make restitution to Mexico of much of our West and Southwest.
I would argue that the root cause for why the genocide was allowed to happen, is the media. With extremely rate exception, none are real journalists holding power to account. They have aided and abetted Israel’s genocide and are as complicit in the slaughter of children as Biden.
It is good that some politicians see through the narratives and oppose genocide. Would be even more effective if they knew what to be for.
RE: Addressing the U.S. Congress yesterday, Netanyahu vowed to keep dropping bombs on Palestine until “total victory” is achieved.
MY COMMENT: Whenever I hear or read about Netanyahu’s insistence on achieving “total victory”, I think of Joseph Goebbels’s ‘Total War’ speech in 1943!
JOSEPH GOEBBELS AT THE SPORTPALAST IN BERLIN ON 18 FEBRUARY1943 (ENGLISH TRANSLATION):
“Germany, in any case, has no intention of bowing to this Jewish threat, but rather one of confronting it in due time, if need be in terms of complete and most radical exterm… exclusion [lit. “cutoff”] of Judaism.”
[…] […]
“I ask you: Do you want the total war?! Do you want it, if necessary, more total and radical than anything that we can yet today even conceive?!”
“Now [emph.], people, rise up, and storm, break loose!”
SOURCE – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sportpalast_speech
P.S. Goebbels – Do you want Total War? | TOTALEN KRIEG | (VIDEO, 3:16) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRmHOSnehTk