Elizabeth Warren’s plan for Palestine is boilerplate two-state rhetoric that includes restoring the U.S. role as “credible mediator.” That’s a reference to the Obama administration, which only increased aid to Israel while refusing to hold it accountable for settlements and massacres. The Democratic base has moved on.
Democratic candidates for president love to criticize Netanyahu, but they don’t offer specifics on stopping him. Kirsten Gillibrand wants to hold Israel accountable for barring congresswomen from visiting, Bernie Sanders wants to leverage US aid “to end some of the racism that we have recently seen in Israel,” and Elizabeth Warren says, “Push hard.” But none of them has a plan.
In a response to a recent question inquiring whether or not Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin…
Elizabeth Warren has built a reputation as the presidential candidate with a plan for everything, but does she have a plan for Palestine? Michael Arria follows her shifting positions on U.S. policy towards the Israeli occupation.
Senate Republicans were able to stop an amendment that would have required President Trump to seek congressional approval for an attack on Iran, despite the fact that the majority of votes were cast in support of the measure. Then Republicans passed a measure assuring that Trump’s hands would not be tied, as Sen. Mitt Romney put it, in taking on Iran.
Pete Buttigieg is the most critical of Israel in a NYT forum, saying, “Israel’s human rights record is problematic and moving in the wrong direction under the current right-wing government.” Most Dems bend over backwards not to criticize Israel. Elizabeth Warren is surprisingly supportive: “Israel is in a really tough neighborhood.”
As Trump escalates the confrontation with Iran, we must remember the Vietnam war was based on a lie, so was the Iraq war, Bernie Sanders says, joining a wide array of voices from Rand Paul to Elizabeth Warren to J Street that are trying to stave off a calamity in the Middle East.
Israel’s threat of annexation is a crisis for liberal Zionists because it makes them confront a reality: There is not going to be a two-state solution. Yesterday Jeremy Ben-Ami of J Street warned supporters: “Members of the Trump administration are opening the door to a one-state scenario where Palestinians will live as second-class citizens.” But that scenario exists right now, and liberal Zionists have done precious little to oppose it.
Asked, “will you actually hold Israel accountable for its continued human rights violations?” Senator Elizabeth Warren affirmed the two-state solution and criticized Netanyahu. A leftwinger on economic justice issues, Warren is echoing a safe Democratic Party consensus, clearly fearful that the issue could divide the party’s base.
Many Democratic candidates for president are skipping the AIPAC conference because it’s offering a red carpet to a racist, Benjamin Netanyahu. The Israel prime minister’s explicit slurs of Arabs have alarmed American progressives. But Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Bill de Blasio and the New York Times haven’t noticed.