This is a diary more than a story, but people on at DailyKos often have great ideas and suggestions which I’m interested in hearing.
There was a range of reactions to the number of uncommitted votes in Michigan yesterday, though no seemed overly excited. While the was hope for at least 10,000, the number blew that away at 100,000+. A big number though Biden still had more than 80% of the votes. Overall, I found both numbers heartening: I feel Biden must recalibrate on Israel, but I also believe it is nuts to think that there is any real viable alternative to the Democratic party in the coming election. Unless, of course, your intent is to bring about authoritarian rule. So, I think the MI messaging was pretty good.
I surely do not I think I know the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem. I do have some things that are important to me in the approach the US takes with Israel and the Palestinians and how Biden should change his approach. Here is some background context that go with my views with regard to the ongoing war.
- The action taken by Hamas (and other groups) on October 7th involved atrocities that will never be excusable or justifiable to me. There is no accounting for history of bad blood or previous actions that change that. It was a demonstration of some people’s inhumanity. As a political act to draw a response, it immoral even if it succeeds in that objective. Overall, I think our initial response to the October 7th was on target and in line with this kind of belief.
- Against an atrocity, there will be a need to act and if may be difficult to assess the proportionality of the response. However, at some point, the response may itself can involve its own atrocities and will come at higher and higher costs to the people originally attacked. Obviously, this is what Biden was warning Israel about from the beginning. The deaths of woman, children, and other innocents; the destruction of hospitals, interruption of power, lack of food and starvation, destruction of places to live, holding back of medical treatment, and lack of water to drink all add up. It is more difficult to point to the military challenges resulting from fighting in packed urban environments, if some of your policies helped create that environment. So, I do not know if there is some ethical balancing point in Israel’s response or event if such a formula of human suffering should exist at all. I am sure some of Michigan’s uncommitted votes have their opinions about it.
In the end, it is quite simply that “two wrongs don’t make a right.” They are atrocities for a reason, because they scale of their evil goes beyond any justification and only brings more suffering. That political leaders are able to use suffering to gain or preserve power is just a sad feature of our societies.
I spoke with some Israelis soon after October 7th. They were highly distraught and determined to survive, and they truly seemed to value the compassionate response they saw in the US. As I know them as humans, I am truly sorry for their suffering, the suffering of the Palestinians, and I wish there was a solution for them all. Unfortunately, in both societies there are bad actors who have significant sway (but, hey, Trump has some chance of winning and dismantling our government, so we have our own glass house).
In any event, back to Michigan, and their 100,000 uncommitted votes. I believe Netanyahu is really an enemy of at least a significant part of America that includes me. For me, the West Bank settlements, end of a two-state solution, and the associated beliefs are wrong and always will be. Wrong for the same reasons that a policy annihilating all Israelis is wrong. People that want to annihilate an entire other set of people are monsters.
I do not think Biden holds an excessive number of cards to play in reality. However, whatever cards he has to play it is time to do more to address the humanitarian crisis in a more public way. I think there is a ton of space in the middle where the US can operate on a more moral basis that does not involve the extremists on either side.
If I had been in Michigan that would have been the reason for my vote.