President Joe Biden said Tuesday Israel’s prime minister needs to change his hardline government and support for the country’s military campaign is waning amid heavy bombardment of Gaza. … “This is the most conservative government in Israel’s history,” Biden said, adding that the Israeli government “doesn’t want a two-state solution.”

It’s mind-blowing how thoroughly Netanyahu has bungled this. They had damn near the entire world in full support after Hamas’ horrific attack on Israeli civilians, and they’ve managed to lose it.

  • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Like every other time a headline makes it sound like Biden is criticizing Israel’s government, that’s not what this is.

    “We’ll continue to provide military assistance to Israel until they get rid of Hamas, but we have to be careful – they have to be careful,” Biden said. “The whole world’s public opinion can shift overnight, we can’t let that happen.”

    For literal decades now Biden has been telling Israel that they need to pay attention to optics if they want support to continue.

    It’s never a threat, because Biden always pledges support no matter what.

    He doesn’t have any issues with Israels actions over there. He’s just worried the governments of other countries may face pressure from their citizens to stop funding genocides.

    He doesn’t want the genocide to stop, he wants Israel to be discrete and maintain plausible deniability

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        He’s about as progressive as can be without losing a national election.

        What’s the last democrat who ran a progressive general campaign?

        Obama was the closest we’ve had in decades, and he flipped a shit ton of “red” states despite the undeniable amount of racism he faced.

        His second term after people found out he wasn’t really a progressive?

        Much tighter race.

        Progressives tend to lose in the primary, you know, “private affair by a private party” that party leaders can influence as much as they want because the whole thing isn’t even technically an election.

        So anyone that just keeps repeating “a progressive can’t win a general” doesn’t actually know. They’re just repeating the bullshit that moderate politicians tell them. And of course they’re gonna say that, if we start sending progressives to generals and they start winning…

        People are going to start asking out loud why we waste a dem cycle with a moderate who’s unwilling to tax the rich, which would solve the vast amount of our countries issues.

  • IchNichtenLichten@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    The fear of being labelled an antisemite has worked very well for silencing opposition for decades now. I guess Bibi thought that tactic would continue to work no matter how vile his government and military acts.

    Oops.

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      I’m glad that tired, old trick is getting the skepticism it deserves. Even the slowest among us are realizing that if you’re discussing a non-denominational issue and being called “antisemitic” for it, then maybe the accusation is bullshit. Human rights should not be a religious issue.

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        11 months ago

        It seems to be happening almost in real time. I was called an antisemite several times just a couple of months ago for expressing outrage at what Israel is doing. I don’t see that accusation being thrown around nearly as much recently.

    • kescusay@lemmy.worldOP
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      It worked (and works) to head off criticism of the Israeli government because so much of the time there are antisemites whose supposed criticism of the government is there to mask hate.

      But Netanyahu isn’t Judaism. He’s just a guy, and as a fallible human being he has made enormous errors of judgment and engaged in ludicrously unethical behavior.

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        11 months ago

        It’s less effective because it’s a classic example of the boy who cried wolf. If you’re grouping people who are appalled by Israel’s conduct with actual antisemites then the accusation of antisemitism loses credibility.

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      11 months ago

      We should have never listened. Excusing blatant crimes against humanity because the country doing it was made up of the different group that was the victim of a horrific genocide of the previous century was clearly a mistake in hindsight now that the circle is complete and they have become the genociders themselves. Every argument that Israel somehow special, that deserve to be treated differently was clearly a mistake and we must never repeat this mistake.

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      I no longer even recognize the word. It has no meaning any more. The funniest part is that it’s the liberal left that destroyed it. We’ve always known that the fascist right hates Jews; now thanks to the whiney liberal left we don’t fucking care any more.

      • IchNichtenLichten@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        The funniest part is that it’s the liberal left that destroyed it.

        I don’t really see how. Surely it’s the people slinging that word around to try and shut people up that destroyed it?

          • samokosik@lemmynsfw.com
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            11 months ago

            Now is “Zionist” the new word you call everyone you don’t like. I practically don’t get why people are so much against the fact that Israel exists. It’s reasonable to criticize some Israel’s actions but why so many are against it’s existence.

            • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              Probably because it’s a colony state, acting like a colony state. Oppressing the locals and acting like the victim when the locals inevitably lash out. Then using that as an excuse to take more land.

              • samokosik@lemmynsfw.com
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                11 months ago

                What exactly does it mean then? I adhere to the cambridge’s definition: “a political movement that had as its original aim the creation of a country for Jewish people, and that now supports the state of Israel”

                • IHadTwoCows@lemm.ee
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                  11 months ago

                  It means an ever-expanding state of Israel with zero regard for borders or neighboring nations. It is the root of all the violence, oppression, mistreatment, and downright murder of Palestinian people including their women and children. And I for one am fucking sick of paying for it.

            • Olgratin_Magmatoe@startrek.website
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              11 months ago

              Ethnostates are inherently immoral, regardless of which race they are. Everyone should be treated equally under the law, regardless of race. Nobody should be a 2nd class citizen, apartheid is immoral.

              And that’s all before counting the ongoing genocide.

  • gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works
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    11 months ago

    I’d love it if we could stop propping up Netanyahu’s apartheid regime and instead give a bunch of military support to a cause that actually needs and deserves it… like Ukraine.

    In the context of US politics, this whole clusterfuck is a MASSIVE unforced error by Biden. The only people he’s appeasing are almost exclusively already on the right wing, and they’re never going to vote for him. I’m becoming more concerned by the day that his handling of the Israel/Gaza war may in fact cost him the election.

      • dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        11 months ago

        The alternative being political outsiders like Trump.

        Maybe the problem is the electoral system that rejects a 3rd party option.

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          11 months ago

          Well, that, and the fact that a while ago we renamed bribery to “lobbying”, so now it’s perfectly legal, just as long as you jump through the right hoops in the right way.

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          Trump wasn’t an outsider. He literally campaigned on making politicians do his will by paying them. He boasted about it while some of his primary contenders were openly upset that they didnt receive enough money from him.

          Trump was NOT an outsider.

      • gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works
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        Explain to me - specifically which Americans I should want to be helping instead? And which non-Americans should I be specifically disregarding?

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        11 months ago

        Shipmate, as an active-duty submariner, you realize that the Israelis aren’t Americans, right? Sending money to the IDF doesn’t help your cousin on the ground. You of all people should also understand that the Ukraine front is an actual strategic conflict, and sending our retired equipment already marked for demolition to them instead is a strategic maneuver that’s entirely in accordance with all governing directives. Why don’t you ask your cousin about the actual boots-on-ground strategic picture instead of making assumptions.

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        Your brother is a fucking moron for signing up to join an obviously imperialist force that uses him for profit.

        By now everyone should know that the US military does not do anything that is related to defense. I have no sympathy for recruits.

  • Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Just going to point out that if your side killed more journalists in this “war” than the two decades of the Vietnam war… Maybe you’re the fucking bad guy.

    • Siegfried@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Was the mortality of journalists during the vietnam war that significant? Sorry, im not an american and i only learned about vietnam through movies.

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          Its all the same, killing journalists Its bad. I thought that it was some sacred thing not to kill them until i saw russians targeting the press a year ago, now this lunatics are killing the press and their families in gaza only because they can and nobody will move a finger against them. Being this the first time that I hear of the killing of journalists in vietnam, i just wanted to know if it was a real thing or he just picked a random conflict.

          So, no, but i just wanted to know

    • SCB@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Vietnam and Gaza literally could not be more different places or conflicts.

        • SCB@lemmy.world
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          Vietnam is first in every comparison, Israel/Hamas second:

          Primarily rural and/or jungle environment vs Dense urban environment

          Regular army with decades of experience vs fighting a terrorist force

          NVA wanted to hold and occupy territory vs Hamas wanting to just kill, with no political objective to defeat them by

          Sociopolitical conflict vs religious extremists

          Clear divide of combatants vs non-combatants during mass conflict (i.e. not the random insurgent acts) vs confusion of civilian-laced battlefield

          Technology of media being extremely limited vs extremely mobile

          Local populace that wants the war and supports the stronger force vs populace that either outright hates you or is too oppressed to express support

          • sailingbythelee@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            Another big one:

            The Americans were fighting the North Vietnamese on Vietnamese soil thousands of miles from home and with no real skin in the game. Also, the North Vietnamese had massive support from other close-by Communist regimes who could feed men and materiel into Vietnam from the north. In contrast, Israel is fighting right on its own border and basically has Hamas surrounded with little possibility of game-changing further aid from outside Gaza.

          • DrPop@lemmy.one
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            11 months ago

            Those in the West Bank don’t even believe that Hamas did what they did. They vote the attack as a act of defiance and the atrocities committed were just fake news made up by Israel. Sure to Israeli action the oppressed don’t see Hamas as worse.

  • Doorbook@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    How he can say something like: "Biden said right now Israel “has most of the world supporting it,” "

    Wtf is the UN veto for then?

    • Linkerbaan@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Northern Europe are still in Zionist control but they’ve lost Southern Europe already.

      Also Biden said he will always support israel no matter what, he’s just talking about the rest of the world, especially Europe, changing their mind over the genocide.

    • SCB@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      The UN is “one nation one vote” and a majority of nations in the UN have very few people in them, comparatively.

      It’s quite easy for totalitarian/authoritarian/extremist governments to shove votes through the UN by banding together.

  • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
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    11 months ago

    Tends to happen when instead of targeting terrorists you just indiscriminately genocide a population.

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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      Well, apparently the IDF has been killing so many Israelis (IDF and civilian) that their government just said investigating any of those deaths would be detrimental to stability among Israelis.

      https://lemmy.world/post/9481629

      They’re just going to pretend all those deaths are due to Hamas, so that Netanyahu 's government isn’t held accountable and people don’t vote in sensible politicians who actually want the violence to end.

  • Alien Nathan Edward@lemm.ee
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    11 months ago

    Biden said Tuesday Israel’s prime minister needs to change his hardline government and support for the country’s military campaign is waning

    Thing is, he later went on to say “I am a Zionist.” So while he’s trying to play both sides in the end he’ll keep sending your money to kill Palestinian children for as long as there are Palestinian children to murder.

    • Linkerbaan@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      What Genocide Joe says is that he will ALWAYS support israel’s Genocide no matter what, but that they’re starting to lose Europe and the rest of the world.

        • Linkerbaan@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          Yes of course. Israel actually fulfilled every single of the five ways to commit genocide.

            • Linkerbaan@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_Convention

              any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such:

              (a) Killing members of the group;
              (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
              (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
              (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
              (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
              
              • samokosik@lemmynsfw.com
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                11 months ago

                Okay, so the general issue with calling this a genocide would be that Israel does not systematically kill Palestinian civilians. There are no detention camps, they don’t purposefully bomb Palestinians with the aim of killing as many civilians as possible. Whilst I believe Israel can potentially do more to protect civilians, their main aim is not to destroy Palestinian population. At least that’s been the case of the last 70+ years.

                Also, based purely on numbers, there are no signs of elimination attempt.

                The most debatable point could be C but the result of terrible life quality of Gazans is mostly presence of Hamas because Israel lets money in and even supported Hamas (which is quite funny)

                • Linkerbaan@lemmy.world
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                  11 months ago

                  Israel is holding like 4000 hostages they kidnapped without any process from the west bank.

                  "The goal is damage not accuracy " are literal IDF words on bombing Gaza.

                  They targeted infrastructure and cut off food and water.

                  They have blocked ambulances to hospitals to force women to miscarry even before oct7

                  They have kidnapped children for multiple years and tortured them in prison.

                  Have you been living under a rock?

    • Fedizen@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      trump was impeached for witholding funds to ukraine. It would be funny to see them impeach biden for withholding funds to israel.

      • Olgratin_Magmatoe@startrek.website
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        11 months ago

        The difference is, Trump did so for personal political gain. Netanyahu’s government is killing thousands of palestinian civilians, which is genocide. Coercing a foreign nation to stop genociding people is a good thing.

        • Fedizen@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          yes I agree, I just think Biden is a little too tepid to do it. Dark Brandon could, but I haven’t seen him lately.

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    11 months ago

    Biden is wrong. Netanyahu shouldn’t do a thing to his government. Israel’s Government needs to permanently dispose of Netanyahu. Israel needs to take back its democracy and depose its corrupt officials.

    • Pipoca@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Netanyahu’s popularity tanked after October 7th.

      70% of Israelis want him to resign. But only 25% want him to resign now - most want him to wait until the current war settles down. Which unfortunately gives him and Ben Gvir some perverse incentives, because there’s no way they remain in power after the dust settles.

  • ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    They should hire more people to be annoying in comment threads where people are having a nuanced discussion about the war. The whole world loves it when 2 day old accounts try sealioning everyone without even bothering to upload profile pictures.

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    Just like “israel needs to show restraint while they destroy the homes and livelihoods of 2 million people”.

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    11 months ago

    Hamas got exactly what they wanted out of the October 7th attacks, a horrifying display of callous violence and aggression against innocent people. A terrorist attack does not justify a genocide.

    • Buelldozer@lemmy.today
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      11 months ago

      A large number of people think that Netanyahu got exactly what he wanted out of that attack too and I’m not convinced that those people are wrong.

      There’s lot of stories bubbling about seriously shady actions from his Government in regards to Hamas, from creating them to funding them and the timing of their attack was near perfect if their intent was to quell the IDF uprising and strengthen his Governing coalition.

      There’s also questions about just how one of the most feared and clued in intelligence services in existence, the Mossad, somehow missed the planning, funding, training, and gathering of forces that Hamas did for at least a YEAR prior to the attack. They also shrugged off warnings from both Egypt and the United States about it too! It nearly beggars belief.

      I’m not claiming it was orchestrated but taken together it sure is a bad look.

    • kescusay@lemmy.worldOP
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      11 months ago

      Quite true. Given the reality on the ground, it’s a guaranteed clusterfuck no matter what policy the United States adopts.

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      They knew they would get this response, too. How could they not?

      Israel can’t ignore the hostages and rest on its laurels. There’s no option to not respond when your citizens have been violently seized, held captive, tortured, maimed, raped. And Hamas knows their own defensive strategy relies heavily on using Palestinians as human shields, which will cause that inevitable response to be absolutely horrific. Hamas was relying on these horrors – though I think perhaps the response has been a LOT sharper than any anticipated.

      I think a lot of critics of the war, oddly, focus too much on what has happened after October 7th. When really we should be looking at what led up to it. And that’s not to say that Hamas was justified because that level of depraved violence never is. But it IS to say that the Bibi administration was utterly complicit and that the fuse on this powder keg was lit long ago and no one with the power to do so seems to have made an effort to extinguish it. On October 6th, the whole world knew that the Bibi administration was made up of a corrupt, lunatic fringe of far-right religious fundamentalists bent on the total destruction of Palestine and a total takeover of Israel. On October 8th, the protests against Netanyahu for doing things like sending suitcases of money to Hamas or deleting the oversight of their Supreme Court were replaced with a completely different narrative.

      I think both Hamas and Bibi’s team thought they would politically benefit from this kind of violence. I think both are finding out they terribly misjudged things, though I am sure none will admit it. And the people – mostly Palestinians, but also no doubt some Israelis – are suffering terribly as a result of these two intractable right-wing theocratic organizations going about their religious war.

      • filister@lemmy.world
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        You know when you have such a prevalent military superiority over a militant group, it doesn’t look very well when you start bombing civilian areas and flatten whole neighbourhoods.

        Not to forget that Israel did very little to alleviate the humanitarian situation in Gaza, and only after being subject to an international pressure. And mind you they still do very little, no humanitarian corridors, no humanitarian pauses, no field hospitals. That doesn’t portray them in a very good light.

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Yes, I too rescue hostages with 2,000 pound bombs and by flooding the tunnels I’m telling everyone the hostages are in.

        If the IDF cared at all they’d be using precision, low yield, bombs. We know they have them because we gave them to Israel.

        Then there’s the forced evacuation into smaller and smaller areas. It’s not Hamas using them as shields if you’re the one locking them in there.

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        I mean it looks like the Hamas leaders are flying around in private jets being hosted by other insane dictators, so I don’t see that they find anything wrong with the situation. I doubt they give a fuck about all the civilians that are dying.

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    11 months ago

    It [the Israeli government] cut off all commercial and humanitarian aid traffic from Israel into Gaza since Hamas launched its surprise terrorist attack on October 7 and has vowed to sever all ties with Gaza.

    Good. Then sever them already, and get the fuck out of the way.

    • lolcatnip@reddthat.com
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      Those ties include things like Palestinians’ access to fresh water and electricity. Saying they’re going to cut off ties is a coy way of threatening genocide.

  • hark@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Is this the part where they pick one person to take the blame then, after switching him out, continuing with business as usual? Obviously biden doesn’t disapprove, hence the $100+ billion he has pledged in full support of the genocide and ethnic cleansing.