“Darfur and Gaza are very different, of course, but I recall the senator’s compassion and urgency — and I wonder, where has that Joe Biden gone?”
He didn’t go anywhere. Super easy to criticize Sudan when there is no expressed Sudanese lobby contributing vast quantities of money into American politics.
Biden’s support of Israel is/was/always will be about the money. In fact, take Biden out of it and sub in any politician that supports Israel.
https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/contrib?cycle=2018&ind=Q05
https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/american-israel-public-affairs-cmte/summary?id=D000046963
“The reason for such intense scrutiny is the outsize contributions of Jewish donors to US political campaigns, with Jewish donors contributing a whopping 50% of funds received by the Democratic Party and 25% to the Republican Party, Troy says.”
Biden can afford to lose thousands of Muslim voters. He CAN’T afford to lose 1/2 of his donations.
Not saying you are wrong, but amongst the elderly the support for Israel is also so entrenched. They are from a time when Israel was the underdog and desperately needed support for survival, and simply cannot see that times have changed.
It’s not fair to say that Zionist lobby controls US policy. There are plenty of examples when US interests conflicted with Israel and the US crossed it’s ally. (Suez Canal crisis, arms sales to SArabia, Iran nuke deal)
The problem is that the US has no interest in the Palestinian cause. There’s no political or strategic advantage to a free and sovereign Palestine. This has started to change recently with younger Democratic voters demanding a policy change. And we’ve seen direct policy shifts after the Michigan and Wisconsin primary protests. If there is a political cost to supporting the occupation, American presidents will change.
Lastly, I don’t think it’s accurate to assume that Jewish contributors to the Democratic party are necessarily Zionist. Even the article you site gives many domestic reasons why an American Jew would favor the Democrats.
“The problem is that the US has no interest in the Palestinian cause.”
You’re right, and the reason for that is there’s no money in it for them.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
“Six months in, the Biden administration is in a strategic cul-de-sac with no easy way out — weakened both morally and politically, dependent on two combatants who see no urgency in ending the war and facing the real possibility of a serious escalation between Israel and Iran,” Aaron David Miller, a veteran American diplomat and Middle East peace negotiator, told me.
“Netanyahu seemed to take enormous pleasure in sticking his finger in Biden’s eye at every opportunity,” noted Menachem Rosensaft, a Cornell law professor and general counsel emeritus of the World Jewish Congress.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said early on that Israel was fighting “human animals” and he promised “a complete siege,” adding, “There will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel.” By one count, there were 18,000 Hebrew-language references to Gaza being “erased,” “destroyed” and “flattened” on X, formerly known as Twitter, in about the first six weeks after Oct. 7.
For me, watching as I reported from Israel and the West Bank, it felt ineffably sad, like a rerun of the invasion of Iraq: the delusions about a quick victory, the disregard for civilian lives, the lack of a local partner to establish order, the excessive optimism about outcomes.
The war’s backers in the White House and the Pentagon acknowledged the suffering in Vietnam but argued that it was important to be tough-minded and keep perspective: With a little more effort it would be possible to uproot the enemy and score a decisive victory that would lay the groundwork for a better future.
Under pressure from Democratic senators, he issued National Security Memorandum 20, which restated American law that puts humanitarian conditions on military transfers — but then the administration announced that Israel was meeting the requirements, which many outsiders doubted.
The original article contains 4,299 words, the summary contains 295 words. Saved 93%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
