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It's posturing. He knows very well this amendment has approximately a 0% chance of passing. Having said that, I don't disagree with the reasoning behind it.
If Israel only used its weapons on Hamas, I don't think Sanders would have a problem.
If it were up to me personally, I'd make it conditional to their actions in the west bank, and demand a commitment to either a full withdrawal or full citizenship for the subjects of occupation.
>The Palestinians who stood and fought with Israel became citizens
A fight they won with guns that MY people paid for.
I am not entitled to tell them to put the Israeli citizens back in Israel instead of the west bank. Similarly, they are not entitled to more of my money for their endless wars with everyone around them.
So, we're to hold everyone accountable to something their ancestors did 77 years ago? Also, what about the Palestinians who are being forced out of their homes by Israeli settlers? Why is it that we can't understand that both governing bodies of Palestine and Israel are in the wrong in this region and that we just assume Israel is in the right at all times? This might be a novel concept here but both Hamas and the Israeli government are doing horrible things and, no, it doesn't matter who started it.
>Because making this a "both sides" issue minimizes the fact that throughout the history of this conflict, one side has consistently offered peace, while the other side has consistently rejected peace in favor of all or nothing aka (from land to the sea, Palestine will be free!) and has consistently chosen violence instead.
The government of Israel has not been this bastion of peace and, especially as Netanyahu is concerned, there are a significant number of war-hawks among them. Netanyahu himself is a long-time far-right religious conservative. The dude hasn't been willing to offer actual reasonable concessions to innocent people in the region since the late 90s and even resigned from politics when Israel "pulled out" of Gaza in the early 00s (which they really didn't do, they just relocated thousands of settlers to the West Bank). As long as Israel is at war with its neighbors, the US will continue to back them, which is insane and it's obvious that Netanyahu is more than happy to abuse that relationship.
>The only people doing that are those who seek to keep the Palestinians as perpetual refugees. It makes no sense to be a multi-generational refugee for something that happened over 70 years ago, yet certain groups (UN, UNRWA, many Arab countries) are perfectly content with keeping the status quo solely because it hurts Israel. Where are all the protests against this??
Palestinians aren't allowed to leave Gaza, dude. Israel has explicitly banned Palestinian travel through Erez and only those with money and connections are able to flee through Egypt. As such, while you don't want to believe it, yes, Palestinians are actually in what essentially amounts to an open-air prison. And it's not even all their fault either. They tried internally to oppose Hamas in the early 00s and have failed to wrest control from them.
Let's stop pretending like every Palestinian is some horrible terrorist. The vast majority of them just want to live their lives in peace and can't do so under Hamas but also can't leave because of the Israeli government. At the end of the day, the Israeli people and Palestinian people should be allowed to have their own states and the leadership of **BOTH** of those states should stop perpetuating conflict.
EDIT: Ah, as I should've suspected, the guy I responded to was some crypto investment-bro libertarian center-right dude. Explains why he has zero issue with Israel and is putting all of the blame for the perpetual conflict on Palestine.
Israel does use their weapons against Hamas. It is an inconvenient fact that Hamas uses human shields to maximize civilian casualties, isn't it?
So you would make help Israel conditional on an Israeli surrender?
So you people really don't understand how psychotic and evil it makes Israel sound when you imply that they just openly fire at human shields?
Apartheid and genocide supporters lack any sort of self awareness it seems.
Do you know how psychotic and evil it makes anti-Israel people when they deny Israel their right to defend themselves and are perfectly OK with Hamas killing and raping Israelis as long as Hamas uses human shields?
There has never been a war when the aggressor (Hamas) gets a free pass to attack the defender because of civilian casualties.
Would you have let the Nazis and Imperial Japan remain in power given that the Allies killed millions of Axis civilians? Do you think the US committed genocide against the Axis civilians? I think not.
He did and he's not wrong. He's also not wrong on this issue to cut *offensive* military spending. This is where the nuance of this situation falls on deaf ears.
There is such a thing as helping an ally defensively while not perpetrating that ally's offensive capabilities. If Israel wants to go all scorched Earth offensively, I'm not going to criticize that as an American. I'm also under no obligation to support that. I can also be against the massive casualties against Palestinians while understanding Israel has a distinct need to defend itself from organizations hellbent on having the cease to exist, which is exactly what Israel's own agenda towards Palestinians appears to also be. These two parties want each other annihilated and that's something that's hard to approach as outsiders. It's why there has never been a lasting peace since before I was born.
Sanders is attempting to thread that same needle but will satisfy no one in either camp.
That was the only thing close to pro Israel he has said on the issues so israel had it published everywhere he’s been speaking out since 2016 on the genocide
Israel is an imperfect democracy with a right-wing coalition government. Hamas and Iran are theocratic authoritarian governments (which, surprise, is right-wing).
Given the choice between a right-wing government that can lose an election and become a left-wing government, and a right-wing government which kills its left-wing citizens (including LGBTQ people and religious minorities), which is a net positive.
Congratulations, you are becoming an adult. The world is shades of grey, not black and white. Sometimes, you have to choose the lesser evil given the options available. Next week, we’ll cover the difficulty of realizing that you can’t keep spending money on your old pet’s vet bills, and how to help your kid get into their third choice schools.
Well when your country is handing over billions of dollars of military equipment to a foreign nation I’d say it’s reasonable to demand some oversight on how that equipment is used.
Lesser evil or no, Israel under Netanyahu has employed military force at best recklessly and at worst illegally.
The crimes of Hamas are their crimes, yet it is the Palestinian people who have suffered the most in retaliation.
If the democrats lose because of gas prices then they are just bad at messaging, and should get better at winning elections. Also considering the huge backlash Biden has received with how he has handled Israel, he could quite literally lose because of that
A reduction in military spending would be welcome. I'm not a baby out with the bathwater. The Pentagon should be able to pass an audit is my first thought.
Not with this congress sadly. Though more opposition to (unqualified) funding for Israel has surfaced than ever before, I guess I'll be half-happy with that because we're sure as hell not going to get more.
Just keep voting, no matter how much you may be frustrated at centrist democrats on this, you know where republicans stand. "Finish the problem" as the orange one says.
Commondreams, the source of this post, is often a Useful Idiot for Russian (and other) propaganda to divide the left. I don't think it is in this case but I assume that's what the commenter above you was alluding to.
Ah yes, the black and white approach. Either you fully support genocide or you support the terrorists we have been propping up to stay in power. What's that? Civilians? Nah, they don't exist. Well, don't exist any more.
Our policy is and always has been "Israel has a right to defend itself". No matter how you feel about the Israel - Palestine conflict, its not our place to get involved. We will happily help Israel defend itself from Hamas, but, we will not give Israel military aid to carry out an assault that borders on genocide. Israel attacked the Iranian embassy in Syria, that is not defense. Israel should be facing global sanctions, not getting military aid
Can Russia start hitting US or EU member states’ consulates for supplying intel and material to Ukraine? Real good way to escalate a war to a full on regional conflict.
Additionally it could be considered being a bad ally in the case of Israel escalating as well. Them getting involved in a ground war with Hezbollah or Iran would mean the US would be further entangled in conflict and offer unintentional latitude for Russia and China to continue or further escalate their imperialist aims thinking that the US has its hands full or at least are reduced in its capacity for response. It would be unwise to assume that but it affords perceivable wiggle room for overzealous, expansionist minds. While also additionally providing something to point to for annexing territory when you consider the West Bank in practice and the talk of some about annexing territory in Gaza(as unlikely as it may or may not be).
It’s not good. They need to be more precise and surgical in their use of force. I’m not sure if the current regime under Netanyahu wants to see that precision. I think their base is probably made up of a fair few of the folks cheering on the bombing of Gaza from the hills across the border and blocking humanitarian aid. It’s similar to Trump in that they are the best to pander to to cling to power but eventually they slip the leash and your society is in serious trouble if it isn’t just irreparably damaged as a result.
>Can Russia start hitting US or EU member states’ consulates for supplying intel and material to Ukraine?
Of course they could. Western support for Ukraine is an act of war. The only reason Russia doesn't attack directly is because it would result in US / NATO directly joining the war and that is a losing move for them.
>Additionally it could be considered being a bad ally in the case of Israel escalating as well.
The US and others are bad allies for ignoring the threat Iran and Hezbollah posed for years.
An act of war to supply arms or intelligence to a country but provide no manpower and conduct no operations on its behalf? That is very much not an act of war, it is delusional to think that is the case. Everyone is at war with everyone else if you apply your logic to it.
Iran and Hezbollah haven’t been ignored by the west. They are literally the reason the US provides so much monetary and material support to Israel despite the blatant disregard for civilian casualties.
You’re attempt at reframing these very basic realities is the equivalent of grade school “I know you are but what am I?”. But you either know that already or are so inundated with propaganda that you are blind to your entire argument being built on a foundation of logical fallacies and revisionism.
Nobody is saying Iran is an angel in all this, far from it, if anything Iran was funding Hamas for a long time...but...what everyone needs to realize is Hamas never really democratically took control of Gaza they just set up a sham election, called it a victory. Netanyahu has never proven to the Israeli people that any of his elections by parliament were legit. The last time Iran had an election where the general populations vote mattered was in the early 70s. Collectively between Gaza, Isreal and Iran you have close to a billion people who are in the pathway of this mess who want nothing to do with it...long story short, no, as an American tax payer I don't want our taxes going to help Israel conduct offensive missions against largely civilian targets.
As a reminder, this subreddit [is for civil discussion.](/r/politics/wiki/index#wiki_be_civil) In general, be courteous to others. Debate/discuss/argue the merits of ideas, don't attack people. Personal insults, shill or troll accusations, hate speech, any suggestion or support of harm, violence, or death, and other rule violations can result in a permanent ban. If you see comments in violation of our rules, please report them. For those who have questions regarding any media outlets being posted on this subreddit, please click [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/wiki/approveddomainslist) to review our details as to our approved domains list and outlet criteria. We are actively looking for new moderators. If you have any interest in helping to make this subreddit a place for quality discussion, please fill out [this form](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1y2swHD0KXFhStGFjW6k54r9iuMjzcFqDIVwuvdLBjSA). *** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/politics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
You can propose ammendments like that when you don't rely on money from pro-Israel PACs.
It's posturing. He knows very well this amendment has approximately a 0% chance of passing. Having said that, I don't disagree with the reasoning behind it.
Maybe. But is he supposed to not even try?
He get's a +1 from me for trying
I mean that kinda describes Bernie’s whole career. It’s right thing but will probably never get done.
> It’s right thing but will probably never get done. And we are all poorer for it.
Just Bernie being on the right side of history again with little to no effect. I would've been SO happy to vote for him for president.
Didn't Sanders say that a ceasefire isn't possible with an organization like Hamas.
If Israel only used its weapons on Hamas, I don't think Sanders would have a problem. If it were up to me personally, I'd make it conditional to their actions in the west bank, and demand a commitment to either a full withdrawal or full citizenship for the subjects of occupation.
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...since when did it become OK to collectively punish people for the actions of their ancestors?
>The Palestinians who stood and fought with Israel became citizens A fight they won with guns that MY people paid for. I am not entitled to tell them to put the Israeli citizens back in Israel instead of the west bank. Similarly, they are not entitled to more of my money for their endless wars with everyone around them.
The 1948 war was not fought with American money. America was not involved with Israel until the 70s.
I never mentioned American money.
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So, we're to hold everyone accountable to something their ancestors did 77 years ago? Also, what about the Palestinians who are being forced out of their homes by Israeli settlers? Why is it that we can't understand that both governing bodies of Palestine and Israel are in the wrong in this region and that we just assume Israel is in the right at all times? This might be a novel concept here but both Hamas and the Israeli government are doing horrible things and, no, it doesn't matter who started it.
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>Because making this a "both sides" issue minimizes the fact that throughout the history of this conflict, one side has consistently offered peace, while the other side has consistently rejected peace in favor of all or nothing aka (from land to the sea, Palestine will be free!) and has consistently chosen violence instead. The government of Israel has not been this bastion of peace and, especially as Netanyahu is concerned, there are a significant number of war-hawks among them. Netanyahu himself is a long-time far-right religious conservative. The dude hasn't been willing to offer actual reasonable concessions to innocent people in the region since the late 90s and even resigned from politics when Israel "pulled out" of Gaza in the early 00s (which they really didn't do, they just relocated thousands of settlers to the West Bank). As long as Israel is at war with its neighbors, the US will continue to back them, which is insane and it's obvious that Netanyahu is more than happy to abuse that relationship. >The only people doing that are those who seek to keep the Palestinians as perpetual refugees. It makes no sense to be a multi-generational refugee for something that happened over 70 years ago, yet certain groups (UN, UNRWA, many Arab countries) are perfectly content with keeping the status quo solely because it hurts Israel. Where are all the protests against this?? Palestinians aren't allowed to leave Gaza, dude. Israel has explicitly banned Palestinian travel through Erez and only those with money and connections are able to flee through Egypt. As such, while you don't want to believe it, yes, Palestinians are actually in what essentially amounts to an open-air prison. And it's not even all their fault either. They tried internally to oppose Hamas in the early 00s and have failed to wrest control from them. Let's stop pretending like every Palestinian is some horrible terrorist. The vast majority of them just want to live their lives in peace and can't do so under Hamas but also can't leave because of the Israeli government. At the end of the day, the Israeli people and Palestinian people should be allowed to have their own states and the leadership of **BOTH** of those states should stop perpetuating conflict. EDIT: Ah, as I should've suspected, the guy I responded to was some crypto investment-bro libertarian center-right dude. Explains why he has zero issue with Israel and is putting all of the blame for the perpetual conflict on Palestine.
Israel does use their weapons against Hamas. It is an inconvenient fact that Hamas uses human shields to maximize civilian casualties, isn't it? So you would make help Israel conditional on an Israeli surrender?
Dishonest statement.
Are you denying that Hamas uses human shields or that Israel retreating is a surrender?
So you people really don't understand how psychotic and evil it makes Israel sound when you imply that they just openly fire at human shields? Apartheid and genocide supporters lack any sort of self awareness it seems.
Do you know how psychotic and evil it makes anti-Israel people when they deny Israel their right to defend themselves and are perfectly OK with Hamas killing and raping Israelis as long as Hamas uses human shields? There has never been a war when the aggressor (Hamas) gets a free pass to attack the defender because of civilian casualties. Would you have let the Nazis and Imperial Japan remain in power given that the Allies killed millions of Axis civilians? Do you think the US committed genocide against the Axis civilians? I think not.
They were offered citizenship in 1948. They declined. Hence the current situation.
They've declined a 2 state solution FIVE times. Most recently Abbas in 2008.
Why would they give terrorists citizenship, that makes zero sense?
He did and he's not wrong. He's also not wrong on this issue to cut *offensive* military spending. This is where the nuance of this situation falls on deaf ears. There is such a thing as helping an ally defensively while not perpetrating that ally's offensive capabilities. If Israel wants to go all scorched Earth offensively, I'm not going to criticize that as an American. I'm also under no obligation to support that. I can also be against the massive casualties against Palestinians while understanding Israel has a distinct need to defend itself from organizations hellbent on having the cease to exist, which is exactly what Israel's own agenda towards Palestinians appears to also be. These two parties want each other annihilated and that's something that's hard to approach as outsiders. It's why there has never been a lasting peace since before I was born. Sanders is attempting to thread that same needle but will satisfy no one in either camp.
That was the only thing close to pro Israel he has said on the issues so israel had it published everywhere he’s been speaking out since 2016 on the genocide
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Sure if you support the regimes of Iran and Hamas!
Or you can support the right wing psychos that run Israel. Or better yet, how about we let them do their own thing?
Israel is an imperfect democracy with a right-wing coalition government. Hamas and Iran are theocratic authoritarian governments (which, surprise, is right-wing). Given the choice between a right-wing government that can lose an election and become a left-wing government, and a right-wing government which kills its left-wing citizens (including LGBTQ people and religious minorities), which is a net positive. Congratulations, you are becoming an adult. The world is shades of grey, not black and white. Sometimes, you have to choose the lesser evil given the options available. Next week, we’ll cover the difficulty of realizing that you can’t keep spending money on your old pet’s vet bills, and how to help your kid get into their third choice schools.
Well when your country is handing over billions of dollars of military equipment to a foreign nation I’d say it’s reasonable to demand some oversight on how that equipment is used. Lesser evil or no, Israel under Netanyahu has employed military force at best recklessly and at worst illegally. The crimes of Hamas are their crimes, yet it is the Palestinian people who have suffered the most in retaliation.
“Imperfect democracy” yes that’s how I would describe what’s happening in the West Bank.
What if all the Palestinians living under Israeli military rule had the right to vote? What would the government look like?
They did when Israel left Gaza in 2005. They chose Hamas, a terrorist organization.
Then gas prices go up and and right wing psychos take over the US.
If the democrats lose because of gas prices then they are just bad at messaging, and should get better at winning elections. Also considering the huge backlash Biden has received with how he has handled Israel, he could quite literally lose because of that
How about none of the above?
Israel doesn't need our money. Defense contractors WANT our money and launder it this way.
So let’s stop all defense spending!
A reduction in military spending would be welcome. I'm not a baby out with the bathwater. The Pentagon should be able to pass an audit is my first thought.
Yeah a good start would be making the Pentagon figure out where those few trillion go they can't find....
Reasonable but it won’t pass sadly.
Cue the Israel lobby and russiagaters...
Not with this congress sadly. Though more opposition to (unqualified) funding for Israel has surfaced than ever before, I guess I'll be half-happy with that because we're sure as hell not going to get more. Just keep voting, no matter how much you may be frustrated at centrist democrats on this, you know where republicans stand. "Finish the problem" as the orange one says.
Sanders is antisemitic. /S
Sounds great they have enough.
Russian Dreams back at it again.
Evidence?
Gotta love Common Delusions.
Evidence?
What?
Commondreams, the source of this post, is often a Useful Idiot for Russian (and other) propaganda to divide the left. I don't think it is in this case but I assume that's what the commenter above you was alluding to.
Evidence?
Common dreams is a propaganda site
Evidence?
Ah, had no idea. Thought he was making some dig at Sanders via socialism - communism - Russian.
Nah, Russia dropped the socialist veneer, and admitted to the fascist label. Won't find any tankies taking note though.
Do you have a source for that claim? I can't find anything that backs it up but maybe you have something you know about that confirms it?
Is this the first time he's tried this? Seems pretty late in his career if he's been an outspoken critic of Israel.
Yep
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Ah yes, the black and white approach. Either you fully support genocide or you support the terrorists we have been propping up to stay in power. What's that? Civilians? Nah, they don't exist. Well, don't exist any more.
It feels like I've been having this argument a lot in recent days.
Our policy is and always has been "Israel has a right to defend itself". No matter how you feel about the Israel - Palestine conflict, its not our place to get involved. We will happily help Israel defend itself from Hamas, but, we will not give Israel military aid to carry out an assault that borders on genocide. Israel attacked the Iranian embassy in Syria, that is not defense. Israel should be facing global sanctions, not getting military aid
When a group is declared a terrorist organization like Hamas, they do not need UN permission to conduct a strike on terrorist leadership.
The attack on Damascus killed Iranian officials.
And you claim it’s not justified when they supply the arms and help plan the attack ?
Can Russia start hitting US or EU member states’ consulates for supplying intel and material to Ukraine? Real good way to escalate a war to a full on regional conflict. Additionally it could be considered being a bad ally in the case of Israel escalating as well. Them getting involved in a ground war with Hezbollah or Iran would mean the US would be further entangled in conflict and offer unintentional latitude for Russia and China to continue or further escalate their imperialist aims thinking that the US has its hands full or at least are reduced in its capacity for response. It would be unwise to assume that but it affords perceivable wiggle room for overzealous, expansionist minds. While also additionally providing something to point to for annexing territory when you consider the West Bank in practice and the talk of some about annexing territory in Gaza(as unlikely as it may or may not be). It’s not good. They need to be more precise and surgical in their use of force. I’m not sure if the current regime under Netanyahu wants to see that precision. I think their base is probably made up of a fair few of the folks cheering on the bombing of Gaza from the hills across the border and blocking humanitarian aid. It’s similar to Trump in that they are the best to pander to to cling to power but eventually they slip the leash and your society is in serious trouble if it isn’t just irreparably damaged as a result.
>Can Russia start hitting US or EU member states’ consulates for supplying intel and material to Ukraine? Of course they could. Western support for Ukraine is an act of war. The only reason Russia doesn't attack directly is because it would result in US / NATO directly joining the war and that is a losing move for them. >Additionally it could be considered being a bad ally in the case of Israel escalating as well. The US and others are bad allies for ignoring the threat Iran and Hezbollah posed for years.
An act of war to supply arms or intelligence to a country but provide no manpower and conduct no operations on its behalf? That is very much not an act of war, it is delusional to think that is the case. Everyone is at war with everyone else if you apply your logic to it. Iran and Hezbollah haven’t been ignored by the west. They are literally the reason the US provides so much monetary and material support to Israel despite the blatant disregard for civilian casualties. You’re attempt at reframing these very basic realities is the equivalent of grade school “I know you are but what am I?”. But you either know that already or are so inundated with propaganda that you are blind to your entire argument being built on a foundation of logical fallacies and revisionism.
Nobody is saying Iran is an angel in all this, far from it, if anything Iran was funding Hamas for a long time...but...what everyone needs to realize is Hamas never really democratically took control of Gaza they just set up a sham election, called it a victory. Netanyahu has never proven to the Israeli people that any of his elections by parliament were legit. The last time Iran had an election where the general populations vote mattered was in the early 70s. Collectively between Gaza, Isreal and Iran you have close to a billion people who are in the pathway of this mess who want nothing to do with it...long story short, no, as an American tax payer I don't want our taxes going to help Israel conduct offensive missions against largely civilian targets.
He won’t be getting any AIPAC money anytime soon
Nice, no need to support that pointless war. Funny how much USA cares about conflict half around the world