The bare minimum expected of a leader of the American left, and a democratic socialist, should be a willingness to say “I endorse the conclusion of mainstream human rights organizations.” Why wouldn’t Sanders be willing to do that? He says that it doesn’t really matter “what you call it,” because it’s horrific. But clearly it does matter to Sanders, because he is making a choice not to use the same language as the human rights organizations. Why is he making that choice? He has not explained.
Sanders is right that the more important debate is about actions rather than language. But genocide is also the supreme crime against humanity, and it is so unanimously reviled that it makes a difference whether we use the term. For instance: there might be a debate over whether we should cut off weapons to a state that has “engaged in war crimes.” (How many? Are they aberrations or policy?) The Allied powers in World War II engaged in war crimes, and many Americans think war crimes can be justified in the service of a noble end. But there can be no debate over whether we should ever arm a state that has engaged in genocide. Genocide has no justification, no mitigation. If a state is committing it, all ties should be cut with that state.
Actually, we can see the difference in Bernie Sanders’ own policy response to Israel’s crimes. He told CNN that “your taxpayer dollars” should not go to support a “horror.” This is true. Sanders, to his credit, has repeatedly proposed a bill that would cut off a certain amount of weapons sales to Israel. Democratic opinion has so soured on Israel that Sanders’ bill attracted a record amount of Democratic support (27 senators, more than half the caucus.) But notably, Sanders’ bill only cuts off “offensive” weapons to Israel, leaving “defensive” weapons sales intact.
We might think that it’s perfectly fine to sell “defensive” weapons. Israel’s “Iron Dome” system, which U.S. taxpayers help pay for, protects the country against incoming missiles, and protection against incoming missiles is surely a good and noble thing. But notably, we have not bought Hamas its own “iron dome.” Or Iran. Or Russia. This is because we do not support the causes for which they fight. We understand in these cases that to help the “defense” is to help the “offense.” If Russia is protected from Ukrainian missiles, it will fight Ukraine more effectively. Likewise, if Israel is protected from Hamas rocket fire, but Gaza is not protected from Israeli missiles, the balance of arms is tilted toward Israel, and they can pulverize Gaza without Hamas being able to inflict similar damage in response.
Like Israel’s Iron Dome does when Yemen or Iran attack?
How in the hell is the party committing ethnic cleansing, Apartheid and deliberately starving children the “better party to support”? And in the first place, who the hell said anything about supporting Hamas? There’s a myriad of options other than supporting Hamas that don’t entail supporting an Apartheid Nazi state.
Iran and Yemen aren’t Palestine, so the problems we have with Israel’s war against Palestine and Palestinians don’t apply there. Unless, that is, you aren’t on the side of Palestinians at all, but instead just want to see Israel defeated. But I chipped in to explain how it made sense for the US to fund Iron Dome, so we have to start from a point of view that makes at least some sense with respect to how the US saw the world then and wanting to destroy Israel is not that.
The situation in 2011 (when Iron Dome’s development started) was not this one, so start there.
I would agree with the OP that funding Iron Dome now, for a genocidal state, would be a huge error.
They do. Israeli aggression is most intense in Palestine, but it’s not exactly a saint with its other neighbors.
I do want to see Israel defeated because they keep fucking up everything for everyone else, especially but not only Palestinians, and because Apartheid states shouldn’t exist. Your point?
It was. Israel has been deliberately keeping Gaza under chronic malnutrition and on the brink of economic collapse for two decades, and settlements constitute ethnic cleansing. The Gaza genocide is the worst single crime Israel has committed in its history, but it’s far from the only one.
Israeli aggression towards Palestine is by far the most egregious because they have been performing a slow-motion annexation of it, and all the problems that come with that. Palestine had little ability to retaliate (though it did) so Israel’s actions were grossly disproportionate. But this is not nearly so true with other states in the region, which have historically had a military and foreign policy posture of wanting Israel’s complete destruction, and made strikes, wars and statements to that effect.
As far as our own geopolitical attitudes in the West are concerned, support for Israeli attacks on Iran has historically been an easy calculation to make because of how disastrous it would be for Iran to have a nuclear weapon. You can see this in the rhetoric now where even those who condemn Israel for attacking Iran recently, and condemn Trump for dismantling the one thing that seemed likely to keep Iran nuke-free, say that it nevertheless has to remain the goal.
My point is that you (and other people in this thread) seem motivated more out of a desire to see the destruction of the state of Israel than out of a desire for justice and a world free of ethnic cleansing.
I won’t disagree that Israel has been breaking international law for decades and other countries should have been more forceful about that. That doesn’t mean that helping to protect Israeli civilians from rocket attacks was the wrong thing to do.
Setting aside that that’s not at all true, what’s wrong with opposing a state committing and built on Apartheid and ethnic cleansing? Do you think the appropriate response to these actions is to do nothing?
How the fuck does that lead to supporting Israel against Iran when Iran has been nothing if not cooperative with the international community on the subject? Nobody, literally nobody other than Netanyahu himself thinks Iran is trying to build nukes. Also why would Iran having nukes be more disastrous than Israel having them?
Because?
And do you not see how that “protection” directly supports Israel’s subjugation of Palestinians?
This is blatantly false - most Western assessment seem to have been that (after Trump unilaterally ended the deal) Iran was enriching way beyond what is necessary for civilian use.
Israel, despite its faults, is a democracy. Its genocidal ambitions have been restricted to Palestine - unlike Iran’s. Israel also already has nukes (probably) - this question is not one of the lesser evil.
Because they state outright they want to see Israel destroyed.
“Directly” is wrong. It indirectly helps Israel’s illegal actions against Palestinians - and that difference between direct and indirect help is the key to understanding this.