“Don’t stop talking about Palestine,” says a billboard on the Jersey Turnpike. And more and more Americans are heeding the advice.
The Biden administration is panicked. It won’t do a thing to stop Israel from renewing its hateful obliteration of Gaza after a week-long truce, and it knows that this stance is alienating the progressive base.
So Biden says this time Israel must be more careful. “Be surgical, be targeted, be precise, try to minimize civilian casualties wherever possible.” J Street the liberal Zionist organization that sure looks like a rightwing Zionist organization in this war echoes the Biden line. Israel needs to exercise greater caution.
So this is how you deal with a monster– Lecture it on etiquette. When by your own logic, it was committing war crimes for 47 days before its pause?
And Israel doesn’t heed the advice. Another 700 Palestinians killed in a mere 24 hours. 6,000 of the total dead are children. Look at the merciless cruelty inflicted on individuals who have lost their entire families and are merely trying to limp out of the way of the bombers. Look at the snipers picking off Palestinian children in their mother’s arms.
Still, Israel can count on American support. The Democratic establishment will fall into line to ignore this. Smart people like Amy Walter will say that it’s always been good “geopolitics” to support Israel, when it’s never been in the U.S. interest, despite all the propaganda. No the U.S. has alienated the world and all Americans of conscience by maintaining blind support for Israel — in the Israel lobby’s interest, the official Jewish community’s interest. And virtually the entire House signs off on a bill equating anti-Zionism with antisemitism.
And Israel can count on Tom Friedman to explain the necessity for the slaughter of Palestinian civilians, so as to deter Hamas.
You destroy our villages, we will destroy yours 10 times more. This is ugly stuff, but the Middle East is a Hobbesian jungle.
But this armchair warrior who won’t regret the Iraq war is 70 now. He can’t stay at the wheel forever. And that’s why the Democrats are terrified. They are losing their grip on the young. Look at this poll published by the Wall street Journal.
It’s not just Palestinian solidarity types who understand the impulse for the Hamas attack. Half of American youth does.
Roughly half [51%] of Americans 18 to 24 years old think Hamas’s October attack was justified by grievances of the Palestinians, according to a Harvard Harris Poll. Just 9% of people aged 65 and older feel the same.
Among 25-34 year olds, the numbers are nearly the same: 48% said justified; 52% said unjustified.
Yes that is shocking, so let’s repeat it. Of all Americans under 35, roughly half see the Hamas attack on civilians as justified by the grievances of the Palestinians.
Young Americans are seeing the enormity of apartheid. They are reading Mohammed El-Kurd. They are seeing Tareq Hajjaj’s incredible you-are-here reporting from Gaza.
They can’t unsee the genocide. They won’t stop talking about Palestine.