US President Joe Biden strongly defended Israel on Monday, saying Israeli forces are not committing genocide in their military campaign against Hamas militants in Gaza.
"What's happening in Gaza is not genocide. We reject that," Biden said at a Jewish American Heritage Month event at the White House.
I can't tell if he's pandering or trying to lose the election
Biden stressed his belief that Israel was the victim dating back to the Oct. 7 attack
Yes, we are not disputing that. Israel definitely was the victim at the time. But that doesn't mean they're allowed to kill so many innocent people that we now have lost the count
It's pretty clear to me Biden's trying to thread the needle on this in a gruesome way. The argument seems to follow the form of: civilian deaths are collateral damage, this is unfortunate but this is war and they are not purposely being targeted and so this is not genocide.
However that almost willfully ignores the denial and blocking of aid to the same affected civilians, which is a deliberate action that despite the cover story being to prevent it reaching Hamas, falls entirely flat as regardless, it results in direct suffering and death of the civilians. I say almost because some small efforts have been made to push back against the denial of aid, but as is evident to anyone monitoring the situation, these efforts are all far too small to address the widespread suffering and death of the Gazan people.
This whole semantics game around genocide is simply disgusting. You know those in government know exactly what people mean when they're calling it that, they want an end to the killing and an end to the deaths of civilians, whether from military strikes or denial of aid.
Explain then what killing people by coordinated starving, displacement, and exposing to unhealthy and life-threatening situations by the IDF is in your opinion.
Its not genocide because its not from the Atroci region of sub saharan Africa or the Geno region of Central and Eastern Europe.
It's actually sparkling murder induced relocation of an indigenous people, based solely on their ethnic identity, specifically to bring about the destruction of said ethnic group.
The neoliberal colonialist stranglehold world order is collapsing so fast it is making my head spin.
The centrist, austerity minded democrats who have enjoyed power in the US for the last couple of decades are absolutely self immolating, they look like utter absolute murderous clowns when they claim with a straight face that the Palestinian Genocide is not a Genocide.
Make no mistake this is a turning point, no matter what happens in this election, this kind of democrat who supports whatever Israel does because... well because.... to the point of pretending an ongoing genocide being done with your weapons and fighter jets doesn't exist is toast.
No matter what happens in this election, the kind of mainstream media that is towing the line Israel by giving them complete diplomatic and narrative immunity towards being the bad guys when Israel is committing a genocide against the Palestinians every day as we speak... it is detonating the strangehold of conservative, ideologically bereft centrist who have been trying to manage the global status quo without actually conceding to progressive changes to it.
The critical change here is that milquetoast democrats used to be globally regarded as at least somewhat rationale and ethically minded compared to the dumpster that is american conservatism, but this genocide is thoroughly proving to the world that most centrist democrats are just the good cop to the bad cop republicans, and if push comes to shove a good cop has no problem filling in for the role of bad cop when they perceive it will retain their violent power.
I really don't think the rich and powerful who controlling basically everything in the US have any idea how deep a majority of US citizen's revulsion over the pointlessness of the Iraq war has burrowed into their psyche. They really don't get it, they think we are just going to roll over and accept US imperialism/military industrial complex as "just the way it is honey" like our parents did but we are FAR stronger and more politically aware than our parents were and FARRRRRRR more jaded in a way that makes us suspect of the basic legitimacy of the military industrial complex at every turn we have to interact with it.
Where are the Biden boyfriends that call everyone that criticizes biden a Trump supporter? I said multiple times on lemmy that a lot of people go above and beyond to support this horrible person who repeatedly mentioned his fantasies for an israeli state and serving it since he was a kid.
Trump is worse but that doesn't mean you can't criticize this piece of shit.
And the worst thing is I live far away from the US and still get called Trump supporter for calling this sicko a sicko.
So, how much and for how long does one need to support a genocidal fascist movement actively murdering civilians including tens of thousands of children, before it's fair to describe such a person as a genocidal fascist himself?
He's might be technically right so far, since most of the population is still standing, but depending on where things go next this line could be remembered along with "peace in our time".
I think the ICC is handling it better. There are two groups in that area that want to murder people, and there are now warrants issued for their arrest. I just don’t think America should have become directly involved.
Building a pier and trying to send in aid is a nice gesture, but Palestinians are killing each other for those boxes of food, and Israelis are attacking aid vehicles. It’s starting to look like Blackhawk Down.
Biden backed Israel by giving them weapons because Hamas had taken so many Israelis hostage. If he had picked the other side when news of the hostages began to spread, society would have been calling him a Nazi.
Both sides in this war want to kill each other. There are children in both sides of these groups that are suffering. How can anyone pick a side and hope that they kill the other side? It’s inhumane. Let the terrorists be arrested.
translation: "We absolutely reject the notion that it is a genocide because it implies that America helped to arm and fund a genocide and America would never do such a thing...we're the good guys. Good guys don't commit genocide. ergo, not genocide. My logic is unimpeachable. /s
This is what we get when the Boomer mind set is still in charge. Hopefully a younger person would have only supplied Israel with defense, Iron Dome, etc... and not weapons, bombs to attack. Unfortunately we are stuck with the choice of 2 Boomers.
I still don't get how there are one issue voters. Trump would be much worse on this many other issues to say the least. Giving Trump 4 more years to further wreck our democracy and appoint more Far-Right Supreme court justices is totally short sighted. I've been voting since 2000 (Edit: this kinda makes me sound like a douche, "I've been voting for years so listen to me!" Sorry aboot dat), and protest votes or not voting only gets Republicans elected. Just like Paul Weyrich said Paul Wayrich
he's right, though. It's a humanitarian crisis but it's factually incorrect to call it a genocide (and it also minimizes the actual horror of genocide).
Welp. I now have something else specific to point to when I have to tell someone I'd rather skin myself with a potato peeler, fry up some me bacon, and eat it than vote for this geriatric. Classic.
Hamas is a terrorist group. Not all Palestinians are Hamas. Israel is targeting Hamas. They have done their best to minimize Palestinian civilian causalities. It's not genocide. If they were going for genocide, this would have been over with a long time ago.
The problem is, we as the general public, have gut reactions to things we don't understand and aren't directly involved in. This is made worse with misinformation and poor Internet literacy.
Another problem is that many Americans' view points are sympathetic to terrorists. But, as I've heard somewhere "one person's terrorist is another's freedom fighter." These people believe Hamas aren't terrorists and are wrongly being fired upon, therefore Israel is bad.
Another group, Trump supporters and the like, will twist anything Biden does negatively because it doesn't align with their narrative.