Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich welcomed President-elect Donald Trump’s electoral victory Monday, saying that “the time has come” to extend full Israeli sovereignty over the occupied West Bank.
He made the comment a day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a recorded statement that he has spoken three times with Trump since the election and that they “see eye to eye on the Iranian threat.
Slower genocide? Really?
Trump campaigned on speedrunning the genocide, not slowing it down. It’s not like his intentions weren’t clear.
The last time Trump got involved in the middle east, he pissed off a whole bunch of people by moving the embassy to Jerusalem, and the only thing his son in law managed to accomplish was getting $2 billion from the Saudis which the family still won’t explain. But this is the guy you essentially endorsed by either voting for Trump or staying home? That’s like stopping yourself from shooting yourself in the foot by pointing the gun at your head instead.
Yes, Trump is terrible and obviously worse to anyone to can rationally look at the options. That doesn’t change that the Harris campaign chose to ignore the issue, chose to take those voters for granted, and failed to secure a win.
If the Harris campaign cared about Palestinian lives, or that aside, even just cared about winning the election, then why would they not change position to Conditional Aid on Israel and gain all those undecided voters? That issue alone would have secured the swing states to Harris.
Those voters were entirely up for grabs and all it would’ve taken was a single policy change and some humanity for the victims of an ongoing genocide. If the concern was AIPAC influencing the election through campaign ads, then pivoting just before voting began would’ve been the right move. If the campaign was trying to win without those voters, ignoring the grassroots momentum, then we can clearly see that was a failed strategy.
Ok, so answer this for me:
How does either actively voting for Trump, or abstaining from voting knowing it’s a de-facto vote for Trump, help to improve that situation in any way at all?
In fact, how does allowing Trump to return to power not make the situation actively worse?
And do you still feel that it was the right choice now, knowing that Israel announced that they plan to annex the west bank with Trump’s blessing?
It doesn’t? Why do you think that’s my view when I’ve already explicitly said I voted for Harris and told others to voter for her too. I’ve already said Trump is actively worse in all aspects.
Understanding the faults of the campaign in failing to motivate tens of millions of voters doesn’t change any of that. It is still ultimately the responsibility of the campaign to galvanize voters. Understanding why they failed to do that is what I’m doing
Ok, but the question mostly still stands. (Note, none of what I’m about to say is directed at you specifically. I’m using “you” in the general sense here.)
Explain the logic in that reasoning. Explain the logic in protesting Harris’s support for Israel by allowing Trump to return to power, knowing he is going to make things actively worse. And if there is no logic in their reasoning, how was Harris supposed to appeal to them? Wouldn’t that necessarily mean that any attempts at getting their vote was doomed from the start anyway?
And for all the outrage we’ve been hearing about from them about Harris’s support of Israel, why is the same community largely responding with crickets when Trump and Netanyahu announce their plans to fulfill their promise to ratchet up the genocide?
Seriously. Make it make sense. Because to me, if you’re outraged over Harris supporting Israel because of the Gaza genocide but aren’t even more outraged over this announcement, then your problem with Harris wasn’t actually her support of Israel now, was it?
You can read my thoughts on the mentality and choices given to people who’s foremost issue is anti-genocide here.
Conditional Military Aid or even Arms Embargo. It’s that simple.
It’s overwhelmingly popular with democratic voters, it’s even popular with Republican voters. It’s also a requirement under both international humanitarian law and domestic law (Leahy Law).
I don’t know who isn’t outraged, or at least in despair, over this announcement.
The fact that, if Harris did change from the policy of unconditional military support, she would have certainly flipped swing states and won the election does absolutely make me mad too. Harris’ inability to pivot not only cost the election, but further galvanized Israel to continue and expand it’s genocidal actions more than they already have been under the Biden Administration.
I have to strongly disagree here. Keep in mind, I support Gaza. But supporters of Israel far outnumber supporters of Gaza, especially outside of Michigan. It basically put Biden and Harris in a lose-lose situation, because no matter which side they took, somebody was going to get pissed off. Had they shown more support for Gaza, they’d have pissed off far more Jews and she’d have lost the election anyway. Probably by an even wider margin. Whether it was the morally correct choice is a matter of personal opinion, but the choice she made is the choice that was the least shitty option politically.
Well the polls disagree with you. As I mentioned in my linked comment, Over 51% of Jewish Americans Support for Biden’s Decision to Withhold Arms Shipments to Israel. So trying to justify the decision not to based on Jewish American voters is another way of conflating Zionism with Judaism.
First, 51% is hardly a ringing endorsement of anything. A technical majority, yes. But a statistical tie and certainly not overwhelming support.
Also, by your logic, this means she would have lost a little under half the Jewish vote. Here’s the problem with that. That still dwarfs Palestinians and supporters of Gaza. By a large margin. Which means she still would have lost, probably by a wider margin. Maybe not as wide as I originally said, but wider nonetheless. At Best, it would have gotten her Michigan. But in doing so, she would have likely risked even more states with large Jewish populations.