If you’re on the left, despite any disappointments and misgivings you may have with the Democratic Party, you may conclude that they are the lesser evil and vote for them in most elections. This is not normally a difficult case for Democrats to make. Indeed, “not as evil as Republicans” has almost become the party’s tagline. It’s their primary selling point.
In 2024, however, President Joe Biden is struggling to make that case. He’s done a lot wrong during his years in office and a few things right. But his present support for Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza is so monstrous and criminal that no moral nation could allow him to remain president.
At least 34,000 Palestinians have been killed since the fighting escalated after October 7, the large majority of whom are women and children. The number of dead is surely much higher, but the region is so totally devastated that they can no longer keep count.
The Israeli blockade has triggered widespread famine, with Oxfam reporting that “the entire population of Gaza is currently facing high levels of acute food insecurity.” That’s 2.3 million starving people.
More than 50% of the buildings in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed, including universities, hospitals, and critical infrastructure.
Israeli leaders routinely pledge total destruction of Gaza and dehumanize Palestinians, setting up a narrative where the victims deserve whatever Israel decides to dole out to them.
By punishing the entire civilian population of Gaza, the Israeli military has exceeded in scale and criminality the terrorist attacks carried out by Hamas on October 7. And they have done so with unconditional funding, arms, and diplomatic support from the United States and President Biden. Biden is not just culpable in this genocide; he may bear more responsibility for it than anyone else on Earth. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu simply couldn’t carry it out without Biden’s blessing.
Reelecting a man who’s perpetuating a genocide is unthinkable. There are no good alternatives. Donald Trump will likely be just as bad, if not worse, on the question of Gaza. And simply put, if Biden loses, Trump wins. That’s a horrifying prospect for Palestinians and the planet. But if our system is so corrupt and amoral that it can’t present even one candidate who refuses to aid and abet genocide, then it deserves to crumble and begin anew.
American presidents do terrible things routinely. Warmongering comes with the territory of managing a global capitalist empire. But there are some crimes for which there can be no forgiveness or grace. Deeds which, once done, put you in league with the worst monsters of history. Genocide is chief among these. We can’t keep allowing politicians to get away with this sort of thing by rewarding them with more power.
Now, protests and occupations demanding an end to U.S. support for the genocide have emerged on university campuses across the country. Police have cracked the skulls of college students and professors, staging mass arrests and conducting heavily militarized raids in places like Columbia. Biden responded to the unrest not by condemning police brutality or offering any sympathy to the protesters’ legitimate concerns. Instead, he painted protesters broadly as lawless and antisemitic, claims for which there is scant evidence if any.
It’s a curious strategy that Biden and the Democrats are running: Carry out a genocide, then use state stormtroopers to beat and silence the young people who oppose it and whose vote they desperately need to win. Somehow, unleashing state violence on a core constituency and telling them to “get over yourself” seems like an irresponsible way for the defenders of democracy to campaign during a must-win election against the most dangerous fascist in American history.
On climate change, the social safety net, labor, ballot access, and rights important to women, immigrants and minorities, Democrats are generally at least marginally better than Republicans. That holds true in the Biden vs. Trump rematch. These are hugely important issues and many progressives will make that calculation and vote for Biden on that basis.
Yes, Donald Trump is a serially corrupt, pathologically lying, habitually felonious, fundamentally indecent, and totally amoral crook. He will do damage that will last generations. He must be kept out of the White House. More than that, if he showed up at your house you’d be ill-advised to let him in.
But Biden is sanctioning, funding, and arming the worst humanitarian crisis on earth. Whatever damage Trump will do in four years might be worth suffering if it shifts the country’s political calculus such that an alternative to the Democratic and Republican super-hawks has a chance to emerge. We might teach the Democratic Party that its lust for war, violence, and profit will not be tolerated and pave the way for a new party.
Our lesser of two evils system was always destined to be a race to the bottom, and now we’re there, voting between two genocidal geriatrics. If these are the kinds of decisions we’re having to make, then we’ve gone way too far over the edge. We might be better off abstaining from the election altogether and finding new ways to oppose the two nihilistic death cults we call political parties.
Tensions between Israel and Palestine have erupted anew, reaching perhaps their most dangerous escalation yet. Things kicked off when Hamas, the leading political authority in the Palestinian territory of Gaza, slaughtered some 260 people at a music festival in Israel. Since then, all the world’s eyes have been on the region as reports of war crimes and atrocities on both sides – some exaggerated or made up, but far too many true – filter out daily. Political leaders, pundits, and ordinary people have responded to the horror with vengeful, even genocidal rhetoric.
Discussing the situation is difficult. Emotions are high, and the sheer scale of violence makes level-headedness feel almost inappropriate. Disinformation and propaganda make it hard to know the truth even for those who seek it out and there are numerous misunderstandings about the region’s politics and history in general. Add organized religion to the mix and all the bigotries, atrocities, and accusations that entails, and it’s not hard to imagine things quickly going off the rails.
Still, it’s more important now than ever to not get carried away – though the powers that be are already well on their way to doing horrific, irreversible, history-staining crimes.
Responding to terrorism with war crimes
Many have referred to the massacre as Israel’s 9/11. The analogy is apt not just for the horror of the act itself but for the reaction its leaders have had. Both Israel and the US were allegedly warned about the attack in advance. In both cases, leaders refused to acknowledge how any of their own wrongdoings may have incited terror, and in both cases they seized the opportunity escalate their own violence in brutal revenge.
No doubt, the Hamas-led massacre was heinous. Nova music festival attendees did nothing to deserve being butchered. The Palestinian people have real grievances with the State of Israel, but those innocent people were not responsible for generations of abuse.
By the same token, the 2 million Palestinians living in Gaza were not responsible for Hamas’s actions. Despite that, retaliation against the entirety of Gaza has been swift and gigantic. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant used violent, dehumanizing language when he ordered, “… a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed. We are fighting human animals, and we act accordingly.” Gallant’s siege has been condemned as a war crime, hundreds of Gazans are being killed by Israeli bombing daily, and a ground invasion is underway.
To be outraged by the violence in only one direction is simply morally inconsistent. We must never allow ourselves to think responding to terrorism with war crimes is justifiable – yet, far too often, we do. We afford grace to leaders like Gallant and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, just as we did for George Bush after 9/11. “Proper” leaders wage war honorably with bombs. Shooting civilians in a murderous rampage is rightly viewed as savage terrorism. Killing them with bombs while they’re asleep at home is somehow dignified, civilized – or, at worst, unfortunate but necessary collateral damage.
A brief history of Israel/Palestine
Disturbingly, this contempt and inhumanity is how Israel has treated Palestinians all along. The Palestinian people, in both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, have suffered for generations under one of the most brutally oppressive apartheid regimes the planet has ever seen.
The history of the region, of course, goes back millennia. Jews were persecuted throughout Europe for centuries, with “the Jewish question” being debated in the 1700s in Britain and early Zionists like Theodor Herzl arguing for the creation of a Jewish state as early as 1896. Following the atrocities of World War II, large numbers of displaced Jews and holocaust survivors were looking for a place to call home. Governments including the U.S. and U.S.S.R. struck up a deal to carve up Palestine – then under British control – into Arab and Jewish sections, displacing some 700,000 Palestinians and giving birth to the State of Israel in 1948.
From the beginning, the region was fraught with turmoil, and even times of peace were uneasy with resentments always simmering. Wars broke out with neighbors like Egypt and Jordan while territorial control waxed and waned. Overall, however, Israel grew considerably, eventually dwindling Palestine down to only two occupied territories: Gaza, now a small, 25-mile-long strip bordering the Mediterranean Sea and Egypt, and the West Bank, now a fragmented cluster of Palestinian villages.
This land wasn’t taken through luck or savvy negotiation. It was taken by military force, settled illegally and maintained with often brutal occupations.
In the 1970s, Israel also became a close military ally of the US. Adjusted for inflation, the American government has given Israel some $260 billion in aid, the vast majority of it military. Israel is the largest annual recipient of US military aid, and the package grows with almost every presidency. In addition, the US looks the other way on Israel’s myriad human rights violations and shields it from international scrutiny, vetoing some 53 United Nations resolutions over the years that condemned Israel for its illegal settlements, repression of dissent, and treatment of Palestinians.
The terrifying place we now find ourselves: Calls for ethnic cleansing
To place Hamas’s rampage, and the ensuing violence and hostage-taking, in this historical context is not to excuse or justify it. However, the context is necessary to understand why it happened. The kind of violence and abuse the Palestinians have been subjected to for generations radicalizes people and makes citizens of the offending country, and the entire world, less safe.
After the Nova festival attack, Israeli journalist Gideon Levy wrote in Haaretz: “Behind all this lies Israeli arrogance; the idea that we can do whatever we like, that we’ll never pay the price and be punished for it… it’s impossible to imprison 2 million people forever without paying a cruel price… Israel hasn’t stopped punishing Gaza since 1948, not for a moment… We haven’t learned a thing.”
Not only have we not learned a thing, Netanyahu’s government – with the support of President Biden and the US government – appears ready to commit full-on genocide in Gaza.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog blamed all Gazans for the Hamas massacre, saying, “It is an entire nation out there that is responsible… It is not true this rhetoric about civilians not being aware, not involved… They could have fought against that evil regime.” By the same logic, every US citizen bears responsibility for US crimes in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and elsewhere. Every Israeli is responsible for the displacement and subjugation of Palestinians.
Netanyahu ordered the evacuation of some 1.1 million Gazans, nearly half the strip’s population, despite them having nowhere to go and being given only 24 hours’ notice. Then, Israel bombed the evacuation route, killing as many as 70 people, including women and children. A full-scale invasion of Gaza is imminent, and virtually everyone there has been declared an enemy terrorist. Already, more than 2,200 Gazans have been killed, including 700 children, and the number grows by the hundreds every day. Meanwhile Hamas has killed some 1300 Israelis and taken another 150 hostages. Some hostages have reportedly been killed by Israeli bombs. What’s happening in Gaza is heartbreaking and horrifying – and as Netanyahu has already threatened, “this is only the beginning.”
Defenders of Israeli policy often claim the nation, as the only Western ally and Jewish state in the Middle East, is beset on all sides by enemies. There may be some truth to that. But to truly understand the power differential between Israel and Palestine, simply look at what’s happening: a complete siege, shutting off power, ordering over a million people to evacuate. Hamas doesn’t have the power to do that to Israel. Only Israel has the power to do it to Gaza.
All this context is lost in mainstream American media and political discussions. President Biden flippantly says, “Israel has a right to defend itself” – as if every action it takes, every bomb it drops, apartment it levels, child it maims, and human being it terrorizes is purely self-defense. On top of that, warmongers in Washington are now calling for war with Iran over its support of Hamas, which could spark World War III.
What can we do?
Solving the problems in Israel and the Middle East, ending war, and allowing for the dignity, peace and security of everyone – these are all lofty goals that feel depressingly unachievable in moments like this. The need of the greedy and the powerful to expand their territory and subjugate others with as much violence as it takes feels insurmountable.
But even in these ugliest and darkest moments, there are things we can do. We can choose to see the humanity in one another. We can seek out voices on the ground like Plestia Alaqad, who is reporting from besieged Gaza despite a lack of energy and internet. We can refuse to be bullied by warmongers and dehumanizers into cosigning their genocidal worldview. We can protest, educate ourselves and each other, put the squeeze of public pressure on leaders, and if necessary or able, put our bodies on the line.
We must break free of the American corporate, political, and media narrative that says nations can retaliate to terrorism with any murderous war crime they want. We must stop tolerating or justifying abuses of the powerful against the weak.
Terrorism isn’t about justice. It’s a violent means to a political end. Hamas’s crime was heinous, but the correct response is not even larger-scale atrocities. Governments can undertake police actions to find those responsible. They can inspire, support, and encourage the people of Gaza to overthrow Hamas. Best of all, Israel could lift their boot from Palestinians’ necks, begin treating them like human beings, and alleviate the desperate situation that foments extremism in the first place.
Whether it’s Hamas with machineguns or Netanyahu with F-15s, mass-scale murder should always repulse us and animate our passion for justice. What Netanyahu and the Israeli government is leading us toward – with the bloodthirsty, salivating support of American politicians, media, and the military-industrial complex behind them – reeks of genocide. No one with any morality can be comfortable watching it, but we all must be brave enough to not look away.
In a recent Associated Press interview, President Trump said he was 10-0 in predicting terror attacks.
As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump campaigned to become a war criminal. He protested the Geneva Conventions, vowed to “bomb the shit” out of the Middle East, and insisted the US had to kill the family members of terrorists. Though he’s reneged on plenty of promises so far, he has stuck to these frighteningly well. But this is far from a legitimate strategy to fight terrorism. In fact, Trump’s presidency is sure to create more of it. Continue reading →
Steve Bannon is Donald Trump’s Josef Goebbels, Dick Cheney, and Emperor Palpatine all rolled into one.
As chaos consumed American airports and headlines over the weekend, the Trump Administration quietly made a major reshuffle behind the scenes. The central figure in both stories was Steve Bannon, the former editor of the proto-fascist Breitbart News and President Trump’s chief advisor. Bannon told the Department of Homeland Security to ignore court orders, causing further confusion; then he assumed a top position on the National Security Council. Continue reading →
The likely 2016 Democratic and Republican presidential nominees, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, are the most disliked major party candidates in American history. But of all the faults these candidates have, their darkest aspects are most visible in foreign policy. And for as much as Americans don’t like the two of them, imagine what the rest of the world must think as the most powerful nation on earth prepares to hold an election between an accomplished war criminal and a maniac who pledges to become one. Continue reading →
A vigil in Thailand shows solidarity with the victims in Orlando.
In the wee hours of June 12, during a period of festivity and camaraderie, 49 people were killed and more than 50 others were injured by bullets fired from a military-grade assault weapon legally purchased by a man who had been a suspected terrorist. It was the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history, perpetrated by a US-born Muslim who pledged allegiance to ISIS. But if the killer had been anything other than Muslim, the national conversation in the tragedy’s wake might be much different.
GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump took the tragedy as an opportunity to pat himself on the back for “being right on radical Islamic terrorism.” Since that widely criticized tweet, most pundits and politicians have characterized shooter Omar Mateen as a terrorist. They did the same for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and San Bernardino killers Tashfeen Malik and Syed Farook. But not all mass shooters are called terrorists. Those with names like James Holmes, Adam Lanza and Jared Loughner, for instance, usually aren’t. Continue reading →
Ammon Bundy, left, and Ryan Bundy, sons of infamous rancher Cliven Bundy, are leaders in the occupation.
A group of heavily armed right-wing ranchers and self-described militiamen have occupied the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge near Burns, Oregon. Their stated purpose is to protest the jail sentence of father and son ranchers convicted of arson charges, Dwight and Steven Hammond. More importantly, they are protesting perceived overreach from the federal government.
Leading the occupation is Ammon Bundy, son of Cliven Bundy, the rancher who made headlines in April 2014 for his armed standoff with the Bureau of Land Management. No shots have been fired and the group has no hostages, but they insist they are ready to defend themselves against law enforcement and claim they have enough resources to occupy the refuge for years. Continue reading →
ISIS soldiers march in Raqqa, Syria, the terrorist organization’s de facto capital.
Radicalized Islamic terrorists have become the focal point of national security concerns and much of the 2016 presidential election. Not without good reason – groups like ISIS, al-Nusra Front, Boko Haram, al-Qaeda and others are among the most barbaric gangs of cold-blooded killers, kidnappers, torturers, rapists, sex traffickers and drug dealers ever. But treating them as an existential threat superseding the Nazis, as some have done, is granting them way too much legitimacy. Continue reading →
San Bernardino shooting suspects, Tashfeen Malik and Syed Farook.
Right-wing extremism received heavy scrutiny for a few days following the Planned Parenthood attacks. Commentators and left-wing politicians criticized the venomous rhetoric the right uses to denounce its opponents, one of which – the red herring cry of “baby parts” – was used by the Planned Parenthood shooter himself. Since the San Bernardino shooting, committed by Muslims a few days later, white terror has largely fallen off the radar. It shouldn’t.
What hasn’t fallen off the radar is the gun debate. It’s being waged as aggressively now as it’s been in years, with President Obama calling for restricted access to assault weapons and other mild reforms. Conservatives, as expected, reacted with total apoplexy. There has been a strange development, though, as the gun debate has become part of the discussion on Islamic terror. Continue reading →
Robert Lewis Dear is accused of opening fire at a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood, killing three.
Around the globe, Muslims carrying out jihad are responsible for tens of thousands of deaths. Americans are occupied with what to do about the problem. Terrorism is a permanent fixture of the media cycle and our politics, but the deadliest terror threat to Americans is neither foreign nor Muslim: It’s the terror from a homegrown insurgency of angry white men.
Two atrocities, both bearing the grim stamp of white terror, bookended Thanksgiving week. In Minneapolis on November 23, four white men opened fire on a crowd of Black Lives Matter demonstrators, injuring five. And in Colorado Springs on November 27, Robert Lewis Dear opened fire at a Planned Parenthood clinic, killing two civilians and a police officer. Continue reading →
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