The best political thing to do is just follow the polling. If the polls show America being supportive of Israel, then the US prez should do that (support Israel) to get votes. If not, then don’t.
Problem with that approach is that Americans’ perspectives are not necessarily simplistically binary. Oh there are definitely groups that are. Israel can do no right or no wrong. But large numbers have views that more nuanced. And varied.
For the most part I think the politically best action is pretty much what Biden is doing
Correct:
- Condemn Hamas. This is a no-brainer only the most rabid anti-Isreali would support what they did
- Say that you stand by Israel and the right for it to defend itself. This has been US policy for the last 60+ years, to say otherwise would be tantamount to saying that Israel shouldn’t exist
- Urge Israel to limit civilian casualties. It won’t do any good, but at least it shows that the US regards the Palestinians as human beings.
- Provide humanitarian aid to Gaza to the extent possible. We can’t force Israel to let it in but again we are at least trying to show we are concerned about the Gazans.
- Try to broker a cease fire. Good luck with that but see last two above.
- Stay the hell out of there in terms of direct intervention. Again I think a no brainer
The big elephant in the room however is in terms of military aid to Israel. The Biden administrations current plan is to send offensive aid to isreal in the form of artillery shells and smart bombs..
In my opinion, the Israeli military seems to have more enough munitions already to wreak havoc on the Gazan civilians, and don’t need any help from us on that end. I could see resupplying the Iron dome as defensive support but having US bombs falling on ambulances and hospitals is not a good look for us.
But my opinion doesn’t mirror the nation which appears to support sending military aid to Israel among all classes of voters, Republcan, Democrat and Independent.
“Israel’s right to defend itself” is different from “Israel’s right to offensive military action,” though in Orwellian terms we seem to have accepted that “defend” means “attack.”
In other words, would it matter if Biden says he supports Israel’s right of self-defence, but not aggressive offense, or has that warship sailed and it is impossible to make that distinction in this context?
I suspect bombing Iran would probably be the best course of action in the OP’s scenario. Cf. Margaret Thatcher and the Maldives, and many other examples.
Yes to all of this. It is deliberately ambiguous language which can serve whatever purpose is needed at the time.
I was not aware that Maggie bombed tropical islands!
Islas Malvinas, or Falklands.
The Maldives are an ocean away to the east.
Which will are be stolen and misused.
Hamas tried to smuggle out terrorists on humanitarian injured lists. They tried to smuggle in O2 concentrators for their tunnels, and so forth.
For Biden- demand (with no teeth at all) a cease fire for humanitarian reasons. (Let Bibi know).
Offer to broker peace.
Offer humanitarian aid, but let Israel reject it.
Condemn hamas but offer support to the Palestinian people.
I concur.
They have to root out the terrorist weapons and rescue hostages.
Yup, oops!
That may be so (I don’t think this is the thread to debate that issue), but while “rescuing hostages” is certainly a response to aggression, and thus defence, to “root out the terrorist weapons” is offensive action.
I think, in terms of this thread, the answer seems to be that the President should support things like “rooting out terrorist weapons,” because the words make the situation really clear (we are against bad terrorists, so naturally we’re doing the right thing).
Questions like “what is a terrorist?” “what tactics and objects of the people identified as terriorists consistute weapons?” and “what activities, based on what evidence, consistute rooting out?” need not be addressed, and the media certainly won’t ask. Probably it is in the President’s best interests not to engage with that level of complexity.
Just so you know, I am saddened and disgusted by the violence that is happening, but that doesn’t mean I’m inherently anti-Israel or anti-Jewish. I’m just pro-not-killing-people, and I don’t like the use of “defence” to mean “attack.”
It’s difficult to sell the message “Defend yourself against terrorists. But not so hard” without pissing everybody off.
It’s an offensive action to take a gun away from somebody who’s been using it to shoot at you?
Not in my book.
If there is an individual person who has shot at you with a gun, but is not shooting at you now, you are no longer defending yourself. Whatever you do may well be morally right, and necessary, but it’s not defence.
In the context of a larger conflict, the lines get blurred: what if it’s not an individual but an organisation?
I won’t respond further here, because it’s a hijack, but if someone wants to explain to me why I’m wrong in another thread, let me know and I’ll drop by.
I can’t post in the most plausible other thread; due to some software glitch that seems impossible to straighten out, that thread is messed up for me; I can read it with some difficulty, but can’t post effectively, or often at all.
I will just point out here that Hamas is still shooting at Israel. And also that IF there’s no other way to stop the person with a gun from shooting at you in the future, and you have excellent reason to believe they will do so, I believe that is still self-defense. Ordinarily in a country with a functioning police force that isn’t doing the shooting themselves, of course, it stops being self-defense when you’re not at risk long enough to get the police to defend you.
To keep on topic, yes, a president politically will take the position that if punched a country has a right to punch back in a manner that prevents more punches from being thrown. A president politically will not go with the belief that self defense means blocking punches exclusively.
The belief that self defense does NOT include eliminating the ability to continue attacks is not one that is politically viable.
That belief does not necessarily justify all possible amounts of damage to non combatants in service of so defined self defense. But most across the spectrum, not all, accept that some is acceptable.
Some data:
Do you have any figures on the number of Democrats, of any age, who will be less likely to vote for Biden if he comes out against Israel?
Not precisely that question, but the data would suggest that a growing number of Democrats feel Biden is being too pro-Israel and that they would be less likely to vote for him because of it.
That’s the same sort of thing over again; and exactly why I asked you the question that I did ask you; and possibly why you didn’t answer it, though I of course don’t know.
If an equal or greater number of Democrats would turn against Biden for not being sufficiently pro-Israel, then, as a political calculation (which is what this thread is about), his becoming less pro-Israel would be at best a wash politically and quite possibly have a large impact against him.
Like I said much earlier in this thread – anything he does about this is gonna piss off somebody. Probably anything he does about this is going to piss off a lot of people. And that, of course, includes his trying to pretend this isn’t happening and not doing anything at all – which would most likely piss off just about everybody.
His Republican opponent(s) have it a whole lot easier. They can just come out for Israel – many of their backers are backing Israel for all the wrong reasons, but they won’t be expecting candidates to spell out why they’re making pro-Israel noises, and probably few of them are backing the Palestinians, again quite likely for the wrong reasons.