Important to remember that the party is the voters much, much more than the present leadership. If Democratic voters disapprove of Schumer and Jeffries significantly enough, they won’t be leaders much longer.
You’re assuming everyone in the democratic party views the people of Gaza as innocent civilians.
Hamas was democratically elected by the citizens of Gaza in 2006. After the 2023 terror attacks, opinion polls showed about 72% of the people in Gaza supported the terror attacks that intentionally targeted civilians.
After 9/11, there were so many celebrations in Gaza and the west bank that Fatah had to start repressing them because they made Palestinians look bad, but people were having a ball and extremely happy about 9/11 there.
Israel also takes a lot of efforts to avoid civilian casualties believe it or not. Considering that Hamas intentionally puts civilians in harms way in the hopes that there will be dead and maimed women and children that Hamas can use for propaganda purposes, Israel takes efforts to avoid giving Hamas the propaganda it wants. But even when they do that, people are still upset. When Israel uses a bomb with sword blades on it instead of a bomb so there is less collateral damage, people still complain.
Israel tried to warn us about 9/11 before it happened, and Israel helps kill off Islamic terrorists in the region while counterbalancing Iran.
This isn’t mean to detract from the purpose of the thread, but to point out that not everyone in the democratic party subscribes to campism or the idea that brown skin non-christians are always victims and always the good guys. Having said that I accept that in opinion polls, I’m in the minority of democrats in my views.
I’ll agree with the general sentiment here if not all of the specifics. As deeply flawed as Israel’s actions are, the Palestinian “side” has significant flaws, as well, that makes political support in the US just as problematic to American ideals.
Quite false:
Daniel Raab shows no hesitation as he watches footage of 19-year-old Salem Doghmosh crumpling to the ground beside his brother in a street in northern Gaza.
“That was my first elimination,” he says. The video, shot by a drone, lasts just a few seconds. The Palestinian teenager appears to be unarmed when he is shot in the head.
Raab, a former varsity basketball player from a Chicago suburb who became an Israeli sniper, concedes he knew that. He says he shot Salem simply because he tried to retrieve the body of his beloved older brother Mohammed.
Democratic Leadership Establishment.(*)
And as to the question: There is nothing they can nor should be expected to do. This is a matter of a decision of/by these leaders. Other than maybe not be getting bombed by Israel but by someone we all agree we hate?
(* Earlier in this century I’d have suggested “Democrat Establishment” but around these here parts one of those words has been devolved into a rightwing slur.)
Whatever the flaws of Gazans and Palestinians, in the past or today, absolutely nothing justifies the mass starvation and mass murder of civilians that the IDF is overseeing at present. I used to believe the IDF was a “good” military that wasn’t capable of the continuous atrocities of the recent past and present – their behavior, and words (including multiple proven lies), and the overwhelming evidence of the last year and more, proves how wrong this was.
The flight attendant always tells me to make sure I put the oxygen mask over my own face before I help my neighbor. I hate to say it, but right now the DNC has other priorities that are more pressing than Gaza.
Right
The DNC isnt some monolithic power block. They excyst mainly to funnel contributors to down ballot races, where a Million or even less could mean a Dem winner. The DNC has little real power.
Honestly, what they have to is not expect support from the people of this country. We suck. This isn’t about the DNC, it’s about the American People. We, as a whole, don’t care about the people of Gaza.
There’s an extremely vocal minority that does care. Instead of striving to elect a normal human with the capacity for human empathy as President, this vocal minority said that the normal person wasn’t loud enough about being anti-genocide. So, instead of a normal human who could be convinced to support Gaza, we have an inhuman monster who would turn Chicago into the next Gaza if he could make money off of it.
In 3 years, when maybe we have a normal human back as President, they’ll be too busy putting us back together to worry about fixing Gaza.
If it was that unanimous it would be a no brainer, but it isn’t.
That really is the pragmatic answer. The democrats are in no position to anything except yell into the void. Until they win some meaningful elections that’s the priority. Politically Palestine is a tough needle to thread. Realistically Republicans are the only ones in a position to do something about it.
The Republicants are doing something about it. A cesspool grouping of senators and administration sycophants just sent threatening letters to Canada, Australia, UK, France.
Warning of punitive measures should a Palestinian state be recognized.
…it was trending this way before the election. And after it the polling has been consistent and, as Israel accelerates its genocidal behaviour both in Gaza and the West Bank, the polling will only get worse for them.
We are talking about 77% of Democrats believing a genocide is taking place. Not only that: but half of US voters think the same. Six out of 10 voters oppose Washington sending more military aid to Israel.
It really should be a no-brainer. That it won’t be is an indictment on Democrat leadership who, not just here, but in ALL areas, are simply failing to meet the moment. The establishment are out of touch with the base.
Most of them are.
47% of Palestinians in Gaza are under the age of 18. They are children. NONE of them voted for Hamas in 2006. Most weren’t even born then.
And we don’t use opinion polls to determine whether people should be eligible to be genocided or not.
This simply isn’t the case.
Ammnesty International have called this a genocide. As have Human Rights Watch. The UN Special Committee. And the the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory. The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention. Along with a broad consensus of most genocide scholars. There is currently a case at the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of committing genocide and the the case was strong enough the court ordered a number of provisional measures in order to prevent genocide.
If Israel actually were taking a lot of effort to avoid civilian casualties, then all of these independent organisations and individuals wouldn’t have been able to make their cases. Instead we have dossiers of evidence, hundreds and hundreds of pages of evidence, that show this isn’t the case. I summarise the evidence in this post in another thread. I’m happy to address this further with you in that thread if you want.
I think characterising what Israel has done here, including deliberately engineering a famine that has killed hundreds so far and will kill thousands by the time its all over, as merely “deeply flawed” demonstrates the real problem with “American ideals.” We wouldn’t call what Hamas did on October the 7th just “deeply flawed.” It was an atrocity. A warcrime. Almost everyone, including me, thinks those responsible should be bought to justice.
We shouldn’t be afraid to just call it what it is.
But the Democrat establishment/leadership can’t both have it both ways. Israel both can’t be their “most important ally” that gets unconditional support, funding and weapons AND “I’m sorry, we have other priorities more pressing than stopping the slaughter of people with our bombs.”
If they have other priorities then end the support, end the funding, stop the weapons. Its what they should have done when they had power. And now that they are out of power, and allegedly have “other priorities” according to you, its what they should be pledging to do now if reelected.
Because otherwise, one would have to concede that Gaza actually IS a priority. Just not in a way that will end well for the Palestinians in Gaza.
The danger of, as you say, “not caring about the people of Gaza,” is that eventually what happened to them is going to happen to you. That’s what creeping authoritarianism is. Its why people have been yelling “abolish ICE.” “Defund the police.” “Stop cop cities.” They could see what was coming and tried to stop it.
And what that eventually means if that you get the government you deserve. America is funding this genocide. They are providing the bombs that are killing the Palestinians in Gaza. They are turning a blind eye to the ethnic cleansing in the West Bank. This isn’t just what happened under the Republicans. It was the Democrats as well.
That “vocal minority of people” weren’t complaining that “the normal person wasn’t loud enough about being anti-genocide.” They were protesting the fact that the President of the United States was funding and supporting that genocide. That was a perfectly valid thing for them to do. It’s what one would expect people to do in a democracy.
The people that protested the genocide no matter who the President was were not responsible for the election result. I think the result was a fair reflection of what America (and much of the rest of the world) has become. If you want to turn that around: people need to start caring again.
What about all the people who died in Nazi Germany during the bombing raids conducted by the US & UK? Their parents democratically elected the Nazis, who started a war to try to reclaim land they lost in previous wars. Are the US and UK the bad guys because the parents of those children chose to elect warlike dictators to run the country?
About 25% of Gazans are adult men, but the vast majority of militants are adult men. Around 50% of the dead are adult men. If this were a random genocide with no concern for civilians, then 25% of the dead would be adult men, not 40-50%.
The sad part is even when this war ends, another war will start within 10 years and it’ll start all over again. I don’t like the Netanyahu government or how its handling the war, but I don’t agree that this war has black and white morals. The palestinians were more than happy to celebrate when women and children were intentionally being slaughtered in Israel.
The Palestinian people are less like innocent brown victims of the white judeo-christian war machine, and more like white nationalists in alabama. They think they are entitled to live in their pure ethnostate, and want to purge the impure races and religions from their territory. I dont’ think the Palestinians are the good people for the same reason I don’t think white southern conservatives are the good guys. They’re the same thing, just defending different races, religions and geographies.
I don’t recall where this was determined to be the rule in deciding whether or not something is a genocide. And if the argument is “it’s not a genocide because (numerical technicality)” then it’s a genocide.
I don’t find the argument that the Palestinians deserve a genocide because they are inherently bad people to be a compelling one.
No one is blowing up hospitals or bombing entire neighborhoods to go after white nationalists in Alabama. No one would even suggest such a thing. If white nationalists were committing acts of terrorism, it would be an issue for law enforcement. The solution wouldn’t be to wipe out 50% of the women and children and then say it’s technically not a genocide because those are rookie numbers and they deserve it.
…can we keep on topic here?
The world is in a very different place now. What happened historically is no longer acceptable. We have the Geneva Conventions. International Humanitarian Law.
And what is happening now in Gaza is broadly accepted by most humanitarian agencies and genocide scholars as a genocide.
And this isn’t because of the number of people killed, or even they age or the gender of the people that are killed. But because of the intent. They aren’t being incidentally killed trying to rescue the hostages. Israel are “Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its
physical destruction in whole or in part”, as per the genocide convention.
Most Palestinians ARE innocent.
And I think we should stop talking about Palestinians in ways that wouldn’t be acceptable if we are talking about anyone else. Imagine saying something like “The Israeli people are less like innocent white victims of the [insert strawman here]” and thinking that’s a reasonable thing to say.
But nobody is advocating destroying Alabama, sealing it off and starving them, and either killing all the people in Alabama or forcing them to leave Alabama even if they actually aren’t white supremacists.
And we aren’t labelling EVERYONE in Alabama white supremacists.
This is a gross mischaracterisation of the issues at play here and ignores much of history, including the Nakba and apartheid. Over the last couple of years I’ve had the opportunity to listen and interact with multiple Palestinians living in Gaza. Some of them are no longer alive. NONE of them think this way or have ever expressed these sorts of opinions.
At the moment they just want to live.
The DNC’s other priorities are trying to do something to stop a runaway, authoritarian regime from continuing to cement it’s power. I do not believe Israel was what cost Democrats the last presidential election nor do I believe it’s going to have a significant impact on the mid-terms. Yeah, people might say they care about Gaza, but it’s not what’s going to drive people at the polls.
…so as I said: this means cutting off funding, arming and material support to Israel. Because apparently the Democrat leadership is fundamentally incapable of doing more than one thing at a time. And even though Biden and his administration contributed to the plight of the Palestinians in Gaza, the Democrats are going to take zero responsibility for that.
Gotcha.
So then the Democrat leadership are going to immediately endorse Mamdani, something that for some reason most of them are failing to do. They will reveal their plan to take back the Supremes.
The Democrat leadership are going to address the curtailing of civil rights on campuses that saw students who supported Palestine get beaten up, doxxed, kicked out of their housing and expelled…all on their watch. They are going to stop the Cop Cities. Support abolishing ICE. Instead of smashing homeless encampments, they are going to announce programmes to support the unhoused.
There is a very long list of things the Democrat leadership should be doing to “stop a runaway, authoritarian regime from continuing to cement it’s power” but the reality is that they aren’t doing ANYTHING except write the occasional very stern letter. They aren’t going to stand for trans rights. They aren’t going to protect immigrants. Because they are utterly hopeless.
A reminder that the current leadership lost the Supremes, the House, the Senate and the Presidency. It was a massive, colossal failure that should have seen all of them fall on their swords.
Instead: they gave themselves a review, decided that they all deserved a pass, and are going to do it all again.
You want them to do something to stop a runaway, authoritarian regime from continuing to cement it’s power? That starts with growing a backbone. Because if you want people to come out and vote for you, you’ve got to give them something to vote for.
And yet there are people in this thread seemingly blaming “the extremely vocal minority of people” that have been opposing the genocide for what happened at the last election. If they are so insignificant, then let them protest.
Well here’s a novel idea then: why don’t the Democrats oppose the genocide in Gaza just because that’s the right thing to do.
Because that’s what we would expect of our politicians, right?
You could do what the Democrats did at the last election and use focus groups and consultants and pundits to shape the messaging. But that turned into a fucking disaster.
Or they could just do the right thing. Go off script. Take the gloves off. Stop letting MAGA control your every move. Stop being reactive. Give people something to vote for.
There is a generation of young people that have watched children being slaughtered every single day on their phones for the last two years. There is an interview with an Australian Doctor this morning who tells the story of how they tried to deliver the baby of a beheaded mum. All paid for by your tax dollars with the support of both Democrat and MAGA leadership.
That’s WHY both the Democrats and MAGA have forced the transfer of control of TikTok. It had an immediate effect: pro-Palestinian posters woke up this morning to find a whole lot of their posts deleted. It will get worse.
They think the can control how they think. That’s why they stomped out the campus protests. But people are not going to forget, and they are not going to forgive.
If the Democrats are serious about doing what you think they should be doing, then they need to start by cleaning house. Because the current leadership are showing no signs of learning their lessons from the last election. They don’t have a plan.
Another problem is that there is no legitimately elected, not-too-corrupt government in Gaza to support. You would need some good luck propping up the right people to make that happen.
About the U.S. telling Israel what is what, ISTM they have been given, at least so far, essentially free rein. But could taking a hard-line stance and cancelling trade deals, arms deals, political backing, etc., be worked into a popular stance? Especially if you take a Machiavellian point of view (what benefits does supporting Gazans bring?)
IMO, it’s perfectly reasonable to advocate that Democratic politicians should do something because it’s the right thing to do, but let’s not pretend that by doing so, they’ll be rewarded for it, at the polls or otherwise. In fact, I’d sooner guess that their political prospects would take a minor hit.
Again, not that that necessarily changes what the right thing to do is, but I think saying that it’ll be rich with political reward is a huge leap that I’m sure very few people believe have a snowball’s chance in hell of even sniffing real results.