this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2023
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President Joe Biden said Tuesday Israel’s prime minister needs to change his hardline government and support for the country’s military campaign is waning amid heavy bombardment of Gaza. ... “This is the most conservative government in Israel’s history,” Biden said, adding that the Israeli government “doesn’t want a two-state solution.”

It's mind-blowing how thoroughly Netanyahu has bungled this. They had damn near the entire world in full support after Hamas' horrific attack on Israeli civilians, and they've managed to lose it.

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[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 83 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Like every other time a headline makes it sound like Biden is criticizing Israel's government, that's not what this is.

“We’ll continue to provide military assistance to Israel until they get rid of Hamas, but we have to be careful – they have to be careful,” Biden said. “The whole world’s public opinion can shift overnight, we can’t let that happen.”

For literal decades now Biden has been telling Israel that they need to pay attention to optics if they want support to continue.

It's never a threat, because Biden always pledges support no matter what.

He doesn't have any issues with Israels actions over there. He's just worried the governments of other countries may face pressure from their citizens to stop funding genocides.

He doesn't want the genocide to stop, he wants Israel to be discrete and maintain plausible deniability

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[–] IchNichtenLichten@lemmy.world 56 points 11 months ago (29 children)

The fear of being labelled an antisemite has worked very well for silencing opposition for decades now. I guess Bibi thought that tactic would continue to work no matter how vile his government and military acts.

Oops.

[–] magnetosphere@kbin.social 34 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

I’m glad that tired, old trick is getting the skepticism it deserves. Even the slowest among us are realizing that if you’re discussing a non-denominational issue and being called “antisemitic” for it, then maybe the accusation is bullshit. Human rights should not be a religious issue.

[–] IchNichtenLichten@lemmy.world 18 points 11 months ago

It seems to be happening almost in real time. I was called an antisemite several times just a couple of months ago for expressing outrage at what Israel is doing. I don’t see that accusation being thrown around nearly as much recently.

[–] kescusay@lemmy.world 13 points 11 months ago (1 children)

It worked (and works) to head off criticism of the Israeli government because so much of the time there are antisemites whose supposed criticism of the government is there to mask hate.

But Netanyahu isn't Judaism. He's just a guy, and as a fallible human being he has made enormous errors of judgment and engaged in ludicrously unethical behavior.

[–] IchNichtenLichten@lemmy.world 14 points 11 months ago

It’s less effective because it’s a classic example of the boy who cried wolf. If you’re grouping people who are appalled by Israel’s conduct with actual antisemites then the accusation of antisemitism loses credibility.

[–] Uranium3006@kbin.social 11 points 11 months ago

We should have never listened. Excusing blatant crimes against humanity because the country doing it was made up of the different group that was the victim of a horrific genocide of the previous century was clearly a mistake in hindsight now that the circle is complete and they have become the genociders themselves. Every argument that Israel somehow special, that deserve to be treated differently was clearly a mistake and we must never repeat this mistake.

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[–] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 44 points 11 months ago (15 children)

I’d love it if we could stop propping up Netanyahu’s apartheid regime and instead give a bunch of military support to a cause that actually needs and deserves it… like Ukraine.

In the context of US politics, this whole clusterfuck is a MASSIVE unforced error by Biden. The only people he’s appeasing are almost exclusively already on the right wing, and they’re never going to vote for him. I’m becoming more concerned by the day that his handling of the Israel/Gaza war may in fact cost him the election.

[–] dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 11 months ago

Military Industrial Complex GOTS to get paid.

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[–] Doorbook@lemmy.world 30 points 11 months ago (4 children)

How he can say something like: "Biden said right now Israel “has most of the world supporting it,” "

Wtf is the UN veto for then?

[–] Goferking0@ttrpg.network 11 points 11 months ago

Or the weapons and other aid shipments we continue to sent with no strings attached

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[–] Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world 30 points 11 months ago (11 children)

Just going to point out that if your side killed more journalists in this "war" than the two decades of the Vietnam war... Maybe you're the fucking bad guy.

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[–] Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works 27 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Tends to happen when instead of targeting terrorists you just indiscriminately genocide a population.

[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 36 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Well, apparently the IDF has been killing so many Israelis (IDF and civilian) that their government just said investigating any of those deaths would be detrimental to stability among Israelis.

https://lemmy.world/post/9481629

They're just going to pretend all those deaths are due to Hamas, so that Netanyahu 's government isn't held accountable and people don't vote in sensible politicians who actually want the violence to end.

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[–] reverendsteveii@lemm.ee 26 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Biden said Tuesday Israel’s prime minister needs to change his hardline government and support for the country’s military campaign is waning

Thing is, he later went on to say "I am a Zionist." So while he's trying to play both sides in the end he'll keep sending your money to kill Palestinian children for as long as there are Palestinian children to murder.

[–] Linkerbaan@lemmy.world 7 points 11 months ago (7 children)

What Genocide Joe says is that he will ALWAYS support israel's Genocide no matter what, but that they're starting to lose Europe and the rest of the world.

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[–] doctorcrimson@lemmy.today 20 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Biden is wrong. Netanyahu shouldn't do a thing to his government. Israel's Government needs to permanently dispose of Netanyahu. Israel needs to take back its democracy and depose its corrupt officials.

[–] Pipoca@lemmy.world 15 points 11 months ago

Netanyahu's popularity tanked after October 7th.

70% of Israelis want him to resign. But only 25% want him to resign now - most want him to wait until the current war settles down. Which unfortunately gives him and Ben Gvir some perverse incentives, because there's no way they remain in power after the dust settles.

[–] ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world 16 points 11 months ago

They should hire more people to be annoying in comment threads where people are having a nuanced discussion about the war. The whole world loves it when 2 day old accounts try sealioning everyone without even bothering to upload profile pictures.

[–] dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Just like "israel needs to show restraint while they destroy the homes and livelihoods of 2 million people".

[–] themeatbridge@lemmy.world 13 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (3 children)

Hamas got exactly what they wanted out of the October 7th attacks, a horrifying display of callous violence and aggression against innocent people. A terrorist attack does not justify a genocide.

[–] Buelldozer@lemmy.today 14 points 11 months ago

A large number of people think that Netanyahu got exactly what he wanted out of that attack too and I'm not convinced that those people are wrong.

There's lot of stories bubbling about seriously shady actions from his Government in regards to Hamas, from creating them to funding them and the timing of their attack was near perfect if their intent was to quell the IDF uprising and strengthen his Governing coalition.

There's also questions about just how one of the most feared and clued in intelligence services in existence, the Mossad, somehow missed the planning, funding, training, and gathering of forces that Hamas did for at least a YEAR prior to the attack. They also shrugged off warnings from both Egypt and the United States about it too! It nearly beggars belief.

I'm not claiming it was orchestrated but taken together it sure is a bad look.

[–] kescusay@lemmy.world 6 points 11 months ago

Quite true. Given the reality on the ground, it's a guaranteed clusterfuck no matter what policy the United States adopts.

[–] admiralteal@kbin.social 5 points 11 months ago (3 children)

They knew they would get this response, too. How could they not?

Israel can't ignore the hostages and rest on its laurels. There's no option to not respond when your citizens have been violently seized, held captive, tortured, maimed, raped. And Hamas knows their own defensive strategy relies heavily on using Palestinians as human shields, which will cause that inevitable response to be absolutely horrific. Hamas was relying on these horrors -- though I think perhaps the response has been a LOT sharper than any anticipated.

I think a lot of critics of the war, oddly, focus too much on what has happened after October 7th. When really we should be looking at what led up to it. And that's not to say that Hamas was justified because that level of depraved violence never is. But it IS to say that the Bibi administration was utterly complicit and that the fuse on this powder keg was lit long ago and no one with the power to do so seems to have made an effort to extinguish it. On October 6th, the whole world knew that the Bibi administration was made up of a corrupt, lunatic fringe of far-right religious fundamentalists bent on the total destruction of Palestine and a total takeover of Israel. On October 8th, the protests against Netanyahu for doing things like sending suitcases of money to Hamas or deleting the oversight of their Supreme Court were replaced with a completely different narrative.

I think both Hamas and Bibi's team thought they would politically benefit from this kind of violence. I think both are finding out they terribly misjudged things, though I am sure none will admit it. And the people -- mostly Palestinians, but also no doubt some Israelis -- are suffering terribly as a result of these two intractable right-wing theocratic organizations going about their religious war.

[–] filister@lemmy.world 6 points 11 months ago

You know when you have such a prevalent military superiority over a militant group, it doesn't look very well when you start bombing civilian areas and flatten whole neighbourhoods.

Not to forget that Israel did very little to alleviate the humanitarian situation in Gaza, and only after being subject to an international pressure. And mind you they still do very little, no humanitarian corridors, no humanitarian pauses, no field hospitals. That doesn't portray them in a very good light.

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[–] samokosik@lemmynsfw.com 13 points 11 months ago

That’s valid. Ideally he should change it in a way where he is no longer in it.

[–] magnetosphere@kbin.social 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

It [the Israeli government] cut off all commercial and humanitarian aid traffic from Israel into Gaza since Hamas launched its surprise terrorist attack on October 7 and has vowed to sever all ties with Gaza.

Good. Then sever them already, and get the fuck out of the way.

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[–] hark@lemmy.world 4 points 11 months ago

Is this the part where they pick one person to take the blame then, after switching him out, continuing with business as usual? Obviously biden doesn't disapprove, hence the $100+ billion he has pledged in full support of the genocide and ethnic cleansing.

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