“The truth is that from a legal perspective, these resolutions are not complicated,” Sanders said during a press conference Tuesday, alongside Sens. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md.; Peter Welch, D-Vt.; and Jeff Merkley, D-Ore. “They are cut and dry. The United States government is currently in violation of the law, and every member of the Senate who believes in the rule of law should vote for these resolutions.”
Despite aid groups reporting that Israel has continued to block humanitarian aid into Gaza, the White House overlooked the blown deadline last week, saying that it will continue to provide weapons to Israel. The decision stands in direct violation of existing U.S. law preventing the government from sending weapons to countries that block U.S.-backed humanitarian assistance.
With the Biden administration unwilling to act and legislation targeting pro-Palestinian nonprofits still advancing, pro-Palestinian advocates and their allies in Congress argue that passing the joint resolutions is likely the last real opportunity for Democrats to address the crisis in Gaza before Republicans take control in January.
Despite Democrats’ unwillingness to vote for conditioning military aid to Israel in the past, Araabi hopes that at least some of the lame-duck senators who won’t be returning in January will take this opportunity to cement an anti-genocide record.
Do you want the short answer or the long answer?
Well just to prevent me from having to come back to answer
Short Answer: No
Long Answer: Lol, no
Any Democrat that sits on this, instead of voting in line with Sanders and other voices of conscience, is supporting Trump at this point.
The party line that Trump will be worse for Palestine will no longer work. And I will be writing the Democrat from my state to let them know as much.
Biden is lobbying against Sanders, even now. The guy has essentially King’s powers and he’s using them be a doddering, feckless war criminal.
Yeah, I saw that this morning. Biden has gone full mask off at this point. Old and nothing to lose but his pride.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Biden WANTED Trump to win
There’s been a lot of speculation claiming exactly that. I think it’s a stretch.
But, if your actions are causing people to make that type of speculation, a normal person would at least take some time for self reflection.
Whether true or not, it’s a bad look.
Whatever legacy Biden hoped to leave is irrevocably trashed IMHO.
If the Duopoly works together to stay in power it’s a pretty effective way of preventing any real opposition from forming.
Most people still think it’s red vs blue, when for the last 50 years in the US it’s been rich vs poor.
It’s only because this Senate session is under Democratic control that this is being voted on in the first place. After the new year, and new session, it will be under Republican control, and something like this will never make it to the floor. So yeah, penalize those that will allow a vote versus those that won’t. Same thought process that gives you President Trump.
Writing my senator isn’t penalizing anyone. Nice straw man though.
You are penalizing yourself, so have at it.
Well since I’m penalizing myself by talking to you, since you don’t seem to have any intellectual honesty, I guess I will just block you.
Thanks for pointing it out.
So now you’re a coward
Did you forget that democrats supported the attack on gaza?
Jfc have some self awareness and realize both sides are doing this bullshit.
To be fair, an attack on Gaza was perfectly justified by Oct 7. The ongoing genocide was not.
I’m quite aware.
Which was the point of my post had you bothered to look past your own knee-jerk reaction.
Your point was not eloquently conveyed then.
Because you literally said, any democrat that doesnt support sanders is supporting trump when this isnt a Trump issue…
I wonder if youd say they would be supporting trump if Kamala were in office wanting to sell arms to israel.
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He didnt forget, he just doesnt care. Most dems dont care at all about browns in other countries. They occassionally pretend to, for whatever reason, but they are well aware that some bad stuff happen to keep the wheels of the empire oiled.
Fuck the personal attacks you don’t know me.
Which is obvious because you just misgendered me.
If I didn’t care why did I even bother saying anything or seeing how my senator is going to vote on this yesterday?
Are you doing shit other than sitting on your hands saying oh I guess it’s over?
Don’t even bother responding I’ve already blocked.
Youre giving the same vibes as OP youre not any better buddy. Do you notice the similarity? Both of you attack each side and associate each other with bad decisions when the decisions are shared by both parties.
If anything i hope you are able to see that rather than get a knee jerk response and block people
oh no, bad vibes is it. I run the risk of not being “any better”? You seem to think its all about perceived superiority in this trashheap of a party and election outcome that we are all sitting in together.
Did it maybe occurr to you that I’m giving off the same vibes as OP because I agree with OP?
Dems could have come out en masse for “uncommitted” in the primary and most of them chose not to. It would have cost them nothing, Biden still would have won but he’d have received a message against genocide sent pretty loudly, but nope, anyone who suggested it was shouted down by their fellow dems. Seems to prove that most of them wont lift a finger for their principles even if its completely free. So that proves what I said about Dems pretending to care about the genocide.
and so what if I block people? How does that affect you in any way? It doesnt.
Well shit that explains it. To be fair it is all about perceived superiority with people who complain about parties, people who like to generalize people in a group into the same couple of categories.
If people stopped bitching less about parties and actually complained together on certain issues we would have a less divisive and focused society. Instead all i hear is constant blaming and it does nothing but rile you guys up with nothing to do with that energy.
Yes i agree certain dems in power are part of the problem but the same goes with the rep. There we got that established. Instead of continuously repeating that same fact in different conversations what are YOU gonna do about it?
Blocking me only brings me a good chuckle, as for you, blocking everyone you dont agree with only keeps you closed minded and fragile which is not what we want, right?
blocking everyone you dont agree with only keeps you closed minded and fragile
I dont block everyone, I block the dumbest and the worst trolls who derail and degrade the comment flow.
I don’t think they forgot that, my friend. Everyone knows it.
Their answers depend entirely on how much Lockheed Martin pays them.
Spoiler alert: no.
Their corporate paymasters in the arms industry say no.
No way
This would also have to pass the House, which it would not. I agree with Bernie’s statement and respect his choice to put the resolution forth on principle. I do not respect the article author or commentors who are either ignorant of basic U.S. civics, or choosing to be deliberately deceptive in order to place blame solely on Democrats.
Democrats: “should we stop enabling genocide, now that we have absolutely no reason not to?
Gee!
Hmmmm
I dunno maybe?! :D probably not tho lol”
Probably not. US international relations is heavily driven by an amoral power calculus.
Israel is a major foil to Iran. Iran is an ally of Russia and China and a threat to US interests in the region. Barring an extreme amount of pressure from constituents, which has not reached that threshold as far as I can tell, most US politicians will tolerate almost any human rights abuse from Israel.
Israel is a close ally to Russia too, up until very recently. Netenyahus campaign was based more on his friendship with Putin than with Trump or Biden.
This is superficial. Neither Russia nor China are particularly antagonistic to Israel or the Gulf states, even if they see the US as a foe in their own region. Russia for example is very careful about balancing its relations with the Gulf, Israel and Iran. China, views Iran as a potential foothold to the region, but China actually benefits from the US presence, it is far more energy import dependent than the US and has no desire to fuel instability by helping Iran pursue offensive goals.
The actual reason that Iran and the USA are enemies has to do with the US’ sectarian alignment with Sunni powers and Jewish nationalism, and more complicated reasons relating to politicial and religious struggles in the entire region that Iran happens to be one side of (i.e anti-monarchism, clericism, etc). And an institutional (and not necessarily rational) hatred of Iran in the US top brass due to its role in helping Iraqis and Lebanese fight American soldiers.
You cannot talk about this issue in terms of “Russia-China-Iran” balancing without mentioning the deeper and much more relevant issues that make US-Israel relationship exceptional on a globsl level: post-Holocaust philosemetism, anti-Islamism, anti-Arabism and (very underreported) Christian piety that actually motivates US-Israel policy. And the Israel lobby, which is so deeply engrained that Israel is treated more or less like the 51st state.
Politics goes far beyond amoral power calculus. You could have justified a ceasefire and even an embargo on Israeli arm transfers in accordance to amoral power calculus, but for Biden, Blinken and the rest, this is a moral question relating to a transcendent moral and religious cause, steeped in centuries of historical memory.
I have zero doubt that Joe Biden believes that by helping murderous racist Netanyahu slaughter and expel the people of Gaza, he has placed himself in the company of Cyrus the Great and other deliverers of Jews rather than Idi Amin and Radovan Karadzic. The GOP puts such things in explicitly religious terms and thus appear less rational or calculating. But it’s not even that well-hidden in the case of Biden and Blinken given what we know of their careers and lives.
That’s a great analysis. Do you have any books or articles to share on the subject?
It’s more like choosing to stand with Israel against Iran(ian proxies). The same reason they stood with Saudi-Arabia killing so, so many children in Yemen.
These top dog politicians don’t care for religious or moral matters, that’s just for show
If the logic is “selling these is causing war crimes” they’d have to defined the entire US military. The US regularly breaks the same laws.
Can you give an example from, say, the last decade? Just one example will do.
I mean, trump pardoned a bunch of us government contracted (by the military) mercenaries who were convicted(by a US federal Court) of killing Iraqi civilians in 2014. The act of pardoning such criminals is in itself a war crime, and occurred in 2020.
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It wasn’t a bunch, it was one guy. He was court marshalled, and his own men testified against him. He was found guilty and stripped of rank. He was about to be sentenced to federal lockup for war crimes. THEN Trump pardoned him against the wishes of the US Military. I think your apples and oranges comparison failed.
You asked for one example, I gave you one. Literally the incoming commander in chief committing a war crime 4 years ago.
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I didn’t ask you. I clarified for you
Not this decade, but during the battles of Fallujah we gave the civilians there 24 hours to evacuate, and then after that the official rules of engagement were pretty damn close to “everyone left is presumed to be an Al Qaeda militant.” They were allowed to shoot people with phones or radios in their hands on sight. We also bombed the fuck out of that city, including with white phosphorous. We know WP was used because there was a recorded friendly fire incident with it.
And all of this was basically reprisal for the killings of those four Blackwater mercenaries.
Not this decade
So, no?
I can answer for you. The US betrayal of their Kurdish allies was evil and that was fairly recent.
The reason white phosphorus was used in Fallujah. If you’ve ever been to an Arab city, you’ll note that sometimes in markets, cloth is hung over the streets. This cloth provides shade to shoppers. Fallujah had more of that than usual, it masked movement from sight overhead. So, to get rid of it, they dropped white phosphorus to burn it away.
right, also known as a war crime.
No. Read the law.
Did you ready the Leahy law? I did.
Also the UN and ICC ruled on it. I imagine during their ruling on that they “read the law” and that you have no idea what you are talking about.
Not really
A logical and strategic justification. Still a literal warcrime.
Nope. Wrong on the law.
Protocol on incendiary weapons states that using them in civilian area, such as in a marketplace in an urban area that was not properly evacuated, is prohibited.
And we actually signed that one, which is surprising considering how many protocols and treaties we are not party to.
It was used as flares not as an incendiary.
Not really. White phosphorus is used for many things, mostly making smoke. It only becomes a crime when you use it against people.
And, blocked user. You have yourself a nice day now “rapidcreek”
Sorry if the truth offends you.
lol
They definitely will not.