Israel/Palestine post 10/7 - follow-on events/thoughts as relate to other countries

Almost anything can influence this election, because it's going to be close. Obviously nothing that makes any group of potential Democratic voters less likely to vote for Biden is good for Biden. All of that's true. Biden himself for totally selfish reasons if nothing else no doubt wishes none of this stuff was happening, or least that it wasn't happening right now. From a strictly political standpoint, there is no obvious way for him to handle this that doesn't imperil him with one important constituency or another. Whereas it's pretty much free territory for Trump, because the GOP is just lockstep kill-the-Arabs. Sucks to be Genocide Joe, whaddya gonna do.

You could stick it to AIPAC and J-Street and do what’s right in the name of humanity but

You think the overwhelmingly Dem-voting Jewish population is going to abandon Biden if he refuses to continue arming Israel? I doubt it. But he will lose (and has already lost) a ton of younger voters who won’t vote for the guy who enabling the slaughter that they see on their screens every day

(Not trying to take Jewish voters for granted, but just acknowledging historic precedent in that comment fwiw)

Some people are young and Jewish

I teach many of them, and they are all
pro-Palestine

(at least those whom I teach, that is)

I'm not debating the morality! He should absolutely stick it to AIPAC and confront the Israeli government, force a ceasefire and a two-state dialogue.

Just from a U.S. electoral impact standpoint — since that's what we're talking about — the effects of any decision are hard to predict because the margins are small. So, sure, there are enough young voters and Muslim voters to make a difference in this election. Unusually so, really. But there also remains the older and wealthier voters who always turn out, and if you somehow risk losing some numbers of those voters, that's potentially even worse. It's a bad political situation. And those tend to paralyze decision-makers whose primary goal is winning an election. And that's where we are.

It’s not great, but then again our “democracy” is full of shit so I don’t expect much. Wish this wasn’t the case

https://x.com/MavenNavarro1/status/1785785576571994299

Both sides now chanting “F***” Joe Biden” pic.twitter.com/Jbt7TU1b9b

— Maven Navarro (@MavenNavarro1) May 1, 2024

I thought the uncommitted thing in Michigan was really good. Voters signalling "we might vote, you didn't lose us yet but you don't have us either", is explicit in a way that voting for minor candidates or not voting at all isn't, where they get mixed in with votes who aren't attainable

I think Trump is going to loudly signal that he will be much worse which could bring a lot of those voters back in the end

I think what was good about the uncommitted approach is it sends a clear message of "We ARE your voters that you are at risk of losing" which is a political and strategic message, whereas "We are absolutely NOT your voters, never voting for you" is more of a moral or ethical message. But there aren't always such clear avenues available

Yeah the "uncommitted" movement was smart and I think effective to whatever degree it could be. It was a good way to throw rocks at the window, it got some attention.

And this is more than rocks at a window, it's inside the house.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/college-democrats-of-america-statement-biden-gaza-campus-protest_n_663278fce4b0849b2edded55

Now this is crazy. You never see this shit. They really fucked it https://t.co/V2VXQBrllS

— Sam Adler-Bell (@SamAdlerBell) May 2, 2024

this is legit how all of you sound to me, fwiw

― butt dumb tight my boners got boners (the table is the table), Thursday, 2 May 2024 bookmarkflaglink

Avg ilxor age: 60

We’re worried about our Social Security

You think the overwhelmingly Dem-voting Jewish population is going to abandon Biden if he refuses to continue arming Israel?

A surprisingly large percentage would, yes.

Look what happened to the Labour Party in the UK after Ed Miliband (who is Jewish) criticized Israel's 2014 campaign in Gaza. Follow that up with Corbyn and I think at one point support for the Labour Party in the Jewish community was at 9% and the Tories 81%.

He made it Labour policy to recognise Palestine in 2014 and Maureen Lipman went apeshit.

And hasn't stopped going apeshit ever since.

A surprisingly large percentage would, yes.

I feel like there's a path of conditional support (you can do this but not that would thread an electoral needle, so to speak, but maybe not. Even if there isn't, it seems surprising they haven't at least looked for it

Missing closing bracket there, should be (you can do this but not that),

My comment not whether it should be done (obviously it should), but it is just as likely lead to MORE arms going to Israel under the next (Republican) administration.

*to* lead

more on the assault at UCLA, which was the culmination of several nights of harassment and abuse:

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-05-01/inside-ucla-pro-palestinian-encampment-on-night-of-violence

Soon after protesters, most of them students at the Westwood campus, pitched tents on Dickson Court on April 25, pro-Israel counterdemonstrators showed up with megaphones. Some shouted racist, homophobic and anti-Islamic slurs, according to campers interviewed.

They set up a giant video screen near the camp that played and replayed videos of Hamas militants. They broadcast a running torrent of loud, disturbing sounds over a stereo — an eagle screeching, a child crying — and blasted a Hebrew rendition of the song “Baby Shark” on repeat, late at night, so that campers could not sleep.

They returned night after night.

This article is tabloid-y trash, but I hope better reporting on how this group is organized comes out: https://www.thedailybeast.com/jessica-seinfeld-and-bill-ackman-fund-pro-israel-counterprotests-at-ucla

I think Trump is going to loudly signal that he will be much worse which could bring a lot of those voters back in the end

Is this issue not one where Trump's anti-globalist, ultra-isolationist rhetoric actually presents an at least functionally "no static" brighter side alternative for voters like the ones in that college dems tweet? Worth remembering that, in the now moment, he's already starting to moderate his tone on abortion.

OTOH not sure why the fascist mob bothered, when the cops are on their side: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/05/02/nyregion/ucla-protests-college-campus?unlocked_article_code=1.o00.Dkds.3bezcvmCB91u&smid=url-share

he's essentially been wondering out loud why Netinyahu hasn't simply murdered all the Palestinians while him and the rest of the GOP are working on bills which make it legal to murder protestors. if it was indeed a "we're gonna stay out of it" that would be one thing, but alas

also kinda doubt he's "moderating his tone" on abortion, think its more that its an issue he doesn't really care about and just says whatever he thinks people want to hear. when he's speaking at the convention he'll probably start talking about punishing women again

And this is more than rocks at a window, it's inside the house.

it's not insignificant, but otoh the College Democrats had zero influence on my vote when I was in college

College Dems were just seen as a bunch of lame hacks who wanted capitol hill internships. No one really took them seriously as any kind of influence on campus. I don't even think they were that big or active.

X13 Tom D. I don't think you can compare the US and Britain in this case. My understanding was the vast majority of British Jews are Orthodox, many with family ties in Israel, while the US Jewish population is majority reform-to-secular with no familial ties to Israel.

Yeah I don't think College Dems have much influence on peers, but they mean something within the party. Mostly treated as an afterthought, of course, but as that tweet notes it's super unusual for them to ever challenge the party leadership. They're generally there to start building political resumes and move up the ranks, not piss off the party bosses.

As with the "uncommitted" vote, sure, the political leadership can just kind of shrug it off as insignificant. But these things add up.

The vast majority of British Jews are not orthodox. Wikipedia says 42.8% - but even that seems high to me. Also a lot of the stricter Orthodox Jews don't vote at all.

college democrats are usually the hackiest partisans of all hacky partisans. they aren’t an influential organization or anything, but the fact that even they are frustrated is a bad sign for biden's youth support

The fact is that traditionally the Jewish community in the UK was left/ progressive leaning - in terms of voting patterns - and now it overwhelmingly votes Conservative. There are various reasons for that, of course, but the slide accelerated because of a change in the Labour Party's attitude to Israel and Palestine.

he's essentially been wondering out loud why Netinyahu hasn't simply murdered all the Palestinians while him and the rest of the GOP are working on bills which make it legal to murder protestors. if it was indeed a "we're gonna stay out of it" that would be one thing, but alas

he has also said that he would completely halt the resettlement of palestinian refugees in the states and would deport any non-citizen supporting “pro-hamas” views

can a mod add "US Politics:" to the beginning of every ile thread please?

(I'm kidding but y'all can be kind of exhausting with this and we got 6 more months to go)

US is an other countries as per thread title

We’d probably stop talking about it it tabes and milo promised to vote for Biden

Anyway unfortunately as you are probably aware, #onethread

we should have put #onethread to a vote, this borad is fascist!

You think the overwhelmingly Dem-voting Jewish population is going to abandon Biden if he refuses to continue arming Israel?

Abandon as in majority vote GOP? No. But does the GOP see an opportunity to make voting Dem less default for Jewish voters? Absolutely -- otherwise why would they be hammering the idea that "our nation's top colleges are antisemitic cesspools" so hard? It is most certainly not because they care about the well-being of Jews in America or elsewhere in the world.

Is this issue not one where Trump's anti-globalist, ultra-isolationist rhetoric actually presents an at least functionally "no static" brighter side alternative for voters like the ones in that college dems tweet? Worth remembering that, in the now moment, he's already starting to moderate his tone on abortion.

― Rich E. (Eric H.), Thursday, May 2, 2024 9:29 AM (forty-eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I think we had a version of this conversation in December 2016.

We’d probably stop talking about it it tabes and milo promised to vote for Biden

genuine lol

The fact is that traditionally the Jewish community in the UK was left/ progressive leaning - in terms of voting patterns - and now it overwhelmingly votes Conservative. There are various reasons for that, of course, but the slide accelerated because of a change in the Labour Party's attitude to Israel and Palestine.

seems like it's been majority Conservative-voting for a long time:

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/how-british-jews-vote-and-why-they-vote-this-way/

Overwhelmingly, British Jews support the Conservative party. Which means that their political predisposition is centre-right. This taste for the conservative side of the British political spectrum has been with us for many years now, a quarter of a century at least. A study of the British Jewish political attitudes conducted in the mid-1990s produced these most unambiguous results: when asked about their voting intentions, 45% of British Jews said that they would support the Conservative party, 41% preferred the Labour party and 14% – the Liberal Democrats. Arguably, the preference for the Conservative party was far from overwhelming then, but consider the contrast with the general population of Britain at that time: only 29% supported the Conservatives and 57% preferred the Labour party. This was before any controversies concerning to the presence of the antizionist or antisemitic elements on the British Left, and in the Labour party in particular, developed.

I think the UK doesn't track exit poll data, so it's hard to know for sure. but it's nothing like the historical association between American Jews and the Democratic Party

(xps) Alfred otm. Say what you will about the naivete of college students, but they have developed the necessary brain functions (object permanence etc) to understand that Donald J. Trump will not actually disentangle U.S. and Israeli military and strategic interests, a thing that would require a lot of hard work and would not make him any richer