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[-] Xenon@lemmy.world 96 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Can someone explain to me why Americans seem so hostile towards Biden over Gaza all of a sudden?

US support for Israel goes back decades. America has been in bed with all sorts of dictators commiting heinous crimes and still is. Not to forget the illegal invasion of Iraq with hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties or the long list of US war crimes revealed by WikiLeaks and largely indiscriminate drone strikes across the globe. Most of these seemed to elicit much harsher condemnation overseas while the US public appeared generally uninterested. So why does this conflict in Palestine in which the US isn't even an active party suddenly evoke such an emotional response?

[-] ryathal@sh.itjust.works 109 points 11 months ago
  • Younger generations are less pro Israel.
  • There's a segment of liberals that view any victimized or oppressed group as morally superior regardless of context.
  • Michigan specifically has a very high population of Muslim/middle eastern descent.
  • It's not that sudden, there's been growing criticism and calling Israel an apartheid state for years. The recent escalation in hostilities just made it more newsworthy.
[-] return2ozma@lemmy.world 63 points 11 months ago

I would also add that social media showing real-time atrocities happening has also played a role.

[-] Buffalox@lemmy.world 19 points 11 months ago

OK but republicans demanded help to Israel to help Ukraine, until they changed it up.
So it seems that although Biden may be bad, the only alternative is worse.

[-] ryathal@sh.itjust.works 28 points 11 months ago

If you're being punched in the gut, it's not reassuring that the other option is going to use a bat instead.

[-] Buffalox@lemmy.world 19 points 11 months ago

But why clear the way for the worse guy to get to you?

[-] gastationsushi@lemmy.world 22 points 11 months ago

Ya, Trump bad and all, but maybe it's Biden who should do more to get the anti-genocide vote. Isn't getting votes part of his job?

[-] gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.com 21 points 11 months ago

No, the president gets our votes automatically because he's got the job already and can beat the mean fascist man without tying! All we have to do is verbally abuse anyone criticizing Biden and we'll surely have him as president again and there'll be no problems come 2028 or anything!

[-] Milk_Sheikh@lemm.ee 15 points 11 months ago

there'll be no problems come 2028 or anything!

Downvote them all you want, it’s a very poignant point that’s left at the wayside of defeating Trump right now. Joe wins in ‘24? The threat of a second Trump presidency is deferred, but he has fundamentally transformed American politics regardless

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[-] Anamnesis@lemmy.world 46 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

The American left is furious at Biden for the same reason we're angry at pretty much any President's foreign policy. We've opposed most of the interventions and support for dictators that presidents in the latter half of the twentieth century up to today have engaged in. But we have never been the majority, and haven't had the power to stop them. It's important to remember that about a third of the US is composed or pretty reasonable, pro-peace social democrats. The problem is that another third are "moderates" that are okay with empire as long as we pretend we're being nice, and the last third are maniacal religious fascists.

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[-] Stovetop@lemmy.world 28 points 11 months ago

Mainly just due to the recency and severity of the conflict in Gaza, and the fact that it's an election year. Americans never cared when Israeli soldiers routinely dehumanized, murdered, and raped Palestinians in small numbers here and there, but the widespread media coverage of the conflict in Palestine has helped shape public opinion to recognize the incredibly disproportionate response on the part of Israel to the Oct. 7 attacks.

Biden is reaffirming the US's long-held stance on Israel, but it is a stance that is becoming less popular with many who disagree with what Israel is doing. Michigan in particular has a high population of Muslims who turned out in large numbers to oppose Biden, which is why this managed to become newsworthy.

I would also wager a good chunk of this narrative (certainly not all or even the majority, but a good chunk) is likely promoted by Republican-aligned groups who are using this momentum to discourage people on the fence from voting for Biden in the general to help secure a Trump win. Notably a lot of news coverage I've seen lately featured people confirming their plan to vote for Trump, rather than vote for no one, because of Biden's stance on Israel.

Trump himself is remaining relatively tight-lipped about his stance on Israel during this election cycle, despite being a vocal ally of Netanyahu during his previous term, to try to keep the dialog focused on Biden. But it is expected he will continue support for Israel, or even escalate it, due to his previous amicable relationship with Israel and based on how much his voter base likes to dehumanize Muslims (blocking all Muslims from entering the US was an early campaign promise of his in 2016).

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[-] NoneOfUrBusiness@kbin.social 24 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

So why does this conflict in Palestine in which the US isn’t even an active party suddenly evoke such an emotional response?

Because the US is by all means an active party. The US is selling Israel weapons (including weapons Biden has been bypassing Congress to sell), defending them on the international stage and literally sent them aircraft carriers to prevent anyone in the region from taking action. People have been found guilty in the Numenberg trials for less and people aren't liking the man who's supposed to represent them doing these things.

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[-] Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world 20 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Can someone explain to me why Americans seem so hostile towards Biden over Gaza all of a sudden?

He proactively circumvented congress to sell Netanyahu weapons that he knew would be used for genocide.

Democrats can always find a lame procedural excuse when there's something they ran on but don't want to do, but when it's something they want to do like enable genocide (and oh lordy do they ever), procedure and decorum evaporate in a puff of hypocrisy and convenience.

[-] doggle@lemmy.dbzer0.com 18 points 11 months ago

Part is the fact that the Americans most likely to be upset by the violence in Gaza are the same that are likely to vote for him. And he's being largely unreceptive to their criticism. In any other election, that would mean his base would probably just let his opponent win. There's an obvious problem with that this time.

Basically, Biden is forcing the nation's left wing to pick between showing their disdain for genocide overseas and stopping fascism to at home. It's not a fair choice and people are bitter about it.

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[-] TimeSquirrel@kbin.social 17 points 11 months ago

Guess you missed the huge anti Iraq war protests in the early 2000s. And the fact that we've been making Internet jokes about that and George Bush junior since forever.

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[-] Maggoty@lemmy.world 17 points 11 months ago

In the early 2000's we weren't as connected as we are now and people relied a lot more on cable/network news.

But also, and this is really important to understand, the civilian casualties from the Iraq war were over much larger areas, populations, and time. In the same time frame the rate of casualties was far lower. Coalition forces also did their best to avoid civilian casualties by not targeting hospitals, not kettling civilians, and certainly not doing a concerted bombing campaign with large bombs into highly populated areas.

A lot of what's happening with the rate of civilian casualties is because the IDF has thrown all of those protections out the window. They're specifically destroying the food, water, and medical infrastructure of Gaza. When people inevitably try to evacuate they can only do so further into Gaza. The IDF doesn't allow them to evacuate through their lines into cleared areas. This means people can never actually get away from the fighting. Those are all large scale war crimes designed to increase the number of civilian casualties. But they aren't removing troops credibly accused of war crimes from the area either. In fact they've shown no willingness to prosecute tactical level warcrimes such as shooting clearly marked journalists in a quiet area in broad daylight.

Just today the report landed on NPR radio that the IDF opened fire into a crowd waiting for food aid. The IDF is of course claiming the crowd was threatening. But we've known how to securely disperse food aid for decades. Those soldiers may very well have been threatened, but their officers set that situation up. Also of note is just how fast this gets out to the world in the era of social media.

And we haven't even talked about the immense amount of war weariness in the US.

[-] I_Fart_Glitter@lemmy.world 13 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

There were marches like, every other weekend about the invasion of Iraq even before the news came out that we were there over a lie. But Bush was president and it was like, "aww... look at the hippies... they think they're helping.. lol!"

Raddatz observed of the 5-year-old Iraq war, "Two-thirds of Americans say it's not worth fighting, and they're looking at the value gain versus the cost in American lives, certainly, and Iraqi lives."

And Cheney's response: "So?"

It was honestly hard to protest when Obama was in office because there were so many frothing racists about that any public protests against the actions of the president would be joined by literal KKK members. But we wrote letters.. oh boy did we ever write letters. Letter writing parties, phone banking about writing letters, sending out mailers with contact info for all of the local reps and higher ups to send letters to, including pre stamped envelopes and form letters to add your name to.

Nobody cared because Obama was so popular that there wasn't really a question of his reelection. Biden is not that popular, the rare opportunity to use a major issue as leverage to threaten a reelection campaign, even if the result of his loss would be dire is why there is so much news about public opinion on Israel/Palestine.

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[-] TigrisMorte@kbin.social 7 points 11 months ago

propaganda and division bots mostly.

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[-] nxdefiant@startrek.website 72 points 11 months ago

THIS is how you protest vote. Bravo Michigan Democrats. I hope they still vote for him in the general, but I'm still glad they're making the DNC sweat.

[-] Blackbeard@lemmy.world 58 points 11 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)
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[-] return2ozma@lemmy.world 28 points 11 months ago

The strength of the uncommitted campaign “surprised” Biden’s campaign, the Times added, noting that the movement is now likely to spread to other states.

The White House contrition in Dearborn, where more than half of residents are Arab American, did not appear to quell criticism. “Uncommitted” beat Biden 56-40 in the city, winning 47 of the city’s 48 precincts with most of the votes counted, according to the Detroit Free Press.

“That’s a wow,” CNN’s John King exclaimed while the votes were still being counted Tuesday night.

“This is a place President Biden carried big time in 2020. This is key to his chances of defeating Donald Trump in Michigan,” he said, adding that the concentration of votes signals that Biden’s “big problem” is that “Muslim Americans who were critical, absolutely critical to his big margin in Michigan in 2020, are telling the president tonight that they are mad.”

[-] profdc9@lemmy.world 24 points 11 months ago

Who should Biden worry about more? Getting the left wing of his party to nominate him, or getting the general electorate to the polls in November? It's a no brainer calculation.

[-] return2ozma@lemmy.world 40 points 11 months ago

I mean, the Democrats have been screwing the actually Left for decades now so...

[-] Maggoty@lemmy.world 21 points 11 months ago

A 100k means Michigan goes red. He's playing chicken with the country at this point.

[-] hex_m_hell@slrpnk.net 12 points 11 months ago

It's a proven strategy for the Democrats. That's how they got Trump, and that got them tons of funding and dropped the bar all the way to the floor. Why would they give up now?

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[-] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 13 points 11 months ago

Who should Biden worry about more?

I think those 726k Trump voters are still winnable if Biden can just move a liiiiittle bit farther to the right.

[-] RGB3x3@lemmy.world 9 points 11 months ago

Please no. The Overton window has already shifted so far right

[-] scripthook@lemmy.world 20 points 11 months ago

Despite these red flags I think people will just vote for him as a counter vote to Trump. America would rather have a President asleep at his desk than one who wants to burn the house down.

[-] piecat@lemmy.world 25 points 11 months ago

The choice is pretty easy:

Aid and support to Israel

Or

Aid and support to Israel, and give Ukraine to Russia, and give Taiwan to China, and implement fascism at home

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[-] Nalivai@discuss.tchncs.de 15 points 11 months ago

What boils my blood is that everyone kinda accepted right's reaction to the president. For them it's all about theatrics and how much of a frenzy the president can whip with a twitter account, and nobody cares about policies. Biden's administration is incredibly effective, they appoint people when they needed, they organise commissions when appropriate, they propose and support bills and legislations, you know, all the things that presidential administration is suppose to do, and apart from knee-jerk reaction on Israel issue, they were on the right side every time, and they fixed a lot of damage that previous guy made.
But Biden isn't a wanabe dictator that tries to rule around checks and balances to achieve loud social media headlines, so everyone calls him president asleep and waits for Trump but good (and I can't stress enough how bad that would be actually)

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[-] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 15 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

A couple figures to aid the discussion. Hot off the presses from todays polling:

Biden versus Trump (up to date as of today):

Biden versus Trump and Clinton versus Trump (X axis is days out from the election):

For edification, Clinton versus Trump 2016 (keep in mind that Trump and Clintons polling numbers in the early parts of this figure represent being in contested primaries):

Another version comparing 2016 to 2024 (but more focused on the period of time before the election):

[-] Telorand@reddthat.com 18 points 11 months ago

I don't find these kinds of comparisons and "latest data points" to be particularly helpful in these kinds of discussions. Voter sentiment is fickle, and how you quantify the "Uncommitted" movement will affect how the data is presented.

We don't know how the Uncommitted will actually vote in November, though we can be certain at least some will not vote for Biden if nothing changes. It's a political game of chicken, and it's Biden's move.

[-] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 19 points 11 months ago

We don’t know how the Uncommitted will actually vote in November, though we can be certain at least some will not vote for Biden if nothing changes. It’s a political game of chicken, and it’s Biden’s move.

Clinton lost Michigan by 0.2% and it cost her the election. Her campaign opted to not focus on the rust belt and delivered us Trump in the first place.

Biden is losing this election, and I think if a Trump presidency concerns you, its especially worth considering.

Biden can't afford to lose any voters in Michigan. His policies are working against his ability to gather support in the 2024 election. We can't wait until after November to have this conversation. It needs to happen now.

[-] jordanlund@lemmy.world 8 points 11 months ago

Biden won Michigan by 154,188. All 100,000 uncommitted could stay home and it wouldn't change the results. It would just be way tighter than necessary.

[-] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 9 points 11 months ago

So do you think Biden can stick with his current approach to Gaza and Israel and win the general election?

[-] Telorand@reddthat.com 8 points 11 months ago

The point is nobody can know that with any certainty. All these preliminary graphs are helpful to campaign strategists, but do you know the number of Uncommitted voters who will ultimately hold their nose and vote for Biden anyway? Or who will change their mind completely? I certainly don't.

Sending a message in the primary ≠ doing the strategic thing in the general.

[-] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 13 points 11 months ago

The point is nobody can know that with any certainty.

Well we still have to make decisions and decide strategy in the face of uncertainty. Its a yes or no question that I asked, and you can answer it with a yes or a no.

Do you think Biden can stick with his current approach to Gaza and Israel and win the general election?

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[-] return2ozma@lemmy.world 8 points 11 months ago

Danger! Danger! Red alert!

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[-] donuts@kbin.social 12 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Considering it was Hamas who just today rejected a ceasefire agreement that could have gone into effect by the end of the week, maybe people should start voting "uncommitted" against them instead of Biden.

This entire fucking fiasco is between Palestine and Israel, who have been fighting constantly since Biden was born and will probably continue to fight long after Biden is dead and gone. Neither side is going magically "go away" and nor should they. Both groups of people have a legitimate historical and cultural claim to live in this land and the choice was made to split this land long before most any of them were even born. The Israeli Jew and the Palestinian Arab Muslims simply have to learn to coexist peacefully and reject extremism or there will only ever be more war and violence.

There is a "simple" solution: free the hostages immediately, turn over people who committed war crimes (on either side) for prosecution, return borders to 1949, create an internationally enforced DMZ, stop illegal settlements, and stop the damn fighting. NONE of that is on Biden, nor is it the singular responsibility of the United States to manage.

Even if you cynically believe that all of this is just some kind of America-backed proxy war (which, if you look at the history of the region spanning thousands of years, it clear is not), then you should at least apply that same logic to the European countries that back Israel as well as Iran, Russia, and the other countries that have backed Hamas and called for violence in the region.

[-] Anamnesis@lemmy.world 22 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Your comment is pretty reasonable but I don't think you're misinterpreting the criticism of Biden here. The US is and has been supplying Israel with virtually unlimited arms and support for decades now. This support has come with very few strings attached. Biden could easily make aid contingent on many of the things you mention, and it would put the Israeli government in a real bind, forcing them to make concessions that their right wing doesn't want to make. Biden isn't being blamed for the whole conflict, and isn't expected to fix it on his own. But he's got a lot of leverage that he refuses to use in the interests of peace. This same problem recurs with basically every president, as AIPAC's influence on the American government is substantial.

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[-] Heresy_generator@kbin.social 10 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Over 80% of Michigan Democratic primary voters just registered their support for Biden and his policies while 20% registered their disapproval. About two thirds of those 20% are now demanding that their concerns be made paramount.

About 100,000 people, representing less than 2% of Michigan voters from the 2020 election, are now demanding that they be allowed to wag the dog and decide national policy based on a crushing election defeat.

[-] ZILtoid1991@kbin.social 8 points 11 months ago

Every little counts.

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[-] Rapidcreek@lemmy.world 9 points 11 months ago

I don't suppose the Congressman remembers that they did the same thing to Obama before he was reelected.

[-] TigrisMorte@kbin.social 9 points 11 months ago

Wake up and what? Their demands are not achievable by Biden. He cannot as so many of the threads claim, just call up bibi and tell him to stop. Doing so would likely eliminate what little leverage a Democratic President has over the extremist right wing of Israel. It certainly would not have any desirable outcome.

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this post was submitted on 28 Feb 2024
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