And its mission accomplished. Anyone who is critical of the actions taken by Israel should expect to be punished in some way. The punishment might be being fired from your job or criminal charges that could end your academic pursuits. The idea is to keep people from criticizing or protesting the actions of Israel. There is an organized and powerful group who work at silencing people and they have many helpers. Some of the helpers are just unthoughtful and misunderstanding what they are part of. Israel wants to make this a wider war and they are being assisted by the US. All of it is looking to become even more intractable (seems impossible to be worse) and anyone who speaks up and says “hey, hold up, this is unjustified and looks more like genocide than self defense” gets slammed by the press, maybe criminally charged, and of course accused of being antisemitic.
The US needs to rethink its support for Israel. It is bullshit what is happening now and what has been happening for decades. Even going back to pre WW1. The West has been orchestrating the horrific. Steadily. Consistently. No wonder there is zero trust. No wonder there is so much hate.
Well, the thing about the Tlaib controversy insofar as what you describe is this: while Tlaib has been an outspoken critic against Israel herself in the past, in this instance that's not what she was doing. She was criticizing the MI AG for disproportionate prosecution of students, who themselves were criticizing school investments as they pertained to Israel. This is a level of criticism far removed from what the students were themselves doing. As Tlaib said in her interview, this is about the rights of the students who were protesting (First Amendment among others). At some point, that stops being about Israel. That issue becomes very tangential.
That people are still incurring a backdraft of reprisal for such tangential actions should trouble most people. Yet, because the topic somewhat, kind-of-sort-of touches upon Israel, people ignore greater ramifications. It's a weird veil that may sink this entire democratic experiment, if the First Amendment is gutted. It's very strange that people don't sense the danger.
I have to confess at this point that I do not understand the US’ relationship with Israel. Logically speaking, one should say that Israel is a vassal state of the US, but it seems to have a very long leash compared to our country’s other lackeys. I wonder if we’re really involved in yet another proxy with, with Israel acting as the US’ battering ram to impose permanent American control in the Middle East.
Even Reagan and Thatcher were willing and able to bring Israel to heel when they felt it was going too far. Even the Bushes said no to Israel. But Biden is acting like a parent whose teenage child commits a hit and run while under the influence and “punishes” them by buying them a Hummer. I don’t think this behavior can be attributed to age, cognitive decline, or a lack of leverage. Rather, I think Biden is a true believer in Zionism and doesn’t think Palestinians (Arabs generally) have any rights worth respecting. He may be panicking because the situation is quickly spiraling out of control, with an increasing probability of American boots on the ground against Iran in an election year, but he’s not concerned with the death toll of the Palestinians or Lebanese.
The appalling treatment of Rashida Tlaib illustrates why the “vote blue no matter who” slogan is reactionary. What that means on a practical level is that progressives are expected to vote uncritically for this season’s Reagan re-skins, but not the other way around. I don’t think the old guard Republican leaders particularly like the new crop of millennial MAGA types, but they don’t leave them out to dry (or outright sabotage them) like the Democrats do with millennial progressives. Tlaib is trying to enact change “the right way” through the electoral process and gets no loyalty in return.
And its mission accomplished. Anyone who is critical of the actions taken by Israel should expect to be punished in some way. The punishment might be being fired from your job or criminal charges that could end your academic pursuits. The idea is to keep people from criticizing or protesting the actions of Israel. There is an organized and powerful group who work at silencing people and they have many helpers. Some of the helpers are just unthoughtful and misunderstanding what they are part of. Israel wants to make this a wider war and they are being assisted by the US. All of it is looking to become even more intractable (seems impossible to be worse) and anyone who speaks up and says “hey, hold up, this is unjustified and looks more like genocide than self defense” gets slammed by the press, maybe criminally charged, and of course accused of being antisemitic.
The US needs to rethink its support for Israel. It is bullshit what is happening now and what has been happening for decades. Even going back to pre WW1. The West has been orchestrating the horrific. Steadily. Consistently. No wonder there is zero trust. No wonder there is so much hate.
Well, the thing about the Tlaib controversy insofar as what you describe is this: while Tlaib has been an outspoken critic against Israel herself in the past, in this instance that's not what she was doing. She was criticizing the MI AG for disproportionate prosecution of students, who themselves were criticizing school investments as they pertained to Israel. This is a level of criticism far removed from what the students were themselves doing. As Tlaib said in her interview, this is about the rights of the students who were protesting (First Amendment among others). At some point, that stops being about Israel. That issue becomes very tangential.
That people are still incurring a backdraft of reprisal for such tangential actions should trouble most people. Yet, because the topic somewhat, kind-of-sort-of touches upon Israel, people ignore greater ramifications. It's a weird veil that may sink this entire democratic experiment, if the First Amendment is gutted. It's very strange that people don't sense the danger.
I have to confess at this point that I do not understand the US’ relationship with Israel. Logically speaking, one should say that Israel is a vassal state of the US, but it seems to have a very long leash compared to our country’s other lackeys. I wonder if we’re really involved in yet another proxy with, with Israel acting as the US’ battering ram to impose permanent American control in the Middle East.
Even Reagan and Thatcher were willing and able to bring Israel to heel when they felt it was going too far. Even the Bushes said no to Israel. But Biden is acting like a parent whose teenage child commits a hit and run while under the influence and “punishes” them by buying them a Hummer. I don’t think this behavior can be attributed to age, cognitive decline, or a lack of leverage. Rather, I think Biden is a true believer in Zionism and doesn’t think Palestinians (Arabs generally) have any rights worth respecting. He may be panicking because the situation is quickly spiraling out of control, with an increasing probability of American boots on the ground against Iran in an election year, but he’s not concerned with the death toll of the Palestinians or Lebanese.
The appalling treatment of Rashida Tlaib illustrates why the “vote blue no matter who” slogan is reactionary. What that means on a practical level is that progressives are expected to vote uncritically for this season’s Reagan re-skins, but not the other way around. I don’t think the old guard Republican leaders particularly like the new crop of millennial MAGA types, but they don’t leave them out to dry (or outright sabotage them) like the Democrats do with millennial progressives. Tlaib is trying to enact change “the right way” through the electoral process and gets no loyalty in return.