Rep. Pramila Jayapal, the head of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, on Saturday condemned Israel as a racist state, warning activists that there is an organized opposition against progressive critics of Israel’s policy towards the Palestinians.
The sharp criticism from the lawmaker from Washington state marks among the highest-level condemnations of Israel, as several members of her caucus plan to boycott Israel President Isaac Herzog’s address to a joint session of Congress later this week.
Speaking on a panel at Netroots Nation, an annual progressive activist conference in Chicago, Jayapal was addressing pro-Palestinian attendees interrupting the session.
She’s not wrong about Israel. I would support cutting off aid from Israel and not support Palestine either. That’s probably the best solution.
The U.S. actively helped Israel starve Gazans and the U.S. ensured that UN aid to Palestinians was blocked. We have a collective responsibility to Palestinians to help undo our damage.
I’m not versed in Palestine-Israel history. I only know that Palestine currently doesn’t seem like it has a leader while Hamas is still a issue, and Israel is participating in trying to destroy Palestine. Basically, it looks like no one wants to solve problems there or get involved.
At least you’re honest about your ignorance. A lot of people do want to solve problems on both sides but you don’t hear about them in English speaking media headlines, and extremists on both sides can easily shatter fragile deals made by leaders.
Palestine would burn to the ground in this scenario.
But at least America wouldn’t be HELPING Israel burn Palestine to the ground.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/7/10/us-and-israel-start-joint-military-exercise
An “at least” that includes a bunch of deaths isn’t a viable solution.
“This meeting was inconclusive and thus we’ll keep aiding Israel.”
At least Russia won’t control all of Ukraine
Ok, what are other solutions that would work? I could think of sanctions toward Israel on top of cutting off aid toward Israel would help a bit. I do not know much about Israel-Palestine history, but to me I get the impression no one there wants it to end or seem to be so.
I don’t know, I’m not an expert on this topic.
My initial reaction is that this is a “both sides” stance that punishes the victim, but I’m interested to become more nuanced. Would you mind expanding on why this would be best?
Read my other response. I do have a impression that Palestine doesn’t seem like it has a leader, and there’s some issues with Hamas. And it appears no one wants to come to a end. So, I can only think of cutting off aid to Israel and possibly with sanctions as a response to continuation of war.
The “both sides” stance is really just basic nuance applied.
If you want to get real nuanced, realize that a lot of people are missing the point. Our aid to Israel has nothing to do with their human rights record. They’re a foothold for Western hegemony in a geopolitically significant region. Stop aiding Israel, or Saudi Arabia for that matter, and that is a retreat from the global conflict between West (USA/Europe) and East (China/Russia).
Withdrawing from the Middle East cedes control of the region to the Eastern proxy, Iran. Is a Middle East controlled by Eastern interests preferable to one controlled by Western interests? Does that result in Palestinian liberation? Does it result in peace? Or do we end up with a genocide in the opposite direction?
Of course, there are smaller adjustments that can be made that may pressure one side or the other into pursuing a brokered peace. That’s what we’ve tried and failed at for decades, up until Trump anyway. We were quite close until Netanyahu riled up the crazies and caused the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin.
This sounds like a lot of good reasoning that could have been used to respond to the original poster of this thread ; ¯_(ツ)_/¯