Pro-Palestian Protest
8 Mar 2024
Fridays at Fetterman's
enhances
its usual protests in front of Senator Fetterman's office by
adding a teach-in at the local Friends Center and by then making a
march to his office. We boosted our usual attendaence by many times our
usual number.
We used the sidewalk most of the way.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer made
a speech on the 14th of March where he was very highly
critical of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Schumer
said that Netanyahu "has been too willing to tolerate the
civilian toll in Gaza, which is pushing support for Israel worldwide to
historic lows.” There's a mathematical law of "diminishing
returns" which holds that it often takes progressively greater efforts
to achieve the same results. At some point, the gains are no longer
worth the cost. It
is the assessment of The Annual Threat Assessment of the
Office of the Director of National Intelligence that
Israel probably will face
lingering armed resistance from HAMAS for years to come, and the
military will struggle to neutralize HAMAS’s underground
infrastructure, which allows insurgents to hide, regain strength, and
surprise Israeli forces.
Meaning yes, Israel can continue to attack Palestinians in
Gaza, but the cost in public, world reaction (And, of course, as
Schumer and Biden are fully aware, with US voters) of ever-increasing
numbers of dead and wounded Palestinians is only going to get worse and
there will never be an end to Hamas, regardless of how much blood and
devastation Israel is willing to cause.
Not at all surprisingly, the Republican Jewish Coalition is
very upset over Schumer's speech.
"As Israel continues to
righteously fight to defend itself from barbaric terrorists, the most
powerful Democrat in Congress knifed the Jewish state in the back," RJC
CEO Matt Brooks said in a statement.
From the Democratic side:
Meanwhile, Jewish
Democratic Council of America CEO Halie Soifer praised Schumer's
remarks. "Jewish Dems commend Senator Schumer’s leadership as
demonstrated by his speech today on the Senate floor."
So yes, as Brooks says: "Today’s events serve as a clarion call to take
back the White House and US Senate from this radical Democrat
leadership..." Republicans have no choice. They either defend
Israel's current leadership as the majority in the House,
Senate and from the Presidency or watch as Netanyahu is sidelined and
Israel is compelled to adopt a more sensible policy.
Vice-President Harris talks as though Netanyahu's government is the
outlier and that the Biden Administraton better represents the will of
the Israeli public as fa as the treatment of Palestinian residents of
Gaza go. Erm,
not quite. According to a poll taken by the
Israeli Democracy Institute (IDI), while the Biden Administration is
moving to be more in line with American public opinion, Netanyahu's
government is accurately representing Israeli public opinion.
Take a moment and consider that
response. By stipulating that Hamas would not be involved in the
transfer and distribution of aid, the question makes it clear that it
is asking whether civilians in Gaza should get humanitarian aid. And
68% of Israeli Jews answered “no.” Even among the dwindling Israeli
Jewish “left,” nearly 40% want to keep aid out of the hands of Gaza’s
civilian population.
New York Magazine
says
that liberal Zionists like Senate Majority Leader
Chuck Schumer are between two hard-core partisan sides,"the bloody and
unstrategic Israeli military campaign in Gaza has
alienated liberal Zionists," versus pro-Palestians who, in Chicago
“tried to block people from entering a Monday night screening of Nova,
a documentary about the October 7 Hamas massacre..." It's hard to say
that your side should enjoy free speech, but the other side shouldn't.
Signs of hope in US aid for Ukraine. The "discharge petition" that
would get a bill to aid Ukraine onto the floor of the House got 177
signatures. It needs 218 though, and many Democrats aren't signing
because the same bill also sends military aid to Israel.
Republicans for Ukraine is
trying to persuade both anti-Israel Democrats (the bill being
blocked by Speaker Johnson also contains aid to Israel) and Trump-loyal
Republicans to sign on to the petition.
"Double Tap" is an aerial bombing strategy that has unfortunately
been used by the US as well as by Russia in Ukraine. It "involves
bombing a target, waiting a period of five to twenty minutes,
often during which first responders arrive, and then bombing the target
a second or even third time." It is a truly barbaric strategy. Russia just
used it in Odesa.
Poems and speech.
How do Russians feel about peace negotiations? Hmm, this seems
promising. "Putin
is ready for talks on Ukraine, but on his own terms" What are
the terms that Russia is offering? Judging by his interview with US
commenter Tucker Carlson
Putin appears to see the history of his
relationship with Western and Ukrainian leaders as a succession of
insults and betrayals, to which he has responded in his trademark
heavy-handed manner: Not an eye for eye, but a punishment that grows
exponentially each time the opponent shows perceived intransigence.
...
...at each crucial point in history, Ukraine had a choice of sparing
itself all the further trouble and that it still has this choice now.
...
"[Putin apparently seeks] all the territories which Russia occupied and formally annexed..."
By which Putin means not just Crimea, which Russia's occupied since
2014, but the provinces of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia.
Ukraine says it's
fully prepared to produce as many weapons and other war materials
in Ukraine as is possible. They have a skilled and dedicated work
force. They'll need steady supplies of raw materials, of course and
money to build factories, but their being more independent would be
good.
Greece, along with
many other European nations, is working hard to replace the US
weapons and ammunition that are on hold now.
'
Presiden Biden's State of the Union Address pretty much blew away all of the right-wing and mainstream media criticism of Biden as old and feeble and confused. Over 60% of the public came away with a favorable impression of Biden. The GOP response by Senator Britt was so awful that it immediately inspired a Saturday Night Live parody (clip includes extensive commentary from The View).
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