It’s educate, AGITATE, organize
edit: putting this at the top so people understand the basis for this:
You may well ask: “Why direct action? Why sit ins, marches and so forth? Isn’t negotiation a better path?” You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word “tension.” I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood.
Iron law of institutions. Institutions don’t do what benefit the institution’s hold on power; institutions do what benefits the decision-makers’ hold on power. The US supports Israel because Israel can swing elections, especially Republican primaries and close elections, in favor of pro-Israel forces. For that reason, most politicians have become pro-Israel. It also creates a feedback loop - politicians feed pro-Israel sentiment because they are (now) on the record as pro-Israel, and need as many voters as possible to be onboard with that.
It didn’t. It came out of Israeli funding combined with evangelical ascendance into politics in the 80s. We were ambiguous at best in the 40s, 50s, and 60s, and only mildly supportive of Israel in the 70s.
This would be more compelling if it were just Biden perpetuating that relationship, but it (seemingly) exists throughout the entire institution, from individual polititions to the state department to educational institutions to media conglomerates. My own inclination is to view it as a self-perpetuating system, rather than a per-decision-maker issue. The more persistent a trait is in a system (despite obvious challenges to that trait), the more likely I think it is that the issue doesn’t exist at the individual level but at the level of the institution itself. Most people I discuss this with here seem to agree that there are substantial benefits for the US to have an iron-clad ally in the ME, i’m curious what you think of those suggestions? Namely that the US (through israel) maintains influence over the red sea as well as major oil and gas pipelines that traverse the area.
Politicians dictate the priorities of the state department and educational institutions, and media conglomerates are generally controlled by right-wing shitbags. Politicians are the decisionmakers I’m talking about.
Then your own argument is damaged by the fact that US support of Israel wasn’t significant until the 80s.
It’s bull. Israel, as we’ve seen lately, isn’t an iron-clad ally, and never has been. It doesn’t give one whit about US objections or interests, to the point of openly mocking and manipulating US politicians and institutions. Why would Israel be more important in that sense than Egypt? Egypt, unlike Israel, doesn’t dome our citizens for the crime of being a journalist near Gaza, doesn’t sell our technology to the CCP, doesn’t feed info to Russia, doesn’t crater our international reputation at every turn, doesn’t sabotage our foreign affairs, doesn’t manipulate our domestic politics, etc etc etc.
Israel is supported because Israeli money and propaganda have made pro-Israel forces in the US much stronger, electorally, than they would have been otherwise; and because a third of the fucking country thinks Israel is God’s Chosen Country and must be supported for the end times to come about (this being something that they WANT).
This sounds an awful lot like a conspiracy, but setting that aside for a second (because I acknowledge that a lot of issues are determined by financial contributions), wouldn’t this be a very compelling reason why we should be creating a crisis against letting this campaign continue? If you’re arguing (like I think you are…?) that we should permit our politicians to continue supporting a genocidal fascistic state simply because they can afford to contribute more to our political system than we can to buy their vote, how is that not an apathetic stance?
Frankly, this is a frightening way to look at american democracy, and i’ll say the same to you that i’d say to anyone else feeling this apathetic: you don’t have to accept this reality alone. We can fight against it together.
I’m sorry we butt heads so often, I really think we could both benefit if we worked together but you at least need to acknowledge that the problem isn’t impossible to overcome.
It’s not a conspiracy. It’s smart practice, honestly. It’s why there’s a Turkish lobby and Saudi lobby with outsized influence in the US as well. Knowing how one of the world’s most foremost powers works is integral to extracting concessions from them. The issue is that:
Israel’s only real ally is the US, so all of their focus is on maintaining support there
There’s a pre-founded base of evangelical nutjobs to bolster it
Israel is immoral as fuck
That would be more compelling, except when you play chicken, you have to be ready to swerve (and let everyone know you aren’t willing to stand for what you say you will), or be hit. Starting a crisis now, demanding concessions in exchange for your vote, is necessarily playing chicken.
Swerving will tell the politicians that they can ignore all of your future protests on the matter, because you’ll just swerve in the end (and that’s assuming you don’t accidentally convince the majority of people to stay until they’re hit, or swerve too late, or if the train hits the brakes too late).
And if you regard being ‘hit’ as an acceptable alternative - in this case, that’s fascism. If you’re willing to be hit rather than swerve, own up to it - but don’t you dare tapdance around it, trying to obscure the very pertinent point that being hit is, in this case, a very bad fucking end.
My point isn’t that we should permit it. My point is just that Israel is not a good ally.
Separate to that point is that fascism is not a realistic alternative, and this is one of the worst elections we’ve had with regards to fascist vs. antifascist opposition.
Biden isn’t popular and charismatic like Obama or Bill Clinton were. He’s not riding an overwhelming tide of antifascism to victory at the polls. His opponent isn’t some milquetoast corporate drone like Romney or even a neocon shithead like Bush Jr. Trump is an out-and-out fascist who tried the first autocoup in US history - and very openly talks about how much MORE of a fascist he’d love to be. What’s more, his party is behind him in lockstep.
This is literal fucking fascism we’re up against, here, now, in the next few months. “I think it’s bad that Israel manipulates our politics” takes a distant second-place to the concern of “Jesus fucking Christ, the next four years could be the end of what democracy we do have, as well as genocide and/or oppression for millions of others.”
I’ve been shouting myself hoarse about the Israel lobby for years. I still shout about it. I just am willing to work with a pro-Israeli politician like Biden to stop literal fucking fascism.
It’s not apathy. I care deeply about American democracy. But that means recognizing its flaws and weaknesses. Lobbying is a powerful tool used to great effect. There are methods that can be used to reduce this - and none of them are peddled by the GOP or Trump.
I don’t think you inherently argue in bad faith, but I think you amplify the arguments of bad faith actors who spread these kinds of arguments, because the argument of these actors appeal to the desire to keep one’s hands clean.
But there is no keeping one’s hands clean in politics. “To rule innocently is madness”, as Robespierre once said. We, as voters, all sully our hands with the actions of our representatives, both in action and inaction. When we vote for Biden, assuming he doesn’t change his position, we sully our hands with his support of the Israeli genocide. But when we fail to put Biden back into office, we sully our hands with Trump’s support for the Israeli genocide and all of the other atrocities he has in mind. There are no good choices - we must do what we can with what we have. Playing purity test or “I won’t be held hostage by the lesser evil!” is just sullying our hands with the greater evil because we don’t want to deal with reality.
I don’t want to burn any goodwill we might have built here, so I’m not going to pick out the few things here I disagree with just to keep it going.
I basically believe that Biden can’t win with this position, and agitating him to change it is the only thing I can do from where I am to fix that. I hope I’m wrong.
Biden isn’t guaranteed a win regardless of what position he takes on the current genocide, so while I support the pro-Palestine protests, I am adamantly against anyone who wants to use withholding their vote as a ‘threat’ to Biden, which is tantamount to saying “Change your policy to my preferred policy, or I let the fascists win”, which is kind of antithetical to the idea of a coalition candidate.