February 4, 2024
Thus began a recent, and oh so
typical, piece of war reportage. It was purveyed by the New York Times but it’s
something you find in almost any mainstream source. The essence of the news is
that the U.S. will continue to support Israel’s right to “defend itself” by
bombing the crap out of Gaza and will keep feeding it the military equipment
necessary to do so, but it sternly urges Israel to try not to kill too many
babies or other civilians. Get it? War must be — and is, when we wage it — a
moral undertaking.
And Yoav Gallant, Israeli defense
minister — the guy who once declared that Palestinians are “human animals” —
assured the world: “Unlike our enemies, we are defending our values, and we
operate according to international law. The IDF is operating to minimize the
harm to civilian populations.”
Yeah, this is the news!
Context-free, reality-free. War is difficult, but war is necessary. When I slog
through the verbiage, I can’t help but hear Pete Seeger singing: ‘We’re waist
deep — we’re neck deep — in the Big Muddy, and the big fool says to push on.”
Missing from this simplistic,
“objective” reportage is any awareness that you cannot kill your way to peace,
let alone that humanity is in mortal danger of destroying itself unless we
learn to evolve — unless we learn what we already know (except at the highest
levels of power). Much of this knowledge is remarkably obvious, indeed, so
obvious you’d think the New York Times and other such news outlets would be
aware of it and work it into the context of their war reportage.
For instance: “Israel can never have
security until Palestinians have security.”
Such a clear, basic truth is almost
never part of the mainstream news . . . the Big Muddy. The words are those of
Daniel Levy, former Israeli peace negotiator in the governments of Ehud Barak
and Yitzhak Rabin, and current president of the U.S. Middle East Project, in an
Al-Jazeera interview.
Levy also said: “I hope one day
Palestinians, of course, but also Jewish Israelis experience the idea of how
liberating it can be to no longer be an oppressor — because when you are
oppressing people you know in the back of your mind that you are generating a
desire for retribution.”
The point here is not that there’s a
simple, quick-and-easy path to peace in any global conflict, but rather that
there are obvious, horrific ways to prolong — eternalize — a conflict. In our
Big Muddy reportage, the best thing that can happen in a conflict is that it
gets “resolved,” sort of, and the violence temporarily stops. You know, a
ceasefire is called. What could be better than a ceasefire? This would give
surviving Gaza residents a chance to dig corpses out of the rubble in peace.
What more could they ask?
Oh God. “Resolving” a conflict
generally leaves the opposing sides separate from one another and still in
possession of their grievances, or still enduring the hell that they are forced
to live in. I would say that creating real peace is a never-ending journey, but
can only happen when conflicts aren’t so much resolved as transcended. Another
word for this is evolution.
What would that mean with regard to
Israel and its ongoing — insane — assault on Palestine? The siege has so far
resulted in over 26,000 deaths in Gaza and over 64,000 people injured, not to
mention virtually everyone there suffering from hunger, lacking access to clean
water, vulnerable to disease. This is madness. But in the context of mainstream
reportage, this is nothing more than Israel defending itself — you know,
against Hamas, a terrorist organization. Legitimate governments wage war,
according to the Big Muddy. Only fringe organizations commit terrorism. Oh, by
the way, committing genocide is a war crime, so you shouldn’t do it.
What I’m trying to say here is that
war is nothing, nothing, nothing but terrorism and has to be stopped before any
sane look at what to do next can even begin. In regard to Israel and Palestine,
what might that mean? Certainly it means an end to Israel’s occupation of Gaza
and the West Bank — and probably a one-state solution in which everyone has
fully equal rights, which requires the creation of a society that is
trans-Zionist.
As an American, I can’t think about
this without deeply, painfully reflecting on my own country’s genocidal actions
against the land’s original occupants and the kidnapping and enslavement of
Africans. Our painfully slow process of political and social evolution is
hardly finished, but we have begun creating a trans-racist society — yes, much
to the distress of racist true believers. But there have been changes, which in
an earlier period were probably unimaginable.
My point is not to dwell solely on
the wrongs of this history, but to acknowledge that history evolves, that
social structures change. While war and other forms of violence may be part of
the change, lasting solutions evolve nonviolently.
I return to the words of Daniel
Levy, who acknowledges, speaking of the war on Palestine: “Things look
incredibly bleak.
“I don’t want to spread false
optimism,” he goes on, “but perhaps this disruptive moment, where everything
has been turned on its head, will cause people to stare into the abyss. Israel
has proved how insecure it is when it continues down this path. The hope is
that as we stare into the abyss, we can turn this around. That’s not going to
happen quickly.”
But it can happen. The future is
ours to create, even if we’re neck deep in the Big Muddy.
Biden Isolated as 85%
of Americans fear wider Mideast War, and 50% say Israel has gone Too Far
In a new NORC/ AP opinion poll, 50%
of Americans say that they believe Israel has gone too far in its war on Gaza.
That is up from 40% in November.
Even though the US television news
networks steadfastly decline to cover the Israeli war on Gaza in a concerted
way or to show many videos of the carnage, the American public is well enough
informed of the vast destruction of lives and civilian infrastructure to
condemn Israel’s tactics.
Another way to put it is that if
Americans got a vote on Israel’s war policy, Israel would lose the contest.
This outcome is even more clear
among Democrats, 62% of whom say Israel has gone too far. That view is up 4
points from November.
And virtually all Americans (85%)
are concerned or somewhat concerned that the current situation could spiral
into a wider war. In fact, that fear may underline some of the other opinions
they are voicing in this poll.
President Joe Biden is seriously out
of step with his own party. Although he has complained about indiscriminate
Israeli bombing (a war crime) and his people leak that he is unhappy with Prime
Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Biden continues to provide Israel on a daily basis
with the munitions and ammunition needed to prosecute the war, without which it
would cease.
Some 53% of Democrats — a majority —
actively disapprove of Biden’s handling of the crisis. The poll reports that
67% disapprove over-all, but a lot of the discontent comes from Republicans who
wouldn’t say Biden was doing something right to save their lives.
According to AP’s Ellen Knickmeyer
and Linley Sanders, there is a racial division, with 60% of non-white Democrats
disapproving of his handling of the crisis, whereas about half of whites agree
with the way Biden is losing on the issue. Since Biden needs the African
American and Hispanic voters to be enthusiastic about him, this finding is bad
news.
Knickmeyer and Sanders report that,
even worse, a full 70% of Democrats under 45 disapprove of Biden’s performance
here. An enthusiasm gap among the youth can be fatal for Democratic
presidential campaigns, as John Kerry discovered.
According to the poll’s topline
results, even among Republicans, the percentage who think Israel has gone too
far has nearly doubled since November, to a third.
And, about a third of US adults say
that Israel has a lot of the responsibility for the outbreak of the war, though
twice as many blame Hamas.
81% of Americans say it is important
or somewhat important that a ceasefire be negotiated. But a full 90% of
Democrats say it is important or somewhat important to have a permanent
ceasefire.
Of course, they also want the
hostages taken by Hamas released.
Some 66% of Americans say it is
important or somewhat important to establish a Palestinian state. That
percentage is 78% among Democrats.
The percentage of Democrats favoring
the establishment of a Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank and who say
it is important to the US to carry this out is 40%. (I guess the 78% above are
in favor of something more limited or think it is important but not important
to the United States per se.) Only 31% of Democrats said this last August.
Some 77% of Americans say they are
concerned or somewhat concerned that the Gaza campaign will increase prejudice
against Jews.
About 68% say that they are
concerned or somewhat concerned that it will increase prejudice against
Muslims.
They would be right.
This poll is relatively small, of
1,152 adults, and so it has a plus or minus 4% margin of error. But even so,
the movement of public opinion is clear. Most Americans deeply dislike Israel’s
Gaza campaign, believing the Israelis are going to excess, and they are afraid
it will draw the US into a wider Middle East conflict. These findings are
especially pronounced among non-white minorities and people under 40, both of
which a Democratic presidential campaign needs for victory.
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