Biden walks back sanctions on Israeli settlers following Smotrich's threat
Biden administration dramatically softens the sanctions it imposed on the seven Israelis from the Israel Defense Forces and makes it clear that they will be able to use their bank accounts.
Sanctions just 7 settlers instead of the state directly backing settlements and can't even keep that up. Fucking pathetic.
Because Israel will blackmail the USA and expand their genocide even more.
The American folding comes in the wake of Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich's threat to collapse the Palestinian economy, as revealed in Israel Hayom
And now these fascists will use that as a threat to extort the USA at every step. They must be completely cut off from US aid.
And now these fascists will use that as a threat to extort the USA at every step. They must be completely cut off from US aid.
Absolutely spot on! #NoWarButClassWar ✊️
BDS is the only way
The world power needs to understand that it has crossed the line
So showing any backbone is crossing the line? Wow.
I think for a world power such language should have been a reason to double down on punishing those little punks.
all palestinian violence against israel is self-defense.
He's got a "complicit in genocide" reputation to upkeep after all.
More like co-author
Settler colonialism is one of the most vile, disgusting crimes against humanity, and it is our duty to move in favor of liberation for all peoples.
There's useless and then there's you people.
If I'm reading this correctly, this decision was made because Smotrich threatened to sever all Israeli banking relations with the Palestinian Authority, which since the PA depends on Israeli banks to function, would have ruined the Palestinian government in the West Bank. I don't like that this is how it's going down, but definitely see the rationale, and don't think the Biden Admin is wrong to protect the PA. There's plenty criticism to heap on the US for their relationship with Israel, but I don't think this is one of them. The problem here is Smotrich and the Netanyahu government.
The PA is pretty much entirely controlled by the Israeli military now. It being shut down might actually allow orgs that actually serve Palestinian interests to take power.
Regardless, this is obviously just an excuse to stop the sanctions. Israel is entirely dependent on the US and these "threats" are toothless. If Biden gave a fuck at all, he would simply threaten to cut off funding to Israel in return.
Israel is entirely dependent on the US
Israel has a robust economy and is quite capable of conducting the war it wants all on its own.
This is just a little something to keep in mind the next time some Israeli tries to argue that “it’s not an occupation.”
I think you misunderstand, Netanyahu and his allies want extremists in charge. They have spent the last two decades trying to delegitimize the PA because they are a moderate Palestinian government, and the same two decades propping up Hamas. When extremists are in charge, Netanyahu knows he can more easily justify killing Palestinians and taking Palestinian land
The problem here is Smotrich and the Netanyahu government.
Can they just send a few killer drones after the two guys mentioned? It's fair game, USA uses those outside of its territory, Israel uses those outside of its territory.
Of course there's going a shitfest of indignation from Israelis, but that'll be in any situation which is not successful ethnic cleansing with no consequences.
More concisely, the problem is Israel.
If people took half of the energy they spend shaming people for not adhering to the two-party system and turned it to pressuring Biden to be a better candidate he'd have switched positions by now
biden has been a zionist for probably longer than you've been alive
you're not going to push him left. ever.
I doubt it. Biden doesn't give a hoot about what his voting base thinks or wants because they're going to mindlessly vote for him no matter how many genocides he does
But how do you pressure him into being a better candidate when the only threat you have against him, i.e. voting him out, is held hostage by the fact that if you do vote him out an even more extreme radical will get in power?
Fucking genocide loving liberal
Just don't blame the voters with spines when he loses the election.
Edit: To all the geniuses saying Trump is worse, you are no different than MAGA. Saying you'll vote for Biden regardless of a fucking genocide means that he'll get away with anything. If you morons actually cared you would have protested instead of trying to make people vote for a genocidal zionist cuck. Yet here we are.
Joe Biden isn’t catering to me and my friends
Apparently not wanting to fund a genocide with my tax dollars is the same as me bitching about gas prices. The funniest part is that these people think that they are so much better than MAGA.
As long as they didn't vote for the fascist who intends to start a dictatorship and also supports Israel just as strongly.
Trump also has a plan to end birthright citizenship & deport Muslims starting on day one of his rule in 2025.
They already have the list thanks to the census.
Put on your own oxygen mask before worrying about helping others.
I'm voting Biden in 2024 strictly so that I can vote at all in 2028.
You already did that with Hillary, really worked out great for everyone, huh? I do not understand how anyone can consider a second Trump presidency preferable to Biden just not doing as much as they would like.
What exactly do you think Trump would be doing in any way better in this situation?
Being bitter about your choices so letting others make the choice for you is way more spineless.
Nope.
Progressives held their noses and voted for Clinton, and again for Biden, and some are finally realizing as long as they vote "blue no matter who" the people running the DNC will never give a shit about them.
And while "vote in the primary" used to be common advice, NH lost their delegates for something Dems in NH have zero control over after voting progressive over party favorite against Clinton and Biden.
And lots of us live in states that don't have primary votes before the party names their leader.
If your mad things changed, be mad at the DNC for taking away primaries.
Not voters who decided acting like Republicans the last 30 years hasn't helped anyone
You already did that with Hillary, really worked out great for everyone, huh?
Apparently not, because you and yours still haven't learned you can't just cudgel votes for warhawk genociders out of people with international principles; that shit might work on western nihilists, but it doesn't work on us. If you haven't learned the lesson, then I guess it's time for remedial classes. My vote's going to Afroman until either the DNC stops being a genocide-endorsement party, or the country falls under the weight of its own hubris.
I'll blame the voters that voted for a christofascist.
Not voting is still voting, friend. Fix the system after Biden gets reelected, rather than end up in bigger shit than we're already wading through. Not voting has never fixed anything.
I detest them both. I'm still voting for Biden (though I did just send another email to the White House threatening not to).
Lol I love this take.
Normal people:
Donald Trump getting elected will be bad for labor rights, abortion rights, voting rights, LGBTQ rights, among a ton of other freedoms. I should do the simple thing and vote for Joe Biden even though I disagree with some of his policies and he hasn't taken a strong enough stance on others that I support. I understand he has to compromise and can't tailor his policies exactly to my niche beliefs. Even if I don't vote, Biden or Trump will be president; I should vote for the one that will at least do some of the things I support.
The brave freedom fighters on Lemmy with a spine:
Joe Biden isn't catering to me and my friends, I'm not voting for that capitalist neo liberal pig Joe Biden. Surely the Democrats will call me next time they nominate a candidate, after all we should be catered too even though we're an extremely small community.
Joe Biden isn’t catering to me and my friends
No one's complaining about a candidate not "catering" to them. They're complaining about Biden being a zionazi and committing a genocide. Even going as far as to bypass congress to send "isreal" weapons faster.
Checking in from the Moscow Central Shitpost Infiltration Unit, where all 12 of us are working overtime to post on lemmy.ml and swing the election in favor of Orange Man.
you fucking moron
Typical liberal. “I won’t face the horrors being perpetuated by the guy I’m trying to force you to vote for! You’re the bad person! 😡”
You’re honestly making the accelerationist vote look appetizing. And you should be terrified of that.
Ah the USA capitulating to terrorists and war criminals all in the name of money.
When the Lobby has such pull on the White House over blatant genocide, do not doubt who is in or is trying to be in real control. So much for conspiracy theories.
We're getting the orange anyway because the Democrats would rather preserve their AIPAC funding than win an election.
And besides; the Socialist Party is an FBI front organization, the PSL is content to ignore Russia's war on Ukraine, and even though the Greens have decent politics they're still being used by everyone as a wedge to split the Democrat vote in favor of Republicans. There's no way to vote for socialism that isn't self-defeating.
the PSL is content to ignore Russia’s war on Ukraine,
Mmmh, chauvinist take. I wouldn't want you in any of my organizations anyway until some self-crit was done.
If anything, the PSL is a front for Russia, given that Russia has featured them on Russian state media. But I don't see them as being a threat to the Democrats. A quick look at their Wikipedia page shows that the most percentage votes they ever got in an election was 40%, and that was just 57 votes in a college town.
It's a pity the US doesn't have a parliamentary system. It would make so much more sense to have something like Greens, Socialists, and Democrats forming a coalition.
Is Biden the socialism?
Oh man, if socialism were on the ballot I'd happily vote for it. Maybe I'll write that in when I go vote.
Soy
Israel runs on American dollars, without American dollars Israel cannot exist.
Shekel barely counts as a seperate currency.
They stole the money to blackmail, buy voters and politicians.
Don't bring the "Jews control the world" antisemitic BS around here. Yeah, something's up with the US government that I don't totally understand, but you don't have to latch onto crazy and hateful ideologies. That just makes more problems.
So AIPAC isn't a thing to you ? or Rich American Zionist donors like the current US ambassador to japan Rahm Emanuel who was funneling money to the Israeli Propagandists Cochav Elkayam Levy who is behind the Hamas ‘Mass Rape’ Narrative Exposed As Fraud. their is no Hate in admitting that Many Zionists occupy key positions of power in many countries and parliaments like US, UK and Canada and are working to advance Israel interest.
The liberal left has become very stupid and naive by labeling everything as hate, because they are unable to face the facts, by refusing to get into merky territory, they are keeping the working class under the illusion of a fair democratic system, while in reality they have those who pull the strings keep the status quo.
The US and Israel are both part of the same imperial project. Israel is the US's unsinkable aircraft carrier in the Middle East and its laboratory for surveillance and occupation and the US is Israel's arms depot and money spigot, it's a mutual relationship that both countries benefit from.
The US doesn't control Israel, Israel doesn't control the US, they're just partners working towards a mutual goal of settler occupation.
Guess who's taking about Trump here? NOBODY.
You have absolutely no idea how weak this line of argument makes Biden look. Oh you'd be better than literally the worst person to have ever been president? Wow omg I can't wait to vote for you. Talk about a low fucking bar.
That's odd, because if you bothered to look any further down you actually would see comments talking about Trump, and there were more before.
But that aside, you'll find that's because I'm not advocating for Biden - any more progressive candidate would've been better, but that's not what we got. What I AM advocating is against Trump - I hardly think I need to explain why.
Since it's basically impossible for an independent to win, if you don't want Trump, your only option is Biden. That's it, whether we like it or not.
Blue MAGA is so ridiculous. Who was the first president to ever approve arm sales to Ukraine? That's right, Trump. The Obama/Biden administration said it was too provocative to sell arms to Ukraine and would escalate tensions with Russia. And then Trump took office and broke the taboo because he didn't care if Russia found it threatening. Good luck fitting that into your "Trump is so clearly Russian asset" box.
You're worried about Trump cutting aid to Ukraine? Guess what, it's already been getting cut. That's the direction this is headed. Because the president doesn't decide these things unilaterally - it comes from the DOD. You think the DOD is just gonna watch presidents do whatever they want around the world and just "oh well guess we die now"? No. You think Biden personally developed the strategy for how Israel advances US interests in the region? No. These things operate on the scale of decades, not 4 years at time. The presidents just choose between the options the JCOS provide them.
And as for the genocide of Palestinians, it's going to happen no matter what, this has been demonstrated clearly. Choosing presidents will not change the outcome. We need to end the existing power structure, not participate in it.
Oh look, a completely fallacious and divisive comment
Damn, you must've dug deep for that scathing nickname - but do you seriously think I'm wrong?
It doesn't matter what could have happened, who could have done what, the situation is that your choices are Biden or Trump, and one of those is a whole lot worse than the other, despite what some other people commenting on this post think.
Spoiler: they think the horsey is worth it
People still going to act like somehow Israel controlling Dems is completely different than Russia controlling republicans.
If we had standards we could have politicians that dont belong to foreign genocidal fascists.
But when you say that, assholes that defend either party no matter what both accuse you of stupid shit online. Because they literally can't fathom having standards instead of blind loyalty. They're so far gone they can't process that's a valid option.
No one's "controlling" either party of the most powerful country in the world. This is how right-wingers think instead of analyzing things materially.
Supporting the US colony in Palestine is bipartisan for obvious reasons (more tools for imperialism in the region, and keeps the middle-east less stable and unable to unite against the US). And the only reason republicans are more open to Russia right now is because they want to change focus to China, because they (correctly, imo) see China as the current biggest threat to US hegemony rather than Russia.
Israel owns both the Republicans and Democrats. They probably have even more influence over the Republicans due to the evangelicals.
Genocide Joe is still a spineless bitch for not doing more, but Republicans would be worse.
Trump 2024 anyone (edit: I'm not cheering him on, just stating a fact)?
Edit: I only read the headline then came back and read the article and just... What the actual fuck?
Did Biden, the president of the most power country in the world, just listen to a threat from their protectorate? What the fuck is going on here? How do people see shit like this and think "oh yes this is fine"?