The Witness Chronicles, 10/15/24

Netanyahu, our bombs, US politics, and the Harris campaign

Photo by Pisit Heng on Unsplash

Harris Should Break With Biden Over Israel (Netanyahu)

Put US arms shipments on the table

Netanyahu’s defense minister said this week that hostage negotiations have ceased, essentially verifying that Bibi Netanyahu has no interest in finding a way to defuse his expanding war in the Middle East. Despite the heroic efforts of President Biden and Secretary of State Blinken, no progress has been made for nearly a year.

Every time it looked like we were closer to an agreement, Netanyahu moved the goal lines and escalated his campaign to essentially wipe out Palestine as a nation. He has personal reasons to do this as he may face serious corruption charges if he loses his political cover as leader of Israel.

Biden has admirably been a staunch supporter of Israel’s right to exist for his entire life. But his loyalty has been tested since the October Seventh Hamas terrorist attack that killed hundreds of innocent civilians and resulted in hundreds of hostages being taken, including several American citizens.

This has put Kamala Harris in a very difficult position politically as she is still the sitting Vice President in the Biden administration. Netanyahu’s extreme campaign of death and destruction seems unending as it extends into Lebanon and Iran with no end in sight.

This war against Palestine is extremely unpopular in the US and will affect the outcome of the upcoming election in key states. Many have speculated how Harris might make a break with the administration’s policy without directly refuting Biden's policies. But there may be a way.

Israel is dependent on massive arms shipments from the US, including missiles, 2000 lb bombs used to level entire city blocks, and defense systems; including those that have repelled serious missile attacks from Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

It’s time to tie those weapons shipments to a ceasefire agreement and a defusing of the violence across the region. We would not need to withdraw them, just alter policy so they are not guaranteed no matter what, which is the current policy.

We need leverage if we are to help achieve some kind of peace in the region. We have many strategic interests there and Netanyahu’s policies are not popular among many Israelis and in particular the families of the hostages. With deaths reaching near the 50,000 mark, and likely much higher, and the utter physical destruction of Gaza and southern Lebanon, something must be done.

Politically, advocating such a move would be risky for Harris but it would shore up her foreign policy credibility and show some independence from a policy that simply is not working and is making things far worse.

This would really be a break with Netanyahu rather than Israel as a whole, something that is far overdue. He has been named a war criminal by international bodies, and he has stated repeatedly that will not support a two state solution offering some kind of hope to Palestinians and our allies in the region.

Frankly, as radical as this idea may seem to many, it could factor in Harris keeping Donald Trump, an ally of Netanyahu, out of power, where he would make things far worse, as he did in his first term. We had a nuclear agreement with Iran that was stabilizing the region and Trump killed it, contributing to the chaos we see now.

As an old school liberal, which today counts as a moderate, I have always been a supporter of Israel, even as they did things I saw as illegal, including using warfare to seize sovereign land from Palestine, and the use of illegal settlements to dispossess people from their ancestral lands.

But now those actions have descended into violence that is spreading like a cancer across Israel, looking more and more like deliberate genocide against the Palestinian people. Given the Jewish history of being the victims of the worst genocide in modern history, it is shameful that the word would even associated with a country formed as a refuge for the Jews who suffered from the Holocaust.

But many here think that is taking place and there is a lot of evidence it may be true. Finally, to be clear, I do not believe this is the policy of Israel as a nation, it is the policy of a man filled with anger, hatred, and fear for his own future. That sounds a little familiar in the context of our own election.

Update: Literally, as I was writing this, the Washington Post came out with a breaking story that Biden has tied arms shipments to Israel releasing and allowing humanitarian aid to Gaza where people are starving and facing a second winter without shelter, water, food, and healthcare. A good first move and a signal to Netanyahu that we have limits to what we will tolerate from him.

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