i appreciate your comment and thinking – a good exploration of the conflict. though i think it’s still compatible with not unreasonable, incredibly cynical political calculation. by coming out strongly for israel, biden shores up the suburbs and donors (yes, at the risk of progressive enthusiasm), and he hopes the conflict ends soon. but if it doesn’t, public opinion continues to shift, he can pin the blunders/horrors on bibi and counsel moderation on the issue going forward (trump, even the maverick that he is, will not be able to outflank him; the GOP is too thoroughly invested in the cultural atmospherics of the zionist project). middle east catastrophe doesn’t matter to voters, just as ukraine/russian catastrophe doesn’t matter; these are complicated, intractable issues of alien, inscrutable peoples, and as long as american boys aren’t over there, and as long as americans aren’t fleeing in choppers, no one cares, and Biden will not be seen as holding the bag.
really, by giving bibi a blank cheque for terror-violence, biden’s allowed public opinion to shift in such a way that the GOP will not be able to take advantage; had Biden positioned himself such that he tempered Israeli objectives and prevented much of the indiscriminate terror-violence, then Biden takes the heat for being squishy and a bad friend to jews, and israeli isn’t empowered to incredible evil and the public-opinion on zionism remains at status quo ante. i think biden’s polling is a disaster there, and calls to replace him become seriously considered.
If Hezbollah doesn’t get involved and in the mind of Americans this war remains a “low-level” conflict which is an obscene but useful phrase to use - I see the logic in what you’re saying. But I entirely disagree with you if Hezbollah gets involved. At that point the carnage will be happening in at least three places - Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon. I’m no armchair military strategist and I have no knowledge of what Iran can do indirectly. But it doesn’t seem crazy to me that if Hezbollah is at war - Iran uses proxies so they have deniability to kill Americans soldiers and more than one at a time. A handful at a time? More?
I didn’t even mention the West Bank which Americans have been basically entirely ignoring. It’s a low-level conflict but I wonder for how much longer. If Hezbollah is at war - the West Bank explodes. And there it won’t just be Israeli soldiers killing Palestinians. The settlers in the West Bank will watch rockets hitting the heart of Israel - they’ll go on murderous rampages. Images of Jewish settlers killing Palestinians doing pogroms will be on American tv news. Americans will learn definitions of “pogrom” and the murders can hardly be pushed away with phrases like “The IDF is the world’s most moral army”. The IDF will be complicit in murder to a degree I don’t think the average American can ignore. Maybe even boomers start to learn the meme “Are we the baddies?”
i appreciate your comment and thinking – a good exploration of the conflict. though i think it’s still compatible with not unreasonable, incredibly cynical political calculation. by coming out strongly for israel, biden shores up the suburbs and donors (yes, at the risk of progressive enthusiasm), and he hopes the conflict ends soon. but if it doesn’t, public opinion continues to shift, he can pin the blunders/horrors on bibi and counsel moderation on the issue going forward (trump, even the maverick that he is, will not be able to outflank him; the GOP is too thoroughly invested in the cultural atmospherics of the zionist project). middle east catastrophe doesn’t matter to voters, just as ukraine/russian catastrophe doesn’t matter; these are complicated, intractable issues of alien, inscrutable peoples, and as long as american boys aren’t over there, and as long as americans aren’t fleeing in choppers, no one cares, and Biden will not be seen as holding the bag.
really, by giving bibi a blank cheque for terror-violence, biden’s allowed public opinion to shift in such a way that the GOP will not be able to take advantage; had Biden positioned himself such that he tempered Israeli objectives and prevented much of the indiscriminate terror-violence, then Biden takes the heat for being squishy and a bad friend to jews, and israeli isn’t empowered to incredible evil and the public-opinion on zionism remains at status quo ante. i think biden’s polling is a disaster there, and calls to replace him become seriously considered.
If Hezbollah doesn’t get involved and in the mind of Americans this war remains a “low-level” conflict which is an obscene but useful phrase to use - I see the logic in what you’re saying. But I entirely disagree with you if Hezbollah gets involved. At that point the carnage will be happening in at least three places - Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon. I’m no armchair military strategist and I have no knowledge of what Iran can do indirectly. But it doesn’t seem crazy to me that if Hezbollah is at war - Iran uses proxies so they have deniability to kill Americans soldiers and more than one at a time. A handful at a time? More?
I didn’t even mention the West Bank which Americans have been basically entirely ignoring. It’s a low-level conflict but I wonder for how much longer. If Hezbollah is at war - the West Bank explodes. And there it won’t just be Israeli soldiers killing Palestinians. The settlers in the West Bank will watch rockets hitting the heart of Israel - they’ll go on murderous rampages. Images of Jewish settlers killing Palestinians doing pogroms will be on American tv news. Americans will learn definitions of “pogrom” and the murders can hardly be pushed away with phrases like “The IDF is the world’s most moral army”. The IDF will be complicit in murder to a degree I don’t think the average American can ignore. Maybe even boomers start to learn the meme “Are we the baddies?”