We can stop arguing about the term (as we should have done long ago): Israel is committing genocide, with the enthusiastic aid of the United States.
Donald Trump has suggested large numbers of Palestinians should leave Gaza to “just clean out” the whole strip, after ordering the US military to restart shipments of 2,000lb bombs to Israel.
“Cleaning out” a whole people, driving them from their homes, and moving them into camps in another country is genocide. It’s that simple.
Couple that to the fact that he’s not sending a fleet of moving vans and a lot of prefab homes and trailers to their destination, but is instead sending 2000 pound bombs, is a huge hint that we’re not talking about a peaceful, voluntary relocation. It’s hard to get 2.3 million people to all give up their homes, much easier if we whittle the numbers down a bit. A lot.
Combine this with his hatred of DEI, his denial that trans people exist, and his inability to recognize women’s autonomy, I think it’s clear that we have a psychopath in the White House, one who has no sense of empathy and is unable to recognize the rights of other people to exist.
Well, yes. And…?
Trump has a more specific plan that just “cleaning out” Gaza.
He wants to move them to Jordan and Egypt.
Ironically, Gaza was part of Egypt until 1967. During that war, Israel took over Gaza by conquest during a war they won.
Needless to say, there are a lot of problems with Trump’s idea.
Egypt doesn’t want Gaza or the Gaza Palestinians any more than Israel does. To the Egyptians, the Gaza people are just 2.1 million more problems to deal with. Egypt has a huge number of their own problems right now that they aren’t dealing with very well either. Adding another set of problems isn’t anything they will accept.
Butbutbut Crooked Hillary! Cackling Kamala! Genocide Joe!!!!1111!!! Democrats are just the same as Republicans, no difference whatsoever! Decent people cannot vote for them, surely it was better for Palestinians to let Trump win than to soil one’s pure leftist conscience by voting for the lesser evil!11
/spits with rage/
My original simple idea to solve the Gaza war problem was to just give it back to the Egyptians, who controlled it until they lost a war in 1967.
Israel loses a small amount of territory they aren’t using anyway, since Gaza is small at 365 km 2 (141 sq mi).
They lose their world’s largest prison which costs them money to operate badly and they end up with reoccurring prison riots.
They lose 2.1 million Gazaians, who don’t want to live in an Israeli prison anyway.
A lot of people quickly pointed out that this won’t work.
The Egyptians have zero interest in getting Gaza back.
To them it is just a big problem that they were glad to get rid of.
As a war trophy, Gaza is the one you don’t want to win.
I don’t know.
Maybe if we pay the Egyptians enough, they might take Gaza back.
Think $100 billion would work?
So those 77.3 million who voted for him (34% of the adult citizen population of the US) must also lack empathy or at least judgment.
Reportedly, Arab Muslims in Michigan voted mostly for Trump.
Because, “Abouali says the results show how angry Dearborn was at the Biden-Harris White House, mostly over its support for Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip. The community voted for Trump, despite the president’s past action in banning travel from some majority Muslim countries and worries about his proposal to deport millions of immigrants.”
OK, Arab Muslim voters in Michigan.
How is your idea that Trump was going to offer you a better deal than the Democrats and Kamala Harris working out now?
Hmmm, all I hear are crickets.
Also, most likely the muslim community is also as socially conservative as their Christian counterparts so they most likely don’t feel very good for voting for a liberal woman.
Sorry, it’s been decreed by God himself that Canaan belongs to the Jews. It’s in the bible, look it up. We won’t stop aiding Israel ever, because we’re dumbshit god-fearin’ people. And we ride Harleys too, which make a lot of noise. So fuck off.
Yep, once again Palestinians get shafted by the people claiming to be their staunchest allies.
Don’t be at all surprised if we find out that Israeli diplomacy and propagandists had a hand in Dearborn’s turnaround. They’ve been extremely good at exploiting divisions among their adversaries, and at creating such divisions when they feel they need to.
I’m all for free speech and robust debates, but how do all those outraged university students who protested against Israel and the Biden Admin’s policies feel now? Will they occupy their campuses and take up the chants of “Genocide Don” and “Free Palestine From The River To The Sea?” School’s in session. Where are they? I hope this is a learning moment for them. Did they actually believe that any president was ever going to cut Israel loose? Many people seem to have forgotten that our national policies vis-à-vis Israel have less to do with the Jews than with big power maneuvering in the Middle East. I’ve been saying this for years: if Israel ceased to exist and the Jews were tossed out, Palestine would become Iran on the Mediterranean.
https://unosat.org/products/4047
Some estimates of damaged or destroyed houses put the percentage at 90%. 90% of the population is displaced. This is not difficult to figure out.
I’m getting so tired of people blaming voters for the shortcomings of the Democrat platform. I voted for Harris, but it is not at all hard to understand the people who did not.
The voters were very clear from the beginning of the primaries here. In Michigan, the “No Confidence” vote was a bigger margin than Biden’s win in 2020. The reason for that turnout was also clear, Biden was supporting a genocide in Israel.
Did the Democrats adjust their strategy? No, if anything they doubled down.
Did they platform Palestinian Americans? No, they explicitly did not let them speak.
“But Trump is worse,” is a deflection. These people were engaging in democracy, calling on their representatives to take on the policies they cared about, and were being ignored. For you to be angry at them for following through on their convictions and not the people who were supposed to represent them. Honestly, shame on you. All this talk about saving democracy and clearly y’all didn’t believe in it to begin with.
Also, yes, the student protests are ongoing. That you are no longer paying attention now that they no longer directly criticize the Democrats says more about you than the students.
Also, to anyone who’ll try to “lesser of two evils” argument at me. 1) I voted for Harris, and 2) this argument has existed for a long, long time now and the greater evil still wins all the time. Maybe, just maybe, the argument doesn’t work on a systemic level, and the people arguing for pragmatism should focus their efforts less on blaming the voters and more towards something more productive.
@ksiondag
Hard disagree. You can absolutely blame the voters because a lot of them voted for Trump.
Many people seem to have forgotten that our national policies vis-à-vis Israel have less to do with the Jews than with big power maneuvering in the Middle East.
Are you fucking kidding me?! How does our support for Israel help us in any sort of “big power maneuvering?” We’ve consistently done our national and geopolitical self-interest far more harm than good by supporting a country that’s been making enemies all around it since its founding, and causing nothing but discord, division and conflict in the entire region. That’s gotta be the most incompetent “big power maneuvering” since the British Empire left the region.
I’ve been saying this for years: if Israel ceased to exist and the Jews were tossed out, Palestine would become Iran on the Mediterranean.
What the fuck does that even mean?
Also, I’m in total agreement with ksiondag: the Democrats had PLENTY of time and opportunity to take a sensible, coherent stand on the Gaza war, and they tossed it all away because they’d been conditioned to always cave to Republican hysteria whenever it arose.
@12
Thank you so much for this comment. It’s beyond abhorrent to see so many people here look at everything that’s happened and reserve their worst ire for the people who were upset at a fucking genocide that has killed hundreds of thousands of people rather than the Democrats who, while IN POWER, refused to stop supporting it. Even IF they would have lost more votes by changing their policy, and that’s a HUGE “if”, why the fuck is there not any ire directed towards those they who they would have lost votes from? Why is it, no matter what, ALWAYS directed at those upset that people they cared about were being subject to state-sanctioned extermination?
There was literally just a huge anti-Trump, pro-Palestine rally/protest in my city yesterday. There have been ongoing protests at major universities and crackdowns on students over the last several months. Some people here are just willfully ignorant
It’s clear that a lot of you just want marginalized people to fall in line with parties that support policies that are killing them because you consider our lives not as important as “regular” people’s (aka cis hetero white men). If they lose elections we’re always to blame, never the people who cling to “acceptable” bigotries. It’s literally the logic of “there’s more of them than you, so even if you’re right, we expect you to make concessions (including the lives of your loved ones) rather than upset those who are wrong and contributing to your oppression”. I voted for Harris as a lesser of two evils, most people I know who were also involved in protests did as well, and I would wager that was true overall, but of course, that doesn’t matter—people see that “enough” people who didn’t might have swung a state or two (we don’t even know if those people would have even voted regardless) and then rush to blame anyone who was critical at all of those who supported one of the most visible, obvious cases of systemic eradication of human beings en masse in the last 50 years.
It’s no wonder that fascism is having a resurgence with “allies” like these.
@3: Exactly. We FUCKING TOLD YOU.
All of what PZ reports along with other responsible news article (sources avail. upon polite request, if you can’t expend the effort to factually educate yourself) points to the fact that with a few exceptions, human beings are destructive, murderous, deceitful lower life forms.
The death and destruction that has accelerated in the past couple of weeks confirms that:
MAGA = Maggots Are Governing America
Martha and the Vandellas were right: Nowhere to Run to baby, nowhere to hide!
Didn’t some (in)famous person talk about this country being in some sort of a spiral???
And once again the members of the fascist-enabling useless American left fail to take responsibiliy for their actions and blame everyone else for them making things worse through their laziness and general stupidity.
A common internet meme, seen on Bluesky sums it up.
The January 20th inauguration was the start of 4 years of…”I/we told you this would happen.”
While obvious, this doesn’t help very much.
We need to also remember to not let it happen again.
@20 AugustusVerger wrote: And once again the members of the fascist-enabling useless American left fail to take responsibiliy for their actions
I reply: YOUR STATEMENT JUST POINTS OUT HOW IGNORANT YOU ARE. My organization has, since the mid-1960s, been involved in community benefit activities and causes. WE ARE NOT ALONE IN BEING RESPONSIBLE SECULAR PROGRESSIVES WHO CARE ABOUT PEOPLE AND TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR DOING SOMETHING TO IMPROVE SOCIETY. STFU!
(end of shouting)
@21: Truth.
@22: Doubt he meant you. Probably referring to those that abstained from voting because “Genocide Joe” and “Evil Kamala”. They’re sitting in their morals, thinking their shit don’t stink while we’re shoveling the feces.
@22: Doubt he meant you. Probably referring to those that abstained from voting because “Genocide Joe” and “Evil Kamala”. They’re sitting in their morals, thinking their shit don’t stink while we’re shoveling the feces.
shermanj @22: What Autobot said. The ‘fascist-enabling useless American left’ is The Vicar and his purity-above-all ilk.
It’s quite possible to blame both the Democrats for their vile support for genocide, and everyone who voted for Trump or otherwise helped him to victory.
Can’t blame the the Democrats for what Trump does.
See let’s recap Trump’s week on Gaza.
[1] Trump says we should “clean out Gaza” and forcibly resettle all Palestinians to Egypt.
[2] Trump froze all international aid…except for military aid to Israel and Egypt.
[3] Trump approved the delivery of 2000-lb bombs to Israel that the Biden admin had blocked out of concern for civilian casualties.
[4] Trump lifted all US sanctions against violent Israeli settler groups in the West Bank.
Hey, Vicar. Any thoughts?
@ 29
Knowing him, he’d just say Harris would do all the same things on a longer timetable.
@ ^ Akira MacKenzie & #29. chrislawson : Brave Sir Vcars run away..boldy ran away, away..
Leaving one last point missing, question dodging, tanty rant on his way out – see :
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/01/22/tearing-stuff-down-is-easier-than-building-them-up/#comment-2251373
Beholder seems to have disappeared too. Of course they got their way now haven’t they?
Predictable, predicted, proven.
@12. ksiondag :
No. It is the reality. Reality we are now experiencing first hand.
Source : https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/1/26/palestinians-condemn-trumps-proposal-to-clean-out-gaza
Sure didn’t take long to be proven right about Trump’s policies towards Palestinians. I predict that soon now Egypt and Jordan will be urged to take Palestinians out of the former West Bank too as Israel proceeds to officially annex that as likely promised to Miriam Adelson and quite likely privately promised to Netanyahu too. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miriam_Adelson#Support_for_Donald_Trump )
I wonder how many Arab-Americans and pro-Palestinians who thought it was a good idea to punish Kamala for what Biden and Netanyahu decided to do are already suffering buyer’s remorse. Some of us did try very hard to warn them but they didn’t listen or choose wisely enough and now Trump is about to make Biden look like a saint in comparison.
There was a chance of protests convincing the Democratic party to shift its position. There’s no chance of them affecting the Trump cultists regime. Trump has already hinted at deporting students who support Palestinians and cracking down brutally hard on those protests. They’re likely to be attacked, outlawed and stopped. Certainly going to make it much harder and riskier to protest. Not just for Palestinians and action against the genocide but likely for all forms of peaceful protests – recall Trump’s response to BLM?
Source : https://www.nbcnews.com/news/trumps-plan-quell-protests-deport-hamas-radicals-rcna166168
Yes, there’ll be legal challenges. Do you really think that those challenges will succeed given the Repugs & Federalist Society control over the courts and Trump clearly being above and outside the law?
Yes, they can’t deport Americans citizens – or can they? But they very likely will imprison and punitively fine and do all they can to stop protests and hurt protesters. So, prepare for that and think ahead.
Like what? The Trump cult has been handed control of the Presidency, Congress and long ago rigged and took control of the Courts. What action now will be “productive” in stopping them? From what I can see the options are very few and very ugly and probly shouldn’t be discussed on this blog or in public.
Oh and as lotharloo (26 January 2025 at 12:31 pm) correctly said; the voters do indeed deserve the blame. Anyone who didn’t vote for Kamala Harris and thus against Fascism and Trumpism needs to face the fact that they chose horribly badly. They cannot say they weren’t warned or couldn’t have known.
PS. if any legal challenges do somehow suceed the Trumpists will probly make new laws over-riding them. Yes, even to the Constitution.
@31
Alas, StevoR, I am still here. It’s been a rough week, I’ve been busy — and in the particular case of this thread I feel most of my points were best stated by @12 ksiondag, Hex, and @27 KG — so I took a breather, at least until you mentioned me by name. Now I’m obliged to respond.
Well, considering I did not vote for Trump, this is not what I would describe as “my way”. Rather the opposite.
A general strike.
Well, considering I did not vote for Trump…
Who DID you vote for?
You sure did not vote against Trump.
(You could have, the election is a zero-sum affair)
Two candidates, one winner.
You either voted against Trump, or you did not.
You did not.
@ ^ Bekenstein Bound : A good suggestion. Yes. I agree that’s worth trying.
@35. beholder : I’m pretty sure I recall you saying you voted third party which in practice and reality was a vote for Trump. Is this wrong? Did you vote for Kamala Harris? Because in the very shitty and badly needing drastic reforms binary USA-ite political system anything other than a vote for Kamala Harris was de facto a vote for Trump and the ONLY way of stopping Trump and all the Fascism we’re already seeing was to vote for Kamala Harris & the Democratic party.
Also I think you need to answer the questions posed by #29. Chrislawson specifically your thoughts on what we’re seeing Trump do and say here because of you helping impose him in power by arguing against, voting against and undermining the only alternative?
Plus #6 raven’s question “How is your idea that Trump was going to offer you a better deal than the Democrats and Kamala Harris working out now?”
Oh and question from me what’s Jill Stein up to now and how is she opposing Trump’s fascism or has she disappeared for the next four years having done of her regular job of helping Trump gain supreme power by deceiving gullible, worse than useless, poor at thinking self-proclaimed progressives? ? How do feel about that?
This rancid inability of the Useless American Left to take responsibility for their actions is why so many of them just flip over to full-blown right-wing fascism (see the The Young Turks as a prime example of that). Not growing up and retaining the mentality of a spoiled, immature teenager is after all the one true right-wing ideal that all of them want to make reality.
As I’ve already pointed out on another thread, US support for Israel has not prevented most of the nearby states sucking up to Uncle Sam. And it’s very useful to the USA to have a dependant ally which can attack states and non-state forces hostile to the US (Iran, Syria until Assad’s overthrow, Hezbollah, Hamas, Houthis), and test out new American weapons systems, rather than having to do so itself.
it seems time to me for everyone to face the facts and the realty that the middle east and Israel is not a simple problem and no order from outside is going to nor has ever had beneficial effect in the long run nor the short term. it has been a problem for a millennium or two. Yes trump is doing the wrong kind of stuff no surprise there. Bebe is an asshole only out for himself like staying in power and out of jail like Rump. the Palestinians, poor and powerless are desperate and resist any way they can.
all sides in this are not in the habit of doing what anyone advises them to do especially not foreign countries.
Add never forget the roll of religion has in this stupid situation, nor the history, ancient, colonial era, The Holocaust. European racism and the ever present greed of human beings.
There is no one who does not have some guilt and some responsibility in the current situation and no one can admit it without at the same time pointing the finger at everyone else
I would try to pull the words out of this but I am beginning to think like this!
I will continue to do my part but I hope I can keep my illusions under control.