Israel’s Finance Minister Smotrich hopes US President-elect Trump will support plan to annex occupied West Bank in 2025.
"Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has ordered preparations for the annexation of the occupied West Bank ahead of US President-elect Donald Trump taking office in January 2025."
“Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has ordered preparations for the annexation of the occupied West Bank ahead of US President-elect Donald Trump taking office in January 2025.”
The Harris campaign made the decision to not break from Biden on Israel, at the cost of a +6 points gain. That's the fault of the campaign's calculations to ignore those voters, take them for granted, and instead run to the right with Liz Cheney and having the most lethal Military.
I voted for Harris and told others to do the same. It's still on the campaign. Blaming voters is just sowing division when we need unity and solidarity to fight against Fascism.
Quote
Our first matchup tested a Democrat and a Republican who “both agree with Israel’s current approach to the conflict in Gaza”. In this case, the generic candidates tied 44–44. The second matchup saw the same Republican facing a Democrat supporting “an immediate ceasefire and a halt of military aid and arms sales to Israel”. Interestingly, the Democrat led 49–43, with Independents and 2020 non-voters driving the bulk of this shift.
In Pennsylvania, 34% of respondents said they would be more likely to vote for the Democratic nominee if the nominee vowed to withhold weapons to Israel, compared to 7% who said they would be less likely. The rest said it would make no difference. In Arizona, 35% said they’d be more likely, while 5% would be less likely. And in Georgia, 39% said they’d be more likely, also compared to 5% who would be less likely.
Majorities of Democrats (67%) and Independents (55%) believe the US should either end support for Israel’s war effort or make that support conditional on a ceasefire. Only 8% of Democrats but 42% of Republicans think the US must support Israel unconditionally.
Republicans and Independents most often point to immigration as one of Biden’s top foreign policy failures. Democrats most often select the US response to the war in Gaza.
Let's be honest, I voted for Harris. But her message was essentially:
"Vote for Kamala Harris. She will enable a slow genocide. But her opponent, Donald Trump, will enable a fast genocide. She is clearly the superior choice."
Saying that Kamala would be better than Trump was objectively true. However, it was also just shit, brain-dead, zero-awareness messaging. You cannot practically run on a message of, "yes, I will enable genocide, but my opponent will enable it WORSE!"
It's just a shit, poorly thought out message. Who actually is this for? Those pro-Zionist voters won't be persuaded either way. Those who want to see the Palestinians genocided will go with Trump instead, as he'll get the job done faster. Those opposed to genocide were asked to hold their nose and vote for someone who should be on trial at the Hague, simply because she was running against someone who deserves to be on trial at the Hague even more!
It's like running a campaign saying, "yes, I have some Nazi tendencies, but my opponent is a full-on avowed Nazi. My opponent is objectively worse."
A statement can be true, while also being just complete shit in terms of campaign strategy.
"Yes, my candidate is Mussolini, but her opponent is Hitler! Clearly a vote for Mussolini is better than a vote for Hitler!"
Take massive bribes from Israeli funders, actively fund a genocide that couldnt happen without our weapons, shut down palestinian voices in the campaign, and she supressed student free speech herself instead of supporting it.
But you're saying she was going to be better than trump in all this huh. Either she failed to message whatever your talking about, or you're talking nonsense. Theres a "trolley problem" for you.
Trump is at least as far right as Netanyahu. He supports the full destruction of Palestine and Palestinians. His election has dropped all Israeli pretense in their propaganda. They can now do what they want with impunity since Trump's administration will provide all the international cover that they need and Trump's admin will happily brag about the genocide they helped to perpetrate.
It means Israel is using the current conflict in Gaza to expand into another Palestinian territory, the West Bank. They are already illegally occupying it. This is their move to "legitimize" the occupation.
Narrowing down the options to apartheid/genocide and the abolition of the Jewish character of Israel. In other words killing off the last vestiges of a non-fascist version of Zionism that a "small Israel" could allow.
Dude I gave up the moment I heard on the radio that the fucker killed Rabin. If you want to live in Zion move to New York.
...also, to the rest of the thread: If you think the US election was decided on Israel, please go outside and touch grass. Talk to people. You know, those flesh-and blood things usually found within metal containers on rubber circles that you rarely interact with. Ask them. Practically nobody in the US gives a fuck, and especially not enough of a fuck for it to be the #1 cause of things.
I mean, aren't they? The only real difference I can see between Kamala and Trump on Palestine is that Kamala prefers a more respectable version of genocide. She supports genocide, but she just wants it to be done slowly and quietly. Trump is on board with a fast and overt genocide. Their policies lead to the same outcome; Trump is just a lot more honest about it.
Harris promised to do everything in her power to end the war in Gaza.
“This year has been difficult, given the scale of death and destruction in Gaza and given the civilian casualties and displacement in Lebanon, it is devastating. And as president, I will do everything in my power to end the war in Gaza, to bring home the hostages, end the suffering in Gaza, ensure Israel is secure, and ensure the Palestinian people can realise their right to dignity, freedom, security and self-determination,” Harris said to applause during a rally in East Lansing city of Michigan, home to 200,000 Arab Americans.
Jesus h. Chist, you ARE the problem in the room. You and people like you.
Had kamela won she could have doubled down in Israel. If not, mass protests could have pushed her. Something, anything could have been done. Hell, even if nothing was done, at least the worst impulses would have been constrained. Now, because of smug assholes like you, the US will likely become a dictatorship, the US likely will pull out of NATO and the entire fucking world will become a much, much dangerous place to live in. Forget about internal policies that will make racism and discrimination against anyone slightly different okay again, this shit affects the whole goddamn world. People like you ate the reason why a Jesus-will-come-back-if-we-end-the-world cult is now in possession of nukes.
Oh, and Palestine is absolutely fucked now.expect it to simply and completely disappear, you are the reason why so many men, women and children will be slaughtered
they've been self-defensing their way towards the total elimination and annexation of Palestine from the 1940s to now.
this whole thing really should not surprise anyone that knows even a simplified history of god's special country. they have been slowly and steadily inching towards their goal. they're not really shy about it.
hear it from Israel's first prime minister
"You are no doubt aware of the JNF's activity in this respect. Now a transfer of a completely different scope will have to be carried out. In many parts of the country new settlement will not be possible without transferring the Arab fellahin." He added: "Jewish power [in Palestine], which grows steadily, will also increase our possibilities to carry out this transfer on a large scale."
"With compulsory transfer we have a vast area... I support compulsory transfer. I don't see anything immoral in it."
Here's another guy, a director of the JNF, Joseph Weitz
"There is no way besides transferring the Arabs from here to the neighboring countries, and to transfer all of them, save perhaps for [the Arabs of] Bethlehem, Nazareth and Old Jerusalem. Not one village must be left, not one [Bedouin] tribe. And only after this transfer will the country be able to absorb millions of our brothers and the Jewish problem will cease to exist. There is no other solution."
They've already BEEN doing it. And this was the critical failure of all those who argued that Trump would be better for Palestine than Harris. I voted for Harris, but I am not at all surprised this cost her the election.
Israel doesn't need to do ANYTHING differently to complete its genocide of Gaza and the West Bank. It is already on that road, actively engaging in a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Palestinians. And the Biden/Harris team have, through their inaction, fully endorsed this genocide.
Kamala was so comically bad on Palestine that the only hair-brained thing they could come up with to defend her stance was, "well...well...Trump will let the Israelis do a genocide EVEN FASTER!"
Kamala's campaign slogan was, "a vote for Mussolini is better than a vote for Hitler!"
And then she was surprised when enough liberal voters in swing states stayed home to cost her the election. It turns out, there are plenty of people who will NOT turn out to vote for Mussolini just because Hitler is also on the ballot. They won't vote for either of them; they'll just say "a pox on both your houses!" and stay home.
Is a vote for Mussolini better than a vote for Hitler? Objectively, probably yes. Hitler objectively did a lot worse harm than Mussolini. But you also can't be shocked when people refuse to hold their noses and vote for Mussolini, just because Hitler might be objectively worse. Ultimately, it's your fucking fault for expecting people to vote for Mussolini.
I can't speak for the nuances w.r.t Harris, Trump and US foreign policy in Israel/Palestine.
I can with full confidence say that not voting is definitely not going to achieve anything. The only justified case would be an attempt to highlight the illegitimacy of the voting process if there are no options at all. It's relatively common for people to vote tactically on a consistent basis, although of course it's understandable when people lose motivation to vote when they feel there are no good options.
What does annexation actually mean? Do all the Palestinians get Israel citizenship and voting rights? Or is this officially implementing apartheid or expulsion/death?
I'm no diplomat but having the government officially annex it sure seems like an escalation. Many (most?) of those settlements are illegal even under Israeli law* so the way to legitimize them is to annex the territory, because "it doesn't have a government now".
* According to Wikipedia, Israel's Supreme court has said repeatedly (until 2012 at least) that the settlements are illegal, apparently against the word of the Executive branch of the government. And then last year, this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Israeli_judicial_reform
Israel is literally a "Nation for Jews" in its constitution were it says roughly that all Jews and only Jews are entitled to Israeli nationality, hence why any Jewish person can just land at Tel-Aviv, ask to get Israeli nationality and get it.
That said, Israel, pretty much uniquelly in the World, separates Citizenship from Nationality and assigns different rights to both, so non-Jews can get Israeli Citizenship but not Israeli Nationality.
Limitations on the rights that people get from having Israeli Citizenship without the Nationality include, for example, limits to where they can live.
Appartheid in Israel is already officially implement, since the very beginning, so even if the Palestinians were given Israeli Citizenship (highly unlikely given Israel's track record on this: for example tens of thousands of Arab residents in Jerusalem have for decades been refused Israeli Citizienship even though they were born there and lived there their whole lives), they would still have less rights than Israeli Jews or in fact any Jew in the world if they came to Israel.
But but but, i didn't vote for Kamala because she wouldn't do exactly as I wanted for the Palestinians! Things should be getting better for them, not worse, how could this be happening?
Netanyahu expressly wanted a Trump administration and even closely corresponded with him during the campaign. Moreover, no, the outlook under Biden was nowhere near as dire as what it's already shaping up to be under Trump, even if it was awful and an affront to any reason le persons conscience.
Silver lining we'll soon get to know if the Scriptures are right about that second coming of Christ. If all the believer could just fuck off to heaven, the heathens might get some peace.
Well would it matter if I could already tell you right now if it's right or not? Just saying, based on results so far, it's 99.9999% surely not right. Sorry.
Is this the first time you have this bombardment of nonsense on social media prior to the ellections? My read abput this idiots is that they were just trolls... we have so much of this in my country that some politicians even started publickly admiting that they were running troll farms, everybody does here apparently.
$hill Stein voters will never admit they were duped. All those protests centered on Biden or Harris but NEVER on Republicans. Also it’s Congress that establishes foreign aid, but whatever. It must have felt so good to be entertained by your own anger.
Congress establishes foreign aid, not the president. And there won’t be much protesting about Gaza anymore because the purpose of the protests has already proved successful, to disenfranchise Democrats for a Trump win.
What does pointing your anger at and blaming other voters accomplish? They did the right thing. Republicans want minorities dead and Democrats are holding them hostage. I'm glad Trump won. Now white Americans can feel a fraction of the suffering Palestinians are going through. That'll make them care. That'll make them fight.
If any civilian should be blamed, it's you for accepting this lesser evil bullshit over and over and over again to the point that got the world here. If the only thing that comes out of your mouth is shit, then don't talk.
Yeah, entertained by your own anger and the hubris to never be wrong… Gaza is fucked now, and apparently the West Bank, too. The lesser of two evils is all there is in this world, and you sit there celebrating that evil won (at the behest of quite a few minorities).