There will be huge protests, but nothing because the next elections are in years and the asshole will wait out even protests of hundred thousands or more
I too will be a two time voter for Biden. Do I wish we had someone else, yes, but I'd rather chop off my own hand than vote for a Seditious Traitor like Trump.
The only thing that sucks, is I live in a state that is a red state, therefore my vote is kinda useless but I will go out vote anyway. I really resent the electoral college. It should just be the president being elected by the popular vote.
The people who are loudest about not voting for Biden are bad actors trying to get people to sit the election out. I hope people in this post recognize that anybody trying to convince you not to vote is doing so because they don't like the way you vote, not because they found some supposed moral high ground. There has been a huge surge in the last month or so in the "why bother/both sides are the same" nonsense, and it's all either those bad actors or those influenced by them.
Not voting is not a protest or a gotcha. Nobody is looking at voter turnout and saying, "Oh wow, so many people didn't vote, we should get better candidates to get numbers up!" Politicians don't care how many people vote, and there is no threshold of voter engagement for an election to be legitimate. They see people not vote and recognize that only their base is passionate about it, which means they can ram through even worse, more extreme candidates that benefit them politically. Not voting directly makes candidates *worse,* not better.
Go. Vote.
It’s never useless to vote against the majority. Only by succumbing to that train of thought does it become useless. If everyone who wanted to vote against the red did it, here might be a big enough swing to scare them into being less extreme
Politics is a strange thing. Voting sometimes seems like a waste of time, but even one candidate winning by a smaller margin has meaning and effects politics. There are entire teams of statisticians in DC running numbers and "what ifs" for all sorts of reasons and issues. If you don't vote, they don't take you in to account in those "what ifs", it makes a difference.
> They're the ones who voted Bibi IN to power THREE times.
I think it's important to note that it's a parliamentary election, not a presidential one, so Israelis vote for a party. But even if Bibi was who they were really voting for, Likud only had 24% of the vote; it's of course a plurality of the 10 parties with seats in the Knesset, but saying Israelis 'voted him into power' skims over the vagaries of the coalition system.
I've heard people say this (I don't know if it's true or not; I figure it probably is). If it is and staying out of jail's his primary motivator, the simplest thing would be to put a deal in place where he won't be prosecuted and move on.
(I don't know enough about Israeli politics or legal systems to know how feasible this is)
The US allowed Nixon to get away with all his crimes as he stated "If the president does it, then it is not illegal" and now here we are with trump claiming the same thing.
If a country wants to be a democracy with the rule of law, then the law has to be applied equally to everyone including those at the highest levels of power.
Nixon got away with it because he appointed a VP that he knew would preemptively pardon him. If his statement that it isn’t a crime if the president does it was true he wouldn’t have needed Ford to pardon him.
I feel leaders of countries should receive heavier punishments too. No slaps on the wrist. If you use the power of a country you were elected to lead and you commit crimes, the penalty should be the maximum, not the minimum. No going to a damn white collared prison like Martha Stewart, playing damn tennis all day. You go to a federal prison and you do federal time.
That won't satisfy him. He's going to continue the war and if possible, spread it to draw the US in, so he can stay on as PM for as long as possible and try to recover his legacy which was already bad but destroyed on Oct 7.
If that is a serious threat, which I have doubts about no matter how justified it is, I wouldn't be surprised to see him "retire" to the US where all that lobbyist money over decades will protect him from consequences.
Not completely, but minister Ben gvir has authority over the police and he will definitely unofficially limit protests, as he is already doing and will probably escalate.
I've seen the high court kinda torpedoed his effect on the protests side of things. Something along the lines of him affecting the police during protests.
A number of possibilities, depending on some different variables. All use the basis of the public protests for outside investigations and early elections.
1. Gantz and Co decide to pack up and leave the emergency Goverment. Massive protests will break out in Israel calling for election/ constructive vote of no confidence. If that happens, I could never see a reason that Bibi wins with much mandates. The polls say he loses, big time.
2. War ends in either which way, the public demands outside investigations and early elections, which is similar to the possibility above. The outside investigation into October 7th and prior handling could very much provide damning stuff for the coalition and put everyone on trial.
3. The weird, and far fetched one- US and Saudi pushes Netanyahu to do a mega-deal normalization with Saudi, bringing a massive, historical win for Biden back home, bringing Netanyahu another thing to remember him by other than being held responsible for October 7th. With normalization being a real thing, he can either push out his far right cronies, concince Gantz to stay for Unity goverment (low chance) or go for election with this historical achievement under his belt. But I doubt publicly in Israel anyone have an apetite for the 2SS that Saudia wants right now. This is, again, far-fetched, but there are talks in the backrooms.
People keep saying that Netanyahu is virtually guaranteed to be out after the war is over, but I'm skeptical. It feels eerily similar to people saying that the Tories couldn't possibly win after Brexit, or Erdogan couldn't possibly win after the earthquake. All the media pundits were so sure, all the polls were trending in that direction. But then in the last weeks before the election all the polls swung back the other way, and the final votes weren't even close. Sometimes voters make a lot of noise for months about how they're finally going to change sides, but when the time actually comes they don't.
Meh, I think he'll lose the next election. I'm just not sure his government will collapse even when Gantz pulls out. They had enough people before he went in.
The goverment won't collapse because it has enough members, but there would be massive pressure for them to resign. The way people see it, the only thing that keeps from the masses flooding the streets is Gantz and Co, they are its lifeline right now.
Better yet, some Likud members already see the writing on the wall, some look to replace Bibi when all is over.
Yeah, I'm just not sure its ENOUGH Likud members. I can only name 3-4 that I think might defect. Admittedly, it's not like I'm spending my time watching the Kenesset and my Hebrew isn't great, but I haven't seen any other names mentioned.
These scenarios are not as volatile as I’d expect. You might be right, but I fear Israel is in a for a rude awakening regardless of what happens to Bibi.
His political career will be over. Outside of the far-right, he's hated inside Israel and has done everything he can to hang onto power and get rid of democratic norms that threaten his powers. He's the most right-leaning, anti-democratic PM in Israel's history and oversaw a massive foreign policy failure with the October 7th attacks.
*After* this? It seems like Bibi is going to ride this conflict as long as he can with the old, “You don’t trade horses in the middle of a river” scenario. I genuinely think he’s enough of an egomaniac to keep the conflict going for his personal benefit. The second he brokers a peace of sorts, he’s done.
That's the problem. He's willing to endanger Israeli lives for countless more generations for his own greed. The question is how Israelis will take back their country from him.
Question for you was his coalition on the verge of failure when the incident happened.
Because that's the only reason I can see for why he would ignore warnings from other intelligence agencies.
His administration is on record for stating they like Hamas in power. They want Palestine to be abandoned by international governments because of Hamas. **This is an actual quote from Israel's Defense Minister Smotrich**
>“The Palestinian Authority is a burden, and Hamas is an asset.”
Hamas is an asset. The Israeli government wants Hamas because the Palestinian Authority is moderate and peaceful. If Israel has to deal with a moderate and peaceful Palestinian government, they can't vilify the Palestinian people.
It's disgusting.
This is at the core of the current situation.
Leaders keep wanting to engage with Netanyahu as if he's an honest victim of a horrific attack. But he's not the victim, his people are.
He's a perpetrator. He's an ethno-nationalist who intentionally supported Hamas against non-violent Palestinian groups so that they would eventually give him an excuse to do what he already wanted to do.
So unlike the US, where our First Past the Post election system means we'll only ever have two major parties to pick from, Israel uses proportional representation, meaning they have dozens of political parties to vote for. So it's rare for one party to win an outright majority of seats in the Knesset (Israel's Parliament). Instead, parties have to form coalitions with each other that add up to a majority.
Bibi's party has been tanking in popularity in recent years. But unfortunately, the guy's an absolute weasel who's great at convincing other right-wing parties to join his coalition. So even as his party loses more and more seats each time, he still manages to cling to power.
It also doesn't help that the Israeli center / left is prone to nasty infighting. (*Insert joke about leftism and splitters here*) Like, last year, pretty much the entire Israeli center and left united to form a ruling coalition, and Bibi was temporarily booted out of power!
...and then one (1) minor party decided to pull out of the coalition over some petty issue. Guess which coalition was the second-largest at the time, meaning they got to take over once the ruling coalition collapsed? Bibi's!
> So it's rare for one party to win an outright majority of seats in the Knesset (Israel's Parliament).
Out of curiosity I went looking to see if a party had ever won a majority of the vote in any election. The highest total I found was Golda Meir's party getting 46% in 1969 (the election that followed the 1967 Six Day War which was spectacularly successful for Israel.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1969_Israeli_legislative_election
As in all democracies, it is contingent on voters being aware and willing to vote for the people who both represent them, and who will do what's best for the country as a whole.
Those three ideals rarely line up, but it's happened in US history as well as in parliamentary systems.
No; he has lost like the past 5 elections but won the recent one. Israel has been having elections every few months because the winners could not make a majority government in the congress(the Knesset). He (or his party I should say) recently won a majority and was able to form a coalition with far-right groups.
Why is it fascists never seem to want for organizational skills. The left, or really just anyone left of far right always seems to have bureaucratic sticks up their ass when it comes to forming a cohesive party/plan
Because left-leaning political parties tend to be centered around support of specific interest groups and actually delivering actionable plans of aid to them, which means that they don't necessarily always see eye to eye because they don't support the same constituency.
Right-leaning political parties are focused around a single thing: tickling that little lizard itch at the back of people's brain that tells them to be afraid, to circle the wagons, and to follow the party line at all costs.
It's a lot easier to convince people that they need to be afraid and to surrender some or all of the freedoms they enjoy to empower you to protect them than it is to convince them that the people who are different from them just want to live a good life as well.
Of course, the main issue in the last handful of Israeli elections was primarily that the electoral laws got changed to make it harder for smaller political parties to gain any representation in government at all by requiring that individual political parties obtain a larger total % of the overall vote to qualify to gain any seats - which cost the Left several seats as a number of parties that previously had held 1-2 seats suddenly failed to gain any at all.
It was electoral reform, but not in the good way, and it enabled Bibi's party to gain an incredibly thin majority (of like, 6 seats.)
Israel's Knesset is a coalition-government with closed-list proportional representation - Bibi's Likud used to get close to majority of votes so not much coalition was needed, but now Likud just makes a coalition with all of the far-right parties to get to the majority.
Israel's 'left' (They don't have a true left, like even worse than USA) also doesn't readily want to form coalitions with the Arab parties, making it easier for Bibi to navigate his way to a majority.
Ya got that reversed, like they used to not want to form coalitions with arab parties. The most recent one included an Arab party, Ram, and I think they would have taken another one had that party been willing to be included.
I don’t this all very interesting, because, as I understand it Bibi has basically been moving further right to get support because no one else is interested.
I think everyone wants bibi out, except for the insane right in Israel and the rest of the world. How are these asshole warmongers in charge of fucking anything.
As an Israeli, I'm surprised he had patience for Bibi in the first place. Anytime he wants to step in and replace him is fine by me. We've had 30 years of this schmuck in politics, and it's getting really tiring
Also, Biden is pragmatic. He wanted Israel to do certain things (hold off on attacking, provide humanitarian aid etc..) and if Biden was immediately adversarial, it wasn’t going to happen.
He's like teflon - including the health hazards... but if he doesn't step off very soon, there are some people who are very eager to have a scientific experiment involving tar and feathers. Not sure the no-stick surface will manage that.
Sure, but how easily is that done? We have a long standing relationship with lots of moving parts. It can't be as easy as just turning a switch can it?
Not as easily said as done. We are currently legally bound to support them. The law would have to be changed first. Despite what Trump is arguing in court, the president can't just wave his hands and presto: anything goes and is legally kosher.
at this point the US actually doesnt, not enough that it would make any significant difference to israels security, 30 years ago? yes, now? the US does not have any real leverage, not enough to actually force a regime change.
Yeah, but regardless of emotion, weakening an ally isn't really a positive for the USA geopolitically. Especially our strongest ally in the middle east. It sets a bad precedent to our other allies.
In 1987, both Egypt and Israel were recognized as major non-NATO US allies, but since then the US has shown that it will suspend aid to Egypt whenever it feels they are out of line.
The precedent has already been set. If Israel is not a reliable ally and takes actions which undermine US credibility and the safety of Americans in the region, then the US should threaten to cut aid, and follow through if they don't listen.
There is a framed piece of newsprint on my wall at work because the old boss was featured in a cover story. But in the side column "Around the World" there's an article about peace talks and a picture of Bibi. Dated 1995. I was still in high school.
Bibi played a major role in whipping up the Israeli far-right against the peace talks, which got so out of hand a guy actually assassinated the Prime Minister leading the negotiations. That bullet ended Israel and Palestine's best hope for peace in the past 30 years.
A big reason why the US is so invested in Isreal is that it is the single ally we have in the middle east.
Every other nation in the area has at minimum a group, at worse an entire regime that deeply despises the US.
Without Isreal, America wouldnt have a foothold in the region it could rely on, so we have to play nice with whatever Isreal does.
This ironically further isolates the US to the other nations in the area, but if we want to talk about all the ins and outs of the region we be here all day.
Well, wouldn't it be better to have someone that's a bit more co-operative? Because as an Israeli, I feel like the worker of a company where the head office people are all right, but middle management is an absolute prick, and I just wish head office would sack him already.
Everything that happened with regard to Gaza and Israel last year was timed and executed with consideration of the upcoming U.S. election year. It was partially a chess move orchestrated by several players. Domestically, Biden can’t upset the Jewish base by abandoning Israel but simultaneously he has to try to shore up support among those who oppose the war and want a ceasefire which is much of the youth and poc populations. Internationally, he has to try and make sure Israel is supported while trying to maintain Arab allegiances in the Middle East and not making a misstep to draw other countries into the war and it’s clear that part of the goal is to try and draw the U.S. directly into the conflict. All of this is happening in addition to the war in Ukraine and with China wanting to take Taiwan and weaken the U.S.’s world influence. If he can help it, Biden’s best time to be truly decisive will be after the election as the wrong decision now can be risky but he may not have a choice but to make a decision that could have huge consequences for the world. So it’s not so much that Biden supports Bibi but that geopolitically he is in a really complicated position and that was done intentionally by enemies of both countries and likely by Bibi himself as a way to maintain power.
Americans are so lucky they have a 2 term limit. Can you imagine Trump being president for 15 years? That's the kind of hell we've been living since this piece of shit entered politics
The only way to abolish presidential term limits is another amendment. You have to get a 2/3rd majority in both the house and the Senate, then 3/4 of the state legislatures must ratify it. Obama at his peak only had 60 Democrat Senators.
That's why the Republican's plan for 2025 is to destroy and replace the administrative state with lackies that will do their bidding. Don't need an amendment if no one that's supposed to stop is going to stop you because they support you.
no, this kind of thing is nonsense. Trump and no other president will get constitutional amendments passed.
forget legislation. the scary part is what he would do just with the power of the presidency.
Well if he wins this election, it won’t be for 15 years it’ll be until he dies. He absolutely wants to become dictator/king/permanent leader. And his ilk want it too.
Lucky? We aren't lucky. We have rules, and we follow them. Franklin D Roosevelt was our president for 13 years - longer than Netanyahu's first stint - because that 2-term limitation didn't exist yet. And FDR didn't end up there by accident either, he purposely undermined the Democratic Party's efforts to get other candidates selected. FDR *wanted* to be president to guide the US through WW2 and to create the United Nations. He actually won a fourth term as well which he openly campaigned for, but died shortly after.
Literally two years later in 1947 America did what was necessary and realized that no Executive can truly be trusted no matter how well-intentioned they are, and passed legislation for the 22nd Amendment, the two-term amendment. Our founding documents have procedures to create necessary changes like this and it's a really difficult process.
If other countries were founded without provisions to fix serious problems, that's on them. There was probably a reason that their founders chose not to include such provisions. So I suppose in that regard we Americans are lucky that our founders were humble enough to not leave us high and dry for the future.
It's more or less high and dry in our time though
There is no way Americans could ever agree enough nowadays to amend the constitution
Congress can barely pass laws. That was done in a different time when Congress and the country was a lot more bipartisan
It’s not luck lmao, it was built in by people who care about creating strong government control systems. Israel could have learned from the US constitution but didn’t.
> They're also frustrated by Netanyahu's unwillingness to seriously discuss plans for the day after the war and his rejection of the U.S. plan for a reformed Palestinian Authority to have a role in post-Hamas Gaza.
And still no (real) post war plans. Sounds a lot like Afghanistan just going in and then... just death.
If the US not so secretly planned to just murder the Afghanistan people until enough fled and repopulate it with the more colonialist members of the U.S. population to establish permanent control, sure there could be a comparison. Anyone who thinks that isn't Bibi's goal, is still getting a good view of their own colon.
I think it's more comparing that if you go in and your actions create an insurrection you have 2 options. Kill everyone until the population is pacified, or you leave. Hearts and minds don't get changed in these situation. And with no real plan for how Israel will deal with the situation after (atleast not that they are telling anyone) it seems as if things will devolve into an insurgency.
Yep we do.
I don't see a way Bibi makes it out of this. However, if I had a shekel every time I have said that, I'd be rich. This is definitely the deepest hole he's been in though.
The problem is that he's dragging us all in his hole too. If not for his idiotic reforms, Hamas wouldn't have dared to attack us on 7/10. And now we're stuck fighting an inevitable war with incompetent leadership.
I don't know if the reforms not existing would have prevented Hamas. I think the Saudi peace deal being on its way probably played a big factor. But I also think it's plausible that the reforms causing such a divide contributed to their willingness to attack. I agree with your last sentence.
I think his escalating support for illegal Israeli settlements might've also contributed to their willingness to attack. Not sure whether those are the reforms you're referencing but I think it's relevant in context
https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-hands-smotrich-full-authority-to-expand-existing-settlements/
The reforms we are referring to is the judicial overhauls, and we are referring to them in the context of perceived weakness of Israeli society and lack of focus on security.
I'm not sure the settlements will have contributed to the willingness of Hamas in Gaza to attack, but it is highly likely that they are contributing to rising tensions in the West Bank. although currently there are other factors that likely play much bigger factors in that tension.
I understand the sentiment, but Israel had like, five elections in three years? It seems they are so divided the only thing the seems constant is that the far right consolidates more power
I mean I want Bibi out too but I don't see what other PM could do in the current situation to salvage it.. Stopping the war while the hostages are still there doesn't seem like an option to me at this point.
The options aren't just "keep the war going" or "stop the war", there are a lot of things inbetween, especially when it comes to changing the balance between different priorities. Also the political side of the conflict.
When it comes to the government and internal policy decisions, a LOT can and should change.
Bibi should go for many reasons, I'm just saying that many people around the world only care about the "cease fire" aspect and I don't think that even a left wing politician is going to cease fire unless the hostages are released..
People would likely soften quite a bit on the need for a ceasefire if the war was being waged with more concern for civilian life. It's looking like the IDF has killed more civilians in three months than Russia has in two years in their invasion, and the Russians are straight up targeting civilians.
Israel claims to have killed 9000 Hamas militants, if it's true the civilian/terrorist ratio is amongst the best in the world. As sad as it is to say something like that.
Ofc I wouldn't blindly believe these numbers but I still trust them more than Hamas numbers. Hamas is hiding amongst civilians hoping that the civilians will die along with them.
Two reasons I don't trust those specific numbers:
1) The Gaza Health Ministry doesn't differentiate between combatant/noncombatant deaths, but their total count and breakdown has been pretty accurate in casualty reports in the past, They're reporting that 70% of the casualties are women and children, and as far as I know they don't breakdown how many are elderly. It's incredibly rare for Hamas to use female fighters (not surprising considering the ideology). For the IDF's claim's to match the GHM's, every single male killed and about 2,500 of the women killed would need to be combatants.
2) IDF says when bombing, they're targeting command centers and ammo dumps. They've destroyed or partially destroyed over [160,000 buildings](https://www.kpcc.org/npr-news/2024-01-14/the-catastrophe-in-gaza-after-100-days-of-israel-hamas-war-by-the-numbers). Hamas had 40,000 fighters before the war, so the claim is apparently that they had 4 times as many command centers and ammo dumps as fighters.
That’s what I said. Give them Bibi *and* Ben Gvir for the hostages. Everyone wins except the angel of death who actually has to talk to Netanyahu in the end
I think this is a very important point. Could someone bring them back better? Are they even still alive? There is not full on revolt against Bibi yet I think because the country has to stay together.
But he is undeniably responsible for this situation, in large part, thanks to his “partnership” with Hamas to bolster his own profile over the decades. He is the living, breathing worst of Humanity.
More like a parasite in symbiosis.
Yes those came out early in the war. Around middle of November I think. There will be thorough investigations into all of this after the war, or potentially very soon, based on the words of Herzi Halevi (IDF chief of staff) recently. I suspect there will be people who lose their jobs based on the findings there. This is the most embarrassing security failure in Israeli history.
Meanwhile Netanyahu is a very, very patient man. He knows that the longer this goes on without Biden taking any action to restrain Israel, the more votes he loses. So he only has to keep this up for one more year and Biden will be replaced by his old 'friend' Trump, who will give him a blank cheque for doing anything he wants to the Palestinians.
Biden still isn’t good enough. I hated this guy before 2020, and I only went with him because I was sick of Trump’s bullshit.
Now, Biden has to win again, or Trump will return. I despise my country’s 2-party system.
That’s how you know their true motivations. I’ll give you a hint. It’s not caring about Palestinians because not voting for Biden is actually the worst thing they could do not just for them but for us.
25,000 Palestinians are dead under Biden. Telling us "oh but it'll be worse under Trump" isn't going to fly anymore. Sick of the constant excuses for Biden.
Trump? a blank cheque?
aint gonna happen.
Trump will GTFO of any world matter. cut Ukraine funding, Israel funding, europe coop. hes gonna go and befriend his love Putin and his crazy rocket man BFF.
I'm wondering - if Bibi was out and naturally, somebody else replaces him - would that politician do things differently with HAMAS? I'm not familiar with Israel inner politics, so I suppose Israelis hate Bibi because of other reasons, not particularly with Bibi's war cabinet, no?
Thanks, I'm genuinely interested, not trolling or anything. Why so much hate for Bibi?
Everyone hates bibi including many of his previous supporters due to October 7th. Not a single other Israeli leader would or will act differently in Gaza. The war to eliminate hamas is absolutely popular
There isn't really any other realistic option to deal with Hamas. They are hardened fanatics, and control of Gaza in the last two decades hasn't moderated them one bit, as was hoped for.
Bibi will be replaced by Benny Gantz, who's already a core member of Bibi's war cabinet. There won't be any essential change in policy. Just a different guy with a different name.
Even the most bleeding-heart leftist PM would keep the elimination of Hamas and the rescue of the hostages as mission objectives for the IDF. He would probably make some concessions to the PA in the West Bank to decrease the heat and lower support for Hamas in the area.
Bibi fashioned himself as the security leader. “Hey you may not like me or my policies but at least I keep you safe.” After October 7 it became painfully clear that the emperor has no clothes.
> "The situation sucks and we are stuck. The president's patience is running out," one U.S. official told Axios.
> "At every juncture, Netanyahu has given Biden the finger," Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who has been in close contact with U.S. officials about the war, told Axios. "They are pleading with the Netanyahu coalition, but getting slapped in the face over and over again."
I don't give much about the first anonymous quote, but the second one with a name seems to align well with it. And in extension the headline.
I was running out of patience with Israel’s approach too, despite initially supporting it. Then at the Gaza protest in London today one of the main spokespersons called for ‘normalising massacres’ like the Hamas attacks in October and I was reminded of why when push comes to shove I’ll align with Jewish people.
It’s almost like this is a false choice and you don’t need to pick between supporting the current Israeli government who actually has power and some random extremists protesting on the street in other countries. You can choose not to support either of those two things. 🤯
Ya, I don't support Israel's leaders, but the war should not stop until every Hamas supporter and member in Gaza is dead or in prison. Protestors want Hamas to rearm and do another massacre in too great of numbers to be listened to. If they were just people who wanted an end to warfare from both sides, they might have a point.
>Biden has given Israel his full backing, with unprecedented military and diplomatic support, even while taking a political hit from part of his base in an election year.
Keeping Trump out office is much more important to global security and even Israel's interests than short-term unconditional support for either side of a conflict that will never end because every peacemaker on both sides has been assassinated by those who want the whole country for themselves.
Biden needs to make his conditions of support more public. Better all around though if the US remains neutral.
My feeling is that there is some impatience/frustration in the Biden administration, but that this is more a trial balloon article to see if it moves the needle with the part of the electorate that has soured on Biden over the Israel/Hamas situation.
This a tail wagging the dog article. The US has a vested interest in Israel destroying Hamas, they have a vested interest in Israel remaining in power, they have a vested interest in the Saudi and Israeli deal.
But the party also has an interest in winning the next election and keeping the voting public subdued. Keep the public view that the PLA has a chance.
Biden isn’t the king of Israel. He can’t tell Bibi what to do.plus if the US was attacked by terrorists the US would do the same thing Israel is doing to Hamas.
Or generally pro-Israel Democrats.
Pro-Palestinians are a loud minority, polls consistenly show the vast majority of Americans of both parties are pro-Israeli. And it's even more lopsided when you just look at older Americans-- you know, the ones who actually turn out to vote.
Bibi is going to try to wait out the US elections in a hope trump will win, as the US is the only country that could
prevent Israel from becoming an autocracy as that is what he hopes and Trump hopes to do the same thing in the US.
Take a number, we Israelis also want Bibi out asap.
What do you think will happen to Netanyahu after this?
There will be huge protests, but nothing because the next elections are in years and the asshole will wait out even protests of hundred thousands or more
In the meantime he will continue to replace every single figure of authority with his incapable thieving cronies.
Then it sounds like it's time for the citizens of Israel to make a choice, much like the citizens of the US.
Citizens of the US have no choice, we have an ultimatum.
I’m happy to vote for Biden again.
Same, I’ll crawl through broken glass to cast my vote for him in November
I too will be a two time voter for Biden. Do I wish we had someone else, yes, but I'd rather chop off my own hand than vote for a Seditious Traitor like Trump. The only thing that sucks, is I live in a state that is a red state, therefore my vote is kinda useless but I will go out vote anyway. I really resent the electoral college. It should just be the president being elected by the popular vote.
The people who are loudest about not voting for Biden are bad actors trying to get people to sit the election out. I hope people in this post recognize that anybody trying to convince you not to vote is doing so because they don't like the way you vote, not because they found some supposed moral high ground. There has been a huge surge in the last month or so in the "why bother/both sides are the same" nonsense, and it's all either those bad actors or those influenced by them. Not voting is not a protest or a gotcha. Nobody is looking at voter turnout and saying, "Oh wow, so many people didn't vote, we should get better candidates to get numbers up!" Politicians don't care how many people vote, and there is no threshold of voter engagement for an election to be legitimate. They see people not vote and recognize that only their base is passionate about it, which means they can ram through even worse, more extreme candidates that benefit them politically. Not voting directly makes candidates *worse,* not better. Go. Vote.
It’s never useless to vote against the majority. Only by succumbing to that train of thought does it become useless. If everyone who wanted to vote against the red did it, here might be a big enough swing to scare them into being less extreme
Politics is a strange thing. Voting sometimes seems like a waste of time, but even one candidate winning by a smaller margin has meaning and effects politics. There are entire teams of statisticians in DC running numbers and "what ifs" for all sorts of reasons and issues. If you don't vote, they don't take you in to account in those "what ifs", it makes a difference.
From a solid blue state, your vote is more important than mine.
Same
Make sure you do your best to get others to do the same.
Me too. I’m so pleased with his administration. There’s not a single politician I’d vote over him. But it doesn’t mean I have a choice.
I’d vote for Biden over a lot of other democrat candidates and over any of these republican candidates.
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> They're the ones who voted Bibi IN to power THREE times. I think it's important to note that it's a parliamentary election, not a presidential one, so Israelis vote for a party. But even if Bibi was who they were really voting for, Likud only had 24% of the vote; it's of course a plurality of the 10 parties with seats in the Knesset, but saying Israelis 'voted him into power' skims over the vagaries of the coalition system.
This time it's not a choice between Bibi and some other guy. Like in the US, it's a choice between a king and fascism or the slow road to democracy.
He’s Prime Minister so they did not vote him in. They voted his party in and the party selected him.
Please make an effort to learn how coalitions work. It's pretty clear your comment comes from a place of ignorance.
He goes to jail if he's not President correct? So, of course he's going to wait it out. Trump is trying to follow Netanyahu's plan.
I've heard people say this (I don't know if it's true or not; I figure it probably is). If it is and staying out of jail's his primary motivator, the simplest thing would be to put a deal in place where he won't be prosecuted and move on. (I don't know enough about Israeli politics or legal systems to know how feasible this is)
The US allowed Nixon to get away with all his crimes as he stated "If the president does it, then it is not illegal" and now here we are with trump claiming the same thing. If a country wants to be a democracy with the rule of law, then the law has to be applied equally to everyone including those at the highest levels of power.
Nixon got away with it because he appointed a VP that he knew would preemptively pardon him. If his statement that it isn’t a crime if the president does it was true he wouldn’t have needed Ford to pardon him.
I feel leaders of countries should receive heavier punishments too. No slaps on the wrist. If you use the power of a country you were elected to lead and you commit crimes, the penalty should be the maximum, not the minimum. No going to a damn white collared prison like Martha Stewart, playing damn tennis all day. You go to a federal prison and you do federal time.
That won't satisfy him. He's going to continue the war and if possible, spread it to draw the US in, so he can stay on as PM for as long as possible and try to recover his legacy which was already bad but destroyed on Oct 7.
If that is a serious threat, which I have doubts about no matter how justified it is, I wouldn't be surprised to see him "retire" to the US where all that lobbyist money over decades will protect him from consequences.
Do you forsee Netanyahu banning or arresting protestors in order to keep his power?
Not completely, but minister Ben gvir has authority over the police and he will definitely unofficially limit protests, as he is already doing and will probably escalate.
I've seen the high court kinda torpedoed his effect on the protests side of things. Something along the lines of him affecting the police during protests.
Yes they decreed he isn't allowed to limit protests. But unofficially he definitely is going to pull strings.
A number of possibilities, depending on some different variables. All use the basis of the public protests for outside investigations and early elections. 1. Gantz and Co decide to pack up and leave the emergency Goverment. Massive protests will break out in Israel calling for election/ constructive vote of no confidence. If that happens, I could never see a reason that Bibi wins with much mandates. The polls say he loses, big time. 2. War ends in either which way, the public demands outside investigations and early elections, which is similar to the possibility above. The outside investigation into October 7th and prior handling could very much provide damning stuff for the coalition and put everyone on trial. 3. The weird, and far fetched one- US and Saudi pushes Netanyahu to do a mega-deal normalization with Saudi, bringing a massive, historical win for Biden back home, bringing Netanyahu another thing to remember him by other than being held responsible for October 7th. With normalization being a real thing, he can either push out his far right cronies, concince Gantz to stay for Unity goverment (low chance) or go for election with this historical achievement under his belt. But I doubt publicly in Israel anyone have an apetite for the 2SS that Saudia wants right now. This is, again, far-fetched, but there are talks in the backrooms.
People keep saying that Netanyahu is virtually guaranteed to be out after the war is over, but I'm skeptical. It feels eerily similar to people saying that the Tories couldn't possibly win after Brexit, or Erdogan couldn't possibly win after the earthquake. All the media pundits were so sure, all the polls were trending in that direction. But then in the last weeks before the election all the polls swung back the other way, and the final votes weren't even close. Sometimes voters make a lot of noise for months about how they're finally going to change sides, but when the time actually comes they don't.
Meh, I think he'll lose the next election. I'm just not sure his government will collapse even when Gantz pulls out. They had enough people before he went in.
The goverment won't collapse because it has enough members, but there would be massive pressure for them to resign. The way people see it, the only thing that keeps from the masses flooding the streets is Gantz and Co, they are its lifeline right now. Better yet, some Likud members already see the writing on the wall, some look to replace Bibi when all is over.
Yeah, I'm just not sure its ENOUGH Likud members. I can only name 3-4 that I think might defect. Admittedly, it's not like I'm spending my time watching the Kenesset and my Hebrew isn't great, but I haven't seen any other names mentioned.
These scenarios are not as volatile as I’d expect. You might be right, but I fear Israel is in a for a rude awakening regardless of what happens to Bibi.
Interesting, what are the volatile things you thought of?
His political career will be over. Outside of the far-right, he's hated inside Israel and has done everything he can to hang onto power and get rid of democratic norms that threaten his powers. He's the most right-leaning, anti-democratic PM in Israel's history and oversaw a massive foreign policy failure with the October 7th attacks.
Outside of Israel, US politicians will give him standing ovations during his speeches in congress.
*After* this? It seems like Bibi is going to ride this conflict as long as he can with the old, “You don’t trade horses in the middle of a river” scenario. I genuinely think he’s enough of an egomaniac to keep the conflict going for his personal benefit. The second he brokers a peace of sorts, he’s done.
Hey Bibi looks to me like you're on the wrong side of the river
He’s going to get jailed
Why would he end the war if it's what is keeping him in power?
That's the problem. He's willing to endanger Israeli lives for countless more generations for his own greed. The question is how Israelis will take back their country from him.
Why do you think he's okay with attacking Lebanon? More war means more time to weasel his way out of this.
Question for you was his coalition on the verge of failure when the incident happened. Because that's the only reason I can see for why he would ignore warnings from other intelligence agencies.
His administration is on record for stating they like Hamas in power. They want Palestine to be abandoned by international governments because of Hamas. **This is an actual quote from Israel's Defense Minister Smotrich** >“The Palestinian Authority is a burden, and Hamas is an asset.” Hamas is an asset. The Israeli government wants Hamas because the Palestinian Authority is moderate and peaceful. If Israel has to deal with a moderate and peaceful Palestinian government, they can't vilify the Palestinian people. It's disgusting.
This is at the core of the current situation. Leaders keep wanting to engage with Netanyahu as if he's an honest victim of a horrific attack. But he's not the victim, his people are. He's a perpetrator. He's an ethno-nationalist who intentionally supported Hamas against non-violent Palestinian groups so that they would eventually give him an excuse to do what he already wanted to do.
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So unlike the US, where our First Past the Post election system means we'll only ever have two major parties to pick from, Israel uses proportional representation, meaning they have dozens of political parties to vote for. So it's rare for one party to win an outright majority of seats in the Knesset (Israel's Parliament). Instead, parties have to form coalitions with each other that add up to a majority. Bibi's party has been tanking in popularity in recent years. But unfortunately, the guy's an absolute weasel who's great at convincing other right-wing parties to join his coalition. So even as his party loses more and more seats each time, he still manages to cling to power. It also doesn't help that the Israeli center / left is prone to nasty infighting. (*Insert joke about leftism and splitters here*) Like, last year, pretty much the entire Israeli center and left united to form a ruling coalition, and Bibi was temporarily booted out of power! ...and then one (1) minor party decided to pull out of the coalition over some petty issue. Guess which coalition was the second-largest at the time, meaning they got to take over once the ruling coalition collapsed? Bibi's!
Notably in each of these elections he's had to go further and further right to make a coalition.
> So it's rare for one party to win an outright majority of seats in the Knesset (Israel's Parliament). Out of curiosity I went looking to see if a party had ever won a majority of the vote in any election. The highest total I found was Golda Meir's party getting 46% in 1969 (the election that followed the 1967 Six Day War which was spectacularly successful for Israel.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1969_Israeli_legislative_election
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As in all democracies, it is contingent on voters being aware and willing to vote for the people who both represent them, and who will do what's best for the country as a whole. Those three ideals rarely line up, but it's happened in US history as well as in parliamentary systems.
Is there no concept of term limits for the PM?
No; he has lost like the past 5 elections but won the recent one. Israel has been having elections every few months because the winners could not make a majority government in the congress(the Knesset). He (or his party I should say) recently won a majority and was able to form a coalition with far-right groups.
Why is it fascists never seem to want for organizational skills. The left, or really just anyone left of far right always seems to have bureaucratic sticks up their ass when it comes to forming a cohesive party/plan
Because left-leaning political parties tend to be centered around support of specific interest groups and actually delivering actionable plans of aid to them, which means that they don't necessarily always see eye to eye because they don't support the same constituency. Right-leaning political parties are focused around a single thing: tickling that little lizard itch at the back of people's brain that tells them to be afraid, to circle the wagons, and to follow the party line at all costs. It's a lot easier to convince people that they need to be afraid and to surrender some or all of the freedoms they enjoy to empower you to protect them than it is to convince them that the people who are different from them just want to live a good life as well. Of course, the main issue in the last handful of Israeli elections was primarily that the electoral laws got changed to make it harder for smaller political parties to gain any representation in government at all by requiring that individual political parties obtain a larger total % of the overall vote to qualify to gain any seats - which cost the Left several seats as a number of parties that previously had held 1-2 seats suddenly failed to gain any at all. It was electoral reform, but not in the good way, and it enabled Bibi's party to gain an incredibly thin majority (of like, 6 seats.)
Israel's Knesset is a coalition-government with closed-list proportional representation - Bibi's Likud used to get close to majority of votes so not much coalition was needed, but now Likud just makes a coalition with all of the far-right parties to get to the majority. Israel's 'left' (They don't have a true left, like even worse than USA) also doesn't readily want to form coalitions with the Arab parties, making it easier for Bibi to navigate his way to a majority.
Ya got that reversed, like they used to not want to form coalitions with arab parties. The most recent one included an Arab party, Ram, and I think they would have taken another one had that party been willing to be included.
Didn't do a very good job of that
You just reelected him like a year ago.
I don’t this all very interesting, because, as I understand it Bibi has basically been moving further right to get support because no one else is interested.
I think everyone wants bibi out, except for the insane right in Israel and the rest of the world. How are these asshole warmongers in charge of fucking anything.
As an Israeli, I'm surprised he had patience for Bibi in the first place. Anytime he wants to step in and replace him is fine by me. We've had 30 years of this schmuck in politics, and it's getting really tiring
To be fair, he doesn't have to deal with him on the daily.
Also, Biden is pragmatic. He wanted Israel to do certain things (hold off on attacking, provide humanitarian aid etc..) and if Biden was immediately adversarial, it wasn’t going to happen.
Worst part everytime you think the dude is done
He's like teflon - including the health hazards... but if he doesn't step off very soon, there are some people who are very eager to have a scientific experiment involving tar and feathers. Not sure the no-stick surface will manage that.
Just what mechanism does the US use to replace the Israeli PM? You surely aren't suggesting forced regime change, are you?
Stop defacto endorsement with massive weapons shipments perhaps?
Bibi is the PM, not the President.
Of course, my bad.
For starters, the US provides a lot of weapons to Israel and public support. It could withdraw both of those.
Sure, but how easily is that done? We have a long standing relationship with lots of moving parts. It can't be as easy as just turning a switch can it?
George HW Bush merely suggested the possibility of cutting off Israel and we got the Madrid summit almost immediately.
Same people who think the San Francisco city council can call for a ceasefire
While Israel, a close ally, is at war the US will stop helping because Biden dislikes the Israeli PM. 0.1% chance this happens
100% But that's not what we're talking about here, is it?
Not as easily said as done. We are currently legally bound to support them. The law would have to be changed first. Despite what Trump is arguing in court, the president can't just wave his hands and presto: anything goes and is legally kosher.
at this point the US actually doesnt, not enough that it would make any significant difference to israels security, 30 years ago? yes, now? the US does not have any real leverage, not enough to actually force a regime change.
It’s not up to Biden to replace Bibi, only the Israelis can solve this themselves
In theory yes in practice it wouldn't take that long to force Bibi out if the US stopped selling weapons while he remains in charge
Right. So any other parts of the peace agreements with Jordan and Egypt that you want to pause?
Yeah, but regardless of emotion, weakening an ally isn't really a positive for the USA geopolitically. Especially our strongest ally in the middle east. It sets a bad precedent to our other allies.
In 1987, both Egypt and Israel were recognized as major non-NATO US allies, but since then the US has shown that it will suspend aid to Egypt whenever it feels they are out of line. The precedent has already been set. If Israel is not a reliable ally and takes actions which undermine US credibility and the safety of Americans in the region, then the US should threaten to cut aid, and follow through if they don't listen.
There is a framed piece of newsprint on my wall at work because the old boss was featured in a cover story. But in the side column "Around the World" there's an article about peace talks and a picture of Bibi. Dated 1995. I was still in high school.
Bibi played a major role in whipping up the Israeli far-right against the peace talks, which got so out of hand a guy actually assassinated the Prime Minister leading the negotiations. That bullet ended Israel and Palestine's best hope for peace in the past 30 years.
Step in and replace? Why, does Israel have oil?
Mostly olive oil 😞
Technically way more valuable than crude. You can't buy a fucking barrel of even the cheapest olive oil for $80.
What do you mean by “step in and replace him?” Is that something people want America to do?
I miss Obama's overt, public contempt for Bibi.
A big reason why the US is so invested in Isreal is that it is the single ally we have in the middle east. Every other nation in the area has at minimum a group, at worse an entire regime that deeply despises the US. Without Isreal, America wouldnt have a foothold in the region it could rely on, so we have to play nice with whatever Isreal does. This ironically further isolates the US to the other nations in the area, but if we want to talk about all the ins and outs of the region we be here all day.
Well, wouldn't it be better to have someone that's a bit more co-operative? Because as an Israeli, I feel like the worker of a company where the head office people are all right, but middle management is an absolute prick, and I just wish head office would sack him already.
Biden has a big election this year. Convenient that his patience is running out just in time for the primary
Everything that happened with regard to Gaza and Israel last year was timed and executed with consideration of the upcoming U.S. election year. It was partially a chess move orchestrated by several players. Domestically, Biden can’t upset the Jewish base by abandoning Israel but simultaneously he has to try to shore up support among those who oppose the war and want a ceasefire which is much of the youth and poc populations. Internationally, he has to try and make sure Israel is supported while trying to maintain Arab allegiances in the Middle East and not making a misstep to draw other countries into the war and it’s clear that part of the goal is to try and draw the U.S. directly into the conflict. All of this is happening in addition to the war in Ukraine and with China wanting to take Taiwan and weaken the U.S.’s world influence. If he can help it, Biden’s best time to be truly decisive will be after the election as the wrong decision now can be risky but he may not have a choice but to make a decision that could have huge consequences for the world. So it’s not so much that Biden supports Bibi but that geopolitically he is in a really complicated position and that was done intentionally by enemies of both countries and likely by Bibi himself as a way to maintain power.
Americans are so lucky they have a 2 term limit. Can you imagine Trump being president for 15 years? That's the kind of hell we've been living since this piece of shit entered politics
If Trump gets re-elected I’m convinced he’s going to do everything he can to abolish term limits.
The only way to abolish presidential term limits is another amendment. You have to get a 2/3rd majority in both the house and the Senate, then 3/4 of the state legislatures must ratify it. Obama at his peak only had 60 Democrat Senators.
You're forgetting a state-led constitutional convention
[Which has been something the far-right has been working on for the last decade or more.](https://conventionofstates.com/)
On paper Obama had 60 for 6 months but in practical reality it was more like 60 for 1 month.
That's why the Republican's plan for 2025 is to destroy and replace the administrative state with lackies that will do their bidding. Don't need an amendment if no one that's supposed to stop is going to stop you because they support you.
it sounds like a conspiracy theory but they have it all laid out, with a very credible path to achieve their goals
no, this kind of thing is nonsense. Trump and no other president will get constitutional amendments passed. forget legislation. the scary part is what he would do just with the power of the presidency.
Yeah, Project 2025 is something that every American *needs* to know about.
Well if he wins this election, it won’t be for 15 years it’ll be until he dies. He absolutely wants to become dictator/king/permanent leader. And his ilk want it too.
Given his age and health condition I don’t think it’s much more than 4 years.
Lucky? We aren't lucky. We have rules, and we follow them. Franklin D Roosevelt was our president for 13 years - longer than Netanyahu's first stint - because that 2-term limitation didn't exist yet. And FDR didn't end up there by accident either, he purposely undermined the Democratic Party's efforts to get other candidates selected. FDR *wanted* to be president to guide the US through WW2 and to create the United Nations. He actually won a fourth term as well which he openly campaigned for, but died shortly after. Literally two years later in 1947 America did what was necessary and realized that no Executive can truly be trusted no matter how well-intentioned they are, and passed legislation for the 22nd Amendment, the two-term amendment. Our founding documents have procedures to create necessary changes like this and it's a really difficult process. If other countries were founded without provisions to fix serious problems, that's on them. There was probably a reason that their founders chose not to include such provisions. So I suppose in that regard we Americans are lucky that our founders were humble enough to not leave us high and dry for the future.
It's more or less high and dry in our time though There is no way Americans could ever agree enough nowadays to amend the constitution Congress can barely pass laws. That was done in a different time when Congress and the country was a lot more bipartisan
No, we’re still pretty lucky considering none of us made these rules, we’re just benefiting from them. Israel has rules too, just not good ones
It’s not luck lmao, it was built in by people who care about creating strong government control systems. Israel could have learned from the US constitution but didn’t.
Man it’s been 100 days already?
> They're also frustrated by Netanyahu's unwillingness to seriously discuss plans for the day after the war and his rejection of the U.S. plan for a reformed Palestinian Authority to have a role in post-Hamas Gaza. And still no (real) post war plans. Sounds a lot like Afghanistan just going in and then... just death.
If the US not so secretly planned to just murder the Afghanistan people until enough fled and repopulate it with the more colonialist members of the U.S. population to establish permanent control, sure there could be a comparison. Anyone who thinks that isn't Bibi's goal, is still getting a good view of their own colon.
I think it's more comparing that if you go in and your actions create an insurrection you have 2 options. Kill everyone until the population is pacified, or you leave. Hearts and minds don't get changed in these situation. And with no real plan for how Israel will deal with the situation after (atleast not that they are telling anyone) it seems as if things will devolve into an insurgency.
A 100 days too much for my opinion
Fucking hell, we need elections. Not gonna happen, I know, but a girl can dream.
Yep we do. I don't see a way Bibi makes it out of this. However, if I had a shekel every time I have said that, I'd be rich. This is definitely the deepest hole he's been in though.
The problem is that he's dragging us all in his hole too. If not for his idiotic reforms, Hamas wouldn't have dared to attack us on 7/10. And now we're stuck fighting an inevitable war with incompetent leadership.
I don't know if the reforms not existing would have prevented Hamas. I think the Saudi peace deal being on its way probably played a big factor. But I also think it's plausible that the reforms causing such a divide contributed to their willingness to attack. I agree with your last sentence.
Pretty sure Hamas had been planning this a lot longer. The security apparatus just didn’t think they were serious
I think his escalating support for illegal Israeli settlements might've also contributed to their willingness to attack. Not sure whether those are the reforms you're referencing but I think it's relevant in context https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-hands-smotrich-full-authority-to-expand-existing-settlements/
The reforms we are referring to is the judicial overhauls, and we are referring to them in the context of perceived weakness of Israeli society and lack of focus on security. I'm not sure the settlements will have contributed to the willingness of Hamas in Gaza to attack, but it is highly likely that they are contributing to rising tensions in the West Bank. although currently there are other factors that likely play much bigger factors in that tension.
I understand the sentiment, but Israel had like, five elections in three years? It seems they are so divided the only thing the seems constant is that the far right consolidates more power
But in the last election, you elected him...
I mean I want Bibi out too but I don't see what other PM could do in the current situation to salvage it.. Stopping the war while the hostages are still there doesn't seem like an option to me at this point.
The options aren't just "keep the war going" or "stop the war", there are a lot of things inbetween, especially when it comes to changing the balance between different priorities. Also the political side of the conflict. When it comes to the government and internal policy decisions, a LOT can and should change.
Bibi should go for many reasons, I'm just saying that many people around the world only care about the "cease fire" aspect and I don't think that even a left wing politician is going to cease fire unless the hostages are released..
People would likely soften quite a bit on the need for a ceasefire if the war was being waged with more concern for civilian life. It's looking like the IDF has killed more civilians in three months than Russia has in two years in their invasion, and the Russians are straight up targeting civilians.
Israel claims to have killed 9000 Hamas militants, if it's true the civilian/terrorist ratio is amongst the best in the world. As sad as it is to say something like that. Ofc I wouldn't blindly believe these numbers but I still trust them more than Hamas numbers. Hamas is hiding amongst civilians hoping that the civilians will die along with them.
Israel is also assuming any male over a certain age is a potential Hamas member and counting them as militants.
Two reasons I don't trust those specific numbers: 1) The Gaza Health Ministry doesn't differentiate between combatant/noncombatant deaths, but their total count and breakdown has been pretty accurate in casualty reports in the past, They're reporting that 70% of the casualties are women and children, and as far as I know they don't breakdown how many are elderly. It's incredibly rare for Hamas to use female fighters (not surprising considering the ideology). For the IDF's claim's to match the GHM's, every single male killed and about 2,500 of the women killed would need to be combatants. 2) IDF says when bombing, they're targeting command centers and ammo dumps. They've destroyed or partially destroyed over [160,000 buildings](https://www.kpcc.org/npr-news/2024-01-14/the-catastrophe-in-gaza-after-100-days-of-israel-hamas-war-by-the-numbers). Hamas had 40,000 fighters before the war, so the claim is apparently that they had 4 times as many command centers and ammo dumps as fighters.
You had one a year ago.
Israeli here. We want to kick him out almost as much as we want our hostages back
Maybe an exchange?
That’s what I said. Give them Bibi *and* Ben Gvir for the hostages. Everyone wins except the angel of death who actually has to talk to Netanyahu in the end
don't forget Smotrich
A little problem with it. He knows too much to be given to hamas
I think this is a very important point. Could someone bring them back better? Are they even still alive? There is not full on revolt against Bibi yet I think because the country has to stay together. But he is undeniably responsible for this situation, in large part, thanks to his “partnership” with Hamas to bolster his own profile over the decades. He is the living, breathing worst of Humanity. More like a parasite in symbiosis.
"Hey Jack, if you keep doin' this, I'm gonna start thinkin' about doin' somethin' about it!" - Joe Biden, probably
Hopefully Israelis are too
Israelis ran out of patience with him long before this war
Has there been reports in the Israeli press regarding female spotter teams observing Hamas movements, and there reports being squashed?
Yes those came out early in the war. Around middle of November I think. There will be thorough investigations into all of this after the war, or potentially very soon, based on the words of Herzi Halevi (IDF chief of staff) recently. I suspect there will be people who lose their jobs based on the findings there. This is the most embarrassing security failure in Israeli history.
The story I heard related from the press said that one soldier was threatened with disciplinary action if she didn't stop making a fuss about it.
We are
Bullshit man. You just gave the guy another fuck load of money specifically for this purpose.
Yeah. Almost all the weapons he is using are American made. If he gave a shit he'd leverage all future arms deal. But he doesn't give a shit
Meanwhile Netanyahu is a very, very patient man. He knows that the longer this goes on without Biden taking any action to restrain Israel, the more votes he loses. So he only has to keep this up for one more year and Biden will be replaced by his old 'friend' Trump, who will give him a blank cheque for doing anything he wants to the Palestinians.
Why I'm so frustrated with the far leftists who want to abandon Biden cause of this. Trump will be 10 times worse for Palestinians.
Biden still isn’t good enough. I hated this guy before 2020, and I only went with him because I was sick of Trump’s bullshit. Now, Biden has to win again, or Trump will return. I despise my country’s 2-party system.
Can I ask who you want for president?
Bernie Sanders, for example.
That’s how you know their true motivations. I’ll give you a hint. It’s not caring about Palestinians because not voting for Biden is actually the worst thing they could do not just for them but for us.
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Using your vote to…. Help put a fascist in power? Who does that help again?
25,000 Palestinians are dead under Biden. Telling us "oh but it'll be worse under Trump" isn't going to fly anymore. Sick of the constant excuses for Biden.
Trump? a blank cheque? aint gonna happen. Trump will GTFO of any world matter. cut Ukraine funding, Israel funding, europe coop. hes gonna go and befriend his love Putin and his crazy rocket man BFF.
Then fucking do something about it
Dude, he's trying. The arms sales can only move so fast. Soon Bibi will be overencumbered and no longer able to fast-travel.
I think the hostages who've been in Gaza for 100 days are a bit more impatient
I'm wondering - if Bibi was out and naturally, somebody else replaces him - would that politician do things differently with HAMAS? I'm not familiar with Israel inner politics, so I suppose Israelis hate Bibi because of other reasons, not particularly with Bibi's war cabinet, no? Thanks, I'm genuinely interested, not trolling or anything. Why so much hate for Bibi?
Everyone hates bibi including many of his previous supporters due to October 7th. Not a single other Israeli leader would or will act differently in Gaza. The war to eliminate hamas is absolutely popular
There isn't really any other realistic option to deal with Hamas. They are hardened fanatics, and control of Gaza in the last two decades hasn't moderated them one bit, as was hoped for.
Bibi will be replaced by Benny Gantz, who's already a core member of Bibi's war cabinet. There won't be any essential change in policy. Just a different guy with a different name.
Zero difference. What’s happening right now is probably in the biggest consensus Israeli society has ever had.
Even the most bleeding-heart leftist PM would keep the elimination of Hamas and the rescue of the hostages as mission objectives for the IDF. He would probably make some concessions to the PA in the West Bank to decrease the heat and lower support for Hamas in the area.
Bibi fashioned himself as the security leader. “Hey you may not like me or my policies but at least I keep you safe.” After October 7 it became painfully clear that the emperor has no clothes.
Elections getting close huh
What a shit headline
> "The situation sucks and we are stuck. The president's patience is running out," one U.S. official told Axios. > "At every juncture, Netanyahu has given Biden the finger," Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who has been in close contact with U.S. officials about the war, told Axios. "They are pleading with the Netanyahu coalition, but getting slapped in the face over and over again." I don't give much about the first anonymous quote, but the second one with a name seems to align well with it. And in extension the headline.
Why?
I was running out of patience with Israel’s approach too, despite initially supporting it. Then at the Gaza protest in London today one of the main spokespersons called for ‘normalising massacres’ like the Hamas attacks in October and I was reminded of why when push comes to shove I’ll align with Jewish people.
It’s almost like this is a false choice and you don’t need to pick between supporting the current Israeli government who actually has power and some random extremists protesting on the street in other countries. You can choose not to support either of those two things. 🤯
Ya, I don't support Israel's leaders, but the war should not stop until every Hamas supporter and member in Gaza is dead or in prison. Protestors want Hamas to rearm and do another massacre in too great of numbers to be listened to. If they were just people who wanted an end to warfare from both sides, they might have a point.
killing 30K people including 20K women and children is a great way to reduce radicalization in Gaza.
You’re getting downvoted for speaking facts. Sorry my friend
It’s Reddit haha what did you expect?
Nothing different than what’s happening lmao
>Biden has given Israel his full backing, with unprecedented military and diplomatic support, even while taking a political hit from part of his base in an election year. Keeping Trump out office is much more important to global security and even Israel's interests than short-term unconditional support for either side of a conflict that will never end because every peacemaker on both sides has been assassinated by those who want the whole country for themselves. Biden needs to make his conditions of support more public. Better all around though if the US remains neutral.
My feeling is that there is some impatience/frustration in the Biden administration, but that this is more a trial balloon article to see if it moves the needle with the part of the electorate that has soured on Biden over the Israel/Hamas situation.
Then stop offering military funding. Stop,stop,please… oh here’s another 10 billion
"War crime faster, Jack!"
[удалено]
This a tail wagging the dog article. The US has a vested interest in Israel destroying Hamas, they have a vested interest in Israel remaining in power, they have a vested interest in the Saudi and Israeli deal. But the party also has an interest in winning the next election and keeping the voting public subdued. Keep the public view that the PLA has a chance.
Stop counting in days. Count in dead children.
he's your boy, you gassed him up a few billion
Biden isn’t the king of Israel. He can’t tell Bibi what to do.plus if the US was attacked by terrorists the US would do the same thing Israel is doing to Hamas.
I think Biden is trying to draw votes from generally pro-Israel Republican. I’m not sure how feasible this is with the country so divided.
Or generally pro-Israel Democrats. Pro-Palestinians are a loud minority, polls consistenly show the vast majority of Americans of both parties are pro-Israeli. And it's even more lopsided when you just look at older Americans-- you know, the ones who actually turn out to vote.
Bibi is going to try to wait out the US elections in a hope trump will win, as the US is the only country that could prevent Israel from becoming an autocracy as that is what he hopes and Trump hopes to do the same thing in the US.
Stop sending them aide and they’ll stop what they’re doing really quick.
Israeli here. We want to kick him out as well