Post An0aPtHbI4nZaHaU7c by rst@mastodon.social
(DIR) More posts by rst@mastodon.social
(DIR) Post #An0Ng0yBBExSeZrTpg by interfluidity@zirk.us
2024-10-14T18:21:00Z
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“Joe Biden’s Israel/Palestine policy has been a catastrophe for liberal internationalism and American soft power hegemony on par with George W. Bush’s Iraq War.”
(DIR) Post #An0OSbfa29LuNPKfeS by mattlehrer@definitely.social
2024-10-14T18:29:41Z
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@interfluidity tough one for me. Leaning true. Iraq war was more of a disaster in retrospect than in real time in my bubble. Feels quite different in that way but hard to see history being kind to this policy.
(DIR) Post #An0OhEFNOuJc4n33EO by John@socks.masto.host
2024-10-14T18:32:25Z
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@interfluidity personally I think equating a war of choice with a war of someone else's choice is fundamentally wrong.
(DIR) Post #An0QGCHMoE8I3wDX0a by b@xoxo.zone
2024-10-14T18:49:56Z
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@interfluidity Biden supported a limited military response to Oct 7, but pushed for greater restraint and more humanitarian conduits at every step. All sides of U.S. politics have benefited from black-and-white-ing that nuance to saying that Joe Biden is actively genocidal.So you've got two objects here, and it's unclear which any respondent will be thinking of: the effect of Biden's policy, and the effect of what has been portrayed as Biden's policy.
(DIR) Post #An0Qnr7xxNfiJ8rzbU by interfluidity@zirk.us
2024-10-14T18:56:02Z
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@b stipulating your characterization (which i’m not sure i agree with), aren’t forseeable consequences in a given informational environment part of what policymakers must be responsible for, even when they might perceive those consequences as unfair, resulting from misreadings of the intentions of the policy? and if the policy intentions are not ultimately realized, should we hold them responsible for that?
(DIR) Post #An0R1kCgUq2Mt6hPzk by interfluidity@zirk.us
2024-10-14T18:58:33Z
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@John but the United States has hardly been passive, has had and made a lot of choices in this conflict, has played militarily critical roles. and regardless of your view on all that, and whatever you might think fairly or unfairly attributed to US agency, ultimately the question posed is about effects.
(DIR) Post #An0TV9LkHZYTBR5S4m by John@socks.masto.host
2024-10-14T19:26:15Z
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@interfluidity I guess the sad thing is that some Americans do accept that kind of obfuscation.They do that rather than laying the prosecution of this war squarely at the feet of Benjamin Netanyahu.After all that is, he is, the key variable. Politically American candidates must "support Israel" for a variety of reasons, but if it had been a different Israeli president, it would have unfolded very differently.
(DIR) Post #An0VLDywPAxyYvoc0e by interfluidity@zirk.us
2024-10-14T19:46:54Z
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@John this question isn’t about what Americans think. it’s not about the election. “a catastrophe for liberal internationalism and American soft-power hegemony” has to do with how non-Americans perceive America, its role in the world, and the legitimacy of that role.
(DIR) Post #An0VoEJgExtbzvLYxc by John@socks.masto.host
2024-10-14T19:52:07Z
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@interfluidity in that case it's not very accurate be to laid at the feet of any one American politician is it?It is a predicament Americans have gotten themselves into over the last few decades. I can't remember the last time both candidates in both parties did not touch bases with "supporting Israel" in a national election, because the American people demanded it.The American people have to own it much more than they did what was largely an individual decision by GWB to invade Iraq.
(DIR) Post #An0W3olP0s3FNdkLHk by interfluidity@zirk.us
2024-10-14T19:54:57Z
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@John I don’t buy it. Barack Obama, George H.W. Bush, Ronald Reagan all drew hard lines against Israelis, under circumstances and asks much more benign that what Joe Biden has acceded to. “The American people” don’t and can’t own anything. We/they are not a meaningful locus of accountability. I don’t think it’s at all true “any US leader” would have behaved as Joe Biden has behaved.
(DIR) Post #An0WVfmryqNVeIiOq8 by John@socks.masto.host
2024-10-14T19:59:57Z
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@interfluidity I have data. Now it is true that many American presidents have tried to achieve peace, and authored peace plans. The realists in that group did propose Two-State solutions. That's another piece of the puzzle, but that does not change this.
(DIR) Post #An0XTQp6kEcAc9G0DA by John@socks.masto.host
2024-10-14T20:03:54Z
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@interfluidity it is interesting that Barack Obama is credited with being the toughest with Israel, but what words did he have to start his communications with? "“Our commitment to the security of Israel is rock solid."
(DIR) Post #An0XTSMT1gtRNts9qa by interfluidity@zirk.us
2024-10-14T20:10:46Z
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@John Oh yes. But our willingness to tolerate settlements was not. You can argue that Trump polarized the issue, in that he acceded to Israeli asks no other President did or would have, raising the stakes for what being “pro-Israel” means.Sure, US politicians are bound to open with generic expressions of support. But they have + can behaved quite differently. I have hopes, if Kamala is elected, there will be a sharp change, but for now all her communications are boilerplate.
(DIR) Post #An0XwnvRvih4f9EHPk by John@socks.masto.host
2024-10-14T20:16:05Z
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@interfluidity I think you're getting far afield from the question of how much room Biden/Harris have to maneuver."Nearly 11 months [Aug 24] into Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, 60% of Americans want the United States to keep up its military support for Israel until the hostages held by Hamas are freed, according to new polling from the Chicago Council on Global Affairs that was exclusively provided to CNN."60% is tough to go against in an election year. A dark side of democracy perhaps.
(DIR) Post #An0YCUwqFuwmREMdAe by interfluidity@zirk.us
2024-10-14T20:18:56Z
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@John Maybe. Polling elides preference intensity. A tiny fraction in the US is likely to vote on the basis of Israel/Palestine, and it’s not at all clear numerically, among that small population, that electoral incentives tilt toward Israel. Further, the choice is far from binary. No one expects the US to “choose” Palestinians over Israelis. But to use leverage to encourage Israel to exercise restraint is far from unprecedented.
(DIR) Post #An0YNycaGtnheaMVRg by John@socks.masto.host
2024-10-14T20:17:56Z
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@interfluidity but to tie this back, I think you can see why I laid it at the feet of the American people.That's their opinion, going way back, that for some reason America should guarantee the existence of this other country.
(DIR) Post #An0YNzdKVbzWnBicFM by interfluidity@zirk.us
2024-10-14T20:20:59Z
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@John I guess I’ll reiterate, I think there’s pretty much never any point to attributing stuff to the electorate. An electorate can impose incentives and constraints that make good choices difficult for leaders. In fact, it always does. We judge leaders by virtue of how well they navigate these constraints, not defy them, but reconcile them with wise action.
(DIR) Post #An0YbFkVty9iXVOxZA by interfluidity@zirk.us
2024-10-14T20:23:24Z
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@John (the US guarantees the existence of most other countries, or it did during the period perhaps now ending. we guaranteed the existence of Kuwait. existence is not the issue with Israel policy. different choices by Israeli and American leadership would have left Israel’s existence far less imperiled than it is now.)
(DIR) Post #An0YunxAxIQw7keBZQ by John@socks.masto.host
2024-10-14T20:26:56Z
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@interfluidity this has all been a slow moving disaster for decades, punctuated by atrocities.America's reactions to it might be rolling over, to being a bit more realistic, but I'm not sure what difference that will ultimately make. The only thing that stops this kind of war is that both sides decide they're done. I don't see any sign of that yet. Netanyahu would certainly fight on without American help if he could manage it. He'd probably buy guns from Kim Jong Un.
(DIR) Post #An0ZUfdvKaUmm4kDKa by John@socks.masto.host
2024-10-14T20:33:23Z
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@interfluidity I don't think you're drinking your political realism at full strength."We judge leaders by virtue of how well they navigate these constraints"Hell no, with Donald Trump polling pretty close to neck and neck with Kamala Harris.
(DIR) Post #An0ZkWwLSKJQPrvJ1E by interfluidity@zirk.us
2024-10-14T20:36:17Z
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@John The “we” here is not the electorate. It’s you and I, people who follow and intervene in politics and the shape of social institutions. The electorate has no view independent of the institutions by which we constitute it. If the way we constitute electorates is inconsistent with functional and virtuous choices, we have to reform those institutions. Holding institutions constant, political leaders and other intervenors are our locus of evaluation and accountability.
(DIR) Post #An0a5E5wiVKQ3BHabo by interfluidity@zirk.us
2024-10-14T20:40:02Z
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@John I think Netanyahu is deposed the second the United States makes clear our continuing special relationship depends on new leadership. Of course, that’d be “foreign meddling in Israeli politics”. Yes. It would be. Sometimes the superpower has to discipline the client, if it is to remain a superpower. I think we may have fatally sacrificed our capacity to act as a stabilizing global power, which has to rely on soft power backed by distant threats much more than by force.
(DIR) Post #An0aPtHbI4nZaHaU7c by rst@mastodon.social
2024-10-14T20:43:45Z
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@interfluidity The Iraq war spawned ISIS (by that and other names), which may have had a wider impact directly -- but I don't think their conduct of the war shredded the notion of a "rules-based international order" quite the same way that the refusal to apply those rules to America's problem child has done...
(DIR) Post #An1WCFLOGXKRIDYh4S by Foppe@todon.nl
2024-10-15T07:31:08Z
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@interfluidity liberal internationalism is Zionist so they're happy as clams and couldn't care less about Palestinians or Lebanese people. American soft power, people love to write it off, but who cares? We have no alternative on offer anyways.
(DIR) Post #An2RlrRgIASGz8ckEq by interfluidity@zirk.us
2024-10-15T18:16:18Z
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@wim i think before October 7, you could credit the Biden administration with having begun to resuscitate it, in its handling of Ukraine especially. but then, naaah.
(DIR) Post #An2U3bUMYcHAcJSyUy by BenRossTransit@mastodon.social
2024-10-15T18:41:55Z
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@interfluidity The critique of Bush was that he tried to change Iraq in ways that only the Iraqis can. The critique of Biden is that he should be directly trying to change Israel rather than just encouraging the Israelis to do it. Not the same.Cutting off arms to Israel after it was attacked by Iran's proxies Hamas, Hezbollah & Houthis would have been a catastrophe for US hard-power hegemony and thereby a catastrophe for liberal internationalism.
(DIR) Post #An2UrPsvyQlZ6kiCWG by interfluidity@zirk.us
2024-10-15T18:50:55Z
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@BenRossTransit (i find the second point interesting and potentially persuasive, i’ve made a similar point in a link i’ll add. i find the first point not so interesting or persuasive, “changing Israel” would not be not anyone’s objective, it would be preventing profound suffering that Israel is willing to inflict but that many of the rest of us think ought not be tolerated. Israel should want to change, but that’s on it.)( the link https://drafts.interfluidity.com/2024/05/08/the-long-fistbump/index.html )
(DIR) Post #An2XCnOnwacu1bwQ0u by BenRossTransit@mastodon.social
2024-10-15T19:17:09Z
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@interfluidity I mostly agree with what you wrote there (except about US domestic political incentives). By "change Israel" I mean replace Bibi with a broad coalition the excludes the far right. That would not change Israel's military methods in Gaza, but would either bring a cease-fire there or pin the blame for continued fighting squarely on Sinwar, and significantly change things on the West Bank. It's what most Jews want in both Israel & US.
(DIR) Post #An34LQjasRNkpEOFfM by b@xoxo.zone
2024-10-16T01:28:30Z
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@interfluidity To Q1, sure. To Q2, I'm not sure if there's a state of the world where the USA can just tell Netanyahu to do things and he'll shut up and obey. Remember, as soon as the war is over, the corruption trials (and who knows what other trials) will resume. Just as the USA was during minority-elected Trump's regime, it's still an independent democracy.
(DIR) Post #An34bYz5yHxr2tKkfA by b@xoxo.zone
2024-10-16T01:31:26Z
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@interfluidity But if your point from the poll is that supporting an unpopular country is unpopular, yeah, pursuing objectives has a cost.Every country has objectives; they're not easy and obvious. Remember earlier this month when Jordan downed Iranian missiles aimed at Israel? Why did the Jordanian military support Israel? Why did they choose to support this terrible status quo? It's not pandering to The Jewish Conspiracy---Jordan, like many Muslim countries, has zero (0) Jewish citizens.