Joe Biden Just Blew It

With a single, colossally bad statement, Joe Biden just unofficially lost the November election. Winning in November with a historically low approval rating is extremely difficult. It’s never been done! But his unwillingness to listen to anyone under the age of 40 dooms his chances. Young Democrats are asking good questions. They are asking why does the US prop-up Israel if all Israel does is keep Palestinians in ghettos. The answer from almost every elected Democrat is ‘shut the fuck up.’

It’s over for Joe. He knows it. At this point, I have to suspect he is simply throwing the election. He has my vote, of course. But he is going to lose. I can see it now.

I know when a president is finished. I saw it, sadly, with Jimmy Carter in the summer of 1980. I saw it again when George H.W. Bush had no answers for the far more charismatic Bill Clinton. I saw it again with Donald Trump, totally losing control of the world in the spring and summer of 2020. And I see it now happening to Joe Biden. He is not winning in November.

Today was the day that Joe Biden blew it. I cannot see him winning the election if he won't even address the needs of people under 40 years old. The youngs are concerned about the environmental catastrophe and they want a change in our relationship with Israel. Today Joe basically condemned them as if they did things far worse than set up tents and protest peacefully. He remembers Los Angeles 1992. He remembers Charlottesville 2017. But no. He condemned his own base of voters today. Joe -or perhaps I should say Brandon- is done.

Israel Has Lost The American Public

We're witnessing something incredible. Something I haven't seen since 1992 with the Rodney King verdict and the start of the Christopher Columbus reckoning. With each week, these protests feel like a watershed moment. They didn't side with Occupy Wall Street 15 years ago, but regular Democratic voters are choosing the BDS movement over Israel. Choosing to side with Israel by default is no longer the morally good position. That is incredible. To the olds in charge, that is horrifying. Kathy Hochul had better call in the National Guard, or else this movement is going to start steering her government.

The protesters have been called terrorist sympathizers, terrorists, anti-semites, and also manipulated by “outside agitators.” Well, if they are terrorists, then this nation has a serious problem as now millions of American adults support the protesters and the BDS movement. This is a sea change. In just 7 months, Israel has lost it’s moral position, it’s status as the ‘good guys’ in this war, and it has lost a lot of core support from the US public. We will see where this goes, but history tells us that once things turn like this, there is no going back. Israel’s existence as a US-backed colonial power is in question.

What The Hell Is This?

With each week, Michigan looks more and more like a flip for Trump. That's a hole in the Blue Wall. If Biden loses Michigan and Pennsylvania, he loses the election (assuming he doesn't somehow take North Carolina). The lack of Democratic attention to college students and young people might finally cost them everything. It only takes a few upset defeats like this to ruin hundreds of millions of American lives. Assuming Trump squeaks out a victory, this would be the third time in 24 years that the winner of the popular vote -always a Democrat- loses the election. The sadness, despair and anger that we have felt since Trump took over the GOP in 2015 is going to become unbearable. How does everyone feel about the Democrats having a tiny majority in the House while Trump and the Senate pack our Federal courts to strengthen GOP minority rule? Won't it be fun? And all because the elders in the Democratic party thought it wasn't worth their time to listen to the needs to young people. Seriously. Leaders like Pelosi thought that young people would be a little upset about Gaza, but they'd get over it and vote in November. As unpopular as Biden is, I think young people would rescue him in November if there wasn't an invasion of Gaza. For now anyway, it appears Biden's embrace of Netanyahu's war crimes is the red line that causes millions of young people to abstain from voting this November. Biden barely had re-election in the bag! Now I am not sure.

Trump Made The Demise Of The Palestinians Permanent

I don’t think there was any doubt. But as you can see above, now there is zero doubt. There won’t be a two state solution. There won’t be a one state solution. There is only an Israeli version of apartheid. And any Democrat who dares criticize this is thrown under the bus, and called an anti-semite.

It really shouldn't be necessary to point out that criticizing a nation's government in not synonymous with hating that country's inhabitants. If I criticize Boris Johnson’s crackpot Tory cabinet, does it follow that I'm anti-British?

The Trump-Kushner-Netanyahu scheme above is  to create bantustans, separated from one another in such a way as to make a viable Palestine  impossible.  In other words, apartheid. Joe Biden couldn’t change it back to the way it was 30 years ago even if he tried. It is too late. Donald Trump did get something big done after all. In Israel.

I realize the terms bantustan and apartheid are practically South African copyrights, but I can’t think of better terms to use.

Bush and Olmert Re-affirm Their Goal of a Palestinian State Alongside Israel

That's a nice goal. But the practical question is: where would it be? Would it be just the West Bank? Or maybe the West bank and a strip of land to Gaza? If the Palestinians are concentrated in two separate areas within Israel, and Israeli settlements were allowed to grow aggressively in-between them, then how can there be a separate Palestinian state?

[Forgive me for now trying to summarize an immense problem in a blog entry, but here goes.]

The answer is: There cannot be a separate Palestinian state. It is too late to remove the settlements that are in the way. And the Palestinians would be trapped on a small patch of land and be refugees in their own country. There has to be another solution.

After 20 years of thinking and reading about this, I think I have the answer. It is a solution that is just beginning to receive serious attention after years in leftist circles among both Israeli and Arab scholars. It is the single state solution, not the two-state goal which politicians talk publicly about, but can never achieve.

Israelis would have to give-up their Orthodox / Zionist-dominated politics in favor of a secular government (an immense feat in itself). But they would not have to give-up an inch of land or any national security. They would not have to give-up any of their religious or national identity. And they wouldn't need a wall between themselves and the Palestinians, which clearly hurts both sides.

Palestinians would then be able to integrate into Israeli politics and the relatively strong Israeli economy. The Arabs would receive proper political representation, engage in free and fair elections, and to fly their flag alongside the Star of David in a shared capital of Jerusalem.

Sounds nuts? Yeah. But in my opinion, it is the only way to achieve peace. The PLO wanted their own state (among other things), but Jordan wouldn't allow it. Then Hamas wanted the destruction of Israel, but they failed as all terrorists ultimately do.

I know it is easy for me to express what Israel should do to secure peace. It would be far more difficult for Israelis to do it themselves. The ball is in their court.

The late, Palestinian scholar, Edward Said, constantly said that the first step Israel needs to take is to declare its borders to the UN. In my opinion, Israel should keep the Golan heights and declare its borders as they stand today. Then work to change the political system to accommodate the Palestinians. It would take two generations to take-hold. But the goal of living in a country where the threat of war with the other side does not exist -the goal expressed by former militant Yitzhak Rabin before he was assassinated- is a goal worth working very hard to achieve. It can be done. And it would set an amazing example of peace building (and nation re-building) in world history. Simply put, both the Israelis and Palestinians are in need of a reconstruction era.

Virginia Tilley has written an excellent book on the proposal. And so has Ali Abunimah. And for a thorough review of how the 'roadmap' to a two-state solution is failing, see Tanya Reinhart's "The Road to Nowhere: Israel/Palestine Since 2003."