Because if you in any way equate the actions of a group responsible for killing two children to the actions of a state which killed 67 children, you are being unfair to the latter.
One of the Apartheid supporters is from right here in Massachusetts. Jake Auchincloss must regret being born too late to have gone to South Africa to console P.W.Botha.
Please share widely!
This is a slanderous comparison.
I might add so was the original statement from Rep. Omar which you cleverly omitted:
“We have seen unthinkable atrocities committed by the US, Israel, Hamas, and the Taliban”
That statement is just writing Fox News clips and RNCC ads for us. Unlike Rep. Omar, I would rather advance progress with a majority rather than waste my time using a bully pulpit in a minority. I would also add it’s insulting to the Jewish American and veteran members of the party who wisely condemned the remarks writing:
“Ignoring the differences between democracies governed by the rule of law and contemptible organizations that engage in terrorism at best discredited ones intended argument and at worse reflects deep seated prejudice”.
This is also not the first time she has flirted with anti-Semitism. Pat Buchanan has also attacked “Jewish money” behind AIPAC and compared the IDF to terrorism, but he is not welcomed in the Democratic Party.
Are Israel or our military blameless? No, but they are accountable to international bodies and democratic oversight. Hamas is a group that has thrown their opponents off of rooftops to their death, including gay Palestinians. The Taliban also kill gays and women who try to get an education. Ilhan Omar would not have gotten an education under Taliban rule, A woman like Omar is not allowed to hold office in Gaza, since that violates the Islamic fundamentalism they practice. So I would not compare our troops our allies to terrorists, it’s factually baseless and politically stupid. I am glad the sensible members of the Democratic majority are distancing themselves from these hateful and stupid remarks.
Where’s the accountability for this? https://mondoweiss.net/2021/05/nyt-puts-faces-of-60-slaughtered-palestinian-children-on-front-page-at-last/
Or this?Collateral Murder (wikileaks.org)
Neither of these crimes should be beyond accountability. Where should the victims go to have their cases heard? Nobody from the Biden administration seems to be able to give a straight answer. But you act like you know, so maybe you can tell us.
Apartheid is Apartheid and white privilege is white privilege no matter how hysterical you get.
Apartheid refers to white minority rule in South Africa. The Jewish people have a far better claim to a state in the Levant than the Dutch did to a state in Africa. I’m aware of the Nakba, the Irgun, and the settlement movement after 67’. I oppose all of those things. One can still appreciate the history of the Palestinian struggle while at the same time recognizing the right of the Jewish state to exist in the Levant.
It’s not easy-this casual Catholic took flack from both sides during the most recent round of the fighting. The Israeli extremists who marched on the mount arguably started this round of violence, but Hamas cynically invited the IDF response by lobbing rockets indiscriminately against Israeli civilians. The Israeli Arabs are Knesset kingmakers, I do not think Jews would enjoy the same rights within Hamas governed Gaza. The IDF and Netenyahu can be terrible and in need of change without being morally equivalent to Hamas.
At least the IDF and Netenyahu recognize a Palestinian state, as much as it’s lip service from the latter at this point. Cooler heads within the former recognize the end game is a two state solution and not appeasing settlers forever. This solution becomes more and more difficult when Hamas is rewarded for resorting to violence with support from the American left. Our soldiers and allies, even at their worst, are better than Hamas. Believing otherwise is inviting a Republican majority.
You have a lot of wrong answers to questions that Cong. Omar didn’t ask. The question is “where do the Palestinians go when they think (correctly in my view) that they have been the victims of war crimes?”
To avoid facing this question, Omar’s accusers resort to a variety of false arguments. I’ll leave aside your handwaving about Pat Buchanan and gay Palestinians.
The Congressional attacks are a slightly more sophisticated con. The first step is to demand that any attention given to an Israeli alleged atrocity has to include a reference to the crimes of Hamas. If anyone actually does this the second step is to feign horror that Israel and Hamas have been mentioned in the same sentence.
The existence of Apartheid is pretty much beyond dispute. Even here on BMG is was recently demonstrated conclusively.
So, I’ll ask again “Where do the Palestinians go for justice? “
Why does this have to be either/or? I favor Israeli nationhood, but oppose them treating Palestinians as second-class citizens and settlements. I favor a degree of devolved self-government and full civil rights for Palestinians, but opposed the terrorist tactics from the likes of Hamas. My views largely line up with an organization called J Street, whose tagline is. “Pro-Israel, Pro-Peace”.
That’s a different set of questions. I think the Democrats critiquing Omar are implying she undermined her own line of questioning with this ham handed false equivalency, not that she was wrong to ask that set of questions in the first place. We absolutely should hold Israel to account for human rights abuses from their disproportionate response. The US did broker a cease fire after all and Biden and Blinken were instrumental in getting Israel to stop its side of the violence. I am no supporter of the far right state Israel is tragically becoming, and I worry Omar’s comments embolden the far right in this country and the extremists in both sides in the Israeli Palestinian conflict.
“We absolutely should hold Israel to account for human rights abuses from their disproportionate response.”
How? Boycotts? Divestments? Sanctions? Investigating with the ICC?
Here’s some practical suggestions for how Biden can pressure Israeli and Palestinian leadership back to the negotiation table. It’s worth a shot.
Sort of halfway back from the extremes of the Trump administration to the status quo of the Bush years. That’s less like applying pressure, and more like a friendly massage.
Of course it’s a friendly nudge. They are our strongest ally in the region and we are probably their strongest ally period.
So what you’re saying Christopher is that you disagree with JConway, who wants to “absolutely hold Israel to account”. You don’t.
Convicted spy Jonathan Pollard lands in Israel | AFP – YouTube
One of the dumber foreign policy moves Trump made and I opposed it at the time and earlier in this thread. Have no idea what it has to do with this conversation which is about an American member of Congress walking back intemperate remarks she made about our soldiers and our allies.
We nearly had a two state solution under Clinton but Arafat walked away from the table undermining Barak and electing Sharon. Sharon had an epiphany and was going to follow up the Gaza withdrawal with a West Bank withdrawal when he had a stroke. Olmert was ready to offer Abbas a better deal than Barak offered Arafat when he was sidelined by a corruption investigation that led to the second Netenyahu government which has backslid on all of this progress. Trump gave Netenyahu an embassy in Jerusalem, Pollard, and settlement construction in exchange for literally nothing. So I actually think coming back to the approach that nearly worked before makes a lot of sense for Biden, and I hope he is more successful than his predecessors.
Two states for two peoples. The problem with the left is they fail to recognize Israeli humanity and nationhood and the problem with the right is they fail to recognize Palestinian humanity and nationhood. It’s going to require both sides meeting in the middle to achieve peace and I’ll take Biden’s negotiating track record over Trump’s or Omar’s.
In what way was the US ever “held accountable” for the documented war crimes that were official US policy in 2003 and ordered from the Oval Office (although perhaps by Richard Cheney rather then George W. Bush)?
We Democrats could have and should have demanded accountability. We instead cowardly chose to ignore the atrocities.
Which body is going to hold Israel accountable for the missile strike that destroyed the building housing CNN and other media outlets?
The statement from Ms. Omar did not compare or equate the US or Israel with terrorists. It instead correctly named war crimes and their perpetrators and demanded that those who commit such war crimes be held accountable.
“We have seen unthinkable atrocities committed by the US, Israel, Hamas, and the Taliban”
I see a lot of false moral equivalency there. I reject the notion sadly percolating on the fringes of the left that Hamas are freedom fighters, I also reject the notion that the US is worse than the Taliban. If anything, the people of Afghanistan are terrified to see us leave since they fear the inevitable medieval regression about to happen after our withdrawal.
Bush and his party did lose the 2006 election and his hawkish successors as the 2012 and 2016 nominees lost to the comparatively dovish Obama. Obama kept the US out of Syria and kept boots off the ground in Libya. So there has been democratic accountability at the hands of the voters.
Democratic voters nearly handed the nomination to Bernie Sanders to punish Hillary and Biden for their war votes and its notable that Trump first surged in the polls when he correctly attacked Jeb Bush for defending his brothers stupid war. There is now a solid anti-war majority in this country. I suspect there will be an anti-Israel majority in the Democratic Party in the next open primary,
Israel is recognizing its living large on borrowed time, I suspect that’s a big reason a hard core nationalist made peace with the left and the Arab parties to oust Netenyahu. Even Bennet recognizes Bibi corrodes their institutions domestically and their image abroad. The Palestinian people ought to follow the example of the civil rights movement and wage a non-violent campaign for equal rights within Israel or a state of their own. Violence will never work as a strategy, since the US reflexively stands by Israel whenever it’s attacked, since the Iron Done renders all their rockets ineffective, and since it hasn’t seemed to work for the last 30 years.
The statement from Ms. Omar is clear, direct and specific. I do not read that statement to in any way claim that, for example, “Hamas are freedom fighters”. Nothing in that statement even hints that “the US is worse than than the Taliban.”
The statement is, instead, a clear and explicit call to stop war crimes. It calls out four nations, including the US, that have indeed committed war crimes.
I am not talking about “voter accountability” — that is at best subject to the spin of whomever is choosing to use it.
“Held accountable” means investigated, prosecuted, and if guilty, convicted and punished. The George W. Bush administration committed war crimes. It ordered atrocities. It ordered murder, torture and kidnapping. There has never been any serious challenge to those unfortunate facts — only spin, rationalizations, and self-serving semantics (referring to the silly claim that waterboarding, extreme sleep depravation, and similar abuse is not torture).
I agree with most of your response. In my view, it is irrelevant. The fact remains that the US and Israel HAS committed war crimes. The war crimes of the US and Israel have been widely and compellingly documented. The destruction by missile of the CNN headquarters building a few weeks ago has been broadcast all over the world. Targeting journalists (and any other civilian) is a war crime under the Geneva Conventions.
What I see is the same knee-jerk defense of Israel that has been so destructive for so long.
You need to learn how to better engage this topic without using such a loaded term right off the bat. Israel is far from blameless, but Omar’s original tweet did sound a bit like equivalence.
That’s exactly what the Democrats criticizing her are saying, avoid anti-Semitic dog whistles and anti-Zionist talking points. Bernie Sanders and even Rashida Tlaib are much more effective advocates for Palestinians by avoiding this kind of divisive rhetoric.
This is just fantasy land. Sanders, and especially Tlaib are under similar pressure from the same people who are attacking Omar. The idea that these Democrats are attacking Omar because she is not effective enough advocating for Palestine is bizarre. You notice that Tlaib was not invited to this discussion, although she actually has relatives in Palestine.
I am not sure what discussion your referencing but I think she was right to confront Biden on the tarmac and he praised her for her leadership on the issue and moved quickly to force a ceasefire. If Trump were still President, the IDF would have been given a blank check to go all the way to Gaza until it felt that Hamas was “defeated”. They might still be fighting today.
I am a lot less reflexively supportive of Israel than some of those Democrats, but they are right that problematic messaging only helps the right wing discredit the two state solution in both countries. It’s also unclear to me if Omar supports a two state solution. A lot of her rhetoric seems to give in to the lie that Israel is a white colonizer project.
I have heard absolutely nobody talk about the known and documented war crimes committed by the George W. Bush administration. We still keep prisoners in GITMO because our torture of them during the illegal 2003 invasion of Iraq means that any attempt to bring them to trial in a fair court will result in the immediate dismissal of charges against them because of the torture committed UNDER ORDERS by US military authorities.
Democrats in Congress have always been deafeningly silent about their refusal to bring our own war criminals to justice.
I’ll resist taking the bait on the inclusion of Israel. I’ll say only that I was glad to see Ms. Omar speak out and I have no patience at all with the grandstanding of her critics.
When I see even a little bit of evidence that all these JDC figures will openly speak out against the Israeli atrocities or the US war crimes, then I’ll be more receptive to their oh-so-wounded whining about Ms. Omar.
We Democrats have a serious double standard in all this. In my opinion, Ms. Omar is being flogged for correctly and accurately naming that double standard.
You’d have to be living under a rock the last fifteen years to think that pro-war Democrats and Republicans did not pay a huge political price for their support of that needless war. It’s probably the single biggest reason Hillary, McCain, or Jeb Bush never became President and the biggest reason Obama and arguably Trump did.
I guess I was living under a rock.
I agree with you that support for the illegal invasion was an issue for our hard-core progressive Bernie-Bros base. I don’t think that was nearly as significant as other factors among the electorate at large. When I think of the countless attacks on Ms. Clinton from our own most strident anti-Clinton voices here at BMG, those attacks enumerate a long list of complaints before mentioning her support for the illegal invasion.
I want our war criminals brought to justice. I don’t think that has anything at all to do with winning or losing subsequent elections. Losing and election is not “justice”.
Richard Cheney needed to spend the rest of his life in jail — I think GITMO would have been most appropriate.
Speaking only for myself, it’s the key reason I voted for Obama over Clinton in 2008. Not sure I would make the same vote today, knowing what I now know. It’s unclear to me how the Republicans who formulated the policy have to go to GITMO while the Democrats who voted for it get to be elevated to the White House. I do agree with you that the 2006-2008 majority should have pursued more oversight and investigations.
Let me perfectly clear. In my opinion, any public official of any party who was part of the command chain that resulted in the war crimes that we know occurred should go to GITMO. Voting for an AUMF is different from ordering kidnapping, abuse, and torture.
The original statement from Ms. Omar correctly included the US in the short list of nations and nation-states that are known to have committed war crimes. That remains the most important point for me.
My reference to GITMO was specifically for Richard Cheney. There is ample, compelling, and well-documented evidence that the orders for the war crimes committed by the US military originated with Richard Cheney. As I understand it, they were approved by George W. Bush.
I reject any attempted equivalence between ordering the war crimes and voting for the AUMFs that provided the excuse for those war crimes.
The key difference Omar and you are forgetting is that American soldiers who commit war crimes are subject to the military code of justice. So are Israeli troops in their countries. Both counties have a record, however imperfect, of holding their soldiers accountable for massacres committed. The military brass was outraged when Trump pardoned the Seal who killed Iraqi civilians, since it undermines the code and the chain of command and sends a terrible signal to the ordinary soldier. I am glad President Biden and Sec. Austin are swiftly creating a new culture in the military. It is both factually wrong and politically stupid to compare Hamas and the Taliban to our soldiers. Full stop.
Massacres and civilian casualties are considered black marks on both nations and an aberration from proper conduct in the militaries of both countries. They are not an intentional strategy of war as they are for Hamas and the Taliban. The Taliban and Hamas deliberately target civilians and want them to die, nobody is denying that the US military and IDF have caused civilian deaths, but those are the unintended consequences of broader policies that deserve scrutiny and investigation, but are not the same as intentionally committing acts of terrorism.
There is a wealth of new evidence that the Iraq War was a profound error in judgment and incompetence on the part of the Bush administration, but they and the bipartisan supporters of that policy, were acting in good faith on intelligence that turned out to be bad. The Iraq Study Group concluded as much.
That war is now formally ending, and I trusted the judgment of a man who voted for it and deeply regrets that vote over a man who casually supported it on a talk radio show when it started before opposing it as a candidate thirteen years later. I don’t see how you can hold Bush and Cheney solely responsible for acting on the same evidence that Blair, Biden, and Clinton did, condemning the latter while absolving the former.
Surely more should have been done to hold the Bush administration accountable, but if we go down the road of allowing our presidents to be prosecuted for war crimes pretty much every modern president will be guilty of something. FDR for Dresden and the Tokyo firebombing, Truman for Hiroshima and Nagasaki and Korea, Ike for Korea and the coups in Iran and Guatemala, JFK for the Diem coup and his role in Vietnam, LBJ for Vietnam, Nixon for Vietnam and Cambodia, Ford and Carter probably get a pass, Reagan for the Contras, Clinton for civilian casualties in Iraq and the former Yugoslavia, Bush for Iraq, and Obama for Libya, drone strikes, and further actions in Iraq. You’re welcome to go down the road, but you have to be morally consistent and not partisan in the application of international justice.
On the subject of Gitmo, I prefer it be closed and am deeply disappointed neither Obama nor Biden have made efforts to do that. Such efforts will be complicated if elected Democrats continue to compare our troops to terrorists.
Well, then, no ICC needed! Lord High Poobah Jconway has divined the intentions of all the participants and made his wise and just rulings. Who are we, mere mortals, to question his judgement?
Lo, he “prefers (Gitmo) to be closed and is deeply disappointed.”. Yes, heavy is the burden that JConway assumes! With great power comes great responsibility. And with supernatural wisdom comes deep disappointment.
Still, I have to wonder humbly whether anyone criticizing Omar is really just trying to protect FDR from posthumous prosecution. That part seems a little far fetched. But what do I know? I’m not looking down from on high.
Any president who orders that prisoners and “non-combatants” be tortured should be imprisoned. There is no evidence that any president except George W. Bush approved those orders. There is no evidence that any vice president except Richard Cheney initiated those orders.
I’m not talking about soldiers who may or may not carry out those orders. I’m talking about the criminals who make the policy and then have lackeys write absurd position papers to excuse their criminality.
Ronald Reagan should have been prosecuted for his illegal dealings with the Contras and for sending arms to Iran (while it was on a very public list of terrorist nations). Not for war crimes — I’m not aware of accusations that Mr. Reagan or anyone in his administration ordered torture — but for conducting an explicitly illegal war.
What would have happened to ANY American who sold sophisticated missiles to Iran during that period?
More rhetorical handsprings. Nobody is “comparing our troops to terrorists”.
I am appalled that you so eagerly defend the architects of the illegal invasion and subsequent war crimes of the Bush administration. I was alive during the Vietnam era, you were not. When the nauseating facts of the My Lai massacre were first disclosed, I remember the chorus of right-wing voices berating those who would “attack our troops”. There is no doubt about the command chain that led to the war crimes of the G. W. Bush administration. Your commentary continues to avoid that lack of doubt.
Yes, GITMO should be closed. The reason it is still open is that literally everyone involved agrees that its dangerously violent prisoners were, in fact, tortured by US authorities. The sad reality is that GITMO will remain open until those prisoners die.
The stain of our own war crimes will not be removed by pretending they didn’t happen or pretending that they were perpetrated by soldiers going rogue.
Ms. Omar is reminding us that when we chose to ignore the war crimes of the G. W. Bush administration, we abrogated our right to criticize the war crimes of others.
I remind you of the wisdom of the eighth chapter of John. We are in no position to be casting stones at anyone.
Omar was talking about troops and not leaders. So maybe we can drop the Bush conversation since it’s not really related to the original thread. I opposed his administration and concur with your wish that we had more oversight and investigations, I just would not go as far as to allege war crimes and invite the ICC to prosecute our presidents since it sets a precedent I don’t support.
American soldiers and IDF soldiers are accountable to a military code of justice and the wars they fight are accountable to electorates. When civilians die it is either a result of negligence or ignorance. It is not the strategic goal of either organization to kill their opponents. Both are subject to international law, treaties, allies, and global perception. Neither organization is committed to ethnic or religious cleansing. This cannot be said of the Taliban or Hamas. So it is indeed a false equivalence.
Using her logic than all your criticism of Vladimir Putin’s electoral interference is void because of our own history meddling in foreign elections. I disagree with those tautologies.
Then you’re talking about a different person or utterance than me. Here are the words I think we’ve been discussing (https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/06/what-ilhan-omar-actually-said/619196/):
I see no references to troops in that quote. She correctly states what our standard should be and she follows that by making a factually correct statement about recent perpetrators of war crimes.
The rest of your response is irrelevant. She makes no claim of equivalence — that’s your own fabrication.
Here is a speculative analogous statement pertaining to elections:
I enthusiastically concur in that speculative quote. Our own history of meddling in foreign elections is indeed shameful — especially in South and Central America. Mr. Pinochet comes to mind. The entire bloodbath of Vietnam was largely the result of misdeeds by JFK and LBJ. Has our policy towards Cuba — starting with the disastrous failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion — helped or hurt democracy in Cuba?
Our complaints about Vladimir Putin’s election interference would indeed have more weight had those who ordered our own interference been investigated, prosecuted, convicted, and punished.
This is the specific quote she was criticized for. I referenced it above, but will repost it again:
“We have seen unthinkable atrocities committed by the US, Israel, Hamas, and the Taliban”
That is a statement lacking in nuance that basically lumps in our troops and our allies with Hamas and the Taliban. Nazis and Americans needlessly bombed civilians , but one group was clearly fighting for the greater good. So sure, America is guilty of a lot of things, but it’s still the last best hope for human rights on the planet. You expect the Chinese or Russians to take over global leadership and be better? Those are the choices. We are in a second Cold War, and this false equivalence does her argument no favors.
@This is the specific quote …:
I suppose we just have very different interpretations and expectations. In my view, our exchange is a microcosm of how enlarging the scope of a straight-forward quote essentially ends meaningful dialog.
I think Ms. Omar is voicing a real and correct perspective. I think what you describe as “nuance” strikes me as group-think attempting to suppress a voice that doesn’t fit it. The fact that it comes from the JDC makes this particularly so. Even after decades of Israeli intransigence, hostility, and illegal acts, and elected Democrat who dares name Israeli behavior for what it is can expect loud, immediate, and distorted attacks from the JDC and its supporters.
I’m not sure we’re in a second cold war. I am quite sure that I hope we avoid the irrationality, deceit, propaganda, and distortion that characterized our government utterances during the first one.
“Neither organization is committed to ethnic or religious cleansing.”
Apartheid, and the violent acts which prop it up, is never just the result of “negligence or ignorance.”
Most countries believe that their intentions are noble. That is no reason to exempt war crimes from investigation.
I still do not see how problematic American or Israeli actions justify or excuse terrorism from Hamas or the Taliban. They are fundamentally different things. She’s asking us to treat apples like oranges. We can condemn Hamas and Taliban terrorism without being blameless. We are still a democracy that upholds the rule of law, and that does make us morally different from Hamas and the Taliban.
Just as all lives really do matter, but saying so in response to Black Lives Matter trivializes their deaths at the hands of police. She basically is saying all lives matter when Israelis are under attack from Hamas or girls are being killed by the Taliban for going to school, and then arguing our own soldiers are just as bad. Not a good look. Imagine telling Malala Yousef that the Taliban are no different from the US army. It makes no sense.
I think you’re arguing against a straw-man.
Ms. Omar has not drawn any equivalence between anybody and Hamas and the Taliban.
If I say that a police car, a sports car, a getaway car from a bank robbery and a stolen car evading pursuit all crashed when they attempted to take the same 30MPH curve at 90MPH, I am NOT asserting that cops and sports car drivers are equivalent to criminals.
Ms. Omar has never said that “the Taliban are no different from the US army”. You’re literally making that up.
That’s the entire point you, Omar,
and Bob have been making. That the US and Israel need to be held to the same level of accountability we hold Hamas and the Taliban. Otherwise, you are contradicting your own points.
Either America and Israel are flawed democracies held to the rule of law and electoral accountability or they aren’t. You have both been arguing that they are not. I think it’s not helpful to compare them to non-democratic and non-state actors as she and you are.
If the intention wasn’t to make a comparison then why bring them up at all? Why not just ask Blinken directly what the US will do about Israeli human rights abuses? She didn’t. She made the comparison deliberately to draw out an equivalence. Why do we condemn one group and not the other.
@jconway — “… the US and Israel need to be held to the same level of accountability we hold Hamas and the Taliban”:
I have different expectations for the US then I do of Hamas and the Taliban.
One more time, let me try different words for the same thing. I’m NOT TALKING ABOUT “electoral accountability”.
The leader of the most powerful nation in human history knowingly and intentionally ordered that nation’s military and intelligence services to perpetrate crimes of kidnap, abuse, and torture. That is a fact. Those ARE war crimes. America successfully tried and convicted Japanese officials for war crimes in the Nuremburg trials because they ordered waterboarding of American prisoners.
The only faint hope of accountability lay with a newly-elected Democratic Party majority of Congress in 2006 and with full Democratic Party control of government in 2008. That was a test of our own party’s moral courage and we failed that test.
That is my perspective, and Ms. Omar clearly and tersely stated the resulting facts. That is why I agree with and continue to defend her statement.
America acted immorally, irresponsibly, and shamefully in the Middle East. Ms. Omar has the courage to state that.
I don’t know why she brought it up, you’ll have to ask her (according to the Atlantic piece I cited previously, her tweet was a summary of a much longer exchange she had previously).
I’m attempting to clarify my own view here. America is carrying a burden of guilt and shame because of our war crimes committed during the G. W. Bush administration. We failed the first opportunity to admit that guilt, confess our crimes, and punish the perpetrators.
The claims from the JDC, supported by you in this thread, compound and perpetuate that failure.
Until America admits and repents for our own war crimes we are in no position to judge others. Part of that admission and repentance is to investigate, prosecute, convict, and punish each person in the chain of command that resulted in those orders.
That is why I’m commenting here.
I think we crossed wires on which quotes we are talking about. Her initial quote, the one I criticize, was deeply problematic. After the JDC critiqued it, Omar reached out to them and issued a clarification during her remarks with Sec. Blinken. Which are the ones you quoted from. I think we can all agree that her initial remarks were not constructive, her second remarks were better, and thankfully Democrats can still talk to each other and educate each other.The JDC and Omar have accepted each other’s apologies and moved on. So will I.
There is no reason to remove her from the House Foreign Affairs committee and that is an action of right wing doxing I oppose. There are specific incidents under ICC investigation and she was asking for American assistance in ensuring equity in investigation from that body. Quite different from what her initial ham handed comment was implying. I hope she learns not to make a mistake like that in the future, and I suspect she will get better with time.
Politico lays out the timetable here.
I’ll tell you when I agree with you.
That was in reply to Tom. We clearly still disagree on this one, and that’s okay too!
Here is the state department quote that I found, slightly edited:
“: Shaun Tandon: . . . . I was wondering if you had anything to say about the march that’s going ahead today in Jerusalem. Does the State Department have any concerns about it? What’s your assessment of how it’s going, and what’s your message to the two sides on how to handle this?
MS PORTER: Thank you, Shaun. . . . . we certainly don’t have an assessment to state from here, but what we can say is we believe that it’s essential for all parties to refrain from any steps that exacerbate tensions”
Note that this official state department quote implicitly equates both sides, i.e. Israel and Hamas. Exactly the thing that Omar was smeared for.
There is not inconsistency here since the State Department is recommitting itself to being a neutral arbiter to achieve a two state solution. Asking both Hamas and the far right Israelis to behave is quite different from saying our soldiers and the soldiers of the IDF are engaging in similar conduct which was the clear implication in her initial statement. Her more recent clarifying remarks are closer to this State department standard, although there are more layers to that since I am not sure if the US or Israeli is subject to ICC jurisdiction.
So it’s okay to mention Hamas and Israel in the same sentence, as long as you are trying to be neutral, but to compare the actions of Hamas, which killed two children, to the actions of Israel, which killed 67 children, you are being so unfair to the side which killed 67 children, you must be some kind of anti-Semite, like Pat Buchanan.
Thanks for the moral clarity.
I have to say that, ironically, some sort of Godwin’s Law analog needs to be formulated for any discussion of Israel and the Palestinians.
We’re all accustomed to “IOKIYAR” (It’s OK if you are Republican) — perhaps something like “IOKIIDI” (“It’s ok if Israel does it”).
If Russia, China, Iraq, Syria, or even the US uses a missile or bomb to destroy a building housing the media, it’s a savage attack on journalism, freedom of speech, and the very bedrock of civilization. It’s OK if Israel does it.
Hamas rocket attacks that kill 2 and injure 10 are terrible acts of terrorism. Israel rocket attacks that kill 20 and injure 100 are OK.
In my opinion, there is no moral clarity about anything involving Israel — especially from the Jewish Democratic Caucus and similar groups within the US.
If the Iron Dome and security wall were not in place we would see equivalent casualties on the Israeli side, similar to the prior intifadas. I want to be crystal clear that I think the Israeli right provoked the response from Hamas or which provoked the response from Israel. I also believe they are cynical politicians on both sides who think they can gain power off the desire to avenge the needless deaths of their own people. Hamas is all too happy to use Palestinian deaths for its propaganda purposes. Israel is all too happy to use the kidnapping of a single soldier (did they ever get him back?) to launch foolish wars like the Second Lebanon War or Operation Cast Lead.
So breaking this cycle requires moderation and recognizing what both sides have done wrong, but also recognizing that while the IDF and Israeli government are flawed democracies and have been unreliable partners for peace since Sharon became incapacitated, they are still a democracy subject to international law and electoral accountability. Their constitution still is a secular one, although it understandably offers Judaism specific protections. There is undeniably a nationalist wing within Israeli politics that is growing increasingly authoritarian, it is my hope this new government is a step in a different direction. Starting off the new relationships by comparing this democratically elected government to their most bitter extremist terrorist foe is not the way to do it. I am glad Omar clarified her remarks and the JDC accepted her apology. That should settle the matter for us as well.
@ “If the Iron Dome and security wall…”: I’m going to reply at the top of the thread to avoid further descent into nesting chaos.
Then why draw the comparison and say we need to hold the US, Israel, Hamas, and the Taliban accountable? Haven’t you and Bob both been arguing that America and Israel have committed war crimes it has not been held accountable for? Wouldn’t our and their troops be the actors committing those crimes? I’m not sure what we’re arguing about at this point because you keep changing the terms of the debate.
My terms are simple. The specific quote the JDC condemned was problematic and helps Republicans. Do you agree or disagree with this contention? For much of this thread it sounded like you disagree, therefore her comparisons make sense to you. Now you are arguing those comparisons were not her intention, so I have no idea what we are talking about.
I think it’s possible to hold Israel and America accountable without comparing them to terrorist organizations that lack civilian oversight, electoral accountability, or rules of engagement. Apparently so do you. So there is no more argument to be had.
The only thing helping the Republicans is the attack on Omar by the pro-Apartheid members of Congress.
Do you agree with Omar’s contention that all atrocities should be subject to investigation and not left up to the perpetrators to whitewash themselves?
When Mandela was in prison in South Africa, there were pro-Apartheid apologists in this country who proclaimed that nobody should deal with the AMC because “they were a terrorist organization” and that “because Mandela refused to renounce violence” .the Apartheid regime had the moral high ground.
Today’s Apartheid supporters use the same arguments, and have the same goals.
BTW Israel bombed Gaza again today because “Balloons!!”
I would not compare the ANC to Hamas. The ANC was always committed to establishing a multiracial democracy in South Africa. Hamas wants to impose an Islamist theocracy upon the entire territory that constituted the mandate. There is no room for secular or Christian Palestinians in that proposed state, let alone, Jews. There are now white ANC members in South Africa’s parliament. The better comparison would be to the PLO which is now the PA led by Fatah. That’s a group alienated by the Israeli right and Hamas alike (which unlike the Israeli right fought a brutally violent civil war against them), I would work with them to secure an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and then give Gazans the opportunity to vote to join it. I doubt Hamas would ever be in favor of such a plan. Ordinary Gazans resent them as much as they resent the Israelis.
,Please see my response above.
Omar is asking that the problematic actions should be subject to scrutiny somewhere. And she asked Blinken, where should victims of war crimes go?
Blinken can’t answer. Can you?
No other democratic state has been subject to more international criticism than Israel. There are plenty of international organizations and bodies holding them accountable.
The US has a different role to be a neutral broker for a two state solution. That requires the US to tell Israel to back off, as Biden and Blinken have not just about the Gaza campaign but also the provocative marches in Jerusalem and the settlement construction. I am hopeful that Yair Lapid will be a more honest broker than Bibi and his goons.
So Israel ending its recent violence is because of the Biden administration. Trump wouldn’t have asked them to stop and they wouldn’t listen to another Democrat without Bidens track record. Your fantasy world where Omar becomes president and America stops backing Israel will never happen.
The Palestinians best hope is to play ball with Biden, Blinken, and Lapid. Hamas launching more rockets is a suicidal gesture. They didn’t after yesterday’s marches so perhaps they’ve learned their lesson. Israel finally has leadership willing to engage with a Democratic administration, My fervent hope is that the Palestinians do the same. I reject the binaries of the Israeli right and anti/Israel left. I think moderation is the key to solving this conflict.
After Far-Right Marchers Chant ‘Death to Arabs,’ New Israeli Government Bombs Gaza | Common Dreams News
Again I oppose the marches and so does the administration. I am not sure how this relates to the intemperate remarks an American congresswomen is now admirably walking back.
Biden supported the invasion of Iraq. The advisor who counselled him to do that is now Secretary of State.
And he’s co-sponsoring the Barbara Lee bill to undo the AUMFs. The war is finally ending, and America can hopefully move on to the twin challenges of containing China and stopping climate change.
@ https://bluemassgroup.com/2021/06/eleven-or-is-it-twelve-white-congressional-apartheid-supporters-attack-a-woman-of-color/#comment-427193:
No doubt. I could offer a similar counter-factual — “If we had refused to tolerate Israeli extremism in the past, the entire episode would never have happened”. The extreme imbalance between Israeli and Palestinian casualties has been a characteristic of every conflict involving Israel for decades. I view the imbalance as a direct consequence of the US flooding Israel with arms for generations while imposing absolutely NO effective limits on what Israel does.
I am reminded of way the federal government has poured a flood of military-grade weaponry and combat-trained veterans into our cities while simultaneously blocking any and all efforts to impose any limits at all on the torrents of innocent black blood that have resulted.
The imbalance of power is an argument in favor of, rather than in opposition to, further restraints on Israel. We have propped up Israel as the “good guy” in this conflict. Moral obligations come along with that stance — moral obligations that the Israelis have arrogantly and flagrantly flouted since Mr. Netanyahu came to power.
The Israelis have replaced Benjamin Netanyahu with a right-wing nationalist who is even more extreme than Mr. Netanyahu. The analog would be replacing Donald Trump with Steve Bannon.
I remain glad that Ms. Omar explicitly called out the US and Israel for the war crimes each has undeniably committed and for which neither has been held accountable. In my view, she made a clear and necessary statement of fact.
I’d like to close with a different counterfactual — if the US had not withdrawn from the World Court in 1985, then Ms. Omar would have had little to complain about and the response to that complaint would have been straightforward.
The US withdrew from the World Court in 1985 because Ronald Reagan and the GOP objected to international scrutiny of our illegal operations in Nicaragua and elsewhere in Central and South America. We were committing war crimes while conducting an illegal war, Ronald Reagan and the GOP knew it, and we used our power to evade responsibility.
Actions have consequences. US actions on the world stage have been immoral and illegal for generations, and America has refused to hold ourselves accountable during that long period.
I suggest that unacknowledged guilt and shame about that reality is the underlying driver of the animus towards Ms. Omar, the “radicals” in Congress, and a good deal more.