1y ago

As a Palestinian American, I can’t vote for Joe Biden any more. And I am not alone

www.theguardian.com

As a Palestinian-American, I can’t vote for Joe Biden any more. And I am not alone | Ahmed Moor

I am a Palestinian American in Pennsylvania, a contested state. I plan to write in “uncommitted” in the Democratic primary on 23 April and in November, I will vote for a third-party candidate.

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For many, myself included, a vote for Biden is simply impermissible – the extent of the moral calamity is so great as to render a vote for Biden a vote for complicity.

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As the president of the Center City mosque in Philadelphia, Mohammed Shariff, said to me: “My vote is the purest form of expression and speech.” President Biden ignores our voices at his own peril, and ours.

27 comments

“I’m going to shoot myself in the foot on principle.“
Not what was said or meant, but undeniably the ultimate result of this approach will be leadership that actively and happily opposes ANY progress for Palestine. Period.
Biden has done poorly on an issue that the alternative would utterly disregard.
I know, the “lesser evil” argument is weak - but Biden is pushing back on Netanyahu where others would encourage and enable him.
It’s your vote - think pragmatically.
- What I want to know is why nobody is pushing against Hamas too. They're not the good guys, there are none in power over there. They need to get rid of both leaders and let the young people deal with this.
  But this sudden turn from "Hamas needs to stop firing rockets at malls and schools" suddenly became "omg the poor Palestinian government, we must save it!"
- Claiming he's pushing back while he's pushing for more funding and weapons sales is a weak argument. What he says never aligns with what he does
  
  Fair enough, but consider what he's saying is all but unprecedented. He's tying strings to our policy and directly pushing aid to Gaza too. Yes, the air drops have not been anywhere near enough - but that they happen at all is telling.
  Again, the point is that the alternative would be exponentially worse. Yes, worse even than the nightmare it already is.
- Why isn't it Biden's job to think pragmatically?
  
  It is. He is standing by our ally while calling out their actions. I don’t agree with it either but recognize that turning our back on Israel would destabilize the mess in the region even more.
  Netanyahu is the problem and it’s obvious that Biden wants him gone but for now it’s a shitty situation Iran just escalated.
  What would have Biden do? Put troops in Gaza? I wish we’d cut off military aid personally but people far more qualified than me make those calls. It’s a shitshow for sure but opting for worse is not the solution.
  
  Here's some pragmatism for you.
  Leaving Israel to hang out to dry will open up America to accusations that it gives in too easily to 'antisemitic' rhetoric and doesn't really care for Jews. Don't think that can happen? It already has.
  Putin and Netanyahu, despite not being as close today, have historically been close, and Israel is a pretty friendly nation to Russia, with the third most common language spoken in Israel being Russian, and the third ranked non-Soviet state in terms of Russian speakers being Israel.
  Jews represent roughly 5.8 million Americans, compared to roughly 3.5 million. And Jews, as a whole, lean heavily towards Democrats, with roughly half of those polled in 2018 identifying with Team Blue. And while almost 60%, we're still talking 2.9 million Jews versus 2.1 million Muslims. Doing what you say you want him to do will lose him many of those 2.9 million votes, and if he listens to the most vocal of the people saying they won't vote for him, he has to wonder how much of the 2.1 million other votes he'll get back.
  And of course, the rest of the Middle East is just WAITING for us to stop protecting Israel. They've wanted Israel gone since 1949, and we are the only reason that hasn't happened. I'm sure that's entered Biden's pragmatic evaluation, too!
  How's that for pragmatism for ya?
Enjoy president Trump, a man who will guarantee the complete annihilation of Palestine, you moron.
If neither of the candidates are pro Palestine, then this issue is moot and not an election issue. Deal with it through your reps in Congress, which are the ones you should have been going after to begin with. This isn't a presidential decision stupid
Anything Biden can do, Trump can do worse.
- As a Canadian I don't have to deal with it directly, but I don't think I could cast a vote for Biden. Downvotes on these posts are strange to me. From outside the US it's obvious that while Israel bears primary responsibility for the ongoing ethnic cleansing, it likely wouldn't have developed so completely without the material, economic, and political support of the Biden administration. Simply telling a group that, sure this guy is cool with the elimination of your people and is willing to help, but the other guy is a threat to our system... well it's pretty rich to expect that group to suck it up.
  
  The downvotes are because “both sides are the same” is an extremely common talking point by right wing trolls/astroturfers.
  Conservatives recognized a long time ago that republicans will vote. They aren’t worried about disenfranchising conservative voters. Because conservatives will be willing to jump through hoops to keep voting. Voter ID laws, for instance, largely don’t affect conservative votes. If there’s one thing conservatives are really really good at, it’s presenting a unified front for their voters.
  So when barriers to voting are put in place, they’re almost universally intended to disenfranchise liberal voters. This is true for both hard barriers - Codified legislation like voter ID laws - and also for soft barriers like a lack of time or motivation to vote. There is often a lot of liberal pushback against hard barriers, (because liberal lawmakers and activists recognize that it will unfairly disenfranchise liberal voters) so lots of time and effort has shifted towards making those soft barriers larger. This includes everything from “your vote doesn’t matter, so why bother” messaging, to “both sides are the same, so why bother” messaging.
  Basically, the conservatives are going to vote conservative regardless. But the liberals might not vote liberal, or might not vote at all. So the “both sides” messaging has been leveraged by conservatives to dissuade liberal voters. The downvotes are a sort of over correction from liberals who have recognized this trend. Because sure, it could be someone who is genuinely disgusted by Biden’s actions and doesn’t feel right voting for him. But it could also very easily be a right wing troll. So many liberals have simply begun downvoting any kind of “both sides” messaging, because the default assumption is that the argument isn’t being made in good faith.
- they said they would vote for a so called third party. that's voting against fascists.
Israel is a liability for the US. Contrary to popular thinking, an alliance can be a liability, especially such one that operates on politics, self-interest. People think China is weak because it has no allies. China does not have liabilities like the US does. It is not entangled in bilateral or organization defense pacts. Israel can do what it wants because the Israel lobby is powerful in the US. The US is a flawed democracy that has to follow and support an insignificant country by a lot of measures. Israel is protected. Ukraine is not protected. Nor do I think that is the point of US and NATO involvement in Ukraine. I think they wanted Russia to invade.

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