More Levantine epistles
May. 15th, 2024 07:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
grinninfooleBack in January, I wrote a second letter to President Biden, which I repost here:
Since 1988, I have been voting for Democrats because I believe in every person’s right to life, liberty, and happiness. I joined the party in 2012 because I believe that our government can and should marshal our collective resources to fix climate change, health care, and injustice. I have contributed over $26,000 to Democratic candidates because we need a government that actually functions. I voted for you in 2020 because we need a president who actually wants to do the job, not crown himself emperor.
In short, I vote for you and other Democrats because you share my values. At least, I thought you did. Israel’s ongoing slaughter of ordinary people (over 12,000 of them children) and your support for it is making me reconsider.
Your warnings to avoid the heedless mistakes we made after 9/11 have been ignored. Your attempts at quiet diplomacy have failed. Standing shoulder to shoulder with Israel made sense in early October, but it’s now February. The longer you refuse to use our vast leverage to stop the killing, the more you make me and every American complicit in this great crime. Your determination to support the people of Ukraine as they resist Russia’s invasion shows you understand the moral calculus as well as I do, so why won’t you apply it the murder and displacement in Gaza?
You know what a disaster a second Trump administration would be for women, POC, democracy and the climate. You understand as well as any the agony of losing a wife and child in a shocking moment of chaos and twisted metal. Your faith tells you that every person is a precious child of god. Why aren’t you acting like it?
I don’t know why you’re going along with Israel’s campaign of ethnic cleansing, but you are… and so long as you do, I can’t vote for you. I can’t support you, or other Democrats who won’t call for a ceasefire and an immediate, massive relief effort.
I’m aware that you need my help if you’re going to defeat Mr. Trump and his fascist lickspittles in the GOP. I know it’s a matter of life and death. But I can’t bring myself to lift a finger for your campaign or the party’s efforts this year so long as you enable genocide.
I’m not alone. You are losing the solid core of the party because you won’t do what’s right, which not only enables ongoing warcrimes, it also fails to meet the growing threat here at home. Please do the right thing, for both moral and cynical reasons.
More recently, I wrote him again:
I wrote to you in February of this year, urging you to change course in supporting the IDF’s offensive in Gaza, lamenting your unwillingness to change direction as the bodies pile up and the fascist threat grows here in the USA. I explained that I can’t support your candidacy while you permit Israel to commit war crimes with weapons paid for with my taxes. I also quit the Democratic party.
Since then, thousands more have died. Protests have erupted at the colleges across the USA. Israel continues to kill helpless civilians while blocking aid shipments, and is now destroying homes in the West Bank to displace those people, as well.
In response, you have delayed one shipment of bombs and scolded student activists for being disorderly. You have prevented the UN from recognizing a Palestinian state. (Surely a pre-requisite for the Two State Solution you claim to support?)
Meanwhile, thousands are in the streets in Georgia while Russia advances in Ukraine and two bloody wars continue in Africa. So long as you fail to do the right thing about the Levantine crisis, you also fail to address Mr. Putin’s tyranny and Africa’s slide in violence and despotism.
Have you seen the CNN report on the Palestinians detained at Sde Teiman by Israel? “[Whistleblowers] paint a picture of a facility where doctors sometimes amputated prisoners’ limbs due to injuries sustained from constant handcuffing; of medical procedures sometimes performed by underqualified medics earning it a reputation for being “a paradise for interns”; and where the air is filled with the smell of neglected wounds left to rot.”
You have the CIA, NSA, and more to tell you if this is true. If it isn’t, please have the state department tell the world. If it is… how can you permit it and look in the mirror?
Or do you truly believe that you don’t have the power to rein in the Israeli government? If so, please explain it to us. Surely it’s better to be clear about the limits of American power than to allow the world to believe us accomplices in these atrocities? Time is running out for you to what’s right, to avoid the mistakes of Lyndon Johnson and the Democrats in 1968. As things now stand, I still will not donate to you or any Democrat who supports you. I didn’t vote for you in the primary, and don’t count on my vote in November.
The moral, electoral, and geopolitical calculi all dictate that you change course in your support of Israel. Please do so while there’s still time for it to matter.
Since 1988, I have been voting for Democrats because I believe in every person’s right to life, liberty, and happiness. I joined the party in 2012 because I believe that our government can and should marshal our collective resources to fix climate change, health care, and injustice. I have contributed over $26,000 to Democratic candidates because we need a government that actually functions. I voted for you in 2020 because we need a president who actually wants to do the job, not crown himself emperor.
In short, I vote for you and other Democrats because you share my values. At least, I thought you did. Israel’s ongoing slaughter of ordinary people (over 12,000 of them children) and your support for it is making me reconsider.
Your warnings to avoid the heedless mistakes we made after 9/11 have been ignored. Your attempts at quiet diplomacy have failed. Standing shoulder to shoulder with Israel made sense in early October, but it’s now February. The longer you refuse to use our vast leverage to stop the killing, the more you make me and every American complicit in this great crime. Your determination to support the people of Ukraine as they resist Russia’s invasion shows you understand the moral calculus as well as I do, so why won’t you apply it the murder and displacement in Gaza?
You know what a disaster a second Trump administration would be for women, POC, democracy and the climate. You understand as well as any the agony of losing a wife and child in a shocking moment of chaos and twisted metal. Your faith tells you that every person is a precious child of god. Why aren’t you acting like it?
I don’t know why you’re going along with Israel’s campaign of ethnic cleansing, but you are… and so long as you do, I can’t vote for you. I can’t support you, or other Democrats who won’t call for a ceasefire and an immediate, massive relief effort.
I’m aware that you need my help if you’re going to defeat Mr. Trump and his fascist lickspittles in the GOP. I know it’s a matter of life and death. But I can’t bring myself to lift a finger for your campaign or the party’s efforts this year so long as you enable genocide.
I’m not alone. You are losing the solid core of the party because you won’t do what’s right, which not only enables ongoing warcrimes, it also fails to meet the growing threat here at home. Please do the right thing, for both moral and cynical reasons.
More recently, I wrote him again:
I wrote to you in February of this year, urging you to change course in supporting the IDF’s offensive in Gaza, lamenting your unwillingness to change direction as the bodies pile up and the fascist threat grows here in the USA. I explained that I can’t support your candidacy while you permit Israel to commit war crimes with weapons paid for with my taxes. I also quit the Democratic party.
Since then, thousands more have died. Protests have erupted at the colleges across the USA. Israel continues to kill helpless civilians while blocking aid shipments, and is now destroying homes in the West Bank to displace those people, as well.
In response, you have delayed one shipment of bombs and scolded student activists for being disorderly. You have prevented the UN from recognizing a Palestinian state. (Surely a pre-requisite for the Two State Solution you claim to support?)
Meanwhile, thousands are in the streets in Georgia while Russia advances in Ukraine and two bloody wars continue in Africa. So long as you fail to do the right thing about the Levantine crisis, you also fail to address Mr. Putin’s tyranny and Africa’s slide in violence and despotism.
Have you seen the CNN report on the Palestinians detained at Sde Teiman by Israel? “[Whistleblowers] paint a picture of a facility where doctors sometimes amputated prisoners’ limbs due to injuries sustained from constant handcuffing; of medical procedures sometimes performed by underqualified medics earning it a reputation for being “a paradise for interns”; and where the air is filled with the smell of neglected wounds left to rot.”
You have the CIA, NSA, and more to tell you if this is true. If it isn’t, please have the state department tell the world. If it is… how can you permit it and look in the mirror?
Or do you truly believe that you don’t have the power to rein in the Israeli government? If so, please explain it to us. Surely it’s better to be clear about the limits of American power than to allow the world to believe us accomplices in these atrocities? Time is running out for you to what’s right, to avoid the mistakes of Lyndon Johnson and the Democrats in 1968. As things now stand, I still will not donate to you or any Democrat who supports you. I didn’t vote for you in the primary, and don’t count on my vote in November.
The moral, electoral, and geopolitical calculi all dictate that you change course in your support of Israel. Please do so while there’s still time for it to matter.
