Not a War Over Occupation

The tweeted excerpt begins at 1:10 of the video.

Obama: “What Hamas did was horrific, and there is no justification for it. And what is also true is that the occupation, and what’s happening to Palestinians, is unbearable…

“You have to admit that all of us are complicit to some degree.” pic.twitter.com/FtAGFAexz1

— Yonah Lieberman 🔥 (@YonahLieberman) November 4, 2023

"What Hamas did was horrific and there is no justification for it. And what is also true is that the occupation and what's happening to Palestinians is unbearable" significantly contradicts a remark the former President makes later. Can you guess what it is? (Hint- it begins at 1:10).

 At 1:10 of the video accompanying the tweet, ex-President Obama states

And what is true is that there are people right now who are dying who have nothing to do with what Hamas did. And we can go on for a while- but, I mean, we could go on for awhile.... 

Obama correctly notes that "there are people right now who are dying who have nothing to do with what Hamas did." Hamas did what it did without consulting Gazans and without regard to the best interests of Gazans, over whom it rules.

But the 44th President moments earlier had tied Hamas' "horrific" action to "the occupation and what's happening to Palestinians."

"What's happening to Palestinians" has nothing to do with the slaughter by Hamas of Israelis. Nothing. The occupation is taking place in the West Bank, which is not even contiguous with Gaza. The Palestinians in the West Bank are ruled by the Palestinian Authority, controlled by Fatah, the party which is the largest faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization.  It is distinct geographically, politically, even theologically from Hamas. As explained by Reuters

Hamas has run the Gaza Strip since 2007, after a brief civil war with forces loyal to the Fatah movement led by President Mahmoud Abbas, who is based in the West Bank and heads the more secular PLO.

The Hamas takeover of Gaza followed its win in Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2006 – the last time they were held. Hamas accused Abbas of conspiring against it. Abbas described what happened as a coup.

The incursion into Israel and massacre of 1400 or so of its residents and kidnapping of hundreds of individuals has nothing to do with occupation of the West Bank, other than as an excuse provided for individuals hostile to, or at least unsympathetic with, the existence of a Jewish state in an otherwise Muslim-dominated Middle East. Hamas did not invade the West Bank or attack Jewish settlements there. In its invasion of Israel, it targeted civilians rather than military assets.

Tel Aviv will say it is battling Hamas. Whatever its success against that band of wealthy terrorists (the 1% which the race left has little anger toward), the Israeli Defense Forces have killed many Gazans.

That's G-A-Z-A-N-S.  They are not residents of the West Bank and their interests are not identical.

Conflating Gazans and "Palestinians" is a neat- and popular- trick. It is an effort to undermine the Israeli interests and minimize Hamas brutality by drawing upon the concerns, many legitimate, of residents of the West Bank. Merging the aims of Hamas with the needs of other ethnic Palestinians is 

Arguably worse yet, given its broader implications, is the implication that Gazans and Palestinians are identical. As widely presumed, they are very similar- racially. 

And that goes to the heart of a core tenet of Democratic politics, one central to the belief system of many Democrats, with all others too cowed to offer rebuttal. As Bill Maher told Joe Rogan two months ago, "I have always believed, as liberals do, in a color-blind society. The goal is not to see race at all anywhere for any reason. The woke believe race is first and foremost the thing you should always see everywhere, which I find interesting because that used to be the position of the Ku Klux Klan."

We're far from achieving that goal and it will be achieved only in fits and spurts, if at all. However. the means to that end or anything remotely close to it is not to hold race first and foremost. It should not be ignored- but it should not be used as the primary determinant of policy.

Palestinians wherever in the Middle East are typically thought of as brown and thus, with many center-left Democrats (e.g., Obama) and most progressive Democrats (e.g., Rashida Tlaib), it's reasonable to lump Gazans- and Hamas- in with all  Palestinians. Israelis, by contrast, are a mixed lot, due in part to the lineage of some from that region and others from Europe. The nation, moreover, is universally considered to be "an outpost of Western civilization," which is not in vogue with today's race-obsessed Democratic Party.

Racialism is gaining currency throughout society. However, it is prominent in Democratic circles, helped along by one of our mediocre ex-Presidents. and is clouding a clear understanding of a war initiated by terrorists whose tactics and goal are being increasingly condoned by Americans and the world.

Share |