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israeli genocide
Biden's Enduring Legacy: Awful. No Worse
If ever there was a searing, sanctimonious self-immolation in presidential politics, this was it and the costs are incalculable.
Feb 01, 2025
It’s time to assess former U.S. President Joe Biden’s legacy. It has been a catastrophe. Or, worse.
Domestically, his most influential legacy is that he turned the country over to Donald Trump, the most repellant, dis-qualified, should’ve-been-easy-to-defeat candidate for president ever. It is the end of the epoch of liberal democracy and the beginning of an era of oligarchic fascism. Nothing less.
Internationally, he lost the U.S.’ proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, and scarred the U.S. forever as an unrepentant perpetrator of genocide. It is the end of post-Cold War primacy for the United States and the beginning of its persona as a rapacious, predatory rogue state that objectively disdains human rights, democracy, and the international rule of law. Nothing less.
The combination of the two effects amounts to a massive, unprecedented comedown, an unparalleled destruction for the U.S. in its own house, and in the world. It’s hard to see how either will ever be recovered. That is Biden’s essential legacy.
Domestically, Biden refused to prosecute Trump for his public attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The Brad Raffensperger tape was known about on January 3, 2021, more than two weeks before Biden ever even took office. You know the tape, “All I want is for you to find me 11,780 votes.” That is prima facia proof of federal election interference, a felony.
It is the end of post-Cold War primacy for the United States and the beginning of its persona as a rapacious, predatory rogue state that objectively disdains human rights, democracy, and the international rule of law. Nothing less.
Prosecution should have begun on January 20, 2021, the day Biden took office. Instead, Biden waited two-and-a-half years before even opening a formal investigation. It gave Trump more than enough time to run out the clock with his trademark Deny, Deflect, and Delay tactics.
Similarly, the matter of fake electors. They, too were uncovered even before Biden took office, when former Vice President Mike Pence refused to accept them on January 6, 2021. They, too were prima facia evidence of federal election interference, a felony. They, too, were left uninvestigated and unlitigated for two-and-a-half years, an unfathomable dereliction by the only person in world in a place to see that the law was simply enforced.
The damage to the country is incalculable. Trump will never face accountability. If Biden had simply done his job, Trump would now be sitting in an orange jumpsuit in some minimum security federal prison, instead of reveling in his second coronation. Biden ensured that the Rule of Law does not apply to the wily, wealthy, and powerful. In doing so, he undermined the public’s respect for and confidence in that Rule of Law.
Then, Biden’s refusal to step aside for a more able candidate in the 2024 election ensured that no one could mount a winning campaign. The psychotically delusional ego behind it—that he was busy running the world—is insufferable. And it was a conspiracy among all of the top ranks of the Democratic party to hide his infirmity, until it was no longer possible.
Let’s stipulate—with an overabundance of generosity—that former Vice President Kamala Harris did as good a job as she could. The most telling fact of the Democrats’ loss was that Trump won by just over 2 millions votes, while 19 million people who had voted for Biden in 2020 did not vote for Harris in 2024. By a roughly 3-to-1 margin—nearly 6 million people—those who stayed home reported that they would likely have come out and voted for Harris but for Biden’s support for the Israeli genocide.
There you have it. The Democrats’ own supporters would not support the Democratic nominee because of Biden’s unconscionable, barbaric, intractable policy in Gaza. Biden owns all of the dimensions of his party’s defeat and the loss of all of the branches of government to Trump. THAT is his domestic legacy. Nothing else matters.
Internationally, it is just as much of a debacle.
The Democrats began menacing Russia in 1994, when former President Bill Clinton announced the eastward expansion of NATO to include formerly Soviet-bloc countries. They continued it with the U.S.-backed coup in Ukraine, in 2014, overthrowing a Russia-leaning government and installing a Western-leaning neo-fascist state. Biden was the Obama administration’s quarterback on that coup.
Biden, on the brink of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, refused to even discuss Russian President Vladimir Putin’s offer of a European-wide security framework. It was Biden’s Defense Secretary, Lloyd Austin, who said that the U.S. wanted “to weaken Russia,” and make this invasion “a strategic failure for Russia.”
And it was the Biden administration that made colossal miscalculations about Russia’s military weakness, the U.S.’ military prowess, and the likely efficacy of economic sanctions. More than 500,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed, and almost $200 billion squandered, for that mistake. To put that into perspective, the U.S., with five times Ukraine’s population, quit Vietnam when, after eight years of fighting (not three years), it could no longer stomach the loss of 58,000 men.
The humiliation of the U.S. loss in Ukraine is not yet fully revealed because a formal settlement encoding the loss has not yet been reached. But most of the world’s nations are happy to have seen Russia bloody the U.S.’s nose.
Of all of the damages Biden inflicted on the U.S., none are as egregious, as unforgivable, or irreparable, as the damage to the U.S.’ reputation for his lusty, unremitting, sadistic support for the Israeli genocide in Gaza.
For a few weeks after Hamas’ October 7 attack, the Israeli response was framed as “self-defense.” But as Israeli officials publicly declared that they were going for expansion of the Israeli state, to Damascus, Syria, and beyond, it quickly became clear that a genocide was taking place.
The International Court of Justice said that a “plausible case” for genocide had been brought. The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, the minister of defense. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch declared genocide. The Israeli human rights organization, B’Tselem, stated that ethnic cleansing was underway.
The worst part was Biden’s and Harris’ claim to be “working around the clock” for a cease-fire, when, in fact, he was encouraging the genocide while precisely working to prevent a cease-fire. A more perfidious, demonic pretense could not be contrived.
Thanks to Biden, the U.S. will never live down that it is a savage, predatory, genocidal state, enforcing by mass murder of innocent, defenseless women and children, the imposition of a Western colonial regime into a third world country in order to steal their land and the riches beneath it. All the world sees it. None will forget it.
Finally, lest anybody think I am some kind of crypto-conservative, I have voted for every Democratic presidential nominee since George McGovern, in 1972. It was the rank and file Democrats of Biden’s own party who expressed their revulsion of that party and Biden’s handiwork by staying away from the polls and handing Donald Trump the presidency and both houses of Congress.
If ever there was a searing, sanctimonious self-immolation in presidential politics, this was it and the costs are incalculable. The damage will reverberate for decades and might never be recovered.
It will be all but impossible for the Democratic Party to accept responsibility for the catastrophe it has inflicted on America, through its head, Joe Biden, and the complicity of all of the party’s upper echelon. It will, thus, ensure that nothing will change. We desperately need a new party that reflects the interests and needs of the American people and not those of the party’s corporate owners. Change cannot come too soon.
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40 Faith Leaders Lead Gaza Pray-In at House Minority Leader Jeffries' DC Office
"You cannot continue with business as usual while Israel commits genocide in Gaza with full U.S. backing. Cease-fire is the only moral choice, and the world is watching your next move."
Oct 24, 2023
As the death toll from Israel's relentless and indiscriminate bombardment of Gaza approached 5,800 Palestinians—including over 2,300 children—a group of around 40 faith leaders calling for an immediate cease-fire led a Tuesday afternoon pray-in at the Washington, D.C. office of U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
The Christian, Jewish, and Muslim faith leaders and activists occupied the New York Democrat's office in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill, where demonstrators opened their action with prayers for the thousands of Palestinians who have been killed since October 7.
Participants "highlighted the devastating impact of each bomb that has been dropped and each life cut short through a reading of nearly 200 names of those killed by American-made weapons, including entire families across generations," the organizers of the pray-in said.
"The actions send a clear message to the Democratic Party: You cannot continue with business as usual while Israel commits genocide in Gaza with full U.S. backing," the coalition added. "Cease-fire is the only moral choice, and the world is watching your next move."
The activists raised mirrors with the phrase "The whole world is watching" painted on the back in a symbolic move to compel members of Congress "to take a long, hard look at themselves and reckon with their complicity in Israeli war crimes."
Prayer leaders included Rev. André Greene of Varick Memorial AME Zion; Rabbi Alissa Wise; Imam Suhaib Webb; Rev. Dayna Edwards of Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Congregation; Minister Jessica Anderson, a Howard University divinity student; and Rev. William T. Young of Covenant Baptist United Church of Christ.
Groups leading the event included the Adalah Justice Project; U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights; Jewish Voice for Peace; Dream Defenders; Rising Majority; and the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights, and Social Justice.
"Today we stood at the office of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries to ask for a cease-fire from the Israeli government because of the innocent deaths. We ask that he act swiftly in this moment of history," said Greene. "Peace must prevail! This is the moral thing to do!"
Wise said that "I am part of a growing, vocal segment of the American Jewish community that is pleading with our elected officials to not allow our grief to be used as justification for more deaths in Gaza."
"It is impossible to overstate the urgent need for Congress and the Biden administration to push for a cease-fire," the rabbi added. "Congressman Jeffries, as House minority leader, should play a key role in making that happen. Our prayers today were for peace, for a cease-fire, for justice before another life, another entire world, is lost."
Webb asserted that Democrats' failure to support a cease-fire "undermines their dedication to racial, economic, and environmental justice."
Like President Joe Biden, Jeffries has repeatedly declared his staunch support for Israel, despite a warning from hundreds of international legal scholars that Israeli forces may be committing genocide in Gaza.
According to a survey published last week by Data for Progress, 80% of Democratic and 68% of all U.S. voters believe the United States should support a cease-fire in Gaza.
However, as of Tuesday afternoon, only 17 other congressional Democrats had backed a resolution introduced last week by Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) calling on the Biden administration to push for a cease-fire.
Meanwhile, the Biden administration is asking Congress to approve $14 billion in new U.S. military aid for Israel—which already receives nearly $4 billion from American taxpayers annually, with almost no conditions attached.
"Every Democrat in Congress who is allowing Israel to carry out mass atrocities in Gaza should know that the world is watching," Adalah Justice Project executive director Sandra Tamari said.
"The only moral choice is cease-fire," Tamari added. "We will continue disrupting business as usual until Hakeem Jeffries and the Democratic Party stop this genocide."
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Amnesty Probe Finds 'Damning Evidence of War Crimes' by Israel in Gaza
"Our entire family has been destroyed," said one survivor of an Israeli bombing in the besieged Palestinian territory.
Oct 20, 2023
As Israel's assault on Gaza continued Friday with 4,100 Palestinians—including over 1,600 children—killed and at least 13,000 others wounded by relentless bombardment that's destroyed or damaged nearly a third of the besieged strip's homes, Amnesty International shared "damning evidence of war crimes as Israeli attacks wipe out entire families."
Amnesty interviewed survivors and eyewitnesses, analyzed satellite imagery, and verified photos and videos to investigate the Israeli aerial bombardments of Gaza, documenting "unlawful Israeli attacks, including indiscriminate attacks, which caused mass civilian casualties and must be investigated as war crimes."
Agnès Callamard, Amnesty's secretary-general, said in a statement: "In their stated intent to use all means to destroy Hamas, Israeli forces have shown a shocking disregard for civilian lives. They have pulverized street after street of residential buildings killing civilians on a mass scale and destroying essential infrastructure, while new restrictions mean Gaza is fast running out of water, medicine, fuel, and electricity."
"Testimonies from eyewitnesses and survivors highlighted, again and again, how Israeli attacks decimated Palestinian families, causing such destruction that surviving relatives have little but rubble to remember their loved ones by," she added.
Amnesty's report focused on five specific incidents the group said amount to war crimes, including the October 7 bombing of a three-story residential building in the al-Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City that killed 15 members of the al-Dos family, including seven children.
"Two bombs fell suddenly on top of the building and destroyed it," said Mohammad al-Dos, whose 5-year-old son Rakan was killed in the attack. "My wife and I were lucky to survive because we were staying on the top floor. She was nine months pregnant and gave birth at al-Shifa Hospital a day after the attack. Our entire family has been destroyed."
The report also details an airstrike on the Gaza City home of the Hijazi family that killed 12 relatives, including three children, as well as four neighbors. Amnesty found no evidence of any military targets in the area at the time of the attack.
According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, more than 50 entire families have been removed from the civil registry after most or all of their members were killed in Israeli attacks.
"The five cases presented barely scratch the surface of the horror that Amnesty has documented and illustrate the devastating impact that Israel's aerial bombardments are having on people in Gaza," Callamard said. "For 16 years, Israel's illegal blockade has made Gaza the world's biggest open-air prison—the international community must act now to prevent it becoming a giant graveyard."
"We are calling on Israeli forces to immediately end unlawful attacks in Gaza and ensure that they take all feasible precautions to minimize harm to civilians and damage to civilian objects," she added. "Israel's allies must immediately impose a comprehensive arms embargo given that serious violations under international law are being committed."
Other possible war crimes perpetrated by Israeli forces not specifically covered in the Amnesty report include but are not limited to collective punishment; an order to evacuate more than 1.1 million people from northern Gaza ahead of an expected ground invasion; Israel's stated focus on "damage and not accuracy" in its war on Hamas; bombing a civilian convoy heeding the evacuation order that killed around 70 people on a route Israeli authorities said was "safe"; use of white phosphorus munitions in a densely populated area; bombing schools and civilian shelters; and deadly attacks by Israeli settlers and soldiers on West Bank Palestinians.
Amnesty also said that Hamas and other Palestinian militants have committed war crimes including the deliberate killing of 1,400 Israelis—most of them civilians—during last week's surprise attack on Israel, the taking of around 200 Israeli and international hostages during the incursion, and the indiscriminate firing of rockets at civilian targets.
"Amnesty International is calling on Hamas and other armed groups to urgently release all civilian hostages, and to immediately stop firing indiscriminate rockets," said Callamard. "There can be no justification for the deliberate killing of civilians under any circumstances."
The Amnesty analysis came amid reports of possible fresh Israeli war crimes, including an airstrike on the Church of Saint Porphyrius, an 873-year-old Christian Orthodox house of worship crowded with people seeking shelter from the bombing. Officials said at least 18 people were killed in the attack, including numerous children.
The Palestinian Health Ministry also said Friday that at least 13 people including seven children were killed during a Thursday raid by around 200 Israeli troops on the Nur Shams refugee camp in Tulkarem in the northern part of the illegally occupied West Bank.
Many Palestinians have compared the mass killing and displacement they're experiencing today with the Nakba, the ethnic cleansing of over 750,000 Arabs—often by massacre or threat thereof—from Palestine during the establishment of the modern state of Israel 75 years ago.
Others—including hundreds of international legal scholars—have signed a public statement arguing that the Israeli military may be committing genocidal acts against Palestinians. Raz Segal, an Israeli Holocaust scholar, said earlier this week that Israel is committing "a textbook case of genocide" in Gaza.
Numerous Israeli leaders and U.S. supporters of Israel have been accused of using genocidal language while advocating for the destruction of Gaza and its people.
"We are sounding the alarm: There is an ongoing campaign by Israel resulting in crimes against humanity in Gaza," a group of United Nations humanitarian experts said on Thursday. "Considering statements made by Israeli political leaders and their allies, accompanied by military action in Gaza and escalation of arrests and killing in the West Bank, there is also a risk of genocide against the Palestinian people."
Earlier this week, lawyers with the U.S.-based Center for Constitutional Rights warned that the Biden administration is rendering itself complicit in possible genocide against Palestinians by providing weapons, political support, and diplomatic cover for Israel's war.
On Wednesday, the U.S. vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning violence against civilians in Israel and Gaza and calling for "humanitarian pauses" to allow aid to enter the enclave.
At least 18 progressive U.S. lawmakers, meanwhile, have endorsed a congressional resolution urging President Joe Biden to push Israel to pursue a cease-fire in Gaza.
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres on Wednesday demanded an "immediate humanitarian cease-fire" to allow aid into Gaza. A U.S.-brokered deal to allow 20 truckloads of humanitarian aid into Gaza from Egypt was announced late Wednesday, but the aid remains stranded at the Egyptian border.
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