Biden's policy website leans heavily anti-BDS anti-Palestinian

[T'Chenka]

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/05/biden-draws-ire-palestinian-activists-shunning-bds-efforts-200521154945064.html

Biden said the movement "singles out Israel - home to millions of Jews - and too often veers into anti-Semitism, while letting Palestinians off the hook for their choices".


https://mobile.twitter.com/BDSmovement/status/1263181996899082253

[T'Chenka]

Don't you mean anti-BDS?

Edited. I hit "create thread" too early by accident and then my internet decided to not work for 2 minutes.

[T'Chenka]

That said, BDS is basically a vehicle designed to eliminate Israel.

Not everybody supporting the movement believes in that and subscribes to that.

Biden has a lot more to lose by going pro-Palestine than he does pro-Israel

I understand why Biden would take this position, but the wording on his website is... unfortunate. If I was Palestinian, I would be offended.

[T'Chenka]

Wiping Israel off the map is never going to be an option. The litmus test that some people want from Democratic nominees is never going to be met.

LOL

Boycotting the current Israeli administration = wiping Israel off the map? C'mon man...

[T'Chenka]

the overwhelming majority want to see Israel removed, either via a one state solution or violently expelling the Jews (though I suspect in practise they are the same thing,

BDS is a non-violent movement with some inspiration taken from South Africa. Those who want violence are not in accordance with the BDS manifesto.

[T'Chenka]

Very good.  BDS needs to be stamped out. 

It has an important and great message though. Surely you aren't against that? So let's say it gets wiped out and replaced soon enough by a new movement with new leaders that's identical in size and message but without the leaders who you claim are racist and msy or may not be. What are your issues with this new almost identical movement exactly?

[T'Chenka]

There shouldn't be a movement at all.  Anti-Israel sentiment should be as marginalized and ostracized as neo-Nazi sentiment.

Why is it that, despite all of this, the Jews are the bad guys and the Muslims are the good guys?

I'm going to explain this to you again, though you probably will ignore it again too. The people running Israel right now - regardless of their ethnity and regardless of their religion - are doing some bad stuff. YES, Palestine isn't a perfect actor either. This movement is to put pressure on Israel to stop doing that bad stuff, which many view as an important goal for peace and justice. Is some percentage of the movement anti-semetic? It seems pretty likely that some would be, yeah. Does that mean the stated goals and objectives of the movement are anti-semetic? No, that's illogical.

They have also managed to build this thoroughly decent country despite an absolute outpouring of bigotry and hatred from their neighbors.  These neighbors desire nothing more than to complete what Hitler started by "driving the Jews into the sea."  They have tried, on three separate occasions, to accomplish that goal by teaming up to murder all the Jews in Israel.  Israel won all three of those wars despite facing overwhelming odds (and dealing with broken promises from the rest of the world).  As part of winning those wars (which they did not start), they conquered territory, but were forced by their western "allies" to give most of it back to the people who had just tried to kill them.

Imagine if Israel had, in the 1960s-70s, refused any peace talks until all Muslims agreed to leave the Palestinian territory.  But they didn't do that.  It was the Muslim nations refusing any peace until the Jews left Israel.

Imagine if Israel had treated the conquered Muslims the same way the Muslims intended to treat the conquered Jews.

White American colonialists came and wiped out natives while enslaving blacks. Those people are dead now. Lots of the Palestinians who invaded Israel are old or dead now. You can't blame young people who weren't involved with that by association.

Let me ask you something.  Why do you not hold the Palestinians, or any of Israel's neighbors, to the same standard as Israel?

Imagine if Israel were to develop biological weapons, say they had several factories producing anthrax bombs, and they explicitly said they wanted these biological weapons so they could exterminate the Palestinians.

Imagine if Israel had, in its constitution, a desire to "drive the Muslims into the gulf."  Imagine if Israel organized and armed militias to commit daily atrocities against Palestinian civilians.  Imagine if Israel sponsored terrorist groups in Jordan to go around blowing up school buses and hospitals.  Imagine if Israel had a huge propaganda machine dedicated to spreading anti-Muslim sentiment.  Imagine if Israel taught in its schools that the Muslims were all monsters who needed to be destroyed like weeds.

There is a lot in Palestine that should be condemned, and I condemn it. That doesn't mean I'm not going to ALSO condemn Israel for the things they should be condemned for. I'm not "choosing sides". I am in tne side of justice and peace, regardless of who tbat requires me to condemn.

[T'Chenka]

Every country has people doing bad stuff.  There are plenty of countries right now doing far worse things on a daily basis than Israel has ever done in its near-century of existence.  I don't see any mass movements targeting any of those other countries.  It's just Israel that we're oh-so-concerned about. Funny how the bar for Israel is always a million miles higher than every other country.  I wonder why that is?

Let's take an example.  Palestine is the only country that is actively sponsoring a terrorist guerilla movement against civilians and justifying it with hatred and bigotry.  I don't see any mass movement to BDS Palestine.


This is just both-sides-ism.  That's like saying America and Japan were both bad because, yes the Rape of Nanking happened and we condemn it, but also, internment!  So let's sanction America and never talk about Japan.

I'm glad to condemn Palestine for some of their actions, but Israel is in Palestine's land stealing it and invading it while the world turns a blind eye. Even Russia has been condemned and sanctioned for stealing Crimea. This is why I support BDS, otherwise I would condemn Israel but possibly not boycott it.

It's all hypocrisy.  Most of these people don't really care that Israel didn't get medical care to some Palestinian woman quickly enough or whatever.  It's a motte-and-bailey strategy.  The goal of the movement is the obliteration of Israel.  And it gets support from a lot of naive people who don't realize that and legitimately believe this propaganda that Israel is some sort of rogue oppressive police state.

Most BDS supporters on this side of the pond that I know aren't anti-semetic or pro-Hezzbollah. If there were two "boycott Israel" movements and one had less of a reputation for having a few anti-semites, I would obviously support the other. The CAUSE is noble, and the battle needs to be waged to convince Israel to move off of Palestinian land. People don't get to say somebody hates jews because they support that movement. I'd love to see a POTUS candidate support Palestine or AT LEAST support Israel less enthusiastically.

[T'Chenka]

What annoys me the most about the far left is how it sympathizes more with authoritarian Muslim countries and places like Cuba and Venezuela rather than the western European democracies it claims it wishes to emulate.

You know innocent civilians live in authoritarian countries, right?

[T'Chenka]

Yep...I'm referring to the idea of people on the left actually believing Cuba and Venezuela have a model for America to follow.

I'm pretty sure that's mostly a Repubmican talking point and mostly not a real thing.