I have a huge question. Israel and Hamas just made a deal to release hostages for prisoners. Why are the 150 prisoners Israel will be releasing, women and children? Has Israel been holding women and child noncombatants in prisons?
I am not talking about dangerous prisoners like the 5000 Taliban members the Trump Administration negotiated to release more than a year before the Biden Administration pulled US forces out of Afghanistan. The Taliban had more than a year to reclaim the country before the US left. In that period, the Taliban closed off escape routes for women and Afghan citizens who supported the Afghan Government and US military forces during the 20 years of military involvement. They didn’t even allow the Afghan government to sit in on those negotiations.
This allowed the Taliban to control the country before storming into Kabul in August of 2021. People called the Biden Administration’s handling of the pull out messy, but no one reports on the role the Trump Administration played in helping the Taliban reestablish its hold on Afghanistan. 13 US military personnel lost their lives during that chaotic withdrawal, when suicide bombers, members of ISIS, attacked just outside the airport. They also killed over 170 Afghan citizens, injuring hundreds of others.
Returning to my original question, why are the 150 prisoners Israel is exchanging for some of the non military hostages captured on the November 7th Hamas attack, women and children? I am not the only one asking this question. Many of the Jewish protestors all over the world, objecting to the Israeli war strategy in Gaza, are asking this question also.
The current Israeli governing coalition has turned to the extreme right. Many of these leaders have not been shy about calling for the annihilation of Hamas, at the expense and extreme suffering of the Palestinian citizens trapped in Gaza. Current reporting suggests that over 14,000 Palestinian non-combatants have been killed, including women and over 3000 children.
Let me be clear, the citizens of Gaza are as much victims of Hamas as they are victims of the Israeli Defense Forces. Hamas committed horrendous crimes against Israeli citizens on November 7th. They knew that by committing those acts, they were inviting the IDF to commit near genocidal acts in Gaza in retaliation. The noncombatants in Gaza are powerless to act against either group of armed forces.
Now Palestinians in the US are mad at Biden because he expressed unwavering support for Israel after the November 7th attack. Actually, the US Government has always made that claim. Every Democratic President since Bill Clinton has said that publicly, while working behind the scenes on a two state solution. Palestine could have had its own state when PLO Chairman Arafat and Israeli PM Barak negotiated at Camp David in 2000. But Arab extremists reminded Arafat of what happened to Anwar Sadat after he signed a peace agreement with Israel at Camp David in 1978 when Jimmy Carter was President.
Barak Obama used his position to try to reign in Israel and its expansion of settlements into Palestinian territories. Netanyahu turned to the Republicans resisting Obama at every turn for support. He even came to the US to speak before Congress without giving Obama the respect due an American President. Let’s remember who was Vice President at that time.
Obama made a deal to curb Iran’s nuclear development program. Netanyahu was against the deal. That deal would have set Iran’s nuclear weapons program idle for decades. When Trump became President he killed the deal. Today, Iran is on the verge of creating nuclear grade plutonium and weapons in less than a year. As an added benefit to Netanyahu’s mischief, Iran is suspected of financing and training the Hamas insurgents who executed the November 7th attacks.
We don’t hear any of this from Palestinians complaining about Biden. We don’t hear them condemning Hamas for the carnage the people in Gaza have now endured. Biden isn’t responsible for the women and children noncombatants deaths there. Hamas is responsible. Hamas wages war from among the citizenry. Hamas uses them as shields knowing that racist right wing zealots govern Israel.
If Trump wins instead of Biden, Palestinians will be expelled from the country. There will be a Muslim Ban enacted. Trump has already told his followers that these are his plans. So while Biden works behind the scene to find more moderate Israelis he can work with to agree to a Palestinian state, Palestinians in this country who can vote are talking about not voting for him and giving Trump a greater probability of winning and ultimately deporting them.
Moving beyond the issues in Israel, there are many in the Democratic Party who have swallowed the MAGA bait and bought into worrying about Biden’s age. Democrats are talking that we need new blood. One Democrat has decided to challenge Biden in the primaries. He has chosen former Republican campaign manager for John McCain to run his challenge to Biden. You know, Steve Schmidt, the guy who got McCain to choose Sarah Palin as his VP candidate.
I hear influential Blacks complain about Biden, but no one has named a single viable person who is ready to win the Democratic nomination in 2024 and then beat Trump in a general election. You can’t listen to the polling and think those numbers are real. Biden wasn’t even taken seriously as the Democratic nominee until February of 2020 when he won the South Carolina Primary. Everyone who was pushed as the next choice flamed out by Super Tuesday in early March of 2020.
Democrats talk about his age, but name someone younger who is as policy savvy and gets the nuances of policy as well as Biden? Name someone who grasps the position and responsibility of being President without it being a naked authoritarian power grab. Biden jacked Republicans up on their efforts to cut Medicare and Social Security during the State of the Union Address standing at the podium on the fly. He negotiated a debt ceiling increase, maintained current spending levels, and moved the next debt ceiling increase to 2025, after the election.
Republicans call him senile and corrupt but Trump has his 2024 calendar full of criminal and civil trials. Biden stutters, Trump gives you incoherent whiny word salad. You folks had better wake up and understand what’s at stake.
You folks have allowed the media and social media propaganda to tell you what and how to think. These streams of information are controlled by monied interests and White Christian Nationalists. You think they are interested in your real concerns? They aren’t. They give you bogus religious and social issues to distract you into adopting their interests and neglect your own.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/22/israel-hamas-war-hostages-freed-deal-ceasefire
A Reasonable Point of View 