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Israel Attacked and its Response

JuiceCrewAllStar said:
i think that's correct

but i'm curious what the vote tradeoff numbers might be, probably a pretty difficult thing to answer


i'm also curious what the estimated donation dollar impact would be
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I think Biden's gamble here is that Israel will finish major military operations before the summer conventions and The US can make a grand show of delivering food aid and medical supplies to Gaza in September. By November most American voters will forget how bad this whole thing was, because Trump will say mountains of stupid things by then and may be convicted in NY by then. If the gamble works, Biden gets the campaign donations now with minimal impact on voter numbers later.
 
JuiceCrewAllStar said:
i don't think this is true, personally -- but that's only based on instinct

i think the young voters can be moved from "i will not vote for biden" to "i will hold my nose and vote for biden" but I don't think the cohort of young people that are waiting for Biden to stop funding Israeli efforts to begin their campaign involvement is a very large one
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I don't think all young voters are the same. But to use your post as a starting point, you could probably put young voters into:
"I will not vote for Biden"
"I will hold my nose and vote for Biden"
"I will vote for Biden but I won't publicly support him"
"I will publicly support Biden but won't campaign for him"
"I'm ridin' for Biden!" (the smallest group by far)

All those groups could shift considerably toward Biden if Biden shifts enough on this issue. But he's starting to run out of time with less than 6 months until voting starts.

birdman said:
I think Biden's gamble here is that Israel will finish major military operations before the summer conventions and The US can make a grand show of delivering food aid and medical supplies to Gaza in September. By November most American voters will forget how bad this whole thing was, because Trump will say mountains of stupid things by then and may be convicted in NY by then. If the gamble works, Biden gets the campaign donations now with minimal impact on voter numbers later.
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I agree that's his gamble. And that medieval state abortion laws and referendums becomes the key issue in the Fall.

But Biden needs to make an affirmative pro-Palestinian move and distance himself from Bibi to gain significant support.
 
I kinda think the strategy of brutalizing college students to cover for a rogue genocidal state is gonna backfire for ole Genocide Joe in November

He should think more about the marginalized people who are going to be negatively affected by his horrific decision-making in this matter !
 
Deacfan2009 said:
I have assumed he cares more about money/donations than direct votes
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JuiceCrewAllStar said:
genuine question: what votes does Biden lose if he stops funding Israel for the time being?

is the purely political calculation that those votes are a bigger number than the votes that won't vote for him because he continuing?
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I genuinely don’t believe the Biden admin’s stance on this issue is due to votes or donations. I think Biden believes that Israel is waging a just war, a defensive war, on terrorism, and that even if America doesn’t agree with their tactics, we are duty bound to support them.

If we follow a trend line of all American Presidents going back 50+ years, which administration, Democrat or Republican, was unwilling to indiscriminately kill thousands of Arab Muslims? America simply does not value the lives of Arab Muslims, and won’t hesitate as a nation to kill them or support other nations killing them. Biden is not unique in this regard.
 
myDeaconmyhand said:
I genuinely don’t believe the Biden admin’s stance on this issue is due to votes or donations.
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I agree, but I'm trying (briefly) to remove that debate from the conversation to consider the votes/dollars gained/lost discussion

does he lose more votes than he gains? I genuinely do not know

i do know he probably loses more dollars, but I have no idea how threatened the Biden campaign would be by such a thing -- it's not like he's building a fundraising pool from scratch for 2024
 
myDeaconmyhand said:
I genuinely don’t believe the Biden admin’s stance on this issue is due to votes or donations. I think Biden believes that Israel is waging a just war, a defensive war, on terrorism, and that even if America doesn’t agree with their tactics, we are duty bound to support them.

If we follow a trend line of all American Presidents going back 50+ years, which administration, Democrat or Republican, was unwilling to indiscriminately kill thousands of Arab Muslims? America simply does not value the lives of Arab Muslims, and won’t hesitate as a nation to kill them or support other nations killing them. Biden is not unique in this regard.
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At what ratio do you value the lives of Arab Muslims to say Europeans or Americans? Most of these prisoner swap proposals being thrown out there tend to value them at 50:1
 
dartsndeacs said:
At what ratio do you value the lives of Arab Muslims to say Europeans or Americans? Most of these prisoner swap proposals being thrown out there tend to value them at 50:1
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At what ratio does the deaths of Palestinians to Israelis become unjustified?
 
myDeaconmyhand said:
I think Biden believes that Israel is waging a just war, a defensive war, on terrorism, and that even if America doesn’t agree with their tactics, we are duty bound to support them.
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i think it's a lot more than just <duty> though. there's an awful lot of money tied up in Israel (I think we've given them more financial assistance than any other country?) and a central plank of American foreign policy over the last few decades holds them as an ally in the region -- it's more sunk cost and status quo than anything
 
Kory said:
i don't think this is an answerable question

or even worthwhile tbh
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a precise answer is of course imposssible

a discussion around whether it's net postitive or negative on votes is worthwhile analysis imo
 
WFFaithful said:
At what ratio does the deaths of Palestinians to Israelis become unjustified?
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Which really gets to the heart of the question militarily should the Isrealis just bomb the shit out of a building or at what point should they be willing to accept the risks and deaths of putting their soldiers' feet on the ground. I dunno. Everyone has a ratio because no one's going to value a member of their family the same as a stranger.

What % of Palestinians would move to somewhere safer if given the choice? (hard to answer since they're restricted from leaving)
 
i mean the conversation itself is gonna be mostly rhetorical since there's no way to really figure out much about how it's moving the NYT needle in Nov. but yeah i feel you
 
i think i'd take plama's strategy a lot more seriously if he could spell the country's name right
 
dartsndeacs said:
Which really gets to the heart of the question militarily should the Isrealis just bomb the shit out of a building or at what point should they be willing to accept the risks and deaths of putting their soldiers' feet on the ground. I dunno. Everyone has a ratio because no one's going to value a member of their family the same as a stranger.

What % of Palestinians would move to somewhere safer if given the choice? (hard to answer since they're restricted from leaving)
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Doing what you are suggesting is literally a war crime as written by international criminal law. Also, it does not matter if the other side (Hamas) has done this, it is STILL a war crime if Israel indiscriminately bombs areas they know civilians are in.

Your second paragraph's parentheses made me shake my head too - that's right, they're restricted from leaving, and being indiscriminately killed by Israel. That's genocide man.
 
i feel like the prisoner exchange metric is not a good one because Israel has arrested so many more people than vice versa

can't speak to the legitimacy of the arrests, but could be Israel just inflating numbers for these type of things
 
It's pretty dystopian to me that a major world superpower would continue to shield and allow an ally to openly commit genocide simply because the leader of the superpower country wants to ensure that he has enough campaign funds to use in order to stay in power.

I mean Biden is obviously making a more complex decision than choosing between supporting Israel's rampage in Palestine or less campaign donations, but the fact that it's even a meaningful part of the calculation is tough to swallow for me.
 


feels like this is one of the most direct US-Israel conflicts since October 7 -- US says no, Israel says we're doing it
 
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