Bilal Barakat 🍉 on Nostr: Some highlights from a (paywalled) interview in The New Yorker with Matt Duss, “the ...
Some highlights from a (paywalled) interview in The New Yorker with Matt Duss, “the executive vice-president at the Center for International Policy, and the former chief foreign-policy adviser to Senator Bernie Sanders.”
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I’ve lost track of what word salad the Biden Administration has been using about this lately: a tangible commitment to an eventual path, to a conceivable, maybe Palestinian state sometime in the future. It’s completely qualified and attenuated and totally uninspiring—because, yes, they understand there is no way that this Israeli government, or even an alternative Israeli government led by Netanyahu’s opposition, is really serious about making any of these commitments or taking any of these steps.
I would add—this is something that I think needs to be understood more—that there has been an offer on the table, not just from Saudi Arabia but from the entire Arab League, going back to 2002, for full peace and normalization with Israel if Israel follows U.N. Security Council Resolutions, follows international law, withdraws from the occupied territory, and enables the creation of a Palestinian state.
...
I think a different Democratic Administration could have taken this issue more seriously before October 7th. … there have been alarms sounded about Gaza for many, many years by international N.G.O.s; certainly by Palestinians, constantly; by Israeli security officials; by members of Congress, including my former boss. The idea that we could just kind of kick the Palestinians into the corner and manage the problem without any real consequences—that was revealed as a fantasy on October 7th.
…
At some point though, and fairly quickly, it became clear that what was going to be carried out in Gaza was not just self-defense. It became clear very quickly that this was a war of revenge.
...
I watch [the national-security spokesman] John Kirby’s briefings and it’s mind-boggling. I mean, who is he speaking for? It’s just these denials of what we can all see with our own eyes. And to continue to claim that they haven’t really seen evidence that Israel is committing war crimes. It’s such obvious bullshit.
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https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/is-bidens-israel-policy-cynical-or-naive?_sp=cce6cfbb-a9c2-44b6-a132-3fa414041429.1718283066923
palestine group (npub1zxn…0kqm) israel group (npub1qj0…wryw)
❝
I’ve lost track of what word salad the Biden Administration has been using about this lately: a tangible commitment to an eventual path, to a conceivable, maybe Palestinian state sometime in the future. It’s completely qualified and attenuated and totally uninspiring—because, yes, they understand there is no way that this Israeli government, or even an alternative Israeli government led by Netanyahu’s opposition, is really serious about making any of these commitments or taking any of these steps.
I would add—this is something that I think needs to be understood more—that there has been an offer on the table, not just from Saudi Arabia but from the entire Arab League, going back to 2002, for full peace and normalization with Israel if Israel follows U.N. Security Council Resolutions, follows international law, withdraws from the occupied territory, and enables the creation of a Palestinian state.
...
I think a different Democratic Administration could have taken this issue more seriously before October 7th. … there have been alarms sounded about Gaza for many, many years by international N.G.O.s; certainly by Palestinians, constantly; by Israeli security officials; by members of Congress, including my former boss. The idea that we could just kind of kick the Palestinians into the corner and manage the problem without any real consequences—that was revealed as a fantasy on October 7th.
…
At some point though, and fairly quickly, it became clear that what was going to be carried out in Gaza was not just self-defense. It became clear very quickly that this was a war of revenge.
...
I watch [the national-security spokesman] John Kirby’s briefings and it’s mind-boggling. I mean, who is he speaking for? It’s just these denials of what we can all see with our own eyes. And to continue to claim that they haven’t really seen evidence that Israel is committing war crimes. It’s such obvious bullshit.
❞
https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/is-bidens-israel-policy-cynical-or-naive?_sp=cce6cfbb-a9c2-44b6-a132-3fa414041429.1718283066923
palestine group (npub1zxn…0kqm) israel group (npub1qj0…wryw)