In the context of the bans on !world@lemmy.world and !politics@lemmy.world, can someone explain why some LW mods refuse to admit that the USA are Israel's military providers?

Hello everyone,

I hope this is the good place to ask this question, if not, mods, feel free to remove it.

So as you may know, some LW mods on !world@lemmy.world and !politics@lemmy.world have been denying that the US government is supporting Israel in their attacks against Palestine.

In summary, their stance is

That is NOT why Biden is sending arms to Israel. Biden is rightly sending arms to Israel for the "Iron Dome" protection from outside aggression.

Israel misappropriates that support for use in the genocide. That is NOT on Biden. That's on Bibi and the IDF.

Biden is not complicit in any genocide. Full stop. Never has been.

For some detailed posts

Disclaimer:

I live in Europe and am not a US citizen, so I might not know enough about the power split between the US President and other representative structures like the Senate and the House of Representatives.
Linkerbaan, the other of the posts above, is usually suspected to be a Trump supporter or a Russian troll. That may be true or not, and they tend to be quite aggressive in the way they convey their message, but they still seem to make a few points.

The US President impact on providing weapons to Israel

A few recent articles about the US President responsibility about providing the arms to Israel

Do you think that Kamala Harris is likely to agree with the calls for an arms embargo on Israel?

I do not think she will agree with those calling for an arms embargo on Israel.

For one thing, as vice president and before that as a senator, Kamala Harris has consistently supported providing U.S. military aid to Israel. This position is typical of most Democratic Party members, as well as most Republicans.

Opponents of U.S. military aid to Israel often argue that this help is solely a function of domestic politics and reflects the power of the pro-Israel lobby, particularly AIPAC. I think that this view is myopic and exaggerates the power of the pro-Israel lobby. It ignores the fact that the U.S. has its own economic and strategic reasons for supplying that military aid. It is a U.S. national interest, not simply a favor for Israel, and that’s why there is broad, bipartisan support for continuing this military aid.

https://theconversation.com/us-is-unlikely-to-stop-giving-military-aid-to-israel-because-it-benefits-from-it-237290

The Biden administration has been doing contortions to provide military support to Israel without reference to U.S. or international law. It paused a shipment of 2,000-pound bombs in May, citing concerns about civilian harm, and even admitted in a report to Congress that month that U.S. weapons had likely been used in ways inconsistent with the law. But the White House said it didn’t have enough evidence to prove that specific violations had occurred, which would have triggered a suspension of further weapons shipments.

The evidence the Biden administration says it doesn’t have is everywhere. Careful investigations by the United Nations and organizations like mine have been documenting and reporting alleged violations since hostilities started in October, including Israeli forces’ unlawful airstrikes, the use of starvation as a method of warfare and torture of Palestinian detainees. The International Court of Justice has called on Israel three times to open Gaza’s crossings for aid shipments.

https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/09/10/debate-tip-candidates-theres-correct-answer-weapons-israel

The fear of Trump

The main argument usually used against people who point that the US President has an impact on the weapons supply to Israel is that

the Democrats are the lesser evil
Trump must not pass

While it is generally admitted that indeed Trump was a bad president and should indeed not pass, why do people go all the way to deny the impact of the US President on that matter?

Wouldn't it possible to both say that Kamala should pass, but at the same time condemn the actions of the US government on that matter?

Genuinely curious, as in Europe is it quite established that the US government chooses to keep providing weapons to Israel.

14 comments

nobody wants to believe they are involved In a genocide. Evil isn't deciding one day your going to kick puppies in the street. Evil is banal. Evil is a series of small choices to not rock the boat, or it isn't so bad, or they didn't mean it this time, or they won't do it again. Evil is deciding you don't need to get involved right now.
evil is subtle, slow, sticky... Deniable.
I wasn't evil, I wasn't involved, it wasn't my choice. All very compelling emotional reactions. This is how genocides happen at scale.
- That didn't happen.
  And if it did, it wasn't that bad.
  And if it was, that's not a big deal.
  And if it is, that's not my fault.
  And if it was, I didn't mean it.
  And if I did, you deserved it.

They thought that censoring the truth would help win the election. I knew that it wouldn’t. Kamala was shit and ran a shit platform.

The answer(s) to your questions are sometimes subtle and require a lot of explanation if one is truly interested in the answer and its necessary context.
A very, very, short version of "why do people not want to criticize the Democratic President eight weeks away from another election against trump" is partly answered by this article:
In May of last year, two groups of demonstrators faced off outside the Islamic Center in Houston Texas. On one side stood people [in a] group called Heart of Texas. It had 250,000 followers. The group's tagline was folksy - homeland of guns, barbecue and your heart. They were there to demonstrate against the purported Islamization of Texas.
On the other side were people who were also drawn by a [] group - United Muslims of America. It had 328,000 followers. Tagline - I'm a Muslim, and I'm proud. They were on the streets to save Islamic knowledge.
In this scene two groups are pitted against each other, over the rights, expectations, and limitations of - ostensibly - "spreading Islamic information" for lack of a better description. On the face of it, I think a lot of us might know which side we'd argue for or against, depending, but the catch to all of it is: "Russian operatives had established both Facebook groups. They did so, as Burr said, to fuel divisions among Americans. The price tag on all this - it set Russia back a grand total of around $200."
That's one example of many but it illustrates the conundrum of arguing about politics on social media - there's no certainty as to who is positioning anything, and the purpose is likely unknown.
I say all that to say this: a tactic many people feel was inspired or influenced by the same russian agencies that are still active and working diligently on the 2024 election was to promote Joe Biden as an agent of genocide. You may have seen the "Genocide Joe" comments that were briefly very plentiful.
Many somewhat social-media-savvy Americans are not only wary of these kinds of discussions in the heat of an election season, but they very forcefully push back on it for that reason. That does not mean they don't agree with some things (or not), my point is that it's sort of an overarching component to discusing Presidential performance at this time.
Anyway, I hope that helps.
- Interesting, I didn't know about such examples of destabilization tactics from Russia, I had never heard about "Genocide Joe" before a few weeks back, here on Lemmy.
  Makes more sense in that context to be over cautious about someone using the same wording.
  It does help, thank you!
  
  Oh yes, it worked so well and is so cheap they’ve rolled it out to most of the world already. Brexit, for example, was another stunning success.
  Just recently, the Department of Justice indicted russian backers of a right-wing “news” organization. Also UK, Australia, Canada, India, and others are all starting to publicly comment on similar russian efforts targeting them.
  
  It's been known that Russia's been highly active doing that for at least a decade if not more. Social media is one of the best delivery vehicles for misinformation ever invented. Posts aren't re shared or boosted based on facts or correctness. But rather how people feel about it. Tell a bigot that people they hate are doing something bad. AND THEY WILL SHARE IT EVERYWHERE.
  And it's not just them. Look around for those using the term "blue maga". Its a nonsense rhetoric phrase constantly disingenuously thrown at people calling for solidarity against fascists. How is solidarity against fascists anything like maga? Not even the people using the term can give you an adequate explanation. But that's not the point of it anyhow. It's all about derailing good faith discussion and poisoning the well to deter any possible future discussion with the baseless association.

That's a pretty good summation, imo. Democrats really don't want to hear anything about the ethics of sending US arms to Israel while it conducts a genocide right now. Their mentality is something like, "let's get Kamala elected, and don't point to any negatives until afterwards". But the fact is, once Harris is elected (if she wins), she will have very little incentive to change her policy on this issue. This small pre-election window is really the only opportunity available for leftists to campaign for her to change her stance. The activists still "harping on" about this issue recognize that and are doing their best to put pressure on her campaign. Arguably, they are running an ethically principled campaign, assuming their motives are good (i.e., stop the genocide). I get the whole "lesser of two evils" concept and have some sympathy for it, but I also understand why this single important issue is a complete dealbreaker for many leftists.
Having said all that, your disclaimer note about Linkerbaan's checks out. They are problematic because they do repeat a lot of Russian disinfo talking points, and in classic tankie fashion don't seem to have any issues with Russia's invasion of Ukraine while at the same time condemning US support of Israel's genocide. Personally, I feel that a principled person should be against genocide and war crimes no matter who is conducting them, otherwise they are just a partisan propagandist. But it seems most MLs on lemmy just can't bring themselves to level any sort of criticism against Russia, China, North Korea or Iran (to name a few), even when it is entirely justified, because of their "critical support" groupthink towards any anti-US/anti-Western state.
If any poster seems to be totally ignoring or justifying genocide and war crimes committed by AES countries, but campaigning relentlessly against "US funded genocide" then personally I think it's justified to ban them as they are clearly engaging in partisan propaganda. While it's hard to know 100% for sure what linkerbaan's true motivations are, I'd agree there are a number of red flags in their post history.
- Thank you for your comment

14 comments