Judging from the recent events in Israel and Gaza — and
the failure of American political leadership to
stop a Palestinian genocide funded by the U.S.
taxpayers — it appears Biden and the Democrats
are working as hard as they can to lose the 2024
election.
The president needs young people,
including Black Gen Zers and millennials to win
reelection. These voters — who get much of
their news
and information from TikTok and are more supportive of
Palestinian rights than older generations — are
witnessing the massacre of Palestinian babies
and children on social media, live streamed and
unfiltered. And the Biden administration can’t
seem to understand why that would be a problem.
Today, Black people are showing up and
speaking out. At a recent event at Union
Theological Seminary in New York, Ta-Nehisi
Coates and Michelle Alexander were in conversation with Columbia
University Professor Rashid Khalidi on the issue
of Palestine. Coates visited Israel and the
Palestinian territories and reflected on the
visible signs of segregation, with separate
roads, sidewalks and license plates for Jews and
Palestinians.
“As I saw communities that I can only describe as
segregated. I said this is Chicago, it’s
Baltimore, it’s Philadelphia … and what I felt
was a tremendous weight. I felt the obvious
thing that I think all of us feel that our tax
dollars are effectively subsidizing apartheid,
subsidizing a segregationist order, a Jim Crow
regime,” Coates said. “How could I not know that
the only democracy in the Middle East, as it
bills itself, is segregated? How did I not know
that? And what I came to … was that Israel is a
democracy, the only democracy in the Middle East
in the exact same way that America is the oldest
democracy in the world,” he added.
Bernice
King clapped back at Amy Schumer and
others who misappropriated the message of her
father, Martin Luther King Jr. and his support
for Israel, insisting
that the civil rights leader would call
for an end to the bombing.
Former
NFL star Michael Bennett spoke out on the conflict in Gaza
with an opinion piece in The Nation. “We cannot
in good conscience fund the bombing of
Palestinian civilians, including children, for
they are all people, all humans,” Bennett said,
noting that bombing hospitals will not create
safety, and urging Biden to demand a ceasefire.
And thousands of activists, scholars,
artists, students and organizations (including
myself) signed the Black
for Palestine statement in solidarity with the
Palestinian people.
Black voters are the base of Democratic Party support, and
if there is a serious divide between Black
people and the policies of the Biden
administration, Biden is in trouble and must
listen to those who are positioned to withhold
their votes.
It is no surprise that Arab-American
support for Biden has tanked in only a few weeks, prompting the
administration to announce an Islamophobia
taskforce. And a few recent polls showing Biden
trailing Trump in key
swing states and nationally certainly do not make things any
better for the president.
“Michigan should not be in play for
Republicans/ Biden put it into play with his
actions /Because he’s done a horrific
thing” tweeted activist Bree Newsome on X. “So get
the relatives together & figure out how to
have your Uncle Joe bow out gracefully because
he is absolutely the greatest danger right now.”
Polls may not mean everything, but when you are the
incumbent president with sagging popularity, you
have to worry about your political future. And
to make it worse, his stance on Israel is
becoming a self-inflicted wound.
Despite broad
support among Democrats, Republicans and
independents for a ceasefire and an end to the
bombing, Biden decided to double down on
supporting the government of Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — who faces
corruption charges and calls to resign. Biden,
the most powerful leader in the world, has
decided he
is powerless while caping for extremist
genocidal settlers who tell us in the open air
that they plan to wipe out the Palestinians.
Israeli officials have called
Palestinians “human
animals,” have said that
there are no
innocent Palestinian civilians and have suggested that using a nuclear
bomb on Gaza is on the table. Israeli
doctors, including pediatricians have signed
letters calling for more
bombing of hospitals in Gaza. This whole thing is
giving Greenwood
Tulsa vibes, and it is clear that the
Israeli government and military are preparing
for a day without Palestinians. And Israel is enabled by a U.S.
government that gives $3.8
billion in military assistance each year
and wants to give $14
billion more.
And while Black people are always told to
mind their business and keep quiet about foreign
affairs that supposedly don’t concern them — the
way they told Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to shut
up about the Vietnam
War and stick
to civil rights — we should know and we should
care.
After all, Black people are from that
part of the world, and there are Black
Palestinians and Black Israelis who face racial
discrimination and police violence. There are
Afro-Palestinian activists such as the late Fatima
Bernawi, the first Palestinian woman to be
arrested by the Israeli Occupation Forces, who
died last year.
There is a long history of Black-Palestinian
solidarity, from Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee (SNCC) and the Black Panthers to Black
Lives Matter. When Ferguson, Mo., was the scene
of protests following the murder of Michael
Brown, Palestinians advised Black Lives Matter
protesters on how to deal with police tear
gas — the same tear gas produced in Pennsylvania and used against Palestinian
protesters in the West Bank. Let’s not forget
that cops over here and police over there share
notes, with American police training
in Israel and learning firsthand how to stomp
on a racialized and criminalized population.
In the midst of the hell that America is
helping to create, this time is different.
President Biden and the Democratic Party pledge
their blind support for the Israeli government
as the bombing of civilian areas and massacre of
children is on full display. We all have access
to the scenes of babies’ bodies piling up on our
smartphones and know this must end. Biden’s base
of voters is demanding an end to this. Yet,
rather than go after the white supremacist
domestic terrorists that are the greatest threat
to America, Democrats are criminalizing young
voters, especially Black
and brown students for exercising free speech for the
Palestinian cause. What a winning strategy for
2024.
Whatever it is that is on display in
Washington, it is not leadership. However, it is
corruption by elected officials who do not
respond to the voters who put them in office,
but do respond to lobbyists who
wine and dine and pay them, and send them
on free trips to Israel.
The ground is shifting, and Biden thinks we’re back after
9/11, when white nations were able to roll over
people in the Global South with impunity. Wars
may seem like a good election strategy, but not
this time. Now, Biden is playing LBJ, and Gaza
is his Vietnam. He is messing it all up, and the
young people see him.
This commentary is also posted on TheGrio.com.
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