r/politics • u/Particular_Log_3594 • 6d ago

No Paywall Obama: Israel 'took the land' from Palestinians, 'ceded moral ground' in Gaza

https://www.jpost.com/international/article-911851
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u/r4b1d0tt3r 5d ago

A politician has a certain amount of capital to spend and Obama chose not to expend much on restricting Israel. You can agree or disagree with where he chose to spend that capital. Personally I think in 2009-2016 cutting off Israel would have been ruinously expensive for the administration in the context of the political support in not just the GOP but the Democrats establishment and let's be clear, voters. This is the midlife of the war on terror after all and Israel was seen as the oracle on suppressing Islamic terrorism. I think for all that expenditure the fundamentals of the conflict would not change meaningfully.

What Obama did then or does now think about the justice of the situation my memory can't parse the history well enough to say, but as with any president other than Trump who just acts on wherever idiot idea pops into his head I imagine Obama's calculations were rather sophisticated. This is the type of trade off in that could have killed the aca for example.

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u/No-Distance-9401 5d ago

Tbf, back then I'd bet it was easily 90% of Congress taking Israeli money and being pro-Israel as people, especially the media, wouldn't report the horrors the Israelis did to Palestinians. It was also a different media landscape with less social media and not having that actual unadulterated news pushed by so many different sources.

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u/BillyJoeMac9095 5d ago

To spend capital on pushing a peace process, a President is going to need something from Palestinians as well as Israel.

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u/Aggressive-Neck-3921 5d ago

Dems cutting themselves off from israel would have been better in the long run. At this moment support for israel from a politician basically means that they will 99% likely do nothing for you and is just there as an agent for capital. They will be part of the revolving door of villians that will block actual good policy that would help normal people.