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/Engrish_Major 6d ago

Cool. And we should want people to change for the better. The best accountability is changed behavior.

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u/evilgigglefish I voted 6d ago

we should also want people who genuinely believe in what's right, not conveniently changing their beliefs as soon as american public opinion changes.

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u/theREALbombedrumbum 6d ago

I'm with you on holding people accountable in recognition of them being late to the party, but I worry that messaging like yours will do more closing of doors than opening. When we're trying so hard for more politicians to do the bare minimum why waste energy going after the ones who are starting to take their first steps? If anything we're showing the prominent figures who are on the fence that they'll get criticized for not having done it sooner

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u/PlsNoOlives 5d ago

Accountability is acutely necessary. Obama isnt ignorant or uninitiated, and these little too late concessions are classic and predicted. Liberalism is against every war but the current war, and happy to mourn the victims of their own aggression, but take no steps to prevent their deaths. Israel calls it "shoot and cry" and they explicitly sanction it. Obama led the worst drone campaigns in our history but somehow maintains a legacy as a peaceful president, and he's barely said a peep in 3 years of extermination-stage genocide in Gaza. We need to stop worrying about the optics and the messaging and lock in or all this incremental-ism is just enabling the fascism to keep setting charges. 

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u/sirspacebill 5d ago

I mean, when someone criticizes obama in good faith, drone strikes are top of the list. I was young enough to where I felt safe not having to worry about anything politics when he was president, and even I know about how bad the drone strikes were/are for his legacy. The thing is though that's the only thing anyone really knows about, me included. If he did anything else that bad, id like to know but if he only has one stain on his presidency that's a pretty ok track record, historically speaking

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u/PlsNoOlives 5d ago

But it not like, a fun ranking game for favorite president. It's thousands of human lives extinguished. It's thousands of stains on his presidency, and if you're thinking "well that's true of all our presidents" then that's my point.  Americans just think it's our role on this planet to be a death machine and argue about who should drive it.