With the number of known dead in Gaza, as past 30, 000 and climbing, the Biden/Schumer alliance is out of necessity rather than choice, to state the obvious: They must now see their unconditional support of Israel, as unsustainable in the face of the continuing Genocide, as practiced by the near American proxy Netanyahu. This quote from Aaron David Miller, in this New York Times essay, is indicative of the opinions of a class of political/moral conformist :
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As the war enters its sixth month, Mr. Biden finds himself in an investment trap that’s difficult to escape. He is increasingly frustrated and angry with Mr. Netanyahu. And yet he’s still in love with Israel. How to stand up to the first without damaging the second is proving to be an excruciatingly difficult challenge for a president whose regard for Israel runs deep in his emotional and political DNA and whose re-election campaign may depend upon which way he turns.
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A long excerpt for The Financial Times report:
Joe Biden appeared to deepen his rift with Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday, publicly praising a top Democrat’s remarks that called for the Israeli prime minister’s removal as a “good speech” that expressed “concerns” shared by many Americans.
His comments to reporters on Friday morning are the latest sign that the US president has all but given up on Netanyahu, who has angered his backers in the White House by failing to allow more aid into Gaza and pursuing war tactics that have killed thousands of Palestinian civilians.
Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader in the Senate and one of the most high-profile backers of Israel over his decades-long political career, sent shockwaves through the bilateral relationship on Thursday by calling Netanyahu an “obstacle to peace” who was weakening his country’s “political and moral fabric”.
Schumer, the most senior Jewish elected official in Washington, urged Israel to hold new elections to remove Netanyahu from office.
Biden confirmed on Friday that Schumer had given the White House advance notice of his speech and its contents. “I’m not going to elaborate on the speech,” the president said. “He made a good speech, and I think he expressed serious concern shared not only by him, but by many Americans.”
Netanyahu, who was close to former Republican president Donald Trump but clashed openly with Democratic president Barack Obama, has steadily lost support among the American left, an exodus that has sped up during Israel’s campaign in Gaza and has threatened to erode Biden’s base during a re-election year.
But until recently, the Israeli prime minister was able to rely on older Democrats in Washington — including Schumer and Biden — who have supported the Jewish state for decades.
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Is it possible to be a Zionist and a United States Senator, whose main concern must be America ? This essay is instructive on that vexing question?
Headline: Schumer: I’ll live up to my name and be ‘Shomer for Yisroel’
Senator Charles Schumer told Achiezer’s gala on Sunday in Atlantic Beach the he would fight any “bad deal” with Iran and would continue his commitment to serve as a “Shomer Yisroel” (guardian over Israel).
“When Prime Minister Netanyahu comes to America and says that a nuclear Iran is an existential threat to the state of Israel, he means every word. Existential means the existence,” Schumer said.
“Palestinians are trouble, but Israel can handle it,” he continued. “Hamas and Hezbollah are trouble, but Israel can handle it. But a nuclear Iran could wipe out the state of Israel.”
Schumer said he would support tougher sanctions if there is no agreement, and “if there’s a bad agreement, Congress should have the ability to undo it.”
Playing on his name, Schumer said his family had been shomrim of a ghetto’s wall in Europe. His name, modified at Ellis Island, was “Shoimer.”
“I will always will be shomer Yisroel,” he pledged. “I will do everything I can to see that Am Yisroel chai.”
Schumer praised Achiezer’s work and recounted how he helped Rabbi Yaakov Bender, the father of Achiezer’s president, establish Hatzalah on East 7th Street in Flatbush in 1977.
Achiezer honored community leaders at its annual dinner at The Sands Atlantic Beach.
Rootless cosmopolitan,down at heels intellectual;would be writer.
'Polemic is a discourse of conflict, whose effect depends on a delicate balance between the requirements of truth and the enticements of anger, the duty to argue and the zest to inflame. Its rhetoric allows, even enforces, a certain figurative licence. Like epitaphs in Johnson’s adage, it is not under oath.'
https://www.lrb.co.uk/v15/n20/perry-anderson/diary
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