Nearly every outbreak of Israel-Palestinian violence in recent years has been a grotesque exercise in false equivalency. While there are wrong doers on both sides, culpability is not the same when one side has hugely disproportionate power, inflicts pain disproportionately,...
...sets the rules & laws that oppress the other side, serially violates the human rights of those on the other side & often provokes the situation by compounding bad laws & policies with worse ones. It is not the same when Palestinians throw rocks and Israel launches air attacks.
It is not the same when Palestinians respond to daily humiliations & dispossessions with anger after Israel has imposed those & placed behind its policies the most potent military force in the region. It is possible to acknowledge the fear caused by Hamas rocket attacks & still..
...recognize that it is Israel that has created an apartheid state that denies fundamental rights and freedoms to the Palestinian people and has sought to carve away from those people year-in and year-out what little land and dignity and freedom that they still have.
Yes, Israel has elements of democracy in its government and has been an ally to the US...but it is not a democracy if Palestinians are denied what is granted to their Israeli neighbors and it is not helping the US when it making the situation worse.
Yes, Hamas is a bad actor, the Palestinian government is weak and often feckless, and innocent Israelis have a right to live free of fear. But that does not somehow shift the fundamental culpability in this situation from the Israeli government that solely has the power to...
...stop its oppression of the Palestinian people and accept that the only solution to this problem is two independent states, each with the right of self-determination and an expectation of peaceful co-existence. Israeli assertions that somehow they have the right to...
exact punishment several times worse for every Palestinian "transgression" even when many of those are in direct response to Israeli abuses only further undercut any effort to suggest that both sides are equally responsible for the constant and deepening suffering & unrest.
Yes, both sides can do better, both can help reduce tensions, but justice will not be achieved until it is acknowledged that one side, the side with all the institutional power, is the primary author of this horror story & must accept real, sweeping change for justice to be done.

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with David Rothkopf

David Rothkopf Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @djrothkopf

13 May
GOP has a mantra that one reason they still back Trump is that he is such a great vote getter. Setting aside the fact that he lost the popular vote twice, he also got a lower percentage of the popular vote in 2016 than Mitt Romney got four years earlier.
Trump's 2016 vote total was roughly the same as George W. Bush's 2004 vote total. Trump's 2016 popular vote percentage was the lowest by a winning candidate in nearly 25 years (Bill Clinton's was lower but that was the race in which Perot won a big chunk of votes as 3d party.)
Well, what about 2020 you say? Well, Trump's popular vote percentage in 2020 was nearly the same as in 2016. GOP talk about the fact Trump won over big vote total in 2020 but percentage of turnout is what matters especially since polarizing Trump also drove anti-Trump turnout.
Read 6 tweets
12 May
Today, the House GOP will demonstrate that they're the Trumpiest, Trumpmost, Trumptastic, Trumpelstilskinish, Trumpcentric, Trumpdillyicious, Trumptheistic, Trumpers ever. They'll declare to all that they place their allegiance to one man ahead of the truth & the Constitution.
They'll make a statement that says, "We're 100% behind the sedition, the violence, the attacks on police, the 30,000 lies, the corruption, the racism, the sex abuse, the betraying the country, the attacks on democracy, and the obstruction and perversion of justice of our man."
They will go on the record saying, "We place our man, our cult, our fealty to a serial criminal ahead of our oaths of office, our constituents and our country." Four and a half months after January 6th, they will make it clear that they stand with those who attacked the Capitol.
Read 5 tweets
11 May
Trump, a guy who's never won the popular vote, twice impeached, rated the worst president ever, serially corrupt, a traitor, rapist, racist, gave the GOP a perfect out on Jan 6. They could've easily just turned the page. But instead they said, "Nope, we'll stick with him."
Some might see this as a sign of Trumpian power, fear of his wrath, as implied recently by Sen. Lindsey Graham. But it's not that. It's the collective recognition of the weakness of a party that's lost the popular vote in 7 of the last 8 presidential elections.
It's the weakness of a party that sees the demographic handwriting on the wall. It's the weakness of a party that knows the one thing that can do them in is a free and open democracy functioning as it should, being guided by the will of the people.
Read 12 tweets
17 Apr
The revelation that the data Manafort gave to Kilimnik ended up with Russian intelligence not only confirms what was suspected but underscores that substantial gaps must still be filled in our understanding of Trump-Russia collusion and associated crimes.
Information has clearly be suppressed & very likely by multiple actors within the Trump Administration. It is only now that they are gone can a real honest investigation take place and I hope the Biden team and DoJ recognize that justice and our national security demand it does.
Mueller was operating with one hand tied behind his back. Congressional investigations were operating with both hands tied behind their back & with a blindfold over one eye. We have never had a full, fair investigation tapping all the resources of the USG into what happened.
Read 4 tweets
17 Apr
If the United States has been unable to defeat the Taliban or produce stability in Afghanistan after 20 years of seeking to impose our will, why do people think we can or should be able to after we recognize our failure and leave?
Our problem in Afghanistan was the mission was not well-defined or realistic. It was the latest in a long line of examples of superpower hubris. Joe Biden realized that long ago and tried to make the case to President Obama who did not accept his arguments back in 2009.
Biden is doing what should have been done long ago by pulling out. He recognizes that our experience with having a small force there for years proves that cannot advance us toward what was impossible to achieve when we had a big force there.
Read 7 tweets
13 Apr
Biden is right to do this and the timing is reasonable. We must be prepared for unhappy outcomes in Afghanistan, but those were always likely. Our national interests can be better protected by diplomacy and forces deployed elsewhere.
It is worth remembering that Biden was right about Afghanistan in 2009, arguing against the doubling down ultimately embraced by Obama. The subsequent cost to us has produced very limited material advancement of our interests.
Once we pull out, we must do what we can via multilateral mechanisms to seek to protect the people of Afghanistan, to promote democracy, to advance and defend women's rights and to ensure the country does not again become a terrorist haven.
Read 4 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

:(