Monitoring Biden and other Contemporary Events

With President Joe Biden’s speech today at Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in Charleston, South Carolina, coming after his speech in Pennsylvania on January 5, the election year of 2024 is in full swing. The first Republican caucus will be held on January 15 in Iowa; the first Democratic primary will be held on February 3. (A caucus is held by a political party and can have public voting, by a show of hands or gathering behind a candidate’s team; a primary election is run by the government and uses secret ballots.)

Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are laying out the difference between their vision for America and that of the current Republican frontrunner, former president Trump. In Pennsylvania, after a visit to Valley Forge, where General George Washington’s troops camped during the hard winter of 1777–1778, Biden laid out Trump’s assault on American democracy by trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election, normalizing violence, and threatening to become a dictator.

On January 6, the day after Biden’s speech, Harris spoke at the annual retreat of the Women’s Missionary Society of the 7th Episcopal District of the AME Church at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, where she emphasized the relationship between voting and governance. “In 2020, at the height of an historic pandemic, in the midst of so much loss and uncertainty, you showed up to vote,” Harris told the audience. “And you organized your friends and family members and neighbors to do the same. And it is because of you that Joe Biden is President of the United States and I am the first Black woman to be Vice President of the United States.”

That administration, she said, has meant access to high-speed internet for rural communities, lead-free water, investments in historically Black colleges and universities, the expansion of Medicaid coverage for postpartum care, and more Black women judges appointed than under any other administration in history, “including the first Black woman to ever sit on the highest court in…our land.” “Elections matter; leadership matters; and it makes a difference in the lives of people who, for the most part, many of us may never meet, who, for the most part, may never know our names.”

Democracy, Harris said, “is extremely strong in terms of what it does and the strength that it gives its people in the protection and preservation of individual rights, freedoms, and liberty. Incredibly strong…. And it is, on the other hand, extremely fragile. It is only as strong as our willingness to fight for it.”

In South Carolina today, in a historic Black church, Biden visited the site of the 2015 murders of nine church members at Bible study by a white supremacist. Biden condemned white supremacy and warned that some Americans are trying to “steal history” by rewriting it to claim the insurrectionists of January 6, 2021, were “a peaceful protest.” That lie is part of a broader attack on the truth, Biden said, in which Trump loyalists try “to erase history and your future: banning books; denying your right to vote and have it counted; destroying diversity, equality, inclusion all across America; harboring hate and replacing hope with anger and resentment and a dangerous view of America.”

“That narrow view of America,” he said, is “a zero-sum view…that says, ‘If you win, I lose. If you succeed, it must be I failed. If you get ahead, I fall behind.’ And maybe worst of all, ‘If I hold you down, I lift myself up.’ But democracy is not a zero-sum game, he said. He called for “lifting up a bigger and broader view of America that holds that ‘If you do well, I do well. We all do well.’”

This year, for the first time, South Carolina will host the Democrats’ first presidential primary, in recognition that Iowa and New Hampshire, the states that previously were first, do not represent either the Democrats’ voter base or the country. South Carolina’s 2020 primary was a major boost for Biden’s candidacy that year, as Representative Jim Clyburn and Black voters got behind him rather than candidates perceived to be less centrist. Biden is expected to win the South Carolina primary this year but would like a strong showing in the Black community that makes up a strong share of the party’s base.

Trump is also gearing up for the Iowa caucus, the first Republican nomination event of the season, on January 15. In Talking Points Memo today, Barbara A. Trish noted that his campaign is far more organized than it was in 2016 (he did not need to fight for the nomination in 2020), looking much more like a traditional political organization.

But Trump is in deep trouble. He is embroiled in many legal cases, his loyalists have run state Republican parties into the ground, and his opponent Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, is building steam in her quest for the nomination.

In the face of such headwinds, Trump is working to cement his evangelical base. Over the weekend, he shared a video titled “God Made Trump” that utterly misrepresented his behavior and portrayed him as a divinely inspired leader.

In the New York Times today, Ruth Graham and Charles Homans explored the self-declared evangelical voters for Trump and reported that their support for Trump is less about religion than it is about “a cultural and political identity: one in which Christians are considered a persecuted minority, traditional institutions are viewed skeptically and Mr. Trump looms large.” They are not churchgoers and are looking for what they see as retribution against those they believe are destroying traditional values, those who defend a secular society in which everyone is treated equally before the law.

Trump and his people appear to be trying to intimidate opponents into either support or silence. After losing two pretrial motions in the upcoming January 16 trial for damages associated with his defamation of E. Jean Carroll, the writer who said Trump raped her in the 1990s, Trump flooded social media with attacks on Carroll.

Special Counsel Jack Smith, who is investigating Trump’s mishandling of classified documents and his attempt to overturn the 2020 election, and Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing the election interference case, have been harassed with swatting attempts, a dangerous hoax in which someone gets law enforcement officers to rush to a home with claims that a violent crime is underway there.

Trump suggested today that unless he is guaranteed immunity for his attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, if he is reelected he will use the Department of Justice to make sure Biden is also indicted for his own actions as president. “If I don’t get Immunity, then Crooked Joe Biden doesn’t get Immunity,” he wrote on social media.

Behind Trump’s behavior is a willingness to destroy democracy, as the New York Times editorial board noted on January 6, 2024, when it wrote that Trump “confronts America with a…choice: between the continuance of the United States as a nation dedicated to ‘the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity’ and a man who has proudly shown open disdain for the law and the protections and ideals of the Constitution.”

Trump has made it clear that he does not consider himself bound by the country’s electoral system. On Saturday, Dave McKinney of WBEZ Chicago noted that Trump refused to sign an Illinois pledge, traditionally signed by all candidates, that he would not “advocate the overthrow of the government.” In 2016 and 2020, like other candidates, Trump signed it.

On Sunday, Representative Elise Stefanik (R-NY), the third-highest-ranking Republican in the House, told Kristen Welker of NBC’s Meet the Press that she would not commit to respecting the results of the 2024 election. Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI) called out the comment, saying: “They are promising to steal the election…. Everyone knows they mean it. Be freaked out.”

Indeed, part of lawyer John Eastman’s plan for overturning the 2020 election was to challenge the electoral votes of enough states to deny Biden a majority in the electoral college, thus throwing the election into the House of Representatives as outlined by the Twelfth Amendment. There, each state would have a single vote, and since there were more Republican-dominated states than Democratic ones, Trump would become president.

In Myrtle Beach on Sunday, Vice President Harris told the audience, “[A]t this moment in history, I say: Let us not throw up our hands when it’s time to roll up our sleeves. Because we were born for a time such as this.” Today, in Charleston, President Biden made the stakes clear: “[T]his is a time of choosing,” he said, “so let us choose the truth. Let us choose America.”

The US election looms. Arab Americans feel stuck between a rock and a hard place
Moustafa Bayoumi

Arab, Muslim and younger voters face a choice between Biden, who does little to stop mass Palestinian death, and the xenophobic Trump

We have a chaotic and unpredictable election year ahead. That would normally elicit anxiety, but mostly I’m feeling hopeless.

The election is less than a year away, and Joe Biden’s approval rating has sunk to its lowest level yet, clocking in at a paltry 38%, according to a recent Washington Post average of 17 different polls. Biden’s unblinking support for Israel and unwillingness to demand a ceasefire has made dear Uncle Joe appear to many as just another callous politician, numb to Palestinian suffering.

And that’s had a staggering effect on the key coalitions Biden will need to win a second term. If you move in Arab American or Muslim American circles, as I do, support for Biden’s re-election is rapidly crumbling: the Arab American Institute found that only 17% of Arab Americans say they will vote for Biden in 2024, down from 59% who did in 2020. Muslim Americans recently began an #AbandonBiden campaign, focusing on the sizable Muslim American communities in swing states such as Michigan, Arizona and Georgia.

As Axios notes, Biden won Michigan in 2020 by 154,000 votes, but there are at least 278,000 Arab Americans in Michigan. Biden took Arizona, a state with an Arab American population of 60,000, by only 10,500 votes. In Georgia, Biden prevailed with a margin of 11,800 voters, in a state that has an Arab American population of 57,000.

While it is true that not all Arab Americans are eligible voters (some may not be citizens, some may be too young), it’s also true that the 2024 election is expected to be won on razor-thin margins. Every vote, including every Arab American and every Muslim American vote, matters.

Disaffection with Biden isn’t limited to Arab and Muslim Americans, either. The president also has a young voter problem: according to NBC News, a November poll by Lake Research Partners, a Democratic polling firm, found that only 61% of voters under 30 would support Biden if the election were held today, and 56% gave him a “poor” rating on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

So we are faced with a dilemma: on the one hand, there’s a Democratic establishment that seems to believe disgruntled voters will choose Biden out of “a lesser of two evils” thinking. But that line of thinking is not just insulting to these voters. It is also so politically cynical – and explicitly harmful to Palestinians – that it’s hard to believe Biden holds himself to any values besides ruthless political calculation.

On the other hand, we have the presumptive Republican candidate Donald Trump, who promises not only to revive his abominable Muslim ban but also to implement “the largest domestic deportation operation in American history”. Trump has also described people coming across the US’s southern border as “poisoning the blood of our country”, and told Sean Hannity that he would be a dictator, but only on “day one” of his presidency.

I’m feeling nauseous. Why have our political choices sunk to supporting unconscionable violence or electing cartoonish fascism? Adding to my nausea is a feeling of paralysis that I haven’t been able to overcome for the last two months, a sense of profound helplessness in the face of such horror.

I know I’m not alone. I recognize the same feeling in so many people around me. We go to work. We shop for groceries. We meet up socially for dinner or to attend cultural events, but there’s no joy in any of this. Instead, there’s sadness and dread and shock hanging over everything. There are images we can’t unsee. There is anger we don’t know how to direct. And there’s shame that we aren’t doing enough to stop the slaughter.

The times when I’ve felt a tinge of hope emerge have been on the marches I’ve attended to stop Israel’s bombing of Gaza. All women-led (from what I can tell) and with marchers of all ages, ethnicities and identities, the marches are testaments to the collective need to do something. Perhaps for that very reason, they’ve also been much maligned by the powerful.

Back in October, the erstwhile UK home secretary, Suella Braverman, suggested waving a Palestinian flag at a march could constitute a criminal offense. Governments in France and Germany have sought to ban the keffiyeh – the checkered scarf associated with the Palestinian struggle – from schools and protests. And the US Congress wants to put words in your mouth when you chant: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”

I have never felt particularly close to any politician but, at this moment in history, I’ve also never been more convinced that they all live together in a large, gilded mansion, behind a fortified wall, and located in some alternate universe, even though their purpose is to be among us and represent us and our interests. (Polling continues to indicate that a large majority of Americans want the US government to call for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and to prioritize diplomacy, yet the White House refuses to do so.)

Maybe the problem is not that our politicians are failing, but that our politics are failing. We need a new kind of politics, globally – one that is not beholden to billionaires, that is not mesmerized by power. One that is instead justly accountable to everyone it reaches.

Come to think of it, buying an authentic keffiyeh has become nearly impossible, since they’re currently in such high demand. Everyone the world over now knows the slogan “from the river to the sea”. Global news outlets are writing explainers on how the watermelon became a symbol of Palestinian solidarity.

Why does this matter? The search for a durable solution for how Israelis and Palestinians will live together used to revolve around self-determination for two peoples. More and more, it centers on justice and equality for everyone. Perhaps that’s one reason why the Palestinian cause is drawing more attention from so many corners around the world. Everyone should be able to identify with the need for justice and equality, both locally and globally.

Maybe that’s what makes Palestinian liberation so frightening to the political classes. Maybe that’s the hope for 2024.

Another as hightor pointed out earlier relates to the Evangelical community who have a biblical affiliation with Israel.

It's even worse than that, at least her in Texas. They love Israel because of biblical prophesy

How apartheid history shaped South Africa’s genocide case against Israel
Jewish groups have accused the ANC of antisemitism, but ICJ case stems from party’s longstanding support for Palestinians

Israel has denounced South Africa’s legal action at the international court of justice accusing Israel of genocide and war crimes in Gaza as amounting to support for Hamas.

Israel called the charge that it was intentionally killing thousands of Palestinian civilians – which the ICJ is expected to start hearing on Thursday – a “blood libel”. Jewish organisations in South Africa accused the ruling African National Congress of siding with terrorism and antisemitism.

But South Africa’s lawsuit seeking a halt to the Israeli assault on Gaza in response to the Hamas cross-border attack in October comes after years of deteriorating relations rooted in the ANC’s decades-long support for the Palestinian cause and the legacy of Israel’s close military alliance with the apartheid regime during some of the most oppressive years of white rule.

South Africa’s chief rabbi, Warren Goldstein, responded to the ICJ filing by accusing the ANC government of acting “as Iran’s ally and proxy in the Islamic state’s plans to destroy the Jewish state” and of supporting “Iranian proxy Hamas in its war crimes”.

South Africa’s Jewish Board of Deputies joined the criticism, accusing the government of continuing “to humiliate itself in the international arena” and saying it had “no shame” in using international courts for political purposes.

The board’s critics have responded by accusing it of acting as a proxy for Israel. Andrew Feinstein, a Jewish former ANC member of parliament, said the criticisms will have little traction inside the country.

“The chief rabbi and the Jewish Board of Deputies have never criticised anything Israel has done for as long as I can remember. It’s worth reminding oneself that the organised Jewish community in South Africa found it extraordinarily difficult to criticise apartheid until the mid-1980s. So we’re not talking about people speaking from a position of moral integrity here,” he said.

Feinstein noted that while Jewish South Africans featured prominently in the struggle against apartheid, they were shunned by the Board of Deputies, which claimed to speak for the majority of the Jewish community. The organisation collaborated with the white regime and chose instead to honour figures such as Percy Yutar, the prosecutor who sent Nelson Mandela to prison.

Feinstein said that underpinning South African criticism of Israel is the ANC’s longstanding support for the Palestine Liberation Organisation and what he saw as the growing view that Israel was practising its own brand of apartheid in the occupied territories.

“There are certain things that run incredibly deep in the ANC and its support for the Palestinian people is one of them. There’s an affinity for the Palestinian struggle which is seen as very close to the South African struggle,” said Feinstein.

The South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa, told representatives of the Board of Deputies last month that his government would continue to support the Palestinians “who have endured over seven decades of apartheid type of brutal occupation”.

Israel and apartheid-era South Africa developed a close military alliance that included collaboration on nuclear weapons, even though many of the Afrikaner leaders of the time had a history of deep antisemitism. John Vorster, the then prime minister, was feted on a visit to Jerusalem in 1976 despite having been interned during the second world war for Nazi sympathies and membership of a fascist militia that burned Jewish-owned properties.

After the ANC came to power in 1994 it established full diplomatic relations with Palestine while ties with Israel deteriorated over time. The foreign ministry in Pretoria said it maintains only “limited political and diplomatic interaction” because of Israel’s “antagonistic attitude” toward peace talks with the Palestinians and “disregard for international law regarding the rights of the Palestinians and their territories”.

In 2019, South Africa downgraded its embassy in Tel Aviv to the status of a liaison office after the Israeli military killed more than 220 Palestinian protesters inside Gaza, mostly unarmed civilians, during months of protests. The ANC called the Israeli government and military “an outcast and blight on humanity”.

As the Israeli assault on Gaza escalated in November, South Africa recalled its diplomats from Israel. The parliament in Cape Town passed a resolution calling on the government to shut the Israeli embassy and suspend diplomatic relations entirely until there was a ceasefire in Gaza and Israel committed to negotiating “a just, sustainable and lasting peace” with the Palestinians.

South Africa has also called on the international criminal court to issue arrest warrants for the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and other Israeli leaders for “statements of genocidal intent” and other alleged war crimes. Israel withdrew its ambassador from Pretoria amid the escalating diplomatic dispute.

Relations will not be improved by South Africa’s choice of John Dugard to head its legal team at the ICJ. Dugard served as the UN special rapporteur for human rights in occupied Palestine during the 2000s. His reports accused Israel of constructing a system of Jewish domination over Palestinians, of violating the 1973 international convention against apartheid and of committing war crimes. He also accused the Israeli army of collaborating in “settler terror” against Palestinians.

Feinstein said that far from damaging South Africa’s international standing, as the board of deputies claimed, the ICJ case was likely to strengthen respect among allies such as India, Brazil and China.

“The representatives of parts of the Jewish community on the other hand, they are perhaps the ones who are embarrassing themselves with uncritical support of whatever Israel does. I don’t see in any way how this humiliates South Africa. In fact, I think it does exactly the opposite,” he said.

I apologize for casting aspersion on some people you know much better than I. I will do better at keeping my opinions regarding people I do not know to myself.