Sustaining democracy . . . and ourselves.

December 1, 2023

          Hamas is “running out of hostages” it can exchange for extensions in the pause in fighting. (Other terrorist groups (including the PIJ) hold some of the remaining 140 hostages.) Absent an unexpected development, Israel will resume its war on Hamas on Friday. Given that the IDF has entered and occupied most of northern Gaza, the next potential military target is Hamas’ strongholds in southern Gaza—a densely populated area that has experienced an influx of 1.7 million displaced Palestinians from northern Gaza.

          In advance of the expected renewal in military operations, US National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby issued a statement that evidenced a changed tone regarding US support for further incursions into Gaza. Per the Times of Israel, Kirby said,

We have been very consistent and clear with our Israeli counterparts that we do not support a move to the south unless or until they have adequately accounted for the protection of innocent human life, civilian life in southern Gaza with the understanding that there’s a whole heck of a lot more innocent civilians in southern Gaza than there were a week or two ago. What we’re urging Israel to do is to make sure there’s appropriate accounting for that and additional safety measures in place.

          Kirby’s statement coincided with a post by the Biden administration on Twitter that excerpted two lines from a speech by Joe Biden on Tuesday of this week:

Hamas unleashed a terrorist attack because they fear nothing more than Israelis and Palestinians living side by side in peace. To continue down the path of terror, violence, killing, and war is to give Hamas what they seek. We can’t do that.

          The selective post of Biden’s remarks has provoked intense reactions on both sides of the ideological divide over Israel’s war on Hamas. See The Guardian Biden faces criticism on Israel-Hamas war stance after X post sows confusion. Per The Guardian,

Tom Cotton tweeted: “It took Biden only a few weeks after the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust to turn on Israel and compare Israel’s actions to terror.”

Others welcomed the tweet as the first time that Biden has clearly warned how Israel’s aggressive military offensive is working to Hamas’s benefit. They also saw it as a sign that he is heeding weeks of criticism from progressive activists over his unwillingness to call for a ceasefire.

          Secretary of State Antony Blinken claims that Israel “agreed” to having a “clear plan in place that puts a premium on protecting civilians, as well as sustaining and building on humanitarian assistance getting to Gaza.” See AP News, Blinken urges Israel to comply with international law and spare civilians in war against Hamas.

          All the above suggests that the Biden administration is recalibrating its support for Israel’s ground incursion into Gaza by conditioning further support on a battle plan that “puts a premium” on protecting civilian lives.

          The change in Biden’s policy appears to be a reaction to the mounting death toll of Palestinians in Gaza. But some see Biden’s change in stance as mere political calculation. As noted in The Guardian article above,

Biden may also have been spooked by dismal poll numbers over his handling of the war. On Wednesday the Axios website reported that surveys by the Arab American Institute suggests a dramatic fall in support among Arab American voters in recent weeks. It quoted Osama Siblani, publisher of the Arab American News, as saying: “Unless Biden turns into Jesus Christ and brings some Palestinians back from the dead, we’re not supporting him.”

          It is possible that Biden is conducting foreign policy by monitoring his favorability ratings among various constituencies. I doubt it. The more reasonable inference is that Biden is concerned about the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians rather than the clash among competing voting blocs in the US.

          Biden will lose support among some groups no matter what he does regarding Israel’s war on Hamas. Given that truth, he should do what he believes is right . . . and accept the political consequences.

          But, as is true with any issue, not merely Israel’s war on Hamas, the failure to support Joe Biden is a vote for Trump. It is bewildering that anyone concerned with protecting the rights of Muslim Americans would vote for Trump.

          Recall that during Trump's first week in office, he instituted a ban on entry into the US from seven countries with majority Muslim populations. In contrast, on Biden’s first day in office, he terminated Trump's “Muslim ban,” saying that bans on travel from Muslim countries into the US

are a stain on our national conscience and are inconsistent with our long history of welcoming people of all faiths and no faith at all. [The bans] have separated loved ones, inflicting pain that will ripple for years to come.  They are just plain wrong. 

See Executive Order dated 1/20/21, Proclamation on Ending Discriminatory Bans on Entry to The United States

          Emotions are raw over the Israel-Hamas war. Lobbying the administration to change its policy is appropriate—and has reportedly affected Joe Biden’s approach and public statements. But threatening to withhold support from Biden is counterproductive and may initiate a new wave of government-sanctioned Islamophobia if Trump is reelected. Every American citizen should oppose that outcome by supporting Joe Biden.

Israel intercepted Hamas’ battle plan more than a year before the October 7 terror attack.

          A report in the NYTimes says that Israel had intercepted Hamas’ battle plan for the October 7 attack. Israeli intelligence reportedly dismissed the plan as “aspirational,” believing that it exceeded the operational capabilities of Hamas. See NYTimes, Israel Knew Hamas’s Attack Plan More Than a Year Ago. (Accessible to all.)

          Although many of the details of the intercepted plan overlap with the details of the October 7 attack, other major elements do not—such as plans to “take over Israeli cities and storm key military bases, including a division headquarters.” The latter objectives were not attempted on October 7.

          A female intelligence officer reported to her superiors in the IDF three months before the October 7 terror attack that Hamas appeared to be “rehearsing” elements of the battle plan intercepted a year earlier. Per the Times, “a colonel in the Gaza division brushed off her concerns, according to encrypted emails viewed by The Times.”

          Why does the information disclosed by the NYTimes matter? Prime Minister Netanyahu’s support in Israel has been plummeting in light of the failure of the Israeli government to prevent the attack. There was a widespread belief that Netanyahu would remain in power during the military response to the terror attack. Information regarding a disastrous intelligence failure on Netanyahu’s watch may undermine Netanyahu’s precarious sanding with the Israeli public. See The Guardian, Netanyahu’s political future looks shakier in midst of Israel-Hamas war.

Gag order reinstituted; Trump attacks Judge Engoron’s wife.

          A New York appellate court re-instituted the gag order issued by Judge Engoron against Trump. The gag order prohibits Trump from attacking court personnel. So, immediately after the gag order was instituted, Trump reposted a statement attacking Judge Engoron’s wife. See The Hill, Trump targets wife of New York judge overseeing civil fraud trial.

          Trump reposted a claim that the judge’s wife was the owner of a Twitter account that made negative comments about Trump. Judge Engoron’s wife immediately issued an unequivocal denial of the assertion that she is the owner of any account on Twitter. Judge Engoron’s wife—Dawn—wrote to The Hill, as follows:

The Twitter account with the handle @dm_sminxs does not belong to me.  I do not have a Twitter account.  I have never posted any anti Trump messages,.  

          Trump is benefitting from a double standard that applies to no other American citizen. Any party to a judicial proceeding who posted a tweet attacking the judge’s wife would be held in contempt of court and sanctioned. The sanctions would likely be monetary in nature, but a continued refusal to remove an offending tweet might lead to detention to secure compliance with the orders. That solution is on the table if Trump refuses to remove the post after being ordered to do so by the judge.

          But the bigger picture is more important than the particular consequences to Trump. He is trying to destroy the legitimacy and authority of the judiciary. Those are the tactics of fascists and dictators everywhere. Compared to disputes over foreign policy, the price of gas, the pace of change in achieving progressive goals, the destruction of the judiciary overwhelms all those issues. Without functioning courts that can punish and curb the unlawful behavior of politicians, the Constitution is a historical artifact sealed in glass case at the National Archive—not the living charter of our democracy.

          Trump's continued attacks on Judge Engoron and Judge Chutkan are disqualifying. No American should vote for any candidate who seeks to undermine the judiciary. Period. Full stop. No context. No “whataboutism.” No ageism. No gas price fetishism. No magical thinking about unicorns coming to save us. Trump is a threat to democracy. The only way to stop him is to support Joe Biden.

We are not sheep . . . .

          I received a dozen or more (I stopped counting) emails with an op-ed by Robert Kagan in the Washington Post, A Trump dictatorship is increasingly inevitable. We should stop pretending. I am not linking to an accessible copy of the essay because it is catastrophe porn. On the one hand, much of what Kagan says is factually true or based on reasonable inference. Kagan gets it right when he describes Trump's aspirations to be a dictator.

          But about halfway through a very long article, it becomes clear that Kagan thinks Democrats are a hopeless, disorganized, feckless, short-sighted crew incapable of rousing themselves to stop Trump at the ballot box. Worse, he dismisses the notion of any organized resistance to Trump if he is elected. He thinks we are sheep, powerless and afraid. In Kagan’s view, if Trump is elected, hundreds of millions of Americans will say, “Darn! That’s the end of 230 years of democracy! I hate it when that happens.”

          I don’t know Kagan from Adam. But Kagan doesn’t know the American people from Adam, either. If he wants to entertain fantasies of disaster because he lacks any faith in the American people to engage in resistance, he hasn’t been paying attention for the last seven years. He has ignored (or forgotten) about the elections in 2018, 2020, 2022, and 2023. But hey, he got a lot of people to click on his article. Don’t be one of them. Instead, have faith in yourself and the American people to rise to the challenge.

          In a surprising turn, Frank Bruni’s latest op-ed frames the 2024 election as a choice between concern over the price of gas and fascism. See Frank Bruni, NYTimes, It’s Not the Economy. It’s the Fascism. (Accessible to all.)

          Bruni writes:

Which matters more — the easing of inflation or the persistence of prices that many people can’t afford or accept? Low unemployment or high-interest rates? [Or] the intensity of Americans’ bad feelings about the economy [or] their actual financial circumstances?

On such questions may the 2024 election turn, so the litigation of them is no surprise. It’s not just the economy, stupid. It’s the public relations war over it.

But never in my adult lifetime has that battle seemed so agonizingly beside the point, such a distraction from the most important questions before us. In 2024, it’s not the economy. It’s the democracy. It’s the decency. It’s the truth.

          A week ago, Bruni was urging Biden’s family to stage an intervention to convince him to drop out of the presidential race. Today, Bruni is focusing on the stakes, not the odds. It is Trump or democracy, Biden or fascism. The choice is that simple. And that stark.

Concluding Thoughts.

          At the Grassroots Leaders Forum on Burnout and Sustainability held today (with 342 attendees!), two presenters read inspirational quotes that help them when they need motivation.

          Lisa Herrick of 31st Street Swing Left read The Parable of the Choir (from Renate's Baton). The central metaphor is grounded in the notion that some choral compositions require a choir to hold a note longer than any individual member can do on their own. The solution is for choir members to overlap, pause, rest, and resume—each in their own time. Together, they can hold a note longer than any individual:

In a choir, you have to breathe as a team to hold the long notes.  

But at times we deliberately breathe at different moments like a relay team: first me, then my neighbor, then another singer.

Most of the time, we breathe together and the music tells us when to breathe and when not to breathe.

You need to pay attention to your body and to the music. There are lots of signs in the music that tell us when to breathe. The most obvious musical breath is the apostrophe above the music [signifying a “rest”].

A lot of rests are there for you to take a breath.  

Make sure you take a breath there … and then you won't be holding a note longer than your neighbors, and you won't run out of air.

And the note will be held – by the choir – and go on. And on. And you won’t run out of air.  

          So, too, with activism in the defense of democracy. The effort required over the long term exceeds our individual capacity. But if we work as a team, we can sustain our commitment as long as it takes for us to prevail.

          Jessica Craven of Chop Wood Carry Water shared a quote from Vaclav Havel

Hope is not the same as joy that things are going well . . . but rather an ability to work for something because it is good, not because it stands a chance to succeed.

Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense regardless of how it turns out.

          We are living through extraordinary times. It is okay to bend, to rest, to collect ourselves. But we must be defiant in our hope. We are engaged in the defense of democracy not because victory is certain but because it is something that is good and deserves our effort and fealty.

          I will be in touch tomorrow to open the weekend Comment section.