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      America Is Confused Over What It Means to Be Exceptional

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      The deepening Israeli-Palestinian conflict is quickly becoming a game of identifying which acts committed by either side in the course of the most recent fighting are war crimes and which are crimes against humanity. The failure on the part of both international institutions and powerful nations to provide even a minimum of perspective that might lead toward a satisfying resolution has become manifest. In today’s geopolitical hyperreality, perspective has become a luxury that politicians are not even allowed to consider.

      Nothing illustrates this better than the strutting and fretting of the US on the world stage. Most observers suppose that as Israel’s staunchest ally, the US alone has the minimum of moral standing required to influence, ever so slightly, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s policies and Israel’s behavior. The Biden administration actually has a chance to affirm its global leadership. Instead, as AP reports, “the Biden administration — determined to turn U.S. foreign policy focus away from the Middle East and Afghanistan — has shown no immediate sign of getting more deeply involved.” Can “turning away” be deemed a valid tactic in the foreign policy of the world’s mightiest nation?

      Biden Washes His Hands of the Israel-Palestine Affair

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      But the US is not only turning itself away from seeking a solution. It is also actively turning every other nation away. That is how it is using its power. Al Jazeera notes that “the US reportedly twice blocked over the last week resolutions that would have condemned Israel’s military response and called for a ceasefire.”

      On Sunday, the US had a chance to influence events at an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council. The New York Times gave this account of the US position: “The American ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, urged restraint on the part of both Hamas and Israel during Sunday’s Security Council meeting, which was called to try to find a way to end the violence.”

      Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      Urge restraint:

      Refrain from making one’s own effort to restrain

      Contextual Note

      The United States has often been called “the most powerful nation on earth” (Barack Obama) and sometimes even “the greatest country in the history of civilization” (Mike Pompeo). When the legendary boxer Mohammad Ali insisted that he was “the greatest,” he got in the ring to prove it. On occasion, he failed. Despite his failures, boxing fans remember him as the greatest. In its role as the pinnacle of civilization and the most powerful nation ever, the US owns the ring. From Korea and Vietnam to Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya (to mention only a few), it repeatedly steps into the ring. It consistently fails.

      Why has no one in the mainstream media dared to point to the painful irony of a recurring situation? The presumed greatest nation in the history of civilization on earth now excels by showing little concern for the earth itself and even less for the safeguard of civilization. The irony becomes extreme when considering the case of Israel. One of the world’s smallest countries has consistently demonstrated its capacity to restrain — if not shackle — the power of the greatest nation on earth, leaving the United States on the sidelines in the role of a spectator with nothing more to do than quietly “urge restraint.”

      Embed from Getty Images

      What is behind the belief Americans continue to have that their nation is the greatest in the history of mankind? Objective observers across the globe might attribute the belief to the triumph over the past century of what is called “the American way of life.” Hollywood and TV have projected the image of a self-satisfied consumer society the rest of the world is called upon to envy. They can see that it also happens to be supported by the dictatorship of the dollar and the massive deployment of military might across the globe.

      In other words, the rest of the world recognizes that the US is an empire, just as most inhabitants of the Mediterranean basin two thousand years ago recognized the omnipresent power of the Roman Empire. Empires are not only coercive political and military forces with a skill for organizing and exploiting the economic resources of other peoples. As Shakespeare’s triumphant Henry V wittily observed in his attempt to persuade his future wife, the Dauphine Catherine, to violate her rigid French customs and kiss him, empires are also “the makers of manners.” They have the psychological power to impose what they have the habit of doing for their own pleasure as the accepted norm for anyone in the purview of their political and economic sovereignty. In that sense, the US may well be the most successful empire in the history of mankind.

      Americans and America’s media refuse to admit they function like an empire. They imagine their nation as a disinterested beacon of democracy and a purveyor of prosperity. When Americans claim their military is “a force for good,” they believe that the only reason the CIA overturns governments or that their troops “pacify” nations is to invite the downtrodden of the earth into the cornucopia of American consumerism. Even the otherwise subtle analyst, Francis Fukuyama, allowed himself to embrace that myth when he predicted the end of history in 1992, before belatedly postponing the date of that Hegelian moment.

      Historical Note

      As the US campaigns to prevent a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it’s worth noting a mildly surprising fact reported by Al Jazeera. Could this be the beginning of a historical about-face? Concerned by the global reaction to Israel’s annihilation of the building in Gaza that housed the Associated Press and Al Jazeera, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken demanded evidence of Israel’s claim that Hamas was operating in the building. In response, “Israeli military spokesman Lt Gen Jonathan Conricus told CNN on Sunday, ‘We’re in the middle of fighting. That’s in process and I’m sure in due time that information will be presented.’”

      Call this the in-due-time defense. In such debates, “due time” means the time it takes to forget the request. It is part of the science and art at which the Israelis excel, moving forward on the strength of never-ending faits accomplis. Ian McCredie has pointed out in these columns four years ago that Israel’s method is similar to the way the US expanded over the 19th century from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Consciously or unconsciously, Israel’s settlement strategy was modeled on America’s Manifest Destiny. McCredie sees another disturbing parallel with France’s Vichy regime during World War II.

      Could it be that US politicians literally believe Fukuyama’s thesis of the end of history correlating with the fall of the Soviet Union? Enthralled by the success of what is referred to as Pax Americana, are they tempted to see history frozen into a mythical ideal that appeared to triumph during the Cold War? Donald Trump became president by convincing enough Americans that he could “make America great again.” Most people saw that as an expression of nostalgia for the 1950s. Similarly, Joe Biden represents the best throwback the Democrats could propose: a candidate enamored of the good old days of American power and intent on restoring the vanished American prestige he remembered from his youth.

      Using its veto on Sunday, the US cast the sole vote at the UN Security Council quashing a resolution calling for a ceasefire while condemning Israel’s military responses as excessive. In its absolute subservience to Israel and willingness to buck the unanimity of other nations in the Security Council, perhaps the nostalgia of manifest destiny and the memory of a time when the US won wars and dominated through force are what guide US presidents today to bend before Israel’s will. Israel’s brand of exceptionalism, marked by its tendency to defy all restraint, may be the fantasy that enables Americans — now condemned to do little more than “urge restraint” — to believe in their own myth of American exceptionalism.

      Could that be the real lesson emerging from the current crisis? President Biden’s unconditional support of Israel’s right to self-defense — criticized, on the right, by Senator Tom Cotton, who calls it a “policy of weakness and appeasement,” insufficiently supportive of Israel right to unrestrained offense and, on the left, for its failure to take into account Israel’s oppression of Palestinians — demonstrates how what has become truly exceptional is the confusion about what it means to be exceptional.

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in US Politics

      Val Demings likely to run for Senate against Marco Rubio – report

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      Marco Rubio avoided a Senate challenge from Ivanka Trump but he seems certain to face one from Val Demings, a Democratic Florida congresswoman who was the first Black female police chief of Orlando and who was considered as a potential vice-president to Joe Biden.An unnamed senior adviser told Politico Demings, 64, was “98.6%” certain to run against Rubio in the midterm elections next year.“If I had to point to one” reason why Demings had decided to run, the adviser was quoted as saying, “I think it’s the Covid bill and the way Republicans voted against it for no good reason.“That really helped push her over the edge. She also had this huge fight with [Ohio Republican representative] Jim Jordan and it brought that into focus. This fight is in Washington and it’s the right fight for her to continue.”Biden’s $1.9tn coronavirus rescue bill passed Congress in March without a single Republican vote. In April she made headlines by raising her voice when Jordan, a provocateur and hard-right Trump supporter, interrupted her during a House judiciary committee hearing on an anti-hate crimes bill.“I have the floor, Mr Jordan,” Demings shouted. “What? Did I strike a nerve?“Law enforcement officers deserve better than to be utilised as pawns, and you and your colleagues should be ashamed of yourselves.”Demings was a member of Orlando police for 27 years and chief from 2007 to 2011. She was elected to Congress in 2016. Her husband, Jerry Demings, is a former sheriff and current mayor of Orlando county.Police brutality and institutional racism have become a national flashpoint in light of the killings of numerous African American men.Demings is a political moderate but Quentin James of the the Collective Pac, a Florida group working on Black voter registration, told Politico her police background and political views would not necessarily handicap her.Young and progressive Floridians “aren’t really anti-police”, he said. “They’re against police brutality.”Rubio is a two-term senator who ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016. He was brutally beaten in that race by Donald Trump, then swiftly aligned himself with his persecutor when he won the White House.The prospect of a primary challenge from Ivanka Trump, the former president’s oldest daughter, was briefly the talk of Washington but she has said she will not run.The Senate is split 50-50 and controlled by Democrats through Kamala Harris’s casting vote as vice-president. Demings’s all-but-confirmed decision to run sets up an intriguing contest in a state where the large Latino population has increasingly broken for Republicans. Rubio is the son of Cuban migrants.Demings’s move also leaves the field open for challengers to Ron DeSantis, the Trump-supporting governor seen by some as a possible presidential candidate in 2024. In 2018 Democrats ran a progressive, Andrew Gillum, a former mayor of Tallahassee.Discussing Demings’s likely Senate campaign, James told Politico: “We came very close with Gillum. But now we’re back with a really great candidate.” More

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      in World Politics

      Netanyahu and Hamas Are Playing a Deadly Game

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      In March, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu was unable to achieve a parliamentary majority in the Knesset after a fourth Israeli election in two years. As a result, he needed a national crisis to prevent the establishment of an alternative government by the opposition. Such a coalition would include right, centrist and left-wing parties, presenting a threat to Netanyahu’s premiership.

      The last crisis in 2020 was the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused opposition leader Benny Gantz to cave in and agree to form a national unity government with Netanyahu. Now, Netanyahu has a new national emergency with the conflict in Gaza. This has led Naftali Bennet, leader of the right-wing Yamina party, to abandon efforts to form an alternative government with Yair Lapid, head of the centrist Yesh Atid, the largest opposition in Israel. Yamina and Yesh Atid have attempted to combine with Gantz’s Blue and White, the left-wing Labor and Meretz parties, and the United Arab List to reach a 61-seat majority in the Knesset.

      The Future of Jerusalem Matters to Us All

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      Netanyahu may not have planned the exact scenario of the current conflict with Hamas militants in Gaza, but his policies laid the foundation for it. First, he has refused to negotiate with the Palestinian Authority and its leader, Mahmoud Abbas, for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Instead, Netanyahu has preferred to bolster divisions between the Palestinian factions of Hamas in Gaza and Fatah in the West Bank.

      There is no chance that Netanyahu would order the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to overthrow the Hamas government in Gaza. The prime minister wants the division amongst the Palestinians to continue. Netanyahu is content with having Qatar — which did not join the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain in recognizing Israel in 2020 — prop up Hamas’ rule in Gaza.

      Evictions in Sheikh Jarrah

      Other Israeli decisions connected to East Jerusalem and its Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood have led to the multiple crises now taking place.

      The first spark that lit the flame was the decision by Israeli police to set up barricades toward the end of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month, at the Damascus Gate entrance to the Old City. Since that is a place where many young Palestinians gather in the evening after breaking their fasts, it led to anger and protest — some violent. Kobi Shabtai, the novice police commissioner, falsely claimed this was a longstanding policy to prevent crowding. He later lifted the ban.

      Embed from Getty Images

      This was followed by clashes in East Jerusalem inside a compound known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Haram al-Sharif. Israeli police made another major mistake of firing stun grenades into Al-Aqsa Mosque, which is inside the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif. This led to outrage amongst Palestinians in East Jerusalem and the West Bank and Israeli-Arab citizens in Israel.

      The second spark was due to right-wing Israeli extremists attempting to evict Palestinians from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah to make way for Jewish settlers. These Palestinian families became refugees in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war and were relocated to Sheikh Jarrah in 1956 after the Jordanian government, which controlled East Jerusalem at the time, built homes for them.

      An extremely unfair law permits Israelis to try to reclaim property in East Jerusalem that was held by Jews before 1948. Yet Palestinians are not allowed to do the same with property they once owned in West Jerusalem. A hearing over the legality of the eviction attempts was due to be heard by the Israeli Supreme Court on May 10. The case has since been postponed for a month at the request of Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit.

      With the events on the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif and the evictions in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, the focus is on Netanyahu. To reach a majority in the Knesset, the prime minister encouraged the newly-elected Itamar Ben-Gvir — a follower of the extreme right-wing Rabbi Meir Kahane — and his Jewish Power Party to join forces with Bezalel Smotrich and his Religious Zionism, a nationalist, far-right party.

      Ben-Gvir has been accused by the Israeli police chief of supporting young, right-wing extremists who attacked Palestinians in the Old City and in Sheikh Jarrah last week. “The person who is responsible for this intifada [uprising] is Itamar Ben Gvir. It started with the Lehava protest at Damascus Gate,” Shabtai said. “It continued with provocations in Sheikh Jarrah, and now he is moving around with Lehava activists.”

      To his credit, even Netanyahu realized that the situation in Jerusalem was at risk of turning ugly. This year, just before what Israelis call the “Jerusalem Day Flag March,” marking the capture of the Old City and East Jerusalem in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, Palestinians marked Laylat al-Qadr (night of decree), one of the holiest nights in Ramadan and the Islamic calendar. On May 10, thousands of young, right-wing Israelis were scheduled to march through Damascus Gate while taunting Palestinians in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City. Instead, it was rerouted via the Jaffa Gate adjacent to West Jerusalem.

      Uncertainty for Hamas

      This is where Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, comes into the picture. Hamas has been losing popularity in Gaza because of the dire conditions that Palestinian face there. In May and July, Palestinians were due to vote in legislative and presidential elections, respectively. While the elections have been postponed by President Abbas, who blamed Israel for uncertainty about whether Palestinian elections could take place in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, the Hamas leadership was concerned.

      On the one hand, it was predicted that Hamas might benefit from the weakness of the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority. Fatah has split into three groups for the elections, with Abbas part of the main one. On the other hand, Nasser al-Qudwa’s decision to run a separate list from Fatah poses a risk to Hamas. Qudwa, a senior diplomat who was sacked by Fatah in March, is the nephew of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Qudwa represents a group led by Marwan Barghouti, a popular Fatah leader who is currently in an Israeli prison and is dubbed “Palestine’s Nelson Mandela,” while a third Fatah list is led by Mohammed Dahlan, an exiled rival of Abbas who is originally from Gaza.

      Embed from Getty Images

      An election for the Palestinians presents uncertainty for both Fatah and Hamas. Therefore, Hamas decided to present itself as the guardian of Jerusalem and of Al-Aqsa Mosque, hoping to take advantage of Palestinian disappointment at the postponement of elections by Abbas. Hamas leaders threatened Israel by saying unless its police forces withdrew from the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif compound and from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, they would fire rockets on Jerusalem. Most observers thought this was a bluff, since it was assumed that Hamas wouldn’t shoot missiles at Jerusalem out of fear they might hit Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site in Islam.

      It turns out that they weren’t bluffing. Ever since this round of deadly clashes began on May 10, Hamas militants have kept their word. A few nights ago, Hamas said it would fire rockets toward Tel Aviv in retaliation for IDF actions during the day. Minutes after midnight, the anti-missile alert sirens sounded and 2 million people in the greater Tel Aviv area headed into bomb shelters, including my family and neighbors.  

      By firing indiscriminately at a civilian population, Hamas is committing war crimes. Any government facing such a situation would feel compelled to respond. Of course, since the Israeli army is far more powerful than Hamas forces — and because Gaza is densely populated — there are many more Palestinian casualties than Israeli. At the weekend, Haaretz, an Israeli daily, published an article with the headline: “Israeli killed by rocket; IDF destroys media offices, kills families in Gaza.” The Israeli died on May 15 after a “barrage of rocket fire targeted Tel Aviv.” On the same day, Hamas said “it had fired dozens of rockets at central Israel in response to the killing of eight children and two women, all members of the same family, in a [strike] on the Al-Shate refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip.” As the exchange of fire enters its second week, the death toll at the time of publishing stands at 212 in Gaza, including 61 children. In Israel, 10 people have died, including a 10-year-old Israeli-Arab girl.

      By evicting families and building settlements on occupied Palestinian territory, Israel is also committing war crimes. This includes Israeli attempts to displace Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah. Israel’s disproportionate use of military force to defend itself — though justifiably — against repeated rocket fire is also problematic.

      Violence on the Street

      The worst byproduct of the current situation is perhaps the inter-communal conflict in Israel that has evolved as a result of the broader crisis. This is particularly in the mixed Jewish and Arab cities of Acre, Lod, Ramla, Jaffa and other locations such as Jerusalem.

      This is tragic given the progress that has been made in recent years with Jewish-Arab cooperation and partnership inside Israel. To tackle the COVID-19 pandemic, Israeli-Arab medical personnel have taken on a central role. In football, Israeli-Arabs have played a prominent part. In politics, the Joint List, an alliance of Arab-majority parties, recommended Gantz for the role of prime minister in 2020. Now, the United Arab List led by Mansour Abbas could play a decisive role in the possible formation of an alternative Israeli government.

      All of this has been undermined in a few violent weeks. It was as if we suddenly had a throwback to the murderous intercommunal strife that occurred in 1921, 1929 and 1936 in the British Mandate of Palestine before the state of Israel was created. Fortunately, there is a strong foundation for the revival and continuation of Jewish-Arab cooperation within Israel. Young people in Standing Together, a Jewish-Arab grassroots movement, have taken to the streets in protest. Mayors of joint and neighboring municipalities have also been active in trying to heal the social wounds.

      Time for a Plan

      Israelis and Palestinians will need to find the strength as societies to deal with the current crisis and to develop paths toward internal solidarity and a cross-border resolution of the conflict. It is equally important that the international community takes an active role. World powers have played a major role in the region in modern times — from the Ottoman Empire, the British Mandate of Palestine and the 1917 Balfour Declaration to the 1947 UN General Assembly resolution to create two states, Arab and Jewish. Now, they cannot stand aside and watch. They must play a part in defusing the current violence and creating the foundations for a more fundamental resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

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      In Washington, the Biden administration, which has a lot on its plate domestically, had hoped it could ignore the Middle East conflict. That is clearly not working. US President Joe Biden has even delayed designating a new American ambassador to Israel. He has also not yet reopened a US consulate in Jerusalem to serve as an address for American communication with the Palestinians. These are two simple steps that should urgently be taken.

      In addition, the Americans can revive the role of the Middle East Quartet — which is made up of the US, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations — in seeking to advance a resolution of the conflict. The Arab world can bring back and activate the Arab Peace Initiative. Proposed by Saudi Arabia and confirmed at the Arab League’s 2002 summit in Beirut, the plan offers Israel recognition, peace and normalized relations with the Arab world, backed by all Muslim-majority countries. In exchange, a Palestinian state would be established in the West Bank and Gaza, with East Jerusalem as its capital, alongside the state of Israel, with small, mutually agreed-upon land swaps.

      When it comes to Jerusalem, it would perhaps be best to return to the original partition plan of 1947. According to the UN General Assembly’s decision, a Jewish state and an Arab state were to be established, while Jerusalem was to be an international city. While the situation today is completely different from that plan 74 years ago, the conflict around the Old City and the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif — which contains the sites considered holy in Judaism, Christianity and Islam — could be neutralized by making it an area shared by all peoples. Jerusalem would be what Jordan’s late King Hussein called “God’s city.” 

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in US Politics

      Arizona’s political odd couple reveals two distinct paths for Democrats

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      When Democrat Mark Kelly was sworn in to office late last year it marked the end of a nearly 70-year drought of Arizona being represented by two Democrats.But since then Kelly, a former astronaut, and his counterpart senator, Kyrsten Sinema, have plotted decidedly different paths in the Senate. Despite being from the same party and the same state and representing the same electorate, the pair of Arizona Democrats have become a sort of political odd couple.The twists and turns that each Arizona Democrat took to get into office – and the moves they are making to retain their seats – reveal two distinct paths Democrats can take to win and retain tough Senate seats. But they can also give differing answers as to how Democrats might keep power, or even extend it.Sinema, a longtime Arizona lawmaker and former Democratic member of the House of Representatives, has carved out a reputation as one of the most conservative members of the Democratic caucus in the chamber. Her name is almost synonymous with Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia and bucking the Democratic party on key sticking points.Sinema has split with her fellow Democrats on a minimum wage hike to $15 and support for an overhaul to the legislative filibuster. Among the press corps she is also notorious for avoiding virtually all interviews.Kelly himself offered levity when asked about their similarities and differences.“She can run a marathon at a 7.30 pace,” Kelly said. “I cannot do that.”Meanwhile, Kelly, 57, the husband of former congresswoman Gabby Giffords and a naval aviator turned astronaut, has plotted a more low-key course in the chamber. He talks to reporters. He hasn’t committed to overhauling the filibuster but he hasn’t come out in opposition either. He joined with other Democrats in supporting a minimum wage increase.Neither Democrat is a dyed-in-the-wool liberal, but the fact that they differ both stylistically and on key policies illustrates both the viability of Democrats in a state that for years has seemed out of reach to liberals and also the debate over what kind of Democrat can take root statewide.Both Sinema and Kelly are essential to Democrats retaining their slim majority in the chamber and, effectively, passing any legislation in the chamber. Kelly is considered more of a reliable party-line vote than Sinema but there are moments when they agree with each other and, in the process, buck the party at large.Kelly, in the hallway interview, said he couldn’t speak for how Sinema approaches legislating, but said in the five and a half months he’s been in Congress “our country is best served by trying to work across the aisle”.They have both bristled at Joe Biden’s approach to border security. Kelly called out Biden on the subject in response to the president’s address to Congress.“While I share President Biden’s urgency in fixing our broken immigration system, what I didn’t hear tonight was a plan to address the immediate crisis at the border, and I will continue holding this administration accountable to deliver the resources and staffing necessary for a humane, orderly process as we work to improve border security, support local economies, and fix our immigration system,” Kelly said in a statement shortly after Biden’s speech.They have also both participated in a bipartisan group of almost two dozen Republican and Democratic senators sometimes referred to as the G20. They have also recently been working on a bipartisan agreement on semiconductors, alongside some of the more conservative senators in both parties.They also both like to invoke the late Senator John McCain, a Republican, as an icon.But even to colleagues, it’s clear that Sinema and Kelly are different in key ways.“I think they are two unique and distinct characters,” said Senator John Hickenlooper of Colorado. “And I use the word character freely.”Hickenlooper described Kelly as “one of the most grounded and thoughtful people”, adding: “He sees things that other people just don’t see.“He’s very intuitive,” Hickenlooper said. “They are so different and they are both – I think they’re both really smart and I think they’re both really good.”Asked if Kelly was slightly more liberal than Sinema, Hickenlooper said: “It’s hard to say. Their values are the same. Both are very progressive in terms of they think this country should be based on equality. We should have equal opportunity and schools should work for everybody.”But on policy positions, like the minimum wage, Hickenlooper said they have a “difference of opinion on tactics”.The backgrounds of Sinema and Kelly could only be more different if they were from opposing parties. For years Giffords was the political standard bearer of their family with Kelly in the background with a somewhat non-partisan air to him. His election to the Senate in 2020 was his first foray into electoral politics as a candidate.Sinema, by contrast has been in politics for years and her allegiances have shifted over time. She associated with the Arizona Green party before joining the Democratic party. She served in the state legislature and found success passing legislation by working with Republicans – even when Republicans held a supermajority. Jonathan Patton, who served with Sinema in the state legislature, recalls her finding success by keeping a single-minded focus on passing legislation.“If you’re in the legislature in Arizona, you’re not getting any bills passed,” recalled Paton.But during her time in the legislature, Sinema managed to do just that. She was able to get Republicans to work with her. “I don’t think she’s particularly ideological and I think it was a mistake on both sides for people to think she was. Now does that mean I agree with her on things? No it does not but my point is she was single-mindedly focused on getting things that she wanted, that was important to her for whatever reason,” Paton said.Sinema also taught at Arizona State University and served as a criminal defense lawyer. On the Hill, Sinema has at times been photographed in brightly colored wigs and a bright pink sweatshirt that reads “Dangerous Creature”.Kelly, a twin, spent his earlier years in life as a naval aviator and then a Nasa astronaut. He announced his retirement from spaceflight in 2011. In 2013, years after an assassination attempt on Giffords, the former congresswoman and Kelly founded the gun control advocacy group Americans for Responsible Solutions, which, in the process, made Kelly more visible to the political community. Until 2018 he was a registered Independent. In 2020 he won the special election for Senate, defeating the former senator Martha McSally.In recent years they have both had their eclectic moments – Sinema interned at a California winery and Kelly has been a brand ambassador to a Swiss luxury watchmaker. Sinema has also completed Iron Man triathlon competitions.Between the two senators, though, Sinema is the one with a bigger question mark over her head on key pieces of legislation like filibuster reform and the destiny of Biden’s roughly $2tn infrastructure package. She was one of a series of one-on-one sit downs Biden had with senators this week as the president pushes forward with attempts to find some kind of bipartisan infrastructure deal.Kelly meanwhile, is up for re-election next year and, alongside the Georgia senator Raphael Warnock, is essential to Democrats’ hopes of retaining control of the Senate. Sinema has a little more time before she has to run again.“Mark is in cycle, he’s up for re-election in 2022,” noted Kirk Adams, a former Republican speaker of the Arizona house of representatives. “And a primary challenge from the progressive left would be very problematic for him – not that he wouldn’t win the primary but the effect that he would have in the general – being forced to move more left in what I think is truly a purple state. So that’s the first lens that I would apply to the differences between those two.” More

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      Biden Washes His Hands of the Israel-Palestine Affair

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      Faced with a serious clash in Jerusalem between two communities divided on the subject of religion, the Roman Empire’s man of the hour, its colonial governor Pontius Pilate made the bold decision to suppress his own opinion and not to intervene in the debate. As a patriotic polytheist, he had no time to waste on disputes concerning monotheistic truth. Instead, he washed his hands before the raging mob. He let those who held local power and who shouted the loudest have their way. His action, dating from two thousand years ago, eventually spawned the proverbial expression, “To wash your hands of the affair.”

      When a far more violent crisis broke out in Jerusalem last week, US President Joe Biden demonstrated his own firm resolution to steer clear of an escalating conflict that had begun in East Jerusalem and has now reached beyond Israel’s borders into Lebanon and Jordan. Biden has taken up his post at the washbasin to avoid having to speculate about the truth.

      White America’s Burden in the Holy Land

      READ MORE

      In a phone call to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last Wednesday, Biden reaffirmed the position traditionally taken by all recent US presidents that consists of deferring to Israel’s every wish. Netanyahu appreciated Biden’s compliance. He reiterated to the media the logic the Biden administration endorsed: “They have upheld our natural and self-evident right to defend ourselves, to act in self-defense against these terrorists who both attack civilians and hide behind civilians.”

      Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      Self-evident:

      Unquestionably true, especially when the assertion corresponds to one’s self-interest

      Contextual Note

      When a modern politician bandies about the adjective “self-evident,” it inevitably evokes Thomas Jefferson’s famous words in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

      As a child of the European Enlightenment, Jefferson built his reasoning on philosophical grounds that appear beyond the scope of Bibi Netanyahu’s commitment to self-interested expediency. What Jefferson described as self-evident were “truths.” In contrast, Netanyahu evokes “rights” he considers self-evident, specifically the right to violate international law when Israel feels threatened. Jefferson’s “truths” are the equivalent of axioms in mathematics. They stand as true without being derived logically from any other truth. Netanyahu’s “rights” are self-declared rather than self-evident.

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      Jefferson modeled his thought on the political philosophy of the English philosopher John Locke, a proponent of government by consent of the governed. Locke insisted on the government’s requirement to respect its citizens’ “life, liberty and property.” Jefferson extended the meaning of “property” by calling it “the pursuit of happiness.” Even non-property owners in a democracy could thus be deemed citizens. (That of course excluded slaves, including Jefferson’s own slaves, who existed as the property of property owners).

      Most modern politicians have lost all interest in philosophy. They prefer to evoke half-remembered philosophical concepts and use them as meaningless rhetorical placeholders. In his attempt to sound Jeffersonian, Netanyahu expediently skips an important step in Locke’s and Jefferson’s political reasoning: the philosopher’s insistence that a government’s legitimacy is derived from the consent of the governed. That ultimately means that political rights exist not as self-evident principles but as an effect of the law, which is the expression of a social and political consensus serving to limit rather than expand the government’s capacity for aggression.

      Netanyahu takes the Jeffersonian idea of a self-evident truth about political systems, turns it on its head and transforms it into the inalienable right of the government to violate the rights of the people under its jurisdiction. Concerning self-evident truths, Locke wrote: “I may warn men not to make an ill use of them, for the confirming themselves in errors.”

      Some justly accuse Jefferson of cheating, having glossed over the paradox of slavery while asserting that all men are created equal. Netanyahu’s insistence on Israel’s “self-evident right” to self-defense places him closer to Thomas Hobbes, the philosopher of passive obedience to governmental authority, than to Locke. Hobbes’ emphasized the idea of “sovereignty by institution.” It supposes citizens voluntarily yield their rights to the institution and cannot contest its sovereignty.

      Bibi naturally assumes the Jews have transferred their rights to his government. He also expects the Israeli Arabs — citizens who theoretically, but not in practice, have equal rights with the Jews — to do the same, but they now may be revolting. As for the Palestinians in the occupied territories, the only rights they can claim are derived from international law, which the Israeli government routinely flouts.

      The current strife in Jerusalem began with the cynical, supposedly legally justified expulsion of Palestinians, who had been living in their homes in East Jerusalem for decades after the forced reassignment of residency that followed the Palestinian exodus in 1948. This demonstrates how far from the self-evident truths of Jefferson and Locke the supposedly democratic Israeli government has veered. Property even for Arab citizens of Israel is a purely relative concept. As for life and liberty, the Gazans, in their open-air prison, have no hope of enjoying such rights.

      Historical Note

      When the Israelis destroyed the building housing the offices of AP and Al Jazeera in Gaza City on Saturday, they demonstrated their disdain for the liberty of the press. Americans and the US government should be appalled at this violation of what they deem to be sacred “constitutional” values. But it has become evident — if not self-evident — that the Biden administration has no interest in promoting a moral reading of the events in Israel. Calling for a voluntary ceasefire is admirable but will have no effect. When he expressed his “hope … that we will see this coming to a conclusion sooner than later,” he appeared hopeful but helpless. 

      In his victory speech in November, Biden insisted that the nation’s vocation was to “lead by the force of its example and not the example of force.” Faced with the current crisis, he is neither showing an example nor leading, but rather following Israel’s example of leading by force. Many are wondering whether the very idea of leadership by the United States hasn’t lost its former meaning.

      Embed from Getty Images

      In February, clownish UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson effusively announced that “Joe Biden has put the United States back as leader of the free world in a fantastic move that has helped the West to unite.” Johnson was reacting to the speech in which Biden promised to return to the Paris Climate Agreement and move forward with the Iran nuclear deal. The return to the climate accord took place effortlessly but appears to be of little consequence. As for the Iran deal, negotiations have been engaged but possibly too late to expect any enduring success.

      The Biden administration’s anemic reaction to the growing crisis in the Middle East demonstrates that, rather than confirming the nation’s status as “leader of the free world,” it would be more apt to call it “the follower of an apartheid state.” A 2017 article in The Atlantic pointed to the persistent but absurd habit reigning in the media of referring to the US president as the “leader of the free world.” The idea of dividing the globe into the free and the unfree worlds theoretically disappeared with the fall of the Soviet Union. This time around, what has disappeared is the very idea of American leadership. Fewer and fewer countries believe in it. Biden’s hesitations and inaction on various important issues illustrate why.

      Martin Indyck, writing for Foreign Affairs, offers a realistic analysis of the stakes and tactics underlying the superficial game the various concerned parties have been playing in the current crisis. He concludes that “the most basic instincts of the Biden administration are correct.” This is reassuring for the administration, but Indyck may not have noticed the long-term deterioration of the world’s perception of US leadership. He may be mistaken when he sees little risk in simply throwing up one’s hands at yet another Middle East crisis and hoping for a return to “normal.”

      Pontius Pilate’s disinfected hands played a role in launching the religion that would eventually dominate Europe. Still, Pilate’s Roman Empire thrived for another three centuries before one of its emperors, Constantine, decided to turn it over to the Christians. How long does Biden expect his empire to last?

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Marco Rubio urges US to take UFOs seriously ahead of government report

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      The Florida senator Marco Rubio has urged American lawmakers to take the issue of mysterious flying objects seriously ahead of the expected release next month of a US government report on unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), better known as UFOs.The report follows a renewed push by former government officials and senators including Rubio to investigate reports of UFOs seen by the military.“I want us to take it seriously and have a process to take it seriously,” Rubio told CBS’s 60 Minutes in an interview that aired Sunday night.The Florida Republican said a system was needed to catalogue data on these objects until answers had been found.“Maybe it has a very simple answer,” Rubio said. “Maybe it doesn’t.”When Rubio was acting Senate intelligence committee chair last year, he asked the director of national intelligence and the secretary of defense to provide an unclassified report on UAP by next month.“Anything that enters an airspace that’s not supposed to be there is a threat,” Rubio said.Rubio acknowledged that the military and others have a history of dismissing this issue.“There’s a stigma on Capitol Hill,” Rubio said. “I mean, some of my colleagues are very interested in this topic and some kinda, you know, giggle when you bring it up. But I don’t think we can allow the stigma to keep us from having an answer to a very fundamental question.”Despite this stigma, the issue has gained momentum in the past year.In January, a website that archives declassified government documents, the Black Vault, published thousands of declassified CIA documents on UFOs.In August, the Pentagon resurrected its program to collect and analyze information on mystery objects and military members are encouraged to report strange encounters to this UAP taskforce.Luis Elizondo was part of the Pentagon’s earlier version of this group, the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), from 2010 to 2017.He told 60 Minutes there were simple explanations for some of the mysterious sightings, but not all.“We’re not just simply jumping to a conclusion that’s saying, ‘Oh, that’s a UAP out there,” Elizondo said. “We’re going through our due diligence. Is it some sort of new type of cruise missile technology that China has developed? Is it some sort of high-altitude balloon that’s conducting reconnaissance? Ultimately when you have exhausted all those what ifs and you’re still left with the fact that this is in our airspace and it’s real, that’s when it becomes compelling, and that’s when it becomes problematic.” More

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      Matthew McConaughey ‘making calls’ about run for Texas governor – report

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      The actor Matthew McConaughey appears to be seriously considering entering politics, according to a report on Sunday which said the Dallas Buyer’s Club star has been “quietly making calls to influential people in Texas political circles” as he mulls a run for governor.McConaughey, 51, was born in Uvalde, Texas, and lives in Austin, the state capital, with his wife and children. Last year he published an autobiography of sorts and in March he told a Texas podcast running for governor was “a true consideration”.“I’m looking into now again, what is my leadership role?” he said. “Because I do think I have some things to teach and share, and what is my role? What’s my category in my next chapter of life that I’m going into?”Brendan Steinhauser, an Austin-based Republican strategist, told Politico, which reported the McConaughey calls, he was “a little more surprised that people aren’t taking him more seriously, honestly.“Celebrity in this country counts for a lot … it’s not like some C-list actor no one likes. He has an appeal.”McConaughey’s other recent screen credits include The Wolf of Wall Street, for Martin Scorsese; The Gentlemen, directed by Guy Ritchie; and Free State of Jones, about a civil war deserter who led an uprising against the slave-owning Confederacy.He also has an impressive three entries – The Paperboy, The Wedding Planner and Serenity – in Hear Me Out, a Guardian series in which writers make a case for why widely loathed movies deserve to be re-examined.In the US, entertainment often bleeds into politics. Ronald Reagan was an actor before campaigning for rightwing causes, becoming governor of California and beating an incumbent, Jimmy Carter, for the White House. The bodybuilder and actor Arnold Schwarzenegger became governor of California, the wrestler Jesse Ventura governor of Minnesota.And, of course, when Donald Trump ran for the White House in 2016, he owed his fame more to a reality TV hit, The Apprentice, than to his bankruptcy-flecked career in real estate.McConaughey is not alone in pondering a switch from Hollywood to a governor’s mansion. The reality TV star Caitlyn Jenner is in the early – if faltering – stages of a run in California, as Republicans seek to recall Gavin Newsom.The Republican governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, will seek a third term next year. He remains a formidable figure, despite controversy over his handling of a winter storm earlier this year which crippled the power grid, left 125 Texans dead and made state Republicans a national laughing stock.Reagan, Schwarzenegger, Trump and Jenner ran as Republicans. Ventura was the candidate of the Reform Party, his victory a major shock.McConaughey’s views are mostly a mystery. Karl Rove, a senior adviser to the last governor of Texas to become president, George W Bush, told Politico he found a McConaughey run “improbable, but not out of the question” and said “the question is: Would he run as a Republican? A Democrat? Independent? And where is he on the political scale?“He says he has a funny phrase about being a hardcore centrist, but what party would he run under?”Democratic hopes of turning Texas blue – or at least purple, away from its baked-in ruby red Republicanism – have continually come up short.In 2018, Beto O’Rourke, a congressman, made national headlines but failed to eject Ted Cruz from the US Senate. In 2020 the state’s other Republican senator, John Cornyn, also survived a much-hyped challenge.Earlier this month a long slate of Democratic candidates in a race for an open US House seat effectively cancelled each other out, two Republicans making the runoff.O’Rourke failed to parlay his fame into a successful presidential run and has yet to say if he will seek to challenge Abbott. Julián Castro, a former mayor of San Antonio, US housing secretary and candidate for the Democratic nomination, could also run.McConaughey’s star status is proving a considerable lure for progressives but many fear a run as an independent. Most observers reason that would only succeed in splitting the vote and ushering Abbott back into power.A leading Democratic strategist, Paul Begala, told Politico: “Texas doesn’t need a third party, Matthew! We need a second party.” More

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      Joe Biden feels political ground shift as Israel-Gaza conflict rages on

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      In his staunch defence of Israel, Joe Biden is sticking to a course set decades ago as a young senator, and so far he has not given ground on the issue to the progressive wing of his party or many Jewish Democrats urging a tougher line towards Benjamin Netanyahu. Biden has even been prepared to face isolation at the UN security council, at the potential cost of his own credibility on multilateralism and human rights. But analysts say that as the death toll rises with no sign of a ceasefire, the domestic and international pressures on the president could become impossible to ignore.American Jews have grown increasingly sceptical of Netanyahu and his policies. A Pew Research Center survey published last week found that only 40% thought the prime minister was providing good leadership, falling to 32% among younger Jews. Strikingly, only 34% strongly opposed sanctions or other punitive measures against Israel.The liberal Jewish American lobby, J Street, has growing influence in the Democratic party and has urged Biden to do more to stop the bloodshed and the Israeli policies that have helped drive the conflict.“We’re also urging the administration to make clear publicly that Israeli efforts to evict and displace Palestinian families in East Jerusalem and the West Bank are unacceptable, as is the use of excessive force against protesters,” said Jeremy Ben-Ami, the group’s president.A prominent progressive Jewish writer, Peter Beinart, wrote a commentary in the New York Times last week arguing for the right of Palestinian refugees to return as the only long-term solution to the cycle of violence. “The East Jerusalem evictions are so combustible because they continue a pattern of expulsion that is as old as Israel itself,” Beinart wrote.Donald Trump’s unquestioning embrace of Netanyahu and his policies contributed to making Israel policy a partisan issue. Facing increasing opposition from American Jews, the former Israeli ambassador to the US Ron Dermer argued publicly last week that the Israeli government should spend more of its energy reaching out to “passionate” American evangelicals, rather than Jews who he said were “disproportionately among our critics”.US evangelicals such as Mike Pence and Mike Pompeo helped shape Trump policy on Israel. They are not a force in the Democratic party but a consideration in red and purple states Biden will have to win in next year’s midterm congressional elections to maintain a majority.However, he cannot afford to alienate the progressive wing of his own party. It was progressive enthusiasm, and the support of prominent figures such as Bernie Sanders, that helped Biden win the presidency where Hillary Clinton failed.Congressional progressives such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have been more and more outspoken in their criticism of the Biden line of emphasising Israel’s right of defence “If the Biden admin can’t stand up to an ally, who can it stand up to? How can they credibly claim to stand for human rights?” Ocasio-Cortez wrote on Twitter on Saturday.This is happening with the support of the United States.I don’t care how any spokesperson tries to spin this. The US vetoed the UN call for ceasefire.If the Biden admin can’t stand up to an ally, who can it stand up to?How can they credibly claim to stand for human rights? https://t.co/bXY99O3Wqp— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) May 15, 2021
      Biden worked hard to cultivate the progressives during the campaign and afterwards, setting up policy workshops with them, but the current crisis has brought that honeymoon in an end.Most analysts, however, say Biden set his course on the Israel long ago and will be hard to shift. He was a staunch defender in the Senate for decades, supporting the Israeli bombing of a suspected nuclear reactor in Iraq in 1981, for example, and labelling himself “Israel’s best Catholic friend”.His foreign policy outlook is based on the foundation of adhering to and strengthening America’s traditional alliances.“Biden has his own compass when it comes to the region, and is less susceptible to pressure from the left flank of his party,” said Carmiel Arbit, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. “Although there is some pressure within the Democratic party to take a less sympathetic stance towards Israel, and it is certainly starting to drive a different conversation, it is not driving policy on this issue.”Arbit added: “But a lot depends on the situation. If the conflict escalates, and casualty numbers rise significantly, Biden’s posture could change.”Daniel Levy, the head of the US/Middle East Project thinktank, agreed that the political ground is shifting under Biden’s feet. “It is premature to suggest that the special treatment Israel receives in American politics and policy, and that has previously traversed Republican and Democratic administrations, is definitively over,” Levy said. “Yet the dynamics are pushing in that direction and the signs of change are already visible – the question is how far and how fast those will move.”In the short term, he added, the key will be the views expressed in the Senate, which is split 50-50, with Biden’s agenda often dependent on Kamala Harris, the vice-president, casting the deciding vote. More