Not that he asked, but I think he should have done two videos. The first to explain why he’svoting for Kamala in spite of Gaza, and the second on a more positive case for her. As it is, the people he is reaching out to in the first half of the video would rightly feel patronized by the second.
It's really too bad he didn't win in 2016. Had the Democrats actually let him win the primary, a lot of people that voted for Trump would have voted for him. They just hated Hillary.
I watched this, and what is missing is addressing the revenge that the aggrieved feel in wanting to spread the pain and punish those who let this happen. Appealing to logic won’t work when people are enraged.
I think what's frustrating about his comments is 1. why can't Kamala just say something similar now and 2. why isn't whatever Bernie is promising will happen post-election not underway right this moment?
1. Because she's trying to win an election and it's strategically sound to voice this opinion through a surrogate that people trust more than her on the issue and 2. There's not much a lame duck admin can do that foreign powers can't ignore until the election results shake out.
On top of which, she's still under the command of the president whose policy she'd be saying "yeah, I'm going to change policy on this extremely volatile and enormous FP issue" when, if you've noticed, she's been very cagey about saying how she's going to differentiate at all, when asked directly.
Has everyone memory holed Trump's extremely recent assertion that he's been talking to Netanyahu basically every day and blocking a ceasefire? He's not going to stop killing people while there's still any chance of the guy who wants him to kill more people being President.
We could, immediately and with no input from congress or Israel stop all arms shipment. The fact that we don't do that indicates the interests of the US government and those in charge (including Harris!)
It is underway. As much as people like to say Biden hasn’t done anything it’s not as if they haven’t been negotiating on this. Netanyahu desperately wants Trump in office, he has no incentive to work with Biden/Kamala till that’s not a possibility
I also think whatever is said in public about behind the scenes negotiating can affect them so sometimes can’t be said in the same way and people ignore this.
Brokering negotiations with Israel and other nations in the region. Getting things like the previous cease fire and demanding more aid get through. Suspending delivery of 2k bombs for months.
20 billion arms sale is years out from delivery anything. 3.5 billion was appropriated by Congress.
appropriated by Congress and then subject to State Department approval, the same State Department charged with upholding the Leahy Law
I'm very hopeful things are "underway" but when can't Kamala speak to those efforts? when has she ever said anything about a suspension of weapon delivery??
I don’t think she wants to break with Biden that hard yet + piss off AIPAC. But it’s clear she wants the war to end and for Palestine to be a sovereign state.
it should also be noted that Trump has gloated that he's been slowing down talks with Netanyahu and deliberately throwing wrenches into it so... that's also a thing.
The answer to both questions is that the US has been unconditionally supporting Israel for decades before Kamala Harris was even born. It takes an incredible amount of work over a horribly long time to turn that juggernaut onto a different path. It's not just Harris's opinion we have to change 1/x
but the political will of the whole country, or at least enough of the party in power to get actual movement on it. What Bernie's promising will happen after the election *is* already happening. Hell, his explicit statements in this video are part of the political pressure he's applying. 2/x
the "is already happening" part may be true, but it comes on the tail of billions of dollars already released to IDF to slaughter civilians -- and this was as recently as August with 10 months of evidence of genocide on the record
What Bernie's promising will happen after the election is "we will push for better policy on Palestine."
We have plenty of evidence of that! He's doing it in the Senate, as he says in this very video. Tlaib & AOC in the House. Protestors. Anyone who writes an op-ed or calls their rep. BDS. Etc etc.
The fact that Palestine has blown up as an issue in the minds of everyday lefties & Dems this cycle is new. 5, 10 yrs ago Israel was also genociding & we didn't talk about it as much as we do now. This is good! It's part of moving the juggernaut!
Think about South African apartheid and how many years it took of loud vocal international protest + work within SA for change to happen. A US senator speaking out like Bernie did here is part of that same process for Palestine. Right now, a candidate who doesn't say "I support Israel" cannot 4/x
This is how a grown up in politics sounds. It's possible to disagree with members of your party without seeking division. The UK Labour party could learn a great deal from Bernie's dignity and eloquence.
What a bunch of crap. Harris is as much of an anti-Palestinian racist as Biden and Trump. Nobody should by the "Harris will stop this" bull because she can do something now. Instead she gives whimpers away about Israel having the right to defend itself and sassing anti-genocide protestors.
Massive humanitarian aid now…delivered by US forces…the Berlin Blockade Busting was wry performance but get boots on the ground between IDF and Palestinians surely Bibi can’t say no to that
I feel like if you're having to make videos begging a portion of voters to ignore a genocide in favor of other policy, you should probably just work to stop that genocide rather than make tiktoks doubling down on ignoring it.
Either it's a significant voting bloc or it isn't! Adjust or ignore them!
I agree re: voting. But it's interesting to see it cast as a Netanyahu problem. Israel is a settler colonial state, killing and displacing Palestinians to take their land is the whole program! A majority of Israelis think the genocide is either appropriate or hasn't gone far enough!
I caught that too. And everyone kind of knows that nothing will change, even after we do our duty of saving the country so WE can have clean water and healthcare even if all Palestinians die because the Israelis are going to kill them anyway and no one will stop them even if Harris wins.
Be careful of painting everyone with the same brush. We elected Trump as president and, God help us, it might happen again. That doesn't make us all terrible. There are plenty of good Israelis who disagree with Netanyahu.
He surely knows it's not just a Netanyahu problem. But right now it IS a Netanyahu problem. Now that Sinwar is dead, more Israelis would accept a ceasefire because their kids have to fight in Lebanon and they don't like that.
West Bank and Gaza came under Israeli occupation when Netanyahu was 18 years old. That's an interesting point that Israelis writ large have less appetite for regional conflict than Netanyahu though.
I think it's the same way that the US is always various degrees of problematic and is founded on a genocide, but it's still MUCH WORSE under certain admins and there is actual real progress and good from other admins.
Totally, I agree with Sanders' case for Harris being (way) better than Trump on Palestine. My comment is on the framing of the genocide as a product of Netanyahu vs Netanyahu being an expression of the longer project of creating an Israeli ethnostate. (I believe the latter.)
Oh wait, I misread that as you talking about US admin rather than Israeli admin. Is there an Israeli political party or movement that rejects occupation, rather than just the last year of violence?
No you read that right, I was talking about US admins. I'm not familiar enough with Israeli admins to know if there have been any good ones, I've been campaigning for Palestine for over ten years... But it's been (pretty much) Netanyahu the whole time. Bernie seems to think he is a Trump-like figure
As far back as the 90s, the “women in black” protested against occupation every Friday at major intersections in the major cities. That’s one. You can go look for the rest
Some of this is just people like Bernie know better but it's hard to basically say that the Israeli far right has been right the whole time.
The palestinians want to continue the bloodshed for a blood and soil ideology of islamic land. Nothing can be done other than destroying jihad organizations.
I'm not super familiar with politics in Israel. I know there is strong global Jewish opposition to occupation and genocide, but does the Israeli left wing organize around Palestinians having full citizenship rights, repatriation of stolen land?
Too true about climate change, and there are literally millions of lives at stake in the global south. Everyone should vote their conscience but this feels like enough of an argument to go out and vote. Save lives.
I think he is being earnest, but I do not think that Harris will do anything different than Biden on this. Maybe some stern words, but the arms will still flow.
If I heard Harris say this instead of hearing her call protesters "anti-semites" I'd be more moved by this as well.
Not to mention the minimizing of deaths in this video, which the Lancet has speculated as being as high as 200,000.
This feels like having our rights - which i agree, are in danger - being held hostage in order to continue treating Israel as a rational State actor, & not the genocidal regime it is.
Furthermore, after the giant rug-pull that was Biden's do-nothing presidency, I am filled with doubt that Bernie's earnest promises here will be carried out in any way, shape, or form under Harris.
Especially if she can't come out and say so herself.
There are loads of people who want to vote for Harris, and this should be a slam dunk for her, and it is maddening that she hasn't come out strongly against Israel's genocidal warmongering.
I wonder if this is also made Bernie so unthinkable and enraging to some people in media who claimed to be liberals-- we now see are fine with everything Israel does, even if they wish they were a little less obvious about it. They see restraint on Israel as 'radical' but Israel as good and sane.
I hope this will reach people who genuinely only care about the death toll in Gaza. The rage bait addicts will come up with a conspiracy that Bernie has sold out or been blackmailed.
He hasn't sold out. Bernie never had a thorough critique of US imperialism. He fully backed Israel going into Gaza knowing what they would do there. He just wants a more sterilized slaughter. There was always a limit on his horizon.
Absolutely annoying. I'm trying hard for those of us who refuse the trends (I was an old soul even as a teen) to ensure that the Internet isn't hostile towards our life choices.
I watched that whole video last night and found it to be such a plain-spoken, common sense view of the matter. Hopefully lots of people who don't already agree with this position will watch it.
This is really what ranked-choice voting is for. When you have only one vote you might have to decide between principles and harm reduction. RCV comes along and says "por qué no los dos?"
The sad fact is that Americans are too stupid for RCV. Some of the few places that use it are about to go back to single vote because everyone is too dumb to understand how it works.
weird thing to play cute about lol I was honestly trying to figure out what you thought was happening when you chimed in, because it's not at all to do with what I'd asked
All of those things are happening while we have a "democrat" in office right now.
I get that these are partially happening due to the ripple effects from Trump's term, but it is undeniable that the Dems are not doing all they can to stop these many issues.
Dude. I get that, but only one candidate is promising purges/pogroms and deportations okay? It's a difference of degree and collapsing that only increases potential harms.
Im not saying you're wrong there, I plus there's the big obvious chance that Trump will probably demand for "fellow patriots" to attack and kill American Muslims for whatever bullshit reason.
I'm voting Kamala, but I'm gonna be fucking ashamed of myself for voting in another warmonger while doing it
It feels not great, but slim odds of ceasefire beat high odds of annihilation for us all. I've been voting third party since the first presidential election I could vote in (against GWB and whatever loser the Dems ran in '04). This is different, truly.
Yes, I watched the whole video and he's right, one year from now you stand a better chance of getting Kamala to do something for the Palestinians then of Trump, who will be golfing at Mar a Largo letting Steven Miller run the show in the background.
He’s the real deal - you never feel likes he’s compromising when he supports something, even when it’s complicated. He would have been an interesting President
I didn’t miss that part. I just discount wishcasting heavily. In the meantime, Biden has enabled ethnic cleansing for a full year & winked at Israel opening new fronts. That’s why Bernie’s argument is better than yours for people who *care* what happens to the Palestinians.
Ok watched the YouTube version and he fell just short of stating a major reason that Netanyahu is prosecuting the war to the extent that he is to get Trump elected.
Almost, Bernie, but I guess that's the best we can expect.
I'll wait for his message on the Ukrainian genocide.
Bernie has always held a principled position on the Israel-Palestine conflict. Harris should hold a public event on this important foreign policy issue and have Bernie and Rashida Tlaib on the podium with her.
Comments
I am very thankful for him.
https://youtu.be/Vf5MThSniiY?si=yXiNx3CLcFRP1Qv7
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/10/us-israel-trump-phone-call-netanyahu-gaza-cease-fire-2024-election.html
the Biden admin has been authorizing weapons transfers throughout August and September
$3.5 billion weapons aid in August; $20 billion in arms sales in August
20 billion arms sale is years out from delivery anything. 3.5 billion was appropriated by Congress.
I'm very hopeful things are "underway" but when can't Kamala speak to those efforts? when has she ever said anything about a suspension of weapon delivery??
(not to speak of too little, too late)
We have plenty of evidence of that! He's doing it in the Senate, as he says in this very video. Tlaib & AOC in the House. Protestors. Anyone who writes an op-ed or calls their rep. BDS. Etc etc.
But it's a HUGE mountain to move. 3/x
But the process of moving this juggernaut is still happening. Bernie's not going away & neither is anyone else focused on Palestine.
And under Harris it's much more likely we make progress than under Trump. 5/5
And they've been turning on Bernie for a minute now.
They do Stein and West
https://bsky.app/profile/juliastes.bsky.social/post/3l7mvvcueve2i
https://youtu.be/Vf5MThSniiY?si=L_Dc0fYtCPqh0dMu
https://www.tiktok.com/@bernie/video/7430994099274059039
Either it's a significant voting bloc or it isn't! Adjust or ignore them!
But I think Yitzak Rabin was the last PM who truly tried to work for a just peace.
He was assasinated by Jewish Israeli extremists supported by Netanyahu.
The palestinians want to continue the bloodshed for a blood and soil ideology of islamic land. Nothing can be done other than destroying jihad organizations.
Have you even read a history book on the Mid East?
Saying "THE PALESTINIANS" want to continue bloodshed"
Newsflash: "THE PALESTINIANS" are not a jihad org. HAMAS is.
And I'm not even weighing in on the conflict. But to say something like that is just ignorant. Read a damn book.
If I heard Harris say this instead of hearing her call protesters "anti-semites" I'd be more moved by this as well.
This feels like having our rights - which i agree, are in danger - being held hostage in order to continue treating Israel as a rational State actor, & not the genocidal regime it is.
If we both agree everything matters for this election, then why not make the very easy call of coming out in strength to demand a ceasefire?
It won't hurt Biden. He's not going anywhere.
This shouldn't even be an issue. It should be an easy thing for Harris to do. It baffles me why she has proxies talk about it instead.
Especially if she can't come out and say so herself.
https://bsky.app/profile/juliastes.bsky.social/post/3l7mvvcueve2i
https://youtu.be/Vf5MThSniiY?si=FF7lA5iKPOyN58gl
https://www.tiktok.com/@bernie/video/7430994099274059039
I get that these are partially happening due to the ripple effects from Trump's term, but it is undeniable that the Dems are not doing all they can to stop these many issues.
I'm voting Kamala, but I'm gonna be fucking ashamed of myself for voting in another warmonger while doing it
Explains why Biden (clumsily) stated his support for the "people of Israel" rather than "Israel."
His strategy may eventually succeed under Harris and the Israeli Left. But not if Trump takes power.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/12/biden-netanyahu-geopolitics-israel-hamas-war/676357/
That's why you've had ample time to read it.
Did you know there is a left political coalition in Israel that is allowed to exist?
"His strategy may eventually succeed under Harris and the Israeli Left. But not if Trump takes power."
Did I miss anything surprising by not watching?
Almost, Bernie, but I guess that's the best we can expect.
I'll wait for his message on the Ukrainian genocide.