Biden, Albanese, and Gaza

US President Biden is only responding ...  “modestly” (tokenistic would also fit) to appeals based on humanity (i.e., the manifest suffering) to take effective action against Israel’s mass abuses in Gaza.

There is little point expending much energy/time bemoaning that: it is time to change approach. 

(However, being human, some time doing so - as I did here - is understandable: just manage the public extent of it.) 

Based on poll numbers and the extra motivation of Trump cultists following the recent (excellent, in my opinion [IMO] ) criminal conviction of Trump, I suspect the impact on Biden’s re-election chances of effective action is arguable - perhaps most importantly, it is likely to be considered arguable, I suspect, by Biden and his advisors. 

It would therefore seem, in my opinion, that an approach based on legacy would be more effective - i.e., an argument along the lines of “consider how tarnished your reputation would be in the eyes of historians if you are deemed to have failed to take adequate action to stop a genocide”.

That sort of argument would be best made by people in the USA: Biden is unlikely to care what people such as myself think of this.

And, in terms of myself, I am trying to come up with a similar argument to use to persuade the Albanese government to take stronger action, but I haven’t settled on anything yet.

I was thinking of using something along the lines of “what would Doc Evatt think?”, as Doc Evatt is well known (particularly in the ALP, of which he was a member) for his roles helping establish the United Nations (including making the General Assembly more effective than originally envisioned), supporting the creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and being President of the third General Assembly session which adopted the Genocide Convention ... 

The potential problem with that approach, however, is that Doc Evatt also supported the creation of Israel as a separate nation (the Arab nations had proposed a single state with internal Swiss-style “cantons” or provinces for Jewish and Arab people, but this was completely ignored- see   https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ad_Hoc_Committee_on_the_Palestinian_Question&oldid=1182313092 ).

Thus, the response from senior members and advisors of the Albanese government could be along the lines of “but the Doc supported having an Israel, and therefore ...”, so it is not a sure enough thing to use. 

I will keep working on this ... 

In any case, the existing public protests and other pressure - and the pressure from inside the ALP - are continuing to have a major effect.

 

Assumptions / basis 

In writing this, I have assumed / started from the following: 

• this blog states quite clearly that it is about political and human rights matters, including lived experience of problems, and thus I will assume readers are reasonable people who have noted the content warning in the post header;

Possible flaws 

Where I can, I will try to highlight possible flaws / issues you should consider:

• there may be flawed logical arguments in the above: to find out more about such flaws and thinking generally, I recommend Brendan  Myers’ free online course “Clear and Present Thinking”; 
  
• I could be wrong - so keep your thinking caps on, and make up your own minds for yourself.
  

 

If they are of any use of interest, the activism information links from my former news posts are available in this post. 

 

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Remember: we need to be more human being rather than human doing, and all misgendering is an act of active transphobia/transmisia that puts trans+ lives at risk & accept that all insistence on the use of “trans” as a descriptor comes with commensurate use of “cis” as a descriptor to prevent “othering”.

Copyright © Kayleen White 2016-2024     NO AI   I do not consent to any machine learning aka Artificial Intelligence (AI), generative AI, large language model, machine learning, chatbot, or other automated analysis, generative process, or replication program to reproduce, mimic, remix, summarise, or otherwise  replicate any part of this post or other posts on this blog via any means. Typo’s may be inserrted deliberately to demonstrate this is not an AI product.     Otherwise, fair and reasonable use is accepted under Creative Commons 4.0 on an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike basis   https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/