The campaign season is not a time to talk about issues. But the final week of the election in 2024 has produced a surprising enlightening discussion on the left, regarding who should be blamed for the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.
Van Jones made the first comment. He is a veteran left-wing community activist who has been a strident partisan on cable news panels, but he’s also one of few people to speak openly about the Democrats’ weaknesses.
Jones was a guest on Jonah Platt’s podcast Being Jewish to discuss the relationship between blacks, Jews, and other races. He made a rare, but important, observation at one point: The pro-Palestinian campaign has been misguided so far.
Van Jones with absolute moral clarity:
“The Palestinian cause has been hijacked by a Nazi organization called Hamas, they are not freedom fighters, they are freedom takers… They are trying to destroy Israel way more than they are trying to help the Palestinian people.” pic.twitter.com/Zp7DdWCMJ8
— Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) October 31, 2024
The Palestinians are deserving of all the support they can get. They are fighting for a just cause. They want human rights, dignity, and sovereignty. Hamas is a Nazi group that has hijacked the cause. They’re not freedom fighters; they are freedom takers. They’re uninterested in democracy, human rights, women’s and gay rights, or anything else that matters to us. They are more interested in destroying Israel than helping the Palestinians. It’s a Nazi organization… If you’re a Nazi first, we’ll work out the rest. It’s hard to have a cause hijacked by evil people. You need to be honest about it. It’s not worth it. I’ve seen people withdraw money from things I’m involved in, but that’s nothing when compared with what the kids at the Nova Festival went through, or what the people at the kibbutz went through. Remember, I am a progressive. Hamas has attacked my people. They are my people in the kibbutz. They are liberals. They are my people. I’m a progressive. Hamas pushed through with bulldozers, and my progressive, liberal, peaceful — you know social justice people — were murdered and butchered. Then you have these idiots here saying, “Oh, they were Nazis, Zionist colonizers blah, blah, blah” and I am like, “Guys you don’t even know anything about anything, you sound stupid, and you only get away with this because there are not many Jewish people who will fight back.”
Bill Clinton, the former president of the United States, also addressed Democrats in Michigan to encourage them to vote. He also spoke some hard truths the left seldom hears.
The Middle East is the most difficult issue to discuss in Michigan. I must be careful with what I say because we only have one president and no one can predict the future. But I believe we will have to start the peace process from scratch. I can understand why Arab Americans and Palestinians in Michigan feel that too many people have been killed since then — I get it. If you lived in one of those kibbutzim right next door to Gaza in Israel, the Israelis who were most in favor of a two-state solution and most friendly to Palestine were also the ones living right next door to Gaza. Hamas slaughtered them. The people criticizing it say, “Yeah but look at how many people you killed in retaliation, how many are enough for you to kill to punish them?” This sounds nice, until you think about it: What would you do if your family was attacked and massacred in your village, and you had done nothing but support the Palestinians’ homeland? You’d say “Well, forgive me. I don’t keep score in that manner.” Hamas ensures that civilians shield them, so it’s not how many people we have killed. They’ll make you kill civilians to defend yourself.” Look, I worked hard on this, and the only moment Yasser Arafat lied to me was when he said he would accept the deal we worked out. This gave the Palestinians 96% of the West Bank and 4% of Israel. And they could choose where to put the 4%. They would then have the same amount of land in the West Bank. They would be able to have their capital in East Jerusalem. I cannot even talk about it. And they would also have access to all the security towers Israel maintains throughout the West Bank, up to the Golan Height. All of this — including, and I’ll say it again, two of the Old City quadrants and a capital in East Jerusalem — was confirmed by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and his Cabinet. The Palestinians said no. Hamas didn’t care much about the Palestinian homeland, I believe. They wanted to kill Israelis and make Israel inhabitable. They are in for a shock: the Jews were the first to settle Judea and Samaria, long before the [Islamic] faith was established. The whole battle that you’ve seen was there at the start for Israel – two parties, Likud & Labor. Labor says: “We don’t care who comes, we want the entire West Bank.” Likud said: “We had the West Bank in the days of David. We will accept what the United Nations offers us, and we’ll make a desert garden. We will have friends. And we will work it out. This fight is still ongoing. Here’s what I would like to tell you. I will do all I can to convince everyone that neither side is going to be able to murder their way out. They can’t kill their way out of this. And they have to make a new beginning. But when I read that people in Michigan are thinking about not voting because they’re mad at the Biden Administration for honoring his historic obligation to try to keep Israel from being destroyed, I think that’s a mistake.
Clinton was saying that Arabs and Muslims should not think that a Trump Presidency would be better than the Palestinian cause. Many Arab and Muslim officials have come to the opposite conclusion. The essence of his argument remains true, however: It was Palestinians and not Israel who chose war. To punish any administration for supporting Israel would be to ensure that the conflict continues, not to solve it.
