RFK Jr.'s outflanking tactic on Jews & Israel is a lemon -- here's how he could and should course-correct to make Lemonade

submitted by emorej from self.WayOfTheBern

The electoral benefits, to RFK Jr., of outflanking Biden & Wasserman Schultz etc. on 'the Jewish-Israel Question' are self-limiting. Now that Bobby has gone 'all in' on this approach, it is no longer sufficient to merely participate in a (Jimmy Dore-promoted) debate Palestine w/Max Blumenthal, or even to adopt Bernie Sanders' cautious 2016 or 2020 positions.

Reasons include:

  • Netanyahu's accelerating sprint towards erasing any viability of a Palestinian political entity,
  • relations improving between Iran, Saudi Arabia & Syria,
  • China expanding its regional role as customer, supplier and diplomatic participant, and
  • Russia looking poised to expand its longstanding regional role as arms supplier and diplomatic participant.

In sum:

  • the USA's traditional ability to influence the policies of middle east players (including Israel) is eroding fast.
  • Bobby surely understands that the Neocons' failures in Ukraine and elsewhere will continue to undermine the USA's influence, and will force changes to Israel's strategies.

But these same trends create an opportunity, which Bobby needs to seize and might be better positioned to seize than Biden or Trump or others.

  • Under political logic similar to 'only Nixon could go to China', Bobby's historical closeness to vociferous pro-Israel & anti-Palestinian opinion leaders...
  • could enable Bobby to set out an electoral platform plank that threatens maximum financial (at least) pressure on Israel to accept demands for a major pullback from recent settlement expansion, alongside other compromises by Israel
  • ... and by its neighbors (many of whom have already become much less maximalist in recent years).

The best first step towards detailing those demands might be for Bobby:

  • to go far beyond a discussion with M Blumenthal.
  • How much more 'Presidential' would it be to invite figures like Tlaib and Omar, alongside some of Bobby's Zionist friends, and various expert advisors to each of them, to convene a reconciliation forum ...
  • ...focused on leapfrogging old stalemates in pursuit of a future in which reduced great power brinksmanship is mirrored in Israel's relations with its neighbors, and
  • (as seems to be a necessary corollary that is consistent with Bobby's other positions, both morally and under 'realism' logic) Israel's relations with the Palestinians.
all 7 comments
sorted by:
new (suggested)
topinsightfulfun

[–]JimAtEOI 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The European invaders need to walk back to Europe.

[–]mzyps 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

  • RFKJR: Norman Finkelstein says the Palestinians have no rights in the occupied lands. He says they are equivalent to slaves. He says Israel is an ethno-supremacist state.
  • RFKJR, what has the scoreboard been like in the past 10 years, or the past 25 years, or the past 50 years? Palestinians destroy or push out residents from a bunch of Israeli-occupied houses, buildings? Casualties? Imprisonments?
  • U.N. peace-keepers?
  • I sense from you that someone has impressed on you that Palestinians deserve all the oppression, violence, and injustice they've gotten. As much as you or anyone can imagine. What say you?

[–]tsanazi2 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Thanks for contributing a positive way forward instead of the stale Kennedy and Israel bashing mantras proliferating.

[–]InumaGaming Socialist 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I was dealing with this when JK3 made his mistakes.

sigh

History doesn't rhyme it echoes...

[–]BlackhaloPurity Pony: Pусский бот 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Good luck. RFKJr is wholly screwed and there is no out. MAYBE if he'd been for cutting off funding and arms to Israel from the start, but his hard tack to the right wing has left him in no man's land.

[–]kingsmegLiberté, égalité, fraternité 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

RFK is doing an Obama. A lot of lofty rhetoric, but absolutely no substance to speak of. He's deliberately choosing to be a blank slate, hoping the voters project their own politics onto him. Perhaps that's the only way to win a US election now, I don't fucking know, I think it's all a circus.

The problem for RFK is that when he does take a strong position, like he just did on Israel, people will project more than their politics. They will assume he holds all sorts of contrary views, if he openly espouses even one. So his stand may hurt him far more than he realizes, without gaining him much of anything except trying (and failing) to pre-empt the anti-Semitism charges they will eventually use against him like they did Corbyn.

[–]FThumbStay thirsty, my friends 5 insightful - 3 fun5 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

His campaign should hire you!