I have rarely thought of political parties as vehicles for significant social change, or as agents for my personal political goals and commitments. I gave up that fantasy many years ago, when I chose not to renew my membership in the New Democratic Party. Political parties are clubs, organizations which, like any organization or corporation in our current political economy (call it “late-stage capitalism,” if you will) are primarily concerned with their survival. And the survival of political parties depends on electoral success. (Look, after all, at what happened to the Federalists in the 1800 US election, and what happened to Canada’s Progressive Conservatives in 2000.)
So, the whole purpose of the Democratic Party in the US (like any party) is to obtain enough votes to guarantee its survival, and particularly, to obtain enough votes to form the government (elect the President in the American system) and thus ensure its relevance by implementing its policies. The Republican Party, while primarily focused on the same goal of survival-through-power, is much more ideologically motivated, primarily because of the nature of the alliance it has constructed since the 1980s. It is, in fact a far more “revolutionary” party, although the revolution is secondary to the party itself, which regards the ideological goals primarily as a means to an end.
While I would most certainly prefer policies pursued by a Democratic administration, then, I don’t regard these as the main point of the Party. Its principal policy goal is to create policies that appeal to the widest possible range of voters in order to succeed in the election and thrive for the next four years, guaranteeing its survival. And that is a problem for pro-Palestine advocates, since the War on Gaza and the future of Palestinian autonomy and human rights is largely irrelevant to American voters.
Make no mistake: a slight plurality of American voters (@ 48%, according to Gallup) and a clear majority of self-identifying Democrats (@ 77%) disapprove of the State of Israel’s conduct in Gaza. Having said that, a clear majority of American adults, in a Pew survey last spring, said that the State of Israel has “valid reasons” to fight the War on Gaza, its conduct aside (58%), an opinion even held by a plurality of voters 18-29 (38% vs 32%). So, whether Palestine, broadly, is a significant political issue is unclear. Polls have also indicated that a slim majority of Americans (53%) support the creation of a Palestinian state, that support is not solid.
The problem is that Palestinian autonomy and human rights barely track in in this election cycle. Foreign policy (including the US’s policy vis-à-vis the State of Israel and Palestine) is an election issue, but that is a broad issue category that includes concerns about Russia and China and ranks fairly low on voters’ priorities. All polls indicate that the top issues in this election cycle and the economy, reproductive freedom, immigration, and democracy.
We would be correct to complain that the policies of our government should not be determined by polls and public opinion. However, for a corporation like the Democratic Party, the main point of is existence is to appeal to public opinion, so it is very much motivated by the polls. If those polls say that the War on Gaza and US policy vis-à-vis the State of Israel and Palestine is a secondary issue (as they do), then the Democratic Party will treat it as one. There is no margin in trying to satisfy a marginal constituency when that might be disadvantageous when appealing to other constituencies. Better to make vague sounds about “ceasefires” and “peace,” and move on.
That will probably satisfy most Americans, and most potential Democratic voters who have other priorities. Palestinian autonomy and human rights and ending the suffering in Gaza might be desirable to most Americans, but only in the way that the options in the next trim level of a new car might be desirable – but not a priority and a deal-breaker.
The fact is that those of us who might regard Palestinian autonomy and human rights as the single most important issue in American and world politics, as the one issue that will motivate them to vote, are a minority in American politics. I have no numbers, but I suspect a tiny minority – one not worth risking the political fallout for the Democratic Party to take a strong position on. It is a calculus, and one which the Democrats made this week to only wave vaguely at the issue and, above all, not to have a Palestinian American speak from the dais. There was no margin in that.
It was disappointing, to be sure, but hardly unexpected. It also demonstrated the Democratic Party’s void of moral courage. But morality does not inhere in political parties any more than it does in states, insects, viruses, or any organism guided by its basal ganglia. Its point is survival and success, and not morality.
23 August 2024
***
There will be no arms embargo on the State of Israel, of course; that is too much to hope for – more than national health insurance and a federal statute guaranteeing reproductive freedom. For Washington, and for the Democratic Party broadly, the State of Israel is “vital to US interests,” whatever one takes that to mean, regardless of how it uses its billions of dollars in military aid against the Palestinian people.
American statecraft embodies realpolitik rather than morality, and always has, and this can be said for virtually every other country (at least all of the ones I can think of). There are occasion fortuitous – and felicitous – moments where “vital interests” and morality converge, but these are a manifestation of the entropy of events, in which, given enough time, at least some government policies will intersect with what we might recognize as morality. Even the Third Reich, arguably the evilest, most morally-vacant regime in human history, pioneered environmental policies and protections that put other governments to shame.
The state is not a willing being capable of moral and ethical judgment nor, by definition, a moral actor, so it is unreasonable to expect it to be motivated by moral values to the detriment of its “vital interests.” And these include, for the United States, “containing Iran,” and not ceding anything to China and Russia. The State of Israel, whoever leads its government, is a rabid dog, foaming at the mouth and slavering for blood. But military aid is the leash that the US can use to ensure that it is our dog. Decades of US military aid – F-15s, F-16s, the components of the Iron Dome system – have made the State of Israel utterly dependent on us, but Washington fears that, should it drop the leash, someone might come along and pick it up.
This is how “vital interests” work and, since states are not moral actors, it is what motivates them. The destruction of Gaza and the suffering of the Palestinian people might not serve those interests (despite what any number of leftish conspiracists might think), but neither do they necessarily nor explicitly confound them. No moral argument about the suffering of children will change that that. The state does not care; it cannot care.
But the state is guided by human minds and hands. The statesmen, bureaucrats, functionaries, and all the rest, have to sleep at night. They have children who ask about the children of Gaza, many go to church, shul, mosque, and temple, where they confront moral teachings every week, they read books and consume media in which “good” and “evil” – or “light” and “dark” – are foundational themes. They inhabit a broader community, in which moral and ethical choices are omnipresent, even if they might often ignore them.
There will be no arms embargo on the State of Israel, no matter how much we might protest outside the United Center or in social media; that is a near-certainty. But that does not mean we should not demand one. The men and women of our government – and the next – have to sleep at night, and some might feel shame as they rest their heads on their pillows if we remind them, enough, that it is American 2000-pound bombs that are filling plastic bags with human body parts in Gaza.
And perhaps, in their nightmares, they might envision ways in which the state can pursue its “vital interests” without aiding butchers.
21 August 2024
***
There are rumors that there might be a ceasefire agreement at any moment. It was reported that one had been reached on the NBC website earlier today, and then walked-back – the story disappeared. One social media friend posted a screenshot of a CBC News article that announced the same thing, but there is nothing on the CBC site now; only an article that US pressure might finally convince Benjamin Netanyahu to accept a ceasefire.
Yet, there does seem to be some movement here; perhaps the news sites are rushing their stories so they can get that big scoop, only to pull them after cooler editorial heads prevailed. No one wants to “Dewey defeats Truman,” after all.
So, I have been waiting and periodically checking all my news sites – Al Jazeera, Haaretz, the Washington Post, The Guardian, the New York Times, and, of course, the CBC – waiting for the big news. It feels as if I am waiting for Hell to freeze over.
It is hardly an accident. This is the week of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Demonstrators are in the streets, just as they were in 1968 – though somehow far better behaved – and I am sure that the presumptive democratic nominee Kamala Harris would love to announce a ceasefire deal from the dais so she could put the whole thing behind her without having to make any changes to her policy with regard to the State of Israel. President Joe Biden probably wants it just as much, so he can go into the sunset as the President who brought peace, however fragile and temporary, to the Middle East.
Departing presidents like that kind of thing. That might explain Washington’s diplomatic full-court press.
It is hard to imagine what is going on in Netanyahu’s mind right now. It’s almost midnight in Jerusalem, and I doubt he feels any great compulsion to expedite the process. I can imagine him knocking back a glass of Sabra as a nightcap and going peacefully to sleep (yes, I believe he sleeps very soundly) secure in the knowledge that a few dozen more Palestinian children will die tonight, and maybe a hundred, and it won’t matter one bit.
The part of Netanyahu’s brain that is usually most active are his basal ganglia – his “reptilian brain” – that part most concerned with autonomic functions and survival. And his survival does not depend on a ceasefire. Indeed, his approval numbers in the State of Israel are on the rise, and that is really all that he is interested in. It looks as if he will survive, perhaps even stronger, when this bloody war is over. In Haaretz today, Amos Harel suggested that the deal was scuttled and the ongoing talks were nothing more than “dead cat: diplomacy: “Sometimes… the aim of negotiations is not to reach a deal but to push the blame, the dead cat, toward the doorstep of your rival.”
Netanyahu can wait, even if the people of Gaza cannot, so he is, by now, comfortably a-bed. The Democratic Convention grinds on, however, and Harris, Biden, and their assembled advisors, handlers, and enablers know that they can’t wait. They might not need to take the wind from the pro-Palestine demonstrations outside Chicago’s United Center by announcing a ceasefire to win the election, but it wouldn’t hurt.
Harris would love to take this albatross from around her neck so she could get back to politics- and business-as-usual, including that $20 billion arms deal with the State of Israel. Biden could go gentle into that good night remembered not as a doddering old man, but as a great statesman. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has surely been on the phone to the 02 area code in Jerusalem almost constantly, and there are hints that he might be heading back to the State of Israel after meeting mediators in Egypt and Qatar to sweeten the deal.
I can only wonder what more he will offer Netanyahu, and what more the Israeli prime minister is dreaming he will ask for just to consider the possibility of a chance of a ceasefire. He has nothing to lose.
And meanwhile, children die and a crust of ice is forming on the surface of the River Styx.
20 August 2024