2024-05-27

Trying to Find a Silver Lining

This is an interesting thread. Ahmed has contacts in these departments, folks who have been given him info the entire time. I'm sure that what he says is grounded in reality. And of course it all makes perfect sense.

We all see the writing on the wall. Can anyone imagine a future where Israel is less despised than it was on October 6th? Not happening any time soon. And they've been trying to hold on to their place of privilege with angry threats and lashing out. Seems to me to be a suboptimal strategy.

So there's a growing sense of an end to the current regime of impunity. The ICC warrants were probably quite shocking to those who believe in "accountability is for others". The Administration was already having difficulties white washing Israeli crimes - they have needed to repeatedly overrule staff opinions to impose the most pro-Netanyahu policies possible.

As Ahmed notes, there will be a paper trail of this. The dissent memos probably now fill entire filing cabinets. There will be mountains of evidence about who knew what and when. And they will be forced into getting new reports into Israeli misconduct, which they will then ignore. And that too will be documented.

It might not change things much now. The top guys are still more than willing to wade in and overrule their staff. "No evidence of war crimes." "Israel is not intentionally blocking aid." But these top guys are going to have to deal with this being in their history. As Ahmed puts it - "people in posts of public trust, many who want to wield even greater power in the years ahead." A lot easier to succeed at that when you are on the right side of history - and it's getting more and more unambiguous about which side that is.

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Yes, this is copium. Shit is super bad - and now we're getting a lot of new people noticing that it is super bad. But I don't see how this moves the needle on Biden's behaviour, let alone Netanyahu's. So the doom and despair levels are high - and the best I can do is hope that this changes how things happen in the future.

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