Tag Archive | Gaza

Much Ado About Nothing: Tim Walz’s Empty Words on Gaza

Sep16

Much Ado About Nothing: Tim Walz’s Empty Words on Gaza
David R. Weiss – September 16, 2024

If Kamala Harris loses to Donald Trump in November, it won’t be for lack of joy, but for lack of justice. And maybe because Tim Walz’s strength as a plain-spoken running mate sometimes leads him to speak a little too plainly.

Recently, while campaigning in Michigan, Walz was tasked with reaching out to Muslim and Arab American voters. These voters (not unreasonably!) have felt betrayed by the Biden administration’s unwavering support for Israel’s actions in Gaza. They’ve reeled in disbelief as Israel has freely slaughtered Palestinian civilians, decimated Gaza’s infrastructure, and destroyed whole collections of priceless culture. (Yes, in “response” to the horrific attack by Hamas on October 7; but Israel’s response has become disproportionate, irrational, and outright genocidal against the Palestinian people.)

Of course, you can’t directly blame Biden for Israel’s actions. EXCEPT: Biden has provided Israel with political cover, both with his rhetoric and within the United Nations. And to be plainspoken about it, the bombs Israel is using to break international law—are coming from Joe Biden. Without that support, Israel could not sustain its genocidal campaign in Gaza. So, yes, Joe’s Biden administration is blameworthy for the horror happening right now in Gaza.

Despite plentiful, poignant, persuasive pleas, Kamala Harris has refused to place any distance between her view on the Gaza war and Biden’s (other than some warm fuzzy feelings of anguish). As a result, there is a real movement among Michigan’s Arab and Muslim American voters to “abandon Harris.” (The movement is actually nationwide, but in Michigan’s swing-state math, the number of these voters threatening to desert Harris might be sufficient to leave Michigan unswung if they simply don’t vote.)

Which is why, no doubt, Tim Walz was over in Michigan trying to persuade these folks not to abandon Harris. Despite her ready willingness to effectively abandon them.

As Walz put it to these voters: “Kamala Harris has been clear. She’ll defend Israel’s right to defend itself—making sure, though, that we need to get a ceasefire that returns these hostages as part of that, and she understands that the human suffering that’s happening in Gaza has to end. That’s why she’s the person to move us toward a two-state solution, where Israel can be protected, we get our hostages back, and Gaza can be self-determined.”

It sounds almost good.

But while championing the release of the remaining hundred hostages held by Hamas, this paired theme of ceasefire-and-hostages conveniently hides the many hundreds of Palestinian “hostages” held in Israeli prisons, jails, and camps (many arrested for crimes that can only fairly be called resistance to an unjust and illegal occupation) whose freedom also hangs on the current ceasefire negotiations. I’m betting that Arab and Muslim American voters might appreciate hearing mention of these persons, whose lives are every bit as imperiled as the Israeli hostages.

Moreover, Walz remains plainspoken silent on Israel’s breaches of human rights and international law—breaches that invalidate any description of its actions as “self-defense.” Israel has a right to self-defense—but not to slaughter civilians, decimate infrastructure, or destroy culture. Those are NOT acts of self-defense. They’re acts of genocide. No coherent US policy can ignore this. And “understanding the human suffering” doesn’t get you a free pass through the November election.

But this is the worst of it, where Walz’s plainspoken talk gets just ugly empty. He warns these voters, “Donald Trump is offering you nothing. That is not in your best interest.”

Understand me now (to quote Harris): You’re telling these voters that your campaign will offer sweet-sounding but ultimately specious rhetoric topped off with noble promises undermined by supplying the political support and the actual weapons necessary to carry out genocide, but they ought to think twice about not supporting Harris … because Trump offers them nothing?!

This is a ghastly bit of political theater. To use Trump’s bellicose posturing as an excuse for Harris’ “mere” banality of evil.

It would be politically viable and strategically wise for Harris to double-down on Israel’s right to self-defense—while also making any further arms shipments absolutely contingent on Israel’s compliance with international law and its active engagement in a political process leading to a two-state solution that would provide mutual security to both Israelis and Palestinians. Such a commitment could catalyze international support for a realistic peace in the Middle East—and undercut the divisive ambitions of other militant groups and states in the region.

Right now, the only reasonable conclusion to draw from Walz’s plainspoken message in Michigan is that Harris has chosen to align herself with a history of US policy in the Middle East that regards instability as profitable to US global interests and considers the immensity of human suffering there as the unfortunate collateral damage of our doing business in the world.

She has other and far better options. It is inexcusable that she isn’t pursuing them.

I will vote for the Harris-Walz ticket, no matter what. Because the alternative is so morally repulsive and politically scary. Especially in our hyper-polarized two-party system, elections are primarily about harm reduction, so I can make (a very restless!) peace with voting for (on this issue and others) an inexcusably imperfect candidate. Because a vote for Trump is a vote to end democracy altogether; to restore white supremacy as the law of the land; and to erase the rights and endanger the safety of countless members of marginalized communities.

But Harris is needlessly losing some votes—as I said at the top, not for lack of joy, but for lack of justice. And I cannot and will not criticize those for whom the pain laid bare by Walz’s plainspokenness is simply too personal and too great to set aside even in the face of the threat posed by Trump. Palestine’s pain is real. It runs generations long and generations deep. And (without condoning Hamas’ brutality in any way!) the Palestinian cause is righteous.

In the absence of offering any real alternative to these voters, Walz’s warning about Trump is indeed “much ado about ‘nothing.’” To be clear (and painfully so, because I like Tim Walz) it is to gaslight these voters. If Kamala Harris truly intends to offer a “New Way Forward,” she might begin by leaving the gaslighting behind.

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David Weiss is a theologian, writer, poet and hymnist, “writing into the whirlwind” of contemporary challenges, joys, and sorrows around climate crisis, sexuality, justice, peace, and family. Reach him at drw59mn@gmail.com. Read more at www.davidrweiss.com where he blogs under the theme, “Full Frontal Faith: Erring on the Edge of Honest.” Support him in Writing into the Whirlwind at www.patreon.com/fullfrontalfaith.

DNC 2024: Unforced Error, Unsettled Joy

Aug28

Unforced Error, Unsettled Joy
David R. Weiss – August 28, 2024

I am genuinely heartened by Kamala Harris’ entry into the presidential race. Since late July (just five weeks ago!) she’s brought energy and confidence—even joy—into a Democratic campaign that was marked by varying but unmistakable degrees of obligation, resignation, and dread. (No latecomer to these sentiments, I was calling on Biden to step back last September.) That said, we do ourselves no favors by overlooking unforced errors by her campaign or unsettled joy in our gut.

And that’s tempting, because we can’t afford to go into November with anything less than a Democratic Party united behind and excited about a candidate who offers us the best firewall we have right now against the implementation of Project 2025 and an all-out authoritarian tip toward fascism. The danger posed to democracy and all manner of civil and human rights by a Trump-Vance administration is far greater than the mainstream media seem willing or even able to acknowledge. (Vance, by the way, is the real danger; the Trojan riding in Trump’s horse.) Thus, that the Harris-Walz ticket is actually exciting a range of previously nervous Democratic voters, as well as make a fresh appeal to Independent, undecided, and perhaps indifferent voters is a godsend. An injection of joy.

No wonder that some have christened this unexpected unabashed exuberant energy a politics of joy. The New York Times wants to caution that “Joy is Not a Strategy,” but the truth is that joy is inviting, contagious, inspiring. Joy can unleash the goodness and hope that sit deep within ourselves. And while joy may not be sufficient to map out policy (as of today, August 28, the Harris for President website remains entirely empty on policy), it might be sufficient to win this election—and to frame a powerful governing posture.

Indeed, the PBS series A Force More Powerful (2000) includes a compelling episode in which joy was strategically and creatively harnessed in the 1988 plebiscite (referendum) in Chile in which Pinochet was unexpectedly and resoundingly defeated. Joy can channel profound power. So, I am not about to take issue with a politics of joy. I am all in favor of that. Frankly, we need a politics which summons forth our best angels rather one that plays on our most base fears.

It’s the awkward silence, both by Harris and the Democratic National Convention as whole, with respect to the unimaginable suffering and moral catastrophe in Gaza——that unsettles my joy.

It was an unforced error. Harris had the opportunity to invite a Palestinian-American voice to address her party and the American people with a call for compassion and unity. Multiple speakers were proposed to her campaign. They even had the opportunity to vet the remarks. And speakers representing every imaginable thread in the fabric of her coalition did speak. Harris had a golden opportunity to demonstrate just how big the Democratic tent is—and how committed to justice. She chose not to.

True, the Jewish parents of an American hostage held by Hamas included a call to end the suffering in Gaza in their remarks. True, too, Harris herself acknowledged the suffering, and even affirmed the Palestinian cause of self-determination (although such words are cheap, given the sheer horror wrought by US-made and supplied weapons). MOREOVER—despite running a campaign made possible across decades of fidelity to the simple enduring truth that representation matters, the Harris campaign decided representation doesn’t matter when it comes to the Palestinian people. And that ought to unsettle all our joy.

Her remarks at the DNC called out in concrete language the very real atrocities carried out by Hamas on October 7— and then reduced Israel’s genocidal assault on the whole of Gaza (civilians and civic infrastructure alongside Hamas militants) to much more abstract “devastation” and “suffering,” neither of which acknowledge Israel and the Israel Defense Forces as the agent of these equally real atrocities. And with the International Criminal Court, the International Court of Justice, and the United Nations all concerned/convinced that Israel is engaged in war crimes in its pursuit of vengeance (against Hamas’ own litany of war crimes on October 7), her claim that she and Joe Biden are working “around the clock” to achieve a ceasefire is worse than empty rhetoric. Every new weapons shipment to Israel turns their words to Orwellian doublespeak, stoking the very “fire” they claim to be working to “cease.”

I understand, after months of growing desperation with an aging Joe Biden as our candidate, the hunger for joy, the desire to just celebrate for four days, was real. But simply turning up the joy does not address the atrocity. Meanwhile Palestinian-Americans and Muslim-Americans carry the grief of Gaza in their bones and are desperately hungry to have their voices heard and their yearning for justice embraced.

One speaker proposed to the Harris campaign by the Uncommitted Movement (those who withheld their support for Biden over his policy on Gaza) was Ruwa Romman, a Palestinian-American who is a Democratic representative in the Georgia state house. Her intended remarks, celebrated the unity across the Democratic party, naming it “a beautiful, multifaith, multiracial, and multigenerational coalition.” She paid homage to Fannie Lou Hamer, the pioneering African-American woman from Mississippi, for daring to imagine an integrated Democratic party, now one of the pillars of the party’s big tent.

And she set her call for justice in Gaza right alongside key Democratic goals “restoring access to abortions, ensuring a living wage, demanding an end to reckless war and a ceasefire in Gaza … and to be a Democratic Party that prioritizes funding our schools and hospitals, not for endless wars. That fights for an America that belongs to all of us—Black, brown, and white, Jews and Palestinians, all of us.” You can read the remarks here and listen to Ruwa deliver them outside the DNC here.)

What Romman had hoped to offer at the DNC was, in fact, a call to rally around Kamala Harris that was profoundly resonant with what has been called black joy: the resolute conviction—the miraculous assertion—“that Black people’s humanity will not be defined by trauma or oppression but by something else: a joy that no white man can steal.” (Per Tracey Michae’l Lewis-Giggetts, author of Black Joy, quoted on CNN.) The same is true for Palestinians. Indeed, there is a long legacy of mutual solidarity across Black and Palestinian communities.

Tragically, Kamala Harris chose to silence the kindred expression of black joy that Ruwa Romman sought to voice. The miracle was that even in the midst of genocide, Romman had found a way to voice joy because she grounded her words so deeply in a yearning for justice. But the DNC—and the nation tuned in—never heard them.

I will vote for the Harris-Walz ticket—with real passion. In sharp contrast to the GOP ticket, I believe they represent a path forward that has room for all of us—including the room to press for a still bigger tent and a yet fuller pursuit of justice. Last week, however, the Democratic party and the Harris campaign committed a costly unforced error. Rather than take clear steps to ensure their tent covers everyone, they made a calculated choice to exclude one community. “Unforced error” hardly captures it. This was a deliberate choice to turn their back on the cry of those who are suffering. It was a choice to preserve a safe and shallow happiness at the DNC rather than take the inevitable risk of pursuing a deeper and more just joy. My vote will come with the commitment to press HARD for joy that mirrors justice.

For the sake of the Harris campaign, for the sake of this election, and for the sake of the Palestinian people, I hope Harris recognizes her error and reverses it. Until we invite every voice forward—especially those who bear witness to suffering—we have not yet commenced a genuine and just politics of joy.

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David Weiss is a theologian, writer, poet and hymnist, “writing into the whirlwind” of contemporary challenges, joys, and sorrows around climate crisis, sexuality, justice, peace, and family. Reach him at drw59mn@gmail.com. Read more at www.davidrweiss.com where he blogs under the theme, “Full Frontal Faith: Erring on the Edge of Honest.” Support him in Writing into the Whirlwind at www.patreon.com/fullfrontalfaith.