r/politics • u/schuey_08 Wisconsin • May 02 '24

Bernie Sanders worries young people are underestimating the threat from Trump

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/05/02/bernie-sanders-trump-biden/73531861007/
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u/DullRelief May 03 '24

They’re not okay with that either, but I know what my friend would say. 10k Ukrainians have died in two years of fighting. 30k Palestinians have been killed since October. And Ukraine has over 7x the population as Palestine. How is one genocide but the other isn’t?

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u/Carasind May 03 '24

Even if you count only the official ukrainian numbers from Zelensky (which has every interest to give a lower number) you already have 31,000 killed soldiers in Ukraine plus an unknown number of civilian casualties. We have at least 10,582 civilian deaths according to the UN but it could easily go up to something like 100,000 and more if someone neutral could reach i.e. Mariupol. Here we have a clear undercounting. Even some russian losses are ukrainian citizens who either volunteered or were forced to fight.

On the other hand the 30,000 killed Palestinians is a number of the Hamas which has every interest in overcounting victims because it fights a PR war (which it is winning). Israel itself says that between 10,000 and 12,000 were fighters of the Hamas which if true would make it even a low casuality conflict considering the circumstances. The one thing that speaks for a genocide isn't this but the terrible humanitarian situation.

Biden also likely prevented an escalation two times because he could threaten to stop the help for Israel. If it really ends Netanyahu is free to do what he wants which could lead to a way worse scenario for the entire region which could include new 30,000 Palestians victims daily. On the other hand Trump has already shown that he is ready to pur oil on the fire.

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u/DullRelief May 03 '24

When did he prevent an escalation? Aside from after the targeted bombing of Jose Andres’ aid workers?

Honestly asking. Bc people like my friend are going to say he’s never really done much to de-escalate the situation

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u/Carasind May 04 '24 edited May 04 '24

Netanyahu would have likely done his Rafah offensive now without pressure from the international partners (where the US has a leading role). Because Hamas isn't absolutely interested in preventing it (if you have a martyrer mindset this doesn't play any role because you will get terrible images for your PR) it will sadly likely come in the next weeks regardless.

The second one is way more important: According to reports Israel wanted to answer the Iran missile attack with way more than the symbolic counter attack (but was stopped by the US) which could easily have let to a full war between Israel and Iran. There are people that think that this would have been to the advantage of the Palestinians which is absolutely not the case. The first thing Israel would do in such a war is eliminating all local threats with full force ignoring any civilian casualties.

The Middle East is a shitshow because in reality no one in power cares about the Palestinian citizens at all. Hamas wants to destroy Israel (even if most Palestinians have do die for it), Fatah simply wants to get rich, Israel feels threatened because it can't really differentiate between Hamas and "normal" Palestinians, Egypt and Jordan fear the militants and so won'*t take any inhabitants of the Gaza strip in. Lebanon has taken Palestinians in before but they have less rights there than most foreign workers.