So, Andrew Yang is alienating a lot of progressives by showing support for Israel over the Palestinians lately. I'm gonna be honest, I get it. I'm not really a fan of Israel myself. However, he is running as mayor of New York, there are a lot of Jews who presumably support Israel in NYC, so this seems to be one of the pandery things he has to do to win.
Honestly, my views on Israel are nuanced. I probably would not have supported the 1947 founding as it seemed to be an act of colonialism that displaced the people who already lived there (I would instead offer any Jews who wanted to emigrate out of Europe following WWII passage to the US). And I do think that the existence of the state of Israel has western, imperialist roots that have caused a powder keg. So I kind of sympathize with the plight of the Palestinians.
HOWEVER, I'm also a bit cynical on foreign policy. I see Israel as a key security partner in the middle east, and see supporting the state as beneficial to US foreign policy. You see, while I get the arguments the left makes, I don't have a very rosy view of foreign policy and have a lot of realpolitik in my views. If the US was not doing its thing around the world, someone else like Russia or China would, and this would be detrimental to our security and interests. You can make valid moral arguments against the US empire and it turning a blind eye to stuff like this, but hey, sometimes you gotta look out for your country's national interests. The fact is Israel is friendly to us and shares a lot of the same democratic values as us, albeit imperfectly, while if the Palestinians were in charge they likely would not and would work against us. So I can see a national security argument for supporting Israel.
Moreover, the damage done to the geopolitical state of the Palestinian landmass is done, and undoing it would just cause tons of harm. If Israel were to fall, what do you think would happen? Another genocide. Millions of refugees, people suffering. It wouldn't be pretty. Now, that's not to say that we should openly be like "we're with you through thick and thin despite your crimes against humanity, buddy!". I do think Israel tends to mistreat Palestinians, and I think we should openly condemn this. And I do think the issue is a bit more nuanced than "Palestinians are terrorists". Because while some are, they're also fighting an apartheid state screwing them over. So I can kind of see their point. Not justifying THEIR violence either, but I do think the issue is nuanced.
Honestly, I prefer to stay relatively neutral, and would ideally like to see some sort of two state solution. I mean, at the end of the day, the geopolitical clusterfudge that is the Israel-Palestine conflict is not my problem. I wish both sides would grow up and try to get along, but instead we get these cycles of violence driven in part by religious nutjobbery and in part by hatred/fear of the other. But ultimately, this is their issue, not mine, and I'm staying out of it. I largely believe other states have a right to self determine and I don't really like to get involved in these moral crusades a lot of people like to. I mean, I've lived through Afghanistan and Iraq in my lifetime, and I wasn't a fan of the 1990s interventions overseas either. I don't really think we should be morally policing countries more than necessary. It just never works out and just causes people to get pissed at us for trying.
As far as Yang goes, I think he deserves backlash for the tweet. Just because I may have views that may fall short of a progressive purity test (although to be fair I've also been called "anti semitic" for my views too because I don't just think Israel can do no wrong and dogmatically support it either), doesn't mean that I don't understand the criticism. But at the same time, dude's running for NYC mayor and sometimes the dude has to pander to certain groups to win. This might be annoying and disgraceful, but I generally get it.
Honestly, as long as I can work with Yang on big issues like UBI, what he says on the small stuff like this conflict doesn't matter to me. It wouldn't change my support or cause me to waver on these issues. Im willing to put up with minor imperfections in my candidates to get something I really want. And while I'm not an NYC resident, I like Yang and give him an honorable mention for his 2020 platform based on UBI alone. As far as NYC, I think he has a solid Bernie-esque housing plan and he also supports a mini UBI. So...is it worth supporting Yang? Of course it is. The progressives will purity test him on this but at the end of the day I just can't be bothered to care enough.
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