There's Been No Gaza Sea Change.
Just a lot of genocide co-conspirators covering their own asses.
As a result of Israel’s complete blockade of Gaza, the survivors of twenty-one months of genocide are, as one United Nations official put it, ‘neither dead nor alive — they are walking corpses.1 Those who can muster the strength to stand meander to distribution sites, where the Israeli Army and American contractors hunt them for sport with mortars, machine guns, and tank cannons.2 Here’s a video taken from one of the sites, leaked to The Associated Press, capturing the pleasure Israel’s agents take in the experience.
With Israel’s campaign reaching its hellish, predicted conclusion, the politicians and politicos who’ve enabled — and in many cases celebrated — it for nearly two years have, for the first time, expressed disapproval at what’s happening in Palestine. However, it’s crucial to recognize a distinction. The newly outspoken members of the political and media class are only condemning the result of Israel’s oppressive policy: starvation. They are not condemning Israel or even its policies, the cause of the hunger. This is like me saying I’m opposed to the stab wounds found on the teenagers of Elm Street, but refusing to condemn Freddy Krueger or his blade-laden glove; a position that would give even the most generous listener doubts about my genuineness. This may seem like a trivial distinction, but it's crucial to recognize it so that we can save as many lives as possible. Unfortunately, it is being both naively overlooked and maliciously brushed over by the mythical narrative of a ‘big tent’ anti-genocide coalition, which demands that the sudden newcomers be greeted with open arms. This sentiment was widespread, but the foremost proponent was Tommy Vietor, former Obama Administration foreign policy staffer and host of Pod Save America.
To be extraordinarily clear, I agree with Vietor’s plea. We need every voice possible, urging anyone who will listen to end Israel’s aggression in Palestine. Not because people like Piers Morgan are my newfound best friend, or because I believe they share my anti-Zionist politics, but because saving a single life greatly outweighs whatever uneasiness I feel about who stands next to me during the process. However, where Vietor errs is in thinking that those who have just found their voice want to join his campaign. Most, if not all, of the influential figures now singing a different tune don’t want to end Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip, only avoid the political heat they know is coming.
Take, for example, Democratic Senators Amy Klobuchar and Cory Booker. Two weeks after greeting international fugitive Benjamin Netanyahu, both warned of a ‘humanitarian crisis’ in Gaza. Kloubachar spoke for five minutes on the Senate floor, only urging Israel to ‘change course,’ as if the Zionist state was unaware it had been deliberately starving Gazans since 2007.3 Booker released the mother of all Washington gobbledygook on Twitter/X, waxing poetic about the plight of Gaza and only mentioning Israel to say we should ‘strengthen’ the perpetrator of the crime he was ostensibly opposing.
As for the source of this rhetorical shift, my theory is that Congress received one particularly impactful intelligence briefing confirming the devastation and showcasing pictures of starving Palestinians being consumed by their own bodies. Upon learning what was around the corner, the liberal wing of the political establishment freaked out. Not to save lives (if that was their motivation, they’d have spoken out years ago), but to salvage their reputations. Both as individuals who’ve draped themselves in Israel’s blood-soaked flag, and as a political movement that has spent the last two years silencing, defaming, and incarcerating left-wingers for daring to say this is where the road would lead. One frantic staff writing session later, the Senators had lengthy statements that said less with every word. They warned about the ‘starvation,’ but avoided naming the country, government, or people who created it. The intent of such nothingness was two-fold. First, to give the speakers something their future selves can point back to as evidence of ‘opposing’ the genocide (likely from a 2028 Democratic primary debate stage), and second, to create the impression that the images of babies fighting to take their first and last breaths is an unfortunate, but ultimately blameless occurrence; an inevitable outcome of the ‘Israel-Hamas War,’ which they always remember to say is the fault of the latter.
Given this is the first time the left-of-right political establishment has even moderately opposed Israel, some believed this was the onset of a sea change — the fabled Day spoken of in Omar El Akkad’s One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, in which Israel’s enablers and co-conspirators would cynically claim to have opposed the genocide all along. A week ago, I thought just that. It breaks my heart to say, but this was incorrect. There has been no sea change when it comes to Gaza. America’s political establishment has not changed its mind. It still believes Israel is, like the United States, a Good Guy Country. It might make mistakes, elect bad leaders, succumb to fear, hysteria, or any other self-harming emotion. But at the end of the day, Israel is The Good Guy, forced to fight The Bad Guys (Arabs). To even entertain the thought that Israel might be a nefarious actor is heresy. Facts disputing Israel’s status as a Good Guy Country, such as the democratically elected governments’ open intent for genocide, the overwhelming desire of Jewish Israelis to ethnically cleanse Gaza (82% want to transfer Gazans, while 47% want to kill them all), or the foundational Zionist texts calling for yet-to-be-established Israel to be a racially segregated colony, are simply ignored.45
‘Zionist colonization … can proceed and develop only under the protection of a power that is independent of the native population—behind an iron wall, which the native population cannot breach. Every native population in the world resists colonists as long as it has the slightest hope of being able to rid itself of the danger of being colonized. That is what the Arabs in Palestine are doing, and what they will persist in doing as long as there remains a solitary spark of hope that they will be able to prevent the transformation of “Palestine” into the “Land of Israel”.’ — Ze'ev Jabotinsky, Zionist founder, 1923.6
While the Senators talked about mass starvation as if it were a heavy rainfall that just happened to fall on Palestine, the media figures who got the hint to cool it a bit were more prescriptive. Unlike their political allies, David Frum,
, , and many other influential politicos clearly knew who to blame for the depravity unfolding before the world. Guided by a clear conscience and a desire to better humanity, these actors bravely called out the American and Israeli governments, Zionist zealots, and the twin cancers of racism and imperialism that have fueled both countries since their births as the source of Gaza’s torment. Just kidding. They blamed the pro-Palestine left, of course.According to these individuals (and many others too numerous to name), the real culprit of this horror is those who spent the last two years trying to prevent it from happening. By ‘crying wolf’ and unfairly accusing Israel of starving Gaza, the pro-Palestine left hid Israel’s starvation of Gaza, preventing these otherwise savvy and kindhearted commenters from alerting the world to the impending doom. If this sounds like a combination of narcissistic stupidity unimaginable to people with normal brain chemistry, that’s because it is. And yet, it’s their go-to defense.
The decision wasn’t much of a surprise, as it aligns with the center-rightist worldview. Everything bad is the fault of the anti-imperialist, post-capitalist left, while everything good is thanks to these Very Serious pundits and those they agree with. It is, uncoincidentally, the Good Guy vs. Bad Guy framing they chose to apply to Israel and Palestine. Through the lens of The Boy Who Cried Wolf, Frum, Yglesias, and Weiss assume the mantle of a victim, surrender their agency, excuse their past support for this genocide, and blame the mythical all-powerful left for leading them astray. Of course, we shouldn’t expect anything different. David Frum was an architect of the Iraq War, so this is the second time he’s encouraged the state slaughter of Arabs (I’m sensing a pattern). The Free Press called starvation in Gaza a ‘myth’ two months ago, and Bari is likely only joining the backtracking of the liberal side of her class to save her prospective deal with CBS. As for Yglesias, all you need to know is that in November of 2023, when Israel had already killed at least 9,000 Gazans, the Biden Administration advisor thought it was a good time to go on record suggesting the collective punishment continue.7
‘One cannot simply impute guilt for Hamas’ crimes to every Palestinian. But I do think it’s not well understood in the US that the group was acting broadly in line with the preferences of Gaza’s population.’ — Matt Yglesias, Israel’s Two Wars
A Life Tip from JoeWrote: If you ever find yourself typing ‘But’ after outlining a war crime, close your laptop and walk away. Your soul will thank you.
Of course, none of these charlatans compares to former Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, who, despite being personally responsible for America’s participation in this historic crime, also chose to blame those who spoke out for Palestine.
‘If those who have been motivated by everything that has happened since October 7th [pro-Palestine protestors] had spent 10% of their time demanding Hamas put down their arms and give up the hostages, maybe we’d be in a different place.’
It takes a unique combination of stupidity and evil for Anthony Blinken, who helped Israel ban UNRWA, the relief agency whose absence created the current starvation crisis, to blame others for his crimes — never mind those who were trying to stop him.
For the record, I do believe that Tommy Vietor is, unlike the figures detailed above, naive but well-intentioned. But that naivety has him working towards an unproductive goal. Cory Booker, Amy Kloubachar, Matt Yglesias, Bari Weiss, and countless other AIPAC-loving Washington insiders have not all suddenly discovered Israel is starving Gaza. (Them all speaking up in the same week should be more than enough evidence that saving lives isn’t their true concern.) The world has known Israel intends to displace every Gazan for a long time, and these figures are no dumb. They’re not speaking up because they want Palestine to live, only to give tomorrow’s historians a second thought when naming the agents responsible for this 21st-century holocaust. If they wanted to save Gaza's lives through the big tent coalition Vietor speaks of, they would explicitly name Israel as the perpetrator. I’m not asking for an anti-Zionist ‘purity test,’ but a commitment to rudimentary problem solving. If someone can’t identify Israel as the cause of Palestine’s plight, they will either be unable or uninterested in resolving the issue. As a matter of fact, they’d be far more likely to try and reroute the public’s distaste for this crime back into supporting Israel, which will only perpetuate the cycle that has been ongoing since 1947. Anointing Cory Booker or any of these other aforementioned fledgling ghouls as the face of the anti-genocide movement will not save lives. Booker would simply return to the Biden-Harris policy that turned Gaza into a hellscape. He’d publicly call for Netanyahu to let in more aid, work ‘tirelessly for a ceasefire,’ and turn his attention elsewhere as American-made bombs replace starvation as Israel’s primary killing agent. As for the media figures who want to blame everyone already in the tent for their analytical and moral failings, a similar result can be expected.
So no, open arms won’t save lives. But accountability will. If the United States chose to hold those who encouraged and enabled the genocide of Gaza to account, lives would be saved. If someone, anyone in power was forced to account for their crimes, politicians would think twice before backing a belligerent ethnostate. But in order to do that, we can’t use Tommy Vietor’s pathetically low bar of accountability, which limits consequences for this genocide to potentially losing a Democratic primary. When I say we need accountability, I mean material consequences. If we’re looking for a place to start, there are some good defendants mentioned above.
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In Solidarity — Joe
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/7/28/palestinian-baby-among-14-who-died-from-hunger-in-gaza-in-last-24-hours
https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/cy8k8045nx9o
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-19975211
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/smotrich-idf-wont-withdraw-from-gaza-even-for-a-hostage-deal-israelis-should-embrace-the-word-occupation/
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2025-05-28/ty-article-magazine/.premium/yes-to-transfer-82-of-jewish-israelis-back-expelling-gazans/00000197-12a4-df22-a9d7-9ef6af930000
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10099254/
https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/11/1143107
This is the accountability I'm looking for. 18 U.S. Code § 1091
Let’s make sure they are held to accountability. We need to get every single member of the current administration, along with the entire Biden administration, charged under 18 U.S. Code § 1091, the statute that incorporates the Genocide Convention into US criminal law. Members of these administrations shouldn't go a single day without having this statute in their faces, up front and center, at every protest, at every meeting, press conference, briefing, and trips home and abroad. Let them consider what is looming. They should have visions of prison all the days of their lives, and echos of those cell doors slamming shut.
And beyond, the administration, the complicit press is also subject to this law.
Let us find the way.
thanks Joe! It is all so horrifying!!