California Free Press

Off the Top of My Head

Biden Has One Job for the Rest of His Term: End the War in Gaza

by John Lawrence

IMHO Biden has been played by Netanyahu. Netanyahu's assertion that "there's no daylight between Israel and the US" seems to mean that Netanyahu can do whatever he wants to in Gaza, and the US will go along with it. Up to now this has been basically the case. Biden has pushed back a little against some of Netanyahu's more egregious operations in Gaza, but has essentially gone along with it on the theory that Netanyahu should do whatever he thinks is best. The US also has shipped Israel much weaponry without any conditions. Since October 7, the Biden administration has reportedly made more than one hundred military aid transfers to Israel, although only two—totalling about $250 million—have met the congressional review threshold and been made public. So Biden and the US are complicit in the destruction of Gaza and the killing of its people. By June 19, 2024, 37,396 people had been killed in the Gaza Strip since the attack by Hamas and the Israeli invasion in October, 2023, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, as reported by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Most of those killed have been women and children. Biden has been weakly trying to get Netanyahu to rein in his over zealousness, but his imprecations have lacked any real teeth. He would have to threaten to hold up weapons shipments to Israel to really get Netanyhu's attention. Other than that, Netanyahu thinks he has free rein to do whatever he wants in Gaza.

Netanyahu says his goal is to root out and totally defeat Hamas yet so far he has mainly destroyed about half of Gaza's real estate. If Hamas and the hostages are underground in the tunnels, why hasn't the fighting occurred down there? Why has most of the destruction been on the surface if the real goal is underground? Why have bombs been dropped on supposed "safe areas"? It seems as if Netanyahu's intention is to make Gaza unlivable and to turn Gazans into refugees. The atrocities that occurred on October 7 were horrendous, but the destruction in Gaza only compounds that tragedy. Two wrongs don't make a right. President Biden has been taken advantage of by Netanyahu. He has used the traditional alliance between the US and Israel as an excuse to exercise a free hand in Gaza. He has shown no restraint nor has he shown any interest in a long term solution to the situation other than total destruction of Gaza. A two state solution has no interest for Netanyahu. He is playing Biden and the US while pursuing the goal of making Gaza a waste land. For too long Biden has given Netanyahu the benefit of the doubt.

Biden has been involved in one way or another with both the war in Ukraine and the war in Gaza. He needs to bring at least the war in Gaza to an end before the end of his term if he doesn't do anything else. No doubt the war in Ukraine is intractable for Biden to end it. His ego is too involved in that war. However, he could have a decisive part in ending the war in Gaza. He would effectively have to stop being buddy buddy with Netanyahu and insist on a cease fire. He would have to terminate any financial or military support to Israel until the war in Gaza has been ended and a two state solution has been preliminarily been worked out. He would have to take decisive steps to bring those two things about. I know that is what Biden would like to see happen, but he would have to put his foot down with Netanyahu to achieve those goals. Biden has done a whole lot domestically to make the United States a better place. He will go down in history for accomplishing more domestically than any President since Lyndon Johnson. His legacy is secure in that regard, but he needs to wrap up at least one of the two wars or his legacy will be tarnished in terms of foreign policy.

Off the Top of My Head

What Biden Has To Do To Win

by John Lawrence

The two biggest issues are the economy and the border. Biden has to address these two issues effectively if he hopes to win the election. The way to neutralize Trump's appeal on these issues is essentially to co-opt Trump's positions. On the economy, Biden must come out for tax breaks for the middles class. He has already been talking about taxing the rich. Good, but this does nothing for tax relief for the middle class unless he explicitly comes out and say so. Americans are at least subconsciously accustomed to the fact that, f they elect a Republican President, they will get a tax cut. Problem is Republican tax cuts go mainly to the rich as they did during Trump's administration when he added $7 trillion to the national debt with his tax cuts. The fact that Biden wants to tax the rich should enable him to responsibly give tax cuts to the middle class without adding to the debt. He needs to simplify his messaging to the bare essentials as Trump does without getting down into the policy weeds.

Secondly, on the border, Biden's position is not strong enough. This vaunted "bi-partisan legislation" that Trump doesn't want passed is not strong enough. The correct position is that the goal should be not one illegal entry over the US border. This is the position of most countries after all. The US is spending too much money on 750 military bases in 80 countries being the world's policeman yet it can't control its own border! This is the height of ridiculousness. I hasten to point out that with effective border control the laws regarding amnesty would not have to be changed. Immigrants could still apply for amnesty albeit through legal channels. The ridiculous situation that anyone who sets foot on American soil illegally can apply for amnesty will have been effectively curtailed. This presupposes that enormous resources in terms of infrastructure and manpower will have to be redirected to the border. Well, how about closing some of those foreign military bases and using that money to beef up the border? The goal should be not one illegal entry, rather than hiring more judges. The bill entails: "The bipartisan Senate bill would add more than 1,500 new Customs and Border Protection personnel. Asylum Officers and Asylum Reform: Similarly, Asylum Officer staffing has remained stagnant over the last four years and there is an insufficient number of asylum officers to do initial screenings." This bill presupposes that immigrants will continue to enter the US illegally. It's the wrong approach, it's too complicated, the American people will not understand it. Trump will make that clear. Trump will state his case simply and directly in a way that a 12 year old can understand which is about the mentality of a lot of the American people. Biden has to out Trump Trump on this issue, but do it in a responsible way. If the goal is "not one illegal entry," then that can be coupled with increasing LEGAL immigration.

Thirdly, Biden has to end the two wars: Ukraine and Gaza. He is letting Netanyahu run all over him making him look weak. He has to demand an end to that war and impose a two state solution if necessary. He dos not need to state a lot of ifs, buts, whereases and wherefores. Simply state his position and what he intends to accomplish with all the might of US prestige and power. Trump will state his positions as if they will be fait accomplis no matter how impractical or unlikely they actually are in reality. Biden has to get a lot tougher and use the withdrawal of US resources from Israel if necessary. He is treating Israel with kid gloves. He has to be more evenhanded in his support for Gaza and Palestine. In Ukraine, the handwriting is on the wall. Biden's cold war mentality set up this proxy war between the US and Russia. He has to demand a cease fire with the lines being drawn between the areas that Russia and Ukraine now control. To be specific Russia would control Crimea, which they've controlled since 2014 without a peep from the Obama administration, and the Donbas region while Ukraine controls the rest. A plebiscite could later determine the eventual fate of the boundaries between the two countries. If Biden doesn't do something about a cease fire in each of these  two wars, it could doom his Presidency for a second term. Americans are tired of these meaningless wars and the inability of the all powerful US, the world's policeman, to do anything about them.

In short Biden has to get tough. He needs to simplify his positions. It's not enough to criticize Trump as being too extreme. Obviously, the American people aren't buying it. He needs to finesse the main issues - economy, border and 2 wars - by saying that he will 1) give tax breaks to the middle class, 2) prevent even one illegal entry to the US and 3) end the 2 wars. If he does all three things, he will co-opt Trump on these issues and win the election. If he continues to advocate for the Senate border bill, let Netanyahu make a patsy out of him and call for taxing the rich without a concomitant tax break for the middle class, he will lose.

Off the Top of My Head

Biden Needs to Step Down But Not Because of His Age

by John Lawrence

In a nutshell his ego is too involved in the Ukraine war, and his stance on the Israel-Hamas war is ineffective and feckless. Trump is about to hand Biden a defeat, not at the ballot box, but by virtue of his control over the House of Representatives. The House will do what Trump tells them to do, and what he is telling Speaker Mike Johnson is to not hold a vote on military aid to Ukraine which is something Biden so desperately wants. So it's easy to see why Trump would use his influence over the House to hand Biden a major defeat here just like he handed Biden a defeat over solution of the border issue. So where would that leave Biden who has set this major US policy in motion? The flaw (or fly if you prefer) in Biden's ointment is that he has never given even lip service to a negotiated settlement of the war in Ukraine. A peaceful solution would be a loss to Biden since his ego is so entrenched in the idea of Ukraine winning that war with the help of US weaponry. Biden also has a deep vendetta against Vladimir Putin. It's personal with Biden although I at least have not seen any demonization aimed by Putin at Biden. So Biden has a dilemma. He cannot tolerate the idea that he will not be able to sell Ukraine weapons which just means a transfer of funds from US taxpayers to US weapon makers ^i.e. the US military-industrial complex, with Ukraine the beneficiary of the actual hardware. Some pundits have gone as far as to urge Americans to support the war on the grounds that it benefits American GDP!

As far as the Israel-Hamas war is concerned, Biden doesn't seem capable of tamping down Netanyahu's hawkish determination to do "whatever the hell he wants," to quote another actor, in Gaza. Netanyahu is playing Biden for a sucker. Biden's unmitigated support for Israel is falling on Netanyahu's deaf ears making him oblivious to Biden's entreaties to go slow in Gaza. In short Biden has no control over Netanyahu, and the IDF is certainly committing their share of atrocities there mainly on women and children. Revenge is no justification. Instead of one horrific and unjustified act, namely, the October 7 attack on Israel, we are treated to two horrific and and one partially justified act, namely Israel's war on Gaza. In his book, The End of Race Politics, Coleman Hughes writes, "[Ibram X.] Kendi explicitly endorses the logic of taking an eye for an eye. He supposes that the way to remedy a harm is by imposing an equal and opposite harm - that the way to remedy one kind of injustice is by replacing it with another kind of injustice. If I strike you, you strike me; if I steal from you, you steal from me; if I kill your child, you kill mine.

"Human history shows us how wrongheaded the neoracist [substitute war mongering] conception of justice is. It shows us that taking an eye for an eye doesn't stop injustice; it instead participates in it. It creates new injustices in a misguided effort to remedy the old ones. It then demands that those new injustices be remedied by yet newer injustices in the future. The neoracist [substitute war mongering] logic of retaliation will lead inevitably to a cycle of wrongful discrimination that never ends."

Netanyahi is strictly an "eye for an eye" kind of guy. Although Coleman Hughes is writing about racism, the same logic applies to war. Biden does not seem amenable to this logic. He is stuck in a wishy washy stance that says, yes Israel has a right to respond to the Hamas attack by devastating Gaza, but Israel should use restraint so that it doesn't do any more harm than is necessary [whatever that is]. Netanyahu makes no bones about the fact that he wants to wipe Hamas [and Gaza] off the map, and Biden seems incapable of restraining him all the time giving him more money. If I fight with my neighbor and say to my father, "Hey Dad, I need you to give me more money, so I can more effectively fight my neighbor," and my Dad says, "Well, here's the money son, but don't harm your neighbor too much," what is going on here? The son is controlling the father, not vice versa, and Netanyahu is controlling Biden. This is not a good position for the President of the United States to be in.

We need a fresh approach to the US' role in both of these wars. Biden is too entrenched in Old Thinking. His ego is too involved. Therefore, he should step down and allow other leadership to step forward who, hopefully, can have a more enlightened and creative approach to the solution of the problems created by these two wars. Both of these wars are stalemates in a sense. Both of them perpetuate the cycle of violence. Both of them do nothing to prevent an ongoing loss of innocent life as well as non innocent life as if there were such a thing. Where are the peacemakers? Blessed are the peacemakers. We are stuck in the Old Testament when what is needed is New Testament thinking. Biden should stop while he's ahead. Think of the example of Lyndon Johnson who was a President who did a lot of good before he was brought down by his quotidian involvement in war. Biden has done much good for the economy, but it is time to hang up his old thinking about war. We need new leadership; we need a new approach; we need new thinking. We need those who think, "How do we create peace, not how do we win this war."

Off the Top of My Head

Biden Needs to Bring These Two Wars to an End

by John Lawrence

Whether Biden wins or loses the next election, he still has a chance to bring two wars to an end. This will not only benefit the world situation, it will enhance his chances for reelection. First the war in Ukraine has ground to a stalemate, a war of attrition. This is not salubrious or propitious. The human race can ill afford the kind of enmity that war and the killing of innocents portends. The human race has to be most concerned about climate change, adaptation and mitigation. Instead, we are frittering away our chances to prevent a catastrophic outcome. But for Biden and others peace is not on the agenda, winning is. Taking sides in which we are the good guys and the other side are the bad guys is not helping the situation. Demonizing the heads of government in countries and creating enemies out of them is not productive for combating our common enemy  - climate change - nor is it productive for creating world peace. Is world peace even a consideration here? We all have to get along; the world is too small a place. Notwithstanding the war in Ukraine, Russia is a petrochemical producer which is contributing to climate change. We must get away from the production and usage of fossil fuels. Warring countries have no incentive to do that. Only cooperation among major countries has a chance at tamping down the production of fossil fuels.

Biden needs to create a peace conference, a peace initiative, for finding a compromise and solution to the war in Ukraine. Instead he wants to keep pouring money and weapons down the drain to support a war of attrition. This is totally a Cold War mentality with regard to Russia. Instead, there needs to be peace and compromise in that part of the world. Russia seems at least to be amenable to that. So should Ukraine be, but Ukraine will never be amenable to peace as long as the US keeps pouring money and weapons into it. Instead the war will only expand as attacks are starting to take place in a wider arena, something Biden did not contemplate at the outset. Instead of pouring gas on the fires of war, Biden needs to take a different attitude, an attitude of peace and reconciliation. He needs to get his dander down, and instead of insisting on winning, insist instead on creating peace in the world. Use the might of the US military to enforce the peace instead of promoting the war. The US military could be used to enforce the peace instead of winning the war.

The war in Gaza also needs to be brought to an end. Netanyahu is playing Biden for a sucker. Israel is the recipient of billions of dollars from the US. That gives Biden the right not just to suggest a solution, but to insist on a solution. The solution, which most knowledgeable people agree on, is the two state solution. So lets get on with creating it! Instead Biden is an enabler for Israel's war to turn Gaza into a refugee camp. This accomplishes nothing. Biden needs to take Netanyahu and Israel down a peg or two. The Palestinians have every right to a decent and peaceful life as do the Israelis. This needs to be created, and it can't be created as long as Netanyahu has a free hand to continue the war. Revenge is no solution; the two state solution is. Let's get on with it. It has to be an all out effort, one in which Israel cannot be allowed to have the controlling hand or the last word. On the world stage Israel and Ukraine are after all only bit players. Instead they are consuming the world's attention and resources when peaceful solutions of these two wars are not impossible to figure out. It's only hubris which is preventing those peaceful solutions from being manifested and implemented. The principals at least should be trying.

The prevailing mentality of us versus them is self defeating. It's a luxury which the world at large can no longer afford. We are destroying resources and innocent lives when we need to be pulling together to combat our common enemy - climate change. There are enough refugees in the world. There are too many children growing up without the resources necessary for happy and productive lives. Instead they will be candidates for future resentments and hatreds of those responsible for their predicaments. It is a vicious circle. Retribution, resentment and revenge is being created in the younger generation as we speak because war, hatred and recrimination is being allowed to continue. The world's collective foot must be brought down against the continuation of these two wars. Instead each side seems to think that, since they are in the right, the wars must continue. Their hubris and egotism must prevail over the other side's hubris and egotism. They are too dug in. Outsiders must discourage this. Instead the US and the west is encouraging it or at least taking a hands off attitude. They are saying in effect "you guys solve the problem," but they never will as long as each side insists on winning and not compromising.The protagonists of war must not be given a hands off attitude by the noncombatants. Instead, they must be reigned in in such a way that those who are not obsessed with retribution have the last word.

Off the Top of My Head

Netanyahu is Playing Biden for a Sucker

by John Lawrence

It's clear that Netanyahu doesn't condone the two state solution which Biden favors. Despite Netanyahu's intransigence, Biden and the US keep on giving Israel, one of the most prosperous countries in the world, more money. While the US has given Israel around $4 billion annually, it has given a relative pittance of $500 million annually to the impoverished Palestinian people. Most knowledgeable people think that a two state solution is the only way to resolve not only the crisis in Israel and Palestine, but in the larger Middle East as well. However, Biden is not demanding that Netanyahu accede to the two state solution. Why not? Why does the US keep giving billions of dollars to Israel when Israel is belligerent and intransigent about a rational solution to the problems between the Israelis and the Palestinians? Instead, an intractable problem remains, one which is guaranteed to provide additional conflict and bloodshed in perpetuity. I have written before that the US and the UN should impose a two state solution on Israel and Palestine. Indulging Israel only means that the conflict in the Middle East will never end. The additional issue is that the US has some 30 military bases in the Middle East. The people on these bases are sitting ducks to be picked off by militias operating in those areas as we saw recently when 3 US soldiers were killed at Tower 22 in Iraq. Why are these bases still there? Iraq doesn't want them there. Syria doesn't want them there. They are just contributing to the enmity that exists between some countries, mainly Shiite countries, and the US. Bin Laden's big beef with the US was the presence of US military bases in Saudi Arabia and Somalia. He sought to drive US personnel out of these areas by force. When that didn't work, he began formulating plans to attack the West with an evolving, deadly new brand of jihad. We all know what that led to. Clearly US military bases in the area are a major irritant to Shiite countries such as Iran, Iraq and Syria. And it is cooling what had seemed to be promising developments with the Sunni countries such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

I wrote previously:

The Two State Solution Must Be Created, Implemented and Enforced ... Now.

We know what a Two State solution would look like. Even all the details have been worked out. It's just that Israel and the Palestinians won't agree to it. Therefore, it must be imposed on them ... both. They should not be free to continue their mutual madness forever. What a bizarre notion of "freedom:" this portends. Why, sir, your freedom includes a right to hate and attack your neighbor in perpetuity. Free and sovereign states should not be impeded from protecting themselves even if in the long run they are not protecting themselves but just involving themselves in endless rounds of attacks and counter attacks. The world's most powerful nation just stands back and says in effect "we don't want to impose ourselves on your freedom and sovereignty. You have a sovereign right to go on with endless rounds of revenge, hatred and war."

UN peacekeepers should separate the two sides and impose peace on Israel and Palestine by imposing a two state solution backed by the power of the US. The world should say to them, "Enough." You guys are totally incapable of solving your problems, and, left to your own devices, you will go on killing each other indefinitely. By virtue of your incompetence at creating peace among yourselves, you have both lost your right to come up with a workable solution, and, therefore, one must be imposed on you, like it or not. You have both lost your right to be completely free and sovereign nations. You are both making the world a worse place. Therefore, the world community has lost its patience and tolerance for your local squabbles which are forcing the whole world to stop what it is doing and deal with your seemingly overwhelming problems. We'd like to get on with solving the problem of climate change instead of devoting our attention to interminably, intermittent wars.

World leaders seem to be more adept on giving military advice rather than advice on creating peace in the world. They are just moving pieces around on a chess board devoid of any consideration of how many people will be killed or maimed in the process. For them war is a rational game. The peace makers can't seem to make a rational game out of the steps necessary to create peace in the world. It's not in their play book. So millions of innocents have to suffer because one side is right and the other side is wrong or vice versa. Where are the leaders willing to take a chance on peace?

Off the Top of My Head

Why Not Issue an ID Card to Every Member of the Human Race?

by John Lawrence

Every member of the human race should be issued an ID card at birth which qualifies them for all the rights and privileges of being a human without respect to nationality, ethnicity or religion. Every member of the human race deserves a certain status, dignity and respect given to them as their birthright, and it's the duty of every other member to respect those rights and privileges. Human beings need to deethnicize, dereligicize and denationicize. In short we need to secularize. No one's religion, ethnicity or national origin should take priority over one's rights as a human being. Most of the problems of humanity have come about because of rivalries having to do with religion, ethnicity or nationalistic hubris. People have hubris about their political and economic systems thinking that their system is better than someone else's system. Why not respect whatever system some other country chooses to enact? The bottom line is everyone regardless of where they live or where they came from or what religion they choose to be a part of deserves certain basic human rights as a function of being a human being. Wars have been fought over religion for thousands of years. Muslims and Christians fought for hundreds of years during the Crusades era. Protestants and Catholics fought wars in Europe for hundreds of years. Hindus and Muslims fought for years until the partition of India in 1947.

The following is from Wikipedia:

The Partition of India in 1947 was the change of political borders and the division of other assets that accompanied the dissolution of the British Raj in the Indian subcontinent and the creation of two independent dominions in South Asia: India and Pakistan. The Dominion of India is today the Republic of India, and the Dominion of Pakistan—which at the time comprised two regions lying on either side of India—is now the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and the People's Republic of Bangladesh. The partition was outlined in the Indian Independence Act 1947. The change of political borders notably included the division of two provinces of British India, Bengal and Punjab. The majority Muslim districts in these provinces were awarded to Pakistan and the majority non-Muslim to India. The other assets that were divided included the British Indian Army, the Royal Indian Navy, the Royal Indian Air Force, the Indian Civil Service, the railways, and the central treasury. Provisions for self-governing independent Pakistan and India legally came into existence at midnight on 14 and 15 August 1947 respectively.

Perhaps the partition of India could be a template for a cease fire and  political settlement of the wars in Ukraine and Israel/Palestine. Borders have been moved for millennia and imposed from the outside. Borders were moved after the First World War and after the Second World War. Since the end of World War II, the international community has been committed to the preservation of territorial borders as they existed at that time. Is this realistic or even desirable when the movement of borders could resolve wars and create peaceful solutions? Borders have been changing for millennia. Saying that the world is outraged by a violation of international norms regarding territorial integrity disregards the fact that wars and disputes might be better ended by readjusting international borders. In both wars the two parties are contesting international boundaries when a redrawing of those boundaries might yield a better solution than the obliteration of one people by another, leaving the warring parties to either win or lose the war while civilian lives are being destroyed. What is more important - the retention of current borders with the concomitant destruction of civilian lives and property or the redrawing of borders while acknowledging the rights of human beings as people to exist?

In Ukraine a partition drawn where the front lines are now located might bring the bloodshed to an end. Is it right that the people of Ukraine should suffer and die over where the borders between the two adjacent countries should be drawn. After all eastern Ukraine and Crimea have been part of the Russian empire since the time of Catherine the Great. Most of Ukraine fell to the Russian Empire under the reign of Catherine the Great; the Crimean Khanate was annexed by Russia in 1783, following the Emigration of Christians from Crimea in 1778, and in 1793 right-bank Ukraine was annexed by Russia in the Second Partition of Poland. In Israel/Palestine IMHO the borders should be redrawn so that both Israel and Palestine have roughly the same amount of contiguous territory. That means that the West Bank should be expanded and Gaza eliminated as Palestinian territory. Does it make sense for the Palestinians to have two discontiguous pieces of real estate as a national entity? There should be international recognition of two separate contiguous states. Leaving it up to Israel and the Palestinians to work this out is a mistake. They will never do it voluntarily; they will fight on in perpetuity. A two state solution must be imposed from the outside with a powerful coalition probably involving the US guaranteeing the peace. What good is the military might of the US if it can't be used to impose and guarantee a peaceful solution to hostilities whether or not the hostile parties agree to it. Once the territorial boundaries are equalized, the two countries should be treated and resourced equally again whether they like it or not. One country should not be favored over the other.

War is about winning or losing irregardless of human suffering. As modern warfare has developed, the ones doing the suffering and dying are primarily civilians not soldiers as was the case in the old days, and now in Gaza the civilians doing the dying are mostly children. This is a pathetic indictment of the modern world and the human race. Humans have fought wars and committed atrocities for hundreds of thousands of years and yet we have, as a race, learned absolutely nothing. The situation has only gotten worse. Condemning the other side and insisting that our side win the war is only causing continued human - mainly civilian - mainly women and children - suffering death and destruction because (mainly men) have their egos involved and are just moving military pieces around on a chess board. Insisting on the respect and dignity given to every human qua human as being more important than who wins and who loses a war would be an advance in human civilization. The secularization of the human world with respect to religion, ethnicity and national boundaries needs to happen or humans will continue to destroy each other in the name of religion, ethnicity and national boundaries.