Issue #908 The Choice, Thursday, August 14, 2025
Foreign policy is not my strong suit, but you don’t have to be a foreign policy expert to understand that genocide is being committed against the Palestinian people in Gaza right now. Normally, that story would be much more prominent in the headlines, especially considering that the Israeli government now appears to be assassinating journalists. Except that we have a criminal sexual predator for a president whose increasingly unsuccessful attempts to deflect attention away from his depraved nature are making it more difficult for editors to decide what’s likely to get more hits.
Pursue a play-by-play covering the latest developments with the Jeffrey Epstein files? Or keep an eye on government-sanctioned mass genocide sanctioned by a government that is supposed to be a staunch US ally that nobody is supposed to criticize for fear of being labeled anti-Semitic?
Yeah. That’s a tough one.
Meanwhile, from yesterday’s The Guardian:
“Israel always boasted that it was the only country in the region to support press freedom. That boast rang hollow even before the current war. Now, it’s not even pretending. On Sunday, Israel openly and brazenly killed six journalists as they were sheltering in a tent that housed reporters and media workers.
“Israel accuses one of those journalists – Al Jazeera’s Anas al-Sharif – of being a terrorist. It has not said what crime it believes the others have committed that would justify killing them. The laws of war are clear: journalists are civilians. To target them deliberately in war is to commit a war crime.
“It is hardly surprising that Israel believes it can get away with murder. In the two decades preceding 7 October, Israeli forces killed 20 journalists. No one has ever been held accountable for any of those deaths, including that of the Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, whose killing in 2022 sent shock waves through the region. Abu Akleh, a dual US-Palestinian citizen, was a household name in the Middle East, just as al-Sharif became a familiar face for audiences for his coverage of Israel’s assault on Gaza.”
Had the 2024 election gone the other way, I think it’s highly unlikely things would have gotten anywhere near this bad. Although I think President Joe Biden was far too lenient and accommodating of Israel’s outrages, and it’s possible that Vice President Kamala Harris may have been similarly accommodating if she was now in the driver’s seat – we’ll never know – I do think it’s safe to speculate with a fair degree of certainty that Harris would not have simply twiddled her thumbs and played golf while a genocide was being perpetrated against the Palestinians. At the very least, before Biden left office, he and Harris were working round-the-clock toward the creation of a ceasefire plan that had actually begun to take hold before Trump stumbled into office and told Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu to do whatever the hell he wanted. From the U.S. Department of Defense website, dated January 16, just before Biden was about to hand over the keys to a madman:
“In his final address from the Oval Office yesterday, President Joe Biden announced a ceasefire and hostage-exchange deal between Israel and Hamas — a truce that Defense Department officials believe signals a possible end to 15 months of conflict in the region.”
Would that ceasefire have held up? Who knows. But it was at least a step toward ending the carnage. At least he wasn’t talking about turning Gaza into another Trump resort. After the Palestinians had all been swept away, of course.
From NPR on February 26 of this year:
“The video [posted by Trump on his social media) also shows children running out of the rubble into a world of palm trees and luxury buildings, and a towering golden statue of Trump. It depicts men in apparent drag dancing in bikinis on the beach, Trump enjoying a belly dancer and a man resembling Elon Musk being showered with cash in the form of U.S. currency.
“The post comes weeks after Trump suggested the U.S. should take over the Gaza Strip and relocate Palestinians.”
Today, August 14, 2025, marks 205 days since Trump was sworn into office. There are 1,255 days left until January 20, 2029. If Trump is defeated, then that is how much longer we have to endure this. Except that Trump has no intention of voluntarily leaving office in January of 2029.
1,255 more days.
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