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After the Trump win: The fierce urgency of Palestine in U.S. political life
These past days of hearing Trumpworld roll out the President-elect’s expected nominations for positions in the foreign policy/defense space have been harrowing indeed. As human-rights expert Craig Mokhiber remarked about the choice of far-right bully Elise Stefanik to be ambassador to the UN:
Other countries send diplomats to serve as UN Ambassadors. The US always sends AIPAC-approved Israel shills. And, this time, one who is also an abrasive, bigoted, far-right clown…
The expected nominations of uber-Zionist Mike Huckabee as ambassador to Israel, latter-day “crusade” supporter Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense, and so on have been equally disturbing. (One possible bright spot was the report of “First Buddy” Elon Musk having met with Iran’s ambassador to the UN, back on Monday.)
Trump is an unstable, idiosyncratic decision-maker. Although most of his prospective nominations are extremely concerning, we still have zero idea of how he will actually wield his power once he returns to the White House January 20. During his first term in office he fairly frequently over-ruled his own cabinet members, or axed them at short notice. It’s also good to recall the number of times he has railed against foreign wars and the costs of overseas bases, etc.
But still, there is currently plenty of cause for concern- in his future conduct of foreign affairs as well as of domestic affairs.
Meantime, though, there is also a huge amount to be concerned about regarding the remaining two months of Joe Biden’s presidency, especially when we review the record of his nearly four years in office to date. Craig Mokhiber once again nailed it when, talking to the Electronic Intifada livestream on Wednesday about the prospects for the Trump-47 presidency, he said,
there’s plenty to fear. But to pretend that we’ve just gone from a paradise into hell is ignoring the fact that we’ve just gone from hell into another room in hell.
Prime case in point: The Biden administration’s announcement on Tuesday that, at the end of Biden’s previously declared “30-day deadline” for Israel to increase the flow of aid trucks into Gaza to at least 350 trucks/day, or face real consequences, “we…
