Israel’s Right, Cheering Donald Trump’s Win, Renews Calls to Abandon 2-State Solution, Human Decency

Vladimir Putin
http://simpsons.wikia.com/

Adapted from the New York Times*



JERUSALEM — Emboldened by the Republican sweep of last week’s American elections, right-wing members of the Israeli government have called anew for the abandonment of a two-state solution to the conflict with the Palestinians. Because, fuck Muslims, am I right?

“The combination of changes in the United States, in Europe and in the region provide Israel with a unique opportunity to reset and rethink everything,” Naftali Bennett, Israel’s education minister and the leader of the pro-settlement Jewish Home party, told a gathering of the Foreign Press Association in Jerusalem on Monday. “Mr. Trump’s victory has clearly shown us that on the path forward we will be unencumbered by bothersome requirements of human decency towards our Muslim neighbors.”

What’s next? Organize!

So Donald Trump is the president-elect of the United States. That’s quite the… uh… wow, I’m not even sure what it is. It was an awful, horrible, hateful campaign. And there is a good chance there will be a smouldering cavern where the world used to be by the time the 2018 mid-terms roll around. Women, people of colour (I’m Canadian, there’s a ‘u’ in colour), LGBTQ people, sane people – they all have a lot of reason for trepidation and fear. White men too, but a lot of us haven’t figured that out yet. Across the US, people have turned out to protest.

Protesting is a wonderful expression of discontent and can often be an agent of great change. (Nicolae Ceausescu can speak – or could have spoken – to that.) People should continue to protest every batshit crazy thing that Trump and the (somehow more) looney Republican lawmakers do as they try to undo all of the social progress made since women’s suffrage. But here’s the thing – protesting is not going to be effective right now. It is certainly not enough. There was an election two days ago. Public rallies, held by people who had an opportunity to beat Trump at the polls this week but couldn’t, are not going to strike fear in the halls of power (or the penthouse of Trump Tower).

So if you find yourself shocked, disgusted, and / or dismayed at what transpired on Tuesday, then what are you to do?