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**FEBRUARY 28, 2024**
On the Prospect website
Starbucks Stops Opposing Its Baristas' Union
In a historic breakthrough, Starbucks and its workers announce
they've come together. BY HAROLD MEYERSON
[link removed]
Biden Judge Nominee Worked for Vulture Funds Holding Puerto Rican Debt
Sparkle Sooknanan served as one of Jones Day's lead attorneys for
a series of investors trying to maximize payouts from the struggling
U.S. territory. BY DAVID DAYEN
[link removed]
Kissinger Revisited
The
former secretary of state is responsible for virtually every American
geopolitical disaster of the past half-century. BY RICK PERLSTEIN
Kuttner on TAP
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**** Does the Road to Peace Lead Through
Michigan?
Tuesday's wake-up call should lead Biden to change U.S. policy on
Israel-Gaza.
Sponsors of the "uncommitted" campaign in the Michigan Democratic
primary got just over 100,000 votes
,
or about 13.3 percent of the total. That's surely enough to get
President Biden's attention. The question is whether it's enough to
change Biden's policy on Israel-Gaza, which could cost him the 2024
election.
Sponsors of the campaign had lowballed expectations, saying they hoped
to get at least 10,000 votes. In fact, in each of the last
three
Democratic
presidential
primaries, "uncommitted" collected about 20,000 votes, no matter if the
election was contested or not. That was the baseline, and despite
increased turnout for a foregone conclusion of an election, uncommitted
did snag over five times that figure. (The 2016 and 2020 primaries saw
twice as many votes on the Democratic side.)
This success in yesterday's primary cannot be taken lightly. It's
too easy for the Biden campaign to whistle past the graveyard by
assuming that Arab American and other Muslim voters will appreciate in
November that Trump would be even worse for them. Many may just not turn
out.
More worrisome for Biden than the large uncommitted vote in Dearborn,
which is about half Arab American, was the vote in Ann Arbor, where
about a third of the ballots were cast for uncommitted. There is no
other state with such a large concentration of Muslims; but every state
has large numbers of students, who are increasingly disaffected.
The large turnout of the young was crucial to Democratic success in the
past three federal elections, for Congress in 2018 and 2022 and the
presidency in 2020. Biden cannot take it for granted in 2024.
[link removed]
It would make an immense difference if Biden would condition continuing
aid to Israel on a cease-fire, followed by steps toward a regional peace
plan. The challenge, however, as every knowledgeable observer of the
Mideast has pointed out, is that too many assumptions of what happens
after a cease-fire are just not plausible. The Biden administration's
idea of a "reconstituted" Palestinian Authority administering Gaza is
wishful. So is the premise that Hamas will somehow stand down.
Yet the stars are in weird alignment for some kind of grand bargain
because the region's most important Arab states, led by the Saudis,
have decided that a settlement with Israel, which has to include a
Palestinian state, is in their interest. What's lacking is an Israeli
government as negotiating partner.
Israel's actions in Gaza and the West Bank are appalling in their own
right and could cost Biden the election. Netanyahu keeps giving Biden
red lines. Settlers in the occupied West Bank continue to steal
Palestinian homes and lands while Israeli police stand by. And if
Netanyahu goes ahead with his threat to invade Rafah, there will be more
carnage.
Biden needs to give a forceful speech saying that the United States
continues to support Israel's security but will not be associated with
further Israel-sponsored carnage; that settler thefts of Palestinian
land or further Israeli displacement and killing of civilians in Gaza
will cause U.S. aid to cease. Biden needs to point out that Israel's
disastrous practices are making Israel's security and survival less
likely, not more.
Such a speech would likely cause Netanyahu's government to fall. The
road to peace, or even to a less dangerous armed truce, is far from
certain under any circumstances. But it stands a better chance with a
successor Israeli government, not to mention a second Biden term.
~ ROBERT KUTTNER
Follow Robert Kuttner on Twitter
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