November 6, 2023

Monday, November 6, 2023. Annette’s News Roundup.

I think the Roundup makes people feel not so alone.

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Two national Election Polls by two widely respected pollsters.

Two different results. One poll has gotten more attention than the other.

Take this in. Don’t panic. Take nothing for granted. Get ready to fight

Trump Leads in 5 Critical States as Voters Blast Biden, Times/Siena Poll Finds.

Voters in battleground states said they trusted Donald J. Trump over President Biden on the economy, foreign policy and immigration, as Mr. Biden’s multiracial base shows signs of fraying.

President Biden is trailing Donald J. Trump in five of the six most important battleground states one year before the 2024 election, suffering from enormous doubts about his age and deep dissatisfaction over his handling of the economy and a host of other issues, new polls by The New York Times and Siena College have found.

The results show Mr. Biden losing to Mr. Trump, his likeliest Republican rival, by margins of three to 10 percentage points among registered voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania. Mr. Biden is ahead only in Wisconsin, by two percentage points, the poll found.

Discontent pulsates throughout the Times/Siena poll, with a majority of voters saying Mr. Biden’s policies have personally hurt them. The survey also reveals the extent to which the multiracial and multigenerational coalition that elected Mr. Biden is fraying. Demographic groups that backed Mr. Biden by landslide margins in 2020 are now far more closely contested, as two-thirds of the electorate sees the country moving in the wrong direction.

Voters under 30 favor Mr. Biden by only a single percentage point, his lead among Hispanic voters is down to single digits and his advantage in urban areas is half of Mr. Trump’s edge in rural regions. And while women still favored Mr. Biden, men preferred Mr. Trump by twice as large a margin, reversing the gender advantage that had fueled so many Democratic gains in recent years.

Black voters — long a bulwark for Democrats and for Mr. Biden — are now registering 22 percent support in these states for Mr. Trump, a level unseen in presidential politics for a Republican in modern times.

Add it all together, and Mr. Trump leads by 10 points in Nevada, six in Georgia, five in Arizona, five in Michigan and four in Pennsylvania. Mr. Biden held a 2-point edge in Wisconsin. (New York Times).

@Nate_Cohn. Biden would return to '20 levels of support -- and tied or ahead across the six states -- if he could merely win back the young, nonwhite voters who back Harris over Trump, but who don't support Biden.

Susquehanna Polling.

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On the Israel-Hamas War.

U.S. says more than 300 Americans have been able to leave Gaza.

Farah Salouha (right), a Palestinian-American, on a bus before departing Gaza for Egypt on Friday.

More than 300 Americans and their families have been able to leave the war-ravaged Gaza Strip, a White House official said on Sunday, but negotiations over releasing American hostages remain tenuous.

Jon Finer, the deputy national security adviser, said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that the United States was able in recent days to safely move more than 300 citizens, lawful permanent residents and their families out of Gaza “through pretty intensive negotiations with all sides relevant to this conflict.”

A Biden administration official said on Friday that efforts to get Americans and other foreign citizens out of Gaza, a process that began on Wednesday, had been held up by Hamas’s efforts to get its own wounded fighters into Egypt through the Rafah gate.

About 400 Americans were estimated to be in the region, which has been besieged by Israeli bombardments in response to the Oct. 7 Hamas attack against Israel, which left 1,400 dead. Mr. Finer said a number of Americans remained in Gaza but didn’t specify how many or address whether there were any casualties among them.

“This is obviously a major priority, and one that we’re going to continue to work out until every American who wants to leave is able to do so,” Mr. Finer said.

Mr. Finer called the negotiations to secure the release of hostages being held by Hamas “difficult.”

“Those negotiations are going on quietly behind the scenes — they have taken longer than any of us would like,” Mr. Finer said.

He said the United States continued to believe there was a possibility of getting hostages released after Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, suggested he would consider a pause in the fighting if it was in the context of a hostage release agreement. But Mr. Netanyahu has rebuffed calls by the United States for a “humanitarian pause” to allow aid to reach Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

On Saturday, President Biden responded “yes” and gave a thumbs up when asked if there was progress on getting a humanitarian pause in Gaza.

As the Biden administration continues to come under fire for its support of Israel amid devastating conditions and mounting civilian casualties in Gaza, Mr. Finer said the United States believes Israel still faces an “enormous threat from Hamas.”

This weekend, tens of thousands of protesters took to streets across the country, including outside the White House, to denounce the siege in Gaza and call for a cease-fire.

Mr. Finer added that the United States had continued to raise with Israel’s leaders concerns about “the devastating toll that this has taken on civilians.”

The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry reported that the latest death toll from the fighting had reached more than 9,700, including 4,008 children, and that thousands were believed to still be buried under rubble. (New York Times).

Palestinian Congresswoman Tlaib accuses Biden of supporting genocide against Palestinians.

U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib on Friday accused President Joe Biden of backing a Palestinian genocide, an extraordinary attack on the leader of her own party as an election year nears.

Tlaib, a Michigan Democrat who is the only Palestinian American in Congress, made the charge in a 90-second video posted on X Friday afternoon that shows images of children injured by bombings in the Gaza Strip and mass pro-Palestinian rallies in various states chanting “from the river to the sea.” It came two days after the House  rejected an effort by right-wing Republicans to censure Tlaib for antisemitism, and as pro-Israel groups have promised to pour money into a primary challenge against her.

“Mr. President, the American people are not with you on this one,” Tlaib says to the camera. “We will remember in 2024.” The video ends with a series of black cards with the words: “Joe Biden supported the genocide of the Palestinian people.  The American people won’t forget. Biden, support a cease-fire now. Or don’t count on us in 2024. (The Forward).

Democrats criticize Rep. Rashida Tlaib for her pro-Palestinian comments.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib is facing backlash from some of her fellow Democrats, including in her home state of Michigan, over her recent remarks on Palestine amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas.

Tlaib, who is Palestinian American and one of just three Muslim members of Congress, posted a video to the social media site X on Friday featuring footage of pro-Palestinian protests from across the country, as well as remarks from President Joe Biden expressing his support for Israel. The video ended with Tlaib saying, “We will remember in 2024,” followed by the text: “Joe Biden supported the genocide of the Palestinian people.”

In another tweet, Tlaib wrote: “From the river to the sea is an aspirational call for freedom, human rights, and peaceful coexistence, not death, destruction, or hate. My work and advocacy is always centered in justice and dignity for all people no matter faith or ethnicity.”

Democrats took issue with Tlaib’s remarks over the weekend.

Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz slammed Tlaib’s “from the river to the sea” remark in a tweet Sunday: “This phrase means eradicating Israel and Jews. Period. Dressing it up in a new PR ploy won’t change that. Only a return of hostages, eliminating Hamas and liberating Gaza from oppressive terror will save civilian lives and secure the peace, justice and dignity you seek.”

Michigan Senate President Pro Tem Jeremy Moss suggested Tlaib’s tweet was insensitive to Jewish people: “This is not how Jews view the phrase ‘from the river to the sea.’ This is not how Hamas views the phrase ‘from the river to the sea,’" he wrote on X.

“Hamas uses it as a rallying cry,” he added. “And they don’t simply want to displace Jews in Israel. They want Jews dead.”

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel called Tlaib’s tweet “hurtful,” writing, “I have supported and defended you countless times, even when you have said the indefensible, because I believed you to be a good person whose heart was in the right place.”

“But this is so hurtful to so many,” she added. “Please retract this cruel and hateful remark.”

Michigan state Rep. Noah Arbit tweeted that he found Tlaib’s comments to be “disturbing”: “It is disturbing and enraging that Jewish communities in Southfield, Franklin, Bingham Farms, Beverly Hills and beyond are represented by someone who adopts wholesale the call for the State of Israel to be wiped from the map, necessitating the elimination of 8 million Jews.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., noted that Tlaib is a “friend” before criticizing her remarks on Palestine in an interview on CNN on Sunday: “President Obama just said the other day, I think, quite correctly — and we all got to deal with it — this is an enormously complex issue.”

“And slogans like ‘the river to the sea,’ if that means the destruction of Israel, that’s not going to work,” he added. “People who are saying, Israel, right or wrong, we’re for you all the way, that’s not going to work. This is a horrendously complex issue.”

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash. — the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, who has warned Biden about his support for Israel and called for a cease-fire — on Sunday declined to side with Tlaib’s claim that the president supports “genocide” in an interview on MSNBC’s “Inside With Jen Psaki.”

“I am not willing to say that yet,” Jayapal said when asked if she agrees with Tlaib’s remark, “but I will just tell you that Rashida is not the first person to say this.”

Jayapal added: “There are credible reports from agencies across the world. And, you know, the United Nations has said we are hurtling towards the genocide of Palestinians. That is not an isolated view.”

Tlaib’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Democratic criticism of Tlaib mounted as Israel said it would press on with its offensive in Gaza despite appeals from the U.S. and other countries for a pause to get aid to civilians. More than 1.4 million people have been displaced in Gaza, and health officials there say more than 9,700 have been killed. Israel says 1,400 people were killed in the Hamas attack, and more than 200 are still being held hostage.

The Democratic Party has increasingly been divided on the issue of the Israel-Hamas war, with some voters on the left criticizing Biden and Democratic politicians — such as Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips and Sen. John Fetterman — and staging protests.

In response to Tlaib’s latest comments, Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia said she would reintroduce a resolution to censure the Michigan Democrat after her initial effort to do so was defeated by a bipartisan majority last week.

Greene said Tlaib’s embrace of the slogan was equivalent to “calls for genocide of our great friend and ally Israel.” The Anti-Defamation League has previously labeled the chant promoted by Tlaib as “an antisemitic charge.”

Referring to the 23 Republicans who voted with Democrats against the resolution on Wednesday, Greene said she would remove the language “insurrection” and replace it with “illegal occupation.” The censure resolution that Greene filed last month accused Tlaib of inciting an insurrection in a House office building.

On Oct. 18., hundreds of protesters filled the Cannon House Office Building to call for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war. A Capitol Police spokesperson said that to the best of their knowledge, everyone went through security and entered the complex the proper way.

Tlaib didn’t attend the protest indoors, a source familiar with the matter previously told NBC News, but she delivered remarks at a rally with the demonstrators outside the Capitol.

After voting against her resolution to censure Tlaib, Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, pointed out Greene’s history of antisemitic remarks, including her suggestion that a “laser beam” controlled by a wealthy Jewish family was behind deadly wildfires in California in 2018. (NBC News).

📺 Bernie Sanders on Rep. Tlaib's criticisms of Biden:

"You can disagree with Joe Biden, but on his worst day he'll be a hundred times better than Trump and right-wing Republicans."

Israeli novelist David Grossman: 'Who will we be when we rise from the ashes?' - Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

(JTA) — Some 1,000 killed, more than 3,000 injured, scores of people taken hostage. Every survivor is a miraculous story of resourcefulness and bravery. Countless miracles, countless acts of heroism and sacrifice by soldiers and civilians.

I look at people’s faces and see shock. Numbness. Our hearts are weighed down by constant burden. Over and over again we say to each other: it’s a nightmare. A nightmare beyond comparison. No words to describe it. No words to contain it.

I also see a deep sense of betrayal. The betrayal of citizens by their government — by the prime minister and his destructive coalition. A betrayal of all we hold precious as citizens, and in particular as citizens of this state. A betrayal of its formative, and binding, idea. Of the most precious deposit of all — the Jewish people’s national home — which has been handed to its leaders to safeguard, and which they should have treated with reverence. But instead, what have we seen? What have we grown accustomed to seeing, as though it were inevitable? What we’ve seen is the utter abandonment of the state in favor of petty, greedy agendas and cynical, narrow-minded, delirious politics.

What is happening now is the concrete price Israel is paying for having been seduced for years by a corrupt leadership which drove it downhill from bad to worse; which eroded its institutions of law and justice, its military, its education system; which was willing to place it in existential danger in order to keep its prime minister out of prison.

Just think now of what we collaborated with for years. Think of all the energy, thought and money we wasted on watching Netanyahu and his family play out their Ceaușescu-style dramas. Think of the grotesque illusions they produced for our disbelieving eyes.

In the past nine months, millions of Israelis took to the streets every week to protest against the government and the man at its head. It was a movement of huge significance, an attempt to get Israel back on course, back to the lofty notion at the roots of its existence: creating a home for the Jewish people. And not just any home. Millions of Israelis wanted to build a liberal, democratic, peace-loving state that respects the faith of all people. But instead of listening to what the protest movement had to offer, Netanyahu chose to discredit it, to depict it as traitorous, to incite against it, to deepen the hatred among its factors. Yet he took every opportunity to declare how powerful Israel was, how determined, and above all — how well-prepared it was to face any threat.

Tell that to the parents driven mad with grief, to the baby thrown on the side of the road. Tell that to the hostages. Tell that to the people who voted for you. Tell it to the 80 breaches in the most advanced border fence in the world.

But make no mistake, and do not be confused: With all the fury at Netanyahu and his people and his policies, the horror of these past few days was not caused by Israel. It was effected by Hamas. The occupation is a crime, but to shoot hundreds of civilians — children and parents, elderly and sick in cold blood — that is a worse crime. Even in the hierarchy of evil, there is a “ranking.” There is a scale of severity that common sense and natural instincts can identify. And when you see the killing fields of the music festival site, when you see Hamas terrorists on motorcycles chasing young partiers, some of whom are still dancing without realizing what’s going on …

I do not know whether Hamas operatives should be called “animals,” but they have undoubtedly lost their humanity.

We move through these nights and days like sleepwalkers. Trying to resist the temptation to watch the horrific clips and listen to the rumors. Feeling the fear seep in among those who, for the first time in 50 years — since the Yom Kippur war — are experiencing the terrifying prospect of defeat.

Who will we be when we rise from the ashes and re-enter our lives? When we viscerally feel the pain of author Haim Gouri’s words, written during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, “How numerous are those no longer with us.” Who will we be and what kind of human beings will we be after seeing what we’ve seen? Where will we start after the destruction and loss of so many things we believed in and trusted?

If I may hazard a guess: Israel after the war will be much more right-wing, militant, and racist. The war forced on it will have cemented the most extreme, hateful stereotypes and prejudices that frame — and will continue to frame all the more robustly — Israeli identity. And that identity will from now on also embody the trauma of October 2023, as well as the polarization, the internal rift.

Is it possible that what was lost — or indefinitely suspended — on Oct. 7 was the minuscule chance for real dialogue, for each nation’s true acceptance of the other’s existence? And what do those who brandished the absurd notion of a “binational state” say now? Israel and Palestine, two nations distorted and corrupted by endless war, cannot even be cousins to each other — does anyone still believe they can be conjoined twins? Many warless years will have to pass before acceptance and healing can even be considered. In the meantime, we can only imagine the magnitude of fear and hatred that will now rise to the surface. I hope, I pray, that there will be Palestinians on the West Bank who, despite their hatred of Israel — their occupier — will set themselves apart, whether through action or words, from what their compatriots have done. As an Israeli, I have no right to preach to them or tell them what to do. But as a human being, I have a right — and an obligation — to demand of them humane and moral conduct.

Towards the end of last month, the leaders of the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia spoke enthusiastically of a peace accord between Israel and the Saudis, which would build on Israel’s normalization agreements with Morocco and the United Arab Emirates. The Palestinians are barely present in these agreements. Netanyahu, arrogant and exuding self-confidence, managed — in his words — to sever the connection between the Palestinian problem and Israel’s relations with Arab states. The Israeli-Saudi accord is not unrelated to the events of “Black Saturday” between Gaza and Israel. The peace it would have created is a peace of the wealthy. It is an attempt to skip over the heart of the conflict. These past few days have proved that it is impossible to begin resolving the Middle Eastern tragedy without offering a solution that alleviates the Palestinians’ suffering.

Are we capable of shaking off the well-worn formulas and understanding that what has occurred here is too immense and too terrible to be viewed through stale paradigms? Even Israel’s conduct and its crimes in the occupied territories for 56 years cannot justify or soften what has been laid bare: the depth of hatred towards Israel, the painful understanding that we Israelis will always have to live here in heightened alertness and constant preparedness for war. In an unceasing effort to be both Athens and Sparta at once. And a fundamental doubt that we might ever be able to lead a normal, free life, unfettered by threats and anxieties. A stable, secure life. A life that is home. (David Grossman is one of Israel’s most prominent novelists, much admired both domestically and internationally. He won the International Booker Prize in 2017. This article originally appeared in the Financial Times).

A story about Joe Biden.

Rachel Goldberg (whose son Hersh is a hostage taken on October 7th and remains missing) describes how a fellow Israeli mother on a Zoom with President Biden last month learned during the call that her second daughter was dead — and how he responded

Touch 👇 to watch Rachel Goldberg herself, at the U.N., talk about how her son Hersh was taken by Hamas.

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Tuesday is Election Day.

Keep these states especially in your minds. Call friends and family. Volunteer. Get out the vote including your own.

Kentucky.

Democratic Governor Andy Beshear and Family. Up for re-election in KY.

Ohio.

Pennsylvania.

Virginia.

Touch to Watch David Hogg on the Virginia election.

One more thing.

The school bord races happening in a few days are gonna be a real big deal for so many students and kids — major efforts by conservatives to take over boards across Virginia and Pennsylvania, and elsewhere. And so many other local races too, across the nation.

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Marathon Sunday in New York City. Yesterday.

Chelsea Clinton.

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This is happening today in New York City.

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