I was living in Puerto Rico when Donald came and tossed paper towels at us like….I cannot tell you what it was like. Were we monkeys getting bananas tossed to us at the zoo? Were we spectators having mascots shoot tee shirts to us out of cannons? Was there not one person to say to the President, sound fun?, yes. But you will be seen as a callous ass. On the island we had no water, electricity, roads were unpassable, internet was gone, 90% of the cell towers were down, ATM machines were not running, all vendors who may be open, only could take cash, and each day was filled with tracking down very basic necessities for survival. Much of this lasted as such for 4 months. Three thousand people died in the aftermath of the hurricane because of a lack of basic services. So paper towel being tossed at us was a kick in the groin.
For all the horrors of living in Puerto Rico post hurricane, Gaza is infinitely worse. Biden has decided, after seeing the massacre of starving people trying to get food for themselves, their children, and families to…..drop food from the sky! Sorry, it is tantamount to tossing paper towel. And it will play as such in the press and history.
Air-dropping pallets of food, to feed two million starving people, is CRAY CRAY. “Following Biden's announcement, the International Rescue Committee issued a statement saying that ‘airdrops do not and cannot substitute for humanitarian access.’” Yet, we toss our paper towels.
Those of us who love Biden, keep telling ourselves that the election will not be lost even if people are repulsed by Biden’s behavior during this war. There is not one reputable media source who agrees with our pie-in-the-sky assessment of “our Gaza policy will not effect the election.”
Biden is going to win, or lose, by a sliver. Some people keep up the mantra — “no one is going to vote for Trump because they disagree with Biden on his treatment of the war.” True, instead they are just not going to vote. Humans have never been good with cost benefit analysis. We make our decisions based on emotion, not facts and/or cost benefit analysis. If someone comes to the conclusion that Gaza has suffered mass needless killings of innocent women and children, based on revenge and collective punishment, and then starved to death, that someone will be horrified. And someone with that emotional bent, will not vote for a government who has supported the offending parties by giving them bombs and/or a hall pass. And no, many people aren’t going to do some complicated analysis of how this helps Trump. We can yell IT WILL ONLY HELP TRUMP ‘til our heads pop off, it will not change the nature of how humans make decisions. If humans were logical, Trump would have a base of 16 people.
In the short term, Biden has to use this moment to do something other than toss paper products. Biden and his people need to let the Crazy Far Right in Israel (their government) know that we will be moving in thousands of trucks with relief. That we will inspect the relief packages, deliver them, and respect the legitimate security concerns. That we aren’t taking “no” for an answer. If we cannot use the Israel border crossing we will use the Egypt border crossing. We aren’t going to delay. If we can be trusted to drop aid out of the sky, we can be trusted to put it on trucks.
Such a dramatic, obvious, and brave step by the Biden Administration will go farther than hell in ensuring there are few, to none, people staying home come the election. And we haven’t even touched on the fact we may save tens of thousands of humans.