Former President Barack Obama said a way forward for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is only possible if people acknowledge the “complexity” of the situation.

“If there’s any chance of us being able to act constructively to do something, it will require an admission of complexity and maintaining what on the surface may seem contradictory ideas that what Hamas did was horrific, and there’s no justification for it. And … that the occupation and what’s happening to Palestinians is unbearable,” Obama said in an interview on the podcast “Pod Save America.”

The former president’s comments come as the Israeli military focuses its offensive against Hamas in Gaza City and northern parts of the enclave.

    • Ð Greıt Þu̇mpkin@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Nah, he might seem reasonable here but his foreign policy scatterbrain pattern is part of why Ukraine is in such dire straights now. Man hesitated to stand up to Russia when they went into crimea, the point when they could have been stopped, and where Ukraine could have been swept into the EU orbit with far less bloodshed.

      • ours@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Obama standing up to Russia during the Crimea invasion would make for some interesting alt-history.

        With Russia under stronger sanctions earlier, perhaps they would have less opportunity to feed and fund the alt-right to the same extent as it has been.

        • ASeriesOfPoorChoices@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Please, they’ve been stirring shit up on a shoestring budget for decades. It’s almost impressive what they’ve been managing to do.

          They should run a frugal youtube channel and teach the CIA how its done.

    • Linkerbaan@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      The drone strike guy who didn’t close gitmo?

      What israel is doing in Palestine is what oBomber did during his entire presidency.

      Let’s judge people on their actions instead of hollow words. Even the walking orange did better than Obama when it comes to foreign policy by withdrawing from Afghanistan.

      • rusticus@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Do you think anyone outside of the 30% of Confederate descendants in the US agrees with you?

        • Thief_of_Crows@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          I’m a leftist and I agree with him. Sure, obama wasn’t as bad as Bush or Reagan, but he was still pretty shit.

          I judge by results, and he’s right that even trump was better on foreign policy than Obama. Staying in the forever wars for his entire 2 terms is completely unforgivable.

        • Linkerbaan@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Isn’t it sad that you’re so fixated on defending “lefties” that you’re willing to ignore that Obama was a warmonger that indiscriminately targeted civilians to further US imperialism?

          But keep going about the repubs vs dems circlejerk.

          • dragonflyteaparty@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Isn’t it sad that you ignore that the Republican presidents didn’t close gitmo either and that Trump actually increased the drone strikes?

          • Rusticus@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Lol I hope you’re getting paid to do your farcical trolling. I said nothing about repubs vs dems - YOU did. I just mentioned the racists, sexists and bigots that are the only ones on your side of this argument.

        • maniii@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Obama is a Centrist-Democrat. Right-wingers AGREED with his policies enough that all they complained about was how much melanin his clothes lacked and lack of head protection. That meant the policies and actions were favorable to Right-wing nuts :-( Cancelling student debt, bailing out families in need, reinforcing the Social-Security, VA, CDC, EPA, FDA and making Roe-Wade into law ( along with the ACA ) in so many ways were sidelined and ignored while 2008 taught the lessons that werent learnt, 2019 hit so hard and so fast nothing could have been effective at stopping the long plunge into the depths.

          Centrists do nothing except maintain the status-quo while silently allowing everything that failed to stay broken, while the next cycle of things to break happens over and over again until that deep dark pit becomes the new reality.

        • Linkerbaan@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Not really since every rebuttal I receive here cannot seem to reason past the level of ad-hominems.

    • Thief_of_Crows@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      The guy who doesn’t understand that genocide is not at all complex? The guy who bombed a wedding and a hospital? And intentionally targeted American citizens with drone strikes? No thanks.

    • Bricked@lemdro.id
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      1 year ago

      The “lead from behind” guy who delivered $4 billion in cash by US military to Iran? No Thanks