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Author and activist Fatima Bhutto believes US Vice President Kamala Harris’ stance on Gaza, in comparison to her pro-choice policy during her campaign for the US presidential elections, was “an absolute betrayal of feminism”.
During a recent appearance on independent news programme Democracy Now, Bhutto highlighted that 70 per cent of people killed by Israel and “by America because it’s American bombs and American diplomatic cover that allows this slaughter to continue unabated”, were women and children.
“For Kamala Harris to come out and talk repeatedly about abortion — and I say this as someone who is pro-choice, who has always been pro-choice — was not just macabre, but it’s obscene. It’s an absolute betrayal of feminism, because feminism is about liberation. It’s not about termination. And it’s about protecting women at their most vulnerable and at their most frightened. And there was no sign of that.”
She also criticised Harris’ vacuousness in bringing out celebrities such as Jennifer Lopez, Beyonce and others to talk about being a mother, while mothers in Gaza were losing their husbands and children. According to the author, “It was not just tone deaf, it seemed to have a certain hostility, a certain contempt for the suffering that the rest of us have been watching.”
Bhutto maintained that there was also a lot of toxic masculinity showcased during Harris’ campaign, emphasising that one didn’t need to be a man to practice toxic masculinity.
“I watched her laugh with Oprah as she spoke about shooting someone who might enter her house with a gun, and giggling and saying her PR team may not like that, but she would kill them. […] You don’t need to be white to practice white supremacy, as we’ve seen very clearly from this election cycle.”
‘Total racism’ — Ukraine vs Gaza
Bhutto said the reaction of the West to the war in Ukraine compared to the Israeli assault on Gaza was “total racism” because Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky was “spoken about with a sort of hero worship [and] Ukrainian resisters to Russia’s invasion are valorised.”
“But Palestinians are painted as terrorists, are dehumanised to such an extent. You know, we saw that dehumanisation from the mouths of Bill Clinton no less, from the mouths of Kamala Harris, who interrupted somebody speaking out against the genocide, and saying, ‘I am speaking.’ What is more toxically masculine than that?”
She also called out the concerted crackdown on US universities where college students were protesting Israeli atrocities, including her own alma mater of Barnard College where the New York Police Department was summoned and fired live ammunition at the students.
Bhutto continued that a response this extreme did not occur during protests against the South African apartheid or the Vietnam War.
“America and the West, who have been fighting Muslim countries for the last 25, 30 years, see that as acceptable to do so. Our deaths are acceptable to them, and genocide is not a red line.”
She maintained that the American working class was “absolutely ignored” as they watched one administration after another give “billions and billions of dollars to Ukraine, while they have no relief at home […] and after Ukraine, they saw billions go to Israel in the same way, while they get, frankly, nothing.”
‘Macabre campaign’ — Harris vs Trump
Talking about the Democratic presidential candidate, who lost to the Republican candidate, former US president Donald Trump, Bhutto said the Democrats ran an “incredibly weak and actually macabre campaign”.
“Kamala Harris describe[d] her politics as one of joy as she promised the most lethal military in the world, talking about women’s rights in America, essentially focusing those rights on the right to termination, while the rest of the world has watched women slaughtered in Gaza.”
Bhutto said it was very curious that the Democrats believed a winning strategy was Beyonce or an endorsement from Taylor Swift in defeating “Trump, who was speaking to people, who was speaking against wars. You know, whether we believe him or not, it was a marked difference from what Kamala Harris was saying and was not saying.”
She emphasised that Trump had been a maligning force when it came to Palestine and other causes, however, she argued that there wasn’t much difference between what the two administrations or parties do.
“The difference is that Trump doesn’t have the gloss and the charisma of an Obama […] I can’t even say that Biden has charisma, but certainly the gloss. Trump says it. They do it. The difference — I can’t really tell the difference anymore.”
The Runaways author said the Biden administration sent over 500 shipments of arms to Israel, betraying America’s own laws, “the fact that they are not allowed to export weapons of war to a country committing gross violations of human rights”.
She highlighted former president Clinton’s speech in Michigan during the Harris campaign where he told Muslims “they should stop killing Israelis and that Jews were there before them […] It was an utterly contemptuous speech. So, what is the difference?”
Bhutto added that Democratic senator Bernie Sanders, in an op-ed article, warned people that the climate crisis would exacerbate under Trump, however, Israel’s emission in the first five months of their attack on Gaza released more planet-warming gases in to the atmosphere than 20 of the world’s most climate vulnerable nations release in a year.
“I don’t quite see that there’s a difference between what Democrats allow and what Trump brags about. I think it’s just a question of crudeness and decorum and politeness. One has it, and one doesn’t.”
She said Trump was much clearer for the rest of the world because he did what he said, whereas people were “gaslit and lied to by [US Secretary of State] Antony Blinken on a daily basis now since October 7.”
According to Bhutto, every time US representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or Harris spoke about a ceasefire in Gaza, there was more carnage, more massacres and Israel committing crimes with total impunity.
“It wasn’t under Trump that Israel killed more journalists than have ever been killed in any recorded conflict. It’s under Biden that Israel has killed more UN workers than have ever been killed in the UN’s history. So, I’m not sure there’s a difference.”
She said that Harris lost 14 million votes from Biden’s win in 2020 and those votes didn’t come out for the Democrats. “Some may have migrated to Trump, some may have gone to third parties, but 14 million just didn’t go anywhere.”
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