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#Biden raises cease-fire
zvaigzdelasas · 3 months
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A painful reality check shows the 600-mile-long Ukrainian-Russian front in a figurative and literal freeze, draining Ukrainian resources and lives without much prospect for change in the foreseeable future. The much-anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive of the past six months exacted a huge cost in casualties and matériel, but barely nudged the front lines. Ukraine’s top military commander has said the fight is at a “stalemate” — a notion deemed taboo not long ago — and only an unlikely technological breakthrough by one side or the other could break it. [...]
The way things are going, “Ukraine will for the foreseeable future harbor Europe’s most dangerous geopolitical fault line,” [...] an endless conflict that deepens Russia’s alienation from the West, enshrines Putinism and delays Ukraine’s integration into Europe. That, at least, is the bleak prognosis if victory in the war continues to be defined in territorial terms, specifically the goal of driving Russia out of all the Ukrainian lands it occupied in 2014 and over the past 22 months, including Crimea and a thick wedge of southeastern Ukraine, altogether about a fifth of Ukraine’s sovereign territory. But regaining territory is the wrong way to imagine the best outcome. True victory for Ukraine is to rise from the hell of the war as a strong, independent, prosperous and secure state, firmly planted in the West.[...]
the only way to find out if Mr. Putin is serious about a cease-fire, and whether one can be worked out, is to give it a try. Halting Russia well short of its goals and turning to the reconstruction and modernization of Ukraine would be lasting tributes to the Ukrainians who have made the ultimate sacrifice to preserve the existence of their nation. And no temporary armistice would forever preclude Ukraine from recovering all of its land.
With U.S. and European aid to Ukraine now in serious jeopardy, the Biden administration and European officials are quietly shifting their focus from supporting Ukraine’s goal of total victory over Russia to improving its position in an eventual negotiation to end the war, according to a Biden administration official and a European diplomat based in Washington. Such a negotiation would likely mean giving up parts of Ukraine to Russia. The White House and Pentagon publicly insist there is no official change in administration policy — that they still support Ukraine’s aim of forcing Russia’s military completely out of the country. [...]
The administration official told POLITICO Magazine this week that much of this strategic shift to defense is aimed at shoring up Ukraine’s position in any future negotiation. “That’s been our theory of the case throughout — the only way this war ends ultimately is through negotiation,” said the official, a White House spokesperson who was given anonymity because they are not authorized to speak on the record.[...]
“Those discussions [about peace talks] are starting, but [the administration] can’t back down publicly because of the political risk” to Biden, said a congressional official who is familiar with the administration’s thinking and who was granted anonymity to speak freely.[...]
The European diplomat based in Washington said that the European Union is also raising the threat of expediting Ukraine’s membership in NATO to “put the Ukrainians in the best situation possible to negotiate” with Moscow. That is a flashpoint for Putin, who is believed to be mainly interested in a strategic deal with Washington under which Ukraine will not enter NATO. [...]
For most of the conflict GOP critics have accused Biden of moving too slowly to arm the Ukrainians with the most sophisticated weaponry, such as M1A1 Abrams battle tanks, long-range precision artillery and F-16 fighter jets. In an interview in July Zelenskyy himself said the delays “provided Russia with time to mine all our lands and build several lines of defense.” [...]
The Ukrainians themselves are engaged in what is becoming a very public debate about how long they can hold out against Putin. With Ukraine running low on troops as well as weapons, Zelenskyy’s refusal to consider any fresh negotiations with Moscow is looking more and more politically untenable at home. The Ukrainian president, seeking to draft another half million troops, is facing rising domestic opposition from his military commander in chief, Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, and the mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko.
So what was all that for then [27 Dec 23]
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news4dzhozhar · 4 months
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The Real Origins of the Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine Began Long Before 1948
Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said on Monday that Israel may have a “diplomatic window” of two to three weeks to continue its assault on Gaza. “From a diplomatic point of view, we recognize that pressure has begun to bear on Israel. The pressure is not very high [now], but it is increasing,” Cohen said.
When asked about the chances of a ceasefire at a November 9 press conference, US President Joe Biden said, “None. No possibility.”
Meanwhile, mass marches, shutdowns, and other disruptions have continued around the world, as Palestinian organizers, Jewish anti-Zionist protesters, and other allied groups demand an immediate ceasefire and an end to Israeli apartheid and the occupation of Palestinian lands.
An estimated 11,240 Palestinians have been killed during Israel’s ongoing attacks on Gaza. Of those killed, 4,630 have been children. More than 3,000 Palestinians are missing, most of whom are believed to be buried under the rubble of buildings destroyed by Israeli airstrikes. The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has warned that its aid operations in Gaza will cease within the next 48 hours unless fuel is allowed into the besieged territory.
According to ActionAid International, an international aid organization, 22 of Gaza’s 35 hospitals are no longer operational due to damage caused by airstrikes or because the facilities have run out of fuel. Israeli tanks reached the gates of Shifa Hospital on Monday, where patients, including premature infants, have been dying due to a lack of electricity and medical supplies. An estimated 50,000 people have been sheltering on the hospital grounds amid ongoing attacks. Unable to bury the dead, due to the threat of airstrikes and sniper fire, Palestinians on the ground have reported seeing stray dogs eating dead bodies in the vicinity. Israel claims that there are tunnels used by Hamas under the hospital but has produced no evidence to support these claims. Israel defended its bombardment of a convoy of ambulances attempting to evacuate patients from Shifa Hospital last week, claiming that there were Hamas fighters in the vehicles.
Amid such horrors, protesters and others who are seeking to raise awareness and increase international pressure for a ceasefire have faced intense repression. But in spite of firings, arrests, and efforts to ban expressions of solidarity, supporters of Palestinian liberation are continuing to pressure world governments to demand a ceasefire. One stumbling block that organizers face, particularly in the US, is a general lack of awareness about the history of Israeli aggression against Palestinians. While raising awareness about the atrocities that are presently unfolding is crucial, educating the public about the history that has delivered us to this moment is also essential. In the following interview, I discuss some of that history, as well as the politics of the present moment, with historian Zachary Foster. Foster has a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Studies and is the creator of the newsletter Palestine Nexus.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Kelly Hayes: While the events we are presently witnessing are devastating in scale, the attacks Israel is waging are grounded in a long history of ethnic cleansing. Can you share some of that history with our readers?
Zachary Foster: I think the real origins of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine began long before 1948. I think every Zionist leader, and every Zionist thinker from the late 19th century to 1948 all struggled with the same question, which was, “How is it that you establish a Jewish state in a land that is majority non-Jewish, in a land that is majority Palestinian Arab?” Different Zionist leaders took different positions, but I think that the dominant position was that the Palestinian people are not willing to subject themselves to Jewish domination. They have strong roots in the country. They have a strong national identity.
The position for most Zionists was that, “We’re going to probably have to expel them.” That was the position of Theodor Herzl. That was the position of Yosef Weitz, Ze’ev Jabotinsky. Many, if not most of the Zionist leaders leading up to ’48 believed that. And then, in 1948, when the British decided to pack up and leave, to abandon this colonial enterprise, this British mandatory government, war broke out between the Palestinians and the Zionists. Over the course of the 1948 war, the Zionist forces expelled something like 750,000 Palestinians from their homes. Of course, some of those Palestinians left on their own, some were expelled by force. But the reason I would call it ethnic cleansing is because in the aftermath of the war. The Israeli military prevented Palestinians who were trying to return to their homes after the war. They prevented them from coming back, and they had a shoot to kill order.
In the year and a half after the war ended, from late 1948 to 1949 and 1950, the Israeli military shot and killed more than a 1000 unarmed, defenseless Palestinians. That’s why I think most historians, pretty much all historians, would acknowledge that this was a mass expulsion, and I would say the ethnic cleansing of half of the Palestinian population.
That was really the first and most traumatic case of the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people. I would say the second major instance of ethnic cleansing took place in 1967, during the June 1967 war and in its aftermath, during which time the Israeli military expelled another 250,000 to 300,000 Palestinians from their homes in the occupied territories, when they conquered Gaza on the West Bank. 70,000 of those were expelled from Gaza, and then the remainder of that 250,000 to 300,000 were expelled from the West Bank.
Once Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, roughly 2,000 more Palestinians were expelled from 1967 to 1987. It’s of course much harder to expel people during times of peace, or let’s say relative peace, than it is during times of war, and so obviously, the expulsion slowed during that 20 year period, but they continued even after 1987. I would say the character of those expulsions shifted. It became obvious during the First Intifada that Israel could not maintain permanent military control over millions of Palestinians forever. Instead, it engaged in this process that became known as the Oslo Peace Process, during which it signed a series of agreements with Yasser Arafat and the PLO, in which it began to gradually transfer over some amount of autonomy within small cantons of the West Bank, as well as Gaza.
I would say that Israel’s policies towards the Palestinians shifted. Instead of pushing the Palestinians out of the West Bank and Gaza, like it did from ’67 to ’87, from the 90s onwards, the policy became pushing Palestinians from primarily area C to areas A and B. Because in the course of these Oslo agreements, the West Bank was carved up into three areas, areas A, B, and C. The largest 60% of the West Bank, that was area C. That’s the area Israel wanted to maintain control over, because it was the area of the West Bank that was least densely populated. It was the most sparsely populated, and the majority of the non-urban areas of the West Bank, including the Jordan Valley and the border with Jordan, Israel wanted to maintain permanent control over that area. So for the past two to three decades, Israel has engaged in an ongoing process of pushing Palestinians out of those regions.
Just in the past month, since October 7, the Israeli military together with Israeli settlers have expelled 900 Palestinians from area C of the West Bank. Before that, in the year or two before that, so we’re talking 2021, ’22, something like another thousand Palestinians were expelled from area C of the West Bank. And there are many villages in the West Bank that face a threat of expulsion. Masafer Yatta is the biggest one. You’re talking about 1,800 Palestinians in Masafer Yatta, which is in the south Hebron Hills of the West Bank. Those Palestinians have been under threat of expulsion for more than a year now. In the Jordan Valley, in places like Hamsa, I bore witness myself, you have settlers setting up outposts around area C of the West Bank, and harassing the Palestinian shepherding communities in the Jordan Valley, as well in places like Khan al-Ahmar, and in Beita as well.
In various places of the West Bank, you have this ongoing effort to push Palestinians out of their villages. Again, pushing them into areas A of the West Bank, where you have the large Palestinian urban centers. I would say there’s another ongoing effort to push Palestinians out of Gaza, and this has been a trend that I think is relatively under-reported over the past few years. If you go to Gaza and ask people… And I was in Gaza about five weeks ago, just shortly before the outbreak in violence, and the attacks on October 7th, every single Palestinian in Gaza knows someone who has left. It’s the same thing that has been happening in North Africa over the course of the past decade and a half, Palestinians from Gaza are getting on boats and leaving, and braving the high seas, and hoping for a better life in Turkey or Greece, and beyond.
That is another worrying trend. Now, of course, in the past month or so, in Gaza, 1.5 million Palestinians have been pushed out, have been told to leave their homes. We saw, of course, the report that came out, an Israeli military report, that basically said the Israeli military intends to, or hopes to try to expel every single resident of the Gaza Strip, we’re talking 2.3 million people, and push them all towards Sinai, a complete ethnic cleansing of the Gaza Strip. That is now, I think, at least the goal of the Israeli military. It’s unclear that they’ll be able to achieve that goal, but make no mistake about it, that is the goal. That’s how I would characterize the past 75 years of ethnic cleansing efforts on the part of the state of Israel towards the Palestinian people.
KH: One common refrain we have heard during the last few weeks is, the Palestinians need a Gandhi. Such people have insisted that the Palestinian people simply haven’t mounted a sufficiently powerful nonviolent liberation movement. Such critiques overlook decades of Israeli oppression, including violent attacks on protestors, and targeted assassinations. Can you speak to some of this history?
ZF: There were many attempts at Palestinian nonviolent resistance, and in most of those attempts, the Israeli military resorted to lethal violence. The first real, I would say nonviolent attempt to resist military occupation was during the first uprising, known as the First Intifada, from 1987 to 1993, during which Palestinians spontaneously broke out into open protest, daily strikes, daily protests. In the first year of that revolt, the Israeli military slaughtered 142 Palestinians in Gaza, and in response, Gazans killed zero Israeli soldiers and zero Israeli civilians, because it was a nonviolent revolt. It was Palestinian kids throwing stones at Israeli tanks. I think Palestinians saw up close and personal what happens when they resort to nonviolent resistance. They get slaughtered. They learned that lesson in 1988.
I would say the same has been true in the Oslo process. You saw the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, sign these Oslo Accords with Israel, which is a peace process, and that’s a nonviolent process. In return, what did the Palestinians get? Over the course of the seven years during this Oslo process, from ’93 to 2000, Israel dramatically expanded its settlement enterprise, confiscating more Palestinian land, destroying more Palestinian property. Israel also imposed lockdowns and closures, devastating the Palestinian economy. During a period when Israel is supposed to be building trust with the Palestinians, it’s actually eroding that trust. During peak closures and peak lockdowns, in which the Israeli military prevents Palestinians in the occupied territories from leaving their towns and villages and cities, you had unemployment rates that reached 70% in places like Gaza, which led to total impoverishment. Entire communities lost their sources of livelihood, and this is what the Palestinians got for engaging in a peace process with Israel.
And then of course, in the 2000s, after Israel decided to build a wall, which the international criminal court declared illegal because it was primarily built on Palestinian land, in the occupied territories, you had many villages, Beit Sira, Bil’in, Nil’in, Nebi Saleh, throughout West Bank, villages whose lands were confiscated to construct this wall, to construct this security barrier, and they protested week after week, in some cases for years and years, and in almost every case, Israeli military killed innocent protestors. They killed protestors in Nabi Salih and Bil’in and Ni’lin, they killed protesters in places like Sheikh Jarrah which also saw many protests in places like Beita, which saw many protests. Again, nonviolent protests that the Israeli military responded to with lethal force.
And then you could also… I would say the other few examples I would bring up would be the BDS movement, which is of course, a nonviolent movement to boycott and sanction and divest from companies that profit from the Israeli occupation. And in response to that movement, which began, I believe in 2005 by Omar Barghouti, supporters of the movement were declared antisemitic. The leader was threatened with expulsion, and he was threatened with his residency status being revoked. And in general, Israel has engaged in a campaign to delegitimize precisely that non-violence that it claims that Palestinians should resort to.
And then the final example I’ll give is in Gaza in 2018, Palestinians and Gaza organized protests. They were called the March of Return protests during which many thousands of Palestinians protested peacefully against the siege on Gaza demanding the right of return, and they were slaughtered. 256 Palestinians were slaughtered over the course of that protest movement. And at the same time, the Israeli snipers that gunned down those hundreds of Palestinians, they experienced zero casualties. No Israeli experienced any major harm at all. And so if you look back to the history of the nonviolent movements in Palestine, they’re delegitimized, they’re dealt with extreme violence, and disproportionate force. And so I think the question is not so much, “Where’s the Palestinian Gandhi?” The question should be probably, “Where’s the Israeli Gandhi?”
KH: Raz Segal, an associate professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Stockton University, has referred to Israel’s attacks on Gaza as a “textbook case of genocide unfolding in front of our eyes.” But there has been a lot of pushback in recent days against people using the word genocide to describe what’s happening in Gaza. Can you explain why you believe it is appropriate to use that word to describe Israel’s ongoing actions toward Palestinians?
ZF: So I think I would first of all defer to scholars of genocide who understand the legal implications and the legal understandings of that term better than me. So that’s the first point I would make. And it wasn’t just Raz Segal, you had a petition already in the first week of this war, waged on Gaza, in which 800 academic scholars, PhDs who study ethnic cleansing and study genocide, they came out and basically said, there is a risk of genocide. And we can debate whether or not we’ve crossed the threshold. We can debate whether or not genocide is the right word, or whether mass indiscriminate slaughter of innocent civilians is the right term. I think at the point where we’re debating whether or not genocide is appropriate or is not appropriate, I think we’ve already established now that what is happening is totally unacceptable and it’s unlawful and it’s a crime against humanity.
And so I wouldn’t get too bogged down on whether or not we choose to use this specific word or not. I think reasonable people can fall on both sides of that debate. But what I think is unequivocal is that the statements coming out of the Israeli political establishment, the most senior Israeli political and military officials in charge of this war have demonstrated in multiple, in dozens of statements, we’re not talking about one or two statements, we’re talking about dozens of statements that they make no distinction between the civilian population of Gaza and Hamas. Even just recently, Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, in a speech to soldiers going into battle, quoted the Bible, Deuteronomy. He quoted the verses in which the nation, the Israelites in the Bible, are told to destroy the people of Amalek. And if you go into the Bible and read those passages, it says that you go in and you kill every man, woman, child, and cattle and goats, because they’re all your enemy – [so that means] every single last person in Gaza.
So when you add up these statements from Israeli leaders declaring that we are cutting off all food, all water, all electricity to all 2.3 million people, so there’s a full blockade, full siege, Israel has prevented something like three to four percent of the humanitarian aid that is needed is being allowed in. So, 96 percent of people are essentially without water and without food.
Then when you add that up, when you add up the indiscriminate bombings, dropping bombs on civilian areas and refugee camps, 10,000 plus people die. How many more innocent civilians need to die before we say it’s a genocide? Is it 20,000? Is it 50,000? Is it 500,000? And so we can debate the exact number of people that need to die before we call it a genocide. But I think at that point, you’ve already essentially acknowledged that what we are talking about is a grotesque crime against humanity, and it’s incumbent upon all of us to call for an immediate ceasefire and end to the hostilities, because otherwise we’re just headed down a path that is either already genocide or will be genocide very soon.
KH: You recently stated that the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) can no longer be considered an organization that defends the Jewish people. Can you elaborate on this?
ZF: Historically, and to this day, the mission of the ADL is to prevent the defamation of the Jewish people. It’s to prevent discrimination against Jews. And yet it published a report just this past summer, basically outlining and documenting criticism of Israel, what it calls anti-Israel behaviors and statements and actions. Now, let me ask you this. Why is an organization that is focused on preventing discrimination against Jews publishing reports, talking about criticism of Israel? What does criticism of Israel have anything to do with discrimination against Jews? These are literally unrelated historical phenomenon. You have many raging antisemitic Zionists, and you have many Jews who are anti-Zionists.
So it is no longer an organization that I think can plausibly be said to be an organization that is dedicated to preventing discrimination against Jews. It’s completely politicized itself, and it’s not just that one report. Look at the tweets of, what is his name, Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of ADL. A huge percentage of what this guy is saying has nothing to do with discrimination against Jews. So I think it has really lost a lot of legitimacy in my eyes, and I imagine the eyes of many Jews who are critical of Israel.
KH: There has been a great deal of repression reminiscent of McCarthyism and the aftermath of 9/11 in which many people who have questioned the violence being perpetrated by Israel have faced professional consequences such as the cancellation of events or the termination of their employment. Can you speak to this repression and why you believe people should continue to speak out in spite of it?
ZF: First of all, let me just say that repression is most severe inside the borders of the state of Israel. You have, I think by now, over a hundred Palestinian citizens of Israel who have been fired from their jobs, from their places of work for coming out in solidarity with the people of Gaza. We’re not even talking about people writing in messages, talking about their support for Hamas or their support for attacks. We’re talking about messages in solidarity with the victims. Those people are being fired from their jobs in Israel. University students in Israel are being suspended. You have police in Israel walking into shops demanding that Palestinians open their phones to see what Facebook or Instagram posts they’ve liked, and if they like the wrong posts, they’re being arrested. You have dozens of cases of arrests. Again, all for just speaking out for condemning the violence being committed by the Israeli military. So I think it’s most severe right now in Israel, which is really becoming, I would say, a police state.
And then of course, it’s happening all around the world as well. We saw in Europe protestors being arrested for waving the Palestinian flag. It’s happening in the United States. You have people coming out, sharing their solidarity with Palestinians being fired, being forced to step down. Their invitations are being rescinded. It’s incredibly troubling and worrying, and I think it’s incumbent upon all of us to speak out against it and to continue to share our thoughts about what kind of country we want to live in.
If speaking out against a “textbook case of genocide” is now illegal or is now leading negative consequences, that’s a horrible society that I don’t think any of us want to live in. I think it’s absolutely horrifying to see these incidents, and I think it’s now more important than ever for those of us who care about human rights and who oppose genocide to speak out, because it’s our government that is implicated in this. We are not sitting on the sidelines here. We are an active participant in this conflict. So, it’s worrying and it’s distressing, and I think we all need to speak up on behalf of people who are facing pressure and losing their jobs because of this.
KH: What are your thoughts on news that Israel has agreed to a four-hour humanitarian pause each day in their bombardment of Gaza?
ZF: Either you believe that the people of Gaza should be able to live in peace and security, or you don’t. The blockade and the siege need to end. You need to allow more than a few dozen trucks to enter Gaza every day. Before the war, you had 500 trucks entering Gaza every day. Now, I believe in the past 24 hours, there were maybe a few dozen trucks allowed in, and in total, there have only been a few hundred trucks allowed to enter Gaza since October 7.
So you’re talking about a trickle, you’re talking about a trivial percentage of people’s needs being met. It’s insane. You’re letting people starve to death and dehydrate to death. So this concept of humanitarian pause, it makes no sense to me. Either you believe that the people of Gaza are innocent and deserve to have food and water and electricity and fuel, or you don’t. And if you believe that, then you need to support an immediate ceasefire and a cessation of hostilities and opening up the border completely, and allowing humanitarian organizations in the UN to deliver the necessary aid that the people need.
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ausetkmt · 2 months
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Biden condemns white Supremacy at site of church shooting in South Carolina
CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — Courting Black voters he needs to win reelection, President Joe Biden on Monday denounced the “poison” of white supremacy in America, declaring at the site of a deadly racist church shooting in South Carolina that such ideology has no place in America, “not today, tomorrow or ever.”
Biden spoke from the pulpit of Mother Emanuel AME Church, where in 2015 nine Black parishioners were shot to death by the white stranger they had invited to join their Bible study. The Democratic president’s speech followed his blunt remarks last Friday on the eve of the anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, in which he excoriated former President Donald Trump for “glorifying” rather than condemning political violence.
At Mother Emanuel, Biden said “the word of God was pierced by bullets of hate, of rage, propelled not just by gunpowder, but by a poison, a poison that has for too long haunted this nation.”
That’s “white supremacy,” he said, the view by some whites that they are superior to other races. “It is a poison, throughout our history, that’s ripped this nation apart. This has no place in America. Not today, tomorrow or ever.”
It was a grim way to kick off a presidential campaign, particularly for someone known for his unfailing optimism and belief that American achievements are limitless. But it’s a reflection of the emphasis Biden and his campaign are placing on energizing Black voters amid deepening concerns among Democrats that the president could lose support from this critical constituency heading into the election.
Biden’s campaign advisers and aides hope the visit lays out the stakes of the race in unequivocal terms three years after the cultural saturation of Trump’s words and actions while he was president. It’s a contrast they hope will be paramount to voters in 2024.
AP AUDIO: Biden condemns white supremacy in a campaign speech at a SC church where Black people were killed.
AP correspondent Jennifer King reports.
Biden also used his second major campaign event of the year to thank the state’s Black voters. After an endorsement by Democratic Rep. Jim Clyburn, one of the highest-ranking African Americans in the U.S. House, the state made Biden the winner of its Democratic presidential primary in 2020. That, in turn, set him on a path to become the party’s nominee and defeat Trump to win the presidency.
“I owe you,” he said.
Biden was briefly interrupted when several people upset over by his staunch support for Israel in its war against Hamas called out that if he really cared about lives lost he would call for a cease-fire in Gaza to help innocent Palestinians who are being killed under Israel’s bombardment. The chants of “cease-fire now” were drowned out by audience members chanting “four more years.”
The president also swiped at Republican presidential candidates Nikki Haley, a former governor of South Carolina, and Trump, without naming either one.
Haley was governor at the time of the shooting and gained national attention for her response, which included signing legislation into law removing the Confederate flag from the state Capitol. But she has been on the defensive recently for not explicitly naming slavery as the root cause of the Civil War when the question was posed at a campaign event. Her campaign responded Monday with a list of comments attributed to Biden that it said showed he’s racially insensitive.
Biden called it a “lie” that the war was about states’ rights. “So let me be clear, for those who don’t seem to know: Slavery was the cause of the Civil War. There’s no negotiation about that.”
Haley, speaking at a Fox News Channel town hall on Monday, pushed back that it was “offensive” for Biden to give a political speech at the church. She also raised Biden’s ties to Democratic segregationist senators early in his career.
During his successful 2020 run for the White House, Biden faced criticism from fellow Democratic contenders for alluding to his work with Sens. James Eastland of Mississippi and Herman Talmadge of Georgia while trying to make a point about lost civility in national politics.
“I don’t need someone who palled around with segregationists in the ‘70s and has said racist comments all the way through his career lecturing me or anyone in South Carolina about what it means to have racism, slavery, or anything related to the Civil War,” Haley said.
On more current events, Biden noted the scores of failed attempts by Trump in the courts to overturn the 2020 election in an attempt to hold onto power, as well as the former president’s embrace of the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol.
“Let me say what others cannot: We must reject political violence in America. Always, not sometimes. Always. It’s never appropriate,” Biden said. He said “losers are taught to concede when they lose. And he’s a loser,” meaning Trump.
It was June 17, 2015, when a 21-year-old white man walked into the church and, intending to ignite a race war, shot and killed nine Black parishioners and wounded one more. Biden was vice president when he attended the memorial service in Charleston.
Biden’s aides and allies say the shootings are among the critical moments when the nation���s political divide started to sharpen and crack. Though Trump, the current Republican presidential front-runner, was not in office at the time and has called the shooting “horrible,” Biden is seeking to tie Trump’s current rhetoric to such violence.
Two years after the attack, as the “Unite The Right” gathering of white nationalists in Charlottesville, Virginia, erupted in violent clashes with counterprotesters. Trump said merely that “there is blame on both sides.”
Biden and his aides argue it’s all part of the same problem: Trump refused to condemn the actions of the white nationalists at that gathering. He’s repeatedly used rhetoric once used by Adolf Hitler to argue that immigrants entering the U.S. illegally are “poisoning the blood of our country,” yet insisted he had no idea that one of the world’s most reviled and infamous figures had used similar words.
And Trump continues to repeat his false claims that he won the 2020 election, as well as his assertion that the Capitol rioters were patriotic and those serving prison time are “hostages.”
At Mother Emanuel, Biden revisited themes from the Jan. 6 anniversary speech he delivered Friday.
Biden has repeatedly suggested that democracy itself is on the ballot, asking whether it is still “America’s sacred cause.”
Trump, who faces 91 criminal charges stemming from his efforts to overturn his loss to Biden and three other felony cases, argues that Biden and other top Democrats are themselves seeking to undermine democracy by using the legal system to thwart the campaign of Biden’s chief rival.
South Carolina is the first official Democratic nominating contest where Biden wants another strong showing.
In an interview with The Associated Press before Biden’s appearance, Malcolm Graham, a brother of Charleston church victim Cynthia Graham-Hurd, said the threat of racism and hate-fueled violence is part of a needed national conversation about race and American democracy.
“Racism, hatred and discrimination continue to be the Achilles’ heel of America, of our nation,” said Graham, a city councilman in Charlotte, North Carolina. “Certainly, what happened to the Emanual Nine years ago is a visible example of that. What happened in Buffalo, years later, where people were killed under similar circumstances, shows that racism and discrimination are still real and it’s even in our politics.”
After the speech, Biden met privately with religious leaders and family members and survivors of the church shooting. He also dropped in at Hannibal’s Kitchen, a soul food restaurant, to shake hands.
Later Monday, Biden flew to Dallas to make a brief stop at a memorial service for Eddie Bernice Johnson, the influential former Texas congresswoman who died on New Year’s Eve. Johnson was 89.
Biden said in a statement last week that he and Johnson had worked together during her 30 years in Congress and he was grateful for her friendship and partnership.
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"Quite frankly, none of us want Trump to win, which is exactly why we're doing this," said Santiago-Romero. "This is the only way we can raise a flag to Democrats that you are going to lose unless you call for an ultimate cease-fire."
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mariacallous · 3 months
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Few matters are able to rile global publics quite like war in Israel-Palestine. Following Hamas’s brutal Oct. 7 attack on Israel, which left more than 1,200 dead, people have taken to the streets around the world to express solidarity with Israel or to condemn its punishing military response in the Gaza Strip, which has killed more than 22,000 Palestinians to date. 
The war has significantly raised tensions in the Middle East, with the battlefield already having expanded to Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and the Red Sea. Beyond the Middle East, the conflict’s ripple effects have been felt around the world, leading to pitched battles over freedom of speech, intense diplomatic wrangling at the United Nations, and a surge in hate crimes against Jews, Muslims, and Arabs. 
This all comes as some 40 percent of the world’s population is set to go to the polls this year in more than 40 countries. And in several of them, the Israel-Hamas war is creating or exacerbating political rifts that could have real electoral consequences. Here is a look at how the conflict could echo through world politics in the coming year. 
United States
Outside of Israel itself, the war’s political repercussions will likely be most keenly felt in the United States, where the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a foreign-policy issue of singular importance to voters. President Joe Biden has resolutely stood by Israel since the Oct. 7 attack, rushing additional U.S. military aid to the country to bolster its Iron Dome missile defenses, pushing Congress to pass a substantial aid package for Israel, and exercising the U.S. veto to block a U.N. Security Council resolution demanding an immediate humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza.
As criticism has grown both internationally and from within his own party over Israel’s conduct in the war and the staggering civilian death toll, Biden has taken a tougher stance on what he has described as Israel’s “indiscriminate” bombing of Gaza, but he has steadfastly refused to attach conditions on U.S. military aid to the country as a means to alter its tactics.
Growing up in the wake of the Holocaust, Biden’s support for Israel is personal and deeply rooted. He has described himself as a “Zionist in my heart.” But he presides over a country and a party deeply divided over how to respond to the war. The Democratic Party’s once-unwavering support for Israel has increasingly been called into question by its progressive flank. 
Amid the electorate at large, the picture is equally complicated. A New York Times/Siena College poll published in December found that 57 percent of respondents disapproved of Biden’s handling of the conflict. That figure rises to 72 percent among young voters, a key constituency behind his 2020 victory over Trump.
Foreign policy takes a back seat in U.S. elections—a little more than 1 percent of respondents listed the conflict as the most pressing issue, according to the same poll. But in a presidential race that could come down to the wire, Biden’s staunch support for Israel could cost him precious votes in swing states such as Michigan, which has a large Arab and Muslim population. 
U.S. support for Israel has also complicated Washington’s efforts to persuade the global south to stand alongside Ukraine amid its ongoing war with Russia. Biden has sought to tie the two wars together, framing Ukraine and Israel as two democracies at war with foes that seek their annihilation. “History has taught us that when terrorists don’t pay a price for their terror, when dictators don’t pay a price for their aggression, they cause more chaos and death and more destruction,” he said in an Oval Office address in October.
But many observers have accused Washington and the wider West of double standards for their vociferous response to Russia’s occupation of Ukraine and the more muted response to Israel’s ongoing occupation of Palestinian territories.
India
Hundreds of millions of Indians go to the polls in the spring in general elections in the world’s largest democracy. As in the United States, foreign policy is unlikely to be the primary factor in determining the vote’s outcome, but that doesn’t mean it won’t feature at all. 
After eschewing diplomatic relations with Israel for decades and only formally establishing them in the 1990s, India has deepened its ties with the country in recent years—particularly since Narendra Modi became prime minister in 2014. This has largely been driven by pragmatism, as India has sought a wider array of partners in the Middle East; Israel today is India’s second largest arms supplier after Moscow.
Israel’s drift toward religious nationalism has also been taken as inspiration by some of Modi’s followers. “India’s Hindu chauvinists see Israel much like they imagine India: as an ethnonationalist majoritarian state facing the existential threat of Islamist terrorism,” writes Daniel Markey for the United States Institute for Peace. 
Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has long been accused of fanning the flames of Islamophobia in India, tweeted out a video hours after the Hamas attacks that compared the assault to India’s own struggle with Islamist terrorism. 
“Comparisons with the situation in Gaza, and broadcasting the BJP’s alleged counterterrorist credentials, has been seen as a powerful mobilizing force in the perspective of the coming elections,” said Nicolas Blarel, an associate professor at the University of Leiden, in an email to Foreign Policy. 
The BJP’s embrace of Israel also underscores a key foreign-policy distinction with its main opposition, the Indian National Congress party, which has long sympathized with the Palestinian struggle for statehood. While condemning Hamas’s assault on southern Israel, the party railed against India’s abstention in an October U.N. vote calling for an immediate humanitarian truce. 
“India’s response to the conflict may become a wedge issue among the Indian electorate,” said Emmett Potts, a watch operations manager for the Middle East and North Africa region at the risk management consultancy Crisis24, in an email to Foreign Policy.
Germany
In 2008, when then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited Israel, she declared the country’s security to be Germany’s Staatsräson, or “reason of state”—meaning it is a foundational priority of the German state, part of the country’s deep commitment to reckoning with its Nazi history. But in recent years, a quiet debate has simmered as to whether Germany’s staunch support for Israel has begun to tread on the toes of freedom of speech when it comes to legitimate criticism of Israel’s government. 
The east German state of Saxony-Anhalt is set to require new applicants for German citizenship to confirm in writing that they affirm Israel’s right to exist and “condemn any efforts directed against the existence of the State of Israel.” Antisemitism and denial of Israel’s right to exist are explicitly proscribed by Germany’s Basic Law, by which all citizens are expected to abide. 
Yet German intellectuals have traded open letters about the country’s handling of the war, while the country’s famed art scene has seen a wave of events canceled and collaborations suspended over artists’ critiques of Israel or use of the word “genocide” to describe the country’s actions in Gaza.
Some see the extent of the coverage of this debate in the international press as overwrought. “I’m a bit exasperated by this connection that people make about Germany’s ‘vergangenheitsbewältigung,’ coming to terms with our past, and the supposed misjudgment of the German government of the right stance towards Israel in Gaza,” said Jorg Lau, an international correspondent for the German newspaper Die Zeit.
“It’s not unconditional and it’s much more complicated,” he said, noting that German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock had spoken out extensively about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza during trips to the region. 
The spotlight on Germany’s memory culture could come with a cost, playing into the “Germany first” narrative of the far-right Alternative For Germany party, which is projected to win big in regional elections later this year, alongside a new populist left-wing party. “They both share this idea that we should do away with these constraints of the German past, for different reasons,” Lau said.
Tunisia
In late October, lawmakers in the Tunisian Parliament put forward legislation that would criminalize any efforts to normalize ties with Israel in an attempt to erect a firewall against the wider regional trend of diplomatic rapprochement between Israel and Arab countries that was well underway before the war. The legislation had already been under discussion before the Hamas attack, but it was brought forward quickly in light of the war. Sympathy for the Palestinians is deep and long-standing in Tunisia, which hosted the Palestinian Liberation Organization in the 1980s. 
The bill carries stiff penalties of up to 10 years’ imprisonment what it describes as the “crime of normalization.” It would also criminalize any contact with Israeli citizens or companies, which would be difficult and draconian to enforce. 
In a surprising turn, the country’s president, Kais Saied—who had previously described any efforts to normalize ties with Israel as treasonous, came out against the bill. Saied, who has a history of making public antisemitic remarks, offered a convoluted explanation that there was no need to criminalize ties with a country that Tunisia doesn’t recognize. 
However, some Tunisian lawmakers have alleged that Saied’s U-turn came because the United States intervened in a bid to stop the bill. Referring to what he called “official correspondence from the US Embassy in Tunis addressed to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” one member of parliament involved in the process told Le Monde that the United States had threatened to impose sanctions on Tunisia if the bill passed. The U.S. State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the allegations.
Saied has been accused of steadily dismantling Tunisia’s democratic institutions, so it’s unlikely that his surprise rebuke of parliament over the bill will impact the outcome of presidential elections later this year. But the perception that Western countries have stood by Israel as it has laid siege to the Gaza Strip has had a profound impact on Arab public opinion.
An Arab Barometer poll, the survey period of which straddled the Oct. 7 attacks, found that favorability ratings of countries with strong or warming ties with Israel dropped sharply as Israel’s military campaign got underway. Tunisia is just one country, but the study’s architects noted in a piece for Foreign Affairs that the country has historically been a robust bellwether for public opinion across the Arab world.
“It’s going to have lasting impacts,” said Fadil Aliriza, a nonresident scholar at the Middle East Institute. “We’ve seen people rejecting prizes that they’ve gotten from the EU, we’ve seen people publicly rejecting honors they’ve been given from the West,” he said. “They believe that the West has really been complicit in the war.”
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beardedmrbean · 1 year
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Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered his military to observe a 36-hour cease-fire in Ukraine for Russian Orthodox Christmas this weekend and called on Kyiv to do the same, a move that Ukraine appeared to swiftly reject.
Putin instructed his defense minister to institute the cease-fire “along the entire line of contact between the parties in Ukraine” starting at midday local time (4 a.m. ET) Friday, the Kremlin said in a statement posted on Telegram on Thursday. The proposed Christmas truce would last until midnight local time (4 p.m. ET) Saturday.
Kyiv indicated its forces wouldn’t observe the cease-fire and has long viewed suggestions of a truce as efforts to buy time for Moscow.
“First. Ukraine doesn’t attack foreign territory and doesn’t kill civilians. As [Russia] does. Ukraine destroys only members of the occupation army on its territory...” Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said on Twitter after Putin’s announcement. “Second. [Russia] must leave the occupied territories — only then will it have a “temporary truce.” Keep hypocrisy to yourself," he added.
Putin did not appear to make his order conditional on Ukraine agreeing to follow suit, and it wasn’t clear what the unilateral announcement would mean for the status of fighting across the conflict's front lines. 
Ukrainian officials earlier dismissed the idea when it was first raised by Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, who enjoys a close association with the government and has provided a kind of spiritual cover for the invasion.
Podolyak had dismissed Kirill’s call as “a cynical trap and an element of propaganda.”
The Russian Orthodox Church, which uses the ancient Julian calendar, celebrates Christmas on Jan. 7 — later than the Gregorian calendar. Some Orthodox Christians in Ukraine recently started celebrating Christmas on Dec. 25 to show their anger at and defiance of Moscow.
"Based on the fact that a large number of citizens professing Orthodoxy live in the areas of hostilities, we call on the Ukrainian side to declare a cease-fire and give them the opportunity to attend services on Christmas Eve, as well as on the Day of the Nativity of Christ," Putin said.
Putin's proposal comes with the war finely poised after 10 months.
His campaign in Ukraine suffered a series of setbacks at the end of last year, with counterattacks by Kyiv's military forcing retreats from large areas Russia's military had seized and Putin claimed to have annexed in the east and the south of the country.
The Kremlin has responded by calling up hundreds of thousands of reservists and intensifying its commitment to the conflict.
With fighting on the ground largely frozen in the thick of winter, Moscow's military has bombarded civilian targets across Ukraine from the air — including a series of missile strikes on New Year's Eve.
Kyiv has warned that Putin's regrouped and reinforced army might be planning a major new offensive in the next few months and has urged its Western allies to deliver more powerful weapons.
President Joe Biden has indicated that Bradley Fighting Vehicles, an armored combat vehicle that can serve as a troop carrier, could be sent to Ukraine.
While further fueling support for Kyiv from the United States and Europe, Russia's ongoing invasion has also stoked rare criticism at home.
Earlier this week the Russian military blamed its soldiers’ use of cellphones for a Ukrainian missile attack that killed dozens and fueled a new round of domestic criticism at how the war is being fought.
The strike dealt another blow to the Kremlin’s public image and renewed criticism of military leaders from nationalist bloggers and pro-war voices within the country.
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newstfionline · 1 day
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Wednesday, March 27, 2024
How a cargo ship took down Baltimore’s Key Bridge (Washington Post) To bridge experts, the collapse of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge after being hit by a heavy cargo ship was as inevitable as it was devastating. When a vessel as heavy as the Singapore-flagged Dali collides with such force against one of the span’s supercolumns, or piers, the result is the type of catastrophic, and heartbreaking, chain reaction that took place early Tuesday. “If the column is destroyed, basically the structure will fall down,” said Dan Frangopol, a bridge engineering and risk professor at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania who is president of the International Association for Bridge Maintenance and Safety. “It’s not possible to redistribute the loads. It was not designed for these things.” No bridge pier could withstand being hit by a ship the size of the Dali, said Benjamin W. Schafer, a professor of civil and systems engineering at Johns Hopkins University. In video imagery, the ship can be seen losing electrical power, then briefly regaining it before going completely dark. The ship issued a mayday call shortly before striking the bridge, giving officials time to stop traffic and try to evacuate it before it fell into the river.
DeSantis Signs Social Media Bill Barring Accounts for Children Under 14 (NYT) Florida on Monday became the first state to effectively bar residents under the age of 14 from holding accounts on services like TikTok and Instagram, enacting a strict social media bill that is likely to upend the lives of many young people. The landmark law, signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, is one of the more restrictive measures that a state has enacted so far in an escalating nationwide push to insulate young people from potential mental health and safety risks on social media platforms. The statute both prohibits certain social networks from giving accounts to children under 14 and requires the services to terminate accounts that a platform knew or believed belonged to underage users. It also requires the platforms to obtain a parent’s permission before giving accounts to 14- and 15-year-olds. In a press conference on Monday, Mr. DeSantis said it will help parents navigate “difficult terrain” online. He added that “being buried” in devices all day long was not the best way to grow up. The new Florida measure is almost certain to face constitutional challenges over young people’s rights to freely seek information and companies’ rights to distribute information.
Joe Biden’s Political Origin Story Is Almost Certainly Bogus (Politico/Washington Free Beacon) A new investigation from The Washington Free Beacon’s Joseph Simonson and Andrew Kerr raises major questions about a story President Joe Biden has long told: when he successfully defended a construction company as a young lawyer from an injured welder’s lawsuit. Biden said feeling guilty over his role pushed him to switch to public defense and politics. But the Free Beacon finds that “this story is almost certainly a complete work of fiction”—that the case in question seems to have happened while Biden was still in law school, and the welder actually won.
U.S. allows U.N. ceasefire vote, but it’s too late for many in Gaza (Washington Post) In a surprise move Monday, the United States abstained during a United Nations Security Council vote calling for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza. For many people in Gaza, the passage of the Security Council comes far too late. The Israeli campaign in Gaza has killed more than 32,000 Palestinians, including many women and children, forced the overwhelming majority of people in Gaza to flee their homes and plunged more than half of Gaza’s population into a de facto famine. Small children are dying of malnutrition in what U.N. officials describe to be the broadest and most severe food crisis in the world. On Monday, Israeli forces continued their week-long raid of al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City amid Israeli claims of a Hamas presence in the facility. Israel also said it would cease cooperation with UNRWA, the U.N. agency that distributes most aid to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and what U.N. Secretary General António Guterres describes as “the one ray of light for millions of people” subsisting of its support. Through all this, the United States has operated hand-in-glove with Israel, greenlighting a surge in arms transfers to reinforce the Israeli military’s relentless bombing campaigns.
Forest fires burn in nearly half of Mexico’s drought-stricken states, fueled by strong winds (AP) Forest fires were burning in nearly half of Mexico’s drought-stricken states Monday fueled by strong winds. The National Forestry Commission reported 58 active fires in 15 states, including in protected nature reserves in Morelos, Veracruz and Mexico states. A preliminary estimate of the affected area reached more than 3,500 acres (1,421 hectares).
Venezuela’s main opposition coalition unable to register a presidential candidate (AP) The main Venezuelan opposition coalition said early Tuesday that electoral authorities didn’t let it register its presidential candidate as the deadline ended, in what it called the latest violation to the citizens’ right to vote for change in the South American country. Hours before the opposition coalition couldn’t register Yoris, President Nicolás Maduro made official his candidacy for a third term that would last until 2031. Polls show the unpopular Maduro would be trounced by a landslide if Venezuelan voters were given half a chance.
Brazil Police to Probe Bolsonaro’s Stay at Hungary Embassy (Bloomberg) Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court on Monday gave former President Jair Bolsonaro 48 hours to explain why he stayed at the Hungarian Embassy in Brasília for two days in February. According to security footage obtained by the New York Times, Bolsonaro appeared to seek political asylum from Budapest mere days after federal authorities confiscated his passport as part of a criminal investigation into whether he tried to incite an insurrection and purposefully spread voting disinformation, among other charges. On Monday, Brazil’s federal police launched an investigation into the far-right leader’s movements. Bolsonaro confirmed that he stayed at the embassy beginning Feb. 12 but only said, “I have a circle of friends with some world leaders. They’re worried,” when asked why. His lawyers added that Bolsonaro’s visit was to discuss political matters. The Hungarian Foreign Ministry refused to comment.
Moscow rampage reveals ambition, deadly reach of ISIS successor groups (Washington Post) A few months before being killed in a U.S. Special Forces raid, Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi released a final video message that symbolically passed the torch to far-flung followers in distant lands. His self-declared caliphate had been defeated, he acknowledged, and it was now up to the terrorist group’s regional chapters to carry out “revenge operations” around the world. “Our battle today is one of attrition and stretching the enemy,” Baghdadi said in the April 2019 video, released just after the fall of the Islamic State’s last stronghold in Syria. “They should know that jihad is ongoing until the Day of Judgment.” Friday’s bloodbath at a suburban Moscow concert hall is but the latest reminder of how effectively Baghdadi’s brutal vision is being carried out. While his self-proclaimed Middle East “caliphate” is in ruins, a constellation of Islamic State regional affiliates is gaining strength in many parts of the globe, fueled by a mix of traditional grievances as well as new ones, including the war in Gaza, counterterrorism officials and experts say.
Japan approves plan to sell fighter jets to other nations in latest break from pacifist principles (AP) Japan’s Cabinet on Tuesday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it’s developing with Britain and Italy to other countries, in the latest move away from the country’s postwar pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project and part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to countries other than the partners. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said the changes are necessary given Japan’s security environment, but stressed that Japan’s pacifist principles remain unchanged.
Israeli Soldier’s Video Undercuts Medic’s Account of Sexual Assault (NYT) New video has surfaced that undercuts the account of an Israeli military paramedic who said two teenagers killed in the Hamas-led terrorist attack on Oct. 7 were sexually assaulted. The unnamed paramedic, from an Israeli commando unit, was among dozens of people interviewed for a Dec. 28 article by The New York Times that examined sexual violence on Oct. 7. He said he discovered the bodies of two partially clothed teenage girls in a home in Kibbutz Be’eri that bore signs of sexual violence. The Associated Press, CNN and The Washington Post reported similar accounts from a military paramedic who spoke on condition of anonymity. Nili Bar Sinai, a member of a group from the kibbutz that looked into claims of sexual assault at the house, said, “This story is false.”
Israeli settlers eye Gaza beachfront (BBC) Israel unilaterally pulled out of Gaza in 2005, but some in the Israeli settler movement still hope to go back, one day. Daniella Weiss, who heads a radical settler organisation called Nachala, or homeland, says she already has a list of 500 families ready to move to Gaza immediately. We meet Daniella at her home in the West Bank settlement of Kedumim, where red-roofed houses are spread over hilltops and valleys. Her vision for the future of Gaza—now home to 2.3 million Palestinians, many of them starving—is that it will be Jewish. “Gaza Arabs will not stay in the Gaza Strip,” she says. “Who will stay? Jews.” She claims that Palestinians want to leave Gaza and that other countries should take them in. “Africa is big. Canada is big. The world will absorb the people of Gaza. How we do it? We encourage it. Palestinians in Gaza, the good ones, will be enabled. I’m not saying forced, I say enabled because they want to go,” she says. There is no evidence that Palestinians want to leave their homeland—although many may now dream of escaping temporarily, to save their lives. I put it to her that her comments sound like a plan for ethnic cleansing. She does not deny it.
Young Opposition Candidate Set to Become Senegal’s President (NYT) With the concession of his main rival, a young political outsider backed by a powerful opposition figure has won a surprise outright victory in Senegal’s presidential election only 10 days after being released from jail. Bassirou Diomaye Faye is the anointed candidate of Senegal’s popular and controversial opposition politician Ousmane Sonko. Mr. Faye’s main rival, the governing party candidate Amadou Ba, conceded in a statement congratulating his rival on Monday for winning in the first round. Mr. Faye, who celebrated his 44th birthday on Monday, will become the West African country’s youngest ever president, and the youngest elected president currently serving in Africa. (There are younger leaders, but they came to power by force.) He had been jailed on charges of defamation and contempt of court, and was awaiting trial. Mr. Faye and Mr. Sonko have captivated young people by excoriating political elites, pledging to renegotiate contracts with oil and gas companies, and promising “monetary sovereignty”—Senegal is one of 14 countries that use the CFA, a currency pegged to the euro and backed by France.
Puppets (Los Angeles Times) The Los Angeles Puppetry Guild represents a diverse bunch, from amateurs to industry professionals, and judging by member rolls puppetry is having a real moment right now. The L.A. guild is up to 200 members, and the Puppeteers of America now recognizes it as the largest such regional body in the country. The surge is mostly people in their 20s and 30s. One theory is that CGI becoming firmly mainstream when it comes to film effects has provoked some yearning for the more tactile medium of puppets.
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swldx · 26 days
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Voice of America 1919 2 Mar
15580Khz 1855 2 MAR - VOICE OF AMERICA (UNITED STATES OF AMERICA) in ENGLISH from MOPENG HILL. SINPO = 55233. English, music until news jingle @1900z and news read by male announcer. Three military planes airdropped food and aid over Gaza, the first round of emergency humanitarian assistance authorized by President Joe Biden, U.S. officials said. Palestinians posted videos on social media showing boxes of aid being dropped by U.S. military C-130 cargo planes. The first stage of the humanitarian operation saw more than 35,000 meals and aid airdropped on pallets into the enclave, where the United Nations reports one-quarter of the population is just one step from famine. The White House has said the airdrops will be a sustained effort and that Israel is supportive of the operation. The militaries of Jordan and Egypt said they also have conducted airdrops. Biden has said he hopes a cease-fire will be in place by the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which starts on March 10. Speaking to reporters on Friday, he said, "We’re not there yet." A ship attacked by Yemen's Houthi rebels has sunk in the Red Sea after days of taking on water, officials said Saturday. It is the first vessel to be fully destroyed as part of the Iran-backed militants’ campaign over Israel's war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz ruled out suggestions that European countries and NATO alliance members would send ground troops to Ukraine, after French President Emmanuel Macron had raised the prospect that some might do so. Winter storm in western US at its peak, some locations, like Donner Pass in California and Lake Tahoe on the California-Nevada border, experience snowfall rates of 1 to 2 inches per hour and ferocious wind gusts of 50 to 100 mph for 72 hours straight. @1905z "VoA-One" music hit DJ'd by male announcer. Backyard fence antenna w/MFJ-1020C active antenna (used as a preamplifier/preselector), Etón e1XM. 100kW, beamAz 350°, bearing 84°. Received at Plymouth, MN, United States, 14087KM from transmitter at Mopeng Hill. Local time: 1255.
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bllsbailey · 3 months
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Intel Officials Warn: Hezbollah Could Strike Inside US
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According to a report by Politico, U.S. officials said there’s an escalating risk that Lebanese Hezbollah militants will strike Americans in the Middle East, but perhaps of even more concern, they could hit inside the United States.
The Iran-backed militants would be likely to likely target U.S. personnel in the Middle East first, the officials told the news organization.
U.S. intelligence agencies gathering Hezbollah data say what they've seen suggested it may be weighing strikes against U.S. troops or diplomatic staffers overseas, two of the officials said.
Politico quoted the officials as saying the chances of such a brazen attack on the U.S. are also growing as the war in Gaza continues and tensions escalate. 
“Hezbollah could draw on the capability they have … to put people [in] places to do something. It is something to be worried about,” one of the officials said. 
All the officials were given anonymity by Politico to talk freely about the reports.
America has come under criticism since Hamas struck Israel on Oct. 7 of last year, igniting a war in the Gaza Strip. As critics of Israel's assault on Hamas targets have accused that nation of targeting innocents in Gaza, and even of committing genocide against the Palestinian people, they have also criticized the Biden administration for failing to push Israel harder toward a cease-fire and a conclusion to the bloody conflict. (U.S. officials have urged more targeted strikes to minimize civilian harm and work toward a two-state solution.)
Some experts have raised concern that the Gaza war could spread across the region.
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
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paranormalworld8888 · 4 months
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Israel-Hamas War Update For 11/15/23
In this update on the Israel-Hamas War, we bring you the latest stories and developments surrounding this ongoing conflict. The war, which began on October 7, 2023, after a violent cross-border attack by Hamas, has been raging for over a month. As tensions escalate, prominent news sources are reporting on various aspects of the conflict. BBC News highlights Israeli President Isaac Herzog's defense of Israel's military actions and his discovery of Hitler's book, Mein Kampf, at a Hamas site. AP News discusses the division of the Gaza Strip by Israeli troops and the failure of the UN Security Council to reach a cease-fire resolution. CNN focuses on Israel's mounting international pressure and the rejection of conditions allowing Hamas to rearm. NBC News reports a devastating death toll in Gaza, with over 10,000 people killed and over 80% of casualties being civilians. Lastly, Politico sheds light on House Republicans' plan to block President Biden's proposed aid package for Israel, citing concerns over rewarding aggression. Stay informed with the latest developments in the Israel-Hamas War. Israeli President Claims Mein Kampf Found on Hamas Fighter Israeli President Isaac Herzog has made a startling claim during an interview with BBC News, stating that a copy of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf was discovered on a Hamas fighter in northern Gaza. This revelation has raised eyebrows and intensified the debate surrounding Israel's military actions. President Herzog has defended Israel's actions, stating that the discovery of the infamous book exemplifies the extremist ideologies that Hamas promotes. While this claim has not been independently verified, it has added a new layer of complexity to the already tense situation in the region. The Ultimate Survival Guide for the End of the World Israel Divides Gaza into Two Parts In a move that has further escalated tensions, the Israeli military announced that they have successfully divided the Gaza Strip into two sections. This strategic decision aims to isolate the northern part of Gaza, where Hamas is believed to have a strong presence. Israeli troops have urged civilians to evacuate to the southern part of the territory, as airstrikes are expected to continue in the north. This division of Gaza has been met with criticism and concerns for the safety of innocent civilians caught in the crossfire. UN Security Council Fails to Reach Cease-fire Resolution Despite urgent calls for a cease-fire from around the world, the United Nations Security Council has failed to reach a consensus on a resolution. The draft resolution, which called for an immediate cessation of hostilities and humanitarian access to the Gaza Strip, was met with opposition from various member states. The inability of the Security Council to act swiftly in this dire situation has heightened the sense of despair and frustration felt by those affected by the conflict. International Pressure Mounts on Israel Israel is facing increasing international pressure as the conflict in Gaza continues to escalate. Countries such as the United States, France, and Egypt have been actively engaged in efforts to broker a truce between Israel and Hamas. However, Israel has rejected any conditions that would allow Hamas to rearm or rebuild its tunnels. The mounting pressure on Israel puts the spotlight on the need for a peaceful resolution to end the violence and address the underlying issues fueling the conflict. Over 10,000 Deaths Reported in Gaza The death toll in Gaza has reached a devastating milestone, with the Gaza Health Ministry reporting over 10,000 people killed and more than 50,000 injured since the start of the war. Shockingly, the ministry states that over 80% of these casualties are civilians, including 2,500 children and 1,700 women. These figures paint a grim picture of the human cost of the ongoing conflict. The international community must intensify its efforts to halt the violence and protect the lives of innocent civilians caught in the crossfire. Republicans Prepare to Block Aid Package for Israel In a surprising development, Republicans in the House of Representatives are preparing to block President Biden's proposed aid package of $1 billion for Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system. They argue that providing such assistance would only reward Israel's aggression and undermine US interests in the region. This political maneuver highlights the deep divisions within the United States regarding its stance on the Israel-Hamas conflict. The outcome of this debate will undoubtedly have implications for the overall dynamics of the conflict and US-Israel relations. Casualty Breakdown: Civilians Bear the Brunt of the War The conflict between Israel and Hamas has disproportionately impacted civilians, with over 80% of the reported casualties being non-combatants. The loss of innocent lives, including thousands of children and women, is deeply tragic and unacceptable. The international community must emphasize the urgent need for the protection of civilians and the adherence to international humanitarian law. Addressing the harrowing casualty breakdown must be a priority in any attempts to reach a sustainable peace agreement. Egypt Joins Efforts to Broker a Truce Adding to the international efforts to negotiate a truce, Egypt has joined the endeavor to broker a peaceful resolution between Israel and Hamas. Egypt's involvement brings regional influence and a historical understanding of the complexities in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. While the road to reaching a viable truce remains challenging, Egypt's role may prove pivotal in bridging the divides and bringing parties together for meaningful negotiations. 10 Secrets to Survive Any Disaster and Thrive in Chaos Israel Rejects Conditions for Cease-fire Israel has rejected proposed conditions for a cease-fire that would allow Hamas to rearm or rebuild its tunnels. Israel has consistently emphasized its need for security and the prevention of future attacks from Hamas. The rejection of these conditions underscores the fundamental disagreements and mistrust between the two parties. The impasse prolongs the conflict and exacerbates the humanitarian crisis unfolding in the Gaza Strip. Israel's Iron Dome Defense System Under Scrutiny Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system has long been touted as an effective safeguard against rocket attacks. However, the ongoing conflict has sparked scrutiny and debate regarding the system's efficacy. Critics argue that the Iron Dome's success rate may be exaggerated and question whether the substantial investment in this defense system is justifiable. The scrutiny surrounding the Iron Dome highlights the need for a comprehensive assessment of the dynamics of the conflict and the most effective means of protecting civilian lives. In conclusion, the Israel-Hamas war has entered a critical phase, with significant developments and mounting international pressure. The discovery of Mein Kampf on a Hamas fighter, the division of Gaza, and the failure of the UN Security Council to reach a cease-fire resolution have all contributed to the escalating crisis. With over 10,000 deaths reported in Gaza, a casualty breakdown skewed towards civilians, and Republicans preparing to block an aid package for Israel, the urgency for a peaceful resolution cannot be overstated. The ongoing conflict not only highlights the devastating human toll but also underscores the pressing need for comprehensive diplomatic efforts and a steadfast commitment to protecting innocent lives. How to Build a Bunker in Your Backyard and Protect Your Family Read the full article
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iwantjobs · 5 months
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11/4/2023: if I were a Jew who supports the killing of the Hamas, I will climb out of my revenge hole and ask for a cease fire to save the Palestinians children for this is their Palestinian parents' war with Israel for voting for the Hamas to be their government. If you Jewish people don't do this, then humans will see the records of Palestinians children dying in Gaza bombing comparing to small number in Israel in holy land of apartheid white government, the animals will bring up anti-Semitism sentiments for a poor Jewish female in Lyon, France got stabbed in the stomach with a Nazi sign drawn on her belly. As for us Americans who live in a country where Biden was voted as president with the first gentleman as a Jewish man, the Americans who don't want to send your children to a WWWIII, then you have to raise your voices to demand a ceasefire for the Gazans children to breathe a bit or else, you Americans who don't voices your stop the bombing in Gaza now, you will be contributing into this WWII and you will also need to blame yourselves too while blaming the Hamas and the Gazans who voted for the Hamas. A WWWIII won't be fun to live for any world war is never fun to live through; however, unlike any other world wars, this world war 3 will be a religious was between colored people and white people, and this time, white Russia (Russia was the place where anti-semi literature began) has joined the colored race, the Nazi animals will crawl out of their basements to joined the colored people because they don't like Jews, and fat China and obese Jung-un have some weapons. I am so scared that I have to come out of my semi-homeless-car-basement to sue to stop the men from causing pain on us women and children. Trang at 50.566 years old.
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zvaigzdelasas · 3 months
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WaPo - Killing of USAID contractor in Gaza fuels internal protest
Already, 135 United Nations relief workers have been killed in Gaza since Oct. 7. That’s more deaths than in any single conflict in the organization’s 78-year history, officials say. Outside of the U.N., prominent aid groups such as Save the Children also have suffered losses. [...]
USAID officials, some of whom endorsed an open letter last month urging a cease-fire in Gaza, told The Post that the Biden administration should use its leverage to force a change in Israel’s behavior. That would include placing restrictions on the billions of dollars in military assistance the United States provides to Israel every year. “We’ve seen far too much inaction from the White House and USAID leadership on this issue,” said one USAID official, who like some others interviewed for this report spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss disagreements with U.S. policy.[...]
Jeremy Konyndyk, a former Biden administration official who worked at USAID under President Barack Obama, said U.S. efforts to reduce the violence in Gaza have been insufficient. “The U.S. concern about these casualties remains almost purely rhetorical. There is no policy leverage being put behind it whatsoever,” said Konyndyk, president of Refugees International. “Beyond expressing concern and expressing regret, that’s where it stops.” The White House says it works hard to pressure the Israelis to take a more targeted approach in its military campaign in Gaza, and claims credit for persuading Israel to allow food and medicine into the territory. But distributing that aid requires humanitarian workers — a group of professionals who have been killed in ever-greater numbers as the war continues. “It’s not just rhetorical,” said a White House spokesman. “We have raised our concerns about humanitarian workers being killed and development workers being killed directly to the Israelis at very high levels on many occasions.”
It was a result of U.S. pressure, the official said, that Israel established a system allowing aid workers to share coordinates and locations of where they are operating.
But Israel has conducted airstrikes inside the supposedly safer areas established by this system, the official conceded
16 Dec 23
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ramrodd · 7 months
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Why does Secretary-General António Guterres said "without strong global institutions “multipolarity could be a factor for escalating geostrategic tensions, with tragic consequences.”?
COMMENTARY
What he is saying is that the toxic political polarization being generated by all things January 6 majority is an incubator for the global Nazification associated with all things William F. Buckley and is a strategically fraught circumstance, with China getting silly about Taiwan and Russia and Ukraine engaged in a end game that needs to be shut down by a United Nations enforced cease fire sponsored by Biden.
Let me illustrate with an identical situation, internationally, when Newt Gingrich and Tom Delay blunted Clinton’s ability to prevent a nasty little genocide from getting any traction in Bosnia. Just like the January 6 insurgency, Newty and Delay were trying to overturn and election because Clinton’s economics were fixing the mess the Reagan Bush administrations left for Clinton to clean up,,
Gingrich was Speaker of the House because of the political strategy of GOPAC which is based on the Trotsky-inspire political strategy of the anti-war movement that led to the Chicago Police riots in 1968 He was doing the same thing with the native white supremacist agenda anywhere the Presbyterian Church is and put together his Contract with American victory with the people who stormed the Capitol on January 6 and emerged during the Obama administration as the Tea Party wing of the Jim Crow Bigotry of Woodrow Wilson and Lost Cause fans of “A Nation is Born. And while Newty and DeLay were preferring charges for consensual sex in the Oval Office, the Christians in Bosnia began killing their Muslim neighbors for being Muslims.
And the “Diplomat-speak for Dummies” version of Guterres's statement is that the January 6 majority is doing the same thing as part of Trump’s treason and it is far more dangerous now than the avoidable genocide in Bosnia.
I don’t know what effect Tommy Tuberville’s obstruction of national security will have, downstream, but it will not be something good for America. When Gingrich and Delay were fucking with Linton’s ability to direct his full attention on bin Ladin, to say nothing of the avoidable genocide of Bosna. Tommy Tuberville represents the people who want to dismantle the administrative state until it fails like American in Atlas Shrugged so they can take over and buy America for salvage prices.
What Jack Smith is engaged in is defense of the Republic from enemies, foreign and domestic. The January 6 majority are domestic enemies of the US Constitution and are the people causing the problems that are increasing the avoidable and unnecessary risks to American national security, if not global de-Nazification and the organic society of Herbert Spencer and Hegel.
The 14th Amendment has been the obvious solution since January 6. Super Tuesday will not interfere with Trump’s court schedule in the least. He will be able to consolidate all his fund raising around his legal defense.
Here’s the thing: Clinton is the only President since Nixon and Eisenhower who understood Clausewitz. He should have shared a Nobel Peace Prize with the French Foreign Legion UN blue Helmets who put on a demonstration of tactical Peace Keeping the pun out the nasty little genocide that Newty and DeLay encouraged to happen with an empty impeachment. The only Bike Pence moment Lindsey Graham ever performed in his contribution to the January 6 majority was voting against impeachment in committee, where it should have died.
If you are woke, just remember that Dan Sickles was the Tommy Tuberville of Gettysburg. The leadership cadre of the January 6 majority has been running America on the basis of Tommy Tuberville’s command of military issues since the Hollywood John Birch Society came to Washington with Reagan and began inflicting their Ivy League Socialism as the law of the land ever since. The collapse of commercial airline service last Christmas is just one example of the damage being done below decs.
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kp777 · 1 year
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mariacallous · 3 months
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It wasn’t long ago that most of the world was focusing on a U.S.-Saudi-Israeli “big Middle East deal.” The current climate of death, destruction, and the catastrophe that is unfolding before our eyes is a long way from the exuberance surrounding potential Saudi-Israeli normalization in the weeks and months prior to the war.
While some observers may be surprised by Hamas’s heinous Oct. 7 attacks and the eruption of a major war, others had long dreaded such an outbreak of violence. Due to the desperate desire of both Israel and the United States to see a normalization deal with Saudi Arabia, the unresolved and simmering Palestinian issue was largely ignored.
Both Israel and the United States had their respective reasons to push for normalization. For Washington, and in particular for President Joe Biden, being the broker of such a major deal would cement his legacy in history and provide a needed diplomatic talking point for the 2024 election campaign.
For Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, having Saudi Arabia—the custodian of Islam’s two holiest sites—recognizing Israel would be a strategic victory. If Saudi Arabia agrees to normalize relations with Israel, there will be little else to pressure the Netanyahu government, or any future Israeli government, with to ensure significant concessions and facilitate a political settlement that ushers in security for both Palestinians and Israelis.
As soon as the war erupted, there was an ominous feeling that a humanitarian catastrophe was going to ensue. There was little doubt that Arab states would condemn Israel. What was less clear was how Arab states would use their leverage. The energy landscape has changed dramatically from 1973, and therefore, the “oil card” was not going to hold much sway today.
This then raises the question of how Saudi Arabia will use its leverage in this crisis. While oil is no longer an effective instrument of leverage over the United States and Israel, Riyadh does have some tools in its diplomatic arsenal that—if deployed properly—will give it a say in shaping the future of Israel and Palestine.
As the war continues, both Israel and the United States are losing credibility. Forcibly displacing refugees from their homes, and then cutting off humanitarian essentials, is hardly a way to gain any support, let alone legitimacy for a military campaign. As the humanitarian catastrophe grows, the United States is losing international credibility, not least in the Middle East. While it is unrealistic to see any Saudi action that could force Israel to stop its war in Gaza, Saudi Arabia is using its symbolic position as the guardian of Islam’s holiest sites against Israel.
Riyadh is leading a diplomatic effort designed to generate an international narrative that questions the legality of Israeli military aggression, and the U.S. diplomatic cover it is utilizing. Not only are the Saudi ruling elites rejecting the Israeli self-defense argument, but they are also going on the diplomatic offensive. Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan is leading a diplomatic committee mandated by the Arab League and Organization of Islamic Cooperation, to tour various international capitals and argue for an immediate cease-fire.
The committee’s first stop was in Beijing and then Moscow. This was a clear signal to Washington that Saudi Arabia has other options in this ever-evolving multipolar world. In addition, the committee’s presence in the United Nations and the constant proposals by the Arab-Islamic group are designed to keep diplomatic pressure on the United States, by highlighting it as an obstacle to a cease-fire.
The Saudis are also using an overlooked diplomatic tool: silence. Their outright refusal of any political discussion before a cease-fire is also generating pressure by disallowing Israel a clear political horizon after the campaign. As the Saudi foreign minister said last month: “What future is there to talk about when Gaza is being destroyed.”
The Saudi ruling elites have another reason to avoid any discussion about the “day after.” They believe entertaining this idea won’t help achieve a permanent cease-fire and could be seen as being complicit in giving the current Israeli campaign a tacit legitimacy that is missing. Riyadh has been there before.
In 2006, when the Hezbollah-Israel war erupted, the then-Saudi ruling elites had a pragmatic position that balanced criticism of both Israel and Hezbollah. Saudi Arabia stated at the time that while it supported pan Arab causes, a “distinction must be made between legitimate resistance and uncalculated adventures undertaken by elements inside [Lebanon] and those behind them.”
Given the measured response, and the general expectation of an outright condemnation of Israel, this dual criticism was interpreted as tacit sign of tolerance of Israel’s behavior. This is something that Riyadh wants to avoid today. It does not want to allow itself to be politicized for Israeli political ends. In other words, the Saudi ruling elites want to avoid being “spun.”
Netanyahu is often dubbed the “master of spin.” The Saudis know that if they initiate any political discussion about the day after, or even hypothesizing about future scenarios, this will certainly lend itself to Netanyahu’s spinning tendencies. One can see how Netanyahu spun medical assistance to Gaza by the United Arab Emirates as if the Emirati support had been based on Netanyahu’s request, and not a response to the dire medical crises ensuing there. Saudi Arabia has a good sense of how its actions and statements can be spun in a way that suggests the Saudis and Israelis are on the same page regarding the day after for Gaza, which is far from the reality.
Where Riyadh has real leverage is when it comes to financing. Israel will never match the financial capacity of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states. Its economy is struggling, and according to a recent report by the Bank of Israel, it is losing $600 million a week during this campaign. The Israeli central bank has also suggested that the war costs from 2023 to 2025 will amount to some $53 billion.
This is precisely what gives Saudis, GCC states and Arab states leverage, as any reconstruction efforts can be used to nudge Israel toward a genuine peace process. Otherwise, it will only be a matter of time until the region finds itself in the same situation again—if not worse.
The Saudis have never been averse to financial support to the Palestinians. They have provided a great deal of that over the decades, and it does not look as if such support will subside soon. What the Saudis are averse to is rebuilding a decimated Gaza for the sake of Israeli security—especially given that Israel was the party that carried out the destruction.
There is currently wishful thinking in Israel and Washington that Saudi Arabia and other GCC states will pay the bill for Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. According to a leak to the Israeli press, Netanyahu reportedly told a parliament committee on Dec. 11 that “the first step in Gaza will be to defeat Hamas. After that, I believe that the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia will support the rehabilitation of the Strip.”
To assume that Saudi Arabia and GCC states would readily agree to pay for the reconstruction of an inherited catastrophe, and then take responsibly for its security, reveals the naïve illusions entertained by many in Israel and the West. Western and Israeli discourses often depict the GCC states as irrational actors that spend first and think later—as if the GCC states’ only function in the world system is to throw money at other states’ problems. This is far from the reality. Nowadays, nothing in Saudi Arabia is spent unless it is deemed to be serving the kingdom’s interest; “Saudi Arabia first” is the principle that Saudi’s foreign policy is based on.
One of the difficulties of raising Saudi funds for reconstruction efforts is that Saudi Arabia itself is undergoing its own rebuilding process. Currently, the country has set itself a mammoth task of restructuring the state, building mega projects that are crucial to its Vision 2030 initiative, in the hope of eventually diversifying the Saudi economy away from oil to ensure the survivability of the state for generations to come. The Saudis do have the money, but it is for investing in Saudi Arabia’s future. Yet, this does not mean the Saudi ruling elites are not willing to invest in a future Palestinian state and contribute significantly to the rebuilding of its infrastructure.
The incentives for Saudi Arabia and other Arab states to contribute toward a reconstruction of Gaza can be increased if done right, within the right framework, with the right horizon, and with the right goals. Chief among these common goals is regional security, as this war has shown that the Palestinian issue is something that cannot be swept under the rug any longer.
This war also demonstrated the spillover risk—from the Lebanon-Israel border to Houthi attacks on international ships in the Red Sea off Yemen’s coast—it has the potential to destabilize the entire region. This regional risk can serve as leverage for the Saudis vis-à-vis Israel and as an incentive to pursue lasting peace.
“Regional prosperity” is a term commonly used by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. It is precisely this angle that one can see Saudi investment in the restructuring of Gaza but only as part of a political process with clear political horizons that seeks to resolve the core issues of this conflict. Saudi Arabia already has leverage over Israel by not offering normalization, but Riyadh leading a reconstruction effort only amplifies Saudi political leverage over Israel, as without functioning infrastructure in Gaza, security concerns for Israel will only increase.
Given the nature and complexity of this conflict, there is no single leader who can take charge but rather a few leaders who can influence the situation by using their respective leverage in a harmonized, coordinated process. To assume that Riyadh will take charge, notwithstanding the kingdom’s recent muscular foreign policy, is not likely.
The truth is that Saudi Arabia has always had a leading role in this conflict, but it preferred a leading-from-behind approach. This approach allowed it to use its diplomatic and symbolic weight without being on the political front line and potentially risking its strategic interests. The Saudi ruling elites came to the conclusion that they had mustered a great deal of political effort for a fruitless process and thus have never injected themselves into the intricacies of the Palestinian-Israeli final status negotiations.
The problem with the previous peace process is that it proved to be structurally doomed to fail, given the dramatic asymmetry in power between Palestinians, Israel, and its ardent defender in Washington. Before Riyadh steps up and shows greater assertiveness on this issue, the Saudi ruling elites need to see a clear political horizon and an improved structure to the peace process. At that point, they might use their considerable financial leverage to shape the outcome.
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beardedmrbean · 1 year
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WASHINGTON (AP) — A group of progressive Democrats in Congress said Tuesday it had retracted a letter to the White House urging President Joe Biden to engage in direct diplomatic talks with Russia after it triggered an uproar among Democrats and raised questions about the strength of the party’s support for Ukraine.
In a statement, Rep. Pramila Jayapal, the chair of the Progressive Caucus, said the caucus was withdrawing the letter it sent less than 24 hours prior. It was signed by 30 members of the party's liberal flank.
“The letter was drafted several months ago, but unfortunately was released by staff without vetting," the Washington Democrat wrote in a statement. As chair of the caucus, Jayapal said she took responsibility for this.
The unusual retraction capped a tense 24-hour period for Democrats. Many reacted angrily to the appearance of flagging support for the president's Ukraine strategy, coming just weeks before a midterm election where their majorities in Congress are at risk.
The back-and-forth spotlighted the fragile nature of Biden’s relationship with the progressive wing of his party, raising stark questions about their ability to work together not only on Ukraine funding — which seems secure, for now — but on more pressing issues that are top priorities for liberals.
The letter had called for Biden to pair the unprecedented economic and military support for Ukraine with a “proactive diplomatic push, redoubling efforts to seek a realistic framework for a cease fire."
“The alternative to diplomacy is protracted war, with both its attendant certainties and catastrophic and unknowable risks,” the letter read.
Jayapal said the letter was unfairly conflated with recent comments from Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., who warned that Republicans will not write a “blank check” for Ukraine if they win back the House majority in November.
“The proximity of these statements created the unfortunate appearance that Democrats, who have strongly and unanimously supported and voted for every package of military, strategic, and economic assistance to the Ukrainian people, are somehow aligned with Republicans who seek to pull the plug on American support" for Ukraine, Jayapal said.
Yet Jayapal did not disavow the substance of the letter or the push for Biden to engage in diplomacy. Members of the caucus have been calling for a diplomatic solution since Russian President Vladimir Putin's forces invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24.
The text of the letter had been circulating since at least June, but only a handful of lawmakers signed on at the time, according to two Democrats familiar with the matter who were granted anonymity to discuss internal party deliberations.
Some Democrats who signed the letter months ago said they no longer support it.
“I signed this letter on June 30, but a lot has changed since then," Democratic Rep. Sara Jacobs of California said on Twitter. “I wouldn’t sign it today.”
“We have to continue supporting Ukraine economically and militarily to give them the leverage they need to end this war,” she said.
Once the White House received the letter Monday, it acknowledged the “very thoughtful concerns” that progressives had about the conflict in Ukraine; asked about the letter after it was withdrawn Tuesday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre emphasized that the administration still believes any decision to negotiate a peace deal directly with Russia was up to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
“There is nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine. We’ve been very clear about that,” Jean-Pierre said Tuesday. “Our job as we see it today, as we’ve seen it for this past year — more than a year — is to make sure that Ukraine has what it needs on the ground.”
In private, senior national security officials believed it wasn’t the major shift in strategy that it was publicly perceived to be, according to people familiar with the administration’s sentiments. The White House did not urge Jayapal to retract the letter, according to the people, who were granted anonymity to discuss internal White House thinking.
Despite the retraction and messy behind-the-scenes process, some Democratic lawmakers said they still backed the sentiments behind the letter, arguing that it is the prerogative of Congress to debate the issue as it continues to approve billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine.
“I have voted for arms to Ukraine and will continue to support providing arms to Ukraine to stand up against Putin’s brutal aggression,” Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., said in an interview Tuesday.
“At the same time, it’s my obligation to make sure we are mitigating the risk of nuclear war, that we are making sure that the conflict doesn’t escalate and that we are working toward a negotiated settlement that will be a just peace. That is the framework of the letter.”
The backlash against the progressives who signed the letter — including some of the most outspoken voices of the caucus like Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar — came most pointedly at Jayapal, who is the face of the liberal faction. It was the latest setback for the congresswoman, who has worked for the better half of the past year to help Biden and the Democrats deliver on some of the party's core legislative promises, often at a cost to some of her caucus's more liberal priorities.
Most notably, last fall, Jayapal helped lead the bipartisan infrastructure package over the finish line after party divisions threatened its passage in the House. The recent mishap also casts doubt on her whispered ambitions to join Democratic leadership.
Since the war began, Congress has approved tens of billions in emergency security and humanitarian assistance for Ukraine, while the Biden administration has shipped billions worth of weapons and equipment from military inventories.
Last month, lawmakers approved about $12.3 billion in Ukraine-related aid as part of a bill that finances the federal government through Dec. 16. The money included aid for the Ukrainian military as well as money to help the country’s government provide basic services to its citizens.
That comes on top of more than $50 billion provided in two previous bills.
Financial support for Ukraine garnered strong bipartisan support in the Senate and the House after Russia’s invasion, but conservative opposition was present from the start. Republicans accounted for the only votes against a $40 billion aid package in the spring.
Recent comments from McCarthy have more clearly reflected the GOP's growing skepticism about the cost of financial support for Kyiv.
In private, GOP lawmakers who support aid to Ukraine say there could be an opportunity to pass one more tranche of assistance in an end-of-year spending package, before Republicans potentially take control in the next Congress.
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