Bay Area United Against War Newsletter, October 9, 2023

                                          

Join our virtual conversation on "The Torture of Solitary Confinement."

Death Penalty Focus is marking the 21st World Day Against the Death Penalty with a webinar Tuesday, October 10, 2023, at noon PT/3:00 P.M. ET, with DPF President Mike Farrell, former United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture Juan E. Méndez, and Rachel Meeropol, who, as a lawyer with the Center for Constitutional Rights, represented those imprisoned in solitary confinement in California in their landmark lawsuit, Ashker v. Governor.

Register Now:

https://deathpenalty.org/event/the-torture-of-solitary-confinement/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=4feff85f-406b-4930-9441-2bf1b148ec09

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Register at:

https://secure.everyaction.com/YHt05NuyC0aYxjJ-tXwmdQ2

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Zaid Abdulnasser, the coordinator of Samidoun Network’s chapter in Germany, and member of the Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement, is currently being threatened by the German state that his residency as a Palestinian refugee born in Syria will be revoked due to his political engagement in Samidoun and Masar Badil.

 

In the face of this attack, more than 130 international organisations, unions, and political parties, have expressed their absolute refusal of Germany’s ever increasing repressive measures against Palestinian refugees and their fundamental right to struggle for their liberation and return.

 

We call for organisations to join us by signing the statement under the following link:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSffcsikMQR1lwvPqukzYCQpCzSZwLy28RXY8tYdGNxzlgugOA/viewform

 

To financially support the legal defence of Zaid and other Palestinians in Germany bearing the brunt of the state’s repressive measures against Palestine, you can make a donation to the following account:

 

Name: Rote Hilfe e.V.

IBAN: DE55 4306 0967 4007 2383 17

BIC: GENODEM1GLS

Note: Palaestina gegen Repression

 

We, in Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, declare that all attacks against us by the zionist occupation, its organisations abroad, and by Western imperialist countries and right-wing, racist media, have not and will not change our absolute commitment to defending and supporting the Palestinian prisoners movement, and to struggle for the liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea.

Sign the statement!

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSffcsikMQR1lwvPqukzYCQpCzSZwLy28RXY8tYdGNxzlgugOA/viewform

Download the poster, take a selfie or group photo, and send it to us at: 

samidoun@samidoun.net

@samidounnetwork (Instagram) 

@SamidounPP (Twitter/X)!

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Leonard Peltier’s Letter Delivered to Supporters on September 12, 2023, in Front of the Whitehouse

 

Dear friends, relatives, supporters, loved ones:

 

Seventy-nine years old. Mother Earth has taken us on another journey around Grandfather Sun.  Babies have taken their first breath. People have lived, loved, and died. Seeds have been planted and sent their roots deep below red earth and their breath to the Stars and our Ancestors.

 

I am still here.

 

Time has twisted one more year out of me. A year that has been a moment.  A year that has been a lifetime. For almost five decades I’ve existed in a cage of concrete and steel.  With the “good time” calculations of the system, I’ve actually served over 60 years.

 

Year after year, I have encouraged you to live as spirit warriors. Even while in here, I can envision what is real and far beyond these walls.  I’ve seen a reawakening of an ancient Native pride that does my heart good.

 

I may leave this place in a box. That is a cold truth. But I have put my heart and soul into making our world a better place and there is a lot of work left to do – I would like to get out and do it with you.

 

I know that the spirit warriors coming up behind me have the heart and soul to fight racism and oppression, and to fight the greed that is poisoning our lands, waters, and people. 

 

We are still here.

 

Remember who you are, even if they come for your land, your water, your family. We are children of Mother Earth and we owe her and her other children our care.

 

I long to turn my face to the sky. In this cage, I am denied that simple pleasure. I am in prison, but in my mind, I remain as I was born: a free Native spirit.

 

That is what allows me to laugh, keeps me laughing. These walls cannot contain my laughter – or my hope.

 

I know there are those who stand with me, who work around the clock for my freedom. I have been blessed to have such friends.

 

We are still here and you give me hope. 

 

I hope to breathe free air before I die. Hope is a hard thing to hold, but no one is strong enough to take it from me. 

 

I love you. I hope for you. I pray for you. 

 

And prayer is more than a cry to the Creator that runs through your head.  Prayer is an action.

 

In the Spirit of Crazy Horse

DOKSHA, 

LEONARD PELTIER

Write to:

Leonard Peltier 89637-132

USP Coleman 1

P.O. Box 1033

Coleman, FL 33521

Note: Letters, address and return address must be in writing—no stickers—and on plain white paper.

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SF ANSWER office suffers major fire damage. Your support needed!

 

DONATE:

https://www.answercoalition.org/sf_donate?utm_campaign=2023_09_17_lc_fundraiser&utm_medium=email&utm_source=answercoalition

 

Dear Friends and Supporters of the ANSWER Coalition,

 

An early morning fire on Thursday, Sept. 14 caused massive damage to our offices on Mission Street. It appears that the fire started in the lot next to our building, turned into a two-alarm blaze, and took fire-fighters more than three hours to fully extinguish. Thanks to their skill and courageous action our building was not completely destroyed. But it will take at least several months to restore it to use. We are awaiting an investigation and assessment of what if any of the contents – our several-thousand-book library, a very large collection of historical materials, computers and other office equipment, etc.– are salvageable.

 

This disaster occurred just as we were in the midst of reconstructing and refurbishing the building, painting the main meeting room, installing a new ramp, doors and entryway for disabled persons, redoing the storefront windows and the marquee.

 

Multiple organizations are now using our office for activities and we were about to announce a new name for the building: the Mission Liberation Center. Such centers are now operating in cities across the country. That will of course have to be put on hold.

 

The loss of the use of our building for an extended period of time creates a serious problem for carrying out our work, but we have no intention of being sidelined. From opposing the blockade of Cuba and providing critically needed humanitarian aid, to support for the many labor struggles taking place from coast-to-coast, to resisting the U.S. war drive against Russia and China, to fighting toxic racism in the Bayview, and much more, ANSWER will continue our work on vital international, national and local issues.

 

We are asking everyone who values our work to express your solidarity at this time of greatest need. While many of the costs of repair will be covered by insurance, not everything will. If you are able to help with a donation, you can make a tax-deductible donation to the Progress Unity Fund.

 

Thank you in advance for your solidarity,

 

Richard Becker

Western Region Coordinator, ANSWER Coalition

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Drop the Charges on the Tampa 5!

Sign the Petition:

https://peoplespetitions.org/tampa5

 

The Tampa 5—Gia Davila, Lauren Pineiro, Laura Rodriguez, Jeanie K, and Chrisley Carpio—are the five Students for a Democratic Society protesters at the University of South Florida who were attacked by campus police and are now facing five to ten years in prison for protesting Governor Ron DeSantis' attacks on diversity programs and all of higher education.

 

On July 12, 2023, the Tampa 5 had their second court appearance. 

 

The Tampa 5 are still in the middle of the process of discovery, which means that they are obtaining evidence from the prosecution that is meant to convict them. They have said publicly that all the security camera footage they have seen so far absolves them, and they are eager to not only receive more of this evidence but also to share it with the world. The Tampa 5 and their supporters demand full transparency and USF's full cooperation with discovery, to which all of the defendants are entitled.

 

In spite of this, the charges have not yet been dropped. The case of the five SDS protesters is hurtling towards a trial. So, they need all of their supporters and all parties interested in the right to protest DeSantis to stay out in the streets!

 

We need to demand that the DeSantis-appointed, unelected State Attorney Susan Lopez and Assistant Prosecutor Justin Diaz drop the charges.

 

We need to win this case once and for all and protect the right of the student movement—and all social movements in the United States—to exercise their First Amendment right to free speech and to protest.

 

Defend the Tampa 5!

 

State Attorney Susy Lopez, Prosecutor Justin Diaz, Drop the Charges!

 

Save Diversity in Higher Education!

 

Protesting DeSantis is Not a Crime!

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Free Julian Assange

Immediate Repeated Action Needed to Free Assange

 

Please call your Congressional Representatives, the White House, and the DOJ. Calls are tallied—they do count.  We are to believe we are represented in this country.  This is a political case, so our efforts can change things politically as well.  Please take this action as often as you can:

 

Find your representatives:

https://www.congress.gov/members/find-your-member

 

Leave each of your representatives a message individually to: 

·      Drop the charges against Julian Assange

·      Speak out publicly against the indictment and

·      Sign on to Rashida Tlaib's letter to the DOJ to drop the charges: 

           202-224-3121—Capitol Main Switchboard 

 

Leave a message on the White House comment line to 

Demand Julian Assange be pardoned: 

             202-456-1111

             Tuesday–Thursday, 11:00 A.M.–3:00 P.M. EST

 

Call the DOJ and demand they drop the charges against Julian Assange:

             202-353-1555—DOJ Comment Line

             202-514-2000 Main Switchboard 

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Mumia Abu-Jamal is Innocent!

FREE HIM NOW!

Write to Mumia at:

Smart Communications/PADOC

Mumia Abu-Jamal #AM-8335

SCI Mahanoy

P.O. Box 33028

St. Petersburg, FL 33733

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Update on Ed Poindexter and Urgent Health Call-In Campaign

 

Watch the moving video of Ed's Niece and Sister at the April 26, 2023, UN EMLER Hearing in Atlanta: https://youtu.be/aKwV7LQ5iww

 

You can also watch Ed speaking about himself some years ago thanks to Sister Tekla, who was able to interview Ed and Mondo some years ago: https://youtu.be/sps0s4zeJxg.

More of these videos will be forthcoming.

 

Ed needs to be released to live the rest of his life outside of prison, with his family! (His niece Ericka is now 52 years old and was an infant when Ed was targeted, stolen from his home, jailed, framed, and railroaded.)

 

Friends and Comrades,

 

Thank you so very much for your phone calls and communications in support of Ed Poindexter’s health care!

 

We have learned from Ed’s family that a date has been set for Ed to go to an outside doctor to be evaluated for a hearing device. (Thank you, callers!) We have also learned that Ed will not be fitted for a prosthesis within the foreseeable future. The reason for this is that Ed is unable to sit up for more than a few seconds on his own. He is unable to get himself out of bed by himself. Ed cannot go to the restroom without substantial help. There is a fear of him falling.

 

The prison’s response has been to suggest that Ed try harder at physical therapy—so that he might be able to tie his own shoes again and perform basic self-care—but he cannot. Our position is that he is too weak because of the near daily kidney dialysis and multiple other health problems. As you know, he has lost sight in one eye, and is unable to hear. While he may have been weakened by being wheelchair bound for years, the fact that the institution amputated his left leg below the knee (without notice to the family) has made recovery of strength in his legs difficult. Add to this that Ed is extremely ill from kidney disease, and the near daily kidney dialysis artificially making his kidney’s function causes him to vomit his food and makes him ill overall. All of these combined illnesses have resulted in Ed not being able to even hold his frame upright for more than a few seconds.

 

Therefore, in protection of Ed’s basic rights as a human being to health care and human dignity, we demand that Ed be seen by an outside high ranking National Medical Association Certified geriatric physician or team of physicians who specialize in heart, kidney, and geriatric health. We demand the evaluation be by a physician connected to a reputable hospital so that Ed’s entire condition: eyes, heart (recall that Ed underwent triple bypass heart surgery in 2016) kidneys, neuropathy, amputated leg, serious inability to balance his frame, and hearing can all be evaluated as a whole.

 

It is the family’s belief that Ed is experiencing a diminishing quality of life that it is irreversible, and we demand an outside doctor also evaluate him for this obvious fact. If it is determined by a reputable doctor that Ed is experiencing a diminishing quality of life; we want his status changed at the prison to reflect this reality.

 

Please call the numbers below and write to demand that Ed be seen by an outside doctor at a state-of-the-art hospital facility—for the purpose of evaluation specifically as to whether his condition is diminishing and irreversible—taken as a whole.

 

Ed Support Committee and Family and Concerned Members of the Community

 

PLEASE CALL, EMAIL AND WRITE:

 

Acting Medical Director Jeff Kasselman, M.D.: 402-479-5931 jeffrey.kasselman@nebraska.gov

 

Warden Boyd of the Reception and Treatment Center: 402-471-2861

 

Warden: Taggart Boyd

Reception and Treatment Center

P.O. Box 22800

Lincoln, NE 68542-2800

Phone: 402-471-2861

Fax: 402-479-6100

 

Jeff Kasselman, M.D.

Acting Medical Director,

Nebraska Department of Corrections

Phone: 402-479-5931

Email: jeffrey.kasselman@nebraska.gov

 

Sample Message:

 

“I’m calling to urge that Ed Poindexter, #27767, be given appropriate medical care. I demand that be seen by an outside high ranking National Medical Association certified geriatric physician or team of physicians who specialize in heart, kidney, and geriatric health. I demand the evaluation include Ed’s entire condition: eyes, kidneys, diabetes, neuropathy, amputated leg, serious inability to balance his frame, and hearing. ”

 

You can read more about Ed Poindexter at:

https://www.thejerichomovement.com/profile/poindexter-ed

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Updates From Kevin Cooper 

March 23, 2023 

Dear Friends and Comrades, 

This is Kevin Cooper writing and sending this update to you in 'Peace & Solidarity'. First and foremost I am well and healthy, and over the ill effect(s) that I went through after that biased report from MoFo, and their pro prosecution and law enforcement experts. I am back working with my legal team from Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP.

'We' have made great progress in refuting all that those experts from MoFo came up with by twisting the truth to fit their narrative, or omitting things, ignoring, things, and using all the other tactics that they did to reach their conclusions. Orrick has hired four(4) real experts who have no questionable backgrounds. One is a DNA attorney, like Barry Scheck of the innocence project in New York is for example. A DNA expert, a expect to refute what they say Jousha Ryen said when he was a child, and his memory. A expect on the credibility of MoFo's experts, and the attorney's at Orrick are dealing with the legal issues.

This all is taking a little longer than we first expected it to take, and that in part is because 'we' have to make sure everything is correct in what we have in our reply. We cannot put ourselves in a situation where we can be refuted... Second, some of our experts had other things planned, like court cases and such before they got the phone call from Rene, the now lead attorney of the Orrick team. With that being said, I can say that our experts, and legal team have shown, and will show to the power(s) that be that MoFo's DNA expert could not have come to the conclusion(s) that he came to, without having used 'junk science'! They, and by they I mean my entire legal team, including our experts, have done what we have done ever since Orrick took my case on in 2004, shown that all that is being said by MoFo's experts is not true, and we are once again having to show what the truth really is.

Will this work with the Governor? Who knows... 'but' we are going to try! One of our comrades, Rebecca D.   said to me, 'You and Mumia'...meaning that my case and the case of Mumia Abu Jamal are cases in which no matter what evidence comes out supporting our innocence, or prosecution misconduct, we cannot get a break. That the forces in the so called justice system won't let us go. 'Yes' she is correct about that sad to say...

Our reply will be out hopefully in the not too distant future, and that's because the people in Sacramento have been put on notice that it is coming, and why. Every one of you will receive our draft copy of the reply according to Rene because he wants feedback on it. Carole and others will send it out once they receive it. 'We' were on the verge of getting me out, and those people knew it, so they sabotaged what the Governor ordered them to do, look at all the evidence as well as the DNA evidence. They did not do that, they made this a DNA case, by doing what they did, and twisted the facts on the other issues that they dealt with.   'more later'...

In Struggle & Solidarity,

An immediate act of solidarity we can all do right now is to write to Kevin and assure him of our continuing support in his fight for justice. Here’s his address:

Mr. Kevin Cooper

C-65304. 4-EB-82

San Quentin State Prison

San Quentin, CA 94974

 

 

Call California Governor Newsom:

1-(916) 445-2841

Press 1 for English or 2 for Spanish, 

press 6 to speak with a representative and

wait for someone to answer 

(Monday-Friday, 9:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. PST—12:00 P.M. to 8:00 P.M. EST)

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The writers' organization PEN America is circulating this petition on behalf of Jason Renard Walker, a Texas prisoner whose life is being threatened because of his exposés of the Texas prison system. 

See his book, Reports from within the Belly of the Beast; available on Amazon at:

https://www.amazon.com/Reports-Within-Belly-Beast-Department-ebook/dp/B084656JDZ/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8

Petition: https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/protect-whistleblowers-in-carceral-settings

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Sign the petition:

https://dontextraditeassange.com/petition/

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Tell Congress to Help #FreeDanielHale

 

I’m pleased to announce that last week our client, Daniel Hale, was awarded the Sam Adams Award for Integrity in Intelligence. The “Corner-Brightener Candlestick” was presented to Daniel’s friend Noor Mir. You can watch the online ceremony here. As it happens, this week is also the 20th anniversary of the first drone assassination in Yemen. From the beginning, the drone assassination program has been deeply shrouded in secrecy, allowing U.S. officials to hide significant violations of international law, and the American Constitution. In addition to the lives directly impacted by these strikes, the program has significantly eroded respect for international law and thereby puts civilians around the world in danger. Daniel Hale’s revelations threw a beam of light into a very dark corner, allowing journalists to definitively show that the government's official narrative was a lie. It is thanks to the great personal sacrifice of drone whistleblowers like Hale that public understanding has finally begun to catch up to reality. As the Sam Adams Associates note:  “Mr. Hale was well aware of the cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment to which other courageous officials have been subjected — and that he would likely suffer the same. And yet — in the manner of his famous ancestor Nathan Hale — he put his country first, knowing what awaited him at the hands of those who serve what has become a repressive Perpetual War State wreaking havoc upon much of the world.” We hope you’ll join the growing call to pardon or commute Hale’s sentence. U.S. citizens can contact your representatives here.

Happy new year, and thank you for your support! Jesselyn Radack Director Whistleblower & Source Protection Program (WHISPeR) ExposeFacts Twitter: @JesselynRadack

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Laws are created to be followed

by the poor.

Laws are made by the rich

to bring some order to exploitation.

The poor are the only law abiders in history.

When the poor make laws

the rich will be no more.

 

—Roque Dalton Presente!

(May 14, 1935 – Assassinated May 10, 1975)[1]

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[1] Roque Dalton was a Salvadoran poet, essayist, journalist, political activist, and intellectual. He is considered one of Latin America's most compelling poets.

Poems: 

http://cordite.org.au/translations/el-salvador-tragic/

About: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roque_Dalton

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A Plea for the Compassionate Release of 

Leonard Peltier

Self Portrait by Leonard Peltier

Video at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWdJdODKO6M&feature=youtu.be

Sign our petition urging President Biden to grant clemency to Leonard Peltier.

 

https://www.freeleonardpeltier.com/petition

 

Email: contact@whoisleonardpeltier.info

Address: 116 W. Osborne Ave. Tampa, Florida 33603

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Resources for Resisting Federal Repression

https://www.nlg.org/federalrepressionresources/

 

Since June of 2020, activists have been subjected to an increasingly aggressive crackdown on protests by federal law enforcement. The federal response to the movement for Black Lives has included federal criminal charges for activists, door knocks by federal law enforcement agents, and increased use of federal troops to violently police protests. 

 

The NLG National Office is releasing this resource page for activists who are resisting federal repression. It includes a link to our emergency hotline numbers, as well as our library of Know-Your-Rights materials, our recent federal repression webinar, and a list of some of our recommended resources for activists. We will continue to update this page. 

 

Please visit the NLG Mass Defense Program page for general protest-related legal support hotlines run by NLG chapters.

 

Emergency Hotlines

If you are contacted by federal law enforcement, you should exercise all of your rights. It is always advisable to speak to an attorney before responding to federal authorities. 

 

State and Local Hotlines

If you have been contacted by the FBI or other federal law enforcement, in one of the following areas, you may be able to get help or information from one of these local NLG hotlines for: 

 

Portland, Oregon: (833) 680-1312

San Francisco, California: (415) 285-1041 or fbi_hotline@nlgsf.org

Seattle, Washington: (206) 658-7963

National Hotline

If you are located in an area with no hotline, you can call the following number:

 

National NLG Federal Defense Hotline: (212) 679-2811

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Articles

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1) Migrants Chased and Snared in Razor Wire: A Rare Look at Texas’ Border Tactics

Videos reveal increasing militarization as Gov. Greg Abbott orders more troops and concertina wire to try to stop illegal border crossings.

By David Peinado, Brent McDonald and Meg Felling, Oct. 7, 2023

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/07/us/migrants-chased-and-snared-in-razor-wire-a-rare-look-at-texas-border-tactics.html

Hundreds of migrants illegally crossing from Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, into El Paso each day are running smack into what feels like a war zone: miles of triple-stack concertina wire and armed National Guard troops ordering them to return to Mexico.

 

They wade in single file across the Rio Grande intent on turning themselves over to Border Patrol to be processed — more than 1,270 a day at this part of the border during September.

 

But many migrants crossing between points of entry now spend their first steps on U.S. soil confronted by Operation Lone Star, the multibillion-dollar initiative that Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas started two years ago, and bolstered again last month to address the border crisis and prevent drug and human smuggling.

 

The flow of migrants crossing the Southern border between official ports of entry has roughly doubled since the spring, after a brief dip. In May, Governor Abbott began to ramp up deployments of National Guard soldiers from Texas and other states, as well as state troopers, and a new Texas Tactical Border Force.

 

Over a period of 10 days in late September and October, The New York Times documented the El Paso border from the Mexico side. The footage offers a rare look at the aggressive tactics by National Guard troops trying to block, apprehend and repel people seeking unlawful entry to the U.S.

 

National Guard soldiers and state troopers patrol between lines of concertina wire, engaging in cat-and-mouse pursuits with migrants, and in some cases, arresting them for trespassing.

 

In the video below, soldiers used their bodies to trap a woman and a child against rolls of concertina wire. She finally darted free with the child in her arms and ran up the concrete embankment past National Guard troops to join other migrants waiting to be processed by Border Patrol.

 

On that same night, a soldier chased and threatened a young man with his rifle as another soldier pulled him by the shirt back toward Mexico. The man later escaped and leaped over the fence.

 

Governor Abbott responded to criticism of his border tactics in a statement in July, saying, “No orders or directions have been given under Operation Lone Star that would compromise the lives of those attempting to cross the border illegally.”

 

The absence of concertina wire, the governor added, encourages migrants to make potentially life-threatening and illegal crossings.

 

Individuals and families with infants have become temporarily ensnared in the fence’s teeth. When National Guard soldiers arrived in a truck while people were under the razor wire, one woman, dressed in red, re-emerged on the Mexico side moments later with a bloodied arm.

 

The Texas National Guard began laying more than 20 miles of concertina wire along the border near El Paso in the spring, and reinforced it in August with two, and in some places three, lines of fencing.

 

Arguil González, a Venezuelan migrant, told The Times that soldiers had ordered him back across the river three times in the same day. He lacerated his arm trying to reverse through the sharp steel fence with his young son, whose legs were also cut.

 

Operation Lone Star’s tactics have been called “inhumane” by lawmakers, migrant advocacy groups and a concerned medic with the Texas Department of Public Safety.

 

The Texas Military Department would not comment on specific strategies or tactics, but confirmed in a statement to The Times on Sept. 27 that the Texas National Guard had rapidly deployed an additional 600 soldiers and equipment, as well as trained members of the state’s Tactical Border Force flown in on C-130J cargo aircraft in response to the new surge in migrants.

 

Despite the intensified military presence, migrants continue to arrive atop trains to Ciudad Juárez by the hundreds, and at times, thousands. Approximately 50,000 Venezuelans crossed the Southern border illegally in September alone.

 

The Texas Department of Public Safety opened an investigation into the state military’s tactics at the border, including the use of concertina wire, after a trooper-medic sent an email in July expressing concern after a large group of migrants was pushed back across the Rio Grande to Mexico in extreme heat conditions and not given water. The department did not respond to a request for comment on the status of the case.

 

In late August, a Texas National Guard soldier in El Paso shot at a man on the Mexico side of the Rio Grande, wounding him in the leg. That incident is still under investigation.

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2) How the Costs of Car Ownership Add Up

Pandemic disruptions drove the expenses associated with owning a car through the roof, creating a financial burden that many drivers didn’t bargain for.

By Lydia DePillis. Produced by Rebecca Lieberman and Crista Chapman. Oct. 6, 2023

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/10/07/business/car-ownership-costs.html

Troy Massey is a 29-year-old Amazon driver in Jacksonville, Fla., who needs a car to go even a few miles but keeps getting underwater on car loans. Dustin Miller for The New York Times

For millions of Americans, cars are a necessity — to get to work, to carry children around, to buy food. In recent memory, they’ve also never been as expensive to own.

 

According to AAA, the average annual cost in the first five years of new-car ownership rose to $12,182 this year, from $10,728 last year, reflecting increased purchase prices, maintenance costs and finance charges. That’s 16 percent of the median household income, before taxes. (The figure includes depreciation.)

 

What does that look like in the aggregate? About 92 percent of households have at least one car available to them, and 22 percent have at least three. That comes out to about 223 million personal vehicles, and trillions of dollars a year in spending. By contrast, only $79 billion was spent on public transportation in 2019 for both capital and operating expenses.

 

On a personal level, America’s dependence on automobiles means hefty bills, the risk of dangerous crashes and stress. And now, even with strong wage growth and elevated savings in recent years, high sticker prices and escalating interest rates are starting to take a toll: The share of borrowers moving into delinquency jumped sharply in late 2022 and early 2023. Personal vehicles often become workers’ largest expense, on a par with housing, child care and food.

 

To understand how car owners are coping, we asked five of them to lay out the expenses associated with their cars. They’re a lot higher than people sometimes bargain for. For most, there is no alternative.

 

Brent McCulley is a 33-year-old Realtor in Pompano Beach, Fla., whose family of four requires two cars, making the cost of transportation its largest expense.

 

Mr. McCulley had been getting along all right in Newark, N.J., with one Kia Soul between him, his wife and their young daughter. It was stressful, shuttling the toddler to day care and then getting to his office by 8 a.m., but they made it work with enough public transportation to handle in-between trips.

 

Florida was a different story. Mr. McCulley was born there and always wanted to return, so they moved to Pompano Beach in early 2022. By that time, after some car swaps, they were driving a 2022 Kia Forte, which he leased for $294 per month. They had a baby boy and fewer transit options, so they needed to go car shopping again.

 

”She could walk to Aldi and get groceries,” Mr. McCulley said of his wife. “But beyond that, there’s only so much you can do.”

 

Mr. McCulley’s credit score had taken a hit after he took on debt to finance the move. So he bought a 2019 Kia Sorento from Carvana at a 12 percent interest rate, which would have required paying $7,645 in interest over the course of the loan. A few months later his credit had improved enough for him to refinance at a 6.6 percent rate, which left the monthly payments at $577.

 

That’s only a little more than the average monthly payment for used cars, which reached $533 in the second quarter this year, according to TransUnion. The average payment for new cars is $741. Both are record highs.

 

Insurance on both of those cars in Florida comes to $459.

 

Gas adds $200 or so, bringing the total to around $1,530 a month. That’s about as much as their rent.

 

And there’s maintenance. After spending five years with a 1992 Buick Century that would break down every other week, Mr. McCulley likes to pay more for new or late-model vehicles because they tend to have fewer issues. Still, the Sorento has required about $3,000 in maintenance over the past year — the front brakes had to be replaced, then the back brakes, and then a flat tire.

 

Mr. McCulley expects this to be a lucrative year at work, with commissions that should amount to about double Pompano Beach’s median household income. But with all their expenses — including the resumption of mandatory student loan payments, and his son’s day care — they’re budgeting carefully. His wife decided to take a job at a veterinarian’s office to cover all the bills.

 

For Mr. McCulley, it’s an illustration that even for people who look comfortably middle class, car expenses contribute to a feeling of being overwhelmed.

 

“Whether you’re a millionaire trying to figure out how to allocate your taxes, or whether you’re making minimum wage,” Mr. McCulley said, “it’s all struggle in different kinds of ways.”

 

Troy Massey is a 29-year-old Amazon driver in Jacksonville, Fla., who needs a car to go even a few miles but keeps getting underwater on car loans.

 

A few years ago, debts had piled up while Mr. Massey was attending the University of Central Florida; he lost his financial aid and had to drop out. Juggling too many bills, he fell behind on the loan for his 2013 Honda Civic. In the fall of 2021 it was repossessed – but because he still owed $4,800, the loan balance, he had to keep making payments on a car he didn’t own.

 

Mr. Massey spent most of 2022 without a vehicle. It was technically feasible; he lived only a few miles from where he worked, at Walmart. But the bus wasn’t reliable, and when he tried to walk or bike, he’d end up soaked in sweat or a sudden downpour. After a while, he’d had enough.

 

“I just ended up biting the bullet and saying, ‘I need to get another car,’” Mr. Massey said. “I know what happened to the last one, but it’s a necessity. If we had some kind of rail system or something like that, it’d be fine. But we don’t.’”

 

This time, though, getting a car was even more expensive. The cheapest reliable car he could find, a Toyota Corolla with 89,000 miles, cost $18,240 including taxes and fees. With a 15.2 percent interest rate and an extended warranty, that left him with monthly payments of $451.

 

Looking for insurance, he couldn’t find anything less than $323 a month for the most basic plan.

 

Soon after, he switched from Walmart to a Winn-Dixie and took a second job working part time at Amazon, a 35-minute drive from his apartment. Gas for those commutes cost about $40 per week, bringing the monthly total to nearly $1,000, plus occasional maintenance, like the $100 for his last oil change and $27 to fix a slowly leaking tire.

 

“For someone who’s making a decent income, that might not be as hard,” Mr. Massey said. “But for someone like me who’s in the middle of trying to change careers making $15.50 an hour, it hits you like a truck.”

 

Mr. Massey thought about selling his Corolla and trying to find something even cheaper. The problem is, he still owes about $16,000 on the car, and its book value is only about half that, so he’d have to pay off the difference – again.

 

That’s an increasingly common experience, as the average used-car loan at origination has reached 123 percent of the vehicle’s market value, according to TransUnion. And although overall delinquency on auto loans is low, delinquencies have been climbing quickly since interest rates started increasing in 2022.

 

In August, he switched to a job driving full time for one of Amazon’s delivery contractors making $18.75 an hour, which comes to about $3,000 a month before taxes. Rent for his apartment with roommates is $700, leaving little for food and the credit card bills he’s still trying to pay off.

 

Mr. Massey is building his software programming portfolio so he can start applying for jobs that pay more – at least enough to afford his car.

 

Aydee Joya is a 56-year-old Uber driver living in Arlington, Va., who barely breaks even after accounting for all her expenses.

 

Technically, Ms. Joya’s car is her job, but sometimes it feels as if she’s working just to pay for it.

 

Ms. Joya immigrated from El Salvador as a child and worked for 26 years as a bilingual family assistant in public schools. When her job was eliminated in 2018, a friend told her that driving for taxi apps was a good way to make money on her own schedule, so she started driving for Uber in her 2014 Nissan Rogue.

 

It worked out all right for a while, and she enjoyed driving. But Ms. Joya quickly learned how many costs are involved in ferrying people around, along with the $235 she spends in gas per week. First came a spent battery, followed by oil changes, tires punctured by potholes, seats soiled by passengers’ vomit.

 

In July and August, routine maintenance including a tire alignment and transmission flush came to $1,433.

 

“There are things that people don’t know that are involved with their car,” Ms. Joya said. “We use the brakes all the time. You need to do a lot of repairs, not only tires, not only oil change. All the things inside the car get damaged.”

 

As many ride-hailing drivers do for their protection, she installed a camera in the car at her expense. County property taxes on her vehicle come to $566 per year, tolls add about $32 a month, and she faces occasional speeding tickets.

 

Insurance costs $603 for six months. In 2022, despite often driving 12 hours a day, she said she made only $12,000 after expenses.

 

In early 2023, as she drove to pick up a passenger, her car was rear-ended. The Nissan was totaled, and Ms. Joya was left with slicing back pain that has made it difficult to drive for long stretches. Now she drives a 2020 Honda HR-V with a monthly loan payment of $536. To make matters worse, she said, Uber isn’t paying as much on her fares as it used to. (Uber said drivers’ average earnings per hour that they were engaged with a passenger – that is, not counting time between fares – had risen since 2019.)

 

“I’m spending my own money for Uber,” while the company makes the profit, Ms. Joya said.

 

Ms. Joya has thought about moving on from Uber, and at the urging of her husband — a retired construction worker who worries about her being out late, with several high-profile reports of violence toward ride-hailing drivers recently — earned a certificate to become a clinical medical assistant. But she hasn’t found a job yet, so she keeps driving.

 

Jennifer Owings is a 48-year-old school administrator in New York City whose two-to-three-hour round trip commute costs more than $1,000 a month.

 

Ms. Owings loves her job, as an assistant principal at a public elementary school in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. She also loves her home in Staten Island, a condominium with a pool that she bought after a divorce a few years ago, and the community she has developed there.

 

She does not, however, love the commute – or how much it costs.

 

She gets in her 2017 Subaru Outback, which she’s paying off in $328 installments, and leaves at 5:10 a.m., when the 13 miles over the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge and down the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway are mostly clear (but include tolls totaling $175 a month). The afternoon commute is tricky; if she waits too long, it can take two hours. “Any Friday in June, forget about it,” Ms. Owings said.

 

Some expenses are occasional, like maintenance, which Ms. Owings estimates at $50 a month on average.

 

So far insurance has covered major damage, like the crash in 2021 that put the car in the shop for weeks, but it costs $232 a month.

 

Even minor needs add up, like registration this year, which was $138. She’s also enrolled in a monthly unlimited car wash plan, which costs $24.

 

Parking is the only thing that’s free, and some older staff members at her school even drive from Long Island. “I’d say the under-30 crew probably doesn’t have their own cars because they can’t afford to – it’s too expensive,” Ms. Owings said.

 

She could take a pay cut and return to teaching in a school closer to her house on Staten Island, and save some of the $200 a month she spends on gas. But a good boss, leadership opportunities and a school she likes are hard to give up. And public transportation?

 

“It would actually be faster to take my own kayak – or to run,” said Ms. Owings, who competes in marathons. Instead, as much as she enjoys having the time to catch up with friends, spending continuous hours in a car every day has given her hip pain. “Other people have old sports injuries,” she said. “I have a commuting injury.”

 

Cyndy Knighton is a 58-year-old transportation engineer for the City of Tukwila, Wash., who suffered multiple car accidents over the past year and a half.

 

Transportation didn’t use to cost that much for Cyndy Knighton, who drove a paid-off 2009 Nissan Altima hybrid — until April 2022, when a teenager driving on a learner’s permit made a left turn in front of her. She broke a wrist and her sternum in the collision, and the car was totaled.

 

An insurance payout covered the cost of a 14-year-old Subaru and its immediately needed repairs, but the vehicle switch subjected her to spiking gasoline prices that she had mostly avoided with her hybrid; the new car required about $163 per month to fuel.

 

In search of a longer-term solution, Ms. Knighton decided to order a new hybrid Toyota Highlander that could handle her steep driveway even during the rare snow and transport her four Samoyeds, which she breeds and occasionally enters in dog shows.

 

That car, however, got snarled in pandemic supply chain issues. The 2022 edition was converted into a 2023, with a slightly higher base price. Then in March, Ms. Knighton was hit again — her Subaru was rear-ended on Interstate 5 heading into Seattle, resulting in a concussion and another wrecked vehicle.

 

This time, with used cars in short supply, she paid about $8,200 — more than the $6,200 insurance payout — to buy a 2001 Highlander with poor gas mileage.

 

To add additional insurance protection, she’s now paying $158 a month in premiums.

 

Treatment for her injuries has racked up more than $86,000 in medical bills, which her employer’s health insurance has covered, other than her $750 in co-payments.

 

In September, after more than a year of wrangling with her car insurance company, she finally heard she would receive insurance payouts worth $80,000 after lawyers’ fees.

 

That will be enough to buy the new Highlander outright, at $62,350 including taxes. But Ms. Knighton would never have chosen to finance a new car that way. Aside from the pain and continuing physical therapy, the psychic trauma of repeated accidents takes its own toll. Small shocks on the road — like when she had to slam on the brakes recently, sending one of her dogs into the windshield — can bring on tears.

 

“I get the irony, that I’m a transportation professional and I’m afraid to drive,” Ms. Knighton said. “To have that lurking there, that could break through at any random time for any reason, is debilitating. It’s an emotional, intellectual cost that is intangible.”

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3) More than 40 hours after militants from Gaza surged across the border, Israel’s military said its forces were still battling gunmen on Israeli territory. Around 600 Israelis are believed to have been killed and at least 413 Palestinians are dead.

By Patrick Kingsley and Isabel Kershner, Oct. 8, 2023

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/10/08/world/israel-gaza-attack-hamas-news

Displaced Palestinian women, men and children next to Al-Shifa Hospital during the ongoing Israeli bombing of Gaza City, on Sunday.Samar Abu Elouf for The New York Times

Israel’s military said its forces were still battling gunmen from Gaza on Israeli territory on Sunday afternoon, more than 30 hours after the initial surge of armed militants across the border as part of the broadest invasion in 50 years.

 

The ongoing fighting came as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned of a “long and difficult war” ahead, saying in a statement that Israeli forces were moving into an “offensive phase, which will continue with neither limitations nor respite until the objectives are achieved.”

 

A senior Israeli defense official said that an early assessment showed that about 600 Israelis were believed to have been killed on Saturday. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to speak publicly.

 

The land, sea and air assault on Israel launched by Palestinian militants on Saturday prompted Israel to respond with heavy strikes on Gazan cities, which continued into Sunday morning. At least 413 Palestinians have been killed, including 78 children, and 2,300 others have been wounded, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza.

 

The Israeli military reported fighting in seven border communities and an army base, and tanks were seen crossing farmland in parts of southern Israel, heading south toward Gaza.

 

Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza, continued to fire rockets into Israel, hitting the city of Sderot and injuring at least one person.

 

Scores of reservists waited at rural bus stops, trying to get to their bases after Mr. Netanyahu issued a call-up. In one potential indication that Israel might be preparing for a broader operation inside Gaza, the Israeli military said it was evacuating residents of 24 villages in the area of the border.

 

Here’s what else to know:

 

Hamas has taken Israeli soldiers and civilians into captivity, which could complicate any retaliatory operations. Video verified by The Times appears to show several Israelis being taken hostage by Hamas militants in the Be’eri kibbutz, just under three miles from the border.

 

As Israel’s military began releasing the names of soldiers killed in the assault, witness accounts of the battles with Palestinian militants have been emerging. “There were terrorists inside the kibbutz, inside our neighborhood and — at some point — outside our window,” Amir Tibon recalled in a phone interview. “We could hear them talk. We could hear them run. We could hear them shooting their guns at our house, at our windows.”

 

The Israeli government said Saturday evening that it was cutting off its electricity supply for Gaza, which gets two-thirds of its power from Israel. The streets of Gaza City, the enclave’s largest urban area, had emptied out amid concerns of an intensification in airstrikes. Gazans living close to the Israeli border fled to areas further inside the enclave, fearing an Israeli ground invasion.

 

Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militant group that fought a war with Israel in 2006, said Sunday morning that it had attacked three Israeli posts with artillery shells and guided missiles in the Shebaa Farms area, land it considers to be occupied Lebanese territory. Hamas had urged armed groups in Lebanon to join its assaults on Israel.

 

The timing of the assault was notable, hitting Israel at one of the most difficult moments in its history. It came after months of profound anxiety about the cohesion of Israeli society and the readiness of its military, a crisis set off by the far-right government’s efforts to reduce the power of the judiciary.

 

Clashes have broken out between Palestinians and Israeli forces at regular flash points in the occupied West Bank, according to local news reports. Palestinians had declared a general strike across the West Bank and Israeli forces had closed some major roads in the territory to traffic. Earlier on Sunday, Palestinian health officials said that seven Palestinians had been killed in clashes with Israeli forces over the past 24 hours.

 

Aaron Boxerman contributed reporting.

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4) Amid Strikes, One Question: Are Employers Miscalculating?

UPS, the Hollywood studios and the Detroit automakers appear to have been taken aback by the tactics and tougher style adopted by new union leaders.

By Noam Scheiber, Oct. 8, 2023

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/08/business/economy/labor-strikes.html

The Writers Guild of America’s deal was the latest high-profile labor standoff that seemed to produce substantial gains for workers. Credit...Jeenah Moon for The New York Times

The list of gains that the Hollywood writers secured to end a nearly five-month strike with studios once seemed ludicrously ambitious: not just wage increases, but also minimum staffing levels for shows, new royalties on successful series and restrictions on outsourcing writing duties to artificial intelligence.

 

Yet far from an anomaly, the writers’ deal was the latest high-profile labor standoff that seemed to produce substantial gains for workers, and to suggest that they have more leverage than in the past.

 

United Parcel Service employees won large pay increases for part-timers by pushing the company to the brink of a strike, while the lowest-paid academic student employees at the University of California won salary increases of more than 50 percent after a monthlong strike affected thousands of students.

 

Given the unions’ apparent bargaining power and the economic costs to a prolonged work stoppage, the question arises: Why wouldn’t management make its eventual concessions more quickly?

 

The answer, many union and management experts say, is that employers are increasingly miscalculating — acting from a template that applied in previous decades, when employees had little leverage, and underestimating the frustration and resolve in the postpandemic work force.

 

“Psychologically, it’s a big shift: They’ve been in control. They have been able to tell their representatives to go and get concessions on X and Y, to make sure the wage increase is modest,” said Thomas Kochan, an emeritus management professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, referring to corporate executives.

 

“Now, they have to change their expectations internally,” Dr. Kochan added. “They have a lot of work to do.”

 

In example after example, executives appear to have been taken aback by unions’ new, more assertive leaders and their success at rallying members and the public, as well as the ineffectiveness of the employers’ traditional bargaining approach.

 

In Hollywood, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents entertainment companies in negotiations with writers, directors and actors, has frequently tried to forge a deal with one of the three guilds, then push the other two to accept similar terms.

 

That appeared to be the group’s strategy this year as well: After the writers went on strike in May, the alliance reached a deal with directors the next month. But any hope that the writers would be isolated collapsed when SAG-AFTRA, the union representing more than 150,000 actors, went on strike in July.

 

“The playbook was clearly outdated,” said Peter Newman, a longtime independent producer who heads a dual-degree master’s program in business and fine arts at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.

 

Still, Mr. Newman said, the strikes saved the studios hundreds of millions of dollars on shows in the short term as Wall Street was pressuring them to cut costs.

 

The producers’ alliance declined to comment for this article.

 

In Detroit, the three major U.S. automakers had grown accustomed to closed-door negotiations with the United Automobile Workers union, in which the parties did not disclose the potential terms until they reached an overall agreement.

 

But in the run-up to this year’s mid-September strike deadline, the union’s new president, Shawn Fain, appeared to wrong-foot executives at Ford Motor, General Motors and Stellantis — which makes the Chrysler and Jeep brands — by disclosing and deriding the companies’ offers. In one case, he literally threw a Stellantis proposal in the garbage.

 

The companies’ responses — a Stellantis executive sent employees a letter saying that “theatrics and personal insults will not help,” while Ford and G.M. have also expressed impatience — may have further galvanized members and built public support. Polls have found that the public supports the autoworkers over the companies by large margins, and that the margins increased after the U.A.W. began a limited strike.

 

“It doesn’t seem like they were prepared for the direction he was headed with his public comments,” David Pryzbylski, a labor lawyer who represents employers at Barnes & Thornburg, said of the reaction to Mr. Fain. “The way they have responded may have escalated it further versus letting it die out.”

 

Stellantis declined to comment. Auto industry executives argue that they have made historically generous offers, and that they haven’t been put off by Mr. Fain’s outspokenness so much as what they say are the showmanship and the unrealistic expectations he has created.

 

Mr. Pryzbylski emphasized that it was too early to tell whether the landscape had tilted to labor’s advantage for the longer term, or just temporarily. The outcome of the U.A.W. strike remains unclear, and the workers’ resolve could diminish if the strike drags on for weeks. Talks between the sides are ongoing.

 

Other management-side lawyers said that while a handful of executives might have miscalculated of late, there was no broader trend in this direction. They say that employers remain capable of assessing and acting in their self-interest, and that unions are equally capable of miscalculating.

 

“People are sophisticated on both sides,” said Marshall Babson, a longtime management-side lawyer and former member of the National Labor Relations Board. “From my experience, good negotiators don’t get distracted by pyrotechnics.”

 

But in many cases, what has changed is not so much the bluster from union leaders as their willingness to follow through — a potentially disruptive shift after years of often empty threats.

 

When Sean O’Brien, the Teamsters president, ran to succeed his longtime predecessor, James P. Hoffa, in 2021, he promised to raise wages for part-time workers at UPS, many of whom had long felt shortchanged.

 

And yet, according to two people close to the negotiations, the company seemed caught off guard when talks broke down over the issue on July 5 — Mr. O’Brien’s initial deadline.

 

Mr. O’Brien and the union spent the next few weeks publicly attacking UPS over what the union referred to as “part-time poverty” jobs before the company agreed to hourly wage increases for part-timers of more than $7.50 over the life of the new five-year contract.

 

Shortly after a tentative deal was reached in late July, the UPS chief executive, Carol Tomé, said the company had expected the negotiations “to be late and loud, and they were.” The company declined to comment for this article.

 

Part of the challenge for employers is public opinion: Confidence in big business is at its lowest point in decades, according to Gallup, while approval of labor unions is close to its highest. Mr. Fain and Mr. O’Brien appear to have devised their public campaigns to press this advantage.

 

Unions also appear to have benefited from new methods of keeping members focused on shared goals — as when writers erupted on social media over the news that the talk show hosted by Drew Barrymore would return before the strike ended. (Ms. Barrymore soon reversed course.)

 

And rank-and-file members appear to have become more committed to their leaders’ negotiating strategy as unions have become more democratic and involved members more in the push for a contract, said Jane McAlevey, a longtime labor organizer and scholar.

 

But perhaps most important, employers seem to be underestimating the determination of workers, who believe they have little to lose from striking amid rising prices and fundamental shifts in their industry that have sometimes made their jobs more precarious.

 

A few weeks after the writers walked off the job this spring, Mae Smith, a strike captain and former writer on the Showtime series “Billions,” predicted in an interview that the economic pain of a protracted strike against the studios would not discourage the writers because “unfortunately they’ve been training us to live off very few months of work for a long time.”

 

The prediction largely held, in something of a departure from the 2007 writers’ strike. Back then, when streaming felt like a distant threat, there were some splits within the Writers Guild over how aggressive to be, said Chris Keyser, a past president of the union.

 

This time, the writers appeared particularly unified by the looming role of artificial intelligence, an issue on which the studios largely refused to engage for months.

 

“A number of C.E.O.s, when we talked to them later about A.I., said that was a mistake,” recalled Mr. Keyser, a co-chair of the writers’ negotiating committee this year.

 

(The writers did compromise on some key issues in the end — there is no ban on studios’ use of scripts they own to train A.I. tools, though the guild reserved the right to challenge instances of this.)

 

Dr. Kochan of M.I.T. said the concession from studios on artificial intelligence was especially significant because it highlighted another shift: employers’ diminished ability to limit negotiations to conventional issues like wages and benefits while often reserving the right to control other aspects of the job, like technology adoption.

 

“For decades, management has been able to say: ‘These are our decisions, our prerogatives. It’s none of your business,’” he said.

 

With the breakthrough on artificial intelligence, he added, “this is a new day — that’s why the writers’ strike was so important.”

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5) Across the Mideast, a Surge of Support for Palestinians as War Erupts in Gaza

The escalation laid bare the limitations of diplomatic deals between Israel and Arab governments as long as the underlying conflict continues. “We told you so,” a Saudi scholar said.

By Vivian Nereim, Oct. 9, 2023

Reporting from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/09/world/middleeast/mideast-palestine-support-gaza.html

The National Islamic Bank in central Gaza was bombed on Sunday. Credit...Samar Abu Elouf for The New York Times

When the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco announced that they were establishing relations with Israel in 2020, Emirati officials said the deals were symbols of peace and tolerance, while then President Donald J. Trump declared “the dawn of a new Middle East.”

 

Those words rang hollow to many in the region, though. Even in the countries that signed the deals, branded the Abraham Accords, support for the Palestinians — and enmity toward Israel over its decades-long occupation of their land — remained strong, particularly as Israel’s government expanded settlements in the Palestinian West Bank after the agreements.

 

On Saturday, when Palestinian gunmen from the blockaded territory of Gaza surged into Israel, carrying out the boldest attack in the country in decades, it set off an outpouring of support for the Palestinians across the region. In some quarters, there were celebrations — even as hundreds of Israelis and Palestinians were killed and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel threatened a “long and difficult war” ahead.

 

“This is the first time that we rejoice in this way for our Palestinian brothers,” said Abdul Majeed Abdullah Hassan, 70, who joined a rally with hundreds of people in the island kingdom of Bahrain. In the context of the Israeli occupation and blockade, the Hamas operation “warmed our hearts,” he said, calling his government’s deal to recognize Israel “shameful.”

 

Demonstrations in solidarity with the Palestinians took place across the region, including in Bahrain, Morocco, Turkey, Yemen, Tunisia and Kuwait. In Lebanon, Hashem Safieddine, head of the executive council for the Iran-backed militia Hezbollah, delivered a fiery speech lauding “the era of armed resistance.” And in Egypt’s coastal city of Alexandria, a policeman opened fire on Israeli tourists, killing two Israelis and an Egyptian.

 

The ripples spreading from Gaza underscored what many officials, scholars and citizens in the region have been saying for years: The Palestinian cause is still a deeply felt rallying cry that shapes the contours of the Middle East, and Israel’s position in the region will remain unstable as long as its conflict with the Palestinians continues.

 

Diplomatic “normalization” agreements between Israel and Arab governments — even with the powerhouse of Saudi Arabia, where American officials have been pushing recently for normalization — will do little to change that, many regional analysts say.

 

“The current war is a stark reminder that lasting peace and prosperity in the region is only possible after resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” said Bader Al-Saif, a professor at Kuwait University. “No amount of heavy lifting or acrobatics in dealing with Israel on other files can sidestep or erase this simple fact.”

 

Many Arab nations, including Saudi Arabia, have long insisted that the price of recognizing Israel must be the creation of a Palestinian state. But over the past decade, that calculus has shifted, as authoritarian leaders weigh negative public opinion toward a relationship with Israel against the economic and security benefits it could offer — and what they might be able to get from the United States in return.

 

The Biden administration has been pressing for a deal that would establish ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia in exchange for significant concessions to the kingdom. Saudi officials have demanded American security assurances and support for a civilian nuclear program.

 

Last month, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia made his first public reference to the negotiations, saying in a Fox News interview that the talks felt “real” for the first time. And in early October, the kingdom’s newspapers — which operate under limited press freedom — began publishing a spate of columns that were subtly or openly supportive of normalization.

 

The eruption of violence on Saturday presented a significant challenge to those efforts.

 

It also made comments by King Abdullah II of Jordan at a conference in New York last month appear prescient: “This belief by some in the region that you can parachute over Palestine — deal with the Arabs and work your way back — that does not work,” he said.

 

Indeed, some Arab officials and scholars complain that their warnings about normalization deals that do not sincerely address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have fallen on deaf ears.

 

Watching the events in Gaza feels like hearing Arabs say “we told you so” to the American president, Khalid al-Dakhil, a prominent Saudi academic, wrote on the social media platform X. “Ignoring what’s right in finding a just solution to the Palestinian cause creates a trap for the region and threatens peace,” he said.

 

American officials say that normalization is a key step toward a more integrated Middle East, with positive implications for regional security and American defense interests.

 

“There are really two paths before the region,” Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday. “There’s the path of greater integration, greater stability, including, critically, making sure that Israelis and Palestinians resolve their differences, or there’s the path of terror that Hamas is engaged on, that has not improved the lives of a single person.”

 

He added: “We’ve said from day one that even as we’re working toward normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia, that can’t be a substitute for resolving the differences between Israelis and Palestinians.”

 

But many in the region say that normalization feels like a betrayal: a triumph of government and business elites over the will of their people.

 

The Palestinian cause “is something we grew up on as children, and it became a compass to show what is right and just,” said Reem Maraj, 34, who participated in a symposium on Saturday in Bahrain that discussed the outcome of the Abraham Accords, three years later.

 

“If I had the choice, I would have erased this agreement from the history of my country,” she said.

 

Polls show that even in Arab countries that have relations with Israel, a majority of citizens view the Abraham Accords negatively.

 

“We stand fully with the rights of the Palestinian people to free their land,” said Hassan Bennajeh, one of the organizers of protests in Morocco. “We are asking to end the normalization because it doesn’t reflect the opinion of Moroccans.”

 

The Qatar Foreign Ministry released a statement saying that it holds Israel “solely responsible for the ongoing escalation due to its continuous violations of the rights of the Palestinian people.”

 

The government of Iran, which for years has been engaged in a shadow war with Israel and has supported Hamas, cheered the group’s attack on Israel on Saturday.

 

And Ahmed Abu Zeid, a spokesman for the Egyptian Foreign Ministry, said on local television last night that his country “has been warning, for months, of the danger of provocative practices” by Israel.

 

“The ongoing occupation and dehumanization of Palestinians has been on full display for decades and it has shaped the way Arabs view the conflict,” said Mr. Al-Saif, the Kuwaiti professor. “Palestine is the priority of the Arab street.”

 

Even so, Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, an Emirati political scientist, predicted that a deal between Saudi Arabia, the United States and Israel was likely to move ahead.

 

“I would bet my money on it,” he said. “If the right price comes across from the Americans, I think the Saudis have their national interest as No. 1 priority.”

 

The violence in Israel “might derail things for a while, but it’s not going to reverse the appetite for normalization with Israel and de-escalating — a new Middle East,” he said.

 

On Sunday morning, another signal arrived in a major Saudi-owned newspaper, Asharq al-Awsat. In a column, Tariq Alhomayed, the newspaper’s former editor, criticized Hamas and Palestinian factions for waging what he called a “useless war.”

 

He accused them of trying to sabotage the prospects for Saudi-Israeli normalization — and of serving their Iranian backers at the expense of the Palestinian people.

 

“Iran does not want to see real peace, or specifically Saudi-Israeli peace,” he wrote. “Because if it happens, it will be the peace that will change the face of the region.”

 

Aida Alami contributed reporting from Asilah, Morocco; Nazeeha Saeed from Berlin, Germany; Hwaida Saad from Beirut, Lebanon; and Ahmed Al Omran from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

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