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See Gaza Strip Access Restrictions.pdf since 2007 at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gaza_Strip_Access_Restrictions.pdf** This figure is released by the Israeli military, showing the soldiers whose names “were allowed to be published.”
*** The death toll in West Bank and Jerusalem is not updated regularly. According to PA’s Ministry of Health on March 17, this is the latest figure.
Source: mondoweiss.net
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Boris Kagarlitsky is in Prison!
On February 13, the court overturned the previous decision on release and sent Boris Kagarlitsky to prison for five years.
Petition in Support of Boris Kagarlitsky
We, the undersigned, were deeply shocked to learn that on February 13 the leading Russian socialist intellectual and antiwar activist Dr. Boris Kagarlitsky (65) was sentenced to five years in prison.
Dr. Kagarlitsky was arrested on the absurd charge of 'justifying terrorism' in July last year. After a global campaign reflecting his worldwide reputation as a writer and critic of capitalism and imperialism, his trial ended on December 12 with a guilty verdict and a fine of 609,000 roubles.
The prosecution then appealed against the fine as 'unjust due to its excessive leniency' and claimed falsely that Dr. Kagarlitsky was unable to pay the fine and had failed to cooperate with the court. In fact, he had paid the fine in full and provided the court with everything it requested.
On February 13 a military court of appeal sent him to prison for five years and banned him from running a website for two years after his release.
The reversal of the original court decision is a deliberate insult to the many thousands of activists, academics, and artists around the world who respect Dr. Kagarlitsky and took part in the global campaign for his release. The section of Russian law used against Dr. Kagarlitsky effectively prohibits free expression. The decision to replace the fine with imprisonment was made under a completely trumped-up pretext. Undoubtedly, the court's action represents an attempt to silence criticism in the Russian Federation of the government's war in Ukraine, which is turning the country into a prison.
The sham trial of Dr. Kagarlitsky is the latest in a wave of brutal repression against the left-wing movements in Russia. Organizations that have consistently criticized imperialism, Western and otherwise, are now under direct attack, many of them banned. Dozens of activists are already serving long terms simply because they disagree with the policies of the Russian government and have the courage to speak up. Many of them are tortured and subjected to life-threatening conditions in Russian penal colonies, deprived of basic medical care. Left-wing politicians are forced to flee Russia, facing criminal charges. International trade unions such as IndustriALL and the International Transport Federation are banned and any contact with them will result in long prison sentences.
There is a clear reason for this crackdown on the Russian left. The heavy toll of the war gives rise to growing discontent among the mass of working people. The poor pay for this massacre with their lives and wellbeing, and opposition to war is consistently highest among the poorest. The left has the message and resolve to expose the connection between imperialist war and human suffering.
Dr. Kagarlitsky has responded to the court's outrageous decision with calm and dignity: “We just need to live a little longer and survive this dark period for our country,” he said. Russia is nearing a period of radical change and upheaval, and freedom for Dr. Kagarlitsky and other activists is a condition for these changes to take a progressive course.
We demand that Boris Kagarlitsky and all other antiwar prisoners be released immediately and unconditionally.
We also call on the authorities of the Russian Federation to reverse their growing repression of dissent and respect their citizens' freedom of speech and right to protest.
Sign to Demand the Release of Boris Kagarlitsky
https://freeboris.info
The petition is also available on Change.org
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*Major Announcement*
Claudia De la Cruz wins
Peace and Freedom Party primary in California!
We have an exciting announcement. The votes are still being counted in California, but the Claudia-Karina “Vote Socialist” campaign has achieved a clear and irreversible lead in the Peace and Freedom Party primary. Based on the current count, Claudia has 46% of the vote compared to 40% for Cornel West. A significant majority of PFP’s newly elected Central Committee, which will formally choose the nominee at its August convention, have also pledged their support to the Claudia-Karina campaign.
We are excited to campaign in California now and expect Claudia De la Cruz to be the candidate on the ballot of the Peace and Freedom Party in November.
We achieved another big accomplishment this week - we’re officially on the ballot in Hawai’i! This comes after also petitioning to successfully gain ballot access in Utah. We are already petitioning in many other states. Each of these achievements is powered by the tremendous effort of our volunteers and grassroots organizers across the country. When we’re organized, people power can move mountains!
We need your help to keep the momentum going. Building a campaign like this takes time, energy, and money. We know that our class enemies — the billionaires, bankers, and CEO’s — put huge sums toward loyal politicians and other henchmen who defend their interests. They will use all the money and power at their disposal to stop movements like ours. As an independent, socialist party, our campaign is relying on contributions from the working class and people like you.
We call on each and every one of our supporters to set up a monthly or one-time donation to support this campaign to help it keep growing and reaching more people. A new socialist movement, independent of the Democrats and Republicans, is being built but it will only happen when we all pitch in.
The Claudia-Karina campaign calls to end all U.S. aid to Israel. End this government’s endless wars. We want jobs for all, with union representation and wages that let us live with dignity. Housing, healthcare, and education for all - without the lifelong debt. End the ruthless attacks on women, Black people, immigrants, and LGBTQ people. These are just some of the demands that are resonating across the country. Help us take the next step:
Volunteer: https://votesocialist2024.com/volunteer
Donate: https://votesocialist2024.com/donate
See you in the streets,
Claudia & Karina
Don't Forget! Join our telegram channel for regular updates: https://t.me/+KtYBAKgX51JhNjMx
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We are all Palestinian
Listen and view this beautiful, powerful, song by Mistahi Corkill on YouTube at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQwuhbLczgI
Greetings,
Here is my new song and music video, We are all Palestinian, linked below. If you find it inspiring, please feel free to share with others. All the best!
Mistahi
We are all Palestinian
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Labor for Palestine
Thousands of labor representatives marched Saturday, December 16, in Oakland, California. —Photo by Leon Kunstenaar
Video of December 16th Labor rally for Palestine.
Bay Area Unions and Workers Rally and March For Palestine In Oakland
https://youtu.be/L9k79honqIA
For More Information:
bayarealabor4palestine@gmail.com
Production of Labor Video Project
www.labormedia.net
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Just Like The Nazis Did
By David Rovics
After so many decades of patronage
By the world’s greatest empire
So many potential agreements
Were rejected by opening fire
After crushing so many uprisings
Now they’re making their ultimate bid
Pursuing their Final Solution
Just like the Nazis did
They forced refugees into ghettos
Then set the ghettos aflame
Murdering writers and poets
And so no one remember their names
Killing their entire families
The grandparents, women and kids
The uncles and cousins and babies
Just like the Nazis did
They’re bombing all means of sustaining
Human life at all
See the few shelters remaining
Watch as the tower blocks fall
They’re bombing museums and libraries
In order to get rid
Of any memory of the people who lived here
Just like the Nazis did
They’re saying these people are animals
And they should all end up dead
They’re sending soldiers into schools
And shooting children in the head
The rhetoric is identical
And with Gaza off the grid
They’ve already said what happens next
Just like the Nazis did
Words of war for domestic consumption
And lies for all the rest
To try to distract our attention
Among their enablers in the West
Because Israel needs their imports
To keep those pallets on the skids
They need fuel and they need missiles
Just like the Nazis did
They’re using food as a weapon
They’re using water that way, too
They’re trying to kill everyone in Gaza
Or make them flee, it’s true
As the pundits talk of “after the war”
Like with the Fall of Madrid
The victors are preparing for more
Just like the Nazis did
But it’s after the conquest’s complete
If history is any guide
When the occupying army
Is positioned to decide
When disease and famine kills
Whoever may have hid
Behind the ghetto walls
Just like the Nazis did
All around the world
People are trying to tell
There's a genocide unfolding
Ringing alarm bells
But with such a powerful axis
And so many lucrative bids
They know who wants their money
Just like the Nazis did
There's so many decades of patronage
For the world's greatest empire
So many potential agreements
Were rejected by opening fire
They're crushing so many uprisings
Now they're making their ultimate bid
Pursuing their final solution
Just like the Nazis did
Just like the Nazis did
Just like the Nazis did
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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
Sign the petition:
https://dontextraditeassange.com/petition/
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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
Join the Fight for Mumia's Life
Since September, Mumia Abu-Jamal's health has been declining at a concerning rate. He has lost weight, is anemic, has high blood pressure and an extreme flair up of his psoriasis, and his hair has fallen out. In April 2021 Mumia underwent open heart surgery. Since then, he has been denied cardiac rehabilitation care including a healthy diet and exercise.
Donate to Mumia Abu-Jamal's Emergency Legal and Medical Defense Fund, Official 2024
Mumia has instructed PrisonRadio to set up this fund. Gifts donated here are designated for the Mumia Abu-Jamal Medical and Legal Defense Fund. If you are writing a check or making a donation in another way, note this in the memo line.
Send to:
Mumia Medical and Legal Fund c/o Prison Radio
P.O. Box 411074, San Francisco, CA 94103
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Leonard Peltier Update—Experiencing the Onset of Blindness
Greetings Relatives,
Leonard is in trouble, physically. He is experiencing the onset of blindness. He is losing strength in his limbs. His blood sugar is testing erratically. This, on top of already severe conditions that have become dire. Leonard has not seen a dentist in ten years. His few remaining teeth are infected. He is locked down, in pain.
As always, Leonard’s fortitude remains astonishing. He is not scared of dying. He does not want to die in lockdown.
Our legal team has an emergency transfer underway. They are going to extraordinary lengths. We must get a top ophthalmologist to him. Thanks to your calls, the BOP did see him. They told him a specialist would be 8 - 10 weeks out.
Leonard does not have eight to ten weeks. He needs emergency care immediately.
If you can, please donate to this GoFundMe. Every penny matters. If you cannot, please share. If you are so inclined, go to www.freeleonardpeltiernow.org and contact the officials listed.
https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-leonard-peltier-get-medical-care-freedom?utm_campaign=p_cp+fundraiser-sidebar&utm_medium=copy_link_all&utm_source=customer
As always, thank you for your support.
Dawn Lawson
Personal Assistant Leonard Peltier
Executive Assistant Jenipher Jones, Esq.
Secretary Leonard Peltier Ad Hoc Committee
1-800-901-4413
dawn@allfiredup.blue
www.freeleonardpeltiernow.org
Leonard Peltier Update - Not One More Year
Coleman 1 has gone on permanent lockdown.
The inmates are supposed to be allowed out two hours a day. I have not heard from Leonard since the 18th.
The last time I talked to Leonard, he asked where his supporters were. He asked me if anyone cared about these lockdowns.
Leonard lives in a filthy, cold cell 22 to 24 hours a day. He has not seen a dentist in ten years. I asked him, “On a scale of 1 to 10, is your pain level at 13?” He said, “Something like that.” Leonard is a relentless truth-teller. He does not like it when I say things that do not make sense mathematically.
That is why Leonard remains imprisoned. He will not lie. He will not beg, grovel, or denounce his beliefs.
Please raise your voice. Ask your representatives why they have abdicated their responsibility to oversee the Bureau of Prisons and ensure they adhere to Constitutional law.
Uhuru, The African People’s Socialist Party, has stepped up for Leonard. NOT ONE MORE YEAR.
Fight for Free Speech – YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FM8GDeGv90E
Leonard should not have spent a day in prison. Click “LEARN” on our website to find out what really happened on that reservation:
www.freeleonardpeltiernow.org
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.
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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Updates From Kevin Cooper
A Never-ending Constitutional Violation
A summary of the current status of Kevin Cooper’s case by the Kevin Cooper Defense Committee
On October 26, 2023, the law firm of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, LLP wrote a rebuttal in response to the Special Counsel's January 13, 2023 report upholding the conviction of their client Kevin Cooper. A focus of the rebuttal was that all law enforcement files were not turned over to the Special Counsel during their investigation, despite a request for them to the San Bernardino County District Attorney's office.
On October 29, 2023, Law Professors Lara Bazelon and Charlie Nelson Keever, who run the six member panel that reviews wrongful convictions for the San Francisco County District Attorney's office, published an OpEd in the San Francisco Chronicle calling the "Innocence Investigation” done by the Special Counsel in the Cooper case a “Sham Investigation” largely because Cooper has unsuccessfully fought for years to obtain the police and prosecutor files in his case. This is a Brady claim, named for the U.S. Supreme court’s 1963 case establishing the Constitutional rule that defendants are entitled to any information in police and prosecutor's possession that could weaken the state's case or point to innocence. Brady violations are a leading cause of wrongful convictions. The Special Counsel's report faults Cooper for not offering up evidence of his own despite the fact that the best evidence to prove or disprove Brady violations or other misconduct claims are in those files that the San Bernardino County District Attorney's office will not turn over to the Special Counsel or to Cooper's attorneys.
On December 14, 2023, the president of the American Bar Association (ABA), Mary Smith, sent Governor Gavin Newsom a three page letter on behalf of the ABA stating in part that Mr.Cooper's counsel objected to the state's failure to provide Special Counsel all documents in their possession relating to Mr.Cooper's conviction, and that concerns about missing information are not new. For nearly 40 years Mr.Cooper's attorneys have sought this same information from the state.
On December 19, 2023, Bob Egelko, a journalist for the San Francisco Chronicle wrote an article about the ABA letter to the Governor that the prosecutors apparently withheld evidence from the Governor's legal team in the Cooper case.
These are just a few recent examples concerning the ongoing failure of the San Bernardino County District Attorney to turn over to Cooper's attorney's the files that have been requested, even though under the law and especially the U.S. Constitution, the District Attorney of San Bernardino county is required to turn over to the defendant any and all material and or exculpatory evidence that they have in their files. Apparently, they must have something in their files because they refuse to turn them over to anyone.
The last time Cooper's attorney's received files from the state, in 2004, it wasn't from the D.A. but a Deputy Attorney General named Holly Wilkens in Judge Huff's courtroom. Cooper's attorneys discovered a never before revealed police report showing that a shirt was discovered that had blood on it and was connected to the murders for which Cooper was convicted, and that the shirt had disappeared. It had never been tested for blood. It was never turned over to Cooper's trial attorney, and no one knows where it is or what happened to it. Cooper's attorneys located the woman who found that shirt on the side of the road and reported it to the Sheriff's Department. She was called to Judge Huff's court to testify about finding and reporting that shirt to law enforcement. That shirt was the second shirt found that had blood on it that was not the victims’ blood. This was in 2004, 19 years after Cooper's conviction.
It appears that this ongoing constitutional violation that everyone—from the Special Counsel to the Governor's legal team to the Governor himself—seems to know about, but won't do anything about, is acceptable in order to uphold Cooper's conviction.
But this type of thing is supposed to be unacceptable in the United States of America where the Constitution is supposed to stand for something other than a piece of paper with writing on it. How can a Governor, his legal team, people who support and believe in him ignore a United States citizen’s Constitutional Rights being violated for 40 years in order to uphold a conviction?
This silence is betrayal of the Constitution. This permission and complicity by the Governor and his team is against everything that he and they claim to stand for as progressive politicians. They have accepted the Special Counsel's report even though the Special Counsel did not receive the files from the district attorney that may not only prove that Cooper is innocent, but that he was indeed framed by the Sheriff’s Department; and that evidence was purposely destroyed and tampered with, that certain witnesses were tampered with, or ignored if they had information that would have helped Cooper at trial, that evidence that the missing shirt was withheld from Cooper's trial attorney, and so much more.
Is the Governor going to get away with turning a blind eye to this injustice under his watch?
Are progressive people going to stay silent and turn their eyes blind in order to hopefully get him to end the death penalty for some while using Cooper as a sacrificial lamb?
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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Tell Congress to Help #FreeDanielHale
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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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1) U.N. Peacekeepers Injured in Lebanon Blast as Tensions Rise
By Aaron Boxerman and Euan Ward, March 30, 2024
The Christian village of Rmeish in southern Lebanon, near where the explosions occurred on Saturday. Credit...Zohra Bensemra/Reuters
Three U.N. military observers and a Lebanese translator were injured in an explosion as they were patrolling the border with Israel on Saturday morning, the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Lebanon said, adding that it was investigating the source of the blast.
Two senior Lebanese security officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, attributed the explosion to Israel, without providing evidence. Israel and Hezbollah and other militant groups have been trading fire for months, and on Saturday the Israeli military denied striking in the area.
Andrea Tenenti, a spokesman for the mission — commonly known by its acronym, UNIFIL — said it was “investigating the origin of the explosion” near the town of Rmeish. He said the wounded personnel were in stable condition but had been evacuated for medical treatment.
“Safety and security of U.N. personnel must be granted,” Mr. Tenenti said in a statement. “All actors have a responsibility under international humanitarian law to ensure protection to noncombatants.”
UNIFIL was first established to observe Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon in the late 1970s. Since the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, the peacekeeping mission has monitored and reported on violations of the subsequent cross-border truce.
Najib Mikati, the Lebanese caretaker prime minister, condemned the “grave incident” in a brief statement. He said he had received assurances from UNIFIL that the matter would be properly investigated.
Tensions along the Israeli-Lebanese border have soared since Oct. 7, when the Hamas-led attack in Israel prompted the devastating war in Gaza. Hezbollah, the politically powerful Lebanese armed group, has launched scores of rockets at Israeli territory, and Israel has bombarded what it says are militant commanders and infrastructure.
More than 150,000 people have been driven from their homes on both sides of the border because of the constant bombardment, amid fears of a far deadlier escalation. The tit-for-tat fire on both sides has been simmering for months, but military analysts warn that even a slight miscalculation on either side could ignite the situation.
In recent weeks, Israel struck Hezbollah command centers in Baalbek, deep inside Lebanese territory, according to the Israeli military, in its farthest publicly confirmed strikes in years. On Wednesday, an Israeli strike left seven dead in Lebanon, according to the Lebanese authorities; subsequent rocket fire into Israel killed a 25-year-old man.
On Friday, airstrikes killed a number of soldiers near the Syrian city of Aleppo, the country’s state news media and an independent monitoring organization reported, in what appeared to be an unusually deadly Israeli strike.
Israel did not take responsibility for the Aleppo strike. Israeli officials have acknowledged pursuing a campaign of targeted attacks against Iranian forces and their proxies in Syria, but rarely comment on specific operations there.
The Israeli military also announced it had assassinated a Hezbollah commander near the southern city of Tyre.
Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant, appeared to hint at Israeli involvement in the Syria strike during a visit to Israel’s northern command on Friday. “We will pursue Hezbollah every place it operates and we will expand the pressure and the pace of the attacks,” he said on social media, promising more operations in Lebanon, Syria and “other more distant locations.”
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2) A Times photographer went along on a Gaza airdrop. Here’s what he saw.
By Diego Ibarra Sanchez and Lars Dolder Diego Ibarra Sanchez spent several hours with the crew of a Jordanian Air Force plane as they ferried aid packages into northern Gaza, March 30, 2024
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/03/30/world/israel-hamas-war-gaza-news
Part of northern Gaza, as seen from the Jordanian military plane.
The huge rear gate of the Jordanian air force cargo plane slowly lowers like a stiff iron jaw, revealing a hazy blue sky and, far below, the battered landscape of northern Gaza.
Inside the plane’s cavernous hold, the aid being delivered by the crew is lined up in neat rows: chest-high bundles of boxes stacked atop wooden pallets, each one bound by shrink-wrap and heavy straps and marked with images of Jordan’s flag.
Now, as the light and the sound rush in, the bundles slide down rollers in the floor and disappear out the door, floating down under billowing parachutes as a silent, and most likely inadequate, offering to the desperate population below.
With humanitarian groups and others sounding the alarm over a looming famine in northern Gaza and hunger widespread throughout the territory, airdrops are playing a prominent role in efforts to deliver food, water and urgent supplies to Palestinians.
On Thursday, the Jordanian air force allowed a photographer for The New York Times on one of its planes to observe the airdrop of bundles of aid across northern Gaza. The trip, taking off and returning from Jordan’s King Abdullah II air base, east of Amman, took several hours.
Countries including Jordan, the United States, Britain and France say the drops are helping compensate for a steep fall in the amount of aid entering Gaza by truck since Oct. 7, when Hamas led a deadly attack on Israel, and Israel responded with a monthslong military assault.
The United Nations and aid groups have complained that deliveries by truck are being slowed by Israel’s insistence on inspecting all supplies going into Gaza. Most aid trucks have been allowed in through just two border crossings — one from Egypt and one from Israel — in southern Gaza.
Israel has maintained that disorganization among aid groups is responsible for slow deliveries of aid to Palestinians and that much of the aid is diverted to Hamas or the black market, though it is not possible to verify those claims.
One of the few alternatives is dropping supplies from the sky, a process that takes only minutes in the air but extensive bureaucracy and hours of preparation on the ground.
The dozens of pallets pushed out of the planes on Thursday included thousands of meals, the Jordanians said. But airdrops are inefficient and expensive, humanitarian officials say, with even big military cargo planes delivering less than a single convoy of trucks could.
And the airdrops can be dangerous: This week, Gazan authorities said 12 people drowned while trying to retrieve assistance that had fallen into the ocean.
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3) Israel must work with the U.N. and open more border crossings to prevent famine, an aid official says.
By Gaya Gupta, March 30, 2024
A child suffering from malnutrition received treatment in the southern Gaza city of Rafah early this month. Credit...Mohammed Salem/Reuters
A United Nations relief official called on Friday for increased global pressure on Israel to open more border crossings for aid to reach the Gaza Strip after an order by the top U.N. court that said famine was “setting in.”
The top court, the International Court of Justice in The Hague, ordered Israel on Thursday, using its strongest language yet, to ensure “in full cooperation with the United Nations, the unhindered provision” of aid into Gaza.
Philippe Lazzarini, the U.N. official who leads the organization’s agency that aids Palestinians, known as UNRWA, has said that Israel refuses to work with his agency to bring aid to northern Gaza, the part of the enclave hit hardest by shortages of food and other vital supplies.
Mr. Lazzarini urged the court’s member states on Friday to “exert more pressure” to carry out the court order, adding that countries who paused their funding to UNRWA should reconsider their decision and help the organization avert a famine in the enclave.
The U.N. court does not have any means of forcing Israel to comply with its orders, but it is the highest arbiter of international law, and its decisions carry symbolic weight.
While UNRWA has for decades provided food to Gaza’s more than two million residents and has organized schools, hospitals and other services, its deliveries of aid to northern Gaza have slowed to a trickle in recent months. The Israeli authorities have denied blocking UNRWA, but Israel and the aid agency have been locked in a dispute over not only responsibility for the crisis, but also the status of UNRWA itself.
In January, the Israeli government accused at least 12 of the agency’s employees of participating in the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack on Israel, which killed about 1,200 people. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu then called for the agency to be closed. UNRWA suspended the staff members and opened an investigation, but some of its biggest donors have since suspended funding.
“Cooperation means that Israel must reverse its decision and allow @UNRWA to reach northern Gaza with food and nutrition convoys on a daily basis + to open additional land crossings,” Mr. Lazzarini said on social media.
The international court’s order, he said, was a “stark reminder that the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip is man made,” adding that it can still be reversed.
In response to Thursday’s ruling, Israel’s government has said that it is committed to allowing adequate supplies into Gaza, and has noted that it has supported new shipment routes by land, air and sea, though deliveries through them have been very limited.
U.N. officials and international aid groups have reported severe and deadly malnutrition in Gaza and have blamed Israel, which inspects every truckload aid. Israeli officials say it is disorganization among the aid groups, not the inspections, that is slowing the delivery, and that much of the aid is diverted to Hamas or the black market.
“Hunger and malnutrition, driven wholly by man-made causes and by a lack of humanitarian access, have spread through Gaza at frightening speed, causing catastrophic rates of disease, death and despair,” the executive director of the U.N. agency for sexual reproductive health, Natalia Kanem, said in a statement this week. “For pregnant women and newborns, every day has become a fight for survival.”
Nearly all of aid that has reached Gaza has entered through two border crossings in the south, and conditions are especially bad in northern Gaza, where most of the population lived before being displaced by the Israeli invasion.
Getting truck convoys from the southern border crossings to the north is difficult and dangerous work, and the route is sometimes blocked by roads damaged by Israeli bombardment, Israeli checkpoints or battles between Hamas fighters and Israeli troops. In some cases, crowds of people have swarmed the trucks, stripping them of supplies.
The World Food Program said that only 11 of its convoys carrying food had reached the north since the start of the year.
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4) Truce Talks Expected to Resume in Egypt
By Adam Rasgon, Aaron Boxerman and Vivian Yee, March 31, 2024
Destroyed buildings in the Gaza Strip on March 29, 2024. Credit...Hussein Malla/Associated Press
An Israeli delegation was scheduled to arrive in Cairo on Sunday to participate in talks for a cease-fire in the war in the Gaza Strip and the release of hostages held by militants there, according to a senior Israeli official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic matters.
An Egyptian state-owned TV channel, Al Qahera News, had reported on Saturday that the talks would resume on Sunday, citing an Egyptian security official.
The resumption of negotiations comes as the devastating war nears the end of its sixth month and as humanitarian officials are warning that only a cease-fire would allow aid groups to transport enough food and other aid into Gaza to avert a looming famine.
More than 32,000 Palestinians have been killed over the course of the war between Israel and Hamas, according to Gazan health officials, and negotiations to stop the fighting and release hostages held in Gaza have been stalled.
Hamas said last Monday that it had rejected an Israeli counterproposal. Talks have been at an impasse because of disagreements over the return of displaced Gazans to their homes, the permanency of any cease-fire and an Israeli withdrawal, among other points.
The senior Israeli official said that the nation’s war cabinet would convene on Sunday to discuss several issues related to the negotiations, including the question of displaced Palestinians returning to their homes in northern Gaza.
In an interview, Ghazi Hamad, a senior Hamas official, said Israel was refusing to allow Gazans to go back to the north en masse, and was insisting that they do so under “strict conditions and a few at a time.” He did not elaborate.
Many Palestinians living in temporary camps and shelters in southern and central Gaza have been hoping for months to return to their homes in the north, but Israeli soldiers have prevented them from doing so.
Egypt, Qatar and the United States, Israel’s staunch ally, have played the role of mediators in previous rounds of negotiations, with the two Arab nations serving as go-betweens with Hamas leaders. So far, however, a workable agreement has eluded all sides.
The mediators had pushed hard to secure a cease-fire before the start of Ramadan, but the Muslim holy month is more than half over.
Last Monday, the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza and the “immediate and unconditional release of all hostages.” In a shift from its previous ironclad support for Israel, which has argued a cease-fire would allow Hamas to remain in power, the United States abstained from the vote and let the measure pass.
Talks have been held in Cairo and Doha, Qatar, where Hamas leaders have a presence, and the top mediators and Israel have met in Paris at least twice.
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5) In a strong Easter message, the pope calls for a cease-fire in Gaza.
By Jason Horowitz reporting from Rome, March 31, 2024
Pope Francis delivering his traditional Easter message on Sunday at the Vatican. Credit...Andrew Medichini/Associated Press
In a major annual message during Easter Sunday Mass, Pope Francis touched on conflicts across the globe and called for “an immediate cease-fire” in Gaza.
“My thoughts go especially to the victims of the many conflicts worldwide, beginning with those in Israel and Palestine, and in Ukraine,” he said to the tens of thousands of faithful, dignitaries, Swiss Guards and clergy filling St. Peter’s Square.
“I appeal once again that access to humanitarian aid be ensured to Gaza, and call once more for the prompt release of the hostages seized on 7 October last and for an immediate cease-fire in the Strip,” he added.
The pope also spoke about the continuing suffering in Syria because of “a long and devastating war.” He expressed concern for Lebanese people affected by hostilities on their country’s border with Israel. He prayed for an end to the violence in Haiti, an easing of the humanitarian crisis afflicting the Rohingya ethnic minority persecuted in Myanmar, and an end to the suffering in Sudan and in the Sahel region of Africa.
And in Gaza, he said, the eyes of suffering children ask: “Why? Why all this death?”
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6) ‘Replace him’: Thousands rally against Netanyahu’s government in Tel Aviv.
By The New York Times, March 31, 2024
Some scuffles broke out between police officers and demonstrators calling for the government to strike a cease-fire deal to free the hostages held in Gaza. Credit...Abir Sultan/EPA, via Shutterstock
Thousands of protesters took to the streets of Tel Aviv on Saturday night in one of the largest demonstrations against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government since October, when the Hamas-led attack on Israel ignited a war.
Tel Aviv has been the scene of weekly demonstrations calling on the government to strike a cease-fire deal to free the hostages who have been held in Gaza since October. Those protests have been growing in size as the war has dragged on and anger at Mr. Netanyahu’s government has mounted.
On Saturday night, the sounds of whistles, horns and drums filled the air along with chants from the crowds, video from The Associated Press showed. Protesters waved flags and carried pictures of the Israeli hostages with signs reading “Hostage deal now.” Other banners made clear the anger directed at Mr. Netanyahu over the plight of the hostages, with one reading “Replace him, save them.”
“We demand our government to sign a deal now, no matter what is the cost,” Lee Hoffmann Agiv, who attended the protest, told The A.P. “It’s a life or death situation — we will not forgive our government if another hostage dies in captivity.”
As the night wore on, some scuffles broke out. The police said that while the demonstration was largely peaceful, “several hundred protesters” had violated public order by lighting bonfires, blocking a highway and confronting the police. Officers used a water cannon to disperse some protesters from a highway and made 16 arrests, according to the police.
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7) Israeli troops pull out of a major Gaza hospital after a two-week battle.
By Aaron Boxerman and Iyad Abuheweila, April 1, 2024
"Hamas called the destruction at the hospital 'a horrific crime' that Israel had perpetrated 'with full and unlimited support from the administration of U.S. President Biden.'”
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/04/01/world/israel-hamas-war-gaza-news
A Palestinian woman sitting amid the rubble of Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital on Monday. Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Israeli soldiers withdrew from Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City after a two-week raid in which they killed around 200 Palestinians and arrested hundreds of others, the Israeli military said on Monday. The troops left widespread devastation in their wake after extended firefights with Palestinian militants in and around the complex.
Taysir al-Tanna, a longtime vascular surgeon at Al-Shifa, said many of the hospital’s main buildings — including the emergency, obstetrics and surgical wards — had been badly damaged in the fighting, and the main gate had been smashed.
“Now it looks like a wasteland,” Dr. al-Tanna said.
Mahmoud Basal, a spokesman for the Palestinian Civil Defense, said bodies were scattered in and around the complex. The final death toll remained unclear, he said, as some corpses were either under the rubble of destroyed buildings or were believed to have been buried.
“Even outside the complex itself, there are blocks of buildings that were knocked to the ground,” and people were searching for the occupants in the rubble, Mr. Basal said.
The Israeli military said the roughly 200 Palestinians it had killed were militants, and that its soldiers had arrested around 900 people it suspected of being militants at the Shifa complex over the past two weeks, including senior commanders in groups like Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. It said two Israeli soldiers were killed and eight were wounded in the raid.
Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the Israeli military spokesman, blamed the destruction on the militants, saying they had fortified themselves inside hospital wards, fired on soldiers and refused calls to surrender. “We had to fire on the buildings in order to stop that and to kill the terrorists,” he said.
Israeli forces evacuated some patients, placed others in a building away from the fighting and provided some medicine, Admiral Hagari said. The World Health Organization said on Sunday that at least 21 patients had died since the Israeli raid began in mid-March, though their causes of death were unclear. By this weekend, just 107 patients remained — 30 of them bedridden — without drinking water and with only minimal medication, the Gaza Health Ministry said in a statement.
Israeli forces first raided Al-Shifa in November, maintaining that Hamas militants had built a command center in tunnels underneath it. Hamas and the hospital director insisted the facility was solely a refuge for civilians.
The Israeli military later publicized some evidence to support its case, including by showing reporters a fortified tunnel constructed underneath the hospital grounds. An investigation by The New York Times suggested that Hamas had used the site for cover and stored weapons there. Critics argue that Israel failed to substantiate its original claims about Al-Shifa’s military value.
After little more than a week, Israeli troops withdrew in compliance with a brief cease-fire. But as the war ground on, Israeli forces closed in on the hospital again in mid-March in an attempt to root out what they said was a renewed insurgency by Palestinian armed groups in northern Gaza.
“Hamas and Islamic Jihad have started to rebuild themselves in the north,” said Admiral Hagari. “And they re-based themselves inside Shifa.”
Hamas has not commented on the new allegations that it was using the hospital as a base, but in a statement it accused the Israeli military of summarily executing Palestinians inside. The group’s armed wing has repeatedly said that its militants were fighting with the Israeli military around Al-Shifa over the past two weeks.
Hamas called the destruction at the hospital “a horrific crime” that Israel had perpetrated “with full and unlimited support from the administration of U.S. President Biden.”
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8) At a tent camp outside Israel’s Parliament, protesters explain why Netanyahu must go.
By Cassandra Vinograd reporting from Jerusalem, April 1, 2024
Tents of protesters camped outside of the Parliament building, the Knesset, in Jerusalem on Monday. Credit...Abir Sultan/EPA, via Shutterstock
Hundreds of small silver tents were clustered on the pavement outside Israel’s Parliament in Jerusalem on Monday, stretching at least a city block. Many had Israeli flags taped to their roofs, along with stickers bearing slogans. “There is no greater mitzvah than the reception of captives,” reads one. Another is more to the point, saying simply: “ELECTIONS.”
The tents are temporary homes for some of the thousands of Israelis who began a four-day protest on Sunday night calling for early elections to oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Many of them believe he has put his political survival ahead of the broader interests of the Israeli people.
Another night of protest was not long off, and the encamped demonstrators were resting and preparing. Some dozed in tents or relaxed in the shade of trees.
When asked why he had camped out overnight, Haggai Schwartz, 47, said there were “too many issues” with the current Israeli government. And the events of Oct. 7 — a date emblazoned on his black T-shirt, above a large drop of blood — made the need for change all the more urgent, he said.
“The government of Israel’s first responsibility is for the security of its citizens,” he said. “And they failed — completely failed.”
Mr. Schwartz said he wanted the government to take responsibility for those failures. “So far they don’t,” he said. “So we call for elections.”
Ronen Raz, 66, said he was tired of protests — “but there’s no other choice.”
Sitting in the shade at a bus stop next to an empty coffee cup, Mr. Raz said he had been protesting against the government since 2020 and would stay through this protest — “or until Bibi falls down.”
Sunday night’s protest was one of the largest since the start of the war, but appeared smaller than the demonstrations at the peak of a wave of anti-government demonstrations last year, a wave that Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition survived.
On Monday afternoon, Lee Nevo, 45, crouched with a paintbrush over a long white banner spread on the ground. Bubble letters spelled out “IMAGINING PEACE” in Hebrew, and she was filling in a letter with purple paint. She said she was inspired by the crowds on Sunday night.
“It gives us hope that something is going to change actually,” Ms. Nevo said.
The first thing that needs to change, she said, is the government — and Oct. 7 made clear that this could not wait. Behind her, posters with the names and photos of hostages held in Gaza hung along the metal fence: Arbel Yehoud, 28; Karina Ariev, 19; Dror Or, 48; Yoram Metzger, 80. “We have to bring them back,” she said.
“Out there nobody cares about the hostages,” Ms. Nevo added, gesturing to the Knesset, the Parliament building, behind her. “The only thing they care about is staying in the government.”
Gabby Sobelman contributed reporting.
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9) A major issue in cease-fire talks: How can people displaced from northern Gaza go back?
By Adam Rasgon and Edward Wong reporting from Jerusalem and Washington, April 1, 2024
Displaced Palestinians in Rafah, along the border with Egypt, on Saturday. Credit...Mohammed Abed/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
For months, Israel and Hamas have been at odds over a host of issues during talks aimed at brokering a truce, including whether Israeli troops would withdraw and the length of a cease-fire.
Now one of the major sticking points to emerge as in-person talks resumed this week is how displaced Palestinians will be able to return to the northern Gaza Strip, according to Israeli, Hamas and regional officials.
Despite mounting international pressure, the talks aimed at brokering a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas and the release of hostages held by militants in Gaza appear to be stalled.
Mediators from Qatar and Egypt have been meeting with Israeli officials and separately with Hamas leaders, trying to find a formula the warring parties can live with. The United States, Israel’s staunchest ally and largest supplier of weapons, has also been involved. On Saturday, Israeli negotiators traveled to Cairo for another round of talks.
As the war nears the end of its sixth month, humanitarian officials have said a cease-fire is urgently needed to allow more aid into the devastated enclave and stave off a looming famine, and the relatives of hostages have become increasingly worried about the fate of their loved ones in captivity.
American officials say that they are also hoping the warring sides reach an agreement soon, and that any temporary cease-fire reached to allow the exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners might be extended into a longer-lasting peace.
But what to do about displaced people returning to Gaza City and other northern communities has become a key issue. Hundreds of thousands of people from northern Gaza have been sheltering in crowded schools, tent encampments and relatives’ homes for months, facing severe hunger, poor sanitation and dangerous diseases.
Hamas has been demanding that Palestinians be permitted to return to the north without restrictions, according to Israeli and Hamas officials and two regional officials familiar with the talks. Israel, however, has demanded that it supervise the process, limiting who can return and where they can go.
One Israeli official said Israel was seeking to bar Hamas operatives and “fighting-age men” from returning to the north, where the Israeli military is still trying to defeat pockets of Palestinian fighters. In addition, Israel wants the returnees to be limited to specific areas, the official added, without identifying them.
The Israeli official and the two regional officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss diplomatic negotiations.
In an interview, the Hamas official, Ghazi Hamad, said that Israel was only willing to agree to let Palestinians return to the north under “strict conditions and a few at a time.”
The Israeli army has set up checkpoints on routes from central Gaza into the north and currently is letting only some people pass. Those who have been allowed to cross include truck drivers with aid convoys and technicians repairing phone networks.
Israel’s military campaign has turned large areas in the north into islands of rubble. If Palestinians were to return en masse, many would likely need housing, at least in the short term.
On Sunday, the Israeli war cabinet met to discuss the issue. It was not immediately clear if Israel had shifted its position after the meeting.
While mediators have struggled to bridge differences between the two sides on letting Palestinians return to the north, they have made some progress in persuading Hamas to reduce the number of prisoners it wants Israel to release in exchange for hostages, the two regional officials said.
They said Hamas had softened its previous position on the ratio of hostages to be exchanged for Palestinian prisoners.
The Israeli official also said the two sides had not agreed on the question of who will choose the prisoners to be released.
Aaron Boxerman contributed reporting to this article.
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10) The Two-State Solution Is an Unjust, Impossible Fantasy
By Tareq Baconi, April 1, 2024
Mr. Baconi is the author of “Hamas Contained” and the president of the board of al-Shabaka, the Palestinian Policy Network.
Chantal Jahchan
After 176 days, Israel’s assault on Gaza has not stopped and has expanded into what Human Rights Watch has declared to be a policy of starvation as a weapon of war. More than 32,000 Palestinians have been killed, and the international community has reverted to a deeply familiar call for a two-state solution, under which Palestinians and Israelis can coexist in peace and security. President Biden even declared “the only real solution is a two-state solution” in his State of the Union address last month.
But the call rings hollow. The language that surrounds a two-state solution has lost all meaning. Over the years, I’ve encountered many Western diplomats who privately roll their eyes at the prospect of two states — given Israel’s staunch opposition to it, the lack of interest in the West in exerting enough pressure on Israel to change its behavior and Palestinian political ossification — even as their politicians repeat the phrase ad nauseam. Yet in the shadow of what the International Court of Justice has said could plausibly be genocide, everyone has returned to the chorus line, stressing that the gravity of the situation means that this time will be different.
It will not be. Repeating the two-state solution mantra has allowed policymakers to avoid confronting the reality that partition is unattainable in the case of Israel and Palestine, and illegitimate as an arrangement originally imposed on Palestinians without their consent in 1947. And fundamentally, the concept of the two-state solution has evolved to become a central pillar of sustaining Palestinian subjugation and Israeli impunity. The idea of two states as a pathway to justice has in and of itself normalized the daily violence meted out against Palestinians by Israel’s regime of apartheid.
The circumstances facing Palestinians before Oct. 7, 2023, exemplified how deadly the status quo had become. In 2022, Israeli violence killed at least 34 Palestinian children in the West Bank, the most in 15 years, and by mid-2023, that rate was on track to exceed those levels. Yet the Biden administration still saw fit to further legitimize Israel, expanding its diplomatic relations in the region and rewarding it with a U.S. visa waiver. Palestine was largely absent from the international agenda until Israeli Jews were killed on Oct. 7. The fact that Israel and its allies were ill prepared for any kind of challenge to Israeli rule underscores just how invisible the Palestinians were and how sustainable their oppression was deemed to be on the global stage.
This moment of historical rupture offers blood-soaked proof that policies to date have failed, yet countries seek to resurrect them all the same. Instead of taking measures showing a genuine commitment to peace — like meaningfully pressuring Israel to end settlement building and lift the blockade on Gaza or discontinuing America’s expansive military support — Washington is doing the opposite. The United States has aggressively wielded its use of its veto at the United Nations Security Council, and even when it abstains, as it did in the recent vote leading to the first resolution for a cease-fire since Oct. 7, it claims such resolutions are nonbinding. The United States is funding Israel’s military while defunding the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, a critical institution for Palestinians, bolstering the deeply unpopular and illegitimate Palestinian Authority, which many Palestinians now consider to be a subcontractor to the occupation, and subverting international law by limiting avenues of accountability for Israel. In effect, these actions safeguard Israeli impunity.
The vacuity of the two-state solution mantra is most obvious in how often policymakers speak of recognizing a Palestinian state without discussing an end to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory. Quite the contrary: With the United States reportedly exploring initiatives to recognize Palestinian statehood, it is simultaneously defending Israel’s prolonged occupation at the International Court of Justice, arguing that Israel faces “very real security needs” that justify its continued control over Palestinian territories.
What might explain this seeming contradiction?
The concept of partition has long been used as a blunt policy tool by colonial powers to manage the affairs of their colonies, and Palestine was no exception. The Zionist movement emerged within the era of European colonialism and was given its most important imprimatur by the British Empire. The Balfour Declaration, issued by the British in 1917, called for a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine without adequately accounting for the Palestinians who constituted a vast majority in the region and whom Balfour referred to simply as “non-Jewish communities.” This declaration was then imposed on the Palestinians, who by 1922 had become Britain’s colonized subjects and were not asked to give consent to the partitioning of their homeland. Three decades later, the United Nations institutionalized partition with the passage of the 1947 plan, which called for partitioning Palestine into two independent states, one Palestinian Arab and the other Jewish.
All of Palestine’s neighboring countries in the Middle East and North Africa that had achieved independence from their colonial rulers and joined the U.N. voted against the 1947 plan. The Palestinians were not formally considered in a vote that many saw as illegitimate; it partitioned their homeland to accommodate Zionist immigration, which they had resisted from the onset. The Palestine Liberation Organization, established more than a decade later, formalized this opposition, insisting that Palestine as defined within the boundaries that existed during the British Mandate was “an indivisible territorial unit”; it forcefully refused two states and by the late 1970s was fighting for a secular, democratic state. By the 1980s, however, the P.L.O. chairman, Yasir Arafat, along with most of the organization’s leadership, had come to accept that partition was the pragmatic choice, and many Palestinians who had by then been ground down by the machinery of the occupation accepted it as a way of achieving separateness from Israeli settlers and the creation of their own state.
It took more than three decades for Palestinians to understand that separateness would never come, that the goal of this policy was to maintain the illusion of partition in some distant future indefinitely. In that twilight zone, Israel’s expansionist violence increased and became more forthright, as Israeli leaders became more brazen in their commitment to full control from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. Israel also relied on discredited Palestinian leaders to sustain their control — primarily those who lead the Palestinian Authority and who collaborate with Israel’s machinations and make do with nonsovereign, noncontiguous Bantustans who never challenge Israel’s overarching domination. This kind of demographic engineering, which entails geographic isolation of unwanted populations behind walls, is central to apartheid regimes. Repeating the aspiration for two states and arguing that partition remains viable presents Israel as a Jewish and democratic state — separate from its occupation — giving it a veneer of palatability and obfuscating the reality that it rules over more non-Jews than Jews.
Seen in this light, the failed attempts at a two-state solution are not a failure for Israel at all but a resounding success, as they have fortified Israel’s grip over this territory while peace negotiations ebbed and flowed but never concluded. In recent years, international and Israeli human rights organizations have acknowledged what many Palestinians have long argued: that Israel is a perpetrator of apartheid. B’Tselem, Israel’s leading human rights organization, concluded that Israel is a singular regime of Jewish supremacy from the river to the sea.
Now, with international attention once again focused on the region, many Palestinians understand the dangers of discussing partition, even as a pragmatic option. Many refuse to resuscitate this hollowed-out policy-speak. In a message recently published anonymously, a group of Palestinians on the ground and in the diaspora state wrote, “The partition of Palestine is nothing but a legitimation of Zionism, a betrayal of our people and the final completion of the nakba,” or catastrophe, which refers to the expulsion and flight of about 750,000 Palestinians with Israel’s founding. “Our liberation can only be achieved through a unity of struggle, built upon a unity of people and a unity of land.”
For them, the Palestinian state that their inept leaders continue to peddle, even if achievable, would fail to undo the fact that Palestinian refugees are unable to return to their homes, now in Israel, and that Palestinian citizens of Israel would continue to reside as second-class citizens within a so-called Jewish state.
Global powers might choose to ignore this sentiment as unrealistic, if they even take note of it. They might also choose to ignore Israeli rejection of a two-state solution, as Israeli leaders drop any pretenses and explicitly oppose any pathway to Palestinian statehood. As recently as January, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel “must have security control over the entire territory west of the Jordan River.” He added: “That collides with the idea of sovereignty. What can we do?”
And yet the two-state solution continues to be at the forefront for policymakers who have returned to contorting the reality of an expansionist regime into a policy prescription they can hold on to. They cycle through provisions that the Palestinian state must be demilitarized, that Israel will maintain security oversight, that not every state in the world has the same level of sovereignty. It is like watching a century of failure, culminating in the train wreck of the peace process, replay itself in the span of the past five months.
This will not be the first time that Palestinian demands are not taken into account as far as their own future is concerned. But all policymakers should heed the lesson of Oct. 7: There will be neither peace nor justice while Palestinians are subjugated behind walls and under Israeli domination.
A singular state from the river to the sea might appear unrealistic or fantastical or a recipe for further bloodshed. But it is the only state that exists in the real world — not in the fantasies of policymakers. The question, then, is: How can it be transformed into one that is just?
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11) Did Prosecutors’ Sex Shaming Help Send Brenda Andrew to Death Row?
The Supreme Court will soon decide whether to hear an appeal in her case, which, as one judge put it, “focused from start to finish on Ms. Andrew’s sex life.”
By Adam Liptak, Reporting from Washington, April 1, 2024
“Gender bias is normalized and tolerated to an extent that racial bias no longer is in the administration of the death penalty,” said Sandra Babcock, a law professor at Cornell University. Credit...Maansi Srivastava/The New York Times
During his closing argument in the 2004 murder trial of Brenda Andrew in Oklahoma, a prosecutor dangled her thong underwear before the jury. She had packed the undergarment for a trip to Mexico a few days after her estranged husband was killed.
The prosecutor, Gayland Gieger, said the item was strong evidence that Ms. Andrew had murdered her husband. “The grieving widow packs this to run off with her boyfriend,” he said, holding her underwear.
“That’s enough,” he said. “Can’t twist the facts, folks. Can’t twist the evidence.”
The spectacle “drew gasps from the crowded courtroom,” a local newspaper reported. The jury convicted Ms. Andrew and condemned her to death. She is the only woman on the state’s death row.
Later this month, the Supreme Court will consider whether to hear Ms. Andrew’s appeal, which said the display of her underwear was a representative part of an unrelenting strategy by prosecutors, as a dissenting judge put it, “of introducing evidence that has no purpose other than to hammer home that Brenda Andrew is a bad wife, a bad mother and a bad woman.”
Nathalie Greenfield, one of Ms. Andrew’s lawyers, said gender stereotypes infected the trial and poisoned the jury.
“Every single day the state was presenting gendered evidence about her appearance, about her clothing, about her sexual practices, about her skills as a mother,” she said. “We’ve got someone who is at risk of execution for not conforming to gender stereotypes.”
A brief supporting Ms. Andrew from a former federal judge and others said the volume of prejudicial evidence portraying her as “a hypersexual seductress” warranted review. “The prosecution introduced reams of inflammatory evidence about Ms. Andrew’s sexuality,” the brief said, including “lurid details of her multiple affairs, her suggestive clothing and lingerie, her cleavage and even a book on how to ‘Drive a Man Wild in Bed.’”
The Supreme Court has overturned a death sentence based on testimony tainted by racial bias, saying that “some toxins can be deadly in small doses.” Ms. Andrew’s case asks whether courts should take a similar approach to evidence grounded in gender stereotypes.
“Gender bias is normalized and tolerated to an extent that racial bias no longer is in the administration of the death penalty,” said Sandra Babcock, a law professor at Cornell who represents Ms. Andrew in a related case. “Women on trial for capital murder have been subjected to similar shaming tactics for hundreds of years.”
In urging the Supreme Court not to hear the case, Andrew v. White, No. 23-6573, prosecutors said almost nothing to justify using evidence about Ms. Andrew’s appearance and sexuality. They argued instead that it was “but a drop in the ocean” in the case against her. State and federal appeals courts have more or less agreed, suggesting that the prosecutors’ presentation was regrettable but that there was ample evidence of Ms. Andrew’s guilt.
The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals, for instance, said in 2007 that it was “struggling to find any relevance” for much of the contested evidence but added that “even so, the introduction of this evidence was harmless.”
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit said last year that it shared the state court’s “concerns about some of the ‘sexual and sexualizing’ evidence admitted at trial” but that Ms. Andrew could not overcome the high hurdles to challenging a state-court conviction in federal court.
Ms. Andrew’s boyfriend, James Pavatt, admitted to shooting her husband and said he had acted alone. But there was reason to think Ms. Andrew was involved, as part of a plot to obtain the proceeds of a life insurance policy, and the authorities charged both of them with capital murder. Mr. Pavatt was also sentenced to death, and he is scheduled to be executed in July.
In a partial dissent from the state court’s ruling in 2007, Judge Arlene Johnson, the only woman on the court at the time, said she would have let Ms. Andrew’s conviction stand. But, she wrote, “I find it impossible to say with confidence that the death penalty here was not imposed as a consequence of improper evidence and argument” that served “to trivialize the value of her life in the minds of the jurors.”
In dissent last year from the 10th Circuit’s decision, Judge Robert E. Bacharach went further, saying he would have overturned not only her death sentence but also her conviction.
“The state focused from start to finish on Ms. Andrew’s sex life,” Judge Bacharach wrote. “This focus portrayed Ms. Andrew as a scarlet woman, a modern Jezebel, sparking distrust based on her loose morals. The drumbeat on Ms. Andrew’s sex life continued in closing argument, plucking away any realistic chance that the jury would seriously consider her version of events.”
Ms. Babcock said a male defendant would not have been treated as Ms. Andrew had been. “It’s inconceivable that the prosecution would dangle his favorite pair of boxers in front of the jury,” she said, “and argue that they proved his guilt.”
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