No Taxes for War and Genocide!
We oppose our taxes being used to kill innocent Gazans!!
No business as usual on April 15.
Immediate ceasefire; humanitarian aid to Gaza NOW!
Monday, April 15, Noon
Rally at UN Plaza, Market St. and Hyde St., San Francisco
The UN Plaza, so named for the founding of the UN in 1945, is where the Universal Declaration of Human Rights originated. Article 1 of the Declaration: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.”
Parade 12:30 P.M.
Parade to IRS Office at 450 Golden Gate Ave.
Family-friendly parade; banners, posters, streamers, drums, kazoos. Activist dogs invited!
Musicians, dancers, actors, artists, poets, clowns: join the parade and the action at the IRS!
At IRS: tax refusal teach-in, street theater, bannering, children’s activities, sidewalk chalking, ceasefire postcards, music, snacks, sit-in.
· Divest from the War Economy!
· Defund the Pentagon!
· Stop paying for wars, occupations and sanctions on Gaza, Cuba, Haiti, Ukraine, Sudan, Yemen!
Over 50 percent of our taxes go to fund the Pentagon’s forever wars. Profits are up 60 percent for the “Merchants of Death:” Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon (RTX), Grumman, etc. We pay for 800 U.S. Military Bases Worldwide.
· Invest in a Peace Economy!
We want our taxes to fund healthcare, housing, education, clean energy, child and elder care, transportation, clean air and water, student debt relief, safe bridges and roadways, libraries-- not war, fear, and misery.
We’ll stop the U.S. war machine when we stop funding it! Tens of thousands of innocent Gazans have been killed by the Israeli military with U.S. weapons we paid for. We have spent billions of dollars on weapons for the Israeli military. We supply 60 percent of the weapons Israel is using to kill innocent civilians in Gaza. We demand that Congress and President Biden stop funding weapons to Israel, call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire, no additional funding, and halting weapons “already in the pipeline.”
Hosted by CODEPINK Bay Area. Endorsers (list in formation): SF Gray Panthers, Extinction Rebellion Peace, ANSWER Coalition, Veterans for Peace, (more will be added as they come in!)
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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 April 5, 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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Daniel Hale UPDATE:
In February Drone Whistleblower Daniel Hale was transferred from the oppressive maximum-security prison in Marion, Illinois to house confinement. We celebrate his release from Marion. He is laying low right now, recovering from nearly 3 years in prison. Thank goodness he is now being held under much more humane conditions and expected to complete his sentence in July of this year. www.StandWithDaniel Hale.org
More Info about Daniel:
“Drone Whistleblower Subjected To Harsh Confinement Finally Released From Prison”
https://thedissenter.org/drone-whistleblower-cmu-finally-released-from-prison/
“I was punished under the Espionage Act. Why wasn’t Joe Biden?” by Daniel Hale
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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) Power cites ‘credible’ assessments that famine has begun in northern Gaza.
By Liam Stack reporting from Jerusalem, April 11, 2024
A child being treated for malnutrition at Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza last week. Credit...Mahmoud Issa/Reuters
The director of the U.S. Agency for International Development told lawmakers this week that a famine is underway in northern Gaza, which has been devastated by six months of Israeli military operations and is the part of the territory most cut off from aid.
The director, Samantha Power, is the first senior American official to say publicly that famine has begun in the Gaza Strip, where aid agencies and global experts have warned for months that nearly all 2.2 million Palestinians would soon face extreme hunger.
Northern Gaza, which was the first part of the territory that Israeli forces invaded last October, has been heavily damaged by the war and is far from the two open border crossings in the south through which nearly all aid is arriving.
Aid agencies say that it has become all but impossible to deliver relief supplies to the north as fighting continues. UNICEF said on Thursday that one of its vehicles waiting to enter northern Gaza this week had been “hit by live ammunition,” and that it had raised the matter with the Israeli authorities. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to questions about the report.
Ms. Power’s comments came during her congressional testimony on Wednesday, when she was asked by Representative Joaquin Castro, Democrat of Texas, about reports that her agency had sent a cable to the National Security Council saying famine had begun in parts of the Gaza Strip. The cable was first reported by HuffPost.
Ms. Power said a famine appeared to have begun according to an assessment by the global Integrated Food Security Phase Classification initiative, an group of U.N. agencies and relief agencies also known as the I.P.C., whose methodology she described as sound. She did not specify what assessment she was referring to.
“That is their assessment, and we believe that assessment is credible,” Ms. Power said.
“So famine is already occurring there?” Mr. Castro replied.
“That is — yes,” Ms. Power said.
The I.P.C. said last month that famine was imminent in northern Gaza. The body usually declares a famine when at least 20 percent of households face an extreme lack of food, when at least 30 percent of children suffer from acute malnutrition and when at least two adults or four children for every 10,000 people die each day from starvation or disease linked to malnutrition.
Ms. Power said later in her testimony that the rate of severe malnutrition among Gazan children had become “markedly worse” since Oct. 7, when a Hamas-led terrorist attack prompted Israel to launch its military offensive in Gaza.
“In northern Gaza, the rate of malnutrition prior to Oct. 7 was almost zero, and it is now one in three kids,” she said. She added: “In terms of actual severe acute malnutrition for under-5s, that rate was 16 percent in January and became 30 percent in February. We’re awaiting the March numbers, but we expect it to continue.”
In interviews, people in northern Gaza have described severe food shortages. Even in Beit Lahia, once known as Gaza’s breadbasket, people’s diets sometimes amount to little more than boiled bitter weeds, said Yousef Sager, 24, a farmer.
“I never thought we would be talking about famine here,” he said.
In the early months of the war, he said he ate only a small plate of rice each day, with breakfast and dinner replaced by tea or coffee. When rice, tea and coffee ran out, he and many other Gazans turned to khobeza, a leafy green that grows in early spring.
But the khobeza is starting to run out, he said, so he now lives off of a soup of hot water and stinging nettles. Before the war, not even farm animals ate that, he said.
“I had to close my nose and just swallow it to survive,” he said.
Abu Bakr Bashir contributed reporting.
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2) Israel announces a new operation against Hamas, a day after killing a top leader’s sons.
By Cassandra Vinograd reporting from Jerusalem, April 11, 2024
Ismail Haniyeh during a visit to Tehran last month. Credit...Vahid Salemi/Associated Press
The Israeli military announced what it called a precise operation to kill members of Hamas in Gaza on Thursday, a day after a strike there killed relatives of one of the group’s most senior leaders.
Ismail Haniyeh, who leads the political wing of Hamas from exile, said three of his sons had been killed in the Israeli airstrike in northern Gaza on Wednesday. Hamas-affiliated media reported that three of Mr. Haniyeh’s grandchildren also were killed in the attack.
On Thursday, Israel’s military said that its forces had carried out a “precise, intelligence-based operation” in central Gaza overnight with fighter jets and ground troops to “eliminate terrorist operatives and strike terrorist infrastructure.”
It was not immediately clear whether the operation was related to the strike a day earlier against Mr. Haniyeh’s sons, who the Israeli military said had been “on their way to carry out terrorist activities in central Gaza.” It did not provide further details, and the military’s claims could not be verified.
The Israeli military said that the three Haniyeh sons it killed — Amir, Mohammad and Hazem — were active in Hamas’s military operations, Amir as a cell commander and his brothers as lower-level operatives. One of the brothers was also involved in holding hostages, the Israeli military said, without specifying which one.
The strike came as international negotiators worked to broker a cease-fire in Gaza and to secure the release of hostages held in the enclave. Those talks have stalled over disagreements about the details, with a senior Hamas official saying Wednesday that the group did not have 40 living hostages who met the criteria for an exchange under the proposal being discussed.
While Mr. Haniyeh is one of Hamas’s most senior officials, analysts said that his sons were less integral to the operation — and that their killings appeared mainly aimed at sending a message to the group’s leadership amid cease-fire negotiations.
“His son’s names are not usually floated around when you talk about seniority in Hamas, whether it’s the political or military wing,” said Tahani Mustafa, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group, a think tank.
Ms. Mustafa said that the timing of the strike made it seem like an effort to derail the talks.
But Bilal Saab, an associate fellow in the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House, said the strike may have been intended to placate a domestic audience after six months of war, or to give Israel leverage in the talks.
“It’s a political win for Israel more than anything else,” Mr. Saab said, adding: “This was a hit meant to pressure Hamas to make concessions on the hostage negotiations.”
Mr. Haniyeh said Wednesday that Israel was “delusional if it thinks that by killing my children, we will change our positions” in negotiations.
Active fighting in Gaza has ebbed to its lowest point since November. Israel withdrew troops from southern Gaza over the weekend, but said the military would stay in other parts of Gaza to preserve its “freedom of action and its ability to conduct precise intelligence-based operations.”
The military’s stated emphasis on precision comes as international criticism of the war in Gaza intensifies over the rising Palestinian death toll and warnings of famine.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has said that a date has been set for a ground invasion of Rafah in southern Gaza, an operation U.S. officials have warned would be catastrophic for civilians. Some analysts have suggested that his threats are bluster or attempts at gaining leverage in the cease-fire negotiations.
The Biden administration has urged Mr. Netanyahu to shelve the invasion plans and focus on “alternative approaches that would target the key elements of Hamas.”
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3) Many Patients Don’t Survive End-Stage Poverty
By Lindsay Ryan, April 11, 2024
Dr. Ryan is an associate physician at the University of California, San Francisco, department of medicine.
Miki Lowe
He has an easy smile, blue eyes and a life-threatening bone infection in one arm. Grateful for treatment, he jokes with the medical intern each morning. A friend, a fellow doctor, is supervising the man’s care. We both work as internists at a public hospital in the medical safety net, a loose term for institutions that disproportionately serve patients on Medicaid or without insurance. You could describe the safety net in another way, too, as a place that holds up a mirror to our nation.
What is reflected can be difficult to face. It’s this: After learning that antibiotics aren’t eradicating his infection and amputation is the only chance for cure, the man withdraws, says barely a word to the intern. When she asks what he’s thinking, his reply is so tentative that she has to prompt him to repeat himself. Now with a clear voice, he tells her that if his arm must be amputated, he doesn’t want to live. She doesn’t understand what it’s like to survive on the streets, he continues. With a disability, he’ll be a target — robbed, assaulted. He’d rather die, unless, he says later, someone can find him a permanent apartment. In that case, he’ll proceed with the amputation.
The psychiatrists evaluate him. He’s not suicidal. His reasoning is logical. The social workers search for rooms, but in San Francisco far more people need long-term rehousing than the available units can accommodate. That the medical care the patient is receiving exceeds the cost of a year’s rent makes no practical difference. Eventually, the palliative care doctors see him. He transitions to hospice and dies.
A death certificate would say he died of sepsis from a bone infection, but my friend and I have a term for the illness that killed him: end-stage poverty. We needed to coin a phrase because so many of our patients die of the same thing.
Safety-net hospitals and clinics care for a population heavily skewed toward the poor, recent immigrants and people of color. The budgets of these places are forever tight. And anyone who works in them could tell you that illness in our patients isn’t just a biological phenomenon. It’s the manifestation of social inequality in people’s bodies.
Neglecting this fact can make otherwise meticulous care fail. That’s why, on one busy night, a medical student on my team is scouring websites and LinkedIn. She’s not shirking her duties. In fact, she’s one of the best students I’ve ever taught.
This week she’s caring for a retired low-wage worker with strokes and likely early dementia who was found sleeping in the street. He abandoned his rent-controlled apartment when electrolyte and kidney problems triggered a period of severe confusion that has since been resolved. Now, with little savings, he has nowhere to go. A respite center can receive patients like him when it has vacancies. The alternative is a shelter bed. He’s nearly 90 years old.
Medical textbooks usually don’t discuss fixing your patient’s housing. They seldom include making sure your patient has enough food and some way to get to a clinic. But textbooks miss what my med students don’t: that people die for lack of these basics.
People struggle to keep wounds clean. Their medications get stolen. They sicken from poor diet, undervaccination and repeated psychological trauma. Forced to focus on short-term survival and often lacking cellphones, they miss appointments for everything from Pap smears to chemotherapy. They fall ill in myriad ways — and fall through the cracks in just as many.
Early in his hospitalization, our retired patient mentions a daughter, from whom he’s been estranged for years. He doesn’t know any contact details, just her name. It’s a long shot, but we wonder if she can take him in.
The med student has one mission: find her.
I love reading about medical advances. I’m blown away that with a brain implant, a person who’s paralyzed can move a robotic arm and that surgeons recently transplanted a genetically modified pig kidney into a man on dialysis. This is the best of American innovation and cause for celebration. But breakthroughs like these won’t fix the fact that despite spending the highest percentage of its G.D.P. on health care among O.E.C.D. nations, the United States has a life expectancy years lower than comparable nations—the U.K. and Canada— and a rate of preventable death far higher.
The solution to that problem is messy, incremental, protean and inglorious. It requires massive investment in housing, addiction treatment, free and low-barrier health care and social services. It calls for just as much innovation in the social realm as in the biomedical, for acknowledgment that inequities — based on race, class, primary language and other categories — mediate how disease becomes embodied. If health care is interpreted in the truest sense of caring for people’s health, it must be a practice that extends well beyond the boundaries of hospitals and clinics.
Meanwhile, on the ground, we make do. Though the social workers are excellent and try valiantly, there are too few of them, both in my hospital and throughout a country that devalues and underfunds their profession. And so the medical student spends hours helping the family of a newly arrived Filipino immigrant navigate the health insurance system. Without her efforts, he wouldn’t get treatment for acute hepatitis C. Another patient, who is in her 20s, can’t afford rent after losing her job because of repeated hospitalizations for pancreatitis — but she can’t get the pancreatic operation she needs without a home in which to recuperate. I phone an eviction defense lawyer friend; the young woman eventually gets surgery.
Sorting out housing and insurance isn’t the best use of my skill set or that of the medical students and residents, but our efforts can be rewarding. The internet turned up the work email of the daughter of the retired man. Her house was a little cramped with his grandchildren, she said, but she would make room. The medical student came in beaming.
In these cases we succeeded; in many others we don’t. Safety-net hospitals can feel like the rapids foreshadowing a waterfall, the final common destination to which people facing inequities are swept by forces beyond their control. We try our hardest to fish them out, but sometimes we can’t do much more than toss them a life jacket or maybe a barrel and hope for the best.
I used to teach residents about the principles of internal medicine — sodium disturbances, delirium management, antibiotics. I still do, but these days I also teach about other topics — tapping community resources, thinking creatively about barriers and troubleshooting how our patients can continue to get better after leaving the supports of the hospital.
When we debrief, residents tell me how much they struggle with the moral dissonance of working in a system in which the best medicine they can provide often falls short. They’re right about how much it hurts, so I don’t know exactly what to say to them. Perhaps I never will.
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4) It’s Time to End the Quiet Cruelty of Property Taxes
By Andrew W. Kahrl, April 11, 2024
Dr. Kahrl is a professor of history and African American studies at the University of Virginia and the author of “The Black Tax: 150 Years of Theft, Exploitation, and Dispossession in America.”
Eli Durst
Property taxes, the lifeblood of local governments and school districts, are one of the most powerful and stealthy engines of racism and wealth inequality our nation has ever produced. And while the Biden administration has offered many solutions for making the tax code fairer, it has yet to effectively tackle a problem that has resulted not only in the extraordinary overtaxation of Black and Latino homeowners but also the worsening of disparities between wealthy and poorer communities. Fixing these problems requires nothing short of a fundamental re-examination of how taxes are distributed.
In theory, the property tax would seem to be an eminently fair one: The higher the value of your property, the more you pay. The problem with this system is that the tax is administered by local officials who enjoy a remarkable degree of autonomy and that tax rates are typically based on the collective wealth of a given community. This results in wealthy communities enjoying lower effective tax rates while generating more tax revenues; at the same time, poorer ones are forced to tax property at higher effective rates while generating less in return. As such, property assessments have been manipulated throughout our nation’s history to ensure that valuable property is taxed the least relative to its worth and that the wealthiest places will always have more resources than poorer ones.
Black people have paid the heaviest cost. Since they began acquiring property after emancipation, African Americans have been overtaxed by local governments. By the early 1900s, an acre of Black-owned land was valued, for tax purposes, higher than an acre of white-owned land in most of Virginia’s counties, according to my calculations, despite being worth about half as much. And for all the taxes Black people paid, they got little to nothing in return. Where Black neighborhoods began, paved streets, sidewalks, and water and sewer lines often ended. Black taxpayers helped to pay for the better-resourced schools white children attended. Even as white supremacists treated “colored” schools as another of the white man’s burdens, the truth was that throughout the Jim Crow era, Black taxpayers subsidized white education.
Freedom from these kleptocratic regimes drove millions of African Americans to move to Northern and Midwestern states in the Great Migration between 1915 to 1970, but they were unable to escape racist assessments, which encompassed both the undervaluation of their property for sales purposes and overvaluation of their property for taxation purposes. During those years, the nation’s real estate industry made white-owned property in white neighborhoods worth more because it was white. Since local tax revenue was tied to local real estate markets, newly formed suburbs had a fiscal incentive to exclude Black people, and cities had even more reason to keep Blacks confined to urban ghettos.
As the postwar metropolis became a patchwork of local governments, each with its own tax base, the fiscal rationale for segregation intensified. Cities were fiscally incentivized to cater to the interests of white homeowners and provide better services for white neighborhoods, especially as middle-class whites began streaming into the suburbs, taking their tax dollars with them.
One way to cater to wealthy and white homeowners’ interests is to intentionally conduct property assessments less often. The city of Boston did not conduct a citywide property reassessment between 1946 and 1977. Over that time, the values of properties in Black neighborhoods increased slowly when compared with the values in white neighborhoods or even fell, which led to property owners’ paying relatively more in taxes than their homes were worth. At the same time, owners of properties in white neighborhoods got an increasingly good tax deal as their neighborhoods increased in value.
As was the case in other American cities, Boston’s decision most likely derived from the fear that any updates would hasten the exodus of white homeowners and businesses to the suburbs. By the 1960s, assessments on residential properties in Boston’s poor neighborhoods were up to one and a half times as great as their actual values, while assessments in the city’s more affluent neighborhoods were, on average, 40 percent of market value.
Jersey City, N.J., did not conduct a citywide real estate reassessment between 1988 and 2018 as part of a larger strategy for promoting high-end real estate development. During that time, real estate prices along the city’s waterfront soared while their owners’ tax bills remained relatively steady. By 2015, a home in one of the city’s Black and Latino neighborhoods worth $175,000 received the same tax bill as a home in the city’s downtown worth $530,000.
These are hardly exceptions. Numerous studies conducted during those years found that assessments in predominantly Black neighborhoods of U.S. cities were grossly higher relative to value than those in white areas.
These problems persist. A recent report by the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy found that property assessments were regressive (meaning lower-valued properties were assessed higher relative to value than higher-valued ones) in 97.7 percent of all U.S. counties. Black-owned homes and properties in Black neighborhoods continue to be devalued on the open market, making this regressive tax, in effect, a racist tax.
The overtaxation of Black homes and neighborhoods is also a symptom of a much larger problem in America’s federated fiscal structure. By design, this system produces winners and losers: localities with ample resources to provide the goods and services that we as a nation have entrusted to local governments, and others that struggle to keep the lights on, the streets paved, the schools open and drinking water safe. Worse yet, it compels any fiscally disadvantaged locality seeking to improve its fortunes to do so by showering businesses and corporations with tax breaks and subsidies while cutting services and shifting tax burdens onto the poor and disadvantaged. A local tax on local real estate places Black people and cities with large Black populations at a permanent disadvantage. More than that, it gives middle-class whites strong incentives to preserve their relative advantages, fueling the zero-sum politics that keeps Americans divided, accelerates the upward redistribution of wealth and impoverishes us all.
There are technical solutions. One, which requires local governments to adopt more accurate assessment models and regularly update assessment rolls, can help make property taxes fairer. But none of the proposed reforms being discussed can be applied nationally because local tax policies are the prerogative of the states and, often, local governments themselves. Given the variety and complexity of state and local property tax laws and procedures, and how much local governments continue to rely on tax reductions and tax shifting to attract and retain certain people and businesses, we cannot expect them to fix these problems on their own.
The best way to make local property taxes fairer and more equitable is to make them less important. The federal government can do this by reinvesting in our cities, counties and school districts through a federal fiscal-equity program, like those found in other advanced federated nations. Canada, Germany and Australia, among others, all direct federal funds to lower units of government with lower capacities to raise revenue.
And what better way to pay for the program than to tap our wealthiest, who have benefited from our unjust taxation scheme for so long. President Biden is calling for a 25 percent tax on the incomes and annual increases in the values of the holdings of persons claiming more than $100 million in assets, but we could accomplish far more by enacting a wealth tax on the 1 percent. Even a modest 4 percent wealth tax on people whose total assets exceed $50 million could generate upward of $400 billion in additional annual revenue, which should be more than enough to ensure that the needs of every city, county and public school system in America are met. By ensuring that localities have the resources they need, we can counteract the unequal outcomes and rank injustices that our current system generates.
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5) How the War in Gaza Mobilized the American Left
As the death toll in Gaza climbed, the pro-Palestinian movement grew into a powerful, if disjointed, political force in the United States. Democrats are feeling the pressure.
By Katie Glueck, Katie Benner and Sheera Frenkel, April 12, 2024
A Palestinian-American student addressed fellow students protesting Columbia University’s suspension of Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace, on Nov. 14. Credit...Bing Guan for The New York Times
Support for Palestinians, a cause once largely championed on college campuses and in communities with ties to the region, has transformed into a defining issue of the Democratic left, galvanizing a broad swath of groups into the most significant protest movement of the Biden era.
Through daily organizing sessions on Zoom and grass-roots campaigning in battleground states, a sprawling new iteration of the pro-Palestinian movement is now propelled both by longtime — and sometimes hard-line — activists and by mainstream pillars of the Democratic coalition.
Organizations that are usually focused on climate, housing or immigration are regularly protesting Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, which followed the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack and has killed more than 33,000 people, according to local officials.
Labor activists are calling for a cease-fire. Black clergy leaders have appealed directly to the White House. Young Americans are using online tools to mobilize voters and send millions of missives to Congress. And an emerging coalition of advocacy groups is discussing how to press its case at the Democratic National Convention this summer.
“Maybe there was an idea that over time, the movement would lose steam, or it was just like a campus thing or it was like a far-left sort of protest movement,” said Maurice Mitchell, the national director of the Working Families Party, a progressive group that has often been more focused on domestic issues. “The opposite is happening as the humanitarian toll becomes so clear.”
Interviews with more than three dozen activists and others involved in the cease-fire cause, as well as their critics, reveal an effort that is at once increasingly powerful and also disjointed and difficult to clearly define. There is no single leader or organization at the helm, nor even a single name for the effort.
It comprises hundreds of groups, from the national to the hyperlocal level, all loosely united behind a call for Israel to end its military campaign. But they are far from consensus on other core issues, such as how to achieve a cease-fire and what should come afterward.
They do not all work together, and their tactics also vary widely: While labor and faith leaders have issued calibrated statements, more strident groups and activists often stage demonstrations that snarl traffic or drown out politicians at events, and some have encouraged supporters to take their own “autonomous actions.”
On campuses especially, some protests have turned ugly or violent. Jewish students and leaders have described being harassed and threatened by people angered by the war in Gaza, in the face of a broader surge in antisemitic incidents, according to law enforcement officials and advocacy groups. They have also tracked a rise in anti-Muslim and anti-Arab acts, including the killing of a Palestinian American 6-year-old boy and the shooting of three students of Palestinian descent in Vermont.
In the aftermath of the Oct. 7 attack, which Israeli officials say killed about 1,200 people in Israel, demonstrations against Israel were initially often led by campus groups like Students for Justice in Palestine, which would later be banned or suspended from several universities; left-wing Jewish organizations including Jewish Voice for Peace chapters; and groups heavily involved in street protests that cheered or justified the attack as legitimate resistance, such as Palestinian Youth Movement and Within Our Lifetime.
But as Israel’s military response intensified and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza spiraled, a much broader constellation of more traditional Democratic-leaning organizations, leaders and voters began to engage. Activists are now wrestling with how best to push President Biden and his Democratic allies — or whether to break from them — in an election year.
Mr. Biden is under intense pressure to take a tougher stand against Israel, a longtime ally, from powerful parts of a divided party. In a Pew Research Center poll released last month, a slim majority of Democrats said the way Israel was conducting the war was unacceptable, even as the same share said its reasons for fighting were either completely or somewhat valid.
After seven aid workers were killed by Israeli strikes last week, Mr. Biden threatened to condition future support for Israel on how it addresses civilian casualties and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Other Democrats are going much further in their condemnations.
“There is now a real link between prominent elected officials and on-the-ground organizing,” said Abbas Alawieh, 32, a Democratic strategist who is helping to lead a national effort protesting Mr. Biden’s Israel policy. “That link is leading to what I’ve experienced as one of the largest antiwar organizing efforts this generation has seen.”
The Day That Changed Everything
For decades, pro-Palestinian activists largely existed on the political fringe, drowned out by bipartisan support for Israel and by well-organized, well-funded pro-Israel organizations.
But after years of fraying ties between the Democratic Party and Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli leader, the outbreak of war abruptly exposed just how much the political landscape had shifted.
After Oct. 7, Mr. Biden traveled to Israel to offer support, and many around the world demanded that Hamas release the roughly 240 hostages taken captive.
At universities and in some activist circles, however, a powerful backlash against Israel was brewing within hours of the attack, transforming student groups with sleepy social media presences into powerful campus voices.
On Oct. 5, Columbia University’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine posted on Instagram about an upcoming meeting. The post drew 369 likes and 14 comments.
On Oct. 9, a post proclaiming “full solidarity with Palestinian resistance” received nearly 33,000 likes.
Such reactions drew widespread criticism. But as Israel bombarded Gaza and launched a ground invasion, scenes of death and devastation in Israel were increasingly supplanted on television and social media by images of death and devastation in Gaza.
Those scenes began to define views of the war for many within the broader Democratic Party who strongly condemned Hamas but grew increasingly alarmed by the civilian toll.
“We are seeing profound pain,” said William J. Barber II, an activist and professor at Yale Divinity School who has spoken with Vice President Kamala Harris about a cease-fire. “Nothing organizes people like that pain.”
Moving Toward the Mainstream
On Nov. 8, a coalition of Black clergy members ran an advertisement in The New York Times calling for a bilateral cease-fire.
The ad, signed by more than 900 Christian faith leaders, was perhaps the clearest sign yet of the movement’s growth. It reflected longstanding relationships between Black and Palestinian activists dating to the demonstrations against police violence in Ferguson, Mo., in 2014.
The Rev. Michael McBride, a founder of Black Church PAC who helped organize the letter, recalled the online encouragement he received from Palestinian young people while in Ferguson. Nine years later, he was shaken by the scenes from Gaza on social media.
“I don’t think many of us had seen anything like that before,” he said.
Other core Democratic constituencies were mobilizing, too. In the labor movement, progressive and younger members as well as workers from heavily Arab American Dearborn, Mich., agitated for their unions to take a stand.
Brandon Mancilla, a regional director with the United Automobile Workers, said that by early November, as the death toll rose in Gaza, union members were regularly joining demonstrations in their U.A.W. gear.
“It wasn’t just protesting the bombing,” said Mr. Mancilla, who helped lead the cease-fire call efforts. “It was also trying to say that, like, ‘I belong to this organization, and I want that organization to reflect my principles.’”
In December, the U.A.W. International Union became the largest labor union at the time to back an “immediate” cease-fire.
While many activists have urged an “immediate, permanent” cease-fire, others have pressed for a negotiated, bilateral cease-fire with pressure on Israel and Hamas, illustrating both growing disillusionment with Israel’s war effort and stark differences about how to end it.
As unions intensified their efforts, Mr. Biden received a warning in a bastion of the American labor movement.
In February, more than 100,000 Michigan voters cast an “uncommitted” ballot in the state’s Democratic primary, after activists urged voters to send a message to Mr. Biden. There have been notable protest votes in subsequent primary states, and activists are now planning their presence at the Democratic National Convention.
Lauren Hitt, a spokeswoman for the Biden campaign, said in a statement that Mr. Biden “shares the goal for an end to the violence and a just, lasting peace in the Middle East. He’s working tirelessly to that end.”
A Lonely Moment for Some Jewish Democrats
From the outset, the Gaza war fueled heated debates over the differences between criticism of Israel and overt antisemitism, a clash shaped by generational divisions and disputes over where free speech ends and hate speech begins.
Leading Democrats including the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer of New York, and Ms. Harris have emphasized distinctions between the Israeli government, which they criticize, and the Israeli people. Some lawmakers have also voiced concerns about instances in which Jewish Americans have been targeted by people who appear to oppose Israeli policy.
“If you think that you are opposing actions of a country like Israel by attacking Jewish organizations, Jewish members of Congress, Jewish businesses, Jewish prayer-goers, you are veering into pure, unadulterated antisemitism,” said Representative Daniel S. Goldman, a New York Democrat who was in Israel for a family event on Oct. 7.
Some left-leaning Jews have found a home in the protest movement, embracing organizations including the anti-Zionist group Jewish Voice for Peace as well as IfNotNow, another Jewish group strongly critical of Israel. Both have helped organize antiwar demonstrations and say they have seen a surge in membership since the war broke out.
“They can hold the grief of Oct. 7 while also seeing clearly there is nothing that can justify what Israel has done to Palestinian civilians,” said Matan Arad-Neeman, a spokesman for IfNotNow.
Others described feeling a sense of betrayal by the progressive social justice movements they long supported.
“In our time of need, those groups who we have always stood by have abandoned us,” Mr. Goldman said. “It feels very lonely right now to be a Jew in America.”
‘We’re Seeing It on Our Phones’
Social media has played a critical role in powering the cease-fire cause and shaping perceptions of the conflict, especially among young people.
Since October, more than 500 Instagram accounts and Facebook groups have been created in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. Some of the largest accounts have millions of followers and promote fund-raising drives and letter-writing campaigns.
Longstanding accounts run by Palestinians in Gaza have also grown as they document life during the war. A Palestinian journalist and Gaza resident, Plestia Alaqad, had about 3,700 followers on Instagram before Oct. 7. Today, she has more than 4.7 million, whom she regularly calls upon to attend events in support of Palestinians.
“We’re seeing it on our phones every time we open social media,” said Elise Joshi, executive director of a progressive group, Gen-Z for Change.
While the accounts on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and X appear to operate independently, they often share the same memes and videos. When a demonstration blocked the president’s traditional motorcade route ahead of the State of the Union, it took less than 10 minutes for Instagram and TikTok accounts to begin declaring the protest a success.
Within an hour, more than 200 Instagram accounts shared the news.
Activists use Instagram and Facebook to organize protests and sometimes send play-by-play logistical instructions on Telegram. Every weekday afternoon, Jewish Voice for Peace hosts a “power half-hour” online, where participants organize, take political actions and find solidarity, accompanied by a dedicated Spotify playlist. The gathering regularly draws around 500 people, said Beth Miller, the group’s political director.
Some Israel advocates cautioned against conflating online energy with public opinion, and alluded to concerns about misinformation.
Researchers have discovered that tens of thousands of bots are involved in the campaigns. But while those accounts have found an audience in Russia, Iran and other countries, in the United States they have garnered little support, according to a Times review.
A Complex Donor Network
It is difficult to trace the money that supports Palestinian advocacy groups. Many entities are new, local or not required to disclose their funding to the I.R.S., and the cause is often fueled by grass-roots efforts.
Some supporters that have disclosed donations include the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, a left-leaning foundation, and the social justice-focused Tides Foundation. Both have backed major advocacy groups including IfNotNow, Adalah Justice Project and the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, according to tax filings and donors.
Jewish Voice for Peace has received funding from Open Society Foundations, the network founded by the billionaire financier George Soros and run by his son, Alex Soros.
The antiwar movement also appears to have drawn support from Neville Roy Singham, a longtime benefactor of far-left causes. The People’s Forum, a group that helped organize protests of a recent Biden fund-raiser at Radio City Music Hall, said in 2021 that he was their funder, calling him a “Marxist comrade.”
The Times also reported that Mr. Singham finances pro-China propaganda, and was shown attending a Chinese Communist Party propaganda forum last year.
Asked whether Mr. Singham’s work on China shaped how the People’s Forum approached the Palestinian cause, Manolo De Los Santos, the group’s executive director, said that the leaders of the People’s Forum had “been rallying for Palestine for nearly 20 years, long before we met Roy.”
“He doesn’t guide or dictate the direction of our work,” he added.
Mr. Singham did not reply to emails seeking comment.
For years, Israel and allies in the U.S. have accused some pro-Palestinian organizations of having ties to terrorist groups. No charitable groups have been convicted of funding Hamas since 2008, according to a Justice Department spokeswoman.
That scrutiny is one reason giving to pro-Palestinian organizations has been relatively muted, especially compared with pro-Israel organizations. But many groups that support Palestinian causes have seen funding increase since last October.
“People donate based on emotions,” said Steve Sosebee, the founder of HEAL Palestine, an N.G.O. “Nothing is more emotional than seeing children starving, injured and orphaned.”
On the electoral front, a coalition of progressive organizations that helped power the rise of the left-wing “Squad” — which includes some of Congress’s sharpest critics of Israel — said they were joining forces to support their congressional allies and counter anticipated heavy spending by AIPAC, the major pro-Israel group.
The groups include Justice Democrats, the Working Families Party, the Democratic Socialists of America and several Palestinian rights’ groups.
“It’s a powerful moment,” said Ahmad Abuznaid, the executive director of the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights and its action arm, which is part of that coalition. But, noting the war and continued American military support, he added, “We have a long way to go.”
Ruth Igielnik, David A. Fahrenthold and Sean Piccoli contributed reporting. Kitty Bennett contributed research.
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6) Democratic Coalition Sends Biden a Demand on Military Aid to Israel
In a letter, a dozen groups and labor unions called on the president to enforce a law that bars military support from going to any nation that restricts the delivery of humanitarian aid.
By Reid J. Epstein, April 12, 2024
The letter calls on the president to enforce the Foreign Assistance Act, which bars military support from going to any nation that restricts the delivery of humanitarian aid. Credit...Menahem Kahana/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
A coalition of a dozen liberal organizations and labor unions sent a letter to the White House on Thursday night demanding that President Biden end military aid to Israel until its government lifts restrictions on humanitarian aid to Gaza, the latest indicator of shifting mainstream Democratic opinion on the war.
The group includes not only progressive groups like MoveOn and the Working Families Party, but also the mainstream Democratic Center for American Progress and NextGen America, the organization founded and funded by Tom Steyer, a billionaire who ran for president in the 2020 Democratic primary. Other signatories to the letter include the Service Employees International Union and the National Education Association, labor unions that make up key elements of the Democratic Party.
The letter calls on Mr. Biden to enforce the Foreign Assistance Act, which bars military support from going to any nation that restricts the delivery of humanitarian aid.
“This will send a clear message that the Netanyahu government is not above the law and that the U.S. will not stand by while the war kills innocent Palestinians and continues to drive escalation throughout the region,” the letter states, referring to Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. “U.S. law is unequivocal: Countries that obstruct U.S. humanitarian aid cannot receive U.S. military aid under the Foreign Assistance Act or the Arms Export Control Act.”
Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez, the president of NextGen America, which focuses on driving voter turnout among young people, said there was growing risk that Mr. Biden will lose support from a key part of the Democratic coalition if there is not a significant change in the American position toward the war in Gaza.
“We are concerned with the humanitarian and moral implications and the political survival of the administration,” Ms. Tzintzún Ramirez said. “We’ve seen a surge of young people say they care about foreign policy and this issue in a way we have not seen historically.”
Last week, Mr. Biden told Mr. Netanyahu that the United States could withhold support for Israel if it does not do more to protect civilians and ensure adequate supplies for Gaza. And since then the president has repeated that getting more aid into Gaza is a priority.
“They need to do more,” Mr. Biden said of Israel’s government and Mr. Netanyahu during a news conference Wednesday. “There’s one more opening that has to take place in the north. So we’ll see what he does in terms of meeting the commitments he made to me.”
The White House and the Biden campaign declined to comment on the letter.
The letter adds to the growing pressure Mr. Biden has faced from across the Democratic Party as Israel’s war in Gaza enters its seventh month. More than 33,000 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the local health authorities. About 1,200 people were killed in Israel when Hamas militants launched an attack that instigated the conflict on Oct. 7.
Israeli officials believe there are about 130 hostages remaining in Gaza, and Israeli intelligence officers have concluded that at least 30 of those have died in captivity.
Last month, Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont, and seven Democratic senators sent Mr. Biden a similar request. In the meantime, Mr. Biden has made increasingly angry statements about Israel’s conduct in the Gaza war, particularly following the Israeli airstrike last week that killed seven members of an aid convoy from World Central Kitchen, the charity run by the Spanish chef José Andrés.
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