18th Annual CODEPINK Mother’s Day Bridge Walk for PEACE!
Sunday, May 12, Noon
11:45: Gather at the Welcome Center Plaza, on the East (Hill) side of the San Francisco end of bridge.
(IMPORTANT: Arrive 30-40 min. EARLY, as “The Authorities” purposely close nearby parking lots to discourage participation!)
NOON: March Begins
1:30 P.M.: Short Rally after the March on the bridge.
In light of U.S. complicity in the ongoing genocide and forced starvation of the people of Gaza, we will put Palestine front and center. With over 12 thousand children killed and tens of thousands of children hungry and near famine in Gaza alone, not to mention the urgent crisis for the children of Sudan, Ukraine, and Haiti, this is an urgent call for the global family to rise up for humanity.
· FOOD NOT BOMBS! DEMILITARIZE NOW!
· FOOD to GAZA, not Weapons to Israel.
· NO TAX $$ for GENOCIDE
· Not Another Nickel, Not Another Dime, No more Money for Israel’s Crimes.
· Diplomacy Not War!
Let’s again pay tribute to the original meaning of “Mother’s Day,” a global call to ABOLISH WAR:
We’ll read: Julia Ward Howe’s (1870) Mother’s Day Proclamation
Bring your mamas and grandmamas, sons, daughters, and grandchildren—the entire family, and friends too! War is not healthy for children and other living things!
Bring your Kaffiyeh’s, Palestinian Flags, and signs that speak for you.
(Note: Authorities may restrict you from taking flags on the bridge—wear it as a cape!)
Signs larger than 2x3 ft. may also be restricted.
Bring a simple treat to share to celebrate 18 years of CODEPINK bridge walks, and our Bay Area community’s commitment to peace and justice.
We’ll sing John Lennon’s Imagine, one of Bay Area Troubadour Francis Collin’s favorite songs!
Francis Collins Presente!
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** 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 22, 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 - 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) Biden denounces violence on campuses, breaking his silence after a rash of arrests.
By Peter Baker, Reporting from Washington, May 2, 2024
(Screenshot of Biden's rant against students this morning, May 2, 2024)
President Biden broke days of silence on Thursday to finally speak out on the wave of anti-Israel protests on American college campuses that have inflamed much of the country, denouncing violence and antisemitism even as he defended the right to peaceful dissent.
In an unscheduled televised statement from the White House, Mr. Biden offered a forceful condemnation of students and other protesters who in his view have taken their grievances over Israel’s war against Hamas too far. But he rejected Republican calls to deploy the National Guard to rein in the campuses.
“Destroying property is not a peaceful protest. It’s against the law,” Mr. Biden said. “Vandalism, trespassing, breaking windows, shutting down campuses, forcing the cancellation of classes and graduations — none of this is a peaceful protest. Threatening people, intimidating people, instilling fear in people is not peaceful protest. It’s against the law. Dissent is essential to democracy, but dissent must never lead to disorder or to denying the rights of others so students can finish the semester and their college education.”
The president’s statement came after some Democrats frustrated by his reluctance to speak out pressed him to publicly address the campus uprisings. Until now, Mr. Biden had offered only a couple of sentences in response to reporter questions 10 days ago that even Democrats considered too equivocal and otherwise left it to his spokespeople to express his views. Republicans have castigated him for not weighing in himself.
Mr. Biden implied that his critics were simply being opportunistic. “In moments like this, there are always those who rush in to score political points. But this isn’t a moment for politics. It’s a moment for clarity. So let me be clear: Peaceful protest in America. Violent protest is not protected. Peaceful protest is.”
He emphasized that he would always defend free speech, even for those protesting his own support for Israel’s war. But he made clear that he thought too many of the demonstrations had gone beyond the bounds of simple speech.
“There’s the right to protest but not the right to cause chaos,” he said. “People have the right to get an education, the right to get a degree, the right to walk across the campus safely without fear of being attacked.”
“Let’s be clear about this as well,” he added. “There should be no place on any campus, no place in America, for antisemitism or threats of violence against Jewish students. There is no place for hate speech or violence of any kind.”
Answering questions by reporters, Mr. Biden said he would not change his Middle East policy in response to the protests. Asked as he left the room if the National Guard should intervene, he said simply, “No.”
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2) The Cruel Spectacle of British Asylum Policy
By Daniel Trilling, May 2, 2024
Mr. Trilling is the author, most recently, of “Lights in the Distance: Exile and Refuge at the Borders of Europe.” He wrote from London.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/02/opinion/immigration-britain-rwanda.html
Migrants wade out to board a boat on a beach near Dunkirk, in northern France. Credit...Sameer Al-Doumy/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Last week Britain’s Parliament passed a law that seeks to redefine reality.
The Safety of Rwanda Act declares Rwanda a “safe” country, regardless of the evidence to the contrary — and orders British courts to do the same. Its purpose is to allow the British government to finally, after two years, enact its policy to permanently deport asylum seekers to Rwanda.
Some of the most vulnerable people in Britain will be rounded up, detained and then — in theory — flown some 4,000 miles to Rwanda’s capital, Kigali. What to do about people seeking asylum is one of the most complex policy issues facing governments around the world, and the British government insists it has the answer: promise cartoonish cruelty.
In April 2022, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a multimillion-pound deal with Rwanda that would allow the British government to put “tens of thousands” of asylum seekers on one-way flights to Kigali.
Asylum seekers have been crossing to Britain from France for decades, often hiding in trucks going through the Channel Tunnel. But increased security checks on those routes, and a temporary fall in traffic during Covid lockdowns, had led to a sharp rise in the proportion of people crossing the English Channel in boats. This highly visible and dangerous method has caused much controversy in Britain. The Rwanda policy would help, the government claimed, because deporting some of those who succeeded in reaching Britain would deter others from trying.
The deal was condemned by human rights groups and the United Nations’ refugee agency, which urged both countries to rethink the plans, and then it was delayed by legal challenges. In November last year, Britain’s highest court found the policy unlawful on the grounds that Rwanda — where police shot dead 12 Congolese refugees during a protest in 2018 — was not a safe place to send asylum seekers. Rwanda, the court said, might send them back to countries where their lives could be at risk.
That might have spelled an end to the policy. But Rishi Sunak, who had become prime minister in October 2022, vowed to revive it. The law that passed last week aims to override that court ruling by declaring that Rwanda is safe. As one former senior government lawyer observed last week, “What the Act is doing is making it lawful to send people to Rwanda whether it is safe or not.” More legal challenges may follow.
Legality aside, it has never been clear that the policy is even capable of working. In a 2022 letter to Priti Patel, then the home secretary and in charge of immigration, the most senior civil servant in her department wrote that “evidence of a deterrent effect is highly uncertain.” It’s also not clear that Rwanda has the facilities to accommodate people at scale — 70 percent of the homes in a Kigali housing development the British government said was being prepared to accommodate deportees have reportedly been sold to local buyers.
So what is the point of the Rwanda policy? Mr. Sunak’s government appears to see it as politically useful. The Conservative Party, in power for 14 years, is polling some 20 points behind Labour, and a general election must be held by January. Mr. Sunak is a former investment banker who is seen as coming from the Conservative Party’s center, and he has tried hard to project an image of competence since taking over from his predecessor, Liz Truss — she of the disastrous “mini-budget.” Mr. Sunak made stopping small boats one of his key priorities for 2023 and told voters that they could and should judge him on whether he achieved those priorities.
He’s had mixed success on some others: Inflation has gone down, and the economy is barely growing. But Mr. Sunak — under pressure from his party’s right to accede to their demands on immigration — needs an emphatic win, or at least something that looks like one.
Indeed, the news, first reported in The Sun, a tabloid known for its conservative politics, that a failed asylum seeker had been given more than $3,000 to fly to Rwanda under an entirely different policy seemed cynically timed to coincide with local elections in England on Thursday. As did a government news release on Wednesday announcing that some migrants had already been detained ahead of flights that won’t depart for at least two months, if ever, along with video of dawn raids released by the Home Office.
The news and the video are a stark reminder that there are real people at the sharp end of this policy. Nearly 30,000 people made small-boat journeys to Britain last year alone, and deaths have become more common. Five people, including a child, died making the crossing last week, hours after the bill passed.
Few, if anyone, think this is an acceptable state of affairs. It is one facet of a global problem — an international failure to provide displaced people with the safety and security that would remove the need for such journeys. More safe routes to asylum, along with greater international cooperation to support refugees, are an essential part of the solution, yet governments in many parts of the world are instead choosing deterrence.
Britain, however, stands out not just for doubling down on punishment, but for making a spectacle of it. The government has also banned refugees who enter Britain without permission from ever claiming asylum here, putting tens of thousands of people who are already here in legal limbo, many of whom are already on the edge of destitution.
According to polling last week, 41 percent of Britons support the Rwanda policy in principle, but 50 percent think it’s unlikely anyone will actually be deported there. The British public’s reaction to seeing people actually rounded up and put on flights may not be the reaction Mr. Sunak is counting on.
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3) A New Issue Flares in the 2024 Race: Campus Protests
With tensions escalating and Republicans pouncing, President Biden finally weighed in and sought to increase the distance between himself and some of the more radical activism on colleges.
By Lisa Lerer, May 3, 2024
An encampment in support of Palestinians at the University of California, Los Angeles, was dismantled by state police officers in the early hours of Thursday. Credit...Philip Cheung for The New York Times
Protests and arrests on college campuses exploded into the forefront of the presidential race this week, opening up a new line of attack for Republicans and forcing President Biden to directly address an issue that has divided the liberal wing of his party.
With Donald J. Trump largely stuck in a New York City courtroom for one of his criminal trials, Republicans have tried to use the protests as a political cudgel and a literal backdrop to attack Mr. Biden, casting him as weak and unable to keep control of the country.
For weeks, the White House has largely resisted wading into the fray, steering clear of the protests engulfing campuses over Israel’s war in Gaza. Never one to be swept up in student movements, Mr. Biden had left any comments about the rapidly evolving situation to press officers, for the most part. His White House conducted no public outreach to university administrators or to protesting students.
But as clashes on some campuses became increasingly destructive and arrests mounted across the country, Mr. Biden increased the distance between himself and some of the more radical activism on campuses. In remarks on Thursday, he struck a balance between defending free speech and describing what he saw as the limits of acceptable protest.
“Dissent is essential to democracy,” Mr. Biden said in brief comments at the White House. “But dissent must never lead to disorder or to denying the rights of others so students can finish the semester and their college education.”
The scope of the statement was limited. The president made clear he had no plans to change his Middle East policy because of the protests. When asked whether the National Guard should intervene, he quickly responded, “No.” And he did not address concerns some progressives have raised about whether the police used excessive force against demonstrators.
Biden campaign advisers believe the issue is unlikely to significantly harm the president in the election. The situation in Gaza remains highly fluid, as U.S. officials continue working toward a cease-fire deal between Hamas and Israel, and may not carry the same political resonance when voters head to the polls in November. Students are leaving campus for summer break in the coming weeks, which many believe will help defuse some of the intensity of the protests.
None of that stopped Republicans from pouncing on Mr. Biden’s comments. They accused the president of being unwilling to take stronger actions to quell the continued unrest.
“President Biden *still* won’t forcefully condemn the Hamas mobs on campuses,” Senator Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas, said in a statement on social media on Thursday that cast the protesters as supporting a group considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. and many of its allies. “A complete lack of leadership from an impotent president.”
Mr. Trump’s campaign has been even more direct in placing blame on Mr. Biden. “This is Biden’s campus chaos,” read the text in one Instagram post distributed by the former president’s account that included footage of Mr. Biden defending the rights of protesters who demonstrated at some of his events.
The White House denied that the president felt political pressure to comment on the protests.
“When it comes to something like this, he doesn’t need to follow anyone or follow someone else,” the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, told reporters traveling on Air Force One with the president. “We’ve been really consistent, I believe, in stating that when it comes to violence, violence is not protected.”
As the protests have spread on colleges across the country, Mr. Biden has been most forceful when it comes to denouncing antisemitism on campus. On Tuesday, he will deliver the keynote address at an annual ceremony hosted by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Critics in both parties have urged the administration to do more. And at times, the back-and-forth over the issue within the Democratic Party has grown bitterly contentious.
Last week, Representative Jared Moskowitz, a Democrat from Florida, suggested Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont was evading addressing an increase in antisemitic episodes by focusing on legislation that would end military aid to Israel.
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat from New York, fired back by accusing Mr. Moskowitz of “shameful” treatment of Mr. Sanders, whom she noted had family killed in the Holocaust.
“My family was also killed in the Holocaust. In Germany and in Poland. My grandmother was in the kinder-transport. They also instilled values in me,” replied Mr. Moskowitz. “It’s why I voted for aid to Israel and for aid to Gaza.”
Still, some Democrats have warned that the campus unrest could depress enthusiasm for Mr. Biden among young voters. Already, polls have shown Mr. Biden struggling to retain the same level of support he received from younger voters in 2020.
On Wednesday, the College Democrats of America, the student arm of the party, offered a warning to the Biden campaign on social media.
“College Democrats’ votes are not to be taken for granted by the Democratic Party,” the group said. “We reserve the right to criticize our party when it fails to listen to us.”
Even among young voters, the issue of Israel’s war in Gaza ranks below other concerns, including the economy, abortion rights and health care. Polling conducted by the Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School last month found that “Israel/Palestine” ranked 15th in the list of concerns for voters aged 18 to 29, below not only inflation and housing, but climate change, free speech and protecting democracy.
The Republican strategy echoes efforts by Mr. Trump during the 2020 campaign, when protests over racial justice spread across the country after the killing of George Floyd by police officers.
Mr. Trump back then suggested Mr. Biden was tolerant of “Anarchists, Thugs & Agitators.” His campaign spent millions on ads in swing states, falsely attacking Mr. Biden for supporting defunding police departments.
In response, Mr. Biden forcefully condemned the violence that occasionally erupted. “Ask yourself: Do I look like a radical socialist with a soft spot for rioters?” Mr. Biden said at a speech in Pittsburgh in August 2020. “Really? I want a safe America.”
Exit polling later found that only 11 percent of voters named crime and public safety as the most important issue, far fewer than listed the pandemic, the economy and racial inequality.
Of course, there are stark differences between the protests in 2020 and those that have roiled college campuses this spring. The racial justice protests focused on a domestic issue, racial inequality and policing, while those over Palestinian rights are aimed at a conflict thousands of miles away. With as many as 26 million people estimated to have participated in demonstrations, the Black Lives Matter movement reached far beyond the campuses that have been most affected by pro-Palestinian protests.
Still, those campuses are a key source of votes for Democrats, who typically perform stronger among younger voters than their Republican rivals.
Later this month, Mr. Biden is scheduled to deliver the commencement address at Morehouse College, a historically Black university in Atlanta. Already, university administrators are facing pressure to rescind the invitation from faculty members, students and alumni.
“Any college or university that gives its commencement stage to President Biden in this moment is endorsing genocide,” wrote a group of anonymous faculty and staff in an unsigned public letter. “The time is now for Morehouse College to get on the right side of history.”
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4) After Days of Arrests and Turmoil, Campuses Try to Restore Normalcy
By John Yoon, Jonathan Wolfe and Mike Baker, May 3, 2024
Police officers near an encampment at New York University that was cleared Friday morning. Credit...Caitlin Ochs for The New York Times
After two tumultuous weeks, universities across the United States experienced relative quiet on Friday morning, with fewer signs of imminent clashes involving pro-Palestinian protesters. Administrators warily tried to turn their focus toward graduations, including some this weekend on campuses such as Northeastern and Ohio State that have seen demonstrations and arrests.
Police crackdowns, along with deals by some universities to consider students’ demands, led to more muted scenes at campuses that had seen major tensions earlier this week. Still, the wave of student activism over the war in Gaza continued to spread, including to some universities outside of the United States.
More than 2,000 arrests have been made on American campuses over the last two weeks, according to a New York Times tally.
Here is what else to know:
· More law enforcement action was underway in New York City early Friday, as the Police Department said that New York University and The New School had asked for its “assistance to disperse the illegal encampments” at those campuses.
· Students in France, Britain, Australia and elsewhere set up encampments and demanded that their universities more forcefully condemn the war in Gaza. Police in Paris on Friday hauled away students who had occupied a building at Sciences Po, one of France’s most elite universities.
· The University of California, Los Angeles was the site of a violent clash on Tuesday night, when counterprotesters attacked a large encampment of pro-Palestinian demonstrators. Plans by a nonprofit organization to stage more counterprotests have raised fears of further confrontations.
· A handful of universities, including Rutgers, have agreed to consider some of the protesting students’ demands, bringing peaceful ends to demonstrations but also condemnation from some Jewish groups. Deals were struck this week at Brown, Northwestern, and the University of Minnesota.
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5) Police cleared New York University and New School protest encampments early Friday.
By Maia Coleman, Olivia Bensimon and Bernard Mokam, May 3, 2024
Police officers near a protest encampment at New York University, which was cleared early Friday morning. Credit...Caitlin Ochs for The New York Times
Police officers cleared two pro-Palestinian encampments and arrested student demonstrators at New York University and the New School early Friday morning after officials at the universities asked for their assistance, New York Police Department officials said.
Police officers arrested 56 people — 13 at N.Y.U. and 43 at the New School — according to preliminary information from the Police Department.
Student demonstrators had been sleeping in tents inside a New School building and on sidewalks outside of N.Y.U. buildings since last week. Officials at the two universities asked for the Police Department’s “assistance to disperse the illegal encampments.”
The arrests on Friday come after a turbulent week on college campuses across the country, where a wave of student activism, motivated in large part by concern for the scale of suffering in Gaza, has caused several schools to call in law enforcement agencies for help. More than 2,000 arrests have been made on campuses nationwide, according to a New York Times tally.
In New York City, police officers in riot gear entered Columbia University’s campus on Tuesday night, arresting over 100 people and clearing a group of pro-Palestinian demonstrators from a campus building they had been occupying. They arrested nearly 200 people at an encampment and protest at City College, uptown, that same night.
Police officers arrived at N.Y.U.’s campus in Greenwich Village shortly after 6 a.m. on Friday and cleared students from the area 20 minutes later with “minimal confrontation,” the university said. The school chose the early morning time frame to “minimize the likelihood of injury or spread of disruption,” John Beckman, a university spokesman, said in a statement.
The sweep on Friday followed a university announcement on Monday saying it would move to discipline student demonstrators who remained in the encampment.
Several students who had been sleeping in the N.Y.U. encampment remained at the site two hours later, waiting to collect their belongings, as university facility workers cleared the area of remaining tents and stripped fliers from a campus building. About 50 people had been asleep in the encampment when officers arrived without warning, the students said.
In a statement on social media Friday morning, the N.Y.U. Palestine Solidarity Coalition condemned the university’s decision to call in the Police Department. “We have seen seven months of targeting pro-Palestinian speech on this campus, and thus cannot agree with the admin’s claims of acting in good faith,” the statement said.
A few blocks north at the New School’s Fifth Avenue campus, where an encampment had been established in a building lobby, custodial workers deconstructed tents a few hours after the arrests. The university closed all academic buildings and moved classes online on Friday.
On Thursday afternoon, protesters with the New School Students for Justice in Palestine had organized a “human blockade” in front of several entrances on campus in an attempt to force the university’s board of trustees to vote on a resolution to divest from companies connected to Israel. Someone involved in the negotiations said that he had been told that the board would not be voting on divestment that night and had offered to meet about it on Friday instead.
Adam Young, a freshman at the New School who had been sleeping in the encampment Friday morning, said that the police did not give students a chance to evacuate the encampment. Mr. Young, who hid on a higher floor of the building during the sweep, said he planned to support classmates who had been arrested and taken to the Police Department’s headquarters later Friday.
“This is not OK,” he said. “I saw my friends with bruises, handcuffed. We’re 18 years old.”
Julian Roberts-Grmela contributed reporting.
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6) A police officer accidentally fired his gun inside a Columbia building.
By Andrés R. Martínez, May 3, 2024
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/05/03/us/college-campus-protests
A New York Police officer’s gun discharged accidentally inside Hamilton Hall on Tuesday. Credit...Bing Guan for The New York Times
An officer whose gun went off inside a Columbia University building this week fired it accidentally as the police were removing pro-Palestinian protesters from the campus, the New York Police Department said on Thursday.
No one was injured during the shooting on Tuesday, and the bullet ended up in the frame of a wall a few feet away, the N.Y.P.D. said in a statement. The police will hold a news conference about the episode on Friday at 11:30 a.m.
The officer, who was not identified, was approaching a barricade on the first floor of Hamilton Hall when he fired his gun, which had a flashlight on it, the police said. The shooting was captured on the officer’s body camera, which was handed over to the Manhattan district attorney’s office.
The episode did not come to light until Thursday, when The City, a local news organization, published a story that said a shot had been fired inside Hamilton Hall on Tuesday as police cleared the Columbia campus of protesters. It was the second time in two weeks that Columbia officials asked the police to enter the Manhattan campus to remove demonstrators. The requests have divided the university community and earned officials both praise and criticism.
More than 2,000 people have been arrested at protests on campuses across the country. University officials have argued that they are trying to balance free speech protections and security on campus. The protests at dozens of schools have been mostly peaceful.
Columbia has said that it had no choice but to call the police in on Tuesday, ending a fraught 24 hours on campus after talks between university officials and protesters fell apart. Soon after, some demonstrators left the encampment and took control of Hamilton Hall, a building that has been the site of student protests since the 1960s. Police arrested more than 100 people that night on the campus and outside the gates of the school.
Hurubie Meko contributed reporting.
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7) Israeli Officials Weigh Sharing Power With Arab States in Postwar Gaza
Though likely to displease both Israel’s right wing and many Arab states, it signals that Israel is thinking about the future, and could inform future talks.
By Patrick Kingsley, May 3, 2024
A car driving past destroyed buildings in Khan Younis after the Israeli military withdrew from the southern Gaza Strip in late April. Credit...Mohammed Saber/EPA, via Shutterstock
For months, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has avoided detailed public discussion about Gaza’s postwar future. Trying to placate both his far-right allies, who seek to rebuild Israeli settlements in Gaza, and Israel’s foreign partners, who want Gaza returned to Palestinian governance, Mr. Netanyahu has stopped short of any specific declaration.
Behind the scenes, however, senior officials in his office have been weighing an expansive plan for postwar Gaza, in which Israel would offer to share oversight of the territory with an alliance of Arab countries, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, as well as the United States, according to three Israeli officials and five people who have discussed the plan with members of the Israeli government.
According to that proposal, Israel would do so in exchange for normalized relations between itself and Saudi Arabia, according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the matter.
Far-right members of Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition are almost certain to dismiss such an idea, and so are the Arab countries mentioned as possible participants. But it is the clearest sign yet that officials at the highest levels of Israel’s government are thinking about Gaza’s postwar future, despite saying little in public, and could be a starting point in future negotiations.
The disclosure comes against the backdrop of intense international efforts to get Israel and Hamas to agree to a cease-fire that could eventually become a permanent truce, and it follows growing pressure on Israel to plan for what comes next. Israel’s reluctance to determine how to govern Gaza has created a power vacuum in much of the territory, leading to lawlessness and worsening the dire humanitarian situation.
Arab officials and analysts have called the power-sharing plan unworkable because it does not create an explicit path toward a Palestinian state, which the Emirati and Saudi governments have said is a prerequisite for their involvement in postwar planning. But others have cautiously welcomed the proposal because it at least suggests greater flexibility among Israeli leaders than their public statements suggest.
Under the proposal, the Arab-Israeli alliance, working with the United States, would appoint Gazan leaders to redevelop the devastated territory, overhaul its education system and maintain order. After between seven and 10 years, the alliance would allow Gazans to vote on whether to be absorbed into a united Palestinian administration that would govern in both Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, according to the proposal. In the meantime, the plan suggests, the Israeli military could continue to operate inside Gaza.
The proposal does not explicitly say whether that united administration would constitute a sovereign Palestinian state, or if it would include the Palestinian Authority, which administers parts of the West Bank. Publicly, Prime Minister Netanyahu has rejected the idea of full Palestinian sovereignty and all but ruled out the involvement of the Palestinian Authority.
The Israeli prime minister’s office declined to comment.
The proposal lacks detail and has not been formally adopted by the Israeli government, which publicly has presented only a vaguer vision under which Israel would retain greater control over postwar Gaza.
Emirati and Saudi officials and analysts said the new proposal would not secure the involvement of Arab states like Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E., particularly because it stopped short of guaranteeing Palestinian sovereignty and would permit continued Israeli military operations inside Gaza. The Saudi government has said it will not normalize ties with Israel unless Israeli leaders take irrevocable steps toward creating a Palestinian state.
“The details need to be more explicitly laid out in a manner that is ‘irreversible,’” said Ali Shihabi, a Saudi commentator considered close to the Saudi royal court. “The problem is the Israelis have a habit of hiding behind ambiguous terms, so I think the Saudi government would be looking for such clarity.”
Still, the proposal is the most detailed plan for postwar Gaza that Israeli officials are known to have discussed, and parts of it align with ideas articulated by Arab leaders both in public and in private.
Thomas R. Nides, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel who has been consulted on the plan, said the proposal was significant because it revealed internal Israeli thinking.
“It shows that despite the Israeli government’s public posture, behind the scenes Israeli officials are thinking seriously about what a postwar Gaza would look like,” Mr. Nides said. “Obviously the devil is in the details, which may not be enough to coax Arab partners like the U.A.E. to engage in the plan. And nothing can happen until the hostages are released and a cease-fire starts.”
The disclosure of the plan comes amid renewed efforts to seal a truce between Israel and Hamas.
A group of businessmen, most of them Israeli, some of whom are close to Mr. Netanyahu, drew up the plan in November. It was first formally proposed to Israeli officials in Mr. Netanyahu’s office in December, according to one of the government officials.
Two of the officials said that the plan was still under consideration at the highest levels of Israel’s government, though it cannot be put in place until after Hamas is defeated and the remaining hostages in Gaza are released.
Hamas remains in full control of parts of southern Gaza, despite a devastating Israeli military campaign that has killed more than 34,000 people, according to officials there; brought parts of the territory to the brink of famine; and left much of Gaza in ruins.
The businessmen, who asked not to be named in order not to jeopardize their ability to promote the idea, said that they had briefed officials from several Arab and Western governments, including the United States, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E., on the plan.
It has also been shown to Tony Blair, the former British prime minister who runs an institute advising the Saudi government on modernization projects. A Palestinian businessman, who asked not to be named in order to protect his relatives from retribution in Gaza, also has been involved in promoting the idea to American officials.
Asked about the plan, the U.A.E. foreign ministry said in a statement that the Emirati government “will not participate in any reconstruction effort in Gaza until there exists an agreement on a road map for a political solution to the conflict, which includes a transparent, timely and binding path for all parties and that leads to the establishment of the two-state solution, with an independent Palestinian state.”
A Saudi official, speaking on condition of anonymity to conform with government protocol, dismissed the proposal because it did not create a “credible and irreversible pathway” toward Palestinian statehood or ensure the Palestinian Authority’s involvement. The official also denied that the Saudi authorities had previously been made aware of the plan.
A spokesman for the Egyptian government declined to comment.
The aim of the businessmen is to win international support for the idea in order to persuade Mr. Netanyahu that it would be worth his embarking on the difficult task of winning domestic backing for it.
Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition government could collapse if he formally backed a plan that did not conclusively rule out the creation of a Palestinian state. Far-right members of his coalition strongly oppose Palestinian sovereignty and want to re-establish Israeli settlements in Gaza. They have threatened to bring down the government if Mr. Netanyahu ends the war in Gaza without ousting Hamas.
Polling shows that a majority of Israelis also oppose the creation of Palestinian state, which many say would reward Hamas for leading terrorist attacks that killed some 1,200 people on Oct. 7, during the cross-border raid on Israel that started the war.
Wary of both collapsing his government and losing support in a subsequent election campaign, Mr. Netanyahu has repeatedly voiced his opposition to a Palestinian state in recent months, pledging to retain Israeli control over the West Bank and Gaza.
But analysts and some of his allies believe that he would be prepared to leave open the notional possibility of Palestinian sovereignty if it allowed him to seal a landmark normalization deal with Saudi Arabia.
Forging diplomatic ties with the most influential Arab state would allow Mr. Netanyahu to restore some of his political legacy, which has been tarnished because the Hamas-led raid on Israel, the deadliest single attack in Israeli history, occurred under his watch.
“He wants this legacy,” said Nadav Shtrauchler, an Israeli political analyst and former strategist for the prime minister.
“On the other hand, one, he doesn’t believe in the two-state solution. Two, he cannot pitch it to his crowd,” Mr. Shtrauchler added.
Adam Rasgon contributed reporting from Jerusalem, and Julian E. Barnes from Washington.
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8) A U.N. report says rebuilding all the homes destroyed in Gaza could take 80 years.
By Anushka Patil, May 3, 2024
Destroyed buildings in Gaza City last month. Credit...Mohammed Hajjar/Associated Press
Rebuilding all the homes destroyed by Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip could take until the next century if the pace of reconstruction were to match what it was after wars there in 2014 and 2021, according to a United Nations report released on Thursday.
Citing data from the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the U.N. report said that as of April 15, some 370,000 homes in Gaza had been damaged, 79,000 of which have been destroyed. If those destroyed homes were rebuilt at the same pace as they were after the two previous wars — an average of 992 per year — it would take 80 years, according to projections in the report from the United Nations Development Program and the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia.
The report detailed the war’s socioeconomic impact on the Palestinian population and said “the level of destruction in Gaza is such that the required assistance to rebuild would be on a scale not seen since 1948” to replace public infrastructure, including schools and hospitals.
The report said that even if Israel were to allow five times as much construction material into Gaza after this war as it did after the war in 2021 — “the most optimistic scenario” — rebuilding all of the destroyed homes would still take until 2040. That projection does not account for the time it would take to repair the hundreds of thousands of homes that were damaged but not destroyed.
The cost of rebuilding Gaza is increasing “exponentially” each day the fighting continues, Abdallah Al Dardari, the director of the U.N.D.P.’s regional bureau for Arab states, speaking over a video call from Amman, Jordan, said at a news conference on Thursday.
Mr. Al Dardari said that before “some sort of normalcy” can be established for Palestinians in Gaza, an estimated 37 million tons of debris must be cleared to allow for the construction of temporary shelters and, eventually, the rebuilding of homes.
The report also found that the unemployment rate for Palestinians across the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza surged to roughly 46 percent from about 26 percent after six months of war.
Over those six months, poverty rates in the Palestinian territories more than doubled, to an estimated 57.2 percent from 26.7 percent. That means 1.67 million Palestinians were pushed into poverty after the war began, the report said. Its estimates were based on a poverty line of $6.85 a day.
The effects of the war on Palestinians both in and out of Gaza “will be felt for years,” the report said.
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9) How Counterprotesters at U.C.L.A. Provoked Violence, Unchecked for Hours
The New York Times used videos filmed by journalists, witnesses and protesters to analyze hours of clashes — and a delayed police response — at a pro-Palestinian encampment on Tuesday.
By Neil Bedi, Bora Erden, Marco Hernandez, Ishaan Jhaveri, Arijeta Lajka, Natalie Reneau, Helmuth Rosales and Aric Toler, May 3, 2024
"Except for a brief attempt to capture a loudspeaker used by counterprotesters, and water bottles being tossed out of the encampment, none of the videos analyzed by The Times show any clear instance of encampment protesters initiating confrontations with counterprotesters beyond defending the barricades."
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/05/03/us/ucla-protests-encampment-violence.html
Protesters clashed with California Highway Patrol officers at the University of California, Los Angeles, on Wednesday, May 1, 2024. Philip Cheung for The New York Times
A New York Times examination of more than 100 videos from clashes at the University of California, Los Angeles, found that violence ebbed and flowed for nearly five hours, mostly with little or no police intervention. The violence had been instigated by dozens of people who are seen in videos counterprotesting the encampment.
The videos showed counterprotesters attacking students in the pro-Palestinian encampment for several hours, including beating them with sticks, using chemical sprays and launching fireworks as weapons. As of Friday, no arrests had been made in connection with the attack.
To build a timeline of the events that night, The Times analyzed two livestreams, along with social media videos captured by journalists and witnesses.
The melee began when a group of counterprotesters started tearing away metal barriers that had been in place to cordon off pro-Palestinian protesters. Hours earlier, U.C.L.A. officials had declared the encampment illegal.
Security personnel hired by the university are seen in yellow vests standing to the side throughout the incident. A university spokesperson declined to comment on the security staff’s response.
It is not clear how the counterprotest was organized or what allegiances people committing the violence had. The videos show many of the counterprotesters were wearing pro-Israel slogans on their clothing. Some counterprotesters blared music, including Israel’s national anthem, a Hebrew children’s song and “Harbu Darbu,” an Israeli song about the Israel Defense Forces’ campaign in Gaza.
As counterprotesters tossed away metal barricades, one of them was seen trying to strike a person near the encampment, and another threw a piece of wood into it — some of the first signs of violence.
Attacks on the encampment continued for nearly three hours before police arrived.
Counterprotesters shot fireworks toward the encampment at least six times, according to videos analyzed by The Times. One of them went off inside, causing protesters to scream. Another exploded at the edge of the encampment. One was thrown in the direction of a group of protesters who were carrying an injured person out of the encampment.
Some counterprotesters sprayed chemicals both into the encampment and directly at people’s faces.
At times, counterprotesters swarmed individuals — sometimes a group descended on a single person. They could be seen punching, kicking and attacking people with makeshift weapons, including sticks, traffic cones and wooden boards.
In one video, protesters sheltering inside the encampment can be heard yelling, “Do not engage! Hold the line!”
In some instances, protesters in the encampment are seen fighting back, using chemical spray on counterprotesters trying to tear down barricades or swiping at them with sticks.
Except for a brief attempt to capture a loudspeaker used by counterprotesters, and water bottles being tossed out of the encampment, none of the videos analyzed by The Times show any clear instance of encampment protesters initiating confrontations with counterprotesters beyond defending the barricades.
Shortly before 1 a.m. — more than two hours after the violence erupted — a spokesperson with the mayor’s office posted a statement that said U.C.L.A officials had called the Los Angeles Police Department for help and they were responding “immediately.”
Officers from a separate law enforcement agency — the California Highway Patrol — began assembling nearby, at about 1:45 a.m. Riot police with the L.A.P.D. joined them a few minutes later. Counterprotesters applauded their arrival, chanting “U.S.A., U.S.A., U.S.A.!”
Just four minutes after the officers arrived, counterprotesters attacked a man standing dozens of feet from the officers.
Twenty minutes after police arrive, a video shows a counterprotester spraying a chemical toward the encampment during a scuffle over a metal barricade. Another counterprotester can be seen punching someone in the head near the encampment after swinging a plank at barricades.
Fifteen minutes later, while those in the encampment chanted “Free, free Palestine,” counterprotesters organized a rush toward the barricades. During the rush, a counterprotester pulls away a metal barricade from a woman, yelling “You stand no chance, old lady.”
Throughout the intermittent violence, officers were captured on video standing about 300 feet away from the area for roughly an hour, without stepping in.
It was not until 2:42 a.m. that officers began to move toward the encampment, after which counterprotesters dispersed and the night’s violence between the two camps mostly subsided.
The L.A.P.D. and the California Highway Patrol did not answer questions from The Times about their responses on Tuesday night, deferring to U.C.L.A.
While declining to answer specific questions, a university spokesperson provided a statement to The Times from Mary Osako, U.C.L.A.’s vice chancellor of strategic communications: “We are carefully examining our security processes from that night and are grateful to U.C. President Michael Drake for also calling for an investigation. We are grateful that the fire department and medical personnel were on the scene that night.”
L.A.P.D. officers were seen putting on protective gear and walking toward the barricade around 2:50 a.m. They stood in between the encampment and the counterprotest group, and the counterprotesters began dispersing.
While police continued to stand outside the encampment, a video filmed at 3:32 a.m. shows a man who was walking away from the scene being attacked by a counterprotester, then dragged and pummeled by others. An editor at the U.C.L.A. student newspaper, the Daily Bruin, told The Times the man was a journalist at the paper, and that they were walking with other student journalists who had been covering the violence. The editor said she had also been punched and sprayed in the eyes with a chemical.
On Wednesday, U.C.L.A.’s chancellor, Gene Block, issued a statement calling the actions by “instigators” who attacked the encampment unacceptable. A spokesperson for California Gov. Gavin Newsom criticized campus law enforcement’s delayed response and said it demands answers.
Los Angeles Jewish and Muslim organizations also condemned the attacks. Hussam Ayloush, the director of the Greater Los Angeles Area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, called on the California attorney general to investigate the lack of police response. The Jewish Federation Los Angeles blamed U.C.L.A. officials for creating an unsafe environment over months and said the officials had “been systemically slow to respond when law enforcement is desperately needed.”
Fifteen people were reportedly injured in the attack, according to a letter sent by the president of the University of California system to the board of regents.
The night after the attack began, law enforcement warned pro-Palestinian demonstrators to leave the encampment or be arrested. By early Thursday morning, police had dismantled the encampment and arrested more than 200 people from the encampment.
Video editing by Kristen Williamson. Additional reporting by Robin Stein, Benjamin Royer, Mark Abramson and Shawn Hubler.
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10) Jerry Seinfeld Can No Longer Be About Nothing
The comedian, long beloved for his apolitical riffs, has been wrestling with what it means to be Jewish amid the Israel-Hamas war. Not everyone is pleased.
By Matt Flegenheimer and Marc Tracy, May 4, 2024
"This week, as the couple and their children appeared together at the premiere of Mr. Seinfeld’s new movie (“Unfrosted,” about Pop-Tarts), Ms. Seinfeld attracted attention for another reason: She promoted on Instagram, and said she had helped bankroll, a counterprotest at the University of California, Los Angeles, where clashes with pro-Palestinian demonstrators have turned violent.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/04/us/politics/jerry-seinfeld-antisemitism-jewish-identity.html
Jerry Seinfeld became a mic-cradling, cereal-eating, “did-you-ever-notice”-ing avatar of American Jewish life with a brazenly shrugging persona: a merry indifference to weighty material as a comedian and in his megahit TV show about nothing, as petty and apolitical as he seemed to be.
Now — off-camera, at least — Mr. Seinfeld appears to have reached his post-nothing period.
Since the attacks of Oct. 7 in Israel, and through their bloody and volatile aftermath in Gaza, Mr. Seinfeld, 70, has emerged as a strikingly public voice against antisemitism and in support of Jews in Israel and the United States, edging warily toward a more forward-facing advocacy role than he ever seemed to seek across his decades of fame.
He has shared reflections about life on a kibbutz in his teens, and in December traveled to Tel Aviv to meet with hostages’ families, soberly recounting afterward the missile attack that greeted him during the trip.
He has participated, to a point, in the kind of celebrity activism with which few associate him — letter-signing campaigns, earnest messages on social media — answering simply recently when asked about the motivation for his visit to Israel: “I’m Jewish.”
And as some American cities and college campuses simmer with conflict over the Middle East crisis and Israel’s military response, Mr. Seinfeld has faced a measure of public scorn that he has rarely courted as a breakfast-obsessed comedian, intensified by the more vocal advocacy of his wife, Jessica, a cookbook author.
This week, as the couple and their children appeared together at the premiere of Mr. Seinfeld’s new movie (“Unfrosted,” about Pop-Tarts), Ms. Seinfeld attracted attention for another reason: She promoted on Instagram, and said she had helped bankroll, a counterprotest at the University of California, Los Angeles, where clashes with pro-Palestinian demonstrators have turned violent.
Among some activists on that side of the divide, disdain for the Seinfelds had been building for months.
“Genocide supporter!” protesters shouted at Mr. Seinfeld on Manhattan’s Upper East Side in February, as he left a “State of World Jewry” address given by Bari Weiss, a former New York Times opinion editor and writer whose media company, The Free Press, has been championed by Ms. Seinfeld.
In some ways, the couple’s choices since Oct. 7 reflect the tensions tugging at many American families in this polarized moment, as they negotiate the limits of how much to say and do about their political beliefs in the open.
A representative for Mr. Seinfeld referred an inquiry to Hindy Poupko, an executive at UJA-Federation of New York who knows Ms. Seinfeld through Jewish philanthropic work. “The vast majority of New York Jews have a strong emotional connection to Israel,” Ms. Poupko said. Seeing Mr. Seinfeld visit the families of hostages in Israel, she added, “has been an incredibly powerful source of comfort to our community.”
Yosi Shnaider, a relative of several hostages who met with the Seinfelds in Israel in December and shared his family’s story, recalled Mr. Seinfeld as supportive and reserved, listening more than he spoke.
“I am putting myself in his place,” Mr. Shnaider said in an interview, adding that Mr. Seinfeld might not have known “exactly what to ask.” “His wife asked me what she can do. I told them I just want them to keep the story alive.”
Mr. Seinfeld, who is scheduled to deliver a commencement address at Duke University this month, has tended to be private about his personal beliefs, onstage and otherwise. His namesake television show generally banished political introspection. His standup act has favored proudly inessential observations about driving, dating and air travel — workaday zingers to which citizens of all political stripes are equally vulnerable.
Since “Seinfeld,” he has spoken most expansively about the art of comedy itself, framing it as a morally neutral pursuit whose highest aim is to make people laugh. (Mr. Seinfeld recently made headlines for suggesting in an interview with The New Yorker that “the extreme left and P.C. crap” had hampered comedy.)
The shifts in Mr. Seinfeld’s public bearing after Oct. 7 have been modest, if still perceptible. He remains far less outspoken on the subject than other celebrities and comedians, such as Amy Schumer. But for a figure long held up, like few others in entertainment, as a generational narrator of the American Jewish experience, even a cautious exploration of his identity has been notable.
In one recent interview — part of a promotional tour for the Pop-Tarts movie — Mr. Seinfeld said he felt “very close to the struggle of being Jewish in the world.”
He has also stopped himself short of full-scale sermonizing.
“I don’t preach about it,” he told GQ last month. “I have my personal feelings about it that I discuss privately. It’s not part of what I can do comedically, but my feelings are very strong.”
Mr. Seinfeld’s views of Israel seem to echo those of many Jews his age. Growing up on Long Island, he attended Hebrew school and became a bar mitzvah the year he turned 13, a representative confirmed. That was the year of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, which prompted a sea change in American Jewish consciousness, establishing support for Israel as a pillar of American Jewish life.
By contrast, American Jews who came of age since the 1980s or 1990s have not known firsthand an Israel that was a regional underdog. And the youngest American Jews, a predominantly progressive cohort, may only remember an Israel led by increasingly right-wing governments under Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been the prime minister nearly without interruption for the past 15 years.
Leonard Saxe, a professor of Jewish Studies at Brandeis University, said Mr. Seinfeld’s instinctive solidarity toward Israel was typical for their generation.
“We grew up worrying about Israel and its survival,” Mr. Saxe said, “and seeing Israel as the refuge for Jews from around the world.”
Some data points, even before Oct. 7, have suggested a deeper interest from Mr. Seinfeld in his Jewish identity.
When an Instagram post from Ms. Seinfeld, advising followers on how to talk about antisemitism, went viral in 2022, Mr. Seinfeld reposted the message (“I support my Jewish friends and the Jewish people”) and saluted its “nonaggressive” simplicity and power.
But for some with warm memories of “Seinfeld” — and searing opposition to the Israeli response to Oct. 7 — the comedian’s actions since that day have been disappointing.
Wajahat Ali, a writer and commentator who has been sharply critical of the Israeli government and Hamas, suggested that Mr. Seinfeld’s support for Israel carried more weight given his prior status as a “famously apolitical man who couldn’t muster any concern or care about what was happening in the world.”
“That was part of his aesthetic,” Mr. Ali said. But now, he added, Mr. Seinfeld had chosen to speak up as a wildly affluent man from “a cocoon of privilege” amid “a brutal war” he does not condemn.
Surely, Mr. Seinfeld sees it differently. His public comments have largely avoided geopolitical specifics, dwelling little on the choices of the Netanyahu government or prospective conditions for a cease-fire.
And he can still sound hesitant even in recent discussions about the Jewishness of “Seinfeld” — which an NBC executive once described as “too New York, too Jewish.”
Prompted in an interview last month with The New Yorker’s editor, David Remnick (“There was an element of, ‘We can’t be too Jewy,’” Mr. Remnick suggested), Mr. Seinfeld did not linger on the theme.
“Not too Jewy. We skimmed at the surface occasionally,” Mr. Seinfeld said, adding: “Maybe we mentioned a bar mitzvah one time, maybe. I don’t know.”
Another memorable plot arc, in a Season 8 episode that first aired in 1997, was perhaps more instructive: The fictional Jerry’s dentist has converted to Judaism — in large part, Jerry suspects, to get away with telling transparently hacky jokes about Jews.
Troubled, Jerry seeks wisdom at a church confessional.
“This offends you as a Jewish person?” the priest asks him.
“No,” he says. “It offends me as a comedian.”
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11) Israel, Gaza and the Law on Starvation in War
A complex legal question became more pressing after a statement from the U.N. human rights chief.
By Amanda Taub, Reporting from London, May 4, 2024
Palestinians lining up to collect food in Rafah in December. As of mid-April, at least 28 children had died of malnutrition in Gaza hospitals, according to local health authorities. Credit...Fatima Shbair/Associated Press
On March 19, Volker Türk, the United Nations’ human rights chief, said in an official statement that Israel’s policies regarding aid in Gaza might amount to a war crime.
“The extent of Israel’s continued restrictions on the entry of aid into Gaza, together with the manner in which it continues to conduct hostilities, may amount to the use of starvation as a method of war, which is a war crime,” he wrote.
His comments made waves. Using starvation of civilians as a weapon is a serious violation of international humanitarian law, and a war crime under the Rome Statute, the treaty of the International Criminal Court, or I.C.C.
Israeli and foreign officials told The New York Times last week that they were worried that the I.C.C. was preparing to issue arrest warrants against senior Israeli officials — including potentially over accusations that they prevented the delivery of aid to civilians in Gaza. (They also said they believed that the court was considering arrest warrants for Hamas leaders, which could be issued concurrently.)
Let me be clear: There is a high evidentiary bar for war-crime prosecutions, and we have no way of knowing at this stage what a full investigation would reveal, particularly because independent observers have had limited access to Gaza.
We do know that a humanitarian crisis is underway in the enclave and that the specter of famine has loomed increasingly close in recent weeks. And in remarks released on Friday from an upcoming “Meet the Press” interview, Cindy McCain, the director of the World Food Program, said that parts of northern Gaza were now experiencing a “full-blown famine.”
Months of Israeli restrictions have prevented the delivery of sufficient aid into Gaza, and it has proved even harder to bring it into the northern part of the strip, which is under Israeli military control and is where the hunger crisis is most severe.
The active nature of the conflict has also curbed aid distribution: The mass displacement of civilians, a lack of police to protect aid convoys, and the violence itself have stopped some aid from reaching the people who need it most. Aid workers have been killed while trying to do their jobs. All of this has contributed to the “catastrophe” that Türk described: widespread malnourishment and the deaths of children and other vulnerable people from starvation and starvation-related diseases.
When I reached out to the Israeli military for comment this week, it said in a statement that since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, Israel had been “engaged in a war against the terror organization” and that it had worked in coordination with the U.S., Egypt and international aid groups to get aid to Gaza residents. “Israel is constantly making significant efforts to find additional solutions to facilitate the flow of aid to the Gaza Strip and in particular to the north,” a spokesperson added, saying this was evident in the coordination of airdrops and aid packages coming via sea.
Israel has previously vehemently denied placing limits on aid, accusing the United Nations of failing to distribute aid adequately, and Hamas of looting supplies. U.S. and U.N. officials have said there is no evidence of that, other than one shipment that Hamas seized earlier this week, which is now being recovered. In recent weeks, under pressure from the United States and other allies, Israel has loosened some restrictions and there has been a modest increase in aid deliveries.
It is not yet clear whether any I.C.C. warrants are actually imminent, or if they would be made public — warrants can be issued secretly and kept under seal. It is also possible that the warrants, if issued, could refer not to starvation but to other crimes. Under the I.C.C.’s rules, a warrant requires “reasonable grounds to believe” that a suspect has committed the crime in question. I’m going to examine how that standard might apply to the war crime of starvation of civilians, and why it matters.
What is the threshold for criminal liability?
Although intentionally starving civilians has been considered a violation of international humanitarian law since at least the 1970s, it was only designated as a war crime in 1998, when the I.C.C. was established. And no international tribunal has ever tried someone for the crime of starvation of civilians as a weapon of war.
There are two main elements of the crime, according to the I.C.C. statute. The first is the act itself: actions or policies that deprive civilians of “objects indispensable to their survival,” including by interfering with relief supplies. The second is the intent: Starvation must be deliberately used “as a method of warfare.”
Some legal experts point to an announcement made by Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant, two days after the brutal Hamas-led assault on Israel, in which over 1,200 people were killed, as evidence of Israeli intent.
“We are imposing a complete siege,” Gallant said, adding, “There will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel, everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we act accordingly.”
In the days that followed, other officials, including the energy minister and the head of the Israeli agency that oversees policy for the occupied territories, also pledged that Gaza would be completely cut off from outside supplies. No aid trucks were allowed into Gaza until Oct. 21, nearly two weeks after Gallant’s statement. Because the strip was already heavily reliant on receiving essential supplies from Israel, that had an immediate impact on civilians.
The publicly announced “complete siege” created a plausible basis to believe the elements of a war crime had been met even before actual starvation took place, according to Tom Dannenbaum, a professor at the Fletcher School at Tufts University who is an expert on the law of sieges and starvation.
“I don’t think there’s really any other way of understanding the declaration of the total siege, and the specific identification of food and water as core components of the list of objects that would be deprived, as anything other than denial of those objects for their sustenance value,” he said.
Israel has said that its officials’ statements about the siege were not a true reflection of its policies, and pointed to an Oct. 29 cabinet meeting at which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that “we must prevent a humanitarian disaster” and directed that aid to the Gaza Strip should be increased, along with other cabinet decisions that it says show its efforts to send aid to the territory.
Getting aid in
Israel conducts rigorous checks of the aid trucks that line up at border crossings to bring food and other humanitarian supplies into Gaza, in an attempt to block items that could be used by Hamas. Those inspections have often been slow, aid agencies say, and can result in entire trucks getting rejected for “dual-use” items, such as medical scissors and water filters, that Israel says could have military as well as civilian purposes.
After Oct. 21, Israel began to allow some aid into Gaza, but its restrictions continued to make it impossible to bring in and distribute enough to avert a humanitarian crisis there, according to the United Nations and aid organizations.
The European Union’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell Fontelles, told the U.N. Security Council on March 12 that “the natural way of providing support through roads is being closed, artificially closed,” in Gaza, and that “starvation is being used as a weapon of war.”
Tal Heinrich, an Israeli government spokesperson, called Borrell’s statement “false and outrageous” and said that there was “no restriction on the amount of food and water” allowed to be delivered to the Gaza Strip.
In a March 15 letter to a British parliamentary committee, David Cameron, Britain’s foreign secretary, expressed his “enormous frustration” that aid supplied by the United Kingdom had been “routinely held up” on its way to Gaza. “The main blockers remain arbitrary denials by the government of Israel and lengthy clearance procedures including multiple screenings and narrow opening windows in daylight hours,” he wrote.
Before Oct. 7, around 500 trucks entered Gaza each day, carrying both aid and commercial items, Mr. Cameron said. That number fell by approximately 75 percent in the early months of the conflict, and although there has been a modest increase in April, the most recent weekly average for which figures were available was only 202 trucks per day, according to the U.N.
As of April 17, at least 28 children under 12 had died of malnutrition or related causes in Gaza hospitals, according to local health authorities, including a dozen babies under a month old. Officials believe that many more deaths outside hospitals have gone unrecorded.
According to international law, Israel has a right to do things like inspect aid convoys for items that might aid Hamas, such as weapons, and set the times and routes for humanitarian access. But the right is not limitless, experts said: Context matters.
“If there’s not a prospect of civilian starvation, one can engage in that kind of action for those military reasons other than sustenance denial,” Dannenbaum, the Tufts professor, said. But once civilians are at risk of starvation, a party to the conflict “cannot abuse the authority to inspect and set times and routes in a way that arbitrarily impedes humanitarian access to starving civilians,” he added.
Yuval Shany, an international law professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, said that such restrictions could potentially satisfy the criminal statute’s intent requirement. “When you are blocking the aid, and the inevitable consequence of doing that is starvation, then you are in an area where knowledge and intent actually collapse into one another.”
What might happen next?
There have been some improvements to aid flows in recent weeks, and on Wednesday Israel reopened the Erez border crossing, allowing some aid to cross directly into northern Gaza, where the humanitarian crisis is most acute. But foreign officials and aid agencies say it is still not enough. “This is real and important progress, but more still needs to be done,” Antony Blinken, the U.S. secretary of state, told reporters this week after visiting an aid warehouse in Jordan.
Legally, improvements now do not cancel out possible criminal liability for past actions, Dannenbaum said.
But also, having reasonable grounds for a warrant is not the same thing as having sufficient evidence for a conviction.
“Those inquiries tend to be extraordinarily factually intensive, requiring long and painstaking investigations by the prosecutor’s office,” said Chimène I. Keitner, a law professor at the University of California, Davis, and a former international law adviser for the U.S. State Department.
At this stage it appears unlikely that any Israeli official would actually stand trial in the International Criminal Court, even if warrants are issued. The court, which has no police force to carry out arrests directly, relies on national governments to arrest suspects within their territories. Individuals who avoid I.C.C.-friendly jurisdictions are therefore fairly safe.
If I.C.C. indictments were announced, however, they would bolster a growing international perception that Israel’s actions in Gaza have violated international law. And that could contribute to the growing political pressure on Israel’s allies to limit their support for Israel, Keitner said.
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12) One Photo That Captures the Loss in Gaza
By Nicholas Kristof, May 4, 2024
via Sam Attar
An American surgeon who volunteered in Gaza sent me a photo that sears me with its glimpse of overwhelming grief: A woman mourns her young son.
I’ve known the surgeon, Dr. Sam Attar, a professor at Northwestern University School of Medicine, for a decade. He has worked in war zones around the world, from Ukraine to Iraq to Syria, but Gaza has been particularly harrowing for him, in part because so many children have suffered or died.
He performed amputations and other orthopedic surgeries recently at Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza. He was preparing to go into the operating room one day when a woman called him over and asked him to photograph her young son, Karam, in his bed in the I.C.U. Sam went over and only then realized that the boy was dead.
“Every time staff wanted to cover him fully with a blanket, she would flip it back and say, ‘No!’” Sam told me. “And she would start talking to him, asking him where he went.”
The nurses and other doctors who were in the I.C.U. that day said that Karam died of complications from malnutrition. The United Nations confirms that Gazan children have starved to death.
The nurses wanted to remove Karam’s body after he died an hour earlier, but his mother wouldn’t allow it. In her grief, she told Sam that Karam was a prince and she wanted Sam to share the boy’s photo. Perhaps she thought this was a way of commemorating her son.
I’ve criticized the way Israel has conducted the war in Gaza and President Biden’s strong support for it, for a child is killed or injured in the war every 10 minutes, according to the United Nations. More than 14,000 children have been killed in the war, according to the Gaza health authorities. But that’s a number; this photo captures a preventable tragedy.
As I argue that it’s time to end this war, I think this photo has a persuasive power greater than my words, so I’ve given my column space over to this image. As we discuss Gaza, let’s keep in mind that the war unfolds through lives like Karam’s.
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