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Naim Qassem during a televised address on September 20, 2024. (Photo: Screenshot from Al Jazeera YouTube Channel)
Israel’s Genocide Day 360: Israel tells U.S. Lebanon invasion ‘imminent’ as Hezbollah says it is ‘ready to engage’ Israeli forces
Hezbollah’s Deputy Secretary General said Hezbollah’s military capacities remain intact, while Israel has reportedly informed the U.S. that an Israeli ground invasion of southern Lebanon is “imminent.”
By Qassam Muaddi, September 30, 2024
Casualties
· 41,615 + killed* and at least 96,359 wounded in the Gaza Strip. 32,280 of the slain have been identified, including 10,627 children and 5,956 women, representing 60% of the casualties, and 2,770 elderly as of August 6, 2024. Some 10,000 more are estimated to be under the rubble*
· 719+ Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem. This includes at least 146 children.**
· Since the beginning of the current Israeli offensive on Lebanon, Israel has killed 1,640 Lebanese and wounded at least 8,000, according to Lebanese authorities.
· Israel revised its estimated October 7 death toll down from 1,400 to 1,140.
· The Israeli army recognizes the death of 714 Israeli soldiers and the injury of at least 4,100 others since October 7.***
* Gaza’s branch of the Palestinian Ministry of Health confirmed this figure in its daily report, published through its WhatsApp channel on September 26, 2024. Rights groups and public health experts estimate the death toll to be much higher.
** The death toll in the West Bank and Jerusalem is not updated regularly. This is the latest figure according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health as of September 25, 2024.
*** These figures are released by the Israeli military, showing the soldiers whose names “were allowed to be published.” Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot reported on August 4, 2024, that some 10,000 Israeli soldiers and officers have been either killed or wounded since October 7. The head of the Israeli army’s wounded association told Israel’s Channel 12 that the number of wounded Israeli soldiers exceeds 20,000, including at least 8,000 who have been permanently handicapped as of June 1. Israel’s Channel 7 reported that according to the Israeli war ministry’s rehabilitation service numbers, 8,663 new wounded joined the army’s handicap rehabilitation system since October 7 and as of June 18.
Source: mondoweiss.net
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On this Wrongful Conviction Day, Leonard Peltier, the longest-serving Indigenous political prisoner, is incarcerated in lockdown-modified operations conditions at USP Coleman I, operated by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP).
Yet, in this moment of silence, Leonard speaks.
To honor his birthday and all those who are unjustly convicted and incarcerated, the Leonard Peltier Official Ad Hoc Committee has released a video of Leonard Peltier that is going viral. Narrated by renowned scholar Ward Churchill and set to a video created by award-winning filmmaker Suzie Baer, the film most importantly centers Leonard’s personal reflection on his 80th year.
Jenipher Jones, Mr. Peltier's lead counsel, commented, "This powerfully moving film captures the essence of who I know Leonard to be. I am grateful to Professor Churchill and Suzie Baer for their work and longstanding advocacy of Leonard. As the recent execution of Marcellus Williams-Imam Khaliifah Williams shows us, we as a society bear a responsibility to uplift the cases of all those who are wrongfully convicted and also hold the government accountable to do that for which it professes to exist. We must challenge our impulses of blind blood-thirst for guilt and the use of our legal systems to carry out this malignant pathology. There is absolutely no lawful justification for Leonard's incarceration."
“Leonard Peltier is Native elder whose wrongful incarceration is shameful. His continued imprisonment exemplifies the historical cruelty of the US Government toward Native people. The US BOP's treatment of Leonard Peltier is unlawful, and he deserves his freedom.” —Suzie Baer
Leonard's Statement: Peltier 80th Statement.pdf:
https://onedrive.live.com/?authkey=%21ABHSRNdyB8SKn0I&id=DFF2DD874157D44A%21118178&cid=DFF2DD874157D44A&parId=root&parQt=sharedby&o=OneUp
To view the film, please visit:
https://tinyurl.com/Peltier80thPresentation
We hope to have additional updates on Leonard soon. In the meantime, please engage our calls to action or donate to his defense efforts.
Miigwech.
Donate/ActNow:
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.
U.S. Parole Commission Denies Leonard Peltier’s Request for Freedom; President Biden Should Grant Clemency
In response to the U.S. Parole Commission denying Leonard Peltier’s request for parole after a hearing on June 10, Paul O’Brien, Executive Director of Amnesty International USA, made the following statement:
“Continuing to keep Leonard Peltier locked behind bars is a human rights travesty. President Biden should grant him clemency and release him immediately. Not only are there ongoing, unresolved concerns about the fairness of his trial, he has spent nearly 50 years in prison, is approaching 80 years old, and suffers from several chronic health problems.
“Leonard Peltier has been incarcerated for far too long. The parole commission should have granted him the freedom to spend his remaining years in his community and surrounded by loved ones.
“No one should be imprisoned after a trial riddled with uncertainty about its fairness. We are now calling on President Biden, once again, to grant Leonard Peltier clemency on humanitarian grounds and as a matter of mercy and justice.”
Background
· Leonard Peltier, Native American activist and member of the American Indian Movement (AIM), was convicted of the murders of two FBI agents on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in 1975. He has always maintained his innocence. Amnesty International joins Tribal Nations, Tribal Leaders, Members of Congress, former FBI agents, Nobel Peace Prize winners and former U.S. Attorney James Reynolds, whose office handled Peltier’s prosecution and appeal, in urging his release.
· Parole was also rejected at Peltier’s last hearing in 2009. Due to his age, this was likely the last opportunity for parole.
· A clemency request is pending before President Joe Biden. President Biden has committed opens in a new tab to grant clemency/commutation of sentences on a rolling basis rather than at the end of his term, following a review of requests by the White House Counsel’s Office and the Department of Justice.
Amnesty International has examined Peltier’s case extensively for many years, sent observers to his trial in 1977, and long campaigned on his behalf. Most recently, Amnesty International USA sent a letter to the U.S. Parole Commission urging the commission to grant him parole.
https://www.amnestyusa.org/press-releases/u-s-parole-commission-denies-leonard-peltiers-request-for-freedom-president-biden-should-grant-clemency/
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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Beneath The Mountain: An Anti-Prison Reader (City Lights, 2024) is a collection of revolutionary essays, written by those who have been detained inside prison walls. Composed by the most structurally dispossessed people on earth, the prisoner class, these words illuminate the steps towards freedom.
Beneath the Mountain documents the struggle — beginning with slavery, genocide, and colonization up to our present day — and imagines a collective, anti-carceral future. These essays were handwritten first on scraps of paper, magazine covers, envelopes, toilet paper, or pages of bibles, scratched down with contraband pencils or the stubby cartridge of a ball-point pen; kites, careworn, copied and shared across tiers and now preserved in this collection for this and future generations. If they were dropped in the prison-controlled mail they were cloaked in prayers, navigating censorship and dustbins. They were very often smuggled out. These words mark resistance, fierce clarity, and speak to the hope of building the world we all deserve to live in.
"Beneath the Mountain reminds us that ancestors and rebels have resisted conquest and enslavement, building marronage against colonialism and genocide."
—Joy James, author of New Bones Abolition: Captive Maternal Agency
Who stands beneath the mountain but prisoners of war? Mumia Abu-Jamal and Jennifer Black have assembled a book of fire, each voice a flame in captivity...Whether writing from a place of fugivity, the prison camp, the city jail, the modern gulag or death row, these are our revolutionary thinkers, our critics and dreamers, our people. The people who move mountains. —Robin D.G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination
Filled with insight and energy, this extraordinary book gifts us the opportunity to encounter people’s understanding of the fight for freedom from the inside out. —Ruth Wilson Gilmore, author of Golden Gulag and Abolition Geography
These are the words each writer dreamed as they sought freedom and they need to be studied by people inside and read in every control unit/hole in every prison in America. We can send this book for you to anyone who you know who is currently living, struggling, and fighting
Who better to tell these stories than those who have lived them? Don’t be surprised with what you find within these pages: hope, solidarity, full faith towards the future, and most importantly, love.
Excerpt from the book:
"Revolutionary love speaks to the ways we protect, respect, and empower each other while standing up to state terror. Its presence is affirmed through these texts as a necessary component to help chase away fear and to encourage the solidarity and unity essential for organizing in dangerous times and places. Its absence portends tragedy. Revolutionary love does not stop the state from wanting to kill us, nor is it effective without strategy and tactics, but it is the might that fuels us to stand shoulder to shoulder with others regardless. Perhaps it can move mountains." —Jennifer Black & Mumia Abu-Jamal from the introduction to Beneath The Mountain: An Anti Prison Reader
Get the book at:
https://www.prisonradiostore.com/shop-2/beneath-the-mountain-an-anti-prison-reader-edited-by-mumia-abu-jamal-jennifer-black-city-lights-2024
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Russia Confirms Jailing of Antiwar Leader Boris Kagarlitsky
In a secret trial on June 5, 2024, the Russian Supreme Court’s Military Chamber confirmed a sentence of five years in a penal colony for left-wing sociologist and online journalist Boris Kagarlitsky. His crime? “Justifying terrorism” — a sham charge used to silence opponents of Putin’s war on Ukraine. The court disregarded a plea for freedom sent by thirty-seven international luminaries.
Kagarlitsky, a leading Marxist thinker in Russia’s post-Soviet period, recently addressed socialists who won’t criticize Putin:
“To my Western colleagues, who…call for an understanding of Putin and his regime, I would like to ask a very simple question. [Would] you want to live in a country where there is no free press or independent courts? In a country where the police have the right to break into your house without a warrant? …In a country which…broadcasts appeals on TV to destroy Paris, London, Warsaw, with a nuclear strike?”
Thousands of antiwar critics have been forced to flee Russia or are behind bars, swept up in Putin’s vicious crackdown on dissidents. Opposition to the war is consistently highest among the poorest workers. Recently, RusNews journalists Roman Ivanov and Maria Ponomarenko were sentenced to seven, and six years respectively, for reporting the military’s brutal assault on Ukraine.
A massive global solidarity campaign that garnered support from thousands was launched at Kagarlitsky’s arrest. Now, it has been revived. This internationalism will bolster the repressed Russian left and Ukrainian resistance to Putin’s imperialism.
To sign the online petition at freeboris.info
—Freedom Socialist Party, August 2024
https://socialism.com/fs-article/russia-jails-prominent-antiwar-leader-boris-kagarlitsky/#:~:text=In%20a%20secret%20trial%20on,of%20Putin's%20war%20on%20Ukraine.
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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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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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:
Kevin Cooper #C65304
Cell 107, Unit E1C
California Health Care Facility, Stockton (CHCF)
P.O. Box 213040
Stockton, CA 95213
www.freekevincooper.org
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) As Israel invades, Lebanon’s government is nowhere to be found.
By Vivian Yee, Vivian Yee reported from Beirut, Lebanon, where she lived from 2018 to 2020
The aftermath of an Israeli strike in Hilaniyeh, Lebanon, last week, part of a bombing campaign that some experts have called one of the most intense in contemporary warfare. Credit...Diego Ibarra Sanchez for The New York Times
Even for the Lebanese, it can be hard to say where it all went wrong for their tiny, beautiful country.
Certainly it was long before early Tuesday morning, when Israeli troops marched into southern Lebanon. Long before Friday, when Israel assassinated Hassan Nasrallah, the revered and reviled Hezbollah leader who had a chokehold on the country’s politics and security for years.
And long before last October, when Hezbollah and Israel began trading airstrikes and rocket fire across the border, bringing the war in Gaza to Lebanon’s green, fertile south.
Hezbollah, the Iran-funded Shiite Muslim militia that doubles as a major political party and social services organization, does not run Lebanon in any official sense. But under Mr. Nasrallah, it sometimes seemed as if it was the only force that mattered: a state within a state with its own military, schools, hospitals and youth programs.
Now his death has come as the latest thunderbolt to jolt Lebanon, a Mediterranean country of 5.4 million people already stuck in a dejected state of nonstop emergency.
Many say Lebanon’s current anguish began in 2019, when the economy imploded and took the country’s once-robust middle class with it. Mass anti-government protests that fall did nothing to dislodge the country’s widely loathed political class.
Others might mention 2020, the year the coronavirus further crippled the economy, and the year an enormous explosion at Beirut’s port shattered entire neighborhoods of the capital.
A good case could be made for going all the way back to the 15-year civil war that ended in 1990, which birthed the movement that became Hezbollah, and from which the country never really recovered.
All these crises and more have left Lebanon in no shape to withstand a sharply escalating conflict with Israel, like a 10-car pileup caught in the path of a tornado.
That much became obvious over the last week, when at least 118,000 Lebanese fled Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon’s south, in its agricultural Bekaa Valley and in the Hezbollah-dominated Dahiya suburbs of Beirut.
The official response was “chaos,” said Mark Daou, an independent member of Parliament, as the TV in his office played news footage of the hourslong traffic jams on the roads from the south last week.
He was not surprised the government seemed stupefied. “They have no money and they have no control over what’s happening on the ground,” he said, noting that Lebanon’s nominal military has little actual power. “They’re hostage to whatever Hezbollah decides unilaterally.”
While the government designated hundreds of public buildings as shelters for the displaced, it provided no mattresses, bedding, food or other supplies.
Information about shelters spread haphazardly through word of mouth and on WhatsApp, with little official guidance. Shelters filled quickly, leaving hundreds to sleep in public squares, a seaside promenade, a beach and under bridges when they evacuated the Dahiya suburbs after Friday’s huge airstrike on Hezbollah headquarters under the neighborhood.
As the longtime head of a group the United States considers a terrorist organization, but one that drove Israel out of southern Lebanon when the state could not, Mr. Nasrallah was a hero to some Lebanese and anathema to others. But his power was such that few can predict what the country will look like without him.
Mired in political paralysis — partly, Mr. Daou said, because Hezbollah has moved to block attempts at resolution — Lebanon has gone nearly two years without a president and has only a caretaker government.
The state provides barely any electricity, leaving everyone dependent on generators, if they can afford the fees. Many generators can power only one appliance at a time, so residents unplug refrigerators or forgo air-conditioning just to do laundry.
The financial crisis has left many people who could once afford overseas vacations, ski weekends in Lebanon’s mountains and sun-dazzled afternoons at its beach clubs nearly destitute, their savings trapped in banks that deny them access to their own money. Desperate, a few account holders have resorted to holding up bank branches to demand their own funds.
Thousands of doctors, nurses and medical technicians, as well as many young professionals, entrepreneurs, designers and artists, have left the country. Teachers routinely go unpaid; many of their students cannot afford textbooks.
“The country in many respects cannot withstand a long-term war,” said Sleiman Haroun, the president of a national association of Lebanese hospitals. Though the health care system had performed well so far, he said, he worried that there were not enough medical professionals left to cope with a sustained Israeli onslaught.
But, he added, “This is our fate. We have to face it.”
Enraged at their leaders, the Lebanese long ago stopped expecting anything from them.
Into the void left by the state have stepped private donors, individual volunteers, citizen aid groups, entrepreneurs and social-services organizations affiliated with political parties.
In wealthier pockets of the country, their efforts, along with the chic cocktail bars, nightclubs, manicured beach clubs and sophisticated restaurants, mask Lebanon’s collapse so effectively that first-time visitors are frequently taken aback by its high-functioning facade.
Residents and business owners have installed solar panels on rooftops across Lebanon to compensate for the lack of government-supplied electricity. Private donors pay for street lighting in some Beirut neighborhoods.
Over the last week, as shelters overflowed with displaced residents, a patchwork of volunteers and local aid groups rushed to fill the gap.
Just inside the gate of a private school in central Beirut last week sat Sarah Khalil, a board member who was helping to manage wave upon wave of donations — food, water, a refrigerator — arriving in the courtyard. The school’s board had opened its 50 classrooms to displaced families, and faculty, neighbors, students’ family members and other school affiliates were showing up with provisions.
“This is the only way,” she said. “We can’t rely on the government, but we surely can rely on those around us.”
At Dr. Sobhy Salah Middle School in the Bir Hassan neighborhood, the Ministry of Education unlocked the doors for displaced families. But it was the scouting organization affiliated with the Amal Movement, a major Shiite Muslim political party, that was running the shelter and gathering donated supplies.
Asked why the government had not provided more, Mohamed Jaber, a volunteer, let out a laugh.
“There’s no government to begin with,” he said. “The government will only wake up way after the war has ended.”
Families at the shelter said they had come there after hearing about it from relatives or through word of mouth. But many shelters filled quickly, including this one, leaving the latest wave of displaced arrivals with few options if they had no family or friends to take them in.
That was how several Syrian families ended up under a bridge in Beirut on Wednesday afternoon, beaten-up minibuses and gleaming SUVs honking around them. Their presence was a reminder of yet another crisis that has strained Lebanon: The country plays reluctant host to an estimated 750,000 refugees from next-door Syria, driven to Lebanon by Syria’s brutal civil war, its economic crisis and a powerful earthquake last year.
Bushra Ali, 24, stood under the bridge with her 4-year-old son, 2-year-old daughter and a black plastic bag of necessities, all they had been able to grab on Wednesday morning as they evacuated Dahiya, the Hezbollah-dominated suburb of Beirut that Israel has struck repeatedly.
Originally from Aleppo, Syria, her family came to Lebanon last year, after the earthquake in northern Syria destroyed their home. But the move had not been a success.
Her husband was laid off from a Lebanese shoe factory three months ago. Their rent was rising every month. Now bombs were falling and schools were closed, so they had decided to go back to Aleppo.
“It’s a really horrible feeling,” she said, her face crumpling as she stroked her son’s hair.
The Lebanese government appeared similarly missing-in-action after the port explosion on Aug. 4, 2020, that damaged more than half of Beirut and killed 218 people — a catastrophe that later investigations by media outlets and rights groups found was rooted in the government’s neglect, corruption and mismanagement. In the days after, while soldiers sat smoking on street corners, it was regular citizens who showed up to clean up the debris.
In the blast’s wake, a small, scruffy group of friends began distributing donations and free meals from an abandoned gas station in east Beirut. Four years later, now a full-fledged community kitchen and local aid group, Nation Station has begun delivering around 1,600 meals and sandwiches a day to shelters.
“The country, it’s already down. Like, I can’t believe we’re doing this again,” said Josephine Abou Abdo, a co-founder, who manages the crew of young staff and volunteers. “It’s back to Aug. 4 vibes.”
Four years ago, they were motivated by their own government’s inaction. Now, she said, it was Israel’s assault that was drawing Lebanese together in solidarity.
With Israel attacking them, she said, “this is the least that we can do.”
Jacob Roubai contributed reporting from Beirut.
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2) Port Workers Strike on East and Gulf Coasts
Members of the International Longshoremen’s Association walked out for the first time since 1977 in a standoff over wages, benefits and job security.
By Peter Eavis, Reporting from Bayonne, N.J., and New York, Oct. 1, 2024
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/01/business/economy/port-strike.html
Harold J. Daggett, president of the International Longshoremen’s Association, speaking to members at a port in Elizabeth, N.J., early Tuesday. Credit...Eric Lee/The New York Times
For the first time in nearly 50 years, longshoremen on the East and Gulf Coasts went on strike Tuesday, a move that will cut off most trade through some of the busiest U.S. ports and could send a chill through the economy.
Members of the International Longshoremen’s Association union, or I.L.A., which represents roughly 45,000 workers, started setting up pickets after 11th-hour talks failed to avert a work stoppage.
“Nothing’s going to move without us — nothing,” said Harold J. Daggett, the president of the union, addressing picketers outside a port terminal in Elizabeth, N.J., in a video posted early Tuesday to a union Facebook account.
The United States Maritime Alliance, which represents port employers, declined to comment early Tuesday. The two sides were not able to agree on wage increases, and the use of new technology in the ports was a sticking point for the union.
On Tuesday morning, Mr. Daggett’s son, Dennis A. Daggett, who is an I.L.A. executive vice president, was part of a large picket line outside a port terminal in Bayonne, N.J. He said that morale was “phenomenal,” and that the union was going to keep pushing for better wages.
“The raises we had in our previous contract — inflation really ate into them,” he said in an interview, but he declined to say how big an increase the union had asked for in recent talks.
Businesses now face a period of uncertainty. Trade experts say that a short strike would cause little lasting damage but that a weekslong stoppage could lead to shortages, higher prices and even layoffs.
“When we talk about a two- to three-week strike,” said J. Bruce Chan, a transportation analyst at Stifel, a Wall Street firm, “that’s when the problem starts to get exponentially worse.”
The prospect of significant economic damage from a strike puts President Biden in a quandary five weeks before national elections. Before the strike, he said he was not going to use a federal labor law, the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act, to force an end to a port shutdown — something President George W. Bush did in 2002. But some labor experts said he might use that power if the strike started to weigh on the economy.
Michael Vigneron, president of the I.L.A.’s Atlantic Coast district, who was also at the Bayonne picket, said he hoped the president would not use the law. “We hope that we have this settled before that,” he said. “That’s the goal here — to get a contract.”
Longshoremen move containers off ships, sort them and put them on trucks or trains, and handle bulk cargo, too. Around three-fifths of the nation’s container shipments go through ports on the East and Gulf Coasts, including the Port of New York and New Jersey, the third busiest in the country, and fast-growing ports in Virginia, Georgia and Texas.
A strike will also stop the shipment of cars and heavy machinery through the Port of Baltimore, where operations were curtailed for most of the spring after a container ship crashed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge.
Automakers said that they were monitoring the strike but that it was too early to say how it would hit them.
Cruise ship operations are unaffected by the strike, and military shipments will continue. Rick Cotton, the executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, said on Monday that around 100,000 containers would be stored at the port during the strike and that 35 ships arriving over the next week would be anchored offshore.
“The stakes are very high,” Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York said at a news conference on Monday. “The potential for disruption is significant.” But she also sought to calm consumers, saying shortages of food and pharmaceutical products were not expected.
For bringing large amounts of goods in and out of the country, there is no practical alternative to ports. And ports cannot operate without longshoremen, giving them strong leverage in labor negotiations.
West Coast ports are open. Longshoremen there belong to a different union and agreed last year on a new contract that includes a significant increase in wages.
Under the contract that expired on Monday, longshoremen on the East and Gulf Coasts earned a top rate of $39 an hour. The I.L.A. wants a $5-an-hour raise in each of the six years of a new agreement, giving it a 77 percent raise over the life of the contract.
The two sides had barely communicated for months before the walkout. But in recent days, the maritime alliance said on Monday, it had “traded counteroffers related to wages” with the I.L.A. and offered to extend the contract. The alliance also said its latest offer to the union would raise pay “nearly 50 percent” over the course of the contract.
Dennis Daggett, the I.L.A. official, said focusing on the $39 top wage would be misleading because longshoremen with less than six years of experience earn around half that sum per hour. He said the union was determined to secure higher wages for newer workers in its next contract.
With overtime and shift work, many longshoremen earn well over $100,000 a year, putting them ahead of other workers without a college degree. But they say they have put in far more hours than workers in other jobs earning similar amounts, and do so in often harsh or dangerous conditions.
The high inflation of the last few years has reduced their wages’ purchasing power. And longshoremen contend that they have a right to a slice of the increased profits that their employers — some of which are large global shipping lines — made during the pandemic trade boom in 2021 and 2022.
Knowing that a strike was possible, many companies rushed in merchandise before Tuesday, including most of the durable consumer goods that they intend to sell during the holiday sales period. But even a short strike could hurt importers of perishable goods like fruit.
Daniel J. Barabino, chief operating officer at Top Banana, a fruit distributor based at the Hunts Point Produce Market in the Bronx, N.Y., said a strike could cause him to run out of bananas, his main product, by the end of next week. “It’s going to be everyone in the region, all the banana importers — nobody’s going to have fruit,” he said.
Mr. Barabino added that shipping fruit by air was too costly. And he said he couldn’t make up the shortfall with sales of produce other than bananas. “They pay the coffee bill, maybe the bottled water bill,” he said, “but they’re not paying the electric bill, the rent, the truck leases or employee salaries.”
The I.L.A. last walked out across all East and Gulf Coast ports in 1977, snarling container shipping for more than six weeks. The deal that ended the strike included wage raises well above those proposed by employers, increased contributions to pension plans and took steps to address the I.L.A.’s concern that new technology could cause job losses.
The union is still fighting automation. It broke off talks with the maritime alliance in June, saying a port in Mobile, Ala., was checking trucks using technology that was not authorized under its labor contract. (The technology had been in use since the port opened in 2008, a source familiar with its operations said.)
Under the expired contract, port operators were permitted to use “semi-automated” technology but not equipment “devoid of human interaction.” The alliance said it had offered in recent talks to carry that commitment into a new contract.
On Tuesday, Dennis Daggett was standing outside the most automated terminal in New Jersey, Port Liberty Bayonne, operated by CMA CGM, a large shipping company based in Marseille, France. He said the non-automated container cranes in the Port of New York and New Jersey could be more productive than the semi-automated equipment in Port Liberty. CMA CGM did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Recently, other unions have gotten much of what they asked for in contract negotiations. Labor experts said the I.L.A. was hoping to capitalize on that winning run.
“The union has shown it’s fighting hard,” said Harley Shaiken, a professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, who has specialized in labor and trade. “The employers’ association is also well aware that the broader environment is that strikes have delivered for unions in the last year or so.”
Neal E. Boudette contributed reporting.
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3) Here’s Where U.S. Forces Are Deployed in the Middle East
The Pentagon is preparing to send more troops and aircraft to the region. This is an overview of the U.S. military presence there.
By Mike Ives and Agnes Chang, Oct. 2, 2024
As U.S. warships helped Israel shoot down missiles from an Iranian attack on Tuesday, the Pentagon was preparing to send thousands more U.S. troops, including three additional aircraft squadrons, to the Middle East.
That highlighted the scale of the American military presence in a region where war appears to be spreading.
Here’s an overview of where U.S. forces are operating in the Middle East, and what they are doing:
Eastern Mediterranean
· The United States has an amphibious assault ship and three guided-missile destroyers in the eastern Mediterranean, the part of the sea that borders Israel and Lebanon.
· U.S. warships there helped Israel shoot down Iranian missiles on Tuesday, President Biden told reporters after the attack.
· An aircraft carrier, the Harry S. Truman, left Virginia in late September on a scheduled deployment to the eastern Mediterranean. As of Monday it was still crossing the Atlantic.
Red Sea
· In the Red Sea, which lies south of Israel and borders Yemen and other countries, U.S. forces have been trying in recent months to stop attacks on commercial ships by the Houthis, an Iranian-backed militia that has described itself as acting in solidarity with Hamas. Some American ships have come under attack.
· As of Monday, the Navy had deployed several guided missile destroyers to the sea, according to the U.S. Naval Institute.
Gulf of Oman
· The aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln is on an extended deployment in the Gulf of Oman, south of Iran. Like other aircraft carriers, it is part of what is known as a carrier strike group, which also includes fighter jets and guided-missile destroyers.
· In August, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III sent the Abraham Lincoln’s strike group to the Middle East as part of an effort to strengthen the U.S. presence in the region. On Sunday, he ordered it to remain there.
Military bases
· About 40,000 American troops are stationed on bases across the Middle East. On Tuesday, the Pentagon declined to say how many more it was deploying, saying only that it would send a “few thousand.”
· As of September, about 2,500 troops were in Iraq, many of whom served as a defense against attacks by a resurgent Islamic State, and 900 in neighboring Syria.
· Qatar, across the Persian Gulf from Iran, hosts the largest U.S. military base in the Middle East. Nearby Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates also host American bases, as does Djibouti, an African country across the Red Sea from Yemen.
· Kuwait, southeast of Iraq on the Persian Gulf, had about 13,500 U.S. troops on bases as of 2021. At the time, only Germany, Japan and South Korea had more U.S. forces. Kuwait was a hub for American forces during the Iraq war.
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4) A Wider War in the Middle East, From Hamas to Hezbollah and Now Iran
The main questions now are how much the conflict will escalate and whether the United States will get more directly involved in the defense of Israel.
By David E. Sanger. Oct. 2, 2024
Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system intercepted rockets after Iran fired a salvo of ballistic missiles on Tuesday. Credit...Amir Cohen/Reuters
The long-feared “wider war” in the Middle East is here.
For the last 360 days, since the images of the slaughter of about 1,200 people in Israel last Oct. 7 flashed around the world, President Biden has warned at every turn against allowing a terrorist attack by Hamas to spread into a conflict with Iran’s other proxy, Hezbollah, and ultimately with Iran itself.
Now, after Israel assassinated the Hezbollah chief, Hassan Nasrallah, and began a ground invasion of Lebanon, and after Iran retaliated on Tuesday by launching nearly 200 missiles at Israel, it has turned into one of the region’s most dangerous moments since the Arab-Israeli War of 1967.
The main questions now are how much the conflict might escalate and whether the United States will get more directly involved.
The past few days may be a turning point. Since Israel killed Mr. Nasrallah on Friday, the Biden administration has been shifting from cautioning against a wider war to trying to manage it. Officials have defended Israel’s right to strike back at Iran, but are advising against direct attacks on its nuclear facilities that could tip the conflict out of control.
This is the spiral that Mr. Biden has cautioned against but has not been able to stop, even with major American forces in the region.
“From Israel’s perspective, we have been in a regional war since Oct. 7, and that war is now an all-out war,” said Michael Oren, a former Israeli ambassador to the United States, a historian and one of the country’s more hawkish diplomats. “We are in a war for our national survival, period.” Winning over the next few weeks, he said, is a “duty” for a nation “created in the aftermath of the Holocaust.”
The unknown is how Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel will interpret that existential mission as he weighs how, not whether, to strike back at Iran.
Mr. Biden’s warnings started early, on his visit to Israel less than two weeks after Oct. 7, to show solidarity after one of the most gruesome terrorist attacks of modern times.
That was before Israel obliterated Gaza from above and sent its military in on the ground, against Mr. Biden’s advice in a series of heated conversations with Mr. Netanyahu. It was before Israel booby-trapped pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah that exploded across Lebanon, and before Israel not only killed Mr. Nasrallah but systematically decapitated much of the Hezbollah leadership.
It was before the administration hinted that Israel would join a 21-day cease-fire, only to be defied, again, by Mr. Netanyahu, who then turned around and authorized the strike that killed Mr. Nasrallah.
To Mr. Biden’s critics on the right, this is all the result of American hesitance, his unwillingness to back Israel unconditionally, to nuance every promise of aid with a warning not to make the mistakes the United States made after the Sept. 11 attacks.
To his critics on the left, what has happened in the past 10 days is another example of Mr. Biden’s failure to make use of American leverage, including the threat of withholding American weapons from Israel, after more than 41,000 people have died in Gaza.
To many Israelis, the escalation was inevitable, another chapter in a struggle for survival that began with the nation’s creation in 1948.
Mr. Netanyahu clearly has America’s blessing to retaliate. At the White House on Tuesday, Jake Sullivan, Mr. Biden’s national security adviser, said the Iranian attack had been “defeated and ineffective,” largely because of the coordinated efforts of American and Israeli forces, who had spent months planning how to intercept the incoming missiles. “We have made clear that there will be consequences — severe consequences — for this attack, and we will work with Israel to make that the case,” Mr. Sullivan told reporters.
Mr. Sullivan said the White House was consulting extensively with Israel, including with the prime minister’s office, to formulate the appropriate response. He emphasized the degree of communication, leaving unsaid the obvious. Mr. Biden and Mr. Netanyahu barely talked as Israel invaded Gaza and took the fight to Lebanon. But once Iran, a lethal threat to Israel with military powers that Hamas and Hezbollah can only aspire to, directly entered the fray, America’s tone and strategy changed.
The behind-the-scenes negotiations now boil down to Mr. Netanyahu’s intent. Will he send another message to Iran about what Israel could do in the future, as he did in April when he aimed at military facilities in the holy city of Isfahan? Will he take out oil production facilities and ports?
Or will he aim directly for the facilities he has threatened to strike for years, starting with the underground Natanz facility where Iran is enriching uranium to near-bomb grade?
American officials believe they can persuade Mr. Netanyahu to make his point without setting off a full-blown war. But they concede that the Israeli prime minister may see the next five weeks until the American presidential election as a ripe moment to try to set that program back by years. After all, former President Donald J. Trump would not complain about a major attack on Iran’s military infrastructure, and Democrats cannot afford to be accused of restraining Israel after Tuesday’s missile attack.
“Israel will do its best to be disproportionate,” Gen. Wesley K. Clark, a former supreme allied commander of NATO, said on CNN on Tuesday. White House officials take the opposite view: Mr. Netanyahu, they say, cannot afford to be anything but proportionate.
This new era runs many risks. There is the risk that Iran, frustrated by the failure of its missile force to break through Israeli and American weapons, will convince itself that it is finally time to race for a nuclear weapon, viewing that risky move as the only way to hold off an adversary who has penetrated iPhones and pagers and computer systems. There is the risk that despite the election of a moderate-sounding new Iranian president, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps will win the country’s internal arguments and double down on its missile programs and agents of influence.
“A full-scale war, or even a more limited one, could be devastating for Lebanon, Israel, and the region,” said Jonathan Panikoff, the director of the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council. “But from it, unexpected opportunities will also come — to undermine Iranian malign influence in the region, for example, by actively impeding its efforts to reconstitute Hezbollah. And a new administration should be prepared to take advantage of them.”
That is what old wars and hot wars do. They create new power dynamics, vacuums to be filled.
But there remains the danger that wider wars, once begun, take years to put back in the box. And the presence of nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles and an instinct to escalate creates a particularly toxic brew.
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5) ‘If Germany Can Do It, Why Can’t We?’
By Serge Schmemann, Oct. 2, 2024
Mr. Schmemann, a former Bonn, Germany, bureau chief for The Times, is a member of the editorial board.
Officers in Germany stop a car near the border with Poland. Credit...Jens Schlueter/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
When Angela Merkel declined to shut Germany’s doors in 2015 to asylum seekers coming into Europe, the center-right chancellor garnered bouquets from liberals, but also hoots from the far-right and grumbling from European neighbors miffed that Germany was unilaterally taking the high ground without taking their interests into account.
Nine years later, the tables have turned. In September, the government of Chancellor Olaf Scholz, a center-left Social Democrat, ordered border controls along Germany’s wide-open western and northern borders to catch undocumented immigrants. The controls were already in force along the eastern and southern borders with Poland, the Czech Republic, Austria and Switzerland, but as of Sept. 16 they were extended to the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Denmark and France.
Again, the neighbors fumed. Here was Germany once again breaking European solidarity — this time along the low road — when the whole of the European Union was feeling overwhelmed by a rising tide of immigrants from the Middle East, Africa and, most recently, Ukraine.
Germany was the country that had declared they should all be let in — “Wir schaffen das,” We’ll manage this, was Ms. Merkel’s grand promise in 2015. But now that immigration had become an acute political problem for Berlin, the Germans were pushing unwanted refugees back into neighboring countries that had just as little interest, and no greater responsibility, for taking them in.
The mass migration of people seeking refuge from war and poverty in prosperous democracies has become a major challenge of the 21st century. While it has posed differing and often real problems in different parts of North America and Europe, a common repercussion has been the rise of far-right movements, which feed popular — and often misguided — fears of invading alien tribes stealing jobs and benefits, spreading terrorism and crime and diluting national cultures and identities. The far right recently scored big in elections to the E.U. Parliament and in France, and immigration is a primary weapon in Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.
The mass migration of people seeking refuge from war and poverty in prosperous democracies has become a major challenge of the 21st century. While it has posed differing and often real problems in different parts of North America and Europe, a common repercussion has been the rise of far-right movements, which feed popular — and often misguided — fears of invading alien tribes stealing jobs and benefits, spreading terrorism and crime and diluting national cultures and identities. The far right recently scored big in elections to the E.U. Parliament and in France, and immigration is a primary weapon in Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.
Germany, Europe’s economic powerhouse and a state with generous social services, has been a prime destination for refugees. Their number reached a record 3.48 million refugees and others fleeing conflict, including Ukrainians, as of the end of June, by far the most of any European state. The public has reacted accordingly. A recent poll in Germany found that 44 percent of respondents said migration and refugees are the country’s most pressing problem, and about 77 percent said Germany needed a change in its policies.
One consequence has been the rapid rise, after Ms. Merkel flung open the borders, of Alternative for Germany (AfD), a far-right party that has morphed into a rabidly anti-immigration and anti-Muslim party that the German intelligence service has classified as “suspected extremist.” Once a marginal political player, AfD came in first and second, respectively, in state elections in the eastern states of Thuringia and Saxony. Those elections came in the wake of popular fury over a horrific knife attack in the western city of Solingen, allegedly by a Syrian whose asylum claim had been denied.
The Social Democrats (SPD) did well in recent elections in Brandenburg, but the victory was tenuous. It’s estimated the AfD came in second by a scant percentage point or two, and exit polls indicated that three-quarters of those who voted for the Social Democrats did so only to block the AfD.
Announcing the extended border controls, the German interior minister, Nancy Faeser, explained that the measure was necessary to protect against “acute dangers posed by Islamist terrorism and serious crime.” European Union rules do allow temporary controls for six months, but only “as a last resort measure, in exceptional situations.”
Germany’s neighbors saw nothing of the sort. What they saw was a shaky government in dire political straits trying to co-opt some of the right’s political thunder.
There were few initial indications of how well the border measures were working, but the effect was probably not great. Germany’s western borders have been open for decades in the Schengen border-free zone in western Europe, and countless highways and byways freely crisscross state boundaries.
Even if it is largely symbolic, the images of German police searching cars aroused acrimonies old and new — and some schadenfreude on the far right. Austria has already angrily declared that it would not accept anyone rejected by Germany, while Geert Wilders, whose AfD-like anti-immigration party won the largest share of seats in Dutch elections last year, asked: “If Germany can do it, why can’t we?”
What happens in Germany invariably takes on a special significance, in part because it is the most populous country in Europe, but also because of its Nazi past. When a provincial leader of a far-right party in Germany spouts banned Nazi rhetoric, as Björn Höcke, who led the AfD to victory in Thuringia was found guilty of doing, that generates greater concern than it would elsewhere in Europe or the United States.
But what bugs Germany’s neighbors more these days is what they see as a big, powerful and overbearing neighbor paying ever less heed to the high-minded principles of European solidarity, especially on an issue as intractable and Europe-wide as migration. “There’s an impatience with Germany, with its somewhat smug assumption of a moral high ground, its we-can-do, we-doing-right position,” said Liana Fix, a fellow for Europe at the Council on Foreign Relations. “It’s perceived as German arrogance when Germany takes unilateral decisions on migration at the expense of its neighbors without coordinating the action with them.”
Critics cite Germany’s attitude following the 2008 economic crisis, when Berlin insisted on imposing onerous measures on indebted countries, especially Greece. Germany was also criticized for its unilateral decision to close all its nuclear power plants following the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, a decision that set back the European drive to cleaner energy and led to greater German dependence on Russian gas.
What makes it more frustrating for the neighbors is that Germany is, in fact, in the driver’s seat, especially since the exit of Britain from the E.U. and the decline of France’s influence.
Acting in its own interest, however, and irritating its neighbors in the process, will not solve Germany’s — or Europe’s — immigrant problem. The problem across Europe is that while uncontrolled migration creates political headaches, there is an acute need for skilled labor. That requires Europe-wide action, and despite various plans and proposals, the goal of reducing numbers remains elusive, and is likely to remain so as long as wealthy democracies like Germany remain a beacon of hope for suffering people.
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6) How the North Carolina Legislature Left Homes Vulnerable to Helene
Under pressure to control housing costs, Republican lawmakers rejected standards meant to protect against disasters, experts say.
By Christopher Flavelle, Oct. 3, 2024
Christopher Flavelle is a climate reporter who has covered building codes for almost a decade.
Clearing debris from a badly damaged home in Canton, N.C., on Tuesday. Credit...Loren Elliott for The New York Times
The amount of rain that Tropical Storm Helene unleashed over North Carolina was so intense, no amount of preparation could have entirely prevented the destruction that ensued.
But decisions made by state officials in the years leading up to Helene most likely made some of that damage worse, according to experts in building standards and disaster resilience.
Over the past 15 years, North Carolina lawmakers have rejected limits on construction on steep slopes, which might have reduced the number of homes lost to landslides; blocked a rule requiring homes to be elevated above the height of an expected flood; weakened protections for wetlands, increasing the risk of dangerous storm water runoff; and slowed the adoption of updated building codes, making it harder for the state to qualify for federal climate-resilience grants.
Those decisions reflect the influence of North Carolina’s home building industry, which has consistently fought rules forcing its members to construct homes to higher, more expensive standards, according to Kim Wooten, an engineer who serves on the North Carolina Building Code Council, the group that sets home building requirements for the state.
“The home builders association has fought every bill that has come before the General Assembly to try to improve life safety,” said Ms. Wooten, who works for Facilities Strategies Group, a company that specializes in building engineering. She said that state lawmakers, many of whom are themselves home builders or have received campaign contributions from the industry, “vote for bills that line their pocketbooks and make home building cheaper.”
Chris Millis, director of regulatory affairs for the North Carolina Home Builders Association, said his industry is focused on reducing housing costs but added: “We do not pit affordability against regulations necessary for the protection of public safety.”
In 2009 and 2010, lawmakers from the state’s mountainous western region wanted statewide rules to restrict construction on slopes with a high or moderate risk of landslides. Their legislation failed in the face of pushback from the home building and real estate industries, according to Pricey Harrison, a state lawmaker who supported the restrictions.
Mr. Millis said statewide rules are unnecessary because local governments have rules about building on hillsides. Ms. Harrison said a statewide standard would be more effective.
The push to build on hillsides reflected the growing demand in North Carolina for mountain retreats that would attract tourist dollars, according to Robert S. Young, a professor at Western Carolina University who focuses on climate resilience.
“Everybody wants a view in their vacation home,” Dr. Young said in an interview. “It’s really hard to shut off that kind of economic activity in a small local community.”
Efforts to weaken building standards in North Carolina picked up steam after Republicans won control of both houses of the state legislature in 2010.
In 2011, lawmakers proposed a law that limited the ability of local officials to account for sea-level rise in their planning. The comedian Stephen Colbert panned the change, quipping: “If your science gives you a result you don’t like, pass a law saying the result is illegal. Problem solved.”
Two years later, lawmakers overhauled the way North Carolina updates its building codes. That change attracted far less attention than the sea-level rule — but would be more consequential for Helene.
Every three years, the International Code Council, a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., issues new model building codes developed by engineers, architects, home builders and local officials.
Most states adopt a version of those model codes, which reflect the latest advances in safety and design. But in 2013, the North Carolina legislature decided that the state would update its codes every six years, instead of every three.
The change proved important. In 2015, the International Code Council added a requirement that new homes in flood zones be built at least one foot above the projected height of a major flood.
North Carolina did not adopt that version of the building code until 2019. And even then, the state stripped out the new flood-prevention standard. Rather than make elevation mandatory in flood zones around North Carolina, the state decided that the requirement should only apply if local officials chose to adopt it.
The decision most likely left more homes exposed to flooding, according to Chad Berginnis, executive director of the national Association of State Floodplain Managers.
But Mark Brody, a Republican state lawmaker, said the state was right to leave such decisions to local officials. “There are places that are designated floodplains that never flood,” Mr. Brody said in an interview. “And the locals would know this better than having a blanket state rule.”
The Republican legislature took other steps that may have exacerbated flooding.
In 2014, lawmakers passed laws to weaken protection for wetlands, which can help reduce flood damage by absorbing excess rainfall, according to Brooks Rainey Pearson, a senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center.
Three years later, the legislature made it easier for developers to pave green spaces, increasing the risk of flooding caused by heavy rains, according to the Southern Environmental Law Center. Mr. Millis, of the home builders association, said that “storm water is heavily regulated in North Carolina.”
Last year, efforts by Republican lawmakers to ease the state’s building codes erupted into open confrontation with Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat.
The legislature passed a law that blocked the state from adopting new building codes until 2031. The law also included smaller changes, such as preventing local building inspectors from ensuring that home builders correctly install protective sheathing on homes exposed to winds of 140 miles per hour or less.
Governor Cooper vetoed the bill, saying it would “wipe out years of work to make homes safer.” But Republicans overrode his veto.
The new law has made it harder for North Carolina to qualify for Federal Emergency Management Agency grants to fund climate-resilient construction projects, which prioritize states with up-to-date building codes. The governor’s office has estimated that North Carolina has lost $70 million in grants because of the 2023 law.
Then, this summer, the Republican legislature again passed a series of reforms weakening the state’s approach to building standards. The law gave the legislature, rather than the governor, the authority to appoint or approve members of the state’s powerful building code council. It removed the requirement that the council include licensed architects. And it included other changes, such as preventing the state from requiring that electric water heaters be located off the ground to protect from flooding.
Governor Cooper again vetoed the legislation, saying it “limits the knowledge and practical experience of the body tasked with ensuring all buildings are safely designed.” Republicans again used their supermajority to override his veto.
The governor’s office declined to comment.
Mr. Brody, the Republican state lawmaker, said the home building industry is like any other interest group seeking to advance its agenda.
“Campaign contributions are there, but the General Assembly makes wise decisions,” Mr. Brody said. He added that construction bills “get pretty well researched and vetted through. Most of them are just plain common sense.”
The home builders association has contributed $4.3 million to North Carolina politicians over the past three decades, with Republicans receiving nearly twice as much as Democrats, according to data from Open Secrets, which tracks political spending. The association gave Roy Cooper $10,500 during his two gubernatorial campaigns, records show.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, insurance money and federal recovery funds will fuel a rush of construction in the areas hit by the storm.
Building standards will help determine how well that new construction fares against future disasters, which are becoming more frequent and severe because of climate change.
Ms. Wooten, the engineer on the building code council, said she was not optimistic that the damage from Helene would change how North Carolina approached building codes.
“Money talks,” Ms. Wooten said. “Politicians want to get re-elected, and they are going to go where the money is.”
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7) Israel Expands Evacuation Warnings in Southern Lebanon
The Israeli military told residents of more than 20 towns and villages to leave, a sign that its invasion could be expanding. The death toll in an Israeli strike near central Beirut rose to nine, Lebanese officials said.
By Liam StackLauren LeatherbyEuan Ward and Victoria Kim, October 3, 2024
The Israeli military issued evacuation warnings on Thursday for a further swath of towns and villages in southern Lebanon where its troops are fighting Hezbollah militants, as Lebanese health officials raised the death toll from an Israeli strike near the heart of Beirut to at least nine people.
No apparent warning preceded the overnight strike, which hit the Bachoura neighborhood of Beirut, the Lebanese capital, several hundred yards from Parliament and Western embassies. Other large explosions were heard in or near the city early Thursday as Israel continued its campaign against Hezbollah, including in the Dahiya, a cluster of neighborhoods on the southern outskirts of Beirut where Hezbollah holds sway.
Avichay Adraee, a spokesman for the Israeli military, warned residents of more than 20 additional towns and cities in southern Lebanon to leave their homes immediately and not to move south toward the Israeli border, a possible sign that the ground invasion that Israeli forces began this week could be expanding.
The areas are farther north than those mentioned in previous Israeli evacuation warnings and include Nabatieh, one of the largest cities in southern Lebanon. All lie above the Litani River, the upper boundary of a buffer area established by the United Nations after the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah.
The attack on Beirut followed a day of clashes between Israeli troops and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, in what appeared to be the first direct confrontations between the two sides since the invasion began. Israel said eight of its soldiers had been killed, including five members of an elite unit, as its forces engaged in close-range combat with the Iran-backed militant group.
Israeli leaders were continuing to weigh a military response to Iran, which on Tuesday launched nearly 200 missiles at targets across Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, who has vowed retribution for the missile attack, said on Wednesday that his country was engaged in “a tough war against Iran’s axis of evil.”
President Biden, in an apparent attempt to stem the escalation and broadening of conflicts in the Middle East, said on Wednesday that he would not support Israel striking Iran’s nuclear sites.
Here is what else to know:
· Continuing strikes: The Israeli military said it had struck about 200 sites in Lebanon overnight, including local government offices in Bint Jbeil, a large town near the border with Israel, where it killed 15 people it described as Hezbollah fighters.
· Iran sanctions: Mr. Biden told reporters that leaders of the Group of 7 nations had agreed in a call on Wednesday to impose new sanctions on Iran for the missile strike. He said the other leaders on the call — of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan — agreed that Israel has the right to respond but that it must be proportional.
· Gaza attacks: The Israeli military kept up its attacks on Iranian-backed Hamas in Gaza, saying on Thursday that it had killed three top Hamas officials in a previously undisclosed airstrike three months ago, including Rawhi Mushtaha, one of the closest confidants of Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader. Hamas did not immediately comment on Israel’s claim, but it has generally not confirmed or denied the deaths of its officials in the conflict.
· Tel Aviv attack: Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, the Gaza-based militant group, took responsibility for the shooting attack on Tuesday evening in Tel Aviv in which seven people were killed.
· Strike in Syria: An Israeli airstrike on a residential building in Damascus, the Syrian capital, killed three people on Wednesday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the state news media.
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