Saturday, June 01, 2024

Netanyahu won't stop the killing

Nathan Morley (VATICAN NEWS) reports, "US President Joe Biden has announced Israel had proposed a three-stage plan to Hamas aimed at reaching a permanent ceasefire. Amid a mounting death toll in Gaza, the United States is under huge pressure to end the conflict. Mr. Biden defined the plan as a thorough Israeli proposal that paved the way for a permanent ceasefire."  But?  John Yang (PBS NEWSHOUR) explains,  "Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has thrown up a hurdle to President Biden's proposed path to ending the war in Gaza.  He said there could be no permanent cease-fire until Hamas' military and government capabilities have been destroyed."  THE GUARDIAN's Julian Borger reviews  just how humiliated Joe Biden has been:


The latest peace plan for Gaza was given a launch worthy of a historic turning point, with the US president delivering remarks directly to camera from the White House state dining room, declaring it finally “time for this war to end”.

Yet even as Joe Biden spelled out the proposal – leading in theory to a permanent end to hostilities, large-scale food deliveries and the start of reconstruction, there was clearly something awry.

If this plan was an Israeli proposal as Biden claimed, why was it being launched by Biden in Washington? There had been no word from Israel. By the time Biden began his remarks, it was already Friday night in the Middle East, the sabbath was under way and government offices closed.

When the prime minister’s office did produce a statement in response, it exuded all the reluctance and irritation of a politician roused from sleep. Yes, Benjamin Netanyahu had “authorised the negotiating team to present a proposal” but it was one that would “enable Israel to continue the war until all its objectives are achieved”.

A second statement issued after daybreak was even blunter. Any plan that did not achieve Israel’s war aims, including the destruction of Hamas’s military and governing capacity, was a “non-starter”.

US officials argued the deal would fulfil Israel’s essential security requirements so there was ultimately no conflict, but there was no getting around Netanyahu’s choice of language, which made it clear he was not the author of the new plan, but a grudging participant. It also appeared designed to humiliate Biden. An experienced communicator like Netanyahu would know that the phrase “non-starter” would appear in the morning’s headlines alongside pictures of the president making his bid for peace.

By now, Biden is used to humiliation at Netanyahu’s hands. In early May, he warned that if the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) went into Rafah: “I’m not supplying the weapons”. Three weeks on, Israeli tanks have rolled into central and western Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, which has been a refuge for more than 1 million displaced Palestinians. Nearly a million have had to flee for their lives once more.

Biden has not delivered on his threat to curb arms deliveries, which would have triggered outrage from not just Republicans but pro-Israel Democrats. Administration officials have instead sought to parse what “going into Rafah” means. When he issued his ultimatum a month ago, Biden had suggested it meant the IDF advancing to the city’s “population centres”. That has clearly already happened, but US officials are now arguing the forays so far have not been “major operations”.


Abbas Nasir (DAWN) reminds, "President Biden, just five months away from an election, is trailing in the battleground or ‘swing’ states, having angered and alienated many Blacks, Muslims, young voters and progressive Democrats by his unconditional support of Israel, which has translated into the export of billions of dollars’ worth of arms, bombs, ammunition and military equipment to the Zionist state."


War Criminal Netanyahu continues to disregard the law and world opinion.  Sophie Lamotte of FRANCE 24 reports on the thousands calling for a cease-fire in Paris. 




Roughly 100 Columbia University students and alumni launched a “Revolt for Rafah” encampment on Friday night. Student protesters say their protest is a direct response to the Rafah massacre and a recent Washington Post article exposing a group of wealthy elites who used their power to influence New York City Mayor Eric Adams into using the police to quash student protests at Columbia University in April.

Dubbed “Revolt for Rafah: Installation 1,” the encampment was launched on Alumni Reunion Weekend at Columbia University. To date, alumni have stated intent to withhold an estimated $67 million dollars in donations to the university unless they drop disciplinary charges against student activists. On Friday, The Intercept reported Columbia University had quietly changed its disciplinary rules as disciplinary hearings were set to begin.

In April, Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a coalition of several pro-Palestine groups at Columbia University, launched the first Gaza Solidarity Encampment in the nation. After that encampment was swept by the NYPD and more than 100 students were arrested, students at Columbia University launched a second encampment. Students at more than 130 campuses across the U.S. followed suit, launching their own Gaza Solidarity Encampments, according to data compiled by Harvard’s Crowd Counting Consortium—with more globally.



AP notes a protest Friday at the Brooklyn Museum, "Hundreds of protesters marched to the museum Friday afternoon, set up tents in the lobby and unfurled a 'Free Palestine' banner from the building’s roof before police moved in to make arrests."  Tyler Walicek (TRUTHOUT) reports:

A strike is underway within the University of California (UC) system — with UCLA, UC Davis and UC Santa Cruz all now participating — as unionized graduate student workers take collective action to protest the brutalization and repression of fellow union members and Palestine solidarity protesters.

With academic employees unionized with the United Auto Workers (UAW) walking out at all three schools, the UC administration has found itself contending with the consequences of its decision to invite state aggression upon its own students as they protested the ongoing genocide perpetrated by Israel in the Gaza Strip and West Bank. Those consequences appear to be piling up, with additional union workforces at UC San Diego and UC Santa Barbara set to join the strike on Monday, and UC Irvine workers walking off the job on Wednesday, according to UAW 4881.

The strike takes place in a national context in which administration crackdowns on Gaza solidarity encampments have encompassed everything from sanction, expulsion and eviction of students and firings of faculty (and even top administrators willing to parlay), all the way up to violent police action, as was on especially ugly display at UCLA. The striking UC workers, who are members of the United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 4811 (also called the Academic Student Employees Union), were provoked to strike after UC administrators decided to shut down UCLA’s Gaza solidarity encampment by calling in city police, who stood by while a pro-Israel mob attacked the camp and beat protesters. The police crackdown led to direct harm to UAW members, among others. A subsequent encampment at UCLA was similarly dismantled by riot police — and a similar response is presently underway at UC Santa Cruz, where on Friday, May 31, police surrounded and cleared protest barricades at the entrance to campus, detaining an unknown number of demonstrators.



 
Gaza remains under assault. Day 239 of  the assault in the wave that began in October.  Binoy Kampmark (DISSIDENT VOICE) points out, "Bloodletting as form; murder as fashion.  The ongoing campaign in Gaza by Israel’s Defence Forces continues without stalling and restriction.  But the burgeoning number of corpses is starting to become a challenge for the propaganda outlets:  How to justify it?  Fortunately for Israel, the United States, its unqualified defender, is happy to provide cover for murder covered in the sheath of self-defence."   CNN has explained, "The Gaza Strip is 'the most dangerous place' in the world to be a child, according to the executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund."  ABC NEWS quotes UNICEF's December 9th statement, ""The Gaza Strip is the most dangerous place in the world to be a child. Scores of children are reportedly being killed and injured on a daily basis. Entire neighborhoods, where children used to play and go to school have been turned into stacks of rubble, with no life in them."  NBC NEWS notes, "Strong majorities of all voters in the U.S. disapprove of President Joe Biden’s handling of foreign policy and the Israel-Hamas war, according to the latest national NBC News poll. The erosion is most pronounced among Democrats, a majority of whom believe Israel has gone too far in its military action in Gaza."  The slaughter continues.  It has displaced over 1 million people per the US Congressional Research Service.  Jessica Corbett (COMMON DREAMS) points out, "Academics and legal experts around the world, including Holocaust scholars, have condemned the six-week Israeli assault of Gaza as genocide."   The death toll of Palestinians in Gaza is grows higher and higher.  United Nations Women noted, "More than 1.9 million people -- 85 per cent of the total population of Gaza -- have been displaced, including what UN Women estimates to be nearly 1 million women and girls. The entire population of Gaza -- roughly 2.2 million people -- are in crisis levels of acute food insecurity or worse."  THE NATIONAL notes, "Gaza death toll reaches 36,379 killed and 82,407 wounded."   Months ago,  AP  noted, "About 4,000 people are reported missing."  February 7th, Jeremy Scahill explained on DEMOCRACY NOW! that "there’s an estimated 7,000 or 8,000 Palestinians missing, many of them in graves that are the rubble of their former home."  February 5th, the United Nations' Phillipe Lazzarini Tweeted:

  



April 11th, Sharon Zhang (TRUTHOUT) reported, "In addition to the over 34,000 Palestinians who have been counted as killed in Israel’s genocidal assault so far, there are 13,000 Palestinians in Gaza who are missing, a humanitarian aid group has estimated, either buried in rubble or mass graves or disappeared into Israeli prisons.  In a report released Thursday, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said that the estimate is based on initial reports and that the actual number of people missing is likely even higher."
 

As for the area itself?  Isabele Debre (AP) reveals, "Israel’s military offensive has turned much of northern Gaza into an uninhabitable moonscape. Whole neighborhoods have been erased. Homes, schools and hospitals have been blasted by airstrikes and scorched by tank fire. Some buildings are still standing, but most are battered shells."  Kieron Monks (I NEWS) reports, "More than 40 per cent of the buildings in northern Gaza have been damaged or destroyed, according to a new study of satellite imagery by US researchers Jamon Van Den Hoek from Oregon State University and Corey Scher at the City University of New York. The UN gave a figure of 45 per cent of housing destroyed or damaged across the strip in less than six weeks. The rate of destruction is among the highest of any conflict since the Second World War."




The following sites updated:



Congressman Greg Casar Delivers $1M for San Antonio College’s Empowerment Center Expansion

 

NEWS: Congressman Greg Casar Delivers $1M for San Antonio College’s Empowerment Center Expansion

May 30, 2024

SAN ANTONIO – Today, Congressman Greg Casar (D-Texas) joined San Antonio College (SAC) leaders, students, faculty, and staff to celebrate his office securing $1 million for the Empowerment Center in this year’s Congressional budget.

The $1 million in federal funds earmarked by the Congressman will be used by San Antonio College to build the new Empowerment Center to provide more low-income, at-risk, adult learners access to higher education. The Empowerment Center makes sure that veterans, immigrants, and working-class San Antonians can enroll and succeed at SAC. The investment will allow for all programs and services to be offered within the facility, creating a “one-stop shop” for non-traditional students to reach their educational goals.

“No matter who you are or where you come from, you should be able to get a great education in San Antonio,” said Congressman Greg Casar (D-Texas). “The $1 million investment in San Antonio College’s Empowerment Center will help get everyone — from our veterans, to our Dreamers, to our foster youth — what they need to learn.” 

“People considering a return to education are an often-overlooked segment of our population,” said Dr. Francisco Solis, interim president of San Antonio College. “This new funding will help us strengthen our ability to meet the unique challenges these returning students face and enable us to provide the tailored support they need.” 

“I am consistently impressed by the thoughtfulness of San Antonio College – from the creation of the Victory Center for Veterans back in 2015, to this expansion of the Empowerment Center we are celebrating today,” said State Senator José Menéndez (District 26). “This investment in the Empowerment Center is another example of our community’s commitment to one another. I look forward to the continued growth and empowerment of our community through investments in the Alamo Colleges.”

"Investing in education is investing in our future," said San Antonio Councilwoman Dr. Sukh Kaur (District 1). "It’s crucial that our local, state and federal governments collaborate with our educators to continue to provide equitable educational opportunities for all our residents. Excited to see the Empowerment Center in action." 

This federal funding was made possible through the Community Project Funding process for the Fiscal Year 2024 spending bills. San Antonio College applied for the grant through Casar’s office last year. It was approved in the first round of the appropriations government funding packages that passed the U.S. House on March 6 and signed by President Joe Biden on March 9, 2024.

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Tlaib Statement on Targeting of WSU Students

 

Tlaib Statement on Targeting of WSU Students

May 31, 2024

DETROIT — Today, Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (MI-12) released the following statement:

“On May 23, 2024, Wayne State University students exercising their constitutional rights to protest set up a peaceful encampment on campus, calling for an end to the University’s investments in weapons manufacturers and the Israeli government’s ongoing genocide in Gaza and greater transparency from the University.

“As the ACLU of Michigan has noted, the peaceful assembly of tents in public areas is a form of expression entitled to significant constitutional protection. Our federal courts have repeatedly affirmed that universities are at the center of American intellectual life, where engaging with student activism and differing viewpoints is an essential part of the university experience. All students deserve equal access to education, free from discrimination—including censorship. Schools have a responsibility to keep students protected from violence—including police violence. Accordingly, schools regulating student protests should limit their actions to protecting students from real violence and discrimination—not concocting flimsy excuses to censor speech that embarrasses university administrators.

“Despite repeated militarized police threats and intimidation and the refusal of University President Kimberly A. Espy to come to the encampment to meet publicly with students about their demands, the encampment continued to exist peacefully for a week as students, faculty, and community members came together in solidarity. 

“On May 30, 2024, despite no real threat to public safety, Wayne State police violently invaded and dismantled the peaceful protest, assaulting and arresting students and other demonstrators, including ripping a hijab off of a young woman’s head and violating her religious freedom. This action has the clear intent of discriminating against certain students based on their viewpoint, and is overtly designed to chill free expression on campus, contradicting the University’s claimed interests in welcoming free speech and student protest. Unfortunately, in light of Wayne State Chief of Police Anthony Holt’s 2019 propaganda trip to Israel where he received training from Israeli security forces and later wrote of ‘sharing law enforcement strategies’ with the genocidal Israeli regime, this violent and unnecessary raid targeting Palestinian solidarity under false pretenses is hardly surprising. This shameful action is a stain on the University, Chief Holt, and is a disturbing beginning to President Espy’s tenure. 

“Metro Detroit and Wayne State have a long history of anti-war activism and Palestinian solidarity. More than two-thirds of Detroit-area residents across all ideological lines say they support a permanent ceasefire and de-escalation of violence in Gaza. President Espy, Chief Holt, and Wayne State cannot arrest their way out of meaningful engagement with students about their demands. People of conscience and principle are not so easily deterred. 

“It is not too late for Wayne State to take responsibility and right these wrongs. The University must stop referring to its own students utilizing public areas of its campus as occupiers and trespassers, acknowledge its mistake in violently dispersing a peaceful protest, and commit to resolving the students’ demands through negotiation and not police repression. President Espy can begin to make amends by meeting with students on their terms to have a meaningful, transparent, and honest dialogue about the University’s investments in war and genocide.”

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Congresswoman Bush Statement Calls for Justice Alito to Resign

 May 24, 2024

Congresswoman Bush Statement Calls for Justice Alito to Resign

 

Washington, D.C. (May 24, 2024) — Congresswoman Cori Bush (MO-01), a member of the House Judiciary Committee, released the following statement calling for the resignation of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. 

“It is appalling that Justice Alito and his wife showed public support for the Stop the Steal movement in the days after the January 6th insurrection– while the Court was ruling on a 2020 election case–and as recently as 2023. This scandal is just the latest example of the longstanding corruption of the right-wing justices. The myth of the impartiality of these justices has been dealt yet another blow. At minimum, Justice Alito should recuse himself from all cases related to the 2020 election, the Senate Judiciary Committee should investigate, and depending on the facts, there should be an impeachment inquiry, as is true for Justice Thomas and his scandals. But both Justices Alito and Thomas can spare themselves, the federal judiciary, and our country from further humiliation by resigning now. 

“The corruption of the Supreme Court affects all of us. In the next month, the Court—including its pro-insurrection wing—will rule on access to medication abortion, the rights of unhoused people, and Trump’s claims of immunity against prosecution in connection with January 6th. Their lack of neutrality has been so irrefutably documented that if Congress genuinely wants to restore public confidence in the judiciary, it must remove lawless justices, enact ethics reform, expand the Court, and institute term limits.”

On May 16, 2024, it was revealed that an inverted U.S. flag flew outside the Virginia home of Justice Samuel Alito and his wife, Martha-Ann Alito, in the days after the January 6th insurrection. The inverted flag was a prominent symbol of support for Donald Trump’s discredited and unlawful attempt to overturn the 2020 election, and was displayed by rioters who stormed the Capitol. During the time the inverted flag was flown at Justice Alito’s home, the Supreme Court was considering whether to hear a 2020 election case; Justice Alito, along with Justices Thomas and Gorsuch, supported the position of Trump and the Pennsylvania Republican Party. 

On May 22, 2024, it was revealed that an “Appeal to Heaven” flag was flown outside the New Jersey home of Justice Alito and Martha-Ann Alito in July and September 2023. The “Appeal to Heaven” flag was also a prominent symbol of support for Trump and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, and was similarly displayed by January 6 rioters.

The Supreme Court is currently hearing two cases directly related to Trump’s election subversion efforts, including whether he should receive immunity from prosecution.

In April 2023, Congresswoman Bush called for the impeachment of Justice Clarence Thomas after a barrage of ethics scandals. Last year, Congresswoman Bush, alongside Senators Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), Tina Smith (D-Minn.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Representatives Jerrold Nadler (NY-12), Hank Johnson (GA-04), and Adam Schiff (CA-30), introduced the Judiciary Act of 2023, legislation that would expand the Supreme Court by adding four seats to create a 13-Justice bench.

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Senator Baldwin Brings Home $3.4 Million for Wisconsin Communities to Upgrade Parks and Trails

 05.31.2024

Senator Baldwin Brings Home $3.4 Million for Wisconsin Communities to Upgrade Parks and Trails

Federal investments will make parks and trails safer and more accessible, boost tourism

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) announced she helped deliver over $3.4 million for Wisconsin communities to upgrade parks, trails, and outdoor recreational spaces. The Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) State and Local Assistance Program helps build, renovate, and protect parks and recreation facilities. The LWCF was fully and permanently funded by the Baldwin-backed Great American Outdoors Act in 2020.

“Our parks and public lands are shared spaces for Wisconsinites to get outdoors, congregate, and exercise. They bring tourists to our state and boost our local economies. And investing in them is an investment in our communities’ health, wellness, and futures,” said Senator Baldwin. “I was proud to help secure these investments for Wisconsin communities to upgrade their parks and trails, making these spaces more accessible and safer for families and neighbors to enjoy.”

The following projects received federal funding from the LWCF program:

Southeastern Wisconsin

Pewaukee – $488,900 for the City of Pewaukee to design and construct a fully accessible facility for users of all ages and abilities at Pewaukee Sports Complex – a public park. The project will include walkways, concrete picnic area, shade structures, splashpad, playground, curb, drinking fountains, and landscaping.

Milwaukee – $1,194,250 to support improvements at Lincoln Playfield in Milwaukee, including a 9.3-mile Riverwalk, picnic areas, restored riverfront habitat, soccer field, renovated basketball and tennis courts, improved lighting, and new walking loops, shade structures, and spectating areas.

Village of Thiensville – $207,000 for the Village of Thiensville to update old tennis courts at Village Park including reconstruction and repaving, fencing, lighting, bike racks, and landscaping. 

South Central Wisconsin

Stoughton – $111,200 to improve river recreational use along the Yahara River. The improvements will update the river corridor within Mandt Park with a multi-use pedestrian trail, two canoe and kayak launches, and parking improvements.

Village of Windsor – $111,200 for the Village of Windsor to connect two segments of asphalt path by constructing a 12-foot wide, approximately 600 feet long boardwalk. Once completed the boardwalk will provide a safe, continuous route for residents to connect to a larger trail and path system, including the Upper Yahara River Trail.

Western Wisconsin

Ladysmith – $36,400 for the City of Ladysmith to construct an accessible walkway and bicycle trail at OJ Falge Park.

Village of New Auburn – $226,960 for the Village of New Auburn to construct a new trail and restrooms at Village Park.

Village of Dickeyville – $250,000 for the Village of Dickeyville to develop new and update older facilities at its Community Park, including a splash pad and playscape area and updates of the existing shelter and restrooms.

Northern Wisconsin

Park Falls – $280,750 to aid in the design and construction of a city park expansion at Old Abe Memorial Park including concrete connecting walkways and landscaping site amenities such as picnic tables, and benches.

Northeastern Wisconsin

Village of Hortonville – $501,200 to aid in the design and construction of a splash pad, playground, plaza, and walkways in Alonzo Park on the shore of Black Otter Lake.

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Senator Murray Visits Maddie’s Place Recovery Nursery in Spokane, Discusses Her Work on Opioid Recovery for Moms, Babies

 

Senator Murray Visits Maddie’s Place Recovery Nursery in Spokane, Discusses Her Work on Opioid Recovery for Moms, Babies 

Murray, former HELP Committee Chair, negotiated and passed landmark opioid legislation in 2018; This year Murray secured $4.6 billion in federal funding to support substance use disorder treatment and recovery programs

ICYMI: Senator Murray Introduces Bipartisan Legislation to Reauthorize Important Substance Use Disorder Prevention Programs for Pregnant and Postpartum Women

Senator Murray: “This crisis doesn’t just affect individuals, it hurts entire communities—and entire families, right down to newborns who were exposed to opioids in the womb.”

***PHOTOS AND B-ROLL from visit HERE***

Spokane, WA – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), a senior member and former Chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), visited Maddie’s Place, a non-profit recovery nursery for babies experiencing withdrawal due to prenatal substance exposure. Maddie’s Place provides holistic, multi-disciplinary medical and non-medical care for infants with prenatal substance exposure and their mothers—bringing babies safely through their withdrawal, facilitating early bonding, mitigating the long-term effects suffered by children with in-utero substance exposure, and offering support to mothers struggling with substance use. Maddie’s Place is one of only four transitional care nurseries in the country.

During the visit, Senator Murray toured the nurseries and private recovery rooms at Maddie’s Place and heard from both staff and mothers living there with their babies about the support and resources Maddie’s Place offers to mothers and babies, and the successes of this model of care. After the tour, Senator Murray held a roundtable discussion with Maddie’s Place staff, nurses, and parents at the facility to hear more about the organization and discuss the importance of federal funding for substance use disorder treatment and how Senator Murray can support the work happening at Maddie’s Place at the federal level. Murray was joined for the discussion by Shaun Cross, President/CEO of Maddie’s Place; Dr. Randi Edwards, Medical Director; Tricia Hughes, Founder and Clinical Coordinator; Kim Dunham, Director of Family Advocacy; as well as Washington State Representative Marcus Riccelli (LD-3).

“Maddie’s Place is meeting a really important need in Spokane—when I first heard about what they were doing here to support babies born with neonatal abstinence syndrome, and their mothers, I knew I had to visit and see it firsthand,” said Senator Murray. “The opioid crisis has been devastating for our state—and even as overdose deaths decreased nationally last year, Washington state saw a 25 percent increase. This crisis doesn’t just affect individuals, it hurts entire communities—and entire families, right down to newborns who were exposed to opioids in the womb. I’ve been focused on supporting those on the front lines of the opioid crisis for a long time, from passing major investments through my role on the Appropriations Committee to negotiating bipartisan bills that improve treatment, prevention, and recovery support. Helping babies facing neonatal abstinence syndrome is crucial to this work—they are the youngest victims of the opioid epidemic and I am determined to make sure we don’t overlook their needs as we build on our work to tackle this crisis.”

“We’re incredibly honored to host Senator Patty Murray for a tour and roundtable at Maddie’s Place. Senator Murray’s visit aligns with her historic passion for infants, young children and families. The Senator’s visit will focus attention on the plight of the thousands of infants who are born dependent on drugs and their parents who are trying to rebuild their lives,” said Shaun Cross, President and CEO of Maddie’s Place. “The current fentanyl crisis requires Federal resources and Senator Murray’s visit is an important step toward assisting these babies and their moms and dads.”

As Chair of the Appropriations Committee, Murray has made securing additional federal resources to help combat the opioid crisis a top priority, and in spending bills she negotiated and got signed into law in March, Murray was able to secure $4.6 billion to support substance use disorder treatment and recovery programs, despite tough budget caps. This came alongside millions in Congressionally Directed Spending for community-level substance use disorder treatment programs and care clinics across Washington state.

In previous government funding legislation signed into law in December 2022, Senator Murray secured the inclusion of a mental health and substance use disorder package she negotiated to bolster states’ response efforts to address the opioid epidemic and increase access to substance use disorder treatment and naloxone for overdose reversal, among other things. Also in that legislation, Murray secured an additional $345 million—for a total of $5 billion—to address the opioid epidemic. In the annual funding bill before that, Murray secured a $300 million boost for the Department of Health and Human Services’ work to address substance use disorders, by funding State Opioid Response Grants, overdose prevention work at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, among many other things.

Murray has a long bipartisan record on this issue—most notably, the top Democrat on the HELP Committee in the 115th Congress, Murray negotiated and got passed into law landmark legislation to tackle the opioid crisis—the SUPPORT Act. Senator Murray is currently working with HELP Chair Bernie Sanders (I-VT) to reauthorize the SUPPORT Act, and she is leading the push to reauthorize key prenatal and postnatal health initiatives she helped establish in the original legislation.

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New Issue of BlackCommentator.com - Special Edition - Donald Trump’s Conviction Is a Reminder of Many Things

Special Edition of The Black Commentator
Trump Convicted
More coming soon

Read Special Edition_Issue_1003_Part 1
 
  May 30, 2024

Read Special Edition_Issue_1003_Part 1



 



The Black Commenentator | P.O. Box 2635A weekly publication dedicated to economic justice, social justice and peace.,
Tarpon Springs, FL 34688-2635

Iraq snapshot

Friday, May 31, 2024.  Cry baby Jonathan Turley stomps his feet over Donald Trump's 34 felony convictions, crooked Samuel Alito refuses to behave in an ethical manner, the assault on Gaza continues, and much more.



 


That's the biggest news around the globe today: Donald Trump convicted on 34 felony charges.  We sarted with PBS's THE NEWSHOUR but there was a lot of strong coverage and that certainly includes Roland S. Martin's coverage.   




Noting racist Megyn Kelly's airhead Tweet, Roland responds back, "No, you'll will rue the day when you support a person for president who broke the law before he was elected, broke the law while he was president, broke the law afterwards."  

You know this is big news when you read Joanthan Turley's emotional break down on Twitter.  Donalds concubine snuck into The Federalist Society in part due to family issues  and has stayed there as Donald's most devoted of love slaves.  

Witness the same Jonathan Turley who refuses to call out or even address the vast corruption of Clarence Thomas in the last 12 months or the more recent conflicts of interests issues that Samuel Alito has found the time to attack the verdict of a 12 person jury.  That's at the heart of our democracy: Jury verdicts.

But Turley is losing his s**t over a jury verdict due to the fact that it -- repeatedly -- found Donald guilty.


The jury, composed of 12 Manhattan residents, found that Trump illegally falsified business records to cover up a $130,000 payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election. They found him guilty on all counts on their second day of deliberations.

The presumptive Republican nominee for president is now also a convicted felon, a label that could reverberate across the electorate in the months between now and Election Day in November.

The verdict was handed down in the same Manhattan courtroom where Trump has been on trial for the past six weeks. Trump stared at each juror as they confirmed their vote to convict and angrily denounced the decision in the hallway outside the courtroom, vowing to fight the conviction.

Jurors sided with prosecutors who said that Trump authorized the plan to falsify checks and related records in an effort to prevent voters from learning of an alleged sexual encounter with Daniels. Prosecutors from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office said the conspiracy spanned his 2016 campaign and continued well into his first year in the White House. Trump denied having sex with Daniels and pleaded not guilty.


Among the conclusions the jury made?  No one is above the law.  We should all be applauding that.


Donald insisted after the verdict was declared, "The real verdict is going to be November 5th by the people."

No, Donald, that was the real verdict.

12 Americans did their civic duty and served on a jury and listened to the arguments and examined the evidence.  After that, they came to a conclusion: Guilty on all counts.

That's a functioning democracy.  

Possibly that enrages Donald so much because overturning our democracy is what he is all about -- whether initiating the January 6th attempt at a coup to overthrow our republic (a crime that he's yet to stand trial for but a crime that can result in execution because that's treason) or his plans to go after people if he's put back into the White House.  Donald and his wounded ego can't tolerate a fair society.

Donald has now been convicted by a jury and that moment in history will never go away.  He could be elected in November and pardon himself and that verdict will remain a part of history.  He could try to find a judge willing to spit on democracy, on the 12 Americans who served on the jury, on justice and that disgusting person might overturn the conviction.  But we all know it happened.

And we all know -- even Donald -- that it was an accurate verdict.

On the topic of justice, let's not be Jonathan Turley burying our head's up Donald Trump's ass.  No, let's note that awful Alito.  In "Sameue Alito is a crook,"  Betty observed:




Alito is crooked and he's disgusting.  John Fritze (CNN) reports:


Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito told lawmakers in a letter Wednesday that he will not recuse from cases involving the 2020 presidential election or the January 6, 2021, US Capitol riot despite concerns about two controversial flags that have flown on his properties.

“The two incidents you cite do not meet the conditions for recusal,” Alito wrote in a letter distributed by the Supreme Court. “As I have stated publicly, I had nothing whatsoever to do with the flying of that flag. I was not even aware of the upside-down flag until it was called to my attention.”

The letter is a highly unusual response, underscoring how the revelations about the flags have dogged Alito for days. Supreme Court justices rarely get into a back-and-forth with lawmakers and many members of the court do not explain their reasons for recusing – or not.     


No, you stupid sack of s**t.  Your thoughts don't matter.  It's how it appears to the public.  If there's the appearance of a possible conflict of interest, it is your job to recuse yourself.  Failure to do so damages the Court's reputation and destroys the trust in the institution.


You're are full of garbage and you are a crook.


He is full of garbage.

His role is not just to render a vote on the bench.  His job also includes preserving and stregthening the public's trust in the Supreme Court.


He is part of the erosion of that trust. 


He and his wife have behaved very poorly in public.  He may honestly believe that his own personal opinions will not influence him.  Let's pretend that for a moment.  

There is the appearance of a conflict of interest.  As someone in one of the most important positions in the country, his obligation is not just to avoid a conflict of interest, it is to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest.  He's not some nut job on SURVIVOR.  He's sitting on the highest court in the land.

He has to recuse.

His refusal to do so shows not only does he disrespect the Court itself but that he also disrespects the Amreican people.

This is outrageous behavior and, yes, it is impeachable behavior.  

He needs to recuse from the case or leave the bench.

And no American owes him the benefit of the doubt regarding his ability to rule without his personal advocacy influencing him.  He said ROE V WADE was settled law to gt on the Supreme Court.  Once he was on the Court?  He overturns it with DOBBS.

After that it is his obligation to demonstrate that he believes in the rule of law.  But he doesn't.  He's a sick wack job who has this bastardization of 'faith' which allows him to insert his nutty views and beliefs above the law.  He took an oath to uphold the Constitution and now we find he's part of some secret freaky cult and he believes that trumps the Constitution.  He needs to be removed from the  bench.

Right now, sadly, that's not going to happen.  But an effort could take place next year.  If he gave a damn about the American people, he would have been using this year to earn their trust.  But he doesn't give a damn about the American people and he's fine with them knowing that he and his wife supported the insurrection attempt and that he's not going to recuse himself from those cases.

Chris Walker (TRUTHOUT) reports on Alito's refusal to recuse:

Alito started his letter by sharing portions of the Code of Conduct for the Supreme Court, which states that justices should disqualify or recuse themselves if their “impartiality might reasonably be questioned” or if there was “doubt that the Justice could fairly discharge his or her duties.”

Alito then claimed that news about controversial flags outside his homes didn’t rise to that standard. He went on to write that “an unbiased and reasonable person” would come to the same conclusion he did, and blamed his wife for flying the emblems. Notably, Alito’s explanations are hearsay — he doesn’t offer any proof for his claims other than his own words. 

[. . .]

[Senator Dick] Durbin, who chairs the Judiciary Committee, responded to Alito’s letter by stating that it “clearly demonstrates why the Supreme Court needs an enforceable code of conduct.”

“Flying the American flag upside down at his home is a signal of defiance, which raises reasonable questions about bias and fairness in cases pending before the Court,” Durbin said, adding that Chief Justice John Roberts could “end this spiraling decline in America’s confidence in our highest Court by taking decisive action to establish a credible code of conduct.”

Alito’s excuses contradict comments he’s made on ethics standards in the past — during his 2006 confirmation hearings, Alito tried to sell himself to senators as going “beyond the letter of the ethics rules,” implying that he would “avoid any situation where there might be an ethical question raised.”

Others said that Alito’s excuses were unconvincing.

“It absolutely defies common sense and credibility,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut) said in response to Alito’s letter, describing his words as a “flimsy excuse.”

“This is not a persuasive voice of the ‘reasonable person.’ No justice should be the judge in his own recusal case,” Wendy Weiser, vice president for Democracy at the Brennan Center for Justice, said on social media.


On Donald's convictions, Jacob Crosse (WSWS) notes:


In a statement issued after the conviction, Socialist Equality Party candidate for US President Joseph Kishore called the jury’s decision “appropriate” and added, “Many will welcome this verdict as the long overdue blow to a political monster, who has gotten what he deserved. But it would be a mistake to take the symptom, Trump, for the cause of the crisis of American democracy.

“The very fact that a fascist like Trump could rise to the top of American politics expresses a profound degradation of democratic forms of rule, which have been hollowed out by decades of unending war and ever-rising social inequality. Even if Trump were to be removed as a candidate for president as a result of his conviction, whoever follows him in the Republican Party would be someone no less reactionary.”


At COMMON DREAMS, Brett Wilkins notes some reaction to the verdict including the following:

Susan Lerner, executive director of Common Cause New York, asserted that "this case was always about hiding key information from voters, and now a jury of the former president's peers have confirmed that he lied to the public by falsifying business records in order to influence the outcome of the 2016 election."

"This is a felony punishable with jail time or probation, and just like anyone else convicted of the same crime, we expect him to be sentenced accordingly," Lerner added. "We thank the jury—whom Mr. Trump and his lawyers helped to select—for doing their civic duty, and trust that the public will accept their decision as well as their right to privacy. Respect for the rule of law is the foundation of our democracy, but so is public trust in the process."

Sean Eldridge, founder and president of Stand Up America, said in a statement that "today's verdict reaffirms that no one is above the law in the United States of America, including a former president."

"Falsification of business records is a serious crime, and Trump is finally being held accountable like any other American would," he continued. "This verdict is not just about 'hush money payments.' It's about an illegal attempt to hide the truth from voters just days before the 2016 election, and it's part of Trump's clear pattern of doing anything—including breaking the law—in order to cling to power."

"Despite this monumental verdict, one trial isn't going to keep Trump out of the White House," Eldridge added. "The jurors have done their duty, and now it's up to the American people to protect our democracy by holding Trump accountable at the ballot box and ensuring that a convicted fraudster never steps foot in the Oval Office again." 


It's Friday and we have a new column at COUNTERPUNCH by Jeffrey St. Clair.  This is from his "Who By Fire? The Burning of Rafah’s Tent People:"

People were saying their evening prayers when the IDF attacked the refuge camp at Tel al-Sultan in southern Gaza, where thousands had fled from the Israeli invasion of Rafah. They were told by the Israelis this was a safe zone, a secure place to shelter their children and grandparents. 

“For your safety, the Israeli Defense Force is asking you to leave these areas immediately and to go to known shelters in Deir el Balah or the humanitarian area in Tel al-Sultan through Beach Road,” read one of the leaflets dropped in Rafah a few days before. “Don’t blame us after we warned you.”

The safe zone was a tent city amid the dunes–one of dozens scattered along more than 16 kilometers up the Gaza coast. The tents were made of plastic, which whipped and frayed in the coastal winds–a thin layer of protection against the sun and sand that soon turned into a death trap. 

The lure of safety was the only thing Tel al-Sultan had going for it. The conditions in the camp were wretched. Thousands of starving people crammed together with little fresh water, meager rations, few toilets and nothing much to do except scavenge the beach for scraps of food, dig pit toilets in the sand and pray that someone will intervene to put an end to the war.

When the Israeli bombs strafed the safe zone, the plastic tents caught fire, sending flames leaping two meters high, before the melting, blazing structures collapsed on the people inside, many of them children who’d just been tucked in for the evening. 

There was no water to put the flames out. No firetrucks to stop the inferno. No ambulances to rush the wounded to the hospital. No functioning hospital to treat the burned and the maimed.

At least 45 people, most of them women and children, were killed and nearly 300 injured with shrapnel wounds, burns, fractures and traumatic brain injuries.

“No single health facility in Gaza can handle a mass casualty event such as this one,” said Samuel Johann of Médecins Sans Frontières. “The health system has been decimated and cannot cope any longer.”

The attack came two days after the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to halt its military operations in Gaza, open the border crossings so food, water and medicine could reach the starving Palestinians and allow human rights investigators into the Strip. This malicious act of defiance against the edicts of international law occurred on the same day Israeli tanks entered the central region of Rafah in what the Israelis had basely billed as a “limited military operation.” In the first 48 hours after the ICJ ruling, Israel bombed Rafah at least 60 times.

Tel al-Sultan in western Rafah is an official displacement camp, so designated by the Israelis. The Israelis called it: “Block 2371.” It is located next to UN aid warehouses. Desperate Palestinian families were told they would be safe here. Then the Israelis set it on fire, claiming they were targeting two Hamas operatives. The IDF said it didn’t think civilians would be harmed when it bombed the refuge camp it had told civilians to flee to. 

Disingenuousness is the IDF’s calling card these days. Yet after one massacre after another, perhaps only the Biden administration believes it. Most Israelis don’t. Some prominent Israelis cheered the burning of civilians. The Israeli TV journalist and newspaper columnist Yinon Magal posted a video of the burning refugee camp with the caption: “The central bonfire this year in Rafah”–a reference to the traditional bonfires for the Jewish holiday of Lag Ba’Ome.

“I lost five family members,” said Majed al-Attar of the “bonfire.” “We were sitting in tents when suddenly the camp was bombed. I lost five family members, all burned completely.  Among the victims were pregnant women. They kept telling us this area was safe until we were bombed.”



Let's drop back to yesterday for this from DEMOCRACY NOW!



NERMEEN SHAIKH: Early last week, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court made headlines around the world when he announced he was seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on war crimes charges over the assault on Gaza. In his official announcement, Karim Khan also issued a warning.

KARIM KHAN: It is critical, in this moment, that my office and all parts of the court continue to conduct our work with full independence and impartiality. And I insist that all attempts to impede, to intimidate or to improperly influence the officials of this court cease immediately.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Khan did not specify what he was referring to regarding attempts to intimidate the court or interfere with its work. But a joint investigation by _The Guardian and the Israeli news outlet +972 this week reveals how Israel has run an almost decadelong secret war against the ICC in an attempt to derail the court from filing war crimes charges against Israeli officials.

The report details how Israel surveilled, hacked, smeared and threatened top ICC officials, including Khan and his predecessor, Fatou Bensouda. The investigation reveals that the former head of the Israeli Mossad, Yossi Cohen, personally threatened Bensouda, telling her, quote, “You should help us and let us take care of you. You don’t want to be getting into things that could compromise your security or that of your family,” end-quote.

The news outlets also report that Netanyahu took a close interest in the intelligence operations against the ICC and was described by one intelligence source as being, quote, “obsessed” with the intercepts about the case.

AMY GOODMAN: The Israeli newspaper Haaretz today reports they were about to publish details about the Israeli intelligence operations against the ICC two years ago, but an Israeli security official blocked publication. The Haaretz reporter Gur Megiddo writes he was summoned to the office of an Israeli security official and was told if he published the story, he would, quote, “suffer the consequences and get to know the interrogation rooms of the Israeli security authorities from the inside,” end-quote.

The arrest warrants sought by the ICC against Netanyahu and Gallant include “starvation of civilians as a method of warfare” and “extermination” of Palestinians in Gaza.

Our first guest, Kenneth Roth, has a column in The Guardian newspaper published yesterday that begins, “I should not be surprised at the lawlessness of a government that bombs and starves Palestinian civilians in Gaza, but I was still shocked by the shamelessness of Israel’s efforts to subvert the international criminal court’s investigation of its war crimes.”

Ken Roth joins us here in our New York studio. He’s a visiting professor at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, served for nearly three decades as the executive director of Human Rights Watch.

Ken, welcome back to Democracy Now!

KENNETH ROTH: Good to be back.

AMY GOODMAN: So, let’s talk about the significance of this exposé. Yossi Cohen, head of Mossad, the intelligence agency, extremely close to Netanyahu, for 10 years leading this campaign to stop the ICC from bringing charges, can you talk about the significance of this and how it affected what Fatou Bensouda did, the previous ICC chief, and then Karim Khan?

KENNETH ROTH: Well, first, this is a crime. Karim Khan made that clear. I mean, when he issued that notice that any effort to intimidate or retaliate against prosecutorial staff will be an obstruction of justice, in essence, I thought he was referring to Republican senators who had threatened severe sanctions if Israeli officials are charged. But he clearly also had in mind what the Israeli Mossad had been doing, mainly to his predecessor.

Now, what’s interesting is the Israelis clearly misjudged Fatou Bensouda. One person is quoted as saying they thought of her as, you know, basically, merely Black and African, so who cares? — as they put it. But she is a tough woman. And she resisted, you know, these threats to her family, a sting operation against her husband. And she didn’t have to after that point, because the court authorized the investigation to go forward in February 2021, near the end of Bensouda’s term in June 2021. So, she could have just sat on it and let Karim Khan, her successor, take over. She didn’t. She actually opened the investigation a month later. And so, this really speaks to her bravery. And this effort backfired.

Now, I think the most significant ongoing effect of this, if we think back last week, Antony Blinken, the U.S. secretary of state, his main argument against Karim Khan charging Netanyahu and Gallant is what’s known as the principle of complementarity. That’s a rule under the court statute that the court should defer to genuine, good-faith national prosecutions. And Blinken basically said, “Israel’s got a, you know, sophisticated legal system. Let them handle it.”

What this shows is that this whole thing is a sham, that the Israeli investigations are not about securing justice, they’re about obstructing justice. And we’ve heard about this for years from B’Tselem, for example, the leading Israeli human rights group, that calls these whitewash investigations. You know, whenever there’s some incident and there’s international outrage, Israel announces an investigation. You then never hear anything further. But the announcement of the investigation pushes things off. They did something very similar with the ICC. They would listen in to what Bensouda or Khan were looking at, and they would say, “Aha, they’re interested in that incident? That’s” —

AMY GOODMAN: You mean they would eavesdrop.

KENNETH ROTH: Yes, they would eavesdrop. They would, you know, hack. And they would — so, they learned that the ICC prosecutor was interested in an incident, and they would start an investigation. And they would then send somebody in to The Hague, to the prosecutor’s office, and say, “You don’t need to look at this. We’ve got an investigation going.” And it sounded as if they were on top of it all. But, in fact, these were purely reactive investigations. They were not good-faith investigations. And I think that this whole hacking and surveillance and threatening incident gives the lie to Blinken’s argument that Karim Khan should defer to Israeli justice efforts. These are not good-faith justice efforts. These are cover-up efforts.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Ken, if you could just put this in the context of — I mean, why would Israel go to such extraordinary lengths to compromise the International Criminal Court? If you could give us some background, because does the International Criminal Court have any enforcement mechanism? What is the symbolic weight of decisions taken by the court? If you could place this in the broader context of what decisions and investigations and prosecutions the ICC has launched and made before, and explain in that context why Israel has done this decadelong attempt to subvert the court’s work?

KENNETH ROTH: Well, the International Criminal Court is the world’s leading war crimes tribunal, in essence. And nobody wants to be charged with war crimes or crimes against humanity, you know, as both Netanyahu and Gallant are about to be done, because the prosecutor has requested arrest warrants based on, basically, starvation charges in Gaza. And, you know, no one wants that, first of all, because it means that if you travel to any ICC country, including all of Europe, including in more than a hundred governments around the world, they have a duty to arrest you and send you to The Hague for trial. So, you know, there are real consequences, and you can end up in prison. So, nobody wants that.

And that’s why Netanyahu was seen as obsessed with this, because, you know, it’s not as if what goes on in Gaza, or even in the West Bank, are low-level operations. These are very much directed from the top. You know, Netanyahu is commander-in-chief. And so, he understood his criminal liability. And he seemed determined, you know, not to change the conduct, not to say, “Oh my goodness, are we committing war crimes in Gaza? Let me stop that right away.” No, he just, you know, let it keep going and tried to obstruct the investigation that might lead to his prosecution for war crimes.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And if you could say — I mean, it was in 1998, July 1998, that the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court was adopted. The vote was 120 to 7. Twenty-one countries abstained. The seven countries that voted against the treaty were China, Iraq, Israel, Libya, Qatar, the U.S. and Yemen. And Israel’s opposition was reportedly stemming from the inclusion in the list of war crimes of, quote, “the action of transferring population into occupied territory.” And that’s effectively what’s happened.

KENNETH ROTH: Well, what we’re speaking to now is something that has been going on long before this Gaza war. The settlements are war crimes. They violate Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits an occupying power from transferring its population to occupied territory. And the ICC statute, the Rome Statute, codifies that crime. So, you know, Israel has been vulnerable to this charge. It still is vulnerable to this charge. I would like to see Karim Khan bring that charge at some stage, because it’s a straightforward case. You know, there’s no complicated facts behind it. It’s just happening out in the open. So, that is a vulnerability.

The U.S. opposed partly because of that, but also the U.S. was concerned with what’s known as territorial jurisdiction, the fact that the court has the power to prosecute somebody for crimes committed on the territory of a court member, even if the person’s own country has never ratified the court’s treaty. Now, the U.S. hated that because it could mean Americans are vulnerable. And indeed, there was an investigation that Fatou Bensouda opened in Afghanistan that threatened Bush-era torturers. But the U.S. gave up on that objection, because it was territorial jurisdiction that the court used to prosecute Putin in Ukraine, and Biden said that was justified. In fact, you know, Lindsey Graham, the leading Republican senator, led a unanimous resolution in the Senate that affirmed this use of territorial jurisdiction. So, that objection is gone.

They still say, “Oh, well, Palestine is not really a state.” But the court has addressed that already and said, you know, the U.N. General Assembly found it to be a nonmember observer state. That’s sufficient for it to ratify a whole host of human rights treaties that we should welcome, as well as the Rome Statute of the ICC. So, that objection is pretty much gone.

And that’s why Antony Blinken fell back on this principle of complementarity: You should defer to good-faith Israeli investigations. And what this latest Guardian/+972 investigation shows is there is no good-faith Israeli investigation. There is a concerted, high-level effort to undermine justice to protect Netanyahu, Gallant and others from war crime charges.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to go back to Karim Khan’s predecessor, Fatou Bensouda, who announced in 2019 that she intended to investigate alleged atrocities during Israel’s 2014 war in Gaza. She said at the time there was a, quote, “reasonable basis” to argue Israeli authorities are guilty of war crimes for relocating Israeli civilians into the West Bank to live in settlements.

FATOU BENSOUDA: I am satisfied, one, that war crimes have been or are being committed in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip; two, that potential cases arising from the situation would be admissible; and, hree, that there are no substantial reasons to believe that an investigation would not serve the interest of justice.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s Fatou Bensouda back in 2019. She opened this case in 2021. And I wanted to ask you more about her. The Guardian writes, quote, “As a Gambian national, she did not enjoy the political protection that other ICC colleagues from western countries had by virtue of their citizenship. A former ICC source said this left her 'vulnerable and isolated'.” They went after her husband. They went after her. And then I want to ask you about the president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, that The Guardian reported on, Joseph Kabila, and how they used him. This is an amazing meeting.

KENNETH ROTH: Well, first, Fatou Bensouda is a tough woman. I met with her numerous times. She is super professional. She is dedicated to justice. She knew she was facing threats. And she just persisted. And that’s really to her credit. I think the Israelis totally underestimated her. They thought that she could be pushed over with these threats, and it totally didn’t happen.

Now, Joseph Kabila, the Congolese president, is an interesting case. I’ve met with him multiple times. On the one hand, he handed over more suspects to the ICC than any other president in the world. So, he is somebody who Bensouda legitimately was meeting with. But the Mossad head, wanting to meet with Bensouda, knowing that she would not accept a meeting just like that, probably paid off Kabila. I mean, who knows? But Kabila is notoriously corrupt. And so, Bensouda is meeting with Kabila, and in pops the head of the Mossad, which Kabila authorized. They called it an “ambush.” And that was, you know, how the head of the Mossad set up an opportunity to communicate with Bensouda. And, you know, am I surprised that Kabila would do this? No. But that was the kind of underhanded methods that the Israeli Mossad chief used to try to begin the process of threatening Bensouda.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Wasn’t Kabila himself being investigated for war crimes or atrocities in war?

KENNETH ROTH: Well, I mean, Kabila was vulnerable for, you know, for example, his forces shooting at demonstrators when he was trying to hang on to the presidency beyond the end of his term. But, in fact, he was never the subject of a major ICC investigation. Those were mostly focused on groups in eastern Congo, where, you know, he was having — doing what he could to stop it. So, I don’t think he felt threatened by the ICC, and had a cooperative relationship with Bensouda.

AMY GOODMAN: And then, talk about what happened to Al-Haq and how they were eavesdropped on when they would relate to — this is the Ramallah-based human rights group —

KENNETH ROTH: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: — and ultimately being called a terrorist organization.

KENNETH ROTH: Yeah. Well, Al-Haq is a super respected Palestinian human rights group. I’ve worked with them for decades. In fact, I just did a webinar yesterday with its head. And they were communicating regularly with the ICC, because they have field operatives throughout the West Bank and Gaza. They would collect solid evidence, and they would pass it on to the ICC, because they wanted to see Israeli war crimes prosecuted.

The Israelis learned about this because they were monitoring Bensouda’s communications with all Palestinians. And essentially, in retaliation, the Israelis called Al-Haq and five of its colleague organizations terrorist organizations, a label that remains there to this day. Now, they haven’t actually shut them down, but it was the effort to say, “These are illegitimate groups. You know, don’t rely on them.” And it was a punishment of them, in essence, for cooperating with the ICC.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, Israel is intensifying its attack — so, if we could just go to what’s unfolding at the moment? Israel is intensifying its attack on the southern city of Rafah. On Tuesday, the White House said that Israel’s devastating airstrike on a tent camp for displaced Palestinians in Rafah does not cross President Biden’s so-called red line in Gaza. Sunday’s attack, which set off a fire in the camp, killed 45 Palestinians and injured over 200, mostly women and children. An investigation by CNN found Israel attacked the camp using munitions made in the United States by Boeing. White House national security spokesperson John Kirby was questioned Tuesday by Ed O’Keefe of CBS News.

ED O’KEEFE: How does this not violate the red line that the president laid out?

JOHN KIRBY: As I said, we don’t want to see a major ground operation. We haven’t seen that at this point.

ED O’KEEFE: How many more charred corpses does he have to see before the president considers a change in policy?

JOHN KIRBY: We don’t want to see a single more innocent life taken. And I kind of take a little offense at the question. No civilian casualties is the right number of civilian casualties. And this is not something that we’ve turned a blind eye to, nor has it been something we’ve ignored or neglected to raise with our Israeli counterparts, including, Ed, this weekend as a result of this particular strike. Now, they’re investigating it, so let’s let them investigate it and see what they come up with.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Ken, if you could respond to Kirby’s response, and then, overall, the Biden administration’s position on this and, in fact, on the ICC, which you referred to earlier?

KENNETH ROTH: Well, Biden seems to have an endlessly movable red line. And he, you know, rightly, at the rhetorical level, keeps pushing the Israeli government to allow in food and other humanitarian supplies, to take greater care not to harm Israeli civilians — it’s all the right thing to say. He never backs it up. The only consequence he’s imposed so far has been he did stop delivery of these huge 2,000-pound bombs that Israel was using to decimate entire neighborhoods, and he didn’t want that to happen in Rafah. So, that’s to his credit. But then he turned around and authorized $1 billion in additional arms sales to Israel. So, that really kind of undercut the message there.

They’ve been saying, you know, “We don’t want this Rafah operation to harm civilians.” But Israel has now chased 1 million, out of the 1.4 million Palestinians sheltering in Rafah, out of the city. And most of them are trying to survive on this beachfront camp with no food, no sanitation facilities, no medical aid, nothing. And it was near that area that this latest bomb that killed 45 people took place. But, you know, the International Court of Justice last week said these are horrendous conditions. You know, this is not a safe response to this Rafah military operation. But Biden is closing his eyes to that and says, “We haven’t seen any real problems yet.” You know, it’s proceeding. So the red line keeps moving.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And what do you think — finally, Ken, what do you think is going to come out of this investigation, The Guardian and +972 investigation, and revelations about what Israel did to subvert the work of the ICC?

KENNETH ROTH: Well, it will be interesting to see whether Karim Khan does in fact use Article 70 of the Rome Statute to prosecute, in essence, obstruction of justice. You know, the sense I got from his statement a week and a half ago was that he was not going to apply that retroactively, but if anything like this happens again, he would use it. I think the most significant effect will be that Israel is going to try to defend itself using this principle of complementarity, saying, “We’re investigating ourselves,” and I think the real effect of this investigation is to really undermine the credibility of any self-investigation claim.

AMY GOODMAN: Kenneth Roth, we want to thank you for being with us, visiting professor at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, served for nearly three decades as executive director of Human Rights Watch. We’ll link to your piece in The Guardian. It’s headlined “The ICC spying revelations show the Israeli government to be a lawless regime.”

Next up, the largest university in Canada files a request for police to clear a pro-Palestinian encampment. We’ll speak with one of the professors there and a Palestinian student from Gaza who’s part of the student negotiating team. Stay with us.



Gaza remains under assault. Day 238 of  the assault in the wave that began in October.  Binoy Kampmark (DISSIDENT VOICE) points out, "Bloodletting as form; murder as fashion.  The ongoing campaign in Gaza by Israel’s Defence Forces continues without stalling and restriction.  But the burgeoning number of corpses is starting to become a challenge for the propaganda outlets:  How to justify it?  Fortunately for Israel, the United States, its unqualified defender, is happy to provide cover for murder covered in the sheath of self-defence."   CNN has explained, "The Gaza Strip is 'the most dangerous place' in the world to be a child, according to the executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund."  ABC NEWS quotes UNICEF's December 9th statement, ""The Gaza Strip is the most dangerous place in the world to be a child. Scores of children are reportedly being killed and injured on a daily basis. Entire neighborhoods, where children used to play and go to school have been turned into stacks of rubble, with no life in them."  NBC NEWS notes, "Strong majorities of all voters in the U.S. disapprove of President Joe Biden’s handling of foreign policy and the Israel-Hamas war, according to the latest national NBC News poll. The erosion is most pronounced among Democrats, a majority of whom believe Israel has gone too far in its military action in Gaza."  The slaughter continues.  It has displaced over 1 million people per the US Congressional Research Service.  Jessica Corbett (COMMON DREAMS) points out, "Academics and legal experts around the world, including Holocaust scholars, have condemned the six-week Israeli assault of Gaza as genocide."   The death toll of Palestinians in Gaza is grows higher and higher.  United Nations Women noted, "More than 1.9 million people -- 85 per cent of the total population of Gaza -- have been displaced, including what UN Women estimates to be nearly 1 million women and girls. The entire population of Gaza -- roughly 2.2 million people -- are in crisis levels of acute food insecurity or worse."  THE NATIONAL notes, "Gaza death toll reaches 36,224 killed and 81,777 wounded."   Months ago,  AP  noted, "About 4,000 people are reported missing."  February 7th, Jeremy Scahill explained on DEMOCRACY NOW! that "there’s an estimated 7,000 or 8,000 Palestinians missing, many of them in graves that are the rubble of their former home."  February 5th, the United Nations' Phillipe Lazzarini Tweeted:

  



April 11th, Sharon Zhang (TRUTHOUT) reported, "In addition to the over 34,000 Palestinians who have been counted as killed in Israel’s genocidal assault so far, there are 13,000 Palestinians in Gaza who are missing, a humanitarian aid group has estimated, either buried in rubble or mass graves or disappeared into Israeli prisons.  In a report released Thursday, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said that the estimate is based on initial reports and that the actual number of people missing is likely even higher."
 

As for the area itself?  Isabele Debre (AP) reveals, "Israel’s military offensive has turned much of northern Gaza into an uninhabitable moonscape. Whole neighborhoods have been erased. Homes, schools and hospitals have been blasted by airstrikes and scorched by tank fire. Some buildings are still standing, but most are battered shells."  Kieron Monks (I NEWS) reports, "More than 40 per cent of the buildings in northern Gaza have been damaged or destroyed, according to a new study of satellite imagery by US researchers Jamon Van Den Hoek from Oregon State University and Corey Scher at the City University of New York. The UN gave a figure of 45 per cent of housing destroyed or damaged across the strip in less than six weeks. The rate of destruction is among the highest of any conflict since the Second World War."



The World Health Organisation has paid tribute two Palestinian Red Crescent paramedics who were killed in an Israeli air strike in Rafah on Wednesday.

Healthcare is "not a target", the WHO said on X, formerly known as twitter.

"Health workers are protected under international humanitarian law and must always be able to safely perform their duties," it added.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said that paramedics Haitham Tubasi and Suhail Hasouna were killed as a result of "the deliberate targeting" by Israeli forces of ambulance vehicles in the Tel Sultan area west of Rafah.




The following sites updated: