Link Blog
For activists or anyone following the current situation in Israel this is an excellent pamphlet written by April Rosenblum: The past didn’t go anywhere.
The Past was an activist effort, not an academic work, and was written just after my undergraduate years. It tends to resonate most with people on the activist Left. Other audiences might find these resources helpful.
Linked: Climate Emergency
Chile forest fires: At least 51 dead, say officials | BBC News…
At least 51 people were killed by forest fires in Chile’s Valparaíso region, local authorities have said. President Gabriel Boric declared a state of emergency and said he would make “all necessary resources” available to tackle the situation. It is believed to be Chile’s deadliest forest fire on record. Many of those affected were visiting the coastal region during the summer holidays.
“Our findings emphasize a changing climatic landscape for California, attributing the extreme characteristics of the California floods to the dual forces of human-driven climate change and a subtle influence of natural climate variability,” said Davide Faranda, a researcher in climate physics at the French National Center for Scientific Research.
Heat waves rage in South America
Meanwhile, intense heat waves have been occurring across much of South America, including Chile, Argentina, Paraguay and Colombia.
On Jan. 31, the temperature in Santiago, Chile’s capital city, hit 99.1 degrees, the third highest temperature in 112 years of reporting, the World Meteorological Association reported. Drought, low humidity and strong winds also are blamed for creating conditions that contributed to the catastrophic fires occurring across the continent.
At least 130 people have died in Chile, with hundreds more missing in the Valparaiso region, including the coastal town of Viña del Mar, the WMO said.
A new study suggests that we have underestimated the health risks associated with climate change, especially among older people.
What happened?
A group of scientists set out to explore human survivability and livability in a warming world and found that previous estimates had significantly underestimated the risk to human survival (or overestimated humans’ capacity to survive) in hot, dry conditions, especially for older adults.
Earlier studies had utilized a threshold of 35 degrees Celsius (equal to 95 degrees Fahrenheit) for wet bulb temperature (Tw) — one pair of scientists hypothesized that six hours of exposure in these conditions would lead to death, according to News-Medical.Net. (A wet bulb temperature of 95 F is equal to 95 F at 100% humidity or 115 F at 50% humidity.)
Two Climate Advisers Quit U.S. Export-Import Bank Over Fossil Fuel Plans - The New York Times
The project in Bahrain is one of several controversial overseas fossil fuel projects that the Export-Import Bank of the United States is currently considering.
The two advisers, who sit on an 18-person board that President Biden created to help the bank take climate change into account when making investments, resigned last week after a meeting about the Bahrain project, according to five current and former bank officials, who spoke on the condition that they not be identified because they were not authorized to discuss internal deliberations.
They described mounting frustration among climate advisory board members, who say they are being kept in the dark about upcoming fossil fuel loans and blocked from making recommendations about whether to approve or even modify a particular project.
At least two more climate advisory board members are considering stepping down, according to the officials.
Mr. Biden’s aides have expressed concern about the direction of the bank, which has consistently flouted a 2021 presidential order that government agencies stop financing carbon-intensive projects overseas.
This ancient material is displacing plastics and creating a billion-dollar industry…
Now cork is experiencing a revival as more industries look for sustainable alternatives to plastic and other materials derived from fossil fuels. The bark is now used for flooring and furniture, to make shoes and clothes and as insulation in homes and electric cars. Portugal’s exports reached an all-time high of 670 million euro ($728 million) in the first half of 2023.
But cork is more than a trendy green material. In addition to jobs, the forests where it grows provide food and shelter for animals, all while sequestering carbon dioxide. And unlike most trees grown commercially, cork oaks are never cut down, meaning their carbon storage capacity continues through the 200 years or more they live.
Israel Has Killed Nearly 900 Palestinians Since ICJ Order to Prevent Acts of Genocide…
In the week since the International Court of Justice ruled that the Israeli government is plausibly committing genocide and ordered it to prevent potential further acts of genocide, Israeli forces have only continued committing atrocities against Palestinians.
Buoyed by the staying support of American officials, Israeli forces have killed at least 874 Palestinians and injured at least 1,490 in Gaza since last week’s ICJ ruling…
Ex-UNRWA Official: Funding Cuts Make Donor Countries Complicit in Starvation of Gaza - YouTube
As Israel’s assault on Gaza has displaced the majority of Palestinians in Gaza, more than half are sheltering in facilities run by UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees. Despite being the largest humanitarian agency in Gaza, UNRWA says it may run out of funds by the end of the month, after at least 18 states or institutions, including many of the agency’s biggest funders, announced they were suspending their donations in January. The cuts came after the Israeli government accused several UNRWA employees of participating in the Hamas attack on October 7. Israel made the allegations in a document it provided to foreign governments which apparently contained no direct evidence of the claims. “As of now, the evidence simply does not exist” outside of this “dodgy Israeli dossier,” says Chris Gunness, former chief spokesperson for UNRWA. He slams donors who have pulled their funding as “doing Israel’s political bidding” in its “scheme to dismantle UNRWA” and further dispossess Palestinians in Gaza.
Sam and Emma speak with Steven Friedman, director of the Centre for the Study of Democracy at the University of Johannesburg, to discuss his recent book Good Jew Bad Jew: Racism, anti-Semitism and the assault on meaning. Steven Friedman then joins, parsing through the birth of his recent work from the severe backlash to anti-Zionist and anti-racist Jews as “self-hating,” alongside a severe perversion of the concept of anti-Semitism from the hatred of Jews as a people, to a narrow opposition to the apartheid state of Israel, also touching on the growing union between the state of Israel and the biggest celebrity symbols of anti-Semitism. Stepping back, Friedman explores the evolution of Zionism in relation to a largely Europe-based Jewry, with OG Zionists like Theodor Herzl and A.D. Gordon seeing the exclusion of the Jewish people from the European elite as a cultural failing of their people – one that can be solved via the establishment of a Zionist state and thus a Zionist elite.
‘Overshadow Gaza crimes’: World reacts to US attacks on Iraq and Syria | Al Jazeera
The United States has conducted a wave of air strikes on Iran-aligned targets in Iraq and Syria in retaliation for an attack that killed American soldiers in Jordan.
On Saturday, Iraq said 16 people, including civilians, were killed on its soil, and a monitoring group reported 18 people were killed in Syria. … Here is how the world reacted to the US action:
Iran
“The attacks are a violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Iraq and Syria, international law, and a clear violation of the United Nations Charter,” said Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Nasser Kanaani.
Iraq
“This aggressive strike will put security in Iraq and the region on the brink of the abyss,” the Iraqi government said in a statement, and denied Washington’s claims of coordinating the air raids with Baghdad as “false” and “aimed at misleading international public opinion”.
Syria
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the strikes served to “inflame the conflict in the Middle East in an extremely dangerous way” and added to Washington’s “record of violations against Syria’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, and the safety of its people, proving once again that it is the main source of global instability”.
“U.S. officials regularly — and often rightly — condemn the actions of other warring parties in other places like Ukraine, Ethiopia, and Sudan,” Sarah Yager, the Washington director at Human Rights Watch, told The Intercept. “But on Gaza, U.S. officials are avoiding passing judgment on Israel’s conduct.”
“Complicit” in Israeli Atrocities
On a near-daily basis, a State Department spokesperson takes questions from the media and is routinely pressed about the latest atrocity alleged to have been committed by Israeli forces, whether it’s gunfire aimed at civilians in a church; the bombing of hospitals, mosques, schools, universities, or residential buildings; or the cutting off of food, fuel, and medicine. Generally, the questions refer to either video evidence or on-record statements from Israeli government ministers.
The State Department consistently declines to cast judgment, often saying that the views or actions of some elements of the security forces or some ministers don’t represent the official Israeli position.
Report Finds “No Evidence” in Key Dossier to Support Israel’s UNRWA Allegations…
A key Israeli intelligence dossier used by countries to justify defunding the primary aid group for Palestinian refugees contains “no evidence” to back up Israel’s allegations against the group, new reports have found….
In a report this week, Channel 4 reported that, despite being used by many countries to justify withdrawing aid amid horrific conditions in Gaza and risk complicity in genocide, the document actually “provides no evidence to support its explosive new claim that UNRWA staff were involved.”
This is not settlement but land theft. Israeli Settlers Are Terrorizing Palestinians In Record Numbers…
Just like in #Gaza, violence in the occupied West Bank didn’t start on October 7. But violent attacks by settlers or soldiers have reached record-high levels. We traveled to Qusra, where 6 people were killed in less than 24 hours by settlers. Al Jazeera English Digital Correspondent Zena Al Tahhan was harassed multiple times by the Israeli army while trying to report on this story.
Israel Has Killed Nearly 900 Palestinians Since ICJ Order to Prevent Acts of Genocide…
In the week since the International Court of Justice ruled that the Israeli government is plausibly committing genocide and ordered it to prevent potential further acts of genocide, Israeli forces have only continued committing atrocities against Palestinians.
Buoyed by the staying support of American officials, Israeli forces have killed at least 874 Palestinians and injured at least 1,490 in Gaza since last week’s ICJ ruling…
How interesting: when Netanyahu’s pro-Apartheid settlers commit violence the US is all about individual responsibility, but let a dozen Palestinian employees of the UN commit violence, then the entire UN aid organization is punished. #Palestine
More on the International Court of Justice, UNRWA and ongoing violence in Gaza. Of course it is no accident that the news regarding the 12 UNRWA workers was released by Israel the day after the ICJ made its ruling. It’s also worth noting that, if proven true as it seems it may be, this is 12 employees out of 13,000 employees in Gaza. And for this the primary funding for aid has been cut by the US and other allies/backers of Israel.
As is true of the larger historical context of this conflict, the violence and reaction is wildly out of proportion. This is addressed in several current podcasts and YouTube videos covering the story.
I’ll start with Democracy Now: Despite Looming Gaza Famine, U.S. Halts UNRWA Funding After Israel Claims Staff Aided Oct. 7 Attack…
On the same day the U.N.’s highest court accepted South Africa’s case alleging genocide in Gaza, Israel accused 12 employees with the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, or UNRWA, of taking part in the Hamas attack on October 7. The United States and at least 10 other nations have now suspended funding to the agency, which retains a staff of over 13,000 and provides essential aid to most of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents. “It’s the worst possible reaction to these allegations,” says Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council. He calls for an investigation but says donors must continue to support aid groups, with UNRWA being the most important. “All of us combined other groups are not even close to being what UNRWA is for the people of Gaza,” says Egeland. UNRWA has responded to the allegations by announcing the group will “immediately terminate the contracts of these staff members and launch an investigation.”
Then there is this post at The Majority Report with Sam Seder…
The Guardian: Will the ICJ ruling change anything in Gaza? – podcast …
The ruling was significant, but both sides found cause for relief. For Israel it was that the ICJ stopped short of ordering a ceasefire; for Palestine it was that the court found the claims were plausible and required further investigation.
Alongside those findings the court ruled that aid must be allowed into Gaza. But at the same time, another story was breaking – that employees of UNRWA, one of the biggest aid agencies in Gaza, were involved in the 7 October attacks on Israel. The Guardian’s diplomatic editor, Patrick Wintour, explains how the allegations unfolded.
In response, he tells Nosheen Iqbal, at least 11 countries including the UK have cut funding to the UN agency. With food, clean water and medical supplies so scarce, and UNRWA essential to the lives of many in Gaza, the defunding of the organisation could lead to catastrophic consequences the UN warns. What effect will this have on the shape of the conflict going forward – and on the negotiations currently underway over releasing the hostages and a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas?
What Happens Now That the ICJ Has Ordered Israel Not to Engage in Genocide?…
**Provisional Measures the ICJ Has Ordered Israel to Immediately Implement **
The ICJ ordered Israel not to commit genocidal acts against Palestinians in Gaza immediately, even as the ICJ continues its slow process of officially considering the merits of the genocide case.
The court concluded that “the catastrophic humanitarian situation” in Gaza “is at serious risk of deteriorating further before the Court renders its final judgment.” Moreover, the court said that the right of the Palestinians to be protected against genocidal acts and South Africa’s right (as a party to the Genocide Convention) to ensure Israel’s compliance with the convention could be safeguarded by provisional measures.
The ICJ found “a real and imminent risk that irreparable prejudice will be caused to the rights found by the Court to be plausible.” The court wrote, “It is therefore necessary, pending its final decision, for the Court to indicate certain measures in order to protect the rights claimed by South Africa that the Court has found to be plausible.”
The Worst Case Scenario Is Here…
Alex Pareene then joins, diving into Democrats’ ongoing attempt to pin the accountability for Biden’s war in the Middle East on Brett McGurk, Biden’s NSC Coordinator for the Middle East, and touches on Biden’s recent statements on his strikes on Yemen as a perfect encapsulation of US foreign policy. Alex and Emma also parse through Bibi Netanyahu’s recent statements outrightly rejecting the idea of a Palestinian state, the growing violence in the Middle East, and the hollowness of many 2-state solution arguments.
This episode of The Long Time Academy podcast should be required listening for any white person in 2024, especially those in the US.
Full stop.
The last few years have highlighted the raw urgency of the struggle to ensure the future is not dominated by white-supremecy. But what do visions of an alternative future look like?
This episode explores how historically, inequalities in the present have been projected into the future, both in terms of how the future has been portrayed, and how it comes to be realised.
#ClimateJustice #ClimateEmergency
Nate Hagens on perspectives of wealth and poverty.
At the same time that the power dynamic of the economic superorganism leads us to a hyperfocus on the pursuit of growth and monetary wealth, other forms of poverty increase: relationships, skills, health, and behavioral deficits….
How will the turmoil and decrease in total material wealth in the coming decades change what it means to be wealthy - and how does that influence the actions and investments we take on today?
Electric cars are not the future
For a city-dweller ditching a petrol car, the calculation then becomes: instead of an EV, can I buy a much cheaper, health-giving e-bike that I can charge in my flat, and supplement with the odd taxi ride? That is the trend. European and US car sales peaked in 2019. About 5.5 million e-bikes were sold in the EU in 2022, against just two million electric cars. Many car-owners now use bikes for short trips.
How degrowth and ecosocialism can work in tandem to stop consumerism and overconsumption and reduce emissions in order to transition to a zero-carbon, post-climate change world. Degrowth is a response to the rampant growth/profit capitalist paradigm that fuels consumerism and is causing climate change. Degrowth de-centers capitalism and consumerism and instead argues for a world wherein there’s a planned contraction of rich economies to allow for the well-being of everyone in the world.
To end the climate crisis we’ll have to uproot capitalism.
#ClimateEmergency
Abortion-rights coalition launches campaign to put amendment on Missouri ballot:
…a coalition of Missouri abortion-rights organizations plan to officially launch an effort Thursday to put a constitutional amendment on the 2024 ballot to legalize abortion up until the point of fetal viability.
Missouri has one of the most restrictive laws in the country, banning all abortions except in the case of medical emergencies… Missourians for Constitutional Freedom announced Thursday it would begin to gather signatures to put an initiative petition on the statewide ballot rolling back that ban.
With US support and complicity: A crisis of humanity, a living hell, a blood bath, a situation of utter deepening and unmatched horror
Madame President, members of the Court, there is an urgent need for provisional measures to protect Palestinians in Gaza from the irreparable prejudice caused by Israel’s violations of the genocide convention. The UN Secretary General and its Chiefs describe the situation in Gaza variously as a crisis of humanity, a living hell, a blood bath, a situation of utter deepening and unmatched horror, where an entire population is besieged…
#Gaza #Genocide
Climate Emergency Link Roundup
Global heating will pass 1.5C threshold this year, top ex-Nasa scientist says…
The internationally agreed threshold to prevent the Earth from spiraling into a new superheated era will be “passed for all practical purposes” during 2024, the man known as the godfather of climate science has warned.
James Hansen, the former Nasa scientist credited for alerting the world to the dangers of climate change in the 1980s, said that global heating caused by the burning of fossil fuels, amplified by the naturally reoccurring El Niño climatic event, will by May push temperatures to as much as 1.7C (3F) above the average experienced before industrialization.
The past years were the hottest on record. Yet we’re on track to burn more fossil fuels | Kim Heacox…
A vast majority of the world’s best climate scientists have told us again and again that to maintain a stable and liveable planet, we, the human race, must reduce the burning of fossil fuels – and emissions of greenhouse gases – by half by 2030. And end emissions altogether by 2050. Knowing this, what are we on track to do?
Just the opposite. According to a new United Nations-backed report, many countries – Russia, Saudi Arabia, the US and others – will increase coal, oil and gas production. So much so that by 2030 humans worldwide will burn more fossil fuels (and load our atmosphere with more greenhouse gas emissions) than at any time in our history.
Unless we turn things around, and soon, this could be our greatest failure: how a single intelligent species abandoned its better, wiser self and destroyed its own home.
Global warming pushes ocean temperatures off the charts: study…
Oceans cover 70 percent of the planet and have kept the Earth’s surface livable by absorbing 90 percent of the excess heat produced by the carbon pollution from human activity since the dawn of the industrial age.
In 2023, the oceans soaked up around 9 to 15 zettajoules more than in 2022, according to the respective estimates from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Chinese Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IAP).
One zettajoule of energy is roughly equivalent to ten times the electricity generated worldwide in a year.
To Prevent Climate Chaos, We May Have to Forsake Economic Growth…
With Earth’s average annual temperature speeding toward1.5 degrees Celsiusfaster than expected andglobal climate policy on a treadmill, an increasing number of researchers say it’s time to consider a “restorative pathway” to avoid the worst ecological and social outcomes of global warming.
In a recent studyin Environmental Research Letters, an international team of scientists wrote that reaching global goals could require focusing on ways to drive rapid changes in the way people live, move, work and eat; on making sure that global wealth is distributed more equitably; and on restoring and protecting biodiversity and ecosystems like forests, oceans, fields and rivers that are critical to removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
‘Off the charts’: 2023 was hottest year ever recorded globally, US scientists confirm…
Last year was the hottest ever reliably recorded globally by a blistering margin, US scientists have confirmed, leaving researchers struggling to account for the severity of the heat and what it portends for the unfolding climate crisis.
Last year was the world’s hottest in records that stretch back to 1850, according to analyses released concurrently by Nasa and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) on Friday, with a record high in ocean temperatures and a new low in Antarctic sea ice extent.
First results are in: 2023 temperatures were stunningly warm…
The confused wiggles on the graph above have a simple message: Most years, even years with record-high temperatures, have some months that aren’t especially unusual. Month to month, temperatures dip and rise, with the record years mostly being a matter of having fewer, shallower dips.
As the graph shows, last year was not at all like that. The first few months of the year were unusually warm. And then, starting in June, temperatures rose to record heights and simply stayed there. Every month after June set a new record for high temperatures for that month. So it’s not surprising that 2023 will enter the record books as far and away the warmest year on record.
What Can I Do About the Climate Emergency?…
Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility is a climate anthology published last year and edited by Rebecca Solnit and Thelma Young Lutunatabua. They’ve just added a chapter to the book that’s available for free download that contains practical advice on how to involved in combatting the climate crisis: What Can I Do About the Climate Emergency?
The climate movement needs you. In this pamphlet, we outline some of the ways you can join it, and we share examples of how ordinary people have found their role, their power, their impactful projects, and their climate community. There’s a place for you in the crucial work of speeding the transition away from destruction and toward thriving. Figuring out where your skills are useful and what you can stick with is important. Identifying whom to work with and what to work on is crucial. Some of us are good at staying with a legislative issue for a season or a year or a decade. Some of us are good campaigners. Some like protests and are ready to blockade and risk arrest. Some of us are homebound but can make calls and write letters. It all matters.
South African lawyer’s incredible speech accusing Israel of genocide at ICJ - YouTube
Tembeka Ngcukaitobi was giving evidence at the Hague against Israel’s continued bombardment of Gaza in the case taken out by South Africa against Israel at the International Court of Justice.
#Gaza #Genocide #Palestine
Irish lawyer’s stunning speech at The Hague accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza - YouTube
Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh stood in front of the International Court of Justice as part of South Africa’s legal team taking action against Israel for it’s conduct against Gaza.
#Gaza #Palestine #Genocide
South Africa Lays Out Genocide Case vs. Israel at World Court in The Hague…
South Africa began to make its case Thursday at the International Court of Justice that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. In their opening statements, South Africa’s lawyers argued that the sheer scale of Israel’s violence, which has so far killed more than 23,000 people since October 7, is part of a political and military strategy aimed at the destruction of Palestinian life, using statements from top Israeli leaders to show genocidal intent.
#Gaza #Genocide
South Africa Just Made Its Case Against Israel at the Hague…
South Africa’s genocide charges against Israel were formally brought to The Hague today, with the post-apartheid nation facing off against Israel for two days of emergency hearings. South Africa’s immediate aim is to win a ruling later this month – perhaps as early as next week – ordering Israel to cease and desist in its assault of Gaza.
The war on Palestine and Gaza: Link Roundup
#Gaza #Genocide #Apartheid
South Africa’s genocide case against Israel: How will the ICJ decide?…
Two days of public hearings in South Africa’s genocide case against Israel will start at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Thursday, as pro-Palestine campaigners hope the World Court might halt Israel’s devastating military campaign in Gaza.
The case, filed by South Africa, sets a precedent as the first at the ICJ relating to the siege on the Gaza Strip, where more than 23,000 people have been killed since October 7, nearly 10,000 of them children.
Israel is murdering Palestinian journalists in Gaza. Where is the outrage? | Chris McGreal…
I am in awe of Wael Dahdouh’s strength to haul himself back in front of the camera and focus on the suffering of others even as he has repeatedly endured his own personal hell. The face of Al Jazeera’s reporting throughout Israel’s relentless bombardment of Gaza was on air in October when he learned that his wife, seven-year-old daughter, 15-year-old son and one-year-old grandson were killed in an attack. Still he went on reporting.
Last month, Dahdouh himself was wounded and his cameraman, Samer Abu Daqqa, killed in the Israeli bombing of** **a UN-run school used as a shelter. Then on Sunday, an Israeli drone strike on a car in southern Gaza killed Dahdouh’s eldest son, 27-year-old Hamza, who also worked for Al Jazeera, along with another journalist.
Israeli army appears to change tack on strike that killed Gaza journalists…
Al Jazeera journalists Hamza Dahdouh and Mustafa Thuraya were killed in a targeted strike on their car in Khan Younis.
The Israeli military has seemingly walked back its justification for targeting a vehicle in Gaza last week, killing two Al Jazeera journalists, United States broadcaster NBC reported.
Hamza Dahdouh, the eldest son of Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief Wael Dahdouh, was killed in an Israeli missile strike on Sunday in Khan Younis, southern Gaza. Journalist Mustafa Thuraya was also killed in the attack, while a third passenger, journalist Hazem Rajab, was seriously injured.
Despite All Evidence, Blinken Calls Genocide Case Against Israel ‘Meritless’…
In the same speech in which he admitted that 90% of people in Gaza arefacing acute food insecurityamid Israel’s blockade and bombardment, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken claimed on Tuesday that South Africa’s lawsuit accusing Israel of genocide is “meritless” despite the exhaustive evidence set to be reviewed by a United Nations court this week.
How Israel’s “Send Palestinians to Congo” plan Evokes British Colonial Plans to send Jews to Uganda…
Oakland, Ca. (Special to Informed Comment; Featured) – Nothing illuminates the mutant perversion of Zionism under Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu (Bibi) more clearly than this: He proposes to forcibly evict all Palestinians from Gaza (Palestine), and move them to Congo. This is what Great Britain proposed in 1903, as a solution to the “Jewish problem.” Rather than allow Jews to immigrate to Palestine and create a new Jewish homeland, they proposed to move them to Uganda, where the British Crown had plenty of room.
Report: Major News Outlets Like NYT Cover Gaza With Strong Bias Toward Israel…
As advocates for Palestinian rights have long maintained, major U.S. news outlets retain a strong bias toward Israel in their coverage of Israeli forces’ current bombardment of Gaza, a new analysis published by The Intercept shows.
In an analysis of Gaza coverage from The New York Times, The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, researcher Othman Ali and writer Adam Johnson found quantitative evidence that, in the first six weeks after the October 7 Hamas attack, the outlets maintained a “gross imbalance” favoring Israel in the way that casualties and narratives were portrayed.
Will Israel Drag the US Into Another Ruinous War?…
America and Israel’s interests have never been fully aligned on Gaza. But as Israel’s bombardment of the narrow strip has continued for almost 100 days, the Netanyahu government is shifting in a direction that directly threatens the stated goals of the Biden administration: Israel wants to expand the war into Lebanon and appears to welcome open warfare against so-called Axis of Resistance—Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and the revolutionary government in Iran. The assassination of Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri in Beirut yesterday makes that clear. So far, President Joe Biden has refused the one step that can prevent both this escalation and the US from getting dragged into yet another war in the Middle East: a cease-fire in Gaza.
Biden’s Refusal of Gaza Ceasefire Could Drag U.S. into Middle East War…
Middle East policy expert Trita Parsi says President Biden’s reluctance to press Israel for a ceasefire in Gaza has the potential to drag the U.S. into a war with Iran and its allies in the region. On Monday, Israel reportedly killed a Hezbollah commander in southern Lebanon, just days after an airstrike killed a senior Hamas leader in the capital Beirut. Meanwhile, the U.S. has exchanged fire with Yemen’s Houthi forces, who have attacked commercial ships in the Red Sea to pressure Israel to stop its war. “The Biden administration clearly do not want an escalation,” says Parsi, the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. But the longer Israel’s war on Gaza continues with full U.S. support, the less likely regional actors are to continue showing restraint, he says. “This is not going to work in the long run.”