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Category: Human rights/civil liberties

Dutch foreign minister resigns over failure to secure sanctions against Israel

Dutch foreign minister resigns over failure to secure sanctions against Israel

The Guardian reports: The Dutch foreign minister, Caspar Veldkamp, has resigned after a cabinet meeting failed to secure sanctions against Israel, weakening the Netherlands’ already fragile caretaker government. Veldkamp’s colleagues from the centrist New Social Contract (NSC) party also walked out after the cabinet debate late on Friday reached an impasse over adopting harsher measures against Israel. The discussions about taking further steps against Israel came after the Netherlands joined 20 other countries in signing a joint declaration on Thursday…

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After Gaza famine report, U.S. is mostly silent while Israel is defiant

After Gaza famine report, U.S. is mostly silent while Israel is defiant

The New York Times reports: A report by a panel of food security experts that found there was famine in parts of Gaza prompted outrage from many European countries, but not from the United States — Israel’s main backer — and the Trump administration. Mike Huckabee, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, echoed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel’s arguments against the report in posts on social media, saying that Hamas was to blame for any hunger in Gaza. “Tons of…

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Omer Bartov: Why Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute genocide

Omer Bartov: Why Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute genocide

  Professor Omer Bartov concludes that the word genocide describes Israel’s conduct in Gaza and as such requires the U.S. and Europe to intervene and stop Israel’s destructive path. In his forthcoming book, Israel: What Went Wrong, Bartov unpacks how a country founded in the aftermath of the Holocaust by a marginalized people could now become a pariah state that is occupying and displacing the Palestinians with active support, or indifference, of so many of its Jewish citizens. We discuss…

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Phone searches at the U.S. border have hit a record high

Phone searches at the U.S. border have hit a record high

Wired reports: United States Custom and Border Protection officials have sweeping powers to search anyone’s phone when they are entering the country—including US citizens. Newly released figures show that over the past three months, CBP officials have been searching more phones and other devices than ever before. From April through June this year, CBP searched 14,899 devices carried by international travelers, according to stats published on the agency’s website. While the figures aren’t broken down by device type, the CBP…

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Trump cuts off medical visas from Gaza as he bows to pressure from Laura Loomer

Trump cuts off medical visas from Gaza as he bows to pressure from Laura Loomer

Rolling Stone reports: Donald Trump’s administration stopped all visitor visas from Gaza — including those for humanitarian and medical aid — on Saturday after far-right provocateur and Trump friend Laura Loomer posted about several Palestinian children being allowed into the U.S. for medical care amid Israel’s relentless siege and blockade. The State Department said it will “conduct a full and thorough review of the process and procedures used to issue a small number of temporary medical-humanitarian visas in recent days,”…

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In DC, Trump’s masked thugs voice their contempt for the people who pay their salaries

In DC, Trump’s masked thugs voice their contempt for the people who pay their salaries

Marisa Kabas writes: A delivery worker was tased, punched and kicked by multiple federal agents in the middle of the street outside a popular brunch spot in Northwest DC on Saturday morning, a video shared with The Handbasket shows. While customers sitting outside at the Logan Circle cafe munched on avocado smash and matcha pancakes, two and then an additional four masked agents beat the shit out of the man in broad daylight. This is America.   America’s largest cities…

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Nakba 2.0: Israel in talks with multiple countries to which it could send Gaza Palestinians

Nakba 2.0: Israel in talks with multiple countries to which it could send Gaza Palestinians

The Times of Israel reports: Israel is in talks with five countries or territories — Indonesia, Somaliland, Uganda, South Sudan and Libya — about potentially accepting resettled Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, Channel 12 reported Wednesday. “Some of the countries are showing greater openness than before to accepting voluntary immigration from the Gaza Strip,” a diplomatic source told the outlet, naming Indonesia and Somaliland as particularly open to the idea. However, no concrete decisions have reportedly been made. Somaliland is…

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With chaotic airdrops, Israel’s engineered starvation of Gaza enters new phase

With chaotic airdrops, Israel’s engineered starvation of Gaza enters new phase

+972 reports: From his displacement tent in western Deir al-Balah, Tayseer Obeid has spent the past week scanning the skies over central Gaza, noting the time and direction of aircraft dropping aid. His family of 12 hasn’t received proper humanitarian assistance in six months. To feed them, he planted small patches of molokhia, eggplant, and pumpkin around his and his relatives’ tent. But the crops have been repeatedly destroyed — including at the end of July, when the Israeli army…

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Rula Jebreal on Israel’s plan to eliminate Palestinians

Rula Jebreal on Israel’s plan to eliminate Palestinians

  Palestinian American commentator Rula Jebreal discusses how Israel’s commitment to genocide & occupation will spell disaster for Palestinians & Jews, and how the US has a responsibility to stop it. When it comes to public opinion, the ground is shifting on Israel and Palestine. Trump, as President, can end the genocide with a phone call, but he remains both indifferent and complicit. Palestinian American author, commentator, and foreign policy analyst Rula Jebreal joins The Left Hook to discuss the…

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Trump has turned the annual human rights report into a cover-up of human rights violations

Trump has turned the annual human rights report into a cover-up of human rights violations

Anne Applebaum writes: For nearly half a century, the State Department has reported annually on human-rights conditions in countries around the world. The purpose of this exercise is not to cast aspersions, but to collect and disseminate reliable information. Congress mandated the reports back in 1977, and since then, legislators and diplomats have used them to shape decisions about sanctions, foreign aid, immigration, and political asylum. Because the reports were perceived as relatively impartial, because they tried to reflect well-articulated…

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After crushing dissent, American universities are deepening their ties with Israeli academia

After crushing dissent, American universities are deepening their ties with Israeli academia

+972 reports: At the end of July, Harvard signaled its willingness to spend as much as half a billion dollars to settle accusations of antisemitism brought by the Trump administration. While the scandal — and the staggering sum — has drawn widespread attention, a previous concession slipped under the radar: in a failed bid to placate the administration earlier this year, Harvard agreed to establish a formal partnership with an Israeli university. On July 28, Harvard announced two new initiatives…

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Essential workers forced to go into hiding as crops rot and farmers face bankruptcy

Essential workers forced to go into hiding as crops rot and farmers face bankruptcy

  Crops are rotting. Families have vanished. Behind closed doors, a hidden crisis is unfolding across the farms of the West. Fear of immigration raids has driven farmworkers indoors, with their kids stuck inside all summer and their livelihoods on hold. CNN’s David Culver goes inside homes few outsiders ever see and reveals how immigration enforcement is reshaping the fields and the families who keep them running.

‘If these words reach you … Israel has succeeded in killing me’ — the last words of Gaza journalist Anas al-Sharif

‘If these words reach you … Israel has succeeded in killing me’ — the last words of Gaza journalist Anas al-Sharif

Before his assassination by Israel, Anas al-Sharif wrote: This is my will and my final message. If these words reach you, know that Israel has succeeded in killing me and silencing my voice. First, peace be upon you and Allah’s mercy and blessings. Allah knows I gave every effort and all my strength to be a support and a voice for my people, ever since I opened my eyes to life in the alleys and streets of the Jabaliya refugee…

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Avrum Burg: Israel is committing crimes against humanity ‘under the false banner of our Jewish identity’

Avrum Burg: Israel is committing crimes against humanity ‘under the false banner of our Jewish identity’

Avrum Burg, former Speaker of the Knesset, writes: There is no single definition that defines all who identify themselves as Jewish. Is Jewishness a religion? A gene? A culture? A nationality? A legal status? In the confusion of these overlapping and contradicting identities, modern Israel has forged its own unprecedented synthesis; a fusion of five elements never fully welded in Jewish history: religion, land, power, language, and sovereignty. The product of this Israeli crucible is a cultural mutation that dares…

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Palantir and other companies aiding Trump’s immigration crackdown see ‘extraordinary’ revenues

Palantir and other companies aiding Trump’s immigration crackdown see ‘extraordinary’ revenues

The Guardian reports: The tech, surveillance and private prison providers arming Donald Trump’s massive expansion and weaponization of immigration enforcement are running a victory lap after reporting their latest financial results. Palantir, the tech firm, and Geo Group and CoreCivic, the private prison and surveillance companies, said this week that they brought in more money than Wall Street expected them to, thanks to the administration’s crackdown on immigrants. “Well, as usual, I’ve been cautioned to be a little modest about…

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This is what the British government calls ‘terrorism’

This is what the British government calls ‘terrorism’

The Guardian reports: More than 450 people have been arrested in central London at the largest demonstration relating to Palestine Action since the group was proscribed as a terrorist organisation. The Metropolitan police said they had drawn officers from other forces to help form a “significant policing presence” in the capital before the planned event, which was anticipated to result in large numbers of people being detained. By Saturday afternoon, hundreds of people had gathered in Parliament Square for a…

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