Biden’s food and bombs program
https://t.co/6zUL6Bqpwd pic.twitter.com/YYbJCCjHDA — Adil Haque (@AdHaque110) March 3, 2024 This image pic.twitter.com/n3olM1HjsT — Ben Phillips (@benphillips76) March 3, 2024
Pankaj Mishra: Is Israel, in its survivalist psychosis, the portent of the future of a bankrupt and exhausted world?
Pankaj Mishra, in a recent lecture, said: In 1977, a year before he killed himself, the Austrian writer Jean Améry came across press reports of systematic torture against Arab prisoners in Israeli prisons. Arrested in Belgium in 1943 while distributing anti-Nazi pamphlets, Améry himself had been brutally tortured by the Gestapo, and then deported to Auschwitz. He managed to survive, but could never look at his torments as things of the past. He insisted that those who are tortured…
Russia is on a quest to divide U.S. voters. This time it’s immigration
The Associated Press reports: For Vladimir Putin, victory in Ukraine may run through Texas’s Rio Grande Valley. In recent weeks, Russian state media and online accounts tied to the Kremlin have spread and amplified misleading and incendiary content about United States immigration and border security. The campaign seems crafted to stoke outrage and polarization before the 2024 election for the White House, and experts who study Russian disinformation say Americans can expect more to come as Mr. Putin looks to…
The enormous pressures about to land on Judge Tanya Chutkan
Ankush Khardori writes: The Supreme Court seemed to drop a bomb this week when the justices agreed to hear Donald Trump’s claim that he is immune from prosecution for trying to overturn the 2020 election. But the fallout may not be as clear-cut as it seems. Almost immediately after the court’s order, a consensus seemed to form among the pundit class: that it will now be impossible for Trump’s trial in Washington to take place before the election. Here is…
U.S. blocks Security Council motion blaming Israel for Gaza aid convoy massacre
The Times of Israel reports: Amid American opposition, Arab nations failed Thursday overnight to get immediate support for a UN Security Council statement that would have blamed Israeli forces for the more than 100 reported deaths as Palestinians in northern Gaza swarmed an aid convoy. Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian UN ambassador, told reporters after an emergency closed council meeting on the deaths, that 14 of the 15 council members supported the statement put forward by Algeria, the Arab representative on…
Bernie Sanders slams Biden’s ‘totally absurd’ Israel policy: ‘You can’t reconcile it’
Senator Bernie Sanders talks with Alex Wagner about the “almost an unprecedented humanitarian disaster” Israel has created in Gaza and the urgency and volume of relief needed to prevent hundreds of thousands of children from starving. Sanders says “not another nickel” should go to the Netanyahu government as long as it continues “the wholesale slaughter of the Palestinian people.”
Deadly chaos at Gaza aid convoy is a symbol of the desperation enveloping the territory
Politico reports: The chaos punctuated by heavy Israeli fire that killed 115 Palestinians trying to get bags of flour from an aid convoy highlights the desperation of the hundreds of thousands struggling to survive amid the devastation of northern Gaza after nearly five months of fighting between Israel and Hamas. Residents say they have taken to searching piles of rubble and garbage for anything to feed their children, who barely eat one meal a day. Many families have begun mixing…
Israeli MP denounces ‘tsunami of fanatic nationalism’ in Israel
Over the past five months, Israel’s war on Gaza has caused mass devastation and led to more than 30,000 deaths. In January, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague found that there was a plausible risk that Israel may be committing genocide. While the ICJ case has been met with opposition from Israel’s political class, there have been those who have voiced support. Israeli parliament member Ofer Cassif has been an outspoken supporter of the ICJ procedures…
Putin failed to conquer Navalny or Ukraine. He’s had better luck with Trump’s GOP
Gil Duran and George Lakoff write: Alexey Navalny was one thing Vladimir Putin can never be: heroic. Navalny’s murder, carried out by Putin’s agents in an Arctic Circle prison on February 16, is a testament to this fact. The dictator could only beat him by killing him — or so he believed. Even now, Putin continues to fear his murdered opponent. He refused for weeks to hand Navalny’s body over to his family for burial. The punishment for Navalny’s crime…
Biden’s planned airdrop of food to Gaza is a ‘major policy failure’ says former USAID official
The Independent reports: Jeremy Konyndyk, who led USAID’s Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance during the Obama administration and oversaw humanitarian air drops to Nepal, the Philippines and Iraq, described the potential US plan to drop aid by air as a “major policy failure” on the part of the Biden administration. “When the US government has to use tactics that it otherwise used to circumvent the Soviets and Berlin and circumvent Isis in Syria and Iraq, that should prompt some really…
Israel has yet to provide UN with evidence to back UNRWA 7 October attack claims
The Guardian reports: A month after Israeli allegations that a dozen United Nations staff were involved in the 7 October Hamas attack, UN investigators have yet to receive any evidence from Israel to support the claims, though they expect some material to be forthcoming “shortly”. The allegations against the 12 employees of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine (UNRWA) led 16 major donors to suspend contributions totalling $450m at a time when more than 2 million Gazans are…
How Biden aides are trying to shield the president from protests
NBC News reports: President Joe Biden’s team is increasingly taking extraordinary steps to minimize disruptions from pro-Palestinian protests at his events by making them smaller, withholding their precise locations from the media and the public until he arrives, avoiding college campuses and, in at least one instance, considering hiring a private company to vet attendees. The efforts have resulted in zero disruptions at events the White House or the campaign have organized for Biden in the five weeks since he…
New York Times union blasts leak investigation over Israel stories
The Washington Post reports: The union representing New York Times employees accused the company Friday of targeting employees with Middle Eastern or North African backgrounds in a weeks-long investigation into leaks from its newsroom regarding the paper’s coverage of the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in Israel. In a letter obtained by The Washington Post, NewsGuild of New York president Susan DeCarava said that managers have singled out particular employees — “targeted for their national origin, ethnicity and race” — who…
DOJ says ’60-day rule’ doesn’t apply to Trump’s trials — he can be in court during the election
The New Republic reports: Amid an ongoing spar over when Donald Trump’s classified documents case will begin, the Justice Department has clarified once and for all that he cannot continue to delay his legal trials by claiming that he has to focus on the election. On Friday, Judge Eileen Cannon asked about the DOJ’s “60-day rule” against taking actions that might affect an upcoming election. But the DOJ said that the “60-day rule” does not apply to Trump’s actual trials,…
Colombia suspends all purchases of weapons from Israel and president calls war in Gaza ‘genocide’
The Associated Press reports: Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro announced Thursday his government is suspending purchases of weapons from Israel after Palestinians say Israeli troops fired at people seeking food in Gaza, marking an escalation of tensions between both countries over the Israel-Hamas war. Describing the deaths as “genocide,” Petro said he blamed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the violence around the aid convoy. Health officials in Gaza say at least 112 people were killed, bringing the war’s death toll…
Why is Trump trying to make Ukraine lose?
Anne Applebaum writes: Nearly half a year has passed since the White House asked Congress for another round of American aid for Ukraine. Since that time, at least three different legislative efforts to provide weapons, ammunition, and support for the Ukrainian army have failed. Kevin McCarthy, the former House speaker, was supposed to make sure that the money was made available. But in the course of trying, he lost his job. The Senate negotiated a border compromise (including measures border…