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Category: War

The interlocking political fates of Biden and Netanyahu

The interlocking political fates of Biden and Netanyahu

Lisa Goldman and Danny Postel writes: This week’s diplomatic contretemps between the Israeli and American governments is being described as the worst rupture in the “special relationship” in decades. In 1962 President John F. Kennedy remarked to Golda Meir (then Israel’s foreign minister) that America’s bond with the Jewish state was comparable only to the one the U.S. shared with Britain. On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu canceled the trip of a delegation of top officials that was set…

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Genocide foreseen

Genocide foreseen

An analysis Michael Barnett wrote in March 2023: At a conference hosted by Haaretz on Wednesday, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said that “the village of Hawara needs to be wiped out. I think that the State of Israel needs to do that—not, God forbid, private individuals.” Hawara has been in the news lately because of an Israeli assault that claimed the lives of ten Palestinians and injured over one hundred. Although Smotrich prefers to see Hawara’s demise through public…

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Israel’s ‘Iron Wall’: A brief history of the ideology guiding Benjamin Netanyahu

Israel’s ‘Iron Wall’: A brief history of the ideology guiding Benjamin Netanyahu

A view of Khan Yunis in Gaza on Feb. 2, 2024, after weeks of continuous Israeli bombardment and bulldozing. Abdulqader Sabbah/Anadolu via Getty Images By Eran Kaplan, San Francisco State University Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has signaled that Israel’s military will soon launch an invasion of Rafah, the city in the southern Gaza Strip. More than 1 million Palestinians, now on the verge of famine, have sought refuge there from their bombed-out cities farther north. Despite U.S. President Joe Biden’s…

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UN demand for Gaza cease-fire provokes strongest clash between U.S. and Israel since war began

UN demand for Gaza cease-fire provokes strongest clash between U.S. and Israel since war began

The Associated Press reports: The United Nations Security Council on Monday issued its first demand for a cease-fire in Gaza, with the U.S. angering Israel by abstaining from the vote. Israel responded by canceling a visit to Washington by a high-level delegation in the strongest public clash between the allies since the war began. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused the U.S. of “retreating” from a “principled position” by allowing the vote to pass without conditioning the cease-fire on the release…

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UN rights expert report to call for Israel arms embargo over ‘acts of genocide’

UN rights expert report to call for Israel arms embargo over ‘acts of genocide’

The Guardian reports: A UN human rights expert will deliver a report on Tuesday saying that Israel has carried out acts of genocide in Gaza and should be placed under an arms embargo. Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, said in her report there were “reasonable grounds” to believe that Israel was carrying out three of the five acts defined as genocide: killing Palestinians, causing them serious bodily or mental harm, and “deliberately…

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Budget deal slashes U.S. funding for Palestinians’ U.N. lifeline

Budget deal slashes U.S. funding for Palestinians’ U.N. lifeline

The Washington Post reports: Congress voted early Saturday to strip hundreds of millions of dollars from the United Nations agency that distributes most of the food, medicine and basic services to Palestinians in Gaza and across the Middle East, marking what critics say is a devastating blow to a region in crisis. The United States, along with several other countries, suspended funding for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in January after Israel alleged that 12 of the agency’s…

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The UN Security Council is set to vote on a resolution demanding a Ramadan ceasefire

The UN Security Council is set to vote on a resolution demanding a Ramadan ceasefire

The Associated Press reports: The U.N. Security Council is set to vote on a resolution demanding a humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, but the United States warned the measure could hurt negotiations to halt Israeli-Hamas hostilities. The resolution, put forward by the 10 elected council members, is backed by Russia and China, who vetoed a U.S.-sponsored resolution Friday that supported “an immediate and sustained cease-fire” in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. The 22-nation Arab…

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Does Israel need to be forced by the U.S. to end the war in Gaza?

Does Israel need to be forced by the U.S. to end the war in Gaza?

  All of Israel’s modern wars have ended with US intervention, but the current war in Gaza has gone on for half a year because “Biden is a slow learner”, argues University of Pennsylvania political scientist Ian Lustick. Israel needs an outside power to blame when it cannot achieve its aims. “That’s because the war aims are fundamentally political, and the military cannot achieve them,” says Lustick. Lustick and Palestinian politician Mustafa Barghouti talk to host Steve Clemons about the…

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U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops calls for ceasefire ahead of Easter

U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops calls for ceasefire ahead of Easter

Middle East Eye reports: The US Conference of Catholic Bishops has called for a ceasefire in Gaza ahead of the Christian Easter holidays. “Thousands of innocent people have died in this conflict, and thousands more have been displaced and face tremendous suffering. This must stop,” the group said in a statement. “To move forward, a cease fire and a permanent cessation of war and violence is absolutely necessary. To move forward, those held hostage must be released and civilians must…

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Hundreds more rabbis demand ceasefire as call gains mainstream traction

Hundreds more rabbis demand ceasefire as call gains mainstream traction

The Forward reports: More than 450 rabbis called on President Joe Biden Friday to end the war in Gaza, adding momentum to growing calls for a ceasefire among liberal American Jews who have become deeply uncomfortable with Israel’s military operation. “There is no military solution to this conflict,” the rabbis, including leaders of large synagogues, stated in a letter organized by T’ruah, a rabbinic human rights group. “A ceasefire is the only reliable, proven means for securing the release of…

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‘Biden dramatically misread the Israeli political dynamic.’ Daniel Levy on how Biden hitched himself to Netanyahu

‘Biden dramatically misread the Israeli political dynamic.’ Daniel Levy on how Biden hitched himself to Netanyahu

Omid Memarian writes: In the 1990s and again in the early 2000s, Daniel Levy worked as a peace negotiator in Israel’s talks with the Palestinians, under Prime Ministers Yitzhak Rabin and Ehud Barak. He saw firsthand the promise of the Oslo peace process—and its ultimate failure, “eventually just becoming another way of managing the occupation,” he tells Democracy in Exile. With the Biden administration reviving vague talk of a two-state solution—even as it has vetoed three U.N. Security Council resolutions…

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UNICEF official tells of ‘utter annihilation’ after travelling length of Gaza

UNICEF official tells of ‘utter annihilation’ after travelling length of Gaza

The Guardian reports: An aid official who travelled the length of Gaza this week has described scenes of “utter annihilation”, with “nothing left” of what were once thriving and crowded cities in the territory. “The depth of the horror surpasses our ability to describe it,” said James Elder, a spokesperson with the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef). “As soon as you drive through the north, you get that universal gesture of hunger of people putting their hands to their mouths….

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What did U.S. Gaza ‘ceasefire’ resolution say and why did Russia and China veto it?

What did U.S. Gaza ‘ceasefire’ resolution say and why did Russia and China veto it?

Patrick Wintour writes: After months of vetoing other UN security council resolutions in an effort to defend Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, the US has in recent weeks gone on to the diplomatic front foot in New York, drafting and tabling its own resolution that was put to a vote on Friday before being vetoed by Russia and China. The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said the resolution would send “a strong signal”. But what was that signal precisely?…

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Doctors, back from Gaza hospitals, tell Washington of horrors and press for immediate ceasefire

Doctors, back from Gaza hospitals, tell Washington of horrors and press for immediate ceasefire

The New York Times reports: The memories are indelible. Screaming families carrying bloodied loved ones through the doors of an overcrowded hospital. A boy trying to resuscitate a child who looked not much older than himself. A 12-year-old with shrapnel wounds to his head and abdomen being intubated on the ground. What he saw that January day at the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis in southern Gaza — after a missile strike on an aid distribution site — has haunted…

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More young Americans favor Palestinians than Israelis, while half of Americans are ignorant about the death toll in Gaza

More young Americans favor Palestinians than Israelis, while half of Americans are ignorant about the death toll in Gaza

Middle East Eye reports: More young Americans have favourable views of Palestinians than they do of Israelis in the current war in Gaza, while about half of the US population doesn’t know which side has a higher death toll, according to a new poll by Pew Research Center. The poll is the latest research conducted on American attitudes toward Israel’s war, which began in October. It found that 60 percent of Americans between the ages of 18-29 expressed favourable views…

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