As Gaza death toll soars, secrecy shrouds Israel’s targeting process

As Gaza death toll soars, secrecy shrouds Israel’s targeting process

The Washington Post reports: The Israeli airstrikes that hit the Jabalya refugee camp on Oct. 31 sent buildings tumbling down on families displaced from across the besieged enclave. More than 110 people were killed, many of them women and children crushed beneath the rubble, doctors said. The Israeli military said the operation achieved its aim. “We were focused on our target,” Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, a spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces said Monday, referring to Ibrahim Biari, a high-ranking…

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Trump indictments haven’t sunk his campaign, but a conviction might

Trump indictments haven’t sunk his campaign, but a conviction might

The New York Times reports: If the former president is convicted and sentenced — as many of his allies expect him to be in the Jan. 6-related trial held next year in Washington, D.C. — around 6 percent of voters across Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin say they would switch their votes to Mr. Biden. That would be enough, potentially, to decide the election. Kurt Wallach, 62, a registered Republican from Maricopa County in Arizona, said he voted…

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Poll shows Biden support slumping among Michigan Muslims

Poll shows Biden support slumping among Michigan Muslims

NBC News reports: A new survey conducted by one of Joe Biden’s former pollsters shows the president’s support has cratered among Muslim and Arab Democrats in Michigan, a key demographic group that overwhelmingly backed Biden in the swing state in 2020. The poll lends further credence to the warnings Arab and Muslim community leaders in Michigan and beyond have been issuing for weeks: that Biden’s handling of the war in Gaza could cost him a state that he won by…

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Democrats need a 2024 candidate who can win

Democrats need a 2024 candidate who can win

The New York Times reports: President Biden is trailing Donald J. Trump in five of the six most important battleground states one year before the 2024 election, suffering from enormous doubts about his age and deep dissatisfaction over his handling of the economy and a host of other issues, new polls by The New York Times and Siena College have found. The results show Mr. Biden losing to Mr. Trump, his likeliest Republican rival, by margins of three to 10…

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Trump plans to impose martial law while rounding up his critics

Trump plans to impose martial law while rounding up his critics

The Washington Post reports: Donald Trump and his allies have begun mapping out specific plans for using the federal government to punish critics and opponents should he win a second term, with the former president naming individuals he wants to investigate or prosecute and his associates drafting plans to potentially invoke the Insurrection Act on his first day in office to allow him to deploy the military against civil demonstrations. In private, Trump has told advisers and friends in recent…

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The climate cannot survive another Trump term

The climate cannot survive another Trump term

Michael Mann writes: Back in the home stretch of the 2020 presidential election, I stated that a second Trump term would be “game over for the climate.” That hasn’t changed in the years since. In fact, it’s become even more true. We are three years further down the carbon emissions highway, and the devastating consequences of the 1C (1.8F) warming we have already caused are now apparent in the form of unprecedented dangerous, damaging and deadly extreme weather events. As…

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The West can’t defend international law while also supporting genocide

The West can’t defend international law while also supporting genocide

Oliver Stuenkel writes: The war between Israel and Hamas is bad news for Ukraine. The conflict has already shifted news coverage and public attention in the West away from Russian aggression. It may also force Western exporters to divert portions of their arms supplies from Ukraine to Israel, as the United States is already thought to have done. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned last week of a “long and difficult war ahead,” which could give Russian President Vladimir Putin…

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Bernie Sanders on Gaza: ‘We’ve got to stop the bombing now’

Bernie Sanders on Gaza: ‘We’ve got to stop the bombing now’

Politico reports: Sen. Bernie Sanders said Sunday the United States should use aid to Israel as leverage to force its government to change its approach. “If you want this money, you got to change your military strategy, Sanders (I-Vt.) said on CNN’s “State of the Union” when asked about a possible aid package for Israel to be considered by the Senate. But the two senators who followed Sanders on that program were much more concerned about what Iran might be…

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Fall out: Israel minister suspended after calling nuking Gaza an option

Fall out: Israel minister suspended after calling nuking Gaza an option

Politico reports: Israel’s Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu was suspended indefinitely after he said in an interview that dropping a nuclear bomb on the Gaza Strip was “one of the possibilities,” the government announced on Sunday. “Eliyahu’s statements are not based in reality,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement on X. Israel and its military “are operating in accordance with the highest standards of international law to avoid harming innocents,” the prime minister added. A member of the ultra-nationalist…

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Zelensky invites Trump to Ukraine so he can educate the former president about the reality of the war

Zelensky invites Trump to Ukraine so he can educate the former president about the reality of the war

The Hill reports: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has invited former President Trump to his country’s war zone, saying the former president “can’t manage this war.” Zelensky, who joined NBC “Meet the Press” host Kristen Welker, responded to Trump’s claims that he could end the war with Russia in 24 hours. “Former President Trump said that about 24 hours, that he can manage it and finish the war,” Zelensky said during the interview that airs Sunday. “For me, what can I…

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Why Israel slept

Why Israel slept

James Bamford writes: A future film about Israel’s massive October 7 intelligence failure might be titled All Quiet on the Gaza Front. For months if not years, members of Hamas had covertly plotted their breakout from Gaza, long referred to as Israel’s open-air prison for Palestinians. As if designed by Orwell and Kafka, Gaza subjects its 2.3 million inhabitants to endless surveillance of their voices, faces, and movements; they are trapped in a labyrinthine maze of fences, checkpoints, and humiliation….

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Expel all Palestinians from Gaza, recommends Israeli gov’t ministry

Expel all Palestinians from Gaza, recommends Israeli gov’t ministry

+972 reports: The Israeli Ministry of Intelligence is recommending the forcible and permanent transfer of the Gaza Strip’s 2.2 million Palestinian residents to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, according to an official document revealed in full for the first time by +972’s partner site Local Call yesterday. The 10-page document, dated Oct. 13, 2023, bears the logo of the Intelligence Ministry — a small governmental body that produces policy research and shares its proposals with intelligence agencies, the army, and other ministries….

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When it comes to Israel, who decides what you can and can’t say?

When it comes to Israel, who decides what you can and can’t say?

Michelle Goldberg writes: Last week, the Anti-Defamation League and the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law sent a letter to nearly 200 college presidents urging them to investigate campus chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine for potential violations of federal and state laws against providing material support to terrorism. As evidence for these very serious accusations, the ADL and the Brandeis center offered only the student group’s own strident rhetoric, including a sentence in its online…

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In a worldwide war of words, Russia, China and Iran back Hamas

In a worldwide war of words, Russia, China and Iran back Hamas

The New York Times reports: The conflict between Israel and Hamas is fast becoming a world war online. Iran, Russia and, to a lesser degree, China have used state media and the world’s major social networking platforms to support Hamas and undercut Israel, while denigrating Israel’s principal ally, the United States. Iran’s proxies in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq have also joined the fight online, along with extremist groups, like Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, that were previously at odds…

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