As Gazans starve, Israel has killed over 200 relief workers. Rights groups warn that food is being weaponized.

Being “tough” on immigration doesn’t mean you have to support cruel or ineffective policies.

( Otherwords.com ) – When President Biden was campaigning in 2020, he pledged to strengthen our country by supporting and welcoming immigrants. Early in his presidency, he began taking steps in that direction.

On his first day in office, Biden proclaimed an end to his predecessor’s “Muslim ban,” which summarily banned migration from several Muslim-majority countries. And In February 2021, Biden introduced an executive order aimed at reversing some of the Trump administration’s damage to our immigration system, from family separations to backlogs in our asylum system.

“Securing our borders does not require us to ignore the humanity of those who seek to cross them,” Biden said at the time. “Nor is the United States safer when resources that should be invested in policies targeting actual threats, such as drug cartels and human traffickers, are squandered on efforts to stymie legitimate asylum seekers.”

Biden seemed to understand that being “tough” does not mean you have to support cruel and ineffective policies. Unfortunately, as immigration has become a more polarizing topic, the administration has backed away from this more humane approach.

Instead, in many ways Biden has actually continued down Trump’s path on immigration.

For example, the Trump administration enforced a rule called Title 42 during the height of the COVID pandemic, which severely limited entry into the United States — supposedly to protect public health. Biden continued to implement that policy for years, even without the flimsy public health justification.

The bipartisan Senate border bill Biden recently endorsed includes funding for a border wall he once promised not to fund — along with new restrictions on asylum and a measure that would authorize the president to shut the border down completely. Biden is also considering using the same authority the Trump administration invoked in its Muslim ban to restrict asylum access.

A few weeks ago, Biden and Trump separately visited the U.S.-Mexico border. Instead of proposing actual solutions to support our immigration system, Biden uplifted the failed Senate bill — and even went so far as to invite Trump to “join him” in working to it.

“Immigration is an Act of Love,” by Juan Cole, Digital, Dream / Dreamland v.3 / IbisPaint

During his State of the Union address in March, Biden had the opportunity to distinguish himself from Trump. Instead, his speech demonstrated a strong disconnect between his rhetoric and actions.

Biden said he would not demonize immigrants, but in the same speech used the offensive term “illegal immigrant.” No human being is “illegal.” Continuing to echo that language is dehumanizing and puts immigrant communities at risk of violence. (Biden later said he regretted using the term, but did not apologize for using it.)

Biden said he would not separate families, but his current and proposed immigration policies have separated and continue to separate families. He said he would not ban people from the country because of their faith, but his proposed action would make asylum harder for nearly everyone regardless of their faith.

Invoking his Irish heritage, Biden has alluded to the Great Famine in Ireland to sympathize with immigrants looking for a better life in the United States. But families seeking shelter today from similar hardship would have extreme difficulty getting into the country under the policies he wants to implement.

Biden once understood that punitive measures were not going to make either immigrants or U.S. citizens safer, or make our immigration system more orderly. He understood that we’d need to create pathways to legislation and citizenship, honor our responsibility to offer refuge to asylum seekers, and live up to our American values.

If Biden’s sincere about finding real solutions, he needs to remember those commitments. It’s time to stop playing politics with immigrants’ lives.

Otherwords.com

Juan Carlos Gomez is a senior policy analyst on immigration at the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP.org). This op-ed was adapted from a longer version at CLASP.org and distributed for syndication by OtherWords.org.

To feed children, treat the wounded, and save innocent lives, the U.S. must restore UNRWA’s funding.

By Phyllis Bennis |

( Otherwords.org ) – Earlier this year, the International Court of Justice ruled that Israel’s actions in Gaza plausibly constitute genocide. The world’s most influential judicial body ordered Israel to stop killing civilians and to admit more humanitarian aid.

Unfortunately, Israel was having none of it. Israel’s killings have continued, with over 30,000 Palestinians in Gaza now dead and tens of thousands more at risk of dying from hunger and disease. Precious little aid is getting in.

And worse, the U.S. has joined Israel’s efforts to incapacitate Gaza’s most important relief agency.

Just hours after the Court’s decision was announced, Israel alleged that 12 Gazan employees of the UN’s Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) — the primary body responsible for providing humanitarian support to Palestine refugees — were Hamas members connected to the October 7 attacks.

For more than half a century UNRWA has provided all the services in Gaza that would ordinarily  be provided by a government. Most of Gaza’s doctors, nurses, teachers, engineers, and street sweepers are UNRWA employees. Without UNRWA, all the other UN agencies and nonprofits would be unable to carry out their crucial work in the region.

UNRWA employs thousands of people in Gaza. Israel’s claim about 12 of them was dubious — and the country’s government offered no evidence for it.

In fact, the names of all UNRWA employees had been provided to Israel earlier in the year for vetting and no concerns were raised. But just in case, UNRWA immediately announced it was firing the named employees (minus two who’d been killed). And the UN launched two separate investigations.

Instead of waiting for these investigations to play out, the Biden administration immediately cut its entire aid allocation to UNRWA, despite the agency’s irreplaceable role in getting desperately needed aid into Gaza. Many key U.S. allies followed suit, and the U.S. Senate voted to explicitly bar UNRWA from receiving future humanitarian aid.

Some in Washington suggested they might redirect UNRWA funds to organizations like UNICEF and the World Food Program, but UNICEF and WFP together have less than 70 staff on the ground in Gaza — UNRWA has over 13,000. U.S. officials themselves had admitted earlier that UNRWA was “the only game in town” in terms of getting any significant aid into Gaza.

The Straits Times Video: “Hungry Gazans resort to eating cactus leaves”

The impact of these cuts on the already threatened lives of 2.3 million displaced Gazans — as well as millions more Palestinian refugees in the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria — can hardly be overstated. Defunding the agency further undermines Palestinians’ access to water, food, medicine, shelter, and fuel — and alongside ongoing U.S. military support for Israel, makes Washington complicit in genocide.

Thousands of Palestinians — especially babies, children, pregnant women, and the elderly — will die as a result of these cuts. And the millions of Palestinian refugees throughout the region will lose the only international agency in the UN system that’s mandated to protect their rights, including their right to return someday to their homes in what’s now Israel.

Creating conditions that threaten the survival of all or part of a given population is part of the very definition of genocide under international law. To feed children, treat the wounded, and save innocent lives — and avoid being complicit in genocide — the U.S. must restore UNRWA’s funding and use its leverage to compel an immediate ceasefire in the conflict.

Phyllis Bennis

Phyllis Bennis is a Middle East expert at the Institute for Policy Studies and an international adviser for Jewish Voice for Peace.

Via ( Otherwords.org

Texas is trying to ban the use of its roads by people seeking care outside the state — and even dispatching right-wing vigilante groups to chase them.

By Jim Hightower | –

( Otherwords.org ) – Here’s our big word of the day: extraterritoriality. It expresses a sketchy legal theory asserting that rulers in one state have a right to enforce their laws in another state.

Its most prominent was in the infamous Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which required officials in Northern anti-slave states to capture and return escaped slaves to their plantation “owners” in the South, thus applying Southern slave laws in Northern jurisdictions. This abomination was finally repealed in 1864.

Katie Couric Video: “”I was forced to carry my child full term”: Texas abortion plaintiff”

But 160 years later, here comes another faction of right-wing zealots trying to revive the slave-law concept of extraterritoriality — this time applying it to any and all American women who dare to make their own reproductive health decisions.

I’m ashamed to say that this repressive use of the doctrine is being led by my state’s misogynistic governor, Greg Abbott, and our corrupt attorney general, Ken Paxton. These two tyrannical men have already saddled Texas women with the most draconian abortion ban in the country, including piously forbidding abortion in cases of rape and incest.

For women to exercise their inherent right to control their own bodies, they’re forced to travel to nearby states. But Texas’s brutal extremists bark that “we’ll ban that, too!” They’ve pushed a flagrantly unconstitutional scheme to outlaw the use of public roads to drive out-of-state for care. And they’ve even sanctioned right-wing vigilantes to follow suspected medical travelers to doctors beyond our borders.

And, going full-tilt totalitarian, the Abbott-Paxton posse has demanded that out-of-state-care groups hand over the names and addresses of Texas women they’ve helped outside of Texas.

Talk about government overreach! Big Brother isn’t just watching… he’s stalking you. To oppose this brutish repression — and to keep it from coming to your state — contact RewireNewsGroup.com/abortion.

Jim Hightower

OtherWords columnist Jim Hightower is a radio commentator, writer, and public speaker.

Via Otherwords.org

Israeli leaders have openly endorsed starving, killing, and displacing Palestinian civilians — and that’s what they’re doing. Is Biden listening?

( Otherwords.org ) –

Mitchell Zimmerman

Mitchell Zimmerman is an attorney, longtime social activist, and author of the anti-racism thriller Mississippi Reckoning.

Via Otherwords.org

The U.S. government says it stands for justice and the rule of law. So why won’t it stand by those principles for Palestinians?

By Farrah Hassen | –

( Otherwords.org ) – “If I must die, you must live to tell my story,” wrote Dr. Refaat Alareer, a 44-year-old Gazan poet and literature professor. A few weeks later, Alareer was killed while sheltering in his sister’s apartment, along with six family members.

In the densely populated Gaza Strip, the loss of life is staggering. Israel’s two-month bombardment has killed at least 18,000 Palestinian civilians there, including nearly 9,000 children. Another 25,000 children have lost one or both of their parents.

President Biden has repeatedly assured the public that Israel is following international law. Yet Israeli forces have deliberately targeted Palestinian civilians and civilian infrastructure, in direct violation of international humanitarian law. With 90 percent of those killed in Gaza being civilians, only now is Biden finally admitting that Israel is bombing “indiscriminately.”

Homes, hospitals, schools, mosques, churches, refugee camps, and government buildings have all been reduced to rubble. Israeli troops have forced Palestinian men to strip and parade through the streets. There are disturbing eyewitness allegations of torture and summary executions of civilians.

Palestinian human rights groups and many international experts, including Israeli scholars of the Holocaust, have warned that Israel’s actions meet the legal standard of genocide.

Article 2 of the 1948 Genocide Convention defines genocide as specific acts taken “with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.” Some of these acts include “killing members of the group,” “causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group,” and “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”

“Gaza Guernica 13: University,” by Juan Cole, Digital (Dream/ IbisPaint), 2023.

The mass killing of Palestinians in Gaza’s schools, medical facilities, shelters, and residential areas are all evidence of likely genocidal acts. As are the forced relocation of over 1 million Palestinians out of northern Gaza and Israel’s frequent bombing of civilian evacuation routes.

Meanwhile, Israel has intensified its complete siege of Gaza, depriving Palestinians of food, water, electricity, fuel, and medical supplies. Starvation and infectious disease are rampant. Gaza’s health care system has “completely collapsed” from ongoing Israeli strikes, according to Doctors Without Borders.

Proving genocidal intent can often be difficult. However, experts have pointed to dehumanizing statements by Israeli leaders that hint at it — including calling Palestinians “human animals” and “children of darkness.”

Others are more explicit. An Israeli lawmaker called for a “Nakba” — an Arabic reference to the violent mass displacement of Palestinians — “that will overshadow the Nakba of 1948.” The defense minister declared “we will eliminate everything” in Gaza. And a recent investigation by the Israeli +972 Magazine found that Israel’s bombing of non-military targets is “calculated.”

Many experts believe these actions and statements of intent are evidence of an unfolding genocide. Due to the crime’s gravity, all parties to the Genocide Convention — including the U.S. —  have a legal duty to prevent it from the moment they learn of a serious risk that a genocide will be committed.

Instead, the U.S has vetoed UN Security Council ceasefire resolutions and expedited lethal arms to Israel on top of the annual aid we already provide. Far from preventing a genocide, a lawsuit by the Center for Constitutional Rights argues, the U.S. is complicit in one.

The October 7 attacks by Hamas fighters on Israeli civilians were reprehensible crimes, but they don’t provide legal or moral justification for the collective punishment of Gazan civilians. Nor can genocide ever be justified.

No government is above the law and free to commit mass slaughter. The U.S. government often claims to stand for justice and the rule of law. But is it willing to stand by those principles for the Palestinian people?

At this dire moment, with the world watching, the U.S. not only has the ability but the obligation to secure a permanent ceasefire and save innocent lives.

Farrah Hassen

Farrah Hassen, J.D., is a writer, policy analyst, and adjunct professor in the Department of Political Science at Cal Poly Pomona. This op-ed was distributed by OtherWords.org.

Otherwords.org

Our elected officials should listen to the two-thirds of Americans calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.

By Farrah Hassen

( Otherwords ) – Two years ago, filmmaker Mohannad Abu Rizk asked children in Gaza about their dreams. One young girl responded, “My dream is for us to stay alive and to live in peace. We have a right to stay alive.”

She’s one of the 2.2 million Palestinians living in the densely populated Gaza Strip under a 56-year Israeli occupation — and a 16-year blockade that deprives them of food, water, electricity, and freedom of movement. International rights groups now classify this system as apartheid.

She’s also one of the Palestinians Israeli officials called “human animals” and “children of darkness” as bombs fell on Gaza. It’s unclear if this girl with the big, soulful brown eyes is still alive, but about half of the over 10,000 Gazans killed by the Israeli military are children.

All human lives are precious. The murder of over a thousand Israelis by Hamas on October 7 was a heinous crime. Israeli families deserve justice and the safe return of their loved ones held hostage. But indiscriminately bombing and collectively punishing Palestinian civilians — who are neither synonymous with Hamas nor responsible for their crimes — accomplishes neither.

For most Americans, that’s not a controversial opinion. In a recent survey, 66 percent of Americans supported an immediate ceasefire as a step toward peace and justice for both Palestinians and Israelis.

Unfortunately, our elected officials aren’t listening — yet.

Instead of backing a ceasefire, President Biden requested $14.3 billion in military assistance to Israel above the $3.8 billion taxpayers already send each year. And when a few House Democrats, including Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), called for a ceasefire in October, the White House press secretary didn’t hold back: “We believe they’re repugnant and we believe they’re disgraceful.”

The GOP rhetoric has been even more repulsive. Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL) compared “innocent Palestinians” to “innocent Nazis” while Rep. Max Miller (R-OH) called for Gaza to be “eviscerated” and “turned into a parking lot.” Instead of working for peace, House Republicans have focused their energies on a bad faith censure of Tlaib, the only Palestinian American in Congress.

Middle East Eye: “Protest in Chicago against Biden’s support of war on Gaza”

This dehumanizing and dangerous rhetoric fuels hate crimes that have escalated against Arab and Muslim Americans since October 7 — including the murder of 6-year-old Palestinian American Wadea Al-Fayoume and the attempted murder of his mother in Illinois. Recently, a Muslim student at Stanford was hospitalized after being struck by a car in a suspected hate crime.

The war’s reverberations can also be felt in the chilling climate of fear and repression that painfully reminds Arab Americans and Muslims like myself of the days following the 9/11 attacks. College students have faced doxxing and harassment for signing statements supporting Palestinians or criticizing the Israeli government. Others have lost job offers.

But despite efforts to smear and silence them, people are standing up for basic human dignity. Tens of thousands of Americans marched in Washington, D.C. on November 4 to support a ceasefire. The movement for a ceasefire continues to grow around the country.

Veteran State Department official Josh Paul resigned in protest on October 17, calling the U.S. rush to supply Israel with more arms “shortsighted, destructive, unjust, and contradictory to the very values that we publicly espouse.” And over 400 congressional staffers signed a statement demanding a ceasefire in Gaza.

Gaza is facing a humanitarian catastrophe. There is no food, water, or safety. Many experts have warned that a likely genocide is underway. The U.S. must stop funding this assault, which will only lead to the loss of more Palestinian and Israeli lives — and exacerbate the rising Islamophobia and anti-semitism that have no place in our society.

Our elected officials must listen to the majority of American people who are demanding peace so that Palestinians can live freely, instead of dreaming about it.

 

 

Farrah Hassen

Farrah Hassen, J.D., is a writer, policy analyst, and adjunct professor in the Department of Political Science at Cal Poly Pomona.

The absence of Palestinians and their advocates from news coverage isn’t just unfair. As a Jewish American, I think it’s harmful.

By Sarah Gertler |

( Otherwords.org ) – Like many of us, I’ve been glued to media coverage of the terrible violence in Gaza and Israel.

I was deeply shaken by the brutal killings of over a thousand Israelis on October 7. The families of Israelis killed and taken hostage deserve justice for these crimes. But instead of justice, all I’ve seen from the far-right Israeli government is more death.

Palestinians have already endured 75 years of displacement and oppression. The 2.2 million Palestinians living in the cramped Gaza strip have lived for 16 years under an Israeli siege that chokes their access to food, water, electricity, and movement.

Now Gazans’ access to these necessities has been cut off completely. Nearly half of the population’s homes have been damaged or destroyed by Israeli bombings, and well over 6,000 civilians have been killed. All with no end in sight.

As a Jewish American, I don’t feel safer when the Israeli government breaks international law to bomb families sheltering in refugee camps or cut off electricity to children in hospitals. I especially don’t feel safe knowing my U.S. tax dollars are funding these crimes.

And I’m not alone. Recently, I joined a march in Philadelphia calling for an end to the violence and freedom for the Palestinian people.

An estimated 10,000 of us showed up — including parents pushing strollers, friends holding banners together, and elderly couples arm in arm. We marched against what hundreds of scholars have warned is genocide.

It was a historic community call for peace. Yet it was noticeably absent from local news coverage. Days afterward, the only evidence it happened was one small news clip noting that “dozens gathered” — a comic misrepresentation.

Sky News: “Israel-Hamas war: Palestinians feel ‘unseen’, says ambassador”

“This is not only media suppression, but an erasure of history,” said Philadelphia organizer Nour Qutyan, who helped assemble the rally.

Just the previous week, a smaller rally in support of the Israeli government was covered by a swath of local news outlets. This eye-opening double standard reflects a much broader silencing of Palestinians and their advocates in the media.

During these weeks of Israel’s bombing campaign, leading Palestinian commentators including Noura Erakat, Omar Baddar, and Yousef Munayyer have had cable news appearances cut or canceled. Jewish American author Nathan Thrall had ads for a new book simply about Palestinians pulled from NPR and the BBC.

Equally noteworthy is the U.S. media’s passive treatment of Palestinian deaths. While headlines note when Israelis are “killed,” they often say that Palestinians simply “die,” without saying how.

According to a 2019 study on 50 years of coverage, U.S. headlines are also more than twice as likely to cite Israeli sources — including documented disinformation — than Palestinian sources.

This bias isn’t only unfair — it’s harmful.

Polls show the vast majority of Americans across party lines agree that our government should call for a ceasefire in Gaza. In Israel, even the siblings of people killed by Hamas are calling for peace, not war. Instead of uplifting these voices, many media outlets are inciting more violence.

By “silencing any criticisms of Israel,” Qutyan warns that “editors who are meant to uphold journalistic integrity, truth, and the so-called ethics of news media” are instead “co-signing genocide” in Gaza.

In the coming weeks, I will remain glued to the coverage of the violence that my tax dollars are funding. As a Jewish American, I demand life and freedom for Palestinians — and coverage which reflects that.

 

Sarah Gertler

Sarah Gertler is the Newman Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies.

Otherwords.org

But with corporations insistent on squeezing more profits no matter the cost, strikes are inevitable — and necessary.

Sonali Kolhatkar

Sonali Kolhatkar is the host of “Rising Up With Sonali,” a television and radio show on Free Speech TV and Pacifica stations. This commentary was produced by the Economy for All project at the Independent Media Institute and adapted for syndication by OtherWords.org.

Otherwords.org