Daily Archives: 11 January 2024

‘Stop Vetoing Peace,’ Rabbis Tell Biden at UN Security Council Protest

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Original article by JULIA CONLEY republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Rabbis hold a peace action at the United Nations Security Council in New York on January 9, 2024.  (Photo: Jews for Racial & Economic Justice)

“The U.N. was created in the aftermath of World War II and the Holocaust, with the very intention of ensuring ‘Never Again,'” said Rabbis for Ceasefire. “We are here as Jews, as rabbis, to urge the U.N. to follow through.”

After arriving at the United Nations headquarters on Tuesday, ostensibly for a scheduled tour, three dozen rabbis and rabbinical students made their way into the U.N. Security Council’s chamber to stage the latest high-profile demonstration demanding the United States end its opposition to a cease-fire in Gaza.

The rabbis—whose action was organized by Rabbis for Cease-fire, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, Jewish Voice for Peace, and IfNotNow—displayed banners with messages for U.S. President Joe Biden: “Biden: The World Says Cease-Fire,” and “Biden: Stop Vetoing Peace.”

The protest came weeks after the U.S. alone vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for Israel to end its bombardment of Gaza, which has killed at least 23,210 people, injured more than 59,100, and left thousands more missing and feared dead under rubble, as the population of the enclave faces starvation and disease stemming from Israel’s blockade.

“[President Joe] Biden and the U.S. must stop vetoing peace and end Israel’s bombing and starvation of Gaza,” said IfNotNow.

In addition to vetoing the Security Council measure last month, the U.S. abstained from voting on a resolution to increase humanitarian aid to Gaza and opposed a U.N. General Assembly resolution calling for a cease-fire.

The country’s isolated stance was starkly illustrated by the latter vote, with 153 nations supporting the cease-fire, including longtime U.S. allies like Canada, France, and Spain backing the resolution, and only nine countries joining the United States.

“Since the Biden administration is consistently, single-handedly blocking the U.N. from taking any meaningful action for a cease-fire, we are organizing 36 rabbis and rabbinical students from seven different states to come to the U.N. themselves, and say, ‘We’re speaking for the people, this is a moral call,'” Sophie Ellman-Golan, communications director for Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, told HuffPost.

Organizers said at a press conference after the protesters were escorted out of the building that six of the rabbis had gained access to the U.N. General Assembly floor, where they displayed one of the banners to the assembled leaders.

HuffPost reported that one of the rabbis signaled the beginning of the protest during the tour by blowing into a traditional shofar horn, while Rabbis for Cease-fire founder and lead organizer Alissa Wise quoted the biblical Book of Isaiah.

“They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks,” said Wise. “Nation shall not lift up swords against nation. Neither shall they learn war anymore.”

The groups called on the U.S. and all U.N. members to:

  • Reaffirm and recommit to the goals of the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, taking meaningful action to stop the slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza;
  • Hold another Security Council vote to pass a resolution for cease-fire that includes lifting the siege and hostage exchange; and
  • Bring to the General Assembly a resolution calling for appropriate accountability measures in line with international law, including an immediate arms embargo.

“The U.N. was created in the aftermath of World War II and the Holocaust, with the very intention of ensuring ‘Never Again,'” said Rabbis for Cease-fire. “We are here as Jews, as rabbis, to urge the U.N. to follow through on this noble mission. Never again means never again for any of us.”

An organizer said as the rabbis assembled that “the U.N. is the appropriate place for meaningful action for cease-fire and accountability for Israel’s war crimes.”

The demonstration came two days before the International Court of Justice, the U.N.’s top judicial body, is set to hold a hearing on South Africa’s lawsuit claiming Israel has committed acts of genocide in Gaza. Turkey, Malaysia, and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation have all expressed support for South Africa’s claim, while Jordan indicated last week it had filed documents to submit a Declaration of Intervention at the court, backing the lawsuit.

More than 900 worldwide civil society groups have joined a call for other governments to submit Declarations of Intervention to bolster South Africa’s case.

The Biden administration said Tuesday that South Africa’s case is “meritless,” despite the country’s detailed, 84-page complaint highlighting specific calls from Israeli officials to wipe out the population of Gaza and force them to leave the enclave.

“The U.S.,” said Rabbis for Cease-fire, “is standing in the way of the international community taking action to save lives.”

Original article by JULIA CONLEY republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Continue Reading‘Stop Vetoing Peace,’ Rabbis Tell Biden at UN Security Council Protest

In 41 US States, Richest 1% Pay Lower Tax Rates Than Everyone Else

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Original article by JAKE JOHNSON republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Protesters are pictured spelling out #TaxTheRich at Times Square on March 4, 2021. (Photo: Erik McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Images)

“Almost nobody says we should have the richest pay the least. And yet when we look around the country, the vast majority of states have tax systems that do just that.”

Nearly every state and local tax system in the U.S. is fueling the nation’s inequality crisis by forcing lower- and middle-class families to contribute a larger share of their incomes than their rich counterparts, according to a new study published Tuesday.

Titled Who Pays?, the analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) examines in detail the tax systems of all 50 U.S. states, including the rates paid by different income segments.

In 41 states, ITEP found, the richest 1% are taxed at a lower rate than any other income group. Forty-six states tax the top 1% at a lower rate than middle-income families.

“When you ask people what they think a fair tax code looks like, almost nobody says we should have the richest pay the least,” said ITEP research director Carl Davis. “And yet when we look around the country, the vast majority of states have tax systems that do just that.”

“There’s an alarming gap here between what the public wants and what state lawmakers have delivered,” Davis added.

In recent years, dozens of states across the U.S. have launched what the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities recently called a “tax-cutting spree,” permanently slashing tax rates for corporations and the wealthy during a pandemic that saw billionaire wealth skyrocket and company profits soar.

A report released last week, as Common Dreamsreported, showed ultra-rich Americans are currently sitting on $8.5 trillion in untaxed assets.

According to ITEP’s new study, tax systems in just six states—California, Maine, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, and Vermont—and the District of Columbia are progressive, helping to reduce the chasm between rich taxpayers and other residents.

Massachusetts, which has one of the more equitable tax systems in the nation, collected $1.5 billion in revenue last year thanks to its recently enacted millionaires tax, a measure that improved the state’s ranking by 10 spots in ITEP’s Tax Inequality Index. Minnesota has also ramped up its taxes on the rich over the past several years while expanding benefits for lower-income families, ITEP’s study observes.

“The regressive state tax laws we see today are a policy choice, and it’s clear there are better choices available to lawmakers.”

But the full picture of U.S. state and local systems is grim. In 44 states, tax laws “worsen income inequality by making incomes more unequal after collecting state and local taxes,” ITEP found.

Florida has the most regressive tax code in the U.S., with the richest 1% paying a mere 2.7% tax rate while the poorest 20% pay 13.2%.

Florida is among the U.S. states that don’t have personal income taxes, which forces them to rely on consumption and property taxes that are “nearly always regressive,” ITEP notes in the new analysis.

“Eight of the 10 most regressive tax systems—Florida, Washington, Tennessee, Nevada, South Dakota, Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana—rely heavily on regressive sales and excise taxes,” the study says. “As a group, these eight states derive 52% of their tax revenue from these taxes, compared to the national average of 34%.”

Aidan Davis, ITEP’s state policy director, said that “we’ve seen a lot of states shift their tax systems to become even more regressive in recent years by enacting deep tax cuts for the wealthiest.”

The report points to Kentucky’s adoption of a flat tax and repeated corporate tax cuts, which “delivered the largest windfall to families in the upper part of the income scale and have been paid for in part through new or higher sales and excise taxes on a long list of items such as car repairs, parking, moving services, bowling, gym memberships, tobacco, vaping, pet care, and ride-share rides.”

Davis said that “we know it doesn’t have to be like this,” arguing there is a “clear path forward for flipping upside-down tax systems and we’ve seen a handful of states come pretty close to pulling it off.”

“The regressive state tax laws we see today are a policy choice,” said Davis, “and it’s clear there are better choices available to lawmakers.”

Original article by JAKE JOHNSON republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

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Continue ReadingIn 41 US States, Richest 1% Pay Lower Tax Rates Than Everyone Else

Norway ‘Failed the World’ With Vote in Favor of Deep-Sea Mining

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Original article by JESSICA CORBETT republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Activists gathered outside the Norwegian parliament in Oslo during a vote to approve deep-sea mining on January 9, 2024.  (Photo: Will Rose/Greenpeace)

“This decision is an irrevocable black mark on Norway’s reputation as a responsible ocean state,” said one critic, warning of environmental impacts.

The Norwegian government came under fire from environmentalists and scientists worldwide on Tuesday after moving to become the first country to enable destructive commercial deep-sea mining.

Stortinget, Norway’s parliament, overwhelmingly voted in favor of allowing exploration of the seabed under the country’s Arctic waters for minerals—an outcome widely expected after center-left parties that control the government struck a deal with right-wing parties last month.

“This decision is an irrevocable black mark on Norway’s reputation as a responsible ocean state,” declared Steve Trent, CEO and founder of the U.K.-based Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF), in a statement Tuesday. “Deep-sea mining is a pursuit of minerals we don’t need, with environmental damage that we can’t afford.”

“We can upgrade our economies and get to zero carbon without wrecking the deep ocean in the process.”

“We know so little about the deep ocean, but we know enough to be sure that mining it will wipe out unique wildlife, disturb the world’s largest carbon store, and do nothing to speed the transition to clean economies,” he stressed. “Recent scientific studies in Norwegian waters demonstrate that there will be severe impacts on ocean wildlife if this mining goes ahead.”

Trent continued:

Instead of being the answer to boosting renewable energy, deep-sea mining would be just another form of harmful resource extraction, with steep and needless costs we cannot and should not pay. As the Norwegian government decides to push forward with deep-sea mining, EJF’s latest report reveals that we can upgrade our economies and get to zero carbon without wrecking the deep ocean in the process. New battery technologies are taking off, and there is a ready supply of minerals available now if we improve existing recycling rates. The argument for destroying the deep sea for cobalt and nickel does not withstand scrutiny and Norwegian lawmakers must recognize this.

Chloé Mikolajczak of Europe’s Fossil Free Politics campaign said on social media that “exploration, while different from exploitation, already comes with significant environmental damage. Today, Norway failed the world and failed to protect our future. But the fight can not stop and we’re mobilizing a community of thousands to #StopDeepSeaMining.”

Amanda Louise Helle, who was among the Greenpeace Norway activists protesting outside Stortinget on Tuesday, was similarly determined to continue the battle against deep-sea mining.

“Today our parliament is getting ready to vote in favor of a criminal fate for one of the last safe havens for Arctic marine life,” Helle said ahead of the vote. “Promising to protect the oceans one day and proposing deep-sea mining the next, is next-level hypocrisy. Not only does it risk vulnerable ecosystems in the Arctic, but also Norway’s international reputation.”

“If our politicians are ready to give the Arctic away to greedy companies, then we are more than ready to chase them wherever they plan to deploy their destructive machines,” the campaigner pledged.

Norway’s plan applies to 108,000 square miles of its national waters—”an area bigger than the size of the U.K.,” as the BBC reported Tuesday. “The Norwegian government will not immediately allow companies to start drilling. They will have to submit proposals, including environmental assessments, for a licence which will then be approved on a case-by-case basis by parliament.”

Hundreds of scientists, countries including the U.K., and the European Union have called for a moratorium on deep-sea mining due to environmental concerns. The United Nations-affiliated International Seabed Authority is set to meet later this year to try to finalize global rules about the controversial practice.

Original article by JESSICA CORBETT republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Continue ReadingNorway ‘Failed the World’ With Vote in Favor of Deep-Sea Mining

Top US Newspapers Show ‘Consistent Bias’ Against Palestinians: Analysis

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Original article by JAKE JOHNSON republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Palestinians mourn loved ones killed by an Israeli airstrike on December 24, 2023 in Khan Younis, Gaza. (Photo: Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images)

The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Los Angeles Times have regularly “used emotive language to describe the killings of Israelis, but not Palestinians.”

An analysis published Tuesday shows that three of the most influential newspapers in the United States—The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Los Angeles Times—have reliably shown a bias against Palestinians in their coverage of Israel’s assault on Gaza and its reverberating consequences.

Writer Adam Johnson and researcher Othman Ali examined the three outlets’ coverage of Israel-Gaza between October 7—the day of the deadly Hamas-led attack on southern Israel—and November 24, which marked the start of a negotiated pause that ended just a week later. The Israeli bombardment has continued relentlessly since.

The pair’s analysis, published in The Intercept, found that across more than 1,000 articles, the three newspapers showed a “consistent bias” against Palestinians. Specifically, the outlets “disproportionately emphasized Israeli deaths in the conflict; used emotive language to describe the killings of Israelis, but not Palestinians; and offered lopsided coverage of antisemitic acts in the U.S., while largely ignoring anti-Muslim racism in the wake of October 7.”

As the Gaza death toll surged during the first month and a half of Israel’s assault, the three newspapers’ mentions of Palestinians in their coverage declined, Johnson and Ali found.

In the period between October 7 and November 24, the outlets used the words “slaughter” and “massacre” a combined 180 times when describing the toll of the Hamas-led attack on Israel. The newspapers used those terms just five times when describing Gazans killed by the Israeli military.

“The Washington Post employed ‘massacre‘ several times in its reporting to describe October 7,” Johnson and Ali wrote. “‘President Biden faces growing pressure from lawmakers in both parties to punish Iran after Hamas’ massacre,’ one report from the Post says. A November 13 story from the paper about how Israel’s siege and bombing had killed 1 in 200 Palestinians does not use the word ‘massacre’ or ‘slaughter’ once. The Palestinian dead have simply been ‘killed’ or ‘died’—often in the passive voice.”

Johnson and Ali previously found similar bias against Palestinians in the coverage of CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC.

The analysis also shows that the newspapers’ coverage of the Israeli assault’s impact on children and journalists has been relatively sparse given the unparalleled impact the war has had on kids and members of the media.

In the three weeks after October 7, Israeli forces killed more children in Gaza than were killed in all of the world’s armed conflict zones since 2019, according to Save the Children. The Committee to Protect Journalists said last month that more reporters were killed during the first 10 weeks of the war “than have ever been killed in a single country over an entire year.”

Johnson and Ali wrote Tuesday that “the lack of coverage for the unprecedented killing of children and journalists, groups that typically elicit sympathy from Western media, is conspicuous.”

“By way of comparison, more Palestinian children died in the first week of the Gaza bombing than during the first year of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, yet The New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Timesran multiple personal, sympathetic stories highlighting the plight of children during the first six weeks of the Ukraine war.”

The analysis comes days after The Intercept highlighted a longstanding CNN policy under which the outlet runs its Israel-Palestine coverage through its Jerusalem bureau, which must abide by the rules of the Israeli military’s censor.

The few journalists who have been allowed to enter Gaza as embeds with Israeli forces are required to submit their materials and footage to the Israeli government for review.

The Western media’s slanted coverage of Israel’s devastating war on Gaza has drawn outrage from individual journalists, including some who work at The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times.

“We are renewing the call for journalists to tell the full truth without fear or favor,” reads an open letter signed by hundreds of journalists in November. “To use precise terms that are well-defined by international human rights organizations, including ‘apartheid,’ ‘ethnic cleansing,’ and ‘genocide.’ To recognize that contorting our words to hide evidence of war crimes or Israel’s oppression of Palestinians is journalistic malpractice and an abdication of moral clarity.”

After the letter was released, dozens of signatories—including journalists from The Associated Press and Washington Post—asked that their signatures be removed, fearing retaliation from their employers.

Original article by JAKE JOHNSON republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Continue ReadingTop US Newspapers Show ‘Consistent Bias’ Against Palestinians: Analysis

Julian Assange’s life is at risk if his final extradition appeal fails next month, his lawyer warns

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/julian-assanges-life-risk-if-his-final-extradition-appeal-fails-next-month-his-lawyer

A supporter of Julian Assange at the Royal Courts of Justice, London, as part of their campaign to release him, September 23, 2023

JULIAN ASSANGE’S life is at risk should his final appeal against his extradition to the US fail, his lawyer has said.

The 52-year-old WikiLeaks founder, who exposed war crimes committed by the US in the Afghan and Iraq wars, faces up to 175 years in a “political prosecution” in the US.

His lawyer Jennifer Robinson, who is an international human rights lawyer, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation: “As a result of the 13 years he’s been effectively in prison or under house arrest or some form of restrictions on his liberty inside the Ecuadorian embassy he is really unwell.

“Because of the treatment he has suffered, he suffers a major depressive illness, he has been diagnosed as being on the spectrum, and the medical evidence is if he was extradited to the United States those conditions would cause him to commit suicide.

“So his life is at risk and I am not exaggerating that.”

…

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/julian-assanges-life-risk-if-his-final-extradition-appeal-fails-next-month-his-lawyer

Continue ReadingJulian Assange’s life is at risk if his final extradition appeal fails next month, his lawyer warns