A Palestinian girl reacts as a child is carried from the rubble of a building after an airstrike in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, October 21, 2023
RAMZY BAROUD exposes the systematic targeting of UN facilities in Gaza, explaining how this is part of a broader strategy of erasing Palestinian refugee rights and history while blocking international aid
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Israel does not attempt to mask or justify its attacks on the organisation as it did during previous Gaza wars. This time around, the Israeli war was accompanied, from the very start, with the outlandish accusation that UNRWA members had participated in the October 7 assault by Hamas and other Palestinian groups.
Without providing any evidence, Tel Aviv launched an international campaign of vilification against the UN organisation which has, for decades, provided educational, medical and humanitarian services to millions of Palestinian refugees.
Sadly, and tellingly, some Western, and even non-Western governments, answered the Israeli call of punishing UNRWA by withholding badly needed funds, the urgency of which did not only stem from the direct impact of the Israeli war, but the acute famine resulting from the war, as well.
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Jared Kushner, Trump’s former adviser on the Middle East, said in January 2018 that it was “important to have an honest and sincere effort to disrupt UNRWA.” For him, the dismantlement of the organisation meant the dismissal of the right of return for Palestinian refugees.
Indeed, the issue is not just about UNRWA, but rather the historic role the organisation has served as a reminder of the plight of millions of Palestinian refugees in occupied Palestine, the Middle East and across the world.
UNRWA was established through general assembly resolution 302 (IV) of December 8 1949. The founding of UNRWA came one year after the passing of UN resolution 194, which granted Palestinian refugees the right to “return to their homes.”
Although UNRWA’s mission has turned into a permanent mandate, since Palestinian refugees were not granted their right of return, the role of the organisation remained as critical as it was decades ago.
Since Kushner and others have failed to dismantle UNRWA, the Israeli government has taken advantage of its war on Gaza to achieve the exact purpose. In Israeli thinking, without UNRWA, the issue of Palestinian refugees would lose its main legal platform and would ultimately disappear.
This would give Israel the space and leverage to “resolve” the problem of the refugees in any way it finds fit, especially if it has the full backing of Washington.
Israel must not be allowed to dismantle UNRWA or to dismiss the generational struggle of Palestinian refugees, which is the core of the Palestinian fight for justice and freedom.
The international community must challenge Israel’s vilification of UNRWA and insist on the centrality of the right of return for Palestinian refugees. Without it, no real peace is possible.
Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and the editor of the Palestine Chronicle (www.palestinechronicle.com).
Project 2025, a controversial conservative roadmap that aims to guide the next Republican administration, calls for the elimination of multiple energy- and environment-related offices and rules — moves that would restrict the government’s ability to combat climate change and pollution.
Policies promoted under the plan would place political personnel in positions to oversee science at major federal agencies and reduce such agencies’ limitations on polluting industries.
The project additionally proposes chopping up several agencies. It called for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the nation’s oceans, weather, climate and fisheries science agency, to be “dismantled.”
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Project 2025 has sparked concerns among environmental advocates. Climate activist Jamie Henn said what alarms him about the project is not necessarily that it’s more extreme than Trump’s proposals, but that it’s more specific.
“Trump would frack the National Mall if he thought it would make a couple of bucks for donors and Big Oil,” said Henn, director of Fossil Free Media, a nonprofit that supports ending fossil fuel use.
But he said “Trump tends to speak in slogans,” while “this is a plan that really gets into the details.”
“We’re not only going agency by agency, we’re going into every single agency program,” Henn said. “They’re coming in with sledgehammers and scalpels to try and dismantle any barriers to the fossil fuel industries.”
Elon Musk speaks at an event on November 29, 2023 in New York City. (Photo: Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images for The New York Times)
The Vermont senator said Musk has done “an exceptional job of demonstrating a point that we have made for years—and that is the fact we live in an oligarchic society.”
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Tuesday took the unusual step of applauding Elon Musk—but not for reasons that the Tesla CEO and world’s richest man would likely find flattering.
In the wake of reports indicating that Musk plans to inject $45 million per month into a new super PAC supporting former President Donald Trump’s bid for another four years in the White House, Sanders (I-Vt.) thanked Musk for doing “an exceptional job of demonstrating a point that we have made for years—and that is the fact we live in an oligarchic society in which billionaires dominate not only our economic life and the information we consume, but our politics as well.”
“And let me be clear. While the size of Musk’s financial contribution is particularly egregious, he is not alone in attempting to buy this election to further his own needs,” Sanders continued. “Other billionaires are also playing a significant role—in both political parties. Oh, I know… here goes Bernie Sanders again about Citizens United and the role of money in politics. I have no shortage of critics who accuse me of being boring and of hammering away at the same themes year after year after year.”
“They’re probably right. I am repetitious, but that’s because the problems we care about are only getting worse,” he added. “Let’s be clear. It has never made sense to me, then or now, that a tiny clique of people should have incredible wealth and power while most people have none.”
“While people like Elon Musk try to buy elections for Donald Trump, people who work for low wages, have no health insurance, can’t afford prescription drugs, and can’t find affordable housing are giving up on politics.”
Citing unnamed sources, The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg reported earlier this week that Musk has pledged to donate $45 million per month to America PAC, whose founding donors include ultra-rich tech investors who are part of Musk’s social circle. The New York Timesseparately reported that “one leader of America PAC told a friend that the group expected to have a major donor who would make donations in four batches, adding up to as much as $160 million over the course of the campaign.”
The Journal and Bloomberg stories—which Musk denied with a meme that included the words “fake gnus”—followed reports that Musk had already given the super PAC a substantial sum of money despite his March declaration that he is “not donating money to either candidate for U.S. president.”
Musk formally endorsed Trump on X—the social media platform Musk owns—following an assassination attempt against the former president this past weekend in Pennsylvania. Conspiracy theories about the attempt on Trump’s life proliferated rapidly on X, with the help of Musk himself.
The Tesla CEO’s name did not appear on America PAC’s disclosure filings for June, which could mean that he donated to the PAC earlier this month.
Musk, who is worth over $250 billion, is one of more than a dozen billionaires supporting Trump and his newly chosen running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio). Axios and the Times reported Tuesday that Musk personally lobbied Trump to make Vance his vice presidential pick.
Musk and other U.S. billionaires got $1 trillion richer during Trump’s first four years in office, gains fueled by massive tax cuts he signed into law in 2017.
Why are billionaires like Peter Thiel, Rupert Murdoch, Stephen Schwartzman, and the owner of this website rallying behind Trump?
Yes, the tax cuts. But there's more.
The more Trump tears down democracy, the safer the oligarchy becomes.
Sanders wrote in his email Tuesday that Musk’s influence on the 2024 election could be particularly pronounced given his ownership of X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
Musk, Sanders wrote, has used the platform “to amplify the voices of conspiracy theorists who deny the results of the last election and spread the dangerous idea that Democrats want to allow mass, undocumented migration to the country to replace, electorally, the votes of white people.”
“The reality is that while people like Elon Musk try to buy elections for Donald Trump, people who work for low wages, have no health insurance, can’t afford prescription drugs, and can’t find affordable housing are giving up on politics,” the senator continued. “They see the rich getting richer as they use their wealth to buy influence, and wonder whether anyone in Washington even knows what is going on in their lives.”
Sanders argued that to end the pernicious political influence of Musk and other billionaires, it is essential to elect candidates who support overturning Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the 2010 Supreme Court decision that spawned the super PACs now playing a massive role in the nation’s elections.
“It is an issue that should concern all Americans—regardless of their political point of view—who wish to live under a government that represents all of the people and not just a handful of powerful special interests,” Sanders wrote. “Taking action is not just good politics, it is also good policy. Because the truth is, campaign finance reform is the most important issue facing us today, because it impacts all the others.”
U.S. Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) arrives at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on July 15, 2024. (Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
“JD Vance will sell out to the highest bidder, whether that’s Trump or the fossil fuel industry,” said one Sunrise Movement campaigner. “That makes him dangerous.”
Climate campaigners reacted to former U.S. President Donald Trump’s selection of Sen. JD Vance as his running mate Monday by highlighting the Ohio Republican’s climate denial and strong support for the fossil fuel industry—one of his top campaign contributors.
“Like Donald Trump, JD Vance has proven that he will make it a top priority to roll back climate protections while answering to the demands of oil and gas CEOs,” Sunrise Movement communications director Stevie O’Hanlon said in a statement. “Vance is one of Congress’ biggest recipients of donations from oil companies.”
“JD Vance not only flip-flopped on supporting Trump, he flip-flopped on climate,” she continued. “He went from expressing concern about climate change before running for the Senate, to voting to gut [Environmentl Protection Agency] protections and denying that there even is a climate change crisis.”
O’Hanlon added: “JD Vance will sell out to the highest bidder, whether that’s Trump or the fossil fuel industry. That makes him dangerous. Donald Trump was the worst president for climate in U.S. history. JD Vance will empower Donald Trump to enact even worse damage on our planet in a second Trump administration.”
Just posted a video breaking down some of JD Vance’s wild statements on climate and clean energy.
Some of Trump’s key first-term Cabinet appointees—including Rex Tillerson, his first secretary of state, and Ryan Zinke, who headed the Interior Department—were former fossil fuel executives or had track records of supporting the oil, gas, and coal industries.
Trump’s White House tenure was also marked by an aggressive rollback of climate and environmental regulations and protections.
Food & Water Watch Action deputy director Mitch Jones said that “just like Trump himself, JD Vance is a fossil fuel backer and climate change denier that poses a serious risk to public health and our environment.”
“Among the countless reasons that Trump and Vance shouldn’t be elected to lead our country, the duo represents an existential threat to a livable climate future for all Americans and people around the globe,” Jones added.
BIG UPDATE: we took over the gala dinner honoring JD Vance. JD Vance hates you and hates your children. He is ready and willing to tear down democracy and torch the planet. His only principle is power. We must stop him. And. We. Will. pic.twitter.com/33Igq5e2zk
JL Andrepont of 350 Action asserted that “we are facing a dire need to ward off further climate catastrophe and injustice, so let’s be clear: JD Vance is another climate-denying authoritarian who poses massive danger to this country.”
“He has praised the horrific Project 2025 plan and said there are ‘good ideas in there,'” they continued. “He says he would be totally fine with a federal ban on abortion. And as the effects of climate change accelerate at an alarming pace right in front of our eyes, Vance is a strong supporter of the oil and gas industry who claims that climate change is not a threat.”
“We must reject him and all climate deniers at the polls,” Andrepont stressed.
Donald Trump enters the stage on the last day of the Republican National Convention (Screenshot via CBS News)
Former president Trump’s first speech following the attempted assassination against him was an appeal to workers from a pro-boss candidate
Former President Donald Trump, now officially the nominee from the Republican Party for the 2024 Presidential elections, gave an address to the Republican National Convention on its last night, on July 18.
His address was riddled with appeals to workers in the US, who are experiencing deep economic despair under the Biden administration (as they were during previous administrations). According to the US Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey, the vast majority (67%) of the over 220 million survey respondents claim to have difficulty paying for usual household expenses within the last seven days—no surprise, as grocery prices have risen nearly 27% since 2020.
Eugene Puryear, journalist with BreakThrough News and political analyst, said that the Republican appeal to workers is telling of the overall political climate in the country. “We see Biden and the Democratic Party talking about ‘working class, working class, working class,’ Trump, JD Vance, and the Republicans also talking about ‘working class, working class, working class,’ when clearly neither of these parties cares at all about the working class,” he stated. “If these two capitalist parties, who have access to the most extensive polling data, think that they have to appeal to the working class, as a class, in their campaign, even if it’s a fraudulent appeal, it confirms class consciousness is growing in the United States. As can be seen from the growing popularity of trade unions and socialism.”
However, the appeal to working people by the Republicans, is one that recognizes their hardship but does not present solutions that would in any way threaten their class interests. As showcased by Donald Trump at the convention, their approach is to misinform, misrepresent, look for scapegoats, and beat the drums of nationalist chauvinism.
Made in the USA
“We will not let countries come in, take our jobs, and plunder our nation. They come and do that. They plunder our nation,” Trump said. “The way they will sell their product in America is to build it in America, very simple. Build it in America and only in America… If you go back 20, 25 years they’ve stolen, going to China and Mexico, about 68% of our auto industry. Manufacturing jobs. We’re going to get them all back. We’re going to get them all back, every single one of them.”
Trump promises to bring manufacturing jobs back to the US through tariffs and reversing government regulations.
In swearing his commitment to “bringing manufacturing back to the US”, Trump targeted prominent union leader Shawn Fain, the president of the United Auto Workers. Trump essentially blames Fain for having “allowing” auto manufacturing jobs to move to Mexico.
“And right now as we speak, large factories, just started, are being built across the border in Mexico,” said Trump. “So, with all the other things happening at our border, and they’re being built by China to make cars and to sell them into our country, no tax, no anything. The United Auto Workers ought to be ashamed for allowing this to happen and the leader of the United Auto Workers should be fired immediately and every single autoworker, union and nonunion, should be voting for Donald Trump because we’re going to bring back car manufacturing and we’re going to bring it back fast.”
This attack on Fain may be based on his left-leaning political position rather than a supposed “defense of workers”.
The reason why manufacturing plants have largely moved to the Global South is clearly not because of strong union leaders, but because of corporate greed, and the increase in surplus value that capitalists can extract from cheaper labor in the Global South, ie globalization, a process which has been the driving force in the global economy for the last several decades. A central demand of the successful UAW strike last year in the “Big Three” auto manufacturers, Stellantis, Ford, and General Motors, was in fact to reopen factories that had been closed down due to offshoring and globalization.
Wealth transfers to the rich
During his speech, Trump proudly touted his legacy of tax cuts for the wealthy and slashing pro-worker regulations. “The biggest tax cuts ever. The biggest regulation cuts ever… We did so much. We do so much,” he said.
Trump has already been president once, and as he proudly articulated, his record proves that his true loyalty lies with the ultra-rich, not with the working class. In 2017, Trump launched tax cuts for the rich that initiated one of the largest transfers of wealth from workers to the wealthy in US history—effectively a wealth transfer of USD 2 trillion. How did he manage this? Trump slashed the corporate tax rate from 36% to 21%, and lowered the income tax rate from those in the highest bracket from 39.6% to 37%, and exempted people with up to USD 12 million from paying any taxes on the inheritance left to loved ones.
He indicated that he would go even further during his second term. “We’ll start paying off debt and start lowering taxes even further. We gave you the largest tax cut. We’ll do it more,” he promised.
Sacrificing workers and the planet, for profit
During his speech, Trump declared that he would address the cost of living crisis and soaring cost of energy by encouraging exploitation of the natural resources in the United States. “We will drill, baby, drill,” Trump said to the convention hall.
“By slashing energy costs, we will in turn reduce the cost of transportation, manufacturing and all household goods. So much starts with energy. And remember, we have more liquid gold under our feet than any other country by far. We are a nation that has the opportunity to make an absolute fortune with its energy. We have it and China doesn’t.”
It is not new for Republican candidates to promise jobs and benefits for workers in exchange for striking down environmental regulations and violating Indigenous land rights, over uninhibited extraction of gas and oil in the United States. Trump in his 2016 campaign had triumphantly declared, “We’re preparing bold action to lift the restrictions on American energy…and we’re going to put our miners back to work.”
The Republican Party platform for 2024 states: “Under President Trump, the US became the Number One Producer of Oil and Natural Gas in the World — and we will soon be again by lifting restrictions on American Energy Production and terminating the Socialist Green New Deal.”
But is the drive to extract the earth’s resources necessarily compatible with protecting workers and jobs?
Already Congressional Republicans moved to block the enforcement of life-saving health regulations for coal miners.
If Trump and the Republican Party implement their drastic program, not only will the planet suffer—so will workers, who conservatives have historically left with the least protections possible. Trump implemented a variety of policies that undermined federal safety regulations, including slashing the amount of Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) inspectors.
Trump enables tip stealing
Trump also made a big deal about the Republican Party’s proposal of eliminating taxes on tips, telling a confusing anecdote about a waitress he spoke to about the need for this policy. Trump seemed in disbelief that he had a meaningful political conversation with his waitress. “You know, most people who go out, they hire consultants. They pay them [millions] of dollars… I got my information from a very smart waitress. That’s better than spending millions of dollars.”
The Republican Party’s platform states regarding “no tax on tips”, “we will eliminate Taxes on Tips for millions of Restaurant and Hospitality Workers, and pursue additional Tax Cuts.”
How much good can “no tax on tips” do in an administration (Trump’s) which implemented a “tip stealing rule,” which made it easier for employers to pocket up to USD 5.8 billion worth of workers’ tips? Or which opposed any increase to the federal minimum wage?
So-called border “invasion” rhetoric divides working class
Trump spent most of his speech harping on policies that divide workers from one another, including a very fine line between recent immigrants, specifically from Venezuela and El Salvador, versus the rest of the working class. Trump and the Republicans have promised to carry out the largest mass deportation the country has ever seen. “We also have an illegal immigration crisis, and it’s taking place right now, as we sit here in this beautiful arena. It’s a massive invasion at our southern border that has spread misery, crime, poverty, disease, and destruction to communities all across our land. Nobody’s ever seen anything like it.”
In an economy ruled by the corporate elite, are migrant workers the true enemies of US-born workers? Economists cite migrant workers as a key reason for job growth despite the Federal Reserve’s aggressive raising of interest rates.
“There’s been something of a mystery—how are we continuing to get such extraordinary strong job growth with inflation still continuing to come down?’’ Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute and a former chief economist at the Labor Department, told PBS. “The immigration numbers being higher than what we had thought—that really does pretty much solve that puzzle.’’
The policies that are set to come from a second Trump term can only hurt working people. As labor journalist Alexandra Bradbury writes in Labor Notes, “In case there’s any doubt: billionaire Trump, who as an employer has fought unions and stiffed workers, and as a TV personality made ‘You’re fired’ his catchphrase, is not for the little guy.”
While workers in the US are increasingly feeling discouraged by what both the Republican and Democratic parties have to offer, many people are instead turning to alternative options. Claudia De La Cruz and Karina Garcia, are running on the ticket of the Party for Socialism and Liberation on an explicitly socialist platform, and Dr. Jill Stein, running with the Green Party and Dr. Cornel West, running as an independent, are running on progressive platforms. Either way, most working class formations are gearing up for a strong fight back to the next presidential administration and their plans to shred the rights of the people.
