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Tag: US

  • US, Israel discuss settling Gazans in 3 African states, AP reports

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    This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

    Pro-Palestinian protesters march from Whitehall to the US embassy in Nine Elms, on 15 February 2025, in London, England [Richard Baker/In Pictures via Getty Images]

    The US and Israel have contacted officials of three East African countries to discuss using their territories to settle Palestinians who have been forcibly displaced from Gaza, the Associated Press reported today according to Reuters

    US and Israeli sources cited by AP said officials from Sudan, Somalia and the breakaway region of Somaliland were contacted regarding the proposal.

    However, Sudan officials said they rejected the proposal from the US and officials from Somalia and Somaliland said they were unaware of any contacts, reported AP.

    The White House and the US State Department did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment. The information ministers for Somalia and its breakaway region of Somaliland did not pick up Reuters’ telephone calls for comment.

    Earlier this month, Arab leaders adopted a $53 billion Egyptian reconstruction plan for Gaza that would avoid displacing Palestinians from the enclave, in contrast to US President Donald Trump’s vision of a “Middle East Riviera“.

    Trump has proposed a US takeover of Gaza, where Israel’s military assault in the last 17 months has killed nearly 50,000 Palestinians, to reconstruct the destroyed enclave, after earlier suggesting that Palestinians should be permanently displaced.

    Trump’s plan reinforced long-standing Palestinian fears of being permanently driven from their homes, and was met with widespread international rejection and warnings that it amounted to ethnic cleansing.

    Israel continues to ban the entry of building materials and diggers into the besieged enclave, leaving the over 2.3 million Palestinians in the Strip to live among the ruins.

    READ: Israel’s use of human shields in Gaza is part of its genocide against Palestinians

    This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

    Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
    Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
    Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
    Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.

  • Jewish Americans and Allies Occupy Trump Tower Demanding Release of Mahmoud Khalil

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    Original article by Julia Conley republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Common Dreams is publishing many quality articles.

    Demostrators from the human rights organization Jewish Voice for Peace hold a civil disobedience action inside Trump Tower in New York on March 13, 2025.
     (Photo: Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images)

    “We know what happens when an autocratic regime starts taking away our rights and scapegoating and we will not be silent.”

    This is a developing story… Please check back for possible updates…

    Nearly a year and a half after the advocacy group Jewish Voice for Peace began leading nationwide demonstrations against Israel’s U.S.-backed assault on Gaza, hundreds of organizers and supporters of the group risked arrest Thursday as they assembled in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York City, demanding the release of Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil.

    “Three hundred Jews and friends in Trump Tower, because we know what happens when an autocratic regime starts taking away our rights and scapegoating and we will not be silent,” said Sonya Meyerson-Knox, communications director for Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP). “Come for one—face us all.”

    The latter phrase was emblazoned on banners that were displayed by campaigners, who chanted, “Never again for anyone, never again is now!” and, “Free Mahmoud, free them all!”

    New York City police officers began arresting participants in the sit-in early in the afternoon.

    Jane Hirschmann, a Jewish New York resident whose grandfather and uncle were abducted by the Nazis in Germany as Adolf Hitler rose to power, said Khalil’s detention “is further proof that we are on the brink of a full takeover by an authoritarian regime.”

    “As Jews of conscience, we know our history and we know where this leads,” said Hirschmann. “This is what fascists do as they cement control. This moment requires all people of conscience to take bold action to resist state violence and repression. Free Mahmoud now.”

    Actors Morgan Spector, Debra Winger, and Arliss Howard were in attendance at the sit-in, along with writer and artist Molly Crabapple and New York City Council member Alexa Aviles.

    Khalil was abducted by plainclothes Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents last Saturday night as he was returning home to his Columbia-owned apartment with his wife, who is eight months pregnant. He was a graduate student at the university until this past December, and took a central organizing role in student-led protests and negotiations against Columbia’s investment in companies that profit from Israel’s apartheid policy in Gaza, including the bombardment it began in October 2023 in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack.

    Khalil, a legal U.S. resident and a citizen of Algeria, was detained under the State Department’s “catch and revoke” program, with the Trump administration revoking his green card and threatening to deport him. Administration officials have admitted that they are not accusing Khalil of breaking any laws by participating in Palestinian solidarity protests, but they said he is viewed as “adversarial to the foreign policy and national security interests of the United States of America.”

    After a hearing Wednesday, a federal judge is considering whether Khalil should be sent back to New York, where he was detained, from the Louisiana ICE facility where he is being held. The same judge blocked Khalil’s deportation this week.

    Original article by Julia Conley republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Common Dreams is publishing many quality articles.

    Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
    Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
    Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
    Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
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    UK fighter jets conduct joint exercise with US, Israeli aircraft – likely target Iran

    RAF fighter jets have taken part in joint bombing exercises over western Asia with the US Central Command (CENTCOM) and F-15 and F-35 fighters of the Israeli air force, believed to be preparation for attacks on Iran.

    The 4 March exercise – the third in two weeks – involved giant US B-52H ‘Stratofortress’ bombers that took off from Fairford RAF base in England and conducted the exercise in CENTCOM’s ‘area of responsibility’, which comprises the ‘Middle East’ and parts of southern Asia.

    The latest exercise follows a live-weapon drop on 20 February that the US military said involved B-52s conducting “multiple missions over the Arabian Peninsula and Red Sea”. With typically Orwellian language, the Pentagon said that these missions ‘promote security and stability’ in the region. In the past twelve months the US has used the B-52s, along with B-1 and B-2 bombers, to bomb Iraq, Syria and Yemen.

    …

  • As Freed Palestinians Describe Torture, Trump OKs $3 Billion Arms Package for Israel

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

    An Israeli soldier carries a U.S.-supplied 155mm artillery shell near a self-propelled howitzer deployed at a position near the border with Lebanon in the upper Galilee region of northern Israel on October 18, 2023. (Photo: Jalaa Marey/ AFP via Getty Images)

    Like the Biden administration, Trump is claiming an “emergency” in order to bypass Congress.

    As Palestinians released from Israeli imprisonment recount torture and other abuse suffered at the hands of their former captors, the Trump administration on Friday approved a new $3 billion weapons package for Israel.

    The new package, reported by Zeteo‘s Prem Thakker, includes nearly $2.716 billion worth of bombs and weapons guidance kits, as well as $295 million in bulldozers. The Trump administration said that “an emergency exists that requires the immediate sale,” allowing it to bypass Congress, as the Biden administration did on multiple occasions. However, the weapons won’t be delivered until 2026 or 2027.

    The Trump-Vance State Department just approved $3.01 billion in arms & equipment sales to Israel$2.04 billion in bombs$675.7 million in bombs & weapon guidance kits$295 million in bulldozersAdministration said "an emergency exists that requires the immediate sale," waiving congressional review

    — Prem Thakker ツ (@premthakker.bsky.social) 2025-02-28T21:56:45.465Z

    From October 2023 to October 2024, Israel received a record $17.9 billion worth of U.S. arms as it waged a war of annihilation against the Gaza Strip that left more than 170,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing and millions more displaced, starved, or sickened. Israel is facing genocide allegations in an International Court of Justice case brought by South Africa. The International Criminal Court has also issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

    Reporting on the new package came after U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Monday announced an effort to block four other arms sales totaling $8.56 billion in offensive American weaponry to Israel.

    Meanwhile, some of the approximately 1,000 Palestinians released by Israel as part of a prisoner swap described grim stories of abuse by Israeli forces. The former detainees, who were arrested but never charged with any crimes, “have returned visibly malnourished and scarred by the physical and psychological torture they say they faced in Israeli prisons,” according to The Washington Post. Some returned to what were once their homes to find them destroyed and their relatives killed or wounded by Israeli forces.

    Eyas al-Bursh, a doctor volunteering at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City when he was captured by Israeli troops, was held in Sde Teiman and the Ofer military prison in the illegally occupied West Bank for 11 months.

    “The places where we were held were harsh, sleep was impossible, and we remained handcuffed and blindfolded,” al-Bursh told the Post.

    “We endured psychological and physical torture without a single day of respite—whether through beatings, abuse, punches, or even verbal insults and humiliation,” he added.

    The Israel Defense Forces told the Post that it “acts in accordance with Israeli and international law in order to protect the rights of the detainees held in the detention and questioning facilities.”

    However, farmer Ashraf al-Radhi, who was held for 14 months—including at the notorious Sde Teiman prison in Israel’s Negev Desert—told the Post that “we witnessed all kinds of humiliation.”

    According to the newspaper:

    Radhi said he “wished for death” during his detention, which included long periods when he was blindfolded, handcuffed, andcrammed into a filthy cell with dozens of other prisoners. The 34-year-old said he had no access to a lawyer; no idea why he was there; or what, in his absence, had become of his family.

    Rahdi also said that Mohammed al-Akka, a 44-year-old detainee held with him, died last December. Al-Akka is one of dozens of Palestinian prisoners who have died in Israeli custody, some from suspected torture and, in at least one case, rape with an electric baton. A number of Israeli reservists are being investigated for the alleged gang-rape of a Sde Teiman prisoner.

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

    Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
    Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
    Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
    Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.

    As With Biden, Sanders Aims to Torpedo Trump’s Weapons Sales to Israel

  • ‘We Are Governed by Children’: Disgust as Trump and Vance Bully Zelenskyy in Oval Office

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

    U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy meet in the Oval Office of the White House on February 28, 2025. (Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)

    “An utter embarrassment for America. This whole sad scene,” wrote U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy.

    A White House meeting on Friday between U.S. President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy rapidly devolved into chaos as the two American leaders took turns berating Zelenskyy with television cameras rolling and the global public looking on.

    Both Trump and Vance bizarrely demanded that Zelenskyy show more gratitude for the military aid the U.S. has provided Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022 and pressured him to accept an as-yet-undefined deal to end the war.

    Vance told Zelenskyy he must “say thank you” and chided him for “trying to fight it out in the American media when you’re wrong,” but Trump intervened to say, “I think it’s good for the American people to see what’s going on here… that’s why I kept this going so long.”

    “You have to be thankful,” Trump told the Ukrainian president, who has repeatedly thanked the American public for the U.S. government’s military assistance.

    “You don’t have the cards,” Trump continued as Zelenskyy tried in vain to interject. “You’re buried there, your people are dying, you’re running low on soldiers.”

    Insisting that Russian President Vladimir Putin can’t be trusted to uphold a bilateral cease-fire, Zelenskyy is demanding security guarantees against a future Russian attack in any agreement to end the conflict—a demand that Trump has thus far rejected.

    “Your country is in big trouble,” Trump, who falsely suggested last week that Ukraine started the war, told Zelenskyy during the Oval Office meeting, which was meant to kick off talks regarding U.S. access Ukraine’s rare earth minerals.

    Zelenskyy left the White House on Friday without signing a minerals deal.

    “You’re either going to make a deal or we’re out,” Trump told Zelenskyy during Friday’s meeting, a clear threat to withdraw U.S. support for Ukraine. “And if we’re out, you’ll fight it out and I don’t think it’s going to be pretty.”

    Observers were aghast at Trump and Vance’s conduct during Friday’s meeting, which was likened to an ambush. At one point, as Trump responded dismissively to Zelenskyy’s call for security guarantees as part of any cease-fire deal, Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States was seen with her head in her hands.

    “Wow. Just wow,” said CNN‘s Dana Bash following the meeting.

    Zeteo‘s Mehdi Hasan wrote on social media that it is “insane that this just happened.”

    “We are governed by children,” he added.

    Watch the full exchange:

    U.S. lawmakers also voiced disgust over Trump and Vance’s behavior, with Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) writing that the meeting was “an utter embarrassment for America.”

    Shortly after the meeting concluded, Trump took to his social media platform to accuse Zelenskyy of disrespecting the U.S. “in its cherished Oval Office.”

    “He can come back when he is ready for peace,” Trump added as backlash over his treatment of Zelenskyy continued to pour in.

    “Trump berates Zelensky, the leader of a democratic country courageously fighting Russian imperialism, while he allies himself with Putin, a dictator who started the bloodiest European war in 80 years,” U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) wrote on social media.

    “Sorry, President Trump,” Sanders added. “We believe in democracy, not authoritarianism.”

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