US

[Genocide Joe] Biden Request Would Create ‘Free-Flowing’ Arms Pipeline to Israel

Spread the love

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

Zionist president Joe Biden. 27 July 2021 image by Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz. Original public domain image from Flickr
Zionist president Joe Biden. 27 July 2021 image by Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz. Original public domain image from Flickr

The request would remove most conditions on Israel’s use of a U.S. weapons stash, including a requirement that it only use surplus or obsolete weapons and a cap on how much the U.S. can spend resupplying the stash.

President Joe Biden has requested that Congress to lift most of the restrictions on Israel’s access to a U.S. stockpile of weapons in the country, The Intercept reported Saturday.

The request came in the administration’s supplemental budget request to the U.S. Senate, sent October 20. It concerns the War Reserve Stockpile Allies-Israel (WRSA-I) that the U.S. has stored in Israel since the 1980s for its own use in a potential conflict in the region. The U.S. allows Israel to access the stockpile under certain conditions, but Biden’s request would remove most of these conditions, including a requirement that Israel only use surplus or obsolete weapons and a cap on how much the U.S. can spend resupplying the stash.

“The President’s emergency supplemental funding request would essentially create a free-flowing pipeline to provide any defense articles to Israel by the simple act of placing them in the WRSA-I stockpile, or other stockpiles intended for Israel,” Josh Paul, a former State Department official who resigned over U.S. arm transfers to Israel in the midst of its bombardment of Gaza, told The Intercept.

“The Biden administration’s supplemental budget request would further undermine oversight and accountability even as U.S. support enables an Israeli campaign that has killed thousands of children.”

The news comes in the midst of a four-day cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, which has given journalists and humanitarian organizations a moment to assess the extent of the death and destruction unleashed by Israel in Gaza since October 7, when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 and taking around 240 hostages. In retaliation, the Israeli military has killed more than 14,800 people in Gaza, around 10,000 of them women and children. That means the number of women and children killed in Gaza in less than two months is more than double the number confirmed killed in Ukraine in two years of fighting with Russia, The New York Times concluded Saturday. One of the reasons for the high civilian toll, the Times said, is Israel’s use of 2,000-pound, U.S.-made bombs in a densely populated Gaza Strip.

Despite this, Biden’s request would allow Israel to access all weapons from the WRSA-I, not just excess or obsolete ones, something that could hurt U.S. preparedness, Paul told The Intercept. The request would also remove a requirement that Israel provide concessions to the U.S. in exchange for accessing the weapons, lift the $200 million per year restocking cap, and shorten a requirement that the government inform Congress 30 days ahead of a weapons transfer under “extraordinary” circumstances.

“The Biden administration’s supplemental budget request would further undermine oversight and accountability even as U.S. support enables an Israeli campaign that has killed thousands of children,” John Ramming Chappell, a legal fellow with the Center for Civilians in Conflict, told The Intercept.

The U.S. typically provides Israel with $3.8 billion in military aid every year, more than it sends to any other nation, according to Al Jazeera. The House has already approved additional aid this year to the tune of $14.3 billion.

The Intercept story came the day after Biden seemed open to the idea of putting conditions on military aid to Israel while answering questions from reporters in Nantucket.

“I think that’s a worthwhile thought, but I don’t think if I started off with that we would have gotten where we are today,” Biden said, as HuffPost reported. “We have to take this a piece at a time.”

On the campaign trail in 2020, Biden said the idea of putting conditions on aid to Israel was “absolutely outrageous.” But the administration’s seemingly unconditional support for Israel as it carried out its siege, bombardment, and invasion of Gaza has led to backlash among progressives, who have marched for a cease-fire and carried out direct actions in several major cities. A Reuters/Ipsos poll released on November 15 found that 68% of the U.S. public backed a cease-fire.

In an appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan did not rule out the idea that Biden would sign legislation putting conditions on military aid to Israel, though he said currently what was proving effective was behind-doors diplomacy with Israel and Arab nations.

“He is going to continue to focus on what is going to generate results,” Sullivan said.

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

Continue Reading[Genocide Joe] Biden Request Would Create ‘Free-Flowing’ Arms Pipeline to Israel

‘No More Genocide in Gaza!’: 50+ Arrested Blocking Bay Bridge

Spread the love

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

Police officers work to separate protesters who locked themselves together during a November 16, 2023 demonstration for a cease-fire in Gaza, on the Bay Bridge between Oakland and San Francisco. (Photo: Arab Resource and Organizing Center)

“We refuse to stand by as our elected officials pay for and cheer on the genocide of Palestinians,” said one protester. “Biden must call for a cease-fire now.”

Dozens of demonstrators demanding a cease-fire in Israel’s war on Gaza were arrested Thursday after protesters blocked San Francisco-bound traffic on the Bay Bridge during morning rush hour and the ongoing Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit.

Members of activist groups including Palestinian Youth Movement, Arab Resource and Organizing Center, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) Bay Area, and others blocked westbound lanes of the bridge with their vehicles before getting out of their cars and unfurling banners reading “Stop the Genocide” and “No U.S. Military Aid to Israel.”

“We are beyond grief watching thousands of our loved ones murdered by the Israeli military. There is a genocide happening in Gaza, and President [Joe] Biden is hosting cocktail parties in San Francisco right now,” Palestinian Youth Movement’s Aisha Nizar said in a statement.

“We refuse to stand by as our elected officials pay for and cheer on the genocide of Palestinians. Biden must call for a cease-fire now,” Nizar added.

Many protesters held signs or wore banners reading “The People Demand a Cease-Fire.” Some staged a “die-in” on the roadway, while others locked themselves together and through open vehicle windows in what’s known as a “sleeping dragon” maneuver as traffic on Interstate 80 and other area freeways stayed snarled for hours.

JVP said “at least” 50 people were arrested, a number corroborated by the California Highway Patrol.

“The Bay Area will not stop shutting things down until there is an immediate END to the bombing in Gaza,” JVP Bay Area said on social media.

Ariel Koren, a leader of the #NoTechForApartheid movement, posted that “Biden will not get away with genocide, Biden will not get away with staying in San Francisco without EVERYONE knowing he is supporting the slaughter in Gaza.”

Several protests against Israel’s war on Gaza have taken place in the Bay Area in recent weeks, including marches and a Jewish-led takeover of a federal building in Oakland on Monday.

Multiple people detained by police said they had nothing to do with the demonstration. Among those claiming wrongful arrests were Stanford University physics professor Lauren Tompkins and Masoud Barukzai, a worker at San Francisco International Airport.

“As a citizen, this is absolutely disgusting, to be stripped of my rights,” Barukzai—who says he believes he was arrested due to his appearance—told The San Francisco Chronicle.

Israel’s relentless assault on Gaza has killed, maimed, or displaced nearly 40,000 Palestinians, with over 2,700 others missing—many of them presumed dead under the rubble. Half the homes in the besieged strip have been damaged or destroyed, while as many as 1.7 million people—around 70% of Gaza’s population—have been forcibly displaced.

Biden—who spoke at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leader’s Meeting in San Francisco Thursday morning—has rejected calls for a cease-fire while requesting $14.3 billion in additional military aid for Israel, atop the nearly $4 billion it already gets each year.

Biden—who has proclaimed his “unwavering” support for Israel—has also been accused of genocide denial for casting aspersions on Palestinian officials’ Gaza casualty reports, even though his own administration has cited figures from the same agencies in recent reports.

A similar protest took place Thursday morning in Massachusetts, where the Jewish-led group IfNotNow Boston spearheaded a rush-hour blockage of Boston University Bridge.

“Every day brings more death, more starvation, more children losing limbs, more babies becoming orphans,” the group said in an open letter demanding a Gaza cease-fire. “It is unbearable, our souls cry out against it.”

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

Continue Reading‘No More Genocide in Gaza!’: 50+ Arrested Blocking Bay Bridge

Right-wing media claims Palestine solidarity activists in the US are influenced by foreign agents

Spread the love

Original article by Natalia Marques republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

FOX News and other outlets, following massive pro-Palestine demonstrations across the US, claim demonstrators are driven by foreign funds not “organic rage”

On November 4, 300,000 people took to the streets in Washington DC to protest US funding of Israel and to call for a ceasefire (Photo: Sofia Perez)

As pro-Palestine demonstrations grow in size and stakes in cities across the United States, the mainstream media machine is working overtime to claim that demonstrators are being manipulated by wealthy donors abroad. Stemming from a Free Press article written on November 14, right-wing outlets have alleged that the People’s Forum, a socialist community space in New York, is bankrolling the Palestine solidarity movement, claiming that the organization has ties to the Chinese Communist Party.

On November 4, more than 300,000 people took to the streets in Washington DC to protest US funding of Israel and to call for a ceasefire. A week later, a much smaller number, between 5,000 and 20,000 descended upon Washington to “march for Israel,” although mainstream outlets such as the New York Post claimed to see a crowd of 300,000 as well. 

The huge disparity in turnout for both DC events and the massive movement for Palestine cannot be due to “organic rage,” claims the mainstream media. In a November 15 segment, FOX News anchors express disbelief at the sheer scale of support for Palestine across the US, and try desperately to pin the success of the movement on outside forces. 

Socialists once again accused of foreign influence

FOX News is referencing the article written in The Free Press, a media company founded by notorious Zionist Bari Weiss, which claims that two of the People’s Forum’s donors, Jodie Evans and Neville Roy Singham, are “Chinese propagandists.” The article implies, much like a long New York Times so-called investigation from August, that because Evans and Singham fund projects that do not parrot State Department talking points on China, they are being somehow influenced by the Chinese Communist Party. 

This Times investigation provided the cover necessary for the Indian government to continue its attacks on left-wing media outlet Newsclick, which was accused in the Times article of “[sprinkling] its coverage with Chinese government talking points.” On October 3, Indian authorities raided the homes and offices of over 100 journalists, contractors, and former employees associated with the progressive news outlets Newsclick and Peoples Dispatch, as well as Tricontinental Research Services. Newsclick editor-in-chief Prabir Purkayastha and administrator Amit Chakraborty continue to languish in prison on draconian anti-terrorism charges. Prior to the raid, an Indian official had directly cited the New York Times article.

“The Chinese Communist Party uses tools like Confucius Institutes on college campuses, TikTok’s addictive algorithm, and organizations like those that Mr. Singham funds to divide and weaken America,” US Representative Mike Gallagher, the chairman of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, told The Free Press. Gallagher is rapidly anti-China, even for a US congress member, not only openly admitting that there is a “New Cold War” against China, but that the United States must win it.

Palestine solidarity movement accused of “dividing America”

FOX News anchors used these baseless accusations of Chinese funding and influence to attack the popular, dynamic, and youthful Palestine solidarity movement in the United States. As Israel continues it’s genocide in the Gaza Strip, its policies of raiding and bombing hospitals, schools, and mosques are becoming unpopular worldwide. But it is not the genocide that makes Zionism unpopular, claim the anchors, it’s Chinese foreign influence.

“You look at this, and you think, these kids are being used as pawns,” said FOX Business anchor Jackie DeAngelis about recent protests, which have been majority youth. 

“It’s so obvious that there’s an element of just wanting to create chaos, taking over streets, dividing America. It’s very consistent I think with what the Chinese Communist Party would like to see in America, a divided America. A ruined America,” added FOX Business anchor Brian Brenberg.

Brenberg claimed that a high school demonstration he witnessed for Palestine “was being controlled by somebody else, who was very much not a high school audience.” 

“It sounds like it might be this group behind it,” he said, referring to the People’s Forum specifically. 

Protestors as “outside agitators”

There is a long history of mass protest movements receiving these sorts of allegations. Claims that popular discontent is influenced by nefarious outside agents is a way to delegitimize those movements. Socialists in the 20th century were driven out of the public sphere due to accusations that they were “Russian agents” in the McCarthy era. Just a few years ago, the George Floyd uprisings were plagued by accusations of “outside agitators” coming to cities and stirring up riots, rather than what demonstrators were expressing, that millions of people hit the streets because they were tired of police brutality. 

In a clip from a May 2020 demonstration Minneapolis, BreakThrough News anchor Eugene Puryear asks a protester, “What do you say to the governor who’s saying, it’s people coming from outside [that are driving the protests?]” The woman, a mother of three sons, responds, “No. It’s tired people.”

“We’ve been quiet for too long,” she said. “I mean this from my heart. Tear it down!”

Organizations plan mass day of action

The People’s Forum issued a response to the right-wing media accusations. “We affirm our right to gather, rally, and protest to defend Palestine. This is as much a moral right as it is a legal one. Efforts to smear and defame supporters of Palestinian liberation will enter the ledgers of history as shameful,” read their statement. 

Alongside Palestinian groups, the People’s Forum is continuing to lead and organize protests. “History has shown us that those who stand on the sidelines and remain silent in the face of injustice are often judged harshly,” stated the organization. 

On November 17, the People’s Forum alongside the Palestinian Youth Movement, the ANSWER Coalition, and several other organizations are calling for another international shut down of “business as usual” to protest Israel’s genocide. There is a planned mass rally on the steps of the New York Public Library, planned closings by small business owners, student walkouts, and mass actions around the world.

Original article by Natalia Marques republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

Continue ReadingRight-wing media claims Palestine solidarity activists in the US are influenced by foreign agents

‘Baby Steps’ Will Not Avert Climate Catastrophe, UN Warns

Spread the love

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

Firefighters tackle forest fires near Porto Jofre, Mato Grosso State, Brazil, on November 13, 2023.  (Photo: Rogerio Florentino/AFP via Getty Images)

The United Nations assessment coincided with the release of “the world’s most comprehensive roadmap of how to close the global gap in climate action across sectors.”

That’s how United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres began his Tuesday remarks about a new U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) report on nationally determined contributions (NDCs), or countries’ plans to meet the goals of the Paris agreement, including its 1.5°C temperature target.

The UNFCCC analysis “provides yet more evidence that the world remains massively off track to limiting global warming to 1.5°C and avoiding the worst of climate catastrophe,” said Guterres. “As the report shows, global ambition stagnated over the past year and national climate plans are strikingly misaligned with the science.”

“COP28 must be the place to urgently close the climate ambition gap.”

Under current NDCs from the 195 Paris agreement parties, global greenhouse gas emissions are set to rise by nearly 9% by 2030, compared with 2010 levels, according to the analysis. While that’s a slight improvement on the 10.6% increase from last year’s assessment, it’s still nowhere near the cuts that experts say are needed.

The analysis of NDCs comes as scientists project that 2023 will be the hottest year in 125,000 years and just over two weeks before the U.N. Climate Change Conference (COP28) in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, a summit controversially led by Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company.

“As the reality of climate chaos pounds communities around the world—with ever fiercer floods, fires, and droughts—the chasm between need and action is more menacing than ever,” Guterres declared. “COP28 must be the place to urgently close the climate ambition gap.”

U.N. Climate Change Executive-Secretary Simon Stiell echoed Guterres’ call to action, stressing in a statement that the new assessment makes clear governments are merely “taking baby steps to avert the climate crisis.”

“It shows why governments must make bold strides forward at COP28 in Dubai, to get on track,” Stiell said. “This means COP28 must be a clear turning point. Governments must not only agree what stronger climate actions will be taken but also start showing exactly how to deliver them.”

The UNFCCC document was released on the same day as State of Climate Action 2023, which its crafters called “the world’s most comprehensive roadmap of how to close the global gap in climate action across sectors.”

Published under Systems Change Lab, the latter report highlights that only one of the dozens of indicators assessed, the share of electric vehicles in passenger car sales, is on track to meet its 2030 target.

As the publication details:

Recent rates of change for 41 of the 42 indicators across power, buildings, industry transport, forests and land, food and agriculture, technological carbon removal, and climate finance are not on track to reach their 1.5°C-aligned targets for 2030. Worryingly, 24 of those indicators are well off track, such that at least a twofold acceleration in recent rates of change will be required to achieve their 2030 targets. Another six indicators are heading in the wrong direction entirely. Within this subset of lagging indicators, the most recent year of data represents a concerning worsening relative to recent trends for three indicators, with significant setbacks in efforts to eliminate public financing for fossil fuels, dramatically reduce deforestation, and expand carbon pricing systems.

To get back on track, the international community must “dramatically increase growth in solar and wind power” while also phasing out “coal in electricity generation seven times faster—which is equivalent to retiring roughly 240 average-sized coal-fired power plants each year through 2030,” the report warns.

The publication also emphasizes the need for shifting to healthier, more sustainable diets eight times faster, increasing the coverage of rapid transit six times faster, reducing the annual rate of deforestation four times faster, and scaling up global climate finance by nearly $500 billion annually until 2030.

“Despite decades of dire warnings and wake-up calls, our leaders have largely failed to mobilize climate action anywhere near the pace and scale needed,” declared the report’s lead author, Sophie Boehm of the World Resources Institute (WRI). “Such delays leave us with very few routes to secure a livable future for all. There’s no time left to tinker at the edges. Instead, we need immediate, transformational changes across every single sector this decade.”

Every world leader is under pressure to ramp up efforts to cut emissions, including U.S. President Joe Biden, who on Tuesday received a letter from hundreds of scientists urging him to “increase the ambition of domestic climate action—including through accelerating a just and equitable clean energy transition, rejecting the expansion of new long-lived fossil fuel infrastructure, investing in climate resilience, and ramping up climate finance—while working toward the strongest possible agreement at COP28.”

The United States now ranks behind China as the top emitting country but still leads the world in cumulative planet-heating emissions. According to a U.S. government assessment released Tuesday, the nation is “warming faster than the global average,” and “the effects of human-caused climate change are already far-reaching and worsening across every region.”

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

Continue Reading‘Baby Steps’ Will Not Avert Climate Catastrophe, UN Warns

Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza has killed 10,000 people

Spread the love

Over 26,000 people have been injured and around 1.5 million displaced out of a total population of 2.3 million since Israel started its war on Gaza on October 7. Israeli forces have also killed over 150 people in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

November 06, 2023 by Peoples Dispatch

The debris following an Israeli airstrike in Jabalya. Photo: Quds News Network

Gaza faced yet another communications black out on Monday, November 6 even as reports emerged of Israeli planes bombing more residential areas and killing dozens of civilians on the 31st day of its war. 

On Sunday night and on Monday morning, Israeli forces bombed over 450 Palestinian locations in the besieged Palestinian territory, killing dozens of Palestinians, including children and women. 

The total number of Palestinians killed has crossed the 10,000 mark and over 26,000 have been injured in Israel’s indiscriminate bombings and ground offensive. Over 1,000 Palestinians are also reported missing and are likely to be buried in the debris created by Israel’s war planes targeting residential areas, hospitals, schools, and other civilian infrastructure. 

Israel has also launched a ground offensive inside Gaza. Its forces claimed on Monday that they have divided the besieged Palestinian territory into two. They also repeated their ultimatum asking all residents to leave northern Gaza.

66 Palestinians were reportedly killed when Israel bombed residential buildings in Deir al-Balah and al-Zawayida in central Gaza on Monday.

Internet services and telecommunications shut down in Gaza for the third time since October 7. Israel on Monday once again disrupted the power supply to Al-Shifa hospital. The largest hospital in Gaza has faced repeated attacks in its vicinity and is running out of fuel, medicine, and space, caused both by the Israeli blockade and due to the surge in the number of patients. 

There are over 40,000 people seeking refuge in the hospital at the moment according to Al-Jazeera.

More killed in occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem

Israeli occupation forces have also killed 155 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem since October 7, two of them on Monday.

One of the Palestinians killed was just 16 years old. Israel alleged that he attacked two of their soldiers, wounding them seriously with a knife before he was shot dead, Wafa reported.

Over 70 other Palestinians were arrested from different parts of the occupied West Bank by Israeli occupation forces in late night raids conducted on Sunday and early morning on Monday. 

The arrested include activist Ahed Tamimi who was arrested from her house near Ramallah in a raid. 

On Sunday evening, an Israeli drone attacked a car in southern Lebanon, killing three children and injuring an elderly woman, Al-Mayadeen reported. 

Hezbollah responded to the death of Lebanese children by firing rockets inside a northern Israeli town killing at least one person.

Blinken threatened countries and groups in the region against any attempts to intervene in the war in Gaza. The US also announced the deployment of a nuclear submarine in the region on Monday.

The US has already increased the presence of its armed forces in the region following Israeli aggression in Gaza and has supplied armaments to Israel for the war.

Original article by peoples dispatch republished under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

Continue ReadingIsrael’s genocidal war on Gaza has killed 10,000 people