war crimes

UN Human Rights Chief Decries ‘War Crime’ of Rapidly Expanding Israeli Settlements

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

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk speaks during a press conference in Cairo, Egypt on November 8, 2023. (Photo: Khaled Desouki/AFP via Getty Images)

“The West Bank is already in crisis. Yet, settler violence and settlement-related violations have reached shocking new levels, and risk eliminating any practical possibility of establishing a viable Palestinian state.”

The United Nations human rights chief on Friday condemned the record expansion of illegal Israeli apartheid settlements in the occupied West Bank including East Jerusalem and the “dramatic increase” in violence against Palestinians by Israeli occupation forces and settlers, developments that are occurring while the world’s attention is focused on the Gaza genocide.

“Reports this week that Israel plans to build a further 3,476 settler homes in Maale Adumim, Efrat, and Kedar fly in the face of international law,” U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said in a statement responding to the far-right Israeli government’s latest settlement expansion scheme.

Türk submitted a report to the U.N. Human Rights Council affirming that Israel is violating the Fourth Geneva Convention by “effectively transferring the civilian population of Israel to the occupied territory while displacing the Palestinian population from their land.”

“Such transfers amount to a war crime that may engage the individual criminal responsibility of those involved,” the report states.

Both the occupation and settlements are illegal under international law. Israel conquered the West Bank, Gaza, and the Golan Heights in Syria in 1967 and has occupied the territories ever since. Although Israeli troops withdrew from Gaza and dismantled Jewish settlements there in 2005, Israel maintains a crippling physical and economic stranglehold that has become a total siege since October 7, when the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched a genocidal war in response to Hamas-led attacks.

The U.N. report notes that approximately 24,300 new homes in existing Israeli settlements in the West Bank were advanced between November 2022 to the end of October 2023, “the highest on record since monitoring began in 2017.”

According to the publication:

The policies of the current government of Israel appear aligned, to an unprecedented extent, with the goals of the Israeli settler movement to expand long-term control over the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and to steadily integrate this occupied territory into the state of Israel…

During the reporting period, there was a dramatic increase in the intensity, severity, and regularity of Israeli settler violence against Palestinians, which is accelerating the displacement of Palestinians from their land, in circumstances that may amount to forcible transfer. This violence further spiked following the attacks on October 7, 2023.

“The West Bank is already in crisis. Yet, settler violence and settlement-related violations have reached shocking new levels, and risk eliminating any practical possibility of establishing a viable Palestinian state,” said Türk.

According to the report, Israeli occupation forces and settlers have killed at least 413 Palestinians—including 107 children—while wounding more than 4,600 others in the West Bank since October 7. Palestinians killed 15 Israelis including four soldiers in the occupied territories during the same period.

In one of the most recent incidents, Israeli troops fatally shot 10-year-old Amr Mohammad Ghaleb Najar in the head while he sat in the front seat of his father’s car with his younger brother as they drove through the village of Burin on Monday. Soldiers then opened fire on Palestinians trying to rescue the child, wounding two other people.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who also heads the Civil Administration—the governing body in the occupied territories—said this week that 18,515 new housing units have been approved in the settlements over the past year.

“The enemies try to harm and weaken us, but we will continue to build and be built up in this land,” the far-right minister said on social media.

The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden, which has sanctioned a handful of extremist settlers, last month reversed a Trump-era policy shift under which the United States no longer officially viewed Israeli settlements as illegal. The U.S. State Department first declared the settlements unlawful in 1978.

“Our administration maintains a firm opposition to settlement expansion,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said last month. “And in our judgment, this only weakens—it doesn’t strengthen—Israel’s security.”

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

Continue ReadingUN Human Rights Chief Decries ‘War Crime’ of Rapidly Expanding Israeli Settlements

30+ Arrested in Chicago Protest Demanding Gaza Cease-Fire

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

More than 30 Chicago demonstrators demanding a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip were arrested on March 8, 2024.  (Photo: Benjamin Lorber)

“We can’t go on acting as if the genocide isn’t happening,” said one demonstrator who blocked traffic. “We’re raising our voices to say no genocide in our name!”

Organizers said over 30 protesters were arrested in Chicago on Friday morning for blocking rush-hour traffic to demand a cease-fire in Israel’s U.S.-backed war on the Gaza Strip.

“We can’t go on acting as if the genocide isn’t happening,” said Deborah Adelman, a member of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) Chicago who blocked traffic at W. Jackson Boulevard and S. Dearborn Street. “We’ve been out on the streets for five months and we’re not going anywhere.”

The demonstration capped off a 24-hour vigil backed by the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, Chicago Educators for Palestine, Chicago Teachers Union Caucus of Rank-and-file Educators, Dissenters, Jewish Fast for Gaza, Tzedek Chicago, U.S. Palestinian Community Network, and local chapters of American Muslims for Palestine, IfNotNow, and JVP.

“We’re raising our voices to say no genocide in our name!” Adelman declared. “We’re here risking arrest to show our solidarity with the people of Gaza who are suffering an unfathomable assault.”

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C4QY9HeL9jh/embed/?cr=1&v=14&wp=675&rd=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org&rp=%2Fnews%2Fchicago-gaza-protest#%7B%22ci%22%3A0%2C%22os%22%3A358.89999997615814%2C%22ls%22%3A74.09999996423721%2C%22le%22%3A196.30000001192093%7D

Since Israel launched its brutal retaliation for a deadly Hamas-led attack on October 7, Israeli forces have killed at least 30,878 people in Gaza, injured another 72,402, displaced most of the enclave’s 2.3 million residents, restricted humanitarian aid, and devastated civilian infrastructure including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.

For the morning action in the Illinois city—whose council called for a Gaza cease-fire in a contentious January resolution—protesters linked arms and held banners that read, “>30,000 Dead—Not One More” and “End the Siege on Gaza Now!”

Vigil participants also spent several hours reading aloud the known names of those killed. After his turn, Rabbi Aryeh Bernstein told the Chicago Tribune: “At least at the bare minimum, we will pronounce somebody’s name correctly and have a moment of dignified memorialization for blessing for people who were killed prematurely in such a grotesque way… I have to imagine they did not have proper burials according to their beliefs and traditions and customs.”

As the death toll mounts in Gaza, Israel is facing a South Africa-led genocide case at the International Court of Justice while U.S. President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin are the targets of a complicity case in federal court.

Biden has made promises to step up humanitarian efforts for Gaza in recent days, but the United States also gives Israel $3.8 billion in annual military aid and since October 7, his administration has repeatedly bypassed Congress to arm Israeli forces while seeking a package worth over $14 billion.

Since last fall, critics of the Israeli assault and U.S. complicity have taken to streets, bridges, tunnels, transit hubs, government buildings, and the campaign headquarters of Biden—who is seeking reelection in November—to call for an end to the genocide.

“Civil disobedience is integral to what my family and my ancestors have practiced for generations,” said Nitaawe Banks, a member of the Native American and Indigenous Students Association at DePaul University who blocked traffic in Chicago. “My grandfather was kidnapped by the U.S. government and taken 2,000 miles away to a boarding school where the federal government attempted to forcibly assimilate him.”

“At that time it was illegal for him to practice his religion and traditions,” Banks noted. “He went on to participate in the occupation at Wounded Knee. I’m here today to protest in solidarity with Palestine and to illustrate the lack of legitimacy the U.S. empire has.”

In addition to the Friday morning action, the #StateOfTheGenocide vigil included an alternate State of the Union that coincided with the president’s annual address. There were prepared speeches from In These Times executive editor Ari Bloomekatz and Eman Abdelhadi, an organizer, writer, and professor at the University of Chicago, along with remarks from other attendees.

“Biden is addressing the nation without listening to his public and, as he speaks, the death toll rises in Gaza. Just last week the Israeli military opened fire on crowds of starving Palestinians waiting for aid,” said Aaron Neiderman of IfNotNow Chicago ahead of the speeches. “We demand a permanent cease-fire and an end to this genocidal war.”

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

Continue Reading30+ Arrested in Chicago Protest Demanding Gaza Cease-Fire

Israel’s blocking of aid to Gaza is a weapon in its brutal war against Palestinians

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Original article by Abdul Rahman and Ana Vračar republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

Photo: UNRWA

Israel’s deliberate blocking of humanitarian aid to Gaza has emerged as key weapon against the people of the territory. More than 20 Palestinians have reportedly been killed due to starvation in the last few weeks and numbers are expected to explode in the coming days.

Though Israel denies it has any such policy, almost all UN agencies working to provide aid on the ground in Gaza, as well as several other groups, have termed the deliberate blocking of aid as the most important reason for an imminent famine in the besieged Palestinian territory. 

Research conducted by organizations such as Refugees International show that, “Israeli conduct has consistently impeded aid operations within Gaza, blocked legitimate relief operations, and resisted implementing measures that would genuinely enhance the flow of humanitarian aid in Gaza.”

By denying adequate aid to Gaza, Israel has been in violation of the interim order passed by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on January 26 while hearing the genocide petition filed by South Africa. The ICJ had asked Israel to facilitate “urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance to address the adverse conditions of life.”

In its submission to the court in February, Israel claimed it had complied with the ruling. However, UN data shows that the actual number of trucks with aid reaching Gaza decreased by half in February in comparison to the previous month. International organizations still describe experiences where the Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF) block their entry into Gaza, especially North Gaza, after being made to wait for hours on end.

According to Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner General of UNRWA, in February, on an average just 98 trucks entered Gaza in comparison to around 200 trucks a day in January. Before October 7, Israel used to allow around 500 trucks a day to the besieged territory for a population of over 2.3 million.

Israel’s denial of adequate aid to Gaza also violates the UN Security Council resolution adopted in December which talks about greater access to humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza. 

The US, which was the primary mover of the UN security council resolution, recently airdropped aid to Gaza. While delivering his State of the Union address on March 7, President Joe Biden also talked about opening a temporary port in Gaza to deliver faster aid. Both the moves confirm the claims that there is not enough aid reaching Gaza at the moment, despite Israeli claims.

However, the US act is widely seen as a face-saving exercise given the Biden administration’s reluctance to press Israel for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and its supply of arms and ammunition which is used by Israel to bomb Palestinians.

The Biden administration has failed to make Israel comply with its own National Security Memorandum (NSM 20) as well. It requires that countries seeking security aid from the US make arrangements for adequate humanitarian assistance.

Medea Benjamin of CODEPINK highlighted on her page on X that Biden says “Israel must allow more aid into Gaza and protect civilians. But it doesn’t. And Biden keeps sending them more weapons.”

Meanwhile “after five months of war, Palestinians are struggling to find adequate food, water, shelter and basic medicine. Famine level hunger is already widespread and worsening” in Gaza, Refugees International’s report says. The lack of adequate food has significant health implications for children in Gaza who have been the primary victims of Israel’s war since October 7.

Israel weaponized starvation against Palestinians

Israel has killed over ten thousand children in its bombings and ground offensives in Gaza since October 7. In addition to that, the health effects of Israel’s blockade on aid delivery are worsening by the day.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 1 in 6 children under 2 years of age in Gaza are acutely malnourished. The combination of food shortages, lack of clean water, and inadequate healthcare provision is having devastating effects, particularly on young children and mothers.

Many women are facing extreme difficulties in initiating and continuing breastfeeding due to their own nutritional status and stress. “People are hungry, exhausted, and traumatized,” said Adele Khodr, Regional Director of UNICEF’s Middle East and North Africa office.

The food shortage in the north is so severe that health workers report 95% of female patients are suffering from anemia. “There have been many operations performed, such as cesarean sections, to remove fetuses, [which] died of malnutrition among women,” Mohammed Salha, director of Al-Awda Hospital, told ActionAid.

Pediatricians at Kamal Adwan Hospital have reported not having the resources to treat more than half the children admitted to the hospital for malnutrition, as there is no food or medical supplement the staff can give them. “The most we can do for them is give them a saline solution or sugar solution,” physician Imad Dardonah told UN teams visiting the institution.

Israeli obstacles to aid delivery also mean that there is not enough infant formula or diapers. On the rare occasions when these essential supplies are found, their cost puts them out of reach for most of the population in Gaza.

A box of diapers in northern Gaza now costs around ILS 200 (USD 55), while monthly income before October 7, 2023, was reported around ILS 1,200 (USD 343)— not even enough to cover a newborn’s monthly supply during her first month of life, let alone food on top of that.

Restrictions are also being applied to the number of international medical teams allowed into Gaza and to field hospitals, which would allow for a partial expansion of much-needed health service capacities.

The siege is causing a devastating paradox: at the same time, there are too few health workers to respond to the needs of the population and those who have been working in Gaza’s healthcare system since October; and there are too many health workers in comparison to the operational surgery capacities—the only remaining functional operation rooms are located at the European Hospital in southern Gaza, according to surgeon Ghassan Abu Sittah.

Some countries have attempted to circumvent Israel’s aid blockade by airdropping supplies, but the amounts reaching the population in Gaza this way are nowhere near sufficient. To adequately stock hospitals and health centers, several international agencies have warned, it is paramount to ensure unimpeded passage for truck convoys carrying a wide range of supplies, not just a specific type of food or sanitary bandages.

When it comes to aid delivery, the UN humanitarian coordinator for the occupied Palestinian territories, James McGoldrick, said, “There is no alternative to food trucks, to road transports.”

Original article by Abdul Rahman and Ana Vračar republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

Continue ReadingIsrael’s blocking of aid to Gaza is a weapon in its brutal war against Palestinians

With Genocide in Gaza, the Word ‘Never’ Has Been Stripped From ‘Never Again’

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

A Palestinian man holds a child as he mourns the death of twin babies Naeem and Wissam Abu Anza, killed in an overnight Israeli air strike, during their burial in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on March 3, 2024.  (Photo by Mohammed Abed/AFP via Getty Images)

The Palestinians, facing down the most powerful countries in the world, left virtually alone even by their allies, have suffered immeasurably. But they have won this war.

The following is a statement written by Arundhati Roy and delivered on her behalf at the meeting of Working People Against Apartheid and Genocide in Gaza, at the Press Club, New Delhi, on Thursday March 7, 2024. The remarks were first published by Scroll, an independent media outlet in India.

The richest, most powerful countries in the Western world, those who believe themselves to be the keepers of the flame of the modern world’s commitment to democracy and human rights, are openly financing and applauding Israel’s genocide in Gaza. The Gaza strip has been turned into a concentration camp. Those who have not already been killed are being starved to death. Almost the entire population of Gaza has been displaced. Their homes, hospitals, universities, museums, and infrastructure of every kind has been reduced to rubble. Their children have been murdered. Their past has been vaporized. Their future is hard to see.

Even though the highest court in the world believes that almost every indicator seems to meet the legal definition of genocide, IDF soldiers continue to put out their mocking “victory videos” celebrating what almost looks like fiendish rituals. They believe that there is no power in the world that will hold them to account. But they are wrong. They and their children’s children will be haunted by what they have done. They will have to live with the loathing and the abhorrence the world feels for them. And hopefully one day everybody – on all sides of this conflict – who has committed war crimes will be tried and punished for them, keeping in mind that there is no equivalence between crimes committed while resisting Apartheid and Occupation, and crimes committed while enforcing them.

They and their children’s children will be haunted by what they have done. They will have to live with the loathing and the abhorrence the world feels for them.

Racism is of course the keystone of any act of genocide. The rhetoric of the highest officials of the Israeli state has, ever since Israel came into existence, dehumanized Palestinians and likened them to vermin and insects, just like the Nazis once dehumanized Jews. It is as though that evil serum never went away and is now only being recirculated. The “Never” has been excised from that powerful slogan “Never Again”. And we are left only with “Again”.

Never Again.

President Joe Biden, head of state of the richest, most powerful country in the world, is helpless before Israel, even though Israel would not exist without US funding. It’s as though the dependent has taken over the benefactor. The optics say so. Like a geriatric child, Joe Biden appears on camera licking an ice-cream cone and vaguely mumbling about a ceasefire, while Israeli government and military officials openly defy him and vow to finish what they have started. To try and stop the hemorrhaging of the votes of millions of young Americans who will not stand for this slaughter in their name, Kamala Harris, US vice-president, has been tasked with the job of calling for a ceasefire, while billions of US dollars continue to flow to enable the genocide.

And what of our country?

It is well known that our prime minister is an intimate friend of Benjamin Netanyahu and there is no doubt where his sympathies lie. India is no longer a friend of Palestine. When the bombing began, thousands of Modi’s supporters put up the Israeli flag as their DP on social media. They helped spread the vilest disinformation on behalf of Israel and the IDF. Even though the Indian government has now stepped back into a more neutral position – our foreign policy triumph is that we manage to be on all sides at once, we can be pro- as well as anti-genocide – the government has clearly indicated that it will act decisively against any pro-Palestine protestors.

President Joe Biden, head of state of the richest, most powerful country in the world, is helpless before Israel, even though Israel would not exist without US funding. It’s as though the dependent has taken over the benefactor.

And now, while the US exports what it has in abundant surplus – weapons and money to aid Israel’s genocide – India too is exporting what our country has in abundant surplus: the unemployed poor to replace the Palestinian workers who will no longer be given work permits to enter Israel. (I’m guessing there will be no Muslims among the new recruits.) People who are desperate enough to risk their lives in a war zone. People desperate enough to tolerate overt Israeli racism against Indians. You can see it expressed on social media, if you care to look. US money and Indian poverty combine to oil Israel’s genocidal war machine. What a terrible, unthinkable, shame.

The Palestinians, facing down the most powerful countries in the world, left virtually alone even by their allies, have suffered immeasurably. But they have won this war. They, their journalists, their doctors, their rescue teams their poets, academics, spokespeople, and even their children have conducted themselves with a courage and dignity that has inspired the rest of the world. The young generation in the Western world, particularly the new generation of young Jewish people in the US, have seen through the brainwashing and propaganda and have recognized apartheid and genocide for what it is. The governments of the most powerful countries in the Western world have lost their dignity, and any respect they might have had. Yet again. But the millions of protestors on the streets of Europe and the US are the hope for the future of the world.

Palestine will be free.

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

Arundhati Roy quoted.
Arundhati Roy quoted.
  • Arundhati Roy Arundhati Roy was born in 1959 in Shillong, India. She studied architecture in New Delhi, where she now lives, and has worked as a film designer, actor, and screenplay writer in India. Her most recent book, a novel, is: “The Ministry of Utmost Happiness.” Her other books include: “Listening to Grasshoppers: Fields Notes on Democracy,” “The God of Small Things,” and “The End of Imagination.

This blog is named after and in tribute to Roy’s 2002 article which now seems difficult to find. She made a speech at the World Social Forum on 27 January 2003. “Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.” I consider that this article answers and satisfies the question I posed in my recent Coming Soon: Should it properly be called Fascism?

Continue ReadingWith Genocide in Gaza, the Word ‘Never’ Has Been Stripped From ‘Never Again’

Sanders Rips ‘Fiction’ That There’s Nothing US Can Do to End Gaza Carnage

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

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) delivers a speech on the floor of the U.S. Senate on March 6, 2023.  (Photo: Sen. Bernie Sanders/YouTube Screengrab)

“Of course we have the leverage,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders. “We are funding the war.”

Flanked by photos of hungry children and destroyed buildings, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders said in a speech Wednesday that the Biden administration must stop merely asking the Israeli government to halt its indiscriminate bombing of Gaza and begin using real leverage to bring about an end to the war and ensure the free flow of aid to the territory’s starving population.

“The U.S. government should make it clear that failure to open up access immediately and feed starving people will result in the Netanyahu government not getting another penny of U.S. taxpayer military aid,” said Sanders (I-Vt.), who noted that “right now we have the incredible situation where a U.S. ally is using U.S. weapons and equipment to block the delivery of U.S. humanitarian aid.”

“And if that’s not crazy,” the senator added, “I don’t know what is.”

More than a dozen children in Gaza have reportedly died of malnutrition and dehydration in recent weeks as U.S.-backed Israeli forces continue to obstruct the delivery of humanitarian aid—including by firing on aid convoys and crowds of desperate people gathering in the hopes of bringing sacks of flour back to their families.

In the absence of sufficient food and clean water, many people in Gaza have resorted to eating leaves, grass, and animal feed and drinking contaminated water. Gaza’s food production infrastructure has been decimated by Israeli bombing.

“If humanitarian organizations do not intervene urgently,” one Gaza doctor said last week, “you will find people and children dying in the streets.”

A spokesperson for the U.S. State Department admitted earlier this week that Israeli officials have blocked critical humanitarian aid, including flour, from entering Gaza. But the administration has refused to use its leverage to force the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to change course, relying instead on private meetings with Israeli officials and mild public criticism.

On Wednesday, The Washington Post reported that the Biden White House has approved more than 100 separate arms sales to Israel over the past five months, even as it has publicly expressed concerns about the staggering civilian death toll in Gaza. Citing unnamed U.S. officials, Axios reported Thursday that “the Biden administration has no plans to restrict military assistance to Israel at this time.”

Sanders said during his floor speech Wednesday that it is “absurd to criticize Netanyahu’s war in one breath and provide him another $10 billion to continue that war in the next.”

“But perhaps the most remarkable thing about this disaster is the fiction we tell ourselves here in Congress that there is nothing, just nothing, that we can do,” the senator continued. “Isn’t this awful, my goodness. Look how all of those buildings have been destroyed—70% of the housing units, terrible. Children going hungry, terrible. Children coming down with disease, terrible. Terrible. Nothing we can do.”

“Really? Everybody knows what is happening,” said Sanders. “We see it every day in the news and we see the pictures, the emaciated children, of people bombed while they sleep. And yet Congress pretends as if we are powerless to stop it. If we had the courage to stand up to some very powerful special interests, yes, we could stop it. We could stop the destruction and we can make sure that these kids do not starve to death.”

Sanders argued that ending the war and addressing the humanitarian emergency would require the Biden administration and Congress to “use the incredible leverage we have over the Israeli government to secure a fundamental change in their disastrous policies.”

“Of course we have the leverage,” Sanders said. “We are funding the war.”

Other members of the Senate Democratic caucus have joined Sanders in recent days in criticizing the Israeli government’s restriction of badly needed humanitarian aid and demanding that the Biden administration cut off weapons shipments to Israel if it refuses to end its suffocating blockade.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said in a floor speech earlier this week that he asked the State Department why it is not applying a U.S. law that prohibits military exports to a country that is blocking the delivery of humanitarian assistance.

“I haven’t gotten an answer to the question I posed about three weeks ago,” said Van Hollen. “There is no good answer.”

Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) said Wednesday that “we must face the contradiction of what we are doing.”

“We are airdropping food to famine-stricken Gaza today and supplying bombs for Israel to drop on devastated Gaza tomorrow,” said Welch. “We call for humanitarian relief, but how can that call be meaningful when aid workers are killed in their effort to deliver it and Palestinians are killed in their effort to retrieve it?”

In a social media post late Wednesday, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) wrote that she hopes President Joe Biden will listen “to his close friends in the Senate even if he won’t listen to his voters.”

“This is a catastrophe and he can’t keep going down this path,” Omar added. “Grateful for these senators who are pushing him to act like a president with serious leverage.”

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

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Continue ReadingSanders Rips ‘Fiction’ That There’s Nothing US Can Do to End Gaza Carnage