Day: October 24, 2023

Nearly 300 alumni of the presidential campaigns of Bernie Sanders are urging the Vermont senator to join calls for a ceasefire in Gaza. 

In a letter sent Tuesday, former staffers asked Sanders to introduce a Senate-side companion to the “ceasefire now” resolution in the House; support an end to U.S. funding “for war crimes against the Palestinian people, the expansion of settlements, and the occupation of Palestinian lands”; and to support an end to the blockade of Gaza. The House ceasefire resolution — led by Reps. Cori Bush, D-Mo.; Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich.; André Carson, D-Ind.; Summer Lee, D-Pa.; and Delia Ramirez, D-Ill. — now has 18 members supporting it.

“President Biden clearly values your counsel, as is shown by the ways you’ve managed to shape the outcomes of his presidency,” the staffers wrote. “We urge you to make it clear what is at stake in this crisis politically, morally, and strategically.” The group also produced a video appealing directly to Sanders.

The Vermont senator has taken to the Senate floor to advocate for humanitarian aid for people in Gaza and urged Israel to allow aid to enter the region, along with calling for a halt from “the bombs and missiles from both sides.” Still, he has not formally endorsed a ceasefire, and his former aides are urging him to introduce a Senate resolution more clearly laying out the case.

For veterans of the Israel-Palestine fight in the United States, Sanders is someone who expanded the boundaries of allowable dissent, but has never been a radical on the question. In the 2016 presidential campaign, his suggestion that the 2014 Israeli assault on Gaza had been disproportionate was elevated as an indication that Sanders was heavily critical of Israel. Pressed on his characterization on CNN, Sanders stood by it. 

“Was Israel’s response disproportionate? I think it was,” Sanders said. “Israel has a 100 percent — and no one will fight for that principle more strongly than I will — has the right to live in freedom, independently, and in security without having to be subjected to terrorist attacks. But I think that we will not succeed to ever bring peace into that region unless we also treat the Palestinians with dignity and respect, and that is my view.”

CNN’s Jake Tapper noted to Sanders that even that formulation was outside the realm of standard campaign fare. “It is interesting that the first Jew in American history to win a delegate, much less a primary, is taking this position with Israel,” Tapper said to Sanders. “Usually in American politics, everyone just supports Israel whatever Israel wants to do, but you are taking a more critical position.”

“I’m taking a more balanced position,” Sanders responded. 

At a presidential debate, advocates of Palestinian human rights cheered when Sanders became effectively the first serious candidate to insist the U.S. “treat the Palestinian people with respect and dignity.” 

“I read Secretary Clinton’s speech before AIPAC. I heard virtually no discussion at all about the needs of the Palestinian people,” Sanders said. “Of course Israel has a right to defend itself, but long-term, there will never be peace in that region, unless the United States plays an even-handed role, trying to bring people together and recognizing the serious problems that exist among the Palestinian people … There comes a time when, if we pursue justice and peace, we are going to have to say that Netanyahu is not right all of the time.”

Because the Israel-Palestine dialogue was so fiercely constrained, Sanders’s intervention may have suggested to his supporters that he was willing to go further on the issue than he actually was. But in 2014, as he made those “disproportionate” comments, Sanders was heckled back home at a Vermont town hall, sparking a testy exchange in which he told voters who wanted stronger condemnation of Israel that they wouldn’t always be satisfied with his answers. 

“I’m sorry, I don’t have the magic answer. This is a very depressing and difficult issue. This has gone on for 60 bloody years,” he said. “If you’re asking me, do I have the magical solution, I don’t. That is my answer. I hear that some of you don’t like it. You have better ideas, that’s great.” 

In 2020, after former President Donald Trump introduced a “peace plan,” Sanders tweeted that any acceptable proposal “must end the Israeli occupation and enable Palestinian self-determination in an independent state of their own alongside a secure Israel.” In 2021 — amid a flare-up of violence sparked by the eviction of Palestinians in Jerusalem and the Israeli police storming the city’s Al-Aqsa Mosque compound — Sanders urged for “an immediate ceasefire” and for the U.S. to “take a hard look at nearly $4 billion a year in military aid to Israel,” out of concern that U.S. aid supports human rights violations.

The letter is part of mounting opposition against the United States’s unconditional support for Israel. Last week, over a dozen former John Fetterman campaign staffers, 411 current congressional staffers, and 260 former Elizabeth Warren presidential campaign staffers issued statements demanding support for a ceasefire, while an 11-year State Department official resigned due to his moral disagreements with the Biden administration’s approach to the conflict.

Last week, as the death toll of Israel’s assault in Gaza approached 3,800 people, the progressive polling firm Data for Progress found that 66 percent of all likely voters and 80 percent of Democrats were in favor of a ceasefire. Just days later, as of Tuesday, Israel has killed almost 2,000 more people — at least 5,700 total since October 7 — according to the Gaza Ministry of Health.

In the letter, Sanders’s aides said that his advocacy for Palestinian rights was among the major reasons they came to work for him. “Many of us, your former staff, are Muslim and/or Arab, and were inspired to support your campaign because of your calls to end the ‘Forever Wars’ waged against people who look like us and worship like us,” they wrote. “We felt proud to serve a candidate who acknowledged the plight and humanity of Palestinians and who spoke out against the Israeli occupation. Many of us, your former staff, share your Jewish heritage. Like your family, many of our families had entire sections erased from existence by Nazi barbarism in the Holocaust. It is our duty to stand up and say that our pain and sorrow at the losses on October 7 will not be weaponized to justify the ethnic cleansing or genocide of Palestinian civilians.”

“You are the strongest voice in the US Senate on progressive foreign policy,” they added. “We need you to stand up forcefully, as you always have.”

The post Nearly 300 Bernie Sanders Alumni Call On Senator to Back a Ceasefire in Gaza appeared first on The Intercept.

NewsNation’s Chief Washington Anchor Leland Vittert was a foreign correspondent for four years in Jerusalem. He provides expert analysis and insight into the Israel-Hamas war in the Oct. 24 edition of War Notes.

(NewsNation) — The news in one line: Ground invasion delay — Hamas and Iran continue to win.

Four years in the Middle East taught me that the area is ruled like an old-fashioned sandbox: Either you punch the bully in the nose or he keeps taking your lunch money. 

Even as President Joe Biden’s administration admits Iran is “actively facilitating” attacks on United States military bases, the administration refuses to punch Iran back. Do they think Iran will stop because we ask nicely? 

Every day that Iran and its proxies continue to get away with the attacks of Oct. 7, keep their hostages and attack U.S. bases, is another day the cost to restore deterrence goes up. It’s one more day that American prestige goes down. It’s one more day that Iran’s influence in the Middle East grows. It’s one more day that America’s allies in the Middle East question whether we are really that.

At the Helm: President Biden’s National Security Advisor is out with his 7000-word treatise, The World According to Jake Sullivan. He argues that rallying the global powers to stop climate change will determine if America remains the dominant global power. This is the same person who bragged three weeks ago that the Middle East is quieter than it had been in decades. 

Israel’s delay of a ground invasion could be for a number or a combination of reasons, but every day they wait, public opinion continues to turn against them and toward the Palestinians. These are some of the possible explanations: 

• American pressure. The Biden administration appears to be using hostages as pressure on Israel to delay. The President is feeling increased pressure from his left flank. 
• Military reality. The Israeli battle plans for the Gaza ground invasion were a few years old and built on inherently flawed intel regarding Hamas’s weapons and abilities. All of that must be rewritten. 
• The need to reinforce the northern front appears to be over. 

The DailyMail’s reporting speaks to more political reasons for the delay rather than military reasons.

Israel’s military commanders know that the longer they wait the more time Hamas has to prepare, plus the more scrutiny there will be on them once they go over the berm. 

The Times of Israel reports, “The army is concerned that further hostage releases by Hamas could lead the political leadership to delay a ground incursion or even halt it midway.”

Israel can’t wait that long. The ‘67 war began because Israel couldn’t keep calling up its reserves over and over again. The entire country is now mobilized and on war footing. Businesses are closed since hundreds of thousands of reserve troops are on the border in their tanks. 

We are reaching an inflection point. Hamas and Iran are playing this perfectly by offering to release hostages in exchange for trivial sounding concessions (like a six hour ceasefire) when they are actually demanding more behind the scenes. 

Watch in the coming days for internal political pressure to turn on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu’s number one goal in life is staying in power. Biden and his administration know that and are playing Netanyahu better than he is playing Biden. 

United Kingdom prime minister Rishi Sunak is much tougher about the pro-Palestinian crowd than the Biden administration is.  

A tweet read, “At the Queers for Palestine leftist protest in New York City, the crowd is led to shout, ‘F— Israel.’ Who wants to tell them that in ‘Palestine’ they execute gay people, as does Iran, Hamas’s sponsor. 

The Washington Post reports contingency planning for a massive evacuation of United States citizens from Israel and Lebanon. 

As we said last night, World War III is a real possibility. Clearly, the Pentagon agrees. 

News Nation’s own Robert Sherman is doing incredible work and reports from Tel Aviv that the Israeli air force is dropping leaflets over Gaza offering money for intelligence on the hostages. 

There are two ways to look at this: 

1. It shows just how bad Israel’s signals and human intelligence networks in Gaza are. For years, Israel’s Shin Bet (the rough equivalent of the American FBI) bragged about their visibility into Gaza. Oct. 7 shattered that. This is embarrassing for the Israelis on many levels. At the same time, it underscores how little they know about Hamas’s military capabilities before a ground invasion. 

2. It could also be disinformation to make Hamas think they know nothing while preparing a massive and daring hostage rescue. 

Nothing in the Middle East is as it seems. 

Tune into “On Balance with Leland Vittert” weeknights at 7/6C on NewsNation. Find your channel here.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and not of NewsNation.

Donald Trump just came out against Tom Emmer’s candidacy for Speaker of the House. If Emmer does end up dropping out, we’ll see wall to wall headlines about how Trump made it happen, and how it’s further proof of Trump’s “ironclad grip” on the House. But that won’t be what happened – at all.

When House Republicans held a closed door vote earlier today, Tom Emmer won the nomination for Speaker – but he lost more than two dozen votes in the process. Several of the “no” votes then went public, some of them in fairly ugly fashion, about why they didn’t want Emmer to be Speaker. It was very quickly clear that Emmer simply didn’t have the votes. Only then did Trump make a social media post insisting that Emmer shouldn’t be Speaker.

In other words, after it was clear that Emmer was on track to lose badly, Trump (or whoever is running his social media) then jumped on the opportunity to retroactively take credit for something that had already happened, knowing that the media wouldn’t be able to pass up the opportunity to spin this as “Trump took down Emmer, hey everyone look how powerful Trump still is!”

What’s sad is that none of this would be happening if the (entire) mainstream media weren’t so complicit in it. Trump didn’t take down Tom Emmer’s candidacy today, unless he had a time machine. We all saw the order of events play out in real time. But none of that seems to matter when the media decides to put its narratives together.

We also just saw Donald Trump try and fail to get Jim Jordan elected Speaker. If Trump this supposed “ironclad grip” on the Republican House, Jordan would be Speaker. Instead he lost by dozens of votes. Now Trump is stuck trying to retroactively take credit for Tom Emmer’s downfall, after Emmer lost of his own accord.

When it comes to this historically inept Republican House, Donald Trump is as powerless as anyone else to try to make anything happen. He’s the equivalent of a sports fan sitting at home watching the game on TV, seeing one team winning or losing, and trying to take credit for it. Trump is a bump on a log. He just has the entire media playing publicist for him, because the illusion that he’s still powerful is a good way to get people to tune in.

And if these House Republicans do ultimately manage to elect someone Speaker, it’s not going to be because of anything Trump says or does – although he’ll try to retroactively try to take credit for that as well, and the entire media will happily play right along with it.

The post Donald Trump’s powerlessness just went on full display appeared first on Palmer Report.

Thirty-three U.S. states are suing Meta Platforms Inc., accusing it of damaging young people’s mental health through the addictive nature of their social media platforms.

The suit filed Tuesday in federal court in Oakland, California, alleges Meta knowingly installed addictive features on its social media platforms, Instagram and Facebook, and has collected data on children younger than 13, without their parents’ consent, violating federal law.

“Research has shown that young people’s use of Meta’s social media platforms is associated with depression, anxiety, insomnia, interference with education and daily life, and many other negative outcomes,” the complaint says.

The filing comes after Meta’s own research in 2021 found that the company was aware of the damage Instagram can do to teenagers, especially girls.

In Meta’s 2021 study, 13.5% of teen girls said Instagram makes thoughts of suicide worse and 17% of teen girls said it makes eating disorders worse.

Meta responded to the lawsuit by saying it has “already introduced over 30 tools to support teens and their families.”

“We’re disappointed that instead of working productively with companies across the industry to create clear, age-appropriate standards for the many apps teens use, the attorneys general have chosen this path,” the company added.

Meta is one of many social media companies facing criticism and legal action, with lawsuits also filed against ByteDance’s TikTok and Google’s YouTube.

Measures to protect children on social media exist, but they are easily circumvented, such as a federal law that bans kids under 13 from setting up accounts.

The dangers of social media for children have been highlighted by U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy, who said the effects of social media require “immediate action to protect kids now.”

In addition to the 33 states suing, nine more state attorneys general are expected to join and file similar lawsuits.

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters. 

Iran Is Wary of Crossing Red Lines and Could Leave Gaza to Fight Alone – Iran  Haaretz

Google disables live traffic conditions on Maps and Waze in Israel and Gaza  CNBC

  ایران اینترنشنال

Netanyahu says Monday strikes on Gaza hardest yet  The Times of Israel

Israel releases unedited video of Oct 7 Hamas attack to counter ‘Holocaust denial-like phenomenon’  Fox News

Arab and Muslim Americans and their allies are criticizing President Joe Biden’s response to the Israel-Hamas war, asking him to do more to prevent a humanitarian crisis in Gaza or risk losing their support in the 2024 election.

Many Arab Americans accuse Biden of failing to push for any humanitarian ceasefire even as Palestinians are killed fleeing Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip, more than a dozen academics, activists, community members and administration officials said.

Their growing frustration could impact Democrat Biden’s reelection bid, which opinion polls show is likely to be a rematch with the Republican frontrunner, former President Donald Trump.

In hotly contested Michigan, Arab Americans account for 5% of the vote. In other battleground states Pennsylvania and Ohio, they are between 1.7% to 2%, said Jim Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute.

Biden won Michigan with 50.6% of the vote in 2020, compared to 47.8% for Trump, and Pennsylvania with 50.01% to Trump’s 48.84%, a difference of less than 81,000 votes.

Arab and Muslim Americans are unlikely to back Trump but could sit out the election and not vote for Biden, some activists said.

“I do think it will cost him Michigan,” said Laila El-Haddad, a Maryland-based author and social activist from Gaza.

While condemning the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas on civilians in Israel that killed 1,400 people, Arab Americans said the Israeli response was disproportionate and Biden’s failure to condemn the bombardment has many questioning his promise of a “human rights centered” foreign policy.

Abdullah Hammoud, the first Arab-American mayor of Dearborn, Michigan, home to the largest Muslim per capita population in the U.S., decried Biden’s failure to condemn Israeli threats to cut off water, electricity and food for over 2 million Palestinians in Gaza.

“Nothing could have prepared us for the complete erasure of our voices and radio silence from those whom we elected to protect and represent us,” he wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “Our family members trapped in Gaza have been ignored, our calls for a ceasefire drowned out by the drums of war.”

Linda Sarsour, a former executive director of the Arab American Association of New York, told hundreds of attendees at a Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) event on Saturday that Muslim-Americans should make any political donations contingent on a change in policies.

Many are pressuring Biden to push Israel to temporarily halt its attacks on the Gaza Strip that have killed thousands of Palestinians.

Israel’s bombing of Gaza is “now in the realm of genocide targeting the entire Palestinian population,” said CAIR, the largest Muslim civil rights group in the U.S., adding that government officials will be “complicit in the ethnic cleansing of Gaza” unless they intervene.

Biden’s push for more than $14 billion in new U.S. aid to Israel is also drawing fire.

“If you look at his rhetoric, it’s unbelievable, and now they are trying to pump billions and billions of dollars militarily into Israel, with some $100 million in humanitarian aid for the Palestinians,” said Sa’ed Atshan, a Quaker Palestinian-American who teaches peace and conflict studies at Pennsylvania’s Swarthmore College.

Even Biden’s former boss, President Barack Obama, usually a staunch backer of Biden’s policies, offered some pointed public advice on Monday, calling on the U.S. to continue leading the world “in accelerating critical aid and supplies to an increasingly desperate Gaza population.”

Biden has appointed more Arab-Americans and Muslims to political posts than any predecessor, as well as the first two Muslim federal judges, but that diversity has not impacted policy for the self-described “Zionist” President.

Some Arab American and Muslim appointees are scared of backlash and reprisals and worried about family members in the region, said one White House official, who is Arab-American.

“There are very vocal people in the administration who have concerns,” the official said. U.S. officials with family in the region are doubly stressed by the “ambassadorial” role they play as they field agitated messages from relatives and others angry at Biden’s Israel strategy.

The White House said it was aware of and responding to criticism of its policies by meeting with administration officials and community members. Biden has made forceful speeches since taking office on the need to confront Islamophobia and hate of all kinds, it said.

Biden’s chief of staff Jeff Zients and adviser Anita Dunn are meeting staffers and community members and urging cabinet secretaries to do the same, White House officials said.

National security adviser Jake Sullivan and his principal deputy Jon Finer met with Arab and Muslim American community leaders on Oct. 13, and the White House officials hosted 30 Palestinian American youth on Friday.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken acknowledged the personal difficulties some staff are facing in a Thursday letter, and met Monday with Palestinian and Arab American community leaders and Jewish American groups.

One 11-year State department veteran, the director of congressional and public affairs for its Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, Josh Paul, quit his job last week. Top officials refused to respond to his concerns about “blindly rushing lethal arms to Israel while the people of Gaza face obliteration,” he said in a posting on LinkedIn.

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