(November 6, 2024)
Democrats have no one to blame but themselves for another disastrous Trump win. We need a true opposition party for people, planet and peace.
(…)
The pressure will continue to build for the political transformation that the American people demand. The political elites will continue to tell you that resistance is futile. Ignore them. This is our moment.
„Together, we are unstoppable.”
The present report contains information regarding the efforts of the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs of the Occupied Territories to implement its mandate and documents human rights concerns in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and the occupied Syrian Golan from October 2023 to July 2024. The Special Committee was not able to conduct visits to the occupied territories, but did conduct its annual consultations in Geneva and undertook a visit to Amman, and met with government officials, United Nations organizations and mechanisms, representatives of civil society organizations, youth representatives, human rights defenders, and Palestinian families.
The report raises serious concerns of breaches of international humanitarian and human rights laws in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including starvation as a weapon of war, the possibility of genocide in Gaza and an apartheid system in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. It documents the impact of the conflict escalation since 7 October 2023 on Palestinians’ rights to food; to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment; to physical integrity, liberty and security of persons; as well as the disproportionate effects on the rights of women, children, and future generations more broadly. The report also highlights the ongoing attacks against the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and refers to developments in the occupied Syrian Golan. The report provides recommendations to the General Assembly and Member States; to the State of Israel; and to businesses operating with Israel, that in any way contribute to maintaining Israel’s unlawful presence in the occupied territories.
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IX. Conclusions
69. The developments in this report lead the Special Committee to conclude that the policies and practices of Israel during the reporting period are consistent with the characteristics of genocide. The targeting of Palestinians as a group; the life-threatening conditions imposed on Palestinians in Gaza through warfare and restrictions on humanitarian aid – resulting in physical destruction, increased miscarriages and stillbirths – and the killing of and serious bodily or mental harm caused to Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, are violations under international law. Civilians have been indiscriminately and disproportionally killed en masse in Gaza, while in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, Israeli colonial settlers, military and security personnel have continued to violate human rights and humanitarian law with impunity. Senior Israeli government and military officials must be held accountable, including for using dehumanizing language and inciting violence.
Less than 48 hours after the Biden administration said it does not believe Israel is unlawfully obstructing humanitarian assistance in Gaza, a United Nations special committee issued a report Thursday arguing that the Israeli military‘s actions in the Palestinian enclave bear „the characteristics of genocide.“
(November 12, 2024)
Last month, the Biden administration—which has approved tens of billions of dollars in military aid for Israel and provided nearly unconditional diplomatic support since October 2023—sent a letter to the Israeli government threatening to cut off U.S. arms transfers if it failed to take „urgent and sustained actions“ to improve humanitarian conditions in Gaza within 30 days.
Asked during a Tuesday press conference if the Israeli government has met the letter‘s demands, State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel said that „we have not made an assessment that they are in violation of U.S. law.“
(April 14, 2023)
Peo0le with clearance and access to „Top Secret“ U.S.federal government information, by employee type
Government 605.579
Contractor 472.576
Other 173.803
Total 1.251.958
As of Oct.1, 2019
Source: Office of the Director of National Intelligence via Federation of American Scientists
(July 20, 2010)
The Post investigation uncovered what amounts to an alternative geography of the United States, a Top Secret America created since 9/11 that is hidden from public view, lacking in thorough oversight and so unwieldy that its effectiveness is impossible to determine.
It is also a system in which contractors are playing an ever more important role. The Post estimates that out of 854,000 people with top-secret clearances, 265,000 are contractors. There is no better example of the government‘s dependency on them than at the CIA, the one place in government that exists to do things overseas that no other U.S. agency is allowed to do.
(…)
Contractors kill enemy fighters. They spy on foreign governments and eavesdrop on terrorist networks. They help craft war plans. They gather information on local factions in war zones. They are the historians, the architects, the recruiters in the nation‘s most secretive agencies. They staff watch centers across the Washington area. They are among the most trusted advisers to the four-star generals leading the nation‘s wars.
First, history has shown that governments and bureaucracies tend to become addicted to a war footing, with failure sucking them in further — think of America’s war on terror, or Vietnam. War encourages a perverse cycle of escalation in which huge financial and political gains accrue for governments and the military-industrial complex while the costs tend to be borne by weaker parties — before they start to come home in some shape or form.
We’ve called this bipartisan pattern “wreckonomics” and have found it especially present in wars or conflicts with costs that Western politicians can largely outsource — from fighting terrorism, drugs and smugglers to quasi-colonial interventions during the Cold War.
(November 6, 2024)
Overall, Trump’s strongest support came from White evangelicals, rural voters, Whites without a college degree, conservatives, and men.
(November 8, 2024)
Democrats actually benefitted from Trump‘s rise, which presented an opportunity for them to win votes freely by positioning themselves as the only alternative to outright fascism.
Yet, instead of looking inwards for answers on why Harris lost to a candidate as problematic as Trump, these liberal Democrats chose to reprimand minorities. Signalling a sense of superiority, they could not hide their racism, implying that it was incumbent upon these minority communities to vote within the guidelines provided by their liberal saviours.
By this logic, Arabs, Muslims and Latinos must vote for a Democrat no matter what.
(November 8, 2024)
The Biden administration has lifted a de facto ban on American military contractors deploying to Ukraine to help the country’s military maintain and repair US-provided weapons systems, particularly F16 fighter jets and Patriot air defense systems, an official with direct knowledge of the plan told CNN.
(,,,)
It is not clear whether Donald Trump will keep the policy in place when he takes office in January. Trump has said he hopes to end the war between Ukraine and Russia “within 24 hours” of returning to power.
Prosecutors allege Shakeri – who participated in recorded conversations with law enforcement – was originally tasked by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps to carrying out other assassinations against US and Israeli citizens inside the US. (…)
Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray, in statements released Friday, denounced the continued threats from the Iranian government against individuals in the United States.
“There are few actors in the world that pose as grave a threat to the national security of the United States as does Iran,” Garland said.
„Who would have guessed lying about Biden’s cognitive health for 2 yrs, refusing to do an open convention for a new nominee, never mentioning public healthcare & embracing fracking, the Cheneys & a yr long slaughter of children in Gaza wouldn’t be a winning strategy?“ he said.
„Anyone with half a brain?“ he continued. „But I thought liberals’ whole thing is being smart? It’s not? They actually just blindly cheer the parade of rickety optics wrapped up in New York Times fonts that is the modern Dem Party?“
Mr. Scholz vowed to keep governing until the end of the year and then to demand a confidence vote in Parliament in January, a test he may fail. That would open the way for early elections, a rarity in Germany since World War II, possibly in March.
…Als Politikwissenschaftlerin kann man natürlich nicht geheim halten, dass das alles hochinteressant und spannend ist und man sich darüber freut, das beobachten zu können. Als Bürgerin des Landes gebe ich aber auch offen zu, dass das bewegende Zeiten sind und weitreichende Zeiten, und insofern ist es ein gemischtes Gefühl, mit dem man auf das schaut und sich schon fragt, wenn wir in den USA gestern früh anfangen und hier in Deutschland, in Berlin gestern Abend enden, was so an einem einzigen Tag alles an Bewegungen stattfinden kann und uns jetzt über Monate, womöglich Jahre beschäftigen wird. …
Over the past year, Israel’s slaughter and starvation of Palestinians — funded by U.S. taxpayers and live-streamed on social media — has triggered one of the greatest surges in progressive activism in a generation. Many Americans roused to action by their government’s complicity in Gaza’s destruction have no personal connection to Palestine or Israel. Like many Americans who protested South African apartheid or the Vietnam War, their motive is not ethnic or religious. It is moral.
The agreement, part of a broader military aid package approved by the Biden administration and the U.S. Congress earlier this year, was finalized hours after Vice President Kamala Harris lost the 2024 election to Republican nominee Donald Trump following a campaign in which she resisted calls to support an arms embargo against Israel.
(November 6, 2024)
According to a statement by the Palestinian Environment Quality Authority today, Wednesday, over 85,000 tons of bombs have been deployed by the Israeli military in the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the conflict on October 7, 2023.
(June 4, 2024)
Israel dropped 70,000 tons of bombs on Gaza Strip since last October, exceeding World War II bombings in Dresden, Hamburg, London combined, according to rights monitor
The Democrats assumed the working class had nowhere else to go. They were wrong!
“Will the big money interests and well-paid consultants who control the Democratic Party learn any real lessons from this disastrous campaign? Will they understand the pain and political alienation that tens of millions of Americans are experiencing? Do they have any ideas as to how we can take on the increasingly powerful Oligarchy, which has so much economic power?” Sanders asked.
“Probably not,” he said in response to his own question.
Sanders, 83, highlighted several issues he believes the nation has failed to address under the Biden-Harris Administration, from wealth inequality and a worsening standard of living to high prescription drug prices and the lack of guaranteed medical leave.
Though he is an Independent, Sanders caucuses with the Democratic Party, and has long championed policies like Medicare for All and a higher federal minimum wage.
Following President Joe Biden‘s victory in the 2020 presidential election, Harrison was nominated by Biden to be the chair of the DNC, succeeding Tom Perez.[23] DNC members elected him on January 21, 2021.[24]
With Trump winning his second term, it is worth noting that there was no absolutely accountability by the Democratic Party when he won in 2016. Losing an election to so dangerous and corrupt a figure as Donald Trump should cause a political party to do some major inward reflection on their own failures of policy and political strategy. Instead, all the Democrats who bore responsibility for the 2016 failure—starting with Hillary Clinton—found a way to blame anyone else but them.
There was also the larger error of anointing Harris without political competition — an insult to the democratic process that handed the nomination to a candidate who, as some of us warned at the time, was exceptionally weak. That, in turn, came about because Democrats failed to take Biden’s obvious mental decline seriously until June’s debate debacle (and then allowed him to cling to the nomination for a few weeks more), making it difficult to hold even a truncated mini-primary.
The mood at Howard University had dampened after the evening started out with music pumping and crowds dancing.
As the night wore on, muted crowds watched with eyes glued to screens showing the results.
(December 9, 2023)
As American scholars and higher education administrators, we are deeply committed to the pursuit of truth, justice, and the common good—both in our classrooms and research, and in the broader world we engage with daily. Since October 2023, the Biden-Harris administration has failed to uphold fundamental human rights and the principles of knowledge, truth, and humanity. Their material support for genocidal atrocities has devastated entire communities in Palestine, leading to the loss of countless families in Gaza over the past year, and undermined the core values the United States professes to uphold globally. Under Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s nominee for President, every university has been bombed and destroyed in Gaza, more journalists have been killed than in any other conflict in recorded modern history, and the death toll is projected to exceed 186,000 according to The Lancet. Under Biden-Harris, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has prosecuted violations of the 1948 Genocide Convention, and declared Israel‘s occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, unlawful, along with its associated settlement apartheid regime.
This election, on November 5th, the Democratic Party—once again with Kamala Harris at its center—has repeatedly sought our votes by positioning itself as the „lesser evil,“ urging us to abandon our moral convictions out of fear of a second Trump term under Republican leadership. Let us be clear: there is no „lesser evil“ when both parties are complicit in the same atrocities. And there is no lesser evil when they are complicit in genocide. Kamala Harris has actively funded and endorsed genocide, and we cannot reward such leadership with a Harris-Walz ticket. While the Republican Party under a Trump-Vance ticket offers no meaningful alternative, it is the Democratic Party, under Kamala Harris, that has actively supported and sanctioned these international crimes against humanity since October 2023. They must not be rewarded.
The Abandon Harris Campaign announces that an academic letter calling on Americans to vote third party in the upcoming election is quickly gaining traction across higher education institutions nationwide. Titled “A Call by American Academics to Vote Against Genocide on November 5, 2024: Vote to Abandon Harris – Vote Third Party,” the principled letter condemns the Biden-Harris administration’s support for Israel’s actions in Gaza and urges voters to hold Kamala Harris accountable at the ballot box. The letter and its signatories can be found at voteagainstgenocide.org.
Dr. Cornel West may not win the vote in this upcoming Presidential election but the truth is on his side. He has been vilified by the Democrats and attempted to be exploited by the Republicans due to his threat to the current power structure and each party’s personal gain.
What is the worth of a govt that exists only to lie to its people for the purpose of securing, exerting, and expanding its own power?
(October 18,2024)
Kennedy, who has become a top surrogate for Trump since dropping out, posed a specific threat to Democrats in that he had a famous name attached to their party but aligned politically with the right on many issues. Stein, however, is to the left of most progressives and, in Democrats’ estimation, comes with her own unique baggage.
That lingering, eight-year-old resentment has prompted an uptick of activity across the party, with Harris’s allies strategizing multiple ways to cut off any support she has in states where 1 and 2 percent support could be decisive.
Three-quarters of voters in the United States say democracy is under threat, though their perception of the forces imperiling it varies widely based on partisan leanings. And a majority of voters believe that the country is plagued by corruption, with 62 percent saying that the government is mostly working to benefit itself and elites rather than the common good.
(October 22, 2024)
Israel and the United States are reportedly considering a joint plan to deploy a private American-Israeli security firm to administer Gaza by subjecting Palestinians to biometric screenings with the threat of withholding humanitarian aid.
According to media reports, based on an initial report by Israeli journalist, Shlomi Eldar, on Monday this week, the US and Israel are planning to run a pilot programme – starting with the Al-Atatra village in north-western Gaza – involving 1,000 private mercenaries who would create “gated communities” within the Strip where they will control the inhabitants and their movements through the use of biometrics.
(July 2, 2024)
The experimental model is slated to be implemented soon in the northern Gaza neighborhoods of Al-Atatra, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahia, according to the Financial Times, citing six sources familiar with the plan.
A spokesperson for Harris’s campaign said Sunday that the comments made by the protester “don’t reflect the position of the Biden-Harris administration or the vice president’s stance.”
The spokesperson added that Harris “didn’t agree with defining the war as a genocide, and she has not expressed such a stance in the past, as this is not her position.”
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has ruled that its “plausible” Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian population of Gaza. There have been massive civilian casualties in the onslaught, and Israeli forces have purposely targeted children.
Harris pursues a policy of death in Gaza, and she expects we will vote for her.
We need to work hard to make sure that she will not be elected to the presidency. Not only will this punish Harris, but it will also send a signal to all politicians that you won’t be rewarded with our votes when you engage in genocide. This movement will transform American politics and bring civil rights into US foreign policy.
It’s like yes asshole, it’s very nice to be living in the imperial core that’s receiving the benefits of mass murder and imperialist extraction, and it’s less nice to live in the countries where the murder and extraction is happening. That’s the entire fucking point here.
It can be nice to live in the western world, but the western world is not nice. Ours is the most savage and thuggish civilization on this planet, and it’s not even close.
The Democratic Party really does look ready to lose yet another easily winnable election by running yet another awful, murderous candidate with awful, murderous policies, and then once again blame their loss on everyone in America who is a better person than they are.
The old world is dying once again, but the US-Israel axis is wrong to suggest it is slaying monsters. It is the monster
The UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) has said that an Israeli army bulldozer demolished an observation tower and the perimeter fence of a UN position earlier on Sunday in Marwahin, in the southern part of the country.
The United States is overwhelmingly the biggest supplier of arms to Israel. In 2023 69% of Israel’s arm imports came from the US, according to a report into international arms transfers by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Germany was the second largest, providing 30%, followed by Italy with 0.9%. The UK, France and Spain were among other minor contributors.