5 countries to resume funding for UNRWA: Palestinian PM

Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh says he received confirmation from representatives of five countries that suspended funding to UNRWA that they intend to resume their donations within several weeks, Al Jazeera reports.

The announcement comes after the prime minister received several Western ambassadors and consuls at his office on Thursday, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reports.

Canada confirmed during the meeting it will resume funding. It was not immediately clear which other countries renewed their commitment to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

Amnesty International: “States That Have Suspended Funding to UNRWA Should Reverse Their Decision”

By Amnesty International

February 2, 2024

Source: Pressenza


At least 11 states have decided to suspend funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), following allegations that some staff were involved in the attacks perpetrated by Hamas on October 7 in southern Israel. This decision deals a severe blow to the over two million refugees in the occupied Gaza Strip, for whom UNRWA represents the only lifeline.

Amnesty International urges these states to reverse their decision and refrain from suspending funding to the Agency.

“It is deeply disconcerting – indeed, inhumane – that several governments have made decisions that will cause further suffering to more than two million Palestinians, already at risk of genocide and of a planned famine, just days after the International Court of Justice concluded that the survival of Palestinians in Gaza is at risk. Shockingly, these actions have been taken following allegations involving 12 of UNRWA’s total workforce of 30,000,” said Agnès Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International.

“The allegations regarding the involvement of UNRWA employees in the October 7 attacks are serious and must be subject to an independent investigation; anyone who is implicated in a sufficiently proven way must be subjected to fair trials. However, the alleged actions of certain individuals must not be used as a pretext to interrupt vital care in what could amount to a form of collective punishment,” Callamard continued.

The United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Japan, France and Finland have joined the United States, Australia and Canada in pausing funding for the agency. These countries together provided more than half of UNRWA’s total budget in 2022. The agency immediately fired nine employees following the allegations and launched an investigation.

At a time when Israel, as an occupying power, continues to openly violate its obligations towards Palestinian refugees in Gaza and the rest of the occupied Palestinian territories, Amnesty International recalls that UNRWA has long played a crucial role, representing the only life support, through the provision of essential humanitarian aid, education and shelter. The Agency also provides much-needed aid to millions of other Palestinian refugees living in neighboring Arab countries.

Norway, Spain, Ireland, and Belgium are among the states that have announced that they will not suspend funding, recognizing the vital role that UNRWA continues to play in distributing humanitarian aid to those who desperately need it.


“It is shameful that some key states, including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, and France, instead of paying attention to the decision of the International Court of Justice and the finding that the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip is seriously at risk of further deterioration, have stopped financing the main provider of aid to civilians in Gaza,” said Agnès Callamard.

“All States have a clear duty to ensure the implementation of decisions of the International Court of Justice, including those ordering Israel to take immediate and effective measures to ensure the provision of humanitarian assistance to Palestinian civilians in Gaza, considered a crucial step to prevent genocide and further irreparable damage.”

“Some of the same governments that announced a halt to funding for UNRWA have meanwhile continued to supply weapons to the Israeli military, despite overwhelming evidence that they are being used to commit war crimes and serious human rights abuses. The rush to freeze funding for humanitarian assistance, based on allegations still under investigation while refusing to even consider suspending support for Israeli military forces, represents a clear example of double standards,” added Agnès Callamard.

“Instead of suspending vital funding for those in need, the States involved should work to stop arms transfers to Israel and Palestinian armed groups and press for an immediate and lasting ceasefire and full access to humanitarian aid, to alleviate the devastating suffering underway,” concluded Callamard.

Israel and right-wing groups have for years conducted a smear campaign against UNRWA, which plays a key role in defending Palestinians’ right to return to their lands.

Israel Bombed Belgian Aid Office in Gaza After Nation Refused to Halt UNRWA Funding

"This is a direct result of the impunity Washington has provided Israel," said one analyst.


A photo shared by Belgium's foreign affairs minister shows the destroyed office building that housed the Belgian Agency for Development Cooperation in the Gaza Strip on February 1, 2024.
(Photo: Hadja Lahbib/X.com)

JAKE JOHNSON

COMMON DREAMS

Feb 02, 2024

Belgian officials expressed outrage Thursday after Israeli forces reportedly bombed the office building of the Belgian Agency for Development Cooperation in the Gaza Strip, an attack that came after Belgium declined to join the U.S. and more than a dozen other countries in cutting off funding to the United Nations' Palestinian refugee agency.

"The offices of Enabel, the Belgian development agency in Gaza, were bombed and destroyed," Hadja Lahbib, Belgium's foreign affairs minister, wrote on social media. "Targeting civilian buildings is unacceptable."

Lahbib and Caroline Gennez, Belgium's minister of development cooperation and urban policy, posted photos of the destroyed building and demanded a meeting with Israel's ambassador envoy to the country to discuss the attack, which took place on Wednesday.



Jean Van Wetter, the CEO of Enabel, said Thursday that "we are all shocked."


"As a government agency working for the common good in a framework of international humanitarian law," he added, "we cannot accept this."


None of the agency's staffers were believed to be present when Israeli forces struck the building, as Belgium withdrew Enabel employees and their families from the territory two weeks ago.


A satellite data analysis released earlier this week shows that more than half of Gaza's buildings have been damaged or destroyed by Israel's U.S.-backed bombardment of the Palestinian enclave—one of the most devastating bombing campaigns in modern history.


The timing of the attack on the Belgian office building raised eyebrows, with observers pointing to the nation's status as one of the handful of Western countries not suspending aid to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in response to Israel's allegation that a dozen of the agency's employees took part in the October 7 attacks.

"Belgium is one of the Western countries that has refused to cut funding to UNRWA. So Israel just bombed the office of the Belgian Agency for Development Cooperation in Gaza," Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, wrote on social media. "This is a direct result of the impunity Washington has provided Israel."

Sixteen countries have halted their financial support to UNRWA, compromising the aid agency's ability to deliver humanitarian assistance to Gazans increasingly at risk of starvation and disease. Philippe Lazzarini, the UNRWA's commissioner-general, said Thursday that the agency "will most likely be forced to shut down" its operations in Gaza and across the region by the end of this month if funding isn't restored.

The U.S. State Department announced its decision to suspend funding for UNRWA last Friday, just hours after the International Court of Justice ruled that South Africa's genocide case against Israel was plausible and ordered the Israeli government to ensure the flow of humanitarian assistance to Gaza.

Questioned about the timing of the U.S. decision to suspend UNRWA funding, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said during a press briefing Thursday that "there was no concern" internally that the announcement would be seen as a rebuke of the ICJ's interim ruling.




Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide, whose country is among those that have declined to suspend aid to UNRWA, said Thursday that he is "reasonably optimistic" that at least some of the countries that have cut off funding will reverse course in the near future.

Eide said earlier this week that he has been "discussing the question of funding with other donors" and urged "fellow donor countries to reflect on the wider consequences of cutting their funding to UNRWA"

"UNWRA is a vital lifeline for 1.5 million refugees in Gaza," he added. "Now more than ever, the agency needs international support."

In Global Appeal, UNRWA Says Gazans Likely Won't Survive If Agency Abandoned


"If the funding remains suspended, we will most likely be forced to shut down our operations by end of February not only in Gaza but also across the region," warned the agency chief.

Palestinian men and children gather for a demonstration in Rafah in the Gaza Strip on January 30, 2024, calling for continued international support to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.
(Photo: AFP via Getty Images)

JESSICA CORBETT

COMMON DREAMS
Feb 01, 2024


A United Nations humanitarian agency warned Thursday that over a dozen countries that have suspended their financial contributions are risking the "sheer survival" of most people in the Gaza Strip amid Israel's war on the besieged Palestinian enclave.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) said in a statement that "the colossal humanitarian needs of over 2 million people in Gaza now face the risk of deepening" due to recent donor suspensions over Israeli allegations that a handful of agency staff members participated in the Hamas-led attacks on October 7.

The number of countries cutting off funding—including the United States—has grown over the past week even though the 30,000-employee agency swiftly fired nine workers and launched an investigation into the the Israeli government's claims.

"The agency remains the largest aid organization in one of the most severe and complex humanitarian crises in the world."

While cease-fire talks are ongoing, Israel's nearly four-month assault on Gaza—condemned as genocide in a South African-led case at the International Court of Justice—continues, with the death toll topping 27,000 on Thursday and thousands more injured or missing in the bombed and burned homes, hospitals, schools, mosques, shelters, and refugee camps.

In response to Israeli orders early in the U.S.-backed war, many Palestinians have fled northern Gaza. Thomas White, director of UNRWA affairs in Gaza and U.N. deputy humanitarian coordinator for the occupied Palestinian territory, explained Thursday that the agency has had limited access to the people who remain in the north.

"UNRWA received reports that people in the area are grinding bird feed to make flour. We continue to coordinate with the Israeli army to be able to go to the north, but this has been largely denied," he said. "When our convoys are finally permitted to go to the area, people rush to the trucks to get food and often eat it on the spot."

Meanwhile, in southern Gaza, "Rafah has become a sea of people fleeing bombardments," White added.

According to the UNRWA's tally, donor nations have suspended at least $440 million in funding. Philippe Lazzarini, the agency's commissioner-general, declared Thursday that "as the war in Gaza is being pursued unabated, and at the time the International Court of Justice calls for more humanitarian assistance, it is the time to reinforce and not to weaken UNRWA."

"The agency remains the largest aid organization in one of the most severe and complex humanitarian crises in the world," he said. "I echo the call of the U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres to resume funding to UNRWA. If the funding remains suspended, we will most likely be forced to shut down our operations by end of February not only in Gaza but also across the region."

White warned that "it's difficult to imagine that Gazans will survive this crisis without UNRWA."

The comments from UNRWA leaders echoed remarks from other U.N. officials, humanitarians, global advocacy groups, and even some progressive U.S. politicians over the past week.

"UNRWA's lifesaving services to over three-quarters of Gaza's residents should not be jeopardized by the alleged actions of a few individuals," Martin Griffiths, United Nations under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, told the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday.

"To put very simply and bluntly: Our humanitarian response for the occupied Palestinian territory is completely dependent on UNRWA being adequately funded and operational," he added. "Decisions to withhold funds from UNRWA must be revoked."

Griffiths and 14 other U.N. leaders and humanitarian partners who argued in a Tuesday statement that while the allegations against UNRWA staff "are horrifying" and "any U.N. employee involved in acts of terror will be held accountable," global donors must not prevent the agency from helping the "hundreds of thousands of people homeless and on the brink of famine."

"Withdrawing funds from UNRWA is perilous and would result in the collapse of the humanitarian system in Gaza, with far-reaching humanitarian and human rights consequences in the occupied Palestinian territory and across the region," the coalition said. "The world cannot abandon the people of Gaza."

'A fraud': Dem slams Trump for paying 'non-union workers to pose as union members'

David McAfee
February 2, 2024 11:36PM ET

Donald Trump on Friday was called out for being a purported fraud when a Democratic lawmaker responded to reports that the ex-president had paid around $20,000 in order to host a pretend union rally at a plant that is not unionized.

Rep. Daniel Goldman was responding to a report flagged by former prosecutor Ron Filipkowski, who claimed that the former president's campaign had paid "$20k to fake a union rally."

Goldman responded to that story, elaborating to his supporters exactly what this means for the ex-president.

"Trump paid non-union workers to pose as union members in Michigan during the UAW strike," he said. "Trump is a fraud."

Goldman then added:

"He’s anti-union, anti-worker, and anti-labor. Don’t be fooled by his talk. Look at his actions. He just cares about himself and his cronies."

One popular social media account joined in the fun by mimicking both presidential contenders Friday.

"Joe Biden: saved my pension and the pensions of hundreds of thousands of my fellow unionized employees," the account wrote. "Trump: paid $20k to scabs to stage a fake union rally at a non union plant."

Penn Museum committed to repatriating skulls of Black Philadelphians used for racist science. 

Here’s why experts say the burial was rushed and unethical

2024/02/02

David Swanson/The Philadelphia Inquirer/TNS

PHILADELPHIA — On Saturday, the Penn Museum will host a public commemoration and interfaith burial service for 19 unidentified Black Philadelphians, likely enslaved during their lifetimes, who died in the 1830s and 1840s but were never laid to rest. Their skulls were severed from their bodies and stolen by white supremacist scientist Samuel G. Morton, who added them to his collection of more than 1,300 crania — to be examined by anthropologists for nearly 200 years.

But this ceremony won’t put to rest the controversy around Penn’s handling of these remains. Instead, it adds another messy chapter to what has become an increasingly complex and fraught debate over what repatriation looks like in practice.

While the public ceremony will be held this weekend, Penn has already interred the remains in secret. On Jan. 22, a small group including museum director Christopher Woods witnessed placement of the remains in two mausolea at Eden Cemetery, a historic Black American cemetery in Collingdale, Pennsylvania.

The move stunted the efforts of opponents who had been trying to stop the burial since the museum set the plan in motion years ago.

Experts and critics say Penn’s efforts have been rushed forward without adequate research to identify these individuals, and accuse Penn of shirking community accountability in the name of expediency. The museum insists that it has consulted with Black community leaders in West Philadelphia, who expressly favored the burial. But, Penn acknowledges, this isn’t repatriation, the return of human remains to their descendants. If emerging research identifies living lineal descendants, Penn says it maintains the right to reopen the mausolea and retrieve those remains.

“We’re not giving them away. We’re not transferring them. We’re not burying them underground and making them inaccessible,” said Woods. “This, for us, is where these individuals should be right now, as a matter of appropriate storage.”

The public became aware of the existence of these remains at Penn in 2019, when West Philadelphia native Abdul-Aliy A. Muhammad wrote an Inquirer op-ed demanding the repatriation of all crania from the Morton collection. A year later, Penn created a committee to address Morton’s legacy after the murder of George Floyd led to renewed calls for accountability surrounding the university’s colonial and racist history.

Muhammad also found out that Penn was secretly keeping the remains of children who were killed in the MOVE bombings in 1985, sparking a national outcry. The public also learned that Morton’s collection contained the crania of Black Philadelphians stolen from bodies that were likely buried in a potter’s field where Penn’s Franklin Field now sits.

The then newly-appointed Woods apologized and committed to repatriating the remains from MOVE and Morton’s collection. He formed the Morton Cranial Collection Community Advisory Group, made up of six Penn employees and eight spiritual and community leaders from West Philadelphia, including Muhammad, who later withdrew in disagreement.

Although the current best practice for repatriation is giving descendants control over any burial or research decisions, Penn moved forward with approval from its own group. The museum petitioned the Philadelphia Orphans Court for permission to bury these remains as soon as possible, in May 2022.

Dismayed over a rushed process without adequate public input, Muhammad filed an objection and called for greater community control over the decision making. Muhammad insisted that more research was needed to try to identify the Philadelphians to potentially connect with descendants. With Rutgers history professor Lyra Monteiro, who also filed an objection, they formed Finding Ceremony, a collective fighting for an independent, descendant-led repatriation process. The pair argued that Penn should give control to Philadelphians who claim the deceased as their ancestors: a descendant community.

The Philadelphia Orphans Court judge ultimately threw out the opposition, saying it lacked legal standing. In February 2023, Judge Sheila Woods-Skipper approved Penn’s plan to entomb the remains at Eden Cemetery and decreed that they do so within one year.

A descendant community broadly includes people who share the social group characteristics of the deceased, such as a community of Black Philadelphians, who serve as a voice for their ancestors. They — not the institution — choose if, when, and how these remains should be buried, said bioanthropologist Michael Blakey, who coined the term in the 1990s.

“The decision is entirely the business of descendants,” said Blakey, professor at the College of William and Mary who serves as cochair of the American Anthropological Association’s commission for the ethical treatment of human remains. “That would take a longer process. They should be allowed that process … and getting it right is important.”

Blakey identified the Morton Cranial Collection Advisory Group as an example of a committee that could organize public forums to foster the creation of an independent descendant community that has “a coherent voice and can act with integrity.”

For Woods, the advisory group served as a stand-in for a descendant community, but Blakey sees the Penn-appointed group as an extension of the administration.

Renee McBride-Williams, president of Cedar Park Neighbors, one of the group’s earliest members, was unfamiliar with the descendant community concept. But she is not sure how different the outcome would have been had there been a formal descendant community in place. “If they were to do a survey of all the people who want to engage, how many people’s opinions will be different? Do we bury them, or do we not? Was racism involved, or not? To me, it would not have really (made) a lot of difference.”

Penn got approval to bury 20 skulls, an expanded number accounting for ones that were added to the collection after Morton’s death. The decision was based on a January 2023 report detailing what Penn said was all the information available about who these Black Philadelphians were, mostly from Morton’s own records.

But last week, the museum decided to withhold one skull, of the only person whose name we do know: John Voorhees, a porter from Chester County who died of tuberculosis.

Woods made the decision after receiving a new report from Monteiro and a group of volunteer researchers that found Voorhees had Native American ancestry — therefore subject to protections under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act — and was survived by a wife and child, establishing a potential for identifying living descendants.

The researchers alleged that in moving Voorhees, Penn would violate NAGPRA, which prevents remains from being transferred to another institution that is not required to comply with the act. But that’s not the case because the museum continues to be in control.

Keeping Voorhees at the museum will “make it even easier for tribes to make a visitation,” Woods said. “It’s an effort to show we’re listening to people … it doesn’t make a fundamental difference to us.”

Woods also said that the volunteer researchers’ work “corroborated what we’re finding” at the museum. An independent genealogist is researching Voorhees and the other Black Philadelphians, and Woods expects that report to come out “any week now.”

Critics say it’s a tacit admission of insufficient research.

Woods contends that because no one has yet identified another name or a living descendant, research is a “secondary concern.” The priority should be moving the deceased out of the museum. As the court decree stipulated, the remains are in an above-ground crypt that grants Penn “forever access to the extent that access is needed in the future.” That means if there are future claims from descendants, Penn can retrieve the remains from the burial site. They remain part of Penn’s collection as they have not been formally deaccessioned and the museum maintains access to them.

That arrangement doesn’t sit well with community members or experts.

“It’s authorized grave robbing once again,” said Kathleen Fine Dare, a Colorado-based NAGPRA scholar who has worked with Finding Ceremony. “If you put somebody into a mausoleum, they’re supposed to stay there forever, and have their souls be at rest … If documentation reveals, say, that one of them was Native, you’re gonna go open a crypt, and pull those remains?”

“This institution cannot both be the institution that holds captive remains of people and the institution that is going to give them ceremony — those two things can’t exist together,” said Muhammad, who helped found a Black Philadelphians Descendant Community Group in May 2023. “This is about making the institution look good, not about being respectful to these people.”

Sacharja Cunningham, a poet and educator from Brooklyn who moved to West Philly to attend Penn’s Graduate School of Education, is also part of the descendant community group. “Penn should halt the burial plans then pay for our descendant group to create an intermediate space for our ancestors and move them there so that they’re out of Penn Museum,” he wrote in an email before learning of Penn’s private burial. “Ultimately, I hope that our descendant group can have the time and space to carefully plan a ceremony for putting our ancestors to proper rest.”

Instead, the group is planning to share a handout of information about the deceased on Saturday, and will support each other after what Muhammad described on X as a “dehumanizing, anti-Black act” and “horrific happening.”

Woods and the advisory group believe they have given these Black Philadelphians a respectful rest. “I realize that other institutions might make different decisions, but I don’t think there is one set of rules or a single process that is ‘right,’” said Woods. “It’s not a one-size fits all situation.”

Experts say this situation doesn’t bode well for Penn’s future efforts to continue dismantling the Morton collection, as repatriation to other countries will be even more complex.

“This was an opportunity for repair which could end with good feelings... But instead, the process has been insufficiently inclusive and allowed insufficient community empowerment because it has moved too fast for that to happen,” said Blakey. “Those are decisions that are made by the university. That is apparently what they’re willing to live with.”

The outside of the Penn Museum in Philadelphia on Jan. 12, 2023.

 - Tyger Williams/The Philadelphia Inquirer/TNS

© The Philadelphia Inquirer

COMMODITY FETISH

Dire Straits legend's guitars garner six-figure sales

Agence France-Presse
January 31, 2024

Dire Straits frontman Mark Knopfler put several guitars up for sale at Christie's in London (Ben Stansall/AFP)


Several guitars put up for sale by Mark Knopfler, the former frontman of British rock group Dire Straits, on Wednesday fetched hundreds of thousands of pounds each at auction.

They include the 1983 guitar used to record the band's hit songs "Money For Nothing" and "Brothers in Arms", which sold for £592,000 ($754,000) at the Christie's sale in London.

Knopfler famously played the Gibson Les Paul reissue at the legendary 1985 Live Aid concert in the British capital, adding to its collectors' appeal.

It had been estimated to cost £10,000-£15,000 but far exceeded that range.

However, the sale fell short of the £693,000 paid for an original 1959 Les Paul Standard which the musician acquired from Bobby Tench of The Jeff Beck Group.

The costliest lot in the auction of more than 120 guitars and amps spanning Knopfler's five-decade career, it featured during tour performances in 2001 and 2008 as well as several recordings.

One of a pair of vintage Les Pauls -- from 1958 and 1959 -- that the frontman bought in the 1990s, Christie's described it as "a true collector's instrument, with a beautifully faded cherry-red sunburst finish".

- Charity donations -

Knopfler founded Dire Straits in 1977 with his younger brother David, bassist John Illsley, and drummer Pick Withers.


The band went on to have a string of hits, such as "Sultans of Swing", "Romeo and Juliet" and "Brothers In Arms". Knopfler has also enjoyed a solo and film soundtracks career.

The 74-year-old announced in November through Christie's that an array of guitars he used to write, record and perform Dire Straits and solo tracks would go under the hammer.

Wednesday's auction included Gibson, Fender and Martin instruments alongside custom-built models by renowned guitar builders Rudy Pensa and John Suhr.


Knopfler will donate a quarter of the sales proceeds to various charities, including the British Red Cross, wildlife conservationists Tusk and children's not-for-profit Brave Hearts of the North East.

Other notable sales saw a 1988 Pensa-Suhr MK-1 -- his primary electric guitar from 1988 to 1992 -- fetch £504,000, while a distinctive red 1983 Schecter Telecaster used to record and perform "Walk of Life" sold for 415,800.

The sales figures pale in comparison to some previous sales of legendary rock guitars.

The instrument that grunge-rock icon Kurt Cobain played during his legendary 1993 "MTV Unplugged" performance leads the record books, selling for $6 million in 2020 -- a record for a guitar.

Redefining US-Latin American Relations: From Outdated Monroe Doctrine to a 21st Century Good Neighbor Policy

An all-encompassing expression of goodwill in the form of a New Good Neighbor Policy will meet resistance from vested economic and military interests, as well as those persuaded by racist arguments. 

by Medea Benjamin and Steve Ellner / February 1st, 2024

The Trump administration dusted off the 19th century Monroe Doctrine that subjugates the nations of the region to U.S. interests. The Biden administration, instead of reversing course,  followed suite, with disastrous results for the region and a migration crisis that threatens Biden’s re-election.

It has left most of Trump’s sanctions against Venezuela and Cuba intact and has tightened those against Nicaragua.

U.S. policy towards Venezuela has been a fiasco. Try as it might, both Trump and Biden were unable to depose President Maduro and found themselves stuck with a self-proclaimed president, Juan Guaidó. U.S. support for Guaidó backfired as he was held responsibility for massive corruption involving Venezuelan assets abroad that were turned over to him. Now Washington is openly siding with presidential hopeful María Corina Machado, who has a long history of engagement in violent disruptions and has called on the U.S. to invade her country. The Venezuelan people have paid a heavy price for the debacle, which has included crippling economic sanctions and coup attempts. The U.S. has also paid a price in terms of its prestige internationally.

This is only one example of a string of disastrous policies toward Latin America.

Instead of continuing down this imperial path of endless confrontation, U.S. policymakers need to stop, recalibrate, and design an entirely new approach to inter-American relations. This is particularly urgent as the continent is in the throes of an economic recession that is compounded by low commodity prices, a belly-up tourist industry and the drying up of remittances from outside.

A good reference point for a policy makeover is Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “Good Neighbor Policy” in the 1930s, which represented an abrupt break with the interventionism of that time. FDR abandoned “gunboat diplomacy” in which Marines were sent throughout the region to impose U.S. will. Though his policies were criticized for not going far enough, he did bring back U.S. Marines from Nicaragua, Haiti and the Dominican Republic, and scrapped the Platt Amendment that allowed the U.S. to intervene unilaterally in Cuban affairs.

So what would a Good Neighbor Policy for the 21st Century look like? Here are some key planks:

An end to military intervention. The illegal use of military force has been a hallmark of U.S. policy in the region, as we see from the deployment of Marines in the Dominican Republic in 1965, Grenada in 1983, Panama in 1989; involvement in military actions leading to the Guatemalan coup in 1954 and destabilization in Nicaragua in the 1980s; support for coups in Brazil in 1964, Chile in 1973 and elsewhere. A Good Neighbor Policy would not only renounce the use of military force, but even the threat of such force (as in “all options are on the table”), particularly because such threats are illegal under international law.

U.S. military intimidation also comes in the form of U.S. bases that dot the continent from Cuba to Colombia to further south. These installations are often resisted by local communities, as was the case of the Manta Base in Ecuador that was shut down in 2008 and the ongoing opposition against the Guantanamo Base in Cuba. U.S. bases in Latin America are a violation of local sovereignty and should be closed, with the lands cleaned up and returned to their rightful owners.

Another form of military intervention is the financing and training of local military and police forces. Most of the U.S. assistance sent to Latin America, particularly Central America, goes towards funding security forces, resulting in the militarization of police and borders, and leading to greater police brutality, extrajudicial killings and repression of migrants. The training school in Ft. Benning, Georgia, formerly called the “School of the Americas,” graduated some of the continent’s worst human rights abusers. Even today, U.S.-trained forces are involved in egregious abuses, including the assassination of activists like Berta Cáceres in Honduras. U.S. programs to confront drugs, from the Merida Initiative in Mexico to Plan Colombia, have not stopped the flow of drugs but have poured massive amounts of weapons into the region and led to more killings, torture and gang violence. Latin American governments need to clean up their own national police forces and link them to communities, a more effective way to combat drug trafficking than the militarization that Washington has promoted.  The greatest contribution the U.S. can make to putting an end to the narcotics scourge in Latin America is to control the U.S. market for those drugs through responsible reforms and to prevent the sale of U.S.-made weapons to drug cartels.

No more political meddling. While the U.S. public has been shocked by charges of Russian interference in its elections, this kind of meddling is par for the course in Latin America. USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), created in 1983 as a neutral sounding alternative to the CIA, spend millions of tax-payer dollars to undermine progressive movements. Following the election of Hugo Chávez in 1998, for instance, NED ramped up its assistance to conservative groups in Venezuela (which became the foundation’s number one Latin American recipient) as a leadup to regime change attempts.

An end to the use of economic blackmail. The U.S. government uses economic pressure to impose its will. The Trump administration threatened to halt remittances to Mexico to extract concessions from the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador on immigration issues. A similar threat persuaded many voters in El Salvador’s 2004 presidential elections to refrain from voting for the candidate of the left-leaning Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN).

The U.S. also uses economic coercion. For the past 60 years, U.S. administrations have sanctioned Cuba—a policy that has not successfully led to regime change but has made living conditions harder for the Cuban people. The same is true in Venezuela, where one study says that in just 2017-2018, over 40,000 Venezuelans died as a result of sanctions. With coronavirus, these sanctions have become even more deadly. A Good Neighbor Policy would lift the economic sanctions against Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua and help them recover economically.

Support trade policies that lift people out of poverty and protect the environment. U.S. free trade agreements with Latin America have been good for the elites and U.S. corporations, but have increased economic inequality, eroded labor rights, destroyed the livelihoods of small farmers, furthered the privatization of public services, and compromised national sovereignty. When indebted nations seek loans from international financial institutions, the loans have been conditioned on the imposition of neoliberal policies that exacerbate all ofthese trends.

In terms of the environment, too often the U.S. government has sided with global oil and mining interests when local communities in Latin America and the Caribbean have challenged resource-extracting projects that threaten their environment and endanger public health. We must launch a new era of energy and natural resource cooperation that prioritizes renewable sources of energy, green jobs, and good environmental stewardship.

Massive protests against neoliberal policies erupted throughout Latin America shortly prior to the pandemic and will return with a vengeance unless countries are free to explore alternatives to neoliberal policies. A New Good Neighbor Policy would cease imposing economic conditions on Latin American governments and would call on the International Monetary Fund to do the same. An example of international cooperation is China’s “Belt and Road Initiative,” which, even with some downsides, has generated goodwill in the Global South by prioritizing investments in much-needed infrastructure projects without conditioning its funding on any aspect of government policy.

Humane immigration policy. Throughout history, U.S. administrations have refused to take responsibility for the ways the U.S. has spurred mass migration north, including unfair trade agreements, support for dictators, climate change, drug consumption and the export of gangs. Instead, immigrants have been used and abused as a source of cheap labor, and vilified according to the political winds. President Obama was the deporter-in-chief; President Trump has been caging children, building walls, and shutting off avenues for people to seek asylum; President Biden is better than his predecessor when it comes to rhetoric, but not so much action-wise. A Good Neighbor policy would dismantle ICE and the cruel deportation centers; it would provide the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States a path to citizenship; and it would respect the international right of people to seek asylum.

Recognition of Latin America’s cultural contributions. President Trump’s blatant disrespect towards Latin Americans and immigrants, including his call for building a wall “paid for by Mexico,” intensified racist attitudes among his base which has continued ever since. A new Latin America policy would not only counter racism but would uplift the region’s exceptional cultural richness. The controversy surrounding the extensive commercial promotion of the novel “American Dirt,” written by a U.S. author about the Mexican immigration experience, is an example of the underestimation of talent south of the border. The contributions of the continent’s indigenous population should also be appreciated and justly compensated, such as the centuries-old medicinal cures that are often exploited by U.S.-based pharmaceutical companies.

An all-encompassing expression of goodwill in the form of a New Good Neighbor Policy will meet resistance from vested economic and military interests, as well as those persuaded by racist arguments. But the vast majority of people in the United States have nothing to lose by it and, in fact, have much to gain. Universal threats, such as coronavirus and the climate crisis, have taught us the limits of borders and should act as incentives to construct a Good Neighbor Policy for the 21st Century based on those principles of non-intervention and mutual respect.

Flashpoint for War: The Drone Killings at Tower 22

by Binoy Kampmark / February 1st, 2024

The BBC’s characteristically mild-mannered note said it all: What is Tower 22?  More to the point, what are US forces doing in Jordan?  (To be more precise, a dusty scratching on the Syria-Jordan border.)  These questions were posed in the aftermath of yet another drone attack against a US outpost in the Middle East, its location of dubious strategic relevance to Washington, yet seen as indispensable to its global footprint.  On this occasion, the attack proved successful, killing three troops and wounding dozens.

The Times of Israel offered a workmanlike description of the site’s role: “Tower 22 is located close enough to US troops at Tanf that it could potentially help support them, while potentially countering Iran-backed militants in the area and allowing troops to keep an eye on remnants of Islamic State in the region.”  The paper does not go on to mention the other role: that US forces are also present in the region to protect Israeli interests, acting as a shield against Iran.

While Tower 22 is located more towards Jordan, it is a dozen miles or so to the Syria-based al-Tanf garrison, which retains a US troop presence.  Initially, that presence was justified to cope with the formidable threat posed by Islamic State as part of Operation Inherent Resolve.  In due course, it became something of a watch post on Iran’s burgeoning military presence in Syria and Iraq, an inflation as much a consequence of Tehran’s successful efforts against the fundamentalist group as it was a product of Washington’s destabilising invasion of Iraq in 2003.

A January 28 press release from US Central Command notes that the attack was inflicted by “a one-way attack UAS [Unmanned Aerial System] that impacted on a base in northeast Jordan, near the Syrian border.”  Its description of Tower 22 is suitably vague, described as a “logistics support base” forming the Jordanian Defense Network.  “There are approximately 350 US Army and Air Force personnel deployed to the base, conducting a number of key support functions, including support to the coalition for the lasting defeat of ISIS.”  No mention is made of Iran or Israel.

Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh found it hard to conceal the extent that US bases in the region have come under attack.  Clumsily, she tried to be vague as to reasons why such assaults were taking place to begin with, though her department has, since October 17 last year, tracked 165 attacks, 66 on US troops in Iraq and 98 in Syria.  The singular feature in the assault on Tower 22, she stressed, was that it worked.  “To my knowledge, there was nothing different or new about this attack that we’ve seen in other facilities that house our service members,” she told reporters on January 29.  “Unfortunately, this attack was successful, but we can’t discount the fact that other attacks, whether Iraq or Syria, were not intended to kill our service members.”

A senior official from the umbrella grouping known as Islamic Resistance in Iraq justified the attack as part of a broader campaign against the US for its unwavering support for Israel and its relentlessly murderous campaign in Gaza.  (Since October 17, the group is said to have staged 140 attacks on US sites in both Iraq and Syria.)  “As we have said before if the US keeps supporting Israel, there will [be] escalations.”  The official in question went on to state that, “All the US interests in the region are legitimate targets, and we don’t care about US threats to respond.”

A generally accepted view among security boffins is that US troops have achieved what they sought to do: cope with the threat posed by Islamic State.  As with any such groups, dissipation and readjustment eventually follows.  Washington’s military officials delight in using the term “degrade”, but it would be far better to simply assume that the fighters of such outfits eventually take up with others, blend into the locale, or simply go home.

With roughly 3,000 personnel stationed in Jordan, 2,500 in Iraq, and 900 in Syria, US troops have become ripe targets as Israel’s war in Gaza rages.  In effect, they have become bits of surplus pieces on the Middle Eastern chessboard and, to that end, incentives for a broader conflict.  The Financial Times, noting the view of an unnamed source purporting to be a “senior western diplomat” (aren’t they always?), fretted that the tinderbox was about to go off.  “We’re always worried about US and Iranian forces getting into direct confrontation there, whether by accident or on purpose.”

President Joe Biden has promised some suitable retaliation but does not wish for “a wider war in the Middle East.  That’s not what I’m looking for.”  A typically mangled response came from National Security Council spokesman John Kirby: “It’s very possible what you’ll see is a tiered approach here, not just a single action, but potentially multiple actions over a period of time.”

Rather than seeing these attacks as incentives to leave such outposts, the don’t cut and run mentality may prove all too powerful in its muscular stupidity.  Empires do not merely bring with them sorrows but incentives to be stubborn.  The beneficiaries will be the usual coterie of war mongers and peace killers.

Gaza Occupies Toledo City Council

by Mike Ferner / February 2nd, 2024

After tabling a citizen-drafted resolution for a ceasefire in Gaza, Toledo City Council agreed to have a second hearing on the measure, January 30.

 At that hearing, Toledoans testified about grandparents who had lost homes and property during the 1948 Nakba; others told of having been displaced multiple times; several people passionately described members of their families who have been killed in Gaza since October 7; and some held back tears as they talked of family they just haven’t heard from.  Following is my statement to the Council.

It’s been 50 years since I was a Navy corpsman at a stateside hospital, taking care of wounded GIs returned from Vietnam, and then on an aircraft carrier. I’ve seen what war does to human beings, but what I saw in the modern, well-equipped hospital wards back then was nothing compared to the human suffering and death shrouding Gaza today.

In addition to the tragic stories of loss you’ve heard tonight, here are other things we should consider.

First, VFP partners with an organization in the Middle East called Combatants for Peace. It is composed of former Israeli and Palestinian soldiers who once fought each other and now work for peace, always in pairs, one Palestinian and one Israeli. Both our organizations have called for a ceasefire because we know what war does to everyone it touches. No matter which side.

For example, Israeli press reports stated in early December that some 5,000 Israeli soldiers have been wounded in Gaza since October 7. Israeli officials warned at that time that cases of PTSD and other trauma-related issues will skyrocket in the next few months. At least 2,000 Israeli soldiers had been declared disabled, with health officials in a hurry to release the wounded so they can admit new patients.

A ceasefire is desperately needed now.

Second, our news media typically gets disturbed about wars only when U.S. military are killed. They may soon have a lot to be disturbed about if a ceasefire isn’t declared. You’ve already heard news of U.S. military killed and wounded as this war spreads beyond Palestine. But we haven’t seen anything yet, if the madmen get their way and go to war with Iran. We have three carrier battle groups within range of Iran’s missiles. Those carriers will be sitting ducks and there are over 3,000 sailors on each one of them. War with Iran could very likely be the match to set off the war that really does end all wars.

A ceasefire is desperately needed now.

Third, there is no military solution to what’s happening in Palestine. There never was and there never will be. Even our Congresswoman recognized during the U.S. occupation of Iraq that we were creating more anti-U.S. fighters every day we were there. How do you think that will play out in Gaza?

A ceasefire is desperately needed now.

Fourth, to those who say our city council has no business passing a ceasefire resolution, I can tell you as someone who once sat where you do tonight, that argument is nonsense.

Think back to all the resolutions routinely passed honoring sports teams and corporations and festivals… what did any of those have to do with the business of running Toledo?

You have no business passing a ceasefire resolution? Really? It’s only hundreds of billions of our tax dollars that could go to schools, streets, health clinics and parks; it’s only our young men and women who will be killed and wounded; and it’s only a rare opportunity to exhibit political courage for the sake of humanity.

A ceasefire is desperately needed now.

NOTE: On January 31, Toledo City Council decided it was too controversial to condemn genocide and again tabled the ceasefire resolution.

Mike Ferner is National Director of Veterans For Peace and a former member of Toledo City Council. He can be reached at mike@veteransforpeace.org. Read other articles by Mike.

The Only Right That Palestinians Have Not Been Denied Is the Right to Dream

by Vijay Prashad / February 2nd, 2024

Malak Mattar (Palestine), Gaza, 2024.

On 26 January, the judges at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found that it is ‘plausible’ that Israel is committing a genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. The ICJ called upon Israel to ‘take all measures within its power to prevent the commission of all acts’ that violate the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948). Although the ICJ did not call explicitly for a ceasefire (as it did in 2022 when it ordered Russia to ‘suspend [its] military operation’ in Ukraine), even a casual reading of this order shows that to comply with the court’s ruling, Israel must end its assault on Gaza. As part of its ‘provisional measures’, the ICJ called upon Israel to respond to the court within a month and outline how it has implemented the order.

Though Israel has already rejected the ICJ’s findings, international pressure on Tel Aviv is mounting. Algeria has asked the UN Security Council to enforce the ICJ’s order while Indonesia and Slovenia have initiated separate proceedings at the ICJ that will begin on 19 February to seek an advisory opinion on Israel’s control of and policies on occupied Palestinian territories, pursuant to a UN General Assembly resolution adopted in December 2022. In addition, Chile and Mexico have called upon the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate crimes committed in Gaza.

Israel’s reaction to the ICJ’s order was characteristically dismissive. The country’s national security minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, called the ICJ an ‘antisemitic court’ and claimed that it ‘does not seek justice, but rather the persecution of Jewish people’. Strangely, Ben Gvir accused the ICJ of being ‘silent during the Holocaust’. The Holocaust conducted by the Nazi German regime and its allies against European Jews, the Romani, homosexuals, and communists took place between late 1941 and May 1945, when the Soviet Red Army liberated prisoners from Ravensbrück, Sachsenhausen, and Stutthof. However, the ICJ was established in June 1945, one month after the Holocaust ended, and began its work in April 1946. Israel’s attempt to delegitimise the ICJ by saying that it remained ‘silent during the Holocaust’ when it was, in fact, not yet in existence, and then to use that false statement to call the ICJ an ‘antisemitic court’ shows that Israel has no answer to the merits of the ICJ order.

Malak Mattar (Palestine), Gaza (detail), 2024.

Meanwhile, the bombardment of Palestinians in Gaza continues. My friend Na’eem Jeenah, director of the Afro-Middle East Centre in Johannesburg, South Africa, has been reviewing the data from various government ministries in Gaza as well as media reports to circulate a daily information card on the situation. The card from 26 January, the date of the ICJ order and the 112th day of the genocide, details that over 26,000 Palestinians, at least 11,000 of them children, have been killed since 7 October; 8,000 are missing; close to 69,000 have been injured; and almost all of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents have been displaced. The numbers are bewildering. During this period, Israel has damaged 394 schools and colleges, destroying 99 of them as well as 30 hospitals and killing at least 337 medical personnel. This is the reality that occasioned the genocide case at the ICJ and the court’s provisional measures, with one judge, Dalveer Bhandari of India, going further to say plainly that ‘all fighting and hostilities [must] come to an immediate halt’.

Amongst the dead are many of Palestine’s painters, poets, writers, and sculptors. One of the striking features of Palestinian life over the past 76 years since the Nakba (‘Catastrophe’) of 1948 has been the ongoing richness of Palestinian cultural production. A brisk walk down any of the streets of Jenin or Gaza City reveals the ubiquity of studios and galleries, places where Palestinians insist upon their right to dream. In late 1974, the South African militant and artist Barry Vincent Feinberg published an article in the Afro-Asian journal Lotus that opens with an interaction in London between Feinberg and a ‘young Palestinian poet’. Feinberg was curious why, in Lotus, ‘an unusually large number of poems stem from Palestinian poets’. The young poet, amused by Feinberg’s observation, replied: ‘The only thing my people have never been denied is the right to dream’.

Malak Mattar (Palestine), Gaza (detail), 2024.

Malak Mattar, born in December 1999, is a young Palestinian artist who refuses to stop dreaming. Malak was fourteen when Israel conducted its Operation Protective Edge (2014) in Gaza, killing over two thousand Palestinian civilians in just over one month – a ghastly toll that built upon the bombardment of the Occupied Palestinian Territory that has been ongoing for more than a generation. Malak’s mother urged her to paint as an antidote to the trauma of the occupation. Malak’s parents are both refugees: her father is from al-Jorah (now called Ashkelon) and her mother is from al-Batani al-Sharqi, one of the Palestinian villages along the edge of what is now called the Gaza Strip. On 25 November 1948, the newly formed Israeli government passed Order Number 40, which authorised Israeli troops to expel Palestinians from villages such as al-Batani al-Sharqi. ‘Your role is to expel the Arab refugees from these villages and prevent their return by destroying the villages… Burn the villages and demolish the stone houses’, wrote the Israeli commanders.

Malak’s parents carry these memories, but despite the ongoing occupation and war, they try to endow their children with dreams and hope. Malak picked up a paint brush and began to envision a luminous world of bright colours and Palestinian imagery, including the symbol of sumud (‘steadfastness’): the olive tree. Since she was a teenager, Malak has painted young girls and women, often with babies and doves, though, as she told the writer Indlieb Farazi Saber, the women’s heads are often titled to the side. That is because, she said, ‘If you stand straight, upright, it shows you are stable, but with a head tilted to one side, it evokes a feeling of being broken, a weakness. We are humans, living through wars, through brutal moments… the endurance sometimes slips’.

Malak Mattar (Palestine), Two Gazan Girls Dreaming of Peace, 2020.

Malak and I have corresponded throughout this violence, her fears manifest, her strength remarkable. In January, she wrote, ‘I’m working on a massive painting depicting many aspects of the genocide’. On a five-metre canvas, Malak created a work of art that began to resemble Pablo Picasso’s celebrated Guernica (1937), which he painted to commemorate a massacre by fascist Spain against a town in the Basque region. In 2022, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) published a profile on Malak, calling her ‘Palestine’s Picasso’. In the article, Malak said, ‘I was so inspired by Picasso that, in the beginning of my art journey, I tried to paint like him’. This new painting by Malak reflects the heartbreak and steadfastness of the Palestinian people. It is an indictment of Israel’s genocide and an affirmation of Palestinians’ right to dream. If you look at it closely, you will see the victims of the genocide: the medical workers, the journalists, and the poets; the mosques and the churches; the unburied bodies, the naked prisoners, and the corpses of small children; the bombed cars and the fleeing refugees. There is a kite flying in the sky, a symbol from Refaat Alareer’s poem ‘If I Must Die’ (‘you must live to tell my story… so that a child, somewhere in Gaza while looking heaven in the eye… sees the kite, my kite you made, flying up above and thinks there is an angel there bringing back love’).

Zulfa al-Sa’di (Palestine), King Faysal I of Iraq, 1931.

Malak’s work is rooted in Palestinian traditions of painting, inspired by a history that dates back to Arab Christian iconography (a tradition that was developed by Yusuf al-Halabi of Aleppo in the seventeenth century). That ‘Aleppo Style’, as the art critic Kamal Boullata wrote in Istihdar al-Makan, developed into the ‘Jerusalem Style’, which brightened the iconography by introducing flora and fauna from Islamic miniatures and embroidery. When I first saw Malak’s work, I thought of how fitting it was that she had redeemed the life of Zulfa al-Sa’di (1905–1988), one of the most important painters of her time, who painted Palestinian political and cultural heroes. Al-Sa’di stopped painting after she was forced to flee Jerusalem during the 1948 Nakba; her only paintings that remain are those that she carried with her on horseback. Sa’di spent the rest of her life teaching art to Palestinian children at an UNRWA school in Damascus. It was in one such UNRWA school that Malak learned to paint. Malak seemed to pick up al-Sa’di’s brushes and paint for her.

It is no surprise that Israel has targeted UNRWA, successfully encouraging several key Global North governments to stop funding the agency, which was established by United Nations General Assembly Resolution 302 in 1949 to ‘carry out direct relief and works programmes for Palestine refugees’. In any given year, half a million Palestinian children like Malak study at UNRWA schools. Raja Khalidi, director-general of the Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute (MAS), says of this funding suspension: ‘Given the long-standing precarious nature of UNRWA’s finances… and in light of its essential role in providing vital services to Palestine refugees and some 1.8 million displaced persons in Gaza, cutting its funding at such a moment heightens the threat to life against Palestinians already at risk of genocide’.

I encourage you to circulate Malak’s mural, to recreate it on walls and public spaces across the world. Let it penetrate into the souls of those who refuse to see the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people.

Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian and journalist. Prashad is the author of twenty-five books, including The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World and The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South. Read other articles by Vijay, or visit Vijay's website.

How to Interpret Washington’s New Version of “Hacker Script”

by Global Times / February 2nd, 2024

Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

The director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Christopher Wray, made sensational remarks on Wednesday in Congress, elevating the “China threat theory” to a new level. He claimed that hackers associated with the Chinese government are “positioning on American infrastructure in preparation to wreak havoc and cause real-world harm to American citizens and communities.” Targets include water treatment plants, electrical infrastructure and oil and natural gas pipelines, he said. In response, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin explicitly stated that China firmly opposes and cracks down on all forms of cyberattacks in accordance with law. Without valid evident, the US jumped to an unwarranted conclusion and made groundless accusations against China. It is extremely irresponsible and is a complete distortion of facts.

On the same day, the US government added more than a dozen Chinese companies to a list created by the Defense Department to highlight firms it says are allegedly working with China’s military. US Secretary of Commerce, Gina Raimondo, exaggerated the potential national security risks posed by Chinese electric vehicles entering European market in talks with EU officials. From public opinion manipulation to actual actions, the US’ measures containing China were both intensive and frequent in recent days. The US once again unleashed a cold wind, at a time when communication and exchanges between high-level officials of China and the US have rapidly resumed since the beginning of 2024, and signs of stabilization in China-US relations have increased.

This has become an increasingly common phenomenon in China-US relations, reflecting the high complexity and uncertainty of US policy toward China and the depth of distortions in the US understanding of China. However, we also notice that Jake Sullivan, the national security advisor to the US president, in his latest remarks on China-US relations on January 30, while emphasizing the need for the US to strengthen its “competitive position,” also highlighted the importance of building stability, managing differences, and stressed the significance of maintaining communication and intensive diplomacy.

Taking a comprehensive view, US policy toward China is increasingly resembling a tightrope walk, with the key technique lying in maintaining balance. The US government is currently managing this with difficulty, and the challenge of maintaining balance is rapidly intensifying. The US clearly recognizes the serious consequences if balance cannot be upheld, but without timely adjustments, it is only a matter of time before it falls off the tightrope.

This year is the US presidential election year, and negative topics concerning China will be further magnified and intensified. However, aside from the election factors, people can see at a glance that the two ends of the “balance pole” between the US and China are gradually shifting, with the rational end toward China becoming shorter and the irrational end toward China becoming longer. One major manifestation is the continuous innovation and upgrading of the “China threat theory,” which has contaminated the decision-making atmosphere and environment toward China, resulting in an increasingly imbalanced US policy toward China, even to the extent of losing control. This poses a significant risk for the US, the Asia-Pacific region, and the world.

Why do American officials and politicians like Christopher Wray work so hard to create and spread the “China threat theory”? The reasons are multifaceted. For example, the most common occasions are often in the US Congress, both because Congress has become a gathering place for anti-China politicians and because Congress controls the purse strings. Using the “China threat” as a gimmick is the best way to secure funding. Additionally, some individuals project their inner world onto China. There are also those who have developed a delusion about China, where anything related to the word “China” becomes a “terrifying monster” that must be guarded against. This is a result of extreme lack of confidence, anxiety, and even delusion in the face of China’s rapid development.

Also on January 31, the Senate Judiciary Committee hosted a hearing titled “Big Tech and the Online Child Sexual Exploitation Crisis.” The chief executives of five major social media giants, including TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew attended to testify. Although the meeting had a predetermined theme and many attendees, Chew once again became the focus. Many senators bypassed the main topic and questioned Chew about his relationship with China. Republican Senator Tom Cotton even aggressively questioned Chew’s citizenship with eight questions. It is well known that Chew is from Singapore. Even netizens on X platform couldn’t stand it and condemned Cotton for his “xenophobia” and “blatant racism.” Isn’t this a microcosm of Washington politicians?

It is evident that the US authorities have the intention to use anti-China rhetoric and need a strategic imaginary enemy or scapegoat in Washington politics. However, this is feeding a monster with malice and hostility toward China. The monster is growing day by day, with an increasing appetite and becoming more cunning. In the past, stories about “Chinese hackers” could satisfy it for a while, but now the story has to be escalated to the level of threatening all Americans. When this monster breaks free, its first target will be the US itself.

Global Times, where this article was first published, takes great pains to present facts and views that could help the readers better understand China. Read other articles by Global Times, or visit Global Times's website.