MEDIA MONOPOLY CPAITALI$M

Trudeau 'pissed off' by Bell Media's 'garbage decision' to lay off thousands

WHY WE HAVE CBC!

Fri, February 9, 2024 

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau rises during question period on Tuesday, Feb. 6, 2024 in Ottawa. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press - image credit)

A fired-up Prime Minister Justin Trudeau unleashed on Bell Media on Friday, calling its move to lay off thousands of employees — including hundreds of journalists — a "garbage decision."

"I'm pretty pissed off about what's just happened," Trudeau said during a press conference in Toronto.

"This is the erosion not just of journalism, of quality local journalism at a time where people need it more than ever, given misinformation and disinformation ... It's eroding our very democracy, our abilities to tell stories to each other."


On Thursday the media company — which owns CTV and BNN Bloomberg — announced 4,800 jobs "at all levels of the company" would be cut. Bell said it's the largest round of cuts in nearly 30 years.

It's also the second major round of layoffs at the media and telecommunications giant since last spring, when six per cent of Bell Media jobs were eliminated and nine radio stations were either shuttered or sold.

Bell also announced it is ending multiple television newscasts and making other programming cuts after its parent company announced widespread layoffs and the sale of 45 of its 103 regional radio stations.

The stations being sold are in British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic Canada.

'I'm furious': Trudeau

After announcing the job cuts, Bell said it would push ahead with a more generous dividend payout to its shareholders.

"I'm furious. This was a garbage decision by a corporation that should know better," said Trudeau.

"We need those local voices and over the past years, corporate Canada — and there are many culprits on this — have abdicated their responsibility toward the communities that they have always made very good profits off of in various ways."

On Thursday, Bell chief legal and regulatory officer Robert Malcolmson blamed the federal government for the cuts. He said Ottawa is taking too long to provide relief to media companies and the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission [CRTC] has reacted too slowly to a "crisis that is immediate."

The Bell Media Studios in downtown Toronto on Feb. 8, 2024. Bell Media is ending multiple television newscasts and making other programming cuts after its parent company BCE Inc. announced widespread layoffs and the sale of 45 of its 103 regional radio stations. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)

"We've been advocating for reform for years. It's not coming fast enough and when it does come, it doesn't provide meaningful help," he said.

Malcolmson also said the job losses were directly tied to regulator direction on Bill C-11, which updates the Broadcasting Act to require digital platforms such as Netflix, YouTube and TikTok to contribute to and promote Canadian content.

The legislation passed Parliament last year and it's now up to the CRTC to decide how much foreign streaming giants should pay to support Canadian content and production.

On Thursday, federal Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge accused Bell of breaking a long-held promise to deliver quality local news.

"They're still making billions of dollars. They're still a very profitable company and they still have the capacity and the means to hold up their end of the bargain, which is to deliver news reports," she said.

Poilievre vows to overturn C-11

One of C-11's main critics, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, has referred to the bill as a form of censorship because it empowers the CRTC to regulate more platforms and the content they disseminate.

He blamed Bell's cuts on what he described as a poor business environment caused by high taxes, burdensome red tape and uncompetitive policies.

"We will move quickly in the early part of my term to overturn C-11 and other censorship and put Canadians in charge of what they see and say online," Poilievre said Thursday.

On Friday, Trudeau took aim at the Conservatives and other critics who have accused his government of greasing the palms of news organizations.

"We have been stepping up over the past years, fighting for local journalism, fighting for investments that we can have, while all the while fending off attacks from Conservatives and others who say, 'No, no, no, you're trying to buy off journalists,'" he said.

Trudeau suggested his government will be "demanding" better from corporations like Bell, but it's not yet clear what that would look like.

Canada media group ends several TV newscasts after announcing 4,800 layoffs

Associated Press
Updated Thu, February 8, 2024 

A person walks by the CTV Television Network studios in Ottawa, Quebec, Canada, on Monday, Feb. 14, 2022. Canada’s largest media and telecom company said Thursday, Feb. 8, 2024, it is ending multiple television newscasts and making other programming cuts after its parent company announced 4,800 layoffs and the sale of 45 of its 103 regional radio stations. 

(AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey, File)More


TORONTO (AP) — Canada’s largest media and telecom company said Thursday it is ending multiple television newscasts and making other programming cuts after its parent company announced 4,800 layoffs and the sale of 45 of its 103 regional radio stations.

In an internal memo to Bell Media employees, it said news stations such as CTV and BNN Bloomberg would be affected immediately.

The radio stations being sold are in British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic Canada.

The memo, signed by Dave Daigle, vice-president of local TV, radio and Bell Media Studios, and Richard Gray, vice-president of news at Bell Media, said weekday noon newscasts at all CTV stations except Toronto would end. It is also scrapping its 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. newscasts on weekends at all CTV and CTV2 stations except Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa.

Earlier, Bell Media’s parent company BCE Inc. announced it was cutting 9% of its workforce.

The company, in an open letter signed by Chief Executive Mirko Bibic, said 4,800 jobs “at all levels of the company” would be cut. Fewer than 10% of the total job cuts are at Bell Media specifically.

Some employees have already been notified or were to be informed Thursday of being laid off, while the balance will be told by the spring. Bibic said the company will use vacancies and natural attrition to minimize layoffs as much as possible.

The Unifor union said 800 members it represents were laid off in the Bell cuts, around 100 of which from the media sector and the balance from the telecom sector.

CTV’s long-running flagship investigative series “W5” will also cease to exist in its current form. The internal memo sent to Bell Media employees says the award-winning program will “evolve” from a standalone documentary series to become “a multi-part, multiplatform investigative reporting unit.”

Its reports will be featured on CTV National News, the CTV News website and other CTV platforms.

EU: FASCISM RISING

French far-right party joins Meloni's European group in pre-poll shift

“We need to join forces on many different fronts to save Europe, against the dominant liberal and left-wing groups that are on course to destroy Europe.”

Reuters
Thu, February 8, 2024


PARIS (Reuters) - The French anti-Islam Reconquete party has said its sole European lawmaker will sit with the eurosceptic group that is home to Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's Brothers of Italy, as alliances on Europe's right shift ahead of elections.

The move comes as far right parties across the continent, divided into two main groups inside the European Parliament, grapple with how they might coalesce into a more cohesive force ahead of a June vote in which polls show populists making gains.

Polls show the European Conservatives and Reformists Group (ECR), which also counts Poland's Law and Justice, Spain's Vox and Finland's The Finns among its ranks, may overtake French President Emmanuel Macron's Renew Europe party in size.

"Reconquete shares ECR's political DNA! The real political right which acts upon its convictions: defence of the identity of nations and our civilisation when faced with immigration and Islamisation, defence of economic freedoms, ...the safeguarding of our values against wokeism," Reconquete co-chair Marion Marechal said on Wednesday.

Marechal is the niece of Marine Le Pen, leader of France's biggest far-right party, Rassemblement National (National Rally), which is aligned with the hard right Identity and Democracy (ID) group in the European Parliament.

A late January opinion survey for Les Echos newspaper showed Reconquete winning 7% of voter support in France compared with 27% for the Rassemblement National.

Analysts say Europe's far right will remain somewhat hobbled as a political force if the two factions do not work together.

Veteran Hungarian leader Viktor Orban has said his Fidesz party is in talks to join ECR, though not before the June elections. Orban, who maintains close ties to Moscow despite its invasion of Ukraine and for weeks stood in the way of a European financing package for Kyiv, would likely bring a sizeable cohort of lawmakers.

"There is the possibility that Fidesz will converge towards the ECR group if it supports our Euro-Atlantic stance," Carlo Fidanza, a eurodeputy with Meloni's Brothers of Italy party, told Reuters.

However, Orban would also bring risks for Meloni, whose stature as a European leader alongside Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has grown at past EU summits.

"How successful (Meloni) is will rest on her ability to ... engage the EU's periphery while being a core member," Eurointelligence wrote in a briefing note.

Marechal's Reconquete party was founded by Eric Zemmour who ran for president in 2022 on a nationalist programme promising to save France from a downward spiral that he blamed largely on what he described as unfettered immigration and the increasing influence of Islam. He holds several convictions for inciting racial hate.

(Reporting by Elizabeth Pineau, Richard Lough and Angelo Amante; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Meloni and Eurosceptics Want to Enlist Orban. But For a Price.

Chiara Albanese, Zoltan Simon and Natalia Ojewska
Sat, February 10, 2024 





(Bloomberg) -- Some of the continent’s top right-wing politicians including Italy’s Giorgia Meloni are seeking to bring Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban into their political family, in a bid to reshape their pan-European party into a legitimate force in Brussels.

The Italian premier and former Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki have met with Orban in the past few weeks to discuss his Fidesz party joining the European Conservatives and Reformists group, according to people familiar with the negotiations. In the talks, both Meloni and Morawiecki issued a clear caveat: the outspoken Hungarian leader would need to moderate some of his positions.

Such a move would have the potential to radically reshape politics in Brussels and put the ECR in the running to become the third-largest group after the European Parliament elections in June. That would give the ECR greater influence on European Union business and signal a growing role for nationalist politicians who are promoting anti-immigrant and eurosceptic agendas.

“I spoke about it with Viktor Orban, so I know Hungary might consider entering the ECR,” Morawiecki, who leads the Polish delegation of Law and Order in parliament, said in an interview. “That would enhance our capabilities to act for a better Europe.”

The challenge for other European lawmakers is in what “better” might entail. Poland under Law & Justice rule pioneered a brand of right-wing populism by tapping into nativist sentiment and cultural grievances. It weaponized LGBTQ rights, abortion rights, and Ukrainian grain shipments, drawing rebuke from moderates in the 27-member bloc.

The ECR could gain 80 seats in parliament if the European election were held today, according to a recent poll of polls by Europe Elects. If Fidesz joined ECR and if it were to match the 13 seats it won in 2019, that could boost the party into third behind the European People’s Party and the Socialists and Democrats.

The biggest challenge for a grand right-wing coalition would be to reconcile their diverse stances on Ukraine, given the fact that Hungary is led by the most Kremlin-friendly government in the EU while the rest of the ECR strongly backs Kyiv, That’s particularly true of the Law and Justice party, which currently holds the most seats in the group.

“We agree on some issues and disagree on others,” Morawiecki said. “But certainly we have common goals — more power to European people, less EU bureaucracy, more security and common sense, less migration and other self-harming policies.”

The strategy carries risks for Meloni, a relative newcomer to the big leagues of European politics. Taming the five-term Orban — the EU’s longest-serving premier — is a tall challenge, especially since he has had ambitions of his own to unite the continent’s nationalist parties, which are currently splintered between ECR and Identity and Democracy, home of France’s Marine Le Pen.

The Hungarian leader has had a spotty record when it comes to alliances in Brussels. Three years ago Fidesz was pushed out of the EU’s largest political group, the European People’s Party, over the erosion of democratic standards in Hungary.

“Mr. Orban is not somebody who can be easily softened,” Nicolas Schmit, the EU’s social rights chief who is leading the campaign for the Socialists ahead of the election, said in an interview. “If he joins the ECR, this is also gives us a very clear signal of what the ECR represents.”

The EPP had largely shielded and legitimized Orban’s decade-long power consolidation in Budapest. Since then, Fidesz has been without a pan-European party, and has ramped up a campaign of derailing legislation it doesn’t agree with.

There are clear near-term advantages for Orban to strike a deal now. Inclusion in the ECR — alongside Meloni’s Brothers of Italy, Poland’s right-wing Law and Justice and the nationalist Sweden Democrats, among other — would give Orban much-needed support during Hungary’s six-month presidency, which begins in July.

Orban has been a thorn in the EU’s side, becoming adept at using the bloc’s Byzantine rules to derail and delay critical business pushed by the remaining 26 member states. Earlier this month, he threatened to veto the EU’s €50 billion ($53.7 billion) aid package for Ukraine, and in December, he said he would block opening membership talks with Kyiv.

On both issues, the Hungarian leader backed down — partly under Meloni’s influence. She held three separate conversations with Orban on the sidelines of the summit in Brussels, which contributed to him lifting his veto on the Ukraine funding, Bloomberg has reported.

Morawiecki, deputy chairman of the Law and Justice party and a former prime minister of Poland, also met with Orban on the sidelines of the same event, telling him that he must rein in his stance before he can join the ECR, according to another person familiar with the matter, who like others interviewed for this article spoke on the condition of anonymity.

In recent remarks to the press, Orban referred to the move as almost a done deal. However, securing sufficient reassurances of a more cooperative approach could take time, and Fidesz’s accession is unlikely before the June elections, the people said.

Success in reigning in the Hungarian leader would prove not only Meloni’s foreign policy credentials but would also be a relief for the EU, which has grown weary of fighting with Orban on multiple fronts. Orban’s self-styled “illiberal” approach has seen him clash with it on topics including its ban on Russia oil over the war in Ukraine, migration and the rule of law.

On Monday, his lawmakers boycotted a parliamentary session on Sweden’s entry into NATO, ensuring further delays in the long-running standoff between Budapest — the lone holdout — and its partners in the military alliance.

“We need to join forces on many different fronts to save Europe,” Morawiecki said. “ECR will most likely accept everyone who agrees against the dominant liberal and left-wing groups that are on course to destroy Europe.”

--With assistance from Jorge Valero, Ewa Krukowska and Max Ramsay.

CAPITALI$M 101

Wealthy Indonesians Set to Win No Matter Who Becomes President




Philip J. Heijmans
Fri, February 9, 2024 

(Bloomberg) -- A group of powerful Indonesian oligarchs gathered at a cafe in Jakarta last month in a show of support for Prabowo Subianto, underlining why the ex-general may be third time lucky in the upcoming presidential election.

“We are small in number, yes,” coal billionaire Garibaldi Thohir told the room in a widely publicized video of the event. But “in this room maybe one third of Indonesia’s economy is here.”

Their support is a big change from five years ago, when Thohir’s brother — sitting cabinet minister Erick Thohir — led President Joko Widodo’s campaign to beat Prabowo for a second time. Jokowi, as the incumbent is popularly known, can’t run for a third term and has implicitly backed Prabowo by having his 36-year-old son join the ticket as vice president.

Yet the band of American-educated businessmen gathered in the cafe are just as key to victory when 205 million Indonesians elect Jokowi’s successor on Feb. 14.

Prabowo, a former son-in-law of the late dictator Suharto, sang along to Creedence Clearwater Revival during the meeting as he expressed his gratitude for their support.

“I get it now why I lost the presidential election twice,” said Prabowo, who was once banned from entering the US over suspected rights abuses. “Back then, I was not invited here.”

The remarks underscore the sway Indonesia’s ruling class of tycoons and politicians still have in choosing the country’s leaders, nearly three decades since the country embraced democracy.

While Suharto’s ouster in 1998 ushered in an era of reform, politics remain dominated by the factions that made fortunes during his three-decade rule. Their influence over the economy and politics ensured policies that enlarged their wealth from land and the exploitation of the nation’s vast natural resources.

Emails seeking comment sent to Garibaldi Thohir through his company PT Adaro Energy Indonesia Tbk and to Erick Thohir through the Ministry of State-Owned Enterprises were not answered.

Political Elite

As many as half of the 575 lawmakers in parliament have connections with the mining sector, according to the Indonesia Mining Advocacy Network, which investigates the crossover between officials and business.

“Indonesia is governed by the oligarchy — the political elites and the business elites — and when it comes to their interests, I think they overlap,” said Dedi Dinarto, an associate with advisory firm Global Counsel. “This kind of conflict of interest, where a businessman knows a policy is going to come out from a government, is not ideal, but that’s the fact in Indonesia.”

When Jokowi became president in 2014, some analysts expected the former furniture maker from humble origins to sweep away the old power structure. But by his second term, any hope of that was gone as he stacked his cabinet with prominent businessmen and former rivals, including Prabowo as defense minister. With their backing, and the support of four in five lawmakers in the lower house, Jokowi was able to pass reforms designed to elevate Indonesia to the world’s 4th largest economy by 2045.

Meanwhile, Indonesia’s tycoons were amassing record wealth. Forbes reported a 40% increase last year among the 50 richest on its list, to reach a total of $252 billion. London-based consultancy Knight Frank projects the number of individuals with a minimum net worth of $30 million will more than double by 2026 from a decade earlier.

“Jokowi has been very, very smart to make use of the elite concerns to serve his purposes,” Dinarto said.

The elite have managed to retain their influence for several reasons. For one, the first direct presidential vote after Suharto’s ouster didn’t occur for six years. In the interim, the president was picked directly by lawmakers. Then, expensive election campaigns created a barrier for new players.

More critical still is a provision that remains in the Constitution after the end of Suharto’s three-decade dictatorship: that presidential and vice-presidential aspirants must secure the backing of at least 20% of parliament members, or show that they won at least a quarter of the popular vote in the previous election.

The rule, upheld under Jokowi, has been challenged at the Constitutional Court over 30 times as critics complain it puts government representation out of reach of ordinary citizens.

“It’s like going to a concert but using tickets that have already been used,” said Herdiansyah Hamzah, a constitutional expert at Universitas Mulawarman in East Kalimantan. “In the end, the presidential candidates are dominated by old people and certain parties.”

Cost of Business

Jokowi’s critics say he hasn’t helped. He’s been accused of defanging the anti-graft body that was probing his ministers and his government has passed laws limiting criticism of the president and public institutions. His landmark job creation law — already dogged by transparency concerns — was initially rendered legally defective before it was revised and passed.

Representatives for Jokowi didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Indonesia ranked 115th out of 180 in Transparency International’s 2023 corruption perception index, after posting its worst slide since the reform era the prior year.

“Jokowi and his inner circle are trying to resolve bottlenecks to ensure that his priorities are approved and can proceed smoothly. But in the process they changed some rules,” said Alexander Arifianto, a senior fellow with the Indonesia program at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. Now, “they are treated like gods.”

Jokowi’s most telling gambit was to allow his elder son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, to run for vice president alongside Prabowo. His younger son, 29-year-old Kaesang Pangarep, helms a fringe party that as of Jan. 12 had raised more campaign funds than any other in the Prabowo camp, data show. A son-in-law, Bobby Nasution, is the mayor of Medan, Indonesia’s fourth-largest city.

Some observers say the strategy is an effort to maintain a direct line to the presidency after he leaves office by creating a lasting political dynasty.

Indonesia’s dynastic politics is “a big problem,” former vice president Jusuf Kalla said in an interview. “Even Suharto was good for 10 years,” he said. “When the children are still in school that’s good, but when they grow up and get to know the business — that’s the problem.”

Yet Jokowi’s gambit to bring his son into the political arena has created fractures in the traditional circles of power and raised concern about the influence of the nation’s elites.

Gibran’s candidacy, for example, was made possible by a Constitutional Court ruling that was presided over by Jokowi’s brother-in-law. That sparked discord within the cabinet and led to student demonstrations.

Corruption probes against a pair of ministers from junior coalition partner the National Democratic Party raised speculation that the investigations were motivated by the party’s support for former Jakarta governor Anies Baswedan’s presidential bid.

Similarly, a probe of the trade ministry led by National Mandate Party chief Zulkifli Hasan over alleged corruption related to sugar imports was seen as “an attempt to bargain” over support for Jokowi’s candidate, said Titi Anggraini, an advisory board member of the Association for Elections and Democracy, or Perludem, an independent, non-profit advocacy group.

Election rivals have also alleged interference on the campaign trail.

“We book a campaign venue for a rally and last minute the permit for the event is revoked by the local police,” said Tom Lembong, an ex-trade minister serving as vice-chair of Anies’ campaign. “No reason given.”

One big indication of a rift in the traditional political alliances was the decision by the ruling party’s matriarch Megawati Sukarnoputri, to back the party’s own candidate Ganjar Pranowo after initially seeking to have her daughter campaign for the position.

“Everything has been weakened because of the politicization of the constitutional court, the vulgarity of dynastic politics and now elections full of controversy,” said Perludem’s Anggraini.

--With assistance from Soraya Permatasari and Chandra Asmara.

 Bloomberg BusinessWeek

Earthquake of magnitude 5.6 strikes Mindanao, Philippines - GFZ


MANILA, Feb 10 (Reuters) - A magnitude 5.6 earthquake struck Mindanao, Philippines, on Saturday, the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ) said.

The quake was 10 km (6 miles) deep, GFZ said.

The Philippine seismology agency had a different reading, saying it was a magnitude 5.9 earthquake with a depth of 27 km (16.8 miles). The Philippine agency also said in a bulletin it was expecting no damage, but that there could be aftershocks.

Rescue workers searching for dozens of missing people in an earlier landslide in Maco town in the southern Philippines province of Davao de Oro had to stop their operations because of the earthquake, authorities said.

The death toll from the landslide, which happened on Tuesday night outside a gold mining site, has reached 28, with 77 still missing and 32 injured, including a 3-year-old girl rescued on Friday after 60 hours under rubble.

Torrential rains have battered Davao de Oro in recent weeks, triggering floods and landslides. (Reporting by Gnaneshwar Rajan in Bengaluru and Neil Jerome Morales in Manila; Editing by William Mallard and Tom Hogue)

Philippines' Marcos says secessionist threats 'doomed to fail'

Rodrigo Duterte, called for his home island Mindanao to break away

Reuters
Thu, February 8, 2024 


MANILA (Reuters) - Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr said on Thursday that calls for independence for the country's southern island of Mindanao were a "constitutional travesty" and "doomed to fail."

It is the first time he has addressed the issue since his predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte, called for his home island to break away, as his alliance with Marcos collapses very publicly amid insults and disagreements over constitutional reform.

"The new call for a separate Mindanao is doomed to fail, for it is anchored on a false premise, not to mention a sheer constitutional travesty," Marcos said in a speech on Constitution Day without naming his outspoken predecessor.

"I strongly appeal to all concerned to stop this call for a separate Mindanao. This is a grave violation of the constitution," he said. "This is not the new Philippines that we are trying to mold. Rather this would destroy the country."

Marcos' national security adviser on Sunday said the government would not hesitate to "use its authority and forces to quell and stop any and all attempts to dismember the Republic."

That was followed by Marcos' defence chief on Monday vowing to strictly enforce the country's sovereignty after Duterte's secessionist threats.

Duterte was the first Philippine president to hail from resource-rich Mindanao, which has been plagued by violence and conflict for decades as the government battled insurgents and extremists. The unrest has discouraged investment there and left many villages in poverty.

(Reporting by Karen Lema; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

Fact Check: Biden Once Said if Israel Didn't Exist, the US 'Would Have To Invent an Israel.' Here's the Context

Nur Ibrahim

SNOPES
Thu, February 8, 2024 

Reagan White House Photographs/Wikimedia Commons

Claim:

In 1986, then-U.S. Sen. Joe Biden said, “[Supporting Israel] is the best $3 billion investment we make. Were there not an Israel, the United States of America would have to invent an Israel to protect her interests in the region.”

Rating:

Rating: Correct Attribution

The protracted, often bloody Israeli-Palestinian conflict exploded into a hot war on Oct. 7, 2023, when the militant Palestinian group Hamas launched a deadly attack on Israel and Israel retaliated by bombarding the Gaza Strip. More than 20,000 people, the vast majority of them Palestinians, were reportedly killed during the first two months of the war alone. The violence is driven by mutual hostilities and territorial ambitions dating back more than a century. The internet has become an unofficial front in that war and is rife with misinformation, which Snopes is dedicated to countering with facts and context. You can help. Read the latest fact checks. Submit questionable claims. Become a Snopes Member to support our work. We welcome your participation and feedback.

In late 2023 and into 2024, as the Israel-Hamas conflict continued, a number of social media posts highlighted U.S. President Joe Biden’s longtime support of Israel. Many such posts sought to criticize him for that support as the number of Palestinians killed in Gaza by Israeli bombardment approached more than 27,000.

The posts included an old video clip of then-U.S. Sen. Biden from 1986 in which he allegedly said, “[Supporting Israel] is the best $3 billion investment we make. Were there not an Israel, the United States of America would have to invent an Israel to protect her interests in the region.”

(Screenshot via X)

Biden indeed said the above words, in the context of opposing an arms sale to Saudi Arabia. He argued that sending weapons to that country would compromise Israel's security.

Biden was arguing during a Senate debate for overriding a presidential veto pertaining to arms sales in Saudi Arabia. In May 1986, then-U.S. President Ronald Reagan had vetoed a congressional resolution that sought to block his request to sell advanced missiles to Saudi Arabia.

Biden supported the prohibition of arms sales to Saudi Arabia and called on the Senate to override Reagan’s veto because it would put Saudi Arabia in the position of having to support their “Arab brethren” against Israel. The quote in question emerged at the end of Biden’s statement, transcribed below.

Around three hours' worth of the Senate debate, including Biden’s full statement, is available for viewing on C-SPAN. We transcribed sections of Biden’s speech below (emphasis, ours):

Quite frankly, the Saudis are an 80-member family oligarchy that finds themselves adrift in the midst of an Islamic revolution, the consequences of which they do not comprehend any more than we [...] the government of Saudi Arabia, is the anachronism of the 20th century in the Middle East, and the fact of the matter is [...] the Saudis have no choice but to fund the PLO. The Saudis have no choice but to be supportive of their Arab brethren. The Saudis have no choice but to do that for in fact, about 55,000 Palestinians control the infrastructure of Saudi Arabia. They literally have their hands on the spigots [...] that control the oil. And so I would suggest to my colleagues we should not be viewing this so much in terms of whether or not the Saudis are good guys or bad guys. We should view it in terms of what is realistic. Madam President, it is this senator's opinion that it is totally unrealistic to expect the Saudis—with or without our help in terms of arms sales—to do anything other than maintain a policy which they have had, which is one that is not particularly helpful to our interest. And furthermore, I would suggest to my colleagues in the Senate that we're doing a disservice to Saudi Arabia. [...] For I believe the Saudis do not want to have a war with Israel. But I believe once we send their arsenal soaring in terms of sophisticated weapons, they will be put in the untenable position the next time there is a conflict in the region, of having to get directly involved, of having to move with their Arab brethren. For if they don't, they will be moved.

Biden went on to argue that the U.S. should support Saudi Arabia through other means, including helping its internal security, and concluded by saying Israel could not afford to have an unstable Saudi Arabia either (emphasis, ours):

We do not have a Middle East foreign policy at this moment and to suggest that we are going to substitute an arms sales package for a policy in the name of trying to suggest that this is a litmus test once again. I've been here 14 years. I'm tired of being subjected to a litmus test by the Saudis. Litmus test by anyone else. We should operate and move in what is the naked self interest of the United States of America. And if we wish to help the Saudis, what we should be doing for Saudi Arabia is helping them with their infrastructure as it relates to their domestic security requirements. [...] We should be dealing with their ability to protect their own internal security from within. [...] if we look at the Middle East, I think it's about time we stopped those of us who support—as most of us do—Israel in this body, for apologizing for our support for Israel. There's no apology to be made. None. It is the best $3 billion investment we make. Were there not an Israel, the United States of America would have to invent an Israel to protect her interests in the region.

In June 1986, the Senate voted to uphold Reagan’s veto with a narrow margin of a single vote. However, opponents of the arms sale also claimed a victory because the overall package of sales was reduced significantly.

This was not the only time Biden used such language to describe his support for Israel. In 2020, Israeli newspaper Haaretz revealed a 1986 document detailing Biden's meeting with Israel's ambassador in Washington, D.C. In the meeting, Biden was thanked for supporting aid to Israel, to which Biden reportedly said, “That’s our best investment, where we get the biggest bang for our buck."

Sources:

Levinson, Chaim. “Rare 1986 Document Reveals Biden’s Views on Israel and Saudi Arabia.” Haaretz, 28 Dec. 2020. Haaretz, https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2020-12-28/ty-article/rare-1986-document-reveals-bidens-views-on-israel-and-saudi-arabia/0000017f-f2ca-d8a1-a5ff-f2ca769b0000. Accessed 8 Feb. 2024.

Osgood, Brian and Linah Alsaafin, Tamila Varshalomidze. “UN: 300k in North Gaza at Risk of Famine as Israel Continues to Block Aid.” Al Jazeera, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/2/8/israels-war-on-gaza-live-us-says-space-for-truce-deal-israel-vows-war. Accessed 8 Feb. 2024.

Roberts, Steven V. “PRESIDENT VETOES EFFORT TO BLOCK ARMS FOR SAUDIS.” The New York Times, 22 May 1986. NYTimes.com, https://www.nytimes.com/1986/05/22/world/president-vetoes-effort-to-block-arms-for-saudis.html. Accessed 8 Feb. 2024.

"Senate Session." June 5, 1986 | C-SPAN.Org. https://www.c-span.org/video/?45851-1/senate-session. Accessed 8 Feb. 2024.

Norway gives $26 million to UNRWA this year, more could come

Fri, February 9, 2024 

 Palestinians gather to receive flour bags distributed by UNRWA in Rafah

By Gwladys Fouche

OSLO (Reuters) - Norway is giving 275 million crowns ($26 million) this year to the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) and could increase that sum if needed, it said on Friday, days after the agency warned it could cease all activity by the end of the month.

A string of countries including the United States, Germany and Britain paused their funding to the aid agency after accusations by Israel last month that some UNRWA staff were involved in Hamas' Oct. 7 attacks in southern Israel.

Norway, a top donor to UNRWA, is maintaining its funding.

UNRWA said on Feb. 1 that it could be forced to shut down its operations in the Middle East, not only in Gaza, by the end of February if its funding remains suspended.

Oslo said on Wednesday it was transferring 275 million crowns to UNRWA. On Friday the ministry of foreign affairs said that money covered Norway's regular, annual contribution to UNRWA, but that there could be additional payments.

"Due to the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, there may be additional funds from Norway to UNRWA throughout the year," said a foreign ministry spokesperson.

By comparison, Norway gave UNRWA 470.5 million crowns last year, she said. "This includes additional funding after the war started in October," she said.

"There is a shortage of all essential items and people are facing daily threats to their lives and safety. UNRWA is the backbone of humanitarian efforts in Gaza," Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide said in a statement on Wednesday.

Oslo said on Jan. 31 it was urging countries that have paused funding to consider the wider consequences of their actions on the population in Gaza, given UNRWA is the main organisation supplying aid to Palestinians.

($1 = 10.6041 Norwegian crowns)

(Reporting by Gwladys Fouche; Editing by Frances Kerry)

UN chief warns Palestinian aid agency cannot be replaced
AFP
Thu, February 8, 2024 

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has led crunch talks with donor countries to have payments reinstated to the UN's Palestinian refugee agency

 (ANGELA WEISS)


United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday warned that his organization's Palestinian refugee agency cannot be replaced, even as it faces criticism after 12 staffers were implicated in Hamas's attack on Israel.

Several countries -- including the United States, Britain, Germany and Japan -- have suspended funding to the UNRWA agency, and Guterres has led crunch talks with donor countries to have payments reinstated.

"No other organization has a meaningful presence inside Gaza -- and nothing compared with this situation. So there is no other organization that would be able now to replace" it, Guterres told a media briefing.

The dispute intensified at the end of last month after Israel accused UNRWA of allowing Hamas to use agency infrastructure in the Gaza Strip for military activity.

UNRWA said it has acted promptly over allegations by Israel -- which Guterres called "credible" -- that 12 of its staff were involved in the Hamas attacks, adding that cuts in funding would affect ordinary Palestinians.

The UN agency has long been under scrutiny by Israel, which accuses it of systematically going against the country's interests, with Israel vowing to stop the agency's work in Gaza after the war.

Guterres pointed to the cost effectiveness of UNRWA as he defended why it was the best-placed organization to continue to deliver aid to Gaza.

"The costs with UNRWA are much lower than the costs with other agencies for historical reasons. The salaries paid by UNRWA are one-third of the salaries paid by UNICEF or WFP or other UN organizations," Guterres said, singling out the UN's children's fund and its World Food Programme.

"So any attempt of replacement, that is not possible."

Heavy fighting has raged on despite international efforts towards a ceasefire in the bloodiest ever Gaza war, sparked by Hamas's October 7 attack on southern Israel.

Hamas's unprecedented attack resulted in the deaths of about 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Israel vowed to eliminate the militant group and launched air strikes and a ground offensive that have killed at least 27,840 people, mostly women and children, according to the Gaza health ministry.

Militants also seized around 250 hostages. Israel says 132 remain in Gaza, of whom 29 are believed to have died.

Fears of ground fighting grew Thursday among the more than one million Palestinians crowded into Rafah as Israel stepped up air strikes on the far-southern city.

abd-gw/sst

Israel welcomes investigation into allegations against UNRWA

DPA
Fri, February 9, 2024

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres speaks during a press conference about his priorities for 2024. Bianca Otero/ZUMA Press Wire/dpa

Israel welcomed a planned investigation into the allegations that members of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) were involved in the October 7 killings on Friday.

"The establishment of an independent review group to assess UNRWA’s neutrality following the publication of information indicating the participation of agency employees in terror activities is a positive step, although it is long overdue," an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Friday.

"However, the review group should include research institutes with relevant professional experience that includes counter-terrorism, security and vetting procedures," he said in a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

"Israel expects that the group will include major donors to the agency as well as Israeli experts," he added.

The UN said Former French foreign minister Catherine Colonna is to head an independent group of experts to examine the serious allegations against UNRWA, the UN said on Monday.

Israel has accused several UNRWA employees of being involved in the October 7 terror attacks led by the Palestinian militant group Hamas. Several major Western donors to UNRWA, including the United States and Germany, temporarily suspended payments to the Gaza relief agency over the allegations.

Colonna's group is due to begin its work on February 14, with an interim report expected sometime before the end of March.

The expert panel is expected to consider whether UNRWA has violated measures aimed at maintaining the group's neutrality in the Gaza Strip, which Hamas has been ruling since 2007.

UN Secretary General António Guterres promised comprehensive clarification. Several employees have already been terminated.

Suggestions for improvements and changes can also be made, as international donors such as the United States demand fundamental reforms.

Alongside Colonna's investigation, the UN is conducting a second, internal audit, dealing specifically with the allegations against the UN aid organization's staff. This is expected to take several weeks.

Israel expects the review committee to also investigate "incitement to violence and antisemitism in UNRWA’s educational system, in textbooks and by teachers, before and after the October 7 massacre," the spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry said.

The areas of the investigation should be more clearly defined, regarding "the need to prevent the employment of members of terror groups in the ranks of the organization and to ensure that the organization’s facilities will not be used for terror purposes," he added.

The Gaza war was triggered by the unprecedented attacks by militants from the Palestinian Hamas organization and other extremist groups in Israel on October 7. More than 1,200 Israelis were killed, including around 850 civilians.

In response, Israel's massive airstrikes and ground offensive in Gaza have killed 27,478 Palestinians since the war began, according to the health authority in the coastal strip.

At least 300,000 at risk from lack of food in north, central Gaza: UN

Adel ZAANOUN with Chloe ROUVEYROLLES-BAZIRE in Jerusalem
Thu, February 8, 2024 


Hundreds of thousands of people's lives are at risk in north and central Gaza because of a lack of food, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) warned on Thursday.

UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said the last time the agency was allowed to deliver supplies to the area was more than two weeks ago on January 23.

Other agencies providing humanitarian aid also reported blocks on getting relief into the Palestinian territory, which has been bombarded by Israel since Hamas's deadly attack on October 7.

"Since the beginning of the year, half of our aid mission requests to the north were denied," Lazzarini wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

"The @UN has identified deep pockets of starvation and hunger in northern #Gaza where people are believed to be on the verge of famine.

"At least 300,000 people living in the area depend on our assistance for their survival."

Israel, which has laid siege to the tiny, densely populated territory, ordered people living in north and central Gaza to move south as it goes after those responsible for the October 7 attack.

More than half of Gaza's estimated 2.4 million people are now crowded into the city of Rafah in the south, where Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered troops to prepare to attack.

Thomas White, director of UNRWA affairs in Gaza, said there was now "enormous concern" about a looming offensive in Rafah, where the agency bases its operation for the whole of the Gaza Strip.

"It's going to be very difficult to manage an aid operation if we have to move from Rafah. We are struggling to meet the demands of the people right now," he told Al Jazeera English.

"If there are hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people on the move again, we just do not have the resources to support them but also operationally we will not be able to effectively or safely run operations from a city that's under assault from the Israeli army."

- 'Hunger and despair' -

Despite the move south, many remain in Wadi Gaza, in the centre, and the north.

Georgios Petropoulos, head of the UN humanitarian agency OCHA in Gaza, said the territory was being turned "into a wasteland of hunger and despair".

Aid agencies were being blocked, while the few trucks that make it through are mobbed by residents, who in north Gaza were "on the edge of starvation", he told AFP on Wednesday.

"They congregate by trucks and other vehicles carrying goods sometimes in their thousands, and unload them in minutes," he added.

An AFP reporter on Wednesday witnessed hundreds of men waiting for a convoy of aid trucks south of Gaza City on the main road from north to south.

When they saw Israeli military vehicles advance in their direction, many fled but others kept moving towards the convoy. Several were wounded by gunfire and were taken to hospital, the reporter added.

World Central Kitchen, a non-profit organisation providing food aid, also reported only being able to get to north Gaza "a limited number of times each week".

They now take two trucks -- one transporting meals for hospitals, and the other to deliver food to crowds on the route, it said in a statement.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, on a visit to the region this week, made a new plea for more aid into Gaza.

"Preventing access prevents lifesaving humanitarian aid," wrote Lazzarini. "With the necessary political will, this can be easily reversed."

But Israel claims that Hamas, which runs Gaza, is diverting aid for its own ends to prolong the five-month conflict.

Israel strikes Rafah after US warning against expanding ground offensive to overcrowded city

THE USA IS A PAPER TIGER

GRAFITTI VIET NAM, 1968

Tara Suter
Fri, February 9, 2024



Israel struck the southern Gaza city of Rafah, following a warning from Biden administration officials and aid agencies to Israel against expanding its ground offensive to there, according to The Associated Press.

Airstrikes, occurring overnight and into Friday, struck two residential buildings in the southern city. In central Gaza, two other places were bombed, including a kindergarten that had become a shelter for those who were displaced. AP journalists who saw bodies coming into hospitals reported that 22 people were killed.

On Thursday, President Biden gave some of his most forceful criticisms of Israel’s actions in Gaza in remarks from the White House.

“I’m of the view, as you know, that the conduct of the response in Gaza Strip has been over the top,” the president said.

Biden said he had pushed the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, whom he accidentally called the “president of Mexico,” to open gates for humanitarian aid to make its way into Gaza.

“I’ve been pushing really hard, really hard to get humanitarian assistance into Gaza,” Biden said. “There are a lot of innocent people who are starving, lot of innocent people who are in trouble and dying. And it’s got to stop.”

The Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza said that the death toll of Palestinians is now close to 28,000, according to the AP. This toll includes both civilians and combatants.

Israel stating its intention for the expansion of the ground offensive into Rafah resulted in American backlash.

“We have yet to see any evidence of serious planning for such an operation,” State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel said Thursday.

Patel also said that going ahead with the offensive “with no planning and little thought in an area where there is sheltering of a million people would be a disaster.”

Israel-Gaza war: US says it will not back unplanned Rafah offensive

Tom Bateman State Department Correspondent & Kathryn Armstrong & Patrick Jackson - BBC News
Fri, February 9, 2024 at 6:59 AM MST·4 min read
69

The British Broadcasting Corporation

The US has warned Israel that staging a military offensive into Gaza's southern city of Rafah without proper planning would be a "disaster".

Some 1.5 million Palestinians are surviving in the city bordering Egypt in dire humanitarian conditions.

The White House said it would not support major operations without due consideration for the refugees there.

The comments come days after Israel's leader said the military had been told to prepare to operate in Rafah.

Speaking on Thursday evening, and without referring to Rafah, US President Joe Biden said Israel's actions in Gaza had been "over the top".

Reported Israeli air strikes on Gaza on Friday killed at least 15 people including eight in Rafah, officials from the Hamas-run health ministry said. Israel did not immediately comment.

Salem El-Rayyes, a freelance journalist living at a camp for displaced people in Rafah, said children were among those killed when an air strike hit a house nearby. Bodies of the victims "flew from the third floor", he told Reuters.

Most of the people in Rafah have been displaced by fighting from other parts of Gaza and are living in tents.

Garda al-Kourd, a mother-of-two who said she had been displaced six times during the war, said she was expecting an Israeli assault but hoped there would be a ceasefire agreement before it happened.

"If they come to Rafah, it will be the end for us, like we are waiting for death. We have no other place to go," she told the BBC from a relative's house in Rafah where she was living with 20 other people.

The head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, Jan Egeland, told the BBC that such an operation in Rafah - which he called "the world's biggest displacement camp" - would be a catastrophe.

"There are people on their flimsy plastic sheeting. They are fighting for food. There is no drinking water. There is epidemic disease and then they [the IDF] want to bring a war to this place. You can't make it up really," he said.

Much of northern and central Gaza has been reduced to ruins by sustained Israeli bombardment since the war began on 7 October.

Earlier, US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the Israeli military had a "special obligation as they conduct operations there or anywhere else to make sure that they're factoring in protection for innocent civilian life".

"Military operations right now would be a disaster for those people and it's not something that we would support," he said, adding that the US had not seen anything to suggest Israel was going to launch a major operation in Rafah imminently.

Deputy State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel echoed Mr Kirby's comments, saying: ''We [the US] would not support the undertaking of something like this without serious and credible planning."

Asked by the BBC where refugees in Rafah should go in the event of an operation, Mr Patel said these were "legitimate questions that we believe the Israelis should answer".

Speaking in the Israeli city of Tel Aviv, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said any "military operation that Israel undertakes needs to put civilians first and foremost... and that's especially true in the case of Rafah".

It is rare for the US, a key ally and military backer of Israel, to talk about any forthcoming stages of the country's military offensive in Gaza - but this was a clear warning.

Why are Israel and Hamas fighting in Gaza?

Washington sends around $3.8bn (£3bn) in military aid to Israel each year, making the country the world's biggest recipient of such funding.

Around 1,300 people were killed during the Hamas attacks on southern Israel on 7 October, according to Israeli officials.

More than 27,800 Palestinians have been killed and at least 67,000 injured by the war launched by Israel in response, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

"They are living in overcrowded makeshift shelters, in unsanitary conditions, without running water, electricity and adequate food supplies," was the stark assessment of the situation by UN chief António Guterres on Thursday.

"We were clear in condemning the horrific acts of Hamas. We are also clear in condemning the violations of international humanitarian law in Gaza."

On Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had ordered troops to "prepare to operate" in Rafah and that "total victory" by Israel over Hamas was just months away.


map

Israel is a Jewish nation, but its population is far from a monolith

Jessica Trisko Darden, Virginia Commonwealth University
Fri, February 9, 2024 

THE CONVERSATION

Israeli soldiers attend the funeral of Staff Sgt. Emanuel Feleke, an Ethiopian Israeli who was killed in Gaza in December 2023. Ohad Zwigenberg


As the toll of the Israel-Hamas war continues to mount, Israeli military casualties are shedding new light on a topic that rarely gets international media attention – Israel’s ethnic diversity.

In Israel’s single largest casualty event since the Gaza invasion began in October 2023, 21 Israeli soldiers were killed in an explosion on Jan. 22, 2024.

Among the dead was reserve soldier Sgt. 1st Class Cedrick Garin, a 23-year-old Filipino-Israeli whose mother came to the country to work before he was born.

Earlier in the war, Staff Sgt. Aschalwu Sama, an Ethiopian Jew, saved his comrades after being fatally wounded in an explosion at the entry to one of Gaza’s tunnels.

Other Israeli soldiers killed in Gaza include reserve Sgt. Maj. Rafael Elias Mosheyoff, born in Colombia, and reserve soldier Sgt. 1st Class Yuval Lopez, who moved to Israel from Peru at the age of 6.

I am a scholar who examines the roles of minority groups in armed conflict. I find the ethnic diversity of people fighting in and otherwise affected by the Israel-Hamas war exceptional.

Hamas’ roughly 240 hostages, for example, were nationals of 25 different countries, including Thailand, Nepal, the Philippines and Tanzania. Hamas kidnapped Muslim citizens of Israel alongside Jewish Israelis, Americans and other dual nationals.

The mother of Israeli-Filipino soldier Cedric Garin, killed in Gaza on Jan. 23, 2024, grieves during his funeral in Tel Aviv.

Marco Longari/AFP via Getty Images

Israel’s diversity

Israel has close to 9.7 million residents. About 75% of these people identify as Jewish. Almost 80% of Israeli Jews were born in Israel. Much smaller groups of Israeli Jews were born in Africa and Asia, in countries including India and Uzbekistan.

Roughly 20% of Israelis are Arab, including Muslims, Christians and Druze, a group of people who observe a distinct monotheistic religion.

Israel is also home to Muslim ethnic minority communities. This includes the Bedouins, formerly nomadic Arab herdsmen who have lived in the area for centuries, and the Circassians, Muslims who were expelled from the Caucasus region of the Russian Empire during a period of ethnic cleansing in the 19th century.

Another 5% of Israeli residents are neither Jewish nor Arab, including more than 25,000 African migrants who live in Israel.

Military service requirements

Israel has different rules for military service for its citizens, depending on their background.

Every Israeli citizen over the age of 18 who is Jewish, Druze or Circassian must serve in the military, unless they are religiously observant and/or married when conscripted. Israeli Arabs are not required to serve but can volunteer to do so. Women serve for a minimum of two years, while men must serve for 32 months.

The Israel Defense Forces has long been considered the central institution that unifies Israeli society. Mandatory service brings together Israelis of all backgrounds, forces them to work together and instills a sense of obligation to the broader society.

While military casualty figures are not broken down by religion or ethnicity, my analysis of death notices shows that Israel’s minorities, both Jewish and non-Jewish, are prominent among those killed fighting for the world’s only Jewish state.

Relatives and friends attend the funeral of Maj. Jamal Abbas, an Israeli-Druze soldier killed in Gaza in November 2023. 

Amir Levy/Getty Images

Minorities in Israel

Ahmad Abu Latif, a Bedouin Israeli who previously served in the military as a sergeant major, wrote a social media post in October 2023 highlighting Israeli Arab contributions to the war effort.

“Unfortunately, among the casualties of war are Bedouin and Druze soldiers, Muslims and Christians, who fell as heroes during the defense of the country,” Abu Latif wrote.

Abu Latif, who was called up as a reserve soldier, was killed in the Jan. 22, 2024, blast in Gaza.

The vast majority of the 370,000 Bedouins in Israel are citizens and identify as Muslim. Thousands of Bedouins also live in neighboring countries such as Jordan and Lebanon but do not have citizenship there. Their tribes failed to officially register with these countries when they became independent in the 1940s.

Unlike Jewish Israelis and Druze men who are required to serve in the Israel Defense Forces, Bedouins volunteer. In 2020, a record number of 600 Bedouins joined the Israel military. They are typically placed in scouting or tracking units because of their familiarity with the Negev Desert.

Another minority group in Israel, the Druze people, have a long history of Israeli military service.

Twenty-three-year old Jamal Abbas, a major in the military and a member of the Druze community, was killed in combat in southern Gaza on Nov. 18, 2023. Abbas’ grandfather was one of the first Druze soldiers to attain the rank of brigade commander.

Another Israeli Druze soldier, Lt. Col. Salman Habaka, responded to Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks. When Habaka was killed in Gaza only a month later, the 33-year-old was the highest-ranking Israeli soldier killed in the war.

Although they make up only 1.5% of Israeli households, roughly 40 Druze civilians have been killed since the start of the war, representing roughly 3.5% of Israeli deaths (including the Oct. 7, 2023, victims). One reason is that their community’s traditional location near the Lebanese border has made them vulnerable to incoming fire from the Hezbollah militant group.

Jewish minorities

Even the deaths of Jewish soldiers reflect the complexity of Israeli society. In all, Jewish soldiers killed in the conflict have ties to at least 12 countries other than Israel.

Soldiers killed in Gaza include Staff Sgt. Yonatan Chaim, an American who converted to Judaism after taking a college course on the Holocaust and then moved to Israel.

Fallen members of Israel’s 170,000-person Ethiopian community include Staff Sgt. Alemnew Emanuel Feleke, a 22-year-old commando who was wounded on Dec. 5, 2023, in southern Gaza and died the following day. Staff Sgt. Birhanu Kassie died in an explosion in late December.

Equal in war?

The visible presence of Israel’s minority communities in the military is partly a result of a long-standing military policy called the Haredi exemption. This exempts ultra-Orthodox Jews, who make up approximately 13% of the country, from military service. Women as well as men studying at a yeshiva, a Jewish religious college, are excused from service so they can follow strict religious observances and study religious texts.

In 2017, Israel’s Supreme Court ruled this policy was discriminatory and unconstitutional. But the ruling has not been enforced because of pressure from religious conservative political parties. In August 2023, only 9% of eligible ultra-Orthodox men served in the military, compared with an 80% national average among other Jewish Israelis.

Yet even the Haredi exemption is being undermined by the war. More than 2,000 Haredi men have volunteered for service since the war began. At least 150 have been formally drafted. War continues to shape the relationship between Israel’s citizens and the military that protects them.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Jessica Trisko Darden, Virginia Commonwealth University

Read more:


Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces a dilemma: Free the hostages or continue the war in Gaza?


Reflections on hope during unprecedented violence in the Israel-Hamas war


Israel’s military reservists are joining protests – potentially transforming a political crisis into a security crisis

Jessica Trisko Darden is Director of the (In)Security Lab at Virginia Commonwealth University and Director of the Security & Foreign Policy Initiative at William & Mary's Global Research Institute.