DESANTISLAND

Opinion
Remember they said Miami would be under water? Here’s a preview of our future 


the Miami Herald Editorial Board
Wed, June 12, 2024 

It’s like an unspoken social contract. When people choose to live in South Florida, they must make peace with the possibility that, thanks to hurricanes, there will be flooding and they may incur thousands of dollars to fix their homes post storm.

But that’s supposed to be during a major storm with a name — like Irma, Ian or Andrew — not any given day during heavy rains as it happened Wednesday in Miami-Dade and Broward counties.

Flooding was so intense that part of Interstate 95 was shut down in Broward as water pooled on the highway. Roads were rendered impassible in places like Hollywood and Miami Beach. A rare flash flood emergency was issued.


Last April — even before the 2023 hurricane season started — historic flooding in Fort Lauderdale caught residents and officials by surprise. The city had to use airboats to rescue people from their homes and, on the following day, abandoned cars caught in the water lined the streets of the city’s downtown.

When we hear about the threat of flooding and sea-level rise caused by climate change, that may appear like a distant future. It’s not — and this week’s torrential rainfall proves South Florida is not fully ready for increased water levels despite local governments and the state having spent millions of dollars to keep streets dry. Anyone driving in Downtown Miami on a rainy day can see how quickly streets flood.

Victor Corone, 66, pushes his wife Maria Diaz, 64, in a wheelchair through more than a foot of flood water on 84th street in Miami Beach on Wednesday, June 12, 2024.

This is a new reality. With hurricanes, residents have time to prepare. This week, many were caught off guard. Although flood warnings had been in place for days in parts of the region, weather forecasters alerted us too late about the worst outcomes of the storm. In the future, they may have to develop new types of warnings to convey the severity of what’s to come.

The pace of sea-level rise has picked up in recent years. The financial consequences are enormous for local governments as well as residents as the cost to insure homes and vehicles rise.

Local sea level has risen about a foot in the last 80 years, with 8 inches of that total in the last 30 years, the Herald reported in May. The second foot will take only 30 years; the next foot, 20 years, according to estimates by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The average elevation in Miami is only 3 feet.

Besides the impacts of climate change, warmer ocean waters and the melting of ice sheets, the Florida Current — an offshoot of the Gulf Stream, a massive current that runs from the tropics to the Arctic — can also impact water levels in Miami, the Herald reported. And parts of the region’s land is sinking, though not by much, in a process known as subsidence.

The real answer to South Florida’s predicament is to slow down the burning of fossil fuels that cause climate change, according to a consensus by most scientists. The scientific community has warned that the Earth’s temperature is rising to dangerous levels.

Beyond tackling climate change on a global scale, our local and state officials will have to pick up the pace in preparing South Florida for the worst. In the city of Miami, for example, voters approved a 2018 bond referendum to finance sea-level rise mitigation but a constant complaint is that projects aren’t coming online quickly enough.

Florida has taken unprecedented steps to allocate dollars to help communities fund such projects. Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed a resilience officer to prepare Florida for the environmental and economic impacts of rising sea waters. Yet, this year, DeSantis signed a bill that lowered the standards for sea-rise projects eligible for state funding. He also signed another bill that removes references to “climate change” from Florida law.

Public works projects can take years to come to fruition. This week showed that residents and businesses have to be mentally and physically prepared for flooding that we once thought we could anticipate as we tracked hurricane spaghetti models.

A Miami underwater is becoming a reality we’ll have to accept.



Record rainfall wreaks havoc in South Florida with "life threatening" flooding, stalled cars, delayed flights

Kimberly Miller, Palm Beach Post
Thu, June 13, 2024

An aspiring early-season tropical cyclone ambushed Florida in a blitzkrieg of rain this week that shut down portions of Interstate 95 on Wednesday, waylaid flights and triggered “life threatening flooding” on roadways throughout Broward and Miami-Dade counties.

By 4 p.m. the National Weather Service in Miami said numerous and “non-stop” reports of flooding were coming in after it had issued seven flash flood warnings across its forecast region throughout the day.

Hourly rainfall rates on one afternoon thunderstorm were predicted to be 5 to 6.5 inches per hour.

“Want to be clear here,” said NWS Miami meteorologist Sammy Hadi in an online alert. “This storm has very, very heavy rainfall. This will only exacerbate the ongoing flash flooding.”

The heavy rainfall had been forecast early in the week, but the drubbing that first hit the southwest coast on Tuesday and then the tri-county area of Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade on Wednesday was record-breaking.

As of 4:30 p.m., 6.77 inches of rain was recorded at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, dashing the record of 5.47 inches recorded in 1978. Palm Beach International Airport in West Palm Beach recorded 2.38 inches of rain, which fell far short of the 1901 record of 9.71 inches. About 2.25 inches of rain was measured at Miami International Airport on Wednesday, which is also far from the record 8.25 inches also measured in 1901.

A cyclist rides through the rain along Flagler Drive on June 12, 2024, West Palm Beach, Florida.

“The tropical spigot pouring into South Florida has unleashed some of the soupiest air measured for our area in June, historically South Florida’s rainiest month,” said Michael Lowry, a meteorologist with South Florida ABC affiliate Channel 10 in his Eye on the Tropics column. “With such a juiced atmosphere overhead, otherwise innocuous disturbances moving along in the atmosphere can bring lots of rain in little time.”

Early-season tropical cyclones find a fertile nursery in the rich waters of the Gulf of Mexico and western Caribbean Sea where stalled cool fronts can goad them to maturity in June and July.

The National Hurricane Center noted two areas to watch this week in the Gulf of Mexico with one, dubbed Invest 90-L, dumping days of flooding rainfall on Florida as it makes its way to the Atlantic Ocean and the other looking to find purchase in the Bay of Campeche.

Both areas had low chances of development as of Wednesday evening. If either were to form, they would be awarded the inaugural names on the 2024 hurricane list of Alberto and Beryl.

The NHC gave 90-L, a disorderly mish-mash of showers and thunderstorms, a 20% chance of development over the next seven days. But that mattered little to areas such as Sarasota where 11 inches of rain fell through early Wednesday, or to drivers on I-95, which was shut down Wednesday afternoon in Broward County because of flooding.



FHP Lt. Indiana Miranda said at about 3 p.m. that traffic was being diverted at Oakland Park Boulevard and that a contractor was working to pump water off the roadway.

"We have one vehicle flooding in the area," Miranda said in an email. "This closure will remain until further notice and water drains from the Interstate."

Climatologically, homegrown tropical systems in the Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico and southwestern Atlantic are more common in the early days of the hurricane season ahead of the main-event months of August, September and October when waves rolling off Africa can swell to Goliaths in their trek west.

Early season tropical cyclones often from in the Gulf of Mexico and off the southeast coast of the U.S.

“This early in the season there is usually too much Saharan dust and too much shear in the Atlantic for those storms to form so it’s rare to see something there this early on,” said AccuWeather lead hurricane forecaster Alex DaSilva about the region between Africa and the Caribbean. “This time of year, you look closer to home.”

Saharan dust, made up of sand and mineral particles swept up from 3.5 million square miles of desert, spoils tropical development by stealing moisture from the air needed for storms to form.

But in the Gulf of Mexico, an ample feed of gooey air is usually available. That moisture, combined with a stalled boundary over north Florida where winds converged and pressure lowered, gave Invest 90-L life.

Most areas of Palm Beach County got only 2 to 4 inches Tuesday but experienced prolonged showers Wednesday with some areas forecast to get more than 5 inches. Thunderstorms were strong enough to trigger a tornado warning for Wellington, Loxahatchee Groves, Palm Beach Gardens and Royal Palm Beach. And a flood watch was extended through 8 p.m. Friday.

Hurricane season 2024: More than 1 million new Florida residents may not understand storm prep

A man dashes for cover from the rain during a downpour on June 12, 2024, West Palm Beach, Florida.

By Wednesday afternoon, the National Weather Service in Miami said "life threatening" flooding was occurring in Broward and Miami-Dade counties.

Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport had massive cancellations, delays and flight diversions Wednesday because of the rain. It occurred a little over a year after major flooding shut down the airport and closed schools in and around Fort Lauderdale. During that April 12, 2023 drenching, the area saw about 26 inches of rain in a 24-hour period.

On Wednesday, airport officials warned on social media that flooding at entrances and exits was slowing traffic.

The tropical moisture will remain “entrenched” over South Florida through the remainder of the week with conditions favorable for flooding and flash flooding, especially in poorly draining urban areas.

The average first-named storm of the hurricane season doesn’t occur until June 20.

All forecasts point to trouble: Forecasts all point to a busy season with La Niña and warm ocean temps

Weather.com senior meteorologist Jonathan Erdman said he’s more bullish about something forming next week in the area in the southwestern Gulf of Mexico highlighted by the NHC on Wednesday.

Tropical Storm Cristobal on June 7, 2020. Cristobal formed from the Central American gyre. It made landfall in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana bringing more than a foot of rain to areas of southeastern Louisiana, southern Mississippi, and North Florida.

It’s possible if something forms it would be a piece of the Central American Gyre, which is responsible for several past tropical cyclones including Tropical Storm Cristobal in 2020, Hurricane Michael in 2018 and Hurricane Ida in 2009.

Erdman is already looking to the main development region.

“We are seeing pretty beefy-looking tropical waves out there already, and that is an ominous sign for a more active season,” he said. “Once the wind shear in that area relaxes and the Saharan air pushes away, the door is open.”

Kimberly Miller is a journalist for The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA Today Network of Florida. She covers real estate and how growth affects South Florida's environment. Subscribe to The Dirt for a weekly real estate roundup. If you have news tips, please send them to kmiller@pbpost.com. Help support our local journalism, subscribe today.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Showers deluge areas of South Florida with bouts of flooding rain

DESANTISLAND

Florida teacher’s license could be 

revoked after she supported 

Black Lives Matter and the 

changing of school’s name

Carlos Suarez and Denise Royal, CNN

Thu, June 13, 2024

Amy Donofrio was a beloved and highly regarded high school teacher in Jacksonville, Florida, where for years she sought to empower students and advocate for racial justice.

Outside the room where she taught English to mostly Black students at the former Robert E. Lee High School she had placed a sign that read, “Hate Has No Home Here,” according to an April order by an administrative law judge who recommended Donofrio receive a written reprimand after state officials accused the teacher of bringing her personal views into the classroom.

“Ms. Donofrio was a pillar for us,” former student Diamond Wallace, 24, told CNN this week. “She acted as a rock for us and she was more like a mom, like a second mom to all of us students.”

At the start of the 2020 school year, in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder at the hands of police in Minneapolis, Donofrio, who is White, put up a large “Black Lives Matter” banner outside her classroom. She had displayed a BLM sign and t-shirt in her classroom as early as 2018, according to findings in the administrative judge’s recommendation.

Administrators asked her to remove it, and expressed concern the display might violate school district policy. Donofrio refused. She said she believed the policy did not apply to the banner. On March 23, 2021, a school administrator removed the banner – about five months after she was first asked to bring it down. A day later Donofrio was reassigned to a work at a district warehouse.

School officials had also voiced concerns that Donofrio displayed face masks in her classroom that read, “Robert E. Lee was a gang member” – which they considered to be an expression of her personal view. At the time the school district was in the process of renaming six schools named for Confederate generals. Donofrio denied the masks – which were common during the pandemic – were on display. She said the logo “I am not a gang member” was a phrase students use as part of their advocacy of racial justice, according to the administrative judge’s findings.

At a Thursday hearing, Florida’s Education Practices Commission is expected to decide if Donofrio will be sanctioned for displaying the Robert E. Lee masks, as well as wearing one herself at a community meeting, in support of changing the once-segregated school’s name.

The hearing was prompted by administrative law judge Suzanne Van Wyk’s April recommendation that Donofrio receive a written reprimand for wearing and displaying the Robert E. Lee masks which she said violated the school policy that teachers remain neutral on politically charged issues such as the school renaming and mask-wearing.

Van Wyk’s order noted in part that the “offense was not severe” and there was no danger or harm to the public or students. The judge determined there was no evidence that Donofrio “failed to distinguish between her personal views and those of the School, or District” when she displayed the Black Lives Matter banner or that it went against district policy, according to her findings.

The five-person panel of the Education Practices Commission – a member of law enforcement, a parent and three teachers – will have the final say and could revoke her teaching license. The quasi-judicial state agency imposes discipline on teachers and school administrators.

“I’m not doing the thing that I was born to do, that I loved more than anything and I’m having to fight to get it back,” Donofrio, who taught at the school for nine years but has not been allowed back in a Florida classroom since 2021, told CNN.

She added, “School is supposed to be a safe place for students. It’s about them.”

Florida Education officials didn’t respond to CNN’s request for comment ahead of the hearing.

Donofrio’s future as a teacher will be decided at a time when Florida’s classrooms have become front lines in Gov. Ron DeSantis’ culture wars, which have taken aim at every aspect of education from formal classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity to what public schools teach about racism and American history to what books students can read and what bathrooms they can use.

“Our school system should be about educating kids not indoctrinating kids,” DeSantis told reporters in May 2023.

‘I’m a passionate, quality teacher’

In 2021, the BLM banner hanging over Donofrio’s classroom door, as well as her outspokenness on racial justice, became a political flash point across the state. Her advocacy of racial justice was brought up in discussions about whether the school should abandon its Confederate namesake. The school was renamed Riverside High School in June 2021.

Days before the banner was taken down, the district published a memo that stated “employees are not permitted to display flags, banners or other signage representing a particular social cause or movement in a manner that may be interpreted as District speech,” and identified “Black Lives Matter” as “an expression of support for a social justice movement,” according to the administrative judge’s recommended order.

Florida’s former education commissioner called it an example of “indoctrination” and “critical race theory” in schools – even though the discipline was not part of Donofrio’s curriculum.

“There was an entire classroom memorialized to Black Lives Matter,” the former commissioner, Richard Corcoran, told reporters at the time. “We made sure she was terminated.”

Donofrio was not fired even as she defied multiple requests from school officials to take down the flag. She also challenged the district on its treatment of Black students and staff.



The Jacksonville, Florida, school formerly named Robert E. Lee High School is seen in this August 2020 file photo. - Edward Kerns II/MediaPunch/AP

Her students responded by collecting nearly 18,000 signatures on a public petition calling for her return.

“I wasn’t removed for anything having to do with my teaching,” Donofrio said. “No one has ever been able to say anything. Nor of my test scores, right, reflected anything but that I’m a passionate, quality teacher.”

Donofrio eventually sued Duval County Public Schools and its regional high school superintendent in federal court, alleging that the district retaliated against her “for her protected speech, her complaints about discrimination, and, more broadly, her support of Black students’ lives,” according to a complaint filed in April 2021. The school board paid $300,000 to settle the lawsuit in 2021, according to CNN affiliate WJXT.

“I really thought that things were kind of moving forward and then suddenly, we turned human compassion into something that’s controversial,” Donofrio said.

Donofrio’s outspokenness on racial justice was not new. Even before she put out the Black Lives Matter flag, she had led a course for several years to empower Black students through professional development, college preparation and civic engagement.

“For her to be able to make teenagers feel comfortable enough to come in her classroom and express the trauma that they have gone through voluntarily, that’s a gift,” said Wallace’s mother, Renita Turner.

Donofrio and her students earned national attention, and the course eventually became the organization known as the EVAC Movement. Students traveled to the White House in 2016 and met with congressional leaders. Then-President Barack Obama met with them when he visited Jacksonville.

“It is honestly the most beautiful thing I have ever been a part of,” Donofrio recalled this week, referring to the EVAC movement and the attention it garnered for her students.

“Teachers have gathered to swing back in the name of teaching honest history, teaching honestly to their students,” said Donofrio’s lawyer, Mark Richard. “We do not want to be caught in these culture wars.”

Donofrio added, “My students matter, teachers who care about students matter … I have no doubt that with or without me, they’re going to change the world.”

CNN’s Ray Sanchez and Harmeet Kaur contributed to this report.

Opinion

Israel’s attack on Gaza is genocide. This California student had every right to say it 

Robin Epley
Fri, June 14, 2024 


In February, Habiba Darwish — then a student at Vista Del Lago High School in Folsom — was asked by a classmate to write a short entry for the school yearbook’s world events pages, regarding the Israel-Hamas war and the climbing death toll in Gaza.

Darwish referred to Israel’s attacks and bombings on the Palestinian people as a genocide, and quoted from the United Nations, UNICEF and other reputable sources to portray the conflict from her point of view as a Palestinian-American.

Opinion


“Civilians confronted with the genocide have taken it upon themselves to record the atrocities they face as an outcry for help from the world,” she wrote. “Protests and boycotts have spread among numerous countries as people around the world have attempted to call attention to the genocide.”

Her piece was edited and approved by yearbook staff and a faculty advisor through normal channels. Then the yearbook was distributed to students and staff on May 20.

That’s when things started to get scary for Darwish, who was 17 at the time, and the outgoing president of the school’s Muslim Student Association.

On May 24, the day of graduation, a social media account on X with more than 300,000 followers called “StopAntiSemitism” posted a picture of the article with Darwish’s name in multiple places.

The group accused her of “ignoring” Hamas’ attack on Israelis on Oct. 7, and decried “propaganda poisoning.” It also included the direct email of the high school’s principal, Kimberley Moore.

“This is backlash as any Palestinian speaking up may face,” Darwish said. “What I’ve written is the truth and is backed by UNICEF and the other cited sources in the article, as well as the International Court of Justice.”

The “StopAntiSemitism” account is well-known for harassing and doxxing people who have publicly supported Palestine in the Israel-Hamas war. But instead of protecting or supporting Darwish, her school and district bowed to public pressure.

On May 29, Vista Del Lago administrators sent an email to students and families apologizing for “any damage and hurt (the yearbook) has caused our students, families and the community,” and included a promise to “learn and grow” from the incident. They offered blank stickers to cover Darwish’s article, or supply a refund to families who wished to turn it in.

Neither the school nor the district has offered any direct support to Darwish, she confirmed, and Principal Moore directed a request for comment to the school district, which did not reply to requests for comment.

“While I understand that the school felt a need to make a statement due to pressure from the other side, I feel as though their response completely abandoned me as a student,” Darwish said.
Genocide in Gaza

It is not just Darwish who believes Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute a genocide, so do an international consortium of countries, human rights lawyers and experts.

In March, a human rights expert at the U.N. reported “reasonable grounds” for a genocide being committed in Gaza. In June, Spain joined South Africa’s case in the U.N. accusing Israel of genocide.

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has reported on its news site that the Israeli army killed 42,510 Palestinians in the first 200 days of the war, 38,621 of whom were civilians — including 10,091 women and 15,780 children.

“These statistics include the killing of 137 journalists, 356 medical personnel and 42 civil defense personnel,” it wrote in an April press release.

A May report researched and written by the University Network for Human Rights, including members from Boston University’s Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic, the International Human Rights Clinic at Cornell Law School and the Lowenstein Human Rights Project at Yale Law School, declared Israel’s actions in Palestine to be a genocide.

“I just wish we lived in a world where I would not be harassed for telling facts,” Darwish said.
Another First Amendment violation

Somehow, the fundamental rights of free expression guaranteed by the First Amendment have become a disposable commodity for local school administrators, especially as students protest American funding of the war in Gaza or speak out on political topics.

In Sacramento, Samantha Archuleta, the journalism teacher at C.K. McClatchy High School, is still on administrative leave and under investigation because of an article in the student newspaper quoting a student who praised Adolf Hitler.

Archuleta and her students didn’t endorse the comment but say they published it because it reflected problematic student discourse on campus. As with Darwish, the students at C.K. McClatchy used their writing to shed light on sensitive realities that inform their lives.

In both cases, adults failed their students.

C.K. McClatchy administrators and the Sacramento City Unified School District punished the students and their advisor, in violation of California Education Code 48907, which not only protects Archuleta and her students, but also extends to the student staff of school yearbooks and their advisors.

Archuleta’s job remains in the balance, despite strong support from the First Amendment Coalition, the Student Press Law Center and the California Scholastic Journalism Initiative.
Jews and Muslims both see a rise in hate crimes

In the three months since the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas, American Jews saw a 361% increase in antisemitic incidents — more than 3,200 — according to data from the Anti-Defamation League. American Muslims, too, have seen an increase in hate crimes; the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ annual Civil Rights Report states that the group received more than 8,000 complaints in 2023, the highest amount in nearly three decades of tracking by the group.

While a school must keep students safe at school, it is not necessarily their duty to keep them comfortable at all times, especially when that discomfort stems from the avoidance of facts.

Darwish’s yearbook entry was factually accurate and fully sourced. She believes those facts amount to genocide, and she has every right to say so. I believe it is a genocide, too.

Israel denies the allegations, as does the U.S. government, but to deny it in American media — or even in America’s high school yearbooks — is to deny history as it happens.

Perhaps the Vista Del Lago yearbook staff should have given a Jewish student equal opportunity to write about current events from their point of view. Even that, though, would not have made the facts in Darwish’s yearbook entry — nor the deaths of more than 9,500 women and 14,500 children in Gaza — untru

Poll shows rise in support by Palestinians for armed struggle

Ali Sawafta
Updated Thu, June 13, 2024 


Israeli raid in Jenin

By Ali Sawafta

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) -Support for armed struggle as the best means to end Israeli occupation and achieve statehood rose among Palestinians while backing for the militant group Hamas also increased slightly in the last three months, according to an opinion poll.

The poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) showed support for armed struggle climbed by 8 percentage points to 54% of those surveyed in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Support for Hamas rose by 6 percentage points to 40%. Fatah, led by President Mahmoud Abbas, had 20% backing.

The polling was carried out some eight months since the start of the Gaza war, which began when Hamas fighters stormed communities in Israel, killing some 1,200 people and abducting another 250, according to Israeli tallies, prompting the Gaza war.

More than 37,000 Palestinians have been killed as a result of the devastating offensive Israel has waged in Hamas-ruled Gaza since then, Gaza health authorities say.

The poll found that two-thirds thought the Oct. 7 attack was a correct decision - a 4 percentage point drop from the previous poll. The decrease came from Gaza, where 57% of respondents said the decision was correct, down from 71% in March.

It showed that about 80% of Palestinians in Gaza had lost a relative or had a relative that had been injured in the war.

Walid Ladadweh, head of the Survey Research Unit at PSR, said that the increase in support for Hamas and armed action, while not significant compared to the previous poll, was a reaction to Israel's destruction and killing in Gaza.

He also said the poll reflected dissatisfaction with the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority led by Abbas, who has long sought to negotiate the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel and rejects armed struggle.

The peace process which Palestinians hoped would yield a state in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank with East Jerusalem as its capital - territories seized by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war - has been moribund for years, while Israel has expanded settlements in the West Bank and opposes Palestinian statehood.

Abbas and the Islamist Hamas have long been at odds over strategy, with Hamas viewing as a failure his approach of trying to negotiate a Palestinian state alongside Israel and advocating armed struggle.

"This war, like previous ones, has radicalization effects on both sides," said Ghassan Khatib, a lecturer at Birzeit University in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

More than 60% supported the PA's dissolution, the poll found, and 89% want Abbas to resign, up from 84% three months ago.

Hamas - which has long been shunned by many Western governments as a terrorist organisation and whose charter calls for Israel's destruction - seized control of the Gaza Strip from the Abbas-led PA in 2007 after defeating Fatah the previous year in a legislative election.

While the polls show Hamas has more support than Fatah, jailed Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti is the most popular preference as Abbas' successor, with 39% supporting him, followed by Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh with 23%.

Israeli government spokesperson David Mencer, asked about the Palestinian poll, said: "I've got no way of knowing whether that's correct or not. Unfortunately it does sound as if it's correct. What sort of leadership does the Palestinian people have that lead them to this perpetual war?"

"Once Hamas is defeated, afterwards, we want Gaza to be run by Gazans - but not Gazans that are intent on killing Jews."

(Additional reporting by Tom Perry in Beirut and Dan Williams in Jerusalem; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Israeli military operation in Qabatiya, near Jenin

Most Palestinians Don't Want Hamas Rule, Poll Shows

Matthew Petti
Thu, June 13, 2024

REASON

Palestinian protesters hold placards during a protest called by the Fatah movement in Nablus, the West Bank. 26 October 2023. | Ayman Nobani/dpa/picture-alliance/Newscom

A lot of people have theories about what Palestinians want, whether it's protesters in New York calling for a Hamas victory, U.S. President Joe Biden trying to set up a demilitarized Palestinian state, or Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claiming that Palestinians can't rule themselves. But very few people have bothered to actually ask Palestinians what they want.

The Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR) released its latest poll data from the West Bank and Gaza on Wednesday. It turns out that Palestinians are unhappy with all of the current options—including the Biden administration's plan for international governance of Gaza.

The last Palestinian election was held in 2006. Although no party won a majority, Hamas had the largest bloc in parliament, with 44 percent of the votes. The Bush administration encouraged Palestinian security officers to launch a coup d'etat against Hamas, which led to a Palestinian civil war. Since then, Hamas has ruled Gaza and Fatah has ruled the West Bank, both as one-party states.

If parliamentary elections were held today, most Palestinians wouldn't vote for either option. Hamas would get 32 percent of the vote, Fatah would get 17 percent of the vote, and a full 50 percent would either sit out of the election or vote for a third party. The survey showed similarly abysmal turnout rates in a presidential election—with one twist.

If the former guerrilla leader Marwan Barghouti were allowed to run, he would handily defeat both the Hamas and Fatah candidates. Barghouti has been imprisoned by Israel since 2002 for his role in several attacks on Israelis, which he denies ordering. Since then, he has said that he accepts the pre-1967 borders of Israel and called for "peaceful popular resistance."

That said, when PCPSR asked Palestinians what the best path to independence was, 54 percent said "armed struggle," as opposed to 16 percent who supported peaceful resistance and 25 percent who supported negotiations. It was a drop from December 2023, when 63 percent chose armed struggle.

Still, only 46 percent of Palestinians in Gaza told PCPSR they preferred Hamas rule. Instead, 11 percent said that they wanted the same Palestinian Authority that rules the West Bank, and 34 percent said they wanted the Palestinian Authority with new leadership.

Even before the current war, Hamas was unpopular in Gaza. Just before the October 7 attacks, an overwhelming majority of Gazans told Arab Barometer that they had little or no trust in the Hamas-run government. In the summer of 2023, protests broke out in Gaza over the cost of living, and Hamas responded with a police crackdown.

However, the unpopularity of Hamas doesn't mean that Palestinians support Israeli rule. Direct Israeli military control polled at 1 percent among Gazans, and "a local authority formed by Israel" did little better, polling at 2 percent. "Control by tribes/large families," one of the models for ruling Gaza that the Netanyahu government has reportedly been toying with, similarly polled at 2 percent among Gazans.


According to a Politico report published on Wednesday, the Biden administration has come around to a different solution: an interim government in Gaza backed by an international military coalition. That option would be no more popular than Israeli rule. Only 2 percent supported rule by foreign forces or the United Nations.

Palestinians might not agree on what they want, but they know what they don't want.

The post Most Palestinians Don't Want Hamas Rule, Poll Shows appeared first on Reason.com.

Gazans in rare criticism of Hamas over truce delay

AFP
Thu, June 13, 2024 

Many areas have been devastated by the war, including here in Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip (Eyad BABA)

Some Gazans have criticised the Islamist group Hamas, which rules the besieged and conflict-ravaged Palestinian territory, for failing to end the war with Israel that has devastated their lives.

Hamas has "led the Palestinian people into a war of annihilation", said Umm Ala, 67, who has been displaced twice during more than eight months of war between Hamas-led Palestinian militants and Israel.

"If the Hamas leaders were interested in ending this war and ending the suffering of the Palestinian people, they would have agreed (to a deal)," added Umm Ala, who has now sought refuge in Khan Yunis, the main city in the southern Gaza Strip.

Gazans who spoke to AFP were asked if they thought that Hamas was also responsible for delays in reaching a new truce.

The war broke out after Hamas's unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,194 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

The militants also seized 251 hostages on that day. Of these, 116 remain in Gaza, although the army says 41 are dead.

In response to the October 7 attack, Israel's military launched a blistering land, air and sea offensive against Hamas in Gaza that has left at least 37,232 people dead, also mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-ruled territory's health ministry.

Apart from a one-week truce in November, which saw the release of more than 100 hostages and 240 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails, several attempts at forging a new ceasefire have failed.

Mediators the United States, Egypt and Qatar are once again engaged in negotiations with Israel and Hamas to try to finalise a deal to end the war.

But some Gazans, who have lived in a climate of fear and restrictions since Hamas seized power in the territory in 2007, blame the Islamists for the vast destruction caused by the war.

Hamas has made a "mockery of us, our pain and the destruction of our lives", said Abu Eyad, 55, who lives in north Gaza.

Abu Eyad, whose three children live with different relatives at separate locations, took aim at Hamas's political leadership hosted by Qatar, saying they were "sleeping comfortably, eating and drinking".

"Have you ever tried to actually live our lives today?" Eyad asked. "Did you know that many times we don't find any food at all?"

- 'Destruction, extermination' -

Washington is currently engaged in a new push for a deal, outlined by President Joe Biden himself on May 31, but has yet to secure an agreement from the warring sides.

Israel and Hamas are once again trading blame, just as they accused each other of derailing previous attempts at ending the war.

"We are tired, we are dead, we are destroyed and our tragedies are countless," said Abu Shaker, 35.

"What are you waiting for?" he asked, addressing the militant group. "What do you want? The war must end at any cost. We cannot bear it any longer."

Despite such criticism, a survey in both Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank has shown Hamas to be the most popular political force in the territories with 40 percent preference, followed by 20 percent for Fatah which dominates the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah.

The poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research released on Wednesday also said that "overall support for the October 7 Hamas offensive remains high", albeit with a slight decline, driven by a fall in support in Gaza.

At the beginning of May, Hamas announced it had accepted a ceasefire agreement, prompting spontaneous celebrations in Gaza.

The survey showed that two-thirds of those asked supported Hamas's decision at the time and expected a halt in fighting within days -- only to be disappointed.

Now the Gazans AFP spoke to are desperate, and all they want is an end to the conflict.

Umm Shadi, 50, called for Hamas to "end the war immediately without seeking to control and rule Gaza".

"What have we gained from this war except killing, destruction, extermination and starvation?" she asked.

"Every day the war on Gaza increases, our pain and the pain of the people increases. What is Hamas waiting for?"

bur-crb-ha-csp/jd/lba/srm

Opinion

Biden’s Israel Waffling Let This Company Scam Refugees

Edith Olmsted
Tue, June 11, 2024 at 3:37 PM MDT·3 min read
24




A new report from the Win Without War Education Fund, a progressive foreign policy advocacy group, details how the U.S. government’s failure to intervene in Gaza has allowed an Egyptian company to exploit American citizens and Palestinians desperate to secure passage away from the Israeli military’s ceaseless bombardment.

For nearly eight months, there was only one way out of Gaza: the Rafah crossing, a thin strip of land on Gaza’s southern border. The crossing has since been seized by the Israeli government, preventing the transfer of essential aid and humanitarian workers, as well as blocking the only means of escape. Before Israel seized the crossing, the only way to use it would be to get your name on a list that is maintained by the Egyptian government.

To expedite the process, many families turned to one company, Hala Consulting and Tourism Services, which promised to help get people’s names on Egypt’s list—for a steep price. Hala is part of the Orjani Group, which is owned by Ibrahim Al Arjani, a close ally of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi, and one of the most powerful men in Egypt.


By the end of April, Hala had raked in at least $88 million by charging people to cross, according to an investigation from The Times. By the time Israel seized the border crossing days later, the price for a “coordination fee” had ballooned from $4,000 to $10,000 per name.

The burden of this cost was far too steep for most Gazans, who have been forced to leave their homes, families, and friends amid the ruins of their cities. Instead, the price was thrust onto their family members and allies in the United States, who turned to private charities as a last resort for fundraising.

Once Hala received money to add a family member to the list, it would still take up to a month for that person to move to the top of the list. In that time, a lot could change, as the dangers in Gaza are ever present.

Family members of those trapped in Gaza were forced to pay Hala’s exorbitant fees because the U.S. government has refused to pressure Israel to stop its relentless assault. Washington has even failed to expedite the evacuation of U.S. citizens.

Texas attorney Maria Kari, who works with hundreds of Americans who are trapped, or have family members trapped, in Gaza, said that the State Department has been slow and at worst unresponsive to her efforts to secure humanitarian parole for her clients and their families.

One woman interviewed for the WWWEF report, identified only by her first name, Shifa, turned to GoFundMe to raise money to get the names of her 50 family members in Rafah on the list after exhausting all other options.

“We’ve exhausted absolutely every avenue to save their lives,” Shifa, a Palestinian American lawyer, told WWWEF. “We submitted correspondence to the State Department. We’ve submitted all the applications to expedite this process. We’ve reached out to immigration attorneys. We have done it all; no response.”

Because of the high costs, waiting period, and lack of government support, Shifa was forced to make difficult decisions about which family members to prioritize. “Time is of the essence. We’ve exhausted every avenue possible,” she said. “They’re waiting to either leave or die.”

These Nonprofits Are Supporting On-the-Ground, Palestinian-Led Aid Efforts in Gaza

Quispe López
Wed, June 12, 2024 

Xinhua News Agency/Getty Images

Throughout spring and into early summer, Israeli air raids continued over Gaza, with reports of strikes across Rafah that burned Palestinian people alive as they sheltered in tents. This is just the latest assault in Israel's ongoing siege and bombardment of Gaza, which has killed at least 37,000 Palestinian people (including roughly 15,700 children), injured almost 85,000, and displaced nearly 1.7 million since October 7, according to Al Jazeera.

Scenes from the last eight months have been devastating. Israel’s military campaign has completely leveled cities, destroying 80,000 familial homes and wiping out entire bloodlines in the process. Those left to pick up the pieces and grieve the insurmountable losses have been forced to face what the United Nations has declared a “full-blown famine” in the north of Gaza, caused by Israel’s closure of Gaza’s borders, preventing necessary aid from being delivered to Palestinian people. Now, an estimated 1.4 million people — 600,000 of them children — are grappling with extremely limited access to medical care, inadequate shelter, and constant bombardment.

In mid-June, the U.N. World Food Program "paused" aid coming through the American-built "humanitarian pier" off Gaza because of the danger caused by Israel's military assault. Before that, it was operational only briefly due to storms. According to the Associated Press, the aid that is able to get through is rarely able to make it to who needs it most.

Throughout the past eight months and long before it, Palestinian-led organizations have been working in Gaza to provide food, medical care, and other necessary aid to people in dire need. From efforts to support birthing people to direct ways to fund the relocation of Gazan families, the list of select organizations below supplies vital support to Palestinians right now.

The giving opportunities on this list include global nonprofit organizations partnering with Palestinian-led efforts in Gaza to provide emergency aid, as well as individual funding efforts to help entire families relocate to safety.

MADRE

Months of Israeli bombardment paired with the blocking of essential aid has made Gaza a dangerous place to give birth, according to a report by the World Health Organization. Doctors Without Borders birth workers told Al Jazeera they were forced to flee because oncoming Israeli forces had created “inhumane” birthing conditions for pregnant people by leaving them with no medical support. As a human rights organization that supports climate, gender, racial, and disability justice around the globe, MADRE has made a commitment to support Palestinians in Gaza by supporting local Palestinian-led partners.

“We’re resourcing humanitarian aid and psychosocial support for survivors of the conflict, as well as working with local midwives to address the childbirth health crisis in Gaza, which is currently the most dangerous place in the world to give birth,” Marlow Murphy, a Content Supervising Manager at MADRE, tells Them. “Miscarriage rates have skyrocketed since the attacks on Palestine began, and pregnant people are forced to give birth in hazardous and unsanitary conditions without proper medical support, including pain control.”
Urgent Action Fund for Feminist Activism

Urgent Action Fund for Feminist Activism is an organization dedicated to funding feminist activists across the world. They have made an intentional effort to support feminist organizers across Gaza who are working to fill the humanitarian aid gap. Since October, Urgent Action Fund has distributed over $183,000 to Palestinian individuals and organizations, including LGBTQ+ people, journalists, people with disabilities, and displaced refugee communities within Gaza and in the diaspora.

“Our efforts have focused on supporting initiatives led by women, trans, and non-binary activists who have courageously mobilized to meet the humanitarian aid gap caused by political barriers that continue to devastate communities,” Noorjahan Akbar, Director of Communications for the Urgent Action Fund, tells Them. “We have also resourced feminist movements in Palestine, neighboring countries, and geographies around the world where activists face backlash and threats due to their activism against the ongoing genocide.”

Urgent Action Fund is focusing on uplifting organizations that provide on-the-ground resources like hotlines, emergency relocation services, and direct protection to people with disabilities at risk of experiencing gender-based violence. In addition to providing grants to Palestinian organizations distributing emergency relief across Gaza, Urgent Action Fund is also supporting Palestinians in the diaspora who have faced discrimination, including unjust terminations and arrests, since October 7.

Rawa

Rawa is an organization that supports liberatory, resilient Palestinian community work through funding local initiatives and “confronting prevailing power dynamics,” according to their website. The organization provides community-based resources to Palestinian communities in Gaza, the West Bank, ’48 (Palestinians who have Israeli citizenship), and Jerusalem through grants supporting creative community initiatives. These efforts have included grassroots first-aid training, disability organizing in refugee camps, and community-supported agriculture.

“Rawa is a space for participatory, democratic, and independent decision-making,” the organization’s mission statement reads. “Our initiative is led by community committees involved in popular action in historic Palestine.”

Purposeful

Purposeful is an organization dedicated to empowering girls through activism and organizing throughout the continent of Africa. The nonprofit is currently supporting Palestinian-led efforts in Gaza by providing grants to grassroots partners on the ground.
GazaFunds.org

Direct donations can also be a powerful way to support Palestinians and put urgent funds into the hands of those who need it the most. Gaza Funds is a website that connects people who want to monetarily support Palestinians to active crowdfunding efforts from families in Gaza. It is run through a team of volunteers, primarily Palestinian and Arab engineers, students, writers, and academics who want to spotlight fundraisers of Palestinains in need.

According to the Gaza Funds website: “Each time the page is reloaded, a different campaign appears. While the rotation is randomized, campaigns for the sick/injured and campaigns close to meeting their goals are prioritized. We never want any of these campaigns to go stagnant, so we make sure to also prioritize fundraisers that haven't had a donation in a while.”

Gaza Funds says their website is for informational purposes only. GoFundMe provides some tips for evaluating funding campaigns on their website here.

Originally Appeared on them.

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 Dialogue between Palestinian and Israeli advocates can benefit Cincinnati | Opinion

Opinion
Cincinnati.com | The Enquirer
Matt Check
Wed, June 12, 2024 

May 15, 2024; Columbus, Ohio, USA; On the 76th anniversary of the Nakba, the displacement of Palestinian refugees from their homes in Israel, Palestinian Diaspora Movement, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at Ohio State University, Pal Awda and SJP at the University of Cincinnati march through Downtown after protesting at the Ohio Statehouse.


I will not pretend that I understand the suffering which Palestinians have been experiencing in Gaza and the West Bank due to the current war − or before the war for that matter.And while I personally believe in Palestinian sovereignty, I am troubled by the political agitation I saw on the streets of downtown Cincinnati, just outside my home on Monday, May 27 when a rally for solidarity with Palestine encouraged the crowd to chant, "There is only one solution, intifada revolution. Intifada, intifada! Long live the intifada!"

Did those at the rally even know what the term intifada represents? In the early 2000s, that particular wave of violence was responsible for suicide bombing attacks that killed innocent lives. Equally concerning at the rally was a man holding a sign that read "Israel = Nazi Germany."

Allowing for these elements to be part of Palestinian advocacy is offensive and misleading. And while neither terrorism nor antisemitism was explicitly on display with what I saw, a collective homage to both was palpable.

I believe that the United States of America is poised for dialogue right now between American Palestinians and American Jews. We have an opportunity to meet the moment, to come together and strive for peace and justice that considers all sides of the conflict in Israel and Palestine. Together we can advocate for Palestinian statehood, dignity-and-restitution for Palestinians (that includes the end of the occupation), while stripping these objectives of the antisemitic impulse and proverbial nod-and-justification towards terrorism that I saw at the rally last week.

I totally understand why there might not be an interest in dialogue from the Palestinian side. After all, their situation is one of extreme and perpetual disenfranchisement with no end on the horizon.

All I can say is I want peace, and I’m not the only one. I want there to be an Israel, and I want there to be sovereign Palestine as well. This desire of mine comes from my own life experience when I was a young man.

Long ago, I worked at a church in Wadi Nisnas, a Christian-Arab neighborhood in Haifa, Israel. Through my contacts there, I crossed over the Green Line and visited the Palestinian West Bank numerous times on my own, hearing stories and getting viewpoints that were not the ones I was raised on. If I learned anything from my time there, it’s that the acknowledgement of each side’s experience creates healing and sometimes even friendships too (that’s what happened to me).

I challenge all of us in Cincinnati to reach across the divide and create a new paradigm with each other where there is mutual respect. Together we can be an example for the rest of our country.

I emailed the rally organizers a few days afterwards telling them that I’d love to begin a dialogue − I have yet to hear back.

Matt Check is from downtown Cincinnati.

Matt Check feels building dialogue helped him understand new perspectives during his time working in Haifa, Israel.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Divisive rhetoric undermines peace efforts between Jews, Palestinians

Palestinian family lives atop rubble of demolished home in Gaza

Mahmoud Essa
Thu, June 13, 2024 


A Palestinian woman hangs clothes among the rubble of a damaged building, in Beit Lahia

By Mahmoud Essa

BEIT LAHIA, Gaza Strip (Reuters) - The al-Kahloot family is living on memories in Gaza after being displaced by Israeli bombardment and then returning to live in a large tent pitched atop the rubble of their home.

“We are staying in this tent because this is our place and home. It’s our house, we can’t abandon it, it has our dreams and memories," said Umm Nael al-Kahloot, whose son was killed earlier in the Hamas-Israel war.

"We had good memories in this house, I’m trying to heal our pain and find a place to stay. We can’t stay away from our home, even if there are fierce (Israeli) strikes, we'd leave for a day or two then we’d be back in our place.”

Many Palestinian families share their plight as Israeli air strikes and heavy shelling has killed tens of thousands of people and reduced much of the Gaza Strip to ruins since Hamas carried out a cross-border attack on Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostage.

Many homes like that of the al-Kahloots have been pulverised, displacing families, some of whom have returned in hope that at least part of their dwellings might have survived air strikes and shelling.

The al-Kahloots' house, part of a vast swathe of concrete rubble in the densely built-up northern Gaza town of Beit Lahia, consisted of five floors, which all collapsed. But the family remain attached to their home, clinging to the destruction.

"Despite all of this struggle that we are going through and the tragedies we have witnessed, we have roamed around, and we couldn’t live anywhere else but here," said Ismail al-Kahloot, Umm Nael's husband.

"Five families eat, sleep, and stay in this tent you see here."

Umm Nael hangs clothes to dry on a rope and waters her plants. She sorts food pots and places them on an open fire.

"Why all this suffering? What did we do wrong to deserve all of this? We are helpless, we don’t have any hand in all of this (war)," she said.

"We couldn’t save anything from the house, from the work (studio) or from the furniture, everything went under the rubble. These are old items. I'm cleaning them up as much as I can."

(Writing by Michael Georgy; editing by Mark Heinrich)

More than half of cropland in hungry Gaza is damaged, UN says

Reuters
Thu, June 13, 2024 

A crop duster plane flies over a field, near the Israel-Gaza border


GENEVA (Reuters) - More than half of Gaza's agricultural land, crucial for feeding the war-ravaged territory's hungry population, has been degraded by conflict, satellite images analysed by the United Nations show.

The data reveals a rise in the destruction of orchards, field crops and vegetables in the Palestinian enclave, where hunger is widespread after eight months of Israeli bombardment.

The World Health Organisation warned on Wednesday that many people in Gaza were facing "catastrophic hunger and famine-like conditions".


Using satellite imagery taken between May 2017 and 2024, United Nations Satellite Centre (UNOSAT) and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) found that 57% of Gaza's permanent crop fields and arable lands essential for food security had shown a significant decline in density and health.

"In May 2024, crop health and density across the Gaza Strip showed a marked decline compared to the average of the previous seven seasons," UNOSAT said on Thursday.

"This deterioration is attributed to conflict-related activities, including razing, heavy vehicle movement, bombing, and shelling."

The decline, UNOSAT said, marked a 30% increase in damaged agricultural land since it published its last analysis in April.

Israel's ground and air campaign was triggered when Hamas stormed southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing around 1,200 people and seizing more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

The offensive has killed more than 37,000 people in Gaza, according to health authorities in the Hamas-run enclave, and has caused mass destruction and cut off routes for aid.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Wednesday there were more than 8,000 children under five years old in Gaza who had been treated for acute malnutrition.

As well as damage to crop fields and orchards, greenhouses across the Gaza Strip had also sustained significant damage, UNOSAT said.

The Gaza Strip has an estimated 151 square kilometres of agricultural land, which makes up about 41% of the coastal enclave's territory, according to data from UNOSAT.

(Reporting by Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber; Editing by Ros Russell)