It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Thursday, November 14, 2024
E. coli cases climb to 104 in deadly outbreak linked to slivered onions served at McDonald's
Nov. 14, 2024 / UPI McDonald's on Wednesday announced that it has identified a new supplier of slivered onions. File Photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI | License Photo
Nov. 14 (UPI) -- A deadly E. coli outbreak connected to slivered onions served in McDonald's Quarter Pounder hamburgers across the country has sickened at least 104 people, federal health officials said.
The updated figure was announced by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday. The federal health authority said the cases were reported in 14 states.
Of the more than 100 people infected in the outbreak, 34 have been hospitalized, including four who developed hemolytic uremic syndrome, a serious condition that can cause kidney failure.
One person, an older adult in Colorado, has died from the illness, the CDC said, noting the patient was not one of those who had developed HUS.
The ages of the affected individuals range from 1 to 88 years old.
"The true number of sick people in this outbreak is likely much higher than the number reported, and the outbreak may not be limited to the states with known illnesses," the CDC said, explaining that many people recover without medical care and are not tested for the bacterium.
The illnesses were reported between Sept. 12 and Oct. 14.
McDonald's last month identified slivered onions supplied to some 900 of its restaurants by Taylor Farms' Colorado Springs, Colo., facility was the source of the outbreak.
The iconic U.S. fast-food chain late last month had pulled the Quarter Pounder from menus, but later said it would stop serving it with slivered onions in the affected states.
It also indefinitely stopped sourcing onions from the Colorado facility of Taylor Farms, which also issued a recall.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday said in a statement that it is working with Taylor Farms to determine if additional "downstream customer recalls" are necessary.
"At this time, there does not appear to be a continued food safety concern related to this outbreak at McDonald's restaurants," the FDA said.
On Wednesday, McDonald's said in a statement that it has identified an alternate supplier of slivered onions for the 900 restaurants that had stopped serving the Quarter Pounder.
"Over the past week, these restaurants resumed the sale of Quarter Pounder burgers with slivered onions," it said.
British consumer group launches $3.8B 'abuse of dominance' class action against Apple over iCloud Nov. 14, 2024 / UPI A British consumer advocacy group launched a $3.8 billion anti-trust class action against Apple on behalf of its 40 million United Kingdom customers alleging the U.S. tech giant is fleecing them by locking them in to its cloud storage ecosystem which comes with "rip off" charges. File Photo by Keizo Mori/UPI | License Photo
Nov. 14 (UPI) -- A British consumer advocacy group launched a $3.8 billion antitrust class action against Apple on behalf of its 40 million United Kingdom customers alleging the U.S. tech giant is fleecing them by locking them into its cloud storage ecosystem which comes with "rip off" charges.
The not-for-profit Which? said in a news release Wednesday it was seeking compensation for consumers from Apple for abusing the dominant position of its so-called "iCloud" data storage solution built into every one of its mobile-connected devices.
"We believe that Apple breached competition law and it has cost U.K. consumers millions of pounds, so we are taking legal action against Apple to recover the overpayments made on iCloud services obtained on or after Oct. 1, 2015," said Which? chief executive Anabel Hoult.
"By bringing this claim, Which? is showing big corporations like Apple that they cannot rip off U.K. consumers without facing repercussions. Taking this legal action means we can help consumers to get the redress that they are owed, deter similar behavior in the future and create a better, more competitive market."
Which? said its "opt-out" claim would argue that Apple violated British competition law by steering customers towards its proprietary iCloud service and by not clearly informing them of alternatives, or how to use them on its iOS devices.
"Which? believes that Apple iPhone and iPad iOS users have had little choice but to use Apple's own iCloud service, and therefore Apple can charge users more than if it had to compete with rival cloud storage services," it said.
The group added that the monthly charges for the service embedded into every Apple device, which range from $1.25 for 50GB of space to $69.46 for 12TB, are unfair because users aren't offered alternatives.
"iPhone users are tied to iCloud because they cannot store or back up all of their phone's data with a third-party provider, as Apple doesn't allow certain data to be stored other than on iCloud," said Which?
"The convenience of being 'locked-in' to this service over time could come at a significant cost -- in terms of price, quality and choice. With Apple being such a dominant player in the phone and tablet market, this behavior also creates a barrier for any new cloud service providers."
Which? said the ever-increasing volume of data generated by mobile and tablet users meant it was imperative that consumers were able to access competitive cloud storage alternatives on their devices.
Eligible Apple customers, who would be automatically "opted in" unless they ask to be excluded, include any U.K. resident who "obtained iCloud services" on any device running iOS -- iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch or any other Apple-supplied iOS-powered mobile device -- since the Consumer Rights Act became law in fall 2015.
A specialist judicial body called the Competition Appeal Tribunal will have to give the green light for the case to proceed, however, Which? said it would drop its claim at any time if Apple "did the right thing" and refunded customers and opened up iCloud to allow users a real choice.
Apple said the allegations were untrue and that it would fight the suit.
"We reject any suggestion that our iCloud practices are anti-competitive and will vigorously defend against any legal claim otherwise," the company said in a statement.
"Our users are not required to use iCloud, and many rely on a wide range of third-party alternatives for data storage. In addition, we work hard to make data transfer as easy as possible -- whether it's to iCloud or another service.
Apple also pointed out that prices of the other cloud storage providers used by many of its customers were broadly comparable to iCloud and that almost half of Apple customers did not subscribe to the paid-for option because they did not require additional storage, or did not want the additional cost.
The Which? action comes alongside a similar $1.9 billion "abuse of dominance" claim dating back to 2021 alleging 19.6 million Brits were overcharged for app purchases with a one-day pre-trial review due to be held in London on Friday after the CAT ruled last week that the case against Apple Inc. and Apple Distribution International could proceed.
The trial itself is scheduled to open Jan. 13 and last for seven weeks.
Brought by King's College academic Rachael Kent under the 1998 Competition Act prohibiting abuse of a dominant position, the proposed collective proceedings combine standalone claims against Apple Inc. and Apple Distribution International for loss and damage caused by alleged breaches of statutory duty by infringing the Functioning of the European Union Treaty.
The CAT also has cases pending against Facebook, Google, Steam and major British cell phone service providers.
Commercial law specialist Toby Starr of Humphries Kerstetter told the BBC that the Which? suit was yet another case among a "growing tide of large class actions against Big Tech" which he said had until now "operated without sufficient constraint."
"Although most of these claims are in their infancy and take a long time to resolve, there will be more decisions coming out over the next couple of years and there will be settlements -- these will start to affect the tech giants' businesses," said Starr.
Boeing delivers layoff notices to 17,000 workers amid financial struggles
Nov. 13, 2024 Boeing started issuing layoff notices this week to 17,000 employees, or 10% of its workforce, in an effort to cut costs amid financial struggles. The aerospace giant also announced it will delay delivery of its 777X to 2026.
File Photo by Bill Greenblatt/UPI |
Nov. 13 (UPI) -- Boeing started issuing layoff notices Wednesday to 17,000 employees to cut 10% of its workforce in an effort to shore up the aerospace giant's shaky finances.
The layoff notifications, which will be handed out through Friday, are being issued the same week 33,000 Boeing machinists in the Seattle area returned to work following their seven-week strike.
"Our business is in a difficult position, and it is hard to overstate the challenges we face together," Boeing chief executive officer Kelly Ortberg told staff in a memo last month as he announced the cuts.
"Restoring our company requires tough decisions, and we will have to make structural changes to ensure we can stay competitive and deliver for our customers over the long term," Ortberg added.
The layoffs will impact executives, managers and employees, but workers who build the aircraft are not expected to be cut. Those who receive notifications are expected to leave the company by Jan. 17.
"We must reset our workforce levels to align with our financial reality and to a more focused set of priorities," Ortberg said, adding that Boeing will "maintain our steadfast focus on safety, quality and delivering for our customers."
In addition to the layoffs, Boeing will delay its first delivery of the 777X to 2026 and conclude production of its 767 Freighters in 2027. Production of the KC-46A Tanker will continue.
The cuts at Boeing follow billions of lost revenue over the past five years and a number of crises, including two 737 Max 8 crashes over a six-month period with the first occurring in October 2018, which was the last year Boeing turned a profit. This year, a door panel blew off a 737 Max jet mid-flight, as regulators investigated Boeing's safety protocols and Max production stalled with the machinists' strike.
"We need to be clear-eyed about the work we face and realistic about the time it will take to achieve key milestones on the path to recovery," Ortberg said.
"We also need to focus our resources on performing and innovating in the areas that are core to who we are, rather than spreading ourselves across too many efforts that can often result in underperformance and underinvestmen
Advanced Micro Devices AMD to lay off roughly 1,000 workers, 4% of global workforce Advanced Micro Devices said Wednesday roughly 4% of approximately 26,000 employees worldwide will be laid off. About 1,000 AMD workers will lose their jobs.
CEO Lisa Su said AMD was able to boost the 2024 graphic processing unit sales forecast. File Photo by James Atoa/UPI | License Photo
Nov. 13 (UPI) -- Advanced Micro Devices said Wednesday roughly 4% of approximately 26,000 employees worldwide will be laid off. About 1,000 AMD workers will lose their jobs.
"As a part of aligning our resources with our largest growth opportunities, we are taking a number of targeted steps that will unfortunately result in reducing our global workforce by approximately 4%," an AMD spokesperson said in a statement to CRN. Advertisement
AMD added it is committed to "treating impacted employees with respect and helping them through this transition."
The realignment seeks to capture more of the AI chip market currently dominated by Nvidia, which makes more than 80% of AI chip sales.
AMD expects $5 billion in AI chip sales for 2024, roughly a fifth of Nvidia's $25.7 billion in such sales.
According to AMD CEO Lisa Su's third-quarter earnings call, the company upgraded its graphics processing unit 2024 sales forecast after completing "some important customer milestones." Those included optimizing chips for particular AI workloads and hitting reliability targets in data centers.
The third-quarter earnings report from AMD in late October revealed AMD's fourth-quarter earnings forecast fell short of Wall Street economist expectations.
AMD is the second-largest maker of graphics processing units, after Nvidia.
Nvidia shares are up 200% for 2024 while AMD stock is down 5% on the year.
UK's Samantha Harvey wins 2024 Booker Prize for 'Orbital'
UK author Samantha Harvey, one of a record five women shortlisted for the Booker Prize, won the coveted award on Tuesday for her fifth novel, a "space pastoral" titled "Orbital", becoming the first woman to win the award since Margaret Atwood in 2019.
Spanning the course of a single day, Harvey's "Orbital" tracks astronauts from Japan, Russia, the United States, Britain and Italy as they observe and reflect on their home planet, touching on themes of mourning, desire and the climate crisis.
The Booker, which comes with a 50,000 pound ($64,000) cash prize, has launched careers and courted controversy since its creation in 1969.
Past laureates include Margaret Atwood, Ian McEwan, Julian Barnes and Kazuo Ishiguro.
"I was not expecting that," Harvey said upon learning of her win, the first by a woman since Atwood was recognised in 2019 for "The Testaments" alongside Bernardine Evaristo for "Girl, Woman, Other".
In her acceptance speech, Harvey dedicated the prize to "everybody who does speak for and not against the Earth; for and not against the dignity of other humans, other life; and all the humans who speak for and call for and work for peace". 'Everyone and no one'
Just 136 pages long, "Orbital" is the second-shortest novel to win the award and the first to be set in space, according to the Booker Prize Foundation.
It is the 49-year-old Harvey's fifth novel, winning 15 years after her debut book "The Wilderness" was longlisted for the prize.
Edmund de Waal, chair of the judges, described "Orbital" as "a book about a wounded world" with "everyone and no one" as the subject.
"With her language of lyricism and acuity Harvey makes our world strange and new for us," he added.
Harvey described her work as a "space pastoral" in an interview with prize organisers after she was named to the Booker longlist.
"I wanted to write about our human occupation of low earth orbit for the last quarter of a century -- not as sci-fi but as realism," she said.
"Could I evoke the beauty of that vantage point with the care of a nature writer? Could I write about amazement? Could I pull off a sort of space pastoral? These were the challenges I set myself."
Historic shortlist
A record five women were in the running for the prize, which was announced at a ceremony in London.
The others were Rachel Kushner for "Creation Lake", Anne Michaels for "Held", Yael van der Wouden for "The Safekeep" and Charlotte Wood for "Stone Yard Devotional".
Percival Everett rounded out the shortlist with his novel "James".
Everett and Kushner had been considered the two favourites for this year's prize.
The Booker is seen as a talent spotter of names not necessarily widely known to the general public.
It is open to works of fiction by writers of any nationality, written in English and published in the UK or Ireland between October 1, 2023 and September 30, 2024.
(AFP)
French farmers to protest Mercosur deal boosting South American imports
French farmers have announced a new wave of protests next week against the European Union's planned free trade agreement with the Mercosur trading bloc, saying an increase in agricultural imports from South America will hurt their livelihoods.
Farmers ar planning protests from Monday to oppose the EU-Mercosur free trade agreement, saying increased imports from South America will hurt the European Union's agriculture, the head of France's largest farm lobby FNSEA said on Wednesday.
This comes as farmers in Belgium have called for demonstrations close to the EU headquarters in Brussels on Wednesday.
"This trade agreement, which links part of the South American states to Europe, risks having dramatic consequences for agriculture," FNSEA's Arnaud Rousseau told France Inter radio.
"So we will be in all regions from Monday, for a few days, to make the voice of France heard at the time of the G20 in Brazil, and we hope that all the European countries will join us because the subject is not a country, a French subject, it is a European subject," he added. However, French farmers do not intend to block roads and highways as they had done last year when anger at competition from cheaper imports, including from EU ally Ukraine, and a regulatory burden had led to large-scale protests across the EU.
"We are not here to bother the French people, we are here to tell them that we are proud to feed them and that continuing to produce in France," he added.
The country's agriculture minister, Annie Genevard, called the planned free trade deal between South American countries and the EU "a bad agreement," on Sunday as it would allow the entry into the country of "99,000 tons of beef, 180,000 tons of sugar and similar quantities of poultry meat" and would create damaging competition for local producers.
Weather-hit harvests and outbreaks of livestock disease along with political deadlock after a snap election at the start of summer have added to the grievances among French farmers.
(Reuters)
Israel is committing ‘ethnic cleansing’ amid mass forced displacements in Gaza, HRW report says
ANALYSIS Middle East
Israel has committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, including pursuing a deliberate policy of forcibly displacing people and denying them the right to return home, according to a Human Rights Watch report released Thursday. The report also labelled the likely permanent dispossession of Gazans in areas cleared by Israel to serve as buffer zones and security corridors as “ethnic cleansing”.
Israel has carried out a violent and deliberate campaign of forced displacement against almost 2 million Palestinian civilians over the course of its bombardment and military occupation of the Gaza Strip since October 2023, according to a Human Rights Watch report released Thursday.
The report, which maintains that these policies amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, also accused the Israeli government of carrying out ethnic cleansing against Palestinians in areas where the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have razed swaths of homes and other civilian infrastructure to make way for “buffer zones” and “security corridors” throughout the besieged enclave.
In the 13 months since armed Palestinian groups led by Hamas launched deadly attacks against Israel on October 7, 2023, Israel’s devastating retaliatory campaign in Gaza has driven roughly 1.9 million Palestinians from their homes, according to the United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator – almost nine-tenths of the people living in the Strip. These mass population transfers began in the first days of Israel’s bombardment when the IDF ordered more than a million people living in the north to leave their homes and head to the southern half of the enclave within just 24 hours.
Siege of north Gaza: Are Israel's evacuations for Palestinians really safe?
As more and more civilians have been driven from their homes to scattered “safe zones” across the Gaza Strip, the IDF has carried out controlled demolitions of civilian infrastructure, which alongside Israel’s relentless bombing campaign of Gaza has destroyed tens of thousands of houses as well as hospitals, schools and vast stretches of agricultural land, Human Rights Watch said. This devastation, the report says, risks robbing displaced civilians of the right to return to their homes when the fighting, one day, comes to an end
The Israeli government has consistently maintained that its mass evacuation orders are intended to allow the IDF to fight Palestinian militant groups while minimising civilian casualties in the once densely populated Strip.
But Caitlin Procter, a political anthropologist and part-time professor at the Migration Policy Centre, said that repeated reports of Israeli attacks on its own designated safe zones and evacuation routes – also verified and highlighted in the Human Rights Watch report – painted a different picture.
“I think first and foremost we absolutely have to stop repeating this word ‘evacuation’,” she said. “Israeli officials have obviously continuously used this word, but actually they’ve completely misused the word over the last year in the way that they’ve forced Palestinians to displace from one place to another, upwards of ten times in some cases.”
“The word ‘evacuation’, we associate it with safety – with moving from a place of danger to a place of safety for a temporary period before then returning home. And every aspect of that is false in this case,” she said.
“Not only is there nowhere safe, but we also know from reports that these so-called safe zones have then been explicitly targeted by the Israeli military once people were forced to go there, and then not only that but these areas that people have been displaced from have been completely obliterated. So there is no possibility that they can then return home.”
In Gaza, where as many as fourth-fifths of the population are either themselves refugees or the descendants of refugees, this threat of once again being permanently driven from their homes evokes the grim days of what Palestinians call the Nakba, or catastrophe. More than 75 years ago, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled their homes following the outbreak of war between a nascent Israel and neighbouring Arab states in 1948 that marked Israel’s founding.
Yair Wallach, reader in Israeli studies at SOAS, University of London, said that the fear of once again being driven from their homes at gunpoint was very real throughout the Strip.
“Most of Gaza’s population are originally refugees from what has been Israel since 1948 – the overwhelming majority,” he said. “Some of them fled or were expelled during the war, some of them even expelled into Gaza after the war. The defining experience of the population of the Gaza Strip is one of being descendants of this mass displacement that’s barred them from returning. So when people talk about Jabaliya or other places in the Gaza Strip that are being depopulated now, these were originally refugee camps that became homes … The memory of 1948 looms large.”
The report, which only covers events in Gaza until the end of August 2024, comes a little over a month after Israeli forces issued fresh evacuation orders across the Strip’s far north, calling on more than 400,000 people to once again flee southwards as the IDF prepared to lay siege to the northern areas bordering Israel. The military has since cut off all food and aid deliveries to the zone as it battles what it describes as Hamas militants who have regrouped there, causing a UN-backed report to warn that the tens of thousands of civilians believed to be trapped there could be facing imminent famine. A 30-day deadline issued by the US urging Israel to allow more humanitarian aid to enter the Strip passed without issue this week, with the outgoing Biden administration saying it would not be halting military support to Netanyahu’s government.
US won't halt any weapons to Israel over Gaza humanitarian aid situation
Residents have said they worry that the recent mass evacuation orders and Israeli troop movements in Jabaliya, Beit Lahiya and Beit Lanoun in Gaza’s north are the first step towards Israel building an extended “buffer zone” free of Palestinians – a policy that Human Rights Watch said would amount to ethnic cleansing. Satellite photos already show a one-kilometre-wide “buffer zone” lying along Gaza’s eastern border with Israel that has been cleared of almost all standing structures. Procter, who conducted extensive fieldwork around forced migration in the Gaza Strip before the October 7, 2023, attacks, said that residents’ fears could very well be justified.
“In the last year, since last October, there’s been extremely explicit calls for the permanent depopulation of Gaza among senior Israeli officials – there are countless examples of this to draw on – and the international community has consistently failed to respond to this,” she said. “And we see this now with what’s happening in Jabaliya, and there’s been these reports of senior Israeli officials very clearly saying that there will be no return to northern Gaza. So these fears surrounding permanent deportation, permanent depopulation, they’re extremely well-founded and historically grounded.”
It is in these purported “buffer zones” – as well as the 4-kilometre-wide “Netzarim Corridor” that Israel has cut through the centre of the Strip and the “Philadelphi Corridor” that lies along the Egyptian border – that Human Rights Watch has warned Israeli could be carrying out a targeted campaign of ethnic cleansing. The report features satellite imagery showing the extensive demolition of buildings of all kinds around these roads, which Israel has dubbed “security corridors”.
Nadia Hardman, Human Rights Watch’s refugee and migrant rights researcher and the report’s principal author, said that while the term was not recognised under international law, she believed that it was an accurate description of what their research had unearthed.
“It’s just very clear in those areas that people have been forced out, they won’t be allowed to return. That also meets another definition which is used in international law, even if it doesn’t have an international legal definition, and it’s known as ethnic cleansing,” she said. “And it usually comes when you combine acts of forced displacement, which is the part which is moving people by violent and terror-inspiring means, and we also say that persecution should be investigated as a war crime as well in this report. When you get a combination of these together is when it is incumbent on us to also consider ethnic cleansing, which is what we did.” 'We have been displaced 50 times': Palestinians flee the northern part of Gaza
01:53
Wallach also used the term in his description of the IDF’s recent evacuation orders in Gaza’s north.
“What you have in the northern part of the Strip now is basically a very explicit operation of ethnic cleansing, where the areas just north of Gaza City which is Jabaliya and Beit Lahiya and others, people were not only told to leave, as people were told even a year ago, but also it was clear that if anyone stayed because they can’t move, or they don’t trust the Israelis not to shoot them en route and so forth, anyone that stays will be seen as a combatant and either be starved to death or killed – that was a very explicit threat,” he said.
“And you have Israeli military officials saying that no one is ever going to be allowed back there, that there’s no intention to allow people back into that area again, and the suggestion that it will be marked for Jewish settlement. So this is the most explicit attempt of permanent ethnic cleansing, and the permanent removal of the population from there.”
Dena Qaddumi, a fellow in city design and social science at the London School of Economics, said that it was hard to understand the full impact of what this policy of mass displacement had had on the Palestinians of Gaza.
“The mass destruction of Gaza aims to make the territory uninhabitable, and in doing so force Palestinians in Gaza to migrate elsewhere, if they desire to live, once overt fighting has ceased,” she said. “Forced displacement through mass destruction and the subsequent denial of the right of return seek to destroy the very peoplehood of Palestinians, which is rooted in the connection with the lands, villages, cities and indigenous communities of Palestine.”
With the US Election Over, Israel’s Genocide Continues With No End in Sight
Donald Trump has given every indication that Israel’s atrocities will continue unchecked in his second term.
A displaced Palestinian woman looks through a fence in a tent camp in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, on November 9, 2024.Majdi Fathi / NurPhoto via Getty Images
My Palestinian American family is in great pain. Every member of my Arab American community lost a relative or a friend during the past 13 months. We are torn to pieces and outraged by the U.S. support for Israel’s war on Gaza and the ravages wrought in southern Lebanon. Having lost several family members and friends — among them artists, teachers and academics I’ve known and writers with whom I’ve worked — I too wake up every morning in pain.
I am in pain because my Palestinian parents died before they could realize their dream of returning to their home in West Jerusalem. My father used to lament and say: “We were expelled from our home even though we had nothing to do with the Holocaust. And yet, we Palestinians have paid dearly for Europe’s crimes.” I am in pain because my people have experienced unimaginable suffering for 76 years with no end in sight — especially those living and dying in Gaza today, who were expelled from their homes in 1948 and 1967 and have been under siege for the past 17 years. They have not known a single day of peace in their lives and are now suffering from a live-streamed annihilation in front of the eyes of the entire world.
Every day in Gaza is a day of massacres, slaughter, death and destruction. Every day in Congress and the White House is a day of complicity, violating U.S. and international law by continuing to arm and support Israel’s ongoing genocide.
Both major political parties support funding and arming Israel’s genocide of Palestinians, against the will of the majority of the American people. Since October 2023, U.S. taxpayers have paid for 70 percent of Israel’s military assault, which has resulted in the total destruction of Gaza, the death of at least 43,000 Palestinians and the displacement of nearly 90 percent of Gaza’s residents. According to the UN, 96 percent of Gaza’s population of 2.15 million people face acute levels of food insecurity as a result of Israel’s use of starvation as a weapon of war.
In southern Lebanon, Baalbek and parts of the Bekaa Valley, Israeli airstrikes have obliterated 37 towns and villages, including historic sites — claiming that Hezbollah turned them into fortified combat zones — killed more than 3,000 people, maimed and wounded thousands more and displaced over 1.2 million in a country that was already bleeding from an economic collapse and political paralysis.
The U.S. is the only reason Israel has been able to sustain its genocidal practices for 13 months.
In the 2024 presidential election, racism, reproductive rights, immigrants and border control, gun laws, the economy, our constitutional democracy — even fascism — were on the ballot. Genocide was not.
We Are Unlikely to See a Change in US Foreign Policy Toward Israel
Israel is hell bent on a war of total destruction and ethnic cleansing. It will do so with the overwhelming support of the majority of Democratic and Republican lawmakers in Congress. It will do so under the watchful eye of the president of the United States who will not have the will or the courage to stop the Israeli assaults, displacement and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and the ongoing Israeli land grab. For more than a year now, Joe Biden has not wavered in his material support of Israel as it conducts genocide. We can expect that support to continue under Donald Trump when he takes office again.
Since October 7, Donald Trump has urged Prime Minister Netanyahu to “finish the job” and “do what you have to do.” On the campaign trail, Trump promised “We’re going to do a lot for Israel; we’re going to take care of Israel.”
U.S. unconditional support will continue in order to help Israel achieve its endgame of the “out-of-state” solution: emptying Gaza of Palestinians and continuing its ethnic cleansing of the West Bank and East Jerusalem — and now southern Lebanon — in order to realize its ultimate goal of a greater Jewish ethnostate.
While Trump was in office, Netanyahu called him “the best friend that Israel has ever had in the White House.” He called Trump’s victory this week “history’s greatest comeback” and “a powerful recommitment to the great alliance between Israel and America.” Other members of his far-right coalition have also expressed their praise for Trump and their excitement for his return to office.
Fighting US Complicity Must Continue Beyond the Election
Kamala Harris lost the presidential election in part because the Democratic Party has lost touch with the American people and abandoned the working class in exchange for war profiteers. The Biden-Harris administration’s active support for the Gaza genocide caused a significant shift in the voting patterns of the American Muslim and Arab American communities, which led a large percentage to ditch the Democratic Party. What’s more, Harris suffered a decline in support among young voters, Black voters and other key elements of the Democratic base. With the Vice President running to the right, the Democratic and Republican candidates looked as though they represented two sides of the same coin.
While there are major policy differences between Democrats and Republicans when it comes to domestic issues as well as international affairs, their unconditional support for Israel is not an issue of disagreement.
On the contrary, we’ve seen both parties on the campaign trail vigorously competing with each other to show us who is a better friend to Israel. President-elect Trump even went as far as saying President Biden was “like a Palestinian,” using the word as a slur or an insult to prove his greater love of Israel. Both Trump and Harris are staunch supporters of Israel and both said on numerous occasions that Israel has the “right to defend itself” even though international law clearly prohibits an occupier from bombing the occupied. Both candidates vowed to continue U.S. military aid to Israel and dismissed the calls from the majority of Americans who support a ceasefire and an arms embargo of the Israeli state.
So when it comes to the genocide in Gaza — and the war on Lebanon — Arabs and Arab Americans on the whole already knew their fight would continue regardless of the outcome of the election. Trump’s Past Actions Give Us a Clue of Future Policy
In 2017, during his first term as president, Donald Trump moved the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel in violation of international law and several UN resolutions. He also suspended U.S. opposition to the establishment and expansion of illegal Israeli settlements on stolen Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank.
In 2018, in another blow to Palestinians, President Trump shut down the office of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) mission in Washington, D.C.
In 2019, President Trump’s official recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights in Syria upended half a century of U.S. Middle East policy.
In 2020, Trump initiated and mediated an agreement known as the Abraham Accords, a series of bilateral agreements that saw the establishment of diplomatic relations between Israel and four Arab countries — the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan — breaking a long-held Arab policy of refusing to recognize the Israeli state until Israel ends its occupation.
In the same year, he announced the “Trump peace plan” for the Middle East in a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The plan provided for a unified Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and Israeli sovereignty over the Jordan Valley and the principal Jewish settlements in the West Bank, amounting to annexation of roughly 30 percent of the territory. The Palestinians would be offered some desert areas near the Egyptian border, limited sovereignty and a non-contiguous state with numerous Israeli enclaves. The New York Times wrote that “rather than viewing it as a serious blueprint for peace, analysts called it a political document by a president in the middle of an impeachment trial working in tandem with Mr. Netanyahu, a prime minister under criminal indictment who is about to face his third election in a year.”
Trump’s son-in-law and former senior adviser, Jared Kushner, has also offered some signal of what we might expect. When Israel dropped dozens of bunker buster bombs on Beirut in September, killing Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, Kushner called it “the most important day in the Middle East since the Abraham Accords breakthrough” in a statement that flagrantly called for Israel to expand its war across the Middle East with continued U.S. support.
Kushner, who was one of the brokers of the Abraham Accords, went on to say: “The Middle East is too often a solid where little changes. Today, it is a liquid and the ability to reshape is unlimited. Do not squander this moment.” What Next for the Palestine Solidarity Movement?
Over the last 13 months, we’ve witnessed incredible solidarity movements, with millions of people in the U.S. and around the globe organizing, marching and protesting against Israel’s atrocities in Gaza and its apartheid system and inhumane treatment of Palestinians.
From ending the Vietnam War to dismantling the apartheid regime in South Africa, students have long been at the forefront of movements that made history by speaking up against injustice and endless wars. Today they are proving again to be the conscience of the nation by challenging the genocide in Gaza and standing up against the anti-Palestinian racism on their university campuses as they are being met with increasing repression and violence. Colleges and universities across the country have arrested students for peaceful protests; they have enacted policies that stifle pro-Palestinian activism; and have created a hostile environment for pro-Palestinian students, faculty, staff and members of the community.
Still, those students remain determined to end the U.S.’s shameful policy of enabling Israel’s genocide and they are clearly not about to give up.
Israeli human rights lawyer Michael Sfard wrote recently in Haaretz:
“Generations of Israelis will have to live with what we have done in Gaza over the last year … Generations of Israelis will have to explain to their children and grandchildren why we behaved that way. Some will have to explain why they didn’t refuse to bomb. And some will have to explain why they didn’t do more to stop the horror.”
We in the U.S. will also have to explain to our children and grandchildren why our country did nothing to stop the genocide.
While we are embarking on a period of political uncertainty, it is likely that the U.S.’s destructive foreign policy towards the Palestinians will continue. But so will our fight for Palestinian freedom, equality and an end to occupation.
Michel Moushabeck is a Palestinian American writer, editor, translator and musician. He is the founder and publisher of Interlink Publishing, a 37-year-old Massachusetts-based independent publishing house. Follow him on Instagram: @ReadPalestine.
U.S. says Israel now in compliance with law on humanitarian assistance to Gaza
A truck carrying humanitarian aid passed into the Northern Gaza Strip as another drives back into Israel at the Erez Crossing checkpoint after delivering supplies on May 5, 2024. The United States said Tuesday that Israel had largely satisfied its demand for "concrete measures" to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza within 30 days or risk military assistance being suspended. File Photo by Jim Hollander/UPI | License Photo
Nov. 13 (UPI) -- The United States has determined that Israel has substantially met its demand to take "concrete steps" to improve the humanitarian crisis in Gaza within 30 days or risk losing military assistance provided by Washington in line with U.S. law.
While more needed to be done, Israel was not in breach of U.S. law, State Department spokesman Vedant Patel told the department's regular press briefing Tuesday -- the day the 30-day deadline set by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin expired.
Patel said Israel had taken a number of steps to address the measures laid out in an Oct. 13 letter penned by Blinken and Austin including reopening the Erez crossing, establishing a new crossing at Kissufim and waiving certain customs requirements for the Jordanian armed forces corridor.
Other improvements included the opening of additional delivery routes within Gaza, including Bani Suheila Road, greater use of the Israeli fence road, repairs to the coastal road and the resumption of some deliveries to the north -- to Gaza City and most recently to areas around Jabalia -- and the expansion of the Mawasi humanitarian zone.
"This is all to say, we at this time have not made an assessment that the Israelis are in violation of U.S. law. But most importantly, we are going to continue to watch how these steps that they've taken, how they are being implemented, how that they can be continued to be expanded on," said Patel.
"And through that, we're going to continue to assess their compliance with U.S. law. We've seen some progress being made. We would like to see some more changes happen. We believe that had it not been for U.S. intervention these changes may not have ever taken place. But most importantly, we want to see continued progress, and that's what we're looking for." Aid agencies and the United Nations, however, disagreed, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs on Tuesday told a Security Council briefing that "conditions of life across Gaza are unfit for human survival."
While welcoming the opening of the new Kissufim crossing at the 11th hour on Tuesday morning, Acting Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Joyce Msuya warned of potential famine and grave violations of international laws in Gaza, calling for unimpeded humanitarian access to those in need.
Msuya said that as she spoke Israeli authorities were blocking humanitarian assistance from entering North Gaza, where fighting continued, and around 75,000 people remained with dwindling water and food supplies.
"Conditions of life across Gaza are unfit for human survival. Food is insufficient. Shelter items -- needed ahead of winter -- are in extremely short supply. Violent armed lootings of our convoys have become increasingly organized along routes from Kerem Shalom, driven by the collapse of public order and safety.
"Essential commercial goods and services including electricity have been all but cut off. This has led to increasing hunger, starvation and now, as we have heard, potentially famine. We are witnessing acts reminiscent of the gravest international crimes.
"The latest offensive that Israel started in North Gaza last month is an intensified, extreme and accelerated version of the horrors of the past year," she said.
With fuel for mechanical diggers blocked by Israel, many remained trapped beneath rubble and first responders had been prevented from reaching them. Ambulances had been destroyed and hospitals attacked.
Supplies to the north were being cut off and people pushed further south, Msuya said.
"The daily cruelty we see in Gaza seems to have no limits. Beit Hanoun has been besieged for more than one month. Yesterday, food and water reached shelters, but today, Israeli soldiers forcibly displaced people from those same areas. People under siege now tell us they are afraid that they will be targeted if they receive help," she added.
Many food assistance kitchens had been forced to close and daily food distribution during October was down almost 25% from September levels.
Msuya said these were not logistical problems but issues that could be resolved with the right political will, adding that the Israeli military's announcement that the Kissufim crossing into central Gaza is now open "cannot come soon enough."
Eight aid agencies, including Oxfam, Save the Children and the Norwegian Refugee Council said Tuesday that the measures Israel had taken failed to meet any of the specific criteria set out in the U.S. letter.
"Israel not only failed to meet the U.S. criteria that would indicate support to the humanitarian response, but concurrently took actions that dramatically worsened the situation on the ground, particularly in Northern Gaza. That situation is in an even more dire state today than a month ago.
"The principals of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee now assess that the entire Palestinian population in North Gaza is at imminent risk of dying from disease, famine and violence."
The NGOs said their scorecard underscored Israel's failure to comply with U.S. demands and international obligations and that it should be held accountable for the end result of failing to ensure adequate food, medical, and other supplies reached people in need.
Blinken and Austin's letter demanded Israel allow 350 aid trucks daily into Gaza at a minimum, but U.N. data showed just 37 a day during October, the lowest figure since the conflict started, although that number has risen this month.
The arm of the Israeli military responsible for humanitarian affairs in the Gaza Strip, GOGAT, insisted Israel had complied with U.S. demands, telling the BBC "most aspects have been met and those which have not are being discussed, [and] some U.S. demands are for issues that were being resolved already."
Protests break out in Paris over pro-Israel gala organized by far-right figures France A gala organized in Paris by far-right association "Israel is Forever", which aimed to "mobilize French-speaking Zionist forces" and raise funds for Israeli armed forces, incited two pro-Palestine protests in the French capital. French authorities said the event featuring Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, an ardent supporter of Israeli settlements, posed "no threat to public order".
Protests erupted in Paris on Wednesday against a controversial gala organized by far-right figures in support of Israel. The event, intended to raise funds for the Israeli military, included Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich among its invited guests.
Smotrich, a vocal advocate of Israeli settlements, had been expected to attend Wednesday's gala, dubbed “Israel is Forever,” which was planned by an association of the same name. The group’s stated goal is to “mobilize French-speaking Zionist forces.”
After days of growing criticism of the event, Smotrich's office confirmed Wednesday that the minister would not travel to Paris to participate.
But the invitation to Smotrich drew sharp criticism from local associations, unions and left-wing political parties, prompting two protests in the French capital. The minister, a hard-line settler leader, has been accused of inflaming tensions in the West Bank and drew international condemnations this week by saying he hopes the election of Donald Trump will clear the way for Israeli annexation of the West Bank — a step that would extinguish Palestinian statehood dreams.
The French Foreign Ministry called Smotrich’s remarks “contrary to international law” and counterproductive to efforts to reduce regional tensions.
“France reiterates its commitment to the implementation of the two-state solution, with Israel and Palestine living side by side in peace and security, which is the only prospect for a just and lasting settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” the ministry said in a statement.
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Critics also pointed at Nili Kupfer-Naouri, president of the “Israel is Forever” association, who sparked outrage in 2023, after the Israel-Hamas war started, when she tweeted that “no civilian in Gaza was innocent.”
On Wednesday night, several hundred protesters marched through central Paris, denouncing the event as a “gala of hatred and shame.”
“Imagine if an association were hosting a gala for Hezbollah or Hamas — there’s no way the police would allow that,” said Melkir Saib, a 30-year-old protester. “The situation is just unfair."
The march was largely peaceful, but some demonstrators broke windows at a McDonald's along the route.
A separate group, including Jewish leftist organizations opposed to racism and antisemitism, gathered near the Arc de Triomphe chanting slogans against the gala and Smotrich.
French authorities defended the event, with Paris police chief Laurent Nunez stating that the gala posed “no major threat to public order.”
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks to guests during a rally at Clinton Middle School on January 6, 2024, in Clinton, Iowa.
“One thing I’ll be doing very early in the administration is closing up the Department of Education in Washington, DC, and sending all education and education work it needs back to the states,” Trump said in a 2023 video outlining his education policy goals. “We want them to run the education of our children because they’ll do a much better job of it. You can’t do worse.”
Closing the department wouldn’t be easy for Trump, but it isn’t impossible — and even if the DOE remains open, there are certainly ways Trump could radically change education in the United States. Here’s what’s possible.
Can Trump actually close the DOE?
Technically, yes.
However, “It would take an act of Congress to take it out,” Don Kettl, professor emeritus and former dean of the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, told Vox. “It would take an act of Congress to radically restructure it. And so the question is whether or not there’d be appetite on the Hill for abolishing the department.”
That’s not such an easy prospect, even though the Republicans look set to take narrow control of the Senate and the House. That’s because abolishing the department “would require 60 votes unless the Republicans abolish the filibuster,” Jal Mehta, professor of education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, told Vox.
Without the filibuster rule, legislation would need a simple majority to pass, but senators have been hesitant to get rid of it in recent years. With the filibuster in place, Republicans would need some Democratic senators to join their efforts to kill the department. The likelihood of Democratic senators supporting such a move is almost nonexistent.
That means the push to unwind the department is probably largely symbolic. And that is the best-case scenario, Jon Valant, director of the Brookings Institution’s Brown Center on Education Policy, told Vox. According to Valant, dismantling it would simultaneously damage the US education system while also failing to accomplish Trump’s stated goals.
Closing the department “would wreak havoc across the country,” Valant said. “It would cause terrible pain. It would cause terrible pain in parts of the country represented by congressional Republicans too.”
Much of that pain would likely fall on the country’s most vulnerable students: poor students, students in rural areas, and students with disabilities. That’s because the department’s civil rights powers help it to support state education systems in providing specialized resources to those students.
Furthermore, much of what Trump and MAGA activists claim the agency is responsible for — like teaching critical race theory and LGBTQ “ideology” — isn’t actually the purview of the DOE; things like curriculum and teacher choice are already the domain of state departments of education. And only about 10 percent of federal public education funding flows to state boards of education, according to Valant. The rest comes primarily from tax sources, so states and local school districts are already controlling much of the funding structure of their specific public education systems
“I find it a little bewildering that the US Department of Education has become such a lightning rod here, in part because I don’t know how many people have any idea what the department actually does,” Valant said.
Even without literally shutting the doors to the federal agency, there could be ways a Trump administration could hollow the DOE and do significant damage, Valant and Kettl said.
The administration could require the agency to cut the roles of agency employees, particularly those who ideologically disagree with the administration. It could also appoint officials with limited (or no) education expertise, hampering the department’s day-to-day work.
Trump officials could also attempt changes to the department’s higher education practices. The department is one of several state and nongovernmental institutions involved in college accreditation, for example — and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) has threatened to weaponize the accreditation process against universities he believes to be too “woke.”
Finally, Trump could use the department’s leadership role to affect policy indirectly: “There’s power that comes from just communicating to states what you would like to see” being taught in schools, Valant said. “And there are a lot of state leaders around the country who seem ready to follow that lead.”
Trump’s plans for the department will become clearer once the administration nominates an education secretary. Once that person is confirmed, Kettl said, “They’re just gonna be off to the races on the issue again.”
Ellen Ioanes covers breaking and general assignment news as the weekend reporter at Vox. She previously worked at Business Insider covering the military and global conflicts.
