Fallout of Assad’s ouster in Syria ripples down the Mediterranean to Libya

Analysis

The loss of its military power in Syria has led Russia to turn its sights on Libya. Could the fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria see the strengthening of his Libyan counterpart, Khalifa Haftar?

20/12/2024 - 
By: Leela JACINTO

Handout satellite image released by Maxar Technologies shows the Russian naval base at Tartus, Syria on December 13, 2024. © AFP

The reports began trickling in barely 24 hours after Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad was ousted.

“Several Assad regime officials arrive in Libya’s Benghazi,” read a headline on a local Libyan news site on Monday, December 9 – the morning after rebels arrived in Damascus to find the Syrian president had fled.

While Assad was taken to Moscow, Libyan news reports said “a number of Syrian officials” loyal to Assad had landed in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi. No details of the fleeing officials were provided, although officials at Benghazi’s Benina airbase and global flight tracking sites confirmed the plane landing.

By the end of the week, air traffic between Syria and Libya had increased. Russia was withdrawing significant amounts of military assets from Syria, primarily from its Khmeimim airbase in Latakia, and transporting them to Libya, according to several news reports.

With Assad’s sudden fall, Russia was scrambling to manage its considerable military facilities and personnel in Syria.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov admitted that Moscow was in touch with rebels in Damascus. Fighters from Syria’s rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) were posted on the outside perimeter of Russian military facilities, journalists in Syria reported. Outsiders were not allowed into the high security zones.

More than a week after Assad’s ouster, in a critical development, the Syria-Libya traffic had expanded to the sea.

Russia had begun moving naval assets on the Mediterranean from the Syrian port city of Tartus to Libya, according to US news reports. An unnamed US defence official told CNN this week that “Moscow has increased pressure on Libyan National Army commander Khalifa Haftar to secure Russia’s claim to a port in Benghazi”.

The Libyan port warning had a whiff of déjà vu.

Moscow’s attempts to secure naval access to eastern Libya, an area controlled by strongman Haftar, have been alarming officials in Western capitals over the past few years. Destabilised and divided during more than a decade of conflict, Libya has been an ideal entry point into Africa for Russia.

But Western concerns over Russia’s growing influence in Libya and the neighbouring Sahel region have not translated into any thwarting action on the ground. And so the warnings, by unnamed US officials, of Russia’s naval ambitions in Libya continue to make periodic headlines in US newspapers.

Read more Russia woos Libya's Haftar with an eye on a naval prize

The sudden collapse of the Assad regime in Syria has notched up the geostrategic scramble, sending ripples thousands of miles across the Mediterranean Sea, a vital maritime zone connecting the Middle East, Europe and Africa.

All about that naval base

Russia has a critical naval facility in the Syrian port city of Tartus, which houses elements of the Black Sea Fleet and is Moscow’s only repair and replenishment hub in the Mediterranean.

Established by the Soviet Union in the 1970s, the Tartus naval base was expanded and modernised by Russia after the 2011 anti-Assad uprising, when President Vladimir Putin used military might to back his Syrian ally.

Russia’s reward came in January 2017, when it signed a free-of-charge 49-year lease with Syria, granting Moscow sovereignty over the Tartus naval base. The lease could be automatically extended for further 25-year periods if neither side objects.

While HTS-led rebels now controlling Syria have allowed Russia to withdraw its military assets so far, the future of Moscow’s permanent naval presence in the Mediterranean is far from certain.

“We're yet to see what will happen in terms of the Russian presence in Syria. Obviously they come out weaker in the sense that the man they have invested in has gone. But the crown jewel of Russian foreign policy in Syria was not necessarily Assad. It was the military bases that they held there, that enabled power projection in the Mediterranean. That's still being negotiated right now and I think Libya is part and parcel of this strategy,” said Emad Badi, nonresident senior fellow at the Washington DC-based Atlantic Council.

With Assad’s fall, the focus has now shifted to Libya’s 1,700-kilometre Mediterranean coastline, of which the eastern chunk is controlled by Haftar’s armed coalition.

“The Russians are now more dependent on Libya. This gives Haftar a stronger hand to play. Haftar is always trying to play countries off one another, so he will feel even stronger,” said Tarek Megerisi, senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

Fathers, sons and lessons in kleptocracy

In the course of an intrigue-packed military career, Haftar has switched sides, worked with rival powers, and managed to save his skin while amassing a fortune.

Dubbed “the strongman of Cyrenaica” or eastern Libya, the 81-year-old warlord began his military career in Muammar Gaddafi’s army before deserting to the US, where he spent two decades, gaining US citizenship and clocking up other monikers such as “America’s man”.

But over the past few years, Haftar has adroitly turned into “Russia’s man”, using a template set by Assad, his Syrian strongman counterpart.

Haftar, like Assad until his ouster, holds power by relying on close-knit family ties. In the octogenarian Libyan warlord’s case, his lieutenants are his sons, who occupy lucrative posts and top military ranks in eastern Libya. The most prominent among them, Saddam Haftar, is widely rumoured to be the chosen scion of “Clan Haftar”.

Read moreHaftar's sons rise in the east, bringing 'corruption, death, destruction'

The links between the Haftars and the Assads run deep, according to Frederic Wehrey, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“Khalifa Haftar and his sons had long been bolstered, both directly and indirectly, by the Assad regime through a common ideology of authoritarian kleptocracy, networks of illicit businesses that enriched the two regimes, and mutual military aid from Russia,” noted Wehrey in a recent blog.

Human and drug trafficking links

The trafficking networks linking clans Haftar and Assad have been documented in numerous reports.

They were often physically linked by Cham Wings, a private Syrian airline sanctioned by the EU and US for laundering money and supporting the Assad regime.

The plane with Assad regime officials that landed in Benghazi on December 8, just hours after Damascus fell to rebels, belonged to Cham Wings, according to Libyan news reports.

Investigated by Frontex, the European border and coast guard agency, for its involvement in human trafficking, Cham Wings was the subject of a February 2024 investigative report by Spanish daily EL PAÍS and Lighthouse Reports, a Dutch journalism collaborative.

The report tracked the trafficking of Syrians and Bangladeshis from Damascus and the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka to Benghazi. The migrants then reached the EU with the help of “perpetrators often acting under the protection of the Hafter [sic] family,” noted EL PAÍS.

The exclusive agent for Cham Wings in Libya, Mahmoud Abulilah Al-Dj, denied the accusations in an email to EL PAÍS.

But the US Treasury Department sanctions listing for Al-Dj mentions an additional allegation: drug trafficking.

“Al-Dj used his Syria-based Al-Ta’ir Company (Al-Ta’ir) to receive cargo tied to Captagon shipments and open a major smuggling line linking Lattakia [sic] to Benghazi, which has resulted in huge profits for Captagon traffickers,” noted the Treasury Department press release.

Trade in the amphetamine drug Captagon helped bankroll the Assad regime after the imposition of international sanctions. The extent of the Captagon state-capture was in plain sight following the Syrian president’s ouster, with videos of abandoned manufacturing sites spilling with pills and portions.

Russian flights to Libya, Turkish ones from Libya

Despite the reams of evidence detailing Haftar’s illicit business networks, the US and its Western allies continue to engage with the strongman of Cyrenaica.

“American and European intelligence are well aware of the relationship between Haftar and the Russians. But for some crazy reason, American policy seems to be that they can bring Haftar onto their side. And so, if anything, they continue to empower and help Haftar, even though he is a Russian proxy at this point,” said Megerisi.

The Western approach to handling Libya has focused on calls for the withdrawal of foreign forces and an inclusive settlement between the country’s internationally recognised government based in the capital, Tripoli, and the eastern players beholden to Haftar.

But the West has displayed neither the capability nor the will to turn words into action on the ground.

Foreign powers continue to operate in Libya but the US and EU is not among them.

In January 2020, Turkey, a NATO member, intervened in Libya to support the Tripoli administration when it came under attack from Haftar’s forces. Aided by a deployment of thousands of anti-Assad Syrian fighters, Turkey managed to negotiate an end to the hostilities.

While Ankara and Moscow back opposing Libyan sides, the two powers manage to work together in the oil-rich North African nation, a coexistence founded on economic interests.

Turkey has signed hydrocarbon deals with the Tripoli authorities while scooping up contracts in the “reconstruction bonanza controlled by Haftar’s sons” in the east, noted Wolfram Lacher from the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) in a recent briefing.

The understanding between Ankara and Moscow has seen some eyebrow-raising travel over the Mediterranean in recent months.

“There is a rapport and a friendly competition, let's call it, between Turkey and Russia in Libya,” said Badi. “We're seeing Russia deploy assets to Libya, and Turkey repatriate some of its mercenaries from Libya due to Syria-related developments. So it's an interesting nexus on that front.”

As the year closes with the Assad clan on the losing end and the Haftars on a winning spree, analysts are wary of predicting what the cards read for 2025.

“Russia is moving things into Libya because Libya is already an established hub for them. It's a rational move by Russia, not an escalatory one,” said Megerisi. “It's probably worse news for the conflicts that are ongoing in places like Sudan, Niger, Mali, because a lot of the equipment that comes to Libya ends up going to other theaters where there is active combat. So we might see an escalation in those regions in the future.”

Israel army says troops shot Syrian protester in leg

ILLEGAL OCCUPATION OF THE GOLAN HEIGHTS 

By AFP
December 20, 2024

A child looks on as Israeli soldiers patrol in Jubata al-Khashab, in the UN-patrolled Golan Heights buffer zone, which Israeli troops entered after the fall of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad - Copyright AFP Aris MESSINIS

The Israeli military said its forces shot a protester during a demonstration against the army’s activities in a village in southern Syria on Friday, injuring him in the leg.

Since Islamist-led rebels toppled Syrian president Bashar al-Assad on December 8 Israel has carried out hundreds of air strikes on Syrian military facilities in what it says is a bid to prevent them from falling into hostile hands.

In a move widely condemned internationally, Israel also sent troops into a United Nations-patrolled buffer zone in the Golan Heights, and beyond, calling it a defensive and temporary measure.

“During a protest against IDF’s activities in the area of Maariya in southern Syria, IDF (Israeli military) called on protesters to distance themselves from the troops,” the military told AFP.

The village is just outside the southern point of the UN-patrolled zone.

“After the troops identified a threat, they operated in accordance with standard operating procedures against the threat… The protester was shot in the leg,” the military said.

The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said the Israeli troops were stationed at a barracks in the village.

“During a protest condemning the Israeli incursion, a young man was injured by Israeli forces’ gunfire in the village of Maariya, in the Daraa region,” the Observatory said.

Israeli forced from Al-Jazeera barracks “opened fire directly at the demonstrators,” wounding the man in the leg, it said.

– Israelis ‘sowed fear’ –

A villager from Maariya told AFP that Israeli soldiers had been entering his village and other nearby villages in recent days.

“When the Israelis entered … they sowed fear and horror among the people, the children, the women,” Ali al-Khalaf, 52, told AFP.

“So much so that some people fled to other nearby villages. They (Israeli troops) entered the villages of Maariya, Aabdyn and Jamlah,” he added.

On Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a security briefing atop a strategic Syrian mountain inside the UN-patrolled zone.

During the visit Netanyahu reviewed the army’s deployment in the area, his office said.

Hours after Assad was overthrown, Netanyahu had ordered Israeli troops to seize the buffer zone.

Israel has framed the move as temporary and defensive, with Netanyahu saying it was in response to a “vacuum on Israel’s border and in the buffer zone”.

Israeli forces have also been operating in areas beyond the buffer zone in Syrian-controlled territory, the military has confirmed.

Netanyahu said his country has “no interest in confronting Syria. Israel’s policy toward Syria will be determined by the evolving reality on the ground”.

Syria’s new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa accused Israel of “a new unjustified escalation in the region” by entering the buffer zone but said “the general exhaustion in Syria after years of war” prevents it from entering new conflicts.

Israel conquered around two-thirds of the Golan during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and later annexed it. The United States, during Donald Trump’s first term as president, is the only country that has recognised Israel’s sovereignty over the occupied Golan.

Pentagon Admits Number of US Troops in Syria Much Higher Than Previously Disclosed

"How does the Pentagon 'recently learn' that it has more than double the number of U.S. troops in Syria than it claimed to have a day earlier?" asked veteran journalist Jeremy Scahill.

Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder holds a press briefing at the Pentagon on October 1, 2024 in Arlington, Virginia.
(Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Jake Johnson
Dec 20, 2024

COMMON DREAMS

The Pentagon acknowledged Thursday that it had been providing journalists and the public with an inaccurate count of the number of U.S. troops deployed to Syria, with a spokesperson for the department telling members of the press that the actual figure is two times higher than what was previously disclosed.

"We have been briefing you regularly that there are approximately 900 U.S. troops deployed to Syria," Pentagon Press Secretary Pat Ryder told reporters during a briefing on Thursday. "In light of the situation in Syria and the significant interest, we recently learned that those numbers were higher, and so asked to look into it. I learned today that in fact there are approximately 2,000 U.S. troops in Syria."

Ryder said the roughly 1,100 additional U.S. forces are considered "temporary rotational forces that deploy to meet shifting mission requirements," while the other 900 troops are "on longer-term deployments."

There is also an undisclosed number of private U.S. contractors operating in Syria, as The Intercept's Nick Turse has reported.

Progressive lawmakers, and some Republicans, have argued that U.S. troops should be withdrawn from Syria given the lack of clear legal authorization for their continued presence.



The Pentagon spokesperson could not provide an exact date on which the extra 1,100 troops were deployed to Syria, but he said they were there "clearly before the fall" of former President Bashar al-Assad's government earlier this month.

The U.S. maintains it was not involved in the rebel offensive that toppled the Assad government, and on Friday a delegation of senior American officials arrived in Damascus for the first U.S. diplomatic mission to Syria's capital since Assad's fall.


Drop Site's Jeremy Scahill, who has long reported on covert U.S. military activities overseas, expressed incredulity at Ryder's comments during Thursday's briefing.

"How does the Pentagon 'recently learn' that it has more than double the number of U.S. troops in Syria than it claimed to have a day earlier?" Scahill asked.

'Unprecedented' Lawsuit Targets 2 US Lawmakers for Backing Israeli Military Aid

"This class action is only the beginning of the people's exercise of power against the violence of the American government," said one plaintiff.

Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) speaks during the news conference in Washington, D.C. 
(Photo: Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images)

Julia Conley
Dec 20, 2024
COMMON DREAMS

More than 500 California residents on Thursday took the latest legal action against U.S. leaders in an effort to stop the government's support for Israel's assault on Gaza, with taxpayers represented by two Democratic U.S. House members filing a class action lawsuit against the lawmakers for voting in favor of Israeli military aid.

The plaintiffs, who are represented by the law firm Szeto-Wong Law, live in 10 counties in Northern California and are represented by Democratic Reps. Jared Huffman and Mike Thompson.

The specific legal tactic being used by the plaintiffs is "unprecedented," according to the group Taxpayers Against Genocide, and hinges on Huffman and Thompson's votes in favor of the Israel Security Supplemental Appropriations Act in April.



The funding package allocated $26.28 billion in military aid to Israel, which at the time was six months into its bombardment of Gaza and a near-total blockade on humanitarian aid that was pushing the enclave's population of 2.3 million people toward starvation.

Now, Israel has been attacking Gaza for 440 days, and more than 45,000 Palestinians have been killed since the onslaught began. At least 77 Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks on Thursday, the same day the class action lawsuit was filed and Doctors Without Borders published a report that detailed how the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have imposed "apocalyptic conditions" on the enclave and how humanitarian workers have seen "clear signs of ethnic cleansing as Palestinians are forcibly displaced, trapped, and bombed."

The plaintiffs in the class action lawsuit argued that Huffman and Thompson's votes in favor of billions of dollars for the IDF abused the lawmakers' "tax and spend" authority and "illegally forced their constituents into being complicit in genocide."

Huffman and Thompson voted for the funding package, the plaintiffs noted, months after the International Court of Justice issued a preliminary ruling in South Africa's genocide case against Israel, finding that Israel's actions had threatened Palestinians' right to be protected from genocide. The case has proceeded for ongoing litigation since the preliminary ruling was announced.

The votes were also taken weeks after Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, issued an extensive report that found Israel was committing acts of genocide in Gaza.

"I trusted Congressman Huffman to call for a cease-fire and to demand that the U.S. follow our own laws in addition to international law," said Robie Tenorio, one of the plaintiffs. "But despite overwhelming documented and corroborated evidence, Congressman Huffman voted in April 2024 to send Israel more offensive weapons, all paid for by U.S. taxpayers."

In March, a month before the vote, Democratic lawmakers urged President Joe Biden to enforce the Humanitarian Aid Corridor Act—Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, which prohibits the U.S. from providing military aid to any country that is blocking U.S. humanitarian assistance.

The administration threatened in October to cut off military aid within one month if Israel did not prove that it was allowing in sufficient food, water, medicine, and other relief, but the U.S. State Department did not follow through on the threat despite the U.N.'s finding that conditions had not improved.

In January, the Center for Constitutional Rights sued Biden and members of his Cabinet on behalf of several Palestinian groups and individuals, accusing them of failing to prevent genocide in Gaza. The case was dismissed in July.


The lawsuit filed on Thursday argues that Huffman and Thompson violated the U.S. Constitution, the U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, and U.S. federal laws.

Norman Solomon, co-founder of the grassroots advocacy group RootsAction, said at a press conference on Thursday that Huffman has consistently said he supports U.S. military aid to Israel because he "opposes antisemitism."

"As a Jewish-American I find that kind of rationale disgusting, outrageous, and sickening," said Solomon.




Leslie Angeline, a plaintiff from Marin County, California and an organizer with the peace group CodePink, wrote at Common Dreams on Thursday about her hunger strike in protest of U.S. support for Israel, which she ended as the lawsuit was announced.

"I want to tell you what 30 days with no food does to a person, and my experience is made easier by the fact that I have a roof over my head, access to clean water, and a certainty that I won't have to flee my home at any moment," Angeline wrote. "The women my age in Gaza are not given the same luxuries."

"I wake up each morning worrying about the genocide that is happening in Gaza, knowing that if it wasn't for my government's partnership with the Israeli government this couldn't continue. Our government is sending billions upon billions of our tax dollars to slaughter innocent children, mothers and fathers, entire families with bombs and artillery funded by our country," she continued. "I understand that 'my trauma' is nothing compared to what the people of Gaza must be suffering. I can't even imagine the horrors they're being forced to live through or die from."


Maria Barakat, a Palestinian-Lebanese American and plaintiff from Sonoma County, said it was significant that hundreds of Californians "feel empowered by the ability to take meaningful action."


"This class action is only the beginning of the people's exercise of power against the violence of the American government," said Barakat, "and our refusal to be complicit."

It’s Becoming Harder to Protest Gaza War on US Campus — and Also to Teach About It


Organizing for labor protections and academic freedom is crucial to combat higher education’s creeping authoritarianism.

By Michelle Chen ,

Truthout

December 20, 2024

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators rally after marching from University Yard at George Washington University on May 9, 2024, in Washington, D.C.Kent Nishimura / Getty Images

On a crisp November morning in Ithaca, New York, scores of young people gathered on the sidewalk to cheer their classmate, Sriram Parasurama, a second-year doctoral student in horticulture at Cornell University. He should have been working on his research on the connection between trees and fungi, but instead, he was wrapping up a court hearing downtown. He had been banished from campus since his arrest by the campus police department, following his participation in a Palestine solidarity protest on school grounds in September.

Parasurama’s supporters met him and two other students facing similar charges outside the courthouse. A legal advocate for the students announced that after pleading not guilty to charges of “obstructing government administration and unlawful assembly,” Parasurama and another student, Yihun Stith, were offered a deal: a community service stint in exchange for reducing the charges to disorderly conduct. A third student’s case was dismissed on a technicality. The court’s response seemed relatively light compared to Cornell’s initial crackdown on the protest, which triggered disciplinary proceedings and suspension for several participants, whom the administration had condemned for supposedly creating “an environment of intimidation and fear.”

Campus activists remain locked in a protracted battle with the administration about the freedom of expression in higher education, amid some of the largest campus political mobilizations in a generation. Having been stuck in a plodding disciplinary review process since September, Parasurama told Truthout that university administrators are “definitely trying to drag this out, make this as miserable as possible, both … to diminish some of the attention and interest from students and other[s], as well as, I think, just make the process more miserable for me, so that I then agree to [a settlement] that I wouldn’t have [agreed to] a month and a half ago.… Their goal is to get me to shut up and commit to not protesting anymore and just focus on research, or the alternative of kicking me out of the school.”

Expressive Activity

Cornell (where the author is a postdoctoral associate) is one of dozens of universities that have introduced new regulations on when and how protests can take place on campus, erecting bureaucratic barriers for planning and registering protests. Cornell’s enforcement of such rules has created a Kafkaesque review process, leading to extraordinary penalties for student activists, including indefinite suspensions and three-year bans from campus.

But Cornell’s treatment of activism among employees — including teachers, researchers, clerical and custodial staff — is more complex. Graduate student-workers, faculty and staff report that they have faced surveillance, retaliation or job loss for protesting against the genocide in Gaza. The university’s punishment of Parasurama, for example, has not only led to his disenrollment but has also upended his federal grant funding and preempted his employment as a researcher and teaching assistant. Another graduate student worker in Africana studies, Momodou Taal, was also temporarily suspended due to his participation in campus protests and was barred from teaching earlier this semester. However, facing protests from faculty and students, the university eventually backed down from its initial threat to disenroll him, which would potentially have triggered his deportation to the United Kingdom.


Academic Labor Unions Are Key to Fighting Trump’s Repressive Higher Ed Agenda
AAUP President Todd Wolfson says unions like his are key to fighting Trump’s attacks on the bedrock of democracy.  By Eleanor J. Bader , Truthout  December 5, 2024

Cornell’s “Interim Expressive Activity Policy” has been widely condemned by progressive faculty as a dangerous overreach. While couched in bromides about encouraging “the free exchange of ideas,” the rules explicitly restrict protests that may “disrupt the regular conduct of university teaching, research, business, or other activities”; impede access to university spaces; or engage in “Heckling, interruptions, and other acts that intentionally attempt to disrupt speakers or events.” The policy appears to be a direct response to pressure from pro-Israel politicians and major donors, who have advocated for the suppression and criminalization of Palestine solidarity protests. The targeted application of these rules to student and worker activists on campus has crystallized the fundamental power imbalance in higher education.

The protesters’ goal on September 18, admittedly, was to “disrupt.” Banging pots and pans as they marched into the career fair at the university’s Statler Hotel, activists with Cornell’s Coalition for Mutual Liberation delivered letters “indicting” two employers featured at the fair for “war crimes and genocide.” The companies, Boeing and L3Harris, are major weapons manufacturers that have supplied military technology to Israel with the support of U.S. military aid, and have been linked directly to attacks on civilians in Israel’s war on Gaza. That the protesters were disruptive is not in question — what is in question is the rationale driving the administration’s crackdown. (In an emailed response, Cornell stated that its policy is undergoing a review process, that it has solicited community input, and that it could not comment on individual disciplinary cases.)

“It’s about the university trying to create an image for itself that it can take to donors, take to alumni. And staff, faculty and students are expendable in the process,” David Bateman, an associate professor of government at Cornell’s Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy, told Truthout. And in light of the vitriol Donald Trump and other conservative political figures have heaped onto the Palestine solidarity encampments in recent months, Bateman said, “there’s a real worry that the university will become an arm of the MAGA state in coming years.”

The protest aimed to challenge the business model of the neoliberal university: a corporation that is ostensibly devoted to education but is financed and directed through lucrative industrial partnerships and influential donors. The Department of Defense is one of the top federal agencies funding research at Cornell, contributing about $50 million in the 2022-2023 fiscal year, according to the latest research data report. One branch of the university, Cornell Tech, has collaborated with the Israeli military through its partnership with the Israeli research institute Technion, known for developing technologies that have been used in Israel’s military assaults on Palestinian civilians.


“Their goal is to get me to shut up and commit to not protesting anymore and just focus on research, or the alternative of kicking me out of the school.”

The protesters not only embarrassed Cornell by exposing its collusion with Israel’s military industries but also called attention to the university’s role in supplying graduates to the workforces of firms like Boeing and Technion.

“I think Palestine generally as an issue kind of targets the core of imperial structure that … underlies a lot of university institutions, not just Cornell,” Parasurama said. “This Statler [Hotel] rally … was targeting weapons manufacturers, and our own trustees at Cornell have investments in weapons companies. And so this is really striking at the heart, I think, of what’s valued by institutions like these.”
The End of Teaching

This crackdown cannot be separated from the business agenda of U.S. higher education, which has over the past generation eclipsed the intellectual agendas of its scholars and students. It’s becoming harder not just to protest the war on Palestine, but also teach about it. Under the new expressive activity rules, mobilizing to stop a genocide may likely be interpreted as an offensive act that could lead to dismissals or suspensions. There is also the looming threat of students filing federal Title VI civil rights complaints against academic workers who have publicly criticized Israel, based on allegations of antisemitism.

According to Paul Kohlbry, a postdoctoral associate in anthropology specializing in Palestine’s political ecology, “Rather than ever saying, ‘You can teach X and not Y,’ … they allow the popular outside pressure, through Title VI and other kinds of things, to really chill speech. And then, behind the scenes, they just don’t give funds for [teaching about Palestine].” In practice, he noted, the systematic marginalization of progressive scholarship and pedagogy on Palestinian history and politics sends a warning to faculty that “if you try to teach about Palestine like that, you won’t have the backing of the higher ups at Cornell.”

Currently, Kohlbry argues, official programs and events on Cornell’s campus that focus on Israel and Palestine feature a sanitized, “both sides” framing, presenting Palestinian suffering not as a roiling human rights crisis but rather as a question of rival viewpoints between pro- and anti-Israel camps. Kohlbry himself became the target of a police investigation into his involvement with the Palestine solidarity encampment, which was later dropped.

One of the latest targets of the administration’s intensifying scrutiny is “Gaza, Indigeneity, Resistance,” a course scheduled for the spring semester with Eric Cheyfitz, a professor in the American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program. Cornell’s Interim President Michael Kotlikoff recently remarked that while he would not try to block the course from being taught, he “personally [found] the course description to represent a radical, factually inaccurate and biased view of the formation of the State of Israel and the ongoing conflict.” The Cornell chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and the Middle East Studies Association assailed the comments as a breach of academic freedom and political interference with a course that had already been approved by Cheyfitz’s department.

Cheyfitz still looks forward to teaching the course, as he has seen many students express interest in learning about Palestine. “I know people get intimidated because their jobs are on the line,” he said. “But the only way to resist is to teach those courses,” instead of letting outside political pressure circumscribe their curriculum. “Once that is closed down, there’s no point in teaching anymore. What are you doing? You’re just silencing yourself. And that’s the end of teaching.”

The idea that higher education should be insulated from commercial or governmental interference is a relatively modern phenomenon, growing out of a 1915 declaration by the AAUP outlining professors’ freedom to research, teach and engage in “extra-mural utterance and action” without restraint or censorship. These principles went hand in hand with the institution of tenure, which shields professors from retaliation or dismissal without cause.

That kind of intellectual autonomy is “a freedom that sort of sustains and underpins the very enterprise of research, teaching and learning,” said Bateman. However, he noted that the scope of academic freedom has receded steadily as the majority of instructors in higher education become contingent, short-term, or part-time — and excluded from tenure. He advocates for making academic freedom more inclusive and interconnected with other issues of democracy and justice in the education system, so that “anyone who is engaged in research, teaching or learning has to be able to have this freedom.” Academic freedom, in other words, should be embedded “within these other principles [that] apply more generally, such as economic security, workplace economic protections … free-speech principles generally.”

At the same time, most workers at institutions like Cornell have neither workplace protections nor academic freedom. Typically working as at-will employees, they can essentially be fired for any reason at any time, as long as it’s not directly outlawed (for example, not based explicitly on gender or racial bias). So for adjunct instructors, office staff, and others who do not have access to tenure, speaking out on Palestine is riskier. Could they be denied a promotion or harassed by coworkers for hanging a Palestinian flag in their cubicle, or attending a campus protest?

Many academic workers, especially staff earning hourly wages, “feel like they can’t attend rallies on campus at all; even if they might get a lunch break in the middle of the day, they feel like they have to be accountable for all of their time on campus,” one staffer (who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of their position) told Truthout in an interview. They added that, although workers have been told that what they do outside of work time is their prerogative, they are wary of political exposure. In reality, workers at Cornell and other institutions have faced surveillance, public smears and retaliation from management over their activism around Palestine. As hourly staff, they said, “in some ways, I have a pretty strong divide between my working life and my private life, but if the university is saying that anything I post on social media could be subject to scrutiny from HR, then it’s like, okay, well, do I really have a private life?”


“I know people get intimidated because their jobs are on the line, but the only way to resist is to teach those courses.”

The ongoing suppression of teaching and dialogue on Palestine hinges on the exploitative economic structure of the corporate university. A four-year liberal arts education has become less about learning than about maintaining a financial and commercial vehicle for corporate and philanthropic investment; an academic machine for generating and laundering profits and political influence. Meanwhile, undergraduate study increasingly centers around preparing students for lucrative corporate careers, while saddling them with wildly inflated tuition rates and crushing student debt.

Yet the drive to corporatize and commercialize higher education hasn’t stopped the right from demonizing colleges as bastions of rabid ultraliberalism. Paradoxically, the conservative caricature of academics as an elite “woke” mob has fueled attacks on affirmative action, diversity initiatives, and other efforts to make academic and campus culture more inclusive, even though in reality universities are becoming more reactionary, authoritarian and — as the crackdowns on Palestine-related dissent have shown — aligned with a right-wing foreign policy agenda.

“There’s something important about not silencing ourselves ahead of possible censure,” said Mike Bishop, a doctoral student in developmental sociology and former staffer who worked on Cornell’s community engagement programs. A crucial challenge to the administration’s “dehumanizing” treatment of Palestine solidarity activists will come from students and workers organizing to “advance this conversation even just a little bit, toward a direction where humanity of all people, especially the people who are most oppressed, is centered,” Bishop added.
Academic Labor

The suppression of activism and teaching about the plight of Palestinians represents how the academic labor force has been subordinated to the business of the university. And it reveals the need for a much more expansive definition of academic freedom and academic labor rights. As long as the freedom to think, speak and organize is seen as the earned privilege of a tiny sliver of the academic workforce, academic freedom will ultimately be treated as disposable whenever the administration deems it inconvenient. Academic freedom cannot be protected or practiced in an academic environment rife with economic inequity. The challenges of organizing a campus community around a cause like Palestine — economic instability, a lack of democracy and autonomy in the workplace, the transience of precarious faculty jobs — are exactly what a strong academic labor movement can help overcome, especially as more and more of the academic workforce is relegated to adjunct or contingent positions.


“If the university is saying that anything I post on social media could be subject to scrutiny from HR, then it’s like, okay, well, do I really have a private life?”

Calling out the commercial interests and corporate exploitation at the heart of the university — as the career fair protesters did — is a crucial part of challenging the neoliberalization of higher education. But so is strengthening the leverage that faculty, graduate workers, and others can wield within the ranks of the academic workforce — through unionization, collective bargaining, and when necessary, withholding the labor upon which higher education’s political economy depends.

Cornell Graduate Students United (CGSU), a recently formed union representing more than 3,000 graduate employees, has pursued academic freedom within the framework of labor rights. Last July, CGSU negotiated a memorandum of agreement that commits the administration to bargain with the union over any changes to working conditions that have been imposed through the Interim Expressive Activity Policy. That has provided a layer of legal protection for members like Taal and Parasurama as the union tries to negotiate their reinstatement. (So far, CGSU reports Taal has resumed his studies but remains barred from teaching, while Parasurama’s academic future remains in limbo post-disenrollment.) More broadly, in ongoing bargaining negotiations, the union is advocating for just cause protections, to protect members’ ability to “express themselves as members of society or as representatives of their fields of instruction, study, or research, free from [Cornell’s] censorship or retaliation.”

It is no coincidence that the mobilization of students and workers against the Gaza genocide parallels a surge in labor organizing in higher education, with more than 100 academic worker unions emerging over the past decade and about 20 strikes in the 2022-2023 academic year alone. The National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions has identified 35 academic collective bargaining agreements, out of a random sample of 135, that explicitly protect union members against discrimination for political activity. Alongside CGSU, academic worker unions at Rutgers University, Brown, Harvard, the University of Southern California and the University of California system have mobilized, filed federal unfair labor practice charges, and in some cases, launched strikes, in response to their administrations’ restrictions on Palestine-related campus activism.

The protests over Gaza have catalyzed resistance to the corporatization of the university. Yet in the long term, the most effective challenge to the creeping authoritarianism in higher education may be organizing for labor protections in tandem with academic freedom. Because, while university administrations treat higher education like a business, academic workers can reclaim academic freedom and educational democracy in a world of conflict and repression, and redefine what a college campus should provide for everyone who comes there to work, learn and live together with dignity.

This article is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), and you are free to share and republish under the terms of the license.

Michelle Chen is a contributing editor at Dissent Magazine, and a contributing writer at The Nation, In These Times and Truthout. She is also a co-producer of the “Asia Pacific Forum” podcast and Dissent Magazine’s “Belabored” podcast, and teaches history at the City University of New York. Follow her on Twitter: @meeshellchen.

Israeli Troops Recount Indiscriminate Murder of Civilians in Gaza 'Kill Zone'

"We're killing civilians there who are then counted as terrorists," said one Israeli veteran, who added that random slayings have become "a competition between units" to see who can kill more people.


Israeli invaders patrol in Khan Younis, Gaza, Palestine on January 27, 2024.
(Photo: Nicolas Garcia/AFP via Getty Images)

Brett Wilkins
Dec 20, 2024
COMMON DREAMS

Israel Defense Forces commanders, soldiers, and veterans described a "kill zone" in the heart of the Gaza Strip where troops are ordered to shoot "anyone who enters," adding to the copious body of evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by IDF troops during their 441-day obliteration of the Palestinian enclave.

Haaretz, Israel's oldest newspaper, this week published the accounts of anonymous IDF troops who received orders to kill unarmed men, women, children, and elders in the Netzarim Corridor, a strip of land several miles wide that bisects Gaza from the Israeli border to the Mediterranean Sea just south of Gaza City.

"The forces in the field call it 'the line of dead bodies,'" a commander in Division 252 told Haaretz. "After shootings, bodies are not collected, attracting packs of dogs who come to eat them. In Gaza, people know that wherever you see these dogs, that's where you must not go."

Another senior officer in that unit told the paper that "the division commander designated this area as a 'kill zone.' Anyone who enters is shot."




One Division 252 veteran said: "For the division, the kill zone extends as far as a sniper can see. We're killing civilians there who are then counted as terrorists. The IDF spokesperson's announcements about casualty numbers have turned this into a competition between units. If Division 99 kills 150, the next unit aims for 200."

A commander in Division 252 said that out of 200 "militants" the IDF said one unit had killed, "only 10 were confirmed as known Hamas operatives. Yet no one questioned the public announcement about killing hundreds of militants."


A senior reserve commander asserted, "Calling ourselves the world's most moral army absolves soldiers who know exactly what we're doing."

"It means ignoring that for over a year, we've operated in a lawless space where human life holds no value," he added. "Yes, we commanders and combatants are participating in the atrocity unfolding in Gaza. Now everyone must face this reality."

"Calling ourselves the world's most moral army absolves soldiers who know exactly what we're doing."

Another Division 252 veteran recounted the time when "guards spotted someone approaching" and "we responded as if it was a large militant raid."

"We took positions and just opened fire. I'm talking about dozens of bullets, maybe more," he continued. "For about a minute or two, we just kept shooting at the body. People around me were shooting and laughing."

The soldier continued:

We approached the blood-covered body, photographed it, and took the phone. He was just a boy, maybe 16. That evening, our battalion commander congratulated us for killing a terrorist, saying he hoped we'd kill 10 more tomorrow. When someone pointed out he was unarmed and looked like a civilian, everyone shouted him down. The commander said: 'Anyone crossing the line is a terrorist, no exceptions, no civilians. Everyone's a terrorist.' This deeply troubled me—did I leave my home to sleep in a mouse-infested building for this? To shoot unarmed people?

One Division 99 reservist recalled watching a video feed from a drone showing "an adult with two children crossing the forbidden line."

"We had them under complete surveillance with the drone and weapons aimed at them—they couldn't do anything," he said. "Suddenly we heard a massive explosion. A combat helicopter had fired a missile at them. Who thinks it's legitimate to fire a missile at children? And with a helicopter? This is pure evil."

Soldiers who served in Division 252 described the first speech delivered by Brig. Gen. Yehuda Vach, who took command of the unit last summer and, according to one veteran in attendance, told its troops that "there are no innocents in Gaza."

"In the Middle East, victory comes through conquering territory," Vach said, according to the witness. "We must keep conquering until we win."

"Who thinks it's legitimate to fire a missile at children? And with a helicopter? This is pure evil."

One officer said Vach obsessed over carrying out the so-called Generals' Plan—a blueprint for the starvation and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from northern Gaza—and sought to forcibly expel 250,000 people from the area.

The IDF responded to the Haaretz story in a statement claiming "strikes are targeted solely at military objectives, and before the strikes are carried out, many steps are taken to minimize harm to noncombatants."

However, the testimonies published by Haaretz are consistent with numerous other accounts provided by IDF soldiers and veterans, as well as Palestinian survivors and witnesses, and international medical personnel who worked in Gaza.

Earlier this year, South Africa—which is leading a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice—filed an emergency request with the tribunal citing "testimony from Israeli soldiers who have served in Gaza that Israeli soldiers treat evacuation zones as 'zones of extermination' in which all remaining Palestinians are considered to be legitimate targets."

American trauma surgeons who volunteered at the European Hosptial in Khan Younis described "horrifying violence deliberately directed at civilians," including "a 3-year-old boy shot in the head, a 12-year-old girl shot through the chest, an ICU nurse shot through the abdomen, all by some of the best-trained marksmen in the world."

Palestinian survivors have recounted IDF troops or drones killing young children and people holding white flags. Rescue workers and journalists attempting to document the incidents have also been killed.


These are some of the more than 45,000 Palestinians who, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, have been killed, and over 107,000 others who've been wounded, since Israel launched the war on Gaza in retaliation for the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack.

On Thursday, the international medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières and Human Rights Watch joined United Nations experts, rights groups including Amnesty International, more than a dozen national governments, and thousands of academics, jurists, and others who accuse Israel of genocidal acts or outright genocide in Gaza.

Report: Israel “Systematically” Uses Palestinian Children as Human Shields


Israel has killed over 17,500 children in Gaza since October 2023, officials say, with the true toll likely far higher.

By Sharon Zhang , 

Truthout

December 19, 2024

A photograph, taken during an embed with the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and reviewed by the IDF censorship office prior to publication, shows Israeli soldiers guarding the entrance of a tunnel.Ilia Yefimovich / picture alliance via Getty Images

Israeli forces carried out an “unprecedented assault” on Palestinian children in Gaza and the occupied West Bank in 2024, a children’s rights group has said, including repeatedly using children as human shields amid Israel’s genocide.

Israeli forces have killed over 17,500 children in Gaza since October 2023, according to Gaza health officials, with the true death toll likely far higher as children dying due to disease, starvation, or being trapped under the rubble are going uncounted by officials who have lost access. An estimated 35,000 children have lost one or both parents.

Meanwhile, thousands of Palestinian children have sustained critical injuries or have been left with permanent disabilities as a result of Israeli massacres, as Defense for Children International-Palestine (DCIP) wrote in its end-of-year report.

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Gaza’s health system was already weakened before the genocide due to decades of Israeli occupation, and is now almost completely inaccessible for children needing emergency or long term care — much less services like preventative care.

This year, the risk of polio spreading among children in Gaza emerged due to Israel’s disease campaign, with one 10-month-old paralyzed from the disease and Israel preventing humanitarian groups from finishing their vaccination campaign in north Gaza. Other diseases, like chickenpox and scabies, raged through displacement camps that were overcrowded due to Israel’s mass expulsion campaign.

Many children are undergoing amputation procedures without anesthesia, UNRWA said.

“In 2024, Israel’s genocidal campaign against Palestinians in Gaza reached catastrophic proportions. Relentless aerial bombardments, ground invasions, and siege tactics deliberately targeted Palestinian civilians, leaving children to suffer the most,” DCIP’s report says.

The number of Palestinian children detained in Israeli prisons also reached a record high in 2024, the group said.

In the occupied West Bank, Israeli soldiers and settlers killed one Palestinian child every four days this year, “an escalation made possible by decades of impunity,” the group said.

Israel’s violence included using children as human shields “systematically” this year, as DCIP has documented throughout the genocide.

This includes an incident in March in which Israeli tanks surrounded a group of Palestinian children waiting in line for aid in Gaza City. Soldiers stripped the children and tied them up, depriving them of food and water and forcing them for an entire day to walk in front of tanks and in front of buildings that the military wanted to enter, as DCIP found.

Israeli forces’ weaponization of starvation, meanwhile, has put children, especially newborns and children with disabilities, at heightened risk, with babies as young as two months old starving to death, the group said; in August, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor found that Israel killed 210 newborn babies a month on average in Gaza since the beginning of the genocide.

Palestinian Americans File Lawsuit Against US for “Abandoning” Them in Gaza


The US arranges evacuations for others, but is leaving Palestinian Americans to die in Gaza, the lawsuit says.

By Sharon Zhang , 

Truthout

December 20, 2024

Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks during a Council on Foreign Relations event on December 18, 2024, in New York City.Michael M. Santiago / Getty Images

Agroup of Palestinian Americans is suing the U.S. government for failing to evacuate American citizens and legal residents stranded in Gaza amid Israel’s genocide, saying that the U.S. is violating constitutional protections afforded to all Americans by discriminating against Palestinians and leaving them stranded.

The group of nine Palestinian Americans, either themselves stuck in Gaza or whose family are stranded there, accuse the government of violating the Fifth Amendment, promising equal protection, “by depriving Plaintiffs of the normal and typical evacuation efforts the federal government extends to Americans who are not Palestinians,” the lawsuit says.

The plaintiffs were in Gaza before the U.S. issued a travel advisory against going to Gaza on October 11, 2023, the lawsuit says, and were thus trapped as the White House said that the government had no plans for Palestinian Americans trapped in Gaza — despite having arranged charter flights for Israeli Americans to flee Israel shortly after the October 7, 2023, attack.

The U.S.’s evacuation of people from other countries or of other nationalities from war zones but not of Palestinians is evidence of a “discriminatory two-tier system” employed by the government against people of Palestinian origin, the lawsuit says.

All of the plaintiffs are people who are eligible for evacuation but whose requests to leave have been swept under the rug by the Biden administration, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which is supporting the lawsuit. Each of them have “tried for months to exhaust non-legal means to escape Gaza,” including with other previous legal actions.


The groups are the latest to join the large number of prominent voices accusing Israel of genocide or genocidal acts.

CAIR says that the State Department has blamed Israel’s closure of the Rafah crossing — which happened in May after Israeli forces violated President Joe Biden’s supposed “red line” — but say that the lawsuit requests evacuation through Kerem Shalom, which has been the site of other evacuations, and which remains open.

“The law requires the U.S. government to protect Americans wherever they may be. With every passing day, the danger of our clients dying from Israeli bombardment or the starvation and disease now rampant in Gaza only goes up,” Maria Kari, the case’s lead attorney, said in a statement. “The State Department must do the right thing and save these people from certain death.”

The plaintiffs’ stories are horrific. They include that of the Khalid Mourtaga, from Mississippi, who is trapped in Gaza with untreated Hepatitis A; Sahar Harara, of Texas, whose father was killed by Israel and whose mother, a green card holder, is critically injured; Marowa Abusharia, who lives in New Jersey, whose spouse, stuck in north Gaza, hasn’t met their twin daughters who were born shortly after the genocide began; and Heba Enayeh, whose 17-year-old son, Abdallah, is trapped in Gaza and in need of urgent medical care.

One of the plaintiffs, Salsabeel ElHelou, is hoping for evacuation for her and her three sons, who are 7, 12 and 15 years old. In March, three of their names appeared on the evacuation list — but not that of Almotasem, the eldest. Months later, Almotasem was hit and wounded in an Israeli airstrike, and all of the children now have skin conditions and suffer from malnutrition.

“Defendants have full knowledge of the desperate condition of the Plaintiffs and yet have failed to fulfill their mandatory, non-discretionary duty to evacuate Palestinians from Gaza just like the federal government has evacuated other United States persons of other nationalities,” the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit is the second filed against the U.S. government this week by Palestinian Americans after a group of five Palestinians sued aiming to stop the U.S.’s weapons transfers to Israel, saying that the U.S. is violating the Leahy Law by continuing to aid Israel’s assault.

The U.S. has consistently shown total indifference toward the lives of Americans if their existence is a supposed affront to Israelis. This week, the State Department implied to members of Congress that they are not independently investigating Israel’s killing of Turkish American activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, and are instead relying solely on Israel’s word — despite Israel having a long history of lying to exonerate itself.

This article is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), and you are free to share and republish under the terms of the license.

Sharon Zhang is a news writer at Truthout covering politics, climate and labor. Before coming to Truthout, Sharon had written stories for Pacific Standard, The New Republic, and more. She has a master’s degree in environmental studies. She can be found on Twitter and Bluesky.

Appalachian Communities Are Ready to Resist Trump’s Environmental Racism


We must reject fossil fuel expansion disguised as economic progress and embrace sustainable solutions.

By Marcia Dinkins & Patricia M. DeMarco ,

Truthout

December 20, 2024

GenOns Cheswick Power Station, a coal-burning plant, is pictured on June 7, 2021, about 15 miles northeast of Pittsburgh in Cheswick, Pennsylvania.Jeff Swensen / Getty Images

GenOns Cheswick Power Station, a coal-burning plant, is pictured on June 7, 2021, about 15 miles northeast of Pittsburgh in Cheswick, Pennsylvania.Jeff Swensen / Getty Images

The 2024 elections left the country in emotional turmoil, with deep uncertainty about the future — particularly regarding environmental justice. As Appalachian women and environmental leaders, we understand the weight of this moment, but maintain a steadfast belief in our communities’ resilience and the transformative power of collective action to drive change.

This moment of fear and anxiety calls for unity. Locally in Appalachia, we can ensure that health remains a human right on government agendas. That is why the Black Appalachian Coalition (BLAC) has just launched the Freedom to Breathe campaign in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, a regional initiative that addresses industrial pollution and advocates for the right to clean air and water. The campaign seeks to dismantle inequities and build a trauma-informed movement that confronts the harm caused by racism, sexism, colonialism and environmental injustice, declaring that healing is not optional but fundamental.

The connection between health and the environment is undeniable, yet our communities are burdened by pollution from petrochemical industries driving climate change. Environmental racism forces Black and low-income families to live on the front lines of these injustices while multinational corporations like Shell, Chevron, ExxonMobil and U.S. Steel profit. We must hold our elected officials accountable and demand action.

With the new Trump administration, we expect a resurgence of fossil fuel industries and rollbacks of environmental protections. Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency appointee, Lee Zeldin, who voted against climate provisions and fossil emissions regulations as a congressman, has vowed in a post on X to “restore US energy dominance,” signaling expanded fossil fuel production. We cannot ignore such policies that have dangerous environmental and public health implications.

The effects of climate change are already devastating. Hurricane Helene caused destruction across six states, wiping out entire mountain communities and causing over $53 billion in estimated damages in North Carolina alone. It became the deadliest storm in the United States since Katrina.

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Report: Climate Crisis Accounts for a Third of Weather-Related Insurance Claims
Since 2000, weather-related disasters tied to the climate crisis have resulted in over $600 billion in economic losses. By Chris Walker , Truthout December 10, 2024

Studies consistently show the risks of living near petrochemical facilities. Over 39 million Americans — disproportionately Black families — live within a mile of such facilities, a legacy of discriminatory housing policies like redlining.

A National Institute of Health study found that pregnancy-related mortality for Black mothers is 41 percent, compared to 13.7 percent nationwide. Additionally, a 2023 study linked oil and gas production to $77 billion in health damages and over 1,000 deaths in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia. Petrochemical companies are allowed to discharge 500,000 pounds of toxic pollutants annually in the Ohio River Basin, contributing to health disparities and environmental destruction.

Aside from health issues, fossil fuels have environmental and economic consequences, including extended droughts, food insecurity and flooding that can spread hazardous waste into residential areas. These conditions, such as food deserts and rising prices, particularly burden underserved communities.

Now is the time to join a movement that leverages the strength of our collective resilience to fight for healthy, thriving communities. We must organize locally to ensure Black-led and environmental justice-focused organizations receive the funding for transformative solutions.

While the Freedom to Breathe campaign will begin as a regional initiative in Allegheny County, it’s a scalable model that can inspire similar movements across localities nationwide. By addressing the impacts of industry polluters and advocating for sustainable, community-driven solutions, this campaign offers a roadmap for collective action.

Joining local boards and councils that shape public health and environmental policy is a powerful way to amplify community voices. For instance, Allegheny County’s Health Department offers an opportunity for community-driven leadership, with open seats on its Air Pollution Control Advisory Committee for individuals directly impacted by pollution.

Our environmental justice work in 28 states and three countries has repeatedly confirmed that our work in Appalachia carries a broader message that resonates nationally: We must reject fossil fuel expansion disguised as economic progress and embrace sustainable solutions. Retrofitting homes with energy efficient technologies shouldn’t be just for the wealthy. We must advocate for affordable, sustainable housing, critical for improving community health and resilience. We need expanded access to health care and public health funding to address disparities linked to pollution and systemic inequities. These are just a few action items the Freedom to Breathe campaign will organize to create healthier, more equitable communities.

The campaign also supports sustainable and regenerative agriculture initiatives to address food insecurity while restoring soil health and supporting local economies. We must support Black farmers and small-scale growers because they are essential for building a more equitable Appalachia. We’re partnering with schools, faith-based organizations and advocacy groups to amplify community power and secure resources for local initiatives.

BLAC is building a collective voice strong enough to challenge systemic inequities and resilient enough to sustain the fight for justice. But this work requires all of us. Together, we can confront polluters, demand accountability and create a future where everyone has the right to breathe clean air and drink safe water.

A stronger Appalachia means a stronger U.S. Let us act boldly for the future we all deserve.

Marcia Dinkins
Archbishop Marcia Dinkins is the founder and executive director of the Black Appalachian Coalition and Black Women for Change in Ohio.

Patricia M. DeMarco, Ph.D., is a Pittsburgh-based author and environmental policy expert with a doctorate in Biology from the University of Pittsburgh.