Texas State Board of Education signals support for Bible-infused curriculum

Jaden Edison,

 Texas Tribune
November 20, 2024 

Reading the Bible (Shutterstock)

A majority of the Texas State Board of Education signaled their support Tuesday for a state-authored curriculum under intense scrutiny in recent months for its heavy inclusion of biblical teachings.

Ahead of an official vote expected to happen Friday, eight of the 15 board members gave their preliminary approval to Bluebonnet Learning, the elementary school curriculum proposed by the Texas Education Agency earlier this year.

The state will have until late Wednesday to submit revisions in response to concerns raised by board members and the general public before the official vote takes place Friday. Board members reserve the right to change their votes.

The curriculum was designed with a cross-disciplinary approach that uses reading and language arts lessons to advance or cement concepts in other disciplines, such as history and social studies. Critics, which included religious studies experts, argue the curriculum’s lessons allude to Christianity more than any other religion, which they say could lead to the bullying and isolation of non-Christian students, undermine church-state separation and grant the state far-reaching control over how children learn about religion. They also questioned the accuracy of some lessons.

The curriculum’s defenders say that references to Christianity will provide students with a better understanding of the country’s history.

Texas school districts have the freedom to choose their own lesson plans. If the state-authored curriculum receives approval this week, the choice to adopt the materials will remain with districts. But the state will offer an incentive of $60 per student to districts that choose to adopt the lessons, which could appeal to some as schools struggle financially after several years without a significant raise in state funding.


Three Republicans — Evelyn Brooks, Patricia Hardy and Pam Little — joined the board’s four Democrats in opposition to the materials.

Leslie Recine — a Republican whom Gov. Greg Abbott appointed to temporarily fill the State Board of Education’s District 13 seat vacated by former member Aicha Davis, a Democrat who ran successfully for a Texas House seat earlier this year — voted for the curriculum. Abbott handpicked Recine, potentially a deciding vote on the materials, to fill the seat through the end of the year days before the general election, bypassing Democrat Tiffany Clark. A majority of District 13 residents voted this election for Clark to represent them on the board next year. She ran unopposed.

Board members who signaled their support for the curriculum said they believed the materials would help students improve their reading and understanding of the world. Members also said politics in no way influenced their vote and that they supported the materials because they believed it would best serve Texas children.


“In my view, these stories are on the education side and are establishing cultural literacy,” Houston Republican Will Hickman said. “And there's religious concepts like the Good Samaritan and the Golden Rule and Moses that all students should be exposed to.”

The proposed curriculum prompts teachers to relay the story of The Good Samaritan — a parable about loving everyone, including your enemies — to kindergarteners as an example of what it means to follow the Golden Rule. The story comes from the Bible, the lesson explains, and “was told by a man named Jesus” as part of his Sermon on the Mount, which included the phrase, “Do unto others as you would have done unto you.” Many other religions have their own version of the Golden Rule.

Brooks, one of the Republicans who opposed the materials Tuesday, said the Texas Education Agency is not a textbook publishing company and that treating it like such has created an uneven playing field for companies in the textbook industry. Brooks also said she has yet to see evidence showing the curriculum would improve student learning.


Hardy, a Republican who also opposed the materials, said she did so without regard for the religious references. She expressed concern about the curriculum’s age appropriateness and her belief that it does not align with state standards on reading and other subjects.

Meanwhile, some of the Democrats who voted against the curriculum said they worried the materials would inappropriately force Christianity on public schoolchildren. Others cited concerns about Texas violating the Establishment Clause, which prohibits states from endorsing a particular religion.

“If this is the standard for students in Texas, then it needs to be exactly that,” said Staci Childs, a Houston Democrat. “It needs to be high quality, and it needs to be the standard, free of any establishment clause issues, free of any lies, and it needs to be accurate.”




More than 100 Texans signed up Monday to speak for and against the state-authored curriculum.

Courtnie Bagley, education director for the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank that helped develop the curriculum, told board members that the Texas Education Agency has made every effort to respond to concerns from the public. She said rejecting the lessons would give other materials not owned by the state an unfair advantage.

“It would create a double standard, as Bluebonnet Learning has been held to a different and more stringent review process than other materials under consideration,” Bagley said.

Opponents argued that revisions did not go far enough, and some questioned whether the state’s intentions with crafting a curriculum that leans heavily on Christianity are political.

“I am a Christian, and I do believe that religion is a part of our culture, but our nation does not have a religion. We're unique in that,” said Mary Lowe, co-founder of Families Engaged for an Effective Education. “So I do not think that our school districts should imply or try to overtly impress to young impressionable children that the state does have a state religion.”

Education officials say references to Christianity will provide students with a better understanding of the country’s history, while other supporters have stated their belief that the use of religious references does not violate the U.S. Constitution’s Establishment Clause. Legal experts note that recent rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority have eroded decades of precedent and made it unclear what state actions constitute a violation of the establishment clause.

State leaders also say the materials cover a broad range of faiths and only make references to religion when appropriate. Education Commissioner Mike Morath has said the materials are based on extensive cognitive science research and will help improve student outcomes. Of 10 people appointed to an advisory panel by the Texas Education Agency to ensure the materials are accurate, age-appropriate and free from bias, at least half of the members have a history of faith-based advocacy.

The Texas Tribune recently reported how parents, historians and educators have criticized the ways the materials address America’s history of racism, slavery and civil rights. In public input submitted in response to the curriculum and in interviews with the Tribune, they have said the materials strip key historical figures of their complexities and flaws while omitting certain context they say would offer children a more accurate understanding of the country’s past and present. Board member Rebecca Bell-Metereau, a San Marcos Democrat, and other Texans referenced the Tribune’s reporting during public testimony on Monday.

In response to those concerns, the Texas Education Agency has said the lessons will provide students with “a strong foundation” to understand more complex concepts as they reach later grades. State officials have also said those materials are written in an age-appropriate manner.

Disclosure: Texas Public Policy Foundation has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

Texas offers Starr County ranch to Trump for mass deportation plans

Alejandro Serrano, 

Texas Tribune
November 20, 2024 

Donald Trump reacts as a scoreboard in the background displays "Trump 45" and "Trump 47", referring to Trump as the nation's 45th president and his bid to become the 47th president, during a rally in Greensboro, North Carolina, U.S. October 22, 2024. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

The Texas General Land Office is offering President-elect Donald Trump  a 1,400-acre Starr County ranch as a site to build detention centers for his promised mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, according to a letter the office sent him Tuesday.

Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham said in the Tuesday letter that her office is “fully prepared” to enter an agreement with any federal agencies involved in deporting individuals from the country “to allow a facility to be built for the processing, detention, and coordination of the largest deportation of violent criminals in the nation’s history.”

The state recently bought the land along the U.S.-Mexico border in the Rio Grande Valley and announced plans to build a border wall on it. The previous owner had not let the state construct a wall there and had “actively blocked law enforcement from accessing the property,” according to the letter the GLO sent Trump.

A Trump campaign spokesperson did not immediately respond Tuesday to a request for comment.

A cornerstone of Trump’s campaign was his pledge to clamp down on immigration by returning policies from his first term and deporting undocumented people en masse on a scale the country has not experienced in decades. Former aides — including some who are set to rejoin him — have described incorporating staging areas near the border to detain and deport people.

In an interview with Fox News posted Tuesday, Buckingham said she was “100% on board with the Trump administration's pledge to get these criminals out of our country.”

Buckingham had previously said she approved an easement within 24 hours of acquiring the Starr County land to let the Texas Facilities Commission, which is overseeing the state’s border wall construction, to begin building a wall. In the Fox interview, she said that move was followed by “brainstorming” with her team.

“We figured, hey, the Trump administration probably needs some deportation facilities because we've got a lot of these violent criminals that we need to round up and get the heck out of our country,” Buckingham said. She noted the land is mostly flat, “easy to build on,” accessible to international airports and near the Rio Grande.

“We're happy to make this offer and hope they take us up on it,” she added.

Trump’s vow to carry out mass deportations is certain to encounter logistical and legal challenges, like the ones that stifled promises from his first campaign once he assumed office.

However, Trump’s Cabinet picks indicate he is moving ahead in trying to carry out the deportations. He has selected Stephen Miller, an architect of the previous Trump administration’s border and immigration policy, to return as a top aide and has named Tom Homan, a former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, to be his “border czar.”

And Texas is poised to try to help him implement the policies. After Trump left office in 2021, Gov. Greg Abbott launched an unprecedented border enforcement operation that included building a military base in Eagle Pass and the deployment of thousands of Department of Public Safety troopers and state National Guard troops to the border.

CNN reported Saturday that Texas’ “border czar” — Michael Banks, who serves as a special adviser to Abbott — has been a part of behind-the-scenes discussions with Trump’s team about immigration initiatives.

Disclosure: The Texas General Land Office has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2024/11/19/texas-border-starr-county-ranch-trump-deportation/.

The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.

Natural Resources and Palestinian Sovereignty: Israel’s Further Isolation



The results of a vote on a resolution for the UN Security Council to reconsider and support the full membership of Palestine into the United Nations is displayed during a special session of the UN General Assembly, at UN headquarters in New York City on May 10, 2024 [CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/AFP via Getty Images]

Opinion
by Dr Binoy Kampmark
November 17, 2024

MEMO

Two more United Nations committee resolutions. Both concerning the conduct of Israel past and current. While disease, hunger and death continue to stalk the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank remains under the thick thumb of occupation, deliberations in foreign fora continue to take place about how to address this hideous state of affairs. While these international matters can often seem like insipid gestures marked by ineffectual chatter, they are increasingly bulking a file that is making Israel more isolated than ever. And this is not an isolation of virtue or admiration.

On 13 November, the Second Committee (Economic and Financial) of the UN approved two resolutions. The first focused on requesting that Israel assume responsibility for prompt and adequate compensation to Lebanon and any associated countries, including Syria, affected by an oil slick on their shores arising from the destruction of storage tanks near the Lebanese Jiyah electric power plant. The strike took place in July 2006 during Israel’s previous war against Hezbollah, resulting in, to quote the words of Lebanon’s then Environment Ministry director general Berge Hatjian, “a catastrophe of the highest order for a country as small as Lebanon”. According to Lebanon’s UN representative, the damage arising from the oil spill had hampered the country’s efforts to pursue the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030.

Israel’s representative gruffly rejected the premise of the resolution, which received 160 votes in its favour, citing the usual argument that it has been unfairly targeted. Other current adversaries – here, the Houthis, who had been attacking ships in international waters – had been left unscrutinised by the committee. The issue of environmental damage had been appropriated “as a political weapon against Israel”.

The second resolution, introduced by the Ugandan representative, was of particular interest to the Palestinians. Entitled “Permanent sovereignty of the Palestinian people in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and of the Arab population in the occupied Syrian Golan over their natural resources”, it expressed pointed concerns about Israel’s continued efforts to exercise, with brute force, control over the territories. There was concern for “the exploitation by Israel, the occupying Power, of the natural resources of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and other Arab territories occupied by Israel since 1967”. Ditto the “extensive destruction by Israel […] of agricultural land and orchards in the Occupied Territory” and “widespread destruction” inflicted upon “vital infrastructure, including water pipelines, sewage networks and electricity networks” in those territories.

Concerns also abounded about unexploded ordnance, a situation that despoiled the environment while hampering reconstruction, and the “chronic energy shortage in the Gaza Strip and its detrimental impact on the operation of water and sanitation facilities”. The Israeli settlements come in for special mention, given their “detrimental impact on Palestinian and other Arab natural resources, especially as a result of the confiscation of land and the forced diversion of water resources, including the destruction of orchards and crops and the seizure of the water wells by Israeli settlers, and the dire socioeconomic consequences in this regard”.

Letter to the UN: Will there be an arms embargo on Israel?

There are also stern remarks about needing to respect and preserve “the territory unity, contiguity and integrity of all Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem”, a situation increasingly compromised by the rampant, unchecked zealotry of thuggish Israeli settlers, emboldened by lawmakers and authorities.

The vote on this occasion – 158 in favour – was unusual for featuring a number of countries that would normally be more guarded in adding their names, notably in the context of Palestinian sovereignty. Their mantra is that backing an initiative openly favouring Palestinian self-determination over any specific subject would do little to advance the broader goals of the peace process in the absence of Israeli participation.

Australia, for instance, backed the resolution, despite opposition from the United States and Canada. It marked the first time the country had favoured a “permanent sovereignty” resolution since being introduced in a resolution. This was done despite disappointment by the Australian delegation that the resolution made no reference to other participants in the conflict such as Hezbollah. A spokesperson for Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong stated that the vote reflected international concerns about Israel’s “ongoing settlement activity, land dispossession, demolitions and settler violence against Palestinians”. Such conduct undermined “stability and prospects for a two-state solution.”

As for Israel’s firmest sponsor in arms, inexplicable good will and dubious legal padding, the words “Palestinian” and “sovereignty” continued to grate. The fiction of equality and parity between Israel and the Palestinians, a device long used to snuff out the independent aspirations of the latter, had to be maintained.

In remarks made by Nicholas Koval of the US Mission to the UN, it was clear that Washington was “disappointed that this body has again taken up this unbalanced resolution that is unfairly critical of Israel, demonstrating a clear and persistent institutional bias directed against one member state.” The resolution, in its “one-sided” way, would not advance peace. “Not when they ignore the facts on the ground.”

While Koval is not wrong that the claimed facts in these resolutions are often matters of conceit, illusion and even omission, the events unfolding since October last year have shown, in their biblical ferocity, that the Palestinians are no longer merely subjects of derision by the Israeli state. They are to be subjugated, preferably by some international authority that will guard against any future claims to autonomy. Their vetted leaders are to be treated as amenable collaborators, happy to yield territory that Israel has no right to.

Eventually, it is hoped by the likes of National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, that the Palestinian problem will vanish before forcible annexation, erasure and eviction. At the very least, resolutions such as those passed on 14 November provide some record of resistance, however seemingly remote, against the historical amnesia that governs Israeli Palestinian relations.

OPINION: Israel’s US-backed long war against the United Nations

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In Tennessee's evangelical heartland, pastors say Trump's win won't solve America's woes

(RNS) — Evangelicals were the bedrock of Trump’s return to the White House, with some 80% of evangelical voters supporting him. For some Tennessee pastors, that was mostly about the economy — and they hope Trump will lead to lower gas and food prices, but not a revival of Christian power. And they worry about post-election America, which remains polarized.

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump watches a video screen at a campaign rally at the Salem Civic Center, Nov. 2, 2024, in Salem, Va. 

(AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Bob Smietana
November 15, 2024

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (RNS) — On the Sunday after the recent presidential election (Nov. 10), Allen Jackson got up to recognize the many veterans in the congregation and to give thanks for the election results, to applause from many in the white evangelical megachurch’s sanctuary.

But Jackson, 67, the church’s longtime pastor, known for his conservative values and outspoken support for Israel, characterized the election’s outcome as more a reprieve than a victory. “I really did feel like the Lord showed us mercy, when, in truth, we deserve judgment,” said Jackson.

Much work is still to be done in restoring what Jackson called “a biblical worldview” to the nation’s culture, he said, and he made clear that his congregants could not depend on elected officials to do that work for them. “We will have to have more courage than the people that you voted for,” he added.

While Donald Trump’s faith advisers were elated that voters returned him to the White House, some evangelical pastors in Tennessee were more muted in the days after the election. Like their congregants and voters around the nation, who said in exit polls that the economy determined their vote more than any other issue, the pastors RNS interviewed were focused more on the cost of day-to-day items like gas and food than a revival of Christian power.

RELATED: What evangelical Christian leaders say they want from a second Trump term

Brownsville, Tennessee, a 40-minute drive east of Memphis, is the seat of Haywood County, one of three counties in the state that went for Harris. But unlike Harris’ sweeps in the metro areas of Memphis and Nashville, the vice president beat Trump by just 25 votes in Haywood.


Pastor Ben Cowell. (RNS photo/Bob Smietana)

Ben Cowell, the 42-year-old pastor of Brownsville Baptist Church, said he remains concerned about polarization in the wake of another election that left half of the country elated and half despondent.

Much of that he blames on social media echo chambers that pit Americans against each other. “I would joyfully welcome a mass crash of multiple servers, where X is brought down and Facebook is brought down, and all of these social networking sites,” he said. “I think people have now grown full jobs out of making people angry at and mistrusting people who hold different ideas.”

While glad about Trump’s win mostly for economic reasons — “I’d like to see milk not be $6 a gallon,” he said, “or gas, $4 a gallon” — he worries that rather than listening to experts, Americans are more likely to be influenced by social media influencers who have no real knowledge about the subjects they talk about.

“People wondered why we’re more divided than we’ve ever been,” he said. “Well, we did it to ourselves.”

Mike Waddy, pastor of First Baptist Church in tiny Maury City, Tennessee, half an hour north of Cowell’s church, also said that most of his people voted based on economic rather than ideological concerns. Because of inflation, Waddy said that retired folks and those on a fixed income were more likely to turn to the local food pantry for help in recent years. Those folks had been OK under recent presidents but in the last three years have struggled with the price of food and gas.

“Our people watched some of their friends fall under their ability to make it,” he said. “Food pantries like ours wound up heavily supplementing some people’s ability to eat.” In Maury City’s Crockett County, Trump took nearly 80% of the vote.

But Waddy, whose church shares a building with a Hispanic congregation, said issues such as immigration have not been a focus in the community, where Spanish is spoken in about a third of homes, according to U.S. Census data. The pastor said that Trump’s promise of mass deportations has not come up but that if it comes to pass, the town would be ripped apart and close friendships would be destroyed.

Pastor Cliff Marion. (Courtesy photo)

There would also be economic consequences, he said. “With 30-something percent of our population being Hispanic, if they were all to be gone, you can imagine what that would do to our economy.”

First Baptist Church in Covington, Tennessee, a small town 12 miles from the Mississippi River, has both Democrats and Republicans in its congregation, and its pastor, Cliff Marion, didn’t address the election on Sunday, feeling it was time to move on. He calls unifying the country “the million-dollar question,” adding, “I don’t think either party has it figured out because it seems like each party has different views of the kind of America they want.”

Marion said he has avoided falling into partisan divides so far but said political activists have made inroads into churches and seem intent on making disciples to their causes, rather than followers of Jesus.

“Charlie Kirk and Tucker Carlson, they’re the greatest disciplers in the Southern Baptist Convention,” said the pastor. “They make better disciples than Lifeway (the Southern Baptist Convention’s publishing arm) does, because all our people do is turn them on all day long.”

In response, he said, he has tried to remind the 500 or people who attend services at First Baptist that political opponents are not enemies.

“We will not be a church that curses the darkness,” he said. “We will go into the darkness and light more candles.”

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump pumps his fist as he arrives to speak at a campaign event at Nassau Coliseum, Sept.18, 2024, in Uniondale, N.Y. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Erik Reed, pastor of Journey Church in Lebanon, Tennessee, east of Nashville, where Trump beat Harris by a ratio of 2-to-1, was more enthusiastic about a second Trump term. Reed hopes to see reforms in the nation’s educational system, a better economy and an end to U.S. involvement in overseas wars.

He did not endorse a candidate before the election or talk about it the Sunday after, but earlier this year he did run an all-day seminar on faith and politics, where he laid out some reasons why Christians might support Trump — and why some could not.

Reed suspects people have grown tired of the changes of modern life, of dealing with pronouns and issues of gender. They also worried about the cost of living. “At the end of the day, I think what people were voting right now is a return to some common sense. That’s not a Christian or non-Christian thing,” he said. “That’s just people trying to live and survive.”

That strikes Jackson, the pastor whose World Outreach church and its sprawling campus in Murfreesboro claims 15,000 members, as a waste of an opportunity. If the election was a reprieve from judgment, he believes America still faces judgment for defying God’s boundaries on issues such as marriage, abortion and gender.


Pastor Allen Jackson, left, speaks at World Outreach Church in Murfreesboro, Tenn. (Video screen grab)

But he doesn’t look to Washington to save the nation. “I don’t think the problems that we face as a people were fundamentally political,” he said. “So I wasn’t looking for a politician or an election to fix us.”

Instead, he said, “I think the question is, is there still enough residual biblical worldview in the character of America to shape our future? If there is, I think that’s a better future.”

 

UN Membership for Palestine Now

John Whitbeck

November 15, 2024
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Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

On May 10, 2024, the UN General Assembly passed overwhelmingly, with only nine negative votes (Argentina, Czechia, Hungary, Israel, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea and the United States) a resolution (https://documents.un.org/doc/undoc/ltd/n24/129/97/pdf/n2412997.pdf) which “Determinesthat the State of Palestine is qualified for membership in the United Nations and should therefore be admitted to membership in the United Nations” and “Accordingly recommends that the Security Council reconsider the matter favorably.”

Early foreign policy appointments, both formally announced and authoritatively rumored, by President-elect Donald Trump make clear that there is absolutely no chance that his incoming administration would permit the Security Council to approve an upgrade in the status of the State of Palestine from observer state to full member state.

In addition, prominent members of the Israeli government, including Prime Minister Netanyahu, are expressing the expectation (https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/11/11/far-right-israeli-minister-orders-preparations-for-west-bank-annexation) that, in 2025, the second Trump administration will bless and recognize Israel’s formal annexation of the West Bank, as the first Trump administration recognized Israel’s formal annexation of occupied East Jerusalem and the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, thereby definitively destroying any possibility of Palestinian self-determination and freedom, and Trump has named a public supporter of Israeli annexation of the West Bank as his ambassador to Israel (https://news.antiwar.com/2024/11/12/trump-picks-mike-huckabee-supporter-of-israeli-annexation-as-ambassador-to-israel).

There is, however, one tiny glimmer of hope in this darkness.

On December 23, 2016, after Trump’s first election but before he took office, President Barack Obama instructed his UN ambassador to abstain, and thereby to permit the adoption by a 14-0 vote, in the vote on UN Security Council Resolution 2334 (https://press.un.org/en/2016/sc12657.doc.htm), which reaffirmed that Israel’s establishment of settlements in Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, had no legal validity, constituting a flagrant violation of international law, and which reiterated the Security Council’s demand that Israel immediately cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem.

Obama’s abstention decision constituted an act of insubordination and disobedience which shocked the Israeli government, and it would have been inconceivable at any previous time during his presidency or if Hillary Clinton had been elected to succeed him. One may assume that Obama did not wish virtually has last act as president to be a final demonstration of his contempt for international law and the views and values of the vast majority of mankind.

While Israel could and, unsurprisingly, has ignored UN Security Council Resolution 2334, a UN Security Council resolution approving full UN member state status for the State of Palestine would create a fact that no country could ignore. The occupation of the entire territory of a UN member state by another UN member state, which, in the case of Palestine, the International Court of Justice has recently confirmed (https://www.icj-cij.org/node/204176) is unlawful and must rapidly end, could not be permitted to stand indefinitely or without prompt and significant consequences.

Might Biden, who has been repeatedly humiliated and treated with contempt by Netanyahu notwithstanding his having given Israel everything it has sought, militarily, financially and diplomatically, as it has pursued its genocidal assault against the Palestinian people, follow the Obama precedent and finally assert his personal freedom and independence by instructing his UN ambassador to abstain from a Security Council vote on a new application by the State of Palestine for full UN member state status?

The period between today and January 20 offers the best opportunity for full UN membership which the State of Palestine has ever had, and it may be the last opportunity.

The State of Palestine and its friends throughout the world should try.

John V. Whitbeck is a Paris-based international lawyer.

When Will the General Assembly Suspend Israel?

by Kathy Kelly / November 15th, 2024

The Biblical Book of Job chronicles a string of catastrophes relentlessly plaguing the main character, Job, who loses his prosperity, his home, his health, and his children. Eventually, an agonized Job curses his own existence as well as the god that created him.

Numerous interpretations of the story exist, and more than one version has circulated through the ancient Near East. One version concludes with Job avowing repentance. “I know that my redeemer liveth, and so I repent in dust and in ashes.”

The Latin root for the word ‘repent’ is pensare – to think. ‘Repent” suggests an effort to rethink.

Job’s surprising repentance has been on my mind as calls increase, in 2024, for the United Nations to rethink its relation to Israel as a member state. Increasingly, civil society groups are pressuring Permanent Missions to the UN to eject Israel as a voting member of the General Assembly.

To paraphrase Pankraj Mishra, writing for the New York Review of Books, a stunned world has watched with disbelief as the United States provisions Israel with weapons enabling a mass murder spree across the Middle East.

Palestinians in the West Bank have recently urged all organizations demanding UN compliance with the International Criminal Court ruling of July 2024 to sign a letter available at World BEYOND War which urges Member States of the United Nations General Assembly to fulfill their duties.

Following up on the potential of this letter, a new coalition, “Global Solidarity for Peace in Palestine” has issued a letter to His Excellency Mr. Philemon Yang, the President of the United Nations General Assembly asking him to convene an urgent meeting of the General Assembly to demand an immediate and permanent ceasefire, establish and secure humanitarian aid corridors and ensure the complete withdrawal of Israel from the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

The letter additionally requests:

• The revival of the UN Committee Against Apartheid to address systemic violations of international law and human rights in the OPT.
• Consideration of targeted boycotts, sanctions, and divestments, particularly against illegal operations in the OPT.
• The establishment of an arms embargo on Israel.
• Exploration of suspending Israel from the General Assembly until it complies with international law.

To further support these efforts, the letter calls for the establishment of an unarmed UN peacekeeping mission in the OPT under Chapter VII of the UN Charter to ensure the safety and dignity of all civilians.

In a way, Israel has already removed itself from norms maintained by the UN Charter as it has consistently flouted UN treaties, Resolutions and Advisory opinions. We must not forget that Israel refuses to acknowledge to the UN its possession of nuclear weapons.

I felt startled, during an initial planning call held with Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, when one of them spoke of the evacuation he and his family faced, that very day, and said, “We are facing the final solution. Israel is imposing the final solution on us.” Other participants spoke of having shuddered during bombings, day and night.

Journalist Mehdi Hasan,  writes movingly in the Guardian of how absurd it is that the United Nations’ General Assembly agrees to seat Israel as a U.N. member nation.

Israel’s abusive repudiation of the very idea of the United Nations, its escalating and lethal violation of countless international norms, its repeated, lethal attacks on U.N. sanctuaries and peacekeepers justifies its expulsion. Hasan reminds us that Israel’s outgoing Ambassador to the United Nations shredded the UN charter while standing at the General Assembly podium. This is the Charter that declares the UN mission to eradicate the scourge of warfare for future generations.

It is time for the clouds to part above the burning lands of West Asia – for the suffering there to be comforted and their pitiless accusers rebuked by the gathered voice of humanity, by the agent that created Israel and can, when it wishes, “let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.” The work here is ours, and so let our United Nations demand, and not beg, humanity from Israel and from its imperial sponsor the United States.

• First published at World BEYOND War.Email

Kathy Kelly (kathy.vcnv@gmail.com) is the board president of World BEYOND W (worldbeyondwar.org) and a co-coordinator of the Merchants of Death War Crimes Tribunal. (merchantsofdeath.org). Read other articles by Kathy.

GAZA:  Genocidal violence

Editorial

Published November 16, 2024 

DAWN


A RECENTLY released UN report confirms what many around the world already know: that Israel has been using genocidal violence to wipe out the Palestinian population in Gaza. As per the findings of the UN Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices, Tel Aviv “is intentionally causing death, starvation and serious injury” in the besieged Palestinian territory. Moreover, the report finds that Israel’s practices in Gaza “are consistent with the characteristics of genocide”. This is no empty rhetoric, as the UN body has documented several examples of Israeli savagery in Gaza ever since the events of Oct 7, 2023. For instance, the UN committee says by February, Israel had dropped over 25,000 tonnes of explosives on the tiny Strip; this is the equivalent of two nuclear bombs used against defenceless people. Israel is often hailed by its admirers for its tech savviness; it turns out that Tel Aviv is using its tech know-how with murderous precision in Palestine. The UN report highlights that Tel Aviv is using “AI-assisted targeting, with minimal human oversight”. This means that machines are drawing up ‘kill lists’, which the Israelis are adhering to faithfully. An earlier UN investigation had also found there are “reasonable grounds” to believe Israel was committing genocide in Gaza.

Damning as these findings are, Israel has little consideration for what the UN or the world community has to say. Israel has already declared the UN secretary general ‘persona non grata’. The Zionist state knows it has the world’s sole superpower in its corner, and come January an array of pro-Israel hawks will take the reins in the Trump administration, further emboldening the extremists in Tel Aviv. European states mouth occasional entreaties about protecting the Palestinians while solidly backing Israel; on their part, the Muslim-Arab bloc can only issue strong statements in solidarity with Palestine. Is it any surprise, then, that Israel can get away with a modern, live-streamed genocidal campaign?

Published in Dawn, November 16th, 2024

With Trump, already negligible US distance with Israel to vanish

Biden admin's stance had already shifted to unwavering support for Tel Aviv after the Oct 7 attacks, despite growing criticism.

AFP | Dawn.com 

Published November 16, 2024

For more than a year, the United States has steadfastly backed Israel in its invasion of Gaza while quietly counselling restraint on occasion. With Donald Trump’s return, the little nuance present will vanish, although his hunger for deal-making makes him less predictable.

Trump, unlike every other recent president, has not even paid lip service to a fully sovereign, independent Palestinian state.

He leads a Republican Party so pro-Israel that some local offices handed out Israeli flags alongside Trump yard signs — a far cry from President Joe Biden, whose support for Israel faced fierce criticism from the left of his Democratic Party.

And while Biden’s two ambassadors to Israel were Jewish Americans who would occasionally nudge Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump’s pick is evangelical Christian pastor Mike Huckabee, a former governor who sees biblical reason to champion Israel.

Other Trump nominees include Senator Marco Rubio — a hawk on Iran — as secretary of state, and Representative Elise Stefanik, who made waves by assailing universities’ handling of pro-Palestinian protests, as US ambassador to the United Nations.

“They’re, like, more pro-Israel than most Israelis,” said Asher Fredman, director of the Misgav Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy, an Israeli think tank.

He expected Trump to take an “America First” approach aimed at reducing US military resources and refocusing on countering China — which means both empowering Israel to fight enemies and encouraging its normalisation with Arab states, notably Saudi Arabia.

“There is really tremendous paradigm-shifting potential in a number of realms, such as advancing regional cooperation and putting maximum pressure on Iran,” Fredman said.
End of Biden’s approach

According to Anadolu Agency, while the Biden administration had previously balanced its approach by supporting Israel’s defence against Iran and endorsing a two-state solution, its stance shifted to unwavering support for Tel Aviv after the attacks, despite growing national and international criticism.

During the October 18, 2023 visit to Israel, Biden expressed unwavering support for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, affirming the US’ solid backing.

Biden sought an additional $17.9 billion in military aid for Israel upon his return, supplementing the annual $3.5bn it already receives.

While Biden issued a memorandum in February requiring Congress to be notified if any US-funded country deliberately blocked humanitarian aid, the administration faced scrutiny for its response to humanitarian concerns in Gaza.

Blinken told Congress in May that Israel was not intentionally preventing humanitarian aid, despite reports from USAID suggesting that Israel was hindering the delivery of food assistance to Gaza.

The State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration also recommended freezing funds to Israel because of humanitarian concerns, though the calls were ultimately unheeded.

Additionally, Biden’s administration vetoed three UN Security Council resolutions calling for a cease-fire in Gaza, which heightened international criticism.

Biden has also criticised Netanyahu on occasion for the heavy toll on civilians in the relentless bombardment in Gaza and unsuccessfully sought to prevent the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

But Biden has only once exercised the ultimate US leverage — holding some of the billions of dollars in military aid to Israel — with officials insisting their quiet approach has paid off.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin in a mid-October letter gave Israel a month to allow more assistance into Gaza or face cutoffs of some US weapons.

They ultimately decided not to take action, despite Israel not meeting metrics on the number of aid trucks and a new UN-backed assessment warning of imminent famine in Gaza.

Blinken told reporters Wednesday that the letter succeeded in injecting a “sense of urgency” to Israel, which addressed 12 of the 15 listed areas of concern.

Allison McManus, managing director for national security and international policy at the left-leaning Centre for American Progress, said the letter had offered an opening but that Biden wanted “near unconditional support” for Israel to be his legacy.

“Biden was very risk-averse — not wanting to rock the boat too much in terms of the traditional US support for Israel,” she said.

“He was dogmatic and quite orthodox in approaching the US-Israel relationship. Trump is, certainly, neither of those things,” she said.

Despite Trump’s stance on a Palestinian state, he has also boasted of seeking historic deals.

“There is certainly a world in which, if Netanyahu is obstinate, as he has been in reaching a ceasefire, then I wouldn’t be surprised if we actually see Trump applying some pressure,” she said.

“What that would look like, I don’t know.”

Deal not easy

Aaron David Miller, a longtime State Department advisor on the Middle East, said that Trump’s previous term showed a foreign policy that was “opportunistic, transactional and ad hoc.”

He said that Huckabee could turn out to be a “performative appointment” for political reasons, as top officials in Washington often work directly with their Middle Eastern counterparts.

But Miller said that even if Trump sought a Gaza deal, he would face some of the same impediments as Biden — the risk of Hamas surviving and the lack so far of a new security architecture.

“He cannot end the war in Gaza and won’t pressure Netanyahu to do so,” said Miller, now at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Elie Pieprz, director of international relations at the Israel Defence and Security Forum, said that Trump’s victory had already yielded wins for Israel, including Qatar distancing itself from mediating with Hamas and a more conciliatory tone from Iran.

As Biden had a “difficult” relationship with Israel, Trump will likely seek to ease friction, Pieprz said.

“Trump likes to see things in comparison to his opponents,” he said. Much like his domestic slogan, Pieprz said, Trump wants to “make the US-Israel relationship great again. “

Header image: Donald Trump meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara at the Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, US, on July 26, 2024. — screengrab via Reuters

HRW accuses Israel of ‘war crime’ with ‘forcible transfer’ in Gaza


By AFP
November 14, 2024

Palestinians displaced from shelters in Beit Hanoun cross the main Salaheddine road into Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip following Israeli army evacuation orders 

- Copyright AFP Omar AL-QATTAA

Human Rights Watch said in a report released Thursday that Israel’s repeated evacuation orders in Gaza amount to the “war crime of forcible transfer”, and to “ethnic cleansing” in parts of the Palestinian territory.

“Human Rights Watch has amassed evidence that Israeli officials are… committing the war crime of forcible transfer,” the report said.

“Israel’s actions appear to also meet the definition of ethnic cleansing” in the areas where Palestinians will not be able to return, HRW added.

Nadia Hardman, an HRW researcher, noted the 172-page report’s findings are based on interviews with displaced Gazans, satellite imagery, and public reporting conducted until August 2024.

Although Israel says the displacement is justified for civilians’ safety or by military imperatives, Hardman said that “Israel cannot simply rely on the presence of armed groups to justify the displacement of civilians”.

“Israel would have to demonstrate in every instance that displacement of civilians was the only option”, to fully comply with international humanitarian law.

According to the United Nations, 1.9 million Palestinians were displaced in Gaza as of October 2024. Before the start of the war on October 7, 2023, the official population figure for the territory was 2.4 million inhabitants.

“Systematically rendering large parts of Gaza uninhabitable… in some cases permanently… amounts to ethnic cleansing,” Ahmed Benchemsi, spokesman for HRW’s Middle East division said in a press briefing.

The HRW report pointed in particular to the Philadelphi and Netzarim corridors, running along the Egyptian border and cutting Gaza along its east-west axis respectively, which have been “razed, extended, and cleared”, by Israel’s army to create buffer zones and security corridors.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly insisted that Israeli forces must retain long-term control over the Philadelphi Corridor.

Hardman said Israeli forces have turned the central Netzarim corridor, between Gaza City and Wadi Gaza, into a buffer zone four kilometres (2.5 miles) wide mostly cleared of buildings.


– ‘Wipe out the north’ –


The report excludes developments in the war since August 2024, particularly an intense Israeli offensive in northern Gaza since early October 2024.

The operation has forced the displacement of at least 100,000 people from the Palestinian territory’s far north to Gaza City and surrounding areas, UN Palestinian refugee agency spokeswoman Louise Wateridge told AFP.

Ragheb al-Rubaiya, a 63-year-old Palestinian from north Gaza’s Jabalia Camp, said to AFP that he had been driven from his home after “bombing started from the air and the tanks, and they drove us out against our will”.

“They’re destroying everything in Jabalia, and the goal is clear even to the blind: to wipe out the north and cut it off from Gaza,” he added.

HRW’s report argued “the actions of the Israeli authorities in Gaza are the actions of one ethnic or religious group to remove Palestinians, another ethnic or religious group, from areas within Gaza by violent means”.

It pointed to the organised nature of the displacement, and the intention for Israeli forces to ensure affected areas will “remain permanently emptied and cleansed of Palestinians”.