Mexico leading source of goods imported by US

February 9, 2024

WASHINGTON (AP) – For the first time in more than two decades, Mexico last year surpassed China as the leading source of goods imported by the United States (US). The shift reflects the growing tensions between Washington and Beijing as well as US efforts to import from countries that are friendlier and closer to home.

Figures released on Wednesday by the US Commerce Department show that the value of goods imported by the US from Mexico rose nearly five per cent from 2022 to 2023, to more than USD475 billion. At the same time, the value of Chinese imports tumbled 20 per cent to USD427 billion.

The last time that Mexican goods imported by the US exceeded the value of China’s imports was in 2002.

Economic relations between the US and China have severely deteriorated in recent years as Beijing has fought aggressively on trade and made ominous military gestures in the Far East.

The Trump administration began imposing tariffs on Chinese imports in 2018, arguing that Beijing’s trade practices violated global trade rules.

President Joe Biden retained those tariffs after taking office in 2021, making clear that antagonism toward China would be a rare area of common ground for Democrats and Republicans.

As an alternative to offshoring production to China, which US corporations had long engaged in, the Biden administration has urged companies to seek suppliers in allied countries (friend-shoring) or to return manufacturing to the US (reshoring). Supply-chain disruptions related to the COVID-19 pandemic also led US companies to seek supplies closer to the US (near-shoring).

Mexico has been among the beneficiaries of the growing shift away from reliance on Chinese factories. But the picture is more complicated than it might seem. Some Chinese manufacturers have established factories in Mexico to exploit the benefits of the three-year-old US-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement, which allows for duty-free trade in North America for many products.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said this week that the trade status gives Mexico new leverage, saying it would make it hard for the US to close the two countries’ border to limit immigration, as suggested in negotiations on a border bill in the US Senate.

“The negotiation is proposing closing the border,” he said. “Do you think Americans, or Mexicans, but especially the Americans, would approve that? The businesses wouldn’t take it, maybe one day, but not a week.”

Some industries, especially auto manufacturers have set up plants on both sides of the border that depend on each for a steady supply of parts. Derek Scissors, a China specialist at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, noted that the biggest drops in Chinese imports were in computers and electronics and chemicals and pharmaceuticals, all politically sensitive categories.

“I don’t see the US being comfortable with a rebound in those areas in 2024 and 2025,” Scissors said, predicting that the China-Mexico reversal on imports to the United States likely “is not a one-year blip”.

Scissors suggested that the drop in US reliance on Chinese goods partly reflects wariness of Beijing’s economic policies under President Xi Jinping.

Xi’s draconian COVID-19 lockdowns brought significant swaths of the Chinese economy to a standstill in 2022, and his officials have raided foreign companies in apparent counterespionage investigations.

“I think it’s corporate America belatedly deciding Xi Jinping is unreliable,” he said.

Overall, the US deficit in the trade of goods with the rest of the world – the gap between the value of what the US sells and what it buys abroad narrowed 10 per cent last year to USD1.06 trillion.

Steube, Tuberville file bill to ban transgender women from US Olympic teams

BY BROOKE MIGDON - 02/08/24 - THE HILL

The Olympic rings are seen in front of the Paris City Hall, in Paris, on April 30, 2023. 

(AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard, File)

House and Senate Republicans this month mounted a third effort to ban transgender women and girls from female sports teams, this time by attempting to bar trans women from competing on U.S. Olympic teams ahead of this year’s Summer Games in Paris.

Under a bill filed Feb 1. by Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.) and Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), governing bodies recognized by the U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC) would be prohibited from allowing transgender women to participate in women’s athletic events.


It also would modify eligibility requirements for amateur sports governing organizations to bar transgender women from “participating in an amateur athletic competition that is designated for females, women, or girls,” according to a copy of the legislation obtained by The Hill.

The bill would not impose similar restrictions on transgender men wishing to participate in men’s Olympic or amateur sporting events.

The measure’s introduction marks the first time Congress has attempted to ban transgender women and girls from competitions involving professional athletes; the House in April passed a bill to prevent transgender student-athletes from competing on school sports teams consistent with their gender identity. That legislation was also sponsored by Steube.

A second bill to ban transgender women and girls from competing on school sports teams was introduced late last year by Rep. Lisa McClain (R-Mich.).

Rep. Lisa McClain (R-Mich.) holds up a rule book during a House Oversight Committee markup on Wednesday, January 10, 2024 as they consider a resolution to hold Hunter Biden in contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena last month. (Greg Nash)

Steube in a Feb. 1 statement said he and Tuberville introduced the latest bill, titled the Protection of Women in Olympic and Amateur Sports Act, in response to a recent policy update by USA Boxing that altered eligibility requirements for transgender athletes.

Boxing’s highest national governing body, which is overseen by the USOC, in January published new guidelines for transgender men and women requiring genital reassignment surgery and stringent hormone testing.

Under the new requirements, trans athletes younger than 18 “must compete as their birth gender” in weight classes outlined in the governing body’s rulebook. Transgender adults must undergo surgery and submit quarterly hormone tests for at least four years to be eligible to compete in accordance with their gender identity.

USA Boxing’s transgender policy is among the most strict for trans athletes and runs counter to guidelines set in 2021 by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) that abandoned hormone testing requirements. The IOC stopped requiring surgery in 2016.

Still, USA Boxing’s transgender policy has drawn criticism from opponents, including Steube and Tuberville, who say transgender women should not be allowed to compete in women’s boxing events at all. Steube in a post on X, formerly Twitter, called the policy update “insane” and said USA Boxing was a “delusional organization.”

“Due to the illogical USA Boxing transgender policy, I introduced legislation to prevent organizations who choose to live in delusion from being recognized by the U.S. Olympic committee,” Steube said in the Feb. 1 statement.

Missouri senators vote against allowing abortions in rape, incest cases

BY LAUREN SFORZA - 02/08/24

The Missouri Capitol is seen, Sept. 16, 2022, in Jefferson City, Mo. Republicans in Missouri and Idaho will have to attend caucuses to cast their presidential picks in 2024, after GOP-led legislatures in those states canceled their presidential primaries and then missed a deadline to reinstate them. Presidential caucuses in both states are planned on March 2, 2024. 

(AP Photo/Jeff Roberson, File)

Missouri senators voted Wednesday against amendments that would have allowed abortions in the cases of rape and incest in the state.

Missouri senators debated a bill that would make it illegal for public funds to go toward abortion providers, such as Planned Parenthood. During the debate, Missouri state Sen. Tracy McCreery (D) introduced amendments that would allow exceptions for abortion in incest and rape cases.

“I think the consensus is that Missouri law went too far when they banned all abortions,” she said during the discussion, according to audio posted online by the state Senate.

However, her efforts were struck down along party lines by the Republican-controlled state Senate, The Associated Press reported. McCreery also argued the current abortion ban shows the state does not care about women who are victims of rape.

“What we’re saying is, ‘We don’t care,’” McCreery said of the abortion ban, according to the AP. “We’re going to force you to give birth, even if that pregnancy resulted from forcible rape by a family member, a date, an ex-husband or a stranger.”

State Sen. Rick Brattin (R) pushed back on allowing exceptions, arguing that giving birth in the cases of rape and incest could help the mother recover, according to AP.

“If you want to go after the rapist, let’s give him the death penalty. Absolutely, let’s do it,” Brattin said, according to the AP. “But not the innocent person caught in-between that, by God’s grace, may even be the greatest healing agent you need in which to recover from such an atrocity.”

According to the Center for Reproductive Rights, Missouri began enforcing its strict ban on all abortions following the Supreme Court’s ruling overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022. It bans all abortions except to save the life of a pregnant person, according to the center.

The Associated Press contributed.

Stanford students protest new ban on overnight sit-in camping

BY LAUREN IRWIN 

THE HILL

- 02/08/24

FILE- People walk on the Stanford University campus beneath Hoover Tower in Stanford, Calif., on March 14, 2019. Stanford University has apologized for limiting the admission of Jewish students in the 1950s after a task force commissioned by the school earlier this year found records that show university officials excluded Jewish students for years. 

(AP Photo/Ben Margot, File)

Students at Stanford University are protesting a new school ban on overnight sit-in camping.

Pro-Palestinian students protesting the Israel-Hamas war who have camped outside for 112 days have called for supporters to rally against the ban after it was announced by the university on Thursday night.

In a statement Thursday, the university said it would no longer permit overnight displays and camping “based on concerns for the physical safety of our community.”

Strong winds from a storm last weekend blew down tents and since then, students have placed chairs in the area, “taking the space another group was using,” the university wrote in the Stanford Report.

The university said it has a policy that prohibits overnight camping unless it is specifically permitted by the school.

“The university has allowed overnight camping in White Plaza since the events of October 7 out of a desire to support the peaceful expression of free speech in the ways that students choose to exercise that expression,” the notice said.

Stanford said its level of concern has risen to a point where it can no longer support overnight activities.

All items will have to be removed from the area between the hours of 8 p.m. and 8 a.m. and items left behind are “subject to removal for health and safety reasons.”

Students who violate the ban will be subject to disciplinary referral and may be cited for trespassing for not complying with University announcements.

“Our community holds a variety of views regarding the Israel-Hamas war. Stanford continues to firmly support the peaceful expression of divergent views by members of our community, and we will continue working to provide for the physical safety and well-being of all members of our community,” the announcement said.

Students have called an emergency rally to protest the University’s ban. A post shared online called for “all hands on deck” at the sit-in on Thursday.

“We need a strong show of people united to support the sit-in’s existence,” the post said. “Wear Stanford gear.”

A user who posted the announcement said the university is banning the sit-in because “Zionists on campus have complained about losing their counterprotest spot after their unoccupied canopy blew away during a storm.”

Stanford was one of many universities that faced scrutiny over its reaction to student protests in the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks.

The university previously addressed reports of a “non-faculty instructor” who was said to have “addressed the Middle East conflict in a manner that called out individual students in class based on their backgrounds and identities.”

 

Spanish Foreign Minister: We support establishment of Palestinian state & have stopped arms exports to Zionist entity

[08/February/2024]

MADRID Feb 08. 2024 (Saba) - Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares confirmed that his country wants a viable Palestinian state that coexists with the Zionist entity, calling for a peace conference that brings together Palestinians and Zionists and leads to the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Last Tuesday, the "Palestine Today" news agency quoted Albares as saying: The call for the international peace conference is based on the two-state solution... praising the role of the State of Qatar in mediating a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.

He pointed out that since October 7, Madrid has suspended all licenses to export weapons to the Zionist entity, noting that this date "made us realize the importance of a just and lasting solution to the issue of the Palestinian people."

He stressed his country's unwillingness to expand the scope of violence in the region, saying: "We must do what we can to prevent this," calling on all parties to comply with the orders of the International Court of Justice.

He pointed out that United Nations headquarters, schools and hospitals in the Gaza Strip are being bombed... demanding a permanent and immediate ceasefire in Gaza because 27,000 Palestinians were martyred in the war.

E.M

Nearly 100% of Arabs say U.S. policy on Israel-Gaza ‘bad’

To say that the image of America as an ‘indispensable nation’ has taken a hit is an understatement

REPORTING | MIDDLE EAST

JIM LOBE

BLAISE MALLEY
FEB 08, 2024

Israel’s war in Gaza – and Washington’s support for it -- is inflicting serious damage on U.S. standing across the Arab world, according to a representative poll of 16 Arab countries released Thursday by the Arab Center Washington DC.

An aggregate average of 82% of respondents across the region described the U.S. response to the war as “very bad,” while another 12% described it as “bad.” And an aggregate of 72% of respondents said that U.S. policy toward the war in Gaza will harm Washington’s “image” in the region either “somewhat” (22%) or “very much” (50%). Similar percentages said it will harm U.S. “interests” in the region as well. An aggregate of 76% said their views on U.S. policy in the Arab world had “become more negative” since the war began.

An aggregate average of more than half of respondents (51%) also said they regard the United States as constituting “the biggest threat to the peace and stability of the region” – up from the 39% who named the U.S. as the greatest threat in an Arab Center poll in 2022. One in four respondents (26%) described Israel as the region’s greatest threat.

The poll, which queried 8,000 respondents across the 16 countries that together account for 95% of the Arab region’s total population, was conducted by telephone between December 12 and January 5; that is, during the third month of Israel’s campaign in Gaza. The countries included Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait, Yemen, and Qatar in the Persian Gulf sub-region; Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, and the Palestinian West Bank across the Levant and Mesopotamia; and Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, and Sudan in North Africa. Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and Syria were not included.

The aggregate regional opinions were calculated as an average of the results of the 16 surveyed countries, with each country given the same weight in order to ensure that the opinions of respondents in the most populous countries did not dominate the survey’s findings.

The results of the poll, which was carried out in cooperation with the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies in Doha, Qatar, should cause some alarm in Washington, according to Shibley Telhami, a professor at the University of Maryland.

“This is a historic moment in some very important ways,” Telhami said at an event presenting the survey findings at the National Press Club on Thursday. “The scale of what we have seen and the role the U.S. has played in this deeply painful crisis has been so large and been perceived to be so large that it’s going to leave an imprint on the consciousness of a generation in the region that is going to outlast this administration and outlast this crisis.”

Respondents believed Washington to be the key component enabling Israel to carry out its war on Gaza, in which more than 27,000 people, mostly women and children, have reportedly been killed to date. Exactly half of the Arab public named “U.S. military and political support” as the most important factor, with an additional 15% saying it was the second most important. The “lack of decisive action” from Arab governments toward Israel, which was the second popular choice, was named by 14% of respondents as the most important factor and by 23% as the second most important.

The poll also showed a notable increase of opposition in the Arab world for recognizing Israel in certain countries. An aggregate of 89% of respondents said they oppose recognition of Israel, while only four percent favored it, the lowest percentage since the question was first posed in 2011.

Of particular note in that respect were responses from respondents in Saudi Arabia. Normalizing relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel has been a key goal of the Biden administration, which has been engaged in intensive negotiations with Riyadh over the terms for normalization, including Saudi demands for a ceasefire in Gaza. The poll found that the percentage of Saudi respondents who oppose the recognition of Israel has jumped from 38% the last time the question was asked (in 2022) to 68%, an increase apparently largely attributable to the Gaza war. (Twenty-nine percent of respondents in the kingdom declined to answer the question.)

Opposition to normalization also rose by about ten percentage points over the year in Morocco and Sudan — both of which normalized relations with Israel in 2020 in what is known as the “Abraham Accords” — to 78% and 81%, respectively.

In another blow to Biden’s policy, which has repeatedly stressed its commitment to the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel since the Gaza War began, large majorities of respondents in each country said they did not consider Washington to be serious about following through. An aggregate average of 68% of respondents said Washington was “not at all serious” about the commitment, while another 13% said Washington was “somewhat unserious.”

Skepticism was particularly high in Jordan, Lebanon, and the West Bank which together house the greatest number of Palestinian refugees in the Arab world, but 77% of Saudi respondents said Washington was either “not at all serious” (62%) or “somewhat unserious” (11%).

The poll also found that the Palestinian issue has resumed its place as a top priority for Arab publics as a whole. Asked whether they considered the Palestinian cause as “one for all Arabs and not the Palestinian people alone,” an aggregate average of 92% of respondents chose the first option, 16 percentage points higher than when the same question was asked in 2022. In Saudi Arabia, the percentage agreeing with that view jumped from 69% to 95%. Similar large increases were found in Iraq, Egypt, and Morocco.

As for views about the positions of key Arab countries toward the Gaza war, respondents were most critical of the UAE, with an aggregate average of 67% rating Abu Dhabi’s position as either “very bad” (49%) or “bad” (18%). Saudi Arabia did not fare much better with an aggregate of 64% of respondents describing its position as “very bad” (44%) or “bad” (20%). Majorities also disapproved of the positions of Egypt and the Palestinian Authority.

The war has also reduced the hope that there can be peace between Israel and Palestine. An aggregate of nearly 60% of respondents said that during the war they had “become certain that there will be no possibility for peace with Israel,” while only 13% still believed in the possibility of peace.

Ultimately, the test of whether the public’s reaction to the war will be how governments in the Arab world respond, Telhami said at Thursday’s event. The first evidence, he said, will be whether or not Saudi Arabia insists on the creation of a Palestinian state as part of any normalization agreement with Israel and doesn’t settle for the promise of statehood at some point in the future,

“That will be the real test for has this horrible crisis led to a public, so activated in the Arab world, including Saudi Arabia, that governments are just not going to do things that are gonna go against their feelings,” he said.

Jim Lobe is a Contributing Editor of Responsible Statecraft. He formerly served as chief of the Washington bureau of Inter Press Service from 1980 to 1985 and again from 1989 to 2015.


Blaise Malley is a reporter for Responsible Statecraft. He is a former associate editor at The National Interest and reporter-researcher at The New Republic. His writing has appeared in The New Republic, The American Prospect, The American Conservative, and elsewhere.

The views expressed by authors on Responsible Statecraft do not necessarily reflect those of the Quincy Institute or its associates.

Gaza genocide turns into PR disaster for US

Omar Karmi

The Electronic Intifada 

1 February 2024

Americans are increasingly rejecting the official US line on Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, here in New York on 27 January. 

Gina M RandazzoZUMA Press

Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza is turning into a public relations disaster for the US.

Israel has been openly and increasingly defying its main sponsor and ally despite the Biden administration’s fulsome support for Israel’s massive assault on the tiny coastal territory it occupies, and despite the administration repeatedly circumventing its own legislature to deliver munitions to Israel.

In December, the US said it wanted Israel to wind down its Gaza operation by mid-January.

It hasn’t happened.

Twice in January, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu openly contradicted the US administration over a two-state solution.

The second time, he did so despite US President Joe Biden’s valiant effort to interpret Netanyahu’s first “no” into a “yes.”

The US has said it opposes any buffer zone in Gaza.

It has been ignored.

The US has said it opposes any Israeli plans to resettle Gaza.

Tell that to the thousands of people – including 11 Israeli ministers and 15 parliamentarians from Israel’s ruling coalition – who danced the night away on Sunday at a conference in Jerusalem called to plan new Israeli settlements in Gaza.
Embarrassed and humiliated

The US has also been vocal that there must be no “resettlement” of Palestinians in Gaza outside the territory.

But that hasn’t stopped the Israeli military from pursuing ethnic cleansing in Gaza, with loud encouragement from senior officals, whether directly, under weasel concepts such as “voluntary migration,” or in the kind of indirect language Netanyahu has increasingly couched his intentions behind.

It is a startling case of tail wagging dog. And in a country that styles itself as the world’s preeminent superpower, the question has to be: How long will Washington allow itself to be embarrassed and humiliated by an ally that is effectively on trial for genocide?



It is certainly a poor look for a superpower whose moment bestriding a unipolar world is fast receding.

But does this divergence between Tel Aviv and Washington suggest a meaningful rift? Will the US administration start moving from “conversation” to more robust measures to bring Israel to heel?

Might Washington seize on the International Court of Justice ruling that Israel has a genocide case to answer as an excuse to finally put its murderous ally back in its box?

Or will Netanyahu’s defiance of his main supporter be brushed under the carpet as it has been for decades, not least since the Oslo accords were signed 30 years ago, a period in which Israel has vigorously pursued a settlement project in occupied territory that is intended to undermine the very possibility of an independent Palestinian entity that Washington says it wants, and which the US has simply ignored.

Is it even defiance?

Complete complicity

The US response to the ICJ ruling certainly suggests that there is little Israel can do that will cause Washington to waver even slightly.

The breathtaking arrogance with which America’s top diplomat Antony Blinken dismissed South Africa’s genocide case against Israel as “meritless” is just one example.

Spokesperson after spokesperson has stood in Washington press briefing rooms to defend, deflect or ignore even blatant Israeli breaches of the rules of war.

On Tuesday, it was the turn of the State Department’s Matt Miller who had no opinion on an undercover operation in which Israeli troops dressed like doctors and nurses (perfidy) entered a a Jenin hospital (protected building) and executed (extrajudicial killing) three people asleep in their hospital beds (protected persons), one of whom was half paralyzed from an earlier Israeli assault.

But allegations that go the other way are readily accepted and quickly acted on.

Thus, and based merely on Israeli allegations against 12 staffers that the US conceded it had not itself examined, the US promptly decided to defund UNRWA, the UN agency that caters to Palestinian refugees and the one organization that is best positioned to deliver the humanitarian aid the US itself says it is eager to see increased to 2.3 million starving people in Gaza.

Of course, US officials are aided in their defense of Israel by a compliant US media that fails to ask even the most basic questions of Israeli allegations, and allows presidential candidates, like Nikki Hayley to openly advocate for ethnic cleansing without consequence.



There is very little Israel has said that hasn’t been taken at face value by US officials and US media. Remember this?

Proof indeed.

Legal cover

The US can of course comfort itself with its legal cover against international accountability.

Should, for instance, the ICJ eventually find Israel guilty of genocide following a full trial, and the US thus be found complicit, America could simply invade the Netherlands to save any Israeli or American officials on trial in The Hague.

A most unlikely scenario, to be sure. But entirely possible.

Under the 2002 American Servicemembers’ Protection Act – better known as the Hague Invasion Act – the American president is granted “all means necessary” to free any US military personnel – and any allied personnel, including Israeli – should they go on trial at the International Criminal Court.

This is not the only legal means by which the US supports Israel.

Stringent restrictions on US arms supplies to foreign countries suspected of human rights abuses – the so-called Leahy law – have been set aside when it comes to Israel, because, according to the bilateral agreement, Israel has a “robust, independent and effective” legal system, a provision no other country enjoys.

It’s certainly robust. Israel’s military court rule, to which Palestinians are answerable, has a 95 percent conviction rate.

Such Israeli exceptionalism, and the double standards that come with it, are increasingly obvious, however.

And despite the best efforts of the US to promote and support the Israeli narrative, the manipulation of public perceptions has failed globally and is failing domestically.

The US has become increasingly isolated at the UN – where Washington has wielded its Security Council veto 45 times for Israel since 1972.

Dissent over Gaza is growing within the EU and within different branches of the US administration.

Even the US judicial system is waking up. While a court in San Francisco dismissed a lawsuit against Biden for “enabling genocide,” it also found that there is strong evidence that Israel’s “military siege in Gaza is intended to eradicate a whole people and therefore plausibly falls within the international prohibition against genocide.”

And though confronted with the double whammy monolith of opinion from US officialdom and US media, 35 percent of Americans nevertheless believe Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, according to a recent Economist/YouGov poll, just one percent less than those who say it isn’t.
Dismantling consent

Such public sentiment has yet to make an impact in the US Congress, where blind support for Israel is still very much the order.

But it makes a difference to the White House in a presidential election year. The Economist/YouGov poll found that among younger generations and among Democrat voters nearly half (49 percent in each case) believe Israel is committing genocide.

And it also suggests that if the management of public perceptions – the “manufacture of consent” in Noam Chomsky’s terminology – is key to Washington’s foreign policy, it has been a stark failure.

Back in 2017, a Department of Defense report entitled At Our Own Peril, identified “hyperconnectivity” as the “most transformative characteristic of the contemporary environment,” an environment it characterizes as “post-primacy,” i.e., with the US positioned as a global power but only a dominant one, rather than the dominant one.

In this environment, the report suggests, “individuals, groups and states are now able to access imagery and sensitive open source information that once was tightly controlled by governments.”

Hyperconnectivity – the importance of which “cannot be overstated” – can then become “a vehicle for the rapid, viral transmission” of “disruptive information, emerging more organically and triggering unanticipated, seemingly leaderless security challenges.”

“In the end,” the report argues, “senior defense leaders should assume that all defense related activity from minor tactical movements to major military operations would occur completely in the open from this point forward.”

And something like this appears to have happened in Gaza where, despite Israel banning foreign journalists from the territory and censoring foreign broadcasters, journalists, aid workers, healthcare professionals and civilians from Gaza have been highly successful in transmitting – in part through independent online publications like this august organ – the reality of Israel’s assault to the outside world.

People, in other words, have been able to see with their own eyes what has happened in Gaza. They’ve been able to read about it in South Africa’s carefully assembled and very impressive genocide case against Israel at the ICJ.

And no amount of “strategic manipulation of perceptions” can compete with facts.

Perhaps this realization explains UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron’s sudden comments about Palestinian statehood recognition.

The UK long ago ceded any independent Middle East policy to the US. Cameron will have been unlikely to have stuck his neck out without a green light from Washington.

Indeed, reports suggest the US might follow suit.

After all, who wants to invade the Netherlands?

Omar Karmi is associate editor of The Electronic Intifada and a former Jerusalem and Washington, DC, correspondent for The National newspaper.

NY Times tries to cover up its 7 October “mass rapes” fraud


Ali Abunimah 

Media Watch 

6 February 2024


The fallout has been growing from the so-called investigation by The New York Times into alleged mass rapes of Israeli women by Hamas fighters on 7 October – as I discuss with my colleague Nora Barrows-Friedman in the video above.



As The Electronic Intifada has reported, Israel’s sensational claims are not backed by any substantial evidence.

Rather, the lurid allegations of sexual violence appear calculated to demonize Palestinians and justify or distract from Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Yet mainstream media and politicians continue to disseminate this atrocity propaganda without regard for the obvious holes in the Israeli narrative.

The Times article, published in late December, gave added credence to these claims, especially since its lead writer was Jeffrey Gettleman, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter.

But as we demonstrated, it is a journalistic fraud.

Members of the family of Gal Abdush, the deceased woman portrayed by Gettleman as a victim of the alleged “broad pattern” of sexual violence have repudiated the article and accused the Times of misleading and manipulating them. They say there is no evidence that Abdush was raped.

Gettleman also relied extensively for “evidence” on ZAKA, an extremist Jewish group that collects bodies and body parts for burial, and whose leaders have fabricated numerous accounts of atrocities from 7 October.

A recent investigation by Israel’s Haaretz newspaper accuses ZAKA of using bodies of people killed on 7 October as props for fundraising and that as part of its effort “to get media exposure, ZAKA spread accounts of atrocities that never happened, released sensitive and graphic photos, and acted unprofessionally on the ground.”
Now some of Gettleman’s colleagues at the Times are also raising questions, wary of being caught in yet another of the newspaper of record’s notorious journalistic scandals.



On 28 January, The Intercept revealed that the Times pulled a high-profile episode of its podcast The Daily that was based on Gettleman’s mass rapes article.

The decision not to air the episode was taken “amid a furious internal debate about the strength of the paper’s original reporting on the subject,” according to The Intercept.

The episode was supposed to go out on 9 January but as criticism of Gettleman’s reporting grew internally and externally, The Daily shelved the original script and put the episode on hold.

A new script was drafted, one that according to The Intercept, “allowed for uncertainty, and asked open-ended questions that were absent from the original article.”

But even that new script “remains the subject of significant controversy” within the Times newsroom and has yet to air. Some New York Times staffers fear “another Caliphate-level journalistic debacle,” The Intercept reports.

That’s a reference to the 2018 multipart podcast Caliphate, which the Times had to retract after it turned out that the main character – a Canadian Muslim claiming to have been a former ISIS fighter in Syria – had fabricated his entire story.

But rather than learning the lessons from this – or its false reporting on Iraqi “weapons of mass destruction” that helped pave the way for the 2003 US-led war of aggression against Iraq – the Times leadership appears to be doubling down.

“There seems to be no self-awareness at the top,” one Times staffer told The Intercept.

The newspaper’s editors allowed Gettleman to publish a follow-up article on 29 January, in an attempt to patch up his original story.

As I explain in the video above – a segment from The Electronic Intifada’s livestream of 31 January – Gettleman fails to address the criticisms of his story.

Instead he spins, distorts and provides new claims that lack any credibility – anything but take responsibility for his egregious malpractice and spreading of atrocity propaganda.
The strategy of doubling down on lies seems to be paying off for him. On 9 February, Gettleman is set to speak at a seminar hosted by former secretary of state Hillary Clinton at Columbia University, titled “Preventing and Addressing Conflict-Related Sexual Violence.”



In 2011, Hillary Clinton’s State Department disseminated false claims that Libyan forces had been given the drug Viagra so that they could carry out mass rapes as a weapon for war.

These fabrications were part of the Obama administration’s push to justify the US military intervention that overthrew the country’s leader Muammar Gaddafi and, among other things, turned Libya into a haven for human trafficking, including torture and sexual violence.

This week’s event at Columbia University – where Clinton now teaches – is set to be another forum for her to spread atrocity propaganda to justify war, this time on behalf of Israel.

Additional resources on Israel’s “mass rapes” propaganda

“CNN report claiming sexual violence on October 7 relied on non-credible witnesses, some with undisclosed ties to Israeli govt,” Mondoweiss (1 December 2023)


“Watch: Debunking Israel’s “mass rape” propaganda,” The Electronic Intifada (4 December 2023)


“Despite lack of evidence, allegations of Hamas ‘mass rape’ are fueling Israeli genocide in Gaza,” Mondoweiss (8 December 2023)


“ZAKA is not a trustworthy source for allegations of sexual violence on October 7,” Mondoweiss, (30 December 2023)


“Family of key case in New York Times October 7 sexual violence report renounces story, says reporters manipulated them,” Mondoweiss (3 January 2024)


“Watch: NY Times ‘investigation’ of mass rape by Hamas falls apart,” The Electronic Intifada (9 January 2024)


“Screams without proof: questions for NYT about shoddy ‘Hamas mass rape’ report,” The Grayzone (10 January 2024)

Ali Abunimah's blog

A toxic war

Khuloud Rabah Sulaiman and Salma Yaseen

The Electronic Intifada 

8 February 2024

Israel’s extreme violence has poisoned the environment in Gaza. Omar Ashtawy

APA images

Finding clean air in Gaza has become nearly impossible.

Parents are worried that toxic substances emitted by Israel’s weapons are causing an increase in respiratory complaints among children.

Alaa is a mother, who was recently awoken in the middle of the night by her daughter Hala, 8.

Hala had a fever and was having trouble breathing.

She was brought to northern Gaza’s Kamal Adwan hospital, which is operating at a reduced capacity after being attacked by Israeli forces during December. Its staff confirmed that Hala’s lungs had been damaged.

Initially, Hala was prescribed antibiotics and an inhaler.

A few days later, her condition worsened and she was transferred to the hospital’s intensive care unit. Attempts to save her by providing oxygen were not successful.

Tragically, Hala died.

Alaa, Hala’s mother, blames Israel for her daughter’s death. After being displaced during the earlier stages of Israel’s genocidal war, their family has lived with Alaa’s parents in Jabaliya refugee camp, northern Gaza.

Fifteen people have shared a confined space.

“Israel deliberately killed my child,” said Alaa. “Israel forced us to breathe toxic air.”

“The environment is poisoned,” she added.”The smell from the gunpowder and white phosphorus is suffocating.”
Oxygen runs out

As well as the pollution caused by Israel’s weapons, the air in Gaza has been fouled by the widespread burning of wood and other material.

With electricity and fuel scarce, people have had no choice than to light fires so that they can have a little warmth and cook the small amount of food still available.

Rabah Shehada, now aged 69, was diagnosed with asthma when he was a child.

His health has deteriorated over the past few months.

He has coughed up blood and experienced rapid heartbeat and abdominal pain, as well as being short of breath. The symptoms become acute each time he is near a fire.

After being examined by a doctor working in a school now serving as a clinic for displaced people, he was diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

His small stock of oxygen tubes and inhalers will soon run out. And the constant power outages mean that he struggles to charge the medical devices that he needs.

“I am often woken up by his severe coughing,” said Siham, Rabah’s wife. “I fear that I am going to lose him one of these days.”

A woman called Shurouq recently gave birth to a girl at al-Helal al-Emirati hospital in Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city.

The baby – named Samar – had a dangerously high temperature when she was just one week old.

“I rushed to my neighbor carrying Samar in my arms,” Shurouq said. “I begged him [the neighbor] to take us to hospital in his taxi.”

Samar lost consciousness on the way to the hospital. She has been receiving oxygen treatment since then.

She has a lung infection and her life is at serious risk.

Shurouq believes that her daughter’s health condition is the result of being exposed to polluted air during pregnancy.

After being uprooted from her home, she lived in a tent to the west of Khan Younis city. Much waste was dumped in the surrounding area, particularly after an official landfill was destroyed.

“I was always breathing air contaminated with harmful substances when the waste was being burned,” Shurouq said. “The sky was full of gray smoke all day.”

Khuloud Rabah Sulaiman is a journalist living in Gaza.

Salma Yaseen is a student of English literature at the Islamic University of Gaza.

The Israel-Hamas War: The Humanitarian Crisis in Gaza


By Christina Bouri and Diana Roy

CFR
Last updated February 8, 2024

International calls for a cease-fire are mounting as the humanitarian situation in Gaza deteriorates rapidly amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas.

In October 2023, the Palestinian militant group Hamas launched a massive surprise assault on southern Israel, the deadliest single attack on Israelis in history. Israel’s subsequent declaration of war with the intent to destroy Hamas has further worsened an already dire situation in the Gaza Strip, where more than two million Palestinians lived prior to the conflict. International efforts to negotiate a full humanitarian cease-fire have failed as the war’s death toll has climbed.

During their assault, Hamas militants killed around 1,200 Israelis, about 70 percent of them civilians, and took roughly 240 hostages. While Hamas freed more than 100 hostages under a weeklong cease-fire deal in November, it still holds some 136 people captive, though an estimated 32 of them have died, according to an assessment conducted by the Israeli military and reported by the New York Times. In a January 2024 ruling, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to contain the civilian death toll in Gaza, though it did not issue an order demanding a cease-fire.
How bad is the humanitarian situation in Gaza?

The Gaza Strip, a small territory of about 139 square miles (360 square kilometers), or roughly the size of the city of Detroit, was already experiencing a severe humanitarian crisis before the current hostilities broke out. As a result of a sixteen-year blockade by Israel, more than half of all Gazans depend on international assistance for basic services. Additionally, some 80 percent of Gaza’s residents are considered refugees under international law, and Palestinians overall compose the largest stateless community in the world

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Israel’s military operations in response to Hamas’s attack have resulted in “colossal human suffering,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in January. As of February, Israel’s retaliation has killed 27,748 people [PDF] and injured more than 66,800 others, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health. (These figures could not be independently verified, but outside sources have also reported similar numbers.) More than 120 journalists and media workers have also been killed, as well as over 150 UN employees, the highest number of aid workers killed in any conflict in UN history.

Israel maintains a complete siege of Gaza, cutting off electricity and water, and supplies of food and medicine remain scarce. A December report [PDF] by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, an initiative composed of independent international food security and nutrition experts, warned that an estimated more than 90 percent of Gaza’s population is facing crisis levels of food insecurity. Without fuel, meanwhile, Gaza’s only power station has gone dark. The lack of electricity has shut down desalination and waste-water treatment plants, further compromising access to safe drinking water.

Israel’s aerial bombardments have demolished neighborhoods, schools, and mosques; satellite imagery analyzed by the United Nations shows that approximately 30 percent of Gaza’s total structures have been destroyed or damaged. (Similar satellite imagery analysis by the BBC puts this number higher, at between 50 and 61 percent.) The Israeli military has said that Hamas has placed portions of its command network and military tunnel system below civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, which Israeli strikes have hit.

Gaza’s health system, which was reported to have collapsed in November 2023, remains crippled, with hospitals running extremely low on rationed fuel reserves and medical supplies. Northern Gaza’s two major hospitals have long greatly exceeded their capacity, and Nasser Hospital, the largest functioning medical facility in southern Gaza, is now unable to provide critical medical care. Health authorities have also warned of the growing risk of disease outbreaks as health conditions rapidly decline.

Learn More
Gaza’s Worsening Health and Humanitarian Crises

What are the refuge options for Palestinians in Gaza?

Gazans’ options for refuge are severely limited. As of January, some 75 percent of the territory’s population of more than two million have been displaced. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have fled bombing in the north, cramming inside the southern city of Rafah, considered the last designated safe zone for those seeking shelter. However, Israel’s defense minister announced in February that the Israeli military plans to expand its ground campaign into Rafah, now the strip’s most populous city. Aid groups say such a move could lead to a large-scale loss of life and place more pressure on neighboring countries to take in refugees, though Israeli officials have said they will coordinate with Egypt before any ground offensive takes place to evacuate displaced Palestinians northward.

Palestinians wait in line to receive food in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. 

Mohammed Salem/Reuters


Egypt, which shares the Rafah border crossing with Gaza and already hosts some 390,000 refugees and asylum seekers, primarily from around the region, is the only viable outlet left. The Egyptian government was initially reluctant to open the crossing following the outbreak of war. Since then, Israel has allowed aid trucks carrying water, food, fuel, and medical supplies to enter Gaza. (UN agencies have said that aid delivery has been hindered by ongoing fighting, a slow vetting process, and the lack of crossings into Gaza.) A few hundred foreign nationals and injured civilians have also been allowed to flee Gaza via the border crossing, which has temporarily closed several times due to Israeli strikes.
How are humanitarian aid organizations responding?

In November 2023, the United Nations launched an updated $481 million flash appeal to address the needs of people in Gaza and the West Bank; as of December, nearly half of total funding requirements had been pledged. In Gaza, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) are helping to provide essential goods and services, such as medical supplies, fuel, and emergency assistance. However, the Joe Biden administration announced in January that it is temporarily suspending new funding to UNRWA following allegations by Israel that a dozen agency employees participated in Hamas’s October 7 attack; many other countries, including Canada, Germany, and Japan, have also suspended their donations.

Several other major organizations, including the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement—which comprises the Palestine Red Crescent Society—and Doctors Without Borders, are also supplying humanitarian aid. As the fighting continues, international calls for a humanitarian cease-fire have grown; in December, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution calling for the immediate cessation of hostilities; ten countries, including the United States, voted against the measure.
Recommended Resources

This article by CFR Senior Fellow David J. Scheffer explains humanitarian law in the context of the Israel-Hamas war.

At this CFR media briefing, panelists discuss international law and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

The Center for Preventive Action tracks the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

CFR’s World101 library explores the history behind the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Will Merrow created the graphic for this In Brief.