Thursday, November 07, 2024

Climate realities
LAHORE AIR POLLUTION

DAWN
Editorial
November 8, 2024 


THE Air Quality Index in Lahore once again shot past the 1,000-level mark on Wednesday morning, registering at an eye-watering 1,165. The suffocating pall that has descended over the city, and also wide swathes of the province, has forced the Punjab government to announce a slew of new measures to contain its harmful, potentially life-threatening effects. Among these measures are a bar on heavy traffic in the provincial capital till January 2025, the mandatory wearing of masks, closure of educational institutions till Nov 17, and enforcement of work-from-home for half the workforce in government and private institutions. Of course, each measure will incur immense direct and indirect costs, not just for the government but also for the people. Climate activists had long warned of such consequences when they had been cautioning against unchecked industrialisation and urbanisation, a culture of wanton consumption, and our authorities’ lack of regard for the climate impact of their beloved ‘development’ projects. Alas, here we are now, with our largest province now choking on its own toxic fumes, struggling to breathe.

The Punjab government under Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz has already tried and failed to implement a new, more ‘thorough’ strategy to deal with smog. According to the Pakistan Air Quality Initiative, PM2.5 pollution, which causes the most damage to health, is up 25pc in 2024 compared to 2023; general pollution levels are also up by 23pc. Experts have already written off the band-aid measures taken by the administration, pointing out that ‘green lockdowns’ and declaring a ‘climate calamity’ will not help. It should, therefore, return to the drawing board and use the learnings from this year to plan ahead. The solution may be to enforce stricter controls to regulate heavy polluters, especially personal vehicles. Instead, public transport must be encouraged and existing facilities expanded so that people have access to options that do not cause as much environmental harm. Similarly, heavy traffic and high-emission industries must be moved away from population centres as quickly as possible. Lastly, while the CM has said she will talk to her counterpart in Indian Punjab to tackle the smog issue, she must also talk to her counterparts here in Pakistan. The prime minister, too, must take note. The climate crisis is a national issue, not just a provincial one.

Published in Dawn, November 8th, 2024
IHK resolution


DAWN
Editorial
November 8, 2024 

IF the Indian state is serious about its democratic credentials, then it should listen to the voices emanating from held Kashmir’s legislature calling for a restoration of the region’s special status.

On Wednesday, IHK’s assembly, which was elected last month after a decade, passed a non-binding resolution calling for the safeguarding of the disputed territory’s “identity, culture and rights”.


Though the resolution, piloted by the pro-India National Conference, which now rules IHK in a coalition with Congress, made no explicit reference to Article 370, the message to Delhi was clear. “The assembly has done its job,” said Omar Abdullah, IHK’s chief minister. Mr Abdullah had during the election campaign pledged to restore Article 370, discarded by India in August 2019, as well as the held region’s statehood.

Last month’s election results, as well as the recently passed resolution, clearly show that the people of held Kashmir are not happy with New Delhi’s snatching of their limited autonomy, and want India to reverse these dubious moves. The Indian prime minister has said statehood would be restored, though other members of his cabinet have said Article 370 is ‘done’ and ‘dead’.

While statehood, and the unity of held Kashmir — India has broken up IHK into two union territories of Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh — are important, the special status granted to the disputed territory under Articles 370 and 35A must also be restored. If most of India’s north-eastern states can continue to have a special constitutional status, to protect their culture and diversity, why is the BJP-led government being so rigid when it comes to occupied Kashmir?

Post-Aug 2019, there has been a conscious effort to change IHK’s demographic profile, and obliterate its unique identity. That is why nearly all political forces there — from pro-independence parties to those in New Delhi’s good books — are united in their demand for a restoration of the held territory’s special status.

Along with meeting a key demand of the Kashmiri people, reinstating the aforesaid articles would also help improve India’s ties with Pakistan. After the Modi government made its controversial move to strip IHK of its unique status, bilateral ties quickly nosedived. Therefore, if the BJP administration were to shed its rigidity on the matter and listen to the Kashmiris, it could pave the way for the resumption of the political process in IHK, along with removing a key obstacle in improving ties with Pakistan.

Hardliners in New Delhi may be telling themselves that the Kashmir question has been resolved, but the reality suggests otherwise. The IHK assembly resolution, in fact, offers New Delhi a face-saving option to restore Kashmir’s autonomy, as the administration can say it is only responding to popular demand. Should India choose to ignore this demand, disaffection in IHK will only increase.

Published in Dawn, November 8th, 2024
Which ideology?

Published November 8, 2024 
DAWN


OF all the congratulatory messages which poured in from the world’s political leaders when it became clear that Donald Trump had, in the end, quite comfortably defeated Kamala Harris in the US presidential election, the tweet by Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari stood out. The young scion of the PPP called Trump’s victory an anti-war vote, reflecting the desire of the US electorate for global peace.

The reference was obviously to Palestine and the ongoing Israeli genocide which has been backed unflinchingly by the Biden-Harris administration. But Trump did not win because he is anti-war. Some voters may have punished Harris over Palestine, but the Democratic Party’s failings extend beyond foreign wars. Bilawal’s pleasantries about a peaceful future for the world were also hyperbole because Trump is anything but a man of peace.

The real quandary is making sense of how Bilawal, who claims to be ‘progressive’, is making common cause with an arch-conservative in Trump.

Let there be no mistake: Trump is not about to dismantle the huge military-industrial complex that undergirds US imperialist power across the world. Among other things, Trump is firmly committed to Zionism, and is unmistakably anti-China.

But it is also not to be understated that Trump has spouted consistent rhetoric about unnecessary spending on wars abroad — his slogan of ‘Make America Great Again’ reflects a relatively insular vision involving less war-making around the world, blocking immigration, and generating industrial jobs by rolling back outsourcing and offshoring.


The far right is tapping into the rage of working people.

The far right thrives on slogans, of course. Trump did not do a lot of things he had claimed he would during his first term. But this is all the more reason for us to think about why certain slogans continue to garner him — and many other similar political leaders — the support that they do. The fact that a far-right Republican leader is able and willing to call for a rollback of America’s foreign wars is an indicator of how muddled the contemporary ideological landscape has become.

Ideological confusion is reaching fever pitch in this country too. Look no further than Bilawal and the PPP — a leader and party that still claims, every once so often, to be committed to leftist ideals. When election season rolls around, the slogan ‘roti, kapra aur makan’ magically reappears. Even the word ‘socialism’ sometimes drips off the tongue of PPP leaders. The party also burnishes its other ‘progressive’ credentials like its opposition to the weaponisation of religion and its unparalleled commitment to democracy.

But these claims have virtually no connection to the PPP’s actual politics. At present, the PPP and PML-N are competing to prove their loyalty to the military establishment. The PPP runs the Balochistan government which is presiding over the continuing brutalisation of Baloch youth. A few weeks ago, the Sindh government ordered a violent crackdown against progressives who were protesting the mob lynching of a doctor in Umerkot, Sindh. Earlier, Ali Wazir — who is now doing rounds in Punjab’s jails — spent months incarcerated under the watch of the Sindh government. And as far as Pakistan’s internal class war is concerned, the PPP makes no bones about the fact that it is far more committed to the IMF, big landed families, real estate moguls and other profiteers than it is to the proverbial worker and peasant.

Let’s take this analogy back to America. The preliminary details about who voted for Trump and Harris are remarkable insofar as they confirm that the Democratic Party — with its co-mparatively pro-labour history — has largely abandoned the working class, the latter voting in significant numbers for Trump. Even non-white Latino and Black working peo-ple rejected the Democratic Party des-pite Trump’s persistent anti-immigrant rhetoric.

Once upon a time, to be on the left meant to oppose unbridled capitalist profiteering, imperialist wars and to stand with the lower orders of society. Today, it is the far right that is rhetorically aligning itself with such positions, and successfully tapping into the rage of working people by peddling hate. Meanwhile, the historic social-democratic parties who could once claim to represent the class rage of the lower orders are left only to appeal to a vacuous identity politics and lament the racism and misogyny of the right.

Is there still the possibility of an ideological politics of a left-progressive vintage that reclaims class and imperialism from the hatemongers while also offering meaningful horizons on other pressing matters like the ecological crisis? We must hold out the hope that there is, but such a politics will only crystallise when the so-called ‘pro­­gressive’ old guard is exposed and displaced by genuinely anti-establishment forces.

The writer teaches at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad.

Published in Dawn, November 8th, 2024
First impact: Trump, re-election and the Mexican economy

By Dr. Tim Sandle
November 7, 2024
DIGITAL JOURNAL 

Donald Trump has floated broad tariffs alongside high rates on autos from Mexico and levies to stop fentanyl from entering the country - Copyright AFP Anthony WALLACE

To the amazement and shock, of many people outside of the U.S., Donald Trump is heading back to the White House. This defied opinion polls and ran contrary to what could conceivably happen within other democratic systems.

Now the dust is beginning to settle, thoughts turn to ‘what will happen next?’ as well as the ramifications for the relationship between the U.S. and other countries. This includes the less financially salubrious neighbour Mexico.

To gain an understanding upon the Mexican economy, Digital Journal heard from Quasar Elizundia, Research Strategist at Pepperstone.

Elizundia opens by considering the significance of the election: “The re-election of Donald Trump has sparked serious concerns about the future of the Mexican economy. After the results were announced, the Mexican peso depreciated significantly, falling to its lowest level in two years, underscoring Mexico’s economic vulnerability in the face of trade uncertainty with the United States.”

Expanding on what this means, Elizundia continues: “This decline highlights the peso’s fragility amid Trump’s protectionist policies and the risk of potential renegotiations of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).”

The economic system will become more fragile based on rumours as to the first wave of policies likely to come out of the Trump Whitehouse: “Speculations about the imposition of new tariffs or an early review of the USMCA concern analysts, who fear that the manufacturing and automotive sectors—pillars of the Mexican economy—could be affected by rising export costs.”

There are other economic factors to consider, observes Elizundia : “The strength of the dollar has also pressured oil prices, directly impacting Mexico’s oil revenues, a crucial source for the country’s fiscal balance. If these conditions persist, we may see a rapid deterioration in the fiscal and trade balances, which could increase pressure on the peso and limit economic growth prospects.”

Inward investment from other nations could also be affected, Elizundia warns: “In this context, foreign investment is also facing significant risks. The recent decline in gross fixed investment and delays in public project execution exacerbate the outlook, as many investors may opt to redirect their resources to markets with greater political and economic stability.”

Social policy will also hurt the economy, Elizundia explains: “ Additionally, the Trump administration could adopt measures affecting remittances and heighten migration tensions, which would have a direct impact on millions of Mexican families reliant on these flows.”

Elizundia concludes, noting: “Markets remain cautious, with analysts warning that the current environment could trigger a period of high volatility for the Mexican peso and the broader economy. If uncertainty continues, 2025 could become a challenging year for Mexico, as the economy struggles to grow in an increasingly challenging context, both internally and externally.”
Trump rides global wave of
 anti-incumbency

By AFP
November 7, 2024

Republican Donald Trump won the US election to take back power from the incumbent Democratic President Joe Biden 
- Copyright AFP/File SAUL LOEB


Shaun TANDON

Incumbent leaders used to have the edge. In the United States, the power of the Oval Office and glamour of Air Force One once made presidents the prohibitive favorites to win reelection.

With Donald Trump’s defeat of Kamala Harris, Republican and Democratic presidents will alternate control of the White House for the fourth straight term, a level of volatility between the parties not seen in the United States since the late 19th century.

Anti-incumbency fervor has swept not just the United States but other major democracies, battering both the left and the right.

Britain’s Labour swept out Conservative rule in July, self-professed “anarcho-capitalist” Javier Milei triumphed in Argentina last November, and incumbent parties, some long-dominant, lost ground this year in countries as diverse as India, Japan, South Africa and South Korea.

There are exceptions — with Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico’s ruling left-wing populists elected president in June — but the anti-incumbency wave has defied traditional political trends.

Under outgoing President Joe Biden, US economic growth has topped the developed world, despite high inflation, and the country has no troops in active combat, factors that led respected political scientists to predict victory for Vice President Harris.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre pointed to the global trend as she explained the defeat and pointed to the aftereffects of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“What we saw two nights ago was not unusual to what we have seen from the incumbencies around the world on the global stage,” she said Thursday.

The whiplash has wide-ranging effects on US policy and diplomacy.

Trump is expected again to pull the United States out of international commitments on climate change and to take a harsher approach with European allies, and he may work to undo signature Democratic domestic measures including on health care and the environment.

– Disapproval the new normal –

Trump won despite never once topping 50 percent approval in his 2017-2021 term — the first time in Gallup polling since it began such ratings after World War II.

Biden enjoyed majority support only at the start of his term, with approval tumbling after the chaotic August 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan, even as the pandemic eased.

Economic statistics, of course, do not mirror what ordinary voters feel, and every election also needs to factor in more abstract points such as candidates’ personal charisma.

John V. Kane, a political scientist at New York University, said there was an increasingly smaller share of persuadable voters than in the 20th century, when presidents sometimes would win by 10 or 20 percentage points.

Voters still “tend to think presidents should be afforded two terms so long as the economic, social and international conditions are fairly normal,” he said.

“And herein lies the challenge: the past five years have been anything but normal in these respects. The pandemic and subsequent shock to the economy in 2020 very likely turned incumbency from an asset into a liability,” Kane said.

“Swing voters may not know the best policies, if any, to fix the situation, but one thing they can be certain about is that they want the situation to change.”

– Democracy ‘pendulum’ –

Todd Belt, a political scientist at George Washington University, pointed to Covid and inflation but also the fragmentation of media sources, with voters turning to partisan outlets that fuel animosity toward incumbents.

“There are a lot of things in the world that are beyond the control of the president, but the president has to take credit or blame for all of them, and that makes things difficult,” Belt said.

“We’ve reached sort of a pendulum aspect of democracy, because people are paying so much more attention to what’s going on now, and people’s patience is lessened for the incumbent party.”

Kane noted that incumbents still won overwhelmingly in the US Congress, and he expected future presidents to enjoy an incumbency advantage in more stable times.

“If, however, the ‘new normal’ for the US economy is lackluster growth, high prices, etc., then swing voters may very well just perpetually keep trying their luck with the other party every four years,” Kane said.

'Not good enough anymore': Union leader says Dems lost crucial argument to Trump

Carl Gibson, AlterNet
November 7, 2024 

The consensus among pollsters is that President-elect Donald Trump's victory in the 2024 election was largely due to voters trusting him more on economic issues. One union leader who campaigned for Vice President Kamala Harris is now weighing in on why he thinks Harris failed to convince voters that she was best suited to oversee the economy.
(Photo credit: Gage Skidmore)

The consensus among pollsters is that President-elect Donald Trump's victory in the 2024 election was largely due to voters trusting him more on economic issues. One union leader who campaigned for Vice President Kamala Harris is now weighing in on why he thinks Harris failed to convince voters that she was best suited to oversee the economy.

In a thread posted to X (formerly Twitter), Jimmy Williams — who is general president of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT) — lamented that a second Trump term would be "disastrous for my members." He wrote that he traveled across multiple Rust Belt states lobbying his union's 140,000-plus members to get behind Harris in the months before Election Day, and got a keen understanding of why her message failed to penetrate to blue-collar workers.

"VP Harris got a stronger percentage of union voters this election than President Biden did in 2020. But she still lost!" Williams wrote. "That’s because the Democratic Party has continued to fail to prioritize a strong, working class message that addressed issues that really matter to workers. The party did not make a positive case for why workers should vote for them, only that they were not Donald Trump."

"That’s not good enough anymore! Rather than offer a positive agenda on what immigrant workers bring to our country, they bought into the punitive, 'tough,' anti-worker messaging that is championed by Trump, even though we know it’s the bosses’ fault," he continued.

As Williams pointed out, Harris' failed gambit to bring moderate Republicans into the Democratic Party "big tent" partially relied on her outspoken support of the conservative immigration reform bill that failed to pass through the U.S. Senate in 2023. The bill's chief author, Sen. James Lankford (R-Oklahoma), celebrated it as "by far the most conservative border security bill in four decades." Had it passed, it would have severely restricted the asylum application process and allowed the president to shut down the border to all migrants if illegal border crossings passed a set threshold each week.

Meanwhile, income inequality soared under the Biden administration, even as real (inflation-adjusted) wages for American workers continued to outpace price increases, inflation steadily fell back to 2021 levels and interest rates leveled off. In These Times reported in March that the United States' 737 billionaires saw their own individual net worths soar from $2.58 trillion to more than $5.529 trillion over the last four years. But for ordinary Americans, median household income didn't recover to pre-Covid levels until September of 2024.

In his thread, Williams tweeted that workers' frustration with high prices erasing wage gains persisted, and that Democrats didn't do themselves any favors by downplaying Americans' economic concerns during Biden's tenure in the White House.

"[Democrats] failed to address inflation, saying that it wasn’t a big issue or that the pain that working people feel right now isn’t real," Williams tweeted. "So while we were able to get many of our members out to vote for VP Harris, many other workers went with Trump."

The problem may ultimately be with messaging: While Williams argued that Democrats "failed to address inflation," Biden publicly celebrated every time inflation rates dropped, including when he accomplished what's known as a "soft landing" in which high inflation returns to normal levels without a corresponding spike in unemployment rates. In August — after he had already dropped out of the 2024 race — Biden chided the White House press pool for not properly informing Americans that his economic agenda was delivering tangible results.

"I told you we were gonna have a soft landing," Biden said at the time. "My policies are working. Start writing that way, OK?"

"Trump was able to build a stronger coalition of voters and may very well wind up with a Republican trifecta. This will be disastrous for my members," Williams concluded in his thread. "Working people deserve a party that understands this, one that puts them first and places their issues front and center."


Click here to read Williams' full thread on X.
What Trump 2.0 would mean for trade, migrants, climate change and electric cars


From trade policy, climate change, wars, EVs, Americans' taxes and illegal immigration, there is a lot that could change under the billionaire president of US.
Published November 6, 2024

A Donald Trump presidential election victory would have huge implications for US trade policy, climate change, the war in Ukraine, electric vehicles, Americans’ taxes and illegal immigration.

While some of his proposals would require congressional approval, here is a summary of the policies he has said he would pursue in his second four-year term in office:
More tariffs

Trump has floated the idea of a 10 per cent or more tariff on all goods imported into the US, a move he says would eliminate the trade deficit. But critics say it would lead to higher prices for American consumers and global economic instability.

He has also said he should have the authority to set higher tariffs on countries that have put tariffs on US imports. He has threatened to impose a 200pc tariff on some imported cars, saying he is determined in particular to keep cars from Mexico from coming into the country.

But he has also suggested that allies such as the European Union could see higher duties on their goods.

Trump has targeted China in particular. He proposes phasing out Chinese imports of goods such as electronics, steel and pharmaceuticals over four years. He seeks to prohibit Chinese companies from owning US real estate and infrastructure in the energy and tech sectors.

Trump has said “tariff” is his favorite word and views them as revenue generators that would help fill government coffers.

Mass deportations

Trump has vowed to reinstate his first-term policies targeting illegal border crossings and to forge ahead with sweeping new restrictions.

He has pledged to limit access to asylum at the US-Mexico border and to embark on the biggest deportation effort in American history, which would likely trigger legal challenges and opposition from Democrats in Congress.

He has said he will employ the National Guard, and, if necessary, federal troops, to achieve his objective, and he has not ruled out setting up internment camps to process people for deportation.

Trump has said he would seek to end automatic citizenship for children born to immigrants, a move that would run against the long-running interpretation of the US Constitution’s 14th Amendment.

He has also suggested he would revoke protected legal status for some populations such as Haitians or Venezuelans.

Trump says he will reinstitute the so-called “travel ban” that restricts entry into the United States of people from a list of largely Muslim-dominant countries, which sparked multiple legal battles during his first term.

Drilling away

Trump has vowed to increase US production of fossil fuels by easing the permitting process for drilling on federal land and would encourage new natural gas pipelines. He has said he would reauthorise oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.

Whether the oil industry follows through and raises production at a time when oil and gas prices are relatively low remains to be seen.

He has said he will again pull the United States out of the Paris Climate Accords, a framework for reducing global greenhouse gas emissions, and would support increased nuclear energy production.

He would also roll back Democratic President Joe Biden’s electric-vehicle mandates and other policies aimed at reducing auto emissions.

He has argued that the US needs to be able to boost energy production to be competitive in developing artificial intelligence systems, which consume large amounts of power.


Tax relief


Along with his trade and energy agendas, Trump has promised to slash federal regulations that he says limit job creation. He has pledged to keep in place a broad 2017 tax cut that he signed while in office, and his economic team has discussed a further round of individual and corporate tax cuts beyond those enacted in his first term.

Trump has pledged to reduce the corporate tax rate from 21pc to 15pc for companies that make their products in the US.

He has said he would seek legislation to end the taxation of tips and overtime wages to aid waiters and other service workers. He has pledged not to tax or cut Social Security benefits.

Trump also has said that as president he would pressure the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates — but would stop short of demanding it.

Most, if not all, of his tax proposals would require congressional action. Budget analysts have warned that the bevy of tax cuts would balloon the federal debt.

Doing away with diversity programs

Trump has pledged to require US colleges and universities to “defend American tradition and Western civilisation” and to purge them of diversity programs. He said he would direct the Justice Department to pursue civil rights cases against schools that engage in racial discrimination.

At K-12 schools, Trump would support programs allowing parents to use public funds for private or religious instruction.

Trump also wants to abolish the federal Department of Education, and leave states in control of schooling.

No federal abortion ban

Trump appointed three justices to the US Supreme Court who were part of the majority that did away with Roe v. Wade’s constitutional protection for abortion. He likely would continue to appoint federal judges who would uphold abortion limits.

At the same time, he has said a federal abortion ban is unnecessary and that the issue should be resolved at the state level. He has argued that a six-week ban favored by some Republicans is overly harsh and that any legislation should include exceptions for rape, incest and the health of the mother.

Trump has suggested he would not seek to limit access to the abortion drug mifepristone after the US Supreme Court rejected a challenge to the government’s approach to regulating it.

He supports policies that advance in vitro fertilization (IVF), birth control and prenatal care.

A push to end wars

Trump has been critical of US support for Ukraine in its war with Russia, and has said he could end the war in 24 hours if elected — although he has not said how he would achieve this. He has suggested Ukraine may have to yield some of its territory if a peace deal is to be struck, an idea Ukraine has consistently rejected.

Trump has also said that under his presidency the US would fundamentally rethink “Nato’s purpose and Nato’s mission.”

He has backed Israel in its fight against Hamas in Gaza but has urged it to wrap up its offensive. Trump can be expected to continue the Biden administration’s policy of arming Israel.

At the same time, he is likely to push for historic normalisation of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, an effort he made during his 2017-2021 presidency and which Biden has also pursued.

Trump has said if he becomes president, he will “stop the suffering and destruction in Lebanon,” but has not said how he will achieve that.

He has suggested building an “iron dome” — a massive missile-defense shield similar to Israel’s — over the entire continental United States.

Trump has also floated sending armed forces into Mexico to battle drug cartels and using the US Navy to form a blockade of that country to stop the smuggling of fentanyl and its precursors.

Investigating enemies, aiding allies

Trump has pledged at times to use federal law enforcement agencies to investigate his political foes, including election officials, lawyers and party donors.

Along that line, Trump has said he will consider appointing a special prosecutor to probe Biden, though he has not specified the grounds for such an investigation.

And he has said he would consider firing a US attorney who did not follow his directives — which would constitute a break with the longstanding US policy of an independent federal law enforcement apparatus.

Trump has said he will consider pardoning all of those who have been convicted of crimes in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.

In addition to criminal investigations, he has suggested using the government’s regulatory powers to punish those he views as critics, such as television networks.

Purging the federal bureaucracy


Trump would seek to decimate what he terms the “deep state” – career federal employees he says are clandestinely pursuing their own agendas – through an executive order that would reclassify thousands of workers to enable them to be fired. That would likely be challenged in court.

He would set up an independent government efficiency panel headed by billionaire supporter Elon Musk to root out waste in the federal government. He has not detailed how the body would function. The government already has watchdogs such as the Office of Management and Budget, and investigators general at federal agencies.

Trump would crack down on federal whistleblowers, who are typically shielded by law, and would institute an independent body to “monitor” US intelligence agencies.
HOW THE US SUSTAINS ISRAEL’S WAR CRIMES

The financial and military support that America has offered to Israel for decades is the reason why the Zionist state is able to



DAWN/EOS
Ejaz Haider 
November 3, 2024

“For generations to come, all will be told of the miracle of the immense planes from the United States bringing in the materiel that meant life to our people.”
— Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir on the United States airlift during the 1973 War

“Things did not go particularly well for Israel over the next couple days, but as Israel started to push back the daily advances, the Nixon administration initiated Operation Nickel Grass, an American airlift to replace all of Israel’s lost munitions. This was huge — planeload after planeload of supplies literally allowed munitions and materiel to seemingly re-spawn for the Israeli counter effort. 567 missions were flown throughout the airlift, dropping over 22,000 tons of supplies. An additional 90,000 tons of materiel were delivered by sea.”

— How Richard Nixon Saved Israel from Nixonfoundation.org

PREAMBLE

The above quotes are facts about Operation Nickel Grass, a United States (US) airlift that was bigger than the Berlin Airlift of 1948-49, and about how Israel found itself fighting for its survival. Since the United Nations Partition Plan for Mandatory Palestine under Resolution 181 of November 29, 1947, the US has been a major ally and supporter of Israel. However, the 1973 War helped change the entire dynamic of that relationship. Since that airlift, the US has committed itself fully and unequivocally to Israel’s defence.

Even when there have been differences about Israel’s conduct, the US has, for the most part, ensured that there must be “no daylight” between the two sides, a phrase attributed to the outgoing US President Joe Biden who self-describes himself as a “proud Irish-Christian Zionist.”

Two days after the publication of this article, the US will be electing a president. Among many other policy concerns, including domestic, a burning question for many Arab and Muslim American voters is which of the two candidates will be a better fit for bringing peace to the Middle East and force Israel to stop its savage genocidal war.

That concern, while totally justified, is largely, if not wholly, misplaced for structural reasons — the US system, which represents the current power relationships, is controlled by what political scientists John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt called “the Israel Lobby” in a 2007 book, The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy.

Mearheimer and Walt call the US-Israel relationship and the US support for Israel a “unique” relationship unparalleled in US history. They also argue that this relationship is not really “based on shared strategic interests or compelling moral imperatives”, as is normally assumed, but “is due almost entirely to US domestic politics, and especially to the activities of the ‘Israel Lobby’.”

There is a lot of literature on how the Israel lobby works. Organisations such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), in combination with big money, Christian Zionists and Israeli hasbara [public diplomacy techniques], work towards damaging politicians, activists and even scholars who are critical of Israel and its policies.

An October 24 report in The Intercept by Akela Lacy, ‘How Does AIPAC Shape Washington: We Tracked Every Dollar’ says AIPAC has “embraced a new strategy” — “It would use its vast funds to oust progressive members of Congress who have criticised human rights abuses by Israel and the country’s receipt of billions of US dollars in military funding.”

Lacy says that “AIPAC’s approach to electoral spending is bipartisan.” The strategy is to support candidates that are pro-Israel and defeat those who are not. Anyone familiar with how Washington DC works knows how legislation and actions by any administration can be influenced if the right people are available in the power corridors.

In addition to financial and military support, the US has lent Israel unqualified diplomatic support since 1972. Globalaffairs.org has estimated that “The US has vetoed resolutions critical of Israel more than any other council member — 45 times as of December 18, 2023, according to an analysis by Blue Marble.” Thirty-three of these resolutions “pertained to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories or the country’s treatment of the Palestinian people.”


The financial and military support that America has offered to Israel for decades is the reason why the Zionist state is able to carry out the ongoing genocide in Palestine and war crimes in Lebanon. Regardless of whether Donald Trump or Kamala Harris wins the election on November 5, this US support for its client state will continue, making the US and its Western allies as culpable for Israel’s crimes against humanity

It is instructive to contrast the US’ actual behaviour with its platitudes about a two-state solution as an imperative for peace. The US has also, as I have noted in this space previously, consistently vetoed the push for Palestine’s statehood and full membership of the UN, because statehood bestows on Palestine sovereignty and the right to self-defence. That is not acceptable to either Israel or the US.

COROLLARY

Before proceeding with further details, I want to put the proposition already proved upfront: Israel could not have sustained itself, its unending wars in the Middle East and the structured violence against the Palestinian people without the unique support it gets from the US and some Western allies of the US.

That support spans the entire gamut of diplomatic, financial and military. This is also true of the current iteration of the Palestinians’ generational war against Zionism. Israel could not have sustained its continuing war without the full and unconditional diplomatic, financial and military support of the US.

That fact gives us a simple reality: the US is not an honest broker and cannot be expected to work towards an equitable resolution of the Palestine problem. It is complicit in everything Israel does and, by shielding it from the consequences of its crimes against humanity, the US is answerable for those crimes. This is also true of the ongoing war.

This also means what I have previously said in this space: this war will continue with its many ebbs and flows. It can only end with the end of Zionism.

ISRAEL’S DESPERATION: A PAGE FROM HISTORY


An American Patriot missile defence system on display during a joint US-Israel military exercise on March 8, 2018: Israel has privileged access to the most advanced US military platforms and technologies | AFP

At 1400 hours on October 6, 1973, Egypt and Syria launched a coordinated surprise attack against Israel, along the Golan Heights and across the Bar Lev Line on the eastern bank of Suez Canal. Egyptian forces overran the presumably invincible Bar Lev line in just two hours, even though Israeli defence minister Moshe Dayan had famously called it “one of the best anti-tank ditches in the world.”

In the months leading up to the War, the Egyptians and Syrians had modernised their forces by purchasing Scud Surface-to-Surface Missiles from the Soviet Union to offset Israel’s air superiority. The first few days of the war saw dozens of Israeli fighter jets, tanks and APCs destroyed.

The US Department of State archives have a Memorandum of Conversation from October 9, 1973 between Israeli ambassador to the US, Simcha Dinitz, his military attaché Gen Mordechai Gur, and US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Gen Brent Scowcroft, deputy assistant to the US president for national security affairs. The contents of that conversation give a clear sense of Israeli losses and the panic that was setting in:

Dinitz: “We got a message which sums up our losses until 9am Israeli time. In planes, 14 Phantoms, 28 Skyhawks, 3 Mirages, 4 Super Mysteres — a total of 49 planes. Tanks — we lost something like 500 tanks. Some were lost on the way.”

Kissinger: “500 tanks! How many do you have? [to Scowcroft:] We should get Haig here. Well, we can give him the figures….

Kissinger: Explain to me, how could 400 tanks be lost to the Egyptians?“

Gur: “We were in a very big hurry to bring them to the front line. That’s why we say some were lost on the way to the battle.”

Dinitz: “Some got out of commission because of moving so fast.”

Scowcroft: “Do you know how many were battle losses?”

Gur: “Some were hit by artillery fire on the Suez Canal. They have heavy artillery fire. We don’t know the exact numbers. I assume the biggest number were put completely out of action.” [Gen Gur then pulls out a map and sits beside Kissinger.]


According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Israel is spending much more per month on the military — from $1.8 billion before October 7, 2023, to around $4.7 billion by the end of last year. According to several Israeli economists, the Gaza war alone has cost the Israeli economy over $67.3 billion.

This conversation also coincided with the October 9 Israeli counterattack that failed. Kissinger was concerned that an Israeli defeat would increase the prestige and footprint of the Soviets in the Middle East. This was also Nixon’s concern, though he also, initially, did not want to antagonise the Gulf monarchies.

The US secretary of defence, James Schlesinger, who went along with the decision, was not particularly in favour of US support to Israel. As the October 6 ‘Minutes of Washington Special Actions Group Meeting’ show, Schlesinger said, “We can delay on this. Our shipping any stuff into Israel blows any image we may have as an honest broker.”

Schlesinger also sent a memorandum to President Nixon on November 1. Subject-lined ‘Impact of the Mideast War’, Schlesinger wrote, “This memorandum provides my initial reaction to the recent Mideast crisis and to the transfer of military equipment to Israel… I am concerned… by the degradation of our conventional deterrent due to the loss of critical materiel.” [Emphasis added]

Kissinger was very unhappy with Schlesinger’s objections and told the White House Chief of Staff, Alexander Haig, “They [Israelis] are anxious to get some equipment which has been approved and which some SOB in [the Department of] Defence held up which I didn’t know about.” Golda Meir had made a panicked phone call to President Nixon. That call became the basis for the massive US airlift of materiel to resupply Israel to offset its losses in the first few days of the war.

Kissinger would bring in other arguments, particularly the broader strategic concerns about the Soviet Union but, in the end, it was about Israel itself and America’s pledge to defend it. The dialogue in the Golda biopic about Kissinger (Liev Schreiber) telling Golda (Helen Mirren) that he is an American first, secretary of state second and a Jew only third, and Golda telling him that, in Israel, “we read from right to left”, was not just for dramatic purposes. It was an actual conversation that Kissinger would often narrate.

That support has continued. But how does it work?

HOW DOES THE US SUPPORT ISRAEL MILITARILY?


President Richard Nixon with Israeli prime minister Golda Meir at the White House in Washington on Sept 25, 1969: following Meir’s panicked phone call to Nixon, the US airlifted materiel to resupply Israel to offset its losses in the first few days of the Yom Kippur War|AP

The two countries do not have a mutual defence pact, but Israel has privileged access to the most advanced US military platforms and technologies. In cumulative terms, Israel has been the largest recipient of US foreign aid since its founding and has received over $300 billion in economic and military assistance.

According to a Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) report, “The United States provided Israel considerable economic assistance from 1971 to 2007, but nearly all US aid today goes to support Israel’s military, the most advanced in the region. The United States has provisionally agreed, via a memorandum of understanding (MOU), to provide Israel with $3.8 billion per year through 2028.”

As Mearsheimer and Walt have noted, “This largesse is especially striking when one realises that Israel is now a wealthy industrial state with a per capita income roughly equal to South Korea or Spain.”

The CFR report also mentions that, since October 7, 2023, the US “has enacted legislation providing at least $12.5 billion in military aid to Israel, which includes $3.8 billion from a bill in March 2024 (in line with the current MOU) and $8.7 billion from a supplemental appropriations act in April 2024.”

The yearly military aid is actually grants under the Foreign Military Financing (FMF) programme. While Israel must use these funds to purchase US military equipment and services, it can use about 25 percent of these funds to buy equipment from Israeli defence firms. It also buys US equipment outside of the FMF facility. Until last October, as per the Biden administration, “Israel had nearly 600 active FMF cases, totalling around $24 billion.”

Separately, an annual $500 million fund is slated for Israeli and joint US-Israeli missile defence programmes. These programmes involve joint collaboration “on the research, development and production of these systems used by Israel, including the Iron Dome, David’s Sling, and Arrow II. Iron Dome was solely developed by Israel, but the United States has been a production partner since 2014.”

While transfers of US military equipment to Israel are subject to relevant US laws and scrutiny by the Congress, in reality Israel gets a clear pass from US administrations. For instance, during the ongoing war, multiple rights organisations, UN bodies and the International Court of Justice have determined constant violations by Israel of International Law and International Humanitarian Law. Despite clear evidence, the Biden administration has continued to shield Israel, including from the application of US laws such as the Leahy Law.

US State Department official Stacy Gilbert quit last May and told the media that her resignation was precipitated by an administration report to Congress that, she said, falsely stated Israel was not blocking humanitarian aid to Gaza. The true picture would have brought the Leahy Law into action and prevented further US military aid to Israel.

Just days ago, Maryam Hassanein, a political appointee at the US Department of the Interior, quit over the war on Gaza, saying, “I saw a policy that was really harming Palestinians through this kind of blind, destructive support of Israel and its occupation.”

While the US Congress can block a sale through a joint resolution, this has never happened in the case of Israel. In fact, since this war, as with special cases, Biden has bypassed the congressional review and used this waiver process both for Ukraine and Israel.

Additionally, the US has another special arrangement for Israel called ‘qualitative military edge’ (QME), which was formalised through a 2008 law. The law reads: “The [US] President shall carry out an empirical and qualitative assessment on an ongoing basis of the extent to which Israel possesses a qualitative military edge over military threats to Israel. The assessment required under this sub- section shall be sufficiently robust so as to facilitate comparability of data over concurrent years.”

The CFR report calls QME “a conceptual backbone of US military aid to Israel.” The 2008 law “requires the US government to maintain Israel’s ability ‘to defeat any credible conventional military threat from any individual state or possible coalition of states or from non-state actors, while sustaining minimal damage and casualties.’”

In simple terms, it means that the US must not provide any weapons or platforms to any state in the Middle East that could compromise Israel’s QME. Or, if it does in some way, it must provide counter-measures to Israel, to offset any disadvantage to Israel.

The US also maintains a strategic stockpile of weapons in Israel since the 1980s. Israel has been drawing from that stockpile during its ongoing war. Given Israel’s consumption of interceptors, the US also “agreed to lease Israel two Iron Dome missile defence batteries that Washington had previously purchased from the country.”

The military aid provided to Israel by the US, the UK, Germany and France includes tank and artillery ammunition, bombs, rockets, small arms, interceptors, surveillance drones, night-vision goggles, body armour etc. At least $18 billion of aid, including 50 F-15 fighter jets are also in the pipeline, though that supply won’t materialise for some years.

This is by no means an exhaustive treatment of US support for Israel. There are hundreds of assessments out there and most are available to any diligent researcher. The essential point is that, without this unconditional military, financial and diplomatic support, Israel could neither sustain its current war nor its place in the comity of nations through the hubris it has consistently displayed. This hubris includes Israel’s government declaring the UN Secretary-General persona non grata, the Israeli military targeting UN aid workers and premises, and its Knesset (parliament) legislating to ban the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) — the primary agency delivering humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza — from the areas under Israeli control.

It should also be clear that this sustainment works at two levels: the Israeli lobby’s ability to influence US domestic politics sustains the presence of pro-Israel politicians within US power structures; and the presence of those politicians, in turn, helps preserve the unique US-Israel relationship, which allows Israel to sustain its wars, violate international norms and continue to repress the Palestinians.

So, why is sustainment important? What does it mean?

WHAT IS SUSTAINMENT?

Sustainment is the ability of a nation and its military to fight and sustain that fight. Sustainment in a non-kinetic sense also means the ability of a state to override international legal norms and act independently, without suffering any consequences. Since the point about sustainment at the second level should already be obvious, I will stick to military sustainment.

This point, as any student of war knows, is crucial. Attritional wars are all about sustainment. Wars are expensive; long wars are very expensive. They take a toll on men and materiel.

To quote from a 1942 US Naval College report titled ‘Sound Military Decision’: “Success is won, not by personnel and materiel in prime condition, but by the debris of an organisation worn by the strain of campaign and shaken by the shock of battle. The objective is attained, in war, under conditions which often impose extreme disadvantages.” [Emphasis added]

Initial planning can go awry; initial supplies can run dry or troops can run low on them; logistics are crucial — you can have the best troops and equipment, but battles take their toll. Men get killed; materiel gets destroyed. Nothing remains in prime shape.

Modern war requires a very complex logistics and supply system with multiple tiers. The Table of Organisation and Equipment (TOE), a document in modern militaries, not only details the wartime mission, capabilities, organisational structure, and mission-essential personnel, but also supply and equipment requirements for military units.

Tanks, armoured personnel carriers and self-propelled artillery — all essential components of manoeuvre warfare — are very logistics-heavy. A typical armoured division would have supplies based on troop strength, such as rations; items listed and identified in the TOE (clothing, personal equipment, vehicle replacements, etc); POL (petrol, oil, lubricants); supply requirements for damaged equipment which cannot have a fixed quantity and would depend on attrition rates; and, yes, ammunition.

This brings us to the nexus between fighting and sustaining a war and a state’s economy. To quote US Rear Admiral Henry Eccles, “logistics is the bridge between military operations and a nation’s economy.” The linkage is not just about existing stocks and how reduced human resources and materiel can be replenished, but also the industrial base that can supply to the fighting troops what they need.

Rations, POL, replacement of damaged equipment, cannibalising equipment and vehicles, replenishing ammunition, evacuating casualties — the list of what needs to be done is long and everything that needs to be done gets done (or doesn’t) under fire. But most importantly, all of it requires money and a pipeline.

Israel’s extensive use of aerial platforms, including fighter jets, is a very expensive proposition. For instance, according to the US Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan agency that provides information to the US Congress, the per-hour flight cost of an F-16 Fighting Falcon is $26,927, while that for an F-35 is $41,986.

The calculation metrics involve repair parts, depot and field maintenance, contract services, engineering support and personnel, plus “other things”, such as sortie-generation rate, pilot training etc. This cost might differ with different air forces but is a good benchmark to roughly monetise Israel’s use of aerial platforms over a year against targets in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Iran.

Similarly, the Tamir interceptor for the Iron Dome system costs $50,000-100,000 per interception. According to Brig-Gen Ram Aminach, the former financial adviser to the Israeli chief of staff, “the cost of defence last night [April 13 Iran attack] was estimated at between four to five billion shekels [$1.08-1.35B].” He was speaking to the Israeli Hebrew-language newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Israel is spending much more per month on the military — from $1.8 billion before October 7, 2023, to around $4.7 billion by the end of last year. According to several Israeli economists, the Gaza war alone has cost the Israeli economy over $67.3 billion.

Yet another crucial aspect of how the US sustains Israel’s war is the close cooperation between US Central Command (CENTCOM) and Israeli military and intelligence agencies.

Since January 2021, following a Pentagon decision to shift Israel from US European Command (EUCOM) to CENTCOM — an arrangement described by YnetNews.com in an August 24, 2024 report as “the American wall of defence around Israel” — the US is sharing intelligence with Israel and providing it complete air defence support against Iran. That support has been on display in the two direct rounds exchanged between Iran and Israel since April this year.

By all evidence, Israel does not have the stocks to fight a long war, nor can it produce them in the volumes it requires. The fact that must be known and constantly reiterated is simple: Israel’s war has been sustained by the US and its Western allies.

The corollary is simple: even as the US has been mouthing its desire for a ceasefire, it has been perpetuating Israel’s war. And given the savagery of this war, it is also complicit in every war crime committed by Israel.

The writer is a journalist interested in security and foreign policies. X: @ejazhaider

Published in Dawn, EOS, November 3rd, 2024
Lights still out in Cuba after Hurricane Rafael


By AFP
November 7, 2024

Hurricane Rafael knocked out power to all of Cuba on Wednesday
 - Copyright AFP/File Tolga AKMEN

Cubans on Thursday were assessing the damage caused by Hurricane Rafael which lashed the island and plunged it into darkness but caused no reported fatalities so far.

Rafael hit western Cuba on Wednesday as a major Category 3 hurricane and swept across the island in two and a half hours before losing intensity as it entered the Gulf of Mexico.

It came just two weeks after Hurricane Oscar, which left eight dead in the east of the island during a national electricity blackout that lasted four days.

President Miguel Diaz-Canel said that the provinces of Artemisa, Havana and Mayabeque were worst hit.

Writing on the social platform X, he said that authorities were working to restore power to the center and east of the island and were assessing the damage to infrastructure in the west “to start recovery (of power) there too.”

In Havana, residents used brooms, shovels and buckets to clear branches, garbage, mud and pieces of cement from the streets.

The highway from the capital west to Artemisa was dotted with fallen electricity pylons and the streets of towns along the route were strewn with branches, tiles and pieces of concrete from damaged homes.

In the town of Candelaria, around 40 km from where Rafael made landfall, 49-year-old housewife Lidia was in despair.

“Now, the hurricane is leaving and we have another blackout, meaning we won’t have water,” she said standing outside her house. “What are we going to cook? What water are we going to drink?”

Cuba has been suffering hours-long power cuts for months — a symbol of the island’s worst economic crisis since the fall of the Soviet Union, a key ally and financial backer, in the early 1990s.

The UN General Assembly last week renewed its long-standing call for the US to lift its six-decade trade embargo on the communist island.





Thousands told to flee wildfire near Los Angeles


By AFP
November 7, 2024

The Mountain Fire grew to burn over 20,000 acres (8,100 hectares) in the first two days, with towering flames leaping unpredictably and sending residents scrambling - Copyright AFP/File SAUL LOEB

Etienne Laurent

Thousands of people were urged to flee an out-of-control wildfire burning around communities near Los Angeles on Thursday, with dozens of homes already lost to the fast-moving flames.

Fierce seasonal winds were casting embers up to three miles (five kilometers) from the seat of the fire around Camarillo, with new spots burning on hillsides, farmland and in residential areas.

The Mountain Fire grew rapidly from a standing start early Wednesday, and by the following day had consumed 20,000 acres (8,100 hectares), with towering flames leaping unpredictably and sending residents scrambling.

“We’ve been up all night watching this. I haven’t slept,” Erica Preciado told one local broadcaster as she drove her family out of the danger zone.

“We’re just trying to get a safe place. I didn’t even know what to take. I just have everything in my car,” she said, gesturing tearfully to her packed vehicle.

A number of houses have been destroyed, some consumed by flames in minutes.

One man told broadcaster KTLA he and his family had fled their home of 27 years, finding out later that it had been destroyed.

“It’s all gone,” he said, his voice catching. “It’s all gone.”

Dawn Deleon described how she had only moments to flee with her six dogs.

“We watched the neighbors’ houses burning and figured it was time to get out of there,” she said.

“We left and were just gone for five minutes and went back to get my phone, and the house was already on fire and gone.”

Ventura County Fire Department officials said they were throwing resources at the blaze in an area that is home to 30,000 people.

That included crews on the ground defending homes with hose lines working alongside bulldozers that were trying to remove fuels.

Helicopter pilots worked throughout the night dropping water, said Ventura County fire captain Trevor Johnson, predicting that the fight would continue for some time.

“We’re going to have an active presence in there for days to come,” he told reporters.

Hoses ran dry for crews battling the flames at one point late Wednesday, Ventura County Fire Chief Dustin Gardner said.

He said hundreds of fire trucks had been pumping water all night, putting a strain on resources.

“We have been fighting fire actively now for 26 hours, and we found all of those fire trucks hooked up to all of those hydrants, and we drained water systems down,” he told reporters.

That affected supplies higher up hillsides, and forced crews to shuttle water up to the blazes.

He said while it was not a common problem, it is known to happen in major incidents.

“It’s normal enough that we plan for it, so it’s impactful, but it will be mitigated,” he said.



– ‘Diminish’ –



Damage assessment teams were making their way through areas that had burned in a bid to understand how many properties had been affected.

Emergency managers said they did not know how many homes had been lost, but news crews on the ground found dozens in flames or utterly destroyed, with some estimates as high as 100.

The cause of the fire was not immediately known, but meteorologists had raised a Red Flag Warning in the area, indicating dangerous fire conditions.

They said two years of above-average rainfall had sparked abundant growth of vegetation, which was now all bone-dry after a long, hot summer.

Seasonal Santa Ana winds from California’s desert interior had brought gusts at one point as high as 80 miles (130 kilometers) an hour, making firefighting conditions exceedingly difficult.

Rich Thompson of the National Weather Service said those winds had eased slightly on Thursday, and were expected to drop considerably by the evening.

“We expect Santa Ana winds gusting from the northeast at about 25 to 35 miles per hour through the afternoon hours, along with humidity dropping down to around 10 to 15 percent,” he said.

“Fortunately, by mid-late afternoon, we expect those Santa Ana winds to diminish in strength.”

Electricity companies had cut power to tens of thousands of customers in the area — a common strategy in California during high winds in a bid to reduce the risk of new fires from toppled power lines.