Keeponstalin Now • 100%
These things aren't linear, you could try to piece together a projection from the reports on famine. But they deal more with how to prevent and reverse famine, not death projections
https://www.refugeesinternational.org/reports-briefs/untangling-the-reality-of-famine-in-gaza/
Keeponstalin Now • 33%
The Democrats riding hard for Israel being a spoiler to the election has been a big concern of mine since the DNC. It's really disappointing to see this, going against the vast majority of their constituents, against international law, against even domestic law, and for what? They've had every opportunity to change course and squandered them all so far. If the Democrats lose this election, it's entirely their own fault for ignoring their base of support.
Keeponstalin Now • 100%
The union demands were extremely reasonable. What's dirty is that the company would prefer it to get to this stage than actually pay the workers fairly.
Keeponstalin Now • 100%
Are you asking why birth rates increase when material conditions worsen?
Pre-war Gaza had a number of salient features that set it apart from the rest of the occupied Palestinian territories. Among them were: a high population density, with an estimated 2.3 million people squeezed into 365 square kilometers (141 square miles); a large number of UN-registered refugees, amounting to 70% of Gazans, the majority of whom lived in eight overcrowded and squalid UN-serviced refugee camps; a population that was increasing annually by 2.8% — among the highest growth rates in the world, with nearly 50% under the age of 18; and a fast-growing labor force, with new entrants to the job market joining long unemployment lines in a small and virtually broken economy.
High rates of joblessness, especially among youth (60%) and women (64%), widespread poverty (64%), and severe food insecurity (41%) produced extremely dire living conditions, rendering 80% of Gaza residents dependent on humanitarian aid for survival. Dilapidated infrastructure, environmental degradation, institutional decay, and chronic shortages in electricity and potable water added further strains. The severity of conditions in Gaza twice led the UN, in 2012 and again in 2015, to warn that if nothing was done to reverse course, the whole place would become unlivable by the year 2020.
Keeponstalin Now • 100%
It's very obvious what you are trying to get at. That doesn't make it the reality.
Adi Callai, an Israeli, does a great analysis of how Antisemitism has been weaponized (see 29:01) by Zionism during its history.
Keeponstalin Now • 50%
You're avoiding the reality of the situation. I don't support the existence of any Ethnostate. In a Secular Bi-National One State, yes. You're underlying assumption that all this violent resistance comes from Antisemitism instead of Anti-zionism, is wrong.
www.democracynow.org
> As Israel’s military escalates its attacks on Lebanon, it has continued its relentless bombardment of the Gaza Strip, where almost a year of war has now wiped 902 entire Palestinian families off the civil registry. > There are another 1,300 families where only one family member has survived. The official death toll in Gaza has reached nearly 41,800, but that is believed to be a vast undercount. > Gaza-based journalist Akram al-Satarri says one year into Israel’s war, the medical and humanitarian crisis remains unchanged. He describes some of the horrific injuries suffered by Palestinians, including many children, that have resulted in mass amputation of limbs, and says people are in a constant struggle for shelter and safety. > “The suffering is continuous, and now the war in Lebanon is adding further burdens on the Palestinians and is giving more space for the Israeli forces to continue the bombardment in different areas,” says al-Satarri.
truthout.org
> In [a devastating letter](https://www.gazahealthcareletters.org/usa-letter-oct-2-2024) sent to President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris this week, 99 health workers who have volunteered in Gaza amid the genocide wrote that Israel has likely already killed over 118,908 Palestinians in Gaza. This is approximately 5.4 percent of Gaza’s population, meaning Israel has killed 1 of every 20 Palestinians in the Strip in less than a year, according to this estimate. > Not only is this figure horrific, it is also the “most conservative estimate” possible of the true death toll in Gaza, the health workers wrote in an appendix to the letter. The workers [calculated this](https://static1.squarespace.com/static/66e083452b3cbf4bbd719aa2/t/66fcd754b472610b6335d66f/1727846228615/Appendix+20241002.pdf) based on estimates from food insecurity researchers on the death toll caused by famine; rough estimates of deaths by disease; and other estimates of deaths that Gaza health officials are unable to count. > The workers, who spent a combined 254 weeks in Gaza, specifically emphasize the impact that Israel’s genocide has had on children. For instance, they point out that, according to officially reported figures, Israel has killed at least 2,100 babies and toddlers since October 7 — a toll that is higher than the combined Israeli death toll from the First Intifada, the Second Intifada and October 7 attack.
Keeponstalin Now • 100%
The slogan From the River to the Sea is about Palestinian liberation that started in the 60s by the PLO for a democratic secular state, not Genocide. The Syrian leader Hafez al-Assad in 1966 maybe, but he's not Palestinian.
It's absolutely about Zionist Settler Colonialism. Israel has never represented all Jewish people and never will, nor are it's actions done to benefit all Jewish people. The conflation is itself antisemitic. Adi Callai, an Israeli, does a great analysis of how Antisemitism has been weaponized (see 29:01) by Zionism during its history.
Keeponstalin Now • 100%
Withdrawing to the Green Line is impossible now with the settlements dividing the West Bank into hundreds of isolated enclaves. You cannot forcibly displace the over half a million settlers.
This is exactly why multiple Israeli Historians have discussed how the realities of the Apartheid and Settlements have made any actual Two-State solution not viable. If you read any of those three links, they discuss exactly that.
Zionism, with its Settler Colonialism for an Ethnostate, is incompatible with coexistance and equality.
Keeponstalin Now • 66%
On Racism and Dehumanization of the Native People
Moreover, in the early years of their efforts to secure support for their enterprise, the Zionists propagated in the West the idea of “a land without a people for a people with out a land,” a slogan coined by Israel Zangwill, a prominent Anglo-Jewish writer often quoted in the British press as a spokesman for Zionism and one of the earliest organizers of the Zionist movement in Britain. Even as late as 1914, Chaim Weizmann, who was to become the first president of Israel and who, along with Theodor Herzl and David Ben-Gurion, was one of the three men most responsible for turning the Zionist dream into reality, stated:
In its initial stage, Zionism was conceived by its pioneers as a movement wholly depending on mechani cal factors: there is a country which happens to be called Palestine, a country without a people, and, on the other hand, there exists the Jewish people, and it has no country. What else is necessary, then, than to fit the gem into the ring, to unite this people with this country? The owners of the country [the Turks] must, therefore, be persuaded and convinced that this marriage is advantageous, not only for the [Jewish] people and for the country, but also for themselves.
Neither Zangwill nor Weizmann intended these demographic assessments in a literal fashion. They did not mean that there were no people in Palestine, but that there were no people worth considering within the framework of the notions of European supremacy that then held sway. In this connection, a comment by Weizmann to Arthur Ruppin, the head of the colonization department of the Jewish Agency, is particularly revealing. When asked by Ruppin about the Palestinian Arabs, Weizmann replied: “The British told us that there are there some hundred thousands negroes [Kushim] and for those there is no value.”
- pg 6-7
On 'Transfer' or Ethnic Cleansing
Zionism’s aims in Palestine, its deeply-held conviction that the Land of Israel belonged exclusively to the Jewish people as a whole, and the idea of Palestine’s “civilizational barrenness" or “emptiness” against the background of European imperialist ideologies all converged in the logical conclusion that the native population should make way for thenewcomers.
The idea that the Palestinian Arabs must find a place for themselves elsewhere was articulated early on. Indeed, the founder of the movement, Theodor Herzl, provided an early reference to transfer even before he formally outlined his theory of Zionist rebirth in his Judenstat.
An 1895 entry in his diary provides in embryonic form many of the elements that were to be demonstrated repeatedly in the Zionist quest for solutions to the “Arab problem ”-the idea of dealing with state governments over the heads of the indigenous population, Jewish acquisition of property that would be inalienable, “Hebrew Land" and “Hebrew Labor,” and the removal of the native population.
- pg 8
Keeponstalin Now • 100%
That is exactly what they are fighting for. Israel has always been the obstacle for peace, because it is a Settler Colonialist Ethnostate founded on, and ever continuing, ethnic cleansing. Apartheid is the reality.
Settlements
Israel does justify the settlements and military bases in the West Bank in the name of Security. However, the reality of the settlements on-the-ground has been the cause of violent resistance and a significant obstacle to peace, as it has been for decades.
This type of settlement, where the native population gets 'Transferred' to make room for the settlers, is a long standing practice.
- See: The Concept of Transfer 1882-1948, the Transfer Committee, and the JNF which led to Forced Displacement of 100,000 Palestinians throughout the mandate before the Nakba
The mass ethnic cleansing campaign of 1948:
Further, declassified Israeli documents show that the Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip were deliberately planned before being executed in 1967:
While the peace process was exploited to continue de-facto annexation of the West Bank via Settlements
The settlements are maintained through a violent apartheid that routinely employs violence towards Palestinians and denies human rights like water access, civil rights, etc. This kind of control gives rise to violent resistance to the Apartheid occupation, jeopardizing the safety of Israeli civilians.
State violence – official and otherwise – is part and parcel of Israel’s apartheid regime, which aims to create a Jewish-only space between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. The regime treats land as a resource designed to serve the Jewish public, and accordingly uses it almost exclusively to develop and expand existing Jewish residential communities and to build new ones. At the same time, the regime fragments Palestinian space, dispossesses Palestinians of their land and relegates them to living in small, over-populated enclaves.
The apartheid regime is based on organized, systemic violence against Palestinians, which is carried out by numerous agents: the government, the military, the Civil Administration, the Supreme Court, the Israel Police, the Israel Security Agency, the Israel Prison Service, the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, and others. Settlers are another item on this list, and the state incorporates their violence into its own official acts of violence. Settler violence sometimes precedes instances of official violence by Israeli authorities, and at other times is incorporated into them. Like state violence, settler violence is organized, institutionalized, well-equipped and implemented in order to achieve a defined strategic goal.
One or Two State Solution
The settlements represent land-grabbing, and land-grabbing and peace-making don’t go together, it is one or the other. By its actions, if not always in its rhetoric, Israel has opted for land-grabbing and as we speak Israel is expanding settlements. So, Israel has been systematically destroying the basis for a viable Palestinian state and this is the declared objective of the Likud and Netanyahu who used to pretend to accept a two-state solution. In the lead up to the last election, he said there will be no Palestinian state on his watch. The expansion of settlements and the wall mean that there cannot be a viable Palestinian state with territorial contiguity. The most that the Palestinians can hope for is Bantustans, a series of enclaves surrounded by Israeli settlements and Israeli military bases.
- Avi Shlaim
How Avi Shlaim moved from two-state solution to one-state solution
‘One state is a game changer’: A conversation with Ilan Pappe
One State Solution, Foreign Affairs
Both Hamas and Fatah have agreed to a Two-State solution based on the 1967 borders for decades. Oslo and Camp David were used by Israel to continue settlements in the West Bank and maintain an Apartheid, while preventing any actual Two-State solution
Hamas has already agreed to no longer govern the Gaza Strip, as long as Palestinians receive liberation and a unified government can take place.
During the current war, Hamas officials have said that the group does not want to return to ruling Gaza and that it advocates for forming a government of technocrats to be agreed upon by the various Palestinian factions. That government would then prepare for elections in Gaza and the West Bank, with the intention of forming a unified government.
In the Shadow of the Holocaust by Masha Gessen, the situation in Gaza is compared to the Warsaw Ghettos. The comparison was also made by a Palestinian poet who was later killed by an Israeli airstrike. Adi Callai, an Israeli, has also written on the parallels in his article The Gaza Ghetto Uprising and expanded upon in his corresponding video
Keeponstalin Now • 50%
Keeponstalin Now • 93%
What are you, Israel?
Keeponstalin Now • 87%
Hezbollah only exists because of Israel's occupation of Southern Lebanon and their repeated invasions of Lebanon. This is the 4th time Israel has done a ground invasion of Lebanon
Keeponstalin Now • 91%
Racism is certainly at the heart of the dehumanization of Palestinians and the native Population of the Middle East in general when it comes to Zionist Settler Colonialism and Occupation
Keeponstalin Now • 88%
Israel has only ever responded to peaceful protests with lethal violence
When peaceful resistance is made impossible, violent revolution is inevitable
You can't expect people subjected to systematic violence and dehumanization for generations to not fight back for their own humanity and human rights
Keeponstalin Now • 100%
As was the bombing of hundreds of civilians in the Capital. Simply a military operation, totally not war
Keeponstalin Now • 100%
Meanwhile Israel bombed and killed 90 civilians on the same day, including an orphanage
The Apartheid needs to end for all this violence to end, none of these civilians deserve any of this.
www.middleeasteye.net
> According to the feature-length documentary Gaza, published online by Al Jazeera's Investigative Unit on Thursday, Israeli forces routinely shared abuses they committed on platforms including TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook after invading the enclave. > The crimes ranged from wanton destruction and looting, to the demolition of entire neighbourhoods and possible unlawful killings. > Al Jazeera said it was able to track down the names, ranks and military units of many of the soldiers after compiling a database of "over two and a half thousand social media accounts, containing photos and videos placed online by Israeli soldiers". [Investigating War Crimes in Gaza | Al Jazeera Investigations](https://youtu.be/kPE6vbKix6A)
Keeponstalin Now • 100%
It's all linked in the article
Keeponstalin Now • 50%
No, they did not directly tell the US as far as I can tell. They did so indirectly and with short notice, different from the last time when they gave a 72 hour warning.
Miller states that the Iranian strikes were targeting civilians, while Israel does not target civilians. Both of which are not true.
Notice how Miller, who is representing the US State Department here, frames all of Israel's actions as defensive and just (despite directly bombing a Capitol, killing hundreds of civilians, and starting a ground invasion), while all the actions of any of Israel's enemies are unjust and demands consequences (despite attacking military targets and not civilian targets). The double standards are blatant and intentional, in order to justify the US's continued military support of Israel, despite public opinion, US Law, and International Law.
truthout.org
> Overnight on Wednesday, Israeli forces dropped bombs across the strip and undertook a ground incursion in Khan Yunis, killing at least 90 Palestinians and injuring dozens of others. > Israeli forces bombed two schools, in Gaza City and central Gaza. They also bombed an orphanage in western Gaza City, the Al-Amal Orphanage. The orphanage posted on Facebook that the bombing killed eight people, including children, and caused a “large number” of injuries. > In southern Gaza, Israeli forces sent tanks into Khan Yunis on Wednesday, where troops killed at least 51 people, according to Gaza officials. At least 12 children, including a 22-month-old baby, were killed by the combination of the ground and air attack. Israel has repeatedly sent troops into Khan Yunis, and this time launched an overnight operation into three neighborhoods of the city.
theintercept.com
> After nearly a year of unrelenting attacks in Gaza, Israel further escalated and expanded its war by invading Lebanon late Monday. Iran responded the following evening by launching ballistic missiles into Tel Aviv, stoking fears that the region is on the precipice of an even broader war. > The Israeli military has tried repeatedly to minimize the perceived scope of its attacks, describing its ongoing invasion of Lebanon as “limited, localized, and targeted ground raids” against Hezbollah. Such semantics are also in play in the U.S., where President Joe Biden publicly called for a ceasefire, while reporting suggests the White House privately condoned Israel’s expansion of its war into Lebanon. > For the past two weeks, Israel’s bombing campaign across Lebanon, including strikes into the densely populated capital Beirut, has killed more than 1,000 people, including at least 243 children and women, the country’s health minister said. One million people in Lebanon — nearly a fifth of the country — have been displaced from their homes. Over the weekend, Israel bombed Lebanon, Gaza, the West Bank, Yemen, and Syria within a 24-hour span, damaging civilian infrastructure and killing dozens. In Lebanon on Sunday alone, Israeli strikes killed at least 105 people, a single-day death toll from Israeli strikes previously seen only in Gaza. > While the IDF has said it doesn’t seek any long-term occupation of Lebanon, El-Sadany pointed to the war in Gaza where Israel continually moved its goal posts.
truthout.org
> Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip has been the deadliest year of conflict for women and children anywhere in the world over the past two decades, according to an analysis released Tuesday as Israeli forces continued to bombard the Palestinian enclave and [launched a ground invasion](https://www.commondreams.org/news/israel-invades-lebanon) of Lebanon. > The global humanitarian group Oxfam [noted in its new report](https://www.oxfam.org.uk/media/press-releases/more-women-and-children-killed-in-gaza-by-israeli-military-than-any-other-recent-conflict-in-a-single-year/) that Israel’s U.S.-backed assault on Gaza has killed more than 6,000 women and 11,000 children, estimates that the organization deemed “conservative” given that the figures don’t include the [tens of thousands of kids who are missing](https://www.commondreams.org/news/gaza-children-missing). > Many children who have survived Israel’s year-long assault thus far have been left with debilitating psychological and [physical trauma](https://www.commondreams.org/news/israel-gaza-children-disabilities). Umaiyeh Khammash, a physician who directs the West Bank-based group Juzoor, said Tuesday that more than 25,000 children in Gaza “have either lost a parent or become orphans, leaving them in deep emotional distress.” > Oxfam also outlined in broad strokes how Israel has obliterated Gaza’s civilian infrastructure, pointing to estimates showing that, on average over the past year, Israeli forces have bombed homes every four hours, shelters for displaced people every 17 hours, schools and hospitals every four days, and aid distribution points and facilities roughly every two weeks.
truthout.org
> The call from Veterans for Peace (VFP) comes days after the investigative outlet ProPublica [published a detailed account](https://www.propublica.org/article/gaza-palestine-israel-blocked-humanitarian-aid-blinken) of how the U.S. State Department submitted a report to Congress that contradicted the findings of the department’s own experts and those of other agencies. > The Blinken-led State Department’s [May report](https://www.commondreams.org/news/us-department-of-state-israel) concluded that Israel was not “prohibiting or otherwise restricting the transport or delivery of U.S. humanitarian assistance,” despite internal assessments from State Department experts and the [U.S. Agency for International Development](https://www.commondreams.org/news/usaid-israel-weapons) (USAID) arguing that Israel had deliberately impeded American aid shipments to Gaza and that weapons transfers to the country should be cut off in line with [Section 620I of the U.S. Foreign Assistance Act](https://civiliansinconflict.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/FACT-SHEET-620I-Brief-1.pdf). > VFP’s letter came days after the U.S. and Israel reached a deal for an additional $8.7 billion in American military support, even as the Israeli military continues to [obstruct aid deliveries](https://www.nrc.no/news/2024/september/israels-siege-now-blocks-83-of-food-aid-reaching-gaza-new-data-reveals/) in Gaza, bombard the enclave’s starving population, and expand the assault on Lebanon. > Susan Schnall, VFP’s president, said Monday that U.S. military aid to Israel amounts to “a theft from millions of Americans who have none of the health insurance every Israeli enjoys; from millions of Americans living in horrific housing while Israel builds thousands of upscale homes on land stolen from Palestinians; from millions of young Americans who can’t afford college because America’s top priorities are weapons and death, not human needs.”
mondoweiss.net
> Netanyahu told attendees that Israel will “continue degrading Hezbollah” until its military objectives are met and vowed to keep bombing Gaza until “total victory” is achieved. He also threatened Iran, who he claimed was behind many of the problems in the region. > Netanyahu also lashed out at the very body he was addressing, accusing the United Nations of being a “house of darkness” and a “swamp of antisemitic bile.” > Netanyahu was greeted by protest as soon as he arrived in New York City on Thursday. Thousands rallied and then marched to the United Nations headquarters, in an action organized by the Shut It Down For Palestine Coalition, which includes which includes the Palestinian Youth Movement, PAL-Awda NY, the People’s Forum, Nodutdol, the ANSWER Coalition and other groups. > Shortly after Netanyahu’s speech Israel bombed south Beirut, leveling six residential buildings. Israeli media has reported that it was an attempted assassination of Hezbollah’s Secretary General, Hasan Nasrallah. Lebanese sources told the Iranian news agency, Tasnim that Nasrallah is in a safe place. Reuters and AFP also quoted sources close to Hezbollah who say Nasrallah is still alive. > The Times of Israel reports approved of the strikes from his New York City hotel, right before he gave his U.N. > The Biden administration was reportedly informed of the attack shortly before it happened. It just comes just one day after Israel announced that it had secured an $8.7 billion military aid package from the United States.
mondoweiss.net
> Israel conducted an unprecedented airstrike on Beirut’s southern Dahiya district on Friday evening in what Israeli media described as an attempt to assassinate Hezbollah’s Secretary General, Hasan Nasrallah. > The strike targeted and leveled six residential buildings. The Israeli army’s spokesperson, Daniel Hagari, released a video statement shortly after the strike claiming that the buildings contained Hezbollah’s “Central Headquarters.” Lebanese media reported that over 10 Israeli missiles were dropped in less than three minutes on the complex, situated in the Haret Hreik area in Dahiya. The Israeli army’s radio said that Israeli F-35 fighter jets dropped 2000-pound bunker-buster bombs on the residential buildings. > Lebanese first responders continue rescue efforts to pull out survivors from under the rubble. As of the time of writing, the number of civilians killed has not been specified. > The Israeli army’s radio quoted a military source saying that any person who was present in the targeted buildings “will not come out alive.” The Lebanese Health Minister, Firas al-Abyad, said that some of the buildings targeted were “full of civilian residents.”
theintercept.com
> “I saw a mirror,” Odah said, recalling moments spent with Williams’s family. “A reflection of these two systems that are both upheld by the U.S. that condemn Black and Palestinian men, our fathers, our grandfathers, and the rest of our families, at the mercy of those who continue to find ways to dehumanize us.” > Missouri killed Williams, who was 55 years old, for a murder he said he did not commit and even though prosecutors fought to throw his conviction out due to the paucity of the evidence. Gov. Mike Parsons declined to grant Williams clemency, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to step in. His execution coincided with nationwide protests on Tuesday against Israel’s ongoing bombing campaign in Lebanon that has killed at least 615 people, including more than 50 children. News of the execution reverberated among protesters, who drew connections between Israel’s relentless U.S.-backed war on Gaza and state-sanctioned killing in the United States. In some places, demonstrators recited a poem Williams had written about Palestinian children > “We’re clearly seeing that some people’s lives, some people’s futures — their security, their liberty, their humanity — are far more valuable than others. I mean, there is a dehumanization of Black and brown Americans in this country, and it’s been allowed to persist, and often it’s actually been perpetrated by the same institutions of our nation who are supposed to be fighting for justice, for our rights. They’re erasing us, they’re making excuses, and they’re harming people,” said Ramirez. “And I think it’s because if they don’t see us as humans, then you’re really not hurting us, right? If you don’t see the right to protect ourselves, if you don’t see us as humans, there’s no remorse.” > Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., echoed her colleague’s point, noting that President Joe Biden did not deliver on his 2020 campaign pledge to abolish the death penalty and that Democrats recently dropped opposition to capital punishment from their party platform. And in the case of Gaza, Bush said, the administration has escalated the conflict.
truthout.org
> On Wednesday, Sanders introduced six resolutions blocking six sales of different weapons contained within the $20 billion weapons deal announced by the Biden administration in August. The sales include many of the types of weapons that Israel has used in its relentless campaign of extermination in Gaza over the past year. > “Sending more weapons is not only immoral, it is also illegal. The Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and the Arms Export Control Act lay out clear requirements for the use of American weaponry – Israel has egregiously violated those rules,” said Sanders. “There is a mountain of documentary evidence demonstrating that these weapons are being used in violation of U.S. and international law.” > This will be the first time in history that Congress has ever voted on legislation to block a weapons sale to Israel, as the Institute for Middle East Understanding Policy Project pointed out. This is despite the U.S. having sent Israel over $250 billion in military assistance in recent decades, according to analyst Stephen Semler, as Israel has carried out ethnic cleansings and massacres across Palestine and in Lebanon. > The resolutions are not likely to pass; even if they did pass the heavily pro-Israel Congress, they would likely be vetoed by President Joe Biden, who has been insistent on sending weapons to Israel with no strings attached. > However, Sanders’s move is in line with public opinion. Polls have consistently found that the majority of the public supports an end to Israel’s genocide; a poll by the Institute for Global Affairs [released this week](https://instituteforglobalaffairs.org/2024/09/vox-populi-battlegrounds/#full-report) found, for instance, that a majority of Americans think the U.S. should stop supporting Israel or make support contingent on Israeli officials’ agreement to a ceasefire deal. This includes nearly 80 percent of Democrats.
truthout.org
> While the majority of fentanyl is seized at the U.S.-Mexico border, 93 percent of those seizures happened at legal crossing points last year. More than 86 percent of people sentenced for trafficking fentanyl in 2023 were U.S. citizens, and almost all fentanyl is smuggled for U.S. consumers. > Democrats’ and Republicans’ shared focus on fentanyl trafficking at the U.S.-Mexico border as the sole root of the overdose crisis is dangerously myopic. It fails to address the myriad causes or advance any much-needed solutions. Indeed, the U.S. is grappling with a serious public health crisis, as the country faces more than 100,000 deaths per year from drug overdoses, two-thirds of which are due to synthetic opioids like fentanyl. Twenty-seven thousand pounds of fentanyl were seized at the border last year, up from just 4,600 pounds in 2020. But militarizing the border — and promoting rhetoric that demonizes immigrants — will not save any lives. > Experts caution that it is difficult to attribute such data to any singular source; we need more studies over a longer period of time to determine what’s driving the plunge. Still, we can look to several recent developments as possible culprits: In December 2022, Biden signed the bipartisan Mainstreaming Addiction Treatment (MAT) Act, which removed the bureaucratic hurdles facing doctors who need to prescribe buprenorphine for opioid addiction treatment. Prior to the MAT Act in 2020, less than 6 percent of doctors were allowed to prescribe buprenorphine. Meanwhile, a naloxone nasal spray that can reverse opioid overdoses and save lives was approved to be sold as an over-the-counter medicine in March 2023. It has since become much more readily available. > This is a good start, but doctors are still calling for increased funding for addiction treatment and harm reduction services. Rural areas, as well as Black and Native American communities, especially face substantial barriers to accessing quality health care. Currently, Congress is considering a bipartisan bill, the Modernizing Opioid Treatment Access Act, which would expand access to methadone, a prescription drug used to treat opioid addictions. Unlike in several European countries, methadone is only obtainable in the United States at designated opioid treatment clinics and must be taken on-site — creating an unnecessary hurdle for those who live miles away from the closest clinic. Addiction recovery advocates also point toward the need for expanded telemedicine options, mobile methadone clinics and robust drug education campaigns as necessary tools to fight the overdose crisis.
www.democracynow.org
> Israel is continuing its bombardment of Lebanon and preparing for a possible ground invasion of the country, with the Netanyahu government rejecting a proposed 21-day ceasefire put forward by the United States, France, Canada, Australia, Japan, Qatar, the UAE and Saudi Arabia. > About 500,000 people in Lebanon have been displaced, and the Health Ministry reports at least 72 people were killed and nearly 400 wounded in Israeli attacks on Wednesday, bringing the death toll to over 620 in recent days. > “There is a lot of suffering. There is a lot of hardship right now,” says Beirut-based journalist Lara Bitar, who details how Israel has repeatedly attacked and invaded Lebanese territory going back decades. > “The source of this pain can be pinpointed to the presence of the Israeli settler state in our region that continues to wreak havoc in Palestine, in Lebanon and across most of the world.”
truthout.org
> Outspoken advocates for Palestinian rights, including Representatives Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan) and Cori Bush (D-Missouri), have said that bolstering the U.S.’s military presence in the region will only worsen an already catastrophic situation created by Israeli forces over the past year — and could increase the already strong threat of a regional war. > The lawmakers pointed out that only an arms embargo to Israel — as has been ordered by international and domestic law — can result in the de-escalation of tensions that the Biden administration has claimed that it supports. > “The Biden-Harris administration continues to allow Netanyahu and the Israeli government to operate with impunity as they carry out war crimes. After facing no red line in Gaza, in an attempt to remain in power, Netanyahu is now expanding his genocidal campaign to Lebanon, using the same tactics the Biden-Harris administration has endorsed,” Tlaib said in a fiery statement on Wednesday. > “Deploying more U.S. troops and sending more U.S. bombs will only lead to more suffering and carnage,” she said. “The Biden-Harris administration is capable of stopping the bloodshed. President Biden must implement an immediate arms embargo to end the slaughter and de-escalate the risk of a wider regional war.”
www.middleeasteye.net
> The US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the State Department’s refugees bureau concluded in April that Israel was deliberately blocking aid to Gaza, [according](https://www.propublica.org/article/gaza-palestine-israel-blocked-humanitarian-aid-blinken) to a report by the news site, ProPublica. > In a 17-page memo sent to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, USAID documented several examples of Israel blocking aid into the besieged Gaza Strip - including Israel killing aid workers, destroying agricultural structures, bombing ambulances and hospitals, and flat-out turning away trucks filled with food and medicine. > The head of the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration said Israel was blocking aid and argued that its actions should trigger the Foreign Assistance Act, which bars military support from going to any nation that restricts the delivery of assistance. > Stacy Gilbert, a former senior civil-military advisor in the refugees bureau, resigned over Blinken’s report to Congress, saying in a public [statement](https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/05/28/state-department-official-resigns-gilbert/) that there "is abundant evidence showing Israel is responsible for blocking aid”.
truthout.org
> In his final address to the UN General Assembly as the U.S. president on Tuesday, Biden boasted about working for peace and deescalation through his administration, walking through historic conflicts that he claimed he opposed. > He struck an almost anti-war tone as he bragged about withdrawing troops from Afghanistan and, ironically, opposing South African apartheid in his younger years. He also spoke extensively about the U.S.’s use of the UN charter to support Ukraine and the need for global powers to end Russia’s invasion. He then called for world order, saying that “the center has held” and that global chaos has been averted, referencing a famous William Butler Yeats poem. > But Biden suspended his dovish talk when he spoke about the Middle East and Israel’s massacres — for which the U.S. has undermined humanitarian standards at every turn. While Biden dubiously claimed that his administration is working steadfastly to achieve peace in the Middle East, he invoked the October 7 attack led by Hamas forces — which officials have raised repeatedly in the past year to provide justification for Israel’s genocide.
www.democracynow.org
> The Israeli military is reportedly preparing to invade Lebanon while continuing to launch extensive airstrikes across the country, forcing tens of thousands to flee. Lebanon’s Health Ministry reports the death toll has reached at least 569 people, with more than 1,800 wounded. > Israeli strikes have killed United Nations employees, medical workers, at least one journalist and 50 children over the past two days. Meanwhile, Hezbollah launched dozens of rockets at Israel, including a long-range missile fired toward Tel Aviv that was intercepted by Israeli air defense systems. > “Lebanese civilians are paying the price,” says Aya Majzoub in Beirut, Amnesty International’s deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa, who calls Israel’s attacks “unprecedented” and “devastating.” “In a single day, on Monday, more than 500 people were killed. … It is one of the highest daily death tolls in recent global wars.”
Keeponstalin
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