Gaza's Children's Crusade: Dying One By One
This Armistice Day, Kurt Vonnegut - humanist, socialist, chronicler of the "terrible wastefulness of war" - would have turned 101; he deemed "sacred" the date when millions laid down their arms in a singular, merciful moment of grace. This Armistice Day, Gaza saw no mercy or grace - just hospitals gone dark, nurses shot, patients trapped, babies "dying by the minute." The devastation evokes Vonnegut's mournful fury at another awful war in 1969. "We have nothing to celebrate," he said. "Let the killing stop."
It was on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918 that "millions upon millions of human beings stopped butchering one another," Vonnegut wrote of the Armistice. "I have talked to old men who were on battlefields during that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the Voice of God. So we still have among us some men who can remember when God spoke clearly to mankind." "War Is Over!" headlines blared of the end of a senseless conflagration that killed over 40 million people, its "Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red" long symbolized by poppies. In a radio speech, Woodrow Wilson praised "the lofty levels of vision (upon) which the great war for democracy was fought"; in 1938, in tribute to "the war to end all wars," Congress declared Nov. 11 a national holiday "dedicated to world peace." But just three years later, America joined a second world war still more devastating. Born "accidentally" in 1922 on the date the first war ended and swept unceremoniously into the second, Vonnegut later wrote, "My own feeling is that civilization ended in World War I, and we're still trying to recover from it." He himself spent 45 years seeking to reckon with persistent wars he deemed merely a grotesque, eternal "puberty ceremony."
Vonnegut's seminal book Slaughterhouse-Five was his anguished effort to make sense of the trauma of his own war, when as a 22-year-old U.S. Infantry Scout during World War ll he was captured by German troops. Soon after, he was brought with other POWs to a Dresden work camp and then to Schlachthof-Fünf, an underground slaughterhouse where he survived Dresden's infamous 1945 firebombing by Allies that may have killed over 100,000 civilians. "I saw the destruction of Dresden," he wrote of the once-stately "Florence of the Elbe." “I saw the city before, (and) when we came up, the city was gone." Admitting how hard it was to confront his painful memories, he evokes Lot's wife, turned into a pillar of salt by God for ignoring His command not to look back at the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah: "But she did look back, and I love her for that, because it was so human.” Slaughterhouse-Five, he notes, "was written by a pillar of salt," determinedly looking back in search of hope or at least comprehension. When a friend insists he not glorify the atrocities endured and committed by so many then-innocents - "You were just babies then!" - he vows not to, and adds the subtitle, "The Children's Crusade. He begins, "All this happened, more or less."
A socialist who cared about humanity as deeply as its violence and irrationality pained him, Vonnegut rendered a surreal reality more so, crafting an absurdist, fragmented tale about green, toilet-plunger-shaped aliens called Tralfamadorians abducting his PTSD-afflicted anti-hero Billy Pilgrim, who often gets "rudely unstuck in time," in order to haltingly, implausibly confront "the monstrous crimes of the 20th century." These apocalyptic horrors he saw, he carried the rest of his life: The massive firestorm that tore people's breath from their lungs, the streets and basements filled with bodies reduced to "little, brown, charred bundles," the smell of the endless, oozing corpses the POWS had to haul to towering funeral pyres as survivors threw rocks at them until soldiers with flame throwers took to cremating bodies where they lay after they'd been stripped of valuables. Faced with the unfathomable, he offers up for dark comic relief the Tralfamadorians, fatalists who "had many wonderful things to teach Earthlings about time," who have knowledge of the calamitous future but for whom there is no free will: "There is no why." Says Pilgrim, "Now, when I myself hear that somebody is dead, I simply shrug and say what the Tralfamadorians say about dead people...'So it goes.'"
Vonnegut died in 2007. This Armistice Day he would have turned 101; on Thursday, the Library of America is re-publishing four of his novels. Because, per Faulkner, "The past is never dead - it's not even past," Israeli leaders now intent on turning Gaza into Dresden cite the Allied defense of firebombing entire cities - as a rail hub, Dresden was "a military target" - to justify their slaughter of at least 11,255 Palestinian civilians, almost half children. "There are no innocent civilians," insisted Gen. Curtis 'Iron Ass' LeMay, who pioneered low-altitude incendiary bombings on Tokyo and other Japanese cities that burned to death hundreds of thousands. "It is their government and you are fighting a people...So it doesn’t bother me so much to be killing so-called innocent bystanders." (During the war in Vietnam, LeMay famously vowed to "bomb them back into the Stone Age," a pledge that even fog-of-war Robert McNamara said could see them all prosecuted for war crimes, as they should have been.) Today, Israel's military and political leaders have likewise, shamelessly made their genocidal intent plain: They are fighting "human animals," they will bomb Gaza "into rubble," they are "rolling out the Gaza Nakba." "There will only be destruction," said one general. "You wanted hell, you will get hell."
And so Gaza has. Much of it is now rubble, "unrecognizable," a "graveyard for children." Over two-thirds of its 2.3 million people, lacking homes, food, water, have fled in terror. Vital, cancer, maternity, childrens' hospitals are bombed, closed, ravaged, evacuated amidst relentless Israeli airstrikes and loss of power. Previously bombed Al-Ahli Hospital serves as an outdoor field hospital, its three surgeons tending 500 wounded amidst IDF gunfire. Al-Shifa, Gaza's biggest hospital, isencircled by IDF tanks and snipers, without power, "caught in a circle of death." Israeli bombs razed its maternity ward and intensive care unit, killing at least three nurses. Over 600 bloody patients lie on floors away from windows and gunfire without food, water, oxygen, pain medication; sometimes a wailing parent finds a dead infant among them. Doctors do ventilation by hand and wrap the most seriously wounded - burns, blast injuries, amputations - for warmth, but they are "dying by the minute." At least 43 of 63 ICU patients have died; so have six of 39 premature babies. With no working incubators, doctors have laid them out on beds, swathed in blankets, getting weaker in "a very bad situation where you slowly kill them." One doctor on the newborns: "A scream from these children to the world."
Outside Al-Shifa, where up to 50,000 Gazans initially sought shelter until Israel began, over 100 dead bodies pile up. Despite Israel's claim to provide safe passage, hospital staff say they watched helplessly as many were shot trying to flee. Staff shrouded the dead in white body bags until they ran out; now they wrap them in blankets, some with burnt limbs protruding. As more die, and without refrigeration, wild dogs have set upon the bodies; doctors say they've begun digging mass graves inside the complex. After an ultimatum to evacuate, some doctors left, prodded by armed soldiers, to walk for hours on a road strewn with bodies to a UN shelter with a "staggering" number of refugees. But the UN, sheltering some 800,000 people, says its fuel depot has run dry, Israel bombed its wells, and it will soon have to shut down all aid. With over 5,000 Gazan women due to give birth this month, Al-Awda hospital in the north, without power, is delivering 20 babies a day; some mothers and infants arrive wounded, gored by shrapnel, with burns or broken limbs. "We are being killed here," says one doctor. Says another of performing surgery on children without anesthesia, “I’m trying to understand what the world is waiting for...At what point does the world believe (it) is no longer acceptable (for) this to be done to people."
"Children are children, (and) one cannot but be equally horrified by what has happened to them, both here and there," writes Gideon Levy of a "fascist reality sweeping Israel" in which "one must now take sides: You are either shocked by the atrocities committed by Hamas, or by the atrocities committed by the IDF. Decide. Choose sides. Which dead children shock you more?" Genocide, mutual terror, and the murder of children are "not a path to peace," he argues, but "a nightmare future built on a nightmare present." Many Jews concur, including relatives of Hamas victims. "Revenge is not going to bring my parents back to life," said one. "It is going to bring more death." Yet just 31 members, 5.8%, of Congress have demanded a ceasefire most Americans support, a complicit Biden has imposed "no red lines" on how many civilians his "great, great friend" Netanyahu can kill, faced with an illegal raid on Al-Shifa he only squeaked, "My hope and expectation is there will be less intrusive action," and when the UN, on its 5th try, passed its first resolution calling for "extended humanitarian pauses" in airstrikes, the U.S. - WTF - abstained. In response, Israel swiftly declared the call had "no meaning," was "disconnected from reality," and "will not happen."
In the same spirit of cooperation, Israeli forces also stormed al-Shifa Hospital. Ignoring protests from doctors and rights groups, they interrogated medical staff, blew up a medicine storehouse, assaulted men sheltering in the emergency room, arrested several technicians, ordered about 1,000 males over 16, hands in the air, into the courtyard to "surrender" and stripped some naked, all in the name of uncovering Hamas operations. An IDF spokesman reported they "found weapons and other terror infrastructure" and "unique technological means used by Hamas." Doctors and Gaza officials denied the claims as "a farce." Israel also announced it let in a first fuel delivery for the UN, but banned use of any fuel by hospitals, who most need it. In Paris, Israeli arms makers attended a leading global security fair sponsored by France's Ministry of Interior to exhibit their newest innovations, like Smartshooter's “one shot one hit” technology "giving soldiers the tactical edge they need," now being tested on Palestinians as part of what Netanyahu in a U.S. media blitz has called his "battle of civilization against barbarism." In his earliest speech against the Vietnam War, Kurt Vonnegut had some words for that sort of "manly jubilation," especially when referencing "murdered children." "There will be no cheering," he said. "I quote God Almighty, who said this: Thou shalt not kill."
“Whoever stays until the end will tell the story. We did what we could. Remember us." - Medical staff in Gaza were so inundated by patients they wiped clean the board that usually tracks upcoming surgeries and left this message.
Hungry Palestinian children line up for food in RafahPhoto by Hatem Ali
A Gazan child watches as people sort through rubble after an Israeli airstrike on Rafah. Photo by Mohammed Abed/AFP/Getty Images
Fossil Fuel Firms 'Building Bridge to Climate Chaos'
More than a thousand fossil fuel companies around the world are currently planning to build new liquefied natural gas terminals, pipelines, or gas-fired power plants even as scientists warn that fossil fuel expansion is incompatible with efforts to prevent catastrophic warming.
That's according to an updated database released Wednesday by Urgewald and dozens of partner groups. Described as the most comprehensive public database on the fossil fuel industry, the Global Oil & Gas Exit List (GOGEL) covers 1,623 companies that are operating in the upstream, midstream, or gas-fired power sector and collectively account for 95% of global oil and gas production.
The updated database shows that 1,023 are plotting expansions of fossil fuel infrastructure, threatening to lock in years of planet-warming emissions as extreme weather
fueled by the climate crisis wreaks havoc worldwide. The World Meteorological Organization said Wednesday that global greenhouse gas concentrations reached a new high once again last year.
"The magnitude of the industry's expansion plans is truly frightening," said Nils Bartsch, Urgewald's head of oil and gas research. "To keep 1.5°C alive, a speedy, managed decline in both oil and gas production is vital. Instead, oil and gas companies are building a bridge to climate chaos."
According to the 2023 GOGEL, 96% of the 700 upstream oil and gas companies in the database are exploring or actively developing new oil and gas fields, projects that Urgewald said "severely jeopardize efforts to limit global temperature increase to 1.5 °C."
Nearly 540 companies in the database are collectively planning to produce 230 billion barrels of oil equivalent (bboe) over the short term, the database shows.
"The seven companies with the largest short-term expansion plans are Saudi Aramco (16.8 bboe), QatarEnergy (16.5 bboe), Gazprom (10.7 bboe), Petrobras (9.6 bboe), ADNOC (9.0 bboe), TotalEnergies (8.0 bboe) and ExxonMobil (7.9 bboe)," Urgewald noted. "These seven companies are responsible for one-third of global short-term oil and gas expansion."
The database also shows that fossil fuel companies are planning to expand global LNG capacity by 162%, a significant threat to critical climate targets. A United Nations-backed report published last week warned that fossil fuel expansion plans are "throwing humanity's future into question."
Urgewald pointed specifically to the LNG boom in the U.S., which the group said is "cementing its position as the world's largest export hub for LNG" with 21 new export facilities planned along the Gulf Coast. Those facilities account for more than 40% of worldwide LNG expansion documented in the GOGEL database.
"Most of the fossil gas that will be exported from these terminals stems from the Permian Basin, the heart of the U.S. fracking industry," Urgewald observed.
The updated database shows that nearly 80 companies—including Exxon, Chevron, and BP—are currently operating in the Permian Basin, located in the U.S. Southwest.
Climate campaigners and experts have also sounded alarm over Calcasieu Pass 2 (CP2), a planned $10 billion LNG export hub that would ship up to 24 million tons of gas annually once it is completed.
"The fossil fuel industry wants to pave undeveloped wetlands all along the coast with LNG facilities like NextDecade Corporation's Rio Grande LNG Terminal, Rebekah Hinojosa, a member of the South Texas Environmental Justice Network said Wednesday. "Besides their environmental implications, these plans violate Indigenous sacred lands, and people working in fishing, shrimping, and eco-tourism risk losing their jobs. Our communities refuse to be sacrificed for the fracking industry's dirty gas exports."
UAW Pledges All Necessary Resources to Help Unionize Key Tesla Factory
The United Auto Workers has reportedly offered to provide organizers with all the resources they need to unionize Tesla's electric car factory in Fremont, California, an effort that would pit an invigorated UAW against a company run by Elon Musk—the world's richest man and an aggressive union-buster.
Following news Monday that the UAW reached a tentative contract agreement with General Motors—the final Big Three holdout—after six weeks on strike, Bloombergreported that "Tesla's roughly 20,000-worker plant in Fremont, California currently has a UAW organizing committee whose members are talking to coworkers about the advantages of collective bargaining."
"The UAW has committed to providing whatever resources are necessary for the campaign," Bloomberg added, citing an unnamed person familiar with the nascent organizing push.
Tesla dominates the U.S. electric vehicle market and has been a target of union organizers for years.
In 2017, Tesla fired an employee who was helping lead a unionization effort at the Fremont factory, which was unionized before Tesla purchased it over a decade ago. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled that the 2017 firing amounted to unlawful retaliation for protected union activity, a finding that was later upheld in federal court.
Earlier this year, Tesla terminated dozens of workers at its Buffalo, New York factory a day after a group of employees sent Musk a letter informing him of their intention to unionize. The fired workers have filed a complaint with the NLRB.
Bloomberg noted Monday that Musk has personally spoken out against unionization efforts, calling the 2017 push "morally outrageous" after a Tesla employee and organizer published an article decrying the company's low wages and dangerous working conditions.
In 2018, Musk tweeted that there is "nothing stopping Tesla team at our car plant from voting union."
"But why pay union dues & give up stock options for nothing?" he asked. The NLRB found that the tweet, which is still up, violated U.S. labor law, a decision that Tesla has appealed.
UAW president Shawn Fain, who was elected by the rank-and-file earlier this year after an
insurgent campaign, signaled in a speech over the weekend that the union is eyeing fresh unionization drives at Tesla, Toyota, and other non-union car manufacturers after securing historic tentative contract agreements with the General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis.
"One of our biggest goals coming out of this historic contract victory is to organize like we've never organized before," Fain said. "When we return to the bargaining table in 2028, it won't just be with the Big Three. It will be the Big Five or Big Six."
Fain has previously called out Musk by name for treating workers poorly while enriching himself. In a
CBS Newsinterview in September, the UAW president said that autoworkers at non-union car companies "are scraping to get by so that greedy CEOs and greedy people like Elon Musk can build more rocket ships and shoot theirself in outer space."
The New York Timesreported Monday that the UAW is also planning to target foreign automakers with non-union factories in the U.S. Southeast.
"Some of the biggest new plants are under construction in Georgia, a critical swing state for 2024, including a Hyundai electric vehicle plant that will be the state's biggest economic development project ever," the Times noted.
In an op-ed for The Guardian last month, labor writer Hamilton Nolan argued that "Tesla is now one of the most important union targets in America, given its structural role in undermining everything that the UAW is fighting for."
"We can have a profitable American auto industry that provides good quality union jobs to hundreds of thousands of workers and helps resurrect the beleaguered middle class; or, we can have a profitable American auto industry that provides billions of dollars to people like Musk and pushes wages as low as the most desperate worker in rural South Carolina will accept," Nolan wrote.
"Not even Musk can hide from the labor movement forever," Nolan added. "It's been around a lot longer than he has."
AOC Leads New Cease-Fire Push as Gaza Children Suffer
Twenty-four House members led by Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Mark Pocan, and Betty McCollum sent a letter to President Joe Biden Wednesday renewing calls for a cease-fire in Gaza.
The letter writers emphasized in particular how Israel's ongoing bombardment has impacted Gaza's 1 million children. The attack has killed 4,506 children and injured at least 7,695, while at least 1,755 are missing, most likely trapped beneath rubble. Israeli soldiers and settlers have also killed at least 51 children in the West Bank in the last 39 days.
"We are profoundly shocked by the grave violations of children's rights in the context of armed conflict in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory," the representatives wrote. "International norms require that all parties to an armed conflict protect children and prevent the commission of grave violations against them, including killing and maiming, attacks on schools and hospitals, recruitment and use of children, abduction of children, and denial of humanitarian access."
"We write to you to express deep concern about the intensifying war in Gaza, particularly grave violations against children."
The letter adds to the number of lawmakers who have called for a cease-fire, raising the total to 31. The new names are Pocan (D-Wis.), Mary Gay Scanlon (D-Pa.), Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), and Henry Johnson (D-Ga.)
They were joined by fellow Democratic Reps. Rashida Tlaib (Mich.), Cori Bush (Mo.), James McGovern (Mass.), Pramila Jayapal (Wash.), Joaquin Castro (Texas), Delia Ramirez (Ill.), Greg Casar (Texas), Jesús "Chuy" Garcia (Ill.), Bonnie Watson Coleman (N.J.), Nydia Velázquez (N.Y.), Ayanna Pressley (Mass.), Jonathan Jackson (Ill.), Barbara Lee (Calif.), André Carson (Ind.), Jamaal Bowman (N.Y.), Summer Lee (Pa.), Veronica Escobar (Texas), and Ilhan Omar (Minn.).
The new names mean that 5.8% of Congress now backs a cease-fire,The Intercept's Prem Thakker pointed out. The increase comes the same day as a Reuters/Ipsos poll finding that 68% of U.S. respondents believe Israel should negotiate a cease-fire.
The letter writers condemned Hamas' October 7 attack on Israel, which killed at least 1,200 people, including 31 children. However, they also expressed "dire concerns" about Israel's response, which has killed more than 11,000 total in Gaza. In addition to death and injury from airstrikes, the attack and siege have also put Gaza's children in particular at risk from lack of food, water, and fuel. They noted that the bombardment had impacted 285 educational institutions, among them at least 29 U.N. schools.
"No child should ever have to face the overwhelming scale and horror of the violence that Palestinian children in Gaza are experiencing."
"We write to you to express deep concern about the intensifying war in Gaza, particularly grave violations against children, and our fear that without an immediate cessation of hostilities and the establishment of a robust bilateral cease-fire, this war will lead to a further loss of civilian life and risk dragging the United States into dangerous and unwise conflict with armed groups across the Middle East," the lawmakers said.
The representatives also looked to the future beyond an immediate cease-fire.
"Recognizing that there is no military solution that will end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we urge your administration to obtain clarity on the specific strategic objectives of a large-scale ground invasion, their achievability, what may come after Hamas, the risks to hostages and civilians in the region, the national security implications of a multi-front war in the Middle East, and the potential threats to American citizens in the region," they said.
The letter was also endorsed by more than 30 peace, human rights, and humanitarian groups including Amnesty International, IfNotNow, Jewish Voice for Peace Action, U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, and the American Friends Service Committee.
"No child should ever have to face the overwhelming scale and horror of the violence that Palestinian children in Gaza are experiencing," Beth Miller, the political director at Jewish Voice for Peace Action, said in a statement. "Representatives Ocasio-Cortez, McCollum, and Pocan are pushing forward a critical demand for Palestinian children's life to be valued and protected, and for the Biden administration to finally put an end to this nightmare by calling for a cease-fire now."
Elizabeth Rghebi, advocacy director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International USA, said the letter came at a "critical moment."
"More and more Palestinian civilians are losing their lives each day amid Israeli military operations and the unfolding of an unprecedented, man-made humanitarian catastrophe in the occupied Gaza Strip," Rghebi said. "An immediate cease-fire by all parties to the conflict is the only way to prevent further loss of life, to deliver humanitarian aid to those in desperate need, and to provide an opportunity to secure the safe release of hostages."
University of Florida Pro-Palestine Group Sues DeSantis Over Deactivation
The University of Florida chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine on Thursday sued state education officials and Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis over their move to deactivate the group for its support of Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation, apartheid, and other crimes.
The
lawsuit—which was filed by the ACLU of Florida and Palestine Legal—seeks a preliminary injunction to block State University of Florida System Chancellor Ray Rodrigues' deactivation order, issued last month after Students for Justice in Palestine's (SJP) national body declared support for Palestinian "resistance" to Israel's war on Gaza.
SJP also asserted that the Hamas-led attack on Israel that killed around 1,200 Israeli civilians and soldiers was "not unprovoked" and said that Israel's "apartheid, ethnic cleansing, indiscriminate bombing, arbitrary detention, destruction of infrastructure, [and] 75 years of settler-colonialism are provocations."
"Florida's deactivation order against a Palestinian rights student group for exercising its free speech and association rights is a clear First Amendment violation," Hina Shamsi, director of ACLU's National Security Project, said in a statement.
"We hope our client's brave decision to challenge state officials' attempt to restrict student speech sends the strong message that censorship in our schools is unconstitutional," Shamsi added. "There should be no question that independent political advocacy—no matter its viewpoint—is fully constitutionally protected."
Howard Simon, interim executive director at the ACLU of Florida, said:
If Florida officials think silencing pro-Palestinian students protects the Jewish community—or anyone—they're wrong. This attack on free speech is dangerous. Today it is pro-Palestinian students, tomorrow it could be any other group the governor dislikes.
We recognize colleges are contending with how to manage increased threats and rising tensions on their campuses while keeping students safe—and we take the weight and complexity of these challenges seriously. But it is precisely in times of heightened crisis and fear that government officials, including Gov. DeSantis and Chancellor Rodrigues, must remain steadfast in their obligations to respect free speech, open debate, and peaceful dissent on campus.
The U.F. SJP chapter asserted that "as students on a public college campus, we have every right to engage in human rights advocacy and promote public awareness and activism for a just and reasonable solution to the Palestine-Israel conflict."
"We know we have First Amendment rights in school and we're bringing this lawsuit to make sure the government doesn't silence us or others like us," the group added.
DeSantis—a longshot 2024 GOP presidential contender—stridently
touts Florida as "the freest state in these United States" and a place "where woke goes to die."
The new lawsuit comes amid a nationwide campus crackdown on students and groups advocating for Palestinian rights and protesting what many experts call a genocidal Israeli war that has left more than 40,000 Palestinians dead, wounded, or missing.
Officials have attempted to justify targeting pro-Palestine groups by pointing to the dramatic rise in reported antisemitic activity on campuses. However, Jewish-led groups including Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and IfNotNow have been among the most targeted organizations.
At Columbia University in New York, both SJP and Jewish Voice for Peace were suspended, prompting hundreds of students and faculty to protest both in the streets and in open letters condemning the move.
"Throughout history, students have been central actors in ending segregation, war, and apartheid—and Students for Justice in Palestine sits squarely in that tradition," Palestine Legal founder and director Dima Khalidi said in a statement. "It is precisely because these principled students pose a challenge to the status quo that they are being targeted with McCarthyist censorship, but the First Amendment simply does not allow for it."
"As the humanitarian crisis in Gaza unfolds, we can't let elected officials and university leaders stigmatize groups speaking out for Palestinian human rights," Khalidi added. "The voices of SJP chapters are more important than ever."
First Jewish Member of Congress Backs Cease-Fire (No, It's Not Bernie)
Progressives in Congress and Jewish advocates for Palestinian rights were among those applauding Thursday as U.S. Rep. Becca Balint became the first Jewish federal lawmaker—and the first representing Vermont—to support a cease-fire in Gaza.
Balint (D-Vt.) reversed her earlier position, writing in the VTDigger that the anguish she has felt since Hamas killed about 1,200 Israelis and kidnapped 240 people "has only grown" in the past month as Israel's "ensuing siege has killed thousands of civilians in Gaza who were already struggling under Hamas rule and Israeli blockade."
Echoing 31 other members of Congress who have demanded the Biden administration call for a cease-fire—an action that would likely put a swift end to the deadly bombing of hospitals, refugee shelters, and homes in Gaza—Balint strongly condemned Hamas and said stopping the bombardment could facilitate the return of hostages.
"I'm one generation removed from the horrific trauma of the Holocaust, which impacted my family and reshaped the world," wrote Balint. "Like me, there are thousands of American Jews that share a deep emotional connection to Israel because of what it meant for the survival of the Jewish people in the face of extermination. This same history also drives so many of us to fight for the protection of Palestinian lives. I do not claim to know how to solve every aspect of this decadeslong conflict. But what I do know is that killing civilians, and killing children, is an abomination and categorically unacceptable—no matter who the civilians are, and no matter who the children are."
"What is needed right now is an immediate break in violence to allow for a true negotiated cease-fire," she continued. "One in which both sides stop the bloodshed, allow critical access to humanitarian aid, and move towards negotiating a sustainable and lasting peace."
The congresswoman added that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's current strategy "does not make Israel safer" and in addition to killing at least 11,470 Palestinian civilians, Israel is likely fueling "recruitment for terrorist groups like Hamas."
"This pattern further undermines the security of both Palestinians and Israelis," wrote Balint. "The aerial bombing must end."
IfNotNow, the Jewish-led Palestinian rights group, praised the congresswoman for "bravely joining tens of thousands of Jews for cease-fire across the country."
"Time for other Jewish members of Congress to follow her lead," the group added.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a longtime anti-war advocate and critic of Israel's violent policies in the occupied Palestinian territories, has been notably absent among the members of Congress who have called for a cease-fire in the past month. He advocated for a humanitarian pause earlier this month.
Jennifer Tierney, executive director of Doctors Without Borders Australia, explained last week on the Australian television show Q+A why a humanitarian pause is insufficient to protect civilian lives.
"What you are asking us to do in a humanitarian pause is to bring in the equipment necessary to stitch people up and repair them and then to start the bombing again and for us to then fix them," said Tierney. "That is not enough. We need a cease-fire."
Balint's reversal came less than a week after protesters with Jewish Voice for Peace interrupted a rally in Burlington, Vermont where the lawmaker was speaking. The campaigners demanded Balint back a cease-fire.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who led a renewed push this week demanding that U.S. President Joe Biden support a cease-fire, said Thursday that Balint was "incredibly brave, taking a stance rooted in her commitment to human rights and protection of the innocent."
Texas Officials Reject Textbooks Over Climate Science
"The same bad actors who are calling for racist, homophobic, and transphobic book bans are also calling for climate denial in science textbooks," said one critic.
Seven of 12 proposed science textbooks for Texas 8th graders were rejected Friday by the Republican-controlled state Board of Education because they propose solutions to the climate emergency or were published by a company with an environmental, social, and governance policy.
The Texas Tribunereported that the 15-member board, which for the first time was required to include climate education for 8th graders, approved five of 12 proposed science textbooks, but called on their publishers to remove content deemed false or presenting a negative portrayal of oil and gas in the nation's biggest fossil fuel producer.
"America's future generations don't need a leftist agenda brainwashing them in the classroom to hate oil and natural gas," said Republican state energy regulator Wayne Christian, who had urged the board to choose books that promote planet-heating fossil fuels.
Some board members also objected to textbooks that did not include alternatives to the theory of evolution. One textbook was approved only after the removal of images highlighting that human beings—taxonomically classified as great apes—share ancestry with monkeys.
"Teaching creationism or any of its offshoots, such as intelligent design, in Texas' public schools is unlawful, because creationism is not based in fact," Chris Line, an attorney with the Freedom from Religion Foundation, said Friday. "Courts have routinely found that such teachings are religious, despite many new and imaginative labels given to the alternatives."
"Federal courts consistently reject creationism and its ilk, as well as attempts to suppress the teaching of evolution, in the public schools," Line added.
State standards approved by the board's conservative majority in 2021 do not include creationism as an alternative to evolution. The standards also acknowledge that human activities contribute to climate change.
Despite an overwhelming scientific consensus that human activity—primarily, the burning of fossil fuels—drives global heating, Republican board Secretary Patricia Hardy argued before the vote that such a stance amounts to "taking a position that all of that is settled science, and that our extreme weather is caused by climate change."
One textbook was rejected because its publisher has an environmental, social, and governance (ESG) policy. ESG frameworks account for workplace diversity, the treatment of employees, and preparedness for the climate crisis.
Democratic board member Marisa Perez-Diaz said during debate on the textbooks that "my fear is that we will render ourselves irrelevant moving forward when it comes to what publishers want to work with us and will help us get proper materials in front of our young people, and for me that's heartbreaking."
The National Science Teaching Association—a group of 35,000 U.S. science educators—on Thursday implored the board to reject "misguided objections to evolution and climate change [that] impede the adoption of science textbooks in Texas."
As in other GOP-run states, Texas officials have pushed book bans and other restrictions in schools and libraries, even as they portray themselves as champions of freedom. According to freedom of expression defenders PEN America, only Florida banned more books in schools than Texas during the 2022-23 academic year.
Companies Pushing Weak UN Plastics Treaty Dump Millions Into US Elections
"The only way to curb our catastrophic plastic pollution problem is to cut plastic production, but the industry is spending big to block action at every level to protect their profits," said one campaigner.
Major multinational corporations attending negotiations for a global plastics treaty in an effort to weaken the agreement spent tens of millions of dollars on lobbying and political contributions during the 2022 election cycle, revealed an analysis published Friday by the Center for Biological Diversity.
As Common Dreamsreported this week, 143 fossil fuel and chemical industry lobbyists registered to attend the third session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-3) in Nairobi, Kenya, which is scheduled to run through Sunday. That's more than the combined delegations from 70 nations, and far surpasses the 38 members of a scientists' coalition participating in the negotiations.
Representatives of companies including ExxonMobil, Chevron, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and Dow are among the registered attendees. Industry lobby groups representing hundreds of companies are also attending the talks, including the American Chemistry Council, the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, and the International Council of Beverages Associations.
"These companies came to Nairobi to make sure the world doesn't get strong protections against the plastic havoc they've been wreaking."
With over $20 million spent on lobbying and campaign contributions during the 2022 election cycle, the American Chemistry Council topped the Center for Biological Diversity's (CBD) list, which is based on data from the government watchdog group OpenSecrets. Boeing spent more than $17 million, while Chevron shelled out nearly $15 million.
"These companies came to Nairobi to make sure the world doesn't get strong protections against the plastic havoc they've been wreaking," David Derrick, a CBD attorney attending INC-3, said in a statement. "We knew that industry had way too much influence over the global plastics treaty as well as our political system at home, but these dollar amounts highlight how far petrochemical and consumer goods companies will go to keep polluting."
INC-3 is focused on the so-called zero draft of the legally binding plastics treaty. On Thursday, the fourth day of talks, delegates completed a first reading of the zero draft, with participating nations submitting suggestions for what they believe should be included in the treaty's first draft, which will be the basis of negotiations at INC-4, scheduled to take place next October and November in Ottawa, Canada.
Susan McCarthy, media and external affairs director at World Wildlife Fund U.S., said that "what is worrying... is the voluminous amount of suggestions that member states have submitted."
"This creates the temptation for member states to veer towards compromises that have the potential of watering down the eventual treaty in an effort to include as many suggestions as possible," she continued. "Whittling down a massive list to a number of key priorities can also be onerous, and can result in the convergence we're seeing now fragmenting as member states push for their suggested items."
"Fragmentation can occur as different member states may have different priorities, such as political affiliations or a preference to base decisions only on scientific evidence, which could drive the decision-making process in opposing directions," McCarthy added.
Derrick asserted that "the only way to curb our catastrophic plastic pollution problem is to cut plastic production, but the industry is spending big to block action at every level to protect their profits."
"The world has a historic chance to make a difference in the relentless flood of plastic pollution that's harming so many," he added. "We can't let a relatively small number of profit-hungry companies derail such an important opportunity to fix our plastic problem at its source."
Alumni Withhold Donations Over University Responses to Pro-Palestine Protests
"Columbia is punishing students for protesting against ethnic cleansing and genocide," said more than 2,000 graduates of Columbia University and Barnard College.
Alumni of at least three elite U.S. universities are adding their voices to the growing resistance to the United States' unquestioning support for Israel's bombardment of Gaza—announcing Friday that they would withhold donations to their alma maters unless the schools reverse their suspension of pro-Palestinian rights groups on campus.
More than 2,000 graduates of Columbia University and Barnard College signed a scathing letter accusing the schools institutionalizing "anti-Palestinian racism" by suspending the campus chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Jewish Voice for Peace.
Gerald Rosberg, chair of the Columbia University Special Committee on Campus Safety, cited no examples when he announced last week the two groups would be suspended through the end of the fall term for using "threatening rhetoric and intimidation" at an "unauthorized event."
Rosberg confirmed Friday that the decision to suspend the groups was made by senior administrators including university President Minouche Shafik, "without input from the University Senate."
At college campuses and public spaces across the U.S., both groups are among those that have demanded the U.S. end its support for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), which has killed more than 11,000 people—including at least 4,712 children—in less than six weeks in its bombardment of Gaza as it claims to be targeting Hamas.
Columbia's decision last week followed pressure from many wealthy pro-Israel donors at universities including Harvard, Stanford, and Cornell to take a firm stance against pro-Palestinian voices on campus—whose calls for a cease-fire in Gaza echo the vast majority of American voters.
A Reuters poll released this week found that 68% of Americans support a cease-fire.
"The university's decision to suspend these student groups is not simply a matter of censorship or the repression of freedom of speech," said the Columbia alumni. "Columbia is punishing students for protesting against ethnic cleansing and genocide."
The graduates said they will withhold financial support for the school "until the following demands are met":
- Reverse the suspension of Columbia/Barnard Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace;
- Divest from companies that profit from Israeli apartheid and are therefore complicit in genocide;
- Discontinue the dual-degree partnership with Tel Aviv University and the Tel Aviv Global Center program; and
- Protect Palestinian students and their allies from anti-Palestinian, anti-Muslim, and anti-Jewish harassment and hostility.
"We will pledge not to donate a penny to these institutions as long as they bring us shame with their actions," said Columbia University for Palestine on Instagram.
The school's decision also drew the outrage of about 200 faculty members, who staged a walkout Wednesday, supported by a large crowd of students. The teachers attempted to deliver a list of demands to Shafik, but were locked out of school buildings.
"Where is your moral courage?" Premilla Nadasen, a history professor at Barnard College, said in a speech at the rally. "We are here to tell the students: They can suspend an organization, but they cannot suspend a movement."
Also on Friday, about 500 alumni of the historically Jewish Brandeis University outside Boston wrote to university president Ron Liebowitz, announcing they would withhold donations until the administration issues an apology to protesters who were violently arrested at a campus protest against the school's shutdown of its own SJP chapter.
"Over 500 alumni, ranging from the class of 1966 to the class of 2023, will withhold donations until Brandeis apologizes to these students, recharters its SJP chapter, and works with local police to ensure all charges against the students are dropped," read a press statement.