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    Trans military members on the feared ban: ‘I would meet Trump to show how we’ve served our country’

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    View image in fullscreenFor Bree Fram, an active-duty colonel in the US space force with 22 years of military experience, the last few weeks have been “incredibly challenging”.“Like thousands of other transgender military personnel, I am doing my job every day, while feeling fear and uncertainty of what is coming next,” said Fram.Fram and other trans servicepeople are awaiting word on what they fear may be a blanket ban by the Trump administration on transgender people serving in the armed forces. This would affect not only those who wish to join and those within the military who are transitioning and require medical treatment but also service members who have already transitioned and been working in the armed forces for many years.“This is not a place where we expected to be after a decade of open service,” Fram said. “The ban makes me sad for myself and my transgender colleagues, and also concerned for America’s national security. We have thousands of transgender service members who have served openly and honorably, and their loss would leave a massive hole in our country’s military capabilities.”Lt Cdr Geirid Morgan, who has served in the navy for 14 years, said: “An all-out ban would mean the rapid termination of thousands of transgender service members, many of whom are mid-career like myself,” adding: “Many trans service members are senior-enlisted or at officer rank, with 10-plus years of service, multiple deployments, and millions of dollars invested in their lives and careers.” (Fram and Morgan, like the other trans servicepeople featured in this article, emphasized that they were speaking in a personal capacity, and not officially representing the Department of Defense and US government.)View image in fullscreenOpen service for trans people in the US military was introduced in 2016. In announcing the revival of a ban he initiated in his first term of office (later revoked by Joe Biden), Donald Trump said in a 27 January executive order: “The Armed Forces have been afflicted with radical gender ideology to appease activists unconcerned with the requirements of military service like physical and mental health, selflessness, and unit cohesion.”In Trump’s executive order, as with a slew of measures targeting trans people in recent weeks in areas such as healthcare provision and sports, the administration made clear it did not recognize trans identities – rather only two sexes, male and female: “Expressing a false ‘gender identity’ divergent from an individual’s sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for Military Service.”CPO Ryan Goodell, a signal analyst with the navy, said: “That isn’t true. The requirements for service are the same for trans people as their cisgender counterparts.” He continued: “Let our service speak for itself. I’ve been dedicated to my career for 13 years and would like to continue doing it.”On 7 February, as first reported by the Hill, the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, issued instructions for the military to cease employing new trans recruits and suspend medical treatments existing trans recruits may have been receiving, claiming that allowing trans people to serve openly undermined military capability.However, a 2016 Rand study found the opposite, showing that the cost for the military of medical transitions was comparatively minor and unit cohesion was unaffected by the presence of trans service members.Some fellow trans service members have already had medical treatments canceled, Goodell said. “This has caused them distress, but there is also a lot of resilience and determination. I’ve no idea what the obsession with the transgender community is, and it’s very disheartening to watch this campaign to erase the transgender community. We haven’t harmed anyone. We’re not enemies of the state, or anything crazy like that. We’re citizens of the United States. We want to show up in our daily lives, and live our lives.”View image in fullscreenA Department of Defense official did not respond to specific questions about when official policy regarding transgender troops would be announced and what would be included in its sweep, or to charges that the ban was discriminatory and unfair.The official said: “The Department of Defense will fully execute and implement all directives outlined in the Executive Orders issued by the President, ensuring that they are carried out with utmost professionalism, efficiency, and in alignment with national security objectives. We will provide status updates as we are able.”Alexandria Holder, a master sergeant with the US air force, said it was “extremely stressful” to work in a climate of such governmental hostility and lack of clarity.“I have served my country for 20 years, and have a family to support,” Holder said, referring to her wife, Brittanie, and their four children. “It makes it very difficult to plan for the future. I’m scared, but I continue to do my job, and do it well. My service is core to my identity.”“People forget this doesn’t just impact us as service members, but also our loved ones and families,” said Fram, who has a wife, Peg, and two children. “The impact goes far beyond us and has major effects on all those people we care about.”The trans military ban, like other Trump administration measures targeting trans people, is already the subject of legal challenges – one by Lambda Legal and the Human Rights Campaign, and the other by the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) and GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (Glad Law).View image in fullscreenThe organizations are representing trans plaintiffs from the army, navy and air force with many years of decorated service behind them. The plaintiffs include the navy Cdr Emily “Hawking” Shilling, the president of Sparta, an organization representing an estimated 15,000 active and reserve transgender troops.“The language in the executive order and other things is so rabid that we 100% think the final order will go after all trans people – the intention is all-out erasure,” said the senior attorney Sasha Buchert, director of Lambda Legal’s Non-Binary and Transgender Rights Project.Of the pending legal cases, the defense department official told the Guardian: “As a matter of policy, the department does not comment on ongoing litigation.”The charge that trans service members are weak and disruptive “doesn’t resonate with my and my friends’ experiences”, said Morgan. “My engagements with colleagues and leadership only improved when they were interacting with me as my authentic self. I have had two of the most productive years of my professional life since beginning my transition. I am able to trust and depend on people as I have never been able to before. That’s not an exception, that’s a general rule for all my trans colleagues. Being able to be ourselves has made us better service members.”
    We exist. We do incredible things. We are serving in the military with distinction, and we will continue to do so for as long as we are ableBree Fram
    Goodell echoed that sentiment: “It’s taken a very long time in my life to come to the realization of who I am, and I am a better person, a better son, a better sailor and a better leader as a result.”Holder serves as flight chief for 43 airmen, supporting operations in the Middle East and North Africa, leading groups of Arabic linguists and intelligence analysts.“I love what I do, especially when it comes to leading,” she said. “There was a lot of stress around the first ban, but this time is different because of the level of demonization of trans people during and after the election campaign, and the number of anti-trans bills at both state and federal levels.“Being able to come out and go through my transition allowed me to be a better leader, and feel better empathy with the people around me,” Holder said. “Being open about who you are should be seen as strength and be celebrated, instead of being demonized and perceived as a weakness. If someone wants to claim I, or any trans service member, is weaker than them, I would challenge them to do what I have done while serving my country and see if they can do the same.”While Hegseth has stated that trans service members “will be treated with dignity and respect”, those who spoke to the Guardian said that having their years of service nullified and careers terminated simply because they are transgender revealed the opposite.Fram said: “When we are told we are not meeting military standards without any evidence, when the language of these executive orders and memos challenges our honor, it is extremely painful to hear – and also to be put in a position where we have to defend our existence and capabilities.”View image in fullscreenHolder said: “I look at all that trans people have achieved in uniform, and would ask President Trump and Secretary Hegseth to look at what we do and achieve rather than what our identities are, and let us continue to serve.” She added: “I would welcome meeting them to tell them about my experiences and my work, and show them how trans people have served our country.”Fram said she had been “overwhelmed” with the support shown by cisgender colleagues. “Their message is, ‘I see you, I support you,’” Fram said. “The question in the military is, ‘Are you with me? Do you have my back?’ When it comes to supporting transgender service members, the answer is ‘yes’. But I don’t want to be in a position where people feel they need to check in on me or offer support. It’s incredibly gratifying to know I have that, but it takes away from the work we should be doing.”Goodell said he would be “forever grateful” to the doctors who helped him transition, especially with his recent final gender-confirming surgery. “I sensed they were frustrated with the prospect of any ban that would forbid them from providing care, because that is what they do, that is their calling. I expressed my sincere gratitude for all they had done for me.”The service members said they remained optimistic, but all are preparing for “the worst-case scenario”, as Fram put it, should they suddenly find themselves thrown out of their jobs.“In a perfect world I would like to continue to serve and do 20 years of service,” Goodell said. “But if that isn’t the case, those of us who have served I hope will be treated with dignity and respect and be afforded the benefits we’ve earned, like veterans’ healthcare.”Fram said: “No proclamations will erase our existence. The only person who gets to judge who we are is ourselves.” She continued: “Trans people are some of the most resilient people out there. We had to dig deep and find who we really are. Nothing that comes out of this government can invalidate that fact. We exist. We do incredible things. We are serving in the military with distinction, and we will continue to do so for as long as we are able.“My hope is that trans people have the opportunity to serve and thrive now and far into the future – to show that trans people belong everywhere.”@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Light.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Light.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Light.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:300;font-style:normal}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-LightItalic.woff2) 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format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-titlepiece/noalts-not-hinted/GTGuardianTitlepiece-Bold.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-titlepiece/noalts-not-hinted/GTGuardianTitlepiece-Bold.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:700;font-style:normal} More

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    The US and Europe are at a crossroads. A new world order is emerging

    Over the past week, the foundations of US-European relations shifted dramatically.In a series of highly controversial interventions, Donald Trump’s administration outlined a new US approach to Europe. It revolves around negotiating a rapid end to the war between Ukraine and Russia, handing Europe the lead responsibility for its own defense, and forging a new transatlantic alliance of populist forces on the right. After 25 years of working on transatlantic relations, I am aware of the tendency of crisis moments like this to fade and relationships to trend back toward historical norms. But this time is different.At the Munich Security Conference, Trump officials hurled a series of rhetorical bombs at their European counterparts. As the electricity crackled through the cramped rooms of Munich’s Bayerischer Hof hotel over the weekend, the historic stakes were clear. Would Europe manage, after years of talk, to pull together and defend itself or would it simply be a pawn in the US and Russia’s larger game? Would Ukraine avoid being overrun by the Russian army and emerge with its sovereignty intact? For the rest of the world, what would it mean for the west to truly fracture, Russia to be rehabilitated, and the war in Ukraine to end?The reverberations began last Wednesday when the US president announced that he and Vladimir Putin had made a plan to negotiate an end to the war. Europe and Ukraine were frightened to the bone that the future of their security would be decided without them.Meanwhile, Pete Hegseth, the US secretary of defense, said at Nato headquarters in Brussels that Europe would need to provide for Ukraine’s defenses once the war was over – and with only limited support from the United States. Europeans fear they are woefully unprepared for this task. In a reversal of official US policy, Hegseth added that Ukraine would not join Nato. Ironically, it was the Republican George W Bush who had first insisted that it would in 2008 – over the objections of his German and French counterparts, who thought doing so would provoke Russia.When the US vice-president, JD Vance, strode on to the Munich stage, the throng in the Bayerischer Hof thus waited with bated breath. What, exactly, was Trump’s plan for Ukraine? What they got instead will go down as one of the most controversial speeches an American political leader has ever given in Europe.With little discussion of Ukraine’s future, Vance launched into a harangue that alleged that Europe was repressing free speech and undermining democracy by holding back rightwing nationalist movements like the Alternative für Deutschland. This dropped like molten lead. Here was a vision of democracy sharply at odds with his audience’s.Vance clearly aimed to shock. Whether he aimed to insult is unclear, but in the end he did both.Afterward, European leaders hastily rewrote their own remarks to attack Vance’s and call for European unity in the face of American betrayal. Some were more realistic than others about what they might achieve.On the realistic side was Finland’s president, Alexander Stubb, who spoke publicly in many forums about the need to turn a possible Yalta moment, in which Russia and the US remake European security without Europe’s input, into a Helsinki moment, in which the principles for a future peace and detente are put in place.Others, however, still in a state of shock, continued to call for Europe to push back against the US, go its own way, and win the war for Ukraine on its own. Talking points like these worked well three years ago, but their unrealistic nature today risks undermining Europe’s ability to pull together and ensure its vital interests are protected.View image in fullscreenMeanwhile, Asia’s two giants – China and India – watched this remaking of the west with optimism. China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, took a tranquil, almost beneficent tone in his remarks as he surveyed the chasms that had emerged. China, after all, has itself long sought to provoke such divides. India’s foreign minister, S Jaishankar, was perhaps more circumspect, but still optimistic. For these countries, the crackup of the west is only another sign that the rest of this century will be theirs.The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has since met in Saudi Arabia with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, to prepare the way for Putin and Trump’s next discussion on the future of Ukraine – and by extension Europe. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has convened European heads of state in the hope of forging the consensus they will need to protect their world in this moment of crisis. This will be very hard.Years as an observer and participant in the making of Europe’s relations with the US leave me innately wary of ever judging a single crisis to mark a definitive shift. The structural features of the transatlantic relationship are deep and often guide us away from crises toward a median line – whether over Iraq, Libya or Iran. The challenges to negotiating an end to this war are moreover enormous and history could cleave in more directions than one as the process unfolds.The United States is not decoupling from Europe, but this past week must be viewed as the opening salvo in a major US effort to renegotiate the terms of its bond with Europe. How far the Trump administration will get cannot be known, but this foundational relationship of US statecraft, which was born in the moment of the US’s rise to global superpower status, will change in fundamental ways. With it, the future of modern democracy, itself born of Europe and sustained by the transatlantic bond for decades, is in play. A new world order is emerging.

    Christopher Chivvis is senior fellow and director of the American statecraft program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He served as the US national intelligence officer for Europe from 2018 to 2021 More

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    ‘The deification of Trump will be complete’ at CPAC 2025

    “I am your retribution.”When Donald Trump made this solemn promise to his supporters at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) two years ago, millions of Americans felt comfortable looking the other way.After all, opinion polls suggested that Trump was a spent force in the wake of the January 6 insurrection, disappointing midterm elections and a lacklustre start to his US presidential election campaign. He was the closing act of a CPAC that critics dismissed as a fringe freak show with obscure speakers addressing a half-empty ballroom.It won’t feel like that this time. CPAC 2025 kicks off at the National Harbor in Maryland on Wednesday with Trump set to return in triumph after regaining the White House and with Republican allies in control of Congress. The conference will be a vivid demonstration of how his “Make America great again” (Maga) movement has gone from the margins to the mainstream.“CPAC always been the the ideological north star for the conservative grassroots movement,” said Tara Setmayer, a former Republican communications director on Capitol Hill who used to regularly attend the conference. “Unless you weren’t paying attention, CPAC was the roadmap for what Maga becoming mainstream would look like and what they wanted to accomplish.”The history of CPAC mirrors the recent history of the Republican party. It began in 1974 in the throes of the Watergate scandal and the birth of a new conservative movement. The first CPAC was addressed by Ronald Reagan, then governor of California and destined for the White House. An annual dinner is still held in Reagan’s honour.The event spent years in the wilderness during Barack Obama’s presidency: the further its voices were from power, the louder they shouted. Among the speakers in 2011 was a businessman, TV celebrity and former Democrat from New York named Donald Trump, airing a grievance that America was being ripped off by China.In 2015, CPAC heard from nearly all the major Republican presidential candidates, including Trump and Jeb Bush, but a year later Trump cancelled his planned appearance amid fears that he would be booed by protesters. It did not prevent his hostile takeover of the Republican party by winning both the nomination and the presidency.CPAC impresario Matt Schlapp, a veteran of the George W Bush White House, then made a big bet on Trump as the future. The conference went all-in for Maga, casting Trump as a messianic figure saving America from illegal immigration and woke culture. His 2020 election defeat and the January 6 riot made no difference. A dedicated marketplace inside the event continued to sell Maga merchandise.View image in fullscreenAt last year’s event, as he closed in on the Republican nomination again, Trump described himself as a “proud political dissident” and his myriad legal troubles as “Stalinist show trials” orchestrated by then president Joe Biden. He promised the election would be “liberation day” for his supporters but “judgment day” for perceived enemies who had weaponised the government against him.The old Republican party, meanwhile, was left far behind. Trump has used CPAC to attack its establishment figures as “freaks, neocons, globalists, open border zealots, and fools”. Out are Liz Cheney, Mitch McConnell and Mike Pence; in are far-right nationalists such as Steve Bannon from the US, Viktor Orbán from Hungary and Nigel Farage from Britain.The lineup of speakers announced so far this year includes both Bannon and Farage along with the border czar, Tom Homan; the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, the US ambassador-designate to the United Nations, Elise Stefanik; senators Ted Cruz of Texas and Rick Scott of Florida; the rightwing media personality Megyn Kelly; Mike Lindell, the MyPillow founder; the Argentinian president, Javier Milei; and the British ex-prime minister Liz Truss.CPAC did not respond to an email asking whether this year’s conference will also include Elon Musk, the tech oligarch appointed by Trump to shrink the federal government, or individuals recently pardoned by the president for taking part in the January 6 insurrection.But nothing will top the expected appearance by Trump himself after what has been billed as the greatest political comeback in history. His early efforts to crush illegal immigration, transgender rights and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programmes are sure to receive ecstatic cheers. His claim that, in surviving an assassination attempt, he was “saved by God to make America great again” will be embraced with religious fervour.Setmayer, who now leads the Seneca Project, a women-led super political action committee, commented: “The deification of Trump will be complete ad nauseam at CPAC this year. We’ve already seen a golden calf-like statue of him. I’m not quite sure what’s next, but they’ll figure it out.”View image in fullscreenOne potential measure of CPAC’s devotion to Trump will be its annual straw poll, which asks attendees to state their preference for the next Republican presidential nominee. Senator Rand Paul topped the poll in 2013, 2014 and 2015 while Ted Cruz prevailed in 2016 with 40% of the vote, ahead of Marco Rubio at 30% and Trump at 15%.Trump has dominated ever since. He is constitutionally barred from running for a third term but has repeatedly hinted that he might try. Congressman Andy Ogles has even introduced a constitutional amendment that would allow Trump to run again. Setmayer believes that next week’s CPAC straw poll will include him – and he will win it again.“They absolutely will do it again and Trump will overwhelmingly win at North Korea-style numbers and he will continue to talk about a third term,” she said. “This is not a joke. He has been talking about this since his first term. He talked about it during the election in ‘jest’ and he’s been talking about it already three weeks into his new term. We need to pay attention to what they are doing concerning our elections.”Trump’s resurrection is a boost for CPAC, which has survived scandals of its own. Schlapp was hit by allegations that he groped a Republican operative’s genitals when the two men were alone in a car after a campaign event in Georgia in 2022. Carlton Huffman’s lawsuit was dropped last year after a reported $480,000 settlement.Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, observed: “They never got him. He was so close. Of course in this day and time nothing matters. Trump has made anything possible.”In recent years Schlapp has sought to ride the nationalist-populist wave by staging CPAC events in Hungary and Argentina. Next week’s return to the National Harbor in Maryland will feel like vindication for a movement that just a few years ago seemed to be heading off a cliff to irrelevance. Now CPAC believes it represents the new political orthodoxy.Steve Schmidt, a political strategist and former campaign operative for George W Bush and John McCain, said: “This is an extremist freak show that retains that quality but has taken political power in the United States. By any reasonable definition, what you’re looking at is a gathering of fascists, political extremists coming together, a fusion of the youth arm, the Christian nationalist arm, the Catholic Maga extremist arm.”Schmidt added: “It is an event that portends what’s coming. These people have immense power. This should all be taken literally and seriously. Millions and millions of Americans who voted for Donald Trump should appreciate that this is what they purchased and what they purchased is now emboldened. There will be a very pungent nationalism present – and extremism lurking below the surface.” More

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    Trump’s Gaza takeover won’t happen. But it has already changed the face of Israeli politics | Yair Wallach

    When President Donald Trump issued an ultimatum to Hamas last week to release all hostages by noon on 15 February, warning that otherwise “all hell [will] break loose”, the Israeli right was ecstatic. Here was a chance to finally move ahead with the complete occupation and annihilation of the Gaza Strip. The families of Israeli hostages were petrified about the prospect of the ceasefire collapsing, yet members of the ruling coalition called to kill the deal. “We have international support, give the order!” demanded the Israeli finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich.But the order never came. Hamas abided by the agreement and freed three hostages; Israel then released hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. Trump shrugged and said that it was Israel’s decision. His envoy, Steve Witkoff, who visited Israel on Sunday, signalled that the direction of travel is not towards resuming hostility. Instead, the parties must now move to “substantive” negotiations over the second phase of the ceasefire, he said, leading to peace.In the whirlwind of the last four weeks, it is difficult to make sense of Trump’s approach to the Gaza Strip. On the one hand, the president is widely credited for pushing the parties to a ceasefire agreement, raising hopes among Israelis who want to see a return of the hostages and an end to the war. On the other, Trump embraced the hard-right Israeli vision of ethnically cleansing Gaza, through a forced “relocation” of its 2.2 million Palestinian residents, establishing a US real estate development that would turn the Strip into the “Riviera of the Middle East”.Some suspect this is merely a negotiation ploy that he hopes will pressure Arab states to take responsibility over Gaza, and to force Hamas into relinquishing control and influence. Even if this were the case, Trump’s rhetoric has already damaged international law. For the first time in many decades, the US has publicly proposed the forced displacement of millions of people as a geopolitical solution. As the genocide scholar Dirk Moses recently observed, this may mark the end of the postwar order, which defined such “transfers” of populations as war crimes that were banned by the Geneva conventions. While episodes of forced mass displacement have taken place in the second half of the 20th century, such as those in Yugoslavia or in Syria, these were never endorsed or championed by the White House.The legitimisation of ethnic cleansing could have a lasting impact in Palestine, Israel and beyond. Palestine’s history is instructive: in 1937, the Palestine Royal Commission administered by Britain proposed the forced displacement of over 200,000 Palestinians from the Galilee as part of its partition plan. Mainstream Zionist leaders had long ruled out transfers on this scale as unrealistic. But British backing for this idea gave it legitimacy. David Ben-Gurion, then the leader of the Jewish community in British-ruled Palestine, wrote in his diary: “This is a possibility we did not dream of; that we could not dream of in our wildest imagination.”Ben-Gurion understood that the details of the partition plan mattered far less than the principle of forced mass displacement. In the aftermath of the second world war, “population exchanges” were explicitly or tacitly accepted by the great powers as a necessary evil. Eleven years after the royal commission, Ben-Gurion oversaw the permanent expulsion and dispossession of two-thirds of Palestinians, in the Nakba of 1948.We can already see the effect of Trump’s rhetoric on Israeli society. Since October 2023, rightwing ministers and political activists have been calling for a euphemistic “voluntary emigration” of Palestinians from Gaza, and yet Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had sought to keep a safe distance from such ideas. The idea of forced displacement was broadly considered so beyond the pale that mainstream pollsters did not even pose the question in their Israeli public opinion surveys.Yet shortly after his return from Washington DC, a gleeful Netanyahu lauded Trump’s “revolutionary vision for the day after Hamas”. “We see eye-to-eye with the US administration on … all our war goals”, he told the Knesset. The political commentator and radio host Amit Segal, who has been accused of serving as Netanyahu’s mouthpiece, quoted the Psalms verse: “We were like them that dream.” The verse refers to the return of Jews to Zion; now it was being used to celebrate the looming expulsion of Palestinians from the country.Strikingly, most centrist Israeli parties welcomed the plan. The former defence minister Benny Gantz commended Trump for his “creative, original and interesting thinking”. An opinion poll found that no less than 82% of Jewish Israelis supported the plan in principle; 52% thought it was feasible. Only 3% of Israeli Jews rejected the plan as “unacceptable and immoral”.Yet even if many Israelis favourably view the fantasy plan of a depopulated Gaza, there’s no appetite for the total war that would be required to materialise that plan. Opinion polls showed that Israelis are resolutely opposed to an immediate return to hostilities. After 16 months of war, there is widespread fatigue. The malnourished condition of the hostages that returned most recently, and the reports of torture they faced, was deeply alarming. Two-thirds of Israelis believe the ceasefire agreement should be upheld, and the safe return of the hostages should take priority.We can expect further ultimatums and confusion for the foreseeable future. Even if an immediate return to war has been averted, the risk of one is greater than ever. Trump has let the genie of mass expulsion out of the bottle. The ethnic cleansing of Gaza would require carnage and atrocities even beyond the horrifying scale of the last 17 months. Israel’s peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan are unlikely to survive, and the reverberations would be felt throughout the region. This is a scenario that would not only mean the likely death of the hostages, but an increasingly theocratic Jewish republic premised upon destruction and conquest. If Israel heads down this route, it will not only be destroying Palestinians in Gaza, but condemning itself to an ever escalating war.

    Yair Wallach is a reader in Israeli studies and head of the Centre for Jewish Studies at Soas University of London

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    Afflicted with liberal angst in the age of Trump? Take a leaf from Bridget Jones’s diary | Rafael Behr

    When future generations study creative works that capture the unsettled spirit of our age, they might easily neglect Bridget Jones 4: Mad About the Boy. The movie isn’t about the historical inflection point that coincides with its release. It doesn’t feature Donald Trump, his vandalism of US democracy or his dissolution of the transatlantic alliance. Such things are not the stuff of romantic comedy. Also, they hadn’t yet happened in 2013, when Helen Fielding wrote the book on which the film is based.But the lack of intentional allegory doesn’t prevent us projecting one on to the story. Or maybe it was just me, experiencing a sentimental hallucination induced by events outside the cinema. Indulge me a moment (and forgive any plot spoilers), as I explain.The first three volumes of the Jones diaries are picaresque chronicles of professional and sexual misadventure that resolve themselves in the reassuring arms of Mark Darcy, a human rights barrister: stolid, emotionally reticent, honourable and kind. That on-and-off romance sweeps Bridget from twentysomething anxiety to thirtysomething neurosis; from post-adolescent insecurity to early midlife crisis, unplanned pregnancy and, in the happy ending, marriage.Allowing for some chronological elasticity (with lags between books being written and adapted for cinema), Jones’s relationship with Darcy unfolds against a political and economic backdrop that hindsight reveals to be exceptionally benign. It is that period sometimes called the Great Moderation: roughly from the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 to the global financial crisis in 2007-09.Democracy sprawled eastwards across Europe. Captive peoples were liberated from communist dictatorship. The dissolution of the Soviet threat generated a “peace dividend” for western governments, permitting a diversion of budget resources from defence to social spending.There was a viable Middle East peace process. In 1993, Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat shook hands over the Oslo accords on the White House lawn. Apartheid was dismantled in South Africa, which held its first free, multiracial elections in 1994. The Good Friday agreement brought peace to Northern Ireland in 1998. The UK was then well into an economic boom that had another nine years still to run.View image in fullscreenLondon was basking in its status as capital of “Cool Britannia” – a powerhouse of art, music and self-congratulation. This was the context in which Bridget Jones’s diary first appeared as a weekly newspaper column in 1995. Her avid readership was the same generation that hit their young adult stride in that bright springtime of liberal metropolitan complacency.Jones was not very political, which made her an eloquent exponent of the zeitgeist. “It is perfectly obvious that Labour stands for sharing, kindness, gays, single mothers and Nelson Mandela,” she wrote on the eve of Tony Blair’s 1997 landslide election victory. The Tories were “braying bossy men having affairs with everyone shag shag shag left right and centre and going to the Ritz in Paris then telling all the presenters off on the Today programme.”We know also from a one-off column published in 2019 that Jones was a remainer in the Brexit culture wars. To break the legislative deadlock in parliament, she proposed that Queen Elizabeth, David Attenborough and Joanna Lumley join forces, urging the nation to reconsider the referendum question.It makes perfect sense that the love of Bridget’s life should be a distinguished lawyer who battles global injustice. It was a match made in the late 20th century, when human rights were a byword for all that was virtuous in western democracy. A career dedicated to their defence was the obvious device for a comic novelist wanting to signal intimidating levels of moral uprightness in a character. (It is often said that Darcy was modelled on a younger Keir Starmer. Fielding acknowledges uncanny likenesses in profession and manner, while insisting they are coincidental.)In the opening minutes of Mad About the Boy, we learn that Darcy is dead. He was killed in the line of duty, of course, on a humanitarian mission overseas. His widow is struggling to restart her life and raise two children alone.If, like me, you succumb easily to cinematic schmaltz, this is already an affecting scenario. What I found unexpectedly poignant was the thought that Darcy’s untimely death also functions as a metaphor for the demise of political certainties that defined the world in which Bridget Jones’s generation came of age. Her heartbreak is a parable of political bereavement, describing liberal angst at the sudden unravelling of institutional and legal norms underpinning European security. (Plus sex and jokes.)In the week that the movie was released, the US president reached over the heads of his country’s former Nato allies to embrace Vladimir Putin. He sketched the outline of a deal to end the war in Ukraine that was part territorial capitulation to the aggressor, part gangster extortion – offering Kyiv protection in exchange for mineral wealth. Vice-president JD Vance gave an ominously unhinged speech at the Munich security conference. He claimed that freedom is more imperilled by imaginary culture-war spectres haunting European democracies than it is by a Russian dictator whose tanks are churning up the sovereignty of a neighbouring state.In case of any lingering doubt that the Trump regime has authoritarian ambitions, the president also asserted on social media last week that “he who saves his country does not violate any law”. It is a signal that judges, courts and constitution should all be subordinate to a leader whose personal preference is synonymous with the national interest. Coming from the man who fomented insurrection to overturn the 2020 election, Trump’s aphorism should be read as a hint that the spirit of Maga patriotism is vested in thugs and militias, not statutes.This was the advertised programme. None of it should surprise the US’s allies. But it was easier to hope there might be momentum in the old order than to work out how to live in the new one. Now European leaders are scrambling to convene summits, scraping the sides of their depleted defence budgets, flexing atrophied military muscle in panicky gestures of continental solidarity.There is no going back to Darcy’s world. The idea that human rights are universal and the principle that no one is above the law are losing ground to older axioms – big nations extract tribute from smaller ones; a strongman ruler makes the rules.Pained by these existential challenges, it is hard not to reach for the anaesthetic balm of nostalgia, mythologising the late 90s and early 21st century as a golden age of liberal democratic primacy. In reality, that was a cosy bubble around one generation in one corner of the world: a historical fluke. To move on, we have to get through denial, anger and the other stages of grief to acceptance. We need to recognise that we live for the foreseeable future in a world without a friend in the White House, and that this points to a destiny for Britain much closer to Europe.And we need politicians who will dare to say as much aloud. This, too, is something that occurred to me as I left the cinema last weekend. Maybe if we had leaders capable of expressing the magnitude of the crisis, and rising to the challenge, I wouldn’t have to look for messages of solace between the lines of Bridget Jones’s diary.

    Rafael Behr is a Guardian columnist More

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    Musk and Trump put on lovefest in Sean Hannity interview

    Donald Trump and his wealthiest backer, the multi-billionaire Elon Musk, expressed gushing admiration for each other in a Fox News interview in which each accused a critical media of trying to drive them apart.Interviewed together in the White House, the pair spoke of each other in such warm terms that the interviewer, Sean Hannity, was moved to say: “I feel like I’m interviewing two brothers here.”The united front was maintained to reject accusations that Musk’s so-called “department of government of efficiency” (Doge) – which has upended huge swathes of the federal bureaucracy in a supposed attempted to find “waste, fraud and corruption” – is a violation of the US constitution, saying their critics were themselves guilty of this.They also dismissed complaints that Musk, who has billions of dollars of government contracts through his ownership of companies such as SpaceX and Tesla, had serious conflicts of interest that could lead him to skew federal spending in his favour.Asked by Hannity how he would respond if he saw a conflict, Trump said: “He wouldn’t be involved.” Musk followed up by saying: “I’ll recuse myself. I mean, I haven’t asked the president for anything, ever.”The interview was aired after a chorus of criticism of Musk’s prominent role in Trump’s administration and suggestions from critics that he was usurping the president’s power, earning the appellation of “President Musk” in some quarters, including the cover of Time magazine.Amid speculation of incipient tensions supposedly fueled by Trump’s known dislike of sharing the limelight, the pair went to great lengths to show personal fealty to each other.“I love the president, I just want to be clear about that,” Musk said. “I think President Trump is a good man. The president has been so unfairly attacked in the media, it’s really outrageous.”Trump described Musk in equally flattering terms, several times describing him as “caring” and “amazing” before delivering a soaring personal testimonial near the end of the interview.“This guy’s a brilliant guy. He’s a great guy. He’s got tremendous and scientific imagination,” the president said, as Musk sat by his side. “But he’s also a good person. He’s a very good person, and he wants to see the country do well.”He said Musk, who described himself as “tech support” to the president, had been of practical value in ensuring that the avalanche of executive orders signed by Trump since his inauguration on 20 January were implemented – although many of them have been subjected to legal challenges and been blocked by court rulings.Musk had also brought “high IQ” young people to his Doge team who were dedicated to changing the country, Trump said.The pair mocked media speculation that their partnership was destined to end in an acrimonious split.“Actually, Elon called me and said, you know, they’re trying to drive us apart.,” Trump said. He went on: “Now they said: ‘We have breaking news. Donald Trump has ceded control of the presidency to Elon Musk.’ And I say it’s just so obvious, so bad. I used to think they were good at it. They’re actually bad at it because if they were good at it, I’d never be president – because nobody in history has ever got more bad publicity than I’ve had.”He predicted that Musk would be able to cut$1tn of government spending, but added that it would only be a small percentage of the waste and fraud that existed. Key programs such as social security, Medicare and Medicaid, would remain untouched, he insisted – except in cases where they went to “illegal migrants”. (Undocumented immigrants are not eligible for such benefits). More

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    Trump administration gives schools deadline to cut DEI or lose federal funds

    The Trump administration is giving the US’s schools and universities two weeks to eliminate diversity initiatives or risk losing federal money, raising the stakes in the president’s fight against “wokeness”.In a memo on Friday, the education department gave an ultimatum to stop using “racial preferences” as a factor in admissions, financial aid, hiring or other areas. Schools are being given 14 days to end any practice that treats students or workers differently because of their race.Educators at colleges nationwide were rushing to evaluate their risk and decide whether to stand up for practices they believe are legal. The sweeping demand threatens to upend all aspects of campus operations, from essays on college applications to classroom lessons and campus clubs.It’s meant to correct what the memo described as rampant discrimination in education, often against white and Asian students.“Schools have been operating on the pretext that selecting students for ‘diversity’ or similar euphemisms is not selecting them based on race,” said Craig Trainor, the acting assistant secretary for civil rights. “No longer. Students should be assessed according to merit, accomplishment and character.”The guidance drew sharp backlash from civil rights groups and university groups. Some believe its vague language is meant to have a chilling effect, pressuring schools to eliminate anything touching on the topic of race even if it may be defensible in court.“Creating a sense of risk around doing work that might promote diverse and welcoming campuses is much more of the goal than a clear statement of existing law,” said Jonathan Fansmith, senior vice-president of government relations at the American Council on Education, an association of college presidents.The memo is an extension of Donald Trump’s executive order banning diversity, equity and inclusion programs. As legal justification, it cites the 2023 supreme court decision barring race as a factor in college admissions.“Put simply, educational institutions may neither separate or segregate students based on race, nor distribute benefits or burdens based on race,” it said.On Monday the education department announced it also cut $600m in grants for organizations that train teachers. The programs promoted “divisive” concepts such as DEI, critical race theory and social justice activism, the department said.Confusion around the implications of Trump’s anti-DEI order was apparent at last week’s confirmation hearing for education secretary nominee Linda McMahon. Asked whether classes on African American history would run afoul of Trump’s order, McMahon said she wasn’t certain.The California School Boards Association is awaiting legal guidance so it can advise schools on the Trump administration’s deadline, spokesperson Troy Flint said.“At this point there is not enough information for a step-by-step playbook that tells school districts if you were doing A then now you should do B, or perhaps eliminate the whole program entirely,” he said. “I know people want that granular level of detail. But this is a new era, with some novel civil rights theories and there is no definitive reference for what’s happening now.”The new guidance takes aim directly at college admissions, suggesting colleges have sought to work around the supreme court’s decision.College essays, for instance, cannot be used to predict a student’s race, the guidance says. In the supreme court decision, Chief Justice John Roberts said nothing prevents colleges “from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life,” though he warned that colleges couldn’t use essays as an indirect workaround to consider students’ race.The memo also said it’s unlawful for colleges to eliminate standardized testing requirements “to achieve a desired racial balance or to increase racial diversity”. Dozens of colleges across the US have dropped SAT and ACT requirements in recent years, citing concerns the exams favor students from high-income families.Practices that have long been commonplace could become legal liabilities, including recruiting in underrepresented areas or buying lists of potential students with certain academic and demographic information, said Angel B Pérez, the CEO of the National Association for College Admission Counseling.“Colleges and universities are going to find themselves between a rock and a hard place,” Pérez said. “They know that what they’re doing is not illegal, but they are worried that if they do not comply, not having federal funding will decimate them.”Some universities said they expect little change. At Oregon State University, a legal review concluded that its programs “are fully compliant with all state and federal laws”, according to a campus message from Rob Odom, vice-president of university relations and marketing.The department memo appears to take aim at scholarships for students from certain racial backgrounds. There’s been legal debate about whether the supreme court decision extends to financial aid, with some schools and institutions deciding to scrap racial requirements for some scholarships.The National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators said there’s no consensus on the question, and the group is trying to understand how the memo could affect student aid.“The last thing students need when making plans about how to pay for college is uncertainty over when or whether they will receive financial aid they’ve been relying on,” the group said in a statement.Trump has called for the elimination of the education department, and Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) has slashed dozens of contracts deemed wasteful.The Doge team won a legal victory on Monday when a federal judge declined to block it from federal student loan records. The judge said the plaintiff, the University of California Student Association, failed to prove it was harmed by Doge’s access to the data. More

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    Trump threatens 25% tariffs on foreign cars and semiconductor chips

    Donald Trump stood firm against warnings that his threatened trade war risks derailing the US economy, claiming his administration could hit foreign cars with tariffs of around 25% within weeks.Semiconductor chips and drugs are set to face higher duties, Trump told reporters at a news conference on Tuesday.The White House has repeatedly raised the threat of tariffs since Trump returned to office last month, pledging to rebalance the global economic order in America’s favor.A string of announced tariffs have yet to be introduced, however, as economists and business urge the Trump administration to reconsider.Duties on imports from Canada and Mexico have been repeatedly delayed; modified levies on steel and aluminum, announced last week, will not be enforced until next month; and a wave of so-called “reciprocal” tariffs, also trailed last week, will not kick in before April.Tariffs are taxes on foreign goods. They are paid by the importer of the product – in this case, companies and consumers based inside the US – rather than the exporter, elsewhere in the world.Asked on Tuesday if he had decided the rate of a threatened tariff on cars from overseas, Trump said he would “probably” announce that on 2 April, “but it’ll be in the neighborhood of 25%”.Upon being asked the same question about threatened tariffs on semiconductors and pharmaceuticals, Trump replied: “It’ll be 25% and higher, and it’ll go very substantially higher over the course of a year.”The ramp-up, he explained, was designed to lure manufacturers to the US. “When they come into the United States, and they have their plant or factory here, there is no tariff.”Executives have cautioned that the administration’s plan for tariffs risks harming the US economy. A 25% tariff on Mexico and Canada “will blow a hole in the US industry that we have never seen”, Jim Farley, the Ford CEO, told an investor conference in New York last week. More