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      The Guardian view on the Lebanon ceasefire: a lasting regional peace must go through Gaza | Editorial

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      Unsurprisingly, Joe Biden struck an upbeat, optimistic note on Tuesday as he announced a US-brokered ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hezbollah. “It reminds us that peace is possible,” said Mr Biden, as the deal brought to an end the 14-month conflict, during which close to 4,000 people lost their lives and hundreds of thousands were displaced.For the outgoing American president, who has signally failed to restrain Israel’s excesses after the heinous Hamas massacre of 7 October 2023, the agreement amounts to a valedictory breakthrough after months of weak and ineffective diplomacy. More importantly, it affords the suffering people of Lebanon some respite, after a bombing campaign and ground invasion that paid scant regard to the appalling impact on civilian lives. For the 60,000 citizens of Israel forced to flee the country’s northern border region by Hezbollah rockets, there is the prospect of a return home after spending more than a year in displacement camps.Peace on Israel’s northern front will inevitably spark hopes of wider progress, as the disgraceful, savage destruction of Gaza continues to the south, and hope dwindles for surviving Israeli hostages held captive there. But it would be unwise to overstate the catalytic potential of an agreement that was made on the terms of the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and to suit his interests.Crucially, Hezbollah’s weakness meant that Israel was able to decouple the Lebanon and Gaza wars, reaching a ceasefire that leaves it with a free hand in the latter. Based on a UN security council resolution that ended the 2006 Lebanon war but was never fully implemented, the deal will oblige Israeli forces to depart and Hezbollah to pull back north of the Litani River in southern Lebanon. This time the buffer zone created is more likely to stick. Hezbollah is currently in a state of disarray, denuded of leaders, infrastructure and military hardware.With the live threat of a powerful Iranian proxy on Israel’s doorstep removed, Mr Netanyahu is free to double down on his bellicose objectives elsewhere – notably in relation to Tehran. In Gaza, meanwhile, he has shown no willingness to engage in peace talks brokered by Qatar, which suspended its mediating role this month in exasperation. The unconscionable death toll there now stands at more than 44,000 – the vast majority women and children.In a region on the brink, any lasting settlement must go through Gaza and involve the creation of realistic conditions for a viable Palestinian state. As Óscar Romero, the martyred Salvadoran bishop, once wrote, “Peace is not the silence of cemeteries / Peace is not the silent result of violent repression” – a warning that resonates starkly in Gaza’s ongoing tragedy. But Mr Netanyahu has no desire to be a peacemaker, as he attempts to dodge a corruption trial, and an election that would empower the anger of voters following 7 October. His interest lies rather in perpetuating a sense of national emergency; and in indulging far-right members of his cabinet who could bring him down, and who dream of new settlements in a broken, ethnically cleansed Gaza.As Donald Trump prepares to replace Joe Biden in the White House, the world must hope that his appetite for imposing immediate solutions opens up new possibilities. For now, welcome developments in the north offer little comfort to the desperate inhabitants of the Gaza Strip. More

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      Biden now has his best opening to end Israel’s war on Gaza – and won’t use it | Mohamad Bazzi

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      When the histories of his administration are written, it will be clear that Joe Biden held on to his callous disregard for Palestinians until the end of his presidency. How else to explain why Biden would refuse a final chance to stop Israel’s brutal war on Gaza and save Palestinian lives, when he has nothing to lose?On Tuesday, the Biden administration quietly ignored its own deadline for Israel to increase the minuscule amount of humanitarian aid it allows to enter Gaza. The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, imposed the 30-day deadline in a letter sent to Israeli officials on 13 October, which warned that they must take “concrete measures” to ensure that Palestinian civilians in northern Gaza have access to food, medicine and other necessities. The administration said it could suspend US military support to Israel if conditions did not improve. Despite the US ultimatum, the amount of aid reaching the besieged territory in October had dropped to its lowest level in 11 months.As the deadline passed, the Biden administration did what it has done for more than a year: it caved and continued sending weapons to the government of the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, despite the devastation and famine Israel has inflicted on Gaza. And Washington sheepishly told the world that it would not impose any consequences on Israel, even though the US is legally bound to stop arming an ally that blocks humanitarian aid in a conflict zone.It’s the latest in a long series of decisions by Biden over the past 13 months that show his disdain for Palestinian lives. But his lack of action this week is especially egregious because Biden is politically unrestrained: the presidential election is over, and Donald Trump won. Biden can do whatever he wants without incurring a political cost. He doesn’t even have to worry about a transition to his fellow Democrat and vice-president, Kamala Harris. If there was ever a time for Biden to use his considerable power to save Palestinians, this was it. Yet he squandered this final opportunity to make the right and moral choice – and help end the Gaza war before leaving office.Biden’s decision to keep supplying weapons to Israel reinforces his legacy as the primary enabler of the slaughter in Gaza, and Netanyahu’s campaign to expand the war into Lebanon. While Biden and his allies have done a lot of hand-wringing about Trump’s disregard for the rule of law, the Biden administration failed to uphold US law and its own policies – and it has undermined US credibility around the world even before Trump takes office once again.Biden has been fully complicit in Israel’s destruction of Gaza, in which more than 43,000 Palestinians have been killed, although the true figure is probably much higher. One estimate published by researchers in the Lancet, a medical journal, found that the death toll could eventually reach 186,000. That accounts for “indirect casualties” of war, such as widespread hunger, a cholera epidemic, unsanitary conditions and the destruction of Gaza’s health system.Following a relentless Israeli military assault that started after the Hamas attacks of 7 October 2023, nearly all of Gaza’s 2.1 million people have been displaced at least once, and are now living in makeshift tents or in the ruins of bombed-out buildings. Last week, a UN-affiliated group of experts warned that famine is imminent, or may already be unfolding, in northern Gaza – and that the enclave’s entire population faces acute food insecurity, which is one step below a full-blown famine.Days after Biden decided to continue arming Israel into the twilight of his presidency, Human Rights Watch (HRW) released a devastating 154-page report that contradicted most US and Israeli assurances that Israel is not violating international law. The report, issued on Thursday, concluded: “Israeli authorities have caused the massive, deliberate forced displacement of Palestinian civilians in Gaza since October 2023 and are responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity.” HRW urged western governments to impose sanctions and suspend their arms shipments to Israel.The US has provided Israel with nearly $18bn in weapons and other military assistance since October 2023, according to a report released last month by Brown University. Washington spent another $4.8bn on its own military activities in the Middle East due to the conflict. Overall, the Biden administration spent at least $22.7bn in US taxpayer funds to enable Netanyahu and his government to prolong the Gaza war.But the US administration did not have to become so deeply complicit in Israel’s war crimes. Biden and his aides had the leverage, policy tools and legal mechanisms to restrain Israel, end the conflict, and save thousands of Palestinian lives. For months, Biden, along with his secretary of state, squandered any influence they could have exerted over Netanyahu by refusing to enforce US law and their own administration’s policies on weapons transfers.In February, as Biden faced pressure from a handful of Democrats in Congress critical of his unwavering support for Israel, he issued a new national security memo which required the state department to certify that recipients of US weapons would allow the delivery of humanitarian aid during active conflicts and abide by international law. Biden’s memo did not set new policies for arms transfers to foreign countries, but instead used provisions of existing US laws, especially under the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionWashington can suspend shipments if it suspects that a foreign military will use US weapons to carry out violations of international law, or to countries that block the delivery of humanitarian aid – as Israel has done throughout its war in Gaza. By May, the state department sent a 46-page report to Congress full of bureaucratic double-speak to justify Biden’s decision to flout US and international laws to protect Netanyahu.Long before the administration’s report, the UN and human rights groups had amply documented that Israel was using starvation as a weapon of war – a violation of international law – and deliberately blocking food and other supplies from entering Gaza.Yet the report avoided concluding that the Israeli military had obstructed humanitarian aid, or violated international law while using US weapons. Such findings would have forced Biden to suspend most weapons shipments to Israel under the policies outlined in his own national security memo. But instead of upholding US law and using the suspension of military support to force Netanyahu to accept a ceasefire, Biden sat by and enabled Israel to kill thousands of Palestinians since May.Back then, Biden was still running for re-election and could have feared political repercussions for breaking with Netanyahu. But this week, the US president was as free from politics as he’s ever been in his entire career. He simply decided that Palestinians don’t matter – and sealed his legacy as the enabler of Israel’s war crimes.

      Mohamad Bazzi is director of the Hagop Kevorkian center for Near Eastern studies, and a journalism professor at New York University More

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      How can I vote for Kamala Harris if she supports Israel’s war? Here is my answer | Bernie Sanders

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      I understand that there are millions of Americans who disagree with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris on the terrible war in Gaza. I am one of them.While Israel had a right to defend itself against the horrific Hamas terrorist attack of 7 October 2023, which killed 1,200 innocent people and took 250 hostages, it did not have the right to wage an all-out war against the entire Palestinian people.It did not have the right to kill 42,000 Palestinians, two-thirds of whom were children, women and the elderly, or injure over 100,000 people in Gaza. It did not have the right to destroy Gaza’s infrastructure and housing and healthcare systems. It did not have the right to bomb every one of Gaza’s 12 universities. It did not have the right to block humanitarian aid, causing massive malnutrition in children and, in fact, starvation.And that is why I am doing everything I can to block US military aid and offensive weapons sales to the rightwing extremist Netanyahu government in Israel. And I know that many of you share those feelings. And some of you are saying, “How can I vote for Kamala Harris if she is supporting this terrible war?” And that is a very fair question.And let me give you my best answer. And that is that even on this issue, Donald Trump and his rightwing friends are worse. In the Senate and in Congress Republicans have worked overtime to block humanitarian aid to the starving children in Gaza. The president and vice-president both support getting as much humanitarian aid into Gaza as soon as possible.Trump has said that Netanyahu is doing a good job and that Biden is holding him back. He has suggested that the Gaza Strip would make excellent beachfront property for development. It is no wonder Netanyahu prefers to have Donald Trump in office.But even more importantly, and this I promise you, after Harris wins we will, together, do everything we can to change US policy toward Netanyahu – including an immediate ceasefire, the return of all hostages, a surge of massive humanitarian aid, the stopping of settler attacks on the West Bank, and the rebuilding of Gaza for the Palestinian people.And let me be clear. We will have, in my view, a much better chance of changing US policy with Harris than with Trump, who is extremely close to Netanyahu and sees him as a like-minded, rightwing extremist ally.But let me also say this, and I deal with this every single day as a US senator. As important as Gaza is, and as strongly as many of us feel about this issue, it is not the only issue at stake in this election.If Trump wins, women in this country will suffer an enormous setback and lose the ability to control their own bodies. That is not acceptable.If Trump wins, to be honest with you, the struggle against the climate crisis is over. While virtually every scientist who has studied the issue understands that the climate crisis is real and an existential threat to our country and the world, Trump believes it is a “hoax”. And if the United States, the largest economy in the world, stops transforming our energy system away from fossil fuel, every other country – China, Europe, all over the world, they will do exactly the same thing. And God only knows the kind of planet we will leave to our kids and future generations.If Trump wins, at a time of enormous income and wealth inequality, he will demand even more tax breaks for the very richest people in our country, while cutting back on programs that working families desperately need. The rich will only get richer, while the minimum wage will remain at $7.25 an hour, and millions of our fellow workers will continue to earn starvation wages.Did you all see the recent Trump rally at Madison Square Garden? Well, I did, and what I can tell you is that as a nation, as all of you know, we have struggled for years against impossible odds to try to overcome all forms of bigotry – whether it is racism, whether it’s sexism, whether it’s homophobia, whether it’s xenophobia, you name it.We have tried to fight against bigotry, but that is exactly what we saw on display at that unbelievable Trump rally. It was not a question of speakers getting up there and disagreeing with Kamala Harris on the issues. That wasn’t the issue at all. They were attacking her simply because she was a woman and a woman of color. Extreme vulgar sexism and racism. Is that really the kind of America that we can allow?So let me conclude by saying this. This is the most consequential election in our lifetimes. Many of you have differences of opinion with Harris on Gaza. So do I. But we cannot sit this election out. Trump has to be defeated. Let’s do everything we can in the next week to make sure that Kamala Harris is our next president.

      Bernie Sanders is a US senator, and chair of the health education labor and pensions committee. He represents the state of Vermont, and is the longest-serving independent in the history of Congress More

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      US warns Israel of potential halt to arms transfers if Gaza aid is not distributed

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      The Biden administration has warned Israel that it faces possible punishment, including the potential stopping of US weapons transfers, if it does not take immediate action to let more humanitarian aid into Gaza.A letter written jointly by Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, and Lloyd Austin, the defence secretary, exhorts Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to ease humanitarian suffering in the territory by lifting restrictions on the entry of assistance within 30 days or face unspecified policy “implications”.The four-page missive, dated 13 October, was sent to Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defence minister, and Ron Dermer, the strategic affairs minister, and came to light after being posted on social media by Barak Ravid, an Israeli journalist who works for Axios, after apparently being leaked.Its authenticity was confirmed by a state department spokesperson, Matthew Miller, at a news briefing on Tuesday.Humanitarian groups have made repeated calls for increased deliveries of food and medicine to Gaza, but aid shipments to the embattled territory are currently at their lowest level in months, the UN said last week.Miller said the US side had intended the letter to be a private diplomatic communication and said its timing was not influenced by next month’s presidential election, which features a knife-edge contest in the battleground state of Michigan, where many Arab American voters have voiced anger over the White House’s support for Israel’s conduct of the war.Democrat strategists harbour fears that discontent over Gaza could result in Kamala Harris, the vice-president and party nominee, losing the state to Donald Trump in the 5 November poll.The letter complains of delays to US-funded aid at crossing points into Gaza and says the flow of assistance into the war-devastated territory has dropped by more than 50% since Israel promised last March to allow more deliveries.“We are particularly concerned that recent actions by the Israeli government … are contributing to an accelerated deterioration in the conditions in Gaza,” it says.White House national security spokesman John Kirby said that the letter was not intended as a threat, but “was simply meant to reiterate the sense of urgency we feel and the seriousness with which we feel it, about the need for an increase, a dramatic increase in humanitarian assistance”.After an uptick in assistance following communications between the US and Israel in March and April, aid volumes entering the strip in September fell to their lowest level, Blinken and Austin wrote, since last October, when Israel launched a massive military offensive in retaliation for an attack by Hamas that killed about 1,200 Israelis, and led to more than 250 being taken hostage.“To reverse the downward humanitarian trajectory and consistent with its assurances to us, Israel must, starting now and within 30 days, act” on a series of specific steps, including letting in at least 350 aid trucks daily and instituting humanitarian pauses to Israeli military activity.The letter adds: “Failure to demonstrate a sustained commitment to implementing and maintaining these measure may have implications for US policy under NSM-20 and relevant US law.”NSM-20 refers to a memorandum issued by the White House national security council, which allows for “appropriate next steps” if a country receiving US military aid is deemed by the state department or the Pentagon not to be meeting prior assurances of allowing the delivery of humanitarian assistance.“Such remediation could include actions from refreshing the assurances to suspending any further transfers of defense articles or, as appropriate, defense services,” the memorandum states.Congressional Republicans have called on the White House to revoke NSM-20 calling it “redundant” and dismissing it as aimed at “placat[ing] critics of security assistance to our vital ally Israel”.Other relevant legislation that could be invoked include section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act and the Leahy Act, which preclude the US government from providing military assistance or selling arms to countries that restrict humanitarian aid or violate human rights.Miller, the state department spokesperson, declined to go into specific when asked what consequences Israel might face for refusing to meet American demands for greater aid access.He said that a previous letter Blinken had written in April had increased humanitarian aid flows. An Israeli official confirmed that the latest letter had been received but did not discuss the details, the Associated Press reported.Miller also said that Blinken had seen footages showing at least one Palestinian burned alive after an Israeli strike set tents ablaze outside a Gaza hospital.“We all saw that video, and all know that it’s horrifying to see people burned to death. We have made clear our serious concerns about the matter directly with the government of Israel.”The US has made repeated exhortations to allow increased aid into the enclave, but Netanyahu has frequently ignored such entreaties to moderate its conduct of the war in Gaza.Last week, UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said that the three hospitals still operating in northern Gaza face “dire shortages” of fuel, medicine and blood, while food supplies are dwindling.Israeli authorities facilitated just one of 54 UN attempts to get aid to north Gaza this month, Dujarric said. Eighty-five percent of the requests were denied, with the rest impeded or canceled for logistical or security reasons.Israel insists that much of the aid has dual-use capacity that could help Hamas fighters and also says it has been subject to looting.More than 42,000 Palestinians have been killed and the majority of buildings in Gaza destroyed or badly damaged in Israel’s yearlong offensive with the stated aim of rooting out Hamas.The Pentagon described the letter as “private correspondence” and declined to discuss it in detail. More

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      Harris embarks on media blitz and tries to edge out Trump in key swing states

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      Kamala Harris has embarked on a week-long media blitz, hurtling from TV studios and late-night shows to podcast interviews as she seeks to gain an edge over Donald Trump in the US election’s key battleground states that remain nail-bitingly close.The vice-president’s decision to face a raft of largely friendly media outlets came as the campaigns entered the final 30 days. More than 1.4 million Americans have already cast their ballots in early voting across 30 states.The Democratic nominee’s whirlwind media tour has been carefully crafted for maximum reach and minimum risk. Harris has talked to the CBS News show 60 Minutes, along with the popular podcast Call Her Daddy.On Tuesday she hits the media capital, New York, for appearances on ABC News’s daytime behemoth The View and the Howard Stern Show, followed by a recording with late-night host Stephen Colbert.The first of a flurry of comments from Harris was put out by 60 Minutes on Sunday before a full broadcast on Monday. Harris will appear alone, after Trump declined to be interviewed by the election special which has been a staple of US election coverage for more than half a century.In a short clip released by 60 Minutes, Harris was asked whether the Biden-Harris administration had any sway over the actions of Benjamin Netanyahu, the hardline prime minister of Israel who appears not to listen to Washington. Asked whether the US had a “real close ally” in Netanyahu, she replied: “With all due respect, the better question is: do we have an important alliance between the American people and the Israeli people? And the answer to that question is yes.”Since Harris’s meteoric propulsion as Democratic presidential nominee after Joe Biden stepped aside, her relative avoidance of press or TV interviews has become a point of contention on the campaign trail. Republican leaders and pundits on Fox News routinely accuse her of being media-shy.This week’s blitz is designed to counter that impression, while reaching large audiences focused on demographic groups which will be central to Harris’s chances of winning in November. Call Her Daddy is Spotify’s most-listened to podcast among women, while The View is the number one ranked daytime talk show with 2.5 million average viewers, again heavily weighted towards women.Meanwhile Colbert’s show on CBS is the highest rated late-night talk show attracting large numbers of younger viewers aged 18 to 49 – another critical demographic on Harris’s target list.Harris’s running mate, the Democratic governor of Minnesota Tim Walz, is also making his own media scramble which began on Sunday, with him entering less comfortable territory on Fox News Sunday. He was questioned about the pro-abortion law that he signed in his state, and also asked to clarify the occasions on which he has misrepresented his record.That included a comment that he had carried weapons in war when he had not, and his classifying the treatment that he and his wife received to have a child as IVF when it was in fact a different type of fertility treatment.At last week’s vice-presidential debate Walz recognised his missteps, calling himself a “knucklehead”.Walz told Fox News Sunday: “To be honest with you, I don’t think American people care whether I used IUI or IVF, what they understand is that Donald Trump would resist these things. I speak passionately … I will own up when I misspeak and when I make a mistake.”As the contest enters its final month, the Guardian’s latest tracker of opinion polls shows Harris up on Trump by three percentage points nationally. In the more telling test of the seven battleground states that will decide the outcome, though Harris is ahead in five of them, the margin remains essentially too close to call.Both candidates and their running mates are speeding up their frantic dash around the seven states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Harris and Walz will be in Arizona this weeks, where early voting begins on Wednesday.On Thursday, the Democratic ticket will gain extra ballast when former president and campaigning superstar Barack Obama kicks off a round of stump appearances in the all-important swing state, Pennsylvania. He will begin in Pittsburgh, and will then travel across the country on Harris’s behalf, campaign aides have said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTrump was scheduled to hold a rally in Juneau, Wisconsin, on Sunday afternoon, a day after he made a pointed return to the fairgrounds in Butler, Pennsylvania, where he came close to being assassinated on 13 July. Trump and his younger son Eric used the occasion to spread the baseless claim that the Democrats had been behind the attempt on his life.“They tried to kill him, it’s because the Democratic party can’t do anything right,” Eric Trump said. Billionaire Elon Musk also appeared on stage.On Sunday, Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker of the US House, was asked by ABC News’s This Week whether such comments were responsible amid mounting fears of political violence in the build up to the 5 November election. Johnson sidestepped the question, saying he had not heard the full speeches.The speaker also notably refused to answer whether Trump had lost the 2020 election, in the wake of Trump’s ongoing lies that he was the actual victor. “This is the game that is always played by the media with leading Republicans, it’s a gotcha game, and I’m not going to engage in it,” Johnson said.The former president’s wife, Melania Trump, sat down for an interview with the Fox News host Maria Bartiromo. She was asked given how close her husband had come to being shot in Butler whether she trusted the top officials of the FBI, CIA and other federal agencies who “appeared to be against President Trump and yourself from day one”.Melania Trump replied: “It’s hard to say who you really trust. You want to, but it’s always a question mark.”Melania Trump, who is promoting her book, Melania, also spoke about her pro-abortion stance which she revealed in the volume. She said her husband had always known her convictions.“He knew my position and my beliefs since the day we met, and I believe in individual freedom. I want to decide what I want to do with my body. I don’t want government in my personal business,” she said. More

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      Western leaders’ silence about Israel’s atrocities gives free rein to Netanyahu | Letters

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      Owen Jones speaks for many of us (What atrocity would Israel have to commit for our leaders to break their silence?, 3 October). Joe Biden, Keir Starmer and other western leaders have responded to Israel’s actions by repeatedly stating that they stand with Israel and its right to defend itself. They have been quick to vociferously condemn those who threaten or attack Israel, but silent on the atrocities Israel inflicts on tens of thousands of innocent civilians in neighbouring countries. Benjamin Netanyahu has interpreted this silence as permission to pursue his strategy without effective censure or sanction.Therefore the question remains of whether these political leaders are complicit in the killing of thousands of innocent civilians, the creation of millions of refugees and the destruction of towns and cities. Like many others, I yearn to see brave political leadership willing to speak out and challenge Israel’s right to act without adherence to fundamental humanitarian rights and principles of international law. Without such a voice being heard, there will be no end to this humanitarian tragedy.Peter RiddleWirksworth, Derbyshire More

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      Biden issues terse words to Netanyahu over peace deal and election influence

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      Joe Biden had terse words at the White House on Friday for Benjamin Netanyahu, saying he didn’t know whether the Israeli prime minister was holding up a peace deal in the Middle East – where Israel is at war with Hamas in Gaza and on a military offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon – in order to influence the outcome of the 2024 US presidential election.“No administration has helped Israel more than I have. None. None, none. And I think Bibi should remember that,” Biden said, using Netanyahu’s nickname. He added: “And whether he’s trying to influence the election, I don’t know – but I’m not counting on that.”The US president made a surprise and rare appearance in the west wing briefing room and answered reporters’ questions there for the first time in his presidency.He was responding to comments made by one of his allies, Chris Murphy, a Democratic US senator of Connecticut, who said on CNN this week that he was concerned Netanyahu had little interest in a peace deal in part because of American politics.The two leaders have long managed a complicated relationship, but they are running out of space to maneuver as their views on the Israel-Gaza war diverge and their political futures hang in the balance.Biden has pushed for months for a ceasefire agreement in Gaza – and the president and his aides boosted the idea repeatedly that they were close to success – but a ceasefire has not materialized. Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, has engaged in shuttle diplomacy to Israel and to peace talks via intermediaries, but to no avail and, in some cases, Netanyahu has publicly resisted the prospect while US and Israeli officials continue to talk in private about eking out a deal.Meanwhile, Israel has recently pressed forward on two fronts, pursuing a ground incursion into Lebanon against Hezbollah and conducting strikes in Gaza. And it has vowed to retaliate for Iran’s ballistic missile attack this week, as the region braced for further escalation.Biden said there had been no decision yet on what type of response there would be toward Iran, though there has been talk about Israel striking Iran’s oilfields: “I think if I were in their shoes, I’d be thinking about other alternatives than striking oilfields.”Biden pushed back against the idea that he was seeking a meeting with Netanyahu to discuss the response to Iran. He wasn’t, he said.“I’m assuming when they make a decision on how they’re going to respond, we will then have a discussion,” he said.Netanyahu has grown increasingly resistant to Biden’s efforts. Biden has in turn publicly held up delivery of heavy bombs to Israel and increasingly voiced concerns over an all-out war in the Middle East and yet has never acquiesced to political calls at home or internationally for a halt on US arms sales to Israel.“I don’t believe there’s going to be an all-out war,” Biden said on Thursday evening. “I think we can avoid it. But there’s a lot to do yet.”Biden has remained consistent in his support for Israel in the aftermath of the 7 October Hamas attacks in Israel. Since then, with few exceptions, Biden has supported ongoing and enhanced US arms transfers to Israel while merely cautioning the Israelis to be careful to avoid civilian casualties.Biden has also ordered the US military to step up its profile in the region to protect Israel from attacks by Hamas, Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen and Iran itself. In April, and again earlier this week, the US was a leading player in shooting down missiles fired by Iran into Israel.On Thursday, Biden said the US was “discussing” with Israel the possibility of Israeli strikes on Iran’s oil infrastructure.His off-the-cuff remark, which immediately sent oil prices soaring, did not make clear whether his administration was holding internal discussions or talking directly to Israel, nor did he clarify what his attitude was to such an attack.Asked to clarify those comments, Biden told reporters on Friday: “Look, the Israelis have not concluded what they’re going to do in terms of a strike. That’s under discussion.”Kamala Harris also has not taken a different stance on arms sales but has spoken more assertively for months to demand an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and has decried civilian killings in Israel’s war in the Palestinian territory.The Associated Press contributed reporting More

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      Democratic voters want Kamala Harris to stand up for Palestinians. Will she? | Judith Levine

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      Palestinians are used to being unheard. The 1917 Balfour Declaration committed Great Britain to creating a Jewish state in Palestine without mentioning the people who comprised the majority of the people living there. At least four United Nations resolutions of monumental consequence to Palestine – including the ones that established the borders of Israel in 1948 and expanded those borders after the 1967 war – were passed by a body that still does not recognize a sovereign Palestinian entity, much less a state, with voting-member status.Numerous bilateral agreements between Israel and its neighbors spelled out the Palestinians’ fate but did not include them in the negotiations. Donald Trump’s 2020 “deal of the century” was a Hanukah gift to Benjamin Netanyahu that, among other things, opened the way for Israel’s annexation of the West Bank and canceled the Palestinians’ right of return.Since the assault on Gaza began, Joe Biden has been unable to acknowledge the horrors on the ground without asserting his administration’s “rock-solid and unwavering” support of Israel. The US president’s rare expressions of sympathy for the people under the bombs elide cause or solution. A short passage about civilian death and displacement in his 2024 State of the Union address ended with: “It’s heartbreaking.” To the UN general assembly in September he declared: “Innocent civilians in Gaza are also going through hell … Too many families displaced, crowding in tents, facing a dire humanitarian situation.” He named only one agent of the devastation. The Gazans, he said, “didn’t ask for this war that Hamas started”. Meanwhile, he evinces impotence to deliver what Gaza is asking for, in the voices of wailing mothers and the images of flattened cities: an end to it.So the 2024 Democratic national convention was neither the first nor the worst time Palestinians had been erased by somebody claiming to be on their side. After months of negotiations with the people who organized 700,000 primary voters to withhold their endorsements of Biden until he vowed to force an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza by stopping arms shipments, the convention denied a five-minute speaking slot to one Palestinian. After welcoming such deplorables as Georgia’s mercilessly anti-abortion former Republican lieutenant and the chief legal officer of the union-busting Uber to the stage, there was no more room under the big tent.When a definitive “no” reached the demonstrators camping in wait outside the arena, they were deflated if not surprised. For some, enough was enough. Muslim Women for Harris immediately disbanded. “Something kind of snapped,” said Georgia state representative Ruwa Romman, the slated speaker. Romman was not in Chicago for the convention, by the way. She was at a conference scheduled to coincide with it, on a panel called Voices You Will Not Hear at the Convention.After Chicago, uncommitted movement activists huddled over what to do next. Despite the rebuff, the convention was hardly a bust. The movement sent 30 uncommitted delegates; 300 Harris delegates declared themselves ceasefire delegates. The panel on Palestinian human rights was among the best attended events. Some of the biggest applause followed condemnations of Israel’s assaults and support for Palestinian liberation. People were milling around in anti-war T-shirts and keffiyehs.These activists may have been uncommitted primary voters and delegates, but they were committed enough Democrats to stump before the primary and run as delegates. The movement had “mobilized people of [conscience] previously apathetic to the democratic process to civically engage in this election”, the uncommitted website states. “We cannot afford to have this base permanently disillusioned or alienated in November.” They’re as scared shitless as every other sentient human about a second Trump presidency. The struggle continues.Intense debate produced a plan. Uncommitted primary voters had sent a loud message through what they did not say. The strategy continues: turn around a history of being silenced by deploying the power of silence. To pressure the Harris-Walz campaign to signal that a new Democratic administration would assume a new stance toward Israel, uncommitted declined to endorse the ticket. Instead, it is urging people to vote “against Trump” and fascism, and not for a third party, a de facto vote for Trump. This will not be easy; canvassers on the streets are encountering reliable Democratic voters, especially the young, brown or Black, waffling about going to the polls at all. But any experienced anti-war activist knows how hard it is to end a war.For the Democrats, the decision to censor the Palestinian voice was not just morally wrong. It was politically stupid. The Harris campaign must know that of those three-quarters of a million uncommitted ballots, 100,000 came from Michigan, the state that is home to the country’s largest Arab American community and that Biden won by 154,000 votes in 2020. Critical to Harris’s victory, Michigan is considered a toss-up.Aside from stupid, it was unnecessary. In May, Data for Progress found that seven in 10 likely voters, including 83% of Democrats, supported a permanent ceasefire. A majority of Democrats believed Israel is committing genocide. More recently, a poll by the Arab American Institute showed “significant gain and very little risk for Harris” in demanding Israel agree to an immediate ceasefire or calling for a suspension of US arms shipments. Either stand would increase her support by at least five percentage points, pulling in reluctant and undecided voters, including a plurality of Jewish Democrats, AAI says.As the Israel Defense Forces pummel Beirut and bulldoze shops, schools and sewer pipes in the West Bank – punishing unnumbered civilians in pursuit of unnamed terrorists – the US is shocked and confused when the Israeli prime minister raises a middle finger to another temporary truce, this one with Hezbollah. On the front page of Sunday’s New York Times, Paris bureau chief Roger Cohen rehearses the tautology behind this passivity. “The United States does have enduring leverage over Israel,” he explained. “But an ironclad alliance … built around strategic and domestic political considerations … means Washington will almost certainly never threaten to cut – let alone cut off – the flow of arms.” The world’s most powerful nation cannot use its leverage because it won’t use its leverage.A President Kamala Harris could use it. But first she needs to get elected. And to get elected, she’d better open her ears to the silent din – and speak up fast.

      Judith Levine is a Brooklyn journalist and essayist, a contributing writer to the Intercept, and the author of five books More