Israel-Gaza War (2023- )

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      In Michigan, Muslim and Arab American Voters Reconsider Support for Biden

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      Many in the swing state say they feel betrayed by the president’s support for Israel.Sam Baydoun, a Wayne County commissioner in Dearborn, Mich., has been glued to Al Jazeera for weeks to absorb news from the war in Israel and Gaza.Mr. Baydoun, a Democrat who is Lebanese American, has watched with fury as Israeli airstrikes have caused the deaths of many civilians, including children, following the deadly attack by Hamas on Israel on Oct. 7 that killed many. He saw President Biden visit Israel and pledge full-throated American support.And he is thinking ahead to the presidential election of 2024, a contest that could hinge on a handful of states including Michigan, whose Muslim and Arab American voters turned out decisively for Mr. Biden three years ago.“How can I tell somebody who’s watching these atrocities on live TV, today, to vote for President Biden?” he said. “The pulse of the community is overwhelmingly not supportive of Biden now. They feel betrayed.”There are about 200,000 registered Muslim American voters in Michigan, by some counts, a significant bloc in a battleground state of 8.2 million registered voters.Valaurian Waller for The New York TimesThat anger at the Biden administration’s response to the conflict in the Mideast is widely shared by Arab Americans in Michigan, especially in Wayne County, which includes the cities of Hamtramck and Dearborn, where Muslims have a large population and have been elected to top leadership roles.Mr. Biden has made repeated gestures of support to Muslims and Arab Americans: In an Oval Office address on Oct. 20, he denounced Islamophobia and the death of Wadea Al-Fayoume, a 6-year-old who was fatally stabbed in Illinois in what authorities have called a hate crime. Mr. Biden said he was “heartbroken” by the loss of Palestinian life in the war: “We can’t ignore the humanity of innocent Palestinians who only want to live in peace and have an opportunity,” he said.Ammar Moussa, a spokesman for the president’s re-election campaign, said that Mr. Biden “knows the importance of earning the trust of every community, of upholding the sacred dignity and rights of all Americans,” and is working closely with Muslim and Palestinian American leaders.But many Arab Americans were outraged by Mr. Biden’s visit to Israel, his embrace of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his pledge that “we will continue to have Israel’s back.”Nada Al-Hanooti, a Palestinian American organizer based in Dearborn, said that as of 2020, there were approximately 200,000 registered Muslim voters in Michigan, making the community a significant voting bloc in a battleground state of 8.2 million registered voters.“In 2020, the Muslim community was instrumental in turning out the vote for Joe Biden,” said Ms. Al-Hanooti, the Michigan executive director of Emgage, a national organization that seeks to strengthen the political power of Muslim Americans. “We did a lot of get-out-the-vote efforts.”Mr. Biden won the state by nearly 155,000 votes. Muslim voters turned out in significant numbers — 145,000 voted in the presidential election, according to Emgage. An exit poll commissioned by the Council on American-Islamic Relations found that roughly 69 percent of Muslims nationwide voted for Biden.Ms. Al-Hanooti said Muslims turned out in large numbers for Mr. Biden mainly because they were motivated to help defeat President Trump. As a candidate for president, Mr. Trump called for a shutdown of Muslim immigration and referred to “radical Islam” infiltrating American communities; while in office, he issued an executive order that imposed restrictions on refugees and visitors from seven predominantly Muslim countries.In Dearborn, Mich., the bustling downtown is dotted with Middle Eastern restaurants and storefronts with signs in Arabic. Valaurian Waller for The New York Times“But the truth is that we are experiencing the same Islamophobic rhetoric right now coming from the Biden administration,” she said, adding that Muslims in Michigan “don’t feel safe, they don’t feel heard and they don’t feel seen.”Adam Y. Abusalah, a Palestinian American resident of Dearborn, joined the Biden 2020 campaign as a field organizer in Michigan.“At the time, I thought Biden was the better candidate and that he would lead with compassion and humanity,” said Mr. Abusalah, 22, who works in local government.But he now feels that the administration’s approach to Palestinian issues and Israel, he said, is indistinguishable from Mr. Trump’s. The president’s staunch support for Israel in recent days has been gut-wrenching, he said.Mr. Abusalah said his community is feeling anguished and fearful in the wake of the outbreak of violence in the Middle East.“It feels like it’s a crime to speak up for Palestine right now,” he said. “The media and our elected officials make us look like we’re bad just for speaking up about injustices.”Some prominent Arab American figures in Michigan have predicted that many voters in the state will choose to leave the presidential candidate ballot blank next year.One of them is Osama Siblani, the publisher of The Arab American News and an outspoken voice on Middle East policy. He has heard the worry that abandoning Mr. Biden means that Mr. Trump, should he be the Republican nominee for president, will prevail.“My argument is, ‘Let him win,’” he said of Mr. Trump.In Dearborn, a city whose bustling center is dotted with Middle Eastern restaurants and storefronts with signs in Arabic, Mayor Abdullah Hammoud has absorbed the distress from his constituents over the direction of the Democratic Party.“What I’m hearing from community members now is the feeling of being back-stabbed,” he said. “The feeling of being brought into the fold under this tent of diversity, yet the issues, the values, the principles we fight to uphold are not being taken up by the party that we have pledged to support again and again.”Osama Siblani, the publisher of The Arab American News in Dearborn.Valaurian Waller for The New York TimesAt a vigil for Gaza on Thursday evening on the campus of the University of Michigan-Dearborn, students held candles and listened somberly as an organizer, Hani J. Bawardi, an associate professor of history at the school, spoke to the crowd.He planned the vigil to help students despairing over the war feel that they are not alone, he said on Friday.Many students have never voted in a presidential election before, Mr. Bawardi noted, and some are now asking themselves: “What do we do with our votes?” he said.He predicted that a third-party candidate would capture their attention next year, in the same way that Ralph Nader did in the presidential election of 2000.“I don’t see any other path than a repeat of that,” Mr. Bawardi said. More

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      DeSantis Says He Will ‘Reorient’ U.S. Foreign Policy to Counter China

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      While the G.O.P. field has largely moved away from the neoconservative policies of George W. Bush, Mr. DeSantis has taken heat for some of his isolationist tendencies, including on Ukraine.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, working to maintain his second-place status in the Republican primary, said Friday that as president he would “reorient” U.S. foreign policy to give clear priority to China while downplaying national security risks posed by conflicts such as Russia’s war on Ukraine.In a speech laying out his approach, Mr. DeSantis cast Beijing as a greater threat to the United States than the Axis powers and the Soviet Union ever were because of its economic might. As commander in chief, he said, he would “prioritize the Indo-Pacific region as the most pressing part of the world for defending U.S. interests and U.S. security.”A less aggressive approach, he argued, would allow China to export its “authoritarian vision all across the world,” creating a “global dystopia.”“They seek to be the dominant power in the entire world, and they are marshaling all their society to be able to achieve that objective,” Mr. DeSantis said. “So this is a formidable threat and it requires a whole of society approach.”Mr. DeSantis’s remarks, delivered in Washington, D.C., at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, come at a difficult moment for his presidential campaign. Not only is he badly trailing former President Donald J. Trump in the polls, but Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and former ambassador to the United Nations, has successfully positioned herself as a credible alternative to Mr. Trump, puncturing the Florida governor’s argument that the Republican presidential primary is a two-man race.Mr. DeSantis has lately used foreign policy to attack other Republican presidential candidates, rebuking Mr. Trump for his critical comments about Israeli leaders and accusing Ms. Haley — who is attracting growing interest from Republican donors and voters — of being soft on China.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.We are confirming your access to this article, this will take just a moment. However, if you are using Reader mode please log in, subscribe, or exit Reader mode since we are unable to verify access in that state.Confirming article access.If you are a subscriber, please More

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      Biden Faces Backlash From Party’s Left Wing on Israel

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      As a raw divide over the war ripples through liberal America, a coalition of young voters and people of color is breaking with the president, raising new questions about his strength entering 2024.The Democratic Party’s yearslong unity behind President Biden is beginning to erode over his steadfast support of Israel in its escalating war with the Palestinians, with a left-leaning coalition of young voters and people of color showing more discontent toward him than at any point since he was elected.From Capitol Hill to Hollywood, in labor unions and liberal activist groups, and on college campuses and in high school cafeterias, a raw emotional divide over the conflict is convulsing liberal America.While moderate Democrats and critics on the right have applauded Mr. Biden’s backing of Israel, he faces new resistance from an energized faction of his party that views the Palestinian cause as an extension of the racial and social justice movements that dominated American politics in the summer of 2020.In protests, open letters, staff revolts and walkouts, liberal Democrats are demanding that Mr. Biden break with decades-long American policy and call for a cease-fire.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.We are confirming your access to this article, this will take just a moment. However, if you are using Reader mode please log in, subscribe, or exit Reader mode since we are unable to verify access in that state.Confirming article access.If you are a subscriber, please More

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      Republican Jewish Coalition to Gather at a Moment of Peril for Israel

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      The Republican Jewish Coalition gathers in Las Vegas this weekend, drawing G.O.P. leaders and candidates at a moment of unique peril for Israel and American Jewry.For years, the annual meeting of the Republican Jewish Coalition has been a routine stop on the presidential primary trail, an opportunity for would-be presidents to demonstrate their foreign-policy credentials while plying donors with requisite one-liners. But nothing is routine this time.With an escalating conflict in Israel that threatens to spread across the region and a rise in tensions and antisemitism in the United States, the meeting will be like none of the others in the organization’s decades-long history. When Republican officials, lawmakers and candidates gather in Las Vegas this weekend, they will come together at a moment of unique peril for Israel and, many attendees believe, for American Jewry.Security has been tightened and seats added to accommodate a wave of new attendees who decided to come after the Oct. 7 attacks. An empty Shabbat table will sit in the middle of the room, honoring the more than 200 people being held hostage in Gaza. Along with the American national anthem, attendees will sing Hatikvah, the Israeli national anthem, and offer special prayers for those who are missing and wounded.And while the overall tone will be subdued, members of the organization said they expected nothing short of full-throated, unequivocal support for Israel and the protection of Jews in America from the 2024 Republican field.“I would venture half the room, if not more than half, has relatives who are in the I.D.F.,” said Ari Fleischer, a former press secretary under President George W. Bush and a member of the Republican Jewish Coalition’s board, referring to the Israel Defense Forces. “They don’t want to see a single weak knee, elbow or joint. They want to see support for a nation that’s in trauma against the modern-day equivalent of Nazism.”All eight major candidates running for the Republican nomination, including the dominant front-runner, Donald J. Trump, are expected to attend, a reflection of how the attacks have thrust foreign policy into the center of American politics. On Wednesday, the House passed a resolution vowing to give the Israeli government whatever security assistance it needs, the first legislation taken up by the new speaker, Mike Johnson, Republican of Louisiana.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.We are confirming your access to this article, this will take just a moment. However, if you are using Reader mode please log in, subscribe, or exit Reader mode since we are unable to verify access in that state.Confirming article access.If you are a subscriber, please More

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      Solidarity Between American Activists and Palestinians — Including a Rebuke of Biden

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      Since the heinous Oct. 7 Hamas attacks and Israel’s declaration of war against the terrorist group, I have been going over and over a question I’ve not been able to answer fully: During this episode, why has the Palestinian cause sparked so much passion among veteran activists of the movement for Black lives?Last week, I wrote that this could be traced to the ideological lens and residual energy of a younger generation attuned to protest and the ideas of equality and justice. But after interviewing several prominent activists in recent days, I realize there’s more to explore in the critical dynamics fueling that passion, which is born, in part, out of longstanding personal connections and a common sense of purpose.There are two pivotal events that seem to have ignited the new era of solidarity between some young American activists and the people of Palestine. The first came in the form of Palestinian activists expressing support on social media for the 2014 protests in Ferguson, Mo., which activists describe as an uprising, not just a series of protests. Palestinians provided not just moral support, but offered practical tips that, as activist Cherrell Brown told me, included advice for protesters about how to protect themselves from tear gas.Around that time, a small delegation of Palestinians even traveled to Ferguson and St. Louis to meet with American activists. This all created a moment of bonding around a shared sense of resistance.The second event was a 2015 pilgrimage to Israel and the Palestinian territories organized by Ahmad Abuznaid, a Jerusalem-born Palestinian American who co-founded the Dream Defenders, a group of activists who came together in response to the 2012 killing of Trayvon Martin.The small delegation included some people who would also become central in the American movement, like the journalist and scholar Marc Lamont Hill.When we spoke, Abuznaid, who has been criticized for his support for B.D.S., a movement calling for boycott, divestment and sanctioning of Israel, said he has led or been a part of several delegations to the Palestinian territories focused on what he describes as the injustices caused by the Israeli occupation.These trips help not only to develop strong bonds between communities half a world away from each other, but also to connect the issues facing them. Hill, who lost his job as a CNN contributor after he gave a speech at the United Nations about Israel and Palestine that was condemned by groups including the Anti-Defamation League, would go on to be a co-author of a book about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, “Except for Palestine: The Limits of Progressive Politics.”The events during this period reinforced a sense of internationalism among activists and connected a present solidarity with a historical one. It called back to a time when an American figure as notable as Malcolm X spoke out for the Palestinian cause.Even activists who didn’t make these journeys describe coming to this cause in part through personal connections with Palestinians and Palestinian Americans.And unlike some conflicts around the world, this one continues to play out in full view, in traditional media and social media. As the comedian, actress and activist Amanda Seales told me, this crisis has an urgency around it that others don’t because “we’re able to see it” in an unfiltered way.The other thing that I initially underestimated is the level of criticism of the Biden administration for its response to this conflict and what effect that might have in 2024.Shaun King, a former writer for The Daily News who has millions of followers on Facebook, Instagram and X, the site formerly known as Twitter, posted recently about how he would not vote for President Biden next year because of his embrace of Israel.King, who has never been a strong Biden supporter and is far from a mainline Democrat, told me, “I feel like a voter without a candidate.”While most activists I spoke to didn’t sound a note as strident as King’s about their voting intentions, several of them sounded an alarm about a possible wave of voter disappointment on the left over Biden’s stance in this conflict.As Maurice Mitchell, the national director of the Working Families Party, told me, he couldn’t think of a more “demobilizing experience” for young, democracy-minded, multiracial coalition voters than an escalating war and escalating human suffering “with the understanding that our country and our government could have done more to prevent it.”Tiffany Loftin, who describes herself as a civil rights activist and labor union organizer, and is a former national director of the N.A.A.C.P. youth and college division, said she would have a difficult time casting her ballot for “somebody who supported genocide” of Palestinians, which is how she characterized Biden’s position in the Israel-Gaza war. “I don’t know if I can do that, Charles,” she said.The questions for the Democratic Party and the Biden administration are: How much of their support base does this discontent represent, and how much voter abstention can they absorb?A lot will happen next year, and public attention will inevitably turn to other issues and controversies, but in a tight presidential race, an increasingly disaffected activist base on the left could be disastrous for Biden, and in a rematch with Donald Trump, that could be disastrous for our democracy.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and Instagram. More

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      Trump and GOP Candidates Call for Campus Crackdowns Against Anti-Israel Speech

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      The G.O.P. field, including former President Trump, has been wading into the emotional debate among students playing out over the deadly war between Hamas and Israel.As tensions mount on U.S. college campuses over the war in Gaza, several Republican presidential candidates are proposing a crackdown on students and schools that express opposition to Israel, appear to express support for the deadly Hamas attacks or fail to address antisemitism.Former President Donald J. Trump, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina have called for the federal government to revoke international students’ visas, while others have suggested that universities should lose public funding.After students at George Washington University projected messages on Tuesday onto the side of a campus building — including “Glory to our martyrs,” “Divestment from Zionist genocide now” and “Free Palestine from the river to the sea,” a phrase that encompasses all of Israel as well as Gaza and the West Bank — two candidates argued almost immediately that the students or the universities, or both, should be punished.“If this was done by a foreign national, deport them,” Mr. Scott wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Wednesday morning. “If the college coddles them, revoke their taxpayer funding. We must stand up against this evil anti-Semitism everywhere we see it — especially on elite college campuses.”Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota wrote: “Antisemitism cannot be tolerated. Period. The students responsible should be held accountable and if the university fails to do so it should lose any federal funding.” He indicated in another post that he would “fully enforce” a Trump-era executive order to use Title VI of the Civil Rights Act to revoke federal funding for any university that “enables” antisemitism.They and other Republicans are wading into an emotional debate on college campuses over Hamas’s attack on Israel, Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, and the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict — turning the opinions of individual students and student groups, starting at Harvard and New York University, into national flash points. Days of simultaneous pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel demonstrations have exposed painful divisions, including significant and potentially consequential ideological rifts between donors, students and faculty members.The suggestion of punishing anti-Israel views is part of a broader campaign against liberal-leaning campus environments, which many Republicans claim indoctrinate students. But it is also in tension with other parts of that campaign: In many cases, the same candidates have previously condemned what they described as censorship of students who expressed conservative opinions.Mr. Scott was a co-sponsor of a Senate resolution in 2021 that called on colleges and universities to “facilitate and recommit themselves to protecting the free and open exchange of ideas” and argued that “restrictive speech codes are inherently at odds with the freedom of speech guaranteed by the First Amendment.”Mr. Burgum signed legislation in North Dakota, also in 2021, that forbade universities in the state to discriminate against student organizations or speakers based on their viewpoint.When asked where Mr. Scott drew the line between protected and unprotected speech, his campaign did not comment on the record but cited a previous statement in which he called it a “fine line.” Mr. Burgum’s campaign pointed to the Trump executive order as requiring action.Separately, on Tuesday, the chancellor of the State University System of Florida wrote in a letter to university presidents that he had determined — “in consultation with” Mr. DeSantis — that two campus chapters of the group Students for Justice in Palestine “must be deactivated.”The national Students for Justice in Palestine organization released guidance to campus chapters earlier this month calling for demonstrations “in support of our resistance in Palestine.” The guidance called Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel, which killed more than 1,400 people, “a surprise operation against the Zionist enemy” and “a historic win for the Palestinian resistance.”It added, “This is what it means to Free Palestine: not just slogans and rallies, but armed confrontation with the oppressors.”The letter from the chancellor, Ray Rodrigues, said the chapters had violated a Florida law against providing “material support” to “a designated foreign terrorist organization.”“The State University System will continue working with the Executive Office of the Governor and S.U.S.’s Board of Governors to ensure we are all using all tools at our disposal to crack down on campus demonstrations that delve beyond protected First Amendment speech into harmful support for terrorist groups,” it said. “These measures could include necessary adverse employment actions and suspensions for school officials.”The national Students for Justice in Palestine organization did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The letter came a few days after Mr. DeSantis declared at a campaign event in Iowa that, if elected president, he would revoke the visas of students who supported Hamas. He did not say how he would determine who fell into that category; some public commentary has applied the label “pro-Hamas” to demonstrators expressing broader support for Palestinians or opposition to Israel’s military actions in Gaza, which have killed more than 6,500 people, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza. (Its figures could not be independently verified.)Mr. Trump made the same proposal at his own recent event in Iowa, also not providing details. “Under the Trump administration, we will revoke the student visas of radical anti-American and antisemitic foreigners at our colleges and universities, and we will send them straight back home,” he said.Nikki Haley, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, joined Mr. Scott and Mr. Burgum in saying she would cut federal funding to colleges that did not condemn students who supported Hamas.“No more federal money for colleges and universities that allow antisemitism to flourish on campus,” Ms. Haley wrote on X, arguing that the promotion of certain opinions in relation to the Hamas attack constituted “threatening someone’s life” and was “not freedom of speech.”Only one candidate, Vivek Ramaswamy, publicly rejected efforts to punish schools or individual students for anti-Israel or pro-Palestinian statements.“Colleges are spaces for students to experiment with ideas & sometimes kids join clubs that endorse boneheadedly wrong ideas,” he wrote on X this month in response to an uproar over a letter from student groups at Harvard that held “the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.”He added: “It wasn’t great when people wearing Trump hats were fired from work. It wasn’t great when college graduates couldn’t get hired unless they signed oppressive ‘DEI’ pledges. And it’s not great now if companies refuse to hire kids who were part of student groups that once adopted the wrong view on Israel.” More

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      Israel’s Moral and Political Dilemmas

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      More from our inbox:The Frankfurt Book Fair’s Cancellation of a Palestinian AuthorRegulating AirlinesCount Presidential Ballot Separately Pool photo by Miriam Alster, via ReutersTo the Editor:Re “Israel Is About to Make a Terrible Mistake,” by Thomas L. Friedman (column, Oct. 22):Mr. Friedman’s arguments might be valid if dealing with a sane adversary. But nowhere does he mention the deep visceral hatred of Hamas and associated groups toward Israel. He does not acknowledge the euphoria of the Hamas leaders and their supporters after the attack on Israel, and the hysterical vengeance sought by the millions of pro-Palestinians.I am left-wing, and I certainly do not share any ideology with the right-wing settlers. But I do totally empathize with the rage currently felt here in Israel. It is time to “take the gloves off.”We do not intend to be the victims of the destruction of Israel (Hamas’s goal), and the subjects of Mr. Friedman’s future tearful obituary that he would write “the day after.”E. WinerTel AvivTo the Editor:Thomas L. Friedman underestimates the barbarism (his word) of Hamas. He claims that a two-state solution needs to be part of Israel’s retaliation. It was always apparent that not long after the Oct. 7 massacre Israel would lose the public relations war. The horror would be news for only a few days. Social and mainstream media would move to the next series of headlines, the unfortunate and horrific consequences for the average Palestinian in the subsequent war.While Gaza and the West Bank are inextricably linked, contending that the response to the barbarism must be accompanied by a solution to a problem that has been unresolved for ages is impractical and unrealistic.Hamas has no interest in a peaceful solution. Its antisemitic barbarism reaffirmed that it wants no state of Israel in any form.Alan MetzChapel Hill, N.C.To the Editor:Re “Do We Treat Palestinians as Lesser Victims?,” by Nicholas Kristof (column, Oct. 22):Mr. Kristof does not mention that Hamas hides in and underneath crowded civilian settings, including mosques, hospitals and schools. Israel does not deliberately target civilians. Hamas, on the other hand, purposefully targets Israeli civilians (and holds hostage Israeli babies, the elderly and everyone in between), and uses Gazan men, women and children as tactical pawns and human shields.In such a case, civilian casualties are tragically unavoidable. Mr. Kristof, I appreciate your reminder of the sanctity of human life, but how would you suggest Israel proceed when its enemy does not consider this a value? Indeed, it is Hamas who is putting Gazan civilians at risk.Bina WestrichTeaneck, N.J.To the Editor:In urging readers to reject the “hierarchy of human life” purportedly embedded in support for Israeli military action, Nicholas Kristof attacks a straw man. No serious defender of Israel’s response to the Oct. 7 massacres argues that the lives of Israeli children are worth more than those of Gazan children. To the contrary, they argue that a failure to destroy Hamas now — leaving it capable of and eager to repeat similar atrocities — would result in far more death, destruction and human misery (for both Israelis and Gazans) than the admittedly terrible civilian costs of a full-scale Israeli incursion.And if we are calculating human costs, we had best consider the consequences of Mr. Kristof’s proposed policy: If democratic nations adopt a policy that terrorists who butcher innocents render themselves invulnerable by shielding behind a civilian population, it is not just Israeli or Gazan children who will suffer. It is everyone’s children.Yishai SchwartzWashingtonTo the Editor:Re “Hamas Bears the Blame for Every Death in This War,” by Bret Stephens (column, Oct. 17):Imagine if Hamas, since winning control of Gaza, had put its resources into building up the community with schools, hospitals and other institutions that uplifted the Palestinian people! Hamas would be considered “heroes” in the eyes of most of the world and its leadership would have attained political legitimacy.But, no, instead it is intent on depravity and destruction to the bitter end.Marc BloomPrinceton, N.J.The Frankfurt Book Fair’s Cancellation of a Palestinian AuthorAdania ShibliFranziska RothenbühlerTo the Editor:Re “A Chill Has Been Cast Over the Book World,” by Pamela Paul (column, Oct. 19):Reading Ms. Paul’s forceful condemnation of the Frankfurt Book Fair’s decision to cancel a celebration recognizing a Palestinian author, I waited in vain for her to address one indispensable fact: Frankfurt is in Germany, a country that, for obvious reasons, has assumed a special role in defending Israel and protecting Jews around the world.For example, the German penal code prohibits public denial of the Holocaust and its Nationality Act mandates restoration of citizenship for any Jew whose forebears lost their citizenship during the Nazi regime.Contrary to Ms. Paul’s claim that it is a “false notion that there is a wrong time for certain authors or novels and that now is not the time for Palestinian literature,” the days following a Palestinian terrorist attack that resulted in the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust are precisely the wrong time for a German book fair to celebrate a novel excoriating Israel.Adania Shibli’s views are important and should be heard in Germany and elsewhere — just not in Frankfurt right now. Ms. Paul does a grave disservice to German Jews living and dead by not acknowledging the tragic history underlying the Frankfurt Book Fair’s decision.Andrew D. HermanChevy Chase, Md.Regulating Airlines Carter Johnston for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “A Frayed System, and 131 Lives Put in Jeopardy” (front page, Oct. 15):The article states, “The safety net that underpins air travel in America is fraying, exposing passengers to potential tragedies.”The blame seems to be focused on government air traffic controllers. They share some of it, but they are only part of a much larger system including aircraft technology, airport design, aircrew and airspace management.But there is another problem rarely talked about: competition. Since airlines were deregulated in 1978, the industry has seen bankruptcies, deterioration of comfort and service, delays and congestion, complexity in pricing and fares, and stagnation in aviation systems planning and investment.A strong argument could be made that airline competition has not worked as expected, and even worked counterproductively. A new airline regulatory program may be called for — one that combines the public and private sectors in a jointly managed and financed national aviation system with strong oversight in safety standards, infrastructure investment and passenger consumer benefits that are missing under the current deregulation.Matthew G. AnderssonChicagoThe writer was the founder and C.E.O. of Indigo Airlines and is a former aviation consultant.Count Presidential Ballot Separately Lukas VerstraeteTo the Editor:Re “Counting Ballots by Hand Ensures Only Chaos,” by Jessica Huseman (Opinion guest essay, Oct. 20):Ms. Huseman is absolutely right that counting lengthy ballots by hand would be a nightmare. But we could reduce the growing suspicion that computers can’t count our votes properly if our presidential elections were administered separately from all the other races on Election Day.If there were paper ballots just for the presidency, they could be counted in one long night, as is done in many European parliamentary elections, in which voters only cast one vote for a party.Mark WestonSarasota, Fla.The writer is the author of “The Runner-Up Presidency: The Elections That Defied America’s Popular Will.” More

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      Tim Scott Opposes Package Tying Aid to Israel and Ukraine

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      The South Carolina senator and 2024 presidential candidate said a “longer process” was needed to determine how much aid to send to Ukraine, while Israel demanded immediate attention.Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina said on Sunday that he would not support a request from President Biden to package aid for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan and funding for border security, even though he has endorsed U.S. spending for each of those purposes.“I believe that leveraging the challenges in the war with Israel to get more assistance for Ukraine at that level of $60 billion is too much, and we need to have a single focus on bringing Congress together behind the support for Israel,” Mr. Scott, a 2024 Republican candidate, said on “This Week” on ABC News.At first, he indicated that his objection was mainly to the possibility of delaying aid to Israel by combining it with funding on which Congress is more divided. He said that he believed aid to Israel alone “would pass overnight,” and that a “splintered” package would be harder to pass.But when the interviewer, Jonathan Karl, asked whether he would actually vote against the package if it came to the Senate floor, Mr. Scott said he would.“I will in the current construct,” he said, adding that a “longer process” was needed to debate how much aid to send to Ukraine. “Israel is at the beginning of a long, protracted war,” he said. “I think we are much better off, better served as a nation, focusing our resources and our attention immediately on Israel, and continuing to provide the kind of level of accountability and responsibility the American people want to see as it relates to the resources for Ukraine.”His campaign did not elaborate on his comments, and pointed to a CNN interview in which he said largely the same thing, criticizing the package for including “more money for Ukraine than it does for Israel.”The request that Mr. Biden submitted to Congress on Friday included about $61 billion for Ukraine; $14 billion for Israel; $7 billion for Taiwan and other Indo-Pacific allies; $9 billion for humanitarian aid in Ukraine, Israel and Gaza; and $14 billion for border security in the United States.Mr. Scott is not the only Republican to object to putting those pieces in one package, an effort by the Biden administration to pressure lawmakers who oppose funding Ukraine to support the proposal in the interest of funding Israel, and vice versa.Vivek Ramaswamy, another Republican presidential candidate, denounced the proposal at a campaign event in Iowa on Saturday. Mr. Ramaswamy has long opposed aid to Ukraine, and he said at the event that Israel’s military objectives in Gaza were unclear and that helping Israel would risk a broader conflict in the Middle East.But Mr. Scott’s rejection of the package is notable because he is on the record as supporting every component.He has been one of the most outspoken Republican candidates in favor of helping Ukraine repel Russia’s invasion: He accused Mr. Biden last year of “waiting too long to provide too little support,” and he has described a Ukrainian victory as a matter of American interest, arguing that it would discourage a Russian incursion into NATO territory that would pull the United States into a wider war. He has endorsed sending weapons to Taiwan. And, in the same interview on Sunday in which he rejected the package, he called for funding to secure the southern border of the United States.Almost the entire Republican presidential field has endorsed military aid to Israel, but the candidates are divided on aid to Ukraine: In addition to Mr. Ramaswamy, former President Donald J. Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida have said they want to cut it. Only a few, though, have voiced their positions on Mr. Biden’s proposal.Among them is former Vice President Mike Pence, who told NBC News on Sunday that he supported aid for Israel and Ukraine “together or separately.” More