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      How Gaza activists in Minnesota are pushing the US wave of ‘uncommitted’ votes

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      Dozens of families turned up to a Minneapolis park on Sunday to hear why they should cast an “uncommitted” protest vote in Tuesday’s presidential primary and how that could affect the Israel-Gaza war.Kids played on the playground or made signs to support Palestine while their caregivers listened as organizers shared an “easy action”: show up at your local polling place on Tuesday, ask for a Democratic ballot and check the box that says “uncommitted”.Minnesota organizers, inspired by the strong turnout for an uncommitted vote in Michigan, quickly put together a coalition to get out the word that Minnesota voters should follow Michigan’s example.In Michigan, Democrats set a goal to get 10,000 uncommitted votes; more than 100,000 people instead voted uncommitted, a message to Joe Biden that Democratic voters demand his action on Palestine. The Israel-Gaza war serves as a key liability for the US president in his re-election bid, and his positions on the issue have turned some Democrats away from him during what is shaping up to be a close race with Donald Trump.After Michigan’s success, organizers in other progressive states that have uncommitted options on their ballots have started working on local efforts to keep the pressure on Biden for a ceasefire. Minnesota, a Super Tuesday state, has a few factors that give it potential for a good turnout for the uncommitted vote: high voter turnout overall, a progressive history, a large Muslim community. Minnesota’s campaign could further buoy the movement and boost the protest vote in other states, organizers hope.“We vote in Minnesota. Number one in the country for turnout,” said Jaylani Hussein, a co-chair of the Abandon Biden campaign in Minnesota. “And when it comes to minorities and immigrants, we also have historically high, record turnout.”At the Minneapolis park, Amanda Purcell of MN Families for Palestine led the audience in a chant: “Gaza kids! Our kids!” The organization has worked for months to reach out to elected officials to support a ceasefire by using small actions that people with kids can easily do.“We’re really starting to feel the momentum here,” Purcell said. “And we’re hoping that what we do here will just continue to push the wave of uncommitted across the United States.”Supporters passed out a flyer with a QR code where people could fill out a form to pledge to vote uncommitted, which calls on those pledging their support to also send the form to three other families to share the message.Over the past week, Minnesota activists have called and texted voters to push out the “uncommitted” message. They’ve gone to mosques around the state to share the idea, targeting Minnesota’s Muslim population. They’ve held rallies. They’ve reached out to college students, families, people who’ve attended protests in the past.Groups around Minnesota have protested and worked to move their local members of Congress on Palestine. They’ve shown up on Democratic governor Tim Walz’s lawn, calling on him to get the state to divest from Israel. The progressive state with a history of grassroots organizing saw existing groups work together to quickly stand up an uncommitted campaign.Some Democratic voters in the state had seen what happened in Michigan and already planned to vote uncommitted, said Asma Mohammed, one of the organizers behind Vote Uncommitted MN. To others, supporters explained the idea of “uncommitted” being a protest vote. Some voters had shared that they’d felt there was no reason to show up for the presidential primary because their voices weren’t being heard in a contest dominated by a sitting president; “uncommitted” gives them an option to send a message, Mohammed said.Mohammed is against a Trump presidency, as are, she says, the rest of the organizers. But there is real disapproval and discontent with Democrats and Biden among the communities who want to see a ceasefire. People are “really angry”, and she hopes the primary vote for uncommitted helps Biden understand that he and the party are losing longtime Democrats, perhaps permanently, because of this.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“I’m hoping that President Biden listens, because I don’t want to have to organize my community out of becoming Republicans or just sitting at home,” Mohammed said. “And it’s not just my community.”Minnesota’s campaign doesn’t have a number goal like Michigan did. Instead, organizers want to keep Michigan’s first step going in Minnesota, then help people in other states stand up their own efforts. But, most importantly, they want Biden to act. And they believe the only way they can get him to listen now is through their votes.A win for the uncommitted campaign would be a permanent ceasefire, Mohammed said.“We don’t want any more empty claims,” she said. “Another win for us is that this will embolden some of our members of Congress and Senate to take action because there are a lot of them who have not been on the right side of this either, who have taken votes that have angered the community and have really been hurting their chances at re-election.”The Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor party (DFL), the state’s Democratic party, has said it expects Biden to easily win the state. (Another Minnesotan, congressman Dean Phillips, is running for president and on the state’s presidential primary ballots, though his campaign has been virtually non-existent in the state in the lead-up to Super Tuesday.) The party’s chair, Ken Martin, has sought to remind voters of the contrast between Biden and Trump.After Minnesota’s vote on Tuesday, organizers here plan to share what they learn from the rapid move for an uncommitted campaign with other states. Already, Washington state has an uncommitted campaign underway that received an endorsement from the state’s United Food and Commercial Workers, its largest labor union.“This is a national movement,” Mohammed said. “It doesn’t stop with Michigan. It doesn’t stop with Minnesota. All of us have to be all in to get the attention of the president.” More

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      Michigan Democrats have sent Biden a flashing warning sign about the election | Ben Davis

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      The Michigan Democratic primary was the first test of the electoral strength of the movement for a ceasefire in Gaza. It exhibited strength beyond what any observer expected, showing the size and enthusiasm of the peace movement and the danger to President Biden of continuing his current policy of full support for Israel. Organizers of the Listen to Michigan campaign to vote uncommitted in the Michigan primary set the bar at 10,000 votes – the margin of victory in Michigan’s 2016 general election. “Uncommitted” had blown past that number before even 10% of the vote had been counted. Biden needs to heed this flashing warning sign and drastically change course: call for a ceasefire, halt arms shipments to Israel and exert maximal diplomatic pressure now. The call for a ceasefire now can no longer be written off as a demand of only leftwing activists or Arab and Muslim communities. A large swathe of the Democratic base demands it.Biden can win uncommitted voters in the general election. These are consistent Democratic voters who turn out to Democratic primaries and powered Biden’s win in the swing state in 2020. The uncommitted vote showed strength far beyond what both organizers and the Biden campaign expected. “Uncommitted” won outright on college campuses like the University of Michigan and Eastern Michigan University, dominating predominantly Arab east Dearborn with over 80% of the vote. But the strength wasn’t limited to progressive and Arab areas. “Uncommitted” captured 10% or more of the vote across the state, from affluent suburban areas to rural areas, and did even better in the working-class Black-majority core of the Michigan Democratic electorate of Detroit, winning 23% of the election day votes in the city.The results are clear: the movement for a ceasefire and the dissatisfaction with Biden’s policies among the Democratic base have real electoral strength and can’t be dismissed. Massive supermajorities of Democratic voters support a ceasefire, and the results in Michigan show this isn’t just a passive policy preference but a deeply felt moral stance among the core voters Biden needs to win the election. Rather than stay home, huge numbers of voters took time out of their day to cast a vote for no one just to register their protest and hopefully do their part to stop the killing. There were no other statewide elections on the ballot to drive turnout and no viable candidate against Biden. Yet enthusiasm for “uncommitted” was so high that precincts in Dearborn ran out of their usual allotment of registration sign-up sheets trying to keep up with demand.This campaign was announced only three weeks ago, a disadvantage in a state where most Democrats vote by mail well before the election. It was powered through organizing through Muslim and Arab community groups, on-the-ground voter contact from organizations such as the Democratic Socialists of America, and remarkable enthusiasm from volunteers. With almost no money, the message caught on like wildfire because it spoke to the deeply held feelings of Michigan Democrats, winning the endorsement of Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib and a handful of members of the state legislature and local elected officials. By election day, there was “panic” in the White House.Michigan Democratic politicians have warned of the strength of the ceasefire movement for months and been ignored by the White House. While Michigan Democratic politicians, even moderate ones, have felt the anger and disappointment on the ground and try to use empathic language to communicate with young, progressive, Arab and Muslim voters, the White House and the national Democratic party have been aloof and haranguing. The message that Donald Trump is worse and expressing concern or registering disapproval helps him does not work and is actively alienating voters. What would bring people back into the fold is, first, actually listening and expressing empathy and, second and most importantly, actually taking action to halt the bloodshed and stand up for Palestinian lives. This isn’t a niche issue. All people of conscience feel it.Biden can still win this election, but not with discontent with his base in crucial swing states. If morality will not push him to take action to halt Israel’s war crimes, perhaps politics will. The numbers don’t lie. We need a ceasefire now. More

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      ‘Biden needs to be pro-peace’: Michigan anti-war campaign hails huge vote tally

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      A last-minute push by anti-war activists to reject President Joe Biden over his unwavering support for Israel far exceeded expectations in the Michigan Democratic party primary on Tuesday night.Leaders from the grassroots campaign, called Listen to Michigan, said ahead of the primary that they would count 10,000 “uncommitted” votes – roughly Trump’s winning margin in Michigan eight years ago – as a victory.Instead they surpassed that goal by an order of magnitude, earning the support of more than 100,000 Democrats who checked the “uncommitted” box, and 13% of votes overall. That should weigh heavily on Democrats, who could lose the pivotal state – and even the presidency – in November if these sentiments persist. Biden won Michigan by about 150,000 votes in 2020 – less than 3% of the overall vote.It remains to be seen how many of the Michigan voters who withheld their support from Biden during the primary will abandon the president in the general election, where he will most likely face former president Donald Trump, whose brash Islamophobia and policies targeting Muslims defined his 2016 campaign and early presidency.“This is a victory of American democracy,” said former US congressman Andy Levin, addressing a crowd of Listen to Michigan supporters as the results trickled in last night. “There is no time to waste – we need a permanent ceasefire right now.” In 2022 Levin, a progressive Jewish politician, faced a primary opponent in a new district and lost. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) spent more than $4m to support his opponent.Michigan is home to one of the largest concentrations of Arab and Muslim Americans in the US, many of them living in the greater Detroit area. Those voters formed an important part of the Democratic coalition in 2020, but their support for Biden has plummeted as the president continues to support Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, which has claimed the lives of nearly 30,000 Palestinians in just five months.According to exit polling by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair), 94% of Muslim voters who cast their ballots in Michigan’s Democratic primary on Tuesday voted “uncommitted”. There are about 200,000 registered Muslim voters in Michigan.The “uncommitted” campaign formed quickly in early February with just weeks to spare ahead of the primary. Spurred by younger and Arab organizers, it was also supported by labor activists and progressive Jewish voters. Dozens of elected officials in the Detroit area and several national Democrats also registered their support. In a video posted to social media, Rashida Tlaib, the Palestinian American congresswoman representing Dearborn and Detroit, explained why she voted “uncommitted”.“President Biden is not hearing us,” said Tlaib, noting that according to recent polling, about 74% of Michigan Democrats support a ceasefire in Gaza. “This is the way we can use our democracy to say ‘listen – listen to Michigan.’”In a New York Times opinion column that ran a week before the primary, the mayor of Dearborn, Abdullah Hammoud, who also backed the “uncommitted” campaign, described the “visceral sense of betrayal” his constituents feel toward the Biden administration. “President Biden,” Hammoud wrote, “is proving many of our worst fears about our government true: that regardless of how loud your voice may be, how many calls to government officials you may make, how many peaceful protests you organize and attend, nothing will change.”But it isn’t only Muslim and Arab American voters who the president stands to lose in the November general election. Biden’s support among younger voters and Black voters, who formed key blocs in 2020, also threatens to collapse as the Israel-Hamas war, which has decimated Gaza, wears on.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSo far, the Biden campaign has barely registered a response to the high turnout for the “uncommitted” campaign vote, and made no mention of it in a more than 300-word statement issued on Tuesday night – instead focusing on his record on infrastructure, healthcare, labor and the threat of a second Trump term.“It’s astounding how many words that statement used to describe and distract from the reality that over 100,000 Democratic presidential primary voters in Michigan showed up to vote for peace and against war,” Abbas Alawieh, a spokesperson for the Listen to Michigan campaign, told the Guardian. “My advice to President Biden and his team would be not to ignore this movement but to engage productively with us.”The formal demands of the Listen to Michigan campaign are for a ceasefire in Gaza and an end to unconditional US military aid to Israel.“President Biden needs to emerge as a pro-peace president if he’s going to earn our vote,” said Alawieh. More

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      ‘Uncommitted’ vote in Michigan a warning shot over Biden’s support of Israel

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      Standing before shimmering gold curtains on Tuesday evening, the mayor of Dearborn, Abdullah Hammoud, spoke with pride about his city.“We had the audacity to choose people over political party,” he said. “We had the damn audacity to put people over president.”For many gathered at this sprawling banquet hall in the heart of America’s most concentrated Muslim population, the outcome of last night’s Democratic primary in Michigan was beyond even the boldest of predictions.Although Joe Biden took the state, it was the hastily organized but committed grassroots campaign against the president’s support for the Israeli government’s war with Gaza that took the night. Organizers with Listen to Michigan, a group that urged voters to withdraw support for Biden and instead vote uncommitted, had hoped for a showing of 10,000 votes. They returned more than 100,000 – a clear demonstration of the growing fractures among the diverse coalition that brought Biden to power in 2020.It is a warning shot to the Democratic party, and shows more signs of expanding than diminishing as the primary season wears on.In just four weeks, the uncommitted campaign mobilized a cohort of progressives concentrated in the suburbs of Detroit, a region that saw a significant rise in Democratic turnout four years ago.“This is a humanitarian vote,” said the campaign’s manager, Layla Elabed, a 34-year-old lifelong Democrat, as she sipped coffee at a Yemeni cafe on a frigid Sunday morning, two days before the vote. “Right now, Joe Biden sits in a place of power where he can actually change course and save lives.”Elabed, the sister of the US representative Rashida Tlaib – the first Palestinian American to serve in Congress – met Biden last year at the White House during Eid celebrations. The president has heard personal stories of their grandmother’s struggles living in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, she said. “But it feels a lot like it’s falling on deaf ears.”Her next stop was a rally in the city of Hamtramck, where those assembled underlined not only the movement’s diverse collective of ages and race, but also the divergent outlooks on how the campaign could or should affect the general election in November.“I’m very focused on the moment,” said Dima Hassan, a Palestinian American who would be voting in her first presidential election in 2024. “What is happening right now is an active genocide so thinking about November honestly feels silly.”Yet Tuesday’s result should send alarm bells ringing for that vote, given the thin margin of Trump’s victory in 2016, which saw him swing the state red by just more than 10,000 votes. Organizers say the group is also representative of the large Democratic disapproval ratings of Biden’s handling of the war, the death toll in which is likely to surpass 30,000 in Gaza by this week.Although hastily convened, Listen to Michigan is well organized, with an effective phone banking operation making more than 500,000 calls in just a matter of weeks, according to the campaign. But with no official headquarters, meetings are held in cafes and living rooms. Elabed’s car is laden with boxes of flyers that she hauls alone, darting between locations.Although Biden sent campaign representatives to meet with members of the Arab-American community here earlier this month and on Monday expressed hope of a ceasefire, recent comments from the state’s Democratic governor that equated an uncommitted vote to effective support for Donald Trump were met with scorn.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionMuslim communities in Dearborn and elsewhere endured rising rates of hate crimes during the Trump presidency, following a campaign laced with Islamophobia. Trump implemented a travel ban for several Muslim majority countries, which he has pledged to reinstate if he wins in 2024.With just a few hours left to vote on Tuesday afternoon, polling stations in Dearborn were still welcoming a steady flow of primary voters. At an intersection by the McDonald elementary school, Linda Sarsour, the New York-based organizer, was handing out flyers to those who trickled through. Most had already decided to cast their ballot uncommitted.Sarsour, who co-chaired the Women’s March in 2017 and became a prominent activist during the Trump era, expressed contempt at those within the party making the Trump equation.“Shame on them for gaslighting this community,” she said. “This is a presidential primary, this is democracy and people should be able to vote for whoever they want. Donald Trump is not part of the Democratic primary.”She continued: “But also the ball is in Joe Biden’s court. Why start pointing fingers at the voters when they should be pointing fingers at Joe Biden. They should be demanding that Joe Biden do better in order to keep these voters within the Democratic party.”Sarsour was one of a handful of volunteers from outside Michigan who had come to support the campaign on Tuesday. Others had arrived from Florida, Illinois and Washington, as the grassroots effort looks to expand beyond Michigan.Efforts are already under way for an uncommitted vote in Minnesota and also in Washington, while other states that do not offer an uncommitted ballot option may see new write-in campaigns.“This is becoming an opportunity to translate protest in the street to protest at the ballot,” Sarsour said. More

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      Biden wins Michigan primary but sheds support over Gaza

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      Joe Biden has won the Democratic primary in Michigan – but a concerted effort by anti-war activists to vote “uncommitted” in the race could overshadow his win.The US president faced no real primary challenger in the contest. But a campaign that formed just weeks before the primary to vote “uncommitted” in protest of his continued support for Israel’s war in Gaza signaled the fury and betrayal some Arab American and younger voters in the state feel for Biden.The group pushing for voters to choose “uncommitted” – called Listen to Michigan – set the goal of 10,000 uncommitted votes in the primary. With more than half of the votes tallied Tuesday night, “uncommitted” had received 74,000 votes out of a total of more than 580,000 – almost 13% of the vote.For context, when the then president, Barack Obama, ran uncontested in the 2012 race, about 21,000 voted “uncommitted” against him in Michigan’s primary, with about 194,000 voting in total – just over 9% of voters.Trump narrowly won the state by just 11,000 votes in 2016 and organisers of the “uncommitted” effort wanted to show that they have at least the number of votes that were Trump’s margin of victory in 2016, to demonstrate how influential the bloc can be.View image in fullscreenAs results came in after polls closed at 8pm, members of the Listen to Michigan campaign gathered at a banquet hall in Dearborn and declared the results a victory for their campaign.. Attendees embraced and celebrated, many wearing the black and white keffiyeh.Before handing the microphone off to a series of speakers for the campaign, Abbas Alawieh, a Listen to Michigan spokesperson, held a moment’s silence “for every human life that has been taken from us too soon using US taxpayer funds and bombs”.“Thank you to our local and national progressive organizations and our voters of conscience, who used our democratic process to vote against war, genocide and the destruction of a people and a land,” said Layla Elabed, who launched the campaign in early February.The former congressman Andy Levin, an early and prominent local supporter of the push to vote “uncommitted”, called the movement “a child of necessity” and said the turnout so far was “a huge victory”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“There is no hope for security and peace for the Jewish people without security and peace and freedom and justice for the Palestinian people,” said Levin, to cheers.The Listen to Michigan campaign was intended as a warning for Biden to revise his so far unwavering support for Israel’s campaign in Gaza, which has killed nearly 30,000 Palestinians, ahead of the general election. The campaign is especially significant in Michigan given the state’s large Arab American population, a group that supported Biden strongly in 2020.But it isn’t clear what share of “uncommitted” voters are prepared to abandon Biden in the general election this November, when he will most likely face Donald Trump – who is campaigning on a pledge to reinstate and expand his Muslim travel ban.A day before the primary, Biden announced a ceasefire could come as soon as Monday – but both Hamas and Israeli officials denied that negotiations had progressed substantially.In a statement on Tuesday night, Biden did not address the Listen to Michigan campaign or the growing tally of voters who cast their ballots as “uncommitted”, instead touting his record on labor and warning that Trump is “threatening to drag us even further into the past as he pursues revenge and retribution”. More

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      US airman who burned himself to death at Israeli embassy had anarchist past

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      A uniformed airman who burned himself to death in protest over the US’s role in Israel’s military strikes in Gaza was an anarchist who grew up in a strict religious sect with links to a school in Canada that “controlled, intimidated and humiliated” students, it was reported on Tuesday.Aaron Bushnell, an active-duty US air force senior airman from San Antonio, Texas, died in hospital on Sunday several hours after he doused himself in a flammable liquid and set himself alight outside the Israeli embassy in Washington DC.Bushnell, 25, livestreamed the self-immolation on the social media platform Twitch, declaring he “will no longer be complicit in genocide” and shouting “Free Palestine” before starting the fire.Less than two weeks before the episode, Bushnell and a friend spoke by phone about what “sacrifices” were needed for them to be effective as anarchists, the Washington Post reported on Monday, having spoken with several people who knew him.Bushnell did not mention anything violent or self-sacrificial during the call, the Post said, citing the friend.But on Sunday morning, just before setting himself on fire at about 1pm outside the embassy on International Drive, he texted the friend, whom the Post did not name to protect his anonymity. “I hope you’ll understand. I love you,” Bushnell wrote. “This doesn’t even make sense, but I feel like I’m going to miss you.”He also sent the friend a copy of his will, the newspaper added. In the will, Bushnell gave his pet cat to a neighbor and root beers in his fridge to the friend.According to the air force, Bushnell was a cyber defense operations specialist with the 531st intelligence support squadron at joint base San Antonio. He had been on active duty since May 2020. And he was set for discharge in May after a four-year term of duty.The Post spoke with some people who described his upbringing on a religious compound in Orleans, Massachusetts, run by a Benedictine monastic religious group called the Community of Jesus. He was a young man who liked karaoke and The Lord of the Rings, they said.The church, however, has a darker side, at least according to a lawsuit in Canada brought by former students of a now-closed Ontario school where many officials were alleged to be members of the US-based religious group, according to the Post.Those officials, the students said, ran a “charismatic sect” that “created an environment of control, intimidation and humiliation that fostered and inflicted enduring harms on its students”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe school and church denied the allegations. But an appeals court last year awarded the former students C$10.8m (US$8m).Susan Wilkins, who left the church in 2005, when she said Bushnell was still a member, told the Post it was common for members of the Community of Jesus to join the military, from “one high-control group to another high-control group”.At the time of his death, Bushnell was making plans to transition back into civilian life in May. He told another friend, quoted by the Post, that he considered leaving the air force early to “take a stand” against what he saw as state-sponsored violence, especially US support for Israel in Gaza. But he decided he was close enough to the end of his contracted term of duty to be able to stick it out.Officials at Southern New Hampshire University said Bushnell had enrolled for an online computer science degree course in August 2023 and was registered for a new term beginning next week.
      In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org More

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      Michigan governor says not voting for Biden over Gaza war ‘supports second Trump term’

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      Gretchen Whitmer, the Michigan governor, pushed back on calls to not vote for Joe Biden over his handling of the Israel-Gaza conflict, saying on Sunday that could help Trump get re-elected.“It’s important not to lose sight of the fact that any vote that’s not cast for Joe Biden supports a second Trump term,” she said on Sunday during an interview on CNN’s State of the Union. “A second Trump term would be devastating. Not just on fundamental rights, not just on our democracy here at home, but also when it comes to foreign policy. This was a man who promoted a Muslim ban.”Whitmer, who is a co-chair of Biden’s 2024 campaign, also said she wasn’t sure what to expect when it came to the protest vote.Rashida Tlaib, a Democrat who is the only Palestinian-American serving in Congress, urged Democrats last week to vote “uncommitted” in Michigan’s 27 February primary.“We don’t want a country that supports war and bombs and destruction. We want to support life. We want to stand up for every single life killed in Gaza … This is the way you can raise our voices. Don’t make us even more invisible. Right now, we feel completely neglected and just unseen by our government,” she said in a video posted to her Twitter account. “If you want us to be louder, then come here and vote uncommitted.”Tlaib’s sister, Layla Elabed, is the campaign manager for Listen to Michigan, the group that has been leading the effort to get people to vote uncommitted. The group has the support of 30 elected officials across south-east Michigan, including Abdullah Hammoud, the mayor of Dearborn, which has a large Arab American population.“Biden must earn our vote through a dramatic change in policy,” the group says on its website. “President Biden has been a successful candidate in the past by representing a broad coalition, but right now he’s not representing the vast majority of Democrats who want a ceasefire and an end to his funding of Israel’s war in Gaza.”While Biden will easily win the Democratic primary there, Michigan is a key swing state in the November general election. Biden will need strong support of voters who are a part of his Democratic base in addition to support from more moderate voters to win.Acknowledging that reality, Biden dispatched top aides to Dearborn to meet with leaders there earlier this month. During that meeting, Jon Finer, a deputy national security adviser, acknowledged errors in how the administration had responded.“We are very well aware that we have missteps in the course of responding to this crisis since October 7,” he said, according to a recording of the meeting obtained by the New York Times. “We have left a very damaging impression based on what has been a wholly inadequate public accounting for how much the president, the administration and the country values the lives of Palestinians. And that began, frankly, pretty early in the conflict.” More

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      Wednesday briefing: Everyone claims to back a ceasefire in Gaza. But what are they really saying?

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      Good morning. The daily details of the horror being visited on civilians in Gaza can make any conversation about the language of ceasefire proposals being put forward in foreign capitals seem absurd.A massive majority at the UN general assembly backed a ceasefire in December; so did the pope. A few days later, both Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer backed a “sustainable” ceasefire. Twenty-six of 27 EU states again called for a ceasefire on Monday. Benjamin Netanyahu has not yet been persuaded by any of them.But the calls for a ceasefire, and the subtle ways that they’ve changed over time, do tell us something about Israel’s weakening position on the international stage. This week, in the UK and at the UN, rival propositions for what a ceasefire might look like have emerged. Behind the diplomatic wrangling, and a particular crisis today for the Labour party in Britain, is a complicated story about how the violence might end, and who might be able to influence it.The Guardian’s diplomatic editor, Patrick Wintour, has been covering these discussions. For today’s newsletter, I asked him whether any of them will make any difference. Here are the headlines.Five big stories
      Health | Patients whose health is failing will be granted the right to obtain an urgent second opinion about their care, as “Martha’s rule” is initially adopted in 100 English hospitals from April at the start of a national rollout. The initiative follows a campaign by Merope Mills, a senior editor at the Guardian, and her husband, Paul Laity, after their 13-year-old daughter Martha died of sepsis at King’s College hospital in London in 2021.
      UK news | Detectives hunting for Abdul Ezedi, the man wanted over a chemical assault that injured a vulnerable woman and her two young daughters, have recovered a body in the Thames that they believe is Ezedi, Scotland Yard has said. “We have been in contact with his family to pass on the news,” said Cmdr Jon Savell.
      WikiLeaks | Julian Assange faces the risk of a “flagrant denial of justice” if tried in the US, the high court has heard. Lawyers for Assange are seeking permission to appeal against the WikiLeaks founder’s extradition, and say he could face a “grossly disproportionate” sentence of up to 175 years if convicted in the US.
      PPE contracts | Michael Gove failed to register hospitality he enjoyed with a Conservative donor whose company he had recommended for multimillion-pound personal protective equipment (PPE) contracts during the Covid pandemic. When asked by the Guardian about not registering VIP hospitality at a football match he received from David Meller, a spokesperson for Gove apologised for the “oversight”.
      Pakistan | Imran Khan’s political rivals have announced details of a coalition agreement, naming Shehbaz Sharif as their joint candidate for prime minister amid continuing concerns about the legitimacy of the recent elections. Candidates aligned with Khan won the most seats in the parliamentary elections but not enough to form a government.
      In depth: ‘The use of the word ceasefire in a US resolution is a shot across Israel’s bows’View image in fullscreenThe prospect of an Israeli ground operation in Rafah, where about 1.5 million Palestinians have now sought sanctuary, has made the urgency over the question of a new ceasefire greater than ever. Israel says that unless Hamas frees every hostage by the beginning of Ramadan on 10 March, it will launch its offensive; if so, there could be dire humanitarian consequences, and a danger of more violence in the West Bank and escalation across the Middle East.Israel and Hamas have been participating in talks in Cairo brokered by the US, Egypt and Qatar. And while the Qatari prime minister, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, said that recent days “were not really very promising”, discussions are still continuing, Patrick Wintour said: “The focus at the moment is on the number of Palestinian prisoners who would be released in exchange for each hostage. But the pressure is certainly growing.” Two resolutions at the UN and three motions and amendments in the UK parliament this week help make sense of the nature, and limits, of that pressure.The Algerian resolution | ‘Immediate humanitarian ceasefire’Algeria, the only Arab state currently on the UN security council, brought a resolution forward calling for a ceasefire to begin immediately – and endorsing the provisional orders issued by the international court of justice obliging Israel to take action to prevent genocide.13 security council members supported the resolution – but the UK abstained, and the US used its veto. Washington claimed that the Algerian text risked disrupting negotiations aimed at agreeing a hostage release deal in Cairo – although, as Patrick pointed out: “The Arab Group [including Egypt and Qatar] at the UN has made it very clear that they don’t agree with that.” Others suggest that the US, although now more distant from Israel, is simply not willing to back a resolution demanding it agree to an immediate ceasefire.“The Algerians did initially hope that they could win US support for this,” he said. “They were willing to make changes to try to accommodate the Americans. But at the weekend they decided they weren’t going to get that support, so they went ahead without them.”The US resolution | ‘A temporary ceasefire’ beginning ‘as soon as practicable’If the inevitability of the veto might make Algeria’s resolution appear pointless, the fruits of its efforts are not in the vote itself, but in another resolution which will likely be voted on later this week – brought forward by the US in response.Washington has now used its security council veto three times to protect Israel, Patrick noted: “They needed to show that they have some sort of solution to the impasse, not simply putting their hands up and saying ‘No’.”The language is sharp on the prospect of an attack in Rafah, which is said to hold “serious implications for regional peace and security”. The use of the word “ceasefire” in a US resolution for the first time also feels significant, Patrick added: “It’s a shot across Israel’s bows. They’re saying, you mustn’t start a ground offensive, and you must start to let aid in more substantially.”At the same time, he noted, “it’s important not to be bamboozled by the use of that word”. Probably more important is the phrase “as soon as practicable” – which would appear to give Israel total latitude over timing and terms. “It isn’t a demand for a ceasefire now, it’s a proposal for a ceasefire in the future,” Patrick said. “So it does put some sort of pressure on Netanyahu, but a lot less than, for example, stopping sending arms would do.”The SNP motion | ‘An immediate ceasefire’Opposition day motions in the UK House of Commons are non-binding, and obviously far less consequential than security council resolutions. But they do suggest that the centre of gravity on the issue in UK politics might be shifting – a little.The Scottish National party put forward a motion calling for an immediate ceasefire in November; their new motion today is substantively very similar. Although it calls for the release of all hostages taken by Hamas, it does not say that should be a prerequisite: “It calls for an immediate ceasefire without saying that there are any conditions attached,” Patrick said.Labour has been worried that a number of its MPs would break ranks to support the SNP motion, not least because it is substantively so close to what many of them have been saying already. That is part of why it finally came up with its own amendment yesterday.The Labour amendment | ‘An immediate stop to the fighting and a ceasefire that lasts and is observed by all sides’“I don’t think they would have tabled this now but for the SNP putting its own motion forward,” Patrick said. “They can point to external events, like the level of bombardment in Gaza – but ultimately this is the result of knowing that they were facing another very sizeable rebellion.”For more detail on the Labour text, see this analysis from Kiran Stacey. “The amendment is very long, but it does show that they’ve moved – for instance, it says: ‘Israelis have the right to the assurance that the horror of 7 October cannot happen again.’ Previously, they’ve said that Hamas can’t be left in a military position to mount such a strike again – so it seems to back away from that idea.”It is also the first time Labour has called for an “immediate” ceasefire. Nonetheless, it is much less straightforward than the SNP text: the left-wing campaign group Momentum says that “by making its call for a ceasefire so conditional and caveated, the Labour leadership is giving cover for Israel’s brutal war to continue”.Labour’s slowness to respond to growing public pressure, particularly among its own voters, on Gaza is because “they’re trying to stay as close to the UK government position as possible, and to the US”, Patrick said. “They would view it as politically risky to be too far from either.”But Labour’s manoeuvres have not headed off the risk of rebellion. While officials believed yesterday that they had persuaded potential rebels to support their motion over the SNP’s, the government later published its own amendment – and it is not yet clear whether that text or Labour’s will be put to a vote today. If Labour’s amendment is not on the table, dozens of MPs could yet rebel and back the SNP.The UK government amendment | ‘Negotiations to agree a … pause’For a long time, the British government (and Labour) position appeared defined by the term “sustainable ceasefire”. “That became a code, really, for saying that there’s no need for Israel to commit to anything until Hamas was obliterated,” Patrick said. “You hear that much less now. Foreign Office officials now say that the idea Hamas can be militarily destroyed is for the birds.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionNonetheless, the government repeats that language in its proposed amendment to the SNP motion. It endorses only “negotiations to agree an immediate humanitarian pause” and then “moves towards a permanent sustainable ceasefire” – and says that getting there will require the release of all hostages, and “Hamas to be unable to launch further attacks and no longer in charge in Gaza”. That ultimately still accepts that a decision about timing is in Israel’s power – which is why so many Labour MPs will struggle to back it.Do all of these triangulations, whether at the UN or in Westminster, really matter? “I doubt if you’re in Gaza you’re waiting with bated breath to hear what the Labour or SNP motions say,” Patrick said. “And even though Netanyahu’s not popular, the Israel public still doesn’t support a ceasefire. But diplomatic movements like these have brought accumulating pressure to bear on Israel, and placed limits on where they can go.”What else we’ve been readingView image in fullscreen
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      SportView image in fullscreenFootball | Erling Haaland (above) netted Manchester City’s only goal in a 1-0 victory over Brentford that lifted them into second place in the Premier League table, just one point behind leaders Liverpool. In the Champions League, Luuk de Jong rescued a PSV draw 1-1 against Borussia Dortmund, while a late goal from substitute Marko Arnautovic gave Inter Milan a 1-0 home victory against Atlético Madrid.Tennis | Andy Murray took his first step out of the worst slump of his career as he outplayed France’s Alexandre Müller for much of their battle before holding his nerve at the close to reach the second round of the Qatar Open with a confidence-boosting 6-1, 7-6 (5) victory. Murray entered the court in Doha on a six-match losing streak.Athletics | Radical proposals that could see foul jumps eliminated from the long jump have been criticised as an “April Fools’ joke” by four-time Olympic ­champion Carl Lewis. With around a third of all jumps disqualified at last year’s world championships, World Athletics is to trial a new “take-off zone” instead of the usual fixed wooden board.The front pagesView image in fullscreen“Labour leader faces threat of revolt over Gaza despite call for ceasefire” says our Guardian print edition splash this morning. “William: too many have died in Gaza conflict” – that’s the Daily Mail, while the Telegraph has “William: fighting in Gaza must be brought to an end”. “Prince issues Gaza plea for permanent peace” is how the Times reports it. “‘Cam’s govt knew’” – that’s David Cameron’s government and the wrongful Post Office prosecutions, in the Metro. “Barclays to return £10bn to investors in push for new revenues and balance” is the lead in the Financial Times. “PM: completely ridiculous for illegal migrants to jump the queue” reports the Daily Express. “Putin’s Brit targets” – the Daily Mirror touts as an exclusive its page one story about claims the Russian ruler is putting together a hitlist.Today in FocusView image in fullscreenWhy the NHS needs Martha’s ruleFollowing a campaign by her family in memory of Martha Mills, the NHS is introducing Martha’s rule giving hospital patients in England access to a rapid review from a separate medical team if they are concerned with the care they are receivingCartoon of the day | Ben JenningsView image in fullscreenThe UpsideA bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all badView image in fullscreenFor decades the role of Black Americans in space exploration was diminished and ignored. A new National Geographic documentary seeks to redress this erasure by chronicling the stories of African American pioneers in engineering, science and aviation, who battled violent systemic racism in society while trying to climb the ranks of an industry that was hell bent on keeping them out.Ed Dwight, a pilot who very nearly became the first Black American in space, is featured as a “golden thread” in The Space Race. Dwight, who grew up on a farm in the 1930s, knew he wanted to fly and, against the odds, went on to have a successful career in the US air force. With President John F Kennedy’s recommendation, he was invited to train to be an astronaut at Chuck Yeager’s test pilot programme at an air force base in California. Kennedy called Dwight’s parents to congratulate them and he featured on the covers of Black publications such as Jet. Though Dwight (pictured above in 1954) was not ultimately allowed to go into space, he was considered a hero by many. After retiring, Dwight became a sculptor. His contributions to space exploration were eventually recognised when Nasa named an asteroid after him, describing him as a “space pioneer” who paved the way for Black astronauts that followed.Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every SundayBored at work?And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day – with plenty more on the Guardian’s Puzzles app for iOS and Android. Until tomorrow.
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