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      Hamas negotiators under pressure to produce list of hostages to be released

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      Egyptian and Qatari officials are putting pressure on Hamas negotiators in Cairo to produce a list of hostages to be released as the first step in a phased ceasefire agreement with Israel, according to officials familiar with the talks.Israel has not sent a delegation to the second day of talks in Cairo, demanding that Hamas present a list of 40 elderly, sick and female hostages who would be the first to be released as part of a truce that would initially last six weeks, beginning with the month of Ramadan, the officials say.Hamas is meanwhile demanding that large-scale humanitarian aid should be allowed into Gaza and that Palestinians displaced from their homes in the north of the coastal strip should be allowed to return.US officials have said that Israel had “more or less” accepted the six-week ceasefire deal, which White House national security spokesperson John Kirby confirmed would involve a six-week truce and begin with the release of sick, elderly and women hostages.Diplomatic sources in Washington said it was unclear what was stopping Hamas from producing a list identifying the first 40 hostages, noting that uncertainty about lists and identities had dogged the last successful hostage negotiations in November. They suggested it could reflect problems of communication between Hamas units inside and outside Gaza, that some hostages could be held by other groups including Palestinian Islamic Jihad, or that elements of Hamas were withholding the information as a way of obstructing a deal.Washington does not believe the absence of an Israeli delegation was necessarily bad news for a ceasefire hopes, as Israeli negotiators could arrive within a couple of hours if agreement was reached on a list. Egypt and Qatar have assured Joe Biden’s administration that they were putting pressure on the Hamas representatives in Cairo to come up with the identities of the hostages involved.The US is also stepping up pressure on Israel to open new land routes, as well as new sea corridors, to allow a far greater flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza to prevent a famine that UN agencies have warned is imminent. The US vice-president, Kamala Harris, said on Sunday that Israel must “significantly increase the flow of aid”. She added there were “no excuses” for the delay.Biden used similar language in a tweet on Monday, saying: “The aid flowing into Gaza is nowhere near enough – and nowhere fast enough.” Unlike Harris, however, he did not name Israel as the responsible party.At the White House, Kirby said truck deliveries into Gaza had been slowed by opposition from some members of Israel’s cabinet.“Israel bears a responsibility here to do more,” Kirby said.View image in fullscreenIsrael meanwhile stepped up its allegations against the UN relief agency for Palestinians (Unrwa), saying that Unrwa in Gaza had employed over 450 “military operatives” from Hamas and other armed groups, and that Israel had shared this intelligence with the UN.“Over 450 Unrwa employees are military operatives in terror groups in Gaza,” Israeli military spokesperson R Adm Daniel Hagari said on Monday evening. “This is no mere coincidence. This is systematic.”“We sent the information that I am sharing now, as well as further intelligence, to our international partners, including the UN,” he said.A preliminary report by the UN office of internal oversight services (OIOS) into alleged Unrwa-Hamas links delivered to the secretary-general last week, said the investigators had received no evidence from Israel since the initial allegations in January that a dozen Unrwa employees had taken part in the 7 October Hamas attack. But the OIOS said it expected to receive information from Israel shortly.Pramila Patten, the UN special envoy on sexual violence in conflict reported on Monday that there were “reasonable grounds” to believe Hamas committed rape, “sexualised torture,” and other cruel and inhumane treatment of women during the 7 October attack. In her report, Patten, who visited Israel with a nine-person team in the first half of February, added there were also “reasonable grounds to believe that such violence may be ongoing.” As the talks were under way in Cairo, a top Israeli minister, Benny Gantz, arrived in Washington for talks with Harris, the US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, and the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, to the undisguised irritation of Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu invited his longstanding political rival into a coalition government after the 7 October Hamas attack on Israel, but that has done little to improve the tense relations between the two men.US officials acknowledged that Gantz’s meetings in Washington, enhancing his own status as a would-be prime minister, was likely to inflame those tensions further. Netanyahu has yet to be invited to the White House since he returned to office at the end of 2022, at the head of the most rightwing coalition in Israeli history.Gantz is said to have asked for the visit to Washington, rather than having been invited, but US officials said they welcomed an opportunity to talk to a member of the five-man Israeli war cabinet.“We’re going to discuss a number of things in terms of the priorities that, certainly, we have, which includes getting a hostage deal done, getting aid in, and then getting that six-week ceasefire,” Harris told reporters before meeting Gantz.The Biden administration is pushing for more crossing points into Gaza to be opened for humanitarian relief, especially Erez in the north. US officials say that a sea route would take at least a week to arrange, if at all, so opening Erez and other access points to the north is seen by aid organisations as an urgent priority.“The disparity in conditions in the north and south [of Gaza] is clear evidence that aid restrictions in the north are costing lives,” warned Adele Khodr, the regional director of the UN children’s relief organisation, Unicef. Unicef says 16% of children in the north are acutely malnourished, compared with 5% in the south of the strip.The White House is seeking to help resolve rifts within the Israeli coalition, suggesting Netanyahu should seek a compromise over his coalition’s bitterly contested judicial overhaul, introduced early last year. After unprecedented street protests over the measures, in which demonstrators said they feared for Israel’s democratic future, the US president went even further, telling reporters in March 2023: “I hope he walks away from it.”Netanyahu has faced significant pressure to step down for nearly a decade over his ongoing trials for corruption charges, which he denies, as well as for instigating the judicial overhaul, which has been suspended since the outbreak of war.It is widely believed in Israel that Netanyahu is slow-walking ceasefire talks, as well as talking up threats of an Israeli offensive on Rafah and Lebanon, because he believes he stands a better chance of beating the charges if he remains in office, and elections are unlikely while Israel is still at war.Earlier this year, Israel’s centrist opposition leader, Yair Lapid, met the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, in Berlin, and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, in Paris.Polling suggests Netanyahu’s coalition of far-right and religious parties would incur massive losses if an election was held now, and centrist and leftwing Israeli parties are looking for ways to force an early contest. Gantz’s party is currently likely to win the most votes.Lapid said in a post on X after last week’s local elections that the successful contests showed that holding national elections during the war would pose “no problem”. More

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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