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      The US won’t run for another term on UN human rights council. Israel is likely why | Kenneth Roth

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      Something unusual happened this week at the UN: the US government decided not to run for a second term on the human rights council. Taking a year off is mandatory after a country serves two three-year terms, but the Biden administration chose to bow out after a single term. That is extremely unusual. What happened?Various rationales are circulating, but one, in my view, looms large: Israel. Or more to the point, Joe Biden’s refusal to suspend or condition the massive US arms sales and military aid to Israel as its military bombs and starves the Palestinian civilians of Gaza.The election for the 47-member human rights council in Geneva is conducted by the 193-member UN general assembly in New York. The balloting would have provided a rare opportunity for the world’s governments to vote on US complicity in Israeli war crimes. The US could have lost. The Biden administration seems to have calculated that it was better to withdraw voluntarily than to face the prospect of such a shameful repudiation.To understand that rationale, one must understand the dynamics of the human rights council election. The council was created in 2006 to replace the old UN commission on human rights. The commission had become a collection of repressive governments that joined it, not to advance human rights but to undermine them. They routinely voted to protect themselves and their ilk.The new council introduced a device that was supposed to avoid that travesty – competitive elections. Rather than the backroom deals that had populated the old commission with the dictators and tyrants of the world, the UN’s five regional groups would each propose slates of candidates on which the full UN membership would vote. The idea was that highly abusive governments could be rejected.View image in fullscreenFor the first few years, it worked. Each year, Human Rights Watch and its allies would single out the most inappropriate candidate for the council, and each year they would either withdraw their candidacy (Syria, Iraq) or lose (Belarus, Azerbaijan, Sri Lanka). Even Russia was defeated, in 2016, as its aircraft were bombing Syrian civilians in eastern Aleppo. It lost again in 2023 as it was pummeling Ukrainian civilians.It worked this year as well, when the general assembly for the second time rejected Saudi Arabia, given its murder of hundreds of Ethiopian migrants trying to enter from Yemen, its not-so-distant bombing of Yemeni civilians, its repression of dissidents including women’s rights activists and its brazen murder of Jamal Khashoggi.But to avoid that embarrassment, the regional groups began gaming the system. Many started to propose the same number of candidates as openings, effectively depriving the General Assembly of a choice. That’s how the likes of Burundi, Eritrea and Sudan hold council seats. Sometimes there were still competitive slates – Saudi Arabia lost this year because there were six governments seeking five seats for the Asia-Pacific region – but uncompetitive slates have become the norm.Even the western group, despite its ostensible support for an effective council, usually offers uncompetitive slates. The explanation typically offered is that western governments don’t want to bother with the need to lobby the 193 members of the general assembly for support. But that left western governments in no position to press other regions to present competitive slates. The council suffered for their diplomatic laziness.This year, something seems to have gone wrong with this cozy if detrimental practice. In the election this week, the western group had three seats to fill. Iceland, Spain and Switzerland had all put their hats in the ring, and the United States was expected to seek renewal of its term that was coming to an end. Three years ago, when a similar possibility emerged of four western candidates for three positions, Washington persuaded Italy to withdraw, allowing it to run unopposed.But this year, by all appearances, none of the other three Western candidates were eager to abandon their quest. That could have reflected the possibility that Donald Trump would win the US presidential election next month. In 2018, he notoriously relinquished the US seat on the council to protest its criticism of Israel. Iceland, Spain and Switzerland must have wondered: why defer to the US candidacy if Trump may soon nullify?View image in fullscreenThe Biden administration could have run anyway. After all, why not let the nations of the world choose the best three of the four candidates, as was originally supposed to happen? Instead, it bowed out. Yes, maybe it was just being nice – to Iceland, which assumed its seat when Trump abandoned it; to Switzerland, the host of the council; but to Spain? The Spanish government is one of Europe’s most vocal defenders of Palestinian rights. And Washington is ordinarily not reluctant to throw its weight around on behalf of Israel.It is rare that the UN general assembly has the chance to vote on the US government’s conduct. A competitive vote for the UN human rights council would have provided such an opportunity. Given widespread outrage at Israeli war crimes in Gaza – and at Biden’s refusal to use the enormous leverage of US arms sales and military aid to stop it – that vote could easily have resulted in an overwhelming repudiation of the Biden administration. Rather than face the possibility of a humiliating reprimand, the US government withdrew its candidacy.These events show again how devastating Biden’s support for Israel has been for the cause of human rights. By virtue of its diplomatic and economic power, the US government can be an important force for human rights. Other than on Israel, its presence on the council has generally helped the defense of human rights.But US credibility, already compromised by Washington’s close alliances with the repressive likes of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, has been profoundly undermined by Biden’s aiding and abetting of Israeli war crimes in Gaza. With Biden seemingly constitutionally unable to change, the defense of human rights is taking a hit.That doesn’t mean an end to that defense. The human rights council functioned well despite Trump’s withdrawal. Without the baggage of Washington’s ideological animosity, Latin American democracies led a successful effort to condemn Venezuela. Tiny Iceland secured condemnation of the mass summary executions spawned by the “drug war” of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte, whom Trump had embraced.But it is a sad state of affairs when, rather than join the frontline defense of human rights at a time of severe threat – in Russia, Ukraine, China, Sudan, Myanmar, Afghanistan, Iran and elsewhere – the Biden administration has gone sulking from Geneva back to Washington. It says it won’t run again for the council until 2028.

      Kenneth Roth was executive director of Human Rights Watch from 1993 to 2022. He is now a visiting professor at Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs More

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      Hurricanes, the Middle East, and Covid-19 tests to Putin – podcast

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      It’s less than a month before the US presidential election. Donald Trump is pushing conspiracy theories over the federal response to hurricanes battering several states, and denying he gave Covid-19 test machines to Vladimir Putin during the pandemic. Joe Biden is in talks with Benjamin Netanyahu over growing tension in the Middle East. Kamala Harris rattled through a media blitz, with some criticising her campaign strategy. And Melania Trump has written about being pro-abortion and pro-immigration in her new memoir.
      Jonathan Freedland and the veteran political strategist David Axelrod discuss what all of this means for the election

      How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know More

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      Trump marks 7 October anniversary and criticizes ‘weak’ Biden and Harris

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      Donald Trump marked the first anniversary of the 7 October Hamas terrorist attacks, which he called “one of the darkest days in all of history”, with a commemoration for victims and hostages at his golf resort in Miami on Monday night, but swiftly turned the event into an attack on Kamala Harris.He also repeated a previous claim that the attack on Israel would never have happened if he was still in the White House.Blaming Harris and Joe Biden for the “weakness” he said gave Hamas the confidence to launch the attack, the Republican presidential nominee told a crowd of about 300 supporters, mostly from the Jewish community, that a wave of anti-Israel sentiment which he said was sweeping the US, and wider world, could be blamed on their administration.“Almost as shocking as 7 October itself is the outbreak of antisemitism that we have all seen in its wake,” he said.“The anti-Jewish hatred has returned … and within the ranks of the Democratic party in particular. The Republican party has not been infected by this horrible disease, and won’t be as long as I’m in charge.”The attacks, which left 1,200 people dead and an additional 250 taken hostage by Hamas, provided “a moment in horrible history”, he said.“It seemed as if the gates of hell had sprung open and unleashed their horrors unto the world. We never thought we’d see it … and a lot of that has to do with leadership of this country.”After claiming the attacks would not have taken place had he been elected to a second term, Trump said he would restore the closeness with Israel he insisted the US had lost, despite Biden and Harris both expressing support for the country’s right to defend itself.“If, and when, they say, when I’m president, the US will once again be stronger and closer [to Israel] than it ever was. But we have to win the election,” he said.“What is needed is more than ever unwavering American leadership. The dawn of new, more harmonious Middle East is finally within our reach. I will not allow the Jewish state to be threatened with destruction. I will not allow another Holocaust of the Jewish people. I will not allow a jihad to be waged on America or our allies, and I will support Israel’s right to win its war.”Trump’s fire and brimstone delivery was at odds with remarks earlier in the day from Harris, his Democratic opponent in November, who paid tribute to those who lost their lives, but also spoke of ensuring Israel had what it needed to defend itself.Biden expressed sorrow for suffering on all sides of the conflict in the Middle East, and in a statement condemned a “vicious surge in antisemitism in America” since the attacks.Trump’s address began more than two hours later than billed. He joked about a bumpy flight from New York, and his concern for Florida from Hurricane Milton, a category 5 storm predicted to slam into the state on Wednesday.His supporters, some wearing yarmulkes with the former president’s name embroidered on them, cheered as he took the stage of the ballroom at Trump National in Doral.He spoke against a backdrop of six American and Israeli flags, and images of the almost 1,200 victims, including 46 Americans, killed by Hamas one year ago. A succession of speakers and guests, including two Holocaust survivors, Jewish religious leaders and Republican politicians, lit remembrance candles as they took the stage.Along one wall, rows of candles sat in front of photographs of the dozens of people taken hostage. Each name was marked by the word “kidnapped” in capital letters.View image in fullscreenTrump has presented himself as Israel’s strongest, most outspoken defender, but has also drawn criticism for his previous comments. A year ago, in the days following the terrorist attack on the Nova music festival, he called Hezbollah, the Lebanese group closely allied to Hamas, “very smart”, and Israel’s defense minister Yoav Gallant “a jerk”.Speaking at an event in Florida last October, Trump said Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was not prepared, and that Israel’s enemies were “smart, and, boy, are they vicious”.The White House condemned his comments as “dangerous and unhinged”.Trump also raised eyebrows last month when he claimed he was “the most popular person in Israel”, and bemoaned a lack of support from Jewish voters after polls showed him below 40% with them.Insisting he had been “the best president by far” for Israel, he said: “Based on what I did … I should be at 100%.” Trump did not repeat the boast on Monday.Some supporters in the audience in Miami were pleased to hear Trump speaking forcefully in defense of Israel.“Kamala Harris will stand for Hamas. She is no friend of Israel,” Ben Fisher, a Miami resident, said. “Donald Trump speaks the way a strong leader should. He knows if your country is attacked you cannot let that go, if it’s the attack on the festival or the missiles from Tehran.”Harris spoke earlier in the day at the vice-presidential residence, promising that if elected next month she would “always ensure that Israel has what it needs to defend itself”.Unlike Trump, she resisted the opportunity to make political remarks, focusing instead on victims by telling the story of two Americans who died, and naming each of the seven Americans taken by Hamas to Gaza, four of whom are still believed to be alive. More

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

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

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      Biden reaffirms US support for Israel amid Iran’s missile attack

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      Joe Biden has reaffirmed US support for Israel after Iran’s ballistic missile attacks, describing the barrage as “defeated and ineffective” and ordering the US military to aid Israel’s defense against any future assaults.“The attack appears to have been defeated and ineffective, and this is a testament to Israeli military capability and the US military,” the US president told reporters on Tuesday after Tehran launched an unprecedented salvo of 180 high-speed ballistic missiles.US destroyers in the eastern Mediterranean Sea destroyed several Iranian missiles, US defense officials said. Vessels currently in the region include the USS Arleigh Burke, USS Cole and USS Bulkeley. Additional destroyers are in the Red Sea.“Make no mistake, the United States is fully, fully, fully supportive of Israel,” Biden said.Initial reports suggested that Israeli air defenses intercepted many of the incoming missiles, although some landed in central and southern Israel, and at least one man was killed in the West Bank by a missile that fell near the town of Jericho.Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said that the missile attack was conducted in retaliation for Israel’s killings of the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, and Iranian Revolutionary Guard deputy commander Abbas Nilforoushan.The White House National Security Council said that Biden and Kamala Harris were monitoring the Iranian attack on Israel from the White House situation room and were receiving regular updates from their national security team.Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan hailed the response to the attack, which he described as “defeated and ineffective”.But before the missile barrage had even ended, Donald Trump, on his own social media platform, Truth Social, described the current conflict in the Middle East as “totally preventable” and claimed it would never have happened if he were president.In a lengthy statement, the former president and current Republican nominee attacked Biden and Harris, saying the world was “spiraling out of control” and asserting that the US had “no leadership” and “no one running the country”.“When I was President, Iran was in total check,” Trump added. “They were starved for cash, fully contained, and desperate to make a deal.”It remains unclear how the escalating tensions in the Middle East will play into the US election on 5 November.Iran’s attack on Israel comes just hours before the highly anticipated US vice-presidential debate on Tuesday night, 38 days from the US presidential election, and as the conflict in the Middle East appears to continue to escalate.A poll conducted by CNN shortly after the presidential debate between Harris and Trump in September found that more voters who watched the debate viewed Trump as a stronger candidate when it came to handling the role of commander in chief.Lindsey Graham, the Republican senator from South Carolina, wrote in a statement that the missile attacks against Israel on Tuesday “should be the breaking point and I would urge the Biden Administration to coordinate an overwhelming response with Israel, starting with Iran’s ability to refine oil.“These oil refineries need to be hit and hit hard because that is the source of cash for the regime to perpetrate their terror,” he added.In another statement, Graham said that he had spoken with Trump, who he described as “determined and resolved to protect Israel from the threats of terrorism emanating from Iran.“While I appreciate the Biden administration’s statement, we cannot forget that when President Trump left office, Iran was weak economically, and he sent the regime the ultimate message with the elimination of Soleimani,” Graham said.Graham continued: “The only thing the Iranian regime understands is strength. Now is the time to show unified resolve against Iran, the largest state sponsor of terrorism.“We need decisive action, not just statements,” he added.On Twitter/X, Marco Rubio, also a Republican senator, described the attack as a “large scale (not symbolic) missile attack from Iranian regime against Israel” and added that “a large scale Israeli retaliatory response inside Iran is certain to follow”.Bob Casey, a Democrat senator for Pennsylvania, wrote in response to the attacks that he stands “with Israel and unequivocally condemn Iran’s missile strikes”.“The United States must continue doing everything it can to intercept Iran’s missiles and help our ally defend itself,” Casey added.Jerry Nadler, a Democratic representative, condemned the attack in a post on X, adding that his thoughts were “with the Israeli people at this time”. More

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

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

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

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      US looks unable to talk Netanyahu out of planned invasion of Lebanon

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      The Biden administration is losing influence over whether Benjamin Netanyahu launches a ground invasion into southern Lebanon or not.For more than a year, Joe Biden and his senior advisers have managed to forestall an Israeli ground incursion into Lebanon in fear of a larger war that could envelop the entire Middle East.In the days after the 7 October attack, Biden phoned Netanyahu to talk him out of a massive retaliation against Hezbollah, which had begun firing guided rockets against Israeli positions following the Hamas raid.In April this year, Biden also told Netanyahu that the US would not support Israel in an offensive war against Iran after Tehran launched dozens of loitering munitions, cruise missiles and drones toward Israel.But on Monday, US outlets reported that Netanyahu’s administration had told White House officials they were planning a limited ground incursion into Lebanon, essentially escalating a conflict with Hezbollah and its backer Iran to a level that Biden and his team have tried desperately to avoid.The Washington Post reported that Israel was planning a limited campaign – smaller than its 2006 war against Hezbollah – that nonetheless would mark a drastic escalation with Hezbollah and Iran. The New York Times suggested US officials believed they had talked Israel out of a full invasion of Lebanon, but that smaller incursions into southern Lebanon would continue.But Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defence minister, has briefed a meeting of local council heads in northern Israel on Monday, according to the Times of Israel. “The next stage in the war against Hezbollah will begin soon … We will do this. And as I said here a month ago [that] we will shift the center of gravity [to the north], this is what I say now: we will change the situation and return the residents home.”Earlier that day, he had told Israel Defense Forces soldiers that to return some 60,000 Israelis to their homes in the country’s north, we “will use all the means that may be required – your forces, other forces, from the air, from the sea, and on land”.The plan to attack comes at a unique moment – with war hawks dominating domestic Israeli politics at the same time as a lame duck Biden administration appears increasingly unable or unwilling to intervene in the conflict. And, according to analysts, Netanyahu believes he has a limited window around the US elections to attack Iranian proxies across the region.With just a month left until the US presidential elections, the Biden administration has launched a tepid effort at a ceasefire that Netanyahu appears to have chosen to ignore – or simply to wait out until US elections that could bring in a Trump administration that would do even less to restrain him than the current one has.“Netanyahu made a calculation, and the calculation was that there was no way that the Democrats between now and November 5th [election day] could do anything that would criticise, let alone restrain him from that,” said Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who focuses on US foreign policy and the Middle East.“You saw [vice-president Kamala] Harris’s statement, you saw the White House statement, you saw the Democrat and Republican consensus on the killing of Nasrallah and what the Israelis have done there,” he said. “And since Iran is involved in this, unlike in Gaza, the toxicity of animus against Iran in this town is so intense that the Republican party, which is now the ‘Israel can do no wrong’ party, is just winging for the administration.”Until recently, prominent US officials have thought they still had a chance to conclude a ceasefire and prevent the war from escalating further. Last week, US and French officials along with dozens of other countries called for a ceasefire in Lebanon. US officials briefed on the matter said they believed the “time was right” and that Israel would sign up.A western official last week told the Guardian that the Israeli threat to invade northern Lebanon was probably “psyops” largely designed to force Hezbollah and Iran to the negotiating table.But, at the same time, the official said, the situation in the region was extremely volatile, and could be upset by as little as a single drone strike against a sensitive target.One day later, a massive airstrike launched by the Israeli air force killed the Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, upending security calculations in the region and potentially emboldening Israeli officials to believe they could fundamentally change the security dynamics in the region.“I understand, and happen to be very understanding of the administration position, because I spent almost 30 years inside knowing full the constraints of how to get anything done in this region, which is very hard,” Miller said. “But the notion that a US-French proposal for a three-week ceasefire in the middle of all this could work, I mean, it was, it was simply not well thought out.” More

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      Elon Musk has gained a concerning level of power over US national security | Robert Reich

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      Shortly after the apparent second assassination attempt against Donald Trump, Elon Musk wrote in a now deleted post on X, formerly known as Twitter: “And no one is even trying to assassinate Biden/Kamala,” with an emoji of a person thinking.Musk later said his post was intended as a joke. But it could be interpreted as a call to murder Joe Biden and Kamala Harris – at least by one of Musk’s almost 200 million followers – which is presumably why the Secret Service is investigating it.Under 18 US Code Section 871, threatening a president or vice-president or inciting someone to harm them is a felony that can result in a large fine and up to five years in prison.Yet even as Musk posted a potential death threat against the sitting commander-in-chief, his multiple defense contracts with the US government have given him access to highly sensitive national security information.Musk has reportedly gained national security clearance notwithstanding his admitted use of drugs, not necessarily illegally: the tech billionaire, who says he has submitted to random drug testing at the request of the government, has smoked weed in public and also uses ketamine (for which he claims to have a prescription).Apart from the drugs, when was the last time the US government gave access to sensitive national security information to someone who posted a potential death threat against the president and vice-president?Underlying this is a broader question: when in history has one unelected individual held such sway over US national security?Musk’s SpaceX has nearly total control of the world’s satellite internet through its Starlink unit. With little regulation or oversight, Musk has already put more than 4,500 Starlink satellites into orbit around the globe, accounting for more than half of all active satellites. He plans to have as many as 42,000 satellites in orbit in the coming years.SpaceX and its Starlink system have become strategically critical to the American military. Starlink is providing connectivity to the US navy. The US space force signed a $70m contract with SpaceX late last year for military-grade low-Earth-orbit satellite capabilities. According to Reuters, the National Reconnaissance Office, which oversees US spy satellites, has a $1.8bn contract with SpaceX.This gives Musk, the richest person in the world, remarkable power. Single-handedly, he can decide to shut down a country’s access to Starlink and the internet. He also can also gain access to sensitive information gathered by Starlink. “Between, Tesla, Starlink & Twitter, I may have more real-time global economic data in one head than anyone ever,” Musk tweeted in April 2023.Meanwhile, Nasa has increasingly outsourced spaceflight projects to SpaceX, including billions in contracts for multiple moon trips and $843m to build a vehicle that will take the International Space Station out of commission.Conflicts of interest between Musk’s ventures around the world and US national security abound, and they are multiplying.When Vladimir Putin attacked Ukraine, Musk and SpaceX’s Starlink provided Ukraine with internet access, enabling the country to plan attacks and defend itself. (This was not a charitable move by Musk; most of the 20,000 terminals in the country were funded by outside sources such as the US government and those of the United Kingdom and Poland).But in the fall of 2022, when Ukraine entered territory contested by Russia, Musk and SpaceX abruptly severed the connectivity. Musk explained at the time: “Starlink was barred from turning on satellite beams in Crimea at the time, because doing so would violate US sanctions against Russia!”But who was Musk to decide what actions would or would not violate US sanctions?skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn fact, it seems as if Musk was trying to push Ukraine to agree to Russia’s terms for ending the war.At a conference in Aspen attended by business and political figures, he appeared to support Putin. “He was onstage, and he said: ‘We should be negotiating. Putin wants peace – we should be negotiating peace with Putin,’” Reid Hoffman, the co-founder and executive chairman of LinkedIn, recalled. Musk seemed to have “bought what Putin was selling, hook, line, and sinker”.Soon thereafter, Musk tweeted a proposal for his own peace plan, calling for referendums to redraw the borders of Ukraine and grant Russia control of Crimea. In subsequent tweets, Musk portrayed a Russian victory as virtually inevitable, and attached maps highlighting eastern Ukrainian territories, some of which, he argued, “prefer Russia”.US foreign policy experts also worry about the conflicts of interest posed by Musk’s acquisition of Twitter (now X), given his business relationships and communications with the Chinese government. China has used X for disinformation campaigns.Some are concerned that China may have leverage over Musk due to his giant Tesla factory in Shanghai, which accounts for over half of Tesla’s global deliveries and the bulk of its profits, and the battery factory he’s building there. “Elon Musk has deep financial exposure to China,” warned Mark Warner, US senator from Virginia, who chairs the Senate intelligence committee.Most of these concerns, by the way, came before Musk reactivated the accounts of conspiracy theorists and white nationalists on X and began pushing his own rightwing narrative on the platform, and before he announced his support for Trump in the upcoming election and posted a potential incitement to assassinate Biden and Harris.Elon Musk poses a clear and present danger to American national security. The sooner the US government revokes his security clearance, terminates its contracts with him and the entities he controls, and builds its own alternatives to Starlink and SpaceX, the safer America will be.

      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy at the University of California Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His newest book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com More