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    Rightwing settlers in Israel welcome ‘dream team’ of Trump and his hardline appointments

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    Rightwing settlers and extremist nationalist Zionists in Israel have described top officials in Donald Trump’s new administration as a “dream team” which will offer a “unique and special opportunity” to expand Israel’s hold on occupied territory and permanently end any prospect of a Palestinian state.Palestinian groups and leftwing NGOs in Israel have been shocked by Trump’s appointment of outspoken supporters of the projects of far-right Israeli activists and say the government of Benjamin Netanyahu has been emboldened by Trump’s victory.“The series of appointments announced by US president-elect Donald Trump should worry everyone who cares about Israel’s future,” an editorial in the leftwing newspaper Haaretz warned.Since the US election, authorities have pushed ahead with demolishing Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, which were occupied in 1967.Last week, Palestinian residents of al-Bustan in East Jerusalem were sifting through debris caused by the recent demolition of nine houses by municipal authorities after an Israeli court ruled their construction illegal.Fakhri Abu Diab, a veteran activist who for years has led resistance to efforts to demolish the homes of Palestinian families in al-Bustan, said bulldozers had returned on the day of the US elections to destroy the part of his house left standing by municipal demolition teams earlier this year.Abu Diab, 62, said 40 people, including children, had been left homeless and that 115 homes were now threatened.“Israel has wanted to demolish here for 20 years and are now seizing the opportunity. This is just a way to punish us and make us leave. I am here, where my parents and grandparents were, and will stay here,” Abu Diab said. His wife, Amina, said that with Trump in power there was “nothing to restrain Israel”.The Jerusalem municipality said the buildings were located on land designated as an open public area.The Israeli rights group Ir Amim argued that the true aim of the demolitions was to connect Israeli settler pockets implanted in Palestinian ­neighbourhoods to west Jerusalem and said local authorities had been emboldened by Trump’s win. The demolitions in al-Bustan “could serve as a portent of what is to come”, Ir Amim said.Also last week, a Bedouin village in the Negev desert was demolished to make way for a new Orthodox Jewish community on the orders of Itamar Ben Gvir, the far-right national security minister, and 25 Palestinian structures in the West Bank were knocked down, according to the UN.Trump’s picks have surprised even hardliners. The nominee for secretary of state, Republican senator Marco Rubio, has said he opposes a ceasefire in Gaza and believes Israel should destroy “every element” of Hamas, whom he described as “vicious animals”, while Elise Stefanik, proposed as ambassador to the United Nations, has called the UN a “cesspool of antisemitism” for its condemnation of deaths in Gaza.The new US ambassador to Israel is set to be Mike Huckabee, an evangelical Christian who backs the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and has called a two-state solution in Palestine “unworkable”. During a visit to Israel in 2017, Huckabee said: “There is no such thing as a West Bank. There’s no such thing as a settlement – they are communities, they’re neighbourhoods, they’re cities. There’s no such thing as an occupation.”Pete Hegseth, the likely defence secretary, is another evangelical Christian who has tattoos of Christian symbols and slogans often associated with the Crusades and the far right.“Israel could never have asked for anything more than this,” said Daniel Luria, a director who speaks for Ateret Cohanim – an NGO which describes its aims as reclaiming and rebuilding a united Jerusalem for the Jewish people, and is behind a number of controversial projects in the city, including the eviction of Palestinian families from their homes to make way for Jewish families or religious students.“There’s no such thing as an Arab country on the land of Israel. The fact that there’s been many attempts over the years to do something different is irrelevant,” Luria said. “So we’ve got a very unique situation now … to really have literally a new Middle East, and readjust everything.”Some rightwing radicals have compared Trump to the Persian king Cyrus the Great, who conquered Babylon in 539BC, allowing exiled Jews to return to Jerusalem.Pro-settler parties hold key posts in Israel’s coalition government, the most rightwing the country has known. Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister and an outspoken advocate of expanded settlements, last week said that 2025 would be “the year of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria”, referring to the West Bank in the biblical terms used by rightwing Israelis and their US supporters, and signalling a hope of annexing the occupied territories.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionExpansion of Jewish settlements on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem has surged throughout the war that followed the Hamas attacks into Israel on 7 October, which killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians. More than 43,000 have died in Israel’s offensive in Gaza, also mostly civilians.Several Israeli ministers, including Smotrich, were present at a conference last month which called for the return of Jewish settlements in Gaza.View image in fullscreenHuckabee, who has refused to use any terms other than Judea and Samaria to describe the West Bank, is an enthusiastic supporter of the City of David Foundation, a government-funded archeological park in a Palestinian neighbourhood in Jerusalem. It is run by Elad, an Israeli settler group accused of displacing Palestinian families from Jerusalem by buying Palestinian houses and using controversial laws that let the state take over Palestinian property.An EU report in 2018 said Elad’s projects in parts of East Jerusalem were being used “as a political tool to modify the historical narrative and to support, legitimise and expand settlements”.The foundation refused to discuss the projects’ support from the Israeli government and overseas.Last week, tourists sat under the olive trees and heard lectures at the City of David information centre, just outside Jerusalem’s Old City walls.Jack Holford, a 62-year-old retired software engineer visiting Jerusalem with his wife, Debbie, said: “We believe that … God has a plan for Israel and that God said they own the land. We consider ourselves believers and we are part of God’s plan revealed through Israel for the whole world. There are Arabs, Palestinians and Jews and they are all Israelis.”Trump’s first term saw unprecedented steps to support Israel’s territorial claims, including recognising Jerusalem as its capital and moving the US embassy there, and recognising Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights.Pro-settlement activists believe Trump’s picks mean the new administration will go much further.“They’ve spoken about Jews having the right to live everywhere, that it’s impossible to divide [Jerusalem] into two, that you can’t allow hatred and evil on your back doorstep and terror … and that comes from a biblical background … Just like I see King David and Abraham, they see them also,” Luria said. More

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      Elizabeth Warren denounces Biden administration over Gaza humanitarian situation

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      Elizabeth Warren, a leading progressive voice in the US Senate, has denounced the Biden administration’s failure to punish Israel over the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza and endorsed a joint resolution of disapproval in Congress.The amount of aid reaching the territory has dropped to the lowest level in 11 months, official Israeli figures show. The White House last month gave Israel an ultimatum of 30 days to improve conditions or risk losing military support. As the deadline expired on Tuesday, international aid groups said Israel had fallen far short.But the US state department announced it would not take any punitive action, insisting that Israel was making limited progress and was not blocking aid and therefore not violating US law. Warren condemned the Biden administration’s decision to continue supplying arms to its ally.“On October 13, the Biden administration told Prime Minister Netanyahu that his government had 30 days to increase humanitarian aid into Gaza or face the consequences under US law, which would include cutting off military assistance,” the Massachusetts senator said in a statement shared with the Guardian.“Thirty days later, the Biden administration acknowledged that Israel’s actions had not significantly expanded food, water and basic necessities for desperate Palestinian civilians. Despite Netanyahu’s failure to meet the United States’ demands, the Biden administration has taken no action to restrict the flow of offensive weapons.”For the first time on the issue, Warren threw her weight behind a joint resolution of disapproval, a legislative tool that enables Congress to overturn actions taken by the executive branch. Such a resolution must pass both the House of Representatives and the Senate.She added: “The failure by the Biden administration to follow US law and to suspend arms shipments is a grave mistake that undermines American credibility worldwide. If this administration will not act, Congress must step up to enforce US law and hold the Netanyahu government accountable through a joint resolution of disapproval.”Eight international aid groups have said that Israel failed to meet the US demands to improve access for assistance, while food security experts have said it is likely that famine is imminent in parts of Gaza.Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, told reporters on Wednesday that Israel had taken some steps to improve aid but they needed to be sustained to take effect. He called on Israel to rescind evacuation orders to allow those displaced by its operations to return home and to resume commercial trucking deliveries into Gaza.Biden has backed Israel since Hamas-led gunmen attacked the country in October 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking 250 hostages. Since then, more than 43,500 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have been killed in Gaza, with 2 million displaced people and much of the strip reduced to rubble.The president, whose term ends in January and who will be replaced by his predecessor Donald Trump, is facing growing dissent from Democrats over his handling of the war. Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland told Zeteo this week: “President Biden’s inaction, given the suffering in Gaza, is shameful. I mean, there’s no other word for it.”Bernie Sanders, an independent senator for Vermont, announced that next week he will bring joint resolutions of disapproval that would block the sale of certain weapons to Israel. “There is no longer any doubt that Netanyahu’s extremist government is in clear violation of US and international law as it wages a barbaric war against the Palestinian people in Gaza,” he said.And on Thursday, 15 members of the Senate and 69 members of the House announced efforts to press the Biden administration to hold members of the Netanyahu government – specifically, the finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, and the national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir – and others accountable for the rise in settler violence, settlement expansion and destabilising activity in the West Bank. More

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      Israeli Raids in West Bank Kill 4, Palestinians Say

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      The raids suggested that the Israeli military was continuing to target armed fighters in the occupied territory, even as it conducts major operations in Gaza and Lebanon.The Israeli military raided Palestinian villages in the northern part of the West Bank early Tuesday, setting off clashes with militants. Four Palestinians were killed, according to Palestinian health authorities.It was not clear whether the dead included militants or civilians and Palestinian authorities do not differentiate in their death tolls. But the Israeli military said it had engaged in firefights during the raids that killed militants in the village of Tamoun and that its aircraft had carried out strikes there and near the city of Jenin.The armed wing of Islamic Jihad, an Iranian-backed militant group, said fighters in villages south of Jenin were firing bullets at Israeli forces and detonating explosive devices.The raids in the Israeli-occupied West Bank suggested that Israel’s military was continuing to target armed fighters in the northern West Bank even as it conducts major operations in Gaza and Lebanon and braces for the possibility of a wider conflict with Iran.Israel has been ramping up a crackdown in the occupied territory that began before the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks, with authorities increasingly concerned about bolder and more sophisticated attacks by Palestinians. The raids have left a swath of destruction in the territory, churning up roads and leaving many civilians scared to leave their homes in what Israel’s military says is a search for explosive devices.Israeli military vehicles operating near Tubas, south of Jenin, in the West Bank on Tuesday.Alaa Badarneh/EPA, via ShutterstockSadeq Nazzal, 60, an owner of a nursery in Qabatiya, not far from Jenin, said he heard a powerful explosion on Tuesday morning and described a chaotic scene, with military vehicles moving along the main north-south highway and sounds of gunfire in the distance.“We’ve become used to this situation,” he said. “But every time it happens, it upends our lives. Workplaces and schools shut down.”During a funeral procession held in Tamoun, one of the Palestinians killed on Tuesday had been wrapped in an Islamic Jihad flag. Palestinian militant groups often drape their fallen members in flags bearing their emblems, but they will occasionally claim unaffiliated people as being among their ranks. More

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      Michigan congresswoman Rashida Tlaib declines to endorse Kamala Harris

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      Michigan congresswoman Rashida Tlaib declined to endorse Kamala Harris at a union rally in Detroit, where the war in Gaza is the top issue for the largest block of Arab American voters in the country.Tlaib, the first Palestinian American woman to serve in Congress, is the only one of the so-called leftist “Squad” that has not endorsed the Democrat candidate. The other three members – Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York – endorsed Harris in July.“Don’t underestimate the power you all have,” Tlaib told a get-out-the-vote United Auto Workers rallygoers. “More than those ads, those lawn signs, those billboards, you all have more power to turn out people that understand we’ve got to fight back against corporate greed in our country.”Tlaib’s non-endorsement of Harris comes as a voter survey published on Friday suggested that 43% of Muslim American voters support the Green party candidate, Jill Stein.After Hillary Clinton’s loss to Donald Trump in 2016, Democrats blamed Stein voters for the loss of Michigan and Wisconsin to the Republican candidate. Some Democrats fear that the same scenario could play out again next week.Earlier this year, during the presidential primary campaigns, about 100,000 Michigan voters marked their ballots “uncommitted” as a mark of protest against the Biden administration’s support of Israel’s invasion of Gaza after the cross -border Hamas attack in October last year that killed 1,200 people and took more than 200 hostages, mostly civilians.Israel’s attack on Gaza has since killed more than 40,000 people, with many of them women and children. In Lebanon, where Israel has now invaded to fight with Iran-backed Hezbollah, more than 2,897 people have been killed and 13,150 wounded, the country’s health ministry reports. A quarter of those killed were women and children.The US has been a staunch ally of Israel during the fighting, continuing to send arms to the country and limiting its public criticism of Israeli actions.Tlaib has been critical of the Democratic party’s position on the growing and bloody conflict, saying it was “hard not to feel invisible” after the party did not include a Palestinian American speaker at its convention in Chicago in August.In an interview with Zeteo, the news organization founded by former MSNBC host (and Guardian contributor) Mehdi Hasan, Tlaib said the omission “made it clear with their speakers that they value Israeli children more than Palestinian children”.“Our trauma and pain feel unseen and ignored by both parties,” she added. “One party uses our identity as a slur, and the other refuses to hear from us. Where is the shared humanity? Ignoring us won’t stop the genocide.”Harris has faced continued protests on the trail, as demonstrators call for her to break with President Joe Biden and support an arms embargo on Israel. Harris has said Israel “has right to defend itself”, and that Palestinians need “dignity, security”.Confronted by a protester in Wisconsin two weeks ago who accused the Jewish state of genocide, Harris said: “I know what you’re speaking of. I want a ceasefire. I want the hostage deal done. I want the war to end.”At a rally in Dearborn earlier on Friday, Tlaib the criticized Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump, who has been endorsed by the Muslim mayors of Dearborn Heights and Hamtramck.“Trump is a proud Islamophobe + serial liar who doesn’t stand for peace,” Tlaib posted on X. “The reality is that the Biden admin’s unconditional support for genocide is what got us here. This should be a wake-up call for those who continue to support genocide. This election didn’t have to be close.” More

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      Yahya Sinwar Is Dead, but a Palestinian State Still Seems Distant

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      A two-state solution remains the goal of the United States and the West, but many in the region say the devastation in Gaza and the lack of effective Palestinian leadership make it a remote prospect.The killing of Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas, has raised hopes in the Biden administration that it could help pave the way for the eventual creation of a Palestinian state.But in many ways the goal of an independent Palestinian state seems further away than ever. In Gaza, there has been death and destruction on a devastating scale. There is a lack of a clear and solid Palestinian leadership. And Israel is grappling with its own trauma over the Hamas-led attack of Oct. 7.President Biden is hoping Mr. Sinwar’s death can bring about a temporary cease-fire in Gaza and the return of Israeli hostages, while producing a path toward negotiations on the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel — the so-called two-state solution. But it is unclear who can speak for Hamas now in Gaza, or even if the group really knows where all the hostages are or how many remain alive.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has vowed to continue the war against Hamas as he prosecutes another conflict against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, and also to retaliate against Iran. Since Oct. 7, he has repeatedly ruled out the possibility of a two-state solution, and the stability of his coalition government is dependent on far-right ministers who oppose a Palestinian state of any kind.Yahya Sinwar, center, in Gaza City last year. Mr. Sinwar’s death is unlikely to spark moves toward Palestinian statehood, analysts say.Fatima Shbair/Associated PressAll that makes the prospect of Israel agreeing to a serious negotiation on a Palestinian state extremely unlikely, said Mkhaimar Abusada, a Gazan scholar who is a visiting professor at Northwestern University.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Secret Documents Show Hamas Tried to Persuade Iran to Join Its Oct. 7 Attack

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      The Times reviewed the minutes of 10 meetings among Hamas’s top leaders. The records show the militant group avoided several escalations since 2021 to falsely imply it had been deterred — while seeking Iranian support for a major attack.For more than two years, Yahya Sinwar huddled with his top Hamas commanders and plotted what they hoped would be the most devastating and destabilizing attack on Israel in the militant group’s four-decade history.Minutes of Hamas’s secret meetings, seized by the Israeli military and obtained by The New York Times, provide a detailed record of the planning for the Oct. 7 terrorist attack, as well as Mr. Sinwar’s determination to persuade Hamas’s allies, Iran and Hezbollah, to join the assault or at least commit to a broader fight with Israel if Hamas staged a surprise cross-border raid.The documents, which represent a breakthrough in understanding Hamas, also show extensive efforts to deceive Israel about its intentions as the group laid the groundwork for a bold assault and a regional conflagration that Mr. Sinwar hoped would cause Israel to “collapse.”The documents consist of minutes from 10 secret planning meetings of a small group of Hamas political and military leaders in the run-up to the attack, on Oct. 7, 2023. The minutes include 30 pages of previously undisclosed details about the way Hamas’s leadership works and the preparations that went into its attack.The documents, which were verified by The Times, lay out the main strategies and assessments of the leadership group:Hamas initially planned to carry out the attack, which it code-named “the big project,” in the fall of 2022. But the group delayed executing the plan as it tried to persuade Iran and Hezbollah to participate.As they prepared arguments aimed at Hezbollah, the Hamas leaders said that Israel’s “internal situation” — an apparent reference to turmoil over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s contentious plans to overhaul the judiciary — was among the reasons they were “compelled to move toward a strategic battle.”In July 2023, Hamas dispatched a top official to Lebanon, where he met with a senior Iranian commander and requested help with striking sensitive sites at the start of the assault.The senior Iranian commander told Hamas that Iran and Hezbollah were supportive in principle, but needed more time to prepare; the minutes do not say how detailed a plan was presented by Hamas to its allies.The documents also say that Hamas planned to discuss the attack in more detail at a subsequent meeting with Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader at the time, but do not clarify whether the discussion happened.Hamas felt assured of its allies’ general support, but concluded it might need to go ahead without their full involvement — in part to stop Israel from deploying an advanced new air-defense system before the assault took place.The decision to attack was also influenced by Hamas’s desire to disrupt efforts to normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, the entrenchment of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Israeli efforts to exert greater control over the Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem, sacred in both Islam and Judaism and known to Jews as the Temple Mount.Hamas deliberately avoided major confrontations with Israel for two years from 2021, in order to maximize the surprise of the Oct. 7 attack. As the leaders saw it, they “must keep the enemy convinced that Hamas in Gaza wants calm.”Hamas leaders in Gaza said they briefed Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s Qatar-based political leader, on “the big project.” It was not previously known whether Mr. Haniyeh, who was assassinated by Israel in July, had been briefed on the attack before it happened.Prelude to WarThe documents provide greater context to one of the most pivotal moments in modern Middle Eastern history, showing it was both the culmination of a yearslong plan, as well as a move partly shaped by specific events after Mr. Netanyahu returned to power in Israel in late 2022.Yahya Sinwar in April 2023 in Gaza City. Documents show that he and other Hamas leaders wanted time to lull Israeli leaders into a false sense of security before attacking Israel. Samar Abu Elouf for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. 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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      Saudi Arabia Pledges to Send Financial Aid to Palestine

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      Saudi Arabia has pledged to send financial aid to the struggling Palestinian Authority, reversing a decision made during the Trump administration to slash funding to the governing body that administers some areas in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.The promise of a cash infusion won’t resolve the authority’s financial woes, but it reflects the improved relationship between Saudi Arabia and Palestinian leaders, which frayed during the Trump era. It is also a sign that the kingdom is strengthening its support for the establishment of a Palestinian state at a time when the Saudis appear to have shifted their tone on normalizing relations with Israel.For months, the Biden administration and its allies have warned that the Palestinian Authority’s dire financial straits could foreshadow another escalation in the West Bank. Israeli forces have been stepping up raids targeting militants in which they ripped up roads and wrecked shops and homes in the territory.The Saudi foreign ministry announced on Sunday night that it would send a monthly aid package to the country’s “brothers in Palestine” to alleviate the “humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip and its surrounding areas,” without specifying the amount or intended recipients. The commitment was made during a recent visit by the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, to Saudi Arabia, according to one of his aides.“Prince Mohammed affirmed to the president, Abu Mazen, the kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s support for the Palestinian people politically and materially,” said Mahmoud al-Habbash, a senior adviser to Mr. Abbas. Mr. al-Habbash was referring to the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, and Mr. Abbas, using his nickname.Saudi Arabia has agreed to deliver $60 million to the Palestinian Authority in six installments, with the first payment expected in the coming days, according to a senior Palestinian Authority official.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Calls grow for US investigation into Israeli killing of Turkish American activist

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      The family of a Turkish American woman shot by the Israeli military while attending a protest in the West Bank have been joined by a growing chorus of US lawmakers demanding that their government launch its own investigation into the killing.Autopsies conducted in the West Bank town of Nablus and Turkey found that Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi was shot in the head. Shortly after the incident, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement that it was “highly likely that she was hit indirectly and unintentionally by IDF fire which was not aimed at her”.The White House has called for Israel to investigate Eygi’s death but friends and family has expressed skepticism that such an inquiry will lead to any accountability.“We are not putting our faith or trust in a military that deliberately shot and killed an individual to investigate themselves of their own crime,” said Juliette Majid, who graduated alongside Eygi from the university of Washington in Seattle.“What I want is justice and accountability, which to me looks like a US-led criminal investigation … I want the US to hold [the Israeli military] accountable. At the end of the day, we shouldn’t be in this situation, Ayşenur should be coming home alive,” she said.Eygi’s family’s call for a US-led inquiry has been echoed by senator Patty Murray and congresswoman Pramila Jayapal of Washington state who wrote to Joe Biden and the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, demanding that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) launch an investigation.“We fear that if this pattern of impunity does not end with Ms Eygi, it will only continue to escalate,” they said, pointing to the killing of activist Rachel Corrie – also from Washington state – in 2003 at a protest in Gaza, and calling on the US government to better protect American citizens overseas.Murray and Jayapal demanded a written response from the Biden administration by 24 September addressing their calls for an independent investigation, what the US government knew about her killing and how it would protect US citizens overseas.With no apparent response from the administration, more than 100 members of congress – including leading Democratic party officials Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Eric Swalwell as well as senator Bernie Sanders – have sent a second letter to Biden, Blinken, and the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, demanding a US-led investigation .“Given the evidence, we believe the United States must independently investigate whether this was a homicide. To walk away without asking further questions gives Israeli forces unacceptable license to act with impunity,” they wrote. “There must be accountability for Ms Eygi’s death.”The lawmakers demanded a written report to Eygi’s family, delivered by 4 October, including details of whether the US government will investigate her killing and a timeline for the inquiry, as well as how the US government would respond should the Israeli government refuses to cooperate with their investigation.“I hope the US government is listening not just to their own officials who represent their constituents, but also the general public who want to see justice for a US citizen murdered abroad,” said Majid.She added that promises by Turkey to launch an investigation through the public prosecution in Ankara provided “a little bit of hope”, but that she and Eygi’s family want to see the US government wield its influence.“I want to see my own government step up,” she said.Eygi was born in Turkey but she and her parents moved to Washington state when she was a child. The 26-year-old was buried in her family’s hometown on the Turkish coast earlier this month.The US president, meanwhile, has yet to contact Eygi’s family. “I think it’s incredibly shameful that president Biden in particular hasn’t reached out to the family to offer his condolences at the very least, and at most promise justice and accountability for an American citizen,” said Majid. “He was supposed to be providing protection.” More