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      in US Politics

      China promises 'firm response' to Trump's order ending Hong Kong's special status

      by

      China has vowed to retaliate after Donald Trump ordered an end to Hong Kong’s special status under US law to punish China for what he called “aggressive actions” against the former British colony.Citing China’s decision to enact a new national security law for Hong Kong, the US president said he signed an executive order that will end the preferential economic treatment Hong Kong has received for years. “No special privileges, no special economic treatment and no export of sensitive technologies”, he told a news conference.In a strongly worded response, China’s ministry of foreign affairs said no country has the right to interfere in what it deemed “purely China’s internal affairs”.“US efforts to thwart the implementation of Hong Kong’s national security will never succeed. In order to defend its own legitimate interests, China will respond as necessary and impose sanctions on the relevant American individuals and entities.“We urge the US to correct its mistakes. If the US stubbornly pursues this path, China will give a firm response.”Acting on a Tuesday deadline, Trump also signed a bill approved by the US Congress to penalise banks doing business with Chinese officials who implement the new security law.“Today I signed legislation, and an executive order to hold China accountable for its aggressive actions against the people of Hong Kong,” Trump said. “Hong Kong will now be treated the same as mainland China.”The White House later released the full text of the executive order, outlining the penalties and suspensions, as well as newly reallocated admissions within the US refugee ceiling “to residents of Hong Kong based on humanitarian concerns”.The order suspended multiple sections of legislation governing US immigration, arms exports and defence production, and eliminated US preference for Hong Kong passport holders as compared to People’s Republic of China passport holders.It also suspended extradition and prisoner transfer agreements, took steps to end US training of Hong Kong police and security officers, and suspended or terminated academic partnerships with Hong Kong including the Fulbright exchange program.The order allows for the freezing of US-based property and interests of foreign persons linked to the new national security laws, or found to be involved in international human rights abuses, or in the limiting or penalising of independent media and freedom of expression.Critics of the security law fear it will crush the wide-ranging freedoms promised to Hong Kong when it returned to Chinese rule in 1997.The security law punishes what Beijing broadly defines as subversion, secession, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces with up to life in prison.US relations with China have already been strained over the global coronavirus pandemic, China’s military buildup in the South China Sea, its treatment of Uighur Muslims and massive trade surpluses.North Korea’s leadership spoke out in support of China on Wednesday. “It is an extremely sinister act that a non-Asian country across the ocean, not being content with its reckless remarks over the issue of the South China Sea, has hurled abuses at the [Chinese Communist Party],” a foreign ministry spokesperson said.Ending Hong Kong’s special economic status could be a double-edged sword for the United States. Hong Kong was the source of the largest bilateral US goods trade surplus last year, at $26.1bn, based on US Census Bureau data. It is also a major destination for US legal and accounting business. More than 1,300 US firms have offices there.The former British colony was returned to Chinese rule in 1997 with a law protecting freedoms of speech, assembly and the press until 2047 under “one country-two systems”.The legislation Trump signed calls for sanctions on Chinese officials and others who help violate Hong Kong’s autonomy, and financial institutions that do business with those found to have participated in any crackdown on the city.Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic has raised doubts about whether he can win re-election on 3 November amid a surge of new infections. He has attempted to deflect blame onto China.“Make no mistake. We hold China fully responsible for concealing the virus and unleashing it upon the world. They could have stopped it, they should have stopped it. It would have been very easy to do at the source, when it happened,” he said.Asked if he planned to talk to Chinese President Xi Jinping, Trump said: “I have no plans to speak to him.”In rambling remarks, Trump spent much of his Rose Garden appearance criticising Democratic presidential rival Joe Biden. Both candidates are constrained from active campaign rallies by the virus and fears that participants could be infected.In May, Trump responded to China’s plans for the security law by saying he was initiating a process to eliminate the special economic treatment that has allowed Hong Kong to remain a global financial centre.He stopped short then of calling for an immediate end to privileges, but said the moves would affect the full range of US agreements with Hong Kong, from an extradition treaty to export controls on dual-use technologies.A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the administration was also preparing sanctions against Chinese officials and entities involved in the Hong Kong crackdown, including further U.S. travel bans and possible Treasury sanctions. More

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      in World Politics

      Why Making Hagia Sophia a Mosque Again Is Good News

      by

      The reaction to the decision by Turkish authorities to turn Hagia Sophia from a museum back into a mosque has been illuminating. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is accused of playing religious politics. If so, he is not alone. When Pope Francis describes himself as “pained” by the news and says his thoughts are with Istanbul, as if some natural disaster had befallen the city, he too is playing religious politics.

      Turkey Secures a Reprieve in Libya

      READ MORE

      The fact that this building — with one of the largest freestanding domes in the world — has stood the test of time and conflict at all is a miracle. Yet since 1934, it has stood silent, but for the passing voices and feet of tourists, as a museum.

      Given its stature as a place of spirituality, this is an astonishing fact. Imagine the Notre Dame in Paris or St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome — or indeed the myriad religious sites built upon older religious sites — spending close to a century as museums.

      Western Hypocrisy

      Despite this, the media in the West have been almost uniform in their condemnation. UNESCO, which designates the building as a World Heritage Site, has criticized the move. Western media have noted the reaction of liberals in Turkey, lamenting the undermining of the secular state.

      The condemnation is, of course, based on a key distinction between Hagia Sophia and the likes of Notre Dame and St. Peter’s Basilica. The distinction — emphasized in almost every media report — is that Hagia Sophia was built in 537 by Justinian as the seat of the Eastern Orthodox Church and the spiritual center of the Byzantine Empire. It only became a mosque in 1453 with the conquest of Constantinople by Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II.

      Notre Dame de Paris in France © beboyGiven this history of conquest, it’s a wonder that Hagia Sophia is here at all. Consider the religious sites desecrated by conquerors with new faiths, from the Temple of Solomon to the Bamiyan Buddhas. Yet Mehmed II’s first act was to hold the Islamic Friday prayers in Hagia Sophia. He may have been a Muslim, but he recognized the sheer spiritual power and majesty of this building and honored it. 

      The Ottomans removed icon frescoes and mosaics and replaced them with Arabic calligraphy, but the spiritual life of this amazing building continued under new owners. That is a testament to the building and the comparative moderation of the conquerors.

      The Mezquita of Cordoba

      The idea that Hagia Sophia is a museum, and that this is a balanced compromise between faiths, has become received wisdom. Yet the truth is that turning Hagia Sophia into a museum was hardly an act of religious tolerance. Far from it, the move was a culminating act in a decade of cultural revolution in Turkey, in which the regime of republican leader Mustafa Kemal Ataturk pulled up the Ottoman inheritance by its roots.

      It was not a generous gesture to the Greek Orthodox Church, but a symbolic attack on the power of Islam in Turkey. It remains that to this day. Unspoken in today’s debate is the fact that Hagia Sophia became a museum in an era when the Sufi brotherhoods of Turkey were outlawed, the adhan (call to prayer) could no longer be called in Arabic and religious dress was prohibited. Into recent times, Sufism has remained persecuted and the whirling dervishes perform for tourists — rites that the secular establishment had largely destroyed in any real sense. 

      Given this backdrop, the conversion of Hagia Sophia into a museum takes on a different complexion, as if spirituality itself were a museum, which is after all what Ataturk intended by such a move. Turning the building back into a place of worship can then be seen as one more step in the reemergence of an older Turkish cultural inheritance. 

      Inside the Mezquita of Cordoba in Spain © Matej KastelicThe fact that Hagia Sophia was once a cathedral is no barrier to it now being a mosque. Consider the Mezquita in Cordoba, one of the finest architectural monuments in the Iberian Peninsula (and itself built on the site of an earlier Visigoth church). It was perhaps the greatest mosque in Muslim Spain, before being converted into a cathedral in 1236 by King Ferdinand of Castile.

      Today, a cathedral stands in its center and it remains illegal for a Muslim to kneel there in prayer. Yet few Spaniards would countenance it being converted into a museum as an act of magnanimity toward Islam, nor are there calls from global institutions for Spain to do so. Requests by the Islamic Council of Spain to allow Muslim prayer have been opposed by the Vatican and Spanish ecclesiastical authorities.

      The Loss of Greek Anatolia

      Converting Hagia Sophia back into a mosque reflects the present reality of modern-day Turkey, which is that of a Muslim-majority population. Just as you expect Westminster Abbey in London to be a Christian place of worship, it’s natural that Hagia Sophia should be a Muslim place of worship, with due interfaith dialogue and public access.

      This contemporary reality doesn’t negate the very real tragedy of the loss of Greek Anatolia. That loss is far more recent than 1453. The same regime that turned Hagia Sophia into a museum was also responsible for the ethnic cleansing of Anatolia of Greek Orthodox communities. Over 1 million Greeks were forcibly removed from their ancestral homelands and sent as refugees to modern-day Athens and Thessaloniki.

      Today, you can wander through their empty churches in Cappadocia, in central Anatolia, or at sites like Karmylassos (Karakoy) in southwest Turkey, where an entire ghost town is left sprawled on the hillside as a brutal reminder of the wholesale removal of a people and culture. 

      What was done in the name of creating an ethnically Turkish republican state was barbaric, just as what was done to create an ethnically Greek republican state. Ethnic nationalism accepts no gray areas, and ordinary people are its victims, on both sides of the dividing line.

      In Support of Islam

      Yet the violent forces that produced that ethnic cleansing also produced the zealous ideology of Westernization that uprooted the Ottoman legacy in the land of modern Turkey. It means a seam of bitterness and division runs through the very heart of the modern state. 

      Inside Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, Turkey © Artur Bogacki / ShutterstockIt is disingenuous of Western observers to say that Hagia Sophia should remain a museum for the sake of religious tolerance. If tolerance and moderation are our goals, then we should welcome the return of the call to prayer to Hagia Sophia, just as we would welcome the return of church bells at Notre Dame, had it been turned into a museum by secular revolutionaries.

      To welcome it is to support moderate Islam. To not do so is to leave moderate Muslims in a curious bind, not wishing to create conflict, yet expected to disapprove of seeing the spiritual centerpiece of Turkey’s largest city being devoted once more to worship. It also turns the building into a focal point for the more extremist.

      The remarks of Pope Francis are astonishing for a religious leader. That he is “pained” by the idea of such a site of spirituality being turned from a museum back into a place of worship smacks of the worst kind of bigotry. Must it only be “my god” who is worshipped, both here and in former mosques elsewhere?

      Equally, secular outrage is disingenuous. This is a religious building. The secularists are right to resist attempts to constrain their lifestyle, such as the prohibition of alcohol or sexual freedoms, just as Muslims in Turkey have chafed at secular restrictions on their own lifestyles. But Hagia Sophia is a religious space, first and foremost.

      The historic mistake was turning Hagia Sophia into a museum in 1934, in a cultural revolution that has impoverished Turkish society ever since. Whether the pious nationalists of the ruling party will usher in a moderate or yet more divisive era for this unique building, only time will reveal.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

    • 150 Shares119 Views

      in World Politics

      The Price of America’s Complacency in the Face of COVID-19 Is Survival

      by

      On Monday, California Governor Gavin Newsom ordered many businesses statewide to shut down in response to the raging resurgence of COVID-19 in nearly all 50 US states. That same day, a friend of mine landed in San Francisco after having spent six months living in Japan. On his flight, a United employee sitting behind him failed to wear a mask, as did numerous other people on the flight. No one said or did anything. Upon arrival, he was not asked where he had been or if he had any symptoms of the virus. His temperature was not taken and there was no mention of any requirement for 14 days of quarantine. He boarded a connecting flight and was on his way — six months after the pandemic that has ravaged the world began.

      Countries the world over have gotten so many basic elements of the battle against the virus right. Why not America? The unfortunate politicization of COVID-19, the failure to implement mandatory and consistent rules nationwide, the absence of rule enforcement, selfishness, laziness and a culture of silence are all combining to doom us to the consequences of our shared failure. Our collective apathy, complacency and idiocy are killing us.

      Should We All Have Been Wearing Masks From the Start?

      READ MORE

      Not long ago I was in Whole Foods, in the produce section where foods are not packaged, and a perfectly healthy-looking woman in her 30s was the only one not wearing a mask. No one said a thing until I approached her and said she needed to wear a mask and that it had been the law in Connecticut since April. I was told to mind my own business. It is my business, of course, and everyone else’s business in that store, yet no one said or did a thing as she continued to breathe all over the produce. I even went to store management and said something. They had to let her in because she said she had an underlying medical condition that prevented her from wearing a mask. It just so happens that the law in Connecticut allows for that exception, but no doctor’s note is required.

      There are plenty of reasons why America continues to lead the world in COVID-19 infections and deaths, but our own stupidity and selfishness have not been talked about much in the media. Every time we see someone not wearing a mask, or wearing it over one’s mouth but not the nose, or under the chin, we should be going up to that person and saying something. Every time. Our culture of silence is raging every bit as much as the virus in this country.

      So is local, state and national authorities’ failure to make mask-wearing and social distancing mandatory in all public places throughout the country, backed up by enforcement, which is a critical ingredient that is missing. Many governments across the world have backed their policies with strict enforcement measures and fines. That is why countries such as China and South Korea have been able to successfully battle the virus, and why Morocco, which just started doing the same, now has a reasonable chance of beating down infection rates.

      America is capable of doing all this, but the politicization of the virus and silly interpretations of what freedom of action means under the US Constitution have prevented us from following their example. Yes, you are free to take your own health and life into your own hands by being stupid and selfish, but you are not free to do the same with someone else’s health and life. And that is what the “Live Free or Die” movement and conspiracy theory believers among us fail to acknowledge.

      Every one of us needs to remind ourselves that other peoples’ actions impact us, and start to act accordingly. Say something when you see someone not wearing a mask in public, or failing to wear it properly. If everyone did so, those who are failing to do so would stop. The majority of us who are now wearing masks and social distancing have the power, but our own complacency is preventing us from taking control of inconsiderate fellow citizens. We have a responsibility to ourselves and everyone else to say something. We should also be putting pressure on lawmakers to crack down on violators and enforce mandates.

      Until America gets smarter about how to battle the coronavirus, we will continue to lead the world in infections and death, and we will deserve it. We have only ourselves to blame for being so dumb and failing to take corrective action. America has the resources to get COVID-19 under control, especially if we start treating this as a war and start acting like our collective survival depends on it — because it does.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

    • 150 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Donald Trump: 'I'm getting rave reviews' for commuting Roger Stone's sentence – video

      by

      Play Video

      2:11

      Trump has claimed he received ‘rave reviews’ for commuting the prison sentence of Roger Stone, his long-time ally. Stone, 67, was convicted in November 2019 of obstructing a congressional investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election. Both Democrats and Republicans have criticised the move as a miscarriage of justice
      Trump’s commutation of ally Roger Stone’s sentence sparks outrage
      ‘Historic corruption’: Republicans and Democrats react to Trump’s Stone ruling

      Topics

      Donald Trump

      Roger Stone

      US politics

      Russia More

    • 125 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      California reverses coronavirus reopenings for businesses' indoor operations – live

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      State is latest to roll back reopening efforts
      Officials release Trump’s clemency order for Roger Stone
      Fauci sidelined as White House steps up briefing campaign
      Texas: 30-year-old dies after attending ‘coronavirus party’
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      LIVE
      Updated

      Play Video

      1:59

      Donald Trump: ‘I have a very good relationship with Anthony Fauci’ – video

      Key events

      Show

      5.29pm EDT17:29
      ‘Shame on you!’: protester interrupts Florida governor

      5.18pm EDT17:18
      Fact check on Trump’s false ‘mortality rate’ comments

      4.55pm EDT16:55
      Judge blocks Georgia’s anti-abortion law

      4.32pm EDT16:32
      Today so far

      4.03pm EDT16:03
      California shuts down indoor operations of many recently reopened businesses

      3.43pm EDT15:43
      Roger Stone’s clemency order by Trump released

      3.06pm EDT15:06
      Trump falsely claims he’s getting ‘rave reviews’ for Stone commutation

      Live feed

      Show

      5.29pm EDT17:29

      ‘Shame on you!’: protester interrupts Florida governor

      As Florida governor Ron DeSantis started his update on the worsening Covid crisis in his state just now, a protester in a mask interrupted, shouting: “You are misleading the public. You are blaming the protesters. You guys have no plan, and you are doing nothing. Shame on you!” Watch here:

      WFLA NEWS
      (@WFLA)
      ‘SHAME ON YOU!’A protester just interrupted Gov. Ron DeSantis’ Florida coronavirus update, yelling that he’s doing nothing and is lying as coronavirus cases surge. https://t.co/yLokMuiUrp pic.twitter.com/tMYRSuQhhm

      July 13, 2020

      The protest comes one day after Florida broke the national record for the largest single-day increase in positive coronavirus cases in any state since the beginning of the pandemic, adding more than 15,000 cases as its daily average death toll continued to also rise.
      DeSantis has said that even with the rising rates and growing safety concerns, he still wants schools to reopen as scheduled next month. The governor also recently downplayed the help his state was receiving from the state of New York for supplies, even though records show his aides thanking New York officials.

      5.18pm EDT17:18

      Fact check on Trump’s false ‘mortality rate’ comments

      As the Covid-19 crisis dramatically worsens across the US, Trump has continued to share the falsehood that the US has “one of the lowest mortality rates anywhere”:

      Robert Mackey
      (@RobertMackey)
      Someone in the White House press corps needs to directly ask Trump why he keeps saying the US mortality rate for Covid-19, which is among the 10 highest in the world, is the lowest, and why he keeps saying the 1918 pandemic was in 1917. https://t.co/fAxpZUXXbo

      July 13, 2020

      In fact, there are at least 14 countries that have lower death rates than the US, according to CNN, when looking at the 20 countries most affected by the virus. Experts told the network the fatality rate of around 4.5% in the US was the sixth highest in the world – a death toll more than twice as high as Brazil, with the second-highest toll.

      Updated
      at 5.32pm EDT

      4.55pm EDT16:55

      Judge blocks Georgia’s anti-abortion law

      A federal judge has permanently blocked a controversial Georgia law passed in 2019, which sought to ban abortions once there was a “detectable human heartbeat”, which can happen as early as six weeks into a pregnancy.
      The law would have also granted personhood to a fetus, giving it the same legal rights as people after they’re born. US judge Steve Jones ruled against the state today, refusing to leave any parts of the law intact. The ruling permanently blocks the state from enforcing the law, which he had temporarily blocked in October and never went into effect.
      The law had faced intense backlash from the film industry, and experts warned it would have deadly consequences for women forced underground:
      The governor, Brian Kemp, a Republican and a supporter of the restrictions, has vowed to appeal the ruling, though he will face an uphill battle given that the US Supreme Court last month struck down other abortion restrictions from Louisiana. Some more background from the Associated Press:

      At least eight states passed so-called heartbeat bills in 2019, including Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio and Tennessee. South Carolina is still considering one. All of the new bans joined the fate of earlier heartbeat abortion bans from Arkansas, North Dakota and Iowa in being at least temporarily blocked by judges. Louisiana’s ban wouldn’t take effect unless a court upholds Mississippi’s law.
      In a separate ruling Monday, a U.S. district judge in Tennessee blocked a Tennessee law that Republican Gov. Bill had signed hours earlier banning an abortion as early as six weeks into pregnancy and prohibiting abortions based on race, sex or diagnosis of Down syndrome.

      Updated
      at 5.33pm EDT

      4.39pm EDT16:39

      Hi all – Sam Levin here, taking over our live coverage for the rest of the day, writing from Los Angeles, which is returning to strict closures for a number of industries, as Covid infections, hospitalizations and deaths continue to surge here.
      Business owners in LA have told me that it’s been particularly painful to restart and then shut down again, and that they have been pouring money into making their indoor operations safe, with little certainty about when they can properly reopen. Here’s more from my colleague Vivian Ho on the state of the crisis and new restrictions across California:

      4.32pm EDT16:32

      Today so far

      That’s it from me today. My west coast colleague, Sam Levin, will take over the blog for the next few hours.
      Here’s where the day stands so far:
      California governor Gavin Newsom issued a statewide order that many recently reopened businesses must cease indoor operations, as the state grapples with a surge in new cases of coronavirus. The order impacts restaurants, wineries, movie theaters and museums, among other venues. Bars must also close all operations, according to the order.
      The justice department released the order commuting Roger Stone’s sentence. The order showed all elements of Stone’s sentences — including his prison time, his probation and his $20,000 fine — have all been voided. The department released the order hours after Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who has presided over Stone’s case, requested clarification on whether the order affected Stone’s probation.
      Trump falsely claimed he has receive “rave reviews” for commuting Stone’s sentence. In reality, both Democrats and Republicans criticized the commutation as a miscarriage of justice. Republican senator Mitt Romney described it as “unprecedented, historic corruption.”
      California’s two largest public school districts are going entirely online when classes resume next month. The announcement makes the LA and San Diego districts the largest school districts in the country to announce they will not resume in-person instruction when the new academic year starts.
      Trump retweeted a claim that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is “lying” about coronavirus. The tweet comes as the White House seeks to raise doubts about the credibility of Dr Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert.
      A US district judge set a new delay in federal executions. US District Judge Tanya Chutkan’s injuction came hours before the first federal execution in 17 years was set to take place at a federal prison in Indiana.
      Sam will have more coming up, so stay tuned.

      4.18pm EDT16:18

      Joe Biden released a scathing video about Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, as the president downplays the country’s recent surge in new cases.

      Joe Biden
      (@JoeBiden)
      “We’re leading the world.” pic.twitter.com/QQzaQeKAUj

      July 13, 2020

      The ad features some of Trump’s recent comments about the pandemic, including his claim that the US is “leading the world” in the fight against coronavirus.
      As footage of Trump’s comments plays, a graphic shows the rising coronavirus death toll in the United States. More than 135,000 Americans have now died of coronavirus.
      The US has confirmed 3,341,838 cases of coronavirus, according to Johns Hopkins University’s tracker, meaning the US accounts for about a quarter of all cases worldwide.

      4.03pm EDT16:03

      California shuts down indoor operations of many recently reopened businesses

      The Guardian’s Vivian Ho reports from California:
      California’s governor has ordered all counties across the state to shut down the indoor operations of several recently reopened sectors of the economy, including restaurants, bars, movie theaters and malls following a surge in new coronavirus cases.
      The state has seen an average of 8,211 new cases over the past week, an uptick from the 7,876 average recorded the week before. The positivity rate has increased to 7.4%, up from 6.1% a few weeks prior.

      Gavin Newsom
      (@GavinNewsom)
      NEW: #COVID19 cases continue to spread at alarming rates.CA is now closing indoor operations STATEWIDE for:-Restaurants-Wineries-Movie theaters, family entertainment-Zoos, museums-CardroomsBars must close ALL operations.

      July 13, 2020

      “It’s incumbent on all of us to recognize, soberly, that covid-19 is not going away anytime soon,” said Gavin Newsom, California’s governor.
      The order will affect places of worship, fitness centers, zoos, museums, entertainment centers and personal care centers. It comes as the state’s monitoring list of counties experiencing surges has grown to include 30 counties.

      Updated
      at 4.04pm EDT

      3.43pm EDT15:43

      Roger Stone’s clemency order by Trump released

      Joanna Walters

      The attorney at the Office of the Pardon, that well known corner of the Washington labyrinth, has released the clemency order that Donald Trump signed for Roger Stone last Friday.
      Stone was due to report to federal prison tomorrow. But the order voids all elements of his sentence, including the time behind bars, the $20,000 fine and the two years of probation. Earlier today, Judge Amy Berman Jackson asked for a copy of the order to clarify whether it applied to Stone’s probation.
      Stone has not been pardoned, however. The president has reportedly encouraged him to appeal his conviction for lying and witness tampering in the Russia investigation. And a pardon implies that someone was guilty.

      Kyle Cheney
      (@kyledcheney)
      JUST IN: The Office of the Pardon attorney has posted the clemency order that Trump signed for Roger STONE.It voids all elements of his sentence, including a $20,000 fine and two years of supervised release.https://t.co/Ps7OWfvJhl pic.twitter.com/lnuFN50mtv

      July 13, 2020

      Also, Stone released from home confinement.

      Ali Dukakis
      (@ajdukakis)
      This also releases Stone from home confinement effective immediately, it says.

      July 13, 2020

      Updated
      at 4.23pm EDT

      3.38pm EDT15:38

      Joanna Walters

      Donald Trump has once again baited China over the coronavirus, which originated in the country last year.
      At the press Q & A moments ago in Washington, the president said: “I think what China has done to the world with the China plague…the China virus…what they did to the world should not be forgotten.”
      Early on in the pandemic, Trump came under heavy criticism for calling Covid-19 the “China virus” and then defending his choice of language, while also questioning whether the virus occurred naturally, as all his top experts believe, or was made in a lab.
      After a while he was persuaded to stop using that phrase but in recent weeks he’s thrown away caution and diplomacy and begun using many derogatory and racially-biased terms for coronavirus, as well as continuing with repeated misinformation about the illness and the way the pandemic is being handled in the US.

      3.11pm EDT15:11

      Trump once again said schools should be reopened, in response to a question about the new announcement that LA and San Diego schools will be entirely online when classes resume next month.
      “Schools should be opened,” Trump said. “You’re losing a lot of lives by keeping things closed.”
      The president and some of his advisers have repeatedly argued that it is more dangerous to keep students home from school due to the possibility of neglect or abuse.
      However, many school districts have expressed alarm about the possibility of coronavirus spreading in the classroom when in-person instruction resumes.

      3.06pm EDT15:06

      Trump falsely claims he’s getting ‘rave reviews’ for Stone commutation

      Trump defended his highly controversial decision to commute the sentence of Roger Stone, the president’s former associate.
      “I’m getting rave reviews for what I did for Roger Stone,” the president falsely claimed.
      In reality, both Democrats and Republicans have criticized Trump’s decision to commute Stone’s sentence.
      Republican senator Mitt Romney described Stone’s commutation as “unprecedented, historic corruption.”

      Updated
      at 3.14pm EDT

      3.00pm EDT15:00

      Trump: ‘I have a very good relationship with Dr Fauci’

      Trump is now taking questions from reporters at his roundtable with families who have been positively impacted by police officers.
      The first question was unsurprisingly about the White House’s recent criticism of Dr Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert.
      “I have a very good relationship with Dr Fauci,” Trump said, describing the senior official as a “very nice person.” But the president added, “I don’t always agree with him.”
      Over the weekend, the White House ciriculated an unsigned memo casting some of Fauci’s past comments on coronavirus in a negative light, leading some of Trump’s critics to accuse the president of attacking science.

      2.40pm EDT14:40

      LA and San Diego schools will be entirely online when classes resume

      The LA and San Diego unified school districts, the two largest public school systems in California, has announced classes will be entirely online when the new school year starts next month.

      Austin Beutner
      (@AustinLASchools)
      Update on July 13thActualización del 13 de julio pic.twitter.com/HhbvV6zYfu

      July 13, 2020

      “Both districts will continue planning for a return to in-person learning during the 2020-21 academic year, as soon as public health conditions allow,” the school districts said in a joint statement.
      “Our leaders owe it to all of those impacted by the Covid-19 closures to increase the pace of their work. No one should use the delay in the reopening of classrooms as a reason to relax. The coronavirus has not taken a summer vacation, as many had hoped. Indeed, the virus has accelerated its attacks on our community.
      “The federal government must provide schools with the resources we need to reopen in a responsible manner.”
      The announcement makes the two California school districts the largest ones in the country so far to announce they will not resume in-person instruction this fall.
      The announcement comes as Trump and some of his top advisers push schools to reopen next month, even though the president’s administration has sent mixed signals about how schools can safely welcome students back.

      Updated
      at 2.51pm EDT

      2.22pm EDT14:22

      Trump holds roundtable on families positively affected by police

      Trump is now holding a roundtable “with several Americans whose lives were helped, and in some cases saved, by law enforcement,” as the White House described it.
      The president opened the roundtable by complaining about how police officers were being “very unfairly treated” in the wake of the polie killing of George Floyd.
      The roundtable comes as the country experiences a national reckoning over racism and police brutality in response to the killing of Floyd and many other black Americans in police custody, including Breonna Taylor.

      Updated
      at 3.26pm EDT

      2.10pm EDT14:10

      Attorney general William Barr ignored a question about Roger Stone’s commutation, a week after Barr described the former Trump associate’s sentence as “fair.”

      Weijia Jiang
      (@weijia)
      NEW—Last week Attorney General Bill Barr described Roger Stone’s sentence as “fair”. Just now he had no comment on the President’s decision to commute Stone: pic.twitter.com/YFGPaD3xKm

      July 13, 2020

      Senior justice department officials previously intervened in the Stone case to push for a more lenient sentence for the president’s former associate, causing some of the prosecutors involved in the case to withdraw.
      Last week, the justice department declined to side with Stone after he argued the start of his prison sentence should be delayed because of the coronavirus pandemic. Trump commuted Stone’s sentence a day later.

      2.01pm EDT14:01

      Press secretary Kayleigh McEnany has just concluded her briefing at the White House, during which she was repeatedly pressed on how the administration is responding to the recent surge in new cases of coronavirus.
      McEnany defended the administration’s response to the pandemic by noting that the rate of coronavirus deaths has not risen as sharply as the rate of new cases in recent weeks.
      However, public health experts have warned that the death toll often lags behind new cases as an indicator for the spread of the virus.
      There is also evidence that the death toll is starting to rise. The seven-day average of daily coronavirus deaths now stands at 719, up from 471 a week ago.

      1.50pm EDT13:50

      White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany was pressed on Trump’s debunked claim that expanded coronavirus testing has caused the increased number of cases in the US.
      A reporter noted the positivity rate of coronavirus tests has also climbed in many parts of the country, which cannot be explained by expanded testing.
      McEnany replied by saying the administration has acknowledged there would be “embers” of the crisis that states had to grapple with, but she once again emphasized that more testing reveals more positive cases.
      But it is difficult to view the recent surges in new cases as “embers” considering many states are seeing record levels of new infections. Florida reported more than 15,000 new cases in one day over the weekend.

      1.45pm EDT13:45

      White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany defended Trump’s highly controversial decision to commute the sentence of his former associate, Roger Stone.

      The Hill
      (@thehill)
      Press Sec. Kayleigh McEnany: “There really are two standards of justice in this country.” pic.twitter.com/ASbT6g2NCx

      July 13, 2020

      McEnany described Stone’s commutation as a “very important moment for justice in this country,” criticizing the Russia investigation that led to his conviction as “completely bogus.”
      The press secretary complained that there are “really two standards of justice” in the country, arguing former officials like former deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe should have faced similar charges. More

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      in Elections

      Donald Trump: 'I have a very good relationship with Anthony Fauci' – video

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      1:59

      Donald Trump has rebuffed reports that the White House is briefing against Anthony Fauci, the federal government’s top public health expert. ‘I have a very good relationship with Dr Fauci,’ he said. The president’s press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, denied that officials had shared ‘opposition research’ with reporters. Over the weekend, Trump aides told news outlets that Fauci, who has become the public face of the government’s response, had made a series of ‘mistakes’ in his predictions
      Trump aides seek to discredit Fauci over coronavirus crisis as cases surge

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      Donald Trump

      Coronavirus outbreak

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      in World Politics

      The One-State Reality to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

      by

      The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been raging for over seven decades, and the prospects for peace have never seemed more distant than today. The two-state solution, which was once the most widely-accepted remedy for the impasse, has lost traction, and efforts by the United Nations and other intermediaries to resolve the dispute have got nowhere.

      In 2018, a survey by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research and the Tami Steinmetz Center for Peace Research at Tel Aviv University found that only 43% of Palestinians and Israeli Jews support the establishment of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel. This was down from 52% of Palestinians and 47% of Israeli Jews who favored a two-state concept just a year prior.

      In October 2019, the UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, Nickolay Mladenov, described the situation in the occupied Palestinian Territories as “a multi-generational tragedy.” He said to the Security Council that Israeli settlements — which are illegal under international law — on Palestinian land represent a substantial obstacle to the peace process.

      The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Faces Its Most Consequential Decision in Decades

      READ MORE

      US President Donald Trump, who is seen by some observers as the most pro-Israel president since Harry Truman, has billed himself as Israel’s best friend in the White House. Trump has overturned the US position on many aspects of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the dismay of the Palestinian people and leadership. His administration has recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and no longer considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank to be inconsistent with international law.

      In January, the Trump administration unveiled its long-awaited peace plan. Dubbed the “deal of the century,” the 181-page document was promoted by Washington as the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Palestinian factions have rejected the proposal as overly biased and one-sided in favor of Israel.

      Ian Lustick is an American political scientist holding the Bess W. Heyman Chair in the Political Science Department of the University of Pennsylvania. He is an advocate of what he calls a “one-state reality” to solve the conflict. His latest book, published in October 2019, is called “Paradigm Lost: From Two-State Solution to One-State Reality.”

      In this edition of The Interview, Fair Observer talks to Lustick about the ongoing skirmishes between the Israelis and Palestinians, the declining traction of the two-state solution, the BDS movement and the US support for Israel.

      The transcript has been edited for clarity.

      Kourosh Ziabari: In your 2013 article in The New York Times titled “Two-State Illusion,” you note that Israelis and Palestinians have their own reasons to cling to the two-state ideal. For the Palestinians, you write that it’s a matter of ensuring that diplomatic and financial aid they receive keeps coming, and for the Israelis, this notion is a reflection of the views of the Jewish Israeli majority that also shields Israel from international criticism. Are you saying that these reasons are morally unjustified? Why do you call the two-state solution an illusion?

      Ian Lustick: I do not argue they are morally unjustified. I am seeking to explain why they persist in the face of the implausibility if not the impossibility of attaining a negotiated two-state solution. I am trying to solve the puzzle of why public agitation for it continues by these groups, one that wants a real two-state solution and one that does not, even though the leaders of each group know that the two-state solution cannot be achieved. The key to the answer is a “Nash Equilibrium” in which both sides, and other actors as well — the US government and the peace process industry — can get what they minimally need by effectively giving up on what they really want.

      Embed from Getty Images

      The mistaken idea that Israelis and Palestinians can actually reach an agreement of a two-state solution through negotiations is an illusion because so many people still actually believe it is attainable when it is not.

      Ziabari: As you’ve explained in your writings, the favorable two-state situation envisioned by Israel is one that ignores Palestinian refugees’ “right of return,” guarantees that Jerusalem will be the capital of Israel and controlled by Israel, and fortifies the position of Jewish settlements. On the other side, the Palestinian version of the two-state solution imagines the return of refugees, demands the evacuation of Israeli settlements and claims East Jerusalem as the capital of the Palestinian state. Do you think the two sides will ever succeed in narrowing these stark differences?

      Lustick: No. The elements of the two-state solution that would make it acceptable to Palestinians are those that make it unacceptable to the majority of Israeli Jews who now have firm control of the Israeli government and of the Israeli political arena. But once a one-state reality is acknowledged, then both sides can agree that Jerusalem should be united and accessible to all who live within the state, that refugees within the borders of the state, at least, should have a right to move to and live in any part of the state, and that owners of land and property seized illegally or unjustly anywhere in the state can seek redress, or that discrimination in the right to own and inhabit homes anywhere in the state must be brought to an end.

      Ziabari: You are an advocate of a one-state solution to the decades-old Israeli–Palestinian conflict. What are the characteristics of such a country? Do you think Israelis and Palestinians will really agree to live alongside each other under a unified leadership, share resources, abandon their mutual grievances and refuse to engage in religious and political provocation against the other side while there are no geographical borders separating them?

      Lustick: I do not advocate a “one-state solution” in the sense that I do not see a clear path from where we are now to that “pretty picture” of the future. I instead seek to analyze a reality — a one-state reality — that is far from pretty, and thereby not a solution. But that reality has dynamics which are not under the control of any one group, and those dynamics can lead to processes of democratization within the one-state reality that could produce a set of problems in the future better than the problems that Jews and Arabs have today between the river and the sea.

      The substantive difference I have with advocates of the “one-state solution” is that they imagine Jews and Arabs “negotiating,” as two sides, to agree on a new “one-state” arrangement. I do not share that view as even a possibility. But within the one-state reality, different groups of Jews and Arabs can find different reasons to cooperate or oppose one another, leading to new and productive political processes and trends of democratization. That is how, for example, the United States was transformed from a white-ruled country with masses of freed slaves who exercised no political rights whatsoever into a multiracial democracy. Abraham Lincoln never imagined this as a “one-state solution” — it was the unintended consequence of the union’s annexation of the South, with its masses of black, non-citizen inhabitants, after the Civil War.

      Ziabari: Several UN Security Council resolutions have been issued that call upon Israel to refrain from resorting to violence against Palestinian citizens, safeguard the welfare and security of people living under occupation, halt its settlement constructions and withdraw from the lands it occupied during the 1967 war. Some of the most important ones are Resolution 237, Resolution 242 and Resolution 446. There are also resolutions deploring Israel’s efforts to alter the status of Jerusalem. However, Israel has ignored these formal expressions of the UN and seems to face no consequences. How has Israel been able to disregard these resolutions without paying a price?

      Embed from Getty Images

      Lustick: The short answer to this is that the Israel lobby has enforced extreme positions on US administrations so that the United States has provided the economic, military, political and diplomatic support necessary for Israel to withstand such international pressures. The reasons for the Israel lobby’s success are detailed in my book and can be traced, ultimately, to the hard work and dedication of lobby activists, the misconceived passion of American Jews and evangelicals to “protect” Israel, and the fundamental character of American politics which gives a single-issue movement in foreign policy enormous leverage over presidents and over members of Congress.

      Ziabari: You’ve worked with the State Department. How prudent and constructive is the current US administration’s policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? What are the implications of decisions such as recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, cutting off funding to UNRWA and closing down the PLO office in Washington, DC? Will the “deal of the century” resolve the Middle East deadlock?

      Lustick: US policy has, for decades, been unable to realize its foreign policy interests in this domain for reasons I explained earlier. Now that the opportunity to do so via a two-state solution has been lost, the policies of the Trump administration hardly matter, except that by not emphasizing America’s emphasis on democracy and equality, it postpones the time when Israelis and Palestinians will begin the kinds of internal struggles over democracy and equal rights that hold promise of improving the one-state reality.

      Ziabari: Is the Trump administration working to silence criticism of Israel by painting narratives that are unequivocal in censuring Israel’s policies as anti-Semitic? Do you see any difference between Trump’s efforts in protecting Israel against international criticism with those of his predecessors?

      Lustick: Yes. The Trump administration has sided in an unprecedentedly explicit way with the extreme wing of the Israel lobby and with extreme and intolerant right-wing forces in Israel. 

      Ziabari: The proponents of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, who believe that denying Israel economic opportunities and investment will serve to change its policies regarding the Palestinian people, are widely smeared as anti-Semites. Is the BDS movement anti-Semitic?

      Lustick: There may be some anti-Semites among BDS supporters, but the movement itself is no more anti-Semitic than the Jewish campaign to boycott France during the Dreyfus trial was “anti-French people.” In fact, as it becomes clearer to everyone that successful negotiations toward a two-state solution will not occur, the significance of the BDS movement will grow rapidly. 

      It is an effective way to express, non-violently, an approach to the conflict that emphasizes increasing justice and quality of life for all those living between the river and the sea. Its focus is not on the particular institutional architecture of an outcome, but on the extent to which values of equality, democracy and non-exclusivist rights to self-determination for Jews and Arabs can be realized. Nor do BDS supporters need to agree on which forms of discrimination, at which level, they focus on. Some may target sanctions against every Israeli institution, but many will target the most blatant forms of discrimination, such as radically different rights and protections accorded to Arabs vs. Jews in the West Bank, in the Jerusalem municipality or in southwest Israel, including the Gaza Strip.

      Ziabari: The settlement of disputes between Palestinians and Israelis requires a reliable and effective mediator, one in which both parties have trust. Which government or international organization is most qualified to fulfill this role?

      Lustick: The time for mediation or negotiation between Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs, as two groups, has effectively passed. That is no longer what is crucial. What is crucial are political processes within each group and across them. African Americans became empowered over generations, not because an outside mediator helped arrange an agreement between whites and blacks, but because gradually self-interested whites saw opportunities in the emancipation of and alliances with blacks. 

      This approach does imagine a long-time frame, but when states with democratic elements are confronted with masses of formerly excluded and despised populations, that is the kind of time it takes to achieve integration and democratization. In addition to the American case vis-à-vis blacks, consider how long it took to integrate Irish Catholics into British politics after Ireland was annexed in 1801, or how long it took South Africa to integrate and democratize its long excluded and oppressed black majority.

      Ziabari: And a final question: Will the unveiling of President Trump’s “deal of the century” change anything for the reality of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? Some Middle East observers say it is just a green light for Israel to go ahead with annexing more Palestinian territory. Others believe Israel doesn’t need such an endorsement and has been annexing Palestinian lands anyway. What do you think about the deal and how it will transform the demographics and political calculus of the region?

      Lustick: The Trump plan is a hoax. In the pages it devotes to its own justification appear all the Israeli government’s favorite propaganda lines. The “negotiations” that produced it were between the most ultranationalist and fundamentalist government in Israel’s history and a group of “Israel firsters” in the White House who are just as extreme, though substantially more ignorant. Advanced originally as a plan to give Palestinians a higher standard of living instead of a real state, it actually proposes no money for Palestinians until they become Finland. Only after that will Israel be empowered, if it wishes, to grant them not a state, but something Israel is willing for Palestinians to call a state but existing within the state of Israel.

      If realized as written, the plan would be an archipelago of sealed Palestinian ghettos. By awarding Israel prerogatives to patrol, supervise, intervene and regulate all movement to and from those ghettos, the plan affirms the one-state reality while offering Israel at least temporary protection against having to admit and defend apartheid by describing itself as a two-state solution. This is Palestine as Transkei or Bophuthatswana. As a plan, it has no chance of being implemented. Its real function is to give temporary cover to the deepening of silent apartheid.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More