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Dear Progressive Reader,
The death toll in Gaza has topped ([link removed]) 26,000, with more than 64,400 wounded. The vast majority of these are civilians with no connection to the actions of Hamas on October 7 that sparked the Israeli campaign of retaliation. Nearly half of the dead are children, with, on average, one child dying every fifteen minutes according to Al Jazeera, which has published ([link removed]) a list of the names of many of those killed. The global justice federation ActionAid reports ([link removed]) , “Famine is looming across the territory.” ActionAid also reports water is scarce, noting: “The average person in Gaza now only has access to between 1.5 and 2 liters [or less than one half gallon] of water each day for all of their needs
including drinking, washing, and cleaning.”
With these horrific statistics as background, the International Court of Justice issued its preliminary ruling ([link removed]) on Friday morning, calling on Israel to “take all measures within its power to prevent the commission of all acts within the scope of [the convention on genocide], in particular [to prevent] killing members of the group [and] . . . . The State of Israel shall take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance to address the adverse conditions of life faced by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.” The case itself may take years to complete, but this preliminary ruling attempts to provide immediate relief to the millions of Palestinians whose lives and livelihood are currently under threat in the war.
National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said ([link removed]) , “The court’s ruling is consistent with many of our positions.” He did not, however, delineate which positions (like the supply of weapons and military technology) might be deemed in contravention to the essence of the court’s admonitions. In one example this week, Arvind Diliwar looks into ([link removed]) the ways the recently passed CHIPS Act is now helping to fund the conflict: “BAE Systems, a multinational weapons manufacturer, [received] $35 million in government subsidies . . . . While not quite the same as directly sending arms to Israel, funding BAE Systems provides a backdoor means of accomplishing the same goal.” And as Stephen Zunes wrote ([link removed]) on our website last week, “Despite the United States’ key role in
the development of international humanitarian law . . . recent decades have seen increasing American hostility toward any legal constraints upon U.S. foreign policy.”
January 27 marks the fifty-first anniversary of the signing of the Paris Peace Accords ([link removed]) that ended the U.S. war in Vietnam. While long-delayed by the actions ([link removed]) of Henry Kissinger, leading to countless unnecessary deaths, the accords gave an opportunity for the United States to withdraw from a domestically unpopular conflict. In an echo of this, a half century later, Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies point out ([link removed]) today, “[President Joe] Biden can continue to give Israel carte-blanche to wipe out the people of Gaza, and watch as the region becomes further engulfed in flames. Or, he can listen to his own campaign staff, who are warning that it’s a ‘moral and electoral imperative’ to insist on a ceasefire.”
January 27 also marks the United Nations-designated “International Holocaust Remembrance Day ([link removed]) .” It is the seventy-ninth anniversary of the liberation ([link removed]) of the concentration camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau ([link removed]) by Soviet troops in 1945. More than 1.3 million died there, including nearly one million Jews, and also more than 21,000 Romani. Photojournalist Hank Baker Carver provides ([link removed]) a powerful portrait this week of the ways in which Roma people still face persecution and discrimination today. “Whenever ethnic tensions arise in Europe, the Romani people brace for more hatred and violence,” he writes.
Also on our website this week, Jeff Abbott reports on ([link removed]) the militarized crackdown on gang violence in Ecuador; David Rosen looks at ([link removed]) the failures in our criminal justice system and the rise in exonerations; and Eleanor Bader writes on ([link removed]) the fifty-first anniversary of Roe v Wade and the landscape for access to care in the wake of the Dobbs decision in 2022. Plus, for our Public Schools Advocate project, Jacob Goodwin examines ([link removed]) the conditions faced by teachers in recent years; Avriel Epps pens an oped ([link removed]) on ways children are
providing content to AI systems; and Michael Felsen opines ([link removed]) on the importance of the new Department of Labor ruling defining who is a “worker.”
Please keep reading, and we will keep bringing you important articles on these and other issues of our time.
Sincerely,
Norman Stockwell
Publisher
P.S. – Don’t miss a minute of the “hidden history” of 2024 – you can still order The Progressive’s new Hidden History of the United States calendar for the coming year. Just go to indiepublishers.shop ([link removed]) , and while you are there, check out some of our other great offerings as well.
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