Dear Progressive Reader,

Tensions and fear of a wider war are increasing in the Middle East following two targeted assassinations last week, both attributed to Israel. On Friday, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin ordered the deployment of additional U.S. warships and fighter jets to the region.

In the week preceding the two killings, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed a joint session of Congress, but his appearance was boycotted by many Representatives, some Senators, and also notably absent was Vice President Kamala Harris, who also serves as president of the Senate. As Stephen Zunes writes this week, Harris is beginning to exhibit a stance on the war in Gaza that is divergent from her current boss, President Joe Biden. “As President, Harris would likely return to the Obama Administration’s willingness to criticize Israel more frequently and strongly,” he notes. “The question, however, is whether—unlike Obama—she would be willing to put those words into concrete action to force Israel to make the necessary compromises for peace.”

Meanwhile, as Zach Roberts reports, outside Netanyahu’s speech, protesters gathered with strong leadership from labor unions. Also, Sam Stein, writing from the West Bank, describes an increase in house demolitions and settler occupation of Palestinian communities appears to be on the rise; and Scott Plous pens an op-ed on why and how individuals, not just institutions, should divest from the military contractors that may be supporting and profiting from Israel’s war on Gaza in the wake of the October 7 attacks.

President Biden announced this week a plan to address some of the ethics and imbalance issues inherent in the current U.S. Supreme Court. Of the many harsh decisions handed down by the Court this term, Biden particularly took aim at the ruling that gives Donald Trump immunity for acts taken while President. Another, less publicized decision was in the case of Grants Pass v Johnson, which criminalized camping by people who often have no other choice. This decision is already being applied by municipal and state governments against encampments of unhoused people. Writing in an op-ed this week, Christiana Stalnaker asks the question: “Where’s the compassion? Where’s the justice?”

Also this week, Jeff Abbott reports from Guatemala about an act of solidarity by rural villages taking in Mexican neighbors displaced by gang violence in their home communities; and, as the “Veepstakes” nears an end early next week, Peter Greene explains why public education advocates should be concerned about the possible choice of Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro.

Finally, yesterday marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of literary giant and civil rights activist James Baldwin. In December 1962, Baldwin published his powerful essay “A Letter to My Nephew” for the first time in The Progressive, in a special issue produced for the centenary of the Emancipation Proclamation—analyzing the promises and the flaws inherent in that document. The essay would be republished the following year in Baldwin’s powerful book The Fire Next Time, and would go on to stimulate other authors to write similar essays. In the February/March 2019 issue of The Progressive, Georgia-based writer Ariel Felton published her moving essay “A Letter to My Niece,” and in June/July 2021, we published “A Letter to My Fellow Black Chefs” by Malcom James Mitchell, who is Baldwin’s great-nephew, and the son of the “James” to whom “A Letter to My Nephew” is addressed.

Baldwin’s important voice on the issues of race in the United States remains powerful and prescient today. As Darryl Lorenzo Wellington wrote in 2012: “He understood that a battle was on for the soul of this country.” And as Kai Wright wrote in 2007 on the twentieth anniversary of Baldwin’s death, “his work remains contemporary. The reason for this is simple: America’s racial caste system has changed so little over the generations that his writing spans. Baldwin considered race America’s poison pill. And he deftly portrayed Americans of all colors struggling to concoct their own individual antidotes. At best, these are only temporary fixes. And they drive people crazy because, at root, the problem is structural, not individual.”

Please keep reading, and we will keep bringing you important articles on these and other issues of our time.

Sincerely,

Norman Stockwell
Publisher

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