Week in Review

A sandstorm swept across Gaza destroying tents and pushing desperate people beyond their already stretched limits. Meanwhile Israeli authorities are severely limiting tents and building materials.

Every week the U.S.-Israeli war grinds on without a decisive conclusion becomes a lesson in the limits of U.S. power. A campaign initially meant to reinforce U.S. and Israeli supremacy may instead signal its decline.

more critical analysis on the Israel/US/Iran war from the Listening Post

Israeli scholar, Ilan Pappe on Messianic Zionism, the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and Israel’s War Without End

Three weeks in, the Iranian government has not collapsed, the region has not stabilized, and the costs are mounting. The architects of this war were wrong about nearly everything.

Recording reflecting on healthcare in the US and Palestine for Our Story Bridge Listens project

Chicago City Council voted unanimously to pass a resolution in support of single-payer Medicare for All!

This makes Chicago the biggest city in the country to endorse Medicare for All, and sends a clear message to federal legislators that their constituents expect them to support single-payer bills in the U.S. House and Senate.

Our surveillance society continues to expand.

FBI is buying data that can be used to track people, Patel says. This is the first confirmation that the FBI has resumed actively buying people’s data for investigations. The U.S. Supreme Court has required law enforcement agencies to obtain a warrant for getting people’s location data from cell phone providers since 2018, but data brokers offer an alternative avenue by purchasing the information directly.

The Varieties of Democracies Institute, or V-Dem, a research group based in Sweden, cites the “suppression and intimidation of media and dissenting voices” as a key reason for the “derailment of democracy” in the United States. They cite federal government rollbacks of civil rights protections; attempts to suppress left-leaning groups; and a steep drop in legislative constraints on Trump, owing to a Republican-controlled Congress.

Interesting, New York Times makes clear statement decrying Trump’s Islamophobia. There is also one sentence “Criticism of the current Israeli government for its brutal treatment of Palestinians is not inherently antisemitic.” NYT is acknowledging the inappropriate principles in the widely accepted IHRA definition of antisemitism. Yet another crack in unconditional support for Israel.

Smart comments on Joe Kent’s resignation and the dangers of blaming Israel for everything.

The feds fight back. Judge ruled RFK JR overstepped his legal authority when he sought to block transgender care for minors.

ICE’s war against pregnant women in detention- cruel and unusual punishment that affects both mother and baby. This should be a crime.