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Author: Farrah Hassen

  • Each Cup of Coffee You Drink is a Celebration of Arab-American History

    Many of us start our morning with a cup of coffee (or several). It’s easy to take for granted. But where does it come from?

    Ethiopia is the birthplace of coffee, but it was first cultivated commercially in 15th century Yemen. In fact, the word “coffee” is derived from the Arabic qahwa, as Yemenis called it. And “mocha” originates from Yemen’s al-Mokha port, where coffee was first shipped.

    Coffee is just one of the countless contributions that Arab culture has brought to our everyday lives. As we commemorate National Arab American Heritage Month this April, it’s also worth recognizing the contributions of the over 3.5 million Arab Americans who strengthen our nation.

    At first sip, Yemeni coffee brings communities together. I witnessed this recently at a Yemeni coffee house in Sacramento, where I heard people speaking Arabic, Spanish, and English, and observed college students working on their laptops next to older people who’d just returned from a protest wearing “Hands Off Social Security” t-shirts.

    Yemeni coffee is known for its natural sweetness and its distinct addition of spices, like cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, and ginger. The Yemeni coffee I tasted unlocked layers of flavor and deeper meanings as well — a source of cultural identity under threat from ongoing war.

    Yemeni coffee houses are sprouting up all over the country — like Qamaria Yemeni Coffee Company, a popular chain founded by Yemeni entrepreneurs with locations in Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, Texas, and California.

    Qahwah House, another chain founded by a Yemeni immigrant, operates dozens of stores, including in Illinois, New York, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas, Virginia, Wisconsin, and Michigan  — home to the nation’s largest population of Yemeni Americans.

    As Mohamed Algushaa, founder of Aldar Cafe in Memphis, told Bon Appétit, “Yemeni coffee is our identity.”

    In a time-honored tradition, Yemeni coffee houses offer pots of coffee (and tea) to be shared among friends, lovers, family, and colleagues well into the late evening. This promotes a more communal experience. After all, catch-up sessions and spirited political debates cannot easily be contained in a commuter cup.

    Yemeni coffee houses also place a premium on the aesthetic, blending tradition with modern design. Many feature mosaic tiles, arches inspired by famous mosques in Yemen, and embroidered cushions.

    With each sip of aromatic coffee and bite of sweets at these coffee houses, we learn more about Yemen’s proud people and rich history beyond the prevailing mainstream narrative, which demonizes Yemeni people by routinely equating them with racist tropes.

    That’s something other Arab Americans like myself know all too well, and continue to confront.

    Through these coffee houses, Yemeni Americans preserve a culture threatened by decades of war, including the U.S.-backed, Saudi and UAE-led bombing campaign that killed hundreds of thousands from 2015 until 2022. And since March, ongoing U.S. airstrikes have escalated, killing over 100 people and injuring hundreds more in what are likely war crimesagainst civilians.

    These conflicts have ravaged the country, which suffers “one of the world’s worst protracted humanitarian crises — a crisis defined by hunger, deprivation, and now, a worrying escalation,” observed a United Nations representative.

    Such challenging circumstances directly impact the farmers and their coffee bean harvests, not to mention most Yemenis trying to survive and make a living. The most fundamental way to preserve their culture is to stop the bombings.

    Yemen is more than an unending war zone or the subject of Signalgate intrigue. It’s home to millions of families, unique biodiversity, and several UNESCO World Heritage Sites, including the Old City of Sana’a, which has been continuously inhabited for over 2,500 years. 

    Despite the profound difficulties, we should raise our coffee cups to the resilient Yemeni people who first brought us this ubiquitous beverage and to the Yemeni Americans who carry on their traditions.

    May they bring us all together to share a much-needed pot in peace.

    The post Each Cup of Coffee You Drink is a Celebration of Arab-American History appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

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  • The Persecution of Mahmoud Khalil is a Threat to Free Speech Everywhere

    Photograph Source: SWinxy – CC BY 4.0

    Less than a week after President Trump boasted that he’d “brought back free speech,” government agents abducted a student protestor and are trying to deport him.

    On March 8, without a warrant or charges, plainclothes Department of Homeland Security agents forced their way into Columbia University’s student housing and detained Palestinian student Mahmoud Khalil. They then shipped him to an immigration jail in Louisiana, impeding his access to attorneys and visits from family.

    Khalil is a lawful U.S. permanent resident who hasn’t been charged with any crime. His wife, Noor Abdalla, is a U.S. citizen and eight months pregnant. “It feels like my husband was kidnapped from home, and at a time when we were supposed to be planning to welcome our first child into this world,” she said.

    While a federal judge has temporarily blocked his deportation, Khalil’s fate — and the larger battle over the First Amendment — concerns all of us.

    Over the past year and a half, Khalil has participated in Palestine solidarity protests at Columbia alongside students across racial, ethnic, economic, and religious backgrounds who’ve demanded an end to Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza and U.S. complicity. He’s also served as a mediator between Columbia’s administration and its students.

    Khalil has called these nationwide campus protests “a movement for social justice and freedom and equality for everyone.” They follow a long tradition of student-led demonstrations, like the 1960s Free Speech Movement, anti-Vietnam War protests, and the anti-apartheid movement of the 1980s.

    But repression of student activism has surged since October 2023. Khalil has faced doxxing, harassment, and smears from bigots who vilify any peaceful protests for Palestinian rights as “antisemitic” and “terrorism” — baseless slanders echoed by the Trump administration.

    Many Jewish students at Columbia have joined in the protests and deny this false characterization of the movement and of Khalil, rejecting Trump’s weaponization of “antisemitism” as a justification for silencing speech critical of Israel.

    Regardless of whether you agree with Khalil’s views or find them offensive, his speech is protected by the First Amendment. Political speech is at the very heart of the First Amendment, which applies to citizens and noncitizens alike.

    Before assuming office, Trump made his disdain for pro-Palestinian student protestors well-known and promised his donors that he’d deport them. “This is the first arrest of many to come,” Trump said on March 10. Another White House official called Khalil’s arrest a “blueprint for investigations against other students.”

    To justify deporting Khalil, Secretary of State Marco Rubio cites a rarely used and vague provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), which gives the secretary of state the power to deport someone whose presence is deemed to “have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.”

    However, the Constitution is the supreme law of the land. That INA provision doesn’t override constitutional safeguards like freedom of speech and the right to due process, which still apply to Khalil. Moreover, as Khalil’s attorneys have argued, the INA prohibits the secretary of state from deporting a noncitizen based on their “past, current, or expected beliefs, statements, or associations.”

    “The Trump administration is targeting me as part of a broader strategy to suppress dissent,” Khalil warned in a letter from prison. “Visa-holders, green-card carriers, and citizens alike will all be targeted for their political beliefs… At stake are not just our voices, but the fundamental civil liberties of all.”

    Khalil’s warnings could prove prescient for all of us, given Trump’s retaliation against news organizations for their coverage and threats to withdraw federal funding from universities that allow “illegal” protests, as he calls them.

    Left unchecked, anyone who opposes Trump — whether on Israel or on cuts to Medicaid and Social Security — could become a target. Khalil must be freed immediately if our cherished freedoms of speech and assembly are to have any meaning.

    We must all strongly oppose this profound attack on our First Amendment rights. Otherwise, that next knock on the door could be for any of us.

    The post The Persecution of Mahmoud Khalil is a Threat to Free Speech Everywhere appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

    This post was originally published on CounterPunch.org.

  • Guantánamo Needs to be Shutdown Not Expanded

    In a deeply disturbing and unprecedented move, the U.S. has begun transferring immigrant detainees to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. They’re being held without access to their lawyers and families.

    President Trump has ordered up to 30,000 “high-priority” migrants to be imprisoned there as part of his larger mass deportation and detention campaign.

    Trump claims these migrants are the “worst criminal aliens threatening the American people.” But recent investigations of those detainees have already challenged this narrative. And a large percentage of immigrants arrested in the U.S. have no criminal record.

    Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time our government has invoked “national security” to deny marginalized communities their basic human rights. President George W. Bush created the infamous military prison at Guantánamo during the “War on Terror” to hold what his administration called the “worst of the worst.”

    The prison has since become synonymous with indefinite detention — 15 people still remain there today, over 20 years later. Notorious for its brutality and lawlessness, Guantánamo should be shut down, not expanded.

    Of the 780 Muslim men and boys imprisoned there since January 2002, the vast majority have been held without charge or trial. Most were abducted and sold to the U.S. for bounty and “had no relationship whatsoever with the events that took place on 9/11,” reported the UN’s independent expert in 2023, who reiterated the global call to close Guantánamo.

    The Bush administration designed the prison to circumvent the Constitution and the 1949 Geneva Conventions, refusing to treat the prisoners as either POWs or civilians. This legal fiction resulted in a range of human rights violations, including torture.

    But the Constitution — and international law — still applies wherever the U.S. government operates. All prisoners, including immigrants, are still entitled to humane treatment, legal counsel, and due process.

    “Never before have people been taken from U.S. soil and sent to Guantánamo, and then denied access to lawyers and the outside world,” said Lee Gelernt, the lead attorney in the ACLU case challenging Trump’s executive order.

    However, the U.S. does have a sordid history of detaining migrants captured elsewhere at the base. As legal scholar Jeffrey S. Kahn points out, the U.S. has detained Haitians at Guantánamo on and off since the 1970s.

    In the 1990s, thousands of Haitian refugees fleeing persecution following a military coup were captured at sea. The U.S. held them in horrific conditions at Guantánamo so they couldn’t reach U.S. shores to seek asylum — which is a fundamental human right long enshrined under U.S. law.

    Shrouded in secrecy, the U.S. continues to capture and detain asylum seekers fleeing Haiti, Cuba, and other Caribbean countries at Guantánamo. Last fall, the International Refugee Assistance Project reported that refugee families are kept in a dilapidated building with mold and sewage problems, suffer from a lack of medical care, and are “detained indefinitely in prison-like conditions without access to the outside world.”

    Trump’s order would take these abuses to a horrifying new level.

    Currently, the base’s existing immigration detention facility can hold up 120 people. Expanding it to 30,000 will require enormous resources. The “War on Terror” prison at Guantánamo already costs an estimated $540 million annually, making it one of the most expensive prisons in the world.

    Then there are the moral costs.

    The mass deportation and detention of asylum seekers is not only unlawful but cruel — and not a real immigration solution. Instead, our government should prioritize meaningful immigration reform that recognizes the dignity of all people.

    We should also shut down the “War on Terror” prison at Guantánamo once and for all — and pursue accountability for its decades of abuses. Otherwise, it will only continue to expand. “I can attest to the facility’s capacity for cruelty,” warned Mansoor Adayfi, who was subjected to torture and endured nearly 15 years at the prison.

    Guantánamo’s legacy of injustice must end.

    The post Guantánamo Needs to be Shutdown Not Expanded appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

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  • Sweeps Don’t Solve Homelessness

    Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

    This summer, the Supreme Court’s Grants Pass ruling made it much easier for local governments to criminalize homelessness. Since then, cities and states across the country have stepped up their harassment of people for the “crime” of not having a place to live.

    Penalizing homelessness has increasingly taken the form of crackdowns on encampments — also known as “sweeps,” which have received bipartisan support. California Governor Gavin Newsom has ordered state agencies to ramp up encampment sweeps, while President-elect Donald Trump has also pledged to ban encampments and move people to “tent cities” far from public view.

    Evidence shows that these sweeps are harmful and unproductive — and not to mention dehumanizing.

    Housing justice advocates caution that sweeps disrupt peoples’ lives by severing their ties to case workers, medical care, and other vital services. Many unhoused people also have their personal documents and other critical belongings seized or tossed, which makes it even harder to find housing and work.

    According to a ProPublica investigation, authorities in multiple cities have confiscated basic survival items like tents and blankets, as well as medical supplies like CPAP machines and insulin. Other people lost items like phones and tools that impacted their ability to work.

    Teresa Stratton from Portland told ProPublica that her husband’s ashes were even taken in a sweep. “I wonder where he is,” she said. “I hope he’s not in the dump.”

    Over the summer, the city of Sacramento, California forcefully evicted 48 residents — mostly women over 55 with disabilities — from a self-governed encampment known as Camp Resolution. The camp was located at a vacant lot and had been authorized by the city, which also owned the trailers where residents lived.

    One of the residents who’d been at the hospital during the sweep was assured that her belongings would be kept safe. However, she told me she lost everything she’d worked so hard to acquire, including her car.

    The loss of her home and community of two years, along with her possessions, was already traumatizing. But now, like most of the camp residents, she was forced back onto the streets — even though the city had promised not to sweep the lot until every resident had been placed in permanent housing.

    Aside from being inhumane, the seizure of personal belongings raises serious constitutional questions — especially since sweeps often take place with little to no warning and authorities often fail to properly store belongings. Six unhoused New Yorkers recently sued the city on Fourth Amendment grounds, citing these practices.

    Sweeps, like punitive fines and arrests, don’t address the root of the problem — they just trap people in cycles of poverty and homelessness. Encampments can pose challenges to local communities, but their prevalence stems from our nation’s failure to ensure the fundamental human right to housing.

    People experiencing homelessness are often derided as an “eyesore” and blamed for their plight. However, government policies have allowed housing, a basic necessity for survival, to become commodified and controlled by corporations and billionaire investors for profit.

    Meanwhile, the federal minimum wage has remained stagnant at $7.25 since 2009 and rent is now unaffordable for half of all tenants. Alongside eroding social safety nets, these policies have resulted in a housing affordability crisis that’s left at least 653,000 people without housing nationwide.

    While shelters can help some people move indoors temporarily, they aren’t a real housing solution, either.

    Human rights groups report that shelters often don’t meet adequate standards of housing or accommodate people with disabilities. Many treat people like they’re incarcerated by imposing curfews and other restrictions, such as not allowing pets. Safety and privacy at shelters are also growing concerns.

    Officials justify sweeps for safety and sanitation reasons, but in the end they harm and displace people who have nowhere else to go. Instead, governments should prioritize safe, affordable, dignified, and permanent housing for all, coupled with supportive services.

    Anything else is sweeping the problem under the rug.

    The post Sweeps Don’t Solve Homelessness appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

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  • Syria at the Crossroads

    Map of Northwestern Syria offensive (2024)

    Syria, known throughout history as the “crossroads of civilization,” now finds itself at a crossroads of its own. After 54 years, the Assad family’s brutal dictatorship in Syria has finally ended.

    “I never thought I’d live to see this day,” said my dad, who left Aleppo as a teenager. My parents grew up there.

    After Bashar al-Assad fled to Russia, elated Syrians rejoiced in the streets. Moving videos emerged of political prisoners being freed after enduring decades of torture in the regime’s notorious prisons. The whereabouts of many still remain unknown.

    Assad’s fall is undeniably worth celebrating — it’s a rare unifying force for a deeply fractured country. But after decades of oppression and 14 years of war, it will take much more to heal these wounds and guarantee a new era of freedom, justice, prosperity, and reconciliation.

    The popular uprising for Syrian dignity that ignited in March 2011 was violently crushed by Assad and morphed into several proxy wars involving Russia, Iran, Israel, the U.S., Turkey, and numerous armed groups, including Al Qaeda linked-terrorists.

    Heinous war crimes and other human rights violations were committed by all parties throughout the war, which has killed over 350,000 people. In the world’s largest forced displacement crisis, over 13 million Syrians have either fled their country or have been displaced within its borders.

    The war has damaged Syria’s infrastructure while Western sanctions have further shattered Syria’s economy. Poverty is widespread and more than half of the population currently grapples with food insecurity.

    Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), once allied with Al Qaeda in Syria, was largely responsible for Assad’s overthrow on December 8. Designated by the U.S as a terrorist organization, HTS has its own track record of brutality in Syria. The rebel group’s leader, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, founded the Al Nusra Front, once had ties to ISIS, and still has a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head.

    Jolani has since renounced his ties with Al Qaeda and recently said he supports religious pluralism in Syria. But it’s reasonable to be skeptical that HTS and its allies are now truly committed to freedom, justice, and human rights for all long-suffering Syrians.

    Still, foreign occupation and intervention are antithetical to a sovereign and “free” Syria.

    Following Assad’s fall, Israel has launched hundreds of airstrikes and unlawfully seized more territory beyond its illegal, 57-year occupation of Syria’s Golan Heights. Whether Turkey gives up occupied land in northern Syria also remains to be seen, especially if Syrian Kurds end up forming an autonomous region within the country.

    Meanwhile, the U.S. military still occupies part of Syria, including the oil fields in the northeast, and it’s unclear when the U.S. will withdraw its remaining 900 soldiers. In addition to respecting Syria’s territorial integrity and the aspirations of its people in a future government, the U.S. should immediately lift all sanctions on Syria to help with reconstruction and economic recovery.

    As a Syrian American, I try to remain hopeful as I think about my relatives in Aleppo, friends in Damascus, and the generous strangers who’ve taken care of me as their own when I’ve visited. I look forward to returning to a Syria where people can finally breathe, rebuild, and live in dignity. But I also fear for the future.

    Syrians have always taken pride in their rich ethnic and religious diversity. An inclusive and democratic government that guarantees the equal rights of all Syrians is essential to ensuring that the country stays unified and doesn’t plunge into sectarian chaos. It would be tragic if one authoritarian ruler is replaced by another or the country becomes balkanized into armed factions.

    While much remains uncertain and immense challenges are ahead, prioritizing the immediate needs of Syrians is a logical first step. And, more than anything else, we must ensure that the Syrian people are the ones who steer the destiny of a peaceful, post-war Syria that reflects their remarkable resilience, courage, hopes, and dreams.

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  • The Mounting Costs of Ennabling Israel’s War on Gaza

    Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

    The U.S. government often claims to stand for the rule of law, but this past year has made it painfully clear that this doesn’t apply to Palestinians. The moral, financial, and security costs of U.S. support for Israel’s rapidly expanding wars are adding up for Americans, too.

    Since October 7, 2023, around 42,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, plus over 700 more in the West Bank. Over 1,100 Israelis have been killed, too. These tragedies are a direct consequence of Israel’s illegal, U.S.-backed occupation of Palestinian territory and its war on Gaza, which must both end immediately.

    From the mass killing and maiming of Palestinian civilians to the forced starvation and deliberate destruction of Gaza’s health infrastructure, Palestinians and international experts have warned from the start that Israel is committing a “textbook case of genocide” in Gaza.

    Despite the International Court of Justice finding genocide “plausible” and calling on Israel to prevent it and ensure the delivery of lifesaving aid, Israel  — like the U.S. —  has ignored all of the court’s orders.

    The U.S. has enabled this ongoing genocide and other crimes by providing unconditional support for Israel despite mounting atrocities. This has emboldened Israel to expand its assault to Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen as it threatens to drag the U.S. into a wider war with Iran.

    None of this is inevitable.

    As Israel’s chief supplier of arms, the U.S. has sent billions worth of high-powered explosives since October 7, which have turned up at massacre after massacre committed by Israel’s military. That’s a violation of our own laws barring assistance to forces that commit human rights abuses or block delivery of humanitarian aid, as Israel has done.

    “Our democracy is at stake” has been an ongoing refrain this election season. But it’s also a threat to our democracy when elected officials ignore the vast majority of their constituents who have rightly demanded a permanent ceasefire and arms embargo on Israel. Instead of listening to voters, our leaders have backed violent crackdowns on protests, which threatens our First Amendment rights.

    The costs of war always reverberate at home. Our policymakers have expressed support for the war using racist, dehumanizing rhetoric, which has directly contributed to rising anti-Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim hate crimes, harassment, and discrimination.

    And even though most Americans oppose Israel’s war on Gaza, we’re still paying for it.

    Brown University’s Costs of War Project estimates that over the past year, the U.S. has spent at least $22.76 billion and counting on Israel’s onslaught in Gaza and other U.S. military operations in the surrounding region. In August, the Biden administration approved an additional $20 billion in arms sales to Israel.

    All this comes on top of the $3.8 billion the U.S. already sends Israel in military aid each year. That same $3.8 billion a year could fund 29,915 registered nurses, 394,738 public housing units, or 39,158 elementary school teachers, according to the National Priorities Project.

    As our post-COVID safety net continues to crumble, more people are left unable to afford housing, health care, groceries, education, and other basic necessities. Compounding these challenges, more states are battling climate disasters. We desperately need those funds at home, not funding wars and lawlessness abroad.

    Nevertheless, many of our elected officials would rather support the military-industrial complex than their own constituents. In a particularly flagrant example, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham recently appeared on Fox News to plead for more U.S. weapons for Israel in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, which had ravaged his home state of South Carolina.

    More than statistics, law, and politics, our nation’s role in the Palestinian genocide should shake our conscience and cause us to question its morality. Are human rights and justice good for some but not others? And can we recognize our complicity in this genocide and not take action to end it?

    However one answers these questions, our shared humanity hangs in the balance.

    The post The Mounting Costs of Ennabling Israel’s War on Gaza appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

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  • Workers Need Protection From Record-Breaking Heat

    This summer is on track to being the hottest on record, with 2024 very likely to be the hottest year.

    Fueled by global warming, extreme heat is the leading weather-related cause of death in the United States. It claims the lives of around 2,000 workers and injures another 170,000 in heat stress-related incidents each year, according to Public Citizen.

    Workers whose jobs expose them to dangerous heat — like farm, construction, maintenance, delivery, and warehouse workers — are the most vulnerable. Underlying inequities further compound the risks for lower-income workers and workers of color.

    In August, as temperatures in Baltimore approached 100 degrees, heat tragically killed 36-year-old Ronald Silver II, a city sanitation worker. “He was found lying on the hood of a car and asking for water,” reported The Guardian. In other instances,airport workers have passed out and suffered from other symptoms of heat exhaustion while on the job.

    These deaths and illnesses could have been prevented if long overdue, proper workplace heat protection standards had been in place.

    Some life-saving relief may be on the horizon, however. On July 2, the Biden administration announced a new proposed rule that would establish the country’s first federal heat safety standard. It would help protect around 36 million workers — both indoor and outdoor — from heat-related deaths and injuries.

    If finalized, the new Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulations would require employers to provide drinking water and rest breaks when the combined temperature and relative humidity hit 80 degrees.

    Employers would also be required to develop a heat injury and illness prevention plan, provide training, and immediately assist a worker who is experiencing a heat emergency. Additional protections would be triggered once the heat index reaches 90 degrees, including a minimum 15-minute paid rest break every two hours.

    In the absence of a nationwide standard, only five states have implemented their own regulations to protect workers from heat: California, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, and Minnesota. The types of industries covered vary for each state, as do the workplace settings (indoor and/or outdoor) and the temperature levels that trigger safety requirements.

    Some localities have taken matters into their own hands. The city of Phoenix, which endured 31 consecutive days of temperatures over 110 degrees last summer, passed an ordinance in March that requires city contractors and subcontractors to provide access to shade, rest, water, and air conditioning for their outside workers, including construction and airport workers.

    In stark contrast, several states cruelly continue to prevent localities from implementing the most basic protections.

    Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed a bill last year that rescinded mandatory rest and water breaks for construction workers. And at the urging of powerful business interests and their lobbyists, this year Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a measure that bans localities from passing heat protections like water breaks and shade for outdoor workers. At least two farmworkers in Florida died last year from heat exposure.

    A federal heat safety standard would help counter these unconscionable attacks on workers and save lives. But it could take years to finalize. In addition to election year uncertainties, final approval will likely face challenges from big business and lobbying groups, particularly from the agricultural and construction sectors.

    Until then, state governments should act urgently and adopt their own worker protections. Congress can also direct OSHA to issue an interim heat safety standard until a final heat standard is issued.

    The summers won’t be getting any cooler. And workers’ lives hang in the balance.

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  • The US Must Stop Arming Israel

    Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

    In a shameful moment for U.S. history, an accused war criminal addressed Congress on July 24.

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came to plead for more arms for his war on Gaza, where the International Court of Justice has found it “plausible” that Israel is committing genocide. “Give us the tools faster and we’ll finish the job faster,” Netanyahu said.

    The International Criminal Court (ICC) is seeking a warrant for Netanyahu’s arrest for war crimes and crimes against humanity. But instead of arresting him, Congress gave him multiple standing ovations.

    Beyond applause, the U.S. government is also Israel’s chief supplier of arms. Every year, Congress sends billions in military aid — including thousands of high powered explosives and other weapons since October.

    To avoid complicity in war crimes and genocide, these shipments must end.

    There is overwhelming evidence that Israeli forces under Netanyahu’s leadership have committed massive human rights atrocities against Palestinians in Gaza. And that’s against the backdrop of an illegal military occupation of Palestinian territory and apartheid, as another ICJ ruling confirmed recently.

    Nonetheless, Congress invited Netanyahu to speak. He used this platform to deny any responsibility for the slaughter, famine, and catastrophic destruction in Gaza — and to denigrate Americans who are rightly horrified by their government’s support for his genocidal campaign.

    As Netanyahu spoke, thousands of people took to the streets near the Capitol. Braving tear gas and arrest, they gave voice to the majority of Americans who demand an immediate, permanent ceasefire in Gaza and an embargo on arms to Israel.

    Most Americans are disgusted that U.S-made bombs keep turning up at massacre after massacre. Over the past few weeks alone, Israel has repeatedly bombed so-called “safe zones” and at least eight schools in Gaza where thousands of forcibly displaced Palestinians were sheltering.

    On July 9, the Israeli military murdered at least 30 Palestinians who were playing soccer at the Al-Awda school using GBU-39 bombs made by Boeing. Israel also dropped GBU-39s on another UN school-turned-shelter in the Nuseirat refugee camp on July 6, killing at least 40, and before that on Palestinian families sheltering in plastic tents during the May 26 Rafah massacre.

    On July 13, Israeli forces killed 90 people and injured hundreds more at the Al-Mawasi refugee camp that Israel had designated a “safe zone.” Children were reportedly found “in pieces.” Eight 2,000-pound bombs turned the civilian area into a “smoldering crater.” At least one of the munitions was a Boeing-made JDAM.

    Despite these atrocities, the weapons continue to flow.

    In May, President Biden announced that he would pause the delivery of 2,000-pound bombs ahead of Israel’s invasion of Rafah, which Biden had called “a red line.” However, Israel has still received destructive 500-pound bomb shipments despite invading Rafah, and the killing in Gaza continues.

    These weapons shipments violate both international and U.S. law. The United States is legally obligated to withhold military assistance when U.S. weapons are used to violate human rights.

    The UN Human Rights Council and various experts have called on all countries to end the sale and transfer of military equipment to Israel — or else risk complicity in crimes, including genocide. They called on arms manufacturers supplying Israel to do the same, including Boeing, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman.

    Polls show that a majority of Americans support closing the arms pipeline to Israel. In advance of Netanyahu’s speech, seven major labor unions representing nearly 6 million workers called on President Biden to “immediately halt all military aid to Israel.”

    The voices of the American people deserve more respect in Congress than Netanyahu’s lies and demands. An immediate end to all U.S. weapons transfers to Israel is long overdue, alongside a permanent ceasefire and larger pursuit of freedom and justice for the Palestinian people.

    We must not allow ourselves to become a nation that applauds mass murder.

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  • The Solution to Homelessness is Housing

    Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

    It’s hard enough not having a safe place to live. Now it’s easier for cities to arrest you for it.

    “I am afraid at all times,” testified Debra Blake, who’d been forced to live outside in Grants Pass, Oregon for eight years after losing her job and housing. Her disability disqualified her from staying in the town’s only shelter. “I could be arrested, ticketed, and prosecuted for sleeping outside or for covering myself with a blanket to stay warm,” she said.

    In 2018, after being banished from every park in town and accruing thousands in fines, she sued the city as part of a class action suit for violating homeless residents’ constitutional rights. The Oregon District Court agreed in 2020 that the city’s actions constituted “cruel and unusual punishment.”

    Sadly, Blake died before seeing the results.

    But Grants Pass appealed the decision all the way to the Supreme Court. The billionaire-backed justices ruled this summer that unhoused people aren’t included in the Constitution’s protections against “cruel and unusual punishment,” overturning a federal appeals court.

    But punishing people for our country’s failure to ensure adequate housing for all is inherently “cruel and unusual.” Widespread homelessness directly violates the human right to housing under international law, which must be recognized in the United States.

    The Court’s ruling, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in her dissent, “leaves the most vulnerable in our society with an impossible choice: Either stay awake or be arrested.” Fines and arrests on a person’s record, in turn, make it more difficult to get out of poverty and into stable housing.

    The decision comes as housing is increasingly unaffordable in our increasingly unequal nation. Today, a person who works full-time and earns a minimum wage cannot afford a safe place to live almost anywhere in the country.

    With half of all renter households now spending more than 30 percent of their income on housing, millions are one emergency away from homelessness. According to federal data, last year over 650,000 Americans experienced homelessness on a given night — a 12 percent increase from 2022. Nearly half sleep outside.

    Research confirms what should be obvious: unaffordable housing and homelessness are intertwined. A lack of adequate health care and social safety net supports further compound the problem.

    Hedge funds and private equity firms have also driven up housing costs since gaining control over a greater share of the market. Blackstone alone owns and manages over 300,000 units, making it the nation’s largest landlord. This financialization of housing treats a basic necessity and fundamental human right as just another commodity.

    Cities and states face complex challenges in responding to homelessness. But experts have long documented that the real solution is affordable housing and supportive services, not punishment. Housing those in need ultimately costs less than imprisoning them, both financially and morally.

    Despite the Court’s abhorrent decision, cities and states aren’t required to prosecute the unhoused. Instead, they should double down on proven and humane solutions like Housing First, which provides permanent housing without preconditions, coupled with supportive services.

    Guaranteed income programs offer another promising and cost-effective solution. Denver’s innovative, no-strings-attached cash assistance to 807 unhoused participants helped increase their access to housing within one year, while decreasing nights spent unsheltered and reducing reliance on emergency services.

    Congress must also do more to invest in all those who call America home.

    Currently, only one in four eligible households receive federal rental assistance. Housing rights organizations like the National Homelessness Law Center recommend that Congress invest at least $356 billion on measures like universal rental assistance, expanding the national Housing Trust Fund, and eviction and homelessness prevention.

    It will take a broad-based movement to achieve these goals and counter the Court’s latest cruelty against everyone who struggles to get by in America. But the impacts of housing are just as wide-ranging and consequential — from our health to education, security, economic mobility, and even our dignity.

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  • Biden Can’t Fix the Immigration System by Banning Asylum

    Photograph Source: U.S. Customs and Border Protection – Public Domain

    President Biden once pledged to adopt more humane immigration policies than his predecessor.

    But in practice, as immigrant rights advocates have documented, his administration has escalated the attack on the legal right of people facing life-threatening conditions to seek safety. Even though this right is guaranteed regardless of how asylum seekers enter the country, he has sought to restrict access to ports of entry.

    Under both U.S. and international law, anyone fleeing persecution in another country has a right to request asylum and have their claim assessed. But both the Trump and Biden administrations have dramatically undermined these protections.

    Most recently, Biden’s executive order and accompanying federal rule on “Securing the Border” — which effectively closed the U.S.-Mexico border this June — all but suspended the right to asylum altogether.

    The new rule bars asylum access for the vast majority of people once the daily average of border crossings reaches 2,500 between ports of entry for seven consecutive days — a completely arbitrary figure with no basis in law.

    In addition, while the ban is in effect Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents will no longer screen arriving asylum seekers at the border to see if they have a reasonable fear of returning to their home countries. Instead, the burden is on individuals and families to “manifest” their fear of persecution to CBP agents, who have a known record of intimidating asylum seekers. And the majority will have to do so without legal assistance.

    The executive action relies on a section of the Immigration and Nationality Act that President Trump previously invoked and resembles his unlawful attempts to ban asylum seekers — which the courts repeatedly struck down. The same statute makes it crystal clear that any person arriving on U.S. soil may request asylum regardless of their manner of entry.

    Returning people back to countries where they could face persecution, torture, or other irreparable harm is not only illegal, but cruel and immoral. Nor will it “restore order” at the border. If anything, Biden’s crackdown on asylum will only create more panic and confusion.

    As political and economic conditions continue to deteriorate in Haiti, Venezuela, and throughout Central America, more and more people are being displaced. Biden’s order essentially forces asylum seekers to wait in Mexico, where they are exploited by cartels and other criminals, or else deports them back to places where they’ll face harm.

    Like previous presidents, Biden has ignored the root causes of forced displacement.

    We must begin by re-examining U.S. policies toward our neighbors in Latin America and the Caribbean. Our trade policies and sanctions (like those against Venezuela) have devastated local economies. And many have fled the violence and repression of U.S.-backed authoritarian governments across the region.

    Fully “shutting down” the border would be physically impossible. Efforts to do so have merely produced a costly, militarized border security and detention apparatus that punishes people for requesting asylum — and has a vested interest in never fixing our broken immigration system.

    Instead, we need a just and humane approach grounded in law and the inherent dignity of all people.

    Common sense measures should include improving the arrival process at ports of entry, ensuring that asylum applications are reviewed promptly and fairly, hiring more asylum officers and properly staffing immigration courts to address backlogs, providing access to legal counsel, and establishing more legal pathways to citizenship.

    Seeking asylum from persecution is a fundamental human right that transcends borders and partisan politics. America has a long tradition of providing a safe haven for the persecuted. We must not lose sight of this value in our immigration policies.

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  • A Bittersweet Arab American Heritage Month

    Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

    I’ve always known my Arab culture is worth celebrating.

    I heard it in Syrian tenor Sabah Fakhri’s powerful voice reverberating in my mom’s car on the way to piano lessons and soccer practice during my youth. I smelled it in the za’atar, Aleppo pepper, allspice, and cumin permeating the air in the family kitchen.

    I saw it in the intricate embroidery on my grandma’s silk robe. And in the determination etched in the faces of my immigrant parents, who raised seven children in Southern California without relinquishing our rich Syrian traditions.

    April is National Arab American Heritage Month. It should be a time to celebrate the contributions of the over 3.5 million Arab Americans who strengthen our proud nation.

    We have Ralph Nader to thank for consumer protections like automobile safety. We have the late Senator James Abourezk (D-SD) — the first Arab American elected to the U.S. Senate — to credit for landmark legislation championing Indigenous rights. Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, a pediatrician, first exposed the Flint, Michigan water crisis.

    There are countless others. But right now, it’s impossible to feel celebratory. My community is reeling from the immense pain and horror of an unfolding genocide against the 2.3 million Palestinians of Gaza.

    Palestinian Americans have lost family members in Gaza from Israel’s unrelenting bombardment and mass starvation of civilians. Adding insult to injury, Israel is using U.S.-supplied weapons to commit these atrocities.

    Palestinian Americans — along with other Arabs — have also been on the receiving end of increased hate crimes, harassment, racist rhetoric, and discrimination, belying the message that they, too, are an integral part of this nation. The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee received 2,500 reports of anti-Arab hate from October to March.

    During this period, Wadea Al-Fayoume, a 6-year-old Palestinian American boy from Illinois, was fatally stabbed. Three Palestinian college students were shot in Vermont.

    In his proclamation marking this year’s heritage month, President Biden was forced to reckon with Gaza. Instead of announcing a long overdue, permanent ceasefire and an end to U.S. military support for Israel, he offered empty words.

    How can Arab American life and culture be celebrated when fellow Arabs are facing erasure in Gaza? Nearly 35,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza so far, including nearly 14,000 children. Thousands more remain missing. And at least 576,000 Palestinians are on the brink of famine.

    Homes filled with family heirlooms and memories have been systematically destroyed. The ancient olive trees that symbolize Palestinians’ deep-rooted connection to their land haven’t been spared.

    It’s easy to feel despair. But what brings me hope is the new generation of Arab Americans organizing, marching, and working with other communities to demand a permanent ceasefire. We are reminded that dissent is the highest form of “patriotism.”

    Despite attempts to smear and silence them for supporting Palestinian human rights, their efforts are having an impact. A March 27 Gallup poll showed a significant drop in American public support for Israel’s conduct of the war, from 50 percent in November 2023 to 36 percent now.

    Meanwhile, Arab Americans have emerged as a new and powerful voting bloc. Spearheaded by Arab Americans in Michigan, hundreds of thousands of Americans voted “uncommitted” in recent primary elections in Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, Massachusetts, and elsewhere to protest U.S. policy in Gaza.

    This represents a real shift from the days after 9/11, when Arab Americans faced blanket demonization without any pushback. This is progress, although much more must be done.

    We know we belong in America even if we’re not always treated that way. We need enduring collaboration between Arab Americans and policymakers, educators, and community members to defend our rights, create a more equal America, and promote more just U.S. policies abroad  — starting with a ceasefire in Gaza.

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  • We Need Housing, Not Hand Cuffs

    Encampment, Northeast Portland, Oregon. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.

    As the cost of housing has exploded, so has the number of people experiencing homelessness. And unfortunately, instead of trying to house people, more states and cities are criminalizing people simply for lacking a safe place to sleep.

    According to the National Homelessness Law Center, almost every state restricts the conduct of people experiencing homelessness. In Missouri, sleeping on state land is a crime. A new law in Florida bans people from sleeping on public property — and requires local governments without bed space for unhoused people to set up camps far away from public services.

    Laura Gutowski, from Grants Pass, Oregon, lives in a tent near the home where she resided for 25 years. Soon after her husband unexpectedly passed away, she became unhoused. “It kind of all piled on at the same time,” she told Oregon Public Broadcasting. “Flipped my world upside down.”

    Grants Pass, like most cities today, lacks enough shelter beds to accommodate its unhoused population. It’s now the subject of a Supreme Court case: Grants Pass v. Johnson, which started when Grants Pass began ticketing people for sleeping in public even when there weren’t enough shelter beds.

    People can be fined hundreds of dollars and face criminal charges “simply for existing without access to shelter,” said Ed Johnson, an attorney for the unhoused residents of Grants Pass. The Supreme Court’s decision will have far-reaching ramifications as communities grapple with rising homelessness and housing costs.

    If the Court rules in favor of Grants Pass, local governments will get more authority to clear homeless encampments and penalize those who sleep on streets, only exacerbating the problem.

    Alternatively, the Court could prohibit these “camping” bans and remove criminalization as an option. Back in 2018, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals took that route in Martin v. City of Boise, which held that it is “cruel and unusual punishment” to criminalize homelessness.

    According to the federal government, last year 653,100 people experienced homelessness on a single night in America — a 12 percent increase from 2022. Nearly half of these people sleep outside.

    Researchers have found that homelessness is primarily linked to unaffordable housing, compounded by the lack of adequate health care and social safety net support. With half of all renter households now spending more than 30 percent of their incomeon housing, more people today are one emergency away from being vulnerable to homelessness.

    Fining, arresting, and jailing people for a lack of housing is never the solution — and compounds existing housing inequities. Neither is displacing people without providing permanent alternative housing. Unpayable fines perpetuate the cycle of poverty, and a criminal record makes it even more difficult to secure employment and decent housing.

    Moreover, the costs of criminalizing people for living unhoused are higher than housing them, both morally and financially. Instead of kicking them while they’re down, housing support combined with other voluntary services help to lift them back up.

    Using a “Housing First” approach, Houston, Texas reduced homelessness by nearly two-thirds over a decade. Chattanooga, Tennessee reduced homelessness by half in 2022-2023 by connecting more people to housing, increasing homelessness prevention efforts, and creating more affordable housing units.

    Other helpful measures include expanding housing subsidies, rent control, a renter’s tax credit, and ensuring access to health care services.

    The underlying issue is how we treat those who struggle to meet basic needs in the wealthiest nation in the world. Criminalizing people for involuntarily living unhoused and in poverty is inherently cruel.

    For the U.S. to truly address this crisis, we must transform our approach and recognize that housing is a fundamental human right, not a commodity. All people deserve to live in a home in peace, security, and dignity.

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  • The Rent’s Still Too High!

    Photograph Source: Christopher Paquette – CC BY 2.0

    “How we gonna pay last year’s rent?” the chorus implores in the song “Rent” from Jonathan Larson’s 1996 musical of the same name.

    It’s the same refrain for many Americans today. A new Harvard study found that half of U.S. renter households now spend more than 30 percent of their income on rent and utilities. And rent increases continue to outpace their income gains.

    With other studies confirming that homelessness grows alongside housing costs, this means many more people are vulnerable. Last year, homelessness hit an all-time national high of 653,100 people.

    In the wealthiest country on the planet, this is unacceptable.

    The pandemic revealed the full extent of the U.S. housing crisis, with roughly 580,000 people in 2020 living unhoused during “stay at home” orders. But it also proved that federal intervention could ease the crisis. Eviction moratoria and unemployment relief helped keep more people housed, fed, and secure.

    But these initiatives ended too quickly. With homelessness spiking alongside hunger and child poverty, we need to bring those programs back — and more. We need to prioritize making housing affordable, accessible, and habitable for everyone.

    Over the past decade, according to the Harvard study, the majority of growth in renter households has come from Millennials and Gen Zers who continue to be priced out of homeownership while also paying more for a declining supply of affordable units.

    Meanwhile, construction in the high-end “luxury” rental market, which drives up rents for everyone else, remains in an upward trend. And private equity firms like Blackstone, the largest landlord in the U.S., have been expanding their real estate portfolios. These trends have fueled increased housing costs and evictions across communities.

    The Harvard study revealed that our nation’s aging rental stock also needs crucial investment. Nearly half of renters with disabilities live in homes that are minimally or not at all accessible. Further, around 4 million renter households live in units with structural problems and lack basic services like electricity, water, or heat.

    The lack of decent, affordable housing is a policy choice that can be overcome if our federal, state, and local governments prioritize taking much-needed action. Increasing the supply of affordable housing and expanding rental subsidies for lower income renters will help address this housing crisis. But they will not fully resolve it.

    Ultimately, it is long past time for our country to change its approach to housing. We need to recognize housing as a human right fundamental to every person’s life, health, and security — instead of as a luxury commodity limited to those who can afford it.

    International law already recognizes housing as a human right. Countries are legally obligated to respect, protect, and fulfill this right by enacting relevant policies and budgets to progressively realize adequate housing for all.

    What might that look like? Possibilities include rent controls, housing assistance programs, reining in corporate landlords, and creating community land trusts and housing cooperatives to build permanently affordable rental units and homes.

    These affordability measures must be combined with legal protections against forced evictions and housing discrimination, along with regulations to ensure that housing is physically habitable and connected to essential services.

    The housing justice movement keeps growing, thanks to the sustained advocacy of community groups across the country.

    In California, Connecticut, and elsewhere, they are pushing for legislation that would recognize the right to housing at the state level. Colorado lawmakers are considering legislation that would offer tenants “just-cause” eviction protections. In Congress, the “Housing is a Human Right Act” introduced last year would provide over $300 billion for housing infrastructure and combating homelessness.

    The song “Rent” concludes, “Cause everything is rent.” But it shouldn’t have to be.

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  • On Gaza, Biden is Violating International Law

    Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

    “If I must die, you must live to tell my story,” wrote Dr. Refaat Alareer, a 44-year-old Gazan poet and literature professor. A few weeks later, Alareer was killed while sheltering in his sister’s apartment, along with six family members.

    In the densely populated Gaza Strip, the loss of life is staggering. Israel’s two-month bombardment has killed at least 18,000 Palestinian civilians there, including nearly 9,000 children. Another 25,000 children have lost one or both of their parents.

    President Biden has repeatedly assured the public that Israel is following international law. Yet Israeli forces have deliberately targeted Palestinian civilians and civilian infrastructure, in direct violation of international humanitarian law. With 90 percentof those killed in Gaza being civilians, only now is Biden finally admitting that Israel is bombing “indiscriminately.”

    Homes, hospitals, schools, mosques, churches, refugee camps, and government buildings have all been reduced to rubble. Israeli troops have forced Palestinian men to strip and parade through the streets. There are disturbing eyewitness allegations of torture and summary executions of civilians.

    Palestinian human rights groups and many international experts, including Israeli scholars of the Holocaust, have warned that Israel’s actions meet the legal standard of genocide.

    Article 2 of the 1948 Genocide Convention defines genocide as specific acts taken “with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.” Some of these acts include “killing members of the group,” “causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group,” and “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”

    The mass killing of Palestinians in Gaza’s schools, medical facilities, shelters, and residential areas are all evidence of likely genocidal acts. As are the forced relocation of over 1 million Palestinians out of northern Gaza and Israel’s frequent bombing of civilian evacuation routes.

    Meanwhile, Israel has intensified its complete siege of Gaza, depriving Palestinians of food, water, electricity, fuel, and medical supplies. Starvation and infectious disease are rampant. Gaza’s health care system has “completely collapsed” from ongoing Israeli strikes, according to Doctors Without Borders.

    Proving genocidal intent can often be difficult. However, experts have pointed to dehumanizing statements by Israeli leaders that hint at it — including calling Palestinians “human animals” and “children of darkness.”

    Others are more explicit. An Israeli lawmaker called for a “Nakba” — an Arabic reference to the violent mass displacement of Palestinians — “that will overshadow the Nakba of 1948.” The defense minister declared “we will eliminate everything” in Gaza. And a recent investigation by the Israeli +972 Magazine found that Israel’s bombing of non-military targets is “calculated.”

    Many experts believe these actions and statements of intent are evidence of an unfolding genocide. Due to the crime’s gravity, all parties to the Genocide Convention — including the U.S. —  have a legal duty to prevent it from the moment they learn of a serious risk that a genocide will be committed.

    Instead, the U.S has vetoed UN Security Council ceasefire resolutions and expedited lethal arms to Israel on top of the annual aid we already provide. Far from preventing a genocide, a lawsuit by the Center for Constitutional Rights argues, the U.S. is complicit in one.

    The October 7 attacks by Hamas fighters on Israeli civilians were reprehensible crimes, but they don’t provide legal or moral justification for the collective punishment of Gazan civilians. Nor can genocide ever be justified.

    No government is above the law and free to commit mass slaughter. The U.S. government often claims to stand for justice and the rule of law. But is it willing to stand by those principles for the Palestinian people?

    At this dire moment, with the world watching, the U.S. not only has the ability but the obligation to secure a permanent ceasefire and save innocent lives.

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  • Americans Want a Ceasefire; It’s Our Politicians Who Are Out of Touch

    Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

    Two years ago, filmmaker Mohannad Abu Rizk asked children in Gaza about their dreams. One young girl responded, “My dream is for us to stay alive and to live in peace. We have a right to stay alive.”

    She’s one of the 2.2 million Palestinians living in the densely populated Gaza Strip under a 56-year Israeli occupation — and a 16-year blockade that deprives them of food, water, electricity, and freedom of movement. International rights groups now classify it as an apartheid system.

    She’s also one of the Palestinians Israeli officials called “human animals” and “children of darkness” as bombs fell on Gaza. It’s unclear if this girl with the big, soulful brown eyes is still alive, but about half of the over 10,000 Gazans killed by the Israeli military are children.

    All human lives are precious. The murder of over a thousand Israelis by Hamas on October 7 was a heinous crime. Israeli families deserve justice and the safe return of their loved ones held hostage. But indiscriminately bombing and collectively punishing Palestinian civilians — who are neither synonymous with Hamas nor responsible for their crimes — accomplishes neither.

    For most Americans, that’s not a controversial opinion. In a recent survey, 66 percent of Americans supported an immediate ceasefire as a step toward peace and justice for both Palestinians and Israelis.

    Unfortunately, our elected officials aren’t listening — yet.

    Instead of backing a ceasefire, President Biden requested $14.3 billion in military assistance to Israel above the $3.8 billion taxpayers already send each year. And when a few House Democrats, including Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), called for a ceasefire in October, the White House press secretary didn’t hold back: “We believe they’re repugnant and we believe they’re disgraceful.”

    The GOP rhetoric has been even more repulsive. Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL) compared “innocent Palestinians” to “innocent Nazis” while Rep. Max Miller (R-OH) called for Gaza to be “eviscerated” and “turned into a parking lot.” Instead of working for peace, House Republicans have focused their energies on a bad faith censure of Tlaib, the only Palestinian American in Congress.

    This dehumanizing and dangerous rhetoric fuels hate crimes that have escalated against Arab and Muslim Americans since October 7 — including the murder of 6-year-old Palestinian American Wadea Al-Fayoume and the attempted murder of his mother in Illinois. Recently, a Muslim student at Stanford was hospitalized after being struck by a car in a suspected hate crime.

    The war’s reverberations can also be felt in the chilling climate of fear and repression that painfully reminds Arab Americans and Muslims like myself of the days following the 9/11 attacks. College students have faced doxxing and harassment for signing statements supporting Palestinians or criticizing the Israeli government. Others have lost job offers.

    But despite efforts to smear and silence them, people are standing up for basic human dignity. Tens of thousands of Americans marched in Washington, D.C. on November 4 to support a ceasefire. The movement for a ceasefire continues to grow around the country.

    Veteran State Department official Josh Paul resigned in protest on October 17, calling the U.S. rush to supply Israel with more arms “shortsighted, destructive, unjust, and contradictory to the very values that we publicly espouse.” And over 400 congressional staffers signed a statement demanding a ceasefire in Gaza.

    Gaza is facing a humanitarian catastrophe. There is no food, water, or safety. Many experts have warned that a likely genocide is underway. The U.S. must stop funding this assault, which will only lead to the loss of more Palestinian and Israeli lives — and exacerbate the rising Islamophobia and anti-semitism that have no place in our society.

    Our elected officials must listen to the majority of American people who are demanding peace so that Palestinians can live freely, instead of dreaming about it.

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  • Suing for a Livable Climate

    Across the globe, people are turning to the courts to combat the worsening climate emergency. Since 2015, cases around the world have doubled to over 2,000, according to a recent United Nations report. They are also on the rise in the United States. In a landmark trial in Montana, a judge ruled this summer that the state had violated the young plaintiffs’ More

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  • Hot Labor Summer… In More Ways Than One

    This summer has been a hot one for labor as strikes and other worker actions have swept the country. At the same time, workers have been toiling in one of the hottest summers ever recorded due to the ongoing climate emergency. This has put millions at greater risk of heat-related illness and death. The 340,000 UPS workers, represented by More

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  • Housing is a Human Right, We Need to Recognize It

    In the wealthiest country on the planet, too many people still lack access to housing. The pandemic revealed the full extent of the U.S. housing crisis. Where were the roughly 580,000 people living unhoused in 2020 to go under “stay at home” orders? And what about those facing eviction? At the same time, the pandemic proved that More

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  • Will There Ever Be Justice for the Iraq War?

    The wars in Iraq and Ukraine may differ, but both speak to the tragic realities of war. They also make a strong case for strengthening the rule of law instead of undermining it through flimsy pretexts for endless militarism. Like the 2003 U.S. war in Iraq, which marked its 20th anniversary this March, Russia’s year-long More

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  • Syrian Earthquake Victims Desperately Need Aid — and an End to US Sanctions

    The devastating earthquake in Turkey and Syria has killed over 40,000 people, a number the United Nations has warned may escalate. The destruction is unfathomable. According to the UN, at least 870,000 people across Turkey and Syria are in urgent need of hot meals. In Syria, around 5.3 million people are in need of shelter. Over 1 million people in Turkey are living in temporary shelters.

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • How the World Can Help After the Middle East Quake

    The devastating earthquake in Turkey and Syria has killed over 40,000 people, a number the United Nations has warned may escalate. The destruction is unfathomable. According to the UN, at least 870,000 people across Turkey and Syria are in urgent need of hot meals. In Syria, around 5.3 million people are in need of shelter. Over 1 million More

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  • Will California Save the Iconic Joshua Tree?

    “I’m watching these trees fall over in the park because of being baked in the heat,” observed David, my climbing instructor. He has lived in Joshua Tree for some 30 years, just a stone’s throw away from the entrance to its namesake Joshua Tree National Park, where the Colorado and Mojave Deserts meet. As a […]

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  • We Must Stop Thinking of About This as a “Border Crisis”



    Most of us agree that the U.S. immigration system is in dire need of reform. But inflammatory rhetoric and policies designed to keep immigrants away won’t get us there.

    When I was in law school, I witnessed firsthand the difficulties faced by asylum seekers.

    These desperate people had already endured terrifying conditions in their home countries and harrowing journeys to reach the U.S. border. Then they had to navigate a vastly complex immigration system that seemed bent on sending them away.

    I’ve listened to asylum seekers in immigration jail speak about their fears of persecution if returned back to their home countries. I’ve accompanied them during their asylum interviews. And I’ve observed judges in immigration court hear nearly 100 cases in a single day.

    Politicians and media pundits quickly reduce this mounting humanitarian crisis to “border security.” That narrow focus puts real solutions out of reach — and imperils the universal right to seek refuge from danger.

    Even President Biden, who promised to break from his hardline predecessor, has doubled down on the assault on immigrants. Faced with a surge of asylum seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border, the Biden administration expanded the use of Title 42 this January to restrict people from Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti, and Venezuela from entering the United States.

    Title 42 is a rarely used provision of U.S. health law first invoked by President Trump to prevent asylum seekers from applying for legal protection at the U.S.-Mexico border under the pretext of preventing COVID-19. Biden has continued using Title 42 to carry out thousands of expulsions each month, sending people back to countries where they face harm and humanitarian disaster.

    We do need efforts to manage border migration efficiently, but not at the expense of fairness, humanity, and our own laws and values.

    The administration has also announced an enhanced use of “expedited removal,” which allows Border Patrol agents to quickly deport arriving migrants without adequate asylum screenings. Another proposed regulation would make people seeking asylum ineligible if they failed to seek protection in a third country before reaching the U.S.

    Accompanying Biden’s expanded expulsion policy is a new “parole” program that will bring temporary relief to Nicaraguans, Haitians, and Cubans, similar to one created for Venezuelans. This program will allow the entry of up to 30,000 individuals from the four countries each month as long as they have obtained financial sponsorship in the U.S. and satisfied other requirements.

    These individuals will be permitted to remain in the U.S. for two years with work authorization. But those who attempt to seek asylum at the border will be expelled and ineligible for the parole program.

    While helpful, this parole program offers limited legal pathways for just a tiny percentage of people. Its requirements impose major barriers to asylum seekers without access to resources, perpetuating inequities within the U.S. immigration system.

    The right to seek asylum at our borders regardless of one’s nationality is recognized under both international and U.S. law. Yet more than ever, that right is in danger. As political and economic conditions continue to deteriorate in Haiti, Venezuela, and throughout Central America, displacing ever more people, we need to fix this broken system.

    We do need efforts to manage border migration efficiently, but not at the expense of fairness, humanity, and our own laws and values. In tandem, the root causes of forced migration must be confronted, which requires re-examining U.S. policies toward our neighbors in Latin America and the Caribbean.

    We are a proud nation of immigrants with an immigration system that has not always lived up to America’s highest ideals. Until Congress finally passes comprehensive immigration reform, President Biden must commit to respecting our asylum laws and do more to build an immigration system that fundamentally recognizes dignity and respect for all people.

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams.

  • Beyond the Border Crisis

    Most of us agree that the U.S. immigration system is in dire need of reform. But inflammatory rhetoric and policies designed to keep immigrants away won’t get us there. When I was in law school, I witnessed firsthand the difficulties faced by asylum seekers. These desperate people had already endured terrifying conditions in their home countries and harrowing journeys More

    The post Beyond the Border Crisis appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

    This post was originally published on CounterPunch.org.

  • This Has Been a Horrific Year for the Globally Displaced

    This year’s record-breaking global displacement crisis calls for immigration policies that reflect our humanity, not cruelty.

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams – Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community.

  • A Year of Global Displacement

    This year had the unwelcome distinction of being the first to see over 100 million people displaced worldwide. Such a staggering milestone reminds us that greater efforts are needed to address the underlying causes forcing so many innocent people to flee their homes. Even more alarming, this milestone was reached by the middle of the year. Over 50 More

    The post A Year of Global Displacement appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

    This post was originally published on CounterPunch.org.

  • Safe Tap Water Should be a Human Right

    The water drips lethargically from the tap, if at all. Its appearance shifts from chemical brown sludge to ghoulish clouds. The accompanying stench is revolting. Unsafe tap water is unacceptable in any modern society. But from Michigan to Mississippi to Tribal communities in the West, people across the United States are all too familiar with it as More

    The post Safe Tap Water Should be a Human Right appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

    This post was originally published on CounterPunch.org.

  • Safe Tap Water Is a Human Right

    But from Michigan to Mississippi to Tribal communities in the West, millions of Americans don’t have it.

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams – Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community.

  • As Millions Suffer, the US Needs to End the Collective Punishment of the Afghan People

    With innocent Afghans impoverished and starving, the U.S. must return money that’s rightfully theirs.

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams – Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community.

  • President Biden: End the War in Yemen

    Biden once said the U.S. should never “check its principles at the door just to buy oil or sell weapons.” He should take his own advice.

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams – Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community.