The IMF Board of Governors convened a special virtual session for final approval of US $650 billion in emergency reserve currency or Special Drawing Rights (SDRs). Countries will receive their share of Special Drawing Rights on August 23rd.
“More than $200 billion of these new reserve funds will go to developing countries to support pandemic relief and recovery efforts,” said Eric LeCompte, Executive Director of the religious development group Jubilee USA Network. “While these resources are needed, developing countries must receive more aid to get beyond the crisis.”
More than $400 billion of the emergency currency goes to wealthy countries. Wealthy countries can donate their SDRs to developing countries directly, or through initiatives from the IMF or development banks.
“Most wealthy countries don’t need their share of Special Drawing Rights and they need to donate them quickly to developing countries struggling with the health and economic crisis,” stated LeCompte.
Read Jubilee USA’s IMF COVID response letter calling for Special Drawing Rights aid with nearly 270 signatories here.
“He was talking about going pro and going to college. He had a future on him. He had a future. I just wish that he was still here with us,” said Ruskin High School football teammate, Kenderal Webber. “I lost a lot of friends, but I was real close with Terrell. I wouldn’t never thought this would happen.”
“He was like another little brother. I see him and my cousins running around. He was a good person and ya’ll took him from everybody now,” said Bell’s friend, Tyisha Peak.
Earlier this week FOX4 spoke to the teen’s pastor, Dennis Lester who said the teen was active and faithful member at the neighborhood church, Bethel Family Worship Center.
At the vigil, there were also calls for change and peace.
Local gospel artist Christian Fly delivering an emotional plea before the crowd.
“Enough is enough. Until we teach our kids that their neighbor is deserving of the same respect of those in their household. This going to continue to happen,” Fly said. “We got to teach them better problem-solving skills. Until pain hurts you enough to make you want to change, we are going to keep going through things like this.”
A juvenile has been arrested and charged in Bell’s death.
National Gun Violence Survivors Week is about elevating our voices and stories, because after living through terrible tragedy, we have found the strength to speak out to help prevent others from experiencing the same pain. It is an emotionally intense week, and after reading and sharing so many stories, I hope you will continue to practice self care and explore resources with the Everytown Survivor Network.
I also wanted to share some of the incredible things you accomplished in the third year of National Gun violence Survivors Week.
Field Events: Moms Demand Action and Students Demand Action volunteers organized close to 95 virtual events with more than 1700 in attendance, including the first ever NGVSW student summit. Thank you to all of you who organized and spoke at events to ensure survivor voices were heard across the country: from panel discussions to acts of service such as blood drives and book drives, it had a powerful impact.
A moving event lead by California Survivor Engagement Leads
Social Media: Thousands of survivor stories were shared on social media, including 55k mentions of the hashtag #GVSurvivorsWeek and related terms. I was honored to be a part of the Survivor Twitter team — a truly powerful force — who were sharing stories of survivors in the Network all throughout the week to reach more Americans with the urgent message that we must address our country’s gun crisis. If you haven’t already and would like to, you can join the Survivor twitter team here, which engages on campaigns throughout the year.
Federal, State, City Leaders: More than 370 survivors of gun violence released an open letter to the 117th Congress highlighting the shared life-changing trauma of gun violence, which we shared with elected officials and on social media and media during the week. Thank you to all of you who signed the letter.
Our partners in Washington responded by lifting up your voices through social media, virtual conversations, press releases, and floor speeches, including Ambassador Susan Rice, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA-12), Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Rep. Dwight Evans (D-PA-03). The week was even featured during floor speeches in both chambers of Congress by Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Rep. Dwight Evans (D-PA).
Beyond the federal government, dozens of mayors and state officials from across the country shared your stories on social media and issued mayoral proclamations. Everytown’s research team also put together a fact sheet for local government leaders on “Community-Led Services for Survivors.”
Partnerships: Over 65 partners, including nearly every gun violence prevention organization, national membership groups, non-profit organizations, and faith partners across various issue areas, joined the effort to lift stories and facts about the impact of gun violence.
In the week leading up to Survivors Week, PEOPLE Magazine released People Features: Gun Violence Survivor Athletes, a virtual roundtable where members of the Everytown Athletic Council shared their personal experiences with gun violence.
Throughout the week, there were many media clips in which survivors spoke out about the impact of gun violence across the country. Here are just a few of them:
America’s extra vaccine doses could be key to global supply
Data: Duke Global Health Innovation Center. Chart: Michelle McGhee/AxiosThe Biden administration’s purchase of 200 million additional Pfizer and Modern doses means the U.S. could fully vaccinate 300 million people with just those two vaccines — and 355 million more people if four additional vaccines gain FDA approval, Axios World editor Dave Lawler reports.Why it matters: The White House says the U.S. will eventually donate excess doses to other countries, but it hasn’t released a plan to do so.Between the lines: Sources in the administration emphasize that despite the bulk orders, only two vaccines have been approved and supplies remain scarce.Most of the 1.2 billion doses of six vaccines currently on the books were purchased as part of the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed.Keep reading.
Efforts to restrict facial recognition are gathering momentum around the country, including the investigation of the Capitol insurrection, Axios Future author Bryan Walsh writes.Why it matters: With dozens of companies selling the ability to identify people from pictures of their faces — and no clear federal regulation governing the process — facial recognition is seeping into the U.S.Driving the news: The Minneapolis City Council voted yesterday to bar its police department from using facial recognition technology, Axios Twin Cities’ Nick Halter reports.Minneapolis will join other cities that have restricted the technology, including Portland, San Francisco and Boston.Keep reading.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) greets Jason Miller, adviser to President Trump, at the Capitol yesterday. Photo: Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call via Getty ImagesHistorians are already drawing lessons from Impeachment II, Axios managing editors David Nather and Margaret Talev report:The power of impeachment: That’s pretty much gone. Historian Douglas Brinkley says if former President Trump is acquitted, it’ll be clear impeachment is a political process, not a legal one.America’s changing demographics: Renee Romano, an Oberlin College professor who specializes in the field of historical memory, says that outcome would raise the question: “Can America ever truly be a multiracial democracy?'”Congress leaves the field: With a Trump acquittal, the Senate would have passed on two chances to hold a president accountable for undermining the authority of Congress, said Andrew Rudalevidge, expert on presidential power.Share this story.
En español | A nonprofit organization that specializes in teaching technology skills to older adults is uniting with AARP to offer its courses to even more older adults nationwide — for free.
Senior Planet and its parent organization, Older Adults Technology Services (OATS), have been working with AARP on projects for a decade or more, including a How to Use Zoom class early in the coronavirus pandemic that drew more than 10,000 participants, says Tom Kamber, executive director of OATS/Senior Planet. Now OATS has joined forces with AARP as an affiliated charity, like AARP Foundation, Legal Counsel for the Elderly and Wish of a Lifetime.
OATS will continue to offer its programs independently. AARP will support OATS in expanding its offerings and making them known to a wider audience through AARP’s new Virtual Community Center. The relationship with AARP allows both organizations to help more people learn the computer skills they need now more than ever because so many activities and events are available only online.
Before the pandemic, nearly three-quarters of adults in the United States had high-speed internet access at home, according to recent Pew Research Center data. But that number misses differences among age groups. About 4 of 5 adults ages 50 to 64 had high-speed internet then, higher than the U.S. average, but only 3 of 5 people 65 and older had the same access.
More than a quarter of people 65 and older told Pew researchers that they never went online. Past Pew studies have shown that online use drops even more among those 80 and older.
Tech anxiety transformed
In many cases, older adults lack confidence in their ability to use new devices and software designed to make their lives easier, the Pew researchers found. They watch from the sidelines as younger family members easily adopt new technology, potential employers use code words for age bias to target “digital native” job candidates, and the pandemic increases their isolationbecause of the COVID danger that meeting friends face to face may bring.
Jolynn Bailey, 67, a retired teacher who lives in Clifton, Texas, was a reluctant convert to technology. She had used a computer at work and for her grade books, but only because her school required it, she says. She used the computer her daughter bought her only to look at email and log on to Weight Watchers’ website.
Learn online
AARP has two places where you can sign up for free online classes and workshops:
Then the pandemic left her alone in her studio apartment with poor TV reception and a few DVDs — unable to go to the nearby gym, head to Weight Watchers meetings in Waco or meet with friends. Her daughter, who works for a tech company in California, found out about Senior Planet in April and suggested she try it. She waited three months, becoming more and more desperate for things to do.
“The first time I went on Senior Planet I was hooked,” Bailey says. “It gave me my world back and more than that, a whole new world.” Now she joins stretch or chair yoga classes to keep fit; participates in the virtual book club; and takes tech classes, even learning how to use an HDMI cable so she can watch YouTube videos from her computer on the bigger TV screen. She’s in Senior Planet discussion groups where she’s met people from across the country and often takes part in several workshops each day.
The idea for OATS/Senior Planet began when Kamber was working on part of the project to revitalize Lower Manhattan after 9/11. An 87-year-old woman in the area called him after learning about his website launch related to the project. But she didn’t have a computer and didn’t know about the internet.
Kamber ended up tutoring her in his office.
OATS was founded in 2004 in New York City as an outgrowth of those lessons. It now has Senior Planet physical centers in five additional cities: Palo Alto, California; Denver; Rockville, Maryland; Plattsburgh, New York; and San Antonio. Classes are entirely online during the pandemic, which allows anyone from across the country to participate, but in-person instruction will resume when it’s safe to do so.
Engagement erases isolation
Senior Planet programs are designed to teach adults 60 and older basic computer skills — including how to start, stop, mute, skip ads and enlarge a YouTube video — and more advanced options. Its interactive online classes, offered in English, Spanish and Chinese, are free to anyone of any age. About 50 classes are on the schedule each week.
“A lot of Latino adults aren’t up to date with technology. Some don’t even have internet access,” says Braulio “Brad” José Veloz Carvajal, a 73-year-old retiree in San Antonio who found out about the Senior Planet classes through his membership in the Pride Center San Antonio. He knew how to use a computer but retired from his job at the Pentagon in 2003, so he wanted to learn all about Google, Facetime and Zoom.
“With what I learned, I was able to talk to my family in Corpus Christi and San Antonio. That made me so happy.”— Brad Veloz, 73, of San Antonio
“With what I learned, I was able to talk to my family in Corpus Christi and San Antonio. That made me so happy,” he said after the months of lockdown because of the pandemic. “I hope Senior Planet teaches technologies that can provide a way to talk to other seniors in the Latino LGBT community and start support groups.”
Class participants can decide to just listen, speak up with questions or type comments in the chat area. Most sessions aren’t archived for future playback, although some how-tos are posted to Senior Planet’s YouTube channel, but popular courses are offered frequently.
“In some of our classes, we find that they come early and stay late to talk to each other,” Kamber says. “Our trainers seek out opportunities to engage people. They draw people out.” Follow-up with students has shown that participants are using their newfound knowledge.
Technology topics include a range of how-tos such as shopping on Amazon, using Google Maps and hosting a Zoom meeting. Some workshops focus on helping participants struggling with tech issues or learning how to keep their personal information secure. Better balance, chair yoga and stretching sessions are among Senior Planet’s fitness offerings.
“If I can Zoom, you can Zoom,” says Bailey, who decided to become a member of Senior Planet to go along with her 17-year AARP membership. “It’s not that complicated. You just need somebody to guide you through it. And that’s what Senior Planet knows how to do.”
Monica Bentivegna contributed to this story. Linda Dono is an executive editor for AARP. Previously, she served as a reporter and editor for USA Today, Gannett News Service and newspapers in four states, including The Cincinnati Enquirer.
The Virtual Community Center uses Zoom and a few other online platforms to allow users with common interests to learn together. As with Senior Planet’s offerings, these events are live and allow for interactivity — speaking or typing — with others in attendance. It’s not on-demand video.
“The Virtual Community Center is designed in many ways to be like an in-person community center. You sign up for a class and go to it” online, says Heather Nawrocki, AARP’s vice president of fun and fulfillment.
Events on a wide variety of topics, including books, fitness, history, music and screenings of AARP Movies for Grownups, are available now for signup. All are free, have no age restrictions and don’t require AARP membership to participate. Although the programs initially are in English, AARP is looking at expanding the signup platform as well as course offerings for Spanish speakers.
“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.”
-Luke 15:20
Recently, the United Kingdom appointed a Minister of Loneliness to attend to the growing public health crisis of loneliness reported by 9 million people in their country. Our culture has mastered the art of relational distance. Too many of us are content to view one another from a long way off. Our past hurts, pains, disappointments and biases keep us so isolated and alone. But like this father who saw his son and became proximal to him, we are being nudged to close the chasm of difference and remember our shared humanity.
Pastor Michael McBride (known as “Pastor Mike”) is a native of San Francisco and has been active in ministry for over 20 years. Pastor McBride’s commitment to holistic ministry can be seen through his leadership roles in both the church and community organizations. A graduate of Duke University’s Divinity School, with a Master of Divinity with an emphasis in Ethics and Public Policy, Pastor McBride founded The Way Christian Center in West Berkeley, where he presently serves as the Lead Pastor.
Bestselling author Stephen King on Monday weighed in on President Trump’s recent warnings to the migrant caravan moving through Mexico toward the United States. King’s criticism came in response to a tweet Trump shared on Sunday stating that “full efforts are being made to stop the onslaught of illegal aliens from crossing our Souther (sic) Border.” “Jesus, man,” King said in response to the tweet. “You act like the Red Chinese army was invading.” “They’re just a bunch of scared and hungry people,” the author said.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, addresses some of the greatest superbug threats—and what the agency is doing about them.
“It’s a long road from exciting things happening in the lab to getting through a clinical process to the patient’s bedside,” Kathy Talkington, director of Pew’s antibiotic resistance project, explains in a Chicago Tribune editorial.
For Men’s Health Month—June—get to know Chris Linaman. After his heartbreaking superbug experience, he’s working to help others avoid the trauma he endured.
Antibiotics are fundamental to modern medicine, essential for treating everything from routine skin infections to strep throat, and for protecting vulnerable patients receiving chemotherapy or being treated in intensive care units.
Pew’s antibiotic resistance project is working to ensure both the prudent use of existing drugs and a robust pipeline of new drugs in order to meet current and future patient needs.
You probably heard the great news – after a few years of progressive activism, FOX finally cancelled Glenn Beck’s show–but the Boycott Must Go On!!
Ten years ago, Media Matters launched with a revolutionary mission: to systematically monitor the U.S. media for conservative misinformation every day, in real time. We’ve been calling out right-wing lies for a decade — and we’re not done yet. Will you contribute now to help us raise $10,000 for our 10th anniversary?
For ten years, we’ve successfully fought back against the bad actors that poison our media with right-wing lies and smears. It’s been an amazing beginning, and we couldn’t have done it without your support.
Dear Kevin,
You probably heard the great news – after two years of progressive activism, FOX finally cancelled Glenn Beck’s show.
Beck was targeted after he slandered President Obama by saying, “This president has exposed himself as a guy, over and over and over again, who has a deep-seated hatred for white people, or the white culture, I don’t know what it is… This guy, I believe, is a racist.”
Activists at ColorOfChange, Media Matters, StopBeck, FoxNewsBoycott, and of course Democrats.com responded with a boycott of advertisers on Glenn Beck’s show. Ultimately over 300 advertisers pulled their ads from Beck, costing FOX over $40 million.
Advertiser boycotts work! And it’s time to boycott all FOX News advertisers: http://www.democrats.com/boycott-proactiv
We’re starting our boycott of all FOX News with Proactiv, which sells acne medicine to teenagers and young adults. Why?
First, there are lots of other acne treatments. Second, young adults above all are hurt by FOX News, which promotes right-wing policies on race, education, healthcare, the environment, and war. Let’s get our future leaders to lead the fight against FOX News!
Sign the petition to Proactiv and enter the email address of every young adult over 18 you know: http://www.democrats.com/boycott-proactiv
Beyond President Obama, FOX regularly slanders nearly everyone: Democrats, unionized workers, the unemployed (including veterans and 99ers), environmentalists, feminists, blacks, Hiics, Jews, Muslims, progressives, scientists, and any other group it disagrees with.
FOX News broadcasts rightwing extremist slander, incitement to violence, political propaganda, and outright lies to promote its rightwing political agenda. This is not “news,” but rather a never-ending “war on news” – and it’s all documented in our petition.
Why would any decent company want to fund it? Tell Proactiv to stop advertising on FOX News: http://www.democrats.com/boycott-proactiv
Thanks for all you do!
Bob Fertik
GLEN BECK ADMITTED in 2007, “I Am RACIST and Barack Obama is very White” THIS MAKES Boycotting FOX NEWS needed NOW
By Kevin Stoda
Dear, American supporters of the Fascist Oddball Xenophobic (FOX) news networks.
AMERICANS are getting less tolerant of your racism and stronghold on our major media.
For example, we have noted that in his 2007 TV program from FOX (See on You-Tube), Glen Beck admitted he himself was racist. Further, Beck then, in contrast to 2009, called Barrack Obama much more white than black. (Apparently, Beck now he has other nonsense to mush men’s minds.)
Using a major news platform to promote racism and to tell people to disrespect a whole presidential administration through mixed truths, outright lies, and xenophobia, is not to be tolerated any more.
On Democracy Now today, Amy Goodman asked Benjamin Jealous of the NAACP what he thought of Wal-Mart’s pull-out from advertising on the Glen Beck program on FOX.
NOTE: Goodman had simply asked , “The whole attack by Glenn Beck that drove this (resignation)? In your response from the NAACP to Van Jones, it says, ´The only thing more outrageous than Mr. Beck’s attack on Van Jones is the fact that there are sponsors that continue to pay him to provide this type of offensive commentary.` Do you support the continued boycott of companies like Wal-Mart of Beck’s show on Fox?”
This is a particularly important point because Glen Beck´s HATE CAMPAIGN ON THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION led recently to a great American policy maker, Van Jones, quitting the government this week.
Mr. Jealous said, “We certainly support them (Walmart) choosing with their dollars who they’re going to support. I mean, it’s—Glenn Beck is somebody who’s told a seven-year-old girl, a seven-year-old black girl, that he would buy her a ticket back to Africa, that she needed to go back to Africa. And then he comes out, and he says that healthcare is the beginning of reparations. I mean, this guy plays the race card on a weekly basis. He does it very aggressive—you know, in a very hateful way.”
Recall, first, that Van Jones is one of the most important and thoughtful men in America—however, the FOX (Fascist Oddball Xenophobic) news network chose to support a man, like Glen Beck, rather than seeing that tens of millions of Americans need to get health care from promoters like Jones and that our America economy needs to move starting today to the kind of economy that its competitors worldwide are already doing.
Let’s quote the wisdom and influential words of Van Jones on the absolute necessity to green the American economy NOW!
“I think it’s really important to point out that we’re sort of at the end of an era of American capitalism, where we thought we could run the economy based on consumption rather than production, credit rather than creativity, borrowing rather than building, and also, most importantly, environmental destruction rather than environmental restoration.”
Jones continued, “We’re trying to make the case in this book that that era is over. We now have to move in a very different direction. And key to that will be basing the US economy not on credit cards, but based on clean energy and the clean energy revolution that would put literally millions of people to work, putting up solar panels all across the United States, weatherizing buildings so they don’t leak so much energy and put up so much carbon, building wind farms and wave farms, manufacturing wind turbines. We argue you could put Detroit back to work not making SUVs to destroy the world, but making wind turbines, 8,000 finely machine parts in each one, twenty tons of steel in each wind tower, making wind turbines to help save the world.”
Finally, Van Jones wisely noted, “So we think that you can fight pollution and poverty at the same time. We think that you can actually power our way through this recession by putting people to work, but we’re going to have to start building things here and re-powering, retrofitting, retooling America, and that that’s the way forward both for the economy, for the earth and for everyday people.”
Note: These statements came from a program on DN from October of last year:
Another way, is to demand that local radio and TV channels put better programming on, such as Democracy Now or news sources promoted by serious progressive journalists:
Husam ZomlotPalestinian ambassador to the United Kingdom.
Israel is intensifying its war across the Gaza Strip, with the official death toll now over 35,000, including more than 14,500 children. More than 360,000 Palestinians have now been displaced from Rafah as Israeli forces ramp up their attacks there despite warnings from the United States and others against an escalation in the southern city, where more than a million Palestinians had sought shelter. This comes as the United Nations General Assembly voted 143-9 on Friday in support of full membership for Palestine, with 25 countries abstaining. The measure grants new rights to privileges to Palestine, though it can’t become a full U.N. member without support from the Security Council, where the U.S. vetoed a Palestine statehood resolution last month. “The last seven months have unmasked, beyond doubt, many things, including the hypocrisy, selectivity, double standards of certain international actors, and I believe the U.S. administration is right at the top of that list,” says senior Palestinian diplomat Husam Zomlot, currently serving as ambassador to the United Kingdom. Zomlot also casts doubt on the claim Israel lacks clear goals in its assault on Gaza. “Israel does have a plan, and Israel is executing the plan with almost perfection. And the plan is genocide.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
Israel is intensifying its war across the Gaza Strip as the official death toll has now topped 35,000, including more than 14,500 children. According to the United Nations, more than 360,000 Palestinians have now been fled the southern city of Rafah despite fears there is nowhere safe to escape the Israeli bombardment.
This comes as the United Nations General Assembly voted 143 to 9 Friday in support of Palestine becoming a full U.N. member. Twenty-five countries abstained from the vote. The United States and Israel both voted against the measure. The vote grants new rights and privileges to Palestine, but it can’t become a full U.N. member without support from the U.N. Security Council. Last month, the U.S. vetoed a Palestine statehood resolution at the Security Council.
For more, we’re going to London to speak with the Palestinian ambassador to the United Kingdom, Husam Zomlot.
Welcome to Democracy Now!, Ambassador. Thanks so much for being with us. Let’s start in Gaza, with Israel intensifying the bombardment of Rafah, 360,000 Palestinians now moving out of Rafah, where so many of them had already fled to. Can you describe the situation on the ground? As we speak, we hear that the Kuwaiti Hospital has been ordered to evacuate, with staff saying they don’t want to leave their patients.
HUSAM ZOMLOT: There are no words, Amy, to describe the situation in Rafah, in Gaza. What is it? Horrific, Armageddon. I mean, people have been targeted for seven months. Some of them have had to leave five times, seven times, 10 times, including family members of mine. And I know what they have gone through, not only the displacement, not only the slaughterhouse that they have gone through, but there is nowhere to go. There is nowhere safe. Fathers, mothers are thinking about their children right now. I mean, it’s undescribable.
And it’s obvious Israel has decided to go on. They are not going to end this war without a serious pressure. And many are telling us, you know, Israel doesn’t have a military plan, Israel doesn’t have a political plan. Well, Israel does have a plan, and Israel is executing the plan with almost perfection. And the plan is genocide, and the plan is the mass expulsion of the Palestinians — a repeat of the Nakba of 1948, which we are commemorating this very month, in May. Otherwise, nothing of what Israel is doing makes sense. So, the situation is horrendous, horrendous in every sense of the word.
AMY GOODMAN: President Biden said he is withholding a shipment of weapons, bombs that could be used in Gaza, as the Rafah ground invasion is threatened. Your response to this, Ambassador? Do you feel that President Biden is shifting his position?
HUSAM ZOMLOT: Well, it’s a very important step, and it did break a taboo, a U.S. taboo. And we must build on this. But it is 100,000 people killed and maimed late, and we need to make sure that this is not just a pause, but this is an arms embargo, that the U.S. does fulfill its commitment under international law by making sure that its weapon does not end up in violation of international law. And it is absolutely, bluntly clear, particularly after the ruling of the International Court of Justice, that’s the highest court of the land, of the globe, a clear ruling whereby they officially put Israel on trial for genocide, ruling that it is plausible that Israel is committing genocide. And therefore, there is no conversation after that. Every third party that does provide Israel, genocidal Israel, with weapons, especially these 2,000-pound bombs that are not supposed to be used in civilian areas like Gaza, especially those, and many other weapons, we should see an arms embargo now.
And we should build on that step, that small step, taken by the U.S. president. And I assure you, if Netanyahu was certain that there will be an arms embargo, he wouldn’t have gone through Rafah. He wouldn’t have crossed that American red line. But he knows pressure in the U.S. by some of his allies will mount and that this pause in the shipment of these lethal weapons might actually resume soon.
AMY GOODMAN: We got word on Friday that the State Department had concluded Israel likely used U.S. weapons in violation of U.S. and international law, but the report claims the Biden administration has not yet found specific instances that could force the U.S. to withhold military aid. Your response, Ambassador?
HUSAM ZOMLOT: Well, I think the U.S. here is mincing their words, dodging any responsibility, delaying the inevitable, and not having the guts and the will, the political will, to do what is right. And this has been the story with the U.S. for a long time, for decades, Amy, and that’s why we are where we are today. The U.S. knows very well — the legal assessment is bluntly clear — Israel not only violated international law, Israel has bombed international law, has bombed the U.N. premises and what have you. And then, when Israel came up with these allegations against UNRWA, the U.S. was absolutely clear, or at least, you know, quick, to suspend funding from the organization that deals with the humanitarian side of Gaza, of the West Bank, of Palestinian refugees in general.
The U.S. policy vis-à-vis Palestine is inconsistent, contradictory. It does not make sense. It doesn’t add up. The U.S. has been saying for all along that it wants a two-state solution. And when we go to the U.N. seeking U.N. membership, you know, they veto it in the Security Council, and they vote against it in the General Assembly. And why? If you really believe in a two-state solution, why do you do so? Unless you really don’t, and all what you’re doing is just buying time, giving cover for Israel to finish off its job. This is very disingenuous on the part of the U.S. administration, extremely disingenuous, and very counterproductive. Because what’s the endgame? Israel will not be able to kill all Palestinians. They will not be able to finish us off. So, what’s the endgame with doing that? The U.S. says humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, they want to see help, and then they still defund UNRWA and so forth. So, doesn’t make sense.
And I believe this is a moment when the last seven months have unmasked, beyond doubt, many things, including the hypocrisy, selectivity, double standards of certain international actors, and I believe the U.S. administration is right at the top of that list of not really being consistent with its own responsibilities as a founding member of the international legal system.
And we have been following some letters by senior U.S. officials and senators threatening the ICC, threatening judges, global judges, literally using words in their letters like “You have been warned.” You know, that reminds me, Amy, of The Sopranos, a Mafia-like threatening of courts, of international courts that we created after the horrors of the Second World War to make sure the “never again,” to make sure that everybody who commits war crimes is held accountable to international legality. You are threatening judges, imposing sanctions on international courts, on the ICC, only to shield a government and a military that is committing genocide and is on trial for genocide. And we are also following letters by also senators pressuring the U.S. president not to go ahead with the pause of the arms shipment to Israel.
And therefore, yes, this is a time when we are following everybody. We will not forget. We will not forget. We will not forget those who stood firm against the genocide, stood firm with international legality and international law, and those who are literally ransacking our humanity and ransacking our international system.
AMY GOODMAN: Ambassador Husam Zomlot, you’re joining us from London. You’re the Palestinian ambassador to Britain. The Foreign Office there is investigating a claim by Hamas that a British Israeli hostage, Nadav Popplewell, has died in Gaza, died about a month ago. Hamas has said that Nadav Popplewell succumbed to wounds from an Israeli airstrike about a month ago. His mother was released months ago. She was also a hostage. Can you tell us what you know at this point?
HUSAM ZOMLOT: I really don’t have information about this, Amy, whatsoever. But all loss of life is heartbreaking, regrettable. All hostages, from both sides, must be released and returned safely. And I repeat “from both sides,” because Israel has taken thousands of our people hostages, without trial, without charge. And you have followed some of the astonishing, heartbreaking reports of the Israeli treatment, Israeli prison guards’ treatment of our hostages, a CNN report only last week about the torture. And some of them have actually died under torture, like Dr. Adnan al-Bursh of Gaza, who is world-renowned for being a backbone of the health sector in Gaza. And once, he operated 41 operations in one day.
And therefore, you know, it is crucial to focus on what Israel has done to hospitals and to the health sector — of course, also to the education sector — I mean, destroying all and targeting the number of hospitals they did. And, you know, this is important, so people in the U.S., Amy, understand. In relative terms, in proportionate terms, if you apply the ratio of those killed and maimed, including children, if you apply the ratio in Gaza of schools, of hospitals to the U.S., let me give you some numbers. The people who have been killed and maimed in Gaza would make in the U.S. the equivalence — the equivalence of the same in the U.S. would be 14 million Americans killed and maimed. If it’s about only killed, it would be 5 million. If it’s about children, there would have been 2.1 million American children killed in the last seven months. About universities and hospitals, it would be 6,000 American universities destroyed, either in full or in part, would be 4,000 American hospitals targeted, destroyed, bombed. And it would be 105,000 schools in the U.S. damaged or completely destroyed.
So, this is the situation. And therefore, in Gaza, you have no way to treat anybody. And the situation has become exactly in line with the original plan, the blueprint of Netanyahu and Israel: lifeless, a place that you cannot live in. And even if you want to move within it, you have no home to go back to, you have no school to send your children and kids to, you have no hospitals to be treated in — a lifeless territory for the final push of people out of their homeland.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to ask you about the United Nations General Assembly vote, 143 to 9 Friday in support of Palestinian statehood — Palestine becoming a full U.N. member. Twenty-five countries abstained. U.S. and Israel both voted against the measure. The vote grants new rights and privileges to Palestine, but not full U.N. membership, which requires the support of the U.N. Security Council. Last month, the U.S. vetoed a Palestine statehood resolution at the Security Council. Can you respond?
HUSAM ZOMLOT: Yes. That tells you the contrast. On the one hand, you have the overwhelming majority of the world in support of Palestinian rights, the right to self-determination, our right to have a state status in the U.N., a member state in the U.N., 143 countries. And on the other hand, you have the U.S. standing almost alone against that, together with Israel and a couple of other smaller countries, being isolated. And the U.S. is going out of its way always to shield Israel — and to prevent its own policy. I mean, it’s so telling. It’s so telling.
You know, that vote and that speech by the Israeli representative, that shredding of the U.N. Charter, what was he objecting? What was the Israeli representative objecting? What was the U.S. objecting? Was it objecting to Hamas? Was it objecting to violence? Was it objecting to — no, Israel was and is and has been objecting to the creation of a Palestinian state. That’s the objection. The rest is details. The rest is symptoms. And that objection, that block of our right to self-determination, our right to sovereignty and independence, our right and our duty to liberate our land and live in a state of our own, is the heart of the matter. That’s the root cause. And why would the U.S. object to that? And then, the whole thing becomes about certain periods of our history: 7th of October, Second Intifada, First Intifada. That’s the key part. And I believe that moment has revealed much.
And I think I can confirm for you that we will build on that historic moment. We must thank all the nations that have come in support of the state of Palestine and its status in the U.N. And we will come back. We will come back to the Security Council. We will come back to the General Assembly. We will come back every session, if needed, every time, every day, until we are admitted as a U.N., because the majority of the world have spoken, because Palestine has the right, meets the criteria of the U.N. Charter for membership. And the U.S. has no right and has no business — the United States and the administration of the U.S. has no right and has no business of objecting to Palestinian right to self-determination. They don’t. And they must stop that.
AMY GOODMAN: Ambassador Husam Zomlot, we want to thank you very much for being with us, Palestinian ambassador to the United Kingdom. Interestingly, the speech of the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations was canceled, to Linda Thomas-Greenfield, both to — and also invitations withdrawn by Xavier University and University of Vermont because of student objections to American support for Israel. President Biden is expected to address Morehouse, the historically Black college, next weekend, and there’s rising protest around that address.
This is Democracy Now! Coming up next, Ben Crump. A Florida airman is killed by police. I’m Amy Goodman.
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Secession is not legally recognized in the United States, but Puerto Rico doesn’t need to secede. It can hold a plebiscite and vote on its own independence. It has actually held votes on this issue several times and the independence faction never gets any large share of the vote.
Areeq Hasangraduating senior at Princeton University.
Over a dozen students at Princeton University have been on hunger strike for the past week as part of a Gaza solidarity encampment on campus protesting Israel’s war on Gaza and calling on the university to disclose and divest from companies with ties to Israel, among other demands. The hunger strikers are also calling for all charges to be dropped against a number of students arrested on campus in late April as part of the encampment. Areeq Hasan, a graduating senior at Princeton who has not eaten for a week, tells Democracy Now! the hunger strike was a response to the university’s stonewalling. “We feel unheard at every step of the way, so therefore we resorted to a hunger strike,” says Hasan, noting the long history of hunger strikes as a means of protest. “It is in solidarity with the history of Palestinian political prisoners since 1968. … We’re tapping into this long-standing tradition with both Palestinian political prisoners and also in the Irish and Indian liberation movements.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
At Princeton University, over a dozen students have been on hunger strike for the past week as part of a Gaza solidarity encampment on campus protesting Israel’s war on Gaza and calling on Princeton to disclose and divest from companies with ties to Israel, among other demands. Ten faculty members are reportedly joining the students’ hunger strike today. In addition to divestment, the hunger strikers are also calling for all charges to be dropped against a number of students arrested on campus in late April as part of the encampment.
For more, we go to Princeton, where we’re joined by one of the students who have been on a zero-calorie hunger strike for the past seven days. Areeq Hasan is a graduating senior at Princeton, majoring in electrical and computer engineering.
We want to thank you so much for being with us. Can you start off by talking about why you went on this fast?
AREEQ HASAN: Certainly. Well, the university has refused to respond to our demands. We have engaged in various other forms of sort of trying to engage with the administration to divest from its investments in Israel, and they have refused to respond to our demands, ignored us. And we feel unheard at every step of the way, so therefore we resorted to a hunger strike.
A hunger strike, in particular, as the means — as the medium for this sort of means of pressuring the administration was chosen because it is in solidarity with sort of the history of Palestinian political prisoners since 1968. They have used hunger strikes, freshwater and saltwater hunger strikes, as a mean of protest. And so, it is essentially, yes, our sort of — we’re tapping into this long-standing tradition with both Palestinian political prisoners and also in the Irish and Indian liberation movements. There is sort of a long history of hunger strikes that we’re also tapping into here.
AMY GOODMAN: And can you talk about the response? I also understand one of the hunger strikers — I mean, you haven’t eaten anything for seven days now — went to the ER yesterday?
AREEQ HASAN: That’s correct, yeah. Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: And how long do you plan to carry this out? Talk about the demands and Princeton’s response.
AREEQ HASAN: Sure. So, our demands are very simple. One is, we just want a meeting with the university to discuss disclosure, dissociation and divestment from Israel. And two is complete amnesty for our peers who have been unjustly criminalized, barred from campus and evicted after the sit-in at Clio Hall. Those are our demands. And, sorry, what was the second half of your question?
AMY GOODMAN: What has been the university’s response, Areeq?
AREEQ HASAN: Right. So, essentially, you know, we’ve had — we’ve been able to have some meetings with the university, but they’ve been completely sort of — they haven’t budged at all. They keep sort of citing processes that we can use in order to meet our demands, but the issue is that these processes take sort of on the order of months to years in order to actually realize any change, in addition to potentially just being administrative loopholes, like administrative sort of blocks to actual progress. And, of course, you know, the timescale of these processes are completely disregarding the urgency of the crisis in Rafah, in Gaza, and in Palestine, in general, and just shows disregard for the lives in Palestine that are being lost right now.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the negotiations that are going on with the Princeton President Christopher Eisgruber? You weren’t part of the meeting. And I just want to say, for not eating for seven days, you’re incredibly lucid.
AREEQ HASAN: Yeah. So, with respect to the negotiations, essentially, yeah, like, none of them have been good-faith negotiations. All of them have been sort of, you know, like, regarding — basically, just citing due process. Like, every single time, like, we try to bring up any demand, they try to direct us to some process that, you know, has never historically sort of yielded any fruit. And it’s important to know this, because the precedent here is that these sort of processes that they claim are the path to take here were not sort of the practice of the university, you know, with the Black Justice League and other sorts of forms of other protests at Princeton. You know, they’ve circumvented these processes before. And, you know, this sort of goes to show that there is this Palestinian exceptionalism that we see here. Yeah, so, essentially, the point being that, like, these negotiations aren’t really good-faith negotiations.
AMY GOODMAN: So, graduation is May 28th. What are your plans until then?
AREEQ HASAN: So, with regards to the hunger strike, we will continue to strike until the university responds to our demands. With respect to other things, you know, we’re sort of voting democratically at our town hall meetings at the liberated zone. So, we’re deciding as a group how we want to proceed. But, yeah, with respect to the hunger strike, we will continue indefinitely.
AMY GOODMAN: And President Biden has said that he will be halting some bombs being sent to Gaza to show that he doesn’t support what Netanyahu is doing if he invades wholesale on the ground, an invasion of Rafah. Your response to his overall approach? When Biden was asked, “Do these protests around the country make a difference?” he adamantly said, “No,” but then announced that they would be halting some weapons.
AREEQ HASAN: Sorry. You’re asking for my response to that? Is that —
AMY GOODMAN: Yes. Yes, Areeq.
AREEQ HASAN: I mean, you know, this clearly — this seems like sort of cognitive dissonance, in the sense that, like, we still have these sort of investments, like as a country, in the military-industrial complex. Like, it just seems like a very superficial way of trying to, you know, like, publicly show that, like, perhaps you’re trying to appease the crowds. But, of course, like, we all know the underlying reality of, you know, the deeply rooted investments of the United States in Israel. So, this just seems like, you know, superficial.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you so much for being with us, Areeq Hasan, graduating senior at Princeton majoring in electrical and computer engineering. He’s on the seventh day of a hunger strike, along with about a dozen Princeton students. Faculty are also joining that fast today.
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Here in New York City, faculty at The New School have launched the first faculty encampment to protest the violent police crackdown on their students. The professors named the encampment after the Palestinian poet Refaat Alareer, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in December.
Suneil Sanzgiri: “Following police raids and violence, The New School faculty established the Refaat Alareer faculty solidarity encampment. The call from students and Palestinians in Gaza is clear. We cannot give up. We must escalate and persevere to demand our universities divest, disclose and boycott from the war profiteers and institutions justifying and aiding the genocide in Gaza.”
The first faculty-led Gaza solidarity encampment in the United States was launched Wednesday at The New School in New York City, where nearly two dozen professors and lecturers pitched tents inside the lobby of the university’s main building on Fifth Avenue. The encampment is named after the Palestinian writer, poet and professor Refaat Alareer, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza in December. The faculty protest began after the police raided a student encampment at The New School and arrested more than 40 students following a request by the university administration to clear the encampment. On Thursday, 12 more people were arrested outside The New School as the faculty encampment continued inside. Democracy Now! was on the scene and spoke with protesting faculty who denounced the school’s ties to Israel and the militarized police response against student protesters. “For the state violence that our students were subjected to and traumatized because of, we could not stand on the sidelines any longer,” part-time lecturer Suneil Sanzgiri said. “What we’re doing here is calling for all faculty across the country to step up, to risk more and to escalate, because we have to get all war profiteers out of our universities.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: The first faculty-led Gaza encampment in the country was launched at The New School here in New York City Wednesday evening. Nearly two dozen professors and lecturers pitched tents inside the lobby of The New School’s main building on Fifth Avenue. They named their encampment after the Palestinian writer and poet Refaat Alareer, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza in December.
The faculty encampment was launched several days after the police raided a student encampment at The New School and arrested more than 40 students after the university administration called on the NYPD to clear the encampment. In a statement Thursday, The New School said it would not pursue criminal charges against the student protesters who were arrested. It also said it would be reactivating a college committee to examine the issue of divestment.
However, on Thursday evening, 12 people were arrested outside The New School as the faculty encampment continued inside. Last night, I got a text as the protest was heating up. I was walking my dog Zazu. We raced over to The New School, and I met up with Democracy Now! fellow Hana Elias, and we started reporting and recording.
PROTESTERS: Let him go! Let him go! Let him go! Let him go! Let him go!
AMY GOODMAN: I’m Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! We’re standing in front of The New School. There are posters in the windows, a faculty encampment, the first in the country. The posters say “40K people dead. You arrest kids instead,” “All eyes on Rafah.” But the slogan of The New School here on the window is “Radical Democracy.” Two professors are here who are part of the encampment.
HALA MALAK: My name is Hala Malak. Have a few demands. The first one is we want The New School to divest from the 13 companies that are — that they have investments in weapons and manufacturing that are part and complicit in this war, so demilitarization of divestment, basically, of the school. Our second demand is that we would like all cops to be off campus indefinitely, and we also want the school to cut all ties with the NYPD.
PROTESTERS: Up, up with liberation! Down, down with the occupation!
SUNEIL SANZGIRI: My name is Suneil Sanzgiri. I’m a part-time faculty in the Culture and Media Department. I’m here because I teach a class on decolonization, and there is no better way to put into place the knowledge that students learn in our classrooms into practice. In the encampment that we see sweeping across the country, we know that the state repressive police forces are lock in step with the larger U.S. imperialist presence around the globe, and specifically with what’s happening in Palestine. And so we understand that what we’re doing here, the calls for divestment, are directly and materially impacting in an end to the genocide. And for us, as faculty, for the state violence that our students were subjected to and traumatized because of, we could not stand on the sidelines any longer. We knew we had to step up. Many faculty across the country have risked so much. And what we’re doing here is calling for all faculty across the country to step up, to risk more and to escalate, because we have to get all war profiteers out of our universities.
CLARA MATTEI: Hi. My name is Clara Mattei. I’m associate professor of economics at the NSSR. I’m out here because this is the struggle of the moment everyone has to be in. I must say that these encampments are places where culture actually explodes, emerges, connections are made. And ultimately, this is a fight against capitalism and the violence of capitalism at large.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re standing in front of the police van where they put a young Black man who they arrested. Then scores of people came, professors and students, to demand that he be let go. They sat in front of the police van. And now scores of police have come to arrest the people that are sitting in front of the van.
CRESA PUGH: My name is Cresa Pugh, and I’m assistant professor of sociology here at The New School. And I’m sitting here because as I was walking to support our students, in the encampment, the faculty encampment, they arrested one of my Black students, refused to tell me why they were arresting him, and promptly threw him in this van. And I am not going to stand up and let this van go until they let my Black student out of that van. And he was arrested for supporting Palestinian Gazans. Forty thousand have died. And you’re arresting this kid?
PROTESTERS: Let him go! Let him go! Let him go!
AMY GOODMAN: There are now dozens of police here. We’re right next to Parsons and The New School. Parsons has a plaque on it that says this is the site of W. E. B. Du Bois’s Crisis magazine and the headquarters of the NAACP, a place where Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen and others wrote. They’re arresting a young Black man. The crowd has been asking, many of them professors and students here at The New School, “Why is he being arrested?”
CRESA PUGH: Why will you not speak to us about our students? What is his name? I’m a professor here. I deserve to know who my student is that you have in this van.
NATASHA LENNARD: I’m Natasha Lennard, and I’m a faculty member at The New School of Social Research. I’m here to support my students. I’m here to stand in solidarity with other faculty members, other staff members who want to see an end to genocide. We’re also calling profoundly for cops off and away from campus. And this is what you see when you keep standing armies of NYPD in and near a campus. A small incident — and I didn’t see exactly what happened — but an incident has led now to many people being put at risk. A young man, a young Black man, is in police custody. None of this would happen if we didn’t have police ready because of the completely unnecessary actions of our administration in calling the police in on our students, like so many administrations around the country calling police in on a peaceful protest for the end to the genocide in Gaza.
AMY GOODMAN: Your name? And why are you being arrested?
NEW SCHOOL STAFF MEMBER: I’m being arrested for trying to protect a student at the university. I’m a staff member here. This is shameful. This all started because a student at this university was arrested with no cause. The police refused to give an answer. And now they’ve arrested more students.
JULIETA SALGADO: I’m Julieta!
AMY GOODMAN: Are you a student? Are you a professor?
DENIS MOYNIHAN: Tell us your name!
AMY GOODMAN: What’s your name?
AMY GOODMAN: The person we were shouting to, who was being put into a police car, was Julieta Salgado. Her hands were zip-tied behind her back. But just before they put her into the car, a police officer unbuttoned her shirt and put her hands up and down her chest over her bra in full public view. A total of 12 people were arrested on the streets outside The New School last night. Special thanks to Democracy Now! video fellow Hana Elias and Hany Massoud.
When we come back, we go to Princeton University, where over a dozen students are on hunger strike calling for divestment from companies with ties to Israel. We’ll speak with one of the hunger-striking students and with Larry Hamm. He’s running in the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate from New Jersey. He’s also a Princeton alum who helped lead the protests there in the ’70s calling for Princeton to divest from apartheid South Africa. Stay with us.
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Image Credit: Allison Bailey / NurPhoto via Reuters Connect
Police have arrested scores more student protesters as part of a widening crackdown on encampments calling on schools to divest from Israel. At the University of Massachusetts Amherst, police raided a student encampment on Tuesday night, arresting around 130. In Washington, D.C., police deployed tear gas as they broke up an encampment at George Washington University. Thirty-three were arrested. Police also broke up an encampment at the University of Houston.
On Capitol Hill, Congressmember Rashida Tlaib held a press conference Wednesday where she praised student protesters.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib: “These students are saying, ‘Save lives,’ no matter faith or ethnicity. This is something that I feel like is being completely ignored. Why are they out there? This is why we’re proud. We’re proud to use our position in office to bring these voices so you all don’t forget why there are encampments, why there are movements and dissent around this country.”
Students from George Washington University and other nearby schools joined Tlaib at the press conference.
Kali: “Since day one, we have understood the monster before us. It is the collusion of academic institutions, administrations, police, Congress and the state at large to protect the interests of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land. They have affirmed a blatant mischaracterization of these encampments, naming them as antisemitic and dangerous, in order to justify the carceral crackdown on student territory we’ve seen across the nation.”
Israel on Wednesday bulldozed 47 homes of the Palestinian Bedouin community in the Negev Desert, home to some 500 people. Israel is planning on building a highway on the site of the demolished homes, but the approval for the construction has yet to be granted. No alternative housing has been set up for the families who have now been rendered homeless. The Regional Council of Unrecognized Villages of Negev said the demolition was unprecedented in its “scope of the destruction and the hatred.”
Elsewhere in Gaza, health workers uncovered another 49 bodies at the decimated Al-Shifa Hospital Wednesday. Most of the bodies were decomposed, and some were found headless. Five hundred twenty bodies have been uncovered across three Gaza Strip hospitals in recent weeks after attacks and sieges by the Israeli military. Attacking hospitals is a war crime.
Biden was in Chicago Wednesday for another campaign fundraiser, where he was met with protesters who blocked downtown streets.
Meanwhile, in Tel Aviv, protesting hostage families clashed with police. Two arrests were made. The sister of a hostage was hospitalized. Her mother said in a social media video, “Bring back the hostages. Stop the war with Hamas.”
In an interview on CNN, President Biden said the U.S. will stop supplying certain weapons to Israel if its forces invade Rafah.
President Joe Biden: “If they go into Rafah, I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities, that deal with that problem. We’re going to continue to make sure Israel is secure in terms of Iron Dome and their ability to respond to attacks like came out of the Middle East recently. But it’s just wrong. We’re not going to supply the weapons and the artillery shells used, that have been used in cities” —
Erin Burnett: “Artillery shells, as well?”
President Joe Biden: “Yeah, artillery shells.”
Israel’s extreme-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, posted on X this morning, “Hamas [heart symbol] Biden.”
Israel continues to seal off Gaza’s Rafah border crossing, as the U.N. warns it is “choking off the entry of life-saving aid.” The U.N. adds that many of the 600,000 children taking shelter in Rafah are “highly vulnerable and at the edge of survival.” Save the Children also warns humanitarian operations will “come to a complete halt” unless Israel changes course in Rafah. The aid group says three-quarters of all child patients that have been treated in a so-called safe zone near Rafah have blast injuries. Tens of thousands of Palestinians are once again on the move, though many say their next destination is unknown, with no safe place to shelter in Gaza. As Israel prepares for its full-scale ground invasion in Rafah, Palestinians continue to die under aerial attacks.
Mohammed Khalil Abu Kaynass: “We were baking bread. We came to blood and martyrs scattered. We’re gathering them in body parts and pieces. The Civil Defense members came and gathered them in pieces. My friend died. They also picked him up in pieces. Everything is in pieces.”
Data: 
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) greets Jason Miller, adviser to President Trump, at the Capitol yesterday. Photo: Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call via Getty ImagesHistorians are already drawing lessons from Impeachment II, Axios managing editors David Nather and Margaret Talev 
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