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5
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#FFFFFF
 1. HOME>
 2. News>
 3. gaza>



Craig Mokhiber then the New York deputy director for the Office of the High
Commissioner for Human Rights, spoke about the findings of a global survey in
2009.

(Photo: Paulo Filgueiras/U.N.)


OFFICIAL RESIGNS OVER UN RESPONSE TO ISRAELI WAR ON GAZA, A 'TEXTBOOK CASE OF
GENOCIDE'

CRAIG MOKHIBER CALLED OUT "THE CURRENT WHOLESALE SLAUGHTER OF THE PALESTINIAN
PEOPLE, ROOTED IN AN ETHNO-NATIONALIST SETTLER COLONIAL IDEOLOGY, IN
CONTINUATION OF DECADES OF THEIR SYSTEMATIC PERSECUTION AND PURGING."


Jessica Corbett
Oct 31, 2023
35
Oct 31, 2023



Human rights attorney Craig Mokhiber left his United Nations post with a
resignation letter excoriating the U.N. response to Israel's devastating war on
the Gaza Strip—a four-page document that has been circulating on social media
this week.

Mokhiber, who has spent decades with the U.N., was serving as the New York
director for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). His
letter to the agency's leader, Volker Türk, is dated October 28—when Israeli
forces were shifting to the "second stage" of a war that has killed thousands of
Palestinians in Gaza in retaliation for a deadly Hamas-led attack on Israel.

"Once again, we are seeing a genocide unfolding before our eyes, and the
organization that we serve appears powerless to stop it," Mokhiber wrote. "As
someone who has investigated human rights in Palestine since the 1980s, lived in
Gaza as a U.N. human rights adviser in the 1990s, and carried out several human
rights missions to the country before and since, this is deeply personal to me."

"We have lost a lot in this abandonment, not least our own global credibility.
But the Palestinian people have sustained the biggest losses as a result of our
failures."

"I also worked in these halls through the genocides against the Tutsis, Bosnian
Muslims, the Yazidi, and the Rohingya. In each case, when the dust settled on
the horrors that had been perpetrated against defenseless civilian populations,
it became painfully clear that we had failed in our duty to meet the imperatives
of prevention of mass atrocities, of protection of the vulnerable, and of
accountability for perpetrators. And so it has been with successive waves of
murder and persecution against the Palestinians throughout the entire life of
the U.N.," he continued. "High commissioner, we are failing again."

The attorney asserted that "the current wholesale slaughter of the Palestinian
people, rooted in an ethno-nationalist settler colonial ideology, in
continuation of decades of their systematic persecution and purging, based
entirely upon their status as Arabs, and coupled with explicit statements of
intent by leaders in the Israeli government and military, leaves no room for
doubt or debate."

While the death toll in Gaza has risen—topping 8,500 on Tuesday, including over
3,500 children—hundreds of legal scholars have said Israel's war could amount to
genocide. Human rights defenders have sounded the alarm over recent comments
from Israeli leaders and accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of an
"explicit call to genocide" in a Saturday speech.

As Mokhiber noted: "In Gaza, civilian homes, schools, churches, mosques, and
medical institutions are wantonly attacked as thousands of civilians are
massacred. In the West Bank, including occupied Jerusalem, homes are seized and
reassigned based entirely on race, and violent settler pogroms are accompanied
by Israeli military units. Across the land, apartheid rules."

> — (@)

Echoing experts including Israeli Holocaust scholar Raz Segal, the ex-U.N.
director wrote that "this is a textbook case of genocide."

"What's more, the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, and much
of Europe, are wholly complicit in the horrific assault," he stressed. Mokhiber
also slammed U.S.-based social media companies for "suppressing the voices of
human rights defenders while amplifying pro-Israel propaganda" and the "Western
corporate media, increasingly captured and state-adjacent," for "continuously
dehumanizing Palestinians to facilitate the genocide, and broadcasting
propaganda for war and advocacy of national, racial, or religious hatred that
constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility, and violence."

In addition to supplying Israel with billions of dollars in military support,
the U.S. earlier this month vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution
condemning violence against civilians in Israel and Gaza and advocating for
"humanitarian pauses" to let aid into the strip. While the U.N. General Assembly
on Friday passed a resolution—opposed by the United States and Israel—stressing
the importance of protecting civilians and calling for "an immediate, durable,
and sustained humanitarian truce leading to a cessation of hostilities," it is
nonbinding.

As Mokhiber wrote:

> High commissioner, I came to this organization first in the 1980s, because I
> found in it a principled, norm-based institution that was squarely on the side
> of human rights, including in cases where the powerful U.S., U.K., and Europe
> were not on our side. While my own government, its subsidiarity institutions,
> and much of the U.S. media were still supporting or justifying South African
> apartheid, Israeli oppression, and Central American death squads, the U.N. was
> standing up for the oppressed peoples of those lands. We had international law
> on our side. We had human rights on our side. We had principle on our side.
> Our authority was rooted in our integrity. But no more.
> 
> In recent decades, key parts of the U.N. have surrendered to the power of the
> U.S., and to fear of the Israel lobby, to abandon these principles, and to
> retreat from international law itself. We have lost a lot in this abandonment,
> not least our own global credibility. But the Palestinian people have
> sustained the biggest losses as a result of our failures.

The attorney also argued that "the path to atonement is clear," and
"Palestinians and their allies, human rights defenders of every stripe,
Christian and Muslim organizations, and progressive Jewish voices saying 'not in
our name,' are all leading the way." He pointed to the hundreds of people who
were arrested Friday in a Jewish-led protest at New York's Grand Central
Station.

"In the immediate term," he said, "we must work for an immediate cease-fire and
an end to the long-standing siege on Gaza, stand up against the ethnic cleansing
of Gaza, Jerusalem, and the West Bank (and elsewhere), document the genocidal
assault in Gaza, help to bring massive humanitarian aid and reconstruction to
the Palestinians, take care of our traumatized colleagues and their families,
and fight like hell for a principled approach in the U.N.'s political offices."

As for long-term goals, Mokhiber provided a 10-point list that included
disarmament, mediation, return and compensation, and "the establishment of a
single, democratic, secular state in all of historic Palestine, with equal
rights for Christians, Muslims, and Jews, and, therefore, the dismantling of the
deeply racist, settler-colonial project and an end to apartheid across the
land."

> — (@)

While sharply criticizing the United Nations, the attorney also said that he
found "hope in those parts of the U.N. that have refused to compromise the
organization's human rights principles in spite of enormous pressures to do so,"
acknowledging the special rapporteurs, commissions, treaty body experts, and
staff who "have continued to stand up for the human rights of the Palestinian
people, even as other parts of the U.N. (even at the highest levels) have
shamefully bowed their heads to power."

As allegations of Israeli war crimes continued to mount on Tuesday, United
Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) spokesperson James Elder said during a press
briefing that "Gaza has become a graveyard for thousands of children. It's a
living hell for everyone else." His agency and the U.N. Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs are calling for an immediate cease-fire.


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Jessica Corbett
Jessica Corbett is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams.
Full Bio >
human rightsunited nationsgenocidegazaapartheidisraelunited stateswest
bankpalestineoffice of the high commissioner for human rights


Human rights attorney Craig Mokhiber left his United Nations post with a
resignation letter excoriating the U.N. response to Israel's devastating war on
the Gaza Strip—a four-page document that has been circulating on social media
this week.

Mokhiber, who has spent decades with the U.N., was serving as the New York
director for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). His
letter to the agency's leader, Volker Türk, is dated October 28—when Israeli
forces were shifting to the "second stage" of a war that has killed thousands of
Palestinians in Gaza in retaliation for a deadly Hamas-led attack on Israel.

"Once again, we are seeing a genocide unfolding before our eyes, and the
organization that we serve appears powerless to stop it," Mokhiber wrote. "As
someone who has investigated human rights in Palestine since the 1980s, lived in
Gaza as a U.N. human rights adviser in the 1990s, and carried out several human
rights missions to the country before and since, this is deeply personal to me."

"We have lost a lot in this abandonment, not least our own global credibility.
But the Palestinian people have sustained the biggest losses as a result of our
failures."

"I also worked in these halls through the genocides against the Tutsis, Bosnian
Muslims, the Yazidi, and the Rohingya. In each case, when the dust settled on
the horrors that had been perpetrated against defenseless civilian populations,
it became painfully clear that we had failed in our duty to meet the imperatives
of prevention of mass atrocities, of protection of the vulnerable, and of
accountability for perpetrators. And so it has been with successive waves of
murder and persecution against the Palestinians throughout the entire life of
the U.N.," he continued. "High commissioner, we are failing again."

The attorney asserted that "the current wholesale slaughter of the Palestinian
people, rooted in an ethno-nationalist settler colonial ideology, in
continuation of decades of their systematic persecution and purging, based
entirely upon their status as Arabs, and coupled with explicit statements of
intent by leaders in the Israeli government and military, leaves no room for
doubt or debate."

While the death toll in Gaza has risen—topping 8,500 on Tuesday, including over
3,500 children—hundreds of legal scholars have said Israel's war could amount to
genocide. Human rights defenders have sounded the alarm over recent comments
from Israeli leaders and accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of an
"explicit call to genocide" in a Saturday speech.

As Mokhiber noted: "In Gaza, civilian homes, schools, churches, mosques, and
medical institutions are wantonly attacked as thousands of civilians are
massacred. In the West Bank, including occupied Jerusalem, homes are seized and
reassigned based entirely on race, and violent settler pogroms are accompanied
by Israeli military units. Across the land, apartheid rules."

> — (@)

Echoing experts including Israeli Holocaust scholar Raz Segal, the ex-U.N.
director wrote that "this is a textbook case of genocide."

"What's more, the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, and much
of Europe, are wholly complicit in the horrific assault," he stressed. Mokhiber
also slammed U.S.-based social media companies for "suppressing the voices of
human rights defenders while amplifying pro-Israel propaganda" and the "Western
corporate media, increasingly captured and state-adjacent," for "continuously
dehumanizing Palestinians to facilitate the genocide, and broadcasting
propaganda for war and advocacy of national, racial, or religious hatred that
constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility, and violence."

In addition to supplying Israel with billions of dollars in military support,
the U.S. earlier this month vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution
condemning violence against civilians in Israel and Gaza and advocating for
"humanitarian pauses" to let aid into the strip. While the U.N. General Assembly
on Friday passed a resolution—opposed by the United States and Israel—stressing
the importance of protecting civilians and calling for "an immediate, durable,
and sustained humanitarian truce leading to a cessation of hostilities," it is
nonbinding.

As Mokhiber wrote:

> High commissioner, I came to this organization first in the 1980s, because I
> found in it a principled, norm-based institution that was squarely on the side
> of human rights, including in cases where the powerful U.S., U.K., and Europe
> were not on our side. While my own government, its subsidiarity institutions,
> and much of the U.S. media were still supporting or justifying South African
> apartheid, Israeli oppression, and Central American death squads, the U.N. was
> standing up for the oppressed peoples of those lands. We had international law
> on our side. We had human rights on our side. We had principle on our side.
> Our authority was rooted in our integrity. But no more.
> 
> In recent decades, key parts of the U.N. have surrendered to the power of the
> U.S., and to fear of the Israel lobby, to abandon these principles, and to
> retreat from international law itself. We have lost a lot in this abandonment,
> not least our own global credibility. But the Palestinian people have
> sustained the biggest losses as a result of our failures.

The attorney also argued that "the path to atonement is clear," and
"Palestinians and their allies, human rights defenders of every stripe,
Christian and Muslim organizations, and progressive Jewish voices saying 'not in
our name,' are all leading the way." He pointed to the hundreds of people who
were arrested Friday in a Jewish-led protest at New York's Grand Central
Station.

"In the immediate term," he said, "we must work for an immediate cease-fire and
an end to the long-standing siege on Gaza, stand up against the ethnic cleansing
of Gaza, Jerusalem, and the West Bank (and elsewhere), document the genocidal
assault in Gaza, help to bring massive humanitarian aid and reconstruction to
the Palestinians, take care of our traumatized colleagues and their families,
and fight like hell for a principled approach in the U.N.'s political offices."

As for long-term goals, Mokhiber provided a 10-point list that included
disarmament, mediation, return and compensation, and "the establishment of a
single, democratic, secular state in all of historic Palestine, with equal
rights for Christians, Muslims, and Jews, and, therefore, the dismantling of the
deeply racist, settler-colonial project and an end to apartheid across the
land."

> — (@)

While sharply criticizing the United Nations, the attorney also said that he
found "hope in those parts of the U.N. that have refused to compromise the
organization's human rights principles in spite of enormous pressures to do so,"
acknowledging the special rapporteurs, commissions, treaty body experts, and
staff who "have continued to stand up for the human rights of the Palestinian
people, even as other parts of the U.N. (even at the highest levels) have
shamefully bowed their heads to power."

As allegations of Israeli war crimes continued to mount on Tuesday, United
Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) spokesperson James Elder said during a press
briefing that "Gaza has become a graveyard for thousands of children. It's a
living hell for everyone else." His agency and the U.N. Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs are calling for an immediate cease-fire.

From Your Site Articles
 * Demanding Cease-Fire, UN Relief Chief Says Gaza Has Become 'Graveyard' for
   Children ›
 * UN General Assembly Passes Resolution Calling for 'Humanitarian Truce' in
   Gaza ›
 * UN Chief Demands 'Immediate Humanitarian Cease-Fire' to Allow Aid Into Gaza ›
 * US State Department Official Resigns Over 'Destructive, Unjust' Arms
   Transfers to Israel ›
 * Ex-UN Official: Israel Committing 'Most Clear-Cut Case of Genocide' in Gaza ›
 * Citing Ethnic Cleansing, US Army Major Resigns Over Israel's Assault on Gaza
   | Common Dreams ›
 * 1st Jewish Biden Appointee to Resign Over Gaza Quits on Nakba Day | Common
   Dreams ›
 * Opinion | The Grotesque PR That Justifies Israeli Slaughter of Palestinian
   Children | Common Dreams ›
 * 'Complicit in War Crimes': UK Official Resigns Over Arms Sales to Israel |
   Common Dreams ›
 * UN Rights Chief: World Can't Accept Israel's 'Blatant Disregard' of
   International Law | Common Dreams ›


Jessica Corbett
Jessica Corbett is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams.
Full Bio >


Human rights attorney Craig Mokhiber left his United Nations post with a
resignation letter excoriating the U.N. response to Israel's devastating war on
the Gaza Strip—a four-page document that has been circulating on social media
this week.

Mokhiber, who has spent decades with the U.N., was serving as the New York
director for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). His
letter to the agency's leader, Volker Türk, is dated October 28—when Israeli
forces were shifting to the "second stage" of a war that has killed thousands of
Palestinians in Gaza in retaliation for a deadly Hamas-led attack on Israel.

"Once again, we are seeing a genocide unfolding before our eyes, and the
organization that we serve appears powerless to stop it," Mokhiber wrote. "As
someone who has investigated human rights in Palestine since the 1980s, lived in
Gaza as a U.N. human rights adviser in the 1990s, and carried out several human
rights missions to the country before and since, this is deeply personal to me."

"We have lost a lot in this abandonment, not least our own global credibility.
But the Palestinian people have sustained the biggest losses as a result of our
failures."

"I also worked in these halls through the genocides against the Tutsis, Bosnian
Muslims, the Yazidi, and the Rohingya. In each case, when the dust settled on
the horrors that had been perpetrated against defenseless civilian populations,
it became painfully clear that we had failed in our duty to meet the imperatives
of prevention of mass atrocities, of protection of the vulnerable, and of
accountability for perpetrators. And so it has been with successive waves of
murder and persecution against the Palestinians throughout the entire life of
the U.N.," he continued. "High commissioner, we are failing again."

The attorney asserted that "the current wholesale slaughter of the Palestinian
people, rooted in an ethno-nationalist settler colonial ideology, in
continuation of decades of their systematic persecution and purging, based
entirely upon their status as Arabs, and coupled with explicit statements of
intent by leaders in the Israeli government and military, leaves no room for
doubt or debate."

While the death toll in Gaza has risen—topping 8,500 on Tuesday, including over
3,500 children—hundreds of legal scholars have said Israel's war could amount to
genocide. Human rights defenders have sounded the alarm over recent comments
from Israeli leaders and accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of an
"explicit call to genocide" in a Saturday speech.

As Mokhiber noted: "In Gaza, civilian homes, schools, churches, mosques, and
medical institutions are wantonly attacked as thousands of civilians are
massacred. In the West Bank, including occupied Jerusalem, homes are seized and
reassigned based entirely on race, and violent settler pogroms are accompanied
by Israeli military units. Across the land, apartheid rules."

> — (@)

Echoing experts including Israeli Holocaust scholar Raz Segal, the ex-U.N.
director wrote that "this is a textbook case of genocide."

"What's more, the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, and much
of Europe, are wholly complicit in the horrific assault," he stressed. Mokhiber
also slammed U.S.-based social media companies for "suppressing the voices of
human rights defenders while amplifying pro-Israel propaganda" and the "Western
corporate media, increasingly captured and state-adjacent," for "continuously
dehumanizing Palestinians to facilitate the genocide, and broadcasting
propaganda for war and advocacy of national, racial, or religious hatred that
constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility, and violence."

In addition to supplying Israel with billions of dollars in military support,
the U.S. earlier this month vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution
condemning violence against civilians in Israel and Gaza and advocating for
"humanitarian pauses" to let aid into the strip. While the U.N. General Assembly
on Friday passed a resolution—opposed by the United States and Israel—stressing
the importance of protecting civilians and calling for "an immediate, durable,
and sustained humanitarian truce leading to a cessation of hostilities," it is
nonbinding.

As Mokhiber wrote:

> High commissioner, I came to this organization first in the 1980s, because I
> found in it a principled, norm-based institution that was squarely on the side
> of human rights, including in cases where the powerful U.S., U.K., and Europe
> were not on our side. While my own government, its subsidiarity institutions,
> and much of the U.S. media were still supporting or justifying South African
> apartheid, Israeli oppression, and Central American death squads, the U.N. was
> standing up for the oppressed peoples of those lands. We had international law
> on our side. We had human rights on our side. We had principle on our side.
> Our authority was rooted in our integrity. But no more.
> 
> In recent decades, key parts of the U.N. have surrendered to the power of the
> U.S., and to fear of the Israel lobby, to abandon these principles, and to
> retreat from international law itself. We have lost a lot in this abandonment,
> not least our own global credibility. But the Palestinian people have
> sustained the biggest losses as a result of our failures.

The attorney also argued that "the path to atonement is clear," and
"Palestinians and their allies, human rights defenders of every stripe,
Christian and Muslim organizations, and progressive Jewish voices saying 'not in
our name,' are all leading the way." He pointed to the hundreds of people who
were arrested Friday in a Jewish-led protest at New York's Grand Central
Station.

"In the immediate term," he said, "we must work for an immediate cease-fire and
an end to the long-standing siege on Gaza, stand up against the ethnic cleansing
of Gaza, Jerusalem, and the West Bank (and elsewhere), document the genocidal
assault in Gaza, help to bring massive humanitarian aid and reconstruction to
the Palestinians, take care of our traumatized colleagues and their families,
and fight like hell for a principled approach in the U.N.'s political offices."

As for long-term goals, Mokhiber provided a 10-point list that included
disarmament, mediation, return and compensation, and "the establishment of a
single, democratic, secular state in all of historic Palestine, with equal
rights for Christians, Muslims, and Jews, and, therefore, the dismantling of the
deeply racist, settler-colonial project and an end to apartheid across the
land."

> — (@)

While sharply criticizing the United Nations, the attorney also said that he
found "hope in those parts of the U.N. that have refused to compromise the
organization's human rights principles in spite of enormous pressures to do so,"
acknowledging the special rapporteurs, commissions, treaty body experts, and
staff who "have continued to stand up for the human rights of the Palestinian
people, even as other parts of the U.N. (even at the highest levels) have
shamefully bowed their heads to power."

As allegations of Israeli war crimes continued to mount on Tuesday, United
Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) spokesperson James Elder said during a press
briefing that "Gaza has become a graveyard for thousands of children. It's a
living hell for everyone else." His agency and the U.N. Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs are calling for an immediate cease-fire.

From Your Site Articles
 * Demanding Cease-Fire, UN Relief Chief Says Gaza Has Become 'Graveyard' for
   Children ›
 * UN General Assembly Passes Resolution Calling for 'Humanitarian Truce' in
   Gaza ›
 * UN Chief Demands 'Immediate Humanitarian Cease-Fire' to Allow Aid Into Gaza ›
 * US State Department Official Resigns Over 'Destructive, Unjust' Arms
   Transfers to Israel ›
 * Ex-UN Official: Israel Committing 'Most Clear-Cut Case of Genocide' in Gaza ›
 * Citing Ethnic Cleansing, US Army Major Resigns Over Israel's Assault on Gaza
   | Common Dreams ›
 * 1st Jewish Biden Appointee to Resign Over Gaza Quits on Nakba Day | Common
   Dreams ›
 * Opinion | The Grotesque PR That Justifies Israeli Slaughter of Palestinian
   Children | Common Dreams ›
 * 'Complicit in War Crimes': UK Official Resigns Over Arms Sales to Israel |
   Common Dreams ›
 * UN Rights Chief: World Can't Accept Israel's 'Blatant Disregard' of
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LATEST NEWS



JACK SMITH DROPS TRUMP CASE

THE PRESIDENT-ELECT'S "ABILITY TO ESCAPE PROSECUTION DOES NOT RETROACTIVELY
VALIDATE HIS ILLEGAL, UNCONSTITUTIONAL AND DEMOCRACY-DESTROYING ACTIVITIES,"
SAID ONE CRITIC.


Julia Conley
Nov 25, 2024

Special Counsel Jack Smith's announcement on Monday that he was dropping his
case regarding President-elect Donald Trump's alleged handling of classified
documents and election subversion was not unexpected, as U.S. Justice Department
policy dictates that a sitting president can't be prosecuted while in office.

But government watchdogs said the developing was no less "troubling," and vowed
that Trump must ultimately face accountability.



"At least for now, Trump may escape justice for his role in trying to overturn
the 2020 election, fomenting the January 6 insurrection, and improperly handling
classified documents," said Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen. "But
his ability to escape prosecution does not retroactively validate his illegal,
unconstitutional and democracy-destroying activities. They were heinous and
unconscionable acts that literally cost lives and threatened the peaceful
transfer of power."

"If not the courts, history will judge them appropriately," said Gilbert.

In his motion to dismiss the case, filed in the U.S. District Court for the
District of Columbia, Smith wrote that "the government's position on the merits
of the defendant's prosecution has not changed. But the circumstances have."

" Donald Trump aims not just to excuse but to normalize all this behavior.
Permitting him to succeed would enable a slide into authoritarianism. The
American people must not let that happen."

Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich wrote in his Substack newsletter that
regardless of DOJ policy, the filing was "a grave mistake," because Smith did
not specify that the prosecution of Trump would be restarted after the
president-elect leaves office.

"Smith says he had no choice," wrote Reich. "But he did have a choice. He could
have asked the courts to put the cases on hold until Trump is no longer
president... To be sure, Smith's requests were for dismissals 'without
prejudice,' which technically leaves open the possibility that charges could be
refiled after Trump leaves office. But refiling charges is vastly more
cumbersome than simply ending a stay."

While Smith left the door open to once again bring charges against Trump in
2029, he "should have put the responsibility for avoiding the rule of law
squarely on Trump," wrote Reich.

Legal analyst Barb McQuade added that Smith's tactic leaves the possibility that
"there may be no appetite" to refile charges regarding eight-year-old
allegations after Trump leaves office.

At Slate, Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern wrote that Attorney General
Merrick Garland's "institutionalist instincts paralyzed the Justice Department
for nearly two years, giving Trump a chance to run out the clock by the time
Smith finally indicted him."

The attorney general is "partly at fault for waiting so long to commence the
investigation into Jan. 6," they wrote, while right-wing federal Judge Aileen
Cannon "is guilty of sabotaging" the case regarding Trump's retention of
classified documents after he left office in 2021, which Cannon dismissed in
July, claiming Smith's appointment as special counsel violated the Constitution.

"In a simplistic sense, the voting public also bears culpability for putting
Trump back in the Oval Office despite his egregious attempts to steal the
previous election. But that victory could not have happened without the Supreme
Court, which essentially nullified the constitutional bar against
insurrectionists returning to office, then awarded Trump sweeping immunity in
Smith's Jan. 6 case. The court's immunity decision guaranteed that the former
president would not face trial before the election, which in turn prevented the
public from hearing the full range of evidence against him."

Gilbert emphasized that "at Public Citizen we believe that no one should be
above the law, that criminality by the powerful must be punished, and that
attempting to overturn the nation's election and fomenting political violence
should be harshly sanctioned."

"Donald Trump aims not just to excuse but to normalize all this behavior," said
Gilbert. "Permitting him to succeed would enable a slide into authoritarianism.
The American people must not let that happen."

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jack smith



ISRAELI SIEGE LEAVES 130,000 KIDS TRAPPED AND AT RISK OF STARVATION IN NORTHERN
GAZA

"WITH NO FOOD, NO CLEAN WATER, AND CONSTANT FEAR, BOTH MY CHILDREN HAVE
DEVELOPED RASHES, AND MY DAUGHTER IS PASSING BLOOD, BUT THERE IS NO MEDICINE, NO
HELP, AND ABSOLUTELY NOTHING I CAN DO," SAID ONE MOTHER TRAPPED IN THE AREA.


Eloise Goldsmith
Nov 25, 2024

An estimated 130,000 children under the age of 10 have been trapped in areas of
northern Gaza almost entirely cut off from aid assistance, food and medical
supplies for 50 days, a major humanitarian group said Monday.

According to Save the Children, life-sustaining aid has largely failed to make
it through to any of the people besieged by Israeli forces in northern Gaza
since early October, when the IDF declared the territory a "dangerous combat
zone" and ordered civilians to evacuate.



Earlier this month, Joyce Msuya, Acting Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian
Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator for the United Nations, warned that the
Israeli offensive in the area that began in early October was "an intensified,
extreme, and accelerated version of the horrors of the past year." Local health
officials in Gaza say that the death toll for the entire enclave has surpassed
44,000 since October 7 of 2023.

"Save the Children has been unable to access northern Gaza to deliver food
parcels for 5,000 families, along with 725 hygiene kits and other aid supplies,
for over seven weeks," said the group in its Monday statement. "Before the area
was closed off, Save the Children worked through local partners to reach
thousands of children in need, distributing over 1,000 food parcels and 600
hygiene kits, and reaching around 15,000 children and families in northern Gaza
with psychosocial support, recreational activities, and case management."

Save the Children's warning comes not long after the Famine Review Committee
released an alert stating that "there is a strong likelihood that famine is
imminent in areas within the northern Gaza Strip."

"The situation in northern Gaza is not fit for human survival and yet we know
there are about 130,000 children under 10 trapped in those conditions, not to
mention the thousands of older children and their families," said regional
director Jeremy Stoner.

A mother of two trapped in northern Gaza, identified by Save the Children as
Ruba, testified through the group that she was trapped with her children "under
relentless bombs, rockets, and bullets, with nowhere to run. My mother is
paralyzed, and I cannot leave her behind. My brother has been killed, my husband
was taken, and I don't know if he's alive."

"With no food, no clean water, and constant fear, both my children have
developed rashes, and my daughter is passing blood, but there is no medicine, no
help, and absolutely nothing I can do. They cry and ask me why we can’t just
leave, why their father isn’t with us, why we can’t go back to a normal life,"
she said.

Save the Children is not the only entity reporting that aid is being blocked.
According to an update from the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs issued last week regarding northern Gaza, "between 1 and 18 November, 27
out of 31 coordination requests by the U.N. to access the besieged areas were
denied and the remaining four were initially approved but then impeded on the
ground. No fuel was let in for water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH)
facilities."

Following Save the Children's statement, Ibrahim Hooper, the national
communications director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, called
for bolder action by nations besides the U.S.: "Because the Biden administration
steadfastly refuses to apply any real pressure on the genocidal Israeli
government to allow food to be delivered to those being intentionally starved in
northern Gaza, including some 130,000 children under age 10, it is up to the
international community to take concrete action."

“While our nation's government has abdicated any role in alleviating the
suffering of the Palestinian people under a systematic campaign of mass
destruction, slaughter, ethnic cleansing, and forced starvation, other nations
can take actions such as economic sanctions, arms embargoes and arrests of
Israeli war criminals," he said.

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FORMER SEN. FRED HARRIS, CHAMPION OF ECONOMIC POPULISM, DIES AT 94

"THE FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEM IS THAT TOO FEW PEOPLE HAVE ALL THE MONEY AND POWER,
AND EVERYBODY ELSE HAS TOO LITTLE OF EITHER," SAID HARRIS IN 1975.


Julia Conley
Nov 25, 2024

Former Oklahoma Senator Fred Harris, a moderate Democratic lawmaker who fully
embraced economic populism in his later political career and ran what one
journalist called a "proto-Bernie" presidential campaign in 1976, died on
Saturday at the age of 94.

Harris' death inspired tributes from an array of Democratic politicians and
progressives, who remembered the former senator's outspoken support for working
people and his championing of Indigenous rights.



Harris was voted into the Senate to replace Sen. Robert Kerr (D-Okla.) in 1964
after Kerr died of a heart attack. He began as a close ally of President Lyndon
Johnson, supporting U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War and Johnson's Great
Society programs aimed at reducing poverty.

But he "underwent a dramatic passage from moderate-conservative to liberal
ideas," as The New York Times reported, embracing a "new populism" that was
centered on promoting racial equality and a redistribution of economic and
political power and fighting against the exploitation of workers. He also
gradually changed his stance on Vietnam, calling for troop reductions and
eventually a full withdrawal of the U.S. military in the region.

In 1967 he was a member of the Kerner Commission on Civil Disorders, convened to
determine the root cause of riots in Black communities across the country. He
concluded that "entrenched racism" was to blame.

He was also credited with sponsoring a bill that pushed President Richard Nixon
to return Blue Lake, a site that was sacred to the people of the Taos Pueblo
tribe, to them.

"In Senator Harris, Oklahoma sent a public servant to Washington, D.C. who gave
voice to those in need, lifted up those the economy left behind, was a champion
of civil rights, and was a friend to Indian Country," said Chief Chuck Hoskin,
Jr. of the Cherokee Nation.

"His story is one that too few people know—the story of an Oklahoman who
championed working families and fought for justice and equity at every turn."

Running for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1976, Harris called for
higher taxes on the richest Americans and lower taxes for the rest of the
country, stricter regulations on large corporations, a "moral" foreign policy,
abortion rights, and "community control" of police forces.

Columnist John Nichols of The Nation said Harris adopted the slogan "No More
Bullshit" during his presidential campaign.

> — (@)

Harris' presidential bid, said journalist Ryan Grim of Drop Site News, "was a
road-not-taken that would have led to a much better world than we have now."

Harris told the Times in 1975 that the issue he was most concerned with was
"privilege."

"The fundamental problem is that too few people have all the money and power,
and everybody else has too little of either," he said. "The widespread diffusion
of economic and political power ought to be the express goal—the stated goal—of
government."

Harris' campaign garnered enthusiastic support from many voters, with the former
senator taking aim at "the superrich, giant corporations" and leading efforts to
gain the confidence of blue-collar workers, farmers, poor Black and white
voters, and unemployed people.


"Those in the coalition don't have to love one another," Harris said. "All they
have to do is recognize that they are commonly exploited, and that if they get
themselves together they are a popular majority and can take back the
government."

After his presidential run, Harris became a political science professor at the
University of New Mexico at Albuquerque and left politics to raise chickens on a
farm in Corrales, New Mexico.


In conversations with Axios reporter Russell Contreras in his later years,
Harris expressed frustration with the Democratic Party, saying leaders didn't
discuss poverty as much as they should.

"It's harder to get out of poverty today than it was back then," he told
Contreras.

He added that showing a commitment to fight for working-class and low-income
people would motivate people in Appalachia, the Mississippi Delta, and on Native
American reservations across the country.

"We are grateful to see national media highlighting the life and legacy of
former Senator Fred Harris," said the Oklahoma Democratic Party. "His story is
one that too few people know—the story of an Oklahoman who championed working
families and fought for justice and equity at every turn."


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fred harris


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