Dozens of Israeli armored military vehicles, bulldozers, drones as well as armed troops from the military, border police and Shin Bet, raided the West Bank city of Jenin Thursday morning. All to allegedly take down three Palestinian militants.

The damage was like nothing Jenin has seen in over two decades. Nine Palestinians, including an elderly woman, were killed by Israeli forces. Dozens of cars were flipped over and crushed, homes were heavily damaged, and patients had to run away from tear gas shot at the Jenin hospital.

The excessive show of brutality and disproportionate violence was deliberate. Following the most deadly year since 2005 for Palestinians, and massive protests across Israel against Benjamin Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul, the assault on Jenin is meant to put the nation in a state of emergency and thus undermine the pro-democracy protests.

It is not just Bibi who stands to benefit from this. A spark of chaos and bloodshed and a display of uncompromising might and cruelty are politically most expedient to Israel’s new national security minister and convicted terror-supporter, Itamar Ben-Gvir, as well as the finance minister and de facto prime minister of the West Bank, religious extremist Bezalel Smotrich.

“They want more violence, they want deterioration, they want an exacerbation of violence because politically it serves them,” retired Israeli General Ephraim Sneh, who served as deputy defense minister under Ehud Olmert, was warning me only a week ago. “If it wasn’t for May 2021 [when escalations erupted in Jerusalem, Gaza and Israel], Ben-Gvir wouldn’t have 14 mandates in the Israeli Knesset today.” The Israeli police commissioner Kobi Shabtai has shared a similar assessment of Ben-Gvir’s proclivity for inciting violence for political gain, blaming him for sparking the 2021 escalation by establishing an office in the disputed Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah.

It is extremely difficult to see any moral, political, or even military justification for the disproportionality of force exerted by the Israeli military in Jenin.

The IDF is claiming that the three wanted militants were plotting a “significant attack.” But even assuming this to be true, excessive force is wholly unjustifiable, especially in the presence of less harmful and more effective alternatives. For example, Israel could have easily asked the Palestinian Authority (PA) through their tight security coordination apparatus to thwart the threat, arrest the three militants, or at least dissuade them from their violent intentions.

This type of security coordination has proved to be immensely successful. In November 2022, Israel’s government approached the PA for help to retrieve the body of a Druze Israeli citizen that was kidnapped by militants in Jenin. The PA managed to return the body within a single day. A month before, Israel asked the PA to intercede with armed groups in Jenin and Nablus to de-escalate tensions. In turn, the PA persuaded the head of the Lion Den’s militant group to turn himself in. The PA routinely arrests Palestinians wanted by Israel and puts them in its custody.

Most importantly, it’s highly unclear that the security objectives attained from this operation outweigh the harm and damage resulting from the use of such extreme and brutal force. The PA has already announced that it is suspending its security coordination with Israel. Hamas has already threatened retaliation and there is talk of a general strike in the West Bank.

We are back to the brink of another war; and there is no evidence that such an operation would succeed in bringing about calm to Israelis and prevent the resurgence of these armed groups. Instead, Israel’s operation has turned the three wanted militants into martyrs and heroes who defended their town against the Israeli raid.

Netanyahu’s government chose to ignore these calculations in today’s decision. They also ignore the most crucial fact that these armed groups in Jenin and Nablus resurged only because of the unprecedented level of despair, immiseration and futurelessness that Palestinian feel entrapped into in the occupied territories. With the two-state solution and peace process long dead, the besieged Palestinian economy in tatters, and the occupation’s restrictions increasing dramatically, Palestinians — particularly the youth — are left with nothing to lose and nothing to hope for.

Instead of addressing these root causes of tensions and escalations, the Israeli government’s continued use of excessive and disproportionate violence will only fuel more bitterness, hatred and rage among Palestinians. This will push more desperate young people into armed groups and cause more violence that Smotrich and Ben-Gvir can weaponize for their own political ends, entrenching the region in a vicious destructive cycle and bringing us closer to a third intifada.

The malevolent policies of Israel’s far-right government are not only harmful to Israel internally. As General Sneh told me: “[Smotrich and Ben-Gvir] will isolate us in the moment we need international support in our struggle with Iran.”

The Biden administration must unequivocally condemn the excessive and disproportionate use of violence against Palestinians and use whatever means are necessary to make sure Thursday’s destructive raid on Jenin will not be repeated. The administration should also work on restoring hope to the Palestinians and alleviating Israel’s suffocating restrictions in the Occupied Territories.

Otherwise, Biden’s continued hands-off approach is a green light to Israel’s extremist government to escalate the brutal treatment of Palestinians and destabilize the region, to the detriment of Palestinians and Israelis alike.

To contact the author, email opinion@forward.com

The post The assault on Jenin serves only Israel’s far-right government appeared first on The Forward.

A group of Jewish faculty and local synagogue members are boycotting a Holocaust commemoration event at James Madison University scheduled for Thursday evening. Jewish members of the event’s organizing committee were allegedly kicked off after they deemed a planned musical section too celebratory for the occasion. The performance is to be given by the school’s provost, Heather Coltman, who is also a concert pianist. 

Rabbi Jeffrey Kurtz-Lendner, who leads Beth El Congregation in Harrisonburg, Virginia, where the school is located, said that the Jewish faculty and staff on the committee were rebuffed.

A planned piano performance by Heather Coltman, provost of James Madison University, during a Holocaust event struck some members of the Jewish community as inappropriate. Photo by James Madison University

“They were told, ‘Well, this is what it is, we don’t care what you have to say,’” Kurtz-Lendner said in an interview.

Kurtz-Lendner wrote a letter to Jonathan Alger, the university’s president, Wednesday, objecting to the program. 

Narketta Sparkman-Key, associate provost overseeing diversity, said in a statement that officials were unaware of concerns about the event. “This event is to create an opportunity for people to learn about the lived experiences of others and honor the Holocaust Remembrance Day through educational and solemn means,” she said.

A program for the event, scheduled for 6 p.m. Thursday, describes it as “an evening conversation on the history and legacy of the Holocaust.” In addition to lectures on “Lessons and Legacies of Auschwitz,” and “Antisemitism and White Supremacy,” it also features a section called “Music as Refuge in the Holocaust” performed by Coltman and Jo-Anne van der Vat-Chromy, a member of the music faculty.

Kurtz-Lendner said that too much emphasis was being placed on the musical selections, and that Alan Berger, a Florida Atlantic University professor, had been asked to limit his remarks on Auschwitz to ten minutes.

“The whole program is designed to use the Holocaust as an opportunity for the university to have a celebration,” said Kurtz-Lender, whose Reform congregation has about 70 member families. “It’s basically a Holocaust Memorial Day Macy’s sale.”

Coltman’s office referred questions to Sparkman-Key who did not immediately respond. It is not clear what pieces will be performed.

Two dozen current and past John Madison faculty and staff, who did not list their names, sent a letter to Alger, the president, announcing that they would boycott the event. The undated letter was republished by the Breeze, the school’s student newspaper, Thursday morning.

“I’ve had several people say to me, ‘Oh, I’m gonna go to the thing on Thursday. See you there,’ and my answer, of course, is, ‘Thank you, you know, I’m not attending,’” Maura Hametz, who runs the history department at John Madison and was one of the Jewish faculty who signed the letter, told the Breeze.

Program sparks controversy

The event program states that it is being sponsored by the Gandhi Center for Global Nonviolence on campus, but director Taimi Castle told the Breeze that the center’s representative had pulled out of the planning process in October and she would have withdrawn support if she had been aware of the concerns.

The program also lists Randi Nagel, rabbi of Temple House of Israel in neighboring Saunton as offering a “community welcome” but Kurtz-Lendner said Nagel pulled out after he informed her of the local concerns.

“I am not participating,” Nagel said in an email. “I was not able to attend.”

Kurtz-Lendner said that Sparkman-Key, who is also speaking at the event, had alienated some members of the Jewish community by writing on social media during a visit to Israel that Jesus had parted the Red Sea.

Sparkman-Key, who frequently invokes God on Twitter, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Zach Ginsberg, vice president of the campus Hillel, is also listed on the program reading a poem. JMU Hillel, which is not professionally staffed, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Hillel estimates that James Madison has approximately 1,200 Jewish students, which would account for 6% of the public university’s total student population. Harrisonburg, a community of 50,000 about 130 miles southwest of Washington, D.C, has a small Jewish community. In addition to Beth El Congregation, James Madison has a Chabad house. 

The post ‘A Holocaust Memorial Day Macy’s sale’: Jewish faculty boycott James Madison University Holocaust event  appeared first on The Forward.

By Philip Kenworthy, Patrick Kirby, Dana Vorisek

Small states—countries with a population of 1.5 million or less—were hit particularly hard by the COVID-19 pandemic.  They’ve also had a much slower recovery than other emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs). Small states have several features that make them especially vulnerable to global economic and climate-related developments. To make matters more difficult, these countries have fewer policy tools at their disposal than larger countries.

A deep contraction during the pandemic, and a prolonged recovery

Small states are forecast to grow 3.5 percent in 2023, slowing from an estimated 5.2 percent in 2022. At the projected pace of growth, small states will regain their aggregate 2019 level of activity only this year, while other EMDEs exceeded this threshold in 2021 (Figure 1). Small states face long-term economic damage related to the shocks of the previous three years, including skills and education losses, a lower capital stock, and damage from the protracted downturn of tourism.

Figure 1. GDP compared to pre-pandemic levels

Source: World Bank.

Note: Sample includes 34 EMDE small states (excluding Guyana), 115 EMDEs excluding small states, and 37 advanced economies.

The costs of the pandemic were much more severe for small states than other EMDEs. Economic activity shrank more than 11 percent in 2020, compared with 1.5 percent in other EMDEs. The depth of the contraction in small states was largely due to the collapse of global travel, which disproportionately affected the three-fifths of small states that are highly reliant on tourism. The contraction in tourism during the pandemic was truly unprecedented: During the four global recessions prior to 2020, the largest annual decline in global tourist arrivals was about 4 percent in 2009, while in 2020, arrivals fell by more than 70 percent (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Tourism arrivals during global recessions

Source: Haver Analytics; national statistical agencies.

Note: Lines show one year before (t-1) to four years after (t+4) the year of the recession, except where data are not yet available for the 2020 recession.

High vulnerability to external shocks

Small states share attributes that make them all vulnerable to external shocks and contribute to greater growth volatility. For example, food and fuel imports are equivalent to about one-sixth of GDP in small states, substantially more than in other EMDEs (Figure 3). Steep rises in food prices brought on by war-related disruptions to grain, energy, and fertilizer markets in 2022 have squeezed living standards, increased inflation, and worsened terms of trade.

Figure 3. Food and fuel imports

Source: U.N. Comtrade; World Bank; World Development Indicators.

Note: Bars show simple averages of 2019 data. Food imports sample includes 22 EMDE small states and 95 EMDEs excluding small states. Fuel imports sample includes 18 EMDE small states and 78 EMDEs excluding small states. Energy exporting EMDEs were dropped from the fuel imports sample.

Small states face large and growing risks from climate change. The frequency of weather-related natural disasters in these countries has increased in recent decades, and small states face severe—in some cases even existential—threats from rising sea levels and coastal erosion. Small states suffer disaster-related damages and losses of close to 5 percent of GDP per year, about 15 times the amount in other EMDEs (Figure 4). In extreme cases, damages from a single disaster can be several multiples of the country’s GDP. Estimated damages and losses from Hurricane Maria in 2017 in Dominica and Hurricane Ivan in Grenada in 2004, for example, amounted to more than 200 percent of GDP.

Figure 4. Damages and losses from natural disasters, 1990-2021

Source: EM-DAT; World Bank; World Development Indicators.

Note: Bars show the sum of damages in each group of countries in each year divided by the sum ofnominal GDP in each group of countries, weighted by country-level nominal GDP. Disasters include storms, floods, droughts, earthquakes, landslides, and volcanic activity.

Limited government capacity means more international support is necessary

In addition to their vulnerability to the effects of climate change, small states tend to have limited government capacity, be highly indebted, and rely heavily on external financing (Figure 5). Small states in East Asia and Pacific and Sub-Saharan Africa tend to have weak digital connectivity, and many small states in the Pacific are geographically distant from other economies. Accelerating growth while building resilience to future shocks will require extensive domestic efforts, but these are unlikely to be sufficient without support from the global community.

With international assistance, small states can diversify their economies more, improve digital connectivity, enhance disaster risk management, lessen dependence on imported fossil fuels. There are also benefits to be derived from reducing trade costs and collaborating with each other and with major trading partners to achieve economies of scale (Figure 6). These measures can improve short-term stability and, just as importantly, long-term growth.

Figure 5. Government debt

Source: International Monetary Fund; World Bank.

Note: Sample includes 36 EMDE small states and 113 EMDEs excluding small states.

Figure 6. Trade connectivity and costs

Source: World Bank; World Development Indicators.

Note: Simple averages of countries in each group. Liner shipping connectivity is an index based on number of ships, their container-carrying capacity, maximum vessel size, number of services, and number of companies that deploy container ships in a country’s ports; data for 2020. Tariff rate is the weighted mean import tariff on all products. Data for 2018.

      

The U.S. military carried out an operation that killed a senior Islamic State leader in northern Somalia, U.S. officials said on Thursday.

The officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told reporters that Bilal al-Sudani, a U.S.-designated ISIS leader in Somalia, was killed in the operation along with about 10 of his associates.

They added that the operation was approved by President Joe Biden earlier this week and carried out within the past 24 hours. .

The officials declined to discuss basic details of the operation. They declined to articulate any direct threat posed by Sudani to the United States, offer details about whether any intelligence was collected, how the U.S. forces carried out the operation or even how many American troops were involved.

Advisers to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Thursday unanimously voted in favor of using the same coronavirus strain for the initial COVID-19 vaccine doses and the boosters, to simplify the vaccination regimen in the United States.

Saadiq Long was on his way to a night shift at the transportation company he works at when he saw flashing lights behind his car. Two police cruisers were signaling him to pull over. This would be the third time in just over a month that Long, a U.S. Air Force veteran with no criminal record, had been pulled over without explanation by Oklahoma City police officers. The stops frustrated Long. He suspected he was being targeted.

After wondering again why he’d been pulled over, this time would be different: He would get some answers, however unsettling, about why it was happening.

Long, 52, was initially told by an officer who stopped him that his car had been listed in a gang database. After waiting in his car for roughly 20 minutes, the officer, according to a video that Long made of the incident, came back with a different story. The police officer told Long that his car had come up as a “hit” in a national watchlist database, one that “automatically alerts us that this vehicle is under suspicion for a terrorist watchlist.” The cop said that Long’s presence on the watchlist, rather than any driving-related infraction or accusation of criminality, was why he had been pulled over.

Long is no stranger to harassment by federal authorities. In 2015, he sued the U.S. government over his placement on the Department of Homeland Security’s no-fly list, as well as the larger terrorist watchlist from which that database is built. Eventually, Long was told his name was removed from the no-fly list, but, as the traffic stops in Oklahoma indicate, he has remained on the broader terrorism watchlist. His lawsuit in federal court related to that watchlist is still ongoing.

More immediately, Long is trying to deal with the very local consequences of being on the federal watchlist.

The U.S. government’s terror lists are often thought of as a tool for protecting against foreign national security threats. Yet in Long’s case, his continued presence on the list, which is secret and has no clear avenues for an individual to be delisted, has now resulted in an unending cycle of harassment from local police in his hometown of Oklahoma City, where he lives with his family.

Since the December 30, 2022, stop where he was verbally informed that his car was on the terrorist watchlist, things have gotten much worse for Long. In subsequent stops, he has been pulled over, handcuffed, and placed in the back of a police cruiser. In one incident, Oklahoma City police officers leveled their guns at Long while blaring orders over a loudspeaker instructing Long to exit his vehicle.

Having failed thus far in his case against the federal government, Long is now suing the Oklahoma City Police Department over the traffic stops, as well as their use of the federal terrorist watchlist as a pretext to target his vehicle. (The Oklahoma City Police Department declined to comment on the case.)

“He is not under investigation for anything, but this secret list is still terrorizing him whether on land or air.”

“As Saadiq Long drives the roads of his city, the Oklahoma City Police Department has been watching, aiming its vast network of cameras and computers at him repeatedly,” the lawsuit says. “Using a secret, racist list of Muslims that the FBI illegally maintains, officers have repeatedly pulled Saadiq Long over, sometimes at gunpoint, unlawfully arresting him twice in the last two months.”

“Despite the fact that he has never been arrested or charged for any crime, due to his presence on this list, he has lost work licenses, been denied visas, and been prevented from flying on airplanes,” said Gadeir Abbas, an attorney with the Council on American-Islamic Relations who is representing Long. “The officers who are pulling him over are just doing it because their computers are telling them to do so due to his watchlisting status. He is not under investigation for anything, but this secret list is still terrorizing him whether on land or air.”

In 2013, Long was prevented from boarding a flight to Oklahoma from Qatar, where he then resided. A U.S. citizen and Air Force veteran, the denied flight to Qatar was when Long first discovered that he was on the DHS’s no-fly list. Ever since, he has faced detention and other harassment while traveling.

Long sued in 2015 to clear his name from this secret database. In 2020, Homeland Security informed Long that he had been removed from the no-fly list and would not be placed back on absent further information. The government argued in court that the removal of Long’s name from the no-fly list had rendered his claims moot. Yet his removal from the no-fly list has not meant his removal from the broader terrorism watchlisting database, nor from the dire consequences of his status.

Civil liberties advocates, who routinely challenge the constitutionality of the terrorism watchlist in court, have grown increasingly alarmed by the expansion of its use by local law enforcement agencies. In some cases, these local agencies have been tasked with both monitoring individuals assigned to the list and expanding its scope. In 2014, The Intercept published the government’s secret guidance for selecting individuals to the watchlist. Disclosures in a lawsuit from 2017 revealed that the watchlist had grown to 1.2 million people, the majority of whom are believed to be noncitizens and nonresidents of the United States.

Presence on the watchlist can generate numerous problems for those targeted, from harassment and detention while traveling to the type of routine law enforcement threats and harassment Long now faces.

“His experience, unfortunately, is very common for people who are still on watchlists, even if they are not on the no-fly list. It is par for the course for anyone on a watchlist to experience more aggressive traffic stops,” said Naz Ahmed, a staff attorney with the Creating Law Enforcement Accountability and Responsibility project at the City University of New York School of Law. “Officers are instructed not to do anything that gives away that a person they have pulled over is on a watchlist or to carry out warrantless searches. But you can imagine how an officer may react who doesn’t have much training on this subject, and does not see it commonly, when they come across someone in this situation.”

A 2016 report by Yale Law School and the American Civil Liberties Union found that the U.S. government had “drastically expanded a consolidated watchlisting system that includes hundreds of thousands of individuals based on secret evidence.” The report documented how the system was now being used and interpreted by local police forces who were frequently acting upon “potentially erroneous, inaccurate, or outdated information.” Unlike the no-fly list, which has some limited redress processes, the broader terrorism watchlist remains largely opaque and unchallengeable.

“The FBI accepts almost every single ‘nomination’ to its list submitted by anyone,” Long’s lawsuit says. “This is because the FBI uses a standard so low that, based on a string of speculative inferences, any person can be made to qualify.”

Long’s lawyers filed suit against the local police department in Oklahoma City on Thursday, to compel its officers to stop pulling him over based on his watchlisting status. Long is also asking for financial compensation for violations of his Fourth Amendment rights. (The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the suit.)

Despite his recent experiences, Long has continued driving to work, doing errands, and visiting family in Oklahoma City but with increasing trepidation about how his watchlisting status is being interpreted by local police. Some police officers have been apologetic while pulling him over; others have responded aggressively, treating him as a threat, pulling out weapons, and causing him to fear for his life.

“For the past year or two, I noticed that the Oklahoma City police often followed me while driving, though without pulling me over,” said Long. “I got kind of used to it, but just recently, within the last month and a half, that’s when this started turning into something much more serious.”

“I was wondering if they were going to make my wife a widow now for something so silly, just for me being on this list, when they themselves don’t even know why I’m on it.”

The most recent incident, when he was pulled over earlier this month by a group of police officers who drew guns on him and ordered him out of his vehicle — an incident that Long also caught on his own dashboard camera — was the most alarming in his recent series of run-ins. A video of the incident shows police officers yelling contradictory instructions at him for several minutes while standing with guns drawn behind his vehicle.

“I was wondering if they were going to make my wife a widow now for something so silly,” Long said, “just for me being on this list, when they themselves don’t even know why I’m on it.”

The post Local Cops Harassed and Threatened U.S. Veteran Because of Terror Watchlist, Lawsuit Says appeared first on The Intercept.