Salem Political Snark

Trump is trashing Ukraine and sucking up to Putin. Disgusting and dangerous.

Just when I thought Trump couldn't act like more of an authoritarian jerk than he already is, he surprises me by doing something so outrageous even his most avid Republican acolytes are criticizing Trump.

A New York Times story, "Zelensky and Trump Trade Blows as Feud Escalates Over Peace Talks," starts this way:

The simmering feud between President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and President Trump escalated on Wednesday when Mr. Trump mocked his counterpart in a post filled with falsehoods, calling him a “dictator without elections.”

His comments came hours after Mr. Zelensky said the American leader had been “caught in a web of disinformation” from Russia over the war in Ukraine.

The pointed exchange was set off by a meeting of American and Russian officials to open talks on ending the war in Ukraine that excluded the Ukrainian government. After that meeting in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, Mr. Trump suggested that Ukraine had started the war, a comment that brought a strong rebuttal from Mr. Zelensky on Wednesday morning.

“I would like to have more truth with the Trump team,” Mr. Zelensky said in some of the most overt criticism yet of Mr. Trump and his view of the war in Ukraine.

Trump spread a bunch of lies in a post on X about Ukraine and Zelensky.

There's basically nothing true in what Trump said here. His non-stop lies were almost amusing when Trump was campaigning for president. They aren't at all funny now that he is the leader of the free world, yet is acting like he's Putin's puppet. 

The truth is that Europe has contributed more money to the defense of Ukraine than the United States has; that Russia started the war by invading Ukraine; that the constitution of Ukraine forbids holding elections in a time of martial law, which is still in effect in that country; that Zelensky has an approval rating of 57% in Ukraine, much higher than Trump's 45% approval rating in the United States; that Ukraine isn't at all shattered but is a fully functioning nation even in the midst of war: that millions of people haven't died in the war, and certainly not unnecessarily, given that Ukraine had a perfect right to defend itself against Russia's invasion; that half of the money sent by the United States isn't missing.

Rihards Kols is a member of the European parliament and a truth-teller.

Trump is supposed to be a master deal-maker. Actually Trump is a weak wimp when it comes to striking a deal to end the war in Ukraine. Michael McFaul is a former ambassador to Russia who knows well what sort of dictator Putin is, and how easy it is for Putin to manipulate Trump into making a bad deal for the United States and Ukraine. The fourth post on X ends with "except with Hitler there too."

A USAID worker I know died helping others. Trump is trashing his memory.

Mark Mitchell worked for the USAID -- the United States Agency for International Development.

He joined the monthly Salon discussion group that my wife and I are members of prior to his USAID job. Once Mark became part of USAID, his overseas postings prevented him from attending our meetings except when he returned to Salem for a visit.

But he'd keep in touch with us via email, and always had fascinating stories to tell of his USAID work when we'd see him periodically. Then one day a close friend of his told us that Mark had died when the bus he was traveling in had a serious accident in Georgia, the country next to Russia, not the state. 

Mark's name is on the USAID Memorial Wall. The May 2024 issue of The Foreign Service Journal has a page listing the "99 memorialized names of USAID Foreign Service officers, Foreign Service Nationals, and contractors who lost their lives while serving the U.S. government to promote international development." Mark Mitchell is in the final 2010-present category.

Mark was a realist. He would talk about the problems he and USAID were having in whichever country he was posted, which included Afghanistan. But he also spoke about the importance of the work he was doing in countries that needed the assistance USAID brought to the people there.

If Mark was still alive, he'd be justifiably outraged at the wrecking ball Donald Trump and his billionaire buddy, Elon Musk, are flinging at USAID. Musk has said with zero evidence to back him up that USAID is a criminal organization. That's an insult to the brave, hard-working people who work for the agency.

Far from proving criminality, a Washington Post story says that 11 of 12 claims by the Trump administration about USAID merely wasting taxpayer money are misleading, wrong, or lack context.

The only claim that was true was: “$1.5 million to ‘advance diversity equity and inclusion in Serbia’s workplaces and business communities’." That sounds fine to me, but even if someone is a DEI-hater, spending $1.5 million on a dubious project out of a $40 billion budget certainly doesn't justify putting USAID "in a wood chipper," as Elon Musk said in a disgusting tweet on X.

Here's excerpts from the Washington Post story.

As the Trump administration this week dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development, the primary vehicle for U.S. foreign aid, the White House issued a statement justifying its actions. Titled “At USAID, Waste and Abuse Runs Deep,” the news release claimed USAID “has been unaccountable to taxpayers as it funnels massive sums of money to the ridiculous — and, in many cases, malicious — pet projects of entrenched bureaucrats, with next-to-no oversight.”

The news release then listed 12 examples, plucked from the websites of right-wing media. But the numbers cited — as low as $32,000 — hardly justify the claim that these are “massive sums” of money. In fact, they are so low that some of the funds appear to have been awarded at the ambassador level, without Washington involvement. At least one dated from the first Trump administration, and some were actually State Department grants, not USAID.

...In fiscal year 2023, USAID was appropriated about $25 billion by Congress, according to ForeignAssistance.gov. (The website in recent days has been changed to combine USAID spending with foreign aid distributed by the State Department, so the combined total is nearly $39 billion.) The White House identified only about $12 million in grants — one of which was $6 million — though one allegation vaguely claimed “hundreds of millions of dollars.” Upon inspection, that turned out to be from 2005 to 2008.

As a reader service, we examined these line items, as they have spread across social media. By eliminating USAID’s website, the administration made [it] harder to ascertain the details of some of these programs. But we determined that, as framed by the White House, only one claim — out of 12 — was accurate.

By contrast, Nicholas Kristof, a New York Times columnist who has a home in Oregon, wrote a moving piece about USAID, "The World's Richest Men Take On the World's Poorest Children." This excerpt describes some of the benefits USAID brings to the world.

I’ve seen genuine improvements in U.S.A.I.D. over the years. Its public-private partnership to tackle lead poisoning, announced last year, was a model of American leadership. And so from my travels, this is what U.S.A.I.D. has come to mean to me:

I’ve seen women and girls with obstetric fistula, a horrific childbirth injury, get a $600 surgery that gives them back their lives — and this is something that U.S.A.I.D. supports.

I’ve seen men humiliated by elephantiasis and grotesquely enlarged scrotums, occasionally requiring a wheelbarrow to support their organs as they walk. And U.S.A.I.D. has fought this disease and made it less common.

I’ve seen children dying of malaria (and I’ve had malaria), and I’ve seen U.S.A.I.D. help achieve major strides against the disease over the last two decades.

I’ve seen southern Africa ravaged by AIDS. And then President George W. Bush’s landmark program against AIDS, called PEPFAR and implemented in part through U.S.A.I.D., transformed the landscape. I saw coffin makers in Lesotho and Malawi grumble that their business was collapsing because far fewer people were dying. PEPFAR has saved 26 million lives so far. (In the coming months, I’ll see if I can calculate how many lives are lost to Trump’s cuts in aid.)

I’ve seen the suffering of communities where people in middle age routinely go blind from trachoma, river blindness or cataracts — and the transformation when U.S.A.I.D. helps prevent such blindness.

Trump scoffed that U.S.A.I.D. was “run by radical lunatics.” Is it radical lunacy to try to save children’s lives? To promote literacy for girls? To fight blindness?

If this is woke, what about the evangelical Christians in International Justice Mission, which, with U.S.A.I.D. support, has done outstanding work battling sex trafficking of children in Cambodia and the Philippines? Does Trump believe that rescuing children from rape is a radical lunatic cause?

Trump’s moves are of uncertain legality, not least because U.S.A.I.D. was established by Congress, but the outcomes are indisputable. Around the world children are already missing health care and food because of the assault on the agency that Kennedy founded to uphold our values and protect our interests.

To billionaires in the White House, it may seem like a game. But to anyone with a heart, it’s about children’s lives and our own security, and what’s unfolding is sickening.

Trump's new tariffs are a big tax increase on ordinary Americans

Another day, another crazy decision by Trump. The newest contribution to the steadily growing list of illegal, improper, or inadvisable moves by the Trump administration is tariffs on goods imported from Canada, Mexico, and China.

Before I describe how dumb this is, let's get one simple fact straight, something that Trump either doesn't understand or lies about.

Tariffs imposed by the United States are paid by the American companies importing the goods, not by the exporting nation or companies doing the exporting. 

Since those American companies either have to pay for the full cost of the tariffs themselves, or pass some of the cost on to consumers via higher prices, this means that a tariff is a tax. It isn't free money, no matter how often Trump praises tariffs as a way to increase federal revenues.

Yes, the money raised by tariffs goes to the federal government. But that money is a tax increase on the American public, either directly through higher prices or indirectly if paid by the companies importing goods subject to tariffs.

This fact needs to be screamed from the rooftops by journalists and Democratic officials.

Because Trump's decision today to impose a 25% tariff on goods imported from Canada and Mexico (aside from a 10% tariff on Canadian oil) and a 10% tariff on imported goods from China, is a large tax increase -- no matter how Republicans try to spin this.

Those tariffs go into effect next Tuesday. Likely this will happen, though when it comes to all things Trumpian, one can never be sure what whim will emerge from the often incoherent brain of our newly elected president.

There are three possible reasons Trump is imposing the tariffs: (1) To raise money that will help offset the cost of extending and expanding tax cuts that mainly benefit the wealthy; (2) To put pressure on Canada, Mexico, and China to comply with stuff Trump wants them to do; (3) Protect American industries from foreign competition. 

I suspect that #1 is the main reason Trump is going ahead with tariffs. There's no way federal programs can be cut sufficiently to offset the cost of the tax cuts he wants. At least, not without stimulating a revolt by American citizens who like those programs.

So tariffs are a (thinly) disguised tax hike that will make it easier to justify the cost of the Republican tax cuts. Obviously it makes little or no sense to pay for a tax cut with a tax hike, but making sense was given up by the Republican Party when it became the Cult of Trump.

There'd be some justification for the tariffs if they truly were being used as leverage to get Canada, Mexico, and China to do things that benefit the United States. However, Trump says that he won't consider cancelling the tariffs until the supply of fentanyl into the United States is drastically slowed by those countries.

Problem is, very little fentanyl crosses the Canadian border, and both Mexico and China say they're doing about the best they can to reduce fentanyl production and trafficking. All three countries have a reasonable point when they say that demand for illicit drugs in the United States is the real cause of the fentanyl problem.

Protecting American industries and manufacturing is a laudable goal when an essential product is primarily imported from a country that isn't friendly to the United States. But Mexico and Canada are our allies. They're next door to us. It's crazy to single them out for 25% tariffs, especially since they are two of our three largest trading partners, China being the third.

Of course, those countries can retaliate by imposing tariffs on goods imported from the United States. This already has started to happen.

Mexico and Canada immediately vowed to impose tariffs of their own. The Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, announced retaliatory tariffs starting with 25 percent tariffs on approximately $20 billion worth of U.S. goods on Tuesday, with $85 billion more to follow within three weeks.

...The nation’s commerce ministry said China would file a case against the United States at the World Trade Organization and also vowed unspecified “corresponding countermeasures to firmly safeguard its rights and interests.”

The burden on American consumers promises to be large. Tariffs will result in higher prices and more inflation, according to a CNN story.

Trump’s proposed tariffs could add $272 billion a year to tax burdens, according to Karl Schamotta, chief market strategist at Corpay Cross-Border Solutions. The Peterson Institute has estimated Trump’s proposed tariffs would cost the typical US household over $2,600 a year.

...mainstream economists largely agree that tariffs cause inflation. That’s because importers — not the countries exporting the goods — pay the tax, and they typically pass that cost on to consumers in the form of higher prices. New research from the Peterson Institute for International Economics suggests Trump’s aggressive tariff campaign will force American consumers to pay more for practically everything — from foreign-made sneakers and toys to food.

Because of the risk that Trump's tariffs will rekindle inflation, the Federal Reserve will be reluctant to cut interest rates, which still are at high levels, with a 30 year mortgage hovering around 7% even after several rate cuts last year by the Fed. 

And I won't be surprised if the stock market declines next week. Trump may love tariffs, but most corporations and investors don't. Trade wars tend to be losers for everyone involved. A Politico story says: 

Economists warn new tariffs could hurt the U.S. economy, rattle the stock market and frustrate Trump’s desire for the Federal Reserve to further lower interest rates.

The combination of a 25 percent tariff on Mexico and Canada and a 10 percent tariff on China goods could cause U.S. economic output to decline by 1.5 percent in 2025 and 2.1 percent in 2026 as higher prices dampen consumer spending and business investment, said Gregory Daco, chief economist at EY-Parthenon, a division of the accounting firm Ernst & Young.

South Korea's brief stint of martial law is a warning of what Trump might do

South Korea, like the United States, is a democracy.

But that didn't stop President Yoon Suk Yeol from declaring martial law today, reversing his order a few hours later following massive outrage and demonstrations from South Korea's citizens and a unanimous vote from parliament rescinding the order. But for a while, troops tried to prevent members of parliament from entering their building, since Yoon's order declared political gatherings unlawful.

For a while, things were really ugly in South Korea.

Yoon's martial law announcement sounded like a dream come true for Donald Trump. If the decree had been put into effect, political assemblies and demonstrations would have been banned, news outlets and journalists would have been jailed for promoting "fake news," and arrests would have been allowed without a warrant.

In short, Yoon wanted to be an authoritarian ruler of a democracy by invoking the danger North Korean sympathizers, communists, and such supposedly posed to Yoon's right-wing sensibilities. A story in The Atlantic, "South Korea's Warning for Washington," starts out with a compelling couple of paragraphs.

A right-wing wannabe authoritarian president—a leader who attacks the press, is accused of abusing power for personal gain, uses his power to block investigations into his family’s potential corruption, hopes to stay in office to avoid heading to prison, and only seems to have concepts of a plan to address his nation’s inflation and health care—declared martial law earlier today.

This is not a dystopian fever dream for what may soon come to pass in the United States, but instead a rapidly unfolding crisis in South Korea, where President Yoon Suk Yeol shocked his nation with a hastily executed surprise power grab under the pretext of an unspecified military threat from North Korea and enemies within. Late Tuesday evening in Seoul, Yoon issued a statement calling the country’s National Assembly a “den of criminals” and claiming that it was undermining governance. Martial law was needed, Yoon claimed, to stop the “anti-state forces that are plundering the freedom and happiness of our people.”

Indeed, parts of Yoon's statement sound like they were adapted from a Trump campaign speech.

Dear citizens, I declare emergency martial law to defend the free Republic of Korea from the threats of North Korean communist forces and to eradicate the shameless pro-North Korean anti-state forces that are plundering the freedom and happiness of our people and to protect the free constitutional order.

Through this emergency martial law, I will rebuild and defend the free Republic of Korea, which is falling into ruin. To this end, I will surely eradicate the criminals of the anti-state forces who have been committing atrocities so far.

This is an inevitable step to ensure the freedom and safety of the people and the sustainability of the country, and to pass on a proper country to future generations from the unrestrained activities of anti-state forces aiming to overthrow the system. I will eradicate anti-state forces as soon as possible and normalize the country. I will crush the anti-state forces and normalize the country as soon as possible.

The declaration of martial law will cause some inconvenience to the good people who have believed in and followed the values of the Constitution of the free Republic of Korea, but I will focus on minimizing these inconveniences.

The good news for lovers of democracy is that South Korea appears to have weathered Yoon's attempt to substitute his own right-wing authoritarianism for the rule of law. After being narrowly elected president in 2022 by a margin of just 0.8% (not a whole lot less than Trump's 1.5% margin of victory in the 2024 popular vote), Yoon's approval rating sank to a dismal 17%. 

In April 2024, South Korea's citizens overwhelmingly voted for the opposition party, leaving Yoon with a parliament firmly against him -- for good reason. 

Mr. Yoon’s party had seen the 2024 elections as an opportunity to win back the chamber.

Instead the crises and scandals built. A Halloween celebration became a deadly catastrophe, and North Korea ramped up its threats. Doctors went on strike, describing a medical system of harsh working conditions and low wages. Allegations of corruption involving Mr. Yoon’s wife and a $2,200 Dior pouch roiled his party, with one senior member comparing her to Marie Antoinette.

Protests organized on social media by rival political activists became common, with a rough division of churchgoers and other older citizens on the right, and mostly younger people on the left.

The election devolved into vicious recriminations, with left-wing protesters calling Mr. Yoon a “national traitor” over what they called his anti-feminist policies and attacks on news outlets he accused of spreading “fake news.” They also criticized him for the Halloween crowd crush and his efforts to improve ties with Japan, the onetime colonial ruler of Korea.

Opposition leaders warned that Mr. Yoon was taking South Korea onto the path of “dictatorship.” In turn, members of Mr. Yoon’s party called the opposition “criminals,” and voters on the right rallied against what they called “pro-North Korean communists.”

"Instead the crises and scandals built." It sure seems like those words are a premonition of what awaits the United States after Trump is inaugurated next month.

I only hope that our 2026 midterm election hands Trump's Republican Party such a resounding defeat that we too will have shown that Americans value democracy and competent governance much more than bending the knee to a wanna-be authoritarian.

Netanyahu is Israel's Trump, caring only about himself, not the hostages

I feel sorry for the majority of people in Israel who want their country to do everything possible to save the lives of the remaining hostages kept captive by Hamas, but have to deal with a leader, Prime Minister Netanyahu, who only cares about staying in power, not what's best for Israelis. 

If that sounds just like Donald Trump, no big surprise. Trump and Netanyahu are close with each other, sharing a bond of unbridled egotism, self-centeredness, and a desire to remain in power in order to forestall legal proceedings accusing them of criminality.

Recently six hostages were killed by Hamas as Israeli troops were closing in on their tunnel location in Gaza. Several of the hostages were slated to be released in the first phase of a cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas that remains stalled -- primarily because Netanyahu keeps making more demands of Hamas.

Intense anger over Netanyahu's stonewalling of a hostage deal sent hundreds of thousands of Israelis into the streets in protest. That was followed by a general strike that shut down parts of the country before those striking were ordered back to work by an Israeli court. 

What's bizarre is that Republican politicians in the United States have been criticizing Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, and other Democrats for calling for a cease fire to be negotiated with Hamas, which is the only way the remaining hostages are going to be released. They call this anti-Israel and pro-Hamas.

So what are those hundreds of thousands of Israelis who also are demanding a cease fire? Are they anti-Israel and pro-Hamas? Of course not.

They're patriots who detest Hamas, just as Harris, Biden, and other Democrats are. They simply don't see any point in prolonging the war now that most of Gaza has been destroyed, tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians killed, and Hamas reduced to a shadow of its former self. 

Netanyahu's own defense minister sees him as standing in the way of a deal with Hamas that would lead to the release of hostages. Here's excerpts from a New York Times story, "Biden Says Netanyahu is Not Doing Enough to Free Hostages in Gaza."

President Biden issued a one-word rebuke on Monday to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s commitment to reaching a cease-fire and hostage release deal, the latest iteration of the White House’s monthslong effort to cajole and censure the Israeli leader.

As he exited Marine One on the White House lawn on the way to a meeting of his national security team, Mr. Biden was asked a series of questions by waiting reporters about whether Mr. Netanyahu was doing enough to achieve a deal to get the hostages back. The president responded simply: “No.”

...Hamas has demanded that all Israeli forces be withdrawn from the Philadelphi Corridor, a narrow strip of land, less than 9 miles long, on the border between Gaza and Egypt. Mr. Netanyahu has said Israeli troops must remain in the corridor to prevent the movement of weapons and ammunition to Hamas.

The draft agreement calls for a major reduction in Israeli forces in the corridor during the first phase of the cease-fire, and full withdrawal thereafter. Israeli government negotiators have agreed to the phased withdrawal, but Mr. Netanyahu has backed away from that part of the deal, triggering an open dispute with his own defense minister, Yoav Gallant.

“It is too late for the hostages who were murdered in cold blood,” Mr. Gallant said on Sunday, declaring that Mr. Netanyahu had to drop his insistence on the presence of troops in the corridor. “We must bring back the hostages that are still being held by Hamas.”

Hopefully that will happen. But it's hard to see how the lives of the hostages can be saved as long as Netanyahu is Prime Minister of Israel. Netanyahu wants endless war with Hamas because he believes that as soon as the war stops, his legal problems will start again.

Israelis will have to make a choice between keeping the hostages alive and keeping Netanyahu's political ambitions alive. I sure hope they choose the hostages. 

Netanyahu lied shamelessly in his address to Congress today

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's hugely unpopular prime minister, is that country's Donald Trump in this regard: Netanyahu lies shamelessly, seeks to cling to power to avoid being held to account for crimes he's committed, and avoids taking responsibility for his failures.

Today Netanyahu used an address to Congress, which was boycotted by a large proportion of Democrats in the House and Senate, to continue spreading falsehoods about how Israel has been conducting the war against Hamas under his failed leadership. 

I watched most of the speech, then couldn't stand all the B.S. that was flowing freely from Netanyahu's mouth, and fast-forwarded my recording of the speech to the analysis on CNN after he'd finished talking.

That analysis was pretty damn devastating. An Israeli criticized Netanyahu harshly, saying that his approval rating in Israel is dismal, about 30%, and the vast majority of Israelis want an election to be held where they can get rid of Netanyahu.

He added that Netanyahu failed to mention that the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas took place under Netanyahu's watch. Indeed, Netanyahu had harsh words for Iran, American protesters, Hamas, Palestinian leadership, and others, but somehow neglected to mention that he was the one in charge when Hamas conducted its "surprise" attack -- which actually wasn't a surprise, since Israeli intelligence had gotten word of it, but nothing was done to prevent it by Netanyahu's administration. 

Prior to the speech I heard Fareed Zakaria make some great points on CNN that Netanyahu also ignored in his speech. Netanyahu keeps saying that his goal is to destroy Hamas. But that's impossible, as Zakaria pointed out and many others have echoed.

Hamas is a movement, an ideology.

Its weapons and fighters can be destroyed, at least in part, but an ideology can't be destroyed so long as the conditions that make it appealing continue to exist. Israel's wholesale destruction of Gaza and the killing of 39,000 people in Gaza guarantee that Hamas will remain popular among a population that has suffered so greatly from the reckless way Israel has been conducting the war.

So Netanyahu is guaranteeing that Hamas will remain a viable ideology, Zakaria said, by ruling out the possibility of Palestinian statehood, the two-state solution favored by the United States and most of the rest of the world. Further, Netanyahu doesn't want Hamas to govern Gaza after the war is over, but he also doesn't want an alternative Palestinian government to do this.

It's obvious that Netanyahu doesn't want peace, but endless war -- with Hamas, with Hezbollah, with Iran.

That's the only way he can stay in power, by claiming that elections can't be held in Israel so long as the country is on a war footing. What was disgusting was that Israelis recognize what a self-centered liar Netanyahu is, while his mostly Republican audience kept cheering and having standing ovations for him today.

Netanyahu talked about how continuing the war against Hamas was necessary to bring all of the hostages home. But he failed to mention that almost all of the hostages who have been freed so far were released during a cease fire agreement with Hamas. This is why so many relatives of the remaining hostages are angry at Netanyahu for rejecting another ceasefire agreement with Hamas.

Here's some other lies in Netanyahu's speech, according to CNN's Jeremy Diamond.

CNN’s Jeremy Diamond argued many of the claims made by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “flew in the face” of facts during his address to Congress.

Netanyahu spoke in front of Congress on Wednesday to discuss the ongoing war in Gaza. Shortly after the speech, Diamond appeared on CNN to fact check a number of things Netanyahu said.

“He talked about big numbers of aid getting in,” Diamond said, “but there is just very, very clear evidence — you talk to any humanitarian organization that actually works on the ground in Gaza, [like] The United Nations — and even when you look at Israel in the way that they have turned on and back off the faucet of aid to Gaza. There is clear evidence that Israel has not always allowed enough aid in, that they have not done enough to deconflict militarily, to provide safe routes for that aid to get in. And you also have to remember that ministers, members of his, Netanyahu’s own government called for starving the people of Gaza in the earliest days of the war.”

Diamond then called it “laughable” that when the prime minister talked about civilian deaths in Rafah, he claimed there were “practically none.”

“I can think of several strikes in which civilians were killed,” Diamond continued. “That just doesn’t even pass the smell test. And then he once again cited this West Point expert, John Spencer, claiming that Israel has the lowest civilian-casualty ratio. [If] you talk to any other expert on the conduct of militaries in warfare, including how the United States has carried out its campaigns, and they will all say that Israel has not taken nearly as many precautions as most modern militaries do in warfare, in Gaza.”

For sure.

As noted above, about 39,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began. Israel has said that about 14,000 Hamas fighters have been killed. This means about 25,000 civilians have been killed by Israel. That's about 1% of the population of Gaza. If the same proportion of Americans were killed, that'd be more that 3,300,000 people. 

Is it any wonder that most Americans disagree with how Israel has been conducting the war against Hamas? We may not be protesting in the streets, but 56% of us don't like what Israel is doing. This helps explain why Kamala Harris and JD Vance both passed on attending Netanyahu's speech. He isn't popular in Israel, and he isn't popular in the United States.

Salem City Council approves even-handed resolution on crisis in Gaza

Way to go, Salem City Council.

You did the right thing in your meeting last night, passing a resolution on a 5-4 vote that calls for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, along with calls for no more U.S. offensive aid to Israel until a ceasefire occurs, unrestricted humanitarian aid for the people of Gaza, the release of all hostages and detainees, a two-state solution where Palestinians and Israelis live in peace, and condemnation of antisemitism, anti-Palestinian anti-Arab bigotry, and Islamophobia.

The full resolution can be read here. I've also copied it in below.

I wish the resolution had passed unanimously. But a Salem Reporter story, "Salem city council passes alternative Gaza ceasefire resolution following hours of public testimony," says: 

Councilors Jose Gonzalez, Virginia Stapleton, Linda Nishioka and Trevor Philips joined Mayor Chris Hoy in voting to pass the Gaza resolution. Councilors Deanna Gwyn, Micki Varney, Julie Hoy, and Vanessa Nordyke voted against it.

Congratulations to Councilors Stapleton and Nishioka for drafting an alternative to the language proposed by the Human Rights Commission, which mentioned genocide by Israel in several places, and the resolution proposed by city staff which combined some of the Human Rights Commission language with similar resolutions passed by other Oregon cities. 
Download HRC Gaza Resolution Proposal
Download Resolution by City staff

I think the resolution passed last night is accurate, well-written, and reflects the intent of the Human Rights Commission language without the controversial inclusion of "genocide." There's good reason to call what Israel is doing to the Palestinian people genocide, but if not using that word in the resolution enabled it to pass by the narrow 5-4 vote, it was a wise decision to omit mention of genocide.

Here's the resolution which passed. It seems pleasingly even-handed to me. Both Israel and Hamas deserve a lot of criticism, and the resolution does just that. 

---------------------------------------------------------------------

RESOLUTION NO. 2024-__
A RESOLUTION ON THE CRISIS IN GAZA

WHEREAS, the City of Salem holds as a key value compassion and is committed to promoting
peace, unity, and respect for all its residents; and

WHEREAS, we recognize and stand in solidarity with our Muslim and Jewish communities,
reaffirming our commitment to their safety, security, and well-being; and

WHEREAS, Israeli and Palestinian citizens deserve to live their lives in peace, free from the
threat of violence; and

WHEREAS, we condemn Hamas’ terrorist attacks on Israeli citizens that took place on October
7, 2023 and tragically took the lives of over 1,200 and resulted in around 250 hostages; and

WHEREAS, the ongoing violence in Gaza has resulted in immense human suffering and loss of
life; and

WHEREAS, we share dire concerns with the atrocities in Gaza in which tens of thousands of
Palestinians have been killed and several thousand more are reported missing and presumed to be dead; and

WHEREAS, the people of Gaza face further devastation from displacement, the collapse of the
healthcare system, lack of food, water, sanitation, and other basic necessities, with over half a
million Gazans reported starving by the United Nations; and

WHEREAS, the use of civilian infrastructure by Hamas for military purposes further endangers
the lives of innocent Palestinians and exacerbates the humanitarian crisis in Gaza; and

WHEREAS, the Israeli government and Israel Defense Forces, through violence and blocking
humanitarian aid is acknowledged by the United Nations to be violating international law; and

WHEREAS, Salem residents’ federal taxpayer dollars have been used to fund military actions in Gaza; and

WHEREAS, we acknowledge the urgency of the situation and the imperative need for immediate action;

NOW, THEREFORE, THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF SALEM, OREGON
RESOLVES AS FOLLOWS:

Section 1. The City of Salem, Oregon calls for an immediate and permanent ceasefire and end to the hostilities in the region which are causing a catastrophic loss of Palestinian life; and

Section 2. We call for no more U.S. aid be directed to Israel or the Israel Defense Forces, for
offensive military aid, until a permanent ceasefire is reached; and

Section 3. We insist on the immediate and unrestricted proliferation of humanitarian aid
commensurate with the multiple levels of socioeconomic collapse in Gaza; and

Section 4. We urge leaders to prioritize the safety and well-being of all hostages and detainees,
recognizing their right to freedom and immediate and unconditional release; and

Section 5. We extend our support to diplomatic efforts and initiatives aimed at facilitating a two-
state solution where Palestinians and Israelis can live in peace; and

Section 6. The City Council asks all members of Oregon’s Federal Delegation to use the
platform provided by their office to end these atrocities and to facilitate immediate and long-term peace here and around the globe; and

Section 7. We express our unwavering commitment to fostering peace and unity within the City
of Salem and representing the voices and concerns of all its residents; and

Section 8. We stand in solidarity with our Palestinian, Muslim, and Jewish communities,
affirming our commitment to their safety, security, and inclusion within the fabric of our city;
and

Section 9. We condemn and will not tolerate antisemitism, anti-Palestinian or anti-Arab bigotry,
Islamophobia, or any acts of bias or hate against Jewish, Muslim, or Palestinian residents of the City of Salem; and

Section 10. We express our sincere hope that the current conflict will be resolved swiftly and
peacefully, leading to a just and lasting peace, and that an immediate and permanent ceasefire is the first step in bringing about that process; and

Section 11. This resolution is effective upon adoption.
ADOPTED by the City Council this ____day of ______, 2024.
ATTEST:
City Recorder
Approved by City Attorney:
________________

Drafted by Councilors Nishioka and Stapleton

Salem City Council to consider Gaza ceasefire resolution. Hope it passes.

Next Tuesday, May 28, the Salem City Council will consider adoption of a resolution drafted by the city's Human Rights Commission regarding the Israel-Hamas war. It calls for:

An immediate and permanent ceasefire, an end to the hostilities, the free flow of humanitarian aid and the release of all civilian hostages.

Hard to see how any member of the City Council could object to that, though I bet some will (Mayor-elect Julie Hoy, for one).

The only viable argument against the resolution that I can come up with is that Israel should be able to continue going after Hamas fighters until they're all dead or surrendered, even though by Israel's own admission they've been killing more innocent Palestinians in Gaza than Hamas fighters.

There's greater weight on the side of the resolution, given what I know about this conflict, which includes Israel's horrible treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank for decades, a fact beyond dispute. 

The United States has acknowledged that Israel hasn't been complying with international law in its conduct of the war.

But since President Biden and Secretary of State Blinken are so wishy-washy when it comes to standing up against Israeli atrocities, they decided to take the easy way out and merely restrict the transfer of large 2,000 pound bombs to Israel, instead of cutting off offensive weapons entirely, as seems to be required by U.S. law when our weapons are being used in an inhumane fashion.

Thankfully, the International Criminal Court cares more about justice than Biden and Blinken do. The court is considering arrest warrants for the Prime Minister of Israel and the leader of Hamas. 

In a stunning announcement that drew sharp indignation from both warring parties, the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor said Monday that he was seeking to charge senior figures in the Israel-Gaza conflict, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leader Yehiya Sinwar, with war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Karim Khan’s statement listed extensive charges and sought additional arrest warrants for Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and two other top Hamas leaders — Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri, the leader of the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades better known as Mohammed Deif, and Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s political leader.

The ICC is the only permanent international court that wields power to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. Its announcement Monday was historic: Although Israel is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, upon which the court is founded, the arrest warrants, if issued, would nonetheless stigmatize the country’s senior leaders.

The ICC’s pre-trial chamber will now consider Khan’s application. If it approves the request, international arrest warrants would be issued for the five men and would be enforced by the court’s 124 member states.

In addition, the International Court of Justice has ordered Israel to back off its invasion of Rafah, a city in the south of Gaza where about a million people had sought refuge from the fighting elsewhere in Gaza. 

A ruling Friday from the International Court of Justice ordering an immediate halt to Israel’s military offensive in Rafah marked a stunning rebuke of the Israeli leadership’s prosecution of the war in Gaza, including the decision to send troops and tanks into a city where more than a million Palestinians had sought refuge.

The incursion into Gaza’s southernmost city, which began May 7, has already displaced more than 800,000 people, the court said, calling the developments “exceptionally grave.” Israel must halt the operation and open the Rafah crossing for the “unhindered” provision of aid, the judges said, adding that the offensive could destroy Palestinian life in Gaza.

Israeli officials swiftly indicated that they would ignore the ruling, which is binding but difficult to enforce, even as the high-profile judgment deepened Israel’s isolation on the world stage.

So the time is right for the Salem City Council to stand for peace against mindless war. Hamas engaged in horrific terrorism in its October 7, 2023 attack that killed 1,200 people in Israel. Since, Israel has been engaged in horrific war within Gaza, killing well over 10,000 women and children in what arguably is genocide against the Palestinian people, destroying most of the residences in Gaza.

If you agree, email testimony to the City Recorder prior to Tuesday afternoon, if possible.

Background information for Tuesday's agenda item includes this statement from city staff:

Salem residents have approached Mayor and Council and called on their elected leaders to address a crisis that has continued to unfold on the world stage for more than half a year: the siege in the Gaza Strip.

The City of Salem Human Rights Commission, at the request of the Mayor, met three times over three weeks and held some six hours of public discussion on the question. During the Commission’s public engagement, the Commission performed outreach to faith communities, received more than fifty pages of public input, 107 members of the public attended meetings, and forty-four provided spoken testimony. One commenter shared she had a petition signed by over 200 people in support of a resolution.

Salem residents provided diverse perspectives. Most community members, regardless of perspective, centered on a concern for decency. Some residents communicated that they lived in fear, and asked Salem not to move forward out of concern for what they perceived to be the safety of the Jewish community in Salem.

Oh, please, give me a break. How is the safety of the Jewish community in Salem at risk from a resolution calling for an end to hostilities in Gaza? That's ridiculous. Playing the anti-semitism card whenever there is justified criticism of how Israel has been conducting its war against Hamas is deeply irritating.

Israel is a country led by right-wing extremists. Judaism is a religion. The two are distinct. I'm strongly anti-Israel when it comes to that country's despicable treatment of Palestinians. But I have no problem with the Jewish religion, aside from the problem I have with every religion: they're figments of the imagination with no basis in objective reality, since God almost certainly is a fiction.

So the City Council should pass the resolution with no concern about supposed anti-semitism. Again, if you agree, email testimony to the City Recorder prior to Tuesday afternoon, if possible.

Two well-researched stories show how badly Israel is treating Palestinians

I've said it before, I'm saying it again, and I'll keep on saying it because it is absolutely true: Israel has been treating Palestinians in its occupied territory extremely badly, allowing Jewish right-wing zealots and the military to murder Palestinians, take their property, and deny them equal treatment under the law.

So while some of the pro-Palestinian protesters on college campuses have gone too far in criticizing Israel, on the whole they've been doing a great service by drawing attention to the infuriating policies of the Netanyahu government, which have gotten more extreme in recent years, yet are a continuation of previous anti-Palestinian policies that go against both international law and moral decency.

If you don't believe me, read two well-researched stories on this subject by highly reputable sources. The  March 4, 2024 issue of The New Yorker had this story in the print edition, which has this title in the online edition. The opening passage gives a good feel for what the story is all about.

The sounds of destruction carried through the valley. It was October 28th, and I was standing on a rocky slope in the West Bank with Bashar Ma’amar, a Palestinian who records the aggressions of Israeli settlers. Ma’amar pointed a camera at a group ransacking a house below us. A couple of days before, the settlers had set fire to it; the house’s owner had gone to the police, but they had not intervened.

As we watched, one settler kicked at the front door, and another tried to penetrate the charred walls with a board. Others tore a hole in the roof and slipped inside. On the hillside opposite us, three Israeli soldiers and a man with a rifle stood watching. Eventually, the settlers joined the soldiers to walk back to Eli, their settlement, where mothers pushed strollers down tree-lined blocks of red-roofed houses, people played tennis on courts with views of Palestinian farmland, and men and women carrying M16s and Uzis shopped in strip malls.

Sadly, by no means is this the most disturbing part of the story. Israeli settlers have been treating Palestinians much worse than that. 

Since October 7th, when Hamas-led fighters broke through the fence on Gaza’s border with Israel and killed some twelve hundred people and took some two hundred and fifty hostages, attacks near Qaryut have become routine. Settlers have burned cars and houses, blockaded roads, damaged electricity networks, seized farmland, severed irrigation lines, attacked people in their fields and olive groves, and killed, all without repercussion.

Ma’amar told me that a thousand acres had been cut off from Qaryut. The U.N. has recorded five hundred and seventy-three attacks by settlers in the West Bank since the war began, with Israeli forces accompanying them half the time. At least nine people have been killed by settlers, and three hundred and eighty-two have been killed by Israeli forces. Five Israelis have been killed in the West Bank, at least one of whom was a civilian.

On October 9th, settlers sent a picture on Facebook to people in Qusra, a few miles from Qaryut, of masked men holding axes, clubs, a gas can, and a chainsaw, with text that read, “To all the rats in the sewers of Qusra village, we are waiting for you and we will not feel sorry for you. The day of revenge is coming.” Two days later, at the edge of the village, settlers lit utility poles on fire and tried to break into a house.

For a half hour, a family huddled inside; then young men from the village arrived and threw rocks at the Israelis. Ma’amar drove over in his ambulance. At that point, the settlers started shooting. A man handed Ma’amar a six-year-old girl who had been shot. As the man walked away, he was shot and killed. When Ma’amar sped off, he said, settlers fired on his ambulance. Three Palestinians were killed, one of them the son of a man who had been killed by settlers in 2017. Then the Israeli Army stormed the village and killed a thirteen-year-old boy.

Today I saw two journalists from the New York Times Magazine interviewed about their story on Israeli settler violence and the complicity of the Isreali government in mistreating Palestinians. The short version of the story is:

Here's how it starts out. As a New York Times online subscriber, I'm able to gift a certain number of articles. Hopefully this link to the "Takeaways" story will work for you.

For decades, most Israelis have considered Palestinian terrorism the country’s biggest security concern. But there is another threat that may be even more destabilizing for Israel’s future as a democracy: Jewish terrorism and violence, and the failure to enforce the law against it.

Our yearslong investigation reveals how violent factions within the Israeli settler movement, protected and sometimes abetted by the government, have come to pose a grave threat to Palestinians in the occupied territories and to the State of Israel itself. Piecing together new documents, videos and over 100 interviews, we found a government shaken by an internal war — burying reports it commissioned, neutering investigations it assigned and silencing whistle-blowers, some of them senior officials.

It is a blunt account, told in some cases for the first time by Israeli officials, of how the occupation came to threaten the integrity of the country’s democracy.

If you want to read the full article, here's a gift link to it, along with an excerpt. Whether or not you support how Israel is conducting its war against Hamas, hopefully we all can agree that brutalizing innocent Palestinians isn't how Israel should be behaving. 

Such violence over the decades in places like Khirbet Zanuta is well documented. But protecting the people who carry out that violence is the dark secret of Israeli justice. The long arc of harassment, assault and murder of Palestinians by Jewish settlers is twinned with a shadow history, one of silence, avoidance and abetment by Israeli officials.

For many of those officials, it is Palestinian terrorism that most threatens Israel. But in interviews with more than 100 people — current and former officers of the Israeli military, the National Israeli Police and the Shin Bet domestic security service; high-ranking Israeli political officials, including four former prime ministers; Palestinian leaders and activists; Israeli human rights lawyers; American officials charged with supporting the Israeli-Palestinian partnership — we found a different and perhaps even more destabilizing threat. A long history of crime without punishment, many of those officials now say, threatens not only Palestinians living in the occupied territories but also the State of Israel itself.

Many of the people we interviewed, some speaking anonymously, some speaking publicly for the first time, offered an account not only of Jewish violence against Palestinians dating back decades but also of an Israeli state that has systematically and increasingly ignored that violence.

It is an account of a sometimes criminal nationalistic movement that has been allowed to operate with impunity and gradually move from the fringes to the mainstream of Israeli society. It is an account of how voices within the government that objected to the condoning of settler violence were silenced and discredited. And it is a blunt account, told for the first time by Israeli officials themselves, of how the occupation came to threaten the integrity of their country’s democracy.

Willamette University students protesting Gaza war deserve much praise

Here's my message to the Willamette University students who are occupying a campus building in protest of the horrific death and destruction being inflicted on the people of Gaza by Israel:

Like so many student protests of the past, including those I took part in during my own college days (1966-71) in opposition to the Vietnam War, at first many will criticize you as misguided rabble-rousers. Then, with time, history will show that you were right and your critics were wrong.

What are you right about? Many things.

How Israel is killing tens of thousands of innocent Gaza civilians needlessly. How Israel is blocking sufficient humanitarian aid from entering Gaza, causing tremendous suffering. How the United States is failing to put enough pressure on Israel to end that country's hugely misguided policy of avenging 1,200 deaths at the hands of Hamas on October 7, 2023 by killing an estimated 14,000 children in Gaza.

This is a photo of one of them, Karam.

Karam died not from a bullet or a bomb, but from complications of malnutrition, because Israel is using starvation as an act of war, which is likely a war crime. I learned about this boy from an opinion piece by Nicholas Kristof in today's New York Times, "One Photo That Captures the Loss in Gaza."

I'll share it in full, because what Kristof says deserves to be read as widely as possible.

An American surgeon who volunteered in Gaza sent me a photo that sears me with its glimpse of overwhelming grief: A woman mourns her young son.

I’ve known the surgeon, Dr. Sam Attar, a professor at Northwestern University School of Medicine, for a decade. He has worked in war zones around the world, from Ukraine to Iraq to Syria, but Gaza has been particularly harrowing for him, in part because so many children have suffered or died.

He performed amputations and other orthopedic surgeries recently at Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza. He was preparing to go into the operating room one day when a woman called him over and asked him to photograph her young son, Karam, in his bed in the I.C.U. Sam went over and only then realized that the boy was dead.

“Every time staff wanted to cover him fully with a blanket, she would flip it back and say, ‘No!’” Sam told me. “And she would start talking to him, asking him where he went.”

The nurses and other doctors who were in the I.C.U. that day said that Karam died of complications from malnutrition. The United Nations confirms that Gazan children have starved to death.

The nurses wanted to remove Karam’s body after he died an hour earlier, but his mother wouldn’t allow it. In her grief, she told Sam that Karam was a prince and she wanted Sam to share the boy’s photo. Perhaps she thought this was a way of commemorating her son.

I’ve criticized the way Israel has conducted the war in Gaza and President Biden’s strong support for it, for a child is killed or injured in the war every 10 minutes, according to the United Nations. More than 14,000 children have been killed in the war, according to the Gaza health authorities. But that’s a number; this photo captures a preventable tragedy.

As I argue that it’s time to end this war, I think this photo has a persuasive power greater than my words, so I’ve given my column space over to this image. As we discuss Gaza, let’s keep in mind that the war unfolds through lives like Karam’s.

Here’s the photo, a reminder to us all of what’s at stake.

The Willamette University students don't need that reminder. The rest of us do, because too many people are characterizing the nationwide student protests as not understanding how awful the Hamas attack on Israel was, and how Israel has a right to defend itself.

Actually, almost all of the students understand that perfectly well. What they don't understand is why the United States is supplying the weapons Israel is using to kill innocent people like Karam while demanding Israel do more to protect the lives of civilians in Gaza.

I don't understand that either. That's why protests are so important. Someone, somehow, has to drum some sense into the thick skulls of President Biden and Secretary of State Blinken to use the leverage our country has over Israel to bring the suffering of people in Gaza to an end.