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ANNAPOLIS, Maryland - The Middle East peace conference that began and ended here on this crisp, sunny Tuesday was lean on specifics for a lasting peace deal between Israel and Palestine and the formation of a Palestinian state.
Dealing with a timeline for continued talks on "final status" issues, rather than the contentious issues themselves, the conference delivered few changes to the status quo.
The summit of representatives from over 50 nations and international groups convened on Tuesday at the U.S. Naval Academy under the leadership of President George W. Bush to discuss the slow process of building a lasting regional peace between Israel and its Arab neighbours by creating a new state in the Middle East.
"Our purpose here in Annapolis is not to conclude an agreement. Rather it is to launch negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians," said Bush in his opening remarks to the gathered delegates.
But by painting the process in terms that former Israeli negotiator Daniel Levy called a "Star Wars-like battle between good and evil", Bush may be creating further rifts that will yield a wider gap in already-divided Palestinian and Arab populations, compromising the viability of a Palestinian state as well as his own grand regional aspirations.
Flanked by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas during his initial comments, Bush read a joint statement agreed upon by both leaders.
Many observers did not believe that a joint statement would be completed and accepted by both sides in time for the conference because of continuing difficulties on the final status issues regarding the details of the formation of a new state.
The statement produced one of the few signs of concrete progress to emerge from the conference -- the announcement of the formation of a steering committee towards the establishment of a Palestinian state and continual bi-weekly meetings between Abbas and Olmert. Bush said the committee would hold its first meeting on Dec. 12.
"We agree to engage in vigorous, ongoing and continuous negotiations and shall make every effort to conclude an agreement before the end of 2008," read Bush from the statement -- a sentiment echoed by Olmert when he repeated the timeline for the upcoming bilateral talks in his comments.
However, many of the core differences between the Palestinians and Israelis were on full display in sometimes veiled and sometimes explicit references during Olmert and Abbas' speeches.
"Tomorrow, we have to start comprehensive and deep negotiations on all issues of final status, including Jerusalem, refugees, borders, settlements, water and security and others," said Abbas, essentially giving a laundry list of Palestinian issues to be addressed in the upcoming discussions.
Olmert began his comments by recounting the bombings of buses, cafes and recreational centres by Palestinian terrorists during his tenure as mayor of Jerusalem -- alluding to the oft-cited Israeli concern about the Palestinian Authority being unable to provide security.
But Olmert also acknowledged that the Palestinian refugee situation plays a part in the anti-Israeli feelings in Palestine, saying, "I know that this pain and this humiliation are the deepest foundations which fomented the ethos of hatred toward us. We are not indifferent to this suffering. We are not oblivious to the tragedies that you have experienced."
The acknowledgement is significant because Israelis have long made the ability of the Palestinian Authority to end violence directed at Israel a prerequisite to a Palestinian state. The concept was solidified by the multi-phased "roadmap" in which certain benchmarks needed to be met in order for discussion on Palestinian statehood to begin.
"The positive thing to come out of this was to reverse the order of the roadmap," Levy told IPS. "The one new component today is that you have permanent status negotiations now in parallel with the roadmap."
With critics deriding the ad hoc planning of the conference, all three leaders made comments defending its timing.
"I believe now is precisely the right time to begin these negotiations, for a number of reasons," said Bush, citing the readiness of Abbas, Olmert and the international community.
Bush also made a point of his desire to use the conference to combat extremism in the region. He hopes that by bringing a broad Arab coalition into the peace process, it will create a favourable view of the United States in the Middle East to counter that extremism -- particularly growing Iranian influence.
But this, too, has drawn criticism. The U.S. is widely perceived as only taking interest in the process when it is politically beneficial -- as with the Bush administration's reluctant endorsement of the "roadmap" to peace in 2003 just as it was trying to gain support for the invasion of Iraq.
"Olmert gave an uplifting and empathetic speech and Abbas's speech was empathetic as well," said Levy, now the director of the Middle East Policy Initiative at the New America Foundation. "It was the Bush speech that was the most undermining of the entire Annapolis exercise."
"The world that they live in where isolating Iran and defeating Hamas all fit in nicely with the creation of the two-state solution does not fit in the real world. In the real world if you want a two-state solution, you need maximum consensus. You drive towards consensus, not division. And [Bush] lives in a world of division."
Iranian-backed Hamas, not invited to the conference despite their de facto power sharing with Abbas's Fatah faction, held a rally in Gaza on Monday night attacking any potential compromise with Israel. The group's leader, Ismail Haniya, said that all land from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River should be returned to Palestine, and, "We will not recognise Israel."
Syria's late entry into the conference with a lower level delegation on Sunday -- despite its backing of Hamas and lack of diplomatic relations with Israel -- is seen as evidence of the increasing isolation of the radical Islamic movement, though Syria drew flack of its own from Iran for dealing with Israel.
But with any significant U.S. and Israeli dAf(c)tente with Syria and other Arab countries still looking unlikely, it appears that Bush's bid to build an anti-Iran coalition through the peace process could face the same hurdle as the roadmap -- asking too much up front.
Another attendee with no official ties to Israel, the foreign minister of Saudi Arabia, Prince Saud Al Faisal, made strong statements at a press briefing at the Saudi embassy on Monday where he distanced himself from any normalisation of relations with Israel in the immediate future, saying that he would not shake hands with Olmert.
"We have not come here for theatrics," said Al Faisal. "But we have come to do serious work to achieve peace and when it is accomplished and hands are extended to us for peace greetings, then we will shake hands."
Washington's misguided effort to look at the peace process through the lens of the "war on terror" may be a significant obstacle towards seeing a solution to the conflict itself, some analysts say.
"It is about a grievance," said Levy, naming the occupation of Palestine by Israel. "You end the grievance and you solve the problem."
(c) 2007 Inter Press Service
Political revenge. Mass deportations. Project 2025. Unfathomable corruption. Attacks on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Pardons for insurrectionists. An all-out assault on democracy. Republicans in Congress are scrambling to give Trump broad new powers to strip the tax-exempt status of any nonprofit he doesn’t like by declaring it a “terrorist-supporting organization.” Trump has already begun filing lawsuits against news outlets that criticize him. At Common Dreams, we won’t back down, but we must get ready for whatever Trump and his thugs throw at us. As a people-powered nonprofit news outlet, we cover issues the corporate media never will, but we can only continue with our readers’ support. By donating today, please help us fight the dangers of a second Trump presidency. |
ANNAPOLIS, Maryland - The Middle East peace conference that began and ended here on this crisp, sunny Tuesday was lean on specifics for a lasting peace deal between Israel and Palestine and the formation of a Palestinian state.
Dealing with a timeline for continued talks on "final status" issues, rather than the contentious issues themselves, the conference delivered few changes to the status quo.
The summit of representatives from over 50 nations and international groups convened on Tuesday at the U.S. Naval Academy under the leadership of President George W. Bush to discuss the slow process of building a lasting regional peace between Israel and its Arab neighbours by creating a new state in the Middle East.
"Our purpose here in Annapolis is not to conclude an agreement. Rather it is to launch negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians," said Bush in his opening remarks to the gathered delegates.
But by painting the process in terms that former Israeli negotiator Daniel Levy called a "Star Wars-like battle between good and evil", Bush may be creating further rifts that will yield a wider gap in already-divided Palestinian and Arab populations, compromising the viability of a Palestinian state as well as his own grand regional aspirations.
Flanked by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas during his initial comments, Bush read a joint statement agreed upon by both leaders.
Many observers did not believe that a joint statement would be completed and accepted by both sides in time for the conference because of continuing difficulties on the final status issues regarding the details of the formation of a new state.
The statement produced one of the few signs of concrete progress to emerge from the conference -- the announcement of the formation of a steering committee towards the establishment of a Palestinian state and continual bi-weekly meetings between Abbas and Olmert. Bush said the committee would hold its first meeting on Dec. 12.
"We agree to engage in vigorous, ongoing and continuous negotiations and shall make every effort to conclude an agreement before the end of 2008," read Bush from the statement -- a sentiment echoed by Olmert when he repeated the timeline for the upcoming bilateral talks in his comments.
However, many of the core differences between the Palestinians and Israelis were on full display in sometimes veiled and sometimes explicit references during Olmert and Abbas' speeches.
"Tomorrow, we have to start comprehensive and deep negotiations on all issues of final status, including Jerusalem, refugees, borders, settlements, water and security and others," said Abbas, essentially giving a laundry list of Palestinian issues to be addressed in the upcoming discussions.
Olmert began his comments by recounting the bombings of buses, cafes and recreational centres by Palestinian terrorists during his tenure as mayor of Jerusalem -- alluding to the oft-cited Israeli concern about the Palestinian Authority being unable to provide security.
But Olmert also acknowledged that the Palestinian refugee situation plays a part in the anti-Israeli feelings in Palestine, saying, "I know that this pain and this humiliation are the deepest foundations which fomented the ethos of hatred toward us. We are not indifferent to this suffering. We are not oblivious to the tragedies that you have experienced."
The acknowledgement is significant because Israelis have long made the ability of the Palestinian Authority to end violence directed at Israel a prerequisite to a Palestinian state. The concept was solidified by the multi-phased "roadmap" in which certain benchmarks needed to be met in order for discussion on Palestinian statehood to begin.
"The positive thing to come out of this was to reverse the order of the roadmap," Levy told IPS. "The one new component today is that you have permanent status negotiations now in parallel with the roadmap."
With critics deriding the ad hoc planning of the conference, all three leaders made comments defending its timing.
"I believe now is precisely the right time to begin these negotiations, for a number of reasons," said Bush, citing the readiness of Abbas, Olmert and the international community.
Bush also made a point of his desire to use the conference to combat extremism in the region. He hopes that by bringing a broad Arab coalition into the peace process, it will create a favourable view of the United States in the Middle East to counter that extremism -- particularly growing Iranian influence.
But this, too, has drawn criticism. The U.S. is widely perceived as only taking interest in the process when it is politically beneficial -- as with the Bush administration's reluctant endorsement of the "roadmap" to peace in 2003 just as it was trying to gain support for the invasion of Iraq.
"Olmert gave an uplifting and empathetic speech and Abbas's speech was empathetic as well," said Levy, now the director of the Middle East Policy Initiative at the New America Foundation. "It was the Bush speech that was the most undermining of the entire Annapolis exercise."
"The world that they live in where isolating Iran and defeating Hamas all fit in nicely with the creation of the two-state solution does not fit in the real world. In the real world if you want a two-state solution, you need maximum consensus. You drive towards consensus, not division. And [Bush] lives in a world of division."
Iranian-backed Hamas, not invited to the conference despite their de facto power sharing with Abbas's Fatah faction, held a rally in Gaza on Monday night attacking any potential compromise with Israel. The group's leader, Ismail Haniya, said that all land from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River should be returned to Palestine, and, "We will not recognise Israel."
Syria's late entry into the conference with a lower level delegation on Sunday -- despite its backing of Hamas and lack of diplomatic relations with Israel -- is seen as evidence of the increasing isolation of the radical Islamic movement, though Syria drew flack of its own from Iran for dealing with Israel.
But with any significant U.S. and Israeli dAf(c)tente with Syria and other Arab countries still looking unlikely, it appears that Bush's bid to build an anti-Iran coalition through the peace process could face the same hurdle as the roadmap -- asking too much up front.
Another attendee with no official ties to Israel, the foreign minister of Saudi Arabia, Prince Saud Al Faisal, made strong statements at a press briefing at the Saudi embassy on Monday where he distanced himself from any normalisation of relations with Israel in the immediate future, saying that he would not shake hands with Olmert.
"We have not come here for theatrics," said Al Faisal. "But we have come to do serious work to achieve peace and when it is accomplished and hands are extended to us for peace greetings, then we will shake hands."
Washington's misguided effort to look at the peace process through the lens of the "war on terror" may be a significant obstacle towards seeing a solution to the conflict itself, some analysts say.
"It is about a grievance," said Levy, naming the occupation of Palestine by Israel. "You end the grievance and you solve the problem."
(c) 2007 Inter Press Service
ANNAPOLIS, Maryland - The Middle East peace conference that began and ended here on this crisp, sunny Tuesday was lean on specifics for a lasting peace deal between Israel and Palestine and the formation of a Palestinian state.
Dealing with a timeline for continued talks on "final status" issues, rather than the contentious issues themselves, the conference delivered few changes to the status quo.
The summit of representatives from over 50 nations and international groups convened on Tuesday at the U.S. Naval Academy under the leadership of President George W. Bush to discuss the slow process of building a lasting regional peace between Israel and its Arab neighbours by creating a new state in the Middle East.
"Our purpose here in Annapolis is not to conclude an agreement. Rather it is to launch negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians," said Bush in his opening remarks to the gathered delegates.
But by painting the process in terms that former Israeli negotiator Daniel Levy called a "Star Wars-like battle between good and evil", Bush may be creating further rifts that will yield a wider gap in already-divided Palestinian and Arab populations, compromising the viability of a Palestinian state as well as his own grand regional aspirations.
Flanked by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas during his initial comments, Bush read a joint statement agreed upon by both leaders.
Many observers did not believe that a joint statement would be completed and accepted by both sides in time for the conference because of continuing difficulties on the final status issues regarding the details of the formation of a new state.
The statement produced one of the few signs of concrete progress to emerge from the conference -- the announcement of the formation of a steering committee towards the establishment of a Palestinian state and continual bi-weekly meetings between Abbas and Olmert. Bush said the committee would hold its first meeting on Dec. 12.
"We agree to engage in vigorous, ongoing and continuous negotiations and shall make every effort to conclude an agreement before the end of 2008," read Bush from the statement -- a sentiment echoed by Olmert when he repeated the timeline for the upcoming bilateral talks in his comments.
However, many of the core differences between the Palestinians and Israelis were on full display in sometimes veiled and sometimes explicit references during Olmert and Abbas' speeches.
"Tomorrow, we have to start comprehensive and deep negotiations on all issues of final status, including Jerusalem, refugees, borders, settlements, water and security and others," said Abbas, essentially giving a laundry list of Palestinian issues to be addressed in the upcoming discussions.
Olmert began his comments by recounting the bombings of buses, cafes and recreational centres by Palestinian terrorists during his tenure as mayor of Jerusalem -- alluding to the oft-cited Israeli concern about the Palestinian Authority being unable to provide security.
But Olmert also acknowledged that the Palestinian refugee situation plays a part in the anti-Israeli feelings in Palestine, saying, "I know that this pain and this humiliation are the deepest foundations which fomented the ethos of hatred toward us. We are not indifferent to this suffering. We are not oblivious to the tragedies that you have experienced."
The acknowledgement is significant because Israelis have long made the ability of the Palestinian Authority to end violence directed at Israel a prerequisite to a Palestinian state. The concept was solidified by the multi-phased "roadmap" in which certain benchmarks needed to be met in order for discussion on Palestinian statehood to begin.
"The positive thing to come out of this was to reverse the order of the roadmap," Levy told IPS. "The one new component today is that you have permanent status negotiations now in parallel with the roadmap."
With critics deriding the ad hoc planning of the conference, all three leaders made comments defending its timing.
"I believe now is precisely the right time to begin these negotiations, for a number of reasons," said Bush, citing the readiness of Abbas, Olmert and the international community.
Bush also made a point of his desire to use the conference to combat extremism in the region. He hopes that by bringing a broad Arab coalition into the peace process, it will create a favourable view of the United States in the Middle East to counter that extremism -- particularly growing Iranian influence.
But this, too, has drawn criticism. The U.S. is widely perceived as only taking interest in the process when it is politically beneficial -- as with the Bush administration's reluctant endorsement of the "roadmap" to peace in 2003 just as it was trying to gain support for the invasion of Iraq.
"Olmert gave an uplifting and empathetic speech and Abbas's speech was empathetic as well," said Levy, now the director of the Middle East Policy Initiative at the New America Foundation. "It was the Bush speech that was the most undermining of the entire Annapolis exercise."
"The world that they live in where isolating Iran and defeating Hamas all fit in nicely with the creation of the two-state solution does not fit in the real world. In the real world if you want a two-state solution, you need maximum consensus. You drive towards consensus, not division. And [Bush] lives in a world of division."
Iranian-backed Hamas, not invited to the conference despite their de facto power sharing with Abbas's Fatah faction, held a rally in Gaza on Monday night attacking any potential compromise with Israel. The group's leader, Ismail Haniya, said that all land from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River should be returned to Palestine, and, "We will not recognise Israel."
Syria's late entry into the conference with a lower level delegation on Sunday -- despite its backing of Hamas and lack of diplomatic relations with Israel -- is seen as evidence of the increasing isolation of the radical Islamic movement, though Syria drew flack of its own from Iran for dealing with Israel.
But with any significant U.S. and Israeli dAf(c)tente with Syria and other Arab countries still looking unlikely, it appears that Bush's bid to build an anti-Iran coalition through the peace process could face the same hurdle as the roadmap -- asking too much up front.
Another attendee with no official ties to Israel, the foreign minister of Saudi Arabia, Prince Saud Al Faisal, made strong statements at a press briefing at the Saudi embassy on Monday where he distanced himself from any normalisation of relations with Israel in the immediate future, saying that he would not shake hands with Olmert.
"We have not come here for theatrics," said Al Faisal. "But we have come to do serious work to achieve peace and when it is accomplished and hands are extended to us for peace greetings, then we will shake hands."
Washington's misguided effort to look at the peace process through the lens of the "war on terror" may be a significant obstacle towards seeing a solution to the conflict itself, some analysts say.
"It is about a grievance," said Levy, naming the occupation of Palestine by Israel. "You end the grievance and you solve the problem."
(c) 2007 Inter Press Service
"Look at what members of Congress are invested in private prison companies," said Ocasio-Cortez.
"It's corruption in plain sight."
That's how U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) described congressional colleagues who support Republican-authored legislation that immigrant rights advocates warn is a right-wing power grab under the guise of public safety.
The Laken Riley Act—named after a young woman murdered last year by a Venezuelan man who, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), entered the United States illegally—was passed by a vote of 263-156 in the House of Representatives on Wednesday afternoon. Forty-six Democrats and every Republican present voted "yes." That was a near-identical tally to the 264-159 vote on a previous version of the bill passed earlier this month.
Senate lawmakers passed the bill on Monday, with 12 Democrats joining 52 Republicans in voting for the measure, which, among other things, expands mandatory federal detention of undocumented immigrants who are accused of even relatively minor crimes. With the House's Wednesday vote, the Laken Riley Act is set to be the first bill signed into law since President Donald Trump returned to office.
Speaking on the House floor on Wednesday, Ocasio-Cortez said:
I want the American people to know, with eyes wide open, what is inside this bill because we stand here just two days after President Trump gave unconditional pardons to violent criminals who attacked our nation's Capitol on January 6th, and these are the people who want you to believe, who want us to believe that they're trying to quote unquote "keep criminals off the streets," when they are opening the floodgates...
In this bill, if a person is so much as accused of a crime, if someone wants to point a finger and accuse someone of shoplifting, they will be rounded up and put into a private detention camp and... sent out for deportation without a day in court, without a moment to assert their right, and without a moment to assert the privilege of innocent until proven guilty without being found guilty of a crime they will be rounded up, that is what is inside this bill, a fundamental suspension of a core American value, and that is why I rise to oppose it.
"You may wonder why so many of our friends across the aisle who care so deeply about the rule of law happen to be so desperate to pass this bill," Ocasio-Cortez continued. "Look no further than the price tag of this bill, $83 billion. [Lawmakers] know that it can't be paid for. They know that the capacity is not there, and you know what will be there? Private prison companies are going to get flooded with money."
"Look at what members of Congress are invested in private prison companies who receive this kind of money and look at the votes on this bill," she added. "It is atrocious that people are lining their pockets with private prison profits in the name of a horrific tragedy and the victim of a crime. It is shameful. It is absolutely shameful."
The congresswoman's comments came two days after Trump reversed a 2021 executive order issued by former Democratic President Joe Biden meant to phase out U.S. Department of Justice contracts with private prisons. Despite Biden's order, more than 90% of people held by ICE in July 2023 were locked up in for-profit facilities, which are rife with serious human rights abuses, according to the ACLU and other advocacy groups.
Anthony Enriquez, vice president of U.S. advocacy and litigation at Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights and Hill opinion contributor, recently called the Laken Riley Act "a sweetheart deal for the private prison industry."
"Private prison executives look poised to pull off a multibillion-dollar cash grab at taxpayer expense via a cynical ploy to capitalize on the tragic death of a Georgia nursing student," he warned.
Shares in private prison stocks, which had been languishing for much of 2024, have soared since Trump's victory in November, with GeoGroup surging more than 127% since Election Day and competitor CoreCivic up over 63%.
Responding to reporting that ICE is preparing to more than double its detention capacity by opening 18 new facilities, American Immigration Council senior fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick said on social media Wednesday: "That would likely mean tens of billions in taxpayer funds sent to private prison companies. They are salivating."
"This bill is the very definition of pernicious: It attacks women's healthcare using false narratives and outright fearmongering," said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
U.S. Senate Democrats on Wednesday blocked from a final vote a Republican bill that, according to Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, made clear that under newly sworn-in President Donald Trump, "it will be a golden age, but for the extreme, anti-choice movement."
"This bill is the very definition of pernicious: It attacks women's healthcare using false narratives and outright fearmongering, and adds more legal risk for doctors on something that is already illegal," Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on the chamber's floor before senators voted 52-47 along party lines, short of the 60 votes needed to advance the so-called Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act (S. 6) to a final vote.
Introduced by Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), S. 6 would "prohibit a healthcare practitioner from failing to exercise the proper degree of care in the case of a child who survives an abortion or attempted abortion," under the threat of fines and up to five years in prison. Healthcare professionals and rights advocates have condemned the legislation as deeply misleading.
"So much of the hard-right's anti-choice agenda is pushed, frankly, by people who have little to no understanding of what women go through when they are pregnant," said Schumer. "The scenario targeted by this bill is one of the most heartbreaking moments that a woman could ever encounter, the agonizing choice of having to end care when serious and rare complications arise in pregnancy. And at that moment of agony, this bill cruelly substitutes the judgment of qualified medical professionals, and the wishes of millions of families, and allows ultraright ideology to dictate what they do."
After honoring Cecile Richards, a longtime Planned Parenthood leader who died earlier this week, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said Wednesday that "of all the bills that we could be voting on—lowering the cost of healthcare, expanding childcare, helping our families—it's an absolute disgrace that Republicans are spending their first week in power attacking women, criminalizing doctors, and lying about abortion."
"This isn't how abortion works; Republicans know it," stressed Murray, a senior member and former chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. "All babies are already protected under the law, regardless of the circumstance of their birth. Doctors already have a legal obligation to provide appropriate medical care. And we already know this sham bill from Republicans is not going anywhere."
"Last time we voted down this bill, I actually spoke about something Republicans refuse to acknowledge in this debate: the struggles, the struggles of a pregnant woman, who has received tragic news that her baby had a fatal medical condition and would not be able to survive, and who were able to make the choice that was right for their family," she noted. "But now, here we are, already hearing stories of women who were denied that choice by extreme Republican abortion bans."
Wednesday's vote fell on the 52nd anniversary of Roe v. Wade, a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that affirmed abortion rights nationwide—until it was reversed by right-wing justices in 2022, with the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision, which provoked a fresh wave of state-level restrictions on reproductive freedom.
"It's no accident that congressional Republicans used the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, a watershed case for liberty, equality, and bodily autonomy, to vote on a bill that perpetuates myths about abortion care, shames the people who seek that care, and vilifies those who provide it," said Fatima Goss Graves, president and CEO of the National Women's Law Center, in a statement.
"A majority of the electorate continues to support abortion rights and access," she noted. "Americans have seen the results of the Supreme Court's unjust and callous decision to overturn Roe v. Wade—from abortion bans forcing people to travel across state lines to access the care they need to pregnant people being denied care and even dying to an exodus of doctors that is exacerbating the existing maternal health crisis we face—and they reject restrictive abortion policies. That's why anti-abortion advocates must rely on disinformation like this bill to further their extreme agenda."
Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, also highlighted the country's sweeping healthcare crisis in her Wednesday statement about Republicans' failed bill.
"This bill is deliberately misleading and offensive to pregnant people, and the doctors and nurses who provide their care," she said. "At a time when we are facing a national abortion access crisis, lawmakers should be focused on how to bring more care to the communities they serve, not spending their time spreading misinformation, criminalizing doctors, and inserting themselves further into medical decisions made by healthcare professionals."
"This bill is not based in any reality of how medical care works," she added, "and it's wrong, irresponsible, and dangerous to suggest otherwise."
As the GOP works to restrict reproductive rights, advocacy groups are determined to fight back. All* Above All marked the Roe anniversary by releasing an Abortion Justice Playbook that the organization's president, Nourbese Flint, said "is our blueprint for a future where abortion access is equitable, universal, and free from discrimination."
"This wasn't an accident. The far-right members of the Israeli government wanted to render Gaza unlivable with the aim of forcing 2 million Palestinians to flee (forever)," said one human rights leader.
Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip are returning home after a cease-fire deal between Hamas and Israel went into effect Sunday, halting 15 months of war that local health officials say killed over 46,000 people. But for many, there are no homes to return to.
Footage of Gaza shows what once were houses, shops, and other buildings severely damaged or completely reduced to gray rubble.
One Gaza resident, Islam Dahliz, told The New York Times that he and his brother and father set out to find their family home—a once spacious two-story dwelling in Rafah—almost as soon as the cease-fire went into effect. What they found instead was unrecognizable.
"It took us a few minutes to accept that this pile of rubble was our home," said Dahliz. The house had been built by Dahliz's father, Abed Dahliz, in the 1970s.
"I was shocked when I saw my entire life—everything I worked for—flattened to the ground," said Abed Dahliz, according to the Times. "The home I spent so many years building, pouring my savings into, is gone."
Versions of this story are playing out all around Gaza. All told, roughly 90% of the population across Gaza was displaced from their homes, many multiple times, according to the United Nations.
"The images emerging from Gaza are haunting. This is a site where Palestinian captives were forced to strip, their clothes left behind among the ruins as a reminder of what Israeli soldiers did," wrote Assal Rad, a scholar of modern Iran, on X. Rad's post is accompanied by a video of a man showing a strip of land covered in clothes. In the video, the man says that the clothes are from Palestinians who were arrested by Israeli forces after they stormed areas in northern Gaza, like the Kamal Adwan Hospital.
In response to reporting of Gazans returning home to destruction, Kenneth Roth, the former executive director of Human Rights Watch, wrote: "This wasn't an accident. The far-right members of the Israeli government wanted to render Gaza unlivable with the aim of forcing two million Palestinians to flee (forever), "
Human Rights Watch, which late last year issued a report accusing Israel of committing "acts of genocide" by depriving Palestinians of water access in Gaza, wrote in November 2024 that "the destruction [in Gaza] is so substantial that it indicates the intention to permanently displace many people."
A preliminary U.N. satellite imagery analysis found that as of December 1, 2024, 60,000 structures in Gaza have been destroyed. The total number of damaged or destroyed structures constitutes roughly 69% of the total structures in the enclave, according to the analysis. A separate U.N. estimate published in January found that 92% of homes have been destroyed or damaged.
The footage coming out of Gaza underscores how long it will take for Palestinians to reconstruct their communities. The cease-fire deal that went into effect Sunday includes three phrases, the third of which is supposed to entail reconstruction of Gaza. Dima Toukan, a nonresident scholar at the Middle East Institute, told NPR that it's important to note the last phase could be a long way off, and could possibly never happen at all.