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This remains a five-alarm fire. We have just days left in our Fall Campaign and the numbers we’re seeing are not good. This is terrifying for us, especially when everything we cherish is on the ballot just one week from now.
Today's decision to reverse the Federal Communications Commission's preemption of anti-municipal broadband laws is a setback for the public interest, Common Cause said today.
"Let's be clear: industry-backed state laws to block municipal broadband only exist because pliant legislators are listening to their Big Cable and Big Telecom paymasters. These corporate providers invest in campaign contributions rather than in deploying high-quality broadband," Common Cause Special Adviser Michael Copps said.
"This decision does not benefit our broadband nation. Nor is it a good reading of the law. But if the FCC cannot set aside these bad laws, then the people must. We will redouble our state-by-state efforts to repeal these odious policies." Copps continued.
View on the web: https://www.commoncause.org/press/press-releases/MuniBroadband2016.html
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"This legislation not only contravenes the basic principles of human rights that led to the U.N. General Assembly's founding of UNRWA, but also violates a range of Israel's international legal obligations."
Over a year into Israel's obliteration of the Gaza Strip, Israeli lawmakers faced sharp criticism on Monday after voting for a pair of bills targeting the United Nations agency responsible for humanitarian aid in the illegally occupied Palestinian territories.
The first bill, which says that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) "will not operate any missions, won't provide any service, and won't hold any activity—directly or indirectly—in the sovereign territory of the state of Israel," passed the Israeli parliament 92-10.
The second legislative proposal—under which the Israeli agency that handles humanitarian issues, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), will have to cut off contact with UNRWA—passed the 120-member Knesset 87-9. Critics called the votes "grotesque" and "outrageous."
The Israel-based organization Adalah said in a statement that "despite widespread international pressure and condemnation, the Knesset has nearly unanimously passed two bills aimed at dismantling UNRWA, all while Israel continues its genocidal assault on Gaza and intensifies violence across the West Bank, including East Jerusalem."
"This legislation threatens a vital lifeline for over 2.5 million Palestinian refugees throughout the occupied Palestinian territory," the group warned. "It represents a deliberate attempt to fundamentally undermine UNRWA and its essential mission of supporting the relief, education, and human development of Palestinian refugees. Specifically, the laws aim to strip Palestinians—who were forcibly displaced from their homes during the 1948 Nakba and the 1967 war—of their status as refugees and their right of return."
The United Nations General Assembly created UNRWA in 1949, in the wake of the Nakba, or "catastrophe," when more than 750,000 Palestinians fled or were forced from their homeland to establish the modern state of Israel—whose officials have claimed without providing evidence that a dozen of the agency's 13,000 staffers in Gaza were involved with the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
"This legislation not only contravenes the basic principles of human rights that led to the U.N. General Assembly's founding of UNRWA, but also violates a range of Israel's international legal obligations, including those under the Genocide Convention and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court," said Adalah. "The international community must hold Israel accountable."
Although Israel faces a South Africa-led genocide case at the International Court of Justice over its war on Hamas-controlled Gaza—which has killed at least 43,020 people and injured another 101,110 since last October—governments around the world have not acted to stop the bloodshed. The U.S. Congress and President Joe Biden's administration have even provided Israel with billions of dollars in military aid and blocked cease-fire resolutions at the United Nations.
Earlier this month, the Biden administration finally threatened to cut off weapons if the Israeli government does not take "urgent and sustained actions" to improve humanitarian conditions in Gaza within 30 days. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin's letter specifically raised concerns about the legislation that passed the Knesset Monday.
Asked about the Israeli bills on Monday, Matthew Miller, a U.S. State Department spokesperson frequently slammed for his statements about Israel, pointed to the secretaries' criticism of the legislation in the recent letter and acknowledged that UNRWA serves the West Bank and plays "an irreplaceable role" in Gaza, where Palestinians are starving to death.
Sally Abi Khalil, Oxfam's regional director in the Middle East and North Africa, said Monday that "Israel has bombed Palestinians to death, maimed them, starved them, and is now ridding them of their biggest lifeline of aid. Piece by piece, Israel is systemically dismantling Gaza as a land that is autonomous and liveable for Palestinians."
"Its banning of UNRWA today is condemnable and another step in this crime," she argued. "The decision will further undermine the ability of the international community to provide sufficient humanitarian aid and to save lives in any safe, independent, and impartial way. UNRWA was not only the biggest and most established agency that has been delivering aid and sustenance to the people of Gaza for years, it was also a thread that connected them in some hope of solidarity and security to the United Nations."
"We are in no doubt that Israel and its allies are fully aware of the terrible consequences that this decision will have on Palestinians living in Gaza, many of whom are already starving," she added. "We join others in warning again that this will result in more death, more suffering, and more forced displacement of people from their besieged homeland. It is impossible not to believe that this is their aim."
Leading up to the votes, human rights advocates have been sounding the alarm. On Saturday, over 50 groups including Oxfam, Human Rights Watch, and ActionAid released a joint statement demanding action and warning that "dismantling UNRWA would be catastrophic for Palestinians especially in Gaza and the West Bank as they are deprived of essentials such as food, water, medical aid, education, and protection. It will also have catastrophic consequences for millions of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria, where essential humanitarian aid is crucial for both the refugees and the host communities."
Philippe Lazzarini, the UNRWA commissioner-general, delivered a similar warning on social media Monday, declaring that the Knesset action not only "is unprecedented and sets a dangerous precedent" but "it opposes the U.N. Charter and violates the state of Israel's obligations under international law."
"This is the latest in the ongoing campaign to discredit UNRWA and delegitimize its role towards providing human-development assistance and services to Palestine Refugees," he continued. "These bills will only deepen the suffering of Palestinians, especially in Gaza where people have been going through more than a year of sheer hell."
"It will deprive over 650,000 girls and boys there from education, putting at risk an entire generation of children," Lazzarini added. "These bills increase the suffering of the Palestinians and are nothing less than collective punishment."
One American eyewitness cited in the case says Israeli occupation forces "directly targeted with intent to kill" Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi.
Turkey's Terror Crimes Investigation Bureau has reportedly filed charges of "premeditated murder" against the Israeli soldiers who, according to eyewitnesses, deliberately targeted a Turkish-American activist who was fatally shot in the head while peacefully protesting the expansion of Israel's illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.
Anadolureported Sunday that the Turkish agency is classifying the September 6 killing of 26-year-old International Solidarity Movement (ISM) volunteer Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi as a "crime against humanity."
The agency submitted evidence including eyewitness statements, photos, video footage, and an autopsy report to the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor's Office as part of an effort to identify the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers responsible for Eygi's killing.
Last month, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said the country intends to seek international arrest warrants for those who killed Eygi.
Eygi, a recent University of Washington graduate, was shot during a march in Beita against Israel's apartheid settlements. American activist Alex Chabbott said Israeli soldiers fired tear gas immediately after the march began. Chabbott and other witnesses said they heard gunshots coming from a nearby rooftop and then saw Eygi lying on the ground and bleeding profusely from her head.
Chabbott said Eygi was "directly targeted with intent to kill." British activist Dominic Robin Sedol accused IDF soldiers of shooting with "the intent to kill Ayşe directly." Jonathan Pasternak, an Israeli activist who attended the march with Eygi, said the troops "had directly targeted Ayşenur."
While admitting that it is "highly likely" that Israeli troops shot Eygi, IDF officials have called the killing "unintentional," claiming the fatal shot "was not aimed at her, but aimed at the key instigator of... a violent riot in which dozens of Palestinian suspects burned tires and hurled rocks" at occupation forces.
Progressive members of U.S. Congress, rights groups, and others including the parents of Rachel Corrie—the U.S. ISM volunteer crushed to death in 2003 by an IDF bulldozer while trying to stop the demolition of Palestinian homes in the West Bank—have joined Eygi's family in calling for an independent investigation of the activist's killing.
However, U.S. President Joe Biden—who has approved billions of dollars in military aid as part of his "unwavering" support for Israel—was widely denounced for repeating the IDF's claim that Eygi was accidentally killed when a bullet "ricocheted off the ground."
Secretary of State Antony Blinken—who called Eygi's killing "unprovoked and unjustified"—nevertheless signaled that there would be no U.S. probe of the incident, prompting Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), the only Palestinian American in Congress, to lament that the Israeli military "can kill Americans and get away with it."
Last week, a group of Department of Justice lawyers sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland calling for an investigation into Israel's killing of Americans including Eygi, Kamel Ahmad Jawad, Jacob Flickinger, Tawfiq Abdel Jabbar, Mohammad Khdour, Omar Assad, and Shireen Abu Akleh.
On Friday, more than 500 people gathered at the University of Washington in Seattle for an "evening of reflection" on Eygi's life and activism.
"We deserve to know what happened," Özden Bennett, Eygi's older sister, said during the event, according toThe Daily. "We deserve to know who killed her, and we deserve to know why. We're asking once again, for President Biden, Vice President [Kamala] Harris, and Secretary of State Blinken, who we still have not heard from, to act."
"The glaring genocide in Gaza is there for all who are not blinded by prejudice to see."
South Africa filed 750 pages of "overwhelming" proof that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza to the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands on Monday, the deadline for submitting final evidence in the ongoing trial.
South African Ambassador to the Netherlands Vusi Madonsela delivered the legal document—known as a memorial—to the ICJ headquarters in the Dutch city. Under the court's rules, the contents of the memorial cannot be made public at this time.
According to a statement from the office of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, the memorial is a "comprehensive presentation of the overwhelming evidence of genocide in Gaza."
The office said the document "contains evidence which shows how the government of Israel has violated the Genocide Convention by promoting the destruction of Palestinians living in Gaza, physically killing them with an assortment of destructive weapons, depriving them access to humanitarian assistance, causing conditions of life which are aimed at their physical destruction, and ignoring and defying several provisional measures of the International Court of Justice, and using starvation as a weapon of war and to further Israel's aims to depopulate Gaza through mass death and forced displacement of Palestinians."
"The evidence will show that undergirding Israel's genocidal acts is the special intent to commit genocide, a failure by Israel to prevent incitement to genocide, to prevent genocide itself, and its failure to punish those inciting and committing acts of genocide," Ramaphosa's office added.
South Africa's filing comes amid Israel's ongoing 387-day assault on Gaza, which according to Palestinian and international agencies has killed at least 43,020 people—most of them women and children. At least 101,110 others have been wounded and over 10,000 Gazans are missing and believed dead and buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of bombed homes and other structures. Millions more Palestinians have been forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened by Israel's invasion and "complete siege" of Gaza.
The filing also comes one week after senior members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's far-right Cabinet and national lawmakers spoke at a conference advocating the ethnic cleansing and recolonization of Gaza.
Ramaphosa's office lamented that "Israel has been granted unprecedented impunity to breach international law and norms for as long as the United Nations Charter has been in existence."
"Israel's continued shredding of international law has imperiled the institutions of global governance that were established to hold all states accountable," the presidency's statement asserted. "The glaring genocide in Gaza is there for all who are not blinded by prejudice to see."
Ramaphosa's statement continues:
The Palestinian struggle against imperialism, Israeli apartheid, and settler colonialism is the daily reality of the Palestinian people. Since 1948, they have faced various forms of colonization, often backed by historical colonial powers and, more recently, by states intent on shaping a world order in their interests. The global fight against settler colonialism persists in some parts of the world, including in occupied Palestine, both in Gaza and the West Bank. The international community cannot stand idly by while innocent civilians—including women, children, hospital workers, humanitarian aid workers, and journalists—are killed for simply being. That is a world we cannot accept.
"We reiterate our appeal for an immediate cease-fire in Palestine, in Lebanon, and entire region, and the start of a political process to ensure a just and lasting peace," Ramaphosa's office added.
South Africa also thanked the more than 30 countries and regional blocs, including the African Union and Arab League, that are supporting its case.
It could take years for the ICJ to deliver judgment in the case. In July, the tribunal issued a nonbinding advisory opinion that Israel's occupation of Palestine—including the West Bank, Eastern Jerusalem, Gaza, and Syrian Golan Heights—is an illegal form of apartheid that must end "as rapidly as possible."
South Africa's filing came on the same day that Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, published a report on Israeli "genocide as colonial erasure" in Palestine.
Israel vehemently denies it is committing genocide in Gaza, a position shared by the Biden administration, the country's main benefactor.
Palestine advocates welcomed Monday's filing, with Council on American-Islamic Relations national executive director Nihad Awad thanking South African leaders "for helping expose the far-right Israeli government's genocide and genocidal intent in Gaza to the world community."
"This detailed submission also further exposes the Biden administration's criminal complicity with Israel's genocide in Gaza," Awad addded. "President [Joe] Biden should end his complicity with genocide by stopping arms deliveries to Israel and forcing an immediate cease-fire."
The Biden administration and Congress have provided Israel with tens of billions of dollars worth of armed aid and diplomatic cover to continue its war.
Francis Boyle, a professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law, noted that "Israel has violated three prior orders from the court" and "has also violated the decision on Rafah of May."
"Just after that decision, Biden put out his ridiculous statement that Israel had agreed to a cease-fire, which it obviously didn't," he continued. "The Biden administration's phony 'cease-fire negotiations' maneuvers have simply bought Israel more time to commit more crimes, including its recent annihilation of northern Gaza."
"Given Israel's lack of respect for decisions of the court, it becomes imperative that these decisions have teeth," Boyle added. "The U.S. veto at the U.N. Security Council has prevented that body from doing its job. So, the U.N. General Assembly should utilize its Uniting for Peace procedure to take control of the situation and recommend an arms embargo and economic sanctions against Israel as well as other measures. That's what was done to apartheid South Africa because of its illegal occupation of Namibia."