Robert P. White, who commands American forces in Iraq, last week wrote what the New York Times called a “blunt memo,” in which he opposed a new plan by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and others to attack Iranian-allied militias inside Iraq.
The Latest: First coronavirus-related Palestinian death reported this week in the West Bank 82 Palestinians…
“This virus proves that we are all one, equally threatened by coronavirus. Israel needs to change. There is no security in Israel unless there is also security in Palestine,” Zoughbi AlZoughbi, Director of Wi’am: The Palestinian Conflict Transformation Center.
Palestinians are players in Israeli politics in a new way, Yael Patir of J Street says. Three-fourths of Israeli Jewish centrist voters supported a possible government that would have had Palestinian political backing, and that is “huge,” she says, seeing a silver lining in the collapse of the effort to remove Netanyahu.
“Given the spread of the coronavirus in the West Bank and Gaza, the extreme vulnerability of the health system in Gaza, and the continued withholding of U.S. aid to the Palestinian people, we are concerned that the Administration is failing to take every reasonable step to help combat this public health emergency in the Palestinian Territories,” reads the letter. It was lead by Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), but was also signed by Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Tom Udall (D-NM), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Tom Carper (D-DE), and Sherrod Brown (D-OH).
The number of coronavirus cases in Palestine jumped from 62 to 91 in just two days. The main cause is that thousands of Palestinian laborers have been ordered to return to the West Bank from Israel. Thousands of workers are now expected to flood back into the West Bank, raising concerns over how well the PA will be able to deal with the influx of potential virus carriers.
Mondoweiss community, we have some bittersweet organizational news to share — Tova Perlmutter, our wonderful Executive Director, will be moving on later this spring. Tova has been central in our development over the past five years, helping to move Mondoweiss from a fledgling news operation of four staff people into a mature, stable organization with a core staff of ten. As we prepare for her exit at the end of June we are launching a search for a Director of Development to continue our impressive growth.
Although coronavirus seems to be relatively contained inside the Gaza Strip, the new cases raise the specter for what many of us have known for a long time: trapping millions in close quarters is a death sentence. In this crisis, as many officials reocgnize, incarcerated people should be released.
Jones Challenges Tlaib This week, Detroit City Council President Brenda Jones officially announced that she…
Dr. Alice Rothchild writes, “The announcement that nine cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed in Gaza filled me with a new level of anxiety and despair. Gaza is at the beginning of the pandemic curve.”