US official resigns over Gaza war and alleges racism towards Palestinians

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Published: 01 June 2024

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WASHINGTON - The resignation comes after an investigation by The Independent found unprecedented dissent at the agency over the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s war in Gaza.

A contractor with the US Agency for International Development (USAID) has resigned in protest over the Biden administration’s support for the war in Gaza.

Alexander Smith, a senior adviser on gender, maternal health, child health, and nutrition, told the Guardian he was given a choice of resigning or being fired after a presentation he was due to deliver on child mortality among Palestinians was cancelled by USAID leadership.

In his resignation letter to the head of USAID, Samana Power, he alleged that the agency was treating the war in Gaza and Palestinians differently to other conflicts and humanitarian emergencies.

“I cannot do my job in an environment in which specific people cannot be acknowledged as fully human, or where gender and human rights principles apply to some, but not to others, depending on their race,” he wrote in the letter, according to the Guardian.

“USAID has always prided itself on our programs supporting democracy, human rights, and rule of law,” he continued. “In Ukraine, we call for legal redress when people are victimised, and name perpetrators of violence … We boldly state “Slava Ukraini” in peppy promotional videos.”

“When it comes to the Palestinians, however, we avoid saying anything about their right to statehood, the abuses they’re currently suffering, or which powers have been violating their basic rights to freedom, self-determination, livelihoods, and clean water,” he added.

The resignation comes two weeks after The Independent published an investigation into dissent at USAID in response to the Biden administration’s handling of Gaza’s hunger crisis.

The investigation revealed that at least 19 internal dissent memos have been sent since the start of the war by staff at USAID criticising US support for Israel’s war in Gaza.

In an internal collective dissent memo drafted this month by numerous employees of USAID, the staff assail the agency and the Biden administration for its “failure to uphold international humanitarian principles and to adhere to its mandate to save lives”.

The leaked draft memo, seen by The Independent, calls for the administration to apply pressure to bring “an end to the Israeli siege that is causing famine”.

Smith is the second person to resign from USAID over the war, and the second US official this week. Stacy Gilbert, a career official who worked in the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, resigned over a department report that claimed Israel was not impeding humanitarian assistance to Gaza, the Washington Post reported.

A USAID spokesperson said: “We have consistently made clear, internally and externally, that far too many innocent people have been killed and injured in Israel’s war against Hamas. Hundreds of staff across the Agency are working tirelessly to accelerate aid, to advocate for greater protections for civilians and the improvement of deconfliction, and to advance diplomatic efforts.”

They added that the agency’s leadership “continues to engage candidly with staff about USAID’s work and perspectives on the conflict through a range of meetings, town halls, and other forums. Those perspectives continue to shape our response as an agency to the devastating conflict.”

A USAID official said they “cannot discuss specific personnel matters and why this individual is no longer employed by their contractor for USAID,” but added Smith’s presentation “did not go through the standard agency review and approval process with their supervisors and subject matter experts working on this topic.”

Israel has vehemently denied that there is a hunger crisis in Gaza, or that it has restricted aid. It says fighting with Hamas, the militant group that triggered the current war when it killed 1,200 people and took over 250 hostages in Israel on 7 October, has hampered aid efforts.

Cindy McCain, the US director of the UN World Food Programme, said in early May that there was a “full-blown famine” in Gaza’s north, “and it’s moving its way south.”

Since then Israel launched an offensive in Rafah, which led to the closure of a major crossing for aid south of the city.

Speaking to other donor governments about the crisis in Gaza on Wednesday, Samantha Power said civilians there were “paying a devastating and unacceptable price in this war, particularly in the wake of the IDF’s expanded operations in Rafah.”

She added that the “catastrophic consequences that we have long warned about are becoming a reality.”

The UN said Wednesday that thousands of children across Gaza are experiencing malnutrition.

“The amount of food and other aid entering Gaza, already insufficient to meet the soaring needs, has further shrunk since 7 May, with a daily average of 58 humanitarian aid trucks reaching Gaza between 7 and 28 May compared with a daily average of 176 aid trucks between 1 April and 6 May,” the UN announced in an update.

Donald Trump convicted on 34 felony counts

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Published: 31 May 2024

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NEW YORK — Donald Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts marks the end of the former president’s historic hush money trial, but the fight over the case is far from over.

Now comes the sentencing and the potential for a prison sentence. A lengthy appellate process. And all the while, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee still has to deal with three more criminal cases and a campaign that could see him return to the White House.

After more than nine hours of deliberations over two days, the Manhattan jury found Trump guilty of falsifying business records in the case stemming from a hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels during his 2016 presidential campaign.

Trump angrily denounced the trial as a “disgrace,” telling reporters he’s an “innocent man.”

Some key takeaways from the jury’s decision:

PRISON TIME?

The big question now is whether Trump could go to prison. The answer is uncertain. Judge Juan M. Merchan set sentencing for July 11, just days before Republicans are formally set to nominate Trump for president.

The charge of falsifying business records is a Class E felony in New York, the lowest tier of felony charges in the state. It is punishable by up to four years in prison, though the punishment would ultimately be up to the judge, and there’s no guarantee he would give Trump time behind bars. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg declined to say whether prosecutors would seek prison time.

It’s unclear to what extent the judge may factor in the political and logistical complexities of jailing a former president who is running to reclaim the White House. Other punishments could include a fine or probation. And it’s possible the judge would allow Trump to avoid serving any punishment until after he exhausts his appeals.

Trump faces the threat of more serious prison time in the three other cases he’s facing, but those cases have gotten bogged down by appeals and other legal fights, so it remains unclear whether any of them will go to trial before the November election.

The conviction doesn’t bar Trump from continuing his campaign or becoming president. And he can still vote for himself in his home state of Florida as long as he stays out of prison in New York state.

Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump, who serves as co-chair of the Republican National Committee, said in a Fox News Channel interview on Thursday that Trump would do virtual rallies and campaign events if he’s convicted and sentenced to home confinement.

In a deeply divided America, it’s unclear whether Trump’s once-unimaginable criminal conviction will have any impact at all on the election.

Leading strategists in both parties believe that Trump still remains well-positioned to defeat President Joe Biden, even as the Republican now faces the prospect of a prison sentence and three separate criminal cases still outstanding.

In the short term, at least, there were immediate signs that the guilty verdict was helping to unify the Republican Party’s disparate factions as GOP officials across the political spectrum rallied behind their embattled presumptive presidential nominee and his campaign reported a flood of fundraising dollars within hours of the verdict.

There has been some polling conducted on the prospect of a guilty verdict, although such hypothetical scenarios are notoriously difficult to predict. A recent ABC News/Ipsos poll found that only 4% of Trump’s supporters said they would withdraw their backing if he’s convicted of a felony, though another 16% said they would reconsider it.

AVENUES FOR APPEAL

After Trump is sentenced, he can challenge his conviction in a New York appellate court and possibly the state’s highest court. Trump’s lawyers have already been laying the groundwork for appeals with objections to the charges and rulings at trial.

The defense has accused the judge of bias, citing his daughter’s work heading a firm whose clients have included Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and other Democrats. The judge refused the defense’s request to remove himself from the case, saying he was certain of his “ability to be fair and impartial.”

Trump’s lawyers may also raise on appeal the judge’s ruling limiting the testimony of a potential defense expert witness. The defense wanted to call Bradley Smith, who served on the Federal Election Commission, to rebut the prosecution’s contention that the hush money payments amounted to campaign finance violations.

But the defense ended up not having him testify after the judge ruled he could give general background on the FEC but couldn’t interpret how federal campaign finance laws apply to the facts of Trump’s case or opine on whether Trump’s alleged actions violate those laws. There are often guardrails around expert testimony on legal matters, on the basis that it’s up to a judge — not an expert hired by one side or the other — to instruct jurors on applicable laws.

The defense may also argue that jurors were improperly allowed to hear sometimes graphic testimony from Daniels about her alleged 2006 sexual encounter with Trump, which he denies ever happened. The defense unsuccessfully pushed for a mistrial over the tawdry details prosecutors elicited from Daniels. Defense lawyer Todd Blanche argued Daniels’ description of a power imbalance with the older, taller Trump, was a “dog whistle for rape,” irrelevant to the charges at hand, and “the kind of testimony that makes it impossible to come back from.”

A DEFENSE THAT CENTERED ON CREDIBILITY

The verdict shows the jury wasn’t persuaded by Trump’s defense, which hinged on assailing the credibility of some key witnesses — especially Michael Cohen, the Trump attorney-turned-adversary who directly implicated Trump in the hush money scheme.

As in many criminal cases, Trump’s lawyers tried to make a lot of their points while questioning prosecution witnesses. The defense called just two witnesses of its own, including Robert Costello, a defense attorney who had sought to represent Cohen after the latter came under federal investigation due to his work for Trump.

The move may have backfired because it opened the door for prosecutors to question Costello about a purported pressure campaign aimed at keeping Cohen loyal to Trump after the FBI raided Cohen’s property in April 2018.

Costello buoyed the defense by testifying that Cohen denied to him that Trump knew anything about the $130,000 hush money payment to Daniels.

But prosecutors portrayed Costello as a “double agent” whose agenda was really to keep Cohen from turning on Trump and confronted him with emails he sent to Cohen in which he repeatedly dangled his close ties to Trump ally Rudy Giuliani. In one email, Costello told Cohen: “Sleep well tonight. you have friends in high places” and relayed that there were “some very positive comments about you from the White House.”

The pugnacious Costello annoyed the judge — at times in view of the jury — by continuing to speak after objections and rolling his eyes. At one point, after sending the jury out of the room, the judge became enraged when he said Costello was staring him down. Merchan then briefly cleared the courtroom of reporters and scolded Costello, warning that if he acted out again, he’d be removed from the courtroom.

LAYING THE GROUNDWORK FOR A LOSS

While projecting confidence, Trump and his campaign also spent weeks trying to undermine the case ahead of a potential conviction. He repeatedly called the whole system “rigged” — a term he also used in false descriptions of the election he lost to Biden in 2020.

“Mother Teresa could not beat these charge,” Trump said Wednesday, invoking the Catholic nun and saint.

Trump has lambasted the judge and complained about members of the prosecution team as he tried to paint the case as nothing more than a politically motivated witch hunt brought by Bragg, a Democrat.

He has also complained about a gag order that restricted him from speaking about some people involved in the case. Instead of testifying in the case — and subjecting himself to cross-examination — Trump has focused on the court of public opinion and the voters who will ultimately decide his fate.

Police arrest dozens of pro-Palestinian protesters at Columbia University

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Written by Super User

Category: Americas

Published: 01 May 2024

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By Jonathan Allen and Caitlin Ochs

NEW YORK - New York City police arrested dozens of pro-Palestinian demonstrators holed-up in an academic building on Columbia University campus late on Tuesday and removed a protest encampment the Ivy League school had sought to dismantle for nearly two weeks.

Shortly after police moved in, Columbia University President Minouche Shafik released a letter in which she requested police stay on campus until at least May 17 - two days after graduation - "to maintain order and ensure that encampments are not re-established."

Within three hours the campus had been cleared of protesters, said a police spokesperson, adding "dozens" of arrests were made.

At the start of the police operation around 9 p.m. ET throngs of helmeted police marched onto the elite campus in upper Manhattan, a focal point of student rallies that have spread to dozens of schools across the U.S. in recent days expressing opposition to Israel's war in Gaza.

"We're clearing it out," the police officers yelled.

Soon after, a long line of officers climbed into Hamilton Hall, an academic building that protesters had broken into and occupied in the early morning hours of Tuesday.

Police entered through a second-story window, using a police vehicle equipped with a ladder.

Students standing outside the hall jeered police with shouts of "Shame, shame!"
Police were seen loading dozens of detainees onto a bus, each with their hands bound behind their backs by zip-ties, the entire scene illuminated with flashing red and blue lights of police vehicles.

"Free, free, free Palestine," chanted protesters outside the building. Others yelled "Let the students go."

“Columbia will be proud of these students in five years,” said Sueda Polat, one of the student negotiators for Columbia University Apartheid Divest, the coalition of student groups that has organized the protests.

She said students did not pose a danger and called on police to back down, speaking as officers shouted at her and others to retreat or leave campus.

PROTEST DEMANDS

Protesters were seeking three demands from Columbia: divestment from companies supporting Israel's government, greater transparency in university finances, and amnesty for students and faculty disciplined over the protests.

President Shafik this week said Columbia would not divest from finances in Israel. Instead, she offered to invest in health and education in Gaza and make Columbia's direct investment holdings more transparent.

In her letter released on Tuesday, Shafik said the Hamilton Hall occupiers had vandalized University property and were trespassing, and that encampment protesters were suspended for trespassing. The university earlier warned that students taking part in the Hamilton Hall occupation faced academic expulsion.

The occupation began overnight when protesters broke windows, stormed inside and unfurled a banner reading "Hind's Hall," saying they were renaming the building for a 6-year-old Palestinian child killed in Gaza by the Israeli military.

The eight-story, neo-classical building has been the site of various student occupations dating back to the 1960s.

At an evening news briefing held a few hours before police entered Columbia, Mayor Eric Adams and city police officials said the Hamilton Hall takeover was instigated by "outside agitators" who lack any affiliation with Columbia and are known to law enforcement for provoking lawlessness.

Police said they based their conclusions in part on escalating tactics in the occupation, including vandalism, use of barricades to block entrances and destruction of security cameras.

One of the student leaders of the protest, Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian scholar attending Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs, disputed assertions that outsiders led the occupation.

"Disruptions on campus have created a threatening environment for many of our Jewish students and faculty and a noisy distraction that interferes with the teaching, learning and preparing for final exams," the university said in a statement on Tuesday before police moved in.

PROTESTS ACROSS COUNTRY

The Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel by Hamas militants from Gaza, and the ensuing Israeli offensive on the Palestinian enclave, have unleashed the biggest outpouring of U.S. student activism since the anti-racism protests of 2020.

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators also gathered at City College New York in Harlem late Tuesday, with the university ordering individuals off the campus, New York Police Department Deputy Commissioner Kaz Daughtry said in an X post. Dozens of protesters were arrested, the New York Times reported.

Daughtry also said the university had requested police presence to assist in dispersing trespassers.

The Chancellor at the University of California in Los Angeles said late Tuesday that law enforcement was engaged to investigate 'recent acts of violence' by a group of demonstrators and increased security in the area.

Many of the demonstrations across the country have been met with counter-protesters accusing them of fomenting anti-Jewish hatred. The pro-Palestinian side, including Jews opposed to Israeli actions in Gaza, say they are being unfairly branded as antisemitic for criticizing Israel's government and expressing support for human rights.

The issue has taken on political overtones in the run-up to the U.S. presidential election in November, with Republicans accusing some university administrators of turning a blind eye to antisemitic rhetoric and harassment.

White House spokesperson John Kirby on Tuesday called the occupation of campus buildings "the wrong approach."

New York Police Department officials had stressed before Tuesday night's sweep that officers would refrain from entering the campus unless Columbia administrators invited their presence, as they did on April 18, when NYPD officers removed an earlier encampment. More than 100 arrests were made at that time, stirring an outcry by many students and staff.

Dozens of tents, pitched on a hedge-lined grassy area - beside a smaller lawn since planted with hundreds of small Israeli flags - were put back up days later.