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Saturday, September 7, 2024
Friday, September 6, 2024
U.S. Accuses Russia of Spending Millions to Influence American Voters - WSJ
U.S. Accuses Russia of Spending Millions to Influence American Voters - WSJ
[This looks a lot like an administration effort to ban foreign public diplomacy and American access to foreign opinion that, because it differs from our officially endorsed narrative, is labeled as 'disinformation.' As such, it mirrors the efforts of other countries to ban U.S. public diplomacy instruments like Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia, etc. Are we too not 'spending millions to influence... voters" in various countries?]
[Salon] Gazans in Egypt: hostility and exploitation - Arab Digest.org guest post
Gazans in Egypt: hostility and exploitation
Summary: Palestinians fleeing Gaza to Egypt are easy targets for rent gouging and resentment and they find themselves denied any of the limited rights to basic services that refugees would in other circumstances be allowed to access.
Most of the more than 748,000 refugees and asylum-seekers in Egypt are Sudanese, fleeing the civil war that started in April 2023, but since the start of the war in Palestine more than 100,000 Palestinians have also been able to enter Egypt from Gaza. But having already paid thousands of dollars to cross over, when they arrive they face myriad social and economic problems, aggravated by a complete lack of official institutional support because - unlike other refugees - due to long standing historical reasons Palestinians are excluded from the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) mandate.
Forced Migration Review notes:
Arab states have argued that as the UN is responsible for Palestinian expulsion – the General Assembly Resolution 181 in 1947 approved the Partition Plan for Palestine – the UN has therefore an ongoing responsibility to develop mechanisms for repatriation and compensation. Allowing Palestinians to be protected by UNHCR would prejudice their case by encouraging third-country resettlement.
At the same time, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) which provides services to Palestinian refugees around the region does not operate in Egypt either. The Cairo Review explains: “The reason why Egypt did not allow UNRWA to operate in the country was due to its desire to safeguard the Palestinian identity and allow their eventual return after the liberation of Palestine.”
As such, Palestinian refugees in Egypt get no assistance from UNRWA or the Egyptian government and are not able to register with UNHCR either.
Since the UNHCR facilitates access to protection and essential services for refugees in Egypt on behalf of the Egyptian government, this means Palestinians are denied access to basic services such as health and education. They only have a legal right to stay in the country by way of residence permits that have to be renewed every 45 days.
Without long term residency papers, this means Palestinian refugees cannot open bank accounts and businesses, access medical services, apply for visas to other countries or enrol their children in Egyptian public schools. They are denied the right to own a mobile phone SIM card, the right to work and to benefit from assistance or services provided by civil and developmental organisations.
An investigation by the New Arab website quotes Nour Khalil, a researcher specialising in immigration and border policy issues and the Executive Director of the Refugees Platform in Egypt:
If I was deprived of the right to register, and of the right to obtain an official residency permit, I would also be denied the other rights, and legal protection would be withdrawn from me; if I was murdered today there would be no punishment… they are denied the right to appeal against their deportation, as they are unable to appoint a lawyer to raise a legal claim. All of this because they don’t hold a valid residency permit.
The same article mentions a Palestinian man named Ahmed Saeed (pseudonym) who said that his daughter had been subjected to a kidnapping attempt. He did not file a complaint as he does not hold valid papers to stay in Egypt.
Without access to public healthcare Palestinians have to go to the private sector for medical treatment, where costs are high and refugees are also discriminated against. Hospitals sometimes insist on payment in advance or refuse to provide services altogether. One local refugee agency reported some refugees died due to the lack of medical care.
Since renewing a residency permit every 45 days in Egypt’s labyrinthine, under-resourced and corrupt bureaucracy is impossible, Palestinians quickly find themselves without legal permission to be in Egypt at all; any foreigner in Egypt who does not have legal residency can be arrested at any time. This means Palestinians have to be careful how they travel and move circumspectly, avoiding long journeys or certain parts of Cairo where there is a high chance of being stopped or arrested.
Often the Egyptian authorities swoop on migrant neighbourhoods in days-long campaigns targeting refugees and asylum seekers and making dozens of arrests. Once detained, anything can happen to them and Human Rights Watch and similar organisations have previously documented serious abuses against asylum seekers and refugees by the Egyptian authorities. Usually however the police are just looking for some hard currency and let them go after demanding and securing a bribe.
The Egyptian authorities are also known to refoul refugees, although this is against international human rights law; thousands of Sudanese refugees have been collectively expelled back to Sudan, with the UNHCR estimating that 3,000 people were deported to Sudan from Egypt in September 2023 alone.
There have been no known cases of Palestinians being refouled to Gaza since the war started but this is not surprising given the extensive restrictions at the border and because the Rafah crossing has been completely closed since 7 May. If the restrictions were eased as part of a ceasefire deal, given how the Egyptian authorities treat other refugees and asylum seekers, refugees from Gaza could be at risk of refoulement. This may explain why Cairo is insisting that as any part of a deal the IDF evacuate the Philadelphi Corridor - the strip of land that runs the entirety of the border between Gaza and Egypt and includes the Rafah crossing - and why Netanyahu is insisting the IDF remain.
As Egypt does not have refugee camps, displaced people live among ordinary Egyptians where besides having to manage all the same harsh social and economic problems citizens face, they are also subject to widespread public stigmatisation and discrimination.
While Sudanese and refugees of sub-Saharan origin face open racism, Palestinians face another kind of discrimination, born out of their systematic denigration in Egyptian state media which since the late 1970s has projected Palestinians as being 'ungrateful' and accused them of having brought about their own expulsions through their greed and willingness to sell their land to Zionists. As a result, many Egyptians believe that Palestinians are rich and influential and deserve neither sympathy nor assistance. Gaza evacuees say they fear disclosing their identity and face prejudice from Egyptian landlords who view them as a bag of money.
In June Al Monitor reported on discrimination against Palestinians accessing housing:
One of the greatest difficulties for Gazans living in Cairo is finding housing. “Although my wife has an Egyptian passport, we had difficulties finding accommodation,” Mohammed Telbani, a 30-year-old from Gaza City, explains to Al-Monitor. “We felt a certain prejudice from the Egyptians. They prefer not to rent apartments to us.” … The displaced Gazans in Cairo are spread throughout the city, although the main districts they find shelter in are Giza, Faisal, Imbaba and Ain Shams, where speculation is developing and rents for Palestinians are much higher than market prices.”
As UN Habitat explains:
In areas of the city where refugees have settled they compete with poor local residents for scarce resources and limited services and, as such, they are vulnerable to aggression, violence and exploitation. Egyptian residents in these areas have very similar needs for assistance and support initiatives as (do) the refugees.
With ordinary Egyptians caught in a cycle of rampant inflation, rising rents and strains on services and resources resentment towards Gazan refugees will only be exacerbated as the ceasefire talks stall and the war drags on.
[Salon] The intended effect of sanctioning of all Russian media -
Scott Ritter's statement explaining his situation:
(Telegram source: https://t.me/ScottRitter/2853)
The actions by the Department of the Treasury in levying new sanctions against RT, Sputnik, and other Russian media organizations has made it impossible for me to continue my work as an outside contributor for RT and Sputnik, as well as participating in interviews and other collaborations with other Russian media.
The language in question is quite clear about the scope and scale of its restrictions:
“In addition, financial institutions and other persons that engage in certain transactions or activities with the sanctioned persons may expose themselves to sanctions or be subject to an enforcement action. The prohibitions include the making of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services by, to, or for the benefit of any designated person, or the receipt of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services from any such person.”
I reject the notion that the work I have done over the past years with the newly sanctioned Russian media organizations has been anything other than legitimate journalism, the content of which has been factually correct and analytically sound, and always of my own creation.
Nonetheless, I am fully committed to obeying US law, and as such will be terminating all contractual relationships with both RT and Sputnik effective immediately, as well as suspending my participation in any and all media interaction with sanctioned individuals and organizations until which time it is deemed lawful to do so by US authorities.
I will continue to exercise my free speech rights, to include my ability to function as a journalist free from government influence or control.
I am deeply grateful for the professionalism of all of my Russian colleagues over the past several years, and am proud to have made their acquaintance. I regret the actions of my government in silencing legitimate journalistic outlets, and look forward to the day when freedom of speech and a free press is not constrained by a dubious “Russian exception” that is violative of Constitutional norms and values.
Thursday, September 5, 2024
[Salon] Polio returns to Gaza - Arab Digest.org. guest post
Polio returns to Gaza
Summary: a young medical student indicts Israel and its Western allies for the outbreak of polio in a war-destroyed Gaza.
We thank Tharwa Boulifi for today’s newsletter. Tharwa is a 23 year-old Tunisian writer and medical student. She writes in Arabic, French, English and Spanish focussing on women’s rights with an emphasis on Arab and African women, culture and LGBTQ+ rights. Tharwa is a regular contributor to the newsletter. You can find her AD podcast Tunisia’s Gen Z here.
Over the last ten months, Israel has never stopped shocking the international community with the relentless expansion of its crimes in Gaza, each one as horrifying as the other. Such uncompromising conduct falls within Israel’s plan to normalise the genocide and the crimes against humanity it has committed. It seems to have achieved its goal: the 40,738 people, including 16,500 children killed by Israel, and the 94,154 injured have become nothing more than figures. As a result, a state of collective weariness has permeated among the citizens of the world as Israel’s flagrant war crimes and the disempowering of global justice institutions continues.
Although the world community has, throughout modern history, been brought to accept as a reality that politics is a dirty game, one cannot remain insensitive to the collapse of one of contemporary societies' major pillars: health. Over the past 10 months, Israel’s genocidal attacks on innocent civilians also inflicted serious damage on vital socio-economic infrastructure; only 17 of 36 hospitals in Gaza are currently partially functional. Besides, the destruction of 80% of commercial and agricultural facilities has led to a severe lack of food, causing malnutrition for 90% of Gaza’s children. In addition, Israel has done its best to prevent external aid from reaching the Strip, imposing “severe restrictions on the import of commercial goods and humanitarian supplies”, as noted by UNICEF. Amongst the critical infrastructure destroyed by the relentless attacks of the IDF are water and sewage treatment plants. As intended, the deliberate and systematic destruction of Gaza has led to even more catastrophic scenarios, like a polio outbreak after 25 years of its eradication. The virus, supposedly almost completely eradicated (type 2 was eradicated in 1999, type 3 in 2020, while type 1 remains in two countries), made a comeback in Gaza. In mid-August, a 10-month-old boy, the first detected case of polio in the Strip in this century, became partially paralysed after contracting the virus. The instances of poliovirus detected in Gaza are vaccine-derived; people who haven’t been vaccinated or who haven’t completed their vaccinations.
After the first confirmed polio case in Gaza in 25 years, a massive vaccination campaign has started [photo credit: WHO]
The worsening of both sanitary and health conditions is undeniably as concerning as the ongoing war that Palestinians have been enduring for almost a year now. This recurrence of a disease, for which the World Health Organisation launched an initiative to eradicate in 1988, is testimony to the decline of our modern civilisation. It discredits international political and diplomatic organisations like the UN, established by the ruling superpowers after WWII, to ensure “peace, dignity, and equality on a healthy planet.” Failing to achieve any of these objectives, the UN has unequivocally proven to be inadequate in all respects. With 193 countries as member states, the Gaza war is witness to a failure of responsibility that is shared by all and not just the US and its Western allies who back Israel in their genocide against the Palestinian people.
As a medical student, and like many others, we weren’t aware of the huge discrepancy between reality and what we’re taught in university about equal access to health being a fundamental right. The on the ground reality shows us that access to healthcare is a two-tier system where people in some parts of the world benefit from robotic surgery while others don’t have access to vaccination. What is the fault of children and newborn babies who didn’t choose to be in a war zone and if they survive are forced to grow up in such unjust times? Is there any hope for this orphaned generation of Palestinian children who have just entered life but have already borne witness to its cruelty?
While the suffering of the injured is unparalleled, the suffering of those doctors and health care workers on the ground, who have the expertise to save lives, but lack the equipment to do so, is intolerable. Bearing the heavy responsibility for the health of fellow humans is hard enough in the first place. Carrying out this mission in such inhumane conditions, while constantly battling death and lacking the necessary medicines and equipment thus being forced to give up the lives of their patients, is most cruel. These heroic doctors - many of whom received on shift the news of the death of family members and had to identify their bodies - fulfil the Hippocratic oath they took when they became doctors.
Today, as a medical student, I think about the multiple medical conferences, about the latest discoveries in the field taking place in Western countries, those same countries that are accomplices to the human tragedy being inflicted on Palestine. These superpowers, causing the brain drain from the same regions where they’ve been committing their crimes, keep boasting about the advances in medicine they have made. The current disaster in healthcare in Gaza is a shameful international failure for a supposedly civilised developed world. With Gaza the Global North has forgotten that the right to health and prosperity extends to all humanity.
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