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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: The Blind Boys of Alabama

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Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features gospel singers The Blind Boys of Alabama. Enjoy!

^{Blind Boys of Alabama - Spirit in the Sky}

"In March, 2023, just a year ago, Secretary of State Antony Blinken asked all countries that are parties to the ICC to detain Vladimir Putin if they could, after the court issued an arrest warrant for him. ... The reaction in Washington to the warrant request for Netanyahu and Galant has been the opposite. This reaction shows that the Biden administration does not respect international law and does not care that Putin committed crimes under it, but just wants to stick it to Putin."

-- Juan Cole

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News and Opinion

The Problem Isn’t Civil Disobedience, It’s Civil Obedience

Our society does not have an antisemitism crisis. It doesn’t have a crisis of far left radicalism, Islamist extremism, support for terrorism, or fomenting of dissent by foreign powers.

Our society has a moral crisis. A cruelty crisis. An imperialism crisis. A militarism crisis. A propaganda crisis. An insincerity crisis. A stupidity crisis. An obedience crisis.

Empire managers and imperial spinmeisters try to pretend there’s some horrifying existential emergency involving hatred of Jews or love of Hamas or some other ridiculous nonsense in our society, because the empire too is in a state of crisis. People are waking up from its lullaby of propaganda and are rejecting its narrative manipulation like never before, which is why instead of relenting and accepting the empire’s destruction of Gaza, opposition to it is only growing stronger.

So the authorized custodians of imperial narratives flail around desperately trying to regain some control by spinning all the civil disobedience we are seeing in a way that makes it seem like some sort of problem which needs to be fixed. But as Howard Zinn said, “Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience.”

Our problem is not that more and more people are opposing Israel’s empire-backed atrocities in Gaza with more and more aggression, our problem is that people are not opposing it aggressively enough. Our problem is that too many people still have their minds jacked into the mainstream worldview and ignore the most urgent matter of our time, letting their thoughts be preoccupied with frivolous garbage and trusting that our leaders are doing what’s best for us.

Mainstream culture is so shallow, vapid and idiotic that when an artist rapped about this issue of unparalleled urgency, he included the line “I want a ceasefire, fuck a response from Drake” — and everyone knew what he meant. He meant mainstream culture is fixated on phony public spats between millionaire pop stars while the US empire funnels weapons of annihilation into Israel to be dropped on a giant concentration camp full of children. It says so much about this fraudulent dystopia we live in that such a thing would need to be said. But it did.

The problem isn’t that people are becoming too disobedient, the problem is that people remain too obedient. The problem isn’t that people are becoming too radicalized against their government, the problem is that people aren’t radicalized enough. The problem is that the freaks who rule over us are not sufficiently afraid of us. The problem is that we have not yet come to the collective realization that there are a whole lot more of us than there are of them, and that we don’t actually need to put up with them doing crazy and evil things right in front of our faces.

Instead people sit around drooling with their eyes fixed on screens full of endless diversion while children are ripped to shreds by western-supplied military explosives for no other reason than because they happen to belong to the wrong ethnic group.

That is the real crisis of our society. Not an imaginary antisemitism epidemic. Not college kids disobeying authority figures. Not leftists. Not anarchists. Not Islam. Not Hamas.

The real crisis in our society is that too many people are still blindly obedient to a murderous and tyrannical empire which should be hacked to pieces and scattered to the winds.

Prof. John Mearsheimer: How Will the War in Gaza End?

Israel calls on ‘civilised nations’ to boycott ICC arrest warrants against its leaders

Israel has urged what it called “nations of the civilised world” to refuse to implement any international criminal court arrest warrants issued against its leaders. ... What was widely interpreted in Israel as an equivalence between the named leaders of the Islamist group – Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’s chief in Gaza, Mohammed Deif, the commander of its military wing, and Qatar-based Ismail Haniyeh, leader of the political bureau – and democratically elected Israeli politicians was met with outrage by Israeli officials, the public, and the country’s allies.

On Tuesday, a government spokesperson, Tal Heinrich, said: “We call on the nations of the civilised, free world – nations who despise terrorists and anyone who supports them – to stand by Israel. You should outright condemn this step. “Make sure the ICC understands where you stand. Oppose the prosecutor’s decision and declare that, even if warrants are issued, you do not intend to enforce them. Because this is not about our leaders. It’s about our survival.”

Khan said on Monday that Israel had the right to defend itself from Hamas, but that it did not “absolve Israel or any state of its obligation to comply with international humanitarian law”. Whatever Israel’s military goals in Gaza, the prosecutor’s office believed its methods – “namely, intentionally causing death, starvation, great suffering, and serious injury to body or health of the civilian population” – were criminal, he added.

It has been known for some time that Khan’s investigation could result in arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Gallant and military officers. Last month, the Israeli prime minister flew into a public panic over the possibility and appealed to the G7 – and in particular the US, Israel’s most important ally – to intervene in any potential international legal action.

Monday’s statement from the chief prosecutor’s office nonetheless shocked the Israeli establishment, and has sparked a flurry of diplomatic damage control.

Sen Lindsey Graham: 'If ICC Does This To Israel, They Will Come For Us NEXT'

Blinken willing to work with Congress on potential sanctions against ICC

The Biden administration is willing to work with Congress to potentially impose sanctions against international criminal court officials over the prosecutor’s request for arrest warrants for Israeli leaders over the Gaza war, Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, said on Tuesday.

At a Senate appropriations subcommittee hearing, Republican Lindsey Graham told Blinken he wanted to see renewed US sanctions on the court in response to the move announced by ICC prosecutor Karim Khan on Monday.

“I want to take actions, not just words,” Graham said to Blinken. “Will you support [a] bipartisan effort to sanction the ICC, not only for the outrage against Israel but to protect, in the future, our own interest?”

“I welcome working with you on that,” Blinken said. ...

At an earlier hearing on Tuesday, Blinken said he would work with Congress on an appropriate response, calling the ICC’s move “profoundly wrong-headed”. It would complicate the prospects of reaching a hostage deal and a ceasefire in Israel’s conflict with Hamas, Blinken said.

"Collective Punishment": Israel Raids Jenin Camp in West Bank, Killing 8, "Shooting Everything"

Gallant Tells Sullivan Israel Will Escalate Military Operations in Rafah

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant made clear to US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan in a meeting in Israel on Monday that Israel will escalate in Rafah despite the White House’s supposed objection to a major military operation in the city.

“We are committed to broadening the ground operation in Rafah to the end of dismantling Hamas and recovering the hostages,” Gallant told Sullivan, according to a statement from the Israeli minister’s office.

President Biden has threatened consequences for Israel if it launched a major attack on “population centers” in Rafah, but he has not taken action as Israel continues to escalate its operations in the city.

Israeli soldiers and police tipping off groups that attack Gaza aid trucks

Individual members of Israel’s security forces are tipping off far-right activists and settlers to the location of aid trucks delivering vital supplies to Gaza, enabling the groups to block and vandalise the convoys, according to multiple sources.

Settlers intercepting the vital humanitarian supplies to the strip are receiving information about the location of the aid trucks from members of the Israeli police and military, a spokesperson from the main Israeli activist group behind the blockades told the Guardian.

The claim of collusion by members of the security forces is supported by messages from internal internet chat groups reviewed by the Guardian as well as accounts from a number of witnesses and human rights activists.

Those blocking the vehicles say the aid they carry is being diverted by Hamas instead of being delivered to civilians in need, a claim relief agencies reject. US officials have also said that Israel has offered no evidence to support allegations that Hamas is diverting aid.

A surprisingly halfway decent article from the NYT, perhaps worth a glance:

The Hardening of the Israeli Psyche

Israel has hardened, and the signs of it are in plain view. Dehumanizing language and promises of annihilation from military and political leaders. Polls that found wide support for the policies that have wreaked devastation and starvation in Gaza. Selfies of Israeli soldiers preening proudly in bomb-crushed Palestinian neighborhoods. A crackdown on even mild forms of dissent among Israelis.

The Israeli left — the factions who criticize the occupation of Palestinian lands and favor negotiations and peace instead — is now a withered stump of a once-vigorous movement. In recent years, the attitudes of many Israelis toward the “Palestinian problem” have ranged largely from detached fatigue to the hard-line belief that driving Palestinians off their land and into submission is God’s work.

This bleak ideological landscape emerged slowly and then, on Oct. 7, all at once. The massacre and kidnappings of that day, predictably, brought a public thirst for revenge. But in truth, by the time Hamas killers rampaged through the kibbutzim — in a bitter twist, home to some of the holdout peaceniks — many Israelis had long since come to regard Palestinians as a threat best locked away. America’s romantic mythology and wishful thinking about Israel encourages a tendency to see Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the main cause of the ruthlessness in Gaza, where Israel has killed more than 35,000 people. The unpopular, scandal-ridden, premier makes a convincing ogre in an oversimplified story.

But Israel’s slaughter in Gaza, the creeping famine, the wholesale destruction of neighborhoods — this, polling suggests, is the war the Israeli public wanted. A January survey found that 94 percent of Jewish Israelis believe the force being used against Gaza was appropriate, or even insufficient. In February, a poll found that most Jewish Israelis opposed food and medicine getting into Gaza. It was not Mr. Netanyahu alone but his war cabinet (including Benny Gantz, often invoked as the moderate alternative to Mr. Netanyahu) who unanimously rejected a Hamas deal to free Israeli hostages and, instead, to begin an assault on the city of Rafah, overflowing with displaced civilians.

“It’s so much easier to put everything on Netanyahu, because then you feel so good about yourself, and Netanyahu is the darkness,” said Gideon Levy, an Israeli journalist who has documented Israel’s military occupation for decades. “But the darkness is everywhere.”

Netanyahu FUMES As 3 More European Nations Recognize Palestinian Statehood

Ireland and Spain expected to reveal plans to formally recognise Palestinian state

Ireland and Spain are expected to announce plans to formally recognise a Palestinian state on Wednesday, according to multiple reports, amid warnings from Israel that recognition will “fuel extremism and instability”.

The three Irish government leaders – premier Simon Harris, deputy premier Micheál Martin and minister Eamon Ryan – are due to hold a press conference on Wednesday morning. They had earlier signalled the government would make the move to recognise Palestinian statehood by the end of May.

National public broadcaster RTÉ and the Irish Times both reported it was understood the decision to do so would be announced at the news conference.

The Guardian understands that Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, will also reveal a date for formal recognition on Wednesday, after announcing his intention last week to do so.

‘Israeli soldier’ from notorious unit confesses to US citizen’s killing

The Biden administration has balked after announcing plans to sanction five units of the Israeli military accused of wanton human rights abuses in the occupied West Bank. “Four of these units have effectively remediated these violations, which is what we expect partners to do,” the US State Department has claimed, referencing unknown efforts by Israel to hold its soldiers accountable.

The fifth, un-remediated unit appears to be Netzah Yehuda, an all-male unit of Orthodox Jewish nationalists which operates almost exclusively in the Ramallah district of the West Bank. This battalion stands accused of widespread crimes including sexual assault and beating at least three older men to death while they were lying on the ground in custody. 

In its most brazen instance of abuse, Netzah Yehuda soldiers detained an 78-year-old American citizen named Omar Asad in January 2022 near his home in Ramallah, then left him outdoors in harsh conditions, bound and blindfolded, until he died. Israeli authorities refused to charge the soldiers for Asad’s killing, opting instead for a disciplinary slap on the wrist while paying compensation to Asad’s family. ...

While the State Department claims to be “still deciding” whether to sanction Netzah Yehuda, The Grayzone has obtained testimony by an apparent veteran of the unit gleefully boasting about the killing of Asad. According to the self-described soldier’s account, the unit sadistically brutalized the elderly Palestinian American as punishment for supposedly interfering with a raid it was conducting at the time.

“This geezer who’s like trying to interfere with our operation, we’re going to like, fuck with him for a night,” the soldier said.

The self-proclaimed Netzah Yehuda member referred to Arabs as “murders, criminal animals,” while boasting that he enjoyed killing and torturing Palestinians, likening himself and members of his unit to Americans who photographed themselves with dead Japanese soldiers during World War II, “doing funny things with their bodies.”

Israeli Cops CAUGHT Tipping Off Gaza Aid Attackers

Israeli officials cancel decision to confiscate camera from US news agency

Israeli officials seized a camera and broadcasting equipment belonging to the Associated Press in southern Israel on Tuesday, before reversing course in the face of widespread condemnation from media groups and criticism from its closest ally, the United States. Officials had accused the US-based wire service, which has subscribers around the globe, of violating a new media law by providing images to Al Jazeera. ...

Officials from the communications ministry arrived at the AP location in the southern Israeli border town of Sderot on Tuesday afternoon and seized the equipment. They handed the news agency a piece of paper, signed by the communications minister, Shlomo Karhi, a member of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, alleging it was violating the country’s foreign broadcaster law. But in a statement late on Tuesday, Karhi said he had ordered officials to cancel the original decision and return the confiscated equipment, pending a decision by the Ministry of Defence, which he said wished to examine the issue.

The seizure, which Reporters Without Borders described as “outrageous censorship”, had prompted a wave of criticism from media organisations and politicians.

“The Associated Press decries in the strongest terms the actions of the Israeli government to shut down our longstanding live feed showing a view into Gaza and seize AP equipment,” said Lauren Easton, the vice-president of corporate communications at the news organisation. “The shutdown was not based on the content of the feed but rather an abusive use by the Israeli government of the country’s new foreign broadcaster law.

The White House said it was looking into the incident, which it described as concerning. ... The Israeli opposition leader, Yair Lapid, posted on “The confiscation of the equipment of AP, the largest news agency in the world … is an act of madness. This is not Al Jazeera, this is an American media outlet that has won 53 Pulitzer Prizes.”

"The New McCarthyism": Pro-Palestine Educators Face Censorship, Harassment & Firings Across U.S.

UN suspends Rafah aid distribution and warns US pier may fail

The United Nations has suspended food distribution in the southern Gaza city of Rafah due to lack of supplies and insecurity.

It also said no aid trucks have entered the territory in the past two days via a floating pier set up by the US for sea deliveries, and warned that the $320m (£250m) project may fail unless Israel starts providing the conditions humanitarian groups need to operate safely.

Several hundred thousand people remain in Rafah after the Israeli military launched an intensified assault there on 6 May, but relief agencies say food aid deliveries have been reduced to a trickle.

Abeer Etefa, a spokesperson for the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP), warned that “humanitarian operations in Gaza are near collapse”. She said that if food and other supplies do not resume entering Gaza “in massive quantities, famine-like conditions will spread”.

The main agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa, announced the suspension of distribution in Rafah in a post on X, without elaborating beyond citing the lack of supplies. UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said the Unrwa distribution centre and the WFP’s warehouses in Rafah were “inaccessible due to ongoing military operations.” When asked about the ramification of the suspension of distribution, Dujarric replied: “People don’t eat.”

How the EU is covering up the Palestinian genocide

House GOP Bill Would Give Benefits To Americans in the Israeli Military

A bill introduced in the House by Reps. Guy Reschenthaler (R-PA) and Max Miller (R-OH) would extend certain benefits for Americans serving in the US military to American citizens in the Israeli military.

The legislation, introduced on May 17, would give Americans in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) protections under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA) and Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA)

The SCRA protects US service members from civil legal action while they’re on active duty and for up to a year after. The USERRA protects the civilian employment of active and reserve military personnel when they’re called to active duty.

“Over 20,000 American citizens are currently defending Israel from Hamas terrorists, risking their lives for the betterment of our ally,” Reschenthaler said in a statement on the legislation.

Militaristic EU - Clare Daly, Mick Wallace, Alexander Mercouris & Glenn Diesen

‘You feel like you’re in prison’: workers claim Amazon’s surveillance violates labor law

Amazon has been accused of using “intrusive algorithms” as part of a sweeping surveillance program to monitor and deter union organizing activities. Workers at a warehouse run by the technology giant on the outskirts of St Louis, Missouri, are today filing an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). ...

There have been several reports of Amazon surveilling workers over union organizing and activism, including human resources monitoring employee message boards, software to track union threats and job listings for intelligence analysts to monitor “labor organizing threats”. ...

Artificial intelligence can be used by warehouse employers like Amazon “to essentially have 24/7 unregulated and algorithmically processed and recorded video, and often audio data of what their workers are doing all the time”, said Seema N Patel, a fellow and lecturer at Stanford Law School. “It enables employers to control, record, monitor and use that data to discipline hundreds of thousands of workers in a way that no human manager or group of managers could even do.”

Taylor said: “Amazon tracks our every move. They know every move you make, when you’re working, when you’re not working. They surveil you with their cameras. Managers surveil you with their laptops because they can pull up your profile and a bar changes a certain color when you’re not active …

“Every move you make is being tracked, so you feel uncomfortable, and you’re not able to really communicate with your co-workers about the unsafe work environment you’re in, or the inhumane working conditions because of the dangerous rates that are so high that we must meet quotas.”

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Thomas Massie CURBSTOMPS AIPAC In Key Election

“Nothing We’re Doing To Stop Trump Is Working!” - Screams Clinton Advisor

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Top oil firms’ climate pledges failing on almost every metric, report finds

Major oil companies have in recent years made splashy climate pledges to cut their greenhouse gas emissions and take on the climate crisis, but a new report suggests those plans do not stand up to scrutiny.

The research and advocacy group Oil Change International examined climate plans from the eight largest US- and European-based international oil and gas producers – BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Eni, Equinor, ExxonMobil, Shell and TotalEnergies – and found none were compatible with limiting global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels – a threshold scientists have long warned could have dire consequences if breached.

“There is no evidence that big oil and gas companies are acting seriously to be part of the energy transition,” David Tong, global industry campaign manager at Oil Change International, who co-authored the analysis, said in a statement. ... The report’s authors used 10 criteria and ranked each aspect of each company’s plan on a spectrum from “fully aligned” to “grossly insufficient” and found all eight companies ranked “grossly insufficient” or “insufficient” on nearly all criteria.

The US firms Chevron, ConocoPhillips and ExxonMobil each ranked “grossly insufficient” on all 10 criteria. “American fossil-fuel corporations are the worst of the worst,” Allie Rosenbluth, US program manager at Oil Change International, said in a statement. ...

The authors also found that the companies’ current oil and gas extraction plans could lead to more than 2.4C of global temperature rise, which would probably usher in climate devastation. The eight firms alone are on track to use 30% of the world’s remaining global carbon budget to keep global average temperature rise to 1.5C, the study found.

States have legal duty to cut greenhouse emissions, says top maritime court

Greenhouse gases are pollutants that are wrecking the marine environment, and states have a legal responsibility to control them, an international court has stated in a landmark moment for climate justice. Wealthy nations must cut their emissions faster than their developing peers, the court also decided.

The statements were part of an advisory opinion on climate change issued on Tuesday by the international tribunal for the law of the sea (Itlos). The tribunal is responsible for interpreting and upholding the 1982 UN convention on the law of the sea (Unclos), an international treaty representing 169 countries. It is the first time such a document has been issued by an international court.

Eselealofa Apinelu, the attorney general of Tuvalu, said it was a historic moment for small island states in their quest for climate justice. “It is an important first step in holding the major polluters accountable for the sake of all humankind.” The opinion was requested by the Commission of Small Island States on Climate Change and International Law (Cosis), a group of nine Caribbean and Pacific island nations led by Antigua and Barbuda and Tuvalu, who are particularly vulnerable to climate breakdown and had become frustrated with the pace of international talks.

In its unanimous opinion, the tribunal stated that the oceans are warming and becoming more acidic as a direct result of carbon dioxide emitted from human activities, resulting in harm to living resources and marine life, hazards to human health and hindrance to marine activities such as fishing.

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Also of Interest

Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.

Chris Hedges: The Slow-Motion Execution of Julian Assange Continues

US Cheered ICC Arrest Warrants for Putin's Crimes. Not So for Netanyahu's

Israel’s Crimes Far Worse Than Hamas’

Blinken orders crackdown on Israel-Hamas leaks

The Chilling Testimony of a U.S. Neurosurgeon Who Went to Gaza to Save Lives

A Kharkiv Encirclement As Dreamed Up By 'Sources'

Saudi Arabia Implicated in New 9/11 Evidence

Outbreak of severe thunderstorms predicted for large areas of the US

EPA announces $300m funding to clean up US former industrial sites

Milky Way photographer of the year 2024 – in pictures

Police Violently Raid UMich Gaza Solidarity Camp Before School President Testifies in Congress

UK Court HUMILIATES Biden In New Assange Ruling

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A Little Night Music

Blind Boys of Alabama - Higher Ground

Blind Boys of Alabama - Nobody's Fault But Mine

The Blind Boys of Alabama - Too Close to Heaven

The Blind Boys of Alabama - Way Down In The Hole

Blind Boys Of Alabama - Stand By Me

Blind Boys Of Alabama - People Get Ready

The Blind Boys of Alabama featuring Mavis Staples - Born in Bethlehem

Blind Boys of Alabama - I Shall Not Be Moved

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