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14 April 21
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Andy Borowitz | Biden Tells Putin He Must Return His Oval Office Keys
Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker
Borowitz writes: "In a phone conversation that the White House characterized as 'frank,' President Biden told the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, that he had to return his Oval Office keys."
The article below is satire. Andy Borowitz is an American comedian and New York Times-bestselling author who satirizes the news for his column, "The Borowitz Report." 
n a phone conversation that the White House characterized as “frank,” President Biden told the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, that he had to return his Oval Office keys.
Putin, who reportedly has had the keys since 2017, was taken aback by Biden’s demand, sources said.
“Look, pal, if you want to have a summit meeting, you’re gonna have to give back the keys,” Biden reportedly told the Russian. “Those are the rules of the road.”
Despite Putin’s response, which was described as “frosty,” sources indicated that Biden refused to give ground.
“Don’t get all mopey now, champ,” Biden said. “You had a good run.”
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Officer Rusten Sheskey 'was found to have been acting within policy and will not be subjected to discipline,' the Kenosha, Wis., police chief said, following a review of the shooting of Jacob Blake. (photo: AP)
Rusten Sheskey, Kenosha Officer Who Shot Jacob Blake, Will Not Face Discipline
Laurel Wamsley, NPR
Wamsley writes: "Kenosha, Wis., police said Tuesday that Rusten Sheskey, the police officer who shot Jacob Blake last summer, has been found to have acted within the law and department policy."
In August, Sheskey fired seven shots at close range at the back of Blake, a Black man, as Blake walked away from the officer and toward a parked vehicle where two of his young children were sitting. Six of those shots struck Blake, who was left paralyzed. The shooting touched off major protests in the Wisconsin city.
Chief Daniel Miskinis said the use-of-force incident had been investigated by an outside agency and reviewed by independent experts. The Kenosha County District Attorney's Office announced in January that no charges would be brought against Sheskey.
"He acted within the law and was consistent with training," Miskinis said in a statement Tuesday. "This incident was also reviewed internally. Officer Sheskey was found to have been acting within policy and will not be subjected to discipline."
Sheskey is now back on the job, having returned from administrative leave on March 31, Miskinis said.
Miskinis said he recognizes that "some will not be pleased with the outcome; however, given the facts, the only lawful and appropriate decision was made."
Blake filed a lawsuit in March against Sheskey alleging the use of excessive force.
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Former Brooklyn Center police officer Kimberly A. Potter. (photo: Star Tribune)
Officer Will Face Second-Degree Manslaughter Charge in Killing of Daunte Wright
Matt McKinney, The Star Tribune
McKinney writes: "Former Brooklyn Center police officer Kimberly A. Potter was arrested late Wednesday morning at the offices of the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, the agency said in a statement."
The charge carries maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.
Potter, who resigned from the police department on Tuesday, will be booked into Hennepin County jail on a charge of probable cause second-degree manslaughter in the shooting death on Sunday of Daunte Wright, according to the BCA. The Washington County Attorney's office was expected to file charges later in the day.
It's at least the third time that a U.S. law enforcement officer will face criminal charges for killing someone in what they claim or what appears to be a mix-up between a gun and a Taser.
A 73-year-old volunteer reserve deputy in Oklahoma was charged with second-degree manslaughter in the 2015 death of Eric Harris. Bay Area Rapid Transit police officer Johannes Mehserle was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in a jury trial and sentenced to two years in prison for the 2009 shooting of Oscar Grant III.
Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman referred the case to Washington County Attorney Pete Orput under a practice adopted last year among metro area county attorney's offices for deadly police shootings. It calls for the county attorney in the jurisdiction where the shooting took place to refer the case to one of the other counties, or the state Attorney General's Office, to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest.
The BCA investigated the shooting.
Potter, 48, joined the Brooklyn Center police force in 1995 at age 22. She was placed on standard administrative leave following the shooting.
She is being represented by attorney Earl Gray, who was not immediately available for comment.
Attorney Ben Crump, who said he and co-counsel Jeff Storms have been retained by Wright's family, issued a statement Wednesday calling the charges welcome.
"While we appreciate that the district attorney is pursuing justice for Daunte, no conviction can give the Wright family their loved one back. This was no accident. This was an intentional, deliberate, and unlawful use of force," the statement read. "Driving while Black continues to result in a death sentence. A 26-year veteran of the force knows the difference between a taser and a firearm."
Potter was training in a new officer on Sunday at about 2 p.m. when she and two officers stopped a car near N. 63rd and Orchard avenues in Brooklyn Center. Former Brooklyn Center police chief Tim Gannon, who also resigned Tuesday, told media that officers stopped Wright's car because it had an expired tag, and when they checked his name found he had a warrant.
Hennepin County District Court records show a warrant was issued April 2 for Wright after he failed to make his first court appearance on a case filed in March of carrying a pistol without a permit, a gross misdemeanor, and fleeing police, a misdemeanor.
In bodycam footage released by the Brooklyn Center Police Department, Wright is seen getting out of his car during the stop and standing near the open driver's door as one of the officers pulls out handcuffs. A few moments later, Wright starts to struggle with the officers and gets back into his car. Potter shouts "Taser!" three times before firing a single bullet, then says "Holy shit. I just shot him."
With Wright in the driver's seat, the car pulls away. The car crashed a short distance away when it hit another vehicle. Wright died at the scene. The Hennepin County Medical Examiner's Office said Wright died of a gunshot wound to the chest and labeled his death a homicide.
Law enforcement on Tuesday erected concrete barricades and tall metal fencing around the perimeter of Potter's multilevel home in Champlin. Two police cars guarded the driveway behind fortified fences marked with signs reading "Caution: Lasers in Use." Her street was lined with paper "No Parking" signs and blocked to nonresidential traffic. Motorists entering the area were greeted by a buzzing cellphone alert from local police to "expect protest activity in your neighborhood over the next few days."
At the home of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin last spring, protesters defaced his property in the aftermath of George Floyd's death, scrawling "Murderer" in red paint on the driveway.
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Residents of the small town of Ajo, Ariz., are seen volunteering to help an influx of migrants on April 1, 2021. (photo: Ash Ponders/The Intercept)
"It's Consumed Our Lives": Volunteers Step in as Border Patrol Drops Migrants Off in Tiny Arizona Towns
Ryan Devereaux, The Intercept
Devereaux writes: "A change in Border Patrol policies is straining human aid networks in one of the deadliest areas along the border."
he families sat in folding chairs under a white canopy in a tiny park north of the central plaza. A small group of volunteers dressed head to toe in medical scrubs stood at a table nearby, gray hair protruding from behind their plastic face shields. Many of the children wore winter coats and knit caps. Their parents looked tired but present, their overstuffed backpacks resting in the grass beside them.
Guadalupe Alvarez, a fluent Spanish speaker, provided the orientation. The first order of business was letting the families know where they were: Ajo, Arizona, a tiny unincorporated community in the heart of the Sonoran Desert.
“I tell them that it’s two hours from here to their next destination, but that they’ll be here for about an hour, in which time they’ll do the Covid testing, and we’ll bring them some snacks, and we can go to the restroom if they’d like,” Alvarez told me. From there, Ajo’s ad-hoc processing system began.
The drop-offs of asylum-seekers in Southern Arizona began roughly a month after President Joe Biden’s inauguration. Justified by U.S. Customs and Border Protection as a response to capacity and resource issues, the off-loading in rural communities is one example of the Biden administration doubling down and in some ways intensifying a controversial Trump-era practice on the border. Under President Donald Trump, large groups of asylum-seekers were for a time released in the western city of Yuma, creating major strains on the community. Under Biden, similar releases are now happening in communities a fraction of the size of Yuma and with far fewer resources, creating a fraught and untenable situation for humanitarian aid providers in some of the border’s deadliest areas.
The Intercept observed two rounds of drop-offs in Ajo recently and spoke to community members involved in the response effort. The process works like this: Prior to the drop-offs, CBP, the agency that oversees the Border Patrol, provides Casa Alitas and the International Rescue Committee, the organizations that oversee the primary migrant shelters in Tucson and Phoenix, respectively, and volunteers on the ground with a rough count of how many asylum-seekers to expect. There are typically two drops in Ajo, one in the morning and one in the late afternoon.
Volunteers, some of them elderly retirees, assemble to conduct rapid Covid-19 tests on the spot. Testing is followed by food and an opportunity to sit in an air-conditioned auditorium, eat volunteer-prepared food, and connect to Wi-Fi. From Ajo, the families and individuals are loaded onto rented vans and driven hours away to Tucson or Phoenix, families generally going to the former and single adults going to the latter. If someone tests positive for Covid-19 during the process, which as of April 1 had happened three times, they are separated from the larger group, and a volunteer drives them to the shelter on their own.
Surrounded by a vast expanse of desert, Ajo is the lone population center in one of the deadliest corridors for migrants in all of Southern Arizona. With record-setting heat last year, the state saw more migrant remains recovered in the desert than any year in the past decade. Many of those remains were found in the desert outside Ajo.
John Orlowski, a longtime volunteer with the Ajo Samaritans, the town’s most active humanitarian organization, said the size of the groups has been steadily increasing, with the largest group to arrive so far numbering 40 people. Initially, volunteers themselves were footing the bill to charter transportation to Tucson. Recently, Pima County’s Board of Supervisors secured a contract to cover those costs, which the Federal Emergency Management Agency is expected to reimburse.
As we watched a drop-off unfolding one morning, Orlowski noted that volunteers have encountered multiple cases of families who were separated during processing at the border, with some members turned away.
The rural drop-offs in Southern Arizona are one facet of the complicated and often confusing enforcement dynamics playing out across the border right now. The Biden administration is currently continuing Title 42, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention rule pushed through by Trump immigration adviser Stephen Miller that has allowed Border Patrol agents to carry out more than half a million “expulsions” across the Southwest in the past year. The expulsions do not involve a hearing, and they are often completed in a just a couple hours.
As Biden made clear in his first press conference as president, his administration would prefer to use the rule to expel all families who cross the border, but the Mexican government’s refusal to accept certain populations has presented challenges to that effort.
Asylum-seekers are not exempt under Title 42, and up until November, neither were unaccompanied children: The Trump administration expelled at least 13,000 unaccompanied kids using the rule. There’s currently little observable consistency in who, beyond unaccompanied children, is currently being exempted from expulsions. The demographics of rural drop-offs in Arizona’s section of the border, however, indicate that individuals from South America and the Caribbean — particularly Venezuelans, Cubans, and Brazilians — are faring better in being permitted entry than Central Americans and Mexicans.
“It’s always excused with paperwork,” Orlowski said of the family separations created by Title 42. “Today, none of these people had paperwork. They forgot.”
The Border Patrol had failed to provide the families before us with paperwork that would establish that they were authorized to be in the country. If volunteers had not caught the oversight, Orlowski said, “the likelihood of us sending them to Tucson and then figuring out how to get the paperwork to them and not making a mistake would have been pretty low.”
The official who was dispatched to deliver the missing documents to the waiting asylum-seekers arrived wearing plainclothes, including a pendant version of “Thor’s Hammer,” a symbol of Norse mythology sometimes appropriated by white supremacists and other extremists, as well as a Grunt Style T-shirt that read “For the Great Taste of Freedom: 100% Bacon.” The man, who wore no mask, proceeded to mix up which children belonged to which parents, and when one of the women pointed this out to him, in Spanish, he told her he did not understand what she was saying, in English.
While volunteers administered rapid Covid-19 tests, I spoke to a Venezuelan father who had come to the border with his 8-year-old son. He said he was feeling “better” and “safer” now that they were in the U.S. The aim was to reunite with the boy’s mother, he explained, who was already living in the U.S. There was nothing left for them in Venezuela. “There’s no future,” the man said. Venezuelans currently constitute one of the largest populations of displaced people on the planet.
With their Covid-19 tests coming back negative, the man and his child were led into the auditorium. A volunteer lent him her phone so he could deliver the news.
The first murmurings that CBP was considering the change in policy started at the beginning of the year. Agency officials told Southern Arizona stakeholders that under the 1982 Antideficiency Act, which bars federal agencies from using resources for activities outside the scope of their congressional mandate, the Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector would no longer drive people apprehended in the desert beyond the nearest inhabited place; historically, the agency has maintained custody through transportation to cities such as Tucson or Phoenix.
A CBP official speaking to The Intercept on background in March said a lack of legally available resources was indeed part of the shift in policy, as was a federal court injunction ordering the Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector to provide individuals in custody for more than 48 hours with items such as clean blankets, soap, and access to medical care.
Southern Arizona, and Ajo in particular, has a long history of humanitarian aid, reaching back to the Sanctuary Movement of the 1980s. As it has for decades, that community has stepped up in response to the ever shifting, always punishing realities of U.S. border enforcement, but efforts to respond to the daily drop-offs are clearly taking a toll.
For those on the ground, CBP’s justifications for the shift in practice are difficult to square. The Border Patrol station outside Ajo is a state-of-the-art facility utilized by hundreds of personnel. CBP has an air fleet roughly as large as the Brazilian air force. Ajo, by comparison, is a community of about 3,700 people with no local government and no hospital. Nestled in one of the most unforgiving ecosystems in the American Southwest, it is officially considered a “federally designated colonia” due to the absence of resources, money, and infrastructure.
“The frustrating thing is this was never an issue back in 2019 — DHS was able to fund and get people to the larger cities of Tucson and Phoenix,” Diego Piña Lopez, the program manager of Casa Alitas, told me after his first visit to observe the operations in Ajo. The Casa Alitas shelter provided services to some 18,000 people that year. In recent weeks, CBP has told local officials to expect an even bigger influx this year, though so far in Arizona that has yet to happen. Prior to the shift in policy, the pandemic had already put an enormous strain on aid providers, Piña said: “If DHS does testing and transportation, that would take a load off of the shelters.”
The city of Yuma, population 100,000, has experienced large-scale CBP drop-offs before. In 2019, Republican Mayor Douglas Nicholls declared a state of emergency in response to the practice. At the time, Nicholls relied heavily on local nonprofits to provide the humanitarian response on the ground. Two years later, those same organizations are struggling to keep the lights on.
“Our nonprofits have been decimated, in a lot of ways, by Covid,” Nicholls told me. “They don’t have the resources they used to have.”
Yuma has received “well over 2,000” asylum-seekers since February, Nicholls said, with drops of roughly 50 people at a time — families and single adults — continuing on a daily basis. “I have reached out to the White House, and they reached out to DHS, and we had a meeting where they sent FEMA and DHS health officials to Yuma,” Nicholls added.
Programs to reimburse the city for transportation are being set up, he said, but that’s money down the line, not money right now, when it’s most needed. Despite his requests, Nicholls has received no indication from the White House if or when the desert drop-offs will stop. Requiring strained communities to shoulder thousands of dollars in costs every day is “not sustainable,” he said. What’s needed is an orderly, lawful way for people to seek asylum, the mayor argued, and a recognition that people in migration are the targets of systemic violence and exploitation.
“That should shake us to our core,” Nicholls said. “And it shouldn’t matter how you’re registered to vote.”
The shift in CBP’s posture in Ajo is particularly ironic. In 2017, an agent at the local Border Patrol station — nicknamed “Rambo” — concluded that a local retiree named Mimi Phillips was using humanitarian aid as a cover for a rare version of nonprofit human smuggling. Thus began a sweeping crackdown on humanitarian aid providers in Ajo in which nine volunteers were charged with federal crimes for leaving food and water for migrants in the desert. In the most serious case, Scott Warren, an Ajo-based geographer who devoted his time to searching for missing and deceased migrants, faced 20 years in prison for providing two Central Americans with food, water, and a place to sleep. The government’s case collapsed after nearly two years, and Warren was acquitted of all charges.
Today, the same agency that brought those charges is turning to that same network to provide aid to asylum-seekers. Phillips is making food for them.
So far, the cost for the materials has been covered by private donors, Phillips explained as she and group of volunteers put together a week’s worth of meals one afternoon. Some of those donors include individuals who dipped into their Covid-19 relief money.
“We’re hoping, someday, to get government support — I mean, what do communities do?” Phillips asked. “We don’t want hundreds of people just roaming the streets of Ajo wondering what the hell they’re doing here and how we’re going to get out of here.”
The temperatures in the desert are already rising, and as Philipps noted, Ajo’s aging volunteer base can only stand in the heat for so long. Burnout is setting in.
“People are tired,” she said. “It’s consumed our lives.”
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Protesters call to count every vote in 2020 election in Detroit, Michaign. (photo: Jeff Kowalksky/Getty)
Detroit Automakers Just Blasted the Michigan GOP's Voter Suppression Plans
Cameron Joseph, VICE
Joseph writes: "Ford, General Motors, and dozens of other companies put out a joint statement, writing that it was their responsibility to speak up."
ichigan’s largest and most iconic companies aren’t happy that their state’s Republicans are trying to make it harder to vote.
Ford, General Motors, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Quicken Loans, and more than 30 of Michigan’s other largest companies put out a joint statement Tuesday opposing voting restrictions that Republicans are looking to rush into law.
"We represent Michigan’s largest companies, many of which operate on a national basis. We feel a responsibility to add our voice as changes are proposed to voting laws in Michigan and other states," the statement said.
The announcement, obtained by the Detroit News, outlines a number of shared principles:
- The right to vote is a sacred, inviolable right of American citizens.
- Democracy is strongest when participation is greatest.
- Safe and secure voting options are vital.
- Government must support equitable access to the ballot.
- Government must avoid actions that reduce participation in elections, particularly among historically disenfranchised communities.
- Election laws must be developed in a bipartisan fashion.
The joint statement comes as Republicans look to ram through voting restrictions in Michigan and other states across the nation, spurred on by former President Trump’s lies that the 2020 election was stolen. Civil rights groups and Democrats are pushing large companies to publicly oppose voter suppression efforts.
Their response shows how much the political winds have shifted on this issue: Ford, GM, and Quicken were all major donors to President Trump’s 2017 inauguration fund. Large companies have historically tried to avoid controversial political issues, so the latest foray into voting rights is a major shift. The real test will be whether these companies put their money where their mouths are: If they refuse to donate to Republicans who back these efforts, it will matter a lot more than a statement.
Dozens of major corporate CEOs met via Zoom over the weekend to discuss how to respond to a rash of GOP voter-suppression efforts. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, Republican state legislators have introduced at least 361 different bills that would restrict voting access in 47 different states.
The statement from the Michigan companies is a major warning to state Republicans. The GOP-controlled state Senate plans to begin hearings on a number of voting-related bills on Wednesday. That legislation includes new requirements for voters to mail in a copy of their ID with their ballot application, a ban on the state sending out mail ballot application forms unless voters request them, a shorter deadline for returning ballots by mail, measures that would bar local clerks from paying postage on absentee ballots, and restrictions on dropboxes.
Michigan’s Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer, vehemently opposes those efforts. But Michigan Republicans plan to try to use a loophole in state law that would prevent Whitmer from vetoing their legislation. If they can get 340,000 signatures on a petition to consider the legislation, the Legislature can pass a bill that Whitmer can’t block.
Michigan voters passed a constitutional amendment by a two-to-one margin in 2018 to allow mail voting in the state. The GOP’s current legislation would be a major rollback of those efforts.
Michigan companies aren’t the only ones to go public about their opposition to state GOP bills that restrict voting, but they are part of what appears to be a new strategy to speak up when it’s early enough to matter.
After Georgia Republicans quickly passed a law that created new voting restrictions, local behemoths Delta and Coca Cola condemned the effort—but it was too little, too late. Activists are now trying to make sure the same doesn’t happen in dozens of other states where Republicans are pushing restrictive laws that would make it harder to vote.
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Palestinian laborers head home after their work day on construction projects in the West Bank Jewish settlement of Efrat, Tuesday, March 16, 2021. (photo: Maya Alleruzzo/AP)
Trump-Era Spike in Israeli Settlement Growth Has Only Begun
Associated Press
Excerpt: "An aggressive Israeli settlement spree during the Trump era pushed deeper than ever into the occupied West Bank - territory the Palestinians seek for a state - with over 9,000 homes built and thousands more in the pipeline, an AP investigation showed."
If left unchallenged by the Biden administration, the construction boom could make fading hopes for an internationally backed two-state solution — Palestine alongside Israel — even more elusive.
Satellite images and data obtained by The Associated Press document for the first time the full impact of the policies of then-President Donald Trump, who abandoned decades-long U.S. opposition to the settlements and proposed a Mideast plan that would have allowed Israel to keep them all — even those deep inside the West Bank.
Although the Trump plan has been scrapped, the lasting legacy of construction will make it even harder to create a viable Palestinian state. President Joe Biden’s administration supports the two-state solution but has given no indication on how it plans to promote it.
The huge number of projects in the pipeline, along with massive development of settlement infrastructure, means Biden would likely need to rein in Israel to keep the two-state option alive. While Biden has condemned settlement activity, U.S. officials have shown no appetite for such a clash as they confront more urgent problems. These include the coronavirus crisis, tensions with China and attempting to revive the international nuclear deal with Iran — another major sticking point with Israel.
At the same time, Israel will likely continue to be led by a settlement hawk. In the wake of yet another inconclusive Israeli election, either Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or one of his right-wing challengers is poised to head the government, making a construction slowdown improbable.
Hanan Ashrawi, a veteran Palestinian spokeswoman, called the Trump administration a “partner in crime” with Netanyahu. She said Biden would have to go beyond traditional condemnations and take “very serious steps of accountability” to make a difference.
“It needs a bit of courage and backbone and willingness to invest,” she said.
According to Peace Now, an anti-settlement watchdog group, Israel built over 9,200 new homes in the West Bank during the Trump presidency. On an annual average, that was roughly a 28% increase over the level of construction during the Obama administration, which pressed Israel to rein in building.
Perhaps even more significant was the location of the construction. According to Peace Now, 63% of the homes built last year were in outlying settlements that would likely be evacuated in any peace agreement. Over 10% of the construction in recent years took place in isolated outposts that are not officially authorized, but quietly encouraged by the Israeli government.
“What we’re seeing is the ongoing policy of de facto annexation,” said Hagit Ofran, a Peace Now researcher. “Israel is doing its utmost to annex the West Bank and to treat it as if it’s part of Israel without leaving a scope for a Palestinian state.”
Israel has also laid the groundwork for a massive construction boom in the years to come, advancing plans for 12,159 settler homes in 2020. That was the highest number since Peace Now started collecting data in 2012. It usually takes one to three years for construction to begin after a project has been approved.
Unlike his immediate predecessors, who largely confined settlement construction to major blocs that Israel expects to keep in any peace agreement, Netanyahu has encouraged construction in remote areas deep inside the West Bank, further scrambling any potential blueprint for resolving the conflict.
Settler advocates have repeatedly said that it would take several years for Trump’s support to manifest in actual construction. Peace Now said that trend is now in its early stages and expected to gain steam.
“2020 was really the first year where everything that was being built was more or less because of what was approved at the beginning of the Trump presidency,” said Peace Now spokesman Brian Reeves. “It’s the settlement approvals that are actually more important than construction.”
Israel captured the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip — territories the Palestinians want for their future state — in the 1967 Mideast war. It withdrew from Gaza in 2005 but has cemented its control over east Jerusalem — which it unilaterally annexed — and the West Bank.
Nearly 500,000 Israeli settlers live in some 130 settlements and dozens of unauthorized outposts, according to official figures. That amounts to roughly 15% of the total population in the West Bank. In addition, over 200,000 Jewish Israelis live in east Jerusalem, which is also home to over 300,000 Palestinians.
The Biden administration says it is opposed to any actions by Israel or the Palestinians that harm peace efforts. “We believe, when it comes to settlement activity, that Israel should refrain from unilateral steps that exacerbate tensions and that undercut efforts to advance a negotiated two-state solution,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said this month.
Continued settlement growth could meanwhile bolster the case against Israel at the International Criminal Court, which launched an investigation into possible war crimes in the Palestinian territories last month. Israel appears to be vulnerable on the settlement issue because international law forbids the transfer of civilians into lands seized by force.
Israel and its Western allies have rejected it as baseless and biased. Israel is not a member of the court, but any potential ICC warrants could put Israeli officials at risk of arrest abroad.
___
UNPRECEDENTED SUPPORT
The settlements are scattered across the West Bank, running the gamut from small hilltop clusters of tents and mobile homes to full-fledged towns with residential neighborhoods, shopping malls and in one case, a university. Every Israeli government has presided over the expansion of settlements, even at the height of the peace process in the 1990s.
The Palestinians view the settlements as a violation of international law and an obstacle to peace, a position with wide international support. Israel considers the West Bank to be the historical and biblical heartland of the Jewish people and says any partition should be agreed on in negotiations.
The two sides have not held serious talks in more than a decade, in part because the Palestinians view the continued expansion of settlements as a sign of bad faith.
Trump took unprecedented steps to support Israel’s territorial claims, including recognizing Jerusalem as its capital and moving the U.S. Embassy there. His Mideast plan, which overwhelmingly favored Israel, was adamantly rejected by the Palestinians.
Trump’s Mideast team was led by prominent supporters of the settlements and maintained close ties to settlement leaders throughout his tenure.
He remains popular in Efrat, a built-up settlement in the rolling hills south of Jerusalem that is expanding toward the north into the outskirts of the Palestinian city of Bethlehem.
“You keep using the term settlement,” said Moti Kellner, a retiree who has lived in the area since 1986. “Walk around, does this look like something that’s a camp, with tents and settling? It’s a city!” He described Trump’s policies as “very good, if they’re not overturned.”
Efrat’s mayor, Oded Revivi, says Trump’s legacy can be seen more in the increased approval of projects than in actual construction.
“When Trump got elected, the table was basically empty, with no building plans which were approved,” he said. More importantly, he credits Trump with accepting the legitimacy of settlements, “instead of battling with the reality that has been created on the ground.”
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THE FEAR OF LOSING YOUR PLACE
Thousands of Palestinians work in the settlements, where wages are much higher than in areas administered by the Palestinian Authority, and on a personal basis, many get along well with their Jewish employers and co-workers.
“We do know how to live alongside one another, we do know how to build a peaceful relationship,” says Revivi.
But most Palestinians view the growth of settlements as a slow and steady encroachment — not only on their hopes for a state, but on their immediate surroundings. As the years roll by, they watch as the gated settlements spill down hillsides, roads are closed or diverted, and terraced olive groves and spring-fed valleys come to feel like hostile territory.
Most Palestinians in the West Bank live in cities like Ramallah, Bethlehem, Nablus and Hebron, which are administered by the Palestinian Authority under interim peace agreements signed in the 1990s. Those cities are all largely surrounded by settlements, settlement infrastructure and closed military zones. Hebron has a Jewish settlement in the heart of its Old City.
Palestinians know to steer clear of settlements. Farmers who tend lands near them risk being beaten or pelted with rocks by the so-called Hilltop Youth and other Jewish extremists. Rights groups have documented dozens of attacks in recent months and say the Israeli military often turns a blind eye. Palestinians have also carried out attacks inside settlements, including the killing of a mother of six who was out jogging in December.
Around a kilometer (mile) north of Efrat, in an area administered by the PA, is a cultural and historical site popularly known as Solomon’s Pools, a network of spring-fed stone reservoirs and canals with ruins dating back more than 2,000 years.
Every few months, dozens of settlers — escorted by Israeli troops — break into the site and force out Palestinian visitors or renovation workers, according to George Bossous, CEO of the company that manages the site and an adjacent convention center.
“You always fear that you are losing more and more of your place,” he said. “To live together means you need to take care of everyone and give rights for all.”
Fatima Brijiyah heads the local council in al-Masara, a Palestinian village southeast of Efrat. The 70-year-old grandmother remembers wandering its hills in her youth, when she and her brother would ride on their father’s donkey when he went to fetch water from a nearby well.
The well is still there, but she says it’s too close to the settlement for Palestinians to visit it safely.
“You feel the pain of not being able to go there now, even just to look,” she said. “You feel that everything about the occupation is wrong.”
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POINT OF NO RETURN?
Some critics say the U.S. focus on managing the conflict instead of resolving it has led to a point of no return. They say that there are so many settlements across the West Bank that it is impossible to create a viable Palestinian state. Others argue that Israel has become a single apartheid state in which millions of Palestinians are denied basic rights afforded to Jews.
Peace Now says that — at least in a logistical sense — a partition deal remains possible.
Under a two-state solution based on past proposals, up to 80% of the settlers could stay where they are. Many of the largest settlements are close to the 1967 lines and could be incorporated into Israel in mutually agreed land swaps.
That means at least 100,000 Jewish settlers, and likely more, would have to relocate or live inside a Palestinian state. Some 2 million Palestinians live inside Israel, where they have citizenship, including the right to vote.
“From a logistical standpoint, it’s very possible,” Reeves said. “From a political standpoint, that’s where the trick is.”
Most experts agree that a negotiated two-state solution would require an Israeli government with a mandate to make historic concessions, a united Palestinian leadership able to do the same and a powerful external mediator like the U.S. that could strong-arm both sides.
None of those three elements exist now or will in the foreseeable future.
Israelis are deeply divided over Netanyahu’s leadership, but a strong majority appears to support the settlements and are opposed to a Palestinian state. Those voters back right-wing parties that won 72 seats in the 120-member Knesset last month.
The Palestinians are geographically and political divided between the Western-backed Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and the Islamic militant group Hamas ruling the Gaza Strip. The Palestinians have not held a vote in more than 15 years, and elections planned for the coming months could be called off.
The last five U.S. presidents have tried and failed to resolve the conflict. The Obama administration scolded Israel over its settlements, while Trump unabashedly supported them. Neither made any headway in resolving the conflict with the Palestinians.
Biden, who has devoted much of his nearly 50-year political career to foreign policy, knows this well. His administration has signaled it hopes to manage the conflict, not resolve it.
“The question is, can there be momentum? There won’t be peace, but can there be momentum in these next four to eight years?” Reeves said.
“If there is, then I think a two-state solution is very much alive. If there’s not, and there’s another 100,000 settlers added, it just makes it that much harder to make peace.”
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Part of a roughly 245-mile sea wall near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. (photo: James Whitlow Delano/The New York Times)
Japan to Release Fukushima Wastewater Into the Pacific
Olivia Rosane, EcoWatch
Rosane writes: "Japan will release radioactive wastewater from the failed Fukushima nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean, the government announced on Tuesday."
The water will be treated before release, and the International Atomic Energy Agency said the country's plans were in keeping with international practice, The New York Times reported. But the plan is opposed by the local fishing community, environmental groups and neighboring countries. Within hours of the announcement, protesters had gathered outside government offices in Tokyo and Fukushima, according to NPR.
"The Japanese government has once again failed the people of Fukushima," Greenpeace Japan Climate and Energy Campaigner Kazue Suzuki said in a statement. "The government has taken the wholly unjustified decision to deliberately contaminate the Pacific Ocean with radioactive wastes."
The dilemma of how to dispose of the water is one ten years in the making. In March 2011, an earthquake and tsunami in northeastern Japan killed more than 19,000 people and caused three of six reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant to melt down, The New York Times explained. This resulted in the biggest nuclear disaster since Chernobyl, and the cleanup efforts persist more than a decade later.
To keep the damaged reactors from melting down, cool water is flushed through them and then filtered to remove all radioactive material except for tritium. Up until now, the wastewater has been stored on site, but the government says the facility will run out of storage room next year. Water builds up at 170 tons per day, and there are now around 1.25 million tons stored in more than 1,000 tanks.
The government now plans to begin releasing the water into the ocean in two years time, according to a decision approved by cabinet ministers Tuesday. The process is expected to take decades.
"On the premise of strict compliance with regulatory standards that have been established, we select oceanic release," the government said in a statement reported by NPR.
Opposition to the move partly involves a lack of trust around what is actually in the water, as NPR reported. Both the government and Tokyo Electric Power Co., which operates the plant, say that the water only contains tritium, which cannot be separated from hydrogen and is only dangerous to humans in large amounts.
"But it turned out that the water contains more radioactive materials. But they didn't disclose that information before," Friends of the Earth Japan campaigner Ayumi Fukakusa told NPR. "That kind of attitude is not honest to people. They are making distrust by themselves."
In February, for example, a rockfish shipment was stopped when a sample caught near Fukushima tested positive for unsafe levels of cesium.
This incident also illustrates why local fishing communities oppose the release. Fish catches are already only 17.5 percent of what they were before the disaster, and the community worries the release of the water will make it impossible for them to sell what they do catch. They also feel the government went against its promises by deciding to release the water.
"They told us that they wouldn't release the water into the sea without the support of fishermen," fishery cooperative leader Kanji Tachiya told national broadcaster NHK, as CBS News reported. "We can't back this move to break that promise and release the water into the sea unilaterally."
Japan's neighbors also questioned the move. China called it "extremely irresponsible," and South Korea asked for a meeting with the Japanese ambassador in Seoul in response.
The U.S. State Department, however, said that it trusted Japan's judgement.
"In this unique and challenging situation, Japan has weighed the options and effects, has been transparent about its decision, and appears to have adopted an approach in accordance with globally accepted nuclear safety standards," the department said in a statement reported by The New York Times.
But environmentalists argue that the government could have found a way to continue storing waste.
"Rather than using the best available technology to minimize radiation hazards by storing and processing the water over the long term, they have opted for the cheapest option, dumping the water into the Pacific Ocean," Greenpeace's Suzuki said.
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