Category: Full Text Articles – Audio Posts

When Hamas officials alleged, without evidence, that Israel killed “over 30” Gazans near an aid site, the Washington Post cited the claims uncritically. Less than two weeks later, when an American- and Israeli-backed aid organization accused Hamas of killing eight of its workers, the Post dinged the group for not “offer[ing] evidence.”

The latest Post piece covered a Wednesday night statement from the aid group, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), that said members of its team “were brutally attacked by Hamas” as they traveled “to one of our distribution centers in the area west of Khan Yunis.” In its third paragraph, the piece stated that the GHF “blamed the attack on Hamas, the militant group that ruled Gaza, but did not offer evidence.” It also referred to the GHF as “a controversial aid group backed by the United States and Israel.”

The coverage marked a stark contrast to the outlet’s reporting on Hamas’s claims that Israel had killed Gazan civilians looking for food.

In that instance, the Post published a June 1 piece headlined, “Israeli troops kill over 30 near U.S. aid site in Gaza, health officials say.” It accused Israeli troops of opening “fire on crowds making their way to collect aid from a new distribution mechanism backed by Israel and the United States” and cited a death toll from “the Strip’s Health Ministry.” The piece did not disclose that Hamas controls the ministry, nor did it contain the word “evidence.”

The paper’s coverage of Israel has drawn scrutiny, especially since Oct. 7, over biased reporting and factual inaccuracies that benefit anti-Israel arguments. Six members of its foreign desk previously wrote for Al Jazeera, including Louisa Loveluck, who has earned multiple editors’ notes for her reporting on Israel.

Loveluck was one of the writers of the Post’s June 1 aid site story, which the outlet first edited without adding a note and ultimately corrected. The “early versions” of the piece “fell short of Post standards of fairness and should not have been published in that form,” the outlet said.

Loveluck and her team reached the Pulitzer Prizes’s finalist stage for their reporting on Gaza, an honor Loveluck celebrated with a speech to her newsroom that condemned Israel and failed to mention Hamas or the hostages in Gaza.

The Post did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Other mainstream outlets followed the Post’s lead when covering the GHF statement. The BBC, for example, said it could not “independently verify the statement, and Hamas has not commented but it previously denied it had threatened the foundation’s staff.” On June 1, it ran a story alleging that “dozens of Palestinians” had been killed trying to access aid and that the “Hamas-run Civil Defense agency said Israeli forces opened fire.”

A CNN piece published on the same day stated that “at least 26 Palestinians” were killed “after Israeli forces open fire near Gaza aid distribution center, health workers say.” The piece also asserted that “there is no evidence of” Hamas stealing aid meant for Gazan civilians. The network applied more scrutiny to the GHF attack, writing that the “controversial US and Israeli-backed aid initiative” had “accused Hamas of carrying out the assault.”

Hamas has not addressed the ordeal, but Hamas-affiliated media outlets reported that “the terror group executed five fighters of the Popular Forces, a rival militia led by tribal leader Yasser Abu Shabab,” while “twelve others were shot in the legs,” according to French outlet i24NEWS. Abu Shabab’s deputy “denied claims that members of the militia were killed by Hamas,” and the GHF called the victims “aid workers,” according to the outlet.

Hamas recently encouraged “resistance security” to “firmly confront anyone who cooperates with the enemy or its agents” in Telegram messages that referenced the GHF, the Washington Free Beacon reported.

The post After Uncritically Citing Hamas To Pin Aid Site Shooting on Israel, WaPo Says Israeli-Backed Aid Org ‘Did Not Offer Evidence’ To Support Claims of Hamas Attack on Its Workers appeared first on .

(NewsNation) — Israel is reported to be preparing to strike Iran, raising the chances of widespread regional conflict.

The scale and targets of a potential attack are unknown, but the U.S. pulled some troops and nonessential personnel out of Iraq, Kuwait and Bahrain on Wednesday, citing regional tensions.

“We gotta tell them to get out because something could happen soon and I didn’t want to not give them a warning, if it should happen,” President Donald Trump said Thursday when asked about the decision.

The State Department also issued a do-not-travel advisory for Iraq on Thursday.

The State Department warned that citizens who do elect to travel to Iraq cannot rely on government help. Suggestions for those who decide to go to the country anyway include having a personal security plan, establishing a last will and testament and providing DNA samples to a medical provider in case it is needed for identification.

The White House has been attempting to negotiate a nuclear deal with Iran after President Donald Trump withdrew from a previously negotiated deal during his first term. Oman has been acting as a mediator in the negotiations.

The president has taken a more pessimistic view of negotiations lately, though he has still expressed his desire for a deal while maintaining that Iran cannot be allowed to have nuclear weapons. Previously, Trump suggested the U.S. would bomb Iran if a deal wasn’t reached.

“I want to have an agreement with Iran. We’re fairly close to an agreement,” Trump told reporters Thursday. “I much prefer an agreement.”

The enrichment of uranium, a key component in nuclear weapons, has been a sticking point in the negotiations, with Iran rejecting demands to stop.

The UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, also rebuked Iran for failing to answer questions about possible military nuclear activity in the country this week, finding the country is not complying with its nuclear obligations.

Trump spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday but declined to answer questions about whether or not he gave Netanyahu the okay to engage in an attack.

White House Envoy Steve Witkoff also told Republicans that if Israel strikes Iran’s nuclear facilities, Iran could launch a mass casualty response, according to reporting from Axios.

There are fears that an Israeli strike on Iran could lead to large-scale conflict in the region.

Stay informed with the most important Ukraine breaking news today. This page compiles the top headlines and critical updates from across Ukraine, offering a real-time snapshot of key developments. Whe

As protests against immigration crackdowns spread from Los Angeles to cities around the United States this week, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., leveraged the perceived unrest to target nonprofits supporting the very communities the Trump administration has put under siege. 

President Donald Trump deployed the National Guard and the Marines, while the Los Angeles Police Department carried out a brutal response to protests objecting to workers’ arbitrary detention by masked ICE agents in Los Angeles. After fueling the chaos in support of Trump’s deportation regime, Republicans used the moment to target nonprofit leaders and discredit protesters as “bought and paid-for flash mobs.” 

In a letter to multiple nonprofit organizations serving immigrant and Latino communities — including the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, also known as CHIRLA, and Unión del Barrio — Hawley accused the organizations of “aiding and abetting criminal conduct” by “bankrolling civil unrest.”

“Credible reporting now suggests that your organization has provided logistical support and financial resources to individuals engaged in these disruptive actions,” wrote Hawley, who chairs the Senate Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism, in one version of the letter. “Let me be clear: bankrolling civil unrest is not protected speech. It is aiding and abetting criminal conduct. Accordingly, you must immediately cease and desist any further involvement in your organization funding, or promotion of these unlawful activities.”

The letter demands that the organizations preserve a large number of records from November 5, 2024, onward, including “donor lists,” “media or public relations strategies,” and all internal communications and financial documents related to protests.

Hawley did not elaborate on any sources for his claims, and he did not immediately respond to The Intercept’s request for comment. But in an interview on Fox News, he doubled down on his accusations. 

“These aren’t spontaneous at all. They’re about as authentic as astroturf. They are bought and paid-for flash mobs, and I want to know who’s doing the buying and the paying. That’s why today I’ve launched an investigation,” Hawley said on Wednesday. 

CHIRLA denied fueling violence, saying the group won’t be intimidated by the Missouri senator. 

“Our mission is rooted in non-violent advocacy, community safety, and democratic values,” wrote CHIRLA executive director Angelica Salas in a statement reported by LAist. “We will not be intimidated for standing with immigrant communities and documenting the inhumane manner that our community is being targeted with the assault by the raids, the unconstitutional and illegal arrests, detentions, and the assault on our first amendment rights.”

The inquiry marks the latest chapter of the GOP’s war on progressive-aligned nonprofits. Other Republicans have attempted to target CHIRLA and other nonprofits focused on immigrant rights. On Thursday, House Homeland Security Committee Chair Mark Green, R-Tenn., and Subcommittee Chair Josh Brecheen, R-Okla., launched an investigation into more than 200 nonprofit organizations, including CHIRLA, alleging that they “helped fuel the worst border crisis in our nation’s history.”

The congressmen also accused the organizations of “actively advising and training illegal aliens on strategies to avoid cooperation with immigration officials.” In addition to CHIRLA, the House subcommittee called out Catholic Charities USA and Southwest Key Programs for their resettlement efforts. 

The letter demands that organizations provide a full accounting of federal grants, contracts, and payments received during the Biden administration, as well as information on whether they’ve sued the federal government and the services they provide to immigrants.

The post Josh Hawley Blames Nonprofits for “Bankrolling Civil Unrest” in LA Without Evidence appeared first on The Intercept.

“It reeks of totalitarianism,” said Senate Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) about the attack on Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA). “This is not what democracies do.”

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is using drones during the protests in Los Angeles, the department has confirmed, further fueling controversy surrounding the escalating law enforcement response to the demonstrations that broke out as immigration raids occurred throughout the city.

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), an agency within DHS, confirmed on Thursday that it is providing “aerial support” to law enforcement.

“Air and Marine Operations (AMO) is providing aerial support to federal law enforcement partners conducting operations in the Greater Los Angeles area. AMO’s efforts are focused on situational awareness and officer safety support as requested,” a CBP spokesperson told TIME via email.

DHS shared footage of the protests shot with a drone on social media earlier in the week.

“WATCH: DHS drone footage of LA rioters,” the department wrote via an X post on June 10, which included video of cars burning and an apparent explosion accompanied by sinister music. “California politicians must call off their rioting mob.”

The protests in Los Angeles have been predominantly peaceful as they enter their seventh day, media on the ground has reported, though some have escalated as cars have been set on fire and projectiles have been thrown.

Despite that, President Donald Trump has deployed thousands of National Guard members and is mobilizing hundreds of Marines to the area, against the wishes of state and local leaders. Local law enforcement has also used crowd control tactics such as rubber bullets and tear gas, and Mayor Karen Bass has declared a state of “local emergency” and imposed an ongoing 8 p.m. to 6 p.m. curfew.

Read More: Veterans Condemn Trump’s ‘Misuse of Military Power’ Amid L.A. Protests

Since the protests began on Friday, more than 160 people have been arrested by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). The majority of those arrests, according to the New York Times, occurred on Monday, and a majority of them were based on failure to disperse charges. 

CBP confirmed to 404 media that the drones used by the agency were two Predator drones after the media company reported that drones were spotted flying without call signs where the anti-ICE protests were occurring.

Does DHS have the authority to use drones?

Department of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth addressed reports of the drones in a June 11 hearing with Congress. Rhode Island Senator Jack Reed asked Hegseth if he was prepared for DHS to use drones to “to detain or arrest American citizens.”

“Every authorization we’ve provided the National Guard and the Marines in Los Angeles is under the authority of the President of the United States,” Hegseth answered.

According to Alejandra Montoya-Boyer, senior director of the Center for Civil Rights & Technology at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, tech groups and civil rights groups alike are “surprised and deeply concerned” by the use of drones, but it is not “necessarily new.”

“CBP has a pretty expansive opportunity to be able to deploy drone technology and other technologies that are able to surveil and track anyone, whether they’re crossing the border or in these spaces,” Montoya-Boyer tells TIME. She says “this isn’t necessarily the first time we’re seeing this,” but noted that it could still be harmful and “disproportionately impacting communities of color and immigrants right now.”

She says people are often unaware of the extent of land that CBP has access to—100 air miles from any external boundary of the U.S, a border zone that almost two-thirds of the U.S. population lives within.

Montoya-Boyer says that the technology used by these drones was created to track border crossings, not to be used to track U.S. citizens at protests.

“The reality is, with the development of these types of technologies, and with appropriations by CBP and DHS, they can be used for domestic surveillance and as needed by an administration that isn’t necessarily doing what’s usual,” she says. 

Though the CBP has stated that the drones are focused on “situational awareness” and “officer safety,” Montoyta-Boyers says there “is no reason for us to believe that it is just in the name of law and order” as “there is an increase, an expansion of surveillance technologies in the name of immigration enforcement being deployed all across the country on the majority of people, whether they’re immigrants or not

She recommends those who decide to lawfully and peacefully protest to access both the ACLU’s and Electronic Frontier Foundation’s guides to what protestors’ rights are.

Have drones been used during previous U.S. protests? 

This is not the first time that drones have been used during U.S. protests in support of law enforcement efforts.

Back in 2020, CBP utilized drones at the height of protests in the Black Lives Matter movement spurred by the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police. At the time, however, CBP argued that its drones were not being used to “surveil” protestors, but rather to provide “assistance to state and locals so they could make sure that their cities and their towns were protected,” according to Acting CBP Commissioner Mark Morgan in a 2020 interview with ABC News.

“We were not providing any resources to surveil lawful peaceful protesters. That’s not what we were doing,” he said. “We weren’t taking any information on law-abiding protesters, but we were absolutely there to ensure the safety of folks there as well as to enforce, and make sure law and order remain.”

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is redefining military doctrine in ways not witnessed since the advent of air power and nuclear weapons in the first half of the twentieth century. For more than three years, both countries have been locked in a daily race to innovate that is leading to the increasing dominance of unmanned systems. This unprecedented drone war is being fought on the battlefields of Ukraine, deep inside Russia, and at sea. While Russia’s far greater resources favor Moscow, Ukraine’s sophisticated tech scene and vibrant startup culture are helping Kyiv to punch well above its weight.

Ukraine’s spectacular June 1 drone attacks on Vladimir Putin’s strategic bomber fleet at airbases across Russia made global headlines and have led to widespread claims that Kyiv has managed to “rewrite the rules of war.” However, Ukraine’s most remarkable accomplishments in the field of drone warfare have arguably been achieved thousands of miles to the south in the Black Sea.

Ukrainian Defense Intelligence Chief Kyrylo Budanov recently showcased the latest addition to the country’s expanding naval drone fleet, the Magura V7 unmanned marine vehicle. This domestically produced naval drone is armed with a pair of anti-aircraft missiles and is reportedly capable of operating at sea for days at a time while hunting Russian warplanes. According to Ukrainian officials, the Magura V7 has already proven itself in combat by shooting down two Russian Su-30 fighter jets over the Black Sea in early May. Budanov described the operation as an “historic moment.” It is believed to be the first ever instance of military jets being downed by unmanned naval platforms.

Stay updated

As the world watches the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfold, UkraineAlert delivers the best Atlantic Council expert insight and analysis on Ukraine twice a week directly to your inbox.

Last month’s destruction of two Russian warplanes was the latest in a series of remarkable maritime breakthroughs that have allowed Ukraine to gain the upper hand in the Battle of the Black Sea. When the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine began more than three years ago, few would have believed such a turn of events was possible. At the time, the war at sea was widely viewed as a foregone conclusion. After all, Ukraine had no conventional navy to speak of, while Russia could call on the considerable might of the country’s aged but nonetheless formidable Black Sea Fleet.

This disparity was on display during a famous incident that took place on the very first day of the invasion. On the morning of February 24, 2022, the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, the Moskva missile cruiser, loomed up to Ukraine’s Snake Island and ordered the tiny Ukrainian garrison to surrender. “Russian warship, go f*** yourself,” came the iconic response. While this message of defiance captured the global imagination and became an unofficial slogan for the entire Ukrainian war effort, the incident also served to underline the apparent mismatch between the maritime capabilities of the two adversaries.

During the initial weeks of the war, Russian control of the Black Sea remained uncontested, with Ukrainian attention focused firmly on preventing amphibious landings along the country’s southern coastline. But even at this precarious point, Ukrainian commanders had their own offensive ambitions and would soon send a powerful signal that they were capable of fighting back at sea as well as on land. In April 2022, the Ukrainian Navy launched a bold missile attack on the Moskva, securing two direct hits and sinking the Russian flagship. The attack sent shock waves around the world and sparked fury among Kremlin officials. Little did they know that this was just the first of many stunning Russian naval defeats that would transform the military situation in the Black Sea.

Since the sinking of the Moskva, Ukraine has used a combination of domestically developed naval drones and cruise missiles provided by Kyiv’s French and British partners to decimate Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. Ukrainian Navy officials claim they have managed to damage or destroy around one-third of Putin’s entire fleet, while forcing the remaining Russian warships to retreat from occupied Crimea to the relative safety of ports in Russia itself. This has severely limited the Russian Navy’s ability to operate in the Black Sea. By spring 2024, Britain’s Defense Ministry declared that the Russian Black Sea Fleet had become “functionally inactive.”

Ukraine’s stunning success in the Battle of the Black Sea has yet to receive the international attention it deserves. By breaking the Russian naval blockade of Ukraine’s seaports, it has allowed Kyiv to resume maritime exports and secure a vital economic lifeline.

Crucially, the Russian Navy’s humiliating retreat from Crimea has also made a complete mockery of the Kremlin’s so-called red lines and has demonstrated the emptiness of Putin’s nuclear saber-rattling. The Russian dictator has long championed the seizure of Crimea as his crowning achievement, and has repeatedly hinted that he is willing to use nuclear weapons in defense of his conquests. But when confronted by the harsh military realities of Ukraine’s deadly naval drones, he withdraw the bulk of Russia’s fleet from Crimea with barely a murmur.

The Battle of the Black Sea is far from over, of course. While Ukraine develops groundbreaking new naval drones capable of hitting warplanes as well as warships, Russia continues to bombard Ukrainian seaports and targets merchant shipping carrying Ukrainian exports to global markets. The Russian Navy is also producing marine drones of its own, and is adopting defensive measures to protect the remainder of the Black Sea Fleet. Nevertheless, Kyiv’s Black Sea innovations are a reminder that Ukraine is an increasingly formidable military power in its own right and is shaping the future of drone warfare at sea as well as on land.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Further reading

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

Read more from UkraineAlert

UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The post Ukraine is shaping the future of drone warfare at sea as well as on land appeared first on Atlantic Council.

On the morning of June 12, 2016, a Sunday, I woke up in my Manhattan apartment to see several missed calls and voice messages from my mother. “I need to know where you are,” her first message started out. “I saw on the news what happened. Please call me back.”

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

When I called her back, she picked up and sighed deeply. “Oh, thank god. I know you just like to pick up and leave without giving anyone notice. I thought you could have been there. In Orlando. At Pulse.” 

My mother seemed to think she was breaking the news to me, but I already knew. I had still been up in the wee hours the night before, when social media accounts began to report the massacre, when concerned texts from friends started coming in. At around 2 a.m., just after last call, twenty-nine-year-old Omar Mateen had entered Pulse Nightclub on “Latin Night” with a semiautomatic rifle. He killed 49 people and wounded 53.

He shot people who had traveled to Orlando from Haiti, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, and more. He shot a mother who would perish protecting her queer child with her body. He shot singers, hairdressers, nurses and photographers and literature students. He fired bullets into the flesh of people who wanted, for an evening, a few hours, a moment, to be free—to move their bodies joyously to the rhythms of Latin Night.

As the news of the massacre was breaking, I didn’t know the details of their lives. I just knew, at the deepest of levels, that many were just like me: Queer, Latinx, and fighting to survive. These were queer people composed of diasporic rhythms, queers moving across the globe, queers who have had to reckon with worlds hostile and cruel to their being. I found myself already haunted by their deaths, awestruck at how soon I felt that loss. Haunted by the body counts, the names, the stories and histories attached to those names—just like I am haunted by the many thousands of queer people, both named and unnamed, whom we have lost to AIDS. 

What does it mean to be “after” loss? What does it mean to continue after the Pulse Massacre or after the AIDS Crisis? How can we heal when we are always in a cruel and devastating after? I am not alone in asking these questions.

“Yesterday we saw ourselves die again // Fifty times we died in Orlando,” mourns the narrator of Christopher Soto’s poem, “All the Dead Boys Look Like Us.” The “we” Soto describes in its plural subaltern voice is of young, queer people of color hailing from colonized countries. Many of the Pulse shooting victims were in their twenties, some in their late teens, just babies.

Richard Blanco, in his own tribute to the Pulse victims, “One Pulse—One Poem,” writes: “picture the choir of their invisible spirits / rising with the smoke toward disco lights, imagine / ourselves dancing with them until the very end.” Forty-nine people were killed at Pulse. They were friends, lovers, mothers, siblings, partners and so much more. 

“Restored Mural for Orlando” by Roy G. Guzmán focuses on the importance of a city like Orlando for queer community. Yet, he writes,“I am afraid of attending places / that celebrate our bodies because that’s also where our bodies // have been cancelled / when you’re brown and gay you’re always dying / twice.” 

The 49 people who were killed at Pulse each had a name: Darryl Roman Burt II, Deonka Deidra Drayton, Antonio Davon Brown, Mercedez Marisol Flores…

Their names of the 49 lives lost go on, as do the details of their lives. Jerry Wright worked at Disney World, one of Orlando’s biggest employers. Juan Ramon Guerrero and Christopher “Drew” Leinonen were boyfriends, and took their final breaths together. Jonathan Camuy worked as a producer at the popular Spanish broadcasting company Telemundo. 

Names do not necessarily tell the story of a life, and neither does a number. Yet, when brought together, compiled, and compacted, they speak to vast contexts and histories. Forty-nine people were killed at Pulse. Seven hundred thousand dead—disproportionately poor, unhoused, and people of color—from HIV/AIDS. Sadly, there remain many other queer names we may never know because history did not record them. Yet, despite their incompleteness, we need these names and numbers in order to have a sense of who we have lost, to feel the weight of the tally—not as a burden but as part of our fight for a different past, present, and future. 

My mother called me after the Pulse Nightclub shooting because she knew something of tragedy, mourning, and fear. But in truth, she was scared for me long before that terrible morning, ever since I elected to move to New York City when I was eighteen. For years, she experienced the cocktail of emotions that comes with loving a queer child—fear of our early passing from some disease, some mental illness, some lover’s quarrel, some brutal attack by a stranger on a street. 

I want Pulse not to be solely a tragedy, a massacre, a mass shooting. I want it to signify more than pain, suffering, and unending mourning. I want after Pulse to be about the patchwork of joys, contradictions, mundanities, hopes, differences, and freedom projects that define queer life. The many ways of reaching out with all of our senses to other bodies, other places, other histories. Our after should include shaking a**, gossiping with friends, drinking cocktails, lip-syncing to a favorite song—staring into the strobe lights, feeling alive, fully bodied, transcendent. 

After Pulse is where I want to be. 

Two Palestinian peace activists from the occupied West Bank were detained upon landing in the San Francisco airport Wednesday and face deportation after immigration officials unexpectedly revoked their visas.

Eid Hathaleen and Awdah Hathaleen, cousins from the Masafer Yatta village of Um Al Khair, have been unreachable for the past day, according to organizers and a local lawmaker advocating on their behalf. As of Thursday, they were believed to remain in U.S. Customs and Border Protection custody at San Francisco International Airport. The United States is expected to deport them to Jordan, where their flight to U.S. departed. 

The cousins were scheduled to begin a speaking tour hosted by a California synagogue and local churches — and were visiting the U.S. with valid tourist visas, organizers said. Eid, a leader in his village, has been on several speaking tours over the past decade and has documented Israeli settler violence — including the Israeli government’s destruction of his village and his own home in July 2024. Awdah — an activist, English teacher, and journalist — has reported on past Israeli attacks on their village for +972 Magazine. 

CBP officials did not disclose the reason for the pair’s detainment and did not respond to The Intercept’s request for comment. Organizers say the men are being targeted for their pro-Palestinian advocacy. The Trump administration has imprisoned and attempted to deport activists who advocate for Palestinian human rights — including Columbia University organizers Mahmoud Khalil and Mohsen Mahdawi and Tufts University graduate student Rümeysa Öztürk — under the guise of combating antisemitism. 

“These were Palestinian activists and humanitarians who were here to bridge relations with the Jewish community,” said Ben Linder, who helped organize the tour and is co-chair of J Street Silicon Valley, a local chapter of the liberal pro-Israeli lobby. “They were being sponsored by Jewish synagogues — these are exactly the people we need in our country right now, to bridge the divide that we have happening globally. Yet our federal government is denying them a voice.”

Phil Weintraub, lead organizer with the Face to Face committee of the Kehilla Community Synagogue in Piedmont, California, which planned to host the speaking tour, went to the San Francisco airport Wednesday to pick up Eid and Awdah. After he didn’t hear from them for several hours, Weintraub alerted other organizers and attorneys. 

Their whereabouts were unknown until Bilal Mahmood, a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, was notified and rushed to the airport Wednesday evening. CBP officials confirmed to him that both Eid and Awdah were in their custody.

“Once I showed up and literally banged on the doors of Border Patrol, they finally called back and and also exited their offices and informed us of what was happening,” Mahmood told The Intercept.

Mahmood has spent the past week attending protests against the Trump administration’s ongoing immigration raids across the United States. In San Francisco, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained 15 undocumented immigrants, including a toddler, who had shown up at a federal office for an ICE check-in, according to Mission Local. The day after Eid and Awdah’s detention, federal agents ejected California Sen. Alex Padilla, pinned him to the ground, and handcuffed him for asking questions at Department of Homeland Security Kristi Noem’s press conference.

Padilla was quickly released. But the peace activists from the West Bank, far more marginalized than a U.S. senator, remained in custody and unreachable on Thursday. Mahmood said their detainment was part of President Donald Trump’s broader attack on immigrants. 

“This is everything from ICE raids to the travel ban to now leveraging the federal government’s powers to deny free speech,” he told The Intercept. 

Erin Axelman, co-director of the film “Israelism,” a documentary about young American Jews who grappled with Israel’s abuse of Palestinians, has joined other organizers in advocating for Eid and Awdah’s release. 

“This is obviously part of the pattern of incredible Palestinian peacemakers and activists being detained and deported simply for their very reasonable freedom of speech,” Axelman told The Intercept. “Any Palestinian voice is threatening to the Trump administration at this point and it seems like simply existing as a Palestinian is enough to get you detained or deported by the Trump administration.”

The post Palestinian Peace Activists Land in San Francisco — and Immediately Face Deportation appeared first on The Intercept.

The memorandum presented by the Russian Federation during recent bilateral talks with Ukraine in Istanbul was described by Kremlin officials as a constructive step toward a possible peace agreement. However, the demands outlined in the document tell an altogether different story. Russia’s memorandum makes clear that Moscow does not seek peaceful coexistence with an independent and sovereign Ukraine. Instead, the Kremlin’s goal evidently remains the systematic dismantling of Ukrainian statehood.

One of the key demands detailed in the Russian memorandum is the requirement for Ukraine’s complete withdrawal from four Ukrainian provinces that Moscow claims as its own but has so far been unable to fully occupy. For Kyiv, this would mean abandoning dozens of towns and cities along with millions of Ukrainians to the horrors of indefinite Russian occupation. It would also dramatically weaken Ukraine’s defenses and leave the rest of the country dangerously exposed to further Russian aggression.

Handing over the city of Kherson and the surrounding region would be particularly disastrous for Ukraine’s future national security. This would grant Russia a foothold across the Dnipro River in the western half of Ukraine, placing Odesa and the country’s other Black Sea ports in immediate danger. The loss of Zaporizhzhia, one of Ukraine’s largest cities with a prewar population of around seven hundred thousand, is similarly unthinkable.

Stay updated

As the world watches the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfold, UkraineAlert delivers the best Atlantic Council expert insight and analysis on Ukraine twice a week directly to your inbox.

Territorial concessions are only one part of Russia’s comprehensive plan to undermine Ukrainian statehood. The memorandum presented in Istanbul calls for strict limits to be imposed on the size of Ukraine’s military along with restrictions on the categories of weapons the country is allowed to possess. Ukraine would also be banned from joining any military alliances or concluding bilateral security agreements with other nations. This would transform Ukraine into a disarmed and internationally isolated buffer state with no means to defend itself, leaving it entirely at Putin’s mercy.

Beyond the battlefield, Russia’s memorandum proposes a series of sweeping changes to Ukraine’s internal political and cultural landscape that would allow Moscow to reestablish its dominance over the country. Key demands include official status for the Russian language, the reinstatement of the Russian Orthodox Church’s legal privileges, and a wholesale rewriting of Ukrainian history in line with Kremlin narratives.

One of the most sinister aspects of the Russian peace proposal is the call for a complete ban on all so-called “nationalist” Ukrainian political parties. This rather vague wording is open to interpretation and could easily be used to silence Ukrainian politicians opposed to Russian influence. Given the Kremlin’s long record of labeling anything that contracts Russian imperial orthodoxies as “extremist” or “fascist,” the idea of outlawing “nationalist” political parties represents an obvious threat to Ukraine’s sovereignty and the country’s democratic political system.

Moscow’s memorandum was presented at a time when Russia is escalating its invasion of Ukraine. In recent months, Russian drone and missile attacks on Ukrainian cities have increased significantly, leading to a sharp rise in the number of killed and wounded civilians. Along the front lines of the war, the Russian military is currently engaged in what most analysts believe are the early stages of a major summer offensive that seeks to break Ukrainian resistance. Russian troops are advancing in the east and have recently crossed the border in northern Ukraine to open a new front in the Sumy region.

The Ukrainian authorities cannot accept the punishing terms being proposed by Russia. Indeed, no sovereign state could do so and expect to survive. The real question is how the international community will respond. Russia’s memorandum is a blueprint for the end of Ukrainian statehood and the return of the country to Kremlin control. It makes a complete mockery of recent US-led calls for a compromise peace, and demonstrates beyond any reasonable doubt that Russia has no interest in ending the invasion.

This should be enough to persuade Western leaders that progress toward peace will only be possible if they increase the pressure on Putin. At present, the Russian leader clearly believes he is winning and is confident of outlasting the West in Ukraine. In order to change this calculus and force a rethink in Moscow, Kyiv’s partners must impose tougher sanctions on Russia while boosting military support for Ukraine. In other words, they must speak to Putin in the language of strength, which remains the only language he truly understands.

Russia’s recent memorandum sends an unambiguous signal that Moscow is undeterred by the current Western stance and remains fully committed to its maximalist goal of erasing Ukraine as a state and as a nation. If Western leaders wish to avoid this catastrophic outcome, they must convince Putin that the alternative to a negotiated peace is a Russian defeat.

Tetiana Kotelnykova is a graduate student at Yale University specializing in European and Russian Studies with a focus on conflict, postwar recovery, and regional geopolitics. She is the founder of Brave Generation, a New York-based nonprofit organization that supports young Ukrainians affected by war and invests in the next generation of Ukrainian leadership. She also leads the Ukrainian Recovery Youth Global Initiative.

Further reading

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

Read more from UkraineAlert

UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The post Putin’s peace plan is a blueprint for the end of Ukrainian statehood appeared first on Atlantic Council.