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Image of Sha’ban Al Dalou being burned alive in an Israeli air strike.
Further

This Is Zionism

Honestly, harrowingly, what to say. After a year of bombing, maiming, starving, killing Palestinians, mostly children, Israel just burned alive before the world a sleeping, wounded, 19-year-old software engineering student attached to an IV in a tent he had built for his incessantly displaced family. Video shows Sha’ban Al Dalou amidst an inferno, "a body writhing, crackling, a raised arm, reaching out for help." He died two days before his 20th birthday. A Gazan's vow: "May his death awaken us."

Israel's genocide lurches on, despite the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and American assertions it represents a "day-after" chance to "bring about a better day for the people of Gaza" - a claim one analyst dismisses as bitterly, bloodily "laughable...There is no day after." With Netanyahu making it clear his slaughter is "not over" and likely never will be, many Israeli military leaders are now reportedly looking to an infamous "Generals,'" or Eiland Plan, that calls for ethnically cleansing the northern Gaza Strip by wholly besieging the area and halting all humanitarian aid with the ignominious resolution, "All of Gaza will starve." Anticipating legal or moral challenges, Israeli officials who've already spent month after month carrying out a gruesome war on children - killing them in hospitals, mosques, their homes, their mothers' arms, their cars as they try to escape, under long, slow, suffocating rubble - are evidently prepared to argue such actions are "legitimate and permitted under the strictest international law."

Little wonder Israel this week launched its sixth U.S.-funded bombing of Al-Aqsa Hospital in central Gaza's Deir al-Balah - yet more war crimes - hitting a courtyard where hungry, displaced, often wounded Palestinians were sheltering in makeshift tents. Among them was Sha’ban Al Dalou, his parents, two brothers and two sisters, who since the start of the Israeli assault have had to flee five times after leaving their Gaza City home. A student at al-Azhar University until Israel destroyed it in November, Sha'ban, 19, was documenting online "this barbaric starvation war" and the hardships his family and others faced - homeless, inadequate food or water, no medicine, and now freezing weather; as he spoke, Israeli drones hummed in the background. A good boy and the eldest child, Sha'ban had built his family a tent against the cold; he also started a GoFundMe - "From Despair to Hope - so they could flee to Egypt. "In Gaza, dreams go to die," he wrote. "Each displacement leaves behind another fragment of our shattered souls."

Before the war, Sha'ban loved playing guitar, and dreamed of becoming a doctor; his parents liked to boast he'd also memorized the Quran. In the encampment amidst Israeli bombs dropping, he donated blood, volunteered at an open-air clinic, and often walked around the camp looking for an Internet signal to continue his studies. Time after time, he escaped death. On October 6, he was praying at a nearby mosque when it was hit by another U.S.-made bomb launched by Israel; it killed at least 20 people and buried Sha’ban beneath rubble, but bystanders dug him out: "I saw death in my eyes," he wrote. "They took me out of the rubble; I was bleeding, injured - all like a dream." He was taken to Al-Aqsa for head and lung injuries, got 11 stitches behind one ear, and returned to his family tent where they put him on an intravenous drip. He was asleep the night of Oct. 14 when Israeli bombed the courtyard, setting off an inferno, reportedly from gas cooking canisters sparking secondary explosions, that tore through the encampment.

Ghastly video posted by eyewitnesses shows Sha'ban in fiery silhouette, his raised arm still connected to his IV, screaming, twisting, frantically trying to free himself. Some in the crowd held back his 16-year-old brother, straining to reach into the fire to help: "The one in the video is my brother Sha'ban. He was yelling, 'Someone save me!'" Their father Ahmed al-Dalou, who was badly burned but survived, later said he'd rushed to rescue his younger children but thought Sha'ban could get out on his own. The fire killed Sha'ban and his mother, Umm Sha’baan, 38, and at least three others; over 65 were wounded. Several days later, Sha'ban's 10-year-old brother Abdul also died of his injuries. At his funeral, their bandaged father mourned his young son. "There is no consciousness or humanity," he wailed. "My little boy. He was not guilty." On Wednesday, which would have been Sha'ban's 20th birthday, Ahmed said, "Sha'ban will be celebrating his birthday with his mother in heaven." And, now, his younger brother.

The video of Sha'ban engulfed in flames, his trapped arm held high, has been viewed millions of times. Amidst widespread outrage, an Israeli army spokesman said, without offering any evidence, the hospital was a Hamas “command and control center" and they had "executed a precise strike on terrorists." The claim rang grotesquely hollow. "This is Zionism. This is Israel defending itself," wrote Dilly Hussain above images of the searing flames engulfing Sha'ban. "Funded and armed by the U.S. and diplomatically protected by the West" - "day after day." Many responses came in rage. Said activist Philip Proudfoot, who recalled Sha'ban as "a kind person with dreams of living a normal life," “Let his murder haunt every genocide-enabling western politician for the rest of their lives." The righteous fury was often aptly aimed at a complicit America that has not just funded the slaughter, but publicly applauded its major author. "They're burning people alive," wrote Sonny Bill Williams, "but some of you are still scared to speak out."


Hours after the footage surfaced, over 500 Jews and allies shut down the New York Stock Exchange, center of global capital, to demand the US stop arming Israel and profiting from genocide under moral cover of Jewish "safety...In horror and agony, we refuse to let our histories, identities and traditions be used (to) massacre Palestinians." They noted the only condition placed on $18 billion in US funds for Israel is not how those bombs are used, but where they're bought - from US arms manufacturers now posting "staggering" profits, many of which go to members of Congress. Among over 200 people arrested at the action were descendants of Holocaust survivors. The entire family of Elena Stein, of Jewish Voice For Peace, was massacred in their Lithuania shtetl; only her grandmother, who wasn't home, survived. "Where were the neighbors?" asks Stein. "As the NYPDdragged me out by my arms and legs, I felt my Jewish ancestors at my back... We say now, with more conviction than ever, we refuse to be neighbors who just stand by."

After a year of genocide livestreamed to the world, some hope "this particular horror," the grisly sight of Sha'ban "tethered to an IV as U.S.-supplied Israeli bombs ignite fires around him," may break through the noise - an awful defining image, like the mutilated face of Emmett Till his mother resolutely showed to the world or the weeping Napalm Girl of the Vietnam War, that "brings us back to our common humanity." "This is what we need now for Gaza," says Zak Witus. "We need to see and to believe." "His name was Sha'ban," wrote Dr. Omar Suleima. "He was.loved by his family and friends, a memorizer of the Quran. He was named after the month in the Islamic tradition that is referred to as the forgotten month. His name was Sha'ban. Let him never be forgotten." Dr. Jennifer Cassidy echoed him: "Say his name - Sha'ban. The man, the human, the soul behind the photo seen around the world. The word war crime doesn't begin to cover this. He is not a number. His name was Sha'ban. May he rest in peace and rise in power."

Sha\u2019ban Al Dalou with his family before the Israeli genocide began.Sha’ban Al Dalou with his family before the Israeli genocide began.Photo from Instagram via @shabanahmed19

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wind turbines next to coal-fired plant
News

IEA Report Underscores Urgency of Fossil Fuel Phaseout as Electricity Demand Surges

The International Energy Agency on Wednesday released a major report showing that the world's nations are not on track to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in line with 2030 targets and doing so will be made more difficult by growing demand for electricity.

The 398-page report, World Energy Outlook (WEO) 2024, is the latest in the IEA's flagship annual series, which is heavily cited by stakeholders across the world.

The report found that while renewables are entering the energy mix at an "unprecedented" rate—a record 560 gigawatts came online globally in 2023—the world's nations are on track to reduce emissions only by 3% from 2023 levels by 2030, rather than the 33% needed to meet agreed-upon targets. It also finds that the path to net zero by 2050 is "increasingly narrow."

"The world has the need and the capacity to go much faster," the report says.

The challenges to decarbonization include an increase in demand in electricity, especially in China and India.

This year's WEO projects a 6% higher rate in global electricity demand by 2035 than did last year's, with the surge "driven by light industrial consumption, electric mobility, cooling, and data centers and [artificial intelligence]."

While renewable development and electrification generally help bend down the emissions curve, experts warn that renewables only do so if they replace fossil fuel use, and the electricity needs to be powered cleanly.

"What the WEO is showing is that a market-led approach is leading to renewable energy being added on top of fossil fuels, rather than driving a rapid transition away from them," Collin Rees, U.S. program manager at Oil Change International (OCI), told Common Dreams. "That's why we need more direct intervention to actually phase down the fossils and boost renewables to make up the difference."

The growth in electricity demand raises the bar for climate action. Dave Jones, a director at Ember, an energy think tank, toldThe New York Times that "with higher energy use, even fast renewables growth doesn't translate to fast falls in carbon dioxide emissions."

The new WEO projects coal to decline more gradually than had been previously expected due to the rising electricity demand. This is true not only in China and India but also the United States, thanks partly to the inordinate amounts of energy used by AI data centers.

"With established technology companies and AI startups making major investments, a sharp rise in electricity consumption by data centers looks inevitable," the WEO says.

Still, Fatih Birol, the IEA's executive director, celebrated the overall move toward electrification and drew attention to the WEO finding that solar and wind would power far more of the world's electricity by 2035.

The key problem highlighted by the new WEO is the continued reliance on fossil fuels, according to an OCI statement: "The WEO lays bare how much work is left to do for governments to follow through with the policies and funding needed for a livable planet."

OCI calls for stop to all oil, gas, and coal extraction beyond existing fields and mines. The group also opposes liquefied natural gas (LNG) export projects, which the IEA authors raised as a point of concern in the WEO.

The report says that "an unprecedented volume of LNG is due to come online in the second-half of the 2020s, led by a near-doubling of export capacity in the United States and Qatar."

The WEO authors project that a surplus of LNG will depress gas prices internationally, which could affect the uptake of renewables.

"Clean technology costs are coming down, but maintaining and accelerating momentum behind their deployment in a lower fuel-price world is a different proposition," they wrote.

Rees of OCI said the LNG glut could lead to "displacement of renewable solutions like wind, solar, and heat pumps" and condemned U.S. policymakers for pushing LNG exports "when there's no room for it in a livable climate, and no need for it even in scenarios far off track from climate safety."

Though the IEA's projections show that the world is not doing enough to tackle climate change, there is no guarantee that even the modest progress assumed in the projections will come to pass. Big Oil executives have cast doubt on the idea that fossil fuel use and climate emissions will peak by the end of the decade, as the IEA projects.

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Striking Boeing workers
News

After Gorging on Stock Buybacks for Years, Boeing Announces Mass Layoffs

The manufacturing giant Boeing, under the leadership of new CEO Kelly Ortberg, announced Friday that it will axe roughly 10% of its total workforce in the coming months, a move that drew attention to the company's massive spending on stock buybacks in recent years.

Boeing, which is currently facing a machinist strike, spent an estimated $68 billion on executive-enriching share repurchases and dividends between 2010 and 2019—spending that critics say refutes the company's claim that layoffs and inadequate worker compensation are necessary.

Les Leopold, executive director of the Labor Institute and author of Wall Street's War on Workers: How Mass Layoffs and Greed Are Destroying the Working Class and What to Do about It, told Common Dreams in an email that "Boeing is in trouble because it became a manufacturer of stock buybacks, not just planes."

"The corporate cure is always the same—lay off workers," Leopold added. "Stock buybacks and layoffs are joined at the hip. It's time they were outlawed entirely."

Leopold has urged Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, to campaign on the pledge that "no taxpayer money will go to corporations who lay off taxpayers and conduct stock buybacks." In 2022, Boeing received nearly $15 billion from contracts with the Pentagon.

"CEO Ortberg has an opportunity to do things differently instead of the same old tired labor relations threats used to intimidate and crush anyone that stands up to them."

Ortberg took over as Boeing's CEO in August following the former chief executive's departure—with a $45 million golden parachute—amid fresh safety concerns at the company after a door plug blew out of a Boeing plane mid-flight.

In a memo to employees on Friday, Ortberg—who stands to rake in $22 million in total compensation next year—announced Boeing will delay its new 777X jet and end production of its 767 freighters. Additionally, Ortberg wrote that "we must also reset our workforce levels to align with our financial reality and to a more focused set of priorities"—corporate-speak for mass layoffs.

"These reductions will include executives, managers, and employees," the CEO added. "We know these decisions will cause difficulty for you, your families, and our team, and I sincerely wish we could avoid taking them. However, the state of our business and our future recovery require tough actions."

The job cuts are expected to impact around 17,000 workers.

Ortberg's announcement came days after Boeing suspended contract negotiations with striking machinists, disparaging the union's demands as "far in excess of what can be accepted if we are to remain competitive as a business."

"The same company spent $68 billion on dividends and stock buybacks over the past decade and gave its last two CEOs multimillion-dollar golden parachutes," former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich wrote in response. "What's unreasonable is Boeing's greed."

Jon Holden, president of District 751 of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers—which represents Boeing workers who went on strike a month ago—said in a statement Friday that the company's management "keeps walking away from the table" and "using the same old tired tactics of bargaining in the press."

"The path to resolve this strike begins at the bargaining table," said Holden. "An unwillingness to stay at the table only prolongs the strike. CEO Ortberg has an opportunity to do things differently instead of the same old tired labor relations threats used to intimidate and crush anyone that stands up to them."

"Our membership is too powerful for that and is standing on principles," Holden added. "Ultimately, it will be our membership that determines whether any negotiated contract offer is accepted. They want a resolution that is negotiated and addresses their needs. Get back to the bargaining table."

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Democratic North Carolina state Senate candidate Kate Barr speaks to a voter
News

North Carolina Woman Running 'Can't Win' State Senate Campaign Against Gerrymandering

A North Carolina woman is running a self-described "built to lose" campaign for a state senate seat in a bid to draw attention to anti-democratic partisan gerrymandering.

Kate Barr, a 42-year-old mother of two, is a Democrat running for North Carolina's 37th Senate District, a seat she says she cannot win because it "is so gerrymandered that I don't stand a chance."

"But we deserve to have two names on the ballot," Barr says on her campaign website. "If I'm going to lose, we might as well have a little fun, raise a little hell, and shine a light on the impacts of gerrymandering along the way."

Barr's platform includes protecting abortion rights, fully funding public schools, and "common sense gun laws."

"All of those would be achievable in our purple state if we had a representative democracy instead of this gerrymandered nonsense," she asserted.

"Why am I losing?" Barr asked during a recent campaign speech covered by The Washington Post. "In a gerrymandered state like North Carolina, it means representatives are choosing their voters instead of voters choosing their representatives."

As the Post reported last month:

Barr centers her pitch on the principle of giving voters an option, even in deep-red districts where the outcome is all but predetermined. Having Democrats campaign in those conservative areas also gives a political boost to [U.S. vice president and Democratic presidential candidate] Kamala Harris in a state where the presidential race is seen as a toss-up and could prove nationally decisive if Democrats can peel off enough voters to secure North Carolina's 16 electoral votes...

Gerrymandering arrived in Barr's backyard last year when the state legislature redrew Davidson—the liberal, picturesque college town where she lives—into a state Senate district with conservative Iredell County for the 2024 election. Davidson went from being part of a district centered in Mecklenburg County—where Donald Trump lost by 35 percentage points in 2020—to being part of Iredell, which he won by about the same amount.

Last year, the North Carolina Supreme Court ruled in favor of partisan gerrymandering in what voting rights advocates called a "blatant attack on democracy."

Barr said in an opinion piece published Tuesday by the Courier that the court decided that "basically, we, the voters in North Carolina, have a right to free elections but not to fair ones."

"That's some real bullshit," she wrote.

Anderson Clayton, who chairs the North Carolina Democratic Party, told the Post that "gerrymandering is a form of voter suppression in every single way, shape, and form."

Clayton added that many North Carolina voters "go into a voting booth every November and they're like, 'Damn, I don't have a Democrat to vote for. You know that means that somebody didn't care, that my vote wasn't worth fighting for.'"

Barr said the fact that she has little chance of winning isn't the point.

"We know we can't win it, because they've made sure we can't," she told one voter, according to the Post. "But that doesn't mean we go down without a fight."

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Alabamians queue to vote
News

Federal Judge Blocks Alabama's Election Eve Voter Purge

Citing a U.S. law prohibiting states from removing people from their registered voter lists within 90 days of an election, a U.S. federal judge on Wednesday ordered Alabama officials to pause a controversial voter roll purge until after next month's contest.

U.S. District Judge Anna Manasco—an appointee of former President Donald Trump, the 2024 Republican nominee—wrote in her preliminary injunction that GOP Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen violated the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) by launching a campaign purportedly targeting "noncitizens registered to vote."

"Allen blew the [NVRA] deadline when he announced a purge program to begin 84 days before the 2024 general election," Manasco said, adding that the secretary of state "later admitted that his purge list included thousands of United States citizens (in addition to far fewer noncitizens, who are ineligible to vote), and in any event, referred everyone on the purge list to the Alabama attorney general for criminal investigation."

The Biden administration's Department of Justice, along with civil and voting rights groups, last month sued Allen and the state of Alabama over the policy's timing. Individual Alabama voters also filed suit claiming the purge targeted naturalized U.S. citizens.

Allen's program removed more than 3,000 people from Alabama's voter rolls and referred them for criminal prosecution. However, more than 2,000 targeted individuals have since been deemed eligible to vote. Manasco's ruling gave Alabama officials three days to restore the active status of all wrongfully purged voters.

Responding to the decision, U.S. Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division said that "this action sends a clear message that the Justice Department will work to ensure that the rights of eligible voters are protected."

"The National Voter Registration Act's 90-day 'quiet period provision' is an important safeguard to prevent erroneous eleventh-hour efforts that stand to disenfranchise eligible voters," Clarke added. "The Justice Department remains steadfast in our resolve to protect voters from unlawful removal from the registration rolls and to ensure that states comply with the mandate of federal law."

Litigants in the challenge to Allen's voter removal program also welcomed Wednesday's ruling.

"We are pleased with the court's swift action to protect Alabama voters from an unlawful purge and ensure they can fully participate in the upcoming elections," League of Women Voters of Alabama president Kathy Jones said in a statement following Manasco's decision. "This ruling strengthens our democracy by safeguarding access to the ballot for all eligible voters including naturalized citizens who were unfairly targeted and removed from the rolls."

Campaign Legal Center senior legal counsel Kate Huddleston said: "No U.S. citizen should be afraid to vote, and we are proud to have defended Alabamians ahead of the upcoming election. Today's court decision helps protect Alabama citizens' freedom to register and vote without concerns about government interference or intimidation."

Janette McCarthy Wallace, general counsel at the NAACP, noted that "for over 115 years, the NAACP has been fighting for the right to vote," and while "the suppression tactics may look different... the intent remains the same—silencing Black and other vulnerable voices."

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ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan
News

ICC Will Withdraw War Crimes Charges If Sinwar Confirmed Dead. Also: Netanyahu Still Alive

The office of International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan said Thursday that it is "aware of the reports" that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was assassinated by Israeli forces in Gaza, adding that it would withdraw its request for an arrest warrant for war crimes and crimes against humanity related to the October 7, 2023 attack and imprisonment of hostages if Sinwar's death is confirmed.

"In line with standard practice, the office will take relevant action if sufficient information is received confirming his death," Khan's division said of Sinwar, according toThe Associated Press.

Israeli authorities said DNA, fingerprints, and dental records confirm Sinwar's death.

The announcement left some international critics frustrated at the ICC's delay in issuing arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, more than a year after Israel began its bombardment of Gaza.

In May, Khan announced that he had formally applied for warrants to arrest Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for their role "in the crimes of causing extermination, causing starvation as a method of war, including the denial of humanitarian relief supplies, [and] deliberately targeting civilians in conflict."

Khan also said he was seeking arrest warrants for three Hamas leaders: Sinwar, former political leader Ismail Haniyeh, and al-Qassam Brigades commander Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri for alleged war crimes including extermination, murder, hostage-taking, rape, torture, and other violations of international law.

Haniyeh was assassinated in late July by Israeli operatives in Tehran, Iran. Israel claims to have also killed Al-Masri, although this has not been confirmed.

In a Thursday evening address, Netanyahu asserted that "Hamas will no longer rule Gaza. This is the beginning of the day after Hamas."

"This is an opportunity for you, the residents of Gaza, to finally break free from its tyranny," he added in an appeal to Palestinians in the embattled strip—more than 150,000 of whom have been killed or wounded in a war for which Israel is on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice.

Netanyahu's government allowed Hamas—which Israel propped up for years in a bid to counterbalance the power of the Palestinian National Authority—to receive billions of dollars in cash payments via Qatar.

U.S. President Joe Biden said in a statement on Sinwar's reported assassination that "this is a good day for Israel, for the United States, and for the world."

Biden claimed U.S. involvement in efforts to find and kill Sinwar.

"Shortly after the October 7 massacres, I directed special operations personnel and our intelligence professionals to work side-by-side with their Israeli counterparts to help locate and track Sinwar and other Hamas leaders hiding in Gaza," the president said. "With our intelligence help, the [Israel Defense Forces] relentlessly pursued Hamas' leaders, flushing them out of their hiding places and forcing them onto the run."

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, said during a Thursday press conference that "any terrorist who kills Americans, threatens the American people, or threatens our troops or our interests, know this: We will always bring you to justice."

"Israel has a right to defend itself, and the threat Hamas poses to Israel must be eliminated," Harris added. "Today, there is clear progress toward that goal. Hamas is decimated and its leadership is eliminated."

With the ICC accused of moving too slowly in pursuit of arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas leaders, Khan has urgedthe court to "urgently render its decisions" on his May applications.

Khan had some reason to tread carefully, as Israel waged a nearly decadelong intimidation campaign against former ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda in response to her pursuit of justice for Israeli war criminals.

U.S. lawmakers have also threatened to sanction ICC officials who seek to hold Israeli leaders accountable for violations of international law, and in June dozens of House Democrats joined their Republican colleagues in passing H.R. 8282, the Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act, which would sanction ICC personnel involved in efforts to bring Israeli leaders to justice.

In an opinion piece published earlier this week by Al Jazeera, former United Nations official Moncef Khane wrote that "the ICC's credibility is hanging by a thread."

"It took Khan no less than seven months to recommend to the court's pre-trial chamber the issuance of warrants of arrest for Netanyahu and Gallant, notwithstanding a rather formidable amount of evidence of their personal responsibility in the war crimes perpetrated in Gaza," he noted.

"Now that he has done his duty, it is for the three sitting judges of the pre-trial chamber to decide whether to issue the warrants or not," Khane added. "The glaring and extraordinary amount of evidence of war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and crime of aggression is such that were they to abscond from their responsibility, they would ring the death knell of the ICC."

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