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An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
I’ve never been more alarmed about the state of our democracy. The U.S. is sliding toward authoritarianism faster than ever, while corporate media turns a blind eye. That’s why Common Dreams exists—to cover the news that others won’t. Every day, our independent team works to fulfill our mission: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good.
But here’s the truth: we can only do this with your support. We refuse corporate ads and keep our site free for everyone because access to critical news should never depend on ability to pay. That means our survival depends on readers like you. Please donate today and help us reach our goal of raising $100,000 by September 1.
Thank you for being a vital member of our community. Together, we can keep independent journalism alive when it’s needed most.
'Remarkably,' writes Gosztola, Bill Clinton undermined a previous apology by Hillary Clinton "by justifying her 'super-predator' comments and support for the crime legislation he signed into law." (Photo: YouTube/Screenshot)
Bill Clinton Says Black Lives Matter Protesters Defend Gang Leaders, Crack Dealers
Former President Bill Clinton accused protesters of defending gang leaders and crack dealers, who killed the black lives protesters say matter, while stumping for his wife, Hillary, at a presidential campaign event in Philadelphia.
Former President Bill Clinton accused protesters of defending gang leaders and crack dealers, who killed the black lives protesters say matter, while stumping for his wife, Hillary, at a presidential campaign event in Philadelphia.
The protesters from the movement for black lives were present to call attention to Clinton's crime policy, which increased sentencing minimums for federal offenses, and how young black Americans were criminalized as "super-predators." They also called attention to the devastating impact of welfare reform and policies in the War on Drugs, which Bill Clinton strengthened.
Bill Clinton responded, "I don't know how you would characterize the gang leaders, who got 13-year-olds hopped up on crack and sent them out in the street to murder other African American children. Maybe you thought they were good citizens. She didn't. She didn't. You are defending the people who killed the lives you say matter. Tell the truth."
In February, after a Black Lives Matter activist confronted her at a fundraiser in South Carolina, Hillary Clinton apologized for calling black youth "super-predators" when she was First Lady. She said, "I shouldn't have used those words, and I wouldn't use them today." However, she did not repudiate the crime policies, which she supported in the 1990s.
Remarkably, Bill Clinton, one of her campaign's most valuable surrogates, undermined her February apology by justifying her "super-predator" comments and support for the crime legislation he signed into law.
"I had an assault weapons bill in it. I had money for inner city kids for out of school activities," Bill Clinton argued. "We had 110,000 police officers so we could put people on the street, not in these military vehicles, and the police would look like the people they're policing," he said, although it must be noted that it was the Clinton administration which first authorized the Pentagon to sell military vehicles to police departments.
He maintained African American groups, who "thought black lives matter," told him to take the crime legislation and get it passed because their kids were being shot in the streets by gangs.
"We had 13 year-old kids planning their own funerals. She don't want to hear any of that," Clinton said, referring to one of the protesters. "You know what else she doesn't want to hear? Because of that bill, we had a twenty-five year low in crime, a thirty-three year low in the murder rate. And listen to this--because of that and a background check law, we had a forty-six year low in the deaths of people by gun violence, and who do you think those lives were that mattered? Whose lives were saved that mattered?"
Except, Bill Clinton's main talking point about the crime bill is a lie. It did not create the "twenty-five year low."
In September 2014, Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post did a fact check and gave the claim three Pinocchios. The Community Oriented Police Services (COPS), which funded tens of thousands of additional police, was only responsible for a "1.3 percent decline in the overall crime rate," according to the Government Accountability Office.
The COPS program was "not the primary or even secondary factor in the dramatic reduction in crime during the 1990s," and the "precise reasons for which remain a mystery," Kessler wrote. Funding community police was not the "primary reason" for why the crime rate "went way down."
Michelle Alexander provided a robust critique against the policies of the Clintons in her post, "Why Hillary Clinton Doesn't Deserve Black People's Votes," which was published in early February. It highlighted the federal "three strikes" law," the creation of "dozens of new federal capital crimes," "100-to-1 sentencing disparity for crack versus powder cocaine, which produced staggering racial injustice," and the elimination of "Pell grants for prisoners seeking higher education," along with the signing of legislation, which imposed "a lifetime ban on welfare and food stamps for anyone convicted of a felony drug offense--an exceptionally harsh provision given the racially biased drug war that was raging in inner cities." The Clinton administration made it easier to deny public housing to anyone with a criminal record.
Rather than fully rehash Bill Clinton's record, let's focus on the right-wing nature of his statement about protesters supporting gang leaders and crack dealers, who were responsible for the deaths of black Americans. One thing the Clintons have not confronted is the pseudo-science, which fueled the perception of "super-predators" who were responsible for high rates of crime in inner cities.
As Eddie Glaude, a professor and chair of the African American Studies Department at Princeton University, emphasized back in February, John DiIulio coined the term "super-predator" to create a "moral panic around a so-called 'new breed of criminal.'" However, his findings were proven incorrect. The data he relied upon was wrong. There were "no super-predators on the horizon."
"Bad social science drove public policy and ruined the lives of countless people," Glaude declared. Quite a number of black politicians supported this "bad social science," and DiIulio recanted his theory of "super-predators" in 2001. "If I knew then what I know now, I would have shouted for prevention of crimes," he said, when he was an aide for President George W. Bush.
To be clear, DiIulio's theory was the following, "America is now home to thickening ranks of juvenile 'super-predators'--radically impulsive, brutally remorseless youngsters, including ever more preteenage boys, who murder, assault, rape, rob, burglarize, deal deadly drugs, join gun-toting gangs, and create serious communal disorders."
None of this was addressed as wrong. Bill Clinton defended what everyone who supported the bill at the time thought, in the same way one might defend their vote for the Iraq War by pointing out that the majority of the political class supported the invasion.
Also, Bill Clinton defended his welfare reform bill, suggesting it contributed to the largest drop in poverty. This statement misrepresents what positive effects the legislation had for Americans.
In 2006, Joel Berg, executive director for the New York City Coalition Against Hunger who was part of Clinton's administration, argued, "Poverty reduction occurred despite the bill. The act was signed into law in the summer of 1996 and took full effect in 1997. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, between 1993 and 1997, there was a 25% (7.7 million person) drop in poverty. Between 1997 and 2000, poverty declined by 15%, a four million person decrease. In other words, poverty dropped more rapidly before welfare reform than after welfare reform."
Both Hillary and Bill Clinton are fond of noting Hillary's work with Marian Wright Edelman for the Children's Defense Fund. Bill Clinton mentioned her as he challenged the protesters. However, Edelman thought the welfare reform legislation was a "moment of shame," and her husband, Peter Edelman, resigned from the Clinton administration in protest against the bill.
As Peter Edelman described in an essay for The Atlantic in 1997, there was an effort to make cuts to balance the budget, but "the only deep, multi-year budget cuts" enacted were cuts affecting low-income Americans. A Department of Health and Human Services study found 2.6 million people, including 1.1 million children, would move into poverty. Eleven million families would lose income.
Finally, in one of the most cringe-inducing parts of Bill Clinton's remarks, he said, "All I know is this election's about the future. They're trying to blame her for something she didn't do. So, I'll tell you another story about a place where black lives matter: Africa."
He proceeded to tell a story about a picture from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, which showed a crafts store called "The Hillary Clinton Store." Clinton suggested there was a store named after her in Tanzania because Hillary has "tripled" the number of Africans whose lives were saved from AIDS by lowering the costs of drugs.
The Clinton Health Access Initiative, which was responsible for the effort to lower the costs for drugs for AIDS, has been the subject of controversy. It "failed to disclose its donors from 2010 to 2013, violating an agreement Hillary Clinton forged with President Obama as a condition of becoming secretary of state," according to the Boston Globe.
As secretary of state, foreign contributions sharply increased. The Boston Globe conducted a review of donors that found "prominent examples of overlapping interests," involving corporations like Hewlett-Packard and German drug manufacturer Bayer AG. In other words, the Clinton Health Access Initiative has been utilized to keep up the flow of corporate cash into the bank accounts of the Clintons and maintain mutually beneficial ties to corporations.
Plus, as the Boston Globe pointed out, South African president Nelson Mandela signed a law in 1997, which "angered pharmaceutical companies because it allowed South Africa to import HIV/AIDS medicines from countries where the same drug sold for a lower price." Bill Clinton's administration "sided with U.S. drug companies and put South Africa on a trade watch list in 1998 and 1999."
This was apparently a moment in history when black lives in Africa didn't matter.
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Kevin Gosztola is managing editor of Shadowproof Press. He publishes the Dissenter Newsletter at Substack and hosts "The Dissenter Weekly" show, which covers whistleblower stories. He also produces and co-hosts the weekly podcast, Unauthorized Disclosure.
Former President Bill Clinton accused protesters of defending gang leaders and crack dealers, who killed the black lives protesters say matter, while stumping for his wife, Hillary, at a presidential campaign event in Philadelphia.
The protesters from the movement for black lives were present to call attention to Clinton's crime policy, which increased sentencing minimums for federal offenses, and how young black Americans were criminalized as "super-predators." They also called attention to the devastating impact of welfare reform and policies in the War on Drugs, which Bill Clinton strengthened.
Bill Clinton responded, "I don't know how you would characterize the gang leaders, who got 13-year-olds hopped up on crack and sent them out in the street to murder other African American children. Maybe you thought they were good citizens. She didn't. She didn't. You are defending the people who killed the lives you say matter. Tell the truth."
In February, after a Black Lives Matter activist confronted her at a fundraiser in South Carolina, Hillary Clinton apologized for calling black youth "super-predators" when she was First Lady. She said, "I shouldn't have used those words, and I wouldn't use them today." However, she did not repudiate the crime policies, which she supported in the 1990s.
Remarkably, Bill Clinton, one of her campaign's most valuable surrogates, undermined her February apology by justifying her "super-predator" comments and support for the crime legislation he signed into law.
"I had an assault weapons bill in it. I had money for inner city kids for out of school activities," Bill Clinton argued. "We had 110,000 police officers so we could put people on the street, not in these military vehicles, and the police would look like the people they're policing," he said, although it must be noted that it was the Clinton administration which first authorized the Pentagon to sell military vehicles to police departments.
He maintained African American groups, who "thought black lives matter," told him to take the crime legislation and get it passed because their kids were being shot in the streets by gangs.
"We had 13 year-old kids planning their own funerals. She don't want to hear any of that," Clinton said, referring to one of the protesters. "You know what else she doesn't want to hear? Because of that bill, we had a twenty-five year low in crime, a thirty-three year low in the murder rate. And listen to this--because of that and a background check law, we had a forty-six year low in the deaths of people by gun violence, and who do you think those lives were that mattered? Whose lives were saved that mattered?"
Except, Bill Clinton's main talking point about the crime bill is a lie. It did not create the "twenty-five year low."
In September 2014, Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post did a fact check and gave the claim three Pinocchios. The Community Oriented Police Services (COPS), which funded tens of thousands of additional police, was only responsible for a "1.3 percent decline in the overall crime rate," according to the Government Accountability Office.
The COPS program was "not the primary or even secondary factor in the dramatic reduction in crime during the 1990s," and the "precise reasons for which remain a mystery," Kessler wrote. Funding community police was not the "primary reason" for why the crime rate "went way down."
Michelle Alexander provided a robust critique against the policies of the Clintons in her post, "Why Hillary Clinton Doesn't Deserve Black People's Votes," which was published in early February. It highlighted the federal "three strikes" law," the creation of "dozens of new federal capital crimes," "100-to-1 sentencing disparity for crack versus powder cocaine, which produced staggering racial injustice," and the elimination of "Pell grants for prisoners seeking higher education," along with the signing of legislation, which imposed "a lifetime ban on welfare and food stamps for anyone convicted of a felony drug offense--an exceptionally harsh provision given the racially biased drug war that was raging in inner cities." The Clinton administration made it easier to deny public housing to anyone with a criminal record.
Rather than fully rehash Bill Clinton's record, let's focus on the right-wing nature of his statement about protesters supporting gang leaders and crack dealers, who were responsible for the deaths of black Americans. One thing the Clintons have not confronted is the pseudo-science, which fueled the perception of "super-predators" who were responsible for high rates of crime in inner cities.
As Eddie Glaude, a professor and chair of the African American Studies Department at Princeton University, emphasized back in February, John DiIulio coined the term "super-predator" to create a "moral panic around a so-called 'new breed of criminal.'" However, his findings were proven incorrect. The data he relied upon was wrong. There were "no super-predators on the horizon."
"Bad social science drove public policy and ruined the lives of countless people," Glaude declared. Quite a number of black politicians supported this "bad social science," and DiIulio recanted his theory of "super-predators" in 2001. "If I knew then what I know now, I would have shouted for prevention of crimes," he said, when he was an aide for President George W. Bush.
To be clear, DiIulio's theory was the following, "America is now home to thickening ranks of juvenile 'super-predators'--radically impulsive, brutally remorseless youngsters, including ever more preteenage boys, who murder, assault, rape, rob, burglarize, deal deadly drugs, join gun-toting gangs, and create serious communal disorders."
None of this was addressed as wrong. Bill Clinton defended what everyone who supported the bill at the time thought, in the same way one might defend their vote for the Iraq War by pointing out that the majority of the political class supported the invasion.
Also, Bill Clinton defended his welfare reform bill, suggesting it contributed to the largest drop in poverty. This statement misrepresents what positive effects the legislation had for Americans.
In 2006, Joel Berg, executive director for the New York City Coalition Against Hunger who was part of Clinton's administration, argued, "Poverty reduction occurred despite the bill. The act was signed into law in the summer of 1996 and took full effect in 1997. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, between 1993 and 1997, there was a 25% (7.7 million person) drop in poverty. Between 1997 and 2000, poverty declined by 15%, a four million person decrease. In other words, poverty dropped more rapidly before welfare reform than after welfare reform."
Both Hillary and Bill Clinton are fond of noting Hillary's work with Marian Wright Edelman for the Children's Defense Fund. Bill Clinton mentioned her as he challenged the protesters. However, Edelman thought the welfare reform legislation was a "moment of shame," and her husband, Peter Edelman, resigned from the Clinton administration in protest against the bill.
As Peter Edelman described in an essay for The Atlantic in 1997, there was an effort to make cuts to balance the budget, but "the only deep, multi-year budget cuts" enacted were cuts affecting low-income Americans. A Department of Health and Human Services study found 2.6 million people, including 1.1 million children, would move into poverty. Eleven million families would lose income.
Finally, in one of the most cringe-inducing parts of Bill Clinton's remarks, he said, "All I know is this election's about the future. They're trying to blame her for something she didn't do. So, I'll tell you another story about a place where black lives matter: Africa."
He proceeded to tell a story about a picture from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, which showed a crafts store called "The Hillary Clinton Store." Clinton suggested there was a store named after her in Tanzania because Hillary has "tripled" the number of Africans whose lives were saved from AIDS by lowering the costs of drugs.
The Clinton Health Access Initiative, which was responsible for the effort to lower the costs for drugs for AIDS, has been the subject of controversy. It "failed to disclose its donors from 2010 to 2013, violating an agreement Hillary Clinton forged with President Obama as a condition of becoming secretary of state," according to the Boston Globe.
As secretary of state, foreign contributions sharply increased. The Boston Globe conducted a review of donors that found "prominent examples of overlapping interests," involving corporations like Hewlett-Packard and German drug manufacturer Bayer AG. In other words, the Clinton Health Access Initiative has been utilized to keep up the flow of corporate cash into the bank accounts of the Clintons and maintain mutually beneficial ties to corporations.
Plus, as the Boston Globe pointed out, South African president Nelson Mandela signed a law in 1997, which "angered pharmaceutical companies because it allowed South Africa to import HIV/AIDS medicines from countries where the same drug sold for a lower price." Bill Clinton's administration "sided with U.S. drug companies and put South Africa on a trade watch list in 1998 and 1999."
This was apparently a moment in history when black lives in Africa didn't matter.
Kevin Gosztola is managing editor of Shadowproof Press. He publishes the Dissenter Newsletter at Substack and hosts "The Dissenter Weekly" show, which covers whistleblower stories. He also produces and co-hosts the weekly podcast, Unauthorized Disclosure.
Former President Bill Clinton accused protesters of defending gang leaders and crack dealers, who killed the black lives protesters say matter, while stumping for his wife, Hillary, at a presidential campaign event in Philadelphia.
The protesters from the movement for black lives were present to call attention to Clinton's crime policy, which increased sentencing minimums for federal offenses, and how young black Americans were criminalized as "super-predators." They also called attention to the devastating impact of welfare reform and policies in the War on Drugs, which Bill Clinton strengthened.
Bill Clinton responded, "I don't know how you would characterize the gang leaders, who got 13-year-olds hopped up on crack and sent them out in the street to murder other African American children. Maybe you thought they were good citizens. She didn't. She didn't. You are defending the people who killed the lives you say matter. Tell the truth."
In February, after a Black Lives Matter activist confronted her at a fundraiser in South Carolina, Hillary Clinton apologized for calling black youth "super-predators" when she was First Lady. She said, "I shouldn't have used those words, and I wouldn't use them today." However, she did not repudiate the crime policies, which she supported in the 1990s.
Remarkably, Bill Clinton, one of her campaign's most valuable surrogates, undermined her February apology by justifying her "super-predator" comments and support for the crime legislation he signed into law.
"I had an assault weapons bill in it. I had money for inner city kids for out of school activities," Bill Clinton argued. "We had 110,000 police officers so we could put people on the street, not in these military vehicles, and the police would look like the people they're policing," he said, although it must be noted that it was the Clinton administration which first authorized the Pentagon to sell military vehicles to police departments.
He maintained African American groups, who "thought black lives matter," told him to take the crime legislation and get it passed because their kids were being shot in the streets by gangs.
"We had 13 year-old kids planning their own funerals. She don't want to hear any of that," Clinton said, referring to one of the protesters. "You know what else she doesn't want to hear? Because of that bill, we had a twenty-five year low in crime, a thirty-three year low in the murder rate. And listen to this--because of that and a background check law, we had a forty-six year low in the deaths of people by gun violence, and who do you think those lives were that mattered? Whose lives were saved that mattered?"
Except, Bill Clinton's main talking point about the crime bill is a lie. It did not create the "twenty-five year low."
In September 2014, Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post did a fact check and gave the claim three Pinocchios. The Community Oriented Police Services (COPS), which funded tens of thousands of additional police, was only responsible for a "1.3 percent decline in the overall crime rate," according to the Government Accountability Office.
The COPS program was "not the primary or even secondary factor in the dramatic reduction in crime during the 1990s," and the "precise reasons for which remain a mystery," Kessler wrote. Funding community police was not the "primary reason" for why the crime rate "went way down."
Michelle Alexander provided a robust critique against the policies of the Clintons in her post, "Why Hillary Clinton Doesn't Deserve Black People's Votes," which was published in early February. It highlighted the federal "three strikes" law," the creation of "dozens of new federal capital crimes," "100-to-1 sentencing disparity for crack versus powder cocaine, which produced staggering racial injustice," and the elimination of "Pell grants for prisoners seeking higher education," along with the signing of legislation, which imposed "a lifetime ban on welfare and food stamps for anyone convicted of a felony drug offense--an exceptionally harsh provision given the racially biased drug war that was raging in inner cities." The Clinton administration made it easier to deny public housing to anyone with a criminal record.
Rather than fully rehash Bill Clinton's record, let's focus on the right-wing nature of his statement about protesters supporting gang leaders and crack dealers, who were responsible for the deaths of black Americans. One thing the Clintons have not confronted is the pseudo-science, which fueled the perception of "super-predators" who were responsible for high rates of crime in inner cities.
As Eddie Glaude, a professor and chair of the African American Studies Department at Princeton University, emphasized back in February, John DiIulio coined the term "super-predator" to create a "moral panic around a so-called 'new breed of criminal.'" However, his findings were proven incorrect. The data he relied upon was wrong. There were "no super-predators on the horizon."
"Bad social science drove public policy and ruined the lives of countless people," Glaude declared. Quite a number of black politicians supported this "bad social science," and DiIulio recanted his theory of "super-predators" in 2001. "If I knew then what I know now, I would have shouted for prevention of crimes," he said, when he was an aide for President George W. Bush.
To be clear, DiIulio's theory was the following, "America is now home to thickening ranks of juvenile 'super-predators'--radically impulsive, brutally remorseless youngsters, including ever more preteenage boys, who murder, assault, rape, rob, burglarize, deal deadly drugs, join gun-toting gangs, and create serious communal disorders."
None of this was addressed as wrong. Bill Clinton defended what everyone who supported the bill at the time thought, in the same way one might defend their vote for the Iraq War by pointing out that the majority of the political class supported the invasion.
Also, Bill Clinton defended his welfare reform bill, suggesting it contributed to the largest drop in poverty. This statement misrepresents what positive effects the legislation had for Americans.
In 2006, Joel Berg, executive director for the New York City Coalition Against Hunger who was part of Clinton's administration, argued, "Poverty reduction occurred despite the bill. The act was signed into law in the summer of 1996 and took full effect in 1997. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, between 1993 and 1997, there was a 25% (7.7 million person) drop in poverty. Between 1997 and 2000, poverty declined by 15%, a four million person decrease. In other words, poverty dropped more rapidly before welfare reform than after welfare reform."
Both Hillary and Bill Clinton are fond of noting Hillary's work with Marian Wright Edelman for the Children's Defense Fund. Bill Clinton mentioned her as he challenged the protesters. However, Edelman thought the welfare reform legislation was a "moment of shame," and her husband, Peter Edelman, resigned from the Clinton administration in protest against the bill.
As Peter Edelman described in an essay for The Atlantic in 1997, there was an effort to make cuts to balance the budget, but "the only deep, multi-year budget cuts" enacted were cuts affecting low-income Americans. A Department of Health and Human Services study found 2.6 million people, including 1.1 million children, would move into poverty. Eleven million families would lose income.
Finally, in one of the most cringe-inducing parts of Bill Clinton's remarks, he said, "All I know is this election's about the future. They're trying to blame her for something she didn't do. So, I'll tell you another story about a place where black lives matter: Africa."
He proceeded to tell a story about a picture from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, which showed a crafts store called "The Hillary Clinton Store." Clinton suggested there was a store named after her in Tanzania because Hillary has "tripled" the number of Africans whose lives were saved from AIDS by lowering the costs of drugs.
The Clinton Health Access Initiative, which was responsible for the effort to lower the costs for drugs for AIDS, has been the subject of controversy. It "failed to disclose its donors from 2010 to 2013, violating an agreement Hillary Clinton forged with President Obama as a condition of becoming secretary of state," according to the Boston Globe.
As secretary of state, foreign contributions sharply increased. The Boston Globe conducted a review of donors that found "prominent examples of overlapping interests," involving corporations like Hewlett-Packard and German drug manufacturer Bayer AG. In other words, the Clinton Health Access Initiative has been utilized to keep up the flow of corporate cash into the bank accounts of the Clintons and maintain mutually beneficial ties to corporations.
Plus, as the Boston Globe pointed out, South African president Nelson Mandela signed a law in 1997, which "angered pharmaceutical companies because it allowed South Africa to import HIV/AIDS medicines from countries where the same drug sold for a lower price." Bill Clinton's administration "sided with U.S. drug companies and put South Africa on a trade watch list in 1998 and 1999."
This was apparently a moment in history when black lives in Africa didn't matter.
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While acknowledging that "hunger is a real issue in Gaza," the US ambassador to the UN repeated a debunked claim that the world's leading authority on starvation lowered its standards to declare a famine.
Every member nation of the United Nations Security Council except the United States on Wednesday affirmed that Israel's engineered famine in Gaza is "man-made" as 10 more Palestinians died of starvation amid what UN experts warned is a worsening crisis.
Fourteen of the 15 Security Council members issued a joint statement calling for an immediate Gaza ceasefire, release of all remaining hostages held by Hamas, and lifting of all Israeli restrictions on aid delivery into the embattled strip, where hundreds of Palestinians have died from starvation and hundreds of thousands more are starving.
"Famine in Gaza must be stopped immediately," they said. "Time is of the essence. The humanitarian emergency must be addressed without delay and Israel must reverse course."
— (@)
"We express our profound alarm and distress at the IPC data on Gaza, published last Friday. It clearly and unequivocally confirms famine," the statement said, referring to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification's declaration of Phase 5, or a famine "catastrophe," in the strip.
"We trust the IPC's work and methodology," the 14 countries declared. "This is the first time famine has been officially confirmed in the Middle East region. Every day, more persons are dying as a result of malnutrition, many of them children."
"This is a man-made crisis," the statement stresses. "The use of starvation as a weapon of war is clearly prohibited under international humanitarian law."
Israel, which is facing a genocide case at the UN's International Court of Justice, denies the existence of famine in Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are wanted by the International Court of Justice for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder and forced starvation.
The 14 countries issuing the joint statement are: Algeria, China, Denmark, France, Greece, Guyana, Pakistan, Panama, the Republic of Korea, the Russian Federation, Sierra Leone, Slovenia, Somalia, and the United Kingdom.
While acknowledging that "hunger is a real issue in Gaza and that there are significant humanitarian needs which must be met," US Ambassador to the UN Dorothy Shea rejected the resolution and the IPC's findings.
"We can only solve problems with credibility and integrity," Shea told the Security Council. "Unfortunately, the recent report from the IPC doesn't pass the test on either."
Shea also repeated the debunked claim that the IPC's "normal standards were changed for [the IPC famine] declaration."
The Security Council's affirmation that the Gaza famine is man-made mirrors the findings of food experts who have accused Israel of orchestrating a carefully planned campaign of mass starvation in the strip.
The UN Palestinian Rights Bureau and UN humanitarian officials also warned Wednesday that the famine in Gaza is "only getting worse."
"Over half a million people currently face starvation, destitution, and death," the humanitarian experts said. "By the end of September, that number could exceed 640,000."
"Failure to act now will have irreversible consequences," they added.
— (@)
Wednesday's UN actions came as Israel intensified Operation Gideon's Chariots 2, the campaign to conquer, occupy, and ethnically cleanse around 1 million Palestinians from Gaza, possibly into a reportedly proposed concentration camp that would be built over the ruins of the southern city of Rafah.
The Gaza Health Ministry (GHM) on Wednesday reported 10 more Palestinian deaths "due to famine and malnutrition" over the past 24 hours, including two children, bringing the number of famine victims to at least 313, 119 of them children.
All told, Israel's 691-day assault and siege on Gaza has left at least 230,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing, according to the GHM.
Israel faced backlash this week after its Arabic-language account on the social media site X published a message warning Europeans to take action against the proliferation of mosques and "remove" Muslims from their countries.
"In the year 1980, there were only fewer than a hundred mosques in Europe. As for today, there are more than 20,000 mosques. This is the true face of colonization," posted Israel, a settler-colonial state whose nearly 2 million Muslim citizens face widespread discrimination, and where Palestinians in the illegally occupied territories live under an apartheid regime.
"This is what is happening while Europe is oblivious and does not care about the danger," the post continues. "And the danger does not lie in the existence of mosques in and of themselves, for freedom of worship is one of the basic human rights, and every person has the right to believe and worship his Lord."
"The problem lies in the contents that are taught in some of these mosques, and they are not limited to piety and good deeds, but rather focus on encouraging escalating violence in the streets of Europe, and spreading hatred for the other and even for those who host them in their countries, and inciting against them instead of teaching love, harmony, and peace," Israel added. "Europe must wake up and remove this fifth column."
— (@)
Referring to the far-right Alternative for Germany party, Berlin-based journalist James Jackson replied on X that "even the AfD don't tweet, 'Europe must wake up and remove this fifth column' over a map of mosques."
Other social media users called Israel's post "racist" and "Islamophobic," while some highlighted the stark contrast between the way Palestinians and Israelis treat Christian people and institutions.
Others noted that some of the map's fearmongering figures misleadingly showing a large number of mosques indicate countries whose populations are predominantly or significantly Muslim.
"Russia has 8,000 mosques? Who would've known a country with millions of Muslim Central Asians and Caucasians would need so many!" said one X user.
Israel's post came amid growing international outrage over its 691-day assault and siege on Gaza, which has left more than 230,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing and hundreds of thousands more starving and facing ethnic cleansing as Operation Gideon's Chariots 2—a campaign to conquer, occupy, and "cleanse" the strip—ramps up amid a growing engineered famine that has already killed hundreds of people.
Israel is facing an ongoing genocide case at the International Court of Justice, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, his former defense minister, are fugitives form the International Criminal Court, where they are wanted for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity including murder and forced starvation.
European nations including Belgium, Ireland, and Spain are supporting the South Africa-led ICJ genocide case against Israel. Since October 2023, European countries including Belgium, France, Malta, Portugal, Slovenia, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Norway, and Spain have either formally recognized Palestinian statehood or announced their intention to do so.
The Trump administration is reportedly putting new restrictions on nonprofit organizations that would bar them from helping undocumented immigrants affected by natural disasters.
The Washington Postreported on Wednesday that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is "now barring states and volunteer groups that receive government funds from helping undocumented immigrants" while also requiring these groups "to cooperate with immigration officials and enforcement operations."
Documents obtained by the paper reveal that all volunteer groups that receive government money to help in the wake of disasters must not "operate any program that benefits illegal immigrants or incentivizes illegal immigration." What's more, the groups are prohibited from "harboring, concealing, or shielding from detection illegal aliens" and must "provide access to detainees, such as when an immigration officer seeks to interview a person who might be a removable alien."
The order pertains to faith-based aid groups such as the Salvation Army and Red Cross that are normally on the front lines building shelters and providing assistance during disasters.
Scott Robinson, an emergency management expert who teaches at Arizona State University, told The Washington Post that there is no historical precedent for requiring disaster victims to prove proof of their legal status before receiving assistance.
"The notion that the federal government would use these operations for surveillance is entirely new territory," he said.
Many critics were quick to attack the administration for threatening to punish nonprofit groups that help undocumented immigrants during natural disasters.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) lashed out at the decision to bar certain people from receiving assistance during humanitarian emergencies.
"When disaster hits, we cannot only help those with certain legal status," she wrote in a social media post. "We have an obligation to help every single person in need. This is unfathomable discrimination against immigrants that will cost our country lives."
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, said that restrictions on faith-based groups such as the Salvation Army amounted to a violation of their First Amendment rights.
"Arguably the most anti-religious administration in history," he wrote. "Just nakedly hostile to those who wish to practice their faith."
Bloomberg columnist Erika Smith labeled the new DHS policy "truly cruel and crazy—even for this administration."
Author Charles Fishman also labeled the new policy "crazy" and said it looks like the Trump administration is "trying to crush even charity."
Catherine Rampell, a former columnist at The Washington Post, simply described the new DHS policy as "evil."