Weekend Quotables
Protests spread across the globe. Will ICJ dare issue warrants for the arrest of Israel's war criminals?
AT THE HAGUE: A political source in Israel said there is "a fear" that international arrest warrants against senior Israeli officials on suspicion of committing war crimes in Gaza "will probably materialize" as early as next week, issued by Karim Khan, the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Orders are believed to be issued against PM Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi. — Haaretz
But the likelihood of such warrants being issued or enforced is slim to none, says journalist Jeremy Scahill. Why? Because the US is poised to take military action to prevent any arrests of Americans or their allies.
Known in the human rights community as "The Hague Invasion Act," it also lists as “persons authorized to be freed” from the ICC through U.S. actions “military personnel, elected or appointed officials, and other persons employed by or working on behalf of the government of a NATO member country, a major non-NATO ally (including Australia, Egypt, Israel, Japan, Jordan, Argentina, the Republic of Korea, and New Zealand), or Taiwan.” — X
BREAKING: According to a fresh Gallup Poll, Joe Biden's job approval rating for the first quarter of 2024 is 38.7%, making him the least popular president at this point in his presidency in the last 70 years. With about six months remaining before Election Day, Biden stands in a weaker position than any prior incumbent.
AT CORRESPONDENT’S DINNER: Gaza only got one mention at an annual gathering of hundreds of reporters, after the deadliest year for journalists in a decade. . While Biden cracked jokes at the White House correspondents’ dinner, pro-Palestinian protesters made sure it was a different story outside. — Aljazeera
Colin Jost
"The Republican candidate for president owes half a billion in fines for bank fraud and is currently spending his days farting himself awake during a porn star hush money trial, and the race is tied?" Jost asked incredulously. — Correspondent’s Dinner
More Quotables
Students in Paris chant
“Gaza, Gaza, Sorbonne stands with you!” — Reuters
Sen. Bernie Sanders
"I don't think there's any doubt that what Netanyahu is doing now — displacing 80% of the population in Gaza — is ethnic cleansing." — CNN’s “State of the Union”
Abdullah Hammoud, Mayor of Dearborn, MI.
“We want the world to see and recognize that humanity is on the ballot in November,” Hammoud said. “My biggest fear is that [Biden] is not going to be remembered as the president who saved democracy in 2020 and all this transformative legislation — he’s going to be remembered as the president who sided with Benjamin Netanyahu and chose him over American democracy.” — Washington Post
Majd, a protesting Columbia student
…thinks the chances for Biden to win young voters back are slim.
“We’re in such a difficult situation because you have a genocidal enabler and you have Trump. We don’t need to even get into how bad it will be. I feel like this generation – at least people in this camp – understand that we deserve an option that is neither of them.” — Independent
We deserve a 'better option?' Indeed, we deserve a great deal more. But we don't always get what we want. Survey the entire terrain accurately, and assess our forces capabilities as well. If we are good at this, we will know what we have to do, battle by battle, and we will win.
I thought a better point would be that there is always another possible life-changing course of action, that may include, but go far beyond Trump v. Biden, which a million students and others are taking right now. Tune in to Hitting Left Radio (live at lumpenradio.com) Friday 5/3, 11-noon CDT, when I will have a veteran of the '68 Columbia student strike along with a current Columbia student activist as my guests.