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<h1 data-aos="fade-down" id="covid-19-sentry">Covid-19 Sentry</h1>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" data-aos-anchor-placement="top-bottom" id="contents">Contents</h1>
<ul>
<li><a href="#from-preprints">From Preprints</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-clinical-trials">From Clinical Trials</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-pubmed">From PubMed</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-patent-search">From Patent Search</a></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-preprints">From Preprints</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>The benefits of voluntary plasma donations: safety, price, and supply resilience</strong> -
<div>
This article summarizes data on blood and blood component VNRD compared to remunerated donations, in the context of safety for patients and donors, price of products, and supply resiliency. This is particularly relevant given the ongoing debate on the proposal for a regulation on substances of human origin (SoHO). Data indicated that when donors are remunerated and therefore donate very frequently, the safety of the patients receiving these donations and the donors themselves is at risk. Moreover, when donations were VNRD compared to remunerated, PDMP prices increased less between 2018 and 2023 and were therefore more cost-effective for patients and healthcare systems. Lastly, the supply of plasma was found to be more resilient during the COVID-19 pandemic when donors were non-remunerated compared to when they were remunerated. In addition, once countries implement remuneration, it cannot be reversed without risking the supply. We strongly urge policy makers to rely on empirical evidence as a basis for decision-making regarding the proposal for a regulation on SoHO.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/fnhjg/" target="_blank">The benefits of voluntary plasma donations: safety, price, and supply resilience</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Influenza Hospitalisations in England during the 2022/23 Season: do different data sources drive divergence in modelled waves? A comparison of surveillance and administrative data.</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Background Seasonal influenza places a substantial burden annually on healthcare services. Policies during the COVID-19 pandemic limited the transmission of seasonal influenza, making the timing and magnitude of a potential resurgence difficult to ascertain and important to forecast its impact. Methods We have developed a hierarchical generalised additive model (GAM) for the short-term forecasting of hospital admissions with a positive test for the influenza virus sub-regionally across England. The model incorporates a multi-level structure of spatio-temporal splines, weekly cycles in admissions, and spatial correlation. Using multiple performance metrics including interval score, coverage, bias, and median absolute error, the predictive performance is evaluated for the 2022/2023 seasonal wave. Performance is measured against autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) and Prophet time series models. Results Across the epidemic phases the hierarchical GAM shows improved performance, at all geographic scales relative to the ARIMA and Prophet models. Temporally, the hierarchical GAM has overall an improved performance at 7 and 14 day time horizons. The performance of the GAM is most sensitive to the flexibility of the smoothing function that measures the national epidemic trend. Conclusions This study introduces an approach to short-term forecasting of hospital admissions for the influenza virus using hierarchical, spatial, and temporal components. The methodology was designed for the real time forecasting of epidemics. This modelling framework was used across the 2022/2023 winter for healthcare operational planning by the UK Health Security Agency and the National Health Service in England.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.10.19.23297248v1" target="_blank">Influenza Hospitalisations in England during the 2022/23 Season: do different data sources drive divergence in modelled waves? A comparison of surveillance and administrative data.</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Impact of natural disasters on HIV risk behaviors, seroprevalence, and virological supression in a hyperendemic fishing village in Uganda</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Background: Understanding the impact of natural disasters on the HIV epidemic in populations with high HIV burden is critical for the effective delivery of HIV control efforts. We assessed HIV risk behaviors, seroprevalence, and viral suppression in a high-HIV prevalence Lake Victoria fishing community before and after COVID-19 emergence/lockdown and a severe lake flooding event, both of which occurred in 2020. Methods: We used data from the largest Lake Victoria fishing community in the Rakai Community Cohort Study, an open population-based HIV surveillance cohort in south-central Uganda, collected prior to (September-December 2018) and after (October-December 2021) COVID-19 emergence/lockdown and a severe flooding event, to evaluate the impact of natural disasters on the key population-level HIV outcomes listed above. Households impacted by flooding were identified using drone data and through consultation with village community health workers. The entire study population was subject to extensive COVID-19-related lockdowns in the first half of 2020. Differences in HIV-related outcomes before and after COVID, and between residents of flooded and non-flooded households, were assessed using a difference-in-difference statistical modeling approach. Findings: 1,226 people participated in the pre- and post-COVID surveys, of whom 506 (41%) were affected by flooding and 513 (41%) were female. HIV seroprevalence in the initial period was 37% in flooded and 36.8% in non-flooded households. Following the COVID-19 pandemic/lockdown, we observed a decline in HIV-associated risk behaviors. Transactional sex declined from 29.4% to 24.8% (p=0.011), and inconsistent condom use with non-marital partners declined from 41.6% to 37% (p=0.021) in the pre- and post-COVID periods. ART coverage increased from 91.6% to 97.2% (p&lt;0.001). There was 17% decline in transactional sex (aPR=0.83, 95% CI: 0.75-0.92) and 28% decline in the overall HIV risk score (aPR=0.83, 95% CI: 0.75-0.92) among HIV-seronegatives and 5% increase in ART coverage between the pre- and post-COVID periods. We observed no statistically significant differences in changes of HIV risk behavior, seroprevalence, or viral suppression outcomes comparing those affected by floods to those not affected by floods in the periods before and after COVID in difference-in-difference analyses. Interpretation: Despite a high background burden of HIV, the COVID-19 pandemic, and severe flooding, we observed no adverse impact on HIV risk behaviors, seroprevalence, or virologic outcomes. This may be attributed to innovative HIV programming during the period and or population resilience. Understanding exactly what HIV programs and personal/community-level strategies worked to maintain good public health outcomes despite extreme environmental and pandemic conditions may help improve HIV epidemic control during future natural disaster events.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.10.19.23297262v1" target="_blank">Impact of natural disasters on HIV risk behaviors, seroprevalence, and virological supression in a hyperendemic fishing village in Uganda</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>SARS-CoV-2 lineage-specific disease symptoms and disease severity in Sao Caetano do Sul city, Brazil</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Background: The city of Sao Caetano do Sul, Brazil, established a web-based platform to provide primary care to suspected COVID-19 patients, integrating clinical and demographic data and sample metadata. Here we describe lineage-specific spatiotemporal dynamics of infections, clinical symptoms, and disease severity during the first year of the epidemic. Methods: We selected and sequenced 879 PCR+ swab samples (8% of all reported cases), obtaining a spatially and temporally representative set of sequences. Daily lineage-specific prevalence was estimating using a moving-window approach, allowing inference of cumulative cases and symptom probability stratified by lineage using integrated data from the platform. Results: Most infections were caused by B.1.1.28 (41.3%), followed by Gamma (31.7%), Zeta (9.6%) and B1.1.33 (9.0%). Gamma and Zeta were associated with larger prevalence of dyspnoea (respectively 81.3% and 78.5%) and persistent fever (84.7% and 61.1%) compared to B.1.1.28 and B.1.1.33. Ageusia, anosmia, and coryza were respectively 18.9%, 20.3% and 17.8% less commonly caused by Gamma, while altered mental status was 108.9% more common in Zeta. Case incidence was spatially heterogeneous and larger in poorer and younger districts. Discussion: Our study demonstrates that Gamma was associated with more severe disease, emphasising the role of its increased disease severity in the heightened mortality levels in Brazil.
</p>
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<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.10.19.23297252v1" target="_blank">SARS-CoV-2 lineage-specific disease symptoms and disease severity in Sao Caetano do Sul city, Brazil</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Commentary on the Strategic Interventions for Agriculture, Climate Change, and Food Security Proposed by the National Science and Technology Commission at the 9th Biennial Conference on Science and Technology</strong> -
<div>
Agriculture in Sri Lanka occupies 45.46% of the land and consumes over 80% of the country’s freshwater resources. Rice farming is the most prominent agricultural practice, with 1.8 million families engaged in it. The tea plantation sector produces tea annually, contributing to 285,877 metric tons of export volume. Tea exports contribute nearly 38% of the total agricultural products, with a target of $2,044 million in income by 2025. Climate change and natural resources significantly impact agriculture, with irregular rainfall patterns, temperature variation, and drought causing significant challenges. The proposed interventions under the food crops, plantation, and export crops sectors include enhancing certified seed production, promoting value-added products, and developing training and awareness programs for low-carbon lifestyles. Food security is another area where climate change impacts the agricultural sector, with nearly 26% of the population affected by food security by 2050 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. To address this issue, the proposed strategic interventions aim to achieve SDG 1, SDG 2, and SDG 13, the recommendations of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, and the actions of the Milan Urban Food Policy Fund. However, more concerns can be put forward to minimize or eliminate diseases in agricultural sectors due to climate change and minimize food waste or loss.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/64grs/" target="_blank">Commentary on the Strategic Interventions for Agriculture, Climate Change, and Food Security Proposed by the National Science and Technology Commission at the 9th Biennial Conference on Science and Technology</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Caveolin-1 mediates neuroinflammation and cognitive impairment in SARS-CoV-2 infection</strong> -
<div>
Leukocyte infiltration of the CNS can contribute to neuroinflammation and cognitive impairment. Brain endothelial cells regulate adhesion, activation, and diapedesis of T cells across the blood-brain barrier (BBB) in inflammatory diseases. The integral membrane protein Caveolin-1 (Cav-1) critically regulates BBB permeability, but its influence on T cell CNS infiltration in respiratory viral infections is unknown. In this study, we sought to determine the role of Cav-1 at the BBB in neuroinflammation in a COVID-19 mouse model. We used mice genetically deficient in Cav-1 to test the role of this protein in T cell infiltration and cognitive impairment. We found that SARS-CoV-2 infection upregulated brain endothelial Cav-1. Moreover, SARS-CoV-2 infection increased brain endothelial cell vascular cell adhesion molecule-1 (VCAM-1) and CD3+ T cell infiltration of the hippocampus, a region important for short term learning and memory. Concordantly, we observed learning and memory deficits. Importantly, genetic deficiency in Cav-1 attenuated brain endothelial VCAM-1 expression and T cell infiltration in the hippocampus of mice with SARS-CoV-2 infection. Moreover, Cav-1 KO mice were protected from the learning and memory deficits caused by SARS-CoV-2 infection. These results indicate the importance of BBB permeability in COVID-19 neuroinflammation and suggest potential therapeutic value of targeting Cav-1 to improve disease outcomes.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.10.18.563024v1" target="_blank">Caveolin-1 mediates neuroinflammation and cognitive impairment in SARS-CoV-2 infection</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Th2 and Th17-Associated Immunopathology Following SARS-CoV-2 Breakthrough Infection in Spike-vaccinated ACE2-humanized Mice</strong> -
<div>
Vaccines have demonstrated remarkable effectiveness in protecting against COVID-19; however, concerns regarding vaccine-associated enhanced respiratory diseases (VAERD) following breakthrough infections have emerged. Spike protein subunit vaccines for SARS-CoV-2 induce VAERD in hamsters, where aluminum adjuvants promote a Th2-biased immune response, leading to increased type 2 pulmonary inflammation in animals with breakthrough infections. To gain a deeper understanding of the potential risks and the underlying mechanisms of VAERD, we immunized ACE2-humanized mice with SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein adjuvanted with aluminum and CpG-ODN. Subsequently, we exposed them to increasing doses of SARS-CoV-2 to establish a breakthrough infection. The vaccine elicited robust neutralizing antibody responses, reduced viral titers, and enhanced host survival. However, following a breakthrough infection, vaccinated animals exhibited severe pulmonary immunopathology, characterized by a significant perivascular infiltration of eosinophils and CD4+ T cells, along with increased expression of Th2/Th17 cytokines. Intracellular flow cytometric analysis revealed a systemic Th17 inflammatory response, particularly pronounced in the lungs. Our data demonstrate that aluminum/CpG adjuvants induce strong antibody and Th1-associated immunity against COVID-19 but also prime a robust Th2/Th17 inflammatory response, which may contribute to the rapid onset of T cell-mediated pulmonary immunopathology following a breakthrough infection. These findings underscore the necessity for further research to unravel the complexities of VAERD in COVID-19 and to enhance vaccine formulations for broad protection and maximum safety.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.10.18.563016v1" target="_blank">Th2 and Th17-Associated Immunopathology Following SARS-CoV-2 Breakthrough Infection in Spike-vaccinated ACE2-humanized Mice</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>The Risk of Mpox (Monkeypox) Importation and Subsequent Outbreak Potential in Mainland China: A Retrospective Statistical Modelling Study</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The 2022 mpox outbreak has spread rapidly across multiple countries in the non-endemic region, mainly among men who have sex with men (MSM), while China only has limited recorded importation and no local outbreak. We constructed probabilistic models to simulate the risk of mpox importation in mainland China, with the help of reported monkeypox cases during this multi-country outbreak and the international air-travel data. And we further evaluated the mpox outbreak potential given that undetected mpox infections were introduced into men who have sex with men, considering different transmissibility, population immunity and population activity. We found that the reduced international air-travel volume and stringent border entry policy decreased about 94% and 69% mpox importations respectively. Once a mpox case is introduced into active MSM population with almost no population immunity, the risk of triggering local transmission is estimated at 42%, and would rise to &gt;95% with over six cases. Our study demonstrates the key role of the reduced international air-travel volume and stringent border entry policy during the COVID-19 pandemic on reducing mpox importations, and the subsequent risk of triggering local outbreaks among MSM.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.08.24.23294530v2" target="_blank">The Risk of Mpox (Monkeypox) Importation and Subsequent Outbreak Potential in Mainland China: A Retrospective Statistical Modelling Study</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Association between common adverse events after COVID-19 vaccination and anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibody concentrations in a population-based prospective cohort study in the Netherlands</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
INTRODUCTION: Adverse events (AE) such as pain at injection site or fever are common after COVID-19 vaccination. We aimed to describe determinants of AE after COVID-19 vaccination and investigate the association between AE and pre- and post-vaccination antibody concentrations. METHODS: Participants of an ongoing prospective cohort study (VASCO) completed a questionnaire on AE within two months after COVID-19 vaccination and provided 6-monthly serum samples. Data from May 2021 to November 2022 were included. Logistic regression analyses were performed to investigate determinants of AE after mRNA vaccination, including pre-vaccination Ig antibody concentrations against the receptor binding domain. Multivariable linear regression was performed in SARS-CoV-2 naive participants to assess the association between AE and log-transformed antibody concentrations 3-8 weeks after mRNA vaccination. RESULTS: 47,947 AE questionnaires were completed by 28,032 participants. In 42% and 34% of questionnaires, injection site and systemic AE were reported, respectively. In 2.2% of questionnaires, participants sought medical attention due to AE. AE were reported significantly more frequently by women, younger participants (&lt;60 years), participants with medical risk conditions and Spikevax recipients (versus Comirnaty). Higher pre-vaccination antibody concentrations were associated with higher incidence of systemic AE after the second and third dose, but not with injection site AE or AE for which medical attention was sought. Any AE after the third dose was associated with higher post-vaccination antibody concentrations (geometric mean concentration ratio: 1.38, 95%CI 1.23-1.54). CONCLUSION: Our study suggests that high pre-vaccination antibody levels induce AE, and that experiencing AE may be a marker for a good antibody response to vaccination.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.10.19.23297194v1" target="_blank">Association between common adverse events after COVID-19 vaccination and anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibody concentrations in a population-based prospective cohort study in the Netherlands</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>COVID-19 cases associated with testing policies in 34 highly democratic countries, 2020-2022</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
COVID-19 testing policies varied in time from testing only the symptomatic, testing the symptomatic and persons at higher risk of severe disease, on-demand testing for people who wanted one, and two periods of government-imposed mass testing in Slovakia. Using Poisson regression, this study examines the associations of COVID-19 cases during the times that the noted policies were in effect in 34 countries rated highest on democracy scores. Statistically corrected for other risk factors, increases in negative tests were associated with subsequent surges in cases when on-demand testing was promoted, particularly when coupled with poor contact tracing. Mass testing in Slovakia was associated with reduced spread of the virus for short periods but was deemed unsustainable. The data support the hypothesis that on-demand testing resulted in the unanticipated consequence of increased travel and increased exposure of travelers to the virus.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.10.19.23297270v1" target="_blank">COVID-19 cases associated with testing policies in 34 highly democratic countries, 2020-2022</a>
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<li><strong>KCL TEST: an open-source inspired asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 surveillance programme in an academic institution</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Objectives: To establish a SARS-CoV-2 PCR testing programme in an academic institution to analyze saliva samples collected from asymptomatic staff and students. Design: PCR to detect SARS-CoV-2 RNA in saliva self-collected by asymptomatic students and staff members from King′s College London, and their household contacts. Standards for diagnostics testing set by the DHSC (UK) were followed to develop an automated saliva PCR service for SARS-CoV-2 detection. Prospective study that run from December 2020 until July 2022. Setting: Testing took place in an academic institution including 18 different locations in London (UK). Participants: There were no selection criteria; asymptomatic participants were encouraged to test regularly (twice weekly when on campus). Main outcome measures: Number of tests, number of participants and positive rate. Results: 158,277 PCR tests were carried out on saliva, of which 2,989 were positive (1.89%), collected by 20,186 participants. Between 10-30% of campus footfall were tested. The positive rate was equivalent to that reported by the Office for National Statistics (UK), except for the period encompassing the delta variant; this wave was nearly absent in our cohort. We employed non-commercial reagents and an open source-inspired automated pipeline for sample processing. This rapidly developed service was awarded UKAS accreditation under the ISO15189 standard. Conclusions: Including academic institutions in pandemic preparedness is a critical consideration, considering the experience in developing, validating, and implementing economic and scalable testing solutions. Given the joint ventures in hospital pathology departments across the UK and the move to centralised, automated, commercial tests, focusing on academic centres that can carry out research and development to test for novel and re-emerging pathogens should be a top priority.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.07.25.23293154v4" target="_blank">KCL TEST: an open-source inspired asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 surveillance programme in an academic institution</a>
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<li><strong>XAV-19 a Glyco-Humanized polyclonal antibody targeting SARS-CoV-2 accelerates the recovery of mild to moderate COVID-19 patients and keeps its neutralizing activity against Omicron and its subvariants.</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Background: XAV-19 is a glyco-humanized swine polyclonal antibody targeting SARS-CoV-2. The safety and clinical efficacy of XAV-19 was investigated in patients with a WHO score of 2 to 4 in the WHO 7-point ordinal scale. The activity of XAV-19 against Omicron and its subvariants was assessed in vitro. Methods: A phase II/III, multicentric randomized double-blind placebo-controlled, clinical trial was conducted to evaluate the safety and clinical efficacy of XAV-19 in inpatients with COVID-19 requiring or not oxygen therapy and outpatients not requiring oxygen (EUROXAV trial, NCT04928430). Most patients were not vaccinated. The primary endpoint was the proportion of patients with an aggravation of COVID-19 within 8 days after treatment. Binding and neutralization of Omicron or its subvariants by XAV-19 was investigated by ELISA or with a whole virus neutralization assay. Results: Patients received either 150mg of XAV-19 (N=139) or placebo (N=140). Low enrolment forced the premature trial termination. XAV-19 was well tolerated. No difference in the primary endpoint, nor in the proportion with an improvement at day 8 (secondary endpoint) was observed between the 2 groups. For patients not requiring oxygen therapy, XAV-19 reduced the time to improvement significantly (7 days vs 14 days p=0.0159). Neutralizing activity against Omicron and BA.2, BA2.12.1, BA.4/5 and BQ1.1 subvariants was shown in vitro. Conclusions: XAV-19 did not reduce the aggravation in COVID-19 patients. While it did not bring any benefit to patients requiring oxygen, it reduced the time to improvement for patients not requiring oxygen (WHO score 2 or 3). These preliminary clinical data might indicate a therapeutic potential for patients with mild to moderate COVID-19 requiring supplementation with anti-SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibodies.
</p>
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<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.10.09.23296726v1" target="_blank">XAV-19 a Glyco-Humanized polyclonal antibody targeting SARS-CoV-2 accelerates the recovery of mild to moderate COVID-19 patients and keeps its neutralizing activity against Omicron and its subvariants.</a>
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<li><strong>Excess deaths in China during SARS-CoV-2 viral waves in 2022-2023</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Background The extent to which the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 raised death rates in China during its viral wave of December 2022-January 2023 remains undocumented. Methods We worked with an established national survey organization to survey 8,004 adults in all 31 administrative areas of China to ask about deaths in families since January 2020. We examined age-specific death rates, focusing on deaths above age 60 years, and at 15-59 years. We compared these to the United Nations (UN) estimates of age-specific mortality in 2019. Findings The survey participants were broadly similar to the 2020 census and other national surveys in age, sex, region, and smoking status, but had lower SARS-CoV-2 vaccination rates and higher education levels. There were no differences between reporting of deaths during the Omicron period versus earlier. The survey captured 456 deaths, of which 329 occurred at ages 60+ years and 212 were women. At ages 60+ years, death rates per 1000 rose 242% (95%CI 128-398%) during December 2022-January 2023. Deaths at ages 15-59 years did not rise appreciably. The UN estimates approximately 675,000 deaths per month at ages 60+ years in 2019. If rates doubled nationally as in our survey, China had approximately 1.35 million excess deaths over the two months. Interpretation China experienced a sharp but short increase in excess deaths among its elderly during the Omicron wave. If death registry data corroborate our estimates of substantial excess deaths in China, the worldwide estimates of excess deaths to 2023 may need upward adjustment.
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<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.10.18.23297204v1" target="_blank">Excess deaths in China during SARS-CoV-2 viral waves in 2022-2023</a>
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<li><strong>Mobilising Immigrant-Origin Voters into Survey Participation: the Effect of In-person Canvassing Versus Postal Reminders on Response Rates in a Longitudinal Election Survey</strong> -
<div>
This paper experimentally analyses the effects of in-person canvassing and postal reminders on the mobilization of non-respondents for a telephone panel survey in Germany. We compare the response rates among randomly selected individuals who were visited by canvassers and those reminded by an invitation letter. We further conduct multivariate analyses to control for different contexts in the survey area, characteristics of canvassers and information about (non-)respondents available from the sampling frame. The sample was drawn from the population registry of the city of Duisburg, Germany, and fieldwork started during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic with most shops and restaurants being closed. Target persons in the sample were eligible voters from the two largest immigrant-origin groups in Germany who had not responded to an initial postal invitation to the survey. In-person canvassing significantly increases the probability of reacting to the survey invitation (18.3 % diff., 95 % c.i., 16.2 – 20.3 %) and to participate in the first wave of a three-wave longitudinal telephone survey (2.1 % diff., 95 % c.i., 0.7 – 3.5 %). Within the canvassed group, direct personal contact to a target person has a significantly higher effect on participation rates (14.0 % diff., 95 % c.i., 18.2 – 9.7). As a collateral plus, the fieldwork documentation helped the research team to gain more knowledge about non-respondents. However, panel attrition rises among those being canvassed (17.9 % diff., 95 % c.i., 9.7 – 26.0 %) and the cost per successfully mobilized individual is by far lower with postal reminders.
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<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/78jrw/" target="_blank">Mobilising Immigrant-Origin Voters into Survey Participation: the Effect of In-person Canvassing Versus Postal Reminders on Response Rates in a Longitudinal Election Survey</a>
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<li><strong>Comprehensive analysis of nasal IgA antibodies induced by intranasal administration of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein</strong> -
<div>
Intranasal vaccination is an attractive strategy for preventing COVID-19 disease as it stimulates the production of multimeric secretory immunoglobulin A (IgAs), the predominant antibody isotype in the mucosal immune system, at the target site of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) entry. Currently, the evaluation of intranasal vaccine efficacy is based on the measurement of polyclonal antibody titers in nasal lavage fluid. However, how individual multimeric secretory IgA protects the mucosa from SARS-CoV-2 infection remains to be elucidated. To understand the precise contribution and molecular nature of multimeric secretory IgAs induced by intranasal vaccines, we developed 99 monoclonal IgAs from nasal mucosa and 114 monoclonal IgAs or IgGs from nonmucosal tissues of mice that were intranasally immunized with the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. The nonmucosal IgAs exhibited shared origins and both common and unique somatic mutations with the related nasal IgA clones, indicating that the antigen-specific plasma cells in the nonmucosal tissues originated from B cells stimulated at the nasal mucosa. Comparing the spike protein binding reactivity, angiotensin-converting enzyme-2-blocking and SARS-CoV-2 virus neutralization of monomeric and multimeric IgA pairs recognizing different epitopes showed that even nonneutralizing monomeric IgA, which represents 70% of the nasal IgA repertoire, can protect against SARS-CoV-2 infection when expressed as multimeric secretory IgAs. Our investigation is the first to demonstrate the function of nasal IgAs at the monoclonal level, showing that nasal immunization can provide effective immunity against SARS-CoV-2 by inducing multimeric secretory IgAs at the target site of virus infection.
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<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.04.10.536311v2" target="_blank">Comprehensive analysis of nasal IgA antibodies induced by intranasal administration of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein</a>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-clinical-trials">From Clinical Trials</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Immunogenicity of Concomitant Administration of COVID-19 Vaccines With Influenza Vaccines</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: COVID-19; Influenza; Vaccine Reaction; Contaminant Injected <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Biological: Omicron-containing COVID-19 vaccine; Biological: influenza vaccine <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Catholic Kwandong University; Korea University Guro Hospital <br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Narrative Intervention for Long COVID-19 (NICO)</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Long COVID; Long Covid19 <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Behavioral: Narrative Intervention for Long COVID-19 (NICO) <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: University of Colorado, Denver <br/><b>Active, not recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Inspiratory Muscle Training in People With Long COVID- A Pilot Investigation.</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Long COVID <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Device: PrO2 <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: University of Bath; Swansea University <br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Home-Based Respiratory Muscle Strength Training Program for Individuals With Post-COVID-19 Persistent Dyspnea</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Post-COVID-19 Syndrome; Dyspnea <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Device: Respiratory Muscle Strength Trainers <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: University of South Florida <br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Inspiratory Muscle Strength Training in Post-Covid Syndrome</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Cardiovascular Abnormalities; Post-COVID-19 Syndrome; Physical Exercise <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Other: Inspiratory muscle strength training <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: D’Or Institute for Research and Education <br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Rural Tailored Communication to Promote SARS-CoV-2 Antibody Testing in Saliva</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: SARS-CoV2 Infection <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Behavioral: General SARS-CoV-2 Communication; Behavioral: Rural-Targeted SARS-CoV-2 Communication <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Michigan State University; National Cancer Institute (NCI); Johns Hopkins University <br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Cognitive Rehabilitation Therapy for COVID-19</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Post-Acute COVID-19 Syndrome <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Behavioral: Compensatory Cognitive Training for COVID-19; Behavioral: Holistic Cognitive Education <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: VA Office of Research and Development <br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>COVID Rehabilitation</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Rehabilitation; Post-Acute COVID-19 Syndrome; Post-Infectious Disorders <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Behavioral: One day course; Behavioral: Individual follow-ups <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: University Hospital of North Norway; University of Bergen; Oslo University Hospital; Norwegian University of Science and Technology <br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Phase 3 Open-Label Controlled Trial of Convalescent Plasma in Early COVID-19 Infection</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Covid19 <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Drug: Convalescent Plasma; Other: Standard of Care <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Larkin Community Hospital <br/><b>Withdrawn</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Food Effects of GST-HG171 Tablets Combined With Ritonavir in Healthy Chinese Participants</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: COVID-19 Respiratory Infection <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Drug: GST-HG171/ritonavir; Drug: ritonavir <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Fujian Akeylink Biotechnology Co., Ltd. <br/><b>Active, not recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Improving Post COVID-19 Syndrome With Hyperbaric Oxygen Treatments</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Post COVID-19 Condition; Post-COVID-19 Syndrome; Post-COVID Syndrome; COVID-19; Fatigue; Fatigue Syndrome, Chronic <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Device: Monoplace Hyperbaric Chamber (Class III medical device). <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre <br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Education of Medical Staff to Post Acute Covid susTained sYmptoms</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Post-acute COVID-19 Syndrome <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Other: Training in the management of functional disorders; Other: Reimbursement of 3 long consultations <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Assistance Publique - Hôpitaux de Paris; ANRS, Emerging Infectious Diseases <br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Pharmacist Management of Paxlovid eVisits</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: COVID-19; Quality of Care <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Other: Pharmacist Care; Other: AFM Pool Care <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Kaiser Permanente <br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>tDCS in the Management of Post-COVID Disorders</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Long COVID <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Device: Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS); Behavioral: Motor Training; Behavioral: Cognitive Training <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Universidade Federal de Pernambuco; São Paulo State University <br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Equity Evaluation of Fact Boxes on Informed COVID-19 and Influenza Vaccination Decisions - Study Protocol</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: COVID-19; Influenza <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Other: Fact box <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Harding Center for Risk Literacy <br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-pubmed">From PubMed</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The SARS-CoV-2 protein ORF3c is a mitochondrial modulator of innate immunity</strong> - The SARS-CoV-2 genome encodes a multitude of accessory proteins. Using comparative genomic approaches, an additional accessory protein, ORF3c, has been predicted to be encoded within the ORF3a sgmRNA. Expression of ORF3c during infection has been confirmed independently by ribosome profiling. Despite ORF3c also being present in the 2002-2003 SARS-CoV, its function has remained unexplored. Here we show that ORF3c localizes to mitochondria, where it inhibits innate immunity by restricting IFN-β…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Synthesis, evaluation, and mechanism of 1-(4-(arylethylenylcarbonyl)phenyl)-4-carboxy-2-pyrrolidinones as potent reversible SARS-CoV-2 entry inhibitors</strong> - A class of 1-(4-(arylethylenylcarbonyl)phenyl)-4-carboxy-2-pyrrolidinones were designed and synthesized via Michael addition, cyclization, aldol condensation, and deprotonation to inhibit the human transmembrane protease serine 2 (TMPRSS2) and Furin, which are involved in priming the SARS-CoV-2 Spike for virus entry. The most potent inhibitor 2f (81) was found to efficiently inhibit the replication of various SARS-CoV-2 delta and omicron variants in VeroE6 and Calu-3 cells, with EC(50) range of…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Antiviral Effects of Micafungin against Pteropine Orthoreovirus, an Emerging Zoonotic Virus Carried by Bats</strong> - Bat-borne emerging zoonotic viruses cause major outbreaks, such as the Ebola virus, Nipah virus, and/or beta coronavirus. Pteropine orthoreovirus (PRV), whose spillover event occurred from fruits bats to humans, causes respiratory syndrome in humans widely in South East Asia. Repurposing approved drugs against PRV is an effective tool to confront future PRV pandemics. We screened 2,943 compounds in an FDA-approved drug library and identified eight hit compounds that reduce viral cytopathic…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Cellular assays for dynamic quantification of deubiquitinase activity and inhibition</strong> - Deubiquitinases (DUBs) are proteolytic enzymes that catalyze the removal of ubiquitin from protein substrates. The critical role of DUBs in regulating protein ubiquitination makes them attractive drug targets in oncology, neurodegenerative disease, and antiviral development. Biochemical assays for quantifying DUB activity have enabled characterization of substrate preferences and discovery of small molecule inhibitors. However, assessing the efficacy of these inhibitors in cellular contexts to…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Transporter modulation of molnupiravir and its metabolite β-D-N4-hydroxycytidine across the blood-brain barrier in a rat</strong> - CONCLUSIONS: In summary, molnupiravir rapidly transforms into NHC and crosses the BBB and reaches the brain at approximately 0.3-0.8% of the blood‒brain ratio. The maximum concentration of NHC in the blood and brain is above the average half maximal inhibitory concentration (IC50) of the drug required to treat severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection, suggesting a therapeutic effect. The penetration of NHC is modulated by NBMPR. These findings provide constructive…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Evaluation and Mechanistic Investigation of Human Milk Oligosaccharide against SARS-CoV-2</strong> - Four human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs), 3’-sialyllactose (3’-SL), 6’-sialyllactose (6’-SL), 2’-fucosyllactose (2’-FL), and 3-fucosyllactose (3-FL), were assessed for their possible antiviral activity against the SARS-CoV-2 spike receptor binding domain (RBD) in vitro. Among them, only 2’-FL/3-FL exhibited obvious antibinding activity against direct binding and trans-binding in competitive immunocytochemistry and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays. The antiviral effects of 2’-FL/3-FL were…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Explore intersection genes of oxymatrine and COVID-19 with lung cancer as potential therapeutic targets based on network pharmacology</strong> - Introduction. Oxymatrine is a natural quinazine alkaloid extracted from Sophora flavescens and has many medicinal values. Oxymatrine showed protective effects, viral inhibition and effects against lung cancer.Hypothesis/Gap Statement. Individuals with lung cancer exhibit heightened vulnerability to COVID-19 infection due to compromised immune function. In conjunction with COVID-19, it is hypothesized that oxymatrine may exert potent pharmacological effects on lung cancer patients.Aim. The…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Discovery of Nanosota-2, -3, and -4 as super potent and broad-spectrum therapeutic nanobody candidates against COVID-19</strong> - Nanobodies are single-domain antibodies derived from camelid animals. Here, we discovered three anti-SARS-CoV-2 nanobodies, namely, Nanosota-2, -3, and -4, from an alpaca immunized with SARS-CoV spike protein. We further characterized the antiviral activities of these Fc-tag-fused nanobodies. Notably, Nanosota-2 inhibits the prototypic SARS-CoV-2 strain in vitro (with an IC(50) of 2 pM) and in mice (at a dosage of 4 mg/kg or administered 18 hours post-challenge). These potency metrics are the…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>SARS-COV-2 protein NSP9 promotes cytokine production by targeting TBK1</strong> - SARS-COV-2 infection-induced excessive or uncontrolled cytokine storm may cause injury of host tissue or even death. However, the mechanism by which SARS-COV-2 causes the cytokine storm is unknown. Here, we demonstrated that SARS-COV-2 protein NSP9 promoted cytokine production by interacting with and activating TANK-binding kinase-1 (TBK1). With an rVSV-NSP9 virus infection model, we discovered that an NSP9-induced cytokine storm exacerbated tissue damage and death in mice. Mechanistically, NSP9…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Enhanced binding and inhibition of SARS-CoV-2 by a plant-derived ACE2 protein containing a fused mu tailpiece</strong> - Infectious diseases such as Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) present an increasingly persistent crisis in many parts of the world. COVID-19 is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) is a crucial cellular receptor for SARS-CoV-2 infection. Inhibition of the interaction between SARS-CoV-2 and ACE2 has been proposed as a target for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19. We…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Dysregulation of intracellular redox homeostasis by the SARS-CoV-2 ORF6 protein</strong> - SARS-CoV-2 has evolved several strategies to overcome host cell defenses by inducing cell injury to favour its replication. Many viruses have been reported to modulate the intracellular redox balance, affecting the Nuclear factor erythroid 2-Related Factor 2 (NRF2) signaling pathway. Although antioxidant modulation by SARS-CoV-2 infection has already been described, the viral factors involved in modulating the NRF2 pathway are still elusive. Given the antagonistic activity of ORF6 on several…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Calpeptin is a potent cathepsin inhibitor and drug candidate for SARS-CoV-2 infections</strong> - Several drug screening campaigns identified Calpeptin as a drug candidate against SARS-CoV-2. Initially reported to target the viral main protease (M^(pro)), its moderate activity in M^(pro) inhibition assays hints at a second target. Indeed, we show that Calpeptin is an extremely potent cysteine cathepsin inhibitor, a finding additionally supported by X-ray crystallography. Cell infection assays proved Calpeptin’s efficacy against SARS-CoV-2. Treatment of SARS-CoV-2-infected Golden Syrian…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Red Blood Cell-Derived Extracellular Vesicles Display Endogenous Antiviral Effects and Enhance the Efficacy of Antiviral Oligonucleotide Therapy</strong> - The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a large number of fatalities and, at present, lacks a readily available curative treatment for patients. Here, we demonstrate that unmodified red blood cell-derived extracellular vesicles (RBCEVs) can inhibit SARS-CoV-2 infection in a phosphatidylserine (PS) dependent manner. Using T cell immunoglobulin mucin domain-1 (TIM-1) as an example, we demonstrate that PS receptors on cells can significantly increase the adsorption and infection of authentic and…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>SIRT-1 is required for release of enveloped enteroviruses</strong> - Enterovirus D68 (EV-D68) is a re-emerging enterovirus that causes acute respiratory illness in infants and has recently been linked to Acute Flaccid Myelitis. Here, we show that the histone deacetylase, SIRT-1, is essential for autophagy and EV-D68 infection. Knockdown of SIRT-1 inhibits autophagy and reduces EV-D68 extracellular titers. The proviral activity of SIRT-1 does not require its deacetylase activity or functional autophagy. SIRT-1’s proviral activity is, we demonstrate, mediated…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Inhaled nitric oxide: can it serve as a savior for COVID-19 and related respiratory and cardiovascular diseases?</strong> - Nitric oxide (NO), as an important gaseous medium, plays a pivotal role in the human body, such as maintaining vascular homeostasis, regulating immune-inflammatory responses, inhibiting platelet aggregation, and inhibiting leukocyte adhesion. In recent years, the rapid prevalence of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has greatly affected the daily lives and physical and mental health of people all over the world, and the therapeutic efficacy and resuscitation strategies for critically ill…</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-patent-search">From Patent Search</h1>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-down" id="daily-dose">Daily-Dose</h1>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" data-aos-anchor-placement="top-bottom" id="contents">Contents</h1>
<ul>
<li><a href="#from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-vox">From Vox</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</a></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</h1>
<ul>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>J. B. Pritzker, Billionaire Hotel Heir—and Progressive Hero?</strong> - As the governor of Illinois, J. B. Pritzker has managed to unstick a dysfunctional state government while pushing through an unapologetically liberal agenda. Can his strategy work on a national level? - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/persons-of-interest/j-b-pritzker-governor-illinois">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Biden’s Middle East Burden</strong> - Visiting Israel, the President will express support for a traumatized nation, but he must also try to steer it from the blindness of rage. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/bidens-middle-east-burden">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Symbiotic, Democracy-Eroding Relationship Between Donald Trump and Jim Jordan</strong> - Jordan is a perfect ally for Trump, and a walking embodiment of a radicalized G.O.P. That won’t change, even if his Speaker bid fails because enough Republicans from Biden-majority districts hold the line. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-symbiotic-democracy-eroding-relationship-between-donald-trump-and-jim-jordan">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Jerome Powell Is Still Puzzling Over the Strength of the U.S. Economy</strong> - Even as the Fed chair and his colleagues have raised interest rates to bring down inflation, spending and hiring have picked up recently, and G.D.P. growth looks strong. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/jerome-powell-is-still-puzzling-over-the-strength-of-the-us-economy">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Devastation of Be’eri</strong> - In one day, Hamas militants massacred, tortured, and abducted residents of a kibbutz, leaving their homes charred and their community in ruins. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/the-devastation-of-beeri">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-vox">From Vox</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>What do leftist critics of Israel do now?</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="Demonstrators look down on a crowd below from the rotunda balcony, lifting their fists in the air. They wear black t-shirts printed with the words “Jews Say Ceasefire Now” in white capital letters." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/oshIvccmGfCulKc3jY0C7WImVOM=/667x0:6000x4000/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72775498/1743256178.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Demonstrators demanding a ceasefire in Gaza hold a rally in the rotunda of the Cannon Building on October 18, 2023, in Washington, DC. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
How the mainstream left is trying to save its approach to Israel from the pro-Hamas fringe.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rstdvC">
They marched on the White House to make their demands clear: a Biden-brokered ceasefire — now; the release of hostages held by <a href="https://www.vox.com/politics/2023/10/10/23911661/hamas-israel-war-gaza-palestine-explainer">Hamas</a> militants; more forceful American condemnation of <a href="https://www.vox.com/israel">Israel</a>’s bombing of Gaza; and, eventually, major changes to the current Israeli government’s treatment of Palestinians.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="no13zE">
The protestors, gathered Monday afternoon by progressive Jewish American activist organizations, represented various segments of the US political left: Palestinian and Israeli Americans, Jewish and Muslim people, longtime activists, and newer allies sympathetic to a more nuanced position of peace and reform for Israel and Palestine.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="BMnFHU">
But they also represent a more mainstream progressive vision of Palestinian liberation and anti-Zionism than the one elevated in the days after the Hamas attack last week. Early news coverage, social media algorithms, and politicians and commentators from both major parties zeroed in on protests celebrating Hamas, social media posts by far-left groups, and open letters and rallies organized on college campuses as the true face of the American left. But many of these activists and organizers have spent the last week rebutting that image, refocusing the political and media narrative about the consequences of the Israel-Hamas war and American complicity, and building up support for American diplomacy from the grassroots and in Washington.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5F5hsP">
This wasn’t the first major demonstration in the capital — a weekend protest organized by the pro-Palestinian advocacy group American Muslims for Palestine also drew thousands — but these anti-war protestors marched to the White House as their calls picked up institutional recognition and support in the halls of <a href="https://www.vox.com/congress">Congress</a>. On Monday, 13 progressive members of Congress — not just <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/7/17/20696474/squad-congresswomen-trump-pressley-aoc-omar-tlaib">the Squad</a> — signed on to a resolution calling on the <a href="https://www.vox.com/joe-biden">Biden administration</a> to broker an immediate ceasefire in Israel and Palestine and urge de-escalation in order to bring humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="sPhq1A">
“That resolution represents what most of us actually want to see,” Beth Miller, the political director of Jewish Voice for Peace Action, one of the groups that organized the Monday protest, told Vox. “The most important thing for our members of Congress to understand and for the general American public to understand is that there is no military solution to what is happening right now. Israel is dropping bombs on entire families and neighborhoods of people, and it will not solve anything. It will only lead to more violence in the long run.”
</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qbRYRC">
The protest, which continued into the evening as demonstrators blocked roads and entrances to the White House and adjoining government buildings, came on a day when activists said they felt winds changing. Yes, there was early splintering in the left’s response and domination by fringe and radical elements during the days following Hamas’s mass infiltration of southern Israel. But progressive groups are better organized now, feel more emboldened to make demands of American leaders, and feel like they’re gaining support in Congress. They say the images from Gaza, the rhetoric of politicians in Israel and the US, the devastation caused by the Israeli military, and the “blank check” issued by American leaders to Israel are all fueling their movement and reinforcing the message they want the public to hear. On Wednesday, these same organizers would take protestors directly to Congress, marching to the Capitol, sitting-in at a congressional office building, and, like at the White House, some would get arrested.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TEyR0Z">
The hearts, minds, and <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy">policies</a> they’re trying to change won’t be easily altered. Though <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/05/26/modest-warming-in-u-s-views-on-israel-and-palestinians/">most Americans were sympathetic</a> to both Palestinians and Israelis and <a href="https://globalaffairs.org/research/public-opinion-survey/prior-attack-israel-majority-americans-supported-talks-hamas">open to more nuanced solutions</a> to the Israel-Palestine conflict, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/15/politics/cnn-poll-israel-hamas-war-americans/index.html">public polling</a> from last week following Hamas’s attack shows Americans, <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/reutersipsos-survey-israel-hamas-war">including more Democrats and independents</a>, <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/americans-favor-continued-support-israel-sour-bidens-performance/story?id=103969016">warming to the Israeli military’s response</a>. This shift is likely driven by a desire to support a nation that has just suffered a massive, graphic, and morally reprehensible attack.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="HfiTIu">
“Over the last week, what we have seen come out of Washington, DC, is overwhelming vitriol — vitriolic hostility toward Palestinians. I worked in this movement for about 13 years, and I have been blown back by some of what I’ve seen and heard from our own elected officials,” Miller said. “Our own government is currently working to support mass atrocities being committed by the Israeli government. That’s essentially the state of affairs right now in DC.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Xas0UW">
That perspective is what makes progressive activists feel like their efforts are all the more urgent: If more war crimes and atrocities are imminent, they need to act now.
</p>
<h3 id="gq92eR">
<strong>Congressional support is limited, but changing</strong>
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WNysCs">
Washington’s official consensus has long been strong support for Israel; that stretches across the overwhelming majority of both elected Republicans and Democrats. Criticism of Israel, its occupation of parts of the West Bank and Gaza, and its treatment of Palestinians in general, has long been taboo — and usually limited to the most progressive wing of the Democratic Party.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xycton">
For progressive activists, the first <a href="https://foreignaffairs.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/MCCAUL_086_xml90.pdf">congressional resolution</a> circulated in the wake of the Hamas attack and Israel’s military response is evidence of this institutional bias. The four-page statement, introduced by the Republican and Democratic leaders of the House Foreign Affairs Committee three days after the attack, has massive bipartisan support — over 400 members of Congress have signed onto it. It condemns Hamas, is a statement of resolute support for and solidarity with the state of Israel, and mourns American and Israeli lives lost — all of which made sense in the immediate aftermath of the attack. Yet the statement makes no mention of Palestinian lives lost since Israel started its campaign of airstrikes in Gaza, and it hasn’t been updated to include the civilian deaths Israel’s military response has caused in the region.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Sui3W3">
“That resolution is going to go down as one of the most shameful resolutions in terms of its timing and its content,” said Miller. “That resolution essentially says that the United States will stand with Israel pretty much no matter what it does, and it only talks about or mourns the loss of Israeli life without even paying lip service to or even acknowledging the fact that the Israeli military has killed Palestinians.”
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="Uniformed police officers wearing all black stand above protestors, who are seated on the ground with their hands cuffed behind their backs, on October 16, 2023, in Washington, DC. " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/-CuritGGcYEwUOlFJ_wC8cLTXmQ=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25016360/1728601062.jpg"/> <cite>Celal Gunes/Anadolu via Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
US Secret Service police arrested more than 30 demonstrators during a Jewish American-led demonstration near the White House, which called for a ceasefire between Israel and Palestinians.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="d04YP2">
The growing number of civilian deaths in Gaza, coupled with reports of worsening humanitarian conditions and the escalating tactics used by Israel — like cutting off electricity and water to the Gaza Strip and ordering the evacuation of 1 million people to southern Gaza in anticipation of a ground invasion — have all made it easier, and increasingly urgent, for more rank-and-file Democrats to step up their criticism of Israel in the past few days. Earlier this month, a contingent of 17 House Democrats <a href="https://omar.house.gov/media/press-releases/rep-sara-jacobs-calls-state-department-expand-resources-palestinian-americans">urged the State Department</a> to step up information and resources for Palestinian Americans and American citizens currently stuck in the Gaza Strip.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="l32YLP">
Congressional reactions to media reports of the northern Gaza evacuation order seemed to mark a turning point: <a href="https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1712691970676580602?s=20">Suddenly</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/RepPressley/status/1712837039836614788?s=20">more</a> <a href="https://x.com/RoKhanna/status/1713404900510703800?s=20">House</a> Democrats felt more comfortable voicing concerns about Israel’s response. That shift contributed to a second House effort on October 13. Led by progressive Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) and Mark Pocan (D-WI), 55 House Democrats <a href="https://jayapal.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Letter-Expressing-Concern-on-the-Humanitarian-Situation-in-Gaza.pdf">signed a letter to President Joe Biden</a> urging him to remind Israel and neighboring countries that its actions “must be carried out according to international law and take all due measures to limit harm to innocent civilians.” They called for the establishment of a humanitarian corridor to bring aid into Gaza and allow Palestinians and other civilians out of the Strip, and asked that humanitarian aid be ensured for “both Palestinians in Gaza and Israelis,” among other requests.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UIMTge">
But that statement came short of calling for a ceasefire, which left-leaning activists are now demanding, in part over fears that such a call would drive down the number of Democrats who eventually signed on to the letter, according to a <a href="https://theintercept.com/2023/10/15/j-street-gaza-ceasefire-staffers-letter/">report from the Intercept</a>. Ultimately, 13 of the most progressive Democrats would introduce their own resolution centered on a ceasefire and recognition of the civilian lives lost in both Gaza and Israel.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="D3nauh">
This marks a major change from the way Congress was operating in the days after the Hamas attack, when a <a href="https://www.vox.com/media">Fox News</a> reporter <a href="https://x.com/FoxNews/status/1712125927117775348?s=20">chased</a> Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib — the only Palestinian American member of Congress — around the basement tunnels of the US Capitol asking her to condemn Hamas, and when other members of Congress were criticizing progressives for raising concerns about Israel’s response. <a href="https://theintercept.com/2023/10/11/israel-tlaib-bush-aipac-gottheimer/">Few Democrats chose to defend their colleagues; some </a><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/10/11/house-dems-israel-hamas-war-00121109">angrily confronted</a> them or criticized them in the press. Some took the time to cut ties with leftist organizations like the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), which had immediately expressed solidarity with Palestinians after the Hamas attack and whose New York City chapter had been linked to an <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/10/10/aoc-pro-palestine-nyc-rally-00120684">at-times antisemitic protest in Times Square that weekend. </a>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2gOqGE">
DSA-backed Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez condemned that protest, and allies of Rep. Jamaal Bowman <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/10/nyregion/palestinian-rally-times-square-israel.html">told the New York Times</a> that the congressman was no longer a DSA member. Rep. Shri Thanedar, another DSA-backed progressive, similarly condemned the demonstration and disassociated himself with the group.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="x4qc8w">
Thanedar, a self-described progressive, also told Vox last week that calls for de-escalation and a ceasefire were premature: “Now is not the time to talk about restraint; this is the time to go after the terrorists and Israel is justified in sending the message that such terroristic acts will not be tolerated.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="J0Iz4q">
The same sentiment was echoed by the White House last Tuesday. When Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked about congressional progressives’ statements calling for a ceasefire, <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2023/10/10/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-karine-jean-pierre-and-national-security-advisor-jake-sullivan-9/">she said</a> the White House believed they are “wrong,” “repugnant,” and “disgraceful.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qYXIRz">
“Our condemnation belongs squarely with terrorists who have brutally murdered, raped, kidnapped hundreds — hundreds of Israelis,” Jean-Pierre said. “There can be no equivocation about that. There are not two sides here. There are not two sides.”
</p>
<h3 id="YNMKgi">
<strong>What the left wants now</strong>
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0dhSnx">
No progressive groups or activists who spoke with Vox were claiming there were two sides to the killing of civilians by Hamas in Israel — but they all agree that there should be no equivocation about the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/gaza-health-ministry-2750-palestinians-killed-9700-wounded-israeli-strikes-gaza-2023-10-16/">thousands of civilian deaths and injuries in Gaza</a> since Israel launched its air campaign in response.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fC2VsV">
They all condemned Hamas’s atrocities against civilians. They say that at this point in the conflict their fears of a potential “genocide” in the Gaza Strip should be the most immediate concern. They point to the hawkish and violent rhetoric coming from political leaders in both Israel and the US as signs that military restraint is off the table, that concern for civilian lives is not a factor, and that few Democratic and essentially no Republican leaders care about the rising civilian death toll in Gaza since Israel began its military operations.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LDrwVj">
“Most mainstream, responsible, progressive, humane voices are doing everything they can to raise the alarm about the possibility of mass, indiscriminate violence in Gaza,” Simone Zimmerman, a co-founder of the progressive American Jewish organization IfNotNow and an organizer with the Diaspora Alliance, an organization working to fight antisemitism, told Vox. “Most of us are just really trying to call on anyone who will listen to try to help move the situation towards de-escalation and to stop the Israeli government from perpetuating mass atrocities on 2 million people who do not deserve to die.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0jhnIH">
In the immediate term, Zimmerman and other organizers said that they want more American leaders to forcefully condemn the killing of civilians, emergency response workers, journalists, and United Nations personnel by Israeli strikes in Gaza. They are shocked that more Democrats have not spoken out about Israel cutting off water and power to the Strip, about the fate of American citizens in Gaza, or the long-expected Israeli military ground incursion. They’d like some acknowledgement of Palestinian lives lost in addition to Israeli lives. They demand an end to “<a href="https://www.vox.com/2023/10/9/23910159/israel-gaza-siege-palestinians-hamas-humanitarian-crisis">collective punishment</a>.” And they urge Western leaders to be careful with just how much of a blank check they are willing to give the Israeli government.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Atbyif">
In the long run, progressive activists and organizers say they still stand by a more nuanced position for the US to be critical of Israel’s unequal treatment of Palestinian people, of the occupation of Palestinian territory in Gaza and the West Bank, and of American military support that ignores human rights violations. And they hope more progressive lawmakers amplify that message in Washington.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="F9XJKU">
“This situation is also clear evidence of why the US needs to do more to prioritize and address resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and that means securing self-determination and safety and freedom for both the Israeli and Palestinian people,” said Logan Bayroff, the communications director for the liberal Israeli American group J Street. “Those sentiments can coexist with full-throated, unequivocal condemnation of Hamas slaughtering civilians and support for Israel trying to counter Hamas.”
</p>
<h3 id="Z7QreT">
<strong>How the left’s message got muddled</strong>
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NAM4EN">
These activist groups are now working to make their section of the American left the one best heard in DC and around the country; the Monday protest at the White House and Wednesday’s protest on Capitol Hill were a way of doing this. But they weren’t the voices picked up by news outlets, politicians, commentators, and social media in the immediate aftermath of the attack. In the days after October 7, a combination of right-wing broadsides and the radical responses from a <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/10/a-left-that-refuses-to-condemn-mass-murder-is-doomed.html">swath of self-described leftists</a> made it harder for them to get their message to the public and to government leaders. It’s hard to quantify just how big the <a href="https://compactmag.com/article/millennial-socialists-embrace-atrocities">contingent</a> of <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/10/a-left-that-refuses-to-condemn-mass-murder-is-doomed.html">war-crime</a> <a href="https://www.vox.com/world-politics/23911550/israel-hamas-war-gaza-palestine-leftist-democrats">apologists</a> in the American left is, but the fact that it was even a topic of conversation is evidence of the problem other left-leaning activists have to overcome.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vySerl">
Those extreme reactions — the ones that called the massacre of civilians a <a href="https://twitter.com/AngelaLMorabito/status/1711773293328347392?s=20">legitimate</a> and “<a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CyMsx9QpwLi/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&amp;igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA%3D%3D&amp;img_index=2">desperate</a>” form of resistance, the ones that appeared to <a href="https://nypost.com/2023/10/11/blm-chicago-admits-it-isnt-proud-of-deleted-post-of-hamas-paraglider/">stand with Hamas</a>, the ones that <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/pro-palestinians-celebrate-hamas-attack-as-israel-supporters-rally-in-new-york/">celebrated</a> the deaths of concertgoers — have already gotten plenty of coverage.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="A crowd of people waving Israeli flags face another crowd waving Palestinian flags, separated by New York City police officers." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/nnuLaoO_aJGXsxU5BmQP5TiWFnI=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25016348/1713439928.jpg"/> <cite>Bryan R. Smith/AFP via Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
Supporters of Israel face people rallying in support of Palestinians in Times Square on October 8, 2023, after the Palestinian militant group Hamas launched an attack on Israel.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="x1suXR">
Many <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/10/opinion/israel-hamas-protests-left.html">right-wing</a> <a href="https://x.com/Dylan_Housman/status/1712523825085120949?s=20">media</a> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/13/opinion/hamas-israel-land-acknowledgements.html">commentators</a>, conservative politicians, and pro-Israel hardliners seized on the more provocative left-wing reactions to conflate apologists for Hamas’s war crimes with critics of the Israeli status quo more broadly. In attacking the White House response, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), for example, has spent much of the last week <a href="https://x.com/tedcruz/status/1711879236619759857?s=20">promoting</a> statements from these leftist groups and referencing “<a href="https://twitter.com/tedcruz/status/1712464512626876910">Israel-hating leftist activists</a>” and “<a href="https://twitter.com/tedcruz/status/1711847743252013483">rampant, unchecked antisemitism</a>” when criticizing the White House’s response, highlighting a since-deleted State Department statement urging “<a href="https://x.com/tedcruz/status/1712575201882391009?s=20">restraint</a>” and attacking progressive Congress members’ calls for a ceasefire. Fox News host Sean Hannity spent the top of his Wednesday night show using those radical reactions to <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/sean-hannity-the-democratic-party-has-a-big-problem">attack the Democratic Party as a whole</a>. And <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/10/college-students-justice-for-palestine-chapters-hamas/675640/">thought piece</a> <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/10/hamas-pop-intersectionality-leftism-israel/675625/">after</a> <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/10/hamas-jews-illiberal-left-progressive-israel-terrorism.html">thought piece</a> has meditated on what the future of the activist left could be after the flawed and splintered response.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0WiGXf">
“There is a desire from some to use these moments of tragedy as an excuse to try to cut off any serious policy debate or discussion … to try to use this as an excuse to label anybody who expresses any support whatsoever for Palestinian rights, for Palestinian statehood, any opposition to ongoing occupation, as somehow you being a hater of Israel, a supporter of Hamas, an antisemite,” said Bayroff.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mnNSZ6">
Meanwhile, the nuanced, unequivocal statements by progressive groups like<a href="https://winwithoutwar.org/win-without-war-condemns-hamas-attack-on-israel/"> Win Without War</a>,<a href="https://x.com/IndivisibleTeam/status/1711484690626949477?s=20"> Indivisible</a>,<a href="https://twitter.com/jstreetdotorg/status/1711427367078449298"> J Street</a>, <a href="https://x.com/IfNotNowOrg/status/1710735031876964807?s=20">IfNotNow</a>, the <a href="https://x.com/dereckapurnell/status/1712545053867126952?s=20">Adalah Justice Project</a>, and the<a href="https://cfde140b-3710-4a65-aa9a-48b5868a02dd.usrfiles.com/ugd/3ba8a1_a5653a647bc8429faa87747cd6bbb86e.pdf"> Center for International Policy</a> did not get picked up in the same way as those more radical voices promoted on social media — something progressive leaders wanted to contrast with the statements by more fringe groups.
</p>
<h3 id="KLMl0u">
<strong>A massive imbalance in influence and reach</strong>
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cRfzYw">
As Israel’s response continues, as horrific stories of death and destruction trickle out, and as the pro-Israel majority in Washington carries on, progressive politicians and activists face an asymetric challenge: holding their left-wing coalitions together, winning over more on the center-left of elected power, beating back attacks from the political right, and doing it all with a political and media environment that is stacked against them.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cKOhxY">
Republicans are united in support of whatever Israel does. Amid the fixation on leftist campus activists and social media posts, lawmakers are openly calling for war crimes: Republican senators like Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Marco Rubio of Florida have used extreme rhetoric. Graham urged Israel to “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/10/12/israel-congress-hamas-war/">level</a>” Gaza while Rubio said Israel should destroy Hamas by <a href="https://newrepublic.com/post/176107/marco-rubio-eradication-extreme-langauge-hamas-gaza-israel">whatever means necessary </a> (“This tragically necessary effort will come at a horrifying price,” he <a href="https://x.com/marcorubio/status/1711434701754241158?s=20">said</a> on X, formerly known as <a href="https://www.vox.com/twitter">Twitter</a>). Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) has said Israel shouldn’t be held responsible for civilian deaths: “As far as I’m concerned, Israel can bounce the rubble in Gaza. Anything that happens in Gaza is the responsibility of Hamas,” he <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/tom-cotton-israel-bounce-rubble-gaza_n_652c5fbee4b0da897ab466d0">said on Sunday</a>. So far, they seem to have escaped official opprobrium.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1Gj9nS">
Though more House Democrats have spoken up, few in the Senate, with notable exceptions like Sens. <a href="https://www.vox.com/bernie-sanders">Bernie Sanders</a> (I-VT) and Ed Markey (D-MA), have spoken up to urge restraint.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="u5Jo9u">
That status quo “is a much bigger problem because, while there may be some fringe elements on campuses or at rallies who are saying horrific things about Hamas, we have people saying horrific things about Palestinians at the highest levels of our government in both parties, or they’re turning a blind eye toward it,” Waleed Shahid, the former spokesperson for the progressive political organization Justice Democrats, told Vox. “Jamaal Bowman, AOC, other progressive leaders, have condemned what happened at this rally in New York and what happened with this group in Chicago, [but] I haven’t heard Joe Biden or Hakeem Jeffries, or anyone condemn what Lindsey Graham said or what Netanyahu has said repeatedly about the Palestinian people.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kLzofB">
And that asymmetry, some activists said, extends to whose stories get told in national news coverage. “There’s this obsessive one-sided fixation on Israeli victimhood and lengthy interviews with Israeli parents, while Palestinian families are entirely ignored, even though they’re being decimated,” said Omar Baddar, the former communications director for the Institute for Middle East Understanding. “To ignore that, I think … is a travesty. And right-wing media should be called out for their absolutely racist coverage and their selective outrage for some victims and not others.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="sSkrfF">
These calls for restraint, for de-escalation, for humanitarian aid and forceful condemnation of the killing of civilians “aren’t a very radical position,” said Sandra Tamari, a Palestinian American organizer in St. Louis, Missouri, who leads the Adalah Justice Project. “Right now, the demands are very simple: stop the bombs and allow humanitarian aid into Gaza so that more people don’t die.”
</p></li>
<li><strong>These strange underwater animals could save our lives. If we don’t destroy them first.</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/btgdeqvJA8U2FbYijJIcD2L8jVk=/279x0:4922x3482/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72775446/GettyImages_146141728.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
A group of purple stove-pipe sponges off the Caribbean island of Bonaire. | Wild Horizons/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Deep-sea mining threatens the world’s untapped and unknown underwater pharmacies.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OkJdDa">
In 1987, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the world’s first medication to treat HIV. The drug, known as AZT, was a beacon of hope for the millions of people who were living with the virus. It helped lengthen countless lives.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="In162o">
In 2010, the agency approved a drug called Halaven to treat advanced breast cancer. In a clinical study, people who took the drug lived, on average, <a href="https://www.halaven.com/metastatic-breast-cancer/efficacy">25 percent</a> longer than those who received other anticancer treatments, according to the drug’s maker.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cmZraJ">
In 2020, the FDA <a href="https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-approves-first-treatment-covid-19">approved</a> Remdesivir to treat Covid-19. The drug is given intravenously, making it harder to access than some other antivirals, but research indicates that it dramatically reduces the risk of death in patients hospitalized with the infection. A 2020 trial of more than 1,000 people hospitalized with Covid-19 <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2600(23)00036-X/fulltext#back-bib2">found</a> that remdesivir significantly reduced their risk of dying, and those who took it recovered faster.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jVLp6l">
These drugs have one thing in common: They are derived from a sponge. Yes, a sponge. Or more specifically, a sea sponge.
</p>
<div class="c-wide-block">
<div class="c-image-grid">
<div class="c-image-grid__item">
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/KVOlk4ZXDbefVcYWaHCGnp9vYSg=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25015414/GettyImages_549405155.jpg"/> <cite>Reinhard Dirscherl/ullstein bild via Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
A grouper inside a barrel sponge in Bali, Indonesia.
</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
<div class="c-image-grid__item">
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/0VnbBbNmm53O_iASMBECNb9fYmU=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25015416/GettyImages_146142172.jpg"/> <cite>Wild Horizons/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
An arrow crab hides inside an azure vase sponge in the waters off Curacao in the Caribbean.
</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
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Sea sponges, a kind of aquatic animal found in oceans and some lakes, may look blobbish. They may live in the shadows of more picturesque corals and fish. Yet sponges are some of the most important animals on Earth. They not only provide homes for countless other critters, but they’re a living pharmacy that helps save human<strong> </strong>lives. They produce more chemical compounds than most (if not all) other animals on the planet, and many of those chemicals possess anticancer, antiviral, antimalarial, and antibacterial properties.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ye55Nq">
That’s what makes this so concerning: Troves of these creatures could soon be stamped out. As demand for clean technologies rises, so does the need for more metals such as nickel and cobalt. Companies and countries are now looking to the deep sea as a potential place to mine them, yet this region — though perceived by some as desolate — is full of sponges. Most of those sponges have yet to be studied, their chemical compounds still unknown.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="sjmfVs">
This has created a complex conundrum: Deep-sea metals are essential to the fight against climate change, and climate change <a href="https://www.vox.com/climate/23868423/florida-coral-reef-bleaching-heat-wave-climate-change">harms wildlife</a>. But those sponges, and other animals of the deep sea, may be essential, too, by helping to treat human ailments. Is it worth sacrificing these animals when scientists don’t even know what they do?
</p>
<h3 id="rnDA1B">
What even is a sponge?
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tZ4YMh">
Before there were dinosaurs, there were sponges. They’ve lived on Earth for hundreds of millions of years, making them one of the oldest — if not the<em> </em>oldest — animals on the planet. That means sponges have had plenty of time to evolve clever adaptations to life in the world’s oceans and lakes.
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Most of the roughly <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s42995-022-00132-3">15,000</a> known sponge species feed by pumping water through their bodies and filtering out tiny organisms. A sponge the size of a milk carton can filter a swimming pool worth of water every day, said Chris Freeman, a marine ecologist at the College of Charleston. They’re basically Britas of the sea. You can actually see these pumps in action when divers inject fluorescent dye around the base of a sponge:
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Some sponges, meanwhile, are carnivorous: They eat meat. These include the unusually shaped and aptly named ping-pong tree sponge and harp sponge, shown below. These related sponges, found in the deep sea, are covered in barbed, Velcro-like hooks, which they use to ensnare tiny crustaceans that are swept into them by ocean currents. The sponges then absorb these animals into their bodies. (It’s not clear why they take such odd shapes, but it may help them capture food or reproduce.)
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<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/rYM3fHx_vuvsftqJZk5pljC1qAc=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25015501/Chondrocladia_lyra_D0026_01.jpeg"/> <cite>Courtesy of MBARI</cite>
<figcaption>
A type of deep-sea carnivorous sponge known as the harp sponge, first discovered on an expedition led by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) in 2000. It’s found more than 10,000 feet down off the coast of California.
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</figure>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/WRAY1F2P9uFihQ9EQE4EO6FsCNc=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25015500/Chondrocladia_sp_T0556_02.jpeg"/> <cite>Courtesy of MBARI</cite>
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A ping-pong tree sponge, another meat-eating sponge found several thousand feed down in the deep sea.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1AHeAq">
There are also glass sponges — sponges that build skeletons out of silica, likely as a form of protection. Most remarkable is a glass sponge known as Venus’s flower basket, which has been shown to house a mated pair of shrimp inside its intricate glass structure. The shrimp enter when they’re young and small enough to squeeze through openings in the structure, but as they grow up they become too big to escape. They spend their lives caged inside the sponge’s skeleton.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="yiZkYc">
It’s beneficial imprisonment. In exchange for cleaning the sponge, the shrimp are given food (sponge excrement) and a safe place to live. And when they procreate, their babies are small enough to escape, pair up, and search for their own glass homes.
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<div class="c-float-left c-float-hang">
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/b9Z0YdEj5QxPIZBNqGyYXgzMFdU=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25015430/Euplectella_aspergillum_Okeanos.jpeg"/> <cite>NOAA Okeanos Explorer Program</cite>
<figcaption>
A collection of Venus’s flower basket sponges in the Gulf of Mexico.
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<h3 id="PwrSjN">
The deep-sea mining conundrum
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4bGj9E">
Many of these sponges live among <a href="https://www.vox.com/down-to-earth/23387961/deep-sea-mining-ccz-biodiversity">other weird creatures</a> in the deep sea, hundreds of feet down, far away from humans. The region has long been left alone, its depths inaccessible to scuba divers and left unexploited by miners — until now.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MSewZk">
As the world moves away from fossil fuels and toward cleaner technologies, it relies more and more on batteries, like those you find in electric cars. This, of course, is a good thing for a planet threatened by climate change. But even green technologies require inputs including metals like cobalt, manganese, and nickel.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vg8SKH">
That’s where the deep sea comes in. Scientists have known for decades that the sea floor is laden with mineral deposits that are embedded in rocks, some of which are just sitting on the seabed. These deposits are difficult and expensive to harvest, yet rising demand for metals has made the business case for it more compelling. Many companies and countries are already gearing up to mine, especially in the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pf1GvrUqeIA">Clarion-Clipperton Zone</a>, a large patch of ocean that lies between Hawaii and Mexico.
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<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/9HdRKqoh2NEopj1CBG0u91ILDjA=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25015447/Axoniderma_mexicana_D0741_01.png"/> <cite>Courtesy of MBARI</cite>
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A predatory sponge found in the deep sea called a parasol sponge, discovered by researchers at MBARI.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jeNoKS">
Companies <a href="https://cen.acs.org/environment/water/deep-sea-mining-dilemma/101/i33#:~:text=Gerard%20Barron%2C%20CEO%20of%20the,also%20skirt%20significant%20social%20damages.">have argued</a> that deep-sea mining — which can entail sinking large tractor-like machines to vacuum up mineral-rich rocks — would be less harmful to the environment than existing mining operations. There’s no doubt that mining minerals like cobalt on land has a long history of <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/15/9545">environmental destruction</a> and <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/afr62/3183/2016/en/">human rights abuses</a>. Exploiting the deep sea, those companies say, is a better alternative, even though it will <a href="https://www.vox.com/down-to-earth/23387961/deep-sea-mining-ccz-biodiversity">damage the environment</a>.
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The problem with those arguments is that <a href="https://time.com/6094560/deep-sea-mining-environmental-costs-benefits/">they assume</a> the deep sea is relatively lifeless, that there’s not much to lose. It’s true that these potential mining hot spots lack iconic underwater landscapes<strong> </strong>like vibrant coral reefs or <a href="https://www.vox.com/23698253/kelp-forests-seaweed-ocean-climate-change">kelp forests</a>. But what they do have is lots of marine sponges. A <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/05/230525135858.htm">recent study</a>, for example, suggests that sponges are among the most common animals in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone. Some of them live directly on top of the very mineral deposits that companies want to extract.
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<h3 id="FbiaNP">
What’s there to lose? Potential life-saving compounds.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WTWYs0">
In any given CVS or Walgreens pharmacy, there are lots of drugs that come from plants, animals, or microorganisms. Aspirin, for example, is derived from the bark of a willow tree. “Nature has been a source of most drugs currently in use,” said Bill Baker, an expert in natural chemicals at the University of South Florida, referring to both compounds found in nature and those that were inspired by the structure or behavior of natural chemicals.
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On land, plants are the standout source of medical compounds, partly because humans have been using them as natural remedies for centuries. But at sea, it’s sponges; they’re the “dominant source” of marine chemicals, Baker said.
</p>
<div class="c-wide-block">
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/uFZJm5yh2kRuyIAN4jSmQXjernc=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25015450/GettyImages_549033867.jpg"/> <cite>Reinhard Dirscherl/ullstein bild via Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
A tube sponge in Bonaire.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GV76sX">
Like plants, sponges are stuck in place, so they use chemicals to defend themselves from predators and other potential attackers. Pumping all that water also means they’re exposed to huge amounts of viruses and pathogens that may try to harm them. Chemicals, again, are their defense.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ekwwMj">
And they produce a lot of them. In the last 50 years or so, scientists have discovered more than 10,000 new chemical compounds from sponges, according to one <a href="https://academic.oup.com/icb/article-abstract/59/4/765/5426767">2019 paper</a>. That amounts to roughly a quarter of all the compounds found in the marine realm to date, Baker said. It’s a lot.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Jvu6sb">
A <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s42995-022-00132-3">more recent review</a> found that, within the last decade alone, researchers have documented more than 2,700 new sponge compounds. Importantly, roughly half of them have been shown to have properties that make them potentially useful to medicine, from fighting cancer cells and tumors to resisting malaria and bacterial infections. What’s especially fascinating is that many of these useful compounds are actually produced by bacteria or other microorganisms that live within sponges and make up their microbiome.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WVqFj2">
Only a handful of these sponge compounds or their derivatives are actually on the market today as commercial drugs including Halaven and Remdesivir. The drug development process can take a few decades, Baker said, and scientists really only started exploring the ocean for drugs in the 1980s.
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This is an important point: The ocean is still largely unexplored, especially places that are hard to reach like the deep sea. “We’ve only sampled the low-hanging fruit,” he said. In the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, for example, scientists don’t even know what lives there, let alone what chemical properties those animals possess. <a href="https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2023/may/90-of-species-in-prospective-deep-sea-mining-zone-are-unnamed.html">Recent studies</a> suggest that 90 percent of the region’s species are not yet known to science.
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The limited research that does exist indicates that deep-sea sponges may possess chemicals that help combat <a href="https://www.bristol.ac.uk/blackwell/news/2023/antibiotics-deep-sea-sponges.html">bacterial resistance</a> and <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5956363/">forms</a> of <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/1660-3397/17/8/439">cancer</a>. And so a big concern is that mining in a place like the Clarion-Clipperton Zone could destroy unknown sources of lifesaving medicines.
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Put another way: It’s not clear what there is to lose. This is true not only in the deep sea but in all kinds of ecosystems, from rainforests to prairies to coral reefs.
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“We’re destroying biodiversity as rapidly as we can,” said Eric Schmidt, a professor of medicinal chemistry at the University of Utah. “Commonly, when you investigate a new species, new molecules are found with unknown potential. So there’s a chance that we don’t know even what we’re destroying.”
</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>The argument that Israel practices apartheid, explained</strong> -
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<img alt="A crowd of pro-Palestinian demonstrators holding flags and signs that say “End Israeli Apartheid.”" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/J44KtOYgfvFUBkRgHizF4WWUjS8=/0x0:4488x3366/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72775398/1725904479.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Tens of thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators rally outside Downing Street in support of the Palestinian population of Gaza on October 14, 2023, in London.  | Mark Kerrison/In Pictures/Getty Images
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Some human rights groups have reached this conclusion based on how the crime is defined in international law.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="BmjyP1">
In recent years, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/middle-east-jerusalem-israel-race-and-ethnicity-racial-injustice-83b44a2f6b2b3581d857f57fb6960115">human rights organizations</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/08/11/israel-palestine-apartheid-israel-scholars/">legal experts</a> have increasingly described <a href="https://www.vox.com/israel">Israel</a>’s <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy">policies</a> toward Palestinians as apartheid, adding to a longstanding debate about whether this is an accurate way to categorize the country’s practices.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zNGJxh">
Apartheid, a term originating from the South African government’s systematic oppression of Black residents, is a crime against humanity under international law. At its core, it refers to policies intended to elevate one racial group over another, with the goal of maintaining the dominant group’s hegemony. In 1998, the International Criminal Court (<a href="https://asp.icc-cpi.int/states-parties#U">to which Israel is not a party</a>) <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution">defined it</a> as “inhumane acts … committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group … and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="C84TS4">
<a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution">Human rights groups</a> have argued that the Israeli government’s policies on land access, restrictions on movement, and limitations on the right to vote meet the ICC’s standard and that it has institutionalized racism against Palestinians in order to ensure Israeli Jews remain the dominant group across Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories (OPT), which includes the West Bank and Gaza. Israel and its allies, including the US and the European Commission, have rejected this assessment.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="sHqZp5">
International organizations’ use of this term has grown in the last five years.
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<a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution">In 2021</a>, Human Rights Watch (HRW) put out a report noting that the Israeli government engaged in “systematic oppression of Palestinians and inhumane acts,” which ultimately “amount to the crime of apartheid.” <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2022/02/israels-system-of-apartheid/">In 2022</a>, Amnesty International reached a similar conclusion, saying that the Israeli state “imposes a system of oppression and domination against Palestinians” that “amounts to apartheid as prohibited in international law.” That same year, Michael Lynk, then the UN special rapporteur focused on human rights in occupied Palestinian territories, stated that the Israeli government used a “<a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/03/israels-55-year-occupation-palestinian-territory-apartheid-un-human-rights">deeply discriminatory</a> dual legal and political system,” <a href="https://www.un.org/unispal/document/report-of-the-special-rapporteur-on-the-situation-of-human-rights-in-the-palestinian-territories-occupied-since-1967-report-a-hrc-49-87-advance-unedited-version/">which privileges Israeli Jewish settlers</a> while disadvantaging Palestinian residents in these areas. (Lynk’s position was based on his review of Israeli government policies and does not reflect the position of the UN as an institution, which has a <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/un-commission-says-it-will-investigate-apartheid-charges-against-israel/">commission currently investigating this charge</a>.)
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<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/08/11/israel-palestine-apartheid-israel-scholars/">Some Israel scholars</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/05/amnesty-israel-apartheid-israeli-politicians-agree">former Israeli officials</a> have also started using this designation. In 2022, <a href="https://www.thejournal.ie/readme/israel-apartheid-5678541-Feb2022/">Michael Ben-Yair</a>, a former attorney general of Israel, said that “it is with great sadness … I must also conclude that my country has sunk to such political and moral depths that it is now an apartheid regime.” <a href="https://apnews.com/article/israel-apartheid-palestinians-occupation-c8137c9e7f33c2cba7b0b5ac7fa8d115">Earlier this year, Tamir Pardo</a>, a former head of Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, emphasized, too, that “there is an apartheid state here” featuring “two people [who] are judged under two legal systems.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4yKQ6R">
In protests and critiques of the Israeli government’s military actions this month, <a href="https://tlaib.house.gov/posts/tlaib-statement-on-ongoing-violence-in-israel-and-palestine">political leaders</a> and <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/dozens-arrested-white-house-protesters-call-end-israels/story?id=104023675">activists around the world</a> have often referenced the term while condemning the country’s policies.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NmFevY">
The Israeli government, meanwhile, has argued that any claims that it practices apartheid are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/27/israel-committing-crime-apartheid-human-rights-watch">“preposterous and false,”</a> <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/02/01/1077291879/israel-apartheid-state-amnesty-international">antisemitic</a>, and dedicated to singling out the country. (Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have also condemned and examined apartheid elsewhere, including in Myanmar, where the <a href="https://www.vox.com/22260213/myanmar-coup-rohingya-genocide">Rohingya minority group</a> has faced a great deal of violence.)
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="k3HCNR">
Israel isn’t alone in its criticism of the term, which has been the source of international debate. Those who oppose its use, including the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/19/jewish-protest-israel-gaza-washington-dc">pro-Israel civil rights group</a> <a href="https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounder/allegation-israel-apartheid-state">Anti-Defamation League</a>, argue that some of Israel’s restrictive policies toward Palestinians in the occupied territories are driven by security concerns and that they don’t view these policies as <a href="https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounder/allegation-israel-apartheid-state">motivated by racism</a>. Some critics also claim that the term apartheid cannot be used because only Palestinian noncitizens outside of Israel’s internationally recognized borders suffer from confinement and other potentially “inhumane acts,” while<strong> </strong>Palestinian citizens of Israel purportedly have the same rights as all other Israeli citizens, such as the ability to vote and run for office.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Z2T45D">
The US and other Western allies of Israel have pushed back on this label as well. In 2023, the US House passed a resolution stating that Israel is not a <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/house-vote-resolution-israel-racist-apartheid-state/story?id=101410569">“racist or apartheid state,”</a> and <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210428-us-disagrees-that-israel-carrying-out-apartheid">in recent years, the Biden administration has said it disagreed</a> with human rights analyses that argue that Israel practices apartheid. In January 2023, the European Commission also said that <a href="https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-9-2022-000932-ASW_EN.html">it is “not appropriate”</a> to associate the term apartheid with the Israeli state.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Z8XgP2">
Human rights experts have countered these claims, noting that Israel’s policies in both Israel and the occupied territories are discriminatory against non-Jewish residents and that actions in the West Bank and Gaza far surpass any response possibly justified by security concerns. To better understand human rights groups arguments’ regarding the term apartheid, as well as the debate around it, Vox spoke with eight human rights, policy, and legal experts, including some who supported the designation and others who did not. This reporting focused on human rights organizations because those groups have been the key drivers of conversations about Israel’s policies, and in recent years have drawn new conclusions about what they constitute.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LtsHXx">
“It’s an accurate legal designation of a situation of institutionalized discrimination and racial superiority. It is a harsh term, but this is a harsh situation,” Lynk, the former UN special rapporteur, told Vox.
</p>
<h3 id="zvN3r5">
Why human rights experts, including at the UN, say Israel practices apartheid
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cLMIzz">
The term apartheid, which translates to “apartness” in Afrikaans, is most closely associated with policies and a legal system that segregated white and Black South Africans.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lyF7HL">
In apartheid South Africa, laws deprived Black people of access to land, the right to vote, and the ability to move freely across the country. In the last 50 years, international bodies have put forth multiple definitions of apartheid, including the UN’s 1973 <a href="https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/atrocity-crimes/Doc.10_International%20Convention%20on%20the%20Suppression%20and%20Punishment%20of%20the%20Crime%20of%20Apartheid.pdf">International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid</a>, which was established with South Africa in mind, and the ICC’s <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution">1998 definition</a>, which is broader and more commonly known as the Rome Statute.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="quGcvK">
Some of the human rights analyses, like Lynk’s, have specifically focused on the Israeli government’s policies in the occupied Palestinian territories. <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/research/2022/02/qa-israels-apartheid-against-palestinians-cruel-system-of-domination-and-crime-against-humanity/">Others, however, like Amnesty International’s</a>, apply the term to policies in both the occupied territories and within Israel’s borders. Broadly, they argue that apartheid is upheld in the OPT by the fact that Palestinians have limited ability to move freely, have no right to vote in Israeli elections, and are tried <a href="https://www.vox.com/2014/4/21/5636486/west-bank-justice-data">under a completely different legal system</a>. Many experts also point to the <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2018/7/31/17623978/israel-jewish-nation-state-law-bill-explained-apartheid-netanyahu-democracy">passage of an Israeli law in 2018</a> establishing Israel as the “nation state of the Jewish people,” which was seen as effectively deeming non-Jewish residents second-class citizens.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nbk3I0">
There’s a broader consensus among human rights experts that the Israeli government’s actions in the occupied territories constitute apartheid, though there isn’t as widespread consensus as to whether apartheid exists within Israel’s borders.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EIIwHY">
In the past five years, human rights experts — building on decades of research into Israel’s policies by Palestinian and Israeli groups including Al-Haq and B’Tselem — have relied on the two international legal definitions when weighing whether to designate Israel as a country that practices apartheid. To conduct their review, human rights groups and experts have used a three-part test, based on both the 1973 Convention and the Rome Statute. Their reports state that apartheid exists if:
</p>
<ol>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wKzP2p">
The state has established an institutionalized regime of systematic racial oppression and discrimination.
</li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iSaCHt">
There is an intent to maintain the domination of one racial group over another.
</li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="K7C6uo">
A series of inhumane acts were committed as an integral part of this regime.
</li>
</ol>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="peInh1">
Ultimately, Lynk at the UN — who examined the occupied territories — and HRW and Amnesty International, which looked at both the occupied territories and Israel, found that the Israeli government met all three criteria. Below were some of their findings, based on an examination of dozens of policies in the region:
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ABdv7B">
<strong> 1. Established an institutionalized regime of systematic racial oppression and discrimination</strong>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hYa8h7">
In the occupied territories, Israeli settlers have a completely different set of legal rights than Palestinians, says Lynk.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6NrNot">
While Israeli settlers in the territories can vote in Israeli elections, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/5bd073882ef148a4be098b8e3754c0d1">Palestinians cannot</a>. Israeli settlers are also able to travel freely across the occupied territories and into Israel, while Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank cannot: They must apply for permits, which are difficult to obtain. Most Palestinians in Gaza are unable to leave the area at all, and those in the West Bank face onerous military checkpoints to travel through and out of the area. Furthermore, Israeli settlers are tried in Israeli civilian courts if accused of a crime, while Palestinians are tried in Israeli military court — which has an extremely high conviction rate and limited due process rights. And while Israeli settlers have the freedom of political speech and protest, Palestinians are governed by military orders that restrict these rights.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pS2wAK">
This binary also exists when it comes to land access and confiscation in the occupied territories, <a href="https://www.un.org/unispal/document/report-of-the-special-rapporteur-on-the-situation-of-human-rights-in-the-palestinian-territories-occupied-since-1967-report-a-hrc-49-87-advance-unedited-version/">where Palestinians have seen their land seized</a> and used for Israeli settlements and infrastructure. Additionally, Palestinian enclaves in the West Bank are walled off and isolated from one another, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/a0c47ad493fb4b31a444bfe432194f2e">and certain roads</a> are segregated for Palestinian and Israeli traffic.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Nrr3Nf">
Omer Bartov, an Israeli-born Holocaust historian at Brown University, said of the policies in the West Bank: “Anyone who observes the reality on the ground can have no doubt about the nature of this regime, whereby 3 million Palestinians live under one set of laws and half a million Jewish settlers live under another set of laws.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Ob4ZQd">
“The rights they have are entirely determined on their nationality and their ethnicity … and then we have, of course, the situation in Gaza, where they’re entirely fenced off from the rest of the world through an elaborate blockade since 2007,” says Lynk.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JJmO2h">
Palestinian citizens of Israel have a wider set of rights than Palestinians in the occupied territories. They have the ability to vote in Israeli elections and serve in the Knesset, but they face limited opportunities to own land and build homes, <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/07/israel-opt-500-palestinians-facing-forcible-eviction-displacement-and-segregation/">along with evictions,</a> differences in <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2022/3/15/devastating-how-israel-is-pulling-palestinian-families-apart">immigration policy</a>, and implicit restrictions on social service access. Palestinian citizens face major challenges to get residential home permits approved due to<a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/05/12/israel-discriminatory-land-policies-hem-palestinians"> zoning restrictions that limit expansion</a>, and often risk demolition by building without them. Additionally, <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/07/israel-opt-500-palestinians-facing-forcible-eviction-displacement-and-segregation/#:~:text=An%20Israeli%20court%20has%20given,apartheid%2C%20Amnesty%20International%20said%20today.">they’ve been the subject of evictions that human rights groups</a> say are aimed at clearing the way for more Jewish-majority neighborhoods. <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/what-know-about-arab-citizens-israel#chapter-title-0-4">The 1950 Law of Return</a> also enables any Jewish person to move to Israel and become a citizen, while Palestinians do not have this right even if their families were previously displaced from land now within Israel’s borders.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7Zo6wD">
Furthermore, Israel ties some social benefits — including financial aid for education <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/what-know-about-arab-citizens-israel">and discounted building permits</a> — to military service. While Jewish Israelis must serve in the military (barring exceptions for certain religious groups, like ultra-Orthodox Jewish Israelis who may apply for exemptions), Palestinian Israelis aren’t required to do so, and many don’t. Because of that, most Palestinian citizens are left with reduced access to important benefits; ultra-Orthodox Jews who are exempted from military service also have to navigate this policy, but they have access to education subsidies that Palestinian citizens are not eligible for, <a href="https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/media_2021/04/israel_palestine0421_web_0.pdf">per HRW</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="asNcKB">
Overall, Palestinian Israelis have a more precarious political status than their Jewish counterparts because, <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde15/5141/2022/en/">as Amnesty International notes</a>, Palestinian and Jewish citizens have different legal statuses: “Whilst they are granted citizenship, Palestinian citizens of Israel are denied a nationality, establishing a legal differentiation from Jewish Israelis.”<strong> </strong>This distinction matters because policies related to issues such as immigration are tied to nationality rather than citizenship.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2stTgx">
“When it comes to poverty, housing, getting permits to build houses, to equal rights when it comes to school education, everything, we are being treated as worse than second-class citizens,” Tamar Nafar, a Palestinian with Israeli citizenship, <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/International/uprisings-palestinians-israeli-citizenship/story?id=77741627">previously told ABC News</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9XRG8Y">
<strong>2. Establishing the intent to maintain the domination of one racial group over another</strong>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="icbC6t">
Those arguing that Israel practices apartheid point to the passage of a 2018 law known as the “nation-state law” as well as multiple statements that Israeli leaders have made emphasizing that they seek to prioritize the rights of Israeli Jewish residents in the region over those of other groups.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wGPS08">
That law — which was <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2018/7/31/17623978/israel-jewish-nation-state-law-bill-explained-apartheid-netanyahu-democracy#:~:text=Palestinians%2C%20liberal%20American%20Jews%2C%20and,%E2%80%9Cunnecessary%20embarrassment%20to%20Israel.%E2%80%9D">widely criticized by Palestinians and liberal Israeli Jews as undemocratic</a> — explicitly stated that the right to “national self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish people.” That line underscored the reality that there was no political appetite for a one-state solution in which Palestinians and Israelis were treated equally, and its critics argued it made plain that Palestinians are second-class citizens.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qDR4Ac">
Additionally, the law said that “the state views Jewish settlement as a national value and will labor to encourage and <a href="https://www.jpost.com/opinion/opposing-segregation-562671">promote its establishment and development</a>,” while downgrading Arabic from its designation as an official language. These tenets were also interpreted as legally treating Palestinian citizens different from their Jewish counterparts.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gUD3tS">
Coupled with statements by Israeli government officials, groups say the intention to maintain the dominance of one group over others is evident.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7ix7i9">
Israel is <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/03/11/702264118/netanyahu-says-israel-is-nation-state-of-the-jewish-people-and-them-alone">“the national state, not of all its citizens, but only of the Jewish people,”</a> Israel’s current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in 2019.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="L6qCV5">
Outside of Israel’s borders, the Israeli government has supported<a href="https://press.un.org/en/2016/sc12657.doc.htm"> what UN leaders describe as illegal settlements</a> in the occupied territories, which have pushed Palestinians out of their communitie. <a href="https://www.un.org/unispal/document/human-rights-council-hears-that-700000-israeli-settlers-are-living-illegally-in-the-occupied-west-bank-meeting-summary-excerpts/">According to a 2023 UN report,</a> 700,000 Israeli settlers are living illegally in 279 settlements in the West Bank. Their influx has been linked to violence against Palestinians who live in the area and has led to the displacement of <a href="https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestine-settler-bedouin-displacement-violence-un-108e11712310b5ea099dbded7be8effb">more than 1,100 Palestinians </a>in the region in 2023 alone.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="U2fSuu">
“Israeli political leaders, past and present, have repeatedly stated that they intend to retain control over all of the occupied territory in order to enlarge the blocs of land for present and future Jewish settlement while confining the Palestinians to barricaded population reserves,” Lynk writes in the UN report.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DMNPyZ">
<strong>3. A series of inhumane acts that were committed as an integral part of this regime </strong>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GLI2Hi">
The <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/sites/default/files/RS-Eng.pdf">UN has a list</a> of what constitutes an inhuman act, which ranges from “denial to a member or members of a racial group or groups of the right to life and liberty” to “persecution of organizations and persons … because they oppose apartheid.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vmkloc">
Many items on the list apply to Israel, the reports argue. Among other things, they point to the blockade of Gaza as an example of what the UN calls measures “designed to divide the population along racial lines by the creation of separate reserves and ghettos for the members of a racial group or groups.” They also note that ”the disproportionate killings and woundings of civilians by the Israeli military” is a case of the UN’s “infliction upon the members of a racial group or groups of serious bodily or mental harm,” and the limitations Palestinians face in freedom of expression and protest as an example of Israel’s “persecution of organizations and persons, by depriving them of fundamental rights and freedoms.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jpHe2K">
Throughout the reports, Israel stands accused of repeatedly engaging in nearly every inhuman act the UN convention describes.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RRBTWA">
“The most stark thing I could say to try to illustrate this is that the poorest Israeli Jewish settlement in the West Bank enjoys more political, more economic, and more legal rights than the best and most well-off of Palestinian communities living right beside them,” says Lynk. “And that is probably the starkest and most visible example of how this huge differentiation of rights favors Israeli Jews and disadvantages Palestinian Arabs.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="doRvDC">
Lynk’s UN report, and other recent decisions to label Israel an apartheid practitioner, follow decades of advocacy by Palestinian groups for the adoption of the term. More recently, Israeli human rights organizations including <a href="https://www.btselem.org/publications/fulltext/202101_this_is_apartheid">B’tselem</a> have begun describing Israel as such. This past August, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/08/11/israel-palestine-apartheid-israel-scholars/?_pml=1">leading historians and Israel scholars</a>, including Bartov, penned a letter criticizing the “regime of apartheid” by the Israeli government in the occupied territories.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DdFRvj">
A large part of what’s fueling the current shift in rhetoric is the belief that the Israeli government’s occupation of Palestinian territories is a long-term arrangement.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UJNtPP">
“I think the realization that a one-state reality is effectively here to stay and that there is no horizon for peace based on partition made people realize that [the] one-state reality is apartheid,” says Arab Center fellow Yousef Munayyer. Groups note, too, that by clearly demarcating these policies as apartheid and a crime against humanity, they can more accurately describe the reality of what’s taking place on the ground and urge international leaders to take sufficient action such as conditioning aid to Israel on changing its Palestine policy.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bGa1oC">
Organizations have been careful to note that they have made this conclusion using the international legal framework and are not drawing a direct comparison with the apartheid system in South Africa, which included unique policies that aren’t all present in the Israel-Palestine context, such as <a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/grand-apartheid-history-43487">“petty apartheid</a>,” referring to laws that, for example, segregated benches and water fountains. South African leaders have been outspoken, though, in the similarities between the two systems, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/dec/30/desmond-tutu-palestinians-israel">noted, for instance, that</a> Israel had created an “apartheid reality” and that “parallels to my own beloved South Africa are painfully stark indeed.”
</p>
<h3 id="YMdR4i">
The debate over the use of the term apartheid, explained
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6GN0Pr">
Although more and more human rights groups are now describing Israel’s policies as apartheid, there’s also been pushback from some international law experts and <a href="https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounder/allegation-israel-apartheid-state">groups like ADL</a>. The Biden administration, the US House of Representatives, and the European Commission have also disagreed with the use of this term.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wDRuJW">
Some of these groups point to the ICC definition to bolster their claims. Rather than focusing on “inhumane acts,” these groups stress the part of the definition that states a central feature of apartheid is “systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group.” These groups argue that racism, and race itself, is not at the center of the Israeli government’s policies — security is — and therefore apartheid cannot exist. Additionally, they suggest that the rights Palestinian citizens have in Israel negate the idea that such policies are driven by a discriminatory rationale.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="992drz">
The term apartheid “often doesn’t leave space to consider the need for security considerations in policy design and implementation,” Yuval Shany, chair in public international law at Hebrew University, told Vox, arguing that travel restrictions between Israel and the West Bank criticized by many human rights groups were established due to concerns about suicide bombers.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kv2PhB">
Generally, human rights experts take issue with the idea that many of the policies Israel has imposed in the West Bank and elsewhere have a security justification. “[M]any abuses, including categorical denials of building permits, mass residency revocations or restrictions, and large-scale land confiscations, have no legitimate security justifications,” <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/04/27/qa-threshold-crossed#Arent_you_ignoring">Human Rights Watch states</a>. Additionally, they note, the need for <a href="https://www.vox.com/defense-and-security">national security</a> can be leveraged to legitimize human rights abuses.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3Tlxw9">
Others who take issue with the term apartheid note that Palestinian citizens of Israel have key rights, including the ability to serve in the Knesset, and use that fact to argue institutionalized racism doesn’t drive the country’s policies.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="d23kY7">
“Israel does not have a racial segregation implemented by law,” Haaretz opinion editor Anat Kaam wrote <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/israels-got-major-problems-but-its-not-an-apartheid-state">in the Daily Beast in October 2022</a>. “There are Arab citizens—citizens with full, equal rights—in the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, as well as in the Israeli court system, including the <a href="https://www.vox.com/scotus">Supreme Court</a>. There are Arab doctors, professors, policemen, teachers, and countless other professions, working side by side with Jews.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="x1Aymv">
This argument was expanded upon at length by the <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4343950">American Center for Law and Justice’s Jay Sekulow,</a> a Trump attorney, and Robert Ash, in a 2023 paper. They argue that the fact that Arab citizens of Israel have an opportunity of success in Israel — structural factors complicating that reality aside — undercuts the claim that the government uses race in its policies. Instead, they too claim that Israel’s policies in the occupied territories are driven by the ongoing conflict between Palestinians in these areas with the Israeli government.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="arnGdt">
Such assessments, however, fail to acknowledge the ways that Israel discriminates against Palestinian citizens inside its borders, <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/04/27/qa-threshold-crossed">human rights groups say</a>. Again, Palestinians in Israel face restrictions on the land they can buy and barriers to certain social services as well as <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/what-the-war-means-for-palestinians-inside-israel">family reunification</a>. Inside Israel, despite Palestinians comprising around 20 percent of the population, Palestinian municipalities make up just 3 percent of its land, <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/05/12/israel-discriminatory-land-policies-hem-palestinians">Human Rights Watch says</a>. And while Palestinian citizens of Israel may have more rights than Palestinians in the occupied territories, experts emphasize <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/7/19/five-ways-israeli-law-discriminates-against-palestinians">that the disparities</a> they experience are undergirded by the same institutionalized racism at their core.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vIMfmc">
“If there are 7 million Israeli Jews and 7 million Palestinian Arabs under the rule of Israel, and Israel is meant to be a Jewish state, then there is no other explanation than race and ethnicity to explain the treatment of the 5.2 million Palestinians under occupation without rights and the 1.8 million Palestinian citizens of Israel with second-class rights,” says Lynk. “None of this is acceptable under any modern understanding of democracy.”
</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</h1>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Australia vs Pakistan | Records galore as Warner, Marsh score centuries</strong> - Both Australian openers David Warner and Mitchell Marsh scored centuries, becoming only the fourth pair to do so in a World Cup game</p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Hardik Pandya ruled out of New Zealand game</strong> - Injured Hardik Pandya is likely to have a cortisone shot at the National Cricket Academy in Bengaluru for treatment</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Sorry for stealing it from Jaddu but wanted to make it big and finish off: Kohli</strong> - Jadeja, who returned with figures of 2/38 on a batting belter along with a stunning catch at point would have got that trophy on any other day</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Morning Digest | Canada pulls 41 diplomats out of India; Biden addresses Americans to make case for Israel, Ukraine aid, and more</strong> - Here is a select list of stories to start the day</p></li>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</h1>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>No violation of Vienna Convention in seeking “parity” in diplomatic representation, India tells Canada</strong> - The MEA statement came after Canada acquiesed to India’s demand, reducing its diplomatic strength by 41; in-person services will no longer be available at Canadian consulates in Chandigarh, Mumbai, Bengaluru</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Same-sex marriage and the fundamental right to marry | Explained</strong> - Why did the Supreme Court rule against the fundamental right to marry? What do prior verdicts of the court say in this regard? Is the ruling in consonance with international precedents?</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">**Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan denies Deve Gowda’s claim that he approved of LDF partner JD(S)‘s tie-up with BJP** - Pinarayi says Deve Gowda’s claim is ‘baseless and devoid of truth’</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Delhi HC dismisses AAP leader Sanjay Singh’s plea against arrest in money laundering case</strong> - Sanjay Singh, who was arrested by the ED on October 4, had moved the High Court last week challenging his arrest and remand in the money laundering case related to the now-scrapped Delhi excise policy</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>DMK keen on protecting corrupt Ministers: BJP leader Annamalai</strong> - Mr. Annamalai said that agitation by the MSMEs had gone unnoticed and he exhorted the Tamil Nadu government to bring down the power tariff.</p></li>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</h1>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>French arrests after bomb scares trigger evacuations at airports and Versailles</strong> - The Palace of Versailles, the Louvre as well as schools, airports and hospitals have been targeted.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Italy PM Giorgia Meloni splits from partner after off-air lewd TV remarks</strong> - Giorgia Meloni says the relationship is over after a TV show airs her partner’s off-air comments.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Biden seeks ‘vital’ war aid for Israel and Ukraine</strong> - The president says an expected $105bn funding request would bolster US security “for generations”.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>EU bids to tighten migration rules after attacks in Arras and Brussels</strong> - Killings by militants in France and Belgium prompt calls for better screening of migrants.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Berlusconi’s ‘worthless’ art proving a headache to heirs</strong> - The ex-Italian prime minister bought many of his 25,000 paintings from late-night telesales programmes.</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</h1>
<ul>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Are you near Houston? Come to our IT event at Space Center Houston on November 1!</strong> - Learn about resiliency, AI, and the future of IT—then hang out with us and talk space! - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1977352">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Rocket Report: Key Ariane 6 test delayed; NASA urged to look at SLS alternatives</strong> - “NASA’s aspirational goal to achieve a cost savings of 50 percent is highly unrealistic.” - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1976485">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Nonprofit hospitals skimp on charity while CEOs reap millions, report finds</strong> - Nonprofit hospitals got $28 billion in tax breaks—which made up 44% of their net income. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1977336">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Report: US needs much more than the IRA to get to net zero by 2050</strong> - Current policies cut emissions in half—can we keep cutting? - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1977299">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The latest high-severity Citrix vulnerability under attack isn’t easy to fix</strong> - If you run a Netscaler ADC or Gateway, assume it’s compromised and take action … fast. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1977305">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</h1>
<ul>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>An inexperienced young dude hooks up with a rather experienced MILF on Tinder…</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
They make out, when she says - hey, you ever had a 69? “No, what’s that?”, he replies. She says “let me show you”, as she pulls down her undies and straddles his face, taking his dick in her mouth.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Few minutes into it, she’s hot and bothered, and lets out the tiniest “feeeeeeeeepppp” fart warmly into his face. But BJ is so good, the just rolls with it.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Until few minutes later, when she rips a louder one right under his nose " Bbbbrrrraappp!"
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Dude nearly chokes, but being a good sport says nothing.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Few minutes later, she’s squirming and gushing, but this time she rips a solid 10-pointer on a richter scale right in his nostrils.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Dude pushes her off, face red, wet, and with chocolate sprinkles all over it, pleading: “Hey lady, don’t get me wrong - the bj is fantastic, but I don’t think I can handle 66 more of these”
</p>
</div>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/SamVimesCpt"> /u/SamVimesCpt </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/17byxhd/an_inexperienced_young_dude_hooks_up_with_a/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/17byxhd/an_inexperienced_young_dude_hooks_up_with_a/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A 21-year-old Texan was still a virgin, so he travelled to a brothel in Dallas to see what he’d been missing.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
He got the address of a reputable place and in no time at all he was in bed with an attractive hooker. She sensed he was inexperienced, so she took his hand and placed it on her money maker. “Is that what you’re looking for?” He said “I don’t know ma’am. I’m a stranger in these parts.”
</p>
</div>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Major_Independence82"> /u/Major_Independence82 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/17bu5zc/a_21yearold_texan_was_still_a_virgin_so_he/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/17bu5zc/a_21yearold_texan_was_still_a_virgin_so_he/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>In Hong Kong, there once lived a rich prestigious old man known as Grandpa Li.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Grandpa Li lived together with Grandma Li in a big mansion with 3 daughters, each known as Miss Li.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The eldest Miss Li got married. Since she came from a very prestigious family, she decided to keep her last name, and then known as Madam Li.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Madam Li had a Son and a Daughter. They are very kind and generous to the neighborhood kids. They treat others as their own siblings, so they are known as Brother Li and Sister Li. Madam Li soon became known as Mother Li, and her husband is knowns as Father Li.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The second Miss Li also got married and had 2 daughters. The daughters and Brother Li and Sister Li called each other Cousin Li.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The third daughter is still single as she hadn’t had much luck with romance. As the youngest, she had preference for men from the West.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
One day, Johnny from US decided to go on a vacation to Hong Kong. He heard rumors of the youngest daughter of the prestigious Li family looking for a western man to marry.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
When Johnny met Miss Li, they instantly had chemistry. They went on dates and decided to be in a relationship. Johnny of course have to return home after vacation, but Miss Li decided to follow Johnny to US for a vacation of her own.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
They went back and forth between Hong Kong and US, but they haven’t got married yet as they were still discussing whether to settle in Hong Kong, or in US.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
One day when they are in Hong Kong, Johnny got news of a lockdown in US due to Covid. Believing it to be only for a few weeks, Johnny decided to return home to take care of his old Mother. Miss Li decided to stay in Hong Kong, in case the same thing happened at home.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The lockdown turned out to go on for 1 year! All that time, Johnny and Miss Li exchanged messages and calls, and are very much in love.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
After the lockdown lifted, Johnny decided to visit Hong Kong one last time and prepare for citizenship, buy a property, and find a job in his field. Johnny is very good at his job, so he easily found a high paying job close to his purchased property, where he decided to move out with his mother later.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
When he arrived in Hong Kong, Miss Li greeted him while carrying a child in her arms. Johnny became confused. Unbeknownst to him, Miss Li was pregnant when Johnny last visited Hong Kong before the lockdown.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Seeing as Miss Li is very wealthy, her family had no problems taking care of the pregnancy, and they decided to surprise Johnny with his son when he returned to Hong Kong.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Excited, but in shock, they went to rest at a nearby hotel. The three of them reunited: Johnny, Miss Li, and the affectionately called Baby Li. Johnny decided to break the news to his mother as he decided she would be more excited to move to Hong Kong now.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Johnny called and the phone rang three times before his mother picked up. “Hello?” said his Mother. “Mom, I have great news, but please don’t freak out,” said Johnny. “My girlfriend was actually pregnant when I left last year. I have a son now.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“I am now a father, a Parent Li”
</p>
</div>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Brief_Carrot"> /u/Brief_Carrot </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/17c51gl/in_hong_kong_there_once_lived_a_rich_prestigious/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/17c51gl/in_hong_kong_there_once_lived_a_rich_prestigious/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>During the winter war, the Soviets where attacking a Finnish position</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
At first the Soviet command sends five soldiers in, and they all get killed by The enemy.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
A Finnish soldier then yelled to the Soviets “Is that all you’ve got? I’m only one here.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Then the Soviet command sends in 15 soldiers, who all, again, is killed by the enemy.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The Finnish soldier then yelled again “I’m only one here. Do better”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The Soviet commander is beginning to become frustrated about the Finns, so now he sends in 50 soldiers, that again all gets killed by the enemy.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The Finnish soldier again taunts the Soviets because he only is one guy.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Then with increased impatience and frustration, the Soviet commander sends 500 soldiers in, that all get killed by the enemy.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The Finnish soldier then yells “send all the men you can, and let’s see who wins. One man, or all the Russians?”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Now with immense frustration and impatience, the Soviet command orders a mass push against the Finn, with 1000 soldiers.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Only one returns badly wounded and yells from roughly 250 meters distance (820.2 feet) “he’s lying, he’s lying. There are two.” Before being shot in the back of the head.
</p>
</div>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Hjalle1"> /u/Hjalle1 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/17c7p29/during_the_winter_war_the_soviets_where_attacking/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/17c7p29/during_the_winter_war_the_soviets_where_attacking/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A 7 year old and a 4 year old are in their bedroom. “You know what, I think it’s time we started swearing” said the 7 year old.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“When we go downstairs for breakfast, I’ll swear first, then you.”<br/> “Sure.” replied the 4 year old.<br/> They make their way downstairs and their mum asks the 7 year old what he wants for breakfast.<br/> “I’ll have Frosties, bitch”<br/> WHACK, he flew out the chair crying his eyes out. Mum looks at the 4 year old and says sternly “And what do you want?”<br/> “I don’t know, but it won’t be fucking Frosties”
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Reecethehawk"> /u/Reecethehawk </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/17c9myz/a_7_year_old_and_a_4_year_old_are_in_their/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/17c9myz/a_7_year_old_and_a_4_year_old_are_in_their/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
</ul>
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