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<title>28 October, 2023</title>
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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>Immune Epitopes of SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein and Considerations for Universal Vaccine Development</strong> -
<div>
Despite the success of global vaccination programs in slowing the spread of COVID-19, these efforts have been hindered by the emergence of new SARS-CoV-2 strains capable of evading prior immunity. The mutation and evolution of SARS-CoV-2 have created a demand for persistent efforts in vaccine development. SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein has been the primary target for COVID-19 vaccine development, but it is also the hotspot of mutations directly involved in host susceptibility and immune evasion. Our ability to predict emerging mutants and select conserved epitopes is critical for the development of a broadly neutralizing therapy or a universal vaccine. In this article, we review the general paradigm of immune responses to COVID-19 vaccines, highlighting the immunological epitopes of Spike protein that are likely associated with eliciting protective immunity resulting from vaccination. Specifically, we analyze the structural and evolutionary characteristics of the SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein related to immune activation and function via the toll-like receptors (TLRs), B cells, and T cells. We aim to provide a comprehensive analysis of immune epitopes of Spike protein, thereby contributing to the development of new strategies for broad neutralization or universal vaccination.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.10.26.564184v1" target="_blank">Immune Epitopes of SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein and Considerations for Universal Vaccine Development</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Impact of Memory T Cells on SARS-COV-2 Vaccine Response in Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplant</strong> -
<div>
During the COVID-19 pandemic, hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) recipients faced an elevated mortality rate from SARS-CoV-2 infection, ranging between 10-40%. The SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccines are important tools in preventing severe disease, yet their efficacy in the post-transplant setting remains unclear, especially in patients subjected to myeloablative chemotherapy and immunosuppression. We evaluated the humoral and adaptive immune responses to the SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccination series in 42 HSCT recipients and 5 healthy controls. Peripheral blood mononuclear nuclear cells and serum were prospectively collected before and after each dose of the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. Post-vaccination responses were assessed by measuring anti-spike IgG and nucleocapsid titers, and antigen specific T cell activity, before and after vaccination. In order to examine mechanisms behind a lack of response, pre- and post-vaccine samples were selected based on humoral and cellular responses for single-cell RNA sequencing with TCR and BCR sequencing. Our observations revealed that while all participants eventually mounted a humoral response, transplant recipients had defects in memory T cell populations that were associated with an absence of T cell response, some of which could be detected pre-vaccination.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.10.26.564259v1" target="_blank">Impact of Memory T Cells on SARS-COV-2 Vaccine Response in Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplant</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Overcoming antibody-resistant SARS-CoV-2 variants with bispecific antibodies constructed using non-neutralizing antibodies</strong> -
<div>
A current challenge is the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants, such as BQ.1.1 and XBB.1.5, that can evade immune defenses, thereby limiting antibody drug effectiveness. Emergency-use antibody drugs, including the widely effective bebtelovimab, are losing their benefits. One potential approach to address this issue are bispecific antibodies which combine the targeting abilities of two antibodies with distinct epitopes. We engineered neutralizing bispecific antibodies in the IgG-scFv format from two initially non-neutralizing antibodies, CvMab-6 (which binds to the receptor-binding domain [RBD]) and CvMab-62 (targeting a spike protein S2 subunit epitope adjacent to the known anti-S2 antibody epitope). Furthermore, we created a bispecific antibody by incorporating the scFv of bebtelovimab with our anti-S2 antibody, demonstrating significant restoration of effectiveness against bebtelovimab-resistant BQ.1.1 variants. This study highlights the potential of neutralizing bispecific antibodies, which combine existing less effective anti-RBD antibodies with anti-S2 antibodies, to revive the effectiveness of antibody therapeutics compromised by immune-evading variants.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.10.26.564289v1" target="_blank">Overcoming antibody-resistant SARS-CoV-2 variants with bispecific antibodies constructed using non-neutralizing antibodies</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Eviction Moratorium Litigation: What Courts Said, and What Courts Missed</strong> -
<div>
In 2020, federal, state, and local governments imposed eviction moratoriums to prevent mass homelessness and limit the spread of COVID-19. Landlords responded to this unprecedented action by filing lawsuits around the country. This Article analyzes the litigation. It examines the claims of landlords, defenses raised by the government, and how courts dealt with each of them. It also highlights the ways that courts misunderstand the rental market and devalue tenants. The Article shows that, before the Supreme Court intervened in mid-2021, most landlord suits failed, either because courts rejected their claims or governments ran out the clock, demonstrating that mass eviction moratoriums can protect the most vulnerable in times of crisis.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/zumw2/" target="_blank">Eviction Moratorium Litigation: What Courts Said, and What Courts Missed</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Peripheral Transcriptomics in Acute and Long-Term Kidney Dysfunction in SARS-CoV2 Infection</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Background. Acute kidney injury (AKI) is common in hospitalized patients with SARS-CoV2 infection despite vaccination and leads to long-term kidney dysfunction. However, peripheral blood molecular signatures in AKI from COVID-19 and their association with long-term kidney dysfunction are yet unexplored. Methods. In patients hospitalized with SARS-CoV2, we performed bulk RNA sequencing using peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs). We applied linear models accounting for technical and biological variability on RNA-Seq data accounting for false discovery rate (FDR) and compared the functional enrichment and pathway results to a historical sepsis-AKI cohort. Finally, we evaluated the association of these signatures with long-term trends in kidney function. Results. Of 283 patients, 106 had AKI. After adjustment for sex, age, mechanical ventilation, and chronic kidney disease (CKD), we identified 2635 significant differential gene expressions at FDR&lt;0.05. Top canonical pathways were EIF2 signaling, oxidative phosphorylation, mTOR signaling, and Th17 signaling, indicating mitochondrial dysfunction and endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress. Comparison with sepsis associated AKI showed considerable overlap of key pathways (48.14%). Using follow-up estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) measurements from 115 patients, we found that 164/2635 (6.2%) of the significantly differentiated genes were associated with overall decrease in long-term kidney function. The strongest associations were autophagy, renal impairment via fibrosis and cardiac structure/function. Conclusions. We show that AKI in SARS-CoV2 is a multifactorial process with mitochondrial dysfunction driven by ER stress whereas long-term kidney function decline is associated with cardiac structure and function, and immune dysregulation. Functional overlap with sepsis-AKI also highlights common signatures indicating generalizability in therapeutic approaches.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.10.25.23297469v2" target="_blank">Peripheral Transcriptomics in Acute and Long-Term Kidney Dysfunction in SARS-CoV2 Infection</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Comparative Organ Disease Burden and Sequelae of Influenza and SARS-CoV-2 Infection: An Observational Study Using Real-World Data</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Infections with SARS-CoV-2 and influenza are associated with acute and post-acute complications and sequelae of many organ systems (i.e., disease burden). It is important to understand the global disease burden that associates with and follows acute infection in order to establish preventive and therapeutic strategies and to reduce the use of health resources and improve patient health outcomes. To address these questions, we utilized the National Covid Cohort Collaborative, which is an integrated and harmonized data repository of electronic health record data in the USA. From this database, we included in analysis 346,648 eligible SARS-CoV-2-infected patients, 78,086 eligible influenza infected patients, and 146,635 uninfected controls. We describe the disease burden that extends over 2-3 months following infection, and we quantify the reduction of disease burden by treatment. We identify a burden of disease following medically attended influenza that is comparable to that of medically attended SARS-CoV-2 infection. However, in contrast to SARS-CoV-2, influenza acute infection and disease burden are not responsive to antiviral treatment and thus remain as an unmet medical need. Focusing therapeutic strategies solely on the short-term management of acute infection may also underestimate the extended health benefits of antiviral treatment.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.10.26.23297626v2" target="_blank">Comparative Organ Disease Burden and Sequelae of Influenza and SARS-CoV-2 Infection: An Observational Study Using Real-World Data</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Sort-Seq: immune repertoire-based scRNA-Seq systematization</strong> -
<div>
The functional programs chosen by B and T cell clones fundamentally determine the architecture of immune response to distinct challenges. Advances in scRNA-Seq have improved our understanding of the diversity and stability of these programs, but it has proven difficult to link this information with known lymphocyte subsets. Here, we introduce Sort-Seq, an immune repertoire-based method that allows exact positioning of phenotypically defined lymphocyte subsets within scRNA-Seq data. Sort-Seq outperformed CITE-Seq for accurate mapping of the classical CD4+ T helper (Th) cell subsets (Th1, Th1-17, Th17, Th22, Th2a, Th2, and Treg), offering a more powerful approach to the surface phenotype-based scRNA-Seq classification of adaptive lymphocyte subpopulations. Using integrated scRNA-Seq, Sort-Seq, and CITE-Seq data from 122 donors, we provide a comprehensive Th cell scRNA-Seq reference map. Exploration of this dataset revealed the low plasticity and extreme sustainability of the Th17, Th22, Th2, and Th2a cell programs over years. We also develop Cultivation-based Antigen-specific T cell identificatoR in Replicates (CultivAToRR), which identified &gt;80 SARS-CoV-2-specific CD4+ TCR{beta} clonotypes in a single donor across a wide frequency range. We complemented these results with frequency-based capturing of COVID-19-responsive clonotypes and screening against known SARS-CoV-2-specific TCRs. Positioning within the annotated scRNA-Seq map revealed functional subtypes of Th cell clones involved in primary and secondary responses against SARS-CoV-2. The ability to capture low-frequency antigen-specific T cell clones in combination with Sort-Seq-based scRNA-Seq annotation creates an integral pipeline that links challenge-responsive clones with their exact functional subtypes, providing a solid foundation for investigating T cell roles in healthy and pathological immune responses and vaccine development.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.10.24.563704v1" target="_blank">Sort-Seq: immune repertoire-based scRNA-Seq systematization</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Cost-effectiveness analysis of COVID-19 booster doses and oral antivirals in the Indo-Pacific</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Background: Decision-makers in middle-income countries need evidence on the cost-effectiveness of COVID-19 booster doses and oral antivirals to appropriately prioritise these healthcare interventions.   Methods: We used a dynamic transmission model to assess the cost-effectiveness of COVID-19 booster doses and oral antivirals in Fiji, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, and Timor-Leste. We conducted cost-effectiveness analysis from both healthcare and societal perspectives using 3% discounting for ongoing costs and health benefits. We developed an interactive R Shiny which allows the user to vary key model assumptions, such as the choice of discounting rate, and view how these assumptions affect model results.   Findings: Booster doses were cost saving and therefore cost-effective in all four middle-income settings from both healthcare and societal perspectives using 3% discounting. Providing oral antivirals was cost-effective from a healthcare perspective if procured at a low generic ($25 United States Dollars) or middle-income reference price ($250 United States Dollars); however, their cost-effectiveness was strongly influenced by rates of wastage or misuse, and the ongoing costs of care for patients hospitalised with COVID-19. Interestingly, the cost or wastage of rapid antigen tests did not appear strongly influential over the cost-effectiveness of oral antivirals in any of the four study settings.   Conclusions: Our results support that government funded COVID-19 booster programs continue to be cost-effective in middle-income settings. Oral antivirals demonstrate the potential to be cost-effective if procured at or below a middle-income reference price of $250 USD per schedule. Further research should quantify the rates of wastage or misuse of oral COVID-19 antivirals in middle-income settings.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.10.26.23297613v1" target="_blank">Cost-effectiveness analysis of COVID-19 booster doses and oral antivirals in the Indo-Pacific</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>COVID-19 first lockdown as a window into language acquisition: associations between caregiver-child activities and vocabulary gains.</strong> -
<div>
The COVID-19 pandemic, and the resulting closure of daycare centers worldwide, led to unprecedented changes in children’s learning environments. This period of increased time at home with caregivers, with limited access to external sources (e.g., daycares) provides a unique opportunity to examine the associations between the caregiver-child activities and children’s language development. The vocabularies of 1742 children aged 8-36 months across 13 countries and 12 languages were evaluated at the beginning and end of the first lockdown period in their respective countries (from March to September 2020). Children who had less passive screen exposure and whose caregivers read more to them showed larger gains in vocabulary development during lockdown, after controlling for SES and other caregiver-child activities. Children also gained more words than expected (based on normative data) during lockdown; either caregivers were more aware of their child’s development, or vocabulary development benefited from intense caregiver-child interaction during lockdown or both. We discuss these results in the context of the extraordinary circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic and highlight limitations of the study.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/5ejwu/" target="_blank">COVID-19 first lockdown as a window into language acquisition: associations between caregiver-child activities and vocabulary gains.</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Homeworking and Division of Domestic Work: the Role of Gender Role Attitudes in Germany</strong> -
<div>
Homeworking is often portrayed as a work-life balance measure. Though in theory homeworking can provide workers with more time for leisure and family, due to the boundary blurring between work and life spheres, it can exacerbate gender inequalities. Empirically, the evidence is mixed whether homeworking increases women’s time in domestic labour and men’s time in paid labour. We extend the debate by exploring how individuals’ gender role attitudes moderate the relationship between homeworking and the division of domestic work. We apply hybrid models to the German Panel Analysis of Intimate Relationships and Family Dynamics Survey. The data covers from 2008 to 2021 which includes the unique COVID-19 pandemic. Results show that gender role attitudes matter. When gaining access to homeworking egalitarian men increased their contribution to childcare, while traditional men did not. Similarly, homeworking traditional women increased their childcare contribution. During the pandemic, only traditional women did even more childcare, while men contributed more regardless of their gender role attitudes.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/85b23/" target="_blank">Homeworking and Division of Domestic Work: the Role of Gender Role Attitudes in Germany</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Reduced mobility? Urban exodus? Medium-term impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on internal population movements in Latin American countries</strong> -
<div>
The COVID‐19 pandemic has impacted the national systems of population movement around the world. Existing work has focused on countries of the Global North and restricted to the immediate effects of COVID-19 data during 2020. Data have represented a major limitation to monitor change in mobility patterns in countries in the Global South. Drawing on aggregate anonymised mobile phone location data from Meta‐Facebook users, we aim to analyse the extent and persistence of changes in the levels (or intensity) and spatial patterns of internal population movement across the rural-urban continuum in Argentina, Chile and Mexico over a 26-month period from March 2020 to May 2022. We reveal an overall systematic decline in the level of short- and long-distance movement during the enactment of nonpharmaceutical interventions in 2020, with the largest reductions occurred in the most dense areas. We also show that these levels bounced back closer to pre-pandemic levels in 2022 following the relaxation of COVID-19 stringency measures. However, the intensity of these movements has remained below pre-pandemic levels in many areas in 2022. Additionally our findings lend some support to the idea of an urban exodus. They reveal a continuing negative net balances of short-distance movements in the most dense areas of capital cities in Argentina and Mexico, reflecting a pattern of suburbanisation. Chile displays limited changes in the net balance of short-distance movements but reports a net loss of long-distance movements. These losses were, however, temporary, moving to neutral and positive balances in 2021 and 2022.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/2gf6b/" target="_blank">Reduced mobility? Urban exodus? Medium-term impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on internal population movements in Latin American countries</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>A deep learning framework for predicting the neutralizing activity of COVID-19 therapeutics and vaccines against evolving SARS-CoV-2 variants</strong> -
<div>
Understanding how viral variants evade neutralization is crucial for improving antibody-based treatments, especially with rapidly evolving viruses like SARS-CoV-2. Yet, conventional assays are limited in the face of rapid viral evolution, relying on a narrow set of viral isolates, and falling short in capturing the full spectrum of variants. To address this, we have developed a deep learning approach to predict changes in neutralizing antibody activity of COVID-19 therapeutics and vaccines against emerging viral variants. First, we trained a variational autoencoder (VAE) using all 67,885 unique SARS-CoV-2 spike protein sequences from the NCBI virus (up to October 31, 2022) database to encode spike protein variants into a latent space. Using this VAE and a curated dataset of 7,069 in vitro assay data points from the NCATS OpenData Portal, we trained a neural network regression model to predict fold changes in neutralizing activity of 40 COVID-19 therapeutics and vaccines against spike protein sequence variants, relative to their neutralizing activity against the ancestral strain (Wuhan-Hu-1). Our model also employs Bayesian inference to quantify prediction uncertainty, providing more nuanced and informative estimates. To validate the model's predictive capacity, we assessed its performance on a test set of in vitro assay data collected up to eight months after the data included in the model training (N = 980). The model accurately predicted fold changes in neutralizing activity for this prospective dataset, with an R2 of 0.77. Expanding our methodology to include all available data from NCBI virus and NCATS OpenData Portal up to date, we assessed predicted changes in activity for current COVID-19 monoclonal antibodies and vaccines against newly identified SARS-CoV-2 lineages. Our predictions suggest that current therapeutic and vaccine-induced antibodies will have significantly reduced activity against newer XBB descendants, notably EG.5, FL.1.5.1, and XBB.1.16. Using the model, we were able to primarily attribute the observed predicted loss in activity to the F456L spike mutation found in EG.5 and FL.1.5.1 sequences. Conversely, mRNA-bivalent vaccines are predicted to be less susceptible to the recent BA.2.86 variant compared to new XBB descendants. These findings align closely with recent research, underscoring the potential of deep learning in shaping therapeutic and vaccine strategies for emerging viral variants.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.10.24.563847v1" target="_blank">A deep learning framework for predicting the neutralizing activity of COVID-19 therapeutics and vaccines against evolving SARS-CoV-2 variants</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Reduced Monocyte Proportions and Responsiveness in Convalescent COVID-19 Patients</strong> -
<div>
The clinical manifestations of acute severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus type 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection and COVID-19 suggest a dysregulation of the host immune response that leads to inflammation, thrombosis, and organ dysfunction. It is less clear whether these dysregulated processes persist during the convalescent phase of disease or during long COVID. We investigated the effects of SARS-CoV-2 infection on the proportions of classical, intermediate, and non-classical monocytes, their activation status, and their functional properties in convalescent COVID-19 patients and uninfected control subjects. We found that the percentage of total monocytes was decreased in convalescent COVID-19 patients compared to uninfected controls. This was due to decreased intermediate and non-classical monocytes. Classical monocytes from convalescent COVID-19 patients demonstrated a decrease in activation markers, such as CD56, in response to stimulation with bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS). In addition, classical monocytes from convalescent COVID-19 patients showed decreased expression of CD142 (tissue factor), which can initiate the extrinsic coagulation cascade, in response to LPS stimulation. Finally, we found that monocytes from convalescent COVID-19 patients produced less TNF- and IL-6 in response to LPS stimulation, than those from uninfected controls. In conclusion, SARS-CoV-2 infection exhibits a clear effect on the relative proportions of monocyte subsets, the activation status of classical monocytes, and proinflammatory cytokine production that persists during the convalescent phase of disease.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.10.25.563806v1" target="_blank">Reduced Monocyte Proportions and Responsiveness in Convalescent COVID-19 Patients</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Discovery of a novel inhibitor of macropinocytosis with antiviral activity</strong> -
<div>
Several viruses hijack various forms of endocytosis in order to infect host cells. Here, we report the discovery of a new molecule with antiviral properties that we named virapinib, which limits viral entry by macropinocytosis. The identification of virapinib derives from a chemical screen using High-Throughput Microscopy, where we identified new chemical entities capable of preventing infection with a pseudotype virus expressing the spike (S) protein from SARS-CoV-2. Subsequent experiments confirmed the capacity of virapinib to inhibit infection by SARS-CoV-2, as well as by additional viruses, such as Monkeypox virus and TBEV. Mechanistic analyses revealed that the compound inhibited macropinocytosis, limiting this entry route for the viruses. Importantly, virapinib has no significant toxicity to host cells. In summary, we present a new molecule that inhibits viral entry via the endocytic route, offering a new alternative to prevent viral infection.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.10.25.563967v1" target="_blank">Discovery of a novel inhibitor of macropinocytosis with antiviral activity</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Early antiviral CD4 and CD8 T cell responses are associated with upper respiratory tract clearance of SARS-CoV-2</strong> -
<div>
T cells are involved in protective immunity against numerous viral infections. Limited data have been available regarding roles of human T cell responses controlling SARS-CoV-2 viral clearance in primary COVID-19. Here, we examined longitudinal SARS-CoV-2 upper respiratory tract viral RNA levels and early adaptive immune responses from 95 unvaccinated individuals with acute COVID-19. Acute SARS-CoV-2-specific CD4 and CD8 T cell responses were evaluated in addition to antibody responses. Most individuals with acute COVID-19 developed rapid SARS-CoV-2-specific T cell responses during infection, and both early CD4 T cell and CD8 T cell responses correlated with reduced upper respiratory tract SARS-CoV-2 viral RNA, independent of neutralizing antibody titers. Overall, our findings indicate a distinct protective role for SARS-CoV-2-specific T cells during acute COVID-19.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.10.25.564014v1" target="_blank">Early antiviral CD4 and CD8 T cell responses are associated with upper respiratory tract clearance of SARS-CoV-2</a>
</div></li>
</ul>
<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>Evaluation of Concordance Between Exhaled Air Test (eBAM-CoV) and RT-PCR to Detect SARS-CoV-2</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: SARS-CoV-2 Infection; COVID-19; Coronavirus <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Device: eBAM Cov Testing <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Nīmes; University of Nimes; brains’ laboratory sas, FRANCE <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>Study to Safety, Tolerability and Immunogenicity of EG-COVII in Healthy Adult</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: COVID-19 <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Biological: EG-COVII <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: EyeGene Inc. <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>Pharmacokinetics and Bioequivalence of Aterixen 100 mg Tablets and Aterixen 100 mg Film-coated Tablets in Healthy Volunteers</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Viral Infection COVID-19 <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Drug: Aterixen <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Valenta Pharm JSC <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>Long COVID Brain Fog: Cognitive Rehabilitation Trial</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Long COVID; Brain Fog; Cognitive Impairment; Cognitive Dysfunction; Post-Acute COVID-19 Syndrome <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Behavioral: Speed of Processing Training; Behavioral: In-lab Instrumental Activities of Daily Living Training; Behavioral: In-lab Brain Health Training; Behavioral: Transfer Package; Behavioral: Follow Up Phone Calls; Behavioral: Vocational Rehabilitation; Behavioral: Peer Mentoring <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: University of Alabama at Birmingham; National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research <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>Paradoxical Response to Chest Wall Loading in Mechanically Ventilated Patients</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: ARDS; COVID-19; Mechanical Ventilation Pressure High; Ventilator-Induced Lung Injury <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Diagnostic Test: Manual loading of the chest wall <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: HealthPartners Institute <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>A Practical RCT of TCM in the Treatment of LCOVID and Analysis of Syndrome Types and Medication Characteristics.</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Long COVID <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Drug: Traditional Chinese medicine treatment; Drug: Western medicine treatment <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Chinese University of Hong Kong <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>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>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>Inspiratory Muscle Training in People With Long COVID-19- 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>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>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>
</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 nucleocapsid protein suppresses innate immunity by remodeling stress granules to atypical foci</strong> - Viruses deploy multiple strategies to suppress the host innate immune response to facilitate viral replication and pathogenesis. Typical G3BP1^(+) stress granules (SGs) are usually formed in host cells after virus infection to restrain viral translation and to stimulate innate immunity. Thus, viruses have evolved various mechanisms to inhibit SGs or to repurpose SG components such as G3BP1. Previous studies showed that severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection…</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>Molecular Mechanism of Labelling Functional Cysteines by Heterocyclic Thiones</strong> - Heterocyclic thiones have recently been identified as reversible covalent warheads, consistent with their mild electrophilic nature. Little is known so far about their mechanism of action in labelling nucleophilic sidechains, especially cysteines. The vast number of tractable cysteines promotes a wide range of target proteins to examine; however, our focus was put on functional cysteines. We chose the main protease of SARS-CoV-2 harboring Cys145 at the active site that is a structurally…</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>Resolving a guanine-quadruplex structure in the SARS-CoV-2 genome through circular dichroism and multiscale molecular modeling</strong> - The genome of SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus is made up of a single-stranded RNA fragment that can assume a specific secondary structure, whose stability can influence the virus’s ability to reproduce. Recent studies have identified putative guanine quadruplex sequences in SARS-CoV-2 genome fragments that are involved in coding for both structural and non-structural proteins. In this contribution, we focus on a specific G-rich sequence referred to as RG-2, which codes for the non-structural protein 10…</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>Assessing the post hoc effectiveness of tixagevimab-cilgavimab for prevention of SARS-CoV-2 infections in solid organ transplant recipients</strong> - CONCLUSION: In a large cohort of SOT recipients, we found that Tix-Cil reduced infection risk even amidst emergent Omicron subvariants. Additionally, the extent of measurable humoral response to Tix-Cil may indicate relative effectiveness. Pre-exposure monoclonal antibody therapy may represent a strategy that will continue to offer clinical benefit for immunocompromised persons who are known to derive limited protection from vaccinations.</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>A cell-penetrating peptide derived from SARS-CoV-2 protein Orf9b allosterically inhibits MARK4 activity and mitigates tau toxicity</strong> - Abnormal activation of microtubule affinity-regulating kinase 4 (MARK4) and its phosphorylation of the microtubule-associated protein tau are believed to play a role in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease, and MARK4 inhibition can be a strategy to develop disease-modifying therapy. Here we report the development of a membrane-permeable peptide that inhibits MARK4 activity in an allosteric manner. The SARS-CoV-2-derived protein Orf9b inhibited MARK4-mediated tau phosphorylation in primary…</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>Integrin αvβ1 facilitates ACE2-mediated entry of SARS-CoV-2</strong> - Integrins have been suggested to be involved in SARS-CoV-2 infection, but the underlying mechanisms remain largely unclear. This study aimed to investigate how integrins facilitate the ACE2-mediated cellular entry of SARS-CoV-2. We first tested the susceptibility of a panel of human cell lines to SARS-CoV-2 infection using the spike protein pseudotyped virus assay and examined the expression levels of integrins in these cell lines by qPCR, western blot and flow cytometry. We found that integrin…</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>PGAM5 degrades PDCoV N protein and activates type I interferon to antagonize viral replication</strong> - In recent years, porcine deltacoronavirus (PDCoV) has become a new intestinal coronavirus in pigs, rapidly spreading across multiple countries and causing significant financial losses in the global pig industry. Currently, no effective commercial vaccine is available to prevent this virus’ spread. Thus, it becomes crucial to investigate the interaction between the virus and its host to acquire valuable insights into the underlying mechanisms of viral replication and develop innovative strategies…</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>A molecular dynamics simulations analysis of repurposing drugs for COVID-19 using bioinformatics methods</strong> - A number of multidisciplinary methods have piqued the interest of researchers as means to accelerate and lower the cost of medication creation. The goal of this research was to find target proteins and then select a lead drug against SARS-CoV-2. The three-dimensional structure is taken from the RCSB PDB using its specific PDB ID 6lu7. Virtual screening based on pharmacophores is performed using Molecular Operating Environment software. We looked for a potent inhibitor in the FDA-approved…</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>Effects of Two Soluble ACE2-Fc Variants on Blood Pressure and Albuminuria in Hypertensive Mice: Research Letter</strong> - CONCLUSIONS: Soluble ACE2-Fc variant K reduces blood pressure and tends to lower albuminuria in hypertensive mice. Furthermore, soluble ACE2-Fc variant K has prolonged tissue retention, associated with increased tissue ACE2 activity. The results support further studies directed at the therapeutic potential of soluble ACE2-Fc variant K for cardiovascular and kidney protection.</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>Identification of CCZ1 as an essential lysosomal trafficking regulator in Marburg and Ebola virus infections</strong> - Marburg and Ebola filoviruses are two of the deadliest infectious agents and several outbreaks have occurred in the last decades. Although several receptors and co-receptors have been reported for Ebola virus, key host factors remain to be elucidated. In this study, using a haploid cell screening platform, we identify the guanine nucleotide exchange factor CCZ1 as a key host factor in the early stage of filovirus replication. The critical role of CCZ1 for filovirus infections is validated in 3D…</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>TMPRSS2 is a functional receptor for human coronavirus HKU1</strong> - Four endemic seasonal human coronaviruses causing common colds, HKU1, 229E, NL63 and OC43 circulate worldwide¹. After binding to cellular receptors, coronavirus spike proteins are primed for fusion by transmembrane-serine protease 2 (TMPRSS2) or endosomal cathepsins^(2-9). NL63 uses angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) as a receptor^(10), whereas 229E uses human aminopeptidase-N^(11). HKU1 and OC43 spikes bind cells through 9-O40 acelytated sialic acid but their protein receptors remain…</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>Epidemiological profile of COVID-19 in patients with prostate cancer undergoing androgen deprivation therapy at a Brazilian Cancer Center</strong> - CONCLUSION: Androgen deprivation therapy was not associated with protective factors or potential treatments in patients with prostate cancer and COVID-19. Although the number of patients analyzed was limited, and there may have been a selection bias, this is a unique study that cannot be expanded or replicated in similar (unvaccinated) populations.</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>Inhibition of the lectin pathway of complement activation reduces Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome severity in a mouse model of SARS-CoV-2 infection</strong> - Most COVID-19 patients requiring ICU care develop an acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), characterised by severe hypoxemia, decreased lung compliance, and high vascular permeability. Activation of the complement system is a hallmark of moderate and severe COVID-19, with abundant deposition of complement proteins reported in inflamed tissue and on the endothelium during COVID-19. Using a transgenic mouse model of SARS-CoV-2 infection we assessed the therapeutic utility of an inhibitory…</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>Computational screening of neuropilin 1 unveils novel potential anti-SARS-CoV-2 therapeutics</strong> - Neuropilin 1 (NRP-1) inhibition has shown promise in reducing the infectivity of severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) and preventing the virus entry into nerve tissues, thereby mitigating neurological symptoms in COVID-19 patients. In this study, we employed virtual screening, including molecular docking, Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulation, and Molecular Mechanics-Poisson Boltzmann Surface Area (MM-PBSA) calculations, to identify potential NRP-1 inhibitors. From a…</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>The effect of zofenopril on the cardiovascular system of spontaneously hypertensive rats treated with the ACE2 inhibitor MLN-4760</strong> - CONCLUSIONS: Zofenopril treatment reduced MLN-induced adiposity and improved cardiac function regardless of ACE2 inhibition. Although the concomitant MLN and zofenopril treatment increased thoracic aorta vasorelaxation capacity, zofenopril increased the participation of H(2)S and NO in the maintenance of endothelial function independently from ACE2 inhibition. Our results confirmed that the beneficial effects of zofenopril were not affected by ACE2 inhibition, moreover, we assume that ACE2…</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>Some Lasting Lessons from a Dramatic Week at Trump’s Civil Trial</strong> - Among them: the former President is trying to undermine the court system, and prosecutors shouldn’t put too much faith in Michael Cohen. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/some-lasting-lessons-from-a-dramatic-week-at-trumps-civil-trial">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Speaker Who?: The Rise of a G.O.P. Nobody in Trump’s House</strong> - On the election of Mike Johnson. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-bidens-washington/speaker-who-the-rise-of-a-gop-nobody-in-trumps-house">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Hurricane Otis and the World We Live in Now</strong> - The unexpected Category 5 storm is just the latest in a series of unprecedented climate disasters this year. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/hurricane-otis-and-the-world-we-live-in-now">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>An International Student on Lockdown During the Shooting in Lewiston, Maine</strong> - “When I saw how my American peers reacted and how I reacted, the contrast just blew my mind,” Alan Wang, a senior at Bates College, said. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/as-told-to/an-international-student-on-lockdown-during-the-shooting-in-lewiston-maine">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Is There a Path Forward for Gaza and Israel?</strong> - David Remnick hears from two sources about how Israelis and Palestinians feel about the October 7th attacks, and what the future may hold for the region. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/the-new-yorker-radio-hour/is-there-a-path-forward-for-gaza-and-israel">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-vox">From Vox</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group, explained</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="Bright yellow and green flags — Hezbollah’s colors — sprout from a sea of jubilant faces packed closely together. In the foreground, a young boy in fatigues raises a black-and-white photo of Nasrallah almost as big as he is above his head. In the image, Nasrallah, in glasses and a large beard, smiles in a fatherly way." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/HVZMUSJY4wlQ5-RPRPQ7Lu2Dj1A=/161x0:3404x2432/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72803240/GettyImages_1240642535.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Hezbollah supporters rally ahead of the 2022 elections, raising flags and a portrait of the group’s leader Hassan Nasrallah. | AFP/Getty Images
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Why would Hezbollah enter the fight against Israel?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="A9BSU5">
As <a href="https://www.vox.com/israel">Israel</a> begins ground operations in Gaza, the potential for the conflict to expand regionally — including to Lebanon, the home of Israel’s longtime enemy Hezbollah — has heightened.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="BRGCMx">
In recent days, Israel has increasingly traded fire with Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed Islamist militant organization and Lebanese political party, along its northern border. Dozens have been killed, representing the most significant escalation in violence since Israel fought Hezbollah in a bloody 2006 war. Over the past few weeks, more than<a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/23/more-than-19000-displaced-in-lebanon-as-israel-border-clashes-escalate-un"> 19,000 people</a> have fled southern Lebanon in anticipation of further violence.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pPVohZ">
Hezbollah counts<a href="https://www.vox.com/politics/2023/10/10/23911661/hamas-israel-war-gaza-palestine-explainer"> Hamas</a> — the Islamist militant group that controls Gaza and launched the October 7 attack on Israel — as an ally. Both groups are designated as terrorist organizations by many countries. After Israel responded with its siege and onslaught of airstrikes on Gaza, one of Hezbollah’s top officials had a<a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/israel/second-front-hamas-war-hezbollah-turmoil?check_logged_in=1&amp;utm_medium=promo_email&amp;utm_source=lo_flows&amp;utm_campaign=registered_user_welcome&amp;utm_term=email_1&amp;utm_content=20231023"> message</a> for Palestinians trapped there: “Our hearts are with you. Our minds are with you. Our souls are with you. Our history and guns and our rockets are with you.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6xnn41">
But it’s not clear if that means Hezbollah, with its extensive military experience and estimated arsenal of as many as <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/9/20/hezbollah-to-israel-precision-missiles-now-obtained">120,000 missiles</a>, is readying to formally enter the conflict. Should Hezbollah open a front against Israel, it would be costly for both sides as well as for their international allies, and the US has<a href="https://abcnews.go.com/International/us-moves-carrier-middle-east-attacks-us-forces/story?id=104201064"> stationed aircraft carriers</a> nearby in the Mediterranean to remind the organization of that.
</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8BKRSk">
Hezbollah is closely watching what Israel does next in Gaza, and if a ground invasion proves as<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2023/gaza-israel-ground-offensive/"> brutal as some are predicting</a>, it may see cause to enter the fray. On Wednesday, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah<a href="https://apnews.com/article/lebanon-hezbollah-hamas-palestinians-israel-5e09b939ca225562370f779360af62d3"> held talks</a> with senior Hamas and Palestine Islamic Jihad leaders in which they concluded that they share a goal of seeking “a real victory for the resistance in Gaza and Palestine” and stopping Israel’s “treacherous and brutal aggression against our oppressed and steadfast people in Gaza and the<a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/11/20/18080034/west-bank-israel-palestinians"> West Bank</a>,” according to a statement they released after. But the groups did not elaborate further on their intentions.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZueBcU">
It’s a delicate moment for Hezbollah, an organization whose primary goal is eliminating the state of Israel but that has also amassed significant political power in Lebanon that it is fearful of losing.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mXi1j2">
“They can take the whole region into a very hard war,” said <a href="https://english.tau.ac.il/profile/abedkan">Abed Kanaaneh</a>, a professor of Middle Eastern studies at Tel Aviv University and author of <em>Understanding Hezbollah: The Hegemony of Resistance</em>. “But they have their own interests, and they need to sustain their popularity in Lebanon. So they have their own calculations to make.”
</p>
<h3 id="DyOW22">
Hezbollah’s origins and ideology, briefly explained
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NR2sNP">
Hezbollah was founded in Lebanon in 1982 by men inspired by former Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s radical brand of Shia theology. The organization was among many that resisted Israel’s invasion of Lebanon that year following an assassination attempt on the Israeli ambassador to Britain orchestrated by Palestinian militants. Though the assassination was carried out by a rebel offshoot of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), a militant group, Israel sought to eliminate all Palestinian militant groups operating from Lebanon.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gSgyOs">
Following bloody fighting that left<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1982/09/03/war-casualties-put-at-48000-in-lebanon/cf593941-6067-4239-a453-71bdcaf9eba0/"> more than 17,000 dead</a>, Israel succeeded in driving out those militants through a US-brokered agreement in 1983, which brought an official end to the war and allowed the PLO to relocate to Tunisia. But Israel continued to occupy Lebanon, creating a militarized security zone in the south that it maintained until 2000 with the stated purpose of protecting Israelis from attacks by Lebanese militants. The occupation, however, “creat[ed] conditions for the establishment and proliferation of Hezbollah,” by angering and radicalizing the local Shia community, wrote Augustus Richard Norton in his book, <em>Hezbollah: A Short History.</em>
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="In a black-and-white photo, a crowd of young men raise their fists and cheer; a few hold a large banner that reads: “Down with U.S.A,” while others hold a poster featuring the Hezbollah logo, the group’s name, with one of the letters raising up above the word to form a fist grasping a rifle. In the background, the crumbling US embassy is visible." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/gwskOBVDZsZHPdd37SxSSGl-yLA=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25038542/AP860416032.jpg"/> <cite>AP Photo</cite>
<figcaption>
Early Hezbollah supporters rally outside the bombed US embassy in 1986, listening to speeches by political and religious leaders.
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</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="42Z0No">
Israel<a href="https://ciaotest.cc.columbia.edu/olj/meria/meria997_eisenberg.html"> set up permanent infrastructure</a> in the security zone — military bases, new roads, road signs in Hebrew, and detention camps that Norton notes became notorious for their brutality. When militant groups including a fledgling Hezbollah tried to drive out the Israeli forces, civilians were caught in the crossfire.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rMpaxG">
Meanwhile,<a href="https://www.vox.com/iran"> Iran</a> was nurturing Hezbollah, offering it training, funding, and weapons. The Iranian government saw Hezbollah as a vehicle to indirectly attack Israel, which it regarded as an <a href="https://www.stimson.org/2023/what-drives-israel-iran-hostility-how-might-it-be-resolved/">illegitimate state</a> and encapsulation of <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-long-history-of-iranian-distrust-of-the-west-4480">Western imperialism</a>, as well as a promising group that could <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/hezbollahs-record-war-politics">spread their ideas of Shia Islamic revolution</a> across the Middle East. The willingness of Hezbollah’s early leaders to <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/what-hezbollah#:~:text=Hezbollah%20bills%20itself%20as%20a,allegiance%20to%20Iran's%20supreme%20leader.">pledge loyalty</a> to Iran’s then-leaders helped facilitate bonds as well.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="BgAi1t">
Hezbollah shares Iran’s Shia revolutionary ideology, and they both support Palestinians and oppose Israel. But there is disagreement among experts as to how much Iran is really calling the shots with Hezbollah. Some say Hezbollah is an Iranian proxy; <a href="https://tcf.org/experts/thanassis-cambanis/">Thanassis Cambanis</a>, director of Century International and author of <em>A Privilege to Die: Inside Hezbollah’s Legions and Their Endless War Against Israel</em>, said their relationship can be described as “very closely allied and ideologically aligned with a lot of shared interests,” but Hezbollah also has a “great deal of its own autonomy” and “shouldn’t be understood as a traditional proxy.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4M9H2P">
Iran has continued to fund Hezbollah over the years, and while it’s unclear exactly how much the organization has received, the US State Department estimates it at<a href="https://www.state.gov/reports/country-reports-on-terrorism-2021/"> hundreds of millions of dollars</a> annually. Most of that goes to Hezbollah’s military wing, and that figure includes weapons supplied by Iran, including an arsenal of drones and rockets. But Hezbollah also has other revenue sources, both legal and illegal: through the Lebanese state, smuggling, money laundering, and other forms of organized crime.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MocMJO">
Hezbollah laid out its ideology in a 1985 document addressed to the “Downtrodden in Lebanon and in the World.” It identified the United States and the Soviet Union as being among “the countries of the arrogant world” that inflict suffering on those less powerful, and explicitly rejected both the East and the West. It accused the US of using Israel as a “spearhead” against Muslims in Lebanon, and justified fighting the US, often by violent means, as an exercise of its “legitimate right to defend our Islam and the dignity of our nation.” It laid out a vision for Lebanon as an Iranian-style theocracy, though it emphasized the goal of Lebanese self-determination.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="la9LK4">
And finally, it opposed any attempts to negotiate with Israel, seeking the country’s withdrawal from Lebanon as the first step toward “its final obliteration from existence and the liberation of venerable Jerusalem from the talons of occupation.” The document made clear Hezbollah saw (and still sees) Israel’s existence as a threat to Muslims throughout the region. In that sense, it found common ground with Sunni Muslim militant groups like Hamas, though Hamas’s reasons for wanting Israel destroyed were slightly different, focusing less on regional factors than on the establishment of an independent state in historical<a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Palestine"> Palestine</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OlHcj4">
Hezbollah has hewed closely to this agenda in the years since, even as it has evolved from a guerrilla group to a more professionalized resistance organization, political party, and provider of social services in Lebanon. It did, however, temper its Islamist rhetoric somewhat in<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-lebanon-hezbollah/hezbollah-cuts-islamist-rhetoric-in-new-manifesto-idUSTRE5AT3VK20091130"> an updated 2009 manifesto</a>, noting that making diverse Lebanon into a state that follows Islamic law is an unrealistic goal and affirming a commitment to “the achievement of true democracy.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5U1ttI">
At present, Hezbollah has some<a href="https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF10703"> 20,000 estimated active members</a> and is popular among the Shia, who represent about a third of the Lebanese population. The most heavily armed non-state actor in the world, Hezbollah has a<a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/security-aviation/2023-10-23/ty-article-magazine/150-000-rockets-and-missiles-the-weapons-israel-would-encounter-in-a-war-with-hezbollah/0000018b-573d-d2b2-addf-777df6210000"> large arsenal</a> of long-range missiles that can reach well within Israel’s borders, as well as a comprehensive air defense system and commando force. It has refused to give up its arms despite<a href="https://www.france24.com/en/20091111-hezbollah-warns-new-government-avoid-arms-issue"> repeated</a> domestic and international calls for disarmament, arguing that it<a href="https://mepc.org/journal/rethinking-hezbollahs-disarmament"> needs its weapons</a> so long as Israel continues to occupy what it claims is Lebanese territory in the Golan Heights (territory that Israel annexed in a move that has been recognized only by the US and no other country).
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="Young men, many bearded, all in fatigues and red headbands with white Arabic writing, march in a military formation, carrying Hezbollah and Lebanese flags. In the foreground is their leader, a clean shaven man, whose head is bowed and eyes closed. " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/NbqUU0qvQmfHp8z6FQYPmRiTEKo=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25038534/GettyImages_1752453305.jpg"/> <cite>Manu Brabo/Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
Hezbollah supporters and members march in remembrance of a Hezbollah soldier killed by the IDF in October 2023.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1D9gA4">
Now, Hezbollah faces the challenge of balancing its revolutionary aims with governance — and Nasrallah, who has been at the helm of Hezbollah since 1992, has at times been criticized within Lebanon and the greater Arab world for putting too much weight on the former. But Nasrallah has also proved a charismatic leader and orator who has bolstered Hezbollah’s legitimacy through a sophisticated communication strategy and has overcome harsh criticism before.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hF8A4U">
“They are cosmopolitan and seasoned professionals, even in pursuit of problematic goals,” said Cambanis<em>.</em>
</p>
<h3 id="ER34GD">
Is Hezbollah a militant group, a political party, or both?
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mziID1">
The US designated Hezbollah as a foreign terrorist organization in 1997. Many other countries and organizations have followed suit, though some, including the<a href="https://www.vox.com/european-union"> European Union</a>, distinguish between Hezbollah’s political and militant arms.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vsq6dW">
Some argue that’s a distinction without a difference. Unlike Hamas — in which the political and military leadership are separate and operate out of different locations — Hezbollah is a “very centrally controlled, unified organization,” Cambanis said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KQTD0q">
“Their political leaders all have a military background,” he said. “Their resistance structure, to use their term, necessitates the armed struggle and the political struggle being inextricable.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uaXOHX">
Hezbollah became associated with terrorism in the 1980s, during a time when it rejected the notion of participating in Lebanese politics. It viewed the political system, which was designed to split power between the country’s largest religious groups based on their size at the end of France’s dominion, as irredeemably corrupt and unfair. So Hezbollah dedicated itself to pursuing the objective of replacing the secular government with an Islamist one.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tzNhLD">
Its first step was ridding Lebanon of the foreign influences it believed to be the source of political strife: France and the US. Both countries had deployed peacekeeping forces to Lebanon amid the 1982 Israeli invasion and outbreak of civil war. From the US perspective, the most devastating<a href="https://www.vox.com/terrorism"> terrorist attack</a> was a 1983 suicide bombing on its military barracks in Beirut, an event that killed more than 300 American and French troops and Lebanese civilians. The Americans blamed Hezbollah for the attack and pulled all of their forces from the country. There was also the June 1985 hijacking of TWA flight 847 to Beirut, in which militants who later escaped without being captured killed a passenger and threatened to kill more unless Israel released hundreds of Lebanese prisoners. (Hezbollah denies involvement in either incident.)
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="The arm of a dusty red digger stretches across the frame as men in Red Crescent T-shirts and marines half in their uniforms, half in civilian clothes sort through a massive pile of concrete and metal. They stand on what seems to be the second or third floor of a very unstable building, roofless and without walls, blue sky visible above them." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/nzYwtYvEVDFBt1qEenb6IS7jkKQ=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25038471/GettyImages_185605322.jpg"/> <cite>Peter Charlesworth/LightRocket/Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
US Marines and aid workers sort through the wreckage of their bombed barracks in October 1983, looking for survivors and the dead.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AtHQbb">
Between 1982 and 1992, Hezbollah took more than 100 foreign hostages, mostly Westerners, seemingly with the aim of winning concessions from Western countries. In one such incident, known as the Iran-Contra affair, then-US President Ronald Reagan traded weapons to Iran, which was then subject to an arms embargo, for the release of hostages held by Hezbollah. Hezbollah also kidnapped Israeli soldiers, conducted cross-border raids on the Israeli border, and fired rockets and missiles into Israel, again with the goal of ending Israel’s occupation.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qmSxQq">
Those tactics continued through the 1990s, even as Hezbollah changed its strategy and decided to enter politics. Hezbollah members were elected to the Lebanese Parliament for the first time in 1992, following the end of the 15-year Lebanese civil war that had seen various religious and secular subgroups clash. It was then that Lebanese leaders associated with Hezbollah came to recognize the “need to come to a modus vivendi with the state rather than remain outside the political system and judge it as abhorrent in strictly Islamic terms,” Norton wrote.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OruFDp">
Interestingly, Hezbollah built its political following on non-religious themes, which Norton identifies as “battling economic exploitation and underdevelopment, inequities in the political system, personal freedom and opportunity, and, of course, security.” But it wasn’t until after 2000, when Israel finally withdrew from the security zone it had established in southern Lebanon, that Hezbollah really gained popularity.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KZhrQ1">
Though Israeli leaders insisted that their withdrawal from Lebanon was a unilateral political decision, <a href="https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/menasource/twenty-years-after-the-israeli-withdrawal-from-lebanon-hezbollah-faces-host-of-challenges/">many Lebanese credited Hezbollah</a> with driving out the army by stepping up its attacks. That — along with Hezbollah’s investment in schools, clinics, youth programs, and other social services — drove up the organization’s profile in Lebanon. It went on to progressively gain seats in Parliament over the years and to run a coalition government alongside its sometimes political rival Amal, which also draws its power from Lebanon’s Shia community. In the most recent Lebanese elections in 2022, Hezbollah won 13 of 128 seats, though the party and its allies lost their majority.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YxrMUC">
Still, Hezbollah’s emergence as a political force didn’t mean that the group abandoned its violent tactics, at times undermining its authority as a resistance group. For instance, the United Nations found that four Hezbollah members were responsible for the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in a car bombing that also killed 21 bystanders. And in 2006, the organization killed three Israeli soldiers and kidnapped two others in a cross-border raid. It failed to anticipate the disproportionate Israeli response and the ensuing war, which claimed the lives of more than 1,000 Lebanese and 160 Israelis. Neither side won; a UN-brokered ceasefire ended the conflict after a little over a month.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="Smoke still rises from a flattened building that surrounds a silver van, its remaining windows thoroughly coated with grime. Debris covers the entire frame. The man, in an orange and black sports polo stands with his back mostly to us, his hand on his head as if in great sadness, desperation, or disbelief — perhaps all three." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/R4Bq9x6fTXUEp1rW_S_5lirKm2I=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25038522/AP06071604915.jpg"/> <cite>Issam Kobeisi/AP Photo</cite>
<figcaption>
A Lebanese man surveys the damage around him after a July 2006 Israeli airstrike.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vfybIw">
Hezbollah has also proved willing to enact violence at the<a href="https://www.mei.edu/publications/hezbollahs-regional-activities-support-irans-proxy-networks"> behest of Iran’s proxy networks</a>, especially following its involvement in the Syrian civil war defending the Assad regime and after the 2020 assassination of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Gen. Qassem Soleimani. Hezbollah has deployed militants to other countries — including Iraq and Yemen — to train these proxy groups and fight alongside them.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zDcFGN">
Along with Iran, Hezbollah is closely linked to Syria, though their relationship has been more one of convenience than shared ideology. Syria has long served as a conduit for weapons supply lines between Iran and Syria. As a result and at<a href="https://www.mei.edu/publications/hezbollahs-regional-activities-support-irans-proxy-networks"> Iran’s urging</a>, Nasrallah committed Hezbollah to “<a href="https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF10703">do everything in [its] power”</a> to protect dictator Bashar al-Assad’s government from largely Sunni rebel groups after civil war broke out in 2011.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nyQkG1">
Hezbollah helped turn the tide of the war in Assad’s favor. When they withdrew most of their forces from Syria in 2019, they left<a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/israel/2019-03-08/will-hezbollahs-rise-be-its-downfall"> arguably stronger militarily</a> than they were before — raising concerns that they could pose a formidable foe should they enter the conflict with Israel.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="Soliders in camouflage and bucket helmets, laden with weapons and large bags on their backs, walk down an empty street, electric blue sky above them. Buildings and trees still stand around them, though the structures have lost all their walls and windows, and the trees many of their leaves in the intense fighting." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/qa4dmUX8AHJMjlvMPJp8Aysw6G8=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25038518/GettyImages_169954787.jpg"/> <cite>AFP/Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
Syrian soldiers patrol the streets of Qusayr after their allied Hezbollah’s forces led an assault that destroyed rebel positions in the city.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h3 id="1e5hQW">
Hezbollah’s standing — domestically and internationally — is not what it once was
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jALa0B">
Although Hezbollah’s military wing came out of the last two decades of conflict battle-hardened, its violent adventurism has caused its political wing a lot of harm.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KuOWc3">
Hezbollah lost some of its luster domestically and regionally as a result of the 2006 war’s death and destruction. In addition to the many casualties, Israeli attacks led to<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-lebanon-war-cost/factbox-costs-of-war-and-recovery-in-lebanon-and-israel-idUSL0822571220070709"> $2.8 billion in direct damage</a>. While Hezbollah (using funding from Iran)<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-lebanon-war-reconstruction/lebanons-postwar-reconstruction-far-from-complete-idUSL0922501920070709"> poured hundreds of millions</a> of dollars into compensation and rebuilding efforts, Lebanon<a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/broken-lebanon-cannot-afford-war-hezbollah-knows-it-2023-10-26/"> still took years to recover</a>. The organization’s involvement in Syria<a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/what-hezbollah#chapter-title-0-6"> hurt it politically</a>, too. In Lebanon, voters believed that foreign intervention had come at the expense of their domestic concerns, and throughout the region, Sunnis expressed great disillusionment with Hezbollah; they saw the group as having propped up Assad, a vicious leader who routinely oppresses his people.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zvWbIQ">
In recent years, Hezbollah’s political capital has been further reduced by political issues.<a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2020/1/19/21073004/beirut-lebanon-protests-300-injured"> Mass protests spurred by economic troubles</a> undermined support for Hezbollah and the country’s political elites in 2019. Prime Minister Saad Hariri<a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/10/29/lebanon-prime-minister-saad-hariri-resigns-after-mass-protests"> resigned under public pressure</a>, despite Hezbollah’s desire to keep him in office. Hezbollah members actively sought to suppress the protest movement,<a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/10/29/774356174/lebanons-prime-minister-hariri-resigns-after-weeks-of-protests"> setting fire</a> to a camp of anti-government protesters.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fF3my8">
Hezbollah’s popularity<a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/is-hezbollah-overplaying-its-hand-inside-lebanon/"> again took a hit</a> following the <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/21451455/beirut-port-explosion-lebanon-political-crisis-hezbollah">2020 explosion of a Beirut port</a>, which the organization controlled. The group also resisted calls for an international investigation of the incident, much to the chagrin of the Lebanese public. Ahead of the 2022 elections, Hezbollah’s role in<a href="https://www.vox.com/2022/5/15/23073845/lebanon-elections-political-corruption-economic-crisis-voter-apathy-beirut-port-hezbollah"> Lebanon’s general political instability</a> had many of its opponents deeply frustrated.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="The protester, a woman with long dark hair and a leather jacket, bends to let her poster catch the flames rising from an overturned garbage bin. Among its faces is an Arabic slogan that reads: “You are against achieving justice.”" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/_WnVT4vPgopvgtbUG2U4C5cON6U=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25038496/GettyImages_1237783045.jpg"/> <cite>Anwar Amro/AFP/Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
A protester burns a poster featuring Hezbollah leaders (including Nasrallah) and other government officials in a 2022 protest demanding justice for victims of the 2020 explosion.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YpbLxc">
Even before these issues, Hezbollah was a polarizing force in Lebanese society. The organization has solidified Shia support by being effective in local government and supporting social services but has often struggled to expand its sphere of influence. Lebanon is a fractured society, with different religious and secular groups jockeying for power, and Hezbollah is hated by those who oppose its worldview, with little room for a middle ground.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="d6PXnE">
“They are successful at winning very deep loyalty from their supporters,” Cambanis said. “And they’re successful at being able to violently coerce and intimidate their opponents.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="n2EdKt">
In a<a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/52750dd3e4b08c252c723404/t/618dbc443f3402756b4b3f35/1636678726963/Lebanon+2021+FINAL.pdf"> 2021 Zogby/NC State University poll</a>, 52 percent of Lebanese said they did not think Hezbollah promotes stability, though significant majorities of Shia, Druze, and Christians — all groups with leaders who’ve partnered with Hezbollah in the past — said that it did. The question is whether these cracks in Hezbollah’s support can be contained as the organization faces the prospect of an all-out war with Israel.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="N6kaSU">
“Lebanese are okay with the limited war that Hezbollah is [waging] against Israel right now, but if it will become total war or much deeper war, I can say that Hezbollah’s support will drop off,” Kanaaneh said.
</p>
<h3 id="r6Hmh7">
Will Hezbollah enter the Israel-Hamas war?
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="N0iLdi">
Hezbollah has been reluctant to engage Israel in open combat since the devastating 2006 war. But the situation in Gaza could change that.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FOiWjU">
The main factor in its decision-making will be how ground operations in Gaza play out and to what extent Israel brutalizes the civilian population. Hezbollah has “built their own narrative and public image of being part of the resistance axis” around the Palestinian cause, and it would be difficult for them to stand by while Israel once again militarily occupies Gaza and attempts to eradicate their Sunni ally in Hamas — its link to the broader Islamic world, Kanaaneh said. That might be particularly true following the mutual commitments reached in Wednesday’s summit, even as other Lebanese politicians<a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/broken-lebanon-cannot-afford-war-hezbollah-knows-it-2023-10-26/"> urge Hezbollah against getting involved</a> in a war that their country cannot afford.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0p5hbE">
That suggests that Hezbollah is, at this point, “primed for an escalation,” Cambanis said.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="A dark haired girl, perhaps 13, dressed in red, smiles softly as she stands looking out of a window. Golden light streams through it; cutting the darkness of the room, illuminating an old chalkboard behind her, and her siblings, who sit in front of her, looking grave and perhaps afraid. " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Sx3AXSIFjJCbI8T5EZ1GJxygTt8=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25038508/GettyImages_1756541191.jpg"/> <cite>Manu Brabo/Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
A family, displaced from souther Lebanon by Israeli strikes as part of the IDF’s October 2023 battle with Hamas, poses for a portrait in the Tyre school that’s been converted into a shelter.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vNjodp">
“Their escalatory moves suggest they are, in fact, as committed as in earlier stages to fighting Israel, even if it is bad for Hezbollah’s community,” he said. “And even if it’s bad for Hezbollah’s short-term organizational stability, it seems like they really are actually, genuinely believers in their endless fight against Israel.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0NFNvW">
If Hezbollah gets involved in the war, it could play out much like the 2006 conflict where there were no victors, though it could potentially be even bloodier. In 2006, Hezbollah was estimated to have 12,000 missiles; now, it is thought to have 10 times that. Its troops have far more experience, including in urban combat, than they did before. And while Hezbollah was riding a wave of popularity in 2006, it now needs something it can hold up as a win that would allow it to restore itself to its former glory.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ghS1P8">
Regardless of how any fighting turns out, “everybody will lose from this,” Kanaaneh said. That may include Kanaaneh himself: He lives in Israel near the Lebanese border.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8Cdt5i">
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="juZSQ6">
</p></li>
<li><strong>The “uniparty”: The far-right obsession driving GOP chaos, explained</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="Chuck Schumer, left, Mitch McConnell, center, and Kevin McCarthy, right, in 2022" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/yyzRxT79AvpcOO0QoIAeRcFhtUY=/100x0:4988x3666/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72803198/GettyImages_1447186475.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY), Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), and then-House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-KY), in the Capitol Rotunda in 2022. | Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Are GOP leaders more aligned with Democrats than with the MAGA right? Mostly no — but sometimes yes.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="SNGytQ">
As Republican hardliners tossed Speaker Kevin McCarthy out of office and attempted to dictate his replacement, one word kept recurring in their complaints about existing GOP leaders: “uniparty.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iGXHpR">
The term crystallizes an idea widespread on the MAGA right: that too many Republican politicians and especially leaders are, on key issues, aligned with Democrats and the Washington establishment, and working against <a href="https://www.vox.com/donald-trump">Donald Trump</a> and the right.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7y2Ckx">
“Right now, we are governed by a uniparty that Speaker McCarthy has fused with <a href="https://www.vox.com/joe-biden">Joe Biden</a> and Hakeem Jeffries,” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) <a href="https://gaetz.house.gov/media/videos/speaker-mccarthy-has-created-uniparty-joe-biden-and-hakeem-jeffries">said last month</a>, as McCarthy seemed set to keep the government funded and avoid a shutdown. This was the justification Gaetz gave for his push to oust McCarthy (though he may have <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/03/us/politics/gaetz-ethics-committee-house.html#:~:text=Gaetz%20has%20been%20under%20investigation,House%20rules%2C%20among%20other%20allegations.">had personal reasons</a> as well). And since enough other House Republicans were dissatisfied with McCarthy’s handling of the spending battles, Gaetz succeeded.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jMvzHp">
One key outside ally for Gaetz was Steve Bannon, the former Trump aide and now commentator. Bannon <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/04/us/politics/bannon-republicans-gaetz-mace.html">frequently deploys</a> the “uniparty” epithet, as he’d done <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/11/17/steve-bannon-populist-ralph-nader-215839/">for years</a>. He’s <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/26/16269476/steve-bannon-republican-primaries">long tried to purge the GOP</a> of its more conventional members, replacing them with hardliners who will more loyally back Trump and far-right causes.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DKr8V9">
In many ways, the idea that Kevin McCarthy was indistinguishable from a Democrat seems self-evidently absurd. The two parties are deeply polarized and locked in seemingly eternal partisan warfare. The GOP has moved far to the right on <a href="https://www.vox.com/abortion">abortion</a>, immigration, <a href="https://www.vox.com/lgbtq">trans rights</a>, gun rights, environmental regulation, and other issues while backing Trump ever more fervently.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rQQOPV">
Indeed, “uniparty” is an exaggerated, sloppily conceived concept that’s often deployed as a way to blame the right’s own failures to achieve a conservative policy paradise on some sort of dastardly conspiracy against them by their own leaders.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3yjZNu">
And yet sometimes it’s not entirely off-base.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tiSs1K">
That’s because there are important issues where many Republican elites have long thought the MAGA right’s preferences are wrongheaded or downright dangerous — and where those elites work, either openly or subtly, to ensure Trump and his acolytes don’t get what they want.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NHggVL">
These range from major foreign policy questions about the US’s role in the world, to preferences about tactics in government spending battles, to issues at the heart of American democracy — such as whether elections that Donald Trump loses should be certified.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="X0khh7">
Now, Trump and Gaetz are declaring the election of Mike Johnson as speaker of the House as a win for “MAGA Mike.” But will Johnson be able to transform the speakership? Or will he inevitably be drawn, by the <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/10/25/mike-johnson-speaker-learning-curve-00123521">institutional incentives of the job</a>, toward governing more like McCarthy? Maybe you either die a MAGA hero, or you <a href="https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/you-either-die-a-hero-or-you-live-long-enough-to-see-yourself-become-the-villain">live long enough</a> to see yourself become the uniparty.
</p>
<h3 id="Wih3dD">
The origins of the “uniparty” term
</h3>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/5bswz3d4zINB_yc7DxYNeyujjDQ=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25038521/GettyImages_1507747742.jpg"/> <cite>Shawn Thew/AFP via Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
US Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader speaks to reporters on July 12, 2000, at the National Press Club in Washington, DC.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="M33hFA">
Politicians and political commentators have long loved a good rhetorical flourish that pits them as plucky underdogs fighting for the interests of the common people against a dastardly, powerful cartel.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KDXuN1">
Depending on who is using the term, this cartel can be called any number of things: the <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/5/13/21219164/trump-deep-state-fbi-cia-david-rohde">deep state</a>, the swamp, the special interests, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/magazine/the-aspiring-novelist-who-became-obamas-foreign-policy-guru.html">the Blob</a>, <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/23373795/curtis-yarvin-neoreaction-redpill-moldbug">the Cathedral</a>, or simply Washington. The commonality is the suggestion that they’re the people who are <em>really</em> in control, and who are therefore responsible for all the problems the country faces.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YGNqX7">
But “uniparty” is useful for those who want to say there’s something rotten with the party they’d typically prefer. In 2000, that was leftist supporters of presidential candidate Ralph Nader, who complained that the Democratic Party had become functionally indistinguishable from the GOP. As <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/11/17/steve-bannon-populist-ralph-nader-215839/">Ben Zimmer wrote for Politico Magazine</a>, online supporters of Nader disparaged the “corporate UniParty,” and Nader himself used the term in a book.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0AA0Pv">
Conservatives, meanwhile had long slapped moderate Republican politicians with the label “RINO,” Republican in Name Only. That has a similar vibe to “uniparty.” But by the mid-2010s, many on the right felt frustrated and disillusioned with the GOP establishment. Complaints included GOP leaders’ openness to <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/06/24/getting-to-maybe">immigration reform</a> and free trade, foreign policy failures exemplified by the Iraq war, the failure to drastically cut spending under President Barack Obama, and a general sense that the party simply didn’t “fight” Democrats hard enough.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CX5uWJ">
Trump’s presidential campaign became the vessel for these frustrations. So commentators affiliated with the populist right, like <a href="https://www.breitbart.com/radio/2016/08/23/ann-coulter-trump-trust-celebrates-rebellion-people-washington/">Ann Coulter and Breitbart editor-in-chief Alexander Marlow</a>, began denouncing Republican Trump critics (of which, back then, there were many) as the “uniparty.” In Coulter’s telling, this included “the Republican Brain Trust, the Washington Establishment, the Insiders, … the lobbyists, the consultants, the think tanks, [and] the pollsters.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6ORG7g">
Trump himself preferred to talk about “the swamp” and, once in office, the “deep state” — likely because disparaging the Republican Party made little strategic sense for him once he was the leader of that party.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="IcFXD1">
But once Bannon was ousted from Trump’s White House, he <a href="https://www.breitbart.com/radio/2017/11/13/bannon-republican-establishment-media-launched-weaponized-hit-judge-moore/">started using the term again</a> to denounce all the GOP establishment squishes who were undermining the MAGA agenda. He’s still doing so today — and so, now, is Donald Trump Jr., who <a href="https://twitter.com/DonaldJTrumpJr/status/1681362597260541953">tweeted in July</a> that Florida Gov. Ron <a href="https://www.vox.com/ron-desantis">DeSantis</a>’s primary campaign was “the Uniparty vs. Trump &amp; MAGA.”
</p>
<h3 id="9jOHKZ">
Is the uniparty in some sense real?
</h3>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ib68NxYIcn7gSaLdKGkmEsOkEjo=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25036286/GettyImages_451166546.jpg"/> <cite>Drew Angerer/Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
Congressional leaders Mitch McConnell, Harry Reid, and John Boehner link arms to sing “We Shall Overcome” at a 2014 ceremony to posthumously award the Congressional Gold Medal to Martin Luther King Jr.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="oYYzkg">
The framing of Trump as inexorably opposed to a hostile GOP establishment is oversimplified and out of date on many issues. As president, Trump happily embraced conventional Republican <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy">policies</a> on many issues (tax cuts, judicial appointments, rolling back regulations) while the GOP establishment moved in his direction on others (party elites largely abandoned their longtime support for <a href="https://www.vox.com/immigration">immigration reform</a> and free trade deals). Trump is perfectly comfortable with big business and big donors, and did little during his presidency to challenge their power. Many, if not most, leading Republicans now see themselves as fully on the Trump team.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="f9XPNf">
And yet it’s still true that a core of Republican elites has major temperamental, tactical, and substantive differences with Trump and the right — sometimes to the point where they really do seem more aligned with Democrats, and to be working against the right either openly or subtly.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wIdBEa">
<strong>Foreign policy: </strong>These differences are perhaps most intense on foreign policy. Trump has made clear that he supports massively overhauling US foreign policy. He’s talked frequently about withdrawing from NATO, pulling back US troops from deployments abroad, and generally playing a less active active role in world affairs. The latest flashpoint for this clash of visions is the <a href="https://www.vox.com/russia-invasion-ukraine">Russian invasion of Ukraine</a>, with the MAGA right becoming intensely opposed to aiding Ukraine further.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XbBg5S">
The traditional hawkish Republican elite has fiercely resisted these changes. While Trump was president, his defense secretaries regularly delayed or slow-walked his troop withdrawal orders. If Trump had actually tried anything like withdrawing from NATO while in office, he would have seen major resignations of top officials (though former Trump national security adviser <a href="https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/4136979-bolton-trump-second-term-nato/">John Bolton warns</a> it may happen if he is elected to a new term). Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-06-12/senate-s-mcconnell-defends-us-aid-to-ukraine-as-house-gop-debate-the-cost?embedded-checkout=true#xj4y7vzkg">loudly championed</a> Ukraine’s cause, and Kevin McCarthy has <a href="https://www.axios.com/2023/10/04/kevin-mccarthy-speaker-ukraine-aid-funding">reportedly tried</a> to find a way to get more Ukraine aid through the House despite right-wing opposition.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iGW8Ml">
(It should be noted that a leftist’s conception of “uniparty foreign policy” would be rather different — they’d point out hawkishness toward <a href="https://www.vox.com/china">China</a>, high levels of <a href="https://www.vox.com/defense-and-security">military spending</a>, and support for <a href="https://www.vox.com/israel">Israel</a> as areas where there’s now little difference between the two parties. And Obama aide Ben Rhodes viewed that administration’s foreign policy on <a href="https://www.vox.com/iran">Iran</a> and the Middle East as an effort to push back against a “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/magazine/the-aspiring-novelist-who-became-obamas-foreign-policy-guru.html">Blob”</a> of entrenched establishment thinking. But the right’s concept of a “uniparty” is just about issues where the establishment disagrees with them.)
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2LnYvj">
<strong>Election theft</strong>: When Trump tried to steal the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020-presidential-election">2020 election</a> from Biden, the Republican Party did not act in a disciplined, unified way to help him to do it — much to his chagrin. Yes, many elected Republicans claimed to doubt Biden’s wins in certain states and said they wanted them thrown out, and most who knew better did little to stop Trump. And several, including the new speaker of the House, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/10/25/mike-johnson-trump-election-gambit-00123611">actively tried to help him</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="HWUk19">
But key Republicans with positions of authority to affect the results — governors, state legislative leaders, state election officials, Justice Department officials, judges, and the vice president — <a href="https://www.vox.com/22230929/trump-coup-why-failed-capitol-storming">overwhelmingly didn’t use their formal powers</a> to help Trump pull off the steal. The uniparty united around the shared belief that respecting the results of American elections and the peaceful transfer of power is important. Trump would like to stop that from happening again.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7ZQiy5">
<strong>Government spending battles</strong>: Even before Trump’s rise, many conservatives have long resented what they see as the GOP establishment’s willingness to cave to Democrats on spending policy, when they want far greater cuts. (Trump himself never staked too much on these fights while he was president — when he brought on a shutdown, it was instead over trying to get more money for his border wall.)
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nb3nZs">
After one such government spending deal in 2013, Angelo Codevilla, who would become <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/03/obituaries/angelo-codevilla-dead.html">a leading intellectual voice</a> of the pro-Trump right, wrote: “The Republican Party’s leaders have functioned as junior members of America’s single ruling party, the UniParty.” Whatever differences existed between then-congressional leaders, Republicans John Boehner and Mitch McConnell and Democrats Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, he said, got “worked out behind closed doors.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="sUqkka">
GOP establishment leaders in <a href="https://www.vox.com/congress">Congress</a> and on the appropriations committees generally profess that they’d love to cut spending more, but that the activists’ demands and their understanding of politics are simply absurdly unrealistic. They argue that the level of cuts demanded by the right would be deeply unpopular, that there’s no way to force Democrats to cave when they control key levers of government, and that a prolonged government shutdown would hurt Republicans politically.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="I6yzrw">
But the hardliners suspect all this is cover for a comfort with the status quo, and a lack of desire to truly disrupt Washington. And Gaetz used the latest government spending agreement between McCarthy and Democrats as a pretext to oust McCarthy from the speakership.
</p>
<h3 id="UiPxVY">
Can Trump break the uniparty or is it here to stay?
</h3>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/-adky0dOyNGSseCgfAl5C8IgrZY=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25038524/GettyImages_1198673230.jpg"/> <cite>Leah Millis/Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
Then-President Donald Trump is greeted by future speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) before Trump’s State of the Union address in the House chamber on February 4, 2020.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dW8j4b">
In a sense, the “uniparty” idea is an attempt to answer a question: Why are so many Republican elites still so resistant to following Trump or the base on key issues?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mWotd5">
One theory, pushed by <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/26/16269476/steve-bannon-republican-primaries">Bannon</a> and <a href="https://lawliberty.org/breaking-the-uniparty/">Codevilla before him</a>, is that it’s about the people: The wrong Republicans, lacking sufficient loyalty to Trump and the cause, are in these jobs. So if Trump is returned to power, his appointees <a href="https://www.economist.com/briefing/2023/07/13/the-meticulous-ruthless-preparations-for-a-second-trump-term">should be more carefully chosen</a> for loyalty to the MAGA cause, not just the GOP. Purportedly uniparty-aligned elected officials should be primaried and replaced with MAGA-friendly candidates.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JxgpIg">
Replacing McCarthy with <a href="https://www.vox.com/politics/2023/10/25/23931518/house-speaker-race-mike-johnson-winners-losers-analysis-takeaways">Johnson</a> — a longtime conservative and Christian right activist who helped Trump try and steal the 2020 election — is, in this thinking, a major step forward.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ip3i2A">
That surely has some truth to it, but it’s not the whole story. Because another view is that the supposed “uniparty” politicians are often responding to the institutional incentives and pressures of their roles — and that even MAGA diehards in those roles will face the same incentives and pressures.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jbto1r">
Notably when Trump was president, he regularly caved to the supposed “uniparty.” He could have overridden his appointees and forced quicker troop withdrawals, but he often didn’t. He could have forced bigger fights about cutting spending, but he generally didn’t. As president, with his political future and a whole agenda at play, he had to weigh priorities and calculate political blowback.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="17yfDq">
In government, it’s <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780429501074-16/miles-law-jeffery-gutter">often said that</a> “where you stand depends on where you sit.” Appointees to head government agencies typically become champions of their particular agencies’ priorities. Similarly, if you’re a right-wing media commentator or a representative in a deep red district, your only real priority is to please a far-right audience, and you have no real responsibility to govern or achieve anything.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TYfaei">
But if you’re speaker of the House, you have different priorities. You have to manage the concerns of the vulnerable swing-district members on whom your majority depends. You have to cultivate big-money donors who fund your effort to keep that majority. And you actually have responsibility over policy.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9xEdCT">
One major tell about how this works will be seen in how Speaker Johnson approaches Ukraine aid. As a little-known Congress member in a deep red district, he frequently criticized aid to Ukraine. In May 2022, <a href="https://mikejohnson.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=1129">he said</a>, “We should not be sending another $40 billion abroad when our own border is in chaos, American mothers are struggling to find baby formula, gas prices are at record highs, and American families are struggling to make ends meet, without sufficient oversight over where the money will go.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="97w7DF">
But now, as speaker of the House, he was playing a different tune. “We can’t allow Vladimir Putin to prevail in Ukraine because I don’t believe it would stop there,” Johnson <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/new-hope-ukraine-aid-pass-congress-israel-funding-rcna122408">said on Fox News</a> Thursday. “We’re not going to abandon them.” The uniparty may have life in it yet.
</p></li>
<li><strong>The boycott movement against Israel, explained</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/UWLwO7YJelf4rMQvzNYQECmPGz8=/454x0:7739x5464/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72803147/GettyImages_1727389262.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Protestors in Melbourne, Australia, hold a banner promoting the boycott of Israel at rally on October 10. The nearly 20-year-old movement to boycott, divest from, and sanction Israel, called BDS for short, has re-emerged this month after an attack violence by Hamas spurred retaliatory strikes by Israel. | Asanka Ratnayake/Getty Images
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
McDonald’s and Starbucks are among the targets of the nonviolent, but controversial, global protest.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wzH7Ex">
An unprecedented attack on <a href="https://www.vox.com/world-politics/23933707/israel-palestine-hamas-gaza-nakba-displacement-refugees-history">Israel by Hamas this month</a> and the resulting <a href="https://www.vox.com/world-politics/2023/10/26/23933939/israel-gaza-hamas-limited-raid-ground-invasion-preparations">escalating siege of Gaza</a> has thrust the movement to <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2018/5/16/17353664/boycott-divestment-sanctions-bds-israel-gaza">boycott, divest from, and sanction Israel</a>, called BDS for short, into the spotlight again, as some wonder what they might be able to do to encourage a ceasefire and help Palestinians facing a looming ground invasion of the crowded Gaza Strip.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xtuu0N">
Just last year, a Pew survey found that <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/05/26/modest-warming-in-u-s-views-on-israel-and-palestinians/">some 84 percent of Americans</a> had little to no awareness of the roughly two-decade-old campaign. Now, on social media sites such as X (formerly Twitter) and Tiktok, using the hashtag #BDSMovement, people are naming brands with ties to <a href="https://www.vox.com/israel">Israel</a> and calling for boycotts: McDonald’s is being targeted after a <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Business/companies-starbucks-mcdonalds-face-controversy-amid-israel-hamas/story?id=104219615">location in Israel offered free food for the Israeli military</a>, as are other global fast food chains such as <a href="https://www.facebook.com/DominosPizzaIsrael/posts/pfbid02nVsJc5xA2kCNeZ8uqBJ74jjjfyunUyPdAD3WJD7UnAzo2y68vL136xDiCkc7Rvwhl">Domino’s Pizza</a> and <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/burger-king-faces-boycott-giving-free-food-israeli-soldiers-1837005">Burger King</a>. Some are boycotting Starbucks after the company <a href="https://apnews.com/article/starbucks-workers-united-union-lawsuit-israel-palestinian-f212a994fef67f122854a4df7e5d13f5">sued its labor union</a> this month over a union social media account posting support for Palestinians. Meanwhile, demonstrations organized by local BDS-affiliated groups are taking place around the world.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MV33IX">
The renewed attention on BDS comes at a pivotal time for <a href="https://www.vox.com/world-politics/23916266/us-israel-support-ally-gaza-war-aid">American public sentiment on Israel and Palestine</a>. Here’s what to know about the controversial boycott.
</p>
<h3 id="jCFOMm">
What is BDS and how does it work?
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6RCSQi">
At its simplest, BDS is a global nonviolent protest movement. It attempts to use economic and cultural boycotts against Israel, financial divestment from the state, and government sanctions to pressure Israel’s government to abide by international law and end its controversial <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy">policies</a> toward Palestinians — policies now described by some human rights experts and legal scholars as <a href="https://www.vox.com/23924319/israel-palestine-apartheid-meaning-history-debate">apartheid</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kqQYQL">
BDS is a tactic, not an organization, so disparate groups take up their own campaigns that may focus on a slightly different set of targets, though all share a moral grounding and tactics of peaceful resistance. BDS takes direct inspiration from the <a href="https://bdsmovement.net/what-is-bds">South African anti-apartheid fight</a> and the US civil rights movement, both of which effectively used boycotts. South African anti-apartheid activist Archbishop Desmond Tutu was a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/dec/30/desmond-tutu-palestinians-israel">spirited defender of the BDS movement</a>, calling the parallels between apartheid South Africa and Israel “painfully stark.”
</p>
<div class="c-float-right">
<div id="OaxzHJ">
<div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zds9Xa">
Part of BDS’s directive is to shake up Western support of the Israeli government. It advocates for a “narrative shift on the question of Palestine, that would focus on the rights of Palestinians, a spokesperson for the <a href="https://bdsmovement.net/bnc">BDS National Committee</a>, which represents the group of Palestinian civil society groups that founded BDS, tells Vox.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WqidPM">
The first international call to boycott, divest, and sanction Israel came in 2005 from that vast coalition of groups. At the time, more than 4 million Palestinian refugees had been displaced since the creation of the Israeli state, according to the <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/refugee-statistics/download/?url=NaPiD9">United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees</a>. Just a year before, the International Court of Justice wrote in <a href="https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-178825/">an advisory opinion</a> that the <a href="https://www.ochaopt.org/content/humanitarian-impact-20-years-barrier-december-2022">separation wall Israel built along Palestine’s West Bank</a> — where illegal <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-advances-peak-number-west-bank-settlement-plans-2023-watchdog-2023-07-13/">Israeli settlements continue to spread</a> today — was a violation of international law.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cSSptO">
“Trade unions, farmers unions, students and academics, artists, climate justice groups, Indigenous justice networks, <a href="https://www.vox.com/lgbtq">LGBTQ</a>+ activists, and many more groups have taken up the [BDS] cause,” the national committee spokesperson tells Vox. The <a href="https://bdsmovement.net/get-involved/join-a-bds-campaign?country=United+States">BDS homepage</a> identifies seven US advocacy groups aligned with BDS, including the <a href="https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/2013/08/22/boycott-divestment-and-sanctions-bds/">Jewish Voice for Peace</a>, <a href="https://bdsmovement.net/news/congress-tries-criminalize-bds-democratic-socialists-america-endorse-it">Democratic Socialists of America</a>, and the <a href="https://uscpr.org/activist-resource/boycott-divestment-and-sanctions/">US Campaign for Palestinian Rights</a>. Public figures who have expressed support for BDS include <a href="https://theintercept.com/2021/05/14/israel-palestine-congress-criticism-democrats/">Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO)</a>, musician <a href="http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/10/14/lauryn-hill-joins-black-palestinian-activists-in-solidarity-video.html">Lauryn Hill</a>, and writers <a href="https://time.com/6105990/sally-rooney-israeli-translation/">Sally Rooney</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/jan/10/naomi-klein-boycott-israel">Naomi Klein</a>, and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/dec/15/israel.guardianletters">Arundhati Roy</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4LHCd1">
What unites these groups and individuals are three core demands: that Israel end its occupation of the Palestinian territories of the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/11/20/18080034/west-bank-israel-palestinians">West Bank</a>, Gaza, and East Jerusalem; give full rights to the Palestinian citizens of Israel; and allow Palestinian refugees to return to their homes. BDS’s approach ramps up from personal actions, like boycotting certain goods and companies, to global action calling on governments to impose sanctions and embargoes against Israel.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lrJY3K">
BDS’s boycotts have included not just Israeli products and companies, such as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/03/sodastream-leaves-west-bank-as-ceo-says-boycott-antisemitic-and-pointless">SodaStream</a>, but also non-Israeli corporate giants the movement believes are complicit in the oppression of Palestinians. Different BDS groups around the world may list different companies and goods to boycott, but the BDS National Committee focuses on a few strategic targets at a time. Right now, it’s highlighting <a href="https://bdsmovement.net/boycott-hp">Hewlett Packard</a>, an American company worth more than $25 billion that’s most known for its line of printers, because it argues that HP’s tech has aided the Israeli state in surveilling and restricting movement of Palestinians by implementing a <a href="https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/HP-s-role-in-Israel-could-lead-to-political-5588387.php">biometric ID system</a>. (In response, <a href="https://press.hp.com/us/en/blogs/2021/hp-statement-on-boycott-divestment-sanctions-campaign.html">HP released a statement</a> that it does “not take sides in political disputes between countries or regions” and that it “implements rigorous policies to respect human rights.”)
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pbziEY">
The BDS campaign has in the past persuaded several high-profile companies — perhaps <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-02-14/ben-jerry-s-israel-controversy-set-off-unilever-battle">most famously ice cream maker Ben &amp; Jerry’s</a>, but also <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/orange-ends-partnership-israeli-company-bds-claims-another-scalp-412202">French telecom company Orange</a> — to stop selling in occupied Palestinian territories and, in the case of Orange, end its business partnership with Israel altogether. SodaStream, facing continued pressure from BDS and accusations of mistreating its Palestinian employees, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-10-29/sodastream-to-close-factory-at-center-of-israel-palestinian-spat">closed its West Bank factory</a> in 2014. Some <a href="https://www.cjpme.org/fs_154">BDS participants also boycott MoroccanOil</a>, whose beauty products are manufactured in Israel.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6BYqXW">
Boycotts against Israel dig deeper than merely examining what consumers buy at the store. BDS asks supporters to abstain from Israeli cultural institutions, and even to refrain from working with Israeli universities and academics that it alleges help prop up dehumanizing narratives about Palestinians and the occupied territories. One oft-used BDS strategy is urging musicians, artists, and other celebrities not to visit Israel. Earlier this year, British singer Sam Smith <a href="https://www.them.us/story/sam-smith-cancels-concert-in-israel-following-backlash">canceled a show in Israel</a> after BDS pushback. Other artists who have canceled or postponed performances in Israel include <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/may/18/elvis-costello-cancels-israel-concerts">Elvis Costello</a><strong> </strong>in 2010, Lauryn Hill<strong> </strong>in 2015, and <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/9/1/lana-del-rey-postpones-israel-concert-following-backlash">Lana Del Rey</a><strong> </strong>in 2018. Also in 2018, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/02/lorde-labeled-a-bigot-for-canceling-israel-concert-in-full-page-ad.html">Lorde<strong> </strong>canceled a performance in Tel Aviv</a> after activists called on her to join the boycott of Israel. (Eurovision, the multi-country singing competition, was a boycott target in 2019, the year Israel hosted.<strong> </strong>The event took place as planned.) In 2017, Seattle Seahawks player <a href="https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2692469-michael-bennett-wont-participate-in-nfls-scheduled-trip-to-israel">Michael Bennett pulled out of a trip sponsored by the Israeli government</a>, citing Muhammad Ali as a role model who “stood strongly with the Palestinian people.”
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iFjgwY">
The call to divest pressures companies to refuse to do business with Israeli companies firms, for investors to withhold their capital, and for banks and pension funds not to use customer money to invest in the Israeli <a href="https://www.vox.com/economy">economy</a>. In the past,<strong> </strong>BDS has successfully pushed government pension funds in Luxembourg, New Zealand, and Norway to divest from Israel.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="HwG52O">
The “S” in BDS calls for sanctions against Israel, which include an embargo on providing weapons and military aid, and also a cessation of trade and diplomacy with Israel.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EJFMfL">
BDS advocates say this is a crucial moment to apply pressure on political leaders — especially the US government. “It’s our tax dollars and our US weapons,” says Ahmad Abuznaid, the executive director of the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, a US advocacy group that has joined the BDS movement. The US has sent $158 billion in aid to date, according to a <a href="https://sgp.fas.org/crs/mideast/RL33222.pdf">Congressional Research Service report</a>, and the <a href="https://www.vox.com/joe-biden">Biden administration</a> recently <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/10/20/ukraine-israel-funding-politics/">proposed a $106 billion foreign aid package</a> that would include $14 billion for Israel. Meanwhile, the <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/state-department-internal-emails-gaza-israel_n_65296395e4b0a304ff6ff95d">White House has resisted</a> <a href="https://www.vox.com/world-politics/2023/10/26/23933939/israel-gaza-hamas-limited-raid-ground-invasion-preparations">urging a ceasefire</a>. Recently, the US <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/18/europe/us-veto-security-council-israel-gaza-war-intl/index.html">vetoed a UN Security Council resolution</a> calling for a “humanitarian pause” in Gaza.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CVOd9x">
It’s unclear how much impact BDS has on the Israeli economy. A 2015 report from the global policy think tank Rand Corporation estimated that Israel’s gross domestic product would lose about $15 billion due to nonviolent Palestinian resistance, which includes BDS — but that’s still a tiny portion of Israel’s present-day GDP of <a href="https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/profile/ISR">over $500 billion</a>. Bloomberg recently reported that <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-06/israel-sees-60-investment-drop-in-early-2023-due-to-uncetainty">foreign investment in Israel had fallen considerably in 2023</a>, likely impacted by political and social turmoil in the country; the judicial overhaul supported by Prime Minister <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2023/1/20/23561464/israel-new-right-wing-government-extreme-protests-netanyahu-biden-ben-gvir">Benjamin Netanyahu’s increasingly hardline, right-wing government</a> led to <a href="https://www.vox.com/world-politics/23629744/why-israelis-protesting-netanyahu-far-right-government-judiciary-overhaul">mass protests from Israeli citizens</a> earlier this year.
</p>
<h3 id="Pm9CjH">
The controversy over BDS, explained
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2kOpNI">
BDS has faced a deluge of criticism. One <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/carriesheffield/2015/02/22/boycott-israel-movement-stunts-the-palestinian-economy/?sh=aa069416484c">common</a> <a href="https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-741334">argument</a> <a href="https://www.meforum.org/6005/bds-squeezing-palestinians">against </a>it, for example, is that it hurts Palestinians more than it aids them by further reducing jobs and other economic opportunities; <a href="https://www.heritage.org/report/south-africa-sanctions-blacks-would-suffer-the-most">similar arguments were deployed</a> against boycotts and sanctions of apartheid South Africa.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QVUyJG">
Most of the criticism, however, centers on <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/27/world/middleeast/bds-israel-boycott-antisemitic.html">casting BDS as a vicious stripe of antisemitism</a>. This argument connects condemnation of the policies of the Israeli state with hatred of Jewish people, despite the fact that many Jewish people and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/23/us/jewish-palestinian-protest-israel-gaza/index.html">Jewish groups have denounced the government</a> — particularly Netanyahu — and lifted up the cause of Palestinian rights.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QoEebA">
Some BDS opponents argue that the movement calls for the de facto destruction of a Jewish state; the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish civil rights advocacy group, <a href="https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounder/boycott-divestment-and-sanctions-campaign-bds">claims that BDS</a> tries to “end the right to Jewish national self-determination on any portion of this contested land.” Others contend that BDS is antisemitic because <a href="https://www.jewishtimes.com/dershowitz-there-is-no-such-thing-as-a-bds-movement/">it singles out Israel</a> when other governments are worthy of similar human rights scrutiny; they say it expects Jewish people to adhere to a higher standard than other groups. (This, again, is similar to<strong> </strong>an <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/1989/1012/ekri.html">argument lobbed at boycotts against South Africa</a>.)
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7Pk8B3">
The Israeli government, for its part, has tried to crack down on BDS efforts since their inception. In 2017, it passed a law banning people <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2019/4/16/18410981/omar-shakir-israeli-court-deportation-human-rights-watch">who support boycotts of the country from entering Israel</a>.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XNQLdc">
In 2019, the pro-Israel nonprofit Jewish National Fund <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/20/zionist-group-anti-terrorism-laws-palestinian-activists-jnf-bds">filed a lawsuit against the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights</a> using the<a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/topn/antiterrorism_act_of_1990"> Anti-Terrorism Act</a>, a federal law under which victims can receive damages from groups found to have aided or abetted terrorism. It painted BDS participants as material supporters of terrorism led primarily by <a href="https://www.vox.com/politics/2023/10/10/23911661/hamas-israel-war-gaza-palestine-explainer">Hamas</a> and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The <a href="https://ccrjustice.org/home/what-we-do/our-cases/jewish-national-fund-v-us-campaign-palestinian-rights">lawsuit was dismissed</a> in 2021, but such accusations of terrorism are “routinely the first question that’s asked upon Palestinians,” says Abuznaid.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="E1MkXP">
In the US, 38 states have passed some kind of anti-BDS law, according to civil rights group <a href="https://legislation.palestinelegal.org/">Palestine Legal</a>. In many jurisdictions, that means government contractors must sign a statement affirming that they don’t participate in boycott or divestment actions against Israel; such laws generally don’t affect individuals, though some could be used against <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/1/9/18172826/bds-law-israel-boycott-states-explained">independent contractors who support BDS</a> in a personal capacity. Other states blacklist companies supporting BDS from receiving government contracts, or bar public pension programs from investing in BDS-aligned companies.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Pcxrct">
<a href="https://legiscan.com/AL/text/SJR6/2016">Some states</a> <a href="https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2016/1001/BillText/Filed/PDF">have passed</a> <a href="https://www.legis.ga.gov/api/legislation/document/20192020/184132">resolutions</a> <a href="https://search-prod.lis.state.oh.us/solarapi/v1/general_assembly_132/resolutions/hcr10/EN/06/hcr10_06_EN?format=pdf">denouncing BDS</a> for promoting antisemitism, claiming it <a href="https://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?161+ful+HJ177">inhibits peace</a> in the Middle East or that it threatens the relationship between the US and a key ally. In a vociferous <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/gov-andrew-cuomo-if-you-boycott-israel-new-york-state-will-boycott-you/2016/06/10/1d6d3acc-2e62-11e6-9b37-42985f6a265c_story.html">2016 Washington Post op-ed</a>, former New York governor Andrew Cuomo explained his signing of an anti-BDS executive order, writing, “New York stands with Israel because we are Israel and Israel is us.” Several states have <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/new-jersey-moves-to-divest-from-ben-jerrys-parent-firm-over-settlement-bds">divested from doing business with Ben &amp; Jerry’s</a> and its parent company Unilever for its participation in BDS.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="eKNCyJ">
Omar Shakir, the Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch, tells Vox that many of these state laws have been or are being challenged in court. “They have been struck down in many cases,” he says. “In other cases, litigation has caused the laws to be more narrowly defined.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OEAfrb">
In 2017, <a href="https://theintercept.com/2017/07/19/u-s-lawmakers-seek-to-criminally-outlaw-support-for-boycott-campaign-against-israel/">43 US senators proposed a bill</a> backed by the lobbying group <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/topic/organization/american-israel-public-affairs-committee-aipac">American Israel Public Affairs Committee</a> criminalizing support of BDS by up to 20 years in prison. In 2019, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) introduced a <a href="https://www.aclu.org/news/free-speech/marco-rubio-and-his-colleagues-need-refresher-first-amendment">bill that would make it safer for states</a> to impose their own anti-BDS laws. Neither made it through <a href="https://www.vox.com/congress">Congress</a>, but Rubio <a href="https://www.rubio.senate.gov/rubio-colleagues-reintroduce-legislation-to-combat-anti-israel-bds-campaign">reintroduced his failed bill earlier this year</a>. These efforts have had at least some chilling effect. <a href="https://www.vox.com/airbnb">Airbnb</a>, for example, backtracked on its <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-47881163">decision to remove listings in Israeli settlements in the West Bank</a> after an Israeli class action lawsuit demanded compensation for the hosts whose listings had been removed.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nEoztP">
At this very moment, Abuznaid says, the most urgent action isn’t a boycott — it’s to demand a ceasefire. About two-thirds of US voters now appear to be in favor of a ceasefire and de-escalation in Gaza, according to a <a href="https://www.dataforprogress.org/blog/2023/10/19/voters-agree-the-us-should-call-for-a-ceasefire-and-de-escalation-of-violence-in-gaza">recent poll of about 1,300 likely voters</a> from left-wing think tank Data for Progress.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="eSbrrb">
Both Shakir and Abuznaid believe that more Americans are starting to question their government’s role in Palestinian oppression. While the majority, according to recent polls, still support Israel more than they do Palestine, a <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/israel-hamas-war-biden-opinion/">recent CBS News poll</a> showed that fewer than half of respondents wanted to send weapons and supplies to Israel. “They may not understand what BDS means,” says Shakir, “but they may be supportive, for example, of not having their tax dollars going toward funding weapons to the Israeli army.”
</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</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>Matthew Wade to lead Australia in T20 series against India</strong> - Veteran wicket-keeper batter Matthew Wade will lead a 15-member Australian squad that will be without its frontline fast bowlers.</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>Cricket World Cup 2023 AUS vs NZ | With Warner and Zampa leading the way the Aussies are back to their best</strong> -</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>Indian para athletes create history, bag 111 medals in Hangzhou Asian Para Games</strong> - ‘..our para athletes have done the country proud. We will win more medals in the Paris Paralympics than in Tokyo,” says Paralympic Committee of India president Deepa Malik</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 | Israel expands ground operations in Gaza; Parliamentary panel on Home holds back report on crime Bills, and more</strong> - Here is a select list of stories to start the 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>What’s next in the Kylian Mbappe-PSG-Real Madrid soap opera?</strong> - With the French superstar emerging largely unscathed from a contract stand-off with the Paris club, he appears to have his destiny in his hands. The saga may end in January, when potential free agents can sign pre-contracts with new clubs. But matters are still far from straightforward</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</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>Bank fraud: ED arrests 2 promoters, CA of Parabolic Drugs in money laundering case</strong> - The Guptas are the co-founders of Sonepat-based Ashoka University but had stepped down from their posts in 2022.</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>Two children drown in open well near Tiruvannamalai</strong> -</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>‘Disturbance of piers not uncommon for barrages built on river bed’</strong> - Officials say it happened to Farakka, Dowlaiswaram in their early years</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>BSF lodges strong protest with Pakistani counterpart over unprovoked firing along IB in Jammu</strong> - The protest was registered at an hour-long commander-level meeting at the Border Outpost Octroi in Suchetgarh.</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>Manipur’s displaced pray for stronger Mizoram to help them go back</strong> - More than 300 Kuki-Zo people who fled ethnic violence on the periphery of Imphal Valley are sheltered in Chief Minister Zoramthanga’s constituency</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</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>Spanish Church sexual abuse affected 200,000 children, commission finds</strong> - The country’s first in-depth public inquiry into abuse linked to the Catholic Church presents its findings.</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>Russia hikes interest rates to 15% as inflation soars</strong> - The Bank of Russia raises rates more than expected to try to lower inflation and boost the rouble.</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>Israel Gaza: EU calls for ‘corridors and pauses’ for humanitarian aid</strong> - Member states disagreed over whether to call for short breaks in the fighting or a longer pause.</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>Ukraine war: Russia executing own retreating soldiers, US says</strong> - The White House says heavy losses and poor morale are leading to mutinies in some units.</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>Neuschwanstein: US man charged over deadly attack at famed German castle</strong> - The suspect is accused of pushing two women into a ravine at Neuschwanstein Castle and raping one of them.</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>The UK’s problematic Online Safety Act is now law</strong> - The government says it will protect kids online; critics say it’s a threat to privacy. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1979426">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Jeff Bezos shows off new Moon lander design for NASA</strong> - “We’re building our landers to enable global landing capability on the Moon, day or night.” - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1979493">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>This is how we could possibly build paved roads on the Moon</strong> - Lasers melt a regolith-like material into pavers that could be used for lunar roads. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1979398">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Microsoft profiles new threat group with unusual but effective practices</strong> - Octo Tempest employs tactics that many of its targets aren’t prepared for. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1979474">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Poison expert allegedly poisoned wife—with a shockingly toxic gout drug</strong> - Colchicine is centuries old, but the line between toxic and nontoxic is still blurry. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1979464">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</h1>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>At the parole hearing, the officer asked “Tell me, why should you be released early?”</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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The inmate responded, “It’s bec…”<br/> Officer: Yes?<br/> Inmate: I think I have..<br/> Officer: Go on.<br/> Inmate: Can I Please finish my sentence?<br/> Officer: Sure. Parole denied.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Des-You-color"> /u/Des-You-color </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/17i6qx1/at_the_parole_hearing_the_officer_asked_tell_me/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/17i6qx1/at_the_parole_hearing_the_officer_asked_tell_me/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A Sexually frustrated Gorilla see’s a lion bent over a stream..</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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The gorilla runs up behind the lion, grabs on, and has his way with him. The gorilla then takes off running, with the very angry lion on his heels. As they run through the jungle, the gorilla gets a bit of a lead, and sees a British safari camp ahead.
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The gorilla enters the camp, grabs some khakis that are hung out to dry, and puts on pants, a shirt, and a hat. He sits on a chair by the campfire and grabs a copy of the local paper, pretending to read, to hide his face.
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The lion enters the campsite and lets out a huge roar. He yells, “did anyone see a gorilla run through here?”
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The gorilla, in full disguise, calls out, “you mean the one that fucked the lion up the ass?”
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The lion exclaims, “oh my god! It’s in the paper already?”
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/PetiteeDanii"> /u/PetiteeDanii </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/17i2q9x/a_sexually_frustrated_gorilla_sees_a_lion_bent/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/17i2q9x/a_sexually_frustrated_gorilla_sees_a_lion_bent/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>There’s a young couple that’s down on their luck and don’t have enough money for rent.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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So they talk it over and decide that she’ll go and stand on the corner. The first guy that comes up asks how much for sex? and she told him a hundred dollars. He says that he only has forty so she says she’ll blow him for that. They go into the alley and when he pulls his pants down she sees he has a ten inch pecker. She tells him to wait right there, runs back up to her apartment and asked her boyfriend “do you have sixty dollars I can borrow?”
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Merrader"> /u/Merrader </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/17hu5gk/theres_a_young_couple_thats_down_on_their_luck/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/17hu5gk/theres_a_young_couple_thats_down_on_their_luck/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A sophisticated-looking lady was returning by plane from Switzerland</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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She talked to the Father sitting next to her, “Excuse me, Father, may I ask you a favor?”
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The priest replied, “Of course, my child, what can I do for you?”
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The woman explained, “Here’s my problem: I bought myself a new epilator and paid quite a lot of money for it. I think I’ve exceeded the limits and I’m afraid they’ll confiscate it at customs. Could you possibly hide it under your robe while going through customs?”
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The priest replied, “I can certainly do that, my child, but you know I cannot lie.”
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The woman said, “You have such an honest and innocent face, Father. I’m sure they won’t even question you.”
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She handed the expensive epilator to the priest. As the plane landed and the priest approached the customs, the officer asked, “Father, do you have any items to declare?”
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The priest replied, “I have nothing to declare from my head to my belt, my child.”
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Finding this answer odd, the officer asked, “Well, what about the area below your belt?”
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The priest responded, “There’s a wonderful little device designed for the use of women. However, it has never been used!”
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The customs officer, bursting into laughter, said, “Alright, Father, you can go. Next!”
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/MisterrNo"> /u/MisterrNo </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/17hn12m/a_sophisticatedlooking_lady_was_returning_by/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/17hn12m/a_sophisticatedlooking_lady_was_returning_by/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>If Elon bought Reddit, what would he call it?</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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eXit
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/texasharp"> /u/texasharp </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/17i75cw/if_elon_bought_reddit_what_would_he_call_it/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/17i75cw/if_elon_bought_reddit_what_would_he_call_it/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
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