Weather: According to the good people at the National Weather Service, Seattle can expect a beautiful, sunny day with temperatures in the low 70s. See you bitches (celebratory) outside!

All eyes on Rafah: President Joe Biden shifted his tone on Israel’s genocide on Palestine yesterday. He said, for the first time, that he would stop sending Israel certain weapons if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched a major ground invasion in the city of Rafah, which is supposed to be a safe zone for the 1 million people sheltering there. This may be Biden’s toughest statement against Israel’s genocide, but it is still so very limited. He’s only taking away some of Israel’s killing toys and he’s already giving Israel leeway. Earlier this week, Israel already started an aerial and ground offensive in Rafah, but the US is okay with that because they claim it is a “limited operation.”

School closure: The Seattle School Board unanimously approved a proposal yesterday that could close 20 of the district’s 70 elementary schools to help alleviate the district’s annual budget gap, which is more than $100 million. Frankly, Seattle Public Schools should not be dealing with a budget problem at all. There’s so much hoarded wealth in Washington State, and legislators must act boldly to fulfill their constitutional duty to fully fund our schools. Do me and the students of Seattle a favor and tell your state legislators to find new, progressive revenue streams to fund our schools.

Tariq Yusuf: As I tweeted last night, the City Council candidate confirmed that an alleged Jonathon Choe groupie pushed him to the ground Tuesday afternoon in the Liberated Zone at the Quad on the UW campus. Right-wingers responded how you would expect. Katie Daviscourt said she’s glad to know a “violent extremist” is running for City Council. To which I said, “Oh shit the guy who pushed him is running too???” Like, be fucking for real. Yusuf literally walked toward Choe to tell him to stop recording Muslim students for Twitter clout and some guy pushed him to the ground. Plus, I don’t see Yusuf in the fight in the full clip. 

Yusuf responds: In a Tweet thread, Yusuf wrote, “As someone who grew up Muslim, I know how scary it is to stand for what you believe in. For a lot of our families, our parents aren’t citizens and often are refugees from awful circumstances. We’ve been spied on, attacked, and abused by exercising our basic rights. The sheer disrespect of these people who are expressing their right to speech is oxymoronic, cruel, and offensive to the principles this country was founded on.” Fellas, is it violent extremism to shoo away a right-wing vlogger from Muslim kids who grew up in the Islamaphobic, surveillance state aftermath of 9/11?

ICYMI: I broke down what happened at the stand-off outside the Quad Tuesday night. Despite concern that Charlie Kirk’s event would draw right-wing agitators to the Liberated Zone, things remained relatively calm. I think that’s in part because the UW didn’t overwhelm the protesters with cops. But the hands-off approach sorta signals that maybe UW doesn’t want to draw too much attention and would rather the protesters fade away. After all, the UW has not responded to their demands. 

Coming up: Put this march to commemorate 76 years since the Nakba on your calendar.

Just Boeing things: This morning a Boeing 737 caught on fire and skidded off the runway at an airport in Senegal. Ten of the 85 people on board were injured. This comes just a day after a Boeing cargo plane crash-landed nose-first in Istanbul, not to mention the other recent incidents that make Boeing headlines all blend together. Oh, and if you forgot, two Boeing whistleblowers died in the past two months! Nice! 

What a treat: We Heart Seattle’s Andrea Suarez jumped in the race for 43rd Legislative District yesterday—twice actually. She accidentally filed for position 1 against incumbent Rep. Nicole Macri, Twitter went nuts, she dropped, Twitter went nuts again, then she filed for position 2 against lefty Shaun Scott, and Twitter went nuts again. For those of you who don’t know Suarez or her organization, here’s a good primer.

Suarez’s first scandal: Suarez got some side-eye from the Chair of the State Democratic Party Shasti Conrad when I tweeted that Suarez, while running as a Democrat, will headline a GOP fundraiser next week. Conrad said “Anyone is allowed to declare themselves a Democrat and run as a Democratic candidate. We obviously don’t encourage our candidates to raise funds for the OPPOSITION PARTY.” She said WA Dems will work to ensure a legit Democrat wins that seat. We’ll see if Suarez proves herself to the party. 

Shake-up in the Mayor’s office: The Mayor announced some change-ups in his office yesterday. First of all, as the City faces a HUGE budget deficit, budget director Julie Dingley resigned. He also announced the appointment of Natalie Walton-Anderson as the Director of Public Safety. Recognize that name? Here’s why:

Hush money: Porn actress Stormy Daniels returned to the witness stand to continue testimony. During Tuesday’s testimony, she detailed the sexual encounter former President Donald Trump allegedly paid for her to stay quiet about during the 2016 election. Trump’s lawyers spent this morning discrediting Daniels, according to the AP.

Just cuz:

Hannah Krieg is a staff writer at The Stranger covering everything that goes down at Seattle City Hall. Importantly, she is a Libra. She is also The Stranger's resident Gen Z writer, with an affinity for...

68 replies on “Slog AM: School Board Votes to Possibly Close 20 Elementary Schools, Muslim City Council Candidate Pushed to the Ground, and Biden Threatens to Halt Weapons If Israel Fully Invades Rafah”

  1. @59. This is genocide. This is the very face of genocide. And all of you pretending that it is not and that the Israeli government’s irreverence to international laws and the UN definition of genocide that you uphold as the standard and whose authority they completely disregard as they try to burn down the UNRWA in East Jerusalem, whose accountability to the US you ignore and support in this operation, who in bad faith refuse their own ceasefire proposals. You, all of you, are complicit in this genocide. You are genocide itself.

    “The Israeli military insists on expanding operations in Rafah and is continuing to pound the eastern part of the city.

    In the last 24 hours, there seems to be an increase in artillery shelling in the eastern and western areas where the vast majority of displaced families are sheltering.

    This has been forcing people to move to newly designated safe areas, including Deir el-Balah, where thousands of people have been pouring in. They are setting up their tents and trying to find residential units available to stay in.

    Not only is Deir el-Balah city running out of space, but it is also running out of resources, particularly water.

    In addition, there’s only one operational hospital here running at the lowest capacity imaginable.

    1h ago (06:35 GMT)

    ‘We keep moving from one place to another’

    Laila al-Kafarna is one of tens of thousands of Palestinians to flee Rafah this week as Israeli troops and tanks push deeper into the city.

    It is her family’s sixth time being displaced during the war.

    “We keep moving from one place to another,” al-Kafarna told Al Jazeera, clinging on to her infant. “This child was born during the war. What was his fault?

    “They moved us from Gaza City and told us to go south. After that, they told us to go to Khan Younis. After that we came to Nuseirat. After Nuseirat to Deir el-Balah. And then they brought us to Rafah. They said it was a safe place. It wasn’t safe.”

    1h ago (06:25 GMT)

    Patients left without treatment as Rafah hospitals shut down

    Patients and staff are being forced out of hospitals across Rafah as Israel’s attacks on the city intensify, leaving many sick and wounded Palestinians with no way to be treated.

    “We have no beds, no hospitals to refer [people to], especially for critical patients,” Palestinian doctor Mohammed Zaqout said.

    “Al-Najjar Hospital is out of service. And the Kuwaiti Hospital [in Rafah] is just for trauma and emergency,” he added.

    1h ago (06:15 GMT)

    Israel subjecting Gaza to a ‘medieval siege’, ‘scorched earth’ policy: UNRWA

    Sam Rose, planning director at the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), said no supplies have entered the Gaza Strip since Sunday and “heavy bombardments” are hitting areas in the centre of Rafah city.

    “No aid has come into Gaza now since Sunday. No aid, no fuel, no supplies, nothing. And we really are now down to our last reserves. We have a few more days of flour that we can provide. But everything else will start to shut down very soon without fuel, without water. So the situation is really desperate,” Rose told Al Jazeera from Rafah.

    “People are petrified. People have been fearing this for a long, long time and it is now upon us. There is constant bombardment. There is smoke on the horizon. There are people on the move. We estimate that, as of last night, about 110,000 people from Rafah had been displaced and had moved on,” he said.

    “People are doing whatever they can to flee for safety and yet where are they going to? There are no safe places,” he added.

    “These are populations that are already on the brink of famine who are now being subjected to a medieval siege coupled with scorched earth and heavy bombardment. Already desperate conditions will get worse and we will see multitudes of casualties. Not just from the bombing. But the hunger, the disease and the starvation.”

    This must stop now. Never again means never again for all. No one has the right to commit genocide in the name of self defense.

  3. @62: That’s because, as you serial abusers of the word “genocide” bitterly refuse to admit, Hamas spent years (and some huge amount of money, not spent on helping civilians) to turn Gaza into a giant, human-filled shield against the IDF attack Hamas would ultimately and intentionally provoke. As Theodore C. already recounted elsewhere, this was a per se and wholesale violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, and thus a massive human-rights violation in Gaza by Hamas.

    So yes, the IDF may indeed destroy Gaza to destroy Hamas. That is a direct result of Hamas’ long-term strategy, and Hamas bears the blame for Gaza’s destruction.

  4. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/10/peaceful-pro-palestinian-campus-protests

    Nearly all campus protests have been peaceful, study finds.

    @63. No, Hamas does not bear the agency or responsibility for Israel’s commission of war crimes or genocide in kind. You need to wake up and stop absolving the worst actors in the Israeli government from accountability. They murdered 1200 people and took 240 hostages. That doesn’t equate to total annihilation in response to the entire civilian population.

    What you are using is a propaganda tactic called accusation in a mirror. “Claims that members of the target group pose a mortal or existential threat to the audience, aptly dubbed “accusation in a mirror”. The speaker accuses the target group of plotting the same harm to the audience that the speaker hopes to incite, thus providing the audience with the collective analogue of the only ironclad defense to homicide: self-defense. One of the most famous examples is the Nazi assertion, before the Holocaust began, that Jews were planning to wipe out the German people.”

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accusation_in_a_mirror#:~:text=Accusation%20in%20a%20mirror%20(AiM,or%20intentions%20to%20one's%20adversaries.

    Your constant equivocation and denial of genocide, even as you acknowledge the total destruction of Gaza in a scorched earth total annihilation of Gaza to defeat Hamas, makes you amd everyone else involved, Hamas included for their part, an accessory to genocide. But that is not mutually exclusive with the IDF and Netanyahu’s cabinet of sociopaths. Go sleep in a dry comfortable tent in the snow for a day. Go have your children starved to death and blown to bits. Then you can opine of those topics with perspicacity. Until then you are complicit in genocide. There is no longer any question that is where we are, and you are an accessory.

  5. @65. Anyone not blinded by factionalism can see that this is a genocide. What tensorna lacks is empathy, and everyone else who continuously lowers their standards for the Israeli response and gives them carte blanche to act as they will in total defiance of international law and our own conditions for providing them arms for defense.

    I have slept in a tent in the freezing snow while homeless. I have suffered immensely in my youth and throughout my life. I studied the the rhetoric of genocide and hold a degree in rhetoric & writing from UT Austin. I have read the literature of white supremacy and Mein Kampf as required of my studies to understand how this propaganda works. That is why I have empathy for all concerned and can identify the tactics employed in racist genocide. And in so doing, Israel is destroying its legitimacy and doing again what was committed to never be done again, anywhere, to anyone.

  6. Garb@64: You’ve already given your definition of “genocide” as “I know it when I see it.” I use the definition in (waddaya know) the Genocide Convention. I honestly cannot “know” what you “see,” so I cannot possibly have dialog with you on this point. You can simply use any criteria you select, applied however you choose, not communicated to anyone else, and then label anyone who dares disagree with you in the slightest as supporting “genocide.” This hasn’t worked with Kristo’, and it won’t work for you, either.

    To emphasize what @46 and @51 said, let’s look at the (in)famous slogan, “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Shall Be Free.” What does “free” mean in this context? Are women free to apply to jobs, speak as equals to men? No. Are LGBTQ+ persons free to express their personal realities? Not a chance. Freedom of religion? Are you kidding? The word, “Free,” in that context, lacks all of the usual meanings associated with it in America — or in Israel.

    So what does it mean? We can see in the UW Quad’ “liberated” zone: ‘free’ to appropriate public spaces for private activities, ‘free’ to demand censorship of critical voices, ‘free’ to stop video recording in the occupied public space — and to commit violent acts, if necessary, to enforce this censorious ban. This is the “free” in that slogan, which is why our House of Representatives has condemned it.

  7. Yes, given the spirit of the law versus the letter, I know it when I see it. Here is the rest of the context. Try to understand.

    From https://www.thestranger.com/guest-editorial/2024/04/24/79483068/why-we-held-seder-in-the-streets-this-year/comments

    In this case, the spirit of the law takes precedence over statute. But whenever the innocents of any ethnic group are collectively punished, slaughtered, and their human rights annihilated, that is genocide. As you said, a single act can be genocide. But an ongoing and unjust war that de facto slaughters one ethnic group, Palestinian Arabs of Gazan nationality, over six months with aid convoys from international organizations assured of their safety and then intentionally targeted to perpetuate famine, qualifies as genocide from anyone with a conscience. Perhaps you can pull the wool over your eyes with this Schroedinger’s human shield and pretend that every innocent civilian and child is killed with kindness, but that doesn’t take agency from those that pull the trigger. The de facto situation on the ground is a genocide that is wiping out an imprisoned populace because of who they are.

    Tensor, laws as written – words – cannot fully encompass the essence of justice and are not monolithic in themselves. Every year we amend our laws and throw out bills ad infinitum. All in the pursuit of justice. The Holocaust, slavery, and Jim Crow were all codified in the high courts and tomes. But none can truly serve the cause of justice without constant revision and reinterpretation to best approximate all truths. If the official – letter of the law – definition of genocide does fully apply in this instance, it is because it is incomplete. And the spirit of our laws makes clear from what we see that it needs further revision to protect those being slaughtered en masse, 100,000 casualties, mostly women and children. There are not enough Hamas fighters to hide out in every home made foxhole that is blown to smithereens with a 1,000 lb. 2 mile kill zone radius bomb dropped in the one of the most densely populated places on earth.

    Genocide is as genocide does.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/29/zionism-jews-palestinians

    Of course I hold the IDF to higher standards than war crimes and famine and collective punishment! And why is that? Because I expect the arms we sell them and their methods to follow the oh so stringent requirements they are currently under investigation in the Hague for breaking! Since you are so obsessed with the literal definition and due process for every violation but attribute every mass casualty as a Hamas human shield without evidence and merely apocraphal self-assured hearsay. That’s about all the time I have for your wizzeaksauce hypocrisy.

    Great article I linked.

  8. Sermon for Gaza

    This is a sermon I gave Sunday April 28 at a service held at the encampment for Gaza at Princeton University. The service was organized by students from Princeton Theological Seminary.

    –by Chris Hedges; originally published April 28, 2024

    In the conflicts I covered as a reporter in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and the Balkans, I encountered singular individuals of varying creeds, religions, races and nationalities who majestically rose up to defy the oppressor on behalf of the oppressed. Some of them are dead. Some of them are forgotten. Most of them are unknown.

    These individuals, despite their vast cultural differences, had common traits—a profound commitment to the truth, incorruptibility, courage, a distrust of power, a hatred of violence and a deep empathy that was extended to people who were different from them, even to people defined by the dominant culture as the enemy.

    They are the most remarkable men and women I met in my 20 years as a foreign correspondent. I set my life by the standards they set.

    You have heard of some, such as Vaclav Havel, whom I and other foreign reporters met most evenings, during the 1989 Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia, in the Magic Lantern Theatre in Prague.

    Others, no less great, you probably do not know, such as the Jesuit priest Iganacio Ellacuria, who was gunned down by the death squads in El Salvador in 1989. And then there are those “ordinary” people, although, as the writer V.S. Pritchett said, no people are ordinary, who risked their lives in wartime to shelter and protect those of an opposing religion or ethnicity being persecuted and hunted. And to some of these “ordinary” people I owe my own life.

    To resist radical evil, as you are doing, is to endure a life that by the standards of the wider society is a failure. It is to defy injustice at the cost of your career, your reputation, your financial solvency and at times your life. It is to be a lifelong heretic.

    And, perhaps this is the most important point, it is to accept that the dominant culture, even the liberal elites, will push you to the margins and attempt to discredit not only what you do, but your character.

    When I returned to the newsroom at The New York Times after being booed off a commencement stage in 2003 for denouncing the invasion of Iraq and being publicly reprimanded by the paper for my stance against the war, reporters and editors I had known and worked with for 15 years lowered their heads or turned away when I was nearby.

    They did not want to be contaminated by the same career-killing contagion.

    Ruling institutions — the state, the press, the church, the courts, universities — mouth the language of morality, but they serve the structures of power, no matter how venal, which provide them with money, status and authority. All of these institutions, including the academy, are complicit through their silence or their active collaboration with radical evil.

    This was true during the genocide we committed against native Americans, slavery, the witch hunts during the McCarthy era, the civil rights and anti-war movements and the fight against the apartheid regime of South Africa. The most courageous are purged and turned into pariahs.

    –Chris Hedges

    May 10, 2024

    oodles more, enlighteningly

    https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/sermon-for-gaza-read-by-eunice-wong

    you Go

    Garbby!

    and THANK YOU.

  9. Meanwhile, you subscribe oh so stringently to the standards of the UN’s Genocide Convention, https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/atrocity-crimes/Doc.1_Convention%20on%20the%20Prevention%20and%20Punishment%20of%20the%20Crime%20of%20Genocide.pdf

    I am certain many provisions have been violated to qualify as genocide, I just haven’t taken the time to peruse the provisions, but I shall.

    Meanwhile, you clearly do not respect the UN as an institution as you are permissive of the IDF and Netanyahu’s administration picking and choosing what provisions of international law to uphold and to violate. Because Hamas apparently decided for years to completely destroy their own territory and people by design, then Israel committing war crimes like displacing an entire civilian population, cutting off aid, destroying non military targets indiscriminately, etc. etc. etc. makes your sincerity about upholding the UN’s standards hollow, insincere, and laughable.

    What you are is a jingoist shill unable to apply your own standards inward and towards the ingroup of the most extremist and criminal factions of Israeli society who have disenfranchised their own electorate and seek perpetual war. And now they are literally setting fire to the UNRWA.

    https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/article/2024/may/09/unrwa-jerusalem-hq-closed-after-israeli-extremist-arson-attack

    Nothing could be clearer than the lack of respect and legitimacy the Israeli government and IDF have given the UN and its requirements against genocide. Thus, they are committing genocide and you are an accessory to genocide through your unwavering support of their ever more extreme and uncompromising methods. I rest my case, Wormtongue.

  10. bears repeating:

    “Your constant equivocation and denial of genocide, even as you acknowledge the total destruction of Gaza in a scorched earth total annihilation of Gaza to defeat Hamas, makes you amd everyone else involved, Hamas included for their part, an accessory to genocide.

    But that is not mutually exclusive with the IDF and Netanyahu’s cabinet of sociopaths. Go sleep in a dry comfortable tent in the snow for a day. Go have your children starved to death and blown to bits. Then you can opine of those topics with perspicacity. Until then you are complicit in genocide. There is no longer any question that is where we are, and you are an accessory.”

    again:

    thank you

    Garbby.

  11. https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/atrocity-crimes/Doc.1_Convention%20on%20the%20Prevention%20and%20Punishment%20of%20the%20C

    Article II of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide defines genocide as an act that aims to destroy a religious, racial, ethnic, or national group, either in whole or in part. This includes:

    1)Killing members of the group

    2)Causing serious mental or bodily harm to members of the group

    3)Deliberately inflicting conditions of life on the group that are calculated to bring about its physical destruction

    4)Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group

    5)Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group

    Thanks for the source of your definition for genocide, tensor! Slog, do any of these sound familiar or apply in this case to Gaza?

  12. @55, layoffs at SPS would take effect until fall 2025, so there is time to issue notices. Leadership is meeting w unions this week. Teachers would be retained over building specific positions (cafeteria crew, security etc). Will union leaders fight for them too? TBD.

  13. @70: “Because Hamas apparently decided for years to completely destroy their own territory and people by design,”

    Many years ago, NATO reported on Hamas’ behavior in Gaza, and yet, you seem to have achieved a constant state of total surprise at the magnitude and extent of Hamas’ violations of the Geneva Convention.

    (https://stratcomcoe.org/cuploads/pfiles/hamas_human_shields.pdf)

    I suggest you learn a bit about the IDF’s adversary, before you continue blaming them for everything currently happening in Gaza.

  14. @71

    so, as

    an Existential

    Threat, how did

    the Leader of Israel

    treat this ‘Hamas’ group?

    shirley, he vowed to have

    Nothing to Do with them

    put them Down at every

    Opportunity and called

    them OUT for their

    Wicked Ways?

    surely

    ol’ bibi’s got At

    Least that much Integrity?

  16. @57- what you say is at the root of this problem. A government run under principle of one religion because “God said we should do it” is a clusterfuck and an atrocity ever single fucking time. Doesn’t matter whether it’s Iran, Medieval Europe (actually, I very much WOULD have expected the Spanish Inquisition), any other Mideast bonesaw republic you care to name, the India that Modi seems to want to create, Netanyahu’s view of Israel, or Missouri. Theocratic governments simply need to be stomped out.

  17. Garb@70: “I am certain many provisions have been violated to qualify as genocide, I just haven’t taken the time to peruse the provisions, but I shall.”

    In other words, you literally do not know what you are talking about, and yet, you feel totally qualified to act as a moral scold. Perhaps you might consider the existence of a causal connection between those two?

Comments are closed.