In the face off between the US and Cuba, there’s one country that has been doing good for the world for the last 60 years. And then there’s the US.

The US Government is starving Cuba. They’re killing people by depriving them of medical care, food safety, and sanitation, via crisis level fuel shortages. But it’s important to remember, this isn’t Trump. This has been openly stated US policy for the last 6 decades, with a brief stay of execution under Obama.

Remind you of any other “world leading” country and their policy of death and destruction through any means possible?

I shared a recent piece on Facebook:

I don’t know how you could sit in the room and watch a Palestinian man share that he doesn’t just see his kids in the children he sees executed, shredded, and incinerated on live stream every day, but that those dead children look like his children, and not have your breath be sucked out of your lungs. That has to be an extra level of mindfuck, to see that even for a second, before your brain can reassure you that no, your kid is in the other room. Safe.

A local Republican who has repeatedly run unopposed in Republican Primaries and then lost handily in the General, Adam Kraemer, tried to clap back. Part of his response was: (note, he has some struggles with writing, so I’ve lightly edited his statements, since we only need to critique at the ideas not the semantics)

I note in many of your posts, you constantly single out and criticize the only Jewish state on earth, and ignore the right of Israel to defend itself. Dozens of Islamic theocracies can never do anything wrong in your world view. The Irish get to live in Ireland, the same way that the Jews get to live in Israel.

Right so let’s dive in.

“only Jewish state on earth” - you can’t have a state OF Jews and then pretend you don’t discriminate. You can have a state FOR Jews, which then of course allows for other non-Jewish equal participants of that state. A Jewish Israel is no different from a Christian United States. It’s discriminatory, wrong, and conflates religion with statehood. This is the current status quo. Arab Israelis are a lesser class, they don’t have the same legal rights and privileges as Jewish Israelis. And non-Israeli citizen Palestinians are treated even worse, as we regularly can see in the West Bank and Gaza.

“ignore the right of Israel to defend itself” - How many Palestinian children must be executed before Israel is no longer “defending” itself? We all must have a number in mind, right? My number was surpassed long before October 7. You can’t “defend yourself” on October 8 when you were committing the same crimes against humanity on October 6. You can’t extrajudicially execute hundreds of thousands of people, invade hundreds of square miles of other states’ territories, and starve people to death in “self defense.”

In the 10 years before October 7, Israel killed almost twice as many Palestinians as Israelis killed on October 7. And that doesn’t even get into how many October 7 deaths were killed by their own government’s response. How many Israeli hostages were murdered by the Israeli war machine.

In the 10 years before October 7, ten Palestinians were killed for every Israeli killed. Since October 7, as many Palestinians have been killed in Israel and the West Bank as Israelis died on October 7. And 100 times that number have been killed in Gaza. And tens of thousands of those confirmed killed are children.

So what “self defense” are we talking about? And who gets to “defend themselves?" While there was so much focus on Israeli hostages, very little was said about the thousands of Palestinians, thousands of those children, who are being indefinitely held in administrative detention, or railroaded through military courts. In fact before the ceasefires (which somehow don’t stop Israel from killing Palestinians) Israel would ramp up illegal detentions, just so they could give them back in exchange for Israelis.

Adam continued:

It is noted that if a Jew is the victim of hate, you say nothing. It is hard to ignore the underlying motive of hate for Jews.

One of the things that I hate most about social media, is the bad faith argument that you should post equally about everything, or even post anything about everything. Our Jewish neighbors, whether victims of hate or not, have institutional and state protections that Arab and Muslims neighbors and victims do not. Politicians, local police forces, the US Federal Government, all regularly take action to protect our Jewish neighbors, while stoking hate against Arabs and Muslims out of the other side of their mouth. But you don’t have to take my word for it, you can listen to affected Jewish voices:

I mention this in a newsletter about antisemitism because one of the most common refrains I hear from Jews about antisemitism is that if these things were happening to any other group, we — meaning, I guess, Americans — would never tolerate it.

But Americans certainly seem to be tolerating Islamophobia that is far more explicit in its animosity toward Muslims than comparable expressions of hostility against Jews.

…

The national media has been incredibly responsive to Jewish concerns over antisemitism in the aftermath of Oct. 7; it’s difficult to imagine a Muslim pundit who made her name campaigning against Islamophobia being installed atop a major American TV network the way Bari Weiss was at CBS News.

Growing Islamophobia is being overlooked — while drawing on an antisemitic framework by Arno Rosenfeld

To counter Adam’s point, I do post about Sudan. I don’t post more, even though I probably should, because there’s no argument there. It’s an ongoing genocide. I haven’t encountered a single person in my comments or in real life claiming otherwise. There are not US weapons and dollars being used to execute that genocide. Sudanese activists have expressed their solidarity with Palestinians. Sudanese and Palestinian refugees are supporting each other in Egypt. But governments throughout the world, are not stepping in, and our partner the UAE is actively supporting the genocide. There’s not extensive legal and security protection for Sudanese refugees throughout the world being disregarded and destroyed on a daily basis. That’s the difference.

I have, never, not once, not ever, said or posted a single word that expressed “hate for Jews,” nor could I even remotely be seen as having an “underlying motive of hate for Jews.” I would think the Jewish people in my life would find that kind of off putting. I am, however, staunchly, and publicly anti-Zionist, just as I would have been against apartheid in South Africa, and against colonization in the Global South.

It is precisely the fact that I’m able to be so strongly critical of Israeli policy, both foreign and domestic, while also living alongside and supporting Judaism, that drives Zionist to try to falsely paint me as antisemitic. Because they cannot argue on the facts, they can’t counter my words, so they must try to discredit me personally.

Reading

Cuba Has a Rich History of International Solidarity. US Wants to Extinguish It. by Jonathan Ng

But the truth is far more bitter. Trump’s sanctions are accelerating a social crisis that has immobilized Cuban industry, gutted public services, and forced over 10 percent of the population to leave the island in recent years. Hospitals lack electricity, and grocery store shelves are empty amid rolling blackouts. Ratcheting up pressure, U.S. authorities issued a new raft of sanctions against senior Cuban officials this May, while conducting military reconnaissance flights off the coastline.

Trump’s economic powerplay and preparations for a potential invasion are only the latest moves in an ongoing saga of aggression toward Cuba. Rather than prioritizing democracy, Washington has long deployed economic pressure to challenge the island’s fiercely independent social and foreign policies — above all, its commitment to wealth redistribution, solidarity with liberation struggles, and opposition to U.S. imperial hubris.

Judge overturns US sanctions on UN official who called for war crimes prosecutions over Gaza by Josh Gerstein

A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration’s sanctions against a United Nations official who has faced accusations of antisemitism over her calls for war crimes charges against Israeli officials over their actions in Gaza.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio imposed the sanctions on Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur for Palestinian human rights, last July under an executive order President Donald Trump signed authorizing such actions against people “directly engaged” in the International Criminal Court’s investigations related to alleged atrocities in Gaza.

However, in a ruling Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon said the administration’s sanctions against Albanese violate the First Amendment because they’re based solely on her encouraging the ICC to investigate and prosecute.

“Albanese has done nothing more than speak!” Leon wrote in a 26-page decision salted with his trademark exclamation points. “It is undisputed that her recommendations have no binding effect on the ICC’s actions — they are nothing more than her opinion.”

We’re publishing Sally Rooney in Hebrew, in line with BDS. Here’s how and why by Haggai Matar

BDS, is illegal in NJ, specifically and only when used against Israel.

The Israeli public and media have often mischaracterized the BDS movement as inherently discriminatory or antisemitic. This project completely upends that false narrative; as the movement stresses, the cultural boycott targets complicity, not identity.

The BDS movement has articulated three basic demands, rooted in international law and UN resolutions: an end to the Israeli occupation of territories captured in 1967, full civil equality for Palestinian citizens of Israel, and the implementation of the Palestinian right of return. Israeli groups that accept these three principles — and additionally, do not conduct business in West Bank settlements nor receive funding from Israeli state bodies — are exempt from the boycott.

https://www.972mag.com/wp-content/themes/rgb/newsletter.php?page_id=8&section_id=192255

Newark – any municipality – can’t govern with low voter turn out, we need a civics campaign by Josie Gonsalves

Newark voters turned out to put Sherrill in the governor’s seat — yet at her first 100‑days talk at NJPAC, she never mentioned the four hospitals slated to close in Newark.

Consider that in the most populous city in the state — a dominant economic engine for New Jersey and Wall Street, with leading global corporate headquarters — the professional managerial class runs low‑voter‑turnout, no‑contest elections for a duopoly donor class on the backs of working‑class folks.

It raises the question of power and decision‑making: To whom go the spoils, and at what price?

https://www.publicsq.org/latest-articles/dnjnk0kj1uk7jp0gi88ggy05kqzknj

“Gaza Love” Monument Unveiled in Paterson, NJ by Rhea Nayyar

Goen’s popular “Gaza Love” (2014–) design, realized in three dimensions, sits outside of Paterson’s Southside library branch to commemorate the city’s large diasporic Palestinian community at a time of profound loss.

“I call the work ‘Gaza Love’ to communicate that love is solidarity — that it’s resistance,” Goen told Hyperallergic in a phone call. “Love isn’t passive. What pushes us forward is love for ourselves and humanity, and wanting to see people live.”

…

Fabricated by a local signage business in Paterson, Goen’s artwork borrows the colors of the Palestinian flag. He explained that the work celebrates the perseverance of the Palestinian people rather than serving as a marker of loss and dehumanization.

“We’re past the point of conversations,” he said. “ This is hopefully a reminder that our commitment to Palestine needs to become stronger and louder.”

https://hyperallergic.com/gaza-love-monument-unveiled-in-paterson-nj/

Democratic Voters Are Clear: It’s Time to Fight by Katrina vanden Heuvel, John Nichols

After emerging as the victor in a crowded and complicated primary—in which [Analilia Mejia] backed Medicare for All, guaranteed paid sick leave, and a moratorium on AI data centers; accurately described Israel’s assault on Gaza as a genocide; and declared that “it’s time to abolish ICE”—Mejía won the general election by a 20-point margin (more than double the margin that the district gave Kamala Harris in 2024). Mejía embraced her mandate by immediately proposing to raise the federal minimum wage to $25 an hour.

That’s the sort of initiative Democrats need to take in a 2026 election cycle in which, by most accounts, the winds are at their back. 

…

Instead of chasing corporate cash, Democrats should listen to the Working Families Party, which is calling for a national unionized-job guarantee to address potential unemployment stemming from artificial intelligence. They should also consider the Congressional Progressive Caucus’s “New Affordability Agenda,” which takes on corporate greed in order to raise wages and slash costs for gas, groceries, and childcare.

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/democratic-primary-2026-voters/

Board of Trustees Concludes Investigation Into Kotlikoff Car Incident, Finds Students Violated University Policy by Zeinab Faraj

SDC also expressed concerns about the investigation being conducted by the Board of Trustees and CUPD, given Kotlikoff’s ties to the two organizations, stating that this concern is why the students refused to give statements to CUPD. 

“We had no faith in CUPD’s ability to conduct an independent investigation as an arm of the administration which has actively engaged in the repression of student protest, and were concerned that information provided to CUPD could be used against us by the University in disciplinary proceedings,” SDC wrote in an email statement to The Sun. 

SDC stated that the students and alumni involved in the incident were “never contacted by the Board’s Committee or any independent investigator,” and noted that Kotlikoff’s initial public statement about the incident “falsely” accused students of banging on his car windows. 

…

“This decision is not a reflection of the seriousness of their behavior, but a consideration of the realities of our code processes: the public hearings required by the code would grant these students even more of the attention they have been seeking,” Kotlikoff wrote in a separate statement to the Cornell community. “It would, in effect, reward the behavior and further divide our campus community, and this I will not do.”

For Vallecillo, Kotlikoff’s statement “only proves that they would have intended” to suspend the students involved had they not “raised the issue to the wider Cornell community.” Vallecillo also said that Kotlikoff’s trial “contrasts very strongly” with how student trials are held. 

“Students are not allowed to have their witnesses called in, students are suspended immediately before any investigation ever begins,” Vallecillo said. “However, when it comes to administrators, the same standard does not apply.”

Israel Announces Plan to Build Military Complex at UNRWA Site It Bulldozed by Shireen Akram-Boshar

The compound first became UNRWA’s East Jerusalem headquarters in 1952, and was used by the UN agency through 2024. After October 7, 2023, Israeli settlers and right-wing activists protested in front of the UNRWA compound in East Jerusalem, and its staff faced repeated obstruction, threats, arson attacks, and harassment by Israeli settlers and authorities alike. In October 2024, Israel’s parliament passed legislation prohibiting UNRWA operations inside Israel — which the Israeli government interprets to include occupied East Jerusalem.

…

Israel occupied East Jerusalem in 1967, and quickly began to annex its land, in violation of international law. Since then, it has continued to expropriate land and ethnically cleanse Palestinians from the city. This effort was emboldened by Trump’s 2017 declaration of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and relocation of the U.S. embassy to the city.

Dispossession of Palestinians from East Jerusalem, including from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem, where the UNRWA compound is located, has sparked protest by Palestinians. The height of these protests was in 2021, when Israel’s attempts to forcibly expel Palestinian families from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah gave rise to a mass, youth-led Palestinian uprising, dubbed the “Unity Intifada.”