Uncategorized
Why won’t pro-Palestinian protesters turn their attention to Darfur?
Here’s a stark fact: More people may have been killed in Sudan in just the past week than in Gaza in the past two years.
“They’re killing everyone that moves,” said Nathaniel Raymond, executive director at Yale’s Humanitarian Research Lab, in a recent interview with Mehdi Hasan. Raymond’s lab has tracked the carnage via satellite imagery, witnessing the slaughter of innocent civilians in real time.
And the main source for the weapons destroying the Black, non-Arab population in Darfur is the United Arab Emirates, one of the United States’ closest allies in the Middle East.
So where are the American protesters?
A major reason American protesters have relentlessly focused their time and energy on Israel, they say, is that the U.S. is Israel’s most significant ally, as well as an arms supplier to the IDF. There are real actions the U.S. could take to sway the course of events in Israel, so protesters aim to influence the U.S. government to do so.
But the U.S. has ties to conflicts all over the world, especially in Sudan, where a major American ally is helping supply the weapons of slaughter. The idea that its ability to pressure Israel is unique, and therefore worthy of unique focus, is misguided.
“Only American pressure can stop the killing in Sudan,” wrote Alex De Waal, executive director of the World Peace Foundation, in Foreign Affairs. So why aren’t American activists, well, active?
A genocide to rival Rwanda
The UAE has $29 billion in active defense contracts with the U.S. It is also host to — and protected by — the 380th Air Expeditionary Wing and Jebel Ali Port, the U.S. Navy’s largest port of call in the Middle East.
And while UAE officials have denied that they are arming the Arab militia, known as the Rapid Support Forces, responsible for the genocide, diplomats, humanitarian groups and journalists have confirmed the link. Three of the same organizations that pro-Palestinian activists regularly cite in their brief against Israel — the United Nations, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International — have established the UAE’s complicity.
Every crime American protesters accuse Israel of — killing civilians among military targets, rape, starvation as a weapon, destroying hospitals and killing patients in their beds — is happening now, at a far greater scale, in Darfur.
“Rebels hurl racial insults at fleeing women and children,” the Wall Street Journal reported. “Black women with long hair are systematically separated and raped.”
Humanitarian groups say the ongoing slaughter is likely to rival that of Rwanda genocide, and of the genocide that took place in the same Darfur region 30 years ago. That atrocity, led by a predecessor to the RSF, claimed 200,000 lives.
Why would the UAE supply weapons to be used in such a context? Perhaps because it uses Sudan’s mines to supply gold and other resources, and wants to stay on the good side of a group primed to exercise control over ongoing access.
“The war would be over if not for the UAE,” Cameron Hudson, a former chief of staff to successive U.S. presidential special envoys for Sudan, told the Wall Street Journal. “The only thing that is keeping them in this war is the overwhelming amount of military support that they’re receiving from the UAE.”
In the U.S., silence
So where are the protesters shouting at their representatives in town halls to suspend the recent $2 trillion investment agreement between the U.S. and UAE? Pushing sanctions against the UAE? Or demanding New York University shutter its Abu Dhabi campus?
Where are the movie stars and director refusing to engage with the UAE, which according to Variety is the “prime Middle East hub” for Hollywood production? Javier Bardem, who recently said he will no longer work with the Israeli film industry, filmed part of his last movie, F1, in Abu Dhabi last year. What if he said no more?
Imagine the impact if, instead of unveiling her new fragrance, Orebella, at a splashed-out event last week in Abu Dhabi, supermodel Bella Hadid announced that just as she calls relentlessly for the world to boycott Israel, she will no longer visit the Emirates until it ends funding for the genocide in Darfur?
This is not an argument for whataboutism, and none of this is to deflect attention from the injustices and suffering happening in the West Bank and Gaza. Everyone has a right to choose their battles. I don’t ask the Save the Whales people, “But what about the rainforest?”
But if someone is actively bombing the rainforest, today, as you read this — and your country is in bed with the bomb suppliers — then claiming to care about the planet and doing nothing is inexcusable.
“This is not only a crisis of violence but also a crisis of indifference,” wrote Reena Ghelani, CEO of Plan International in Al Jazeera. “Each day the world looks away.”
And the go-to excuse, that Americans lack leverage and influence over the slaughter, is utter BS.
The post Why won’t pro-Palestinian protesters turn their attention to Darfur? appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Rep. Ilhan Omar says Stephen Miller’s comments on immigrants sound like how ‘Nazis described Jewish people’
Rep Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota, on Sunday likened the Trump administration’s immigration rhetoric to Nazi depictions of Jews.
“It reminds me of the way the Nazis described Jewish people in Germany,” Omar said in an interview on CBS’s Face the Nation, commenting on a social media post by Stephen Miller, President Donald Trump’s senior adviser, in which he suggested that “migrants and their descendants recreate the conditions, and terrors, of their broken homelands.” Miller, who is Jewish, is the architect of the Trump administration’s immigration policy.
Omar called Miller’s comments “white supremist rhetoric” and also drew parallels between his characterization of migrants seeking refuge in the U.S. to how Jews were demonized and treated when they fled Nazi-era Germany. “As we know, there have been many immigrants who have tried to come to the United States who have turned back, you know, one of them being Jewish immigrants,” she said.
Now serving as Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy, Miller is central to the White House’s plans for mass deportations and expanded barriers to asylum. During Trump’s first term, Miller led the implementation of the so-called Muslim travel ban in 2017, which barred entry to the U.S. for individuals from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen, and pushed to further reduce a longtime refugee program.
Rep. Ilhan Omar: “When I think about Stephen Miller and his white supremacist rhetoric, it reminds me of the way the Nazis described Jewish people in Germany.” pic.twitter.com/GAjIMqFq26
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 7, 2025
Miller’s comments echoed similar rhetoric by Trump after an Afghan refugee was accused of shooting two National Guard members near the White House last month, killing one.
Trump told reporters at a cabinet meeting last week that Somali immigrants are “garbage” and that he wanted them to be sent “back to where they came from.” The president also singled out Omar, a Somali native who represents Minnesota’s large Somali-American community. “She should be thrown the hell out of our country,” Trump said.
In the Sunday interview, Omar called Trump’s remarks “completely disgusting” and accused him of having “an unhealthy obsession” with her and the Somali community. “This kind of hateful rhetoric and this level of dehumanizing can lead to dangerous actions by people who listen to the president,” she said.
The post Rep. Ilhan Omar says Stephen Miller’s comments on immigrants sound like how ‘Nazis described Jewish people’ appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Nigeria Seeks French Help to Combat Insecurity, Macron Says
French President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, Sept. 15, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Benoit Tessier/Pool
Nigerian President Bola Tinubu has sought more help from France to fight widespread violence in the north of the country, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Sunday, weeks after the United States threatened to intervene to protect Nigeria’s Christians.
Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, has witnessed an upsurge in attacks in volatile northern areas in the past month, including mass kidnappings from schools and a church.
US President Donald Trump has raised the prospect of possible military action in Nigeria, accusing it of mistreating Christians. The government says the allegations misrepresent a complex security situation in which armed groups target both faith groups.
Macron said he had a phone call with Tinubu on Sunday, where he conveyed France’s support to Nigeria as it grapples with several security challenges, “particularly the terrorist threat in the North.”
“At his request, we will strengthen our partnership with the authorities and our support for the affected populations. We call on all our partners to step up their engagement,” Macron said in a post on X.
Macron did not say what help would be offered by France, which has withdrawn its troops from West and Central Africa and plans to focus on training, intelligence sharing and responding to requests from countries for assistance.
Nigeria is grappling with a long-running Islamist insurgency in the northeast, armed kidnapping gangs in the northwest and deadly clashes between largely Muslim cattle herders and mostly Christian farmers in the central parts of the country, stretching its security forces.
Washington said last month that it was considering actions such as sanctions and Pentagon engagement on counterterrorism as part of a plan to compel Nigeria to better protect its Christian communities.
The Nigerian government has said it welcomes help to fight insecurity as long as its sovereignty is respected. France has previously supported efforts to curtail the actions of armed groups, the US has shared intelligence and sold arms, including fighter jets, and Britain has trained Nigerian troops.
Uncategorized
Netanyahu Says He Will Not Quit Politics if He Receives a Pardon
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu participates in the state memorial ceremony for the fallen of the Iron Swords War on Mount Herzl, Jerusalem on Oct. 16, 2025. Photo: Alex Kolomoisky/POOL/Pool via REUTERS
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that he would not retire from politics if he receives a pardon from the country’s president in his years-long corruption trial.
Asked by a reporter if planned on retiring from political life if he receives a pardon, Netanyahu replied: “no”.
Netanyahu last month asked President Isaac Herzog for a pardon, with lawyers for the prime minister arguing that frequent court appearances were hindering Netanyahu’s ability to govern and that a pardon would be good for the country.
Pardons in Israel have typically been granted only after legal proceedings have concluded and the accused has been convicted. There is no precedent for issuing a pardon mid-trial.
Netanyahu has repeatedly denied wrongdoing in response to the charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust, and his lawyers have said that the prime minister still believes the legal proceedings, if concluded, would result in a complete acquittal.
US President Donald Trump wrote to Herzog, before Netanyahu made his request, urging the Israeli president to consider granting the prime minister a pardon.
Some Israeli opposition politicians have argued that any pardon should be conditional on Netanyahu retiring from politics and admitting guilt. Others have said the prime minister must first call national elections, which are due by October 2026.