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tv   Up Front  Al Jazeera  December 1, 2024 12:30pm-1:00pm AST

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celts in a traumatic out people, and they try everything they could to control with a downturn, housing prices. but unfortunately, that means this housing decline probably will last for many years. that seem to reckoning to prolong the full loud from china is economic was rob mcbride, i'll do their shanghai calling for his address. in global plastic pollution has entered h final day insights, korea delegates of pushing for the treaty to curb the production of plastic and restrict single use plastics. units kim has more from the confidence in the city of books on that. there is palpable concerns that what could result out of this 2 year dash toward a legally binding treaty on plastic pollution could fall deeply short and stop at waste management. on sunday, delegates from the coalition of ambitious countries pledge they were determined to get to a meaningful treaty in the few hours left. an underlined and need to address toxic
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chemicals that make up plastics and are emitted in their production of mass destruction. these are not the last, these are boys avery piece that allows you to also on our on our nature the lack of debate over how to regulate single use. plastics frustrates countries like panama with micro plastic detect it from the arctic to human breast milk active as a more chemicals should be tested for toxicity. and their results made transparent . this opportunity to address the life cycle of plastics is being characterized as once in a generation. but with oil producing countries pushing hard against production
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costs. it remains to be seen whether consensus is within reach and this last round of the i m. c. unit skim. alda 0 who's on south korea, but that's all from floods inside of thailand has risen to 9. more than half a 1000000 homes have been affected. searching fires and people have investigated so far and more. heavy rain is forecast for the warnings. a flash floods and waves as high as 3 meters across 9 provinces. upfront is next time robots us. stay with us and i'll just see the, the decades. these 2 biggest cases pursuing half the choices of ethnic cleansing in the balkans. a full, the criminal investigator which tends to croatia and bosnia and herzegovina to find
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out if international justice can work. the investigation. witness on out just how it signs. modern history has been marked by displacement. apartheid and now and increasingly little genocide at the hands of israel as images of death and destruction continue to pour out of gaza as the world finally opened his eyes to the plight of the palestinian people. and what's the historical significance of this moment for power sky and for the why to read this week on a phone, i went to new york to speak to one of the pre eminent historians of the palestinian people. edwards, a professor emeritus of modern arab studies at columbia university, received the letter c, telling me thank you so much for joining me on upfront. it's a pleasure, one that we've been witnessing a genocide and guys that for over a year. now,
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israel has killed tens of thousands of palestinians with some estimate suggesting the numbers are considerably higher over a 1000000 people have been displaced. but when you look at the major events in palestine history, whether it's the neck, but whether it's the so as crisis, the 1960 and we're all this up to shape the region just to name a few where it is this moment stand and that history as well, this is a continuation of some of those things. it's a continuation of the neck of ethnic cleansing, but it's actually worse than any of the episodes that i can think of. a larger part of the policy and population was displaced in 1948 during the neck, but, but what has been done during this genocide in terms of the punishment that's being population is being exposed to, is actually worse than any phase that i can recall a pulsing history. what, what, what, why worse is it just the sheer numbers? they are deliberately killing huge numbers without states. this is not, you know,
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accidental because there's, they're human shields for whatever. this is a systematic attempt to make guys a livable to image, right? that population in 9048, they just killed people and drove them out. and you know, a massacre here. a massacre there. i'm not trying to minimize the horrors of 1948, but there were only 15000 people killed when the bodies are, are dug up from under the ruins of gaza. the number that you quoted tens of thousands is going to be a fraction of the number killed. we don't know and we won't know for very long time and the conditions to which the policies have been subjected. this made into the half, almost 2000000 people displaced again and again and again and again. i mean, this is, this is the unprecedented even, even in palestine history, you said the goal is to make gaza and livable. mm hm. what's the in game there? is it just resettlement? is it? what's the goal?
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what do you, what can you imagine the calculus is there? i mean, we know from the beginning of the war that the original objective was to kick as many people out of goes as possible and to the disgrace, the internal disgrace of the united states. the american secretary of state went around to egypt. jordan inside the room and tried to get them to take people's israel would drive out of the gaza strip. so the original objective was ethnic cleansing, of as many people from gaza as could removed. what they're doing now is apparently clearing the northern part of guys, driving out as many people from there, turning it into a right now occupied zone and possibly later into settlements. we don't know. so i think that there's the ample evidence from what is rarely need or say, said and from what the us government, the office of managing management and budget put into the, the appropriation goal for israel. that was actually passed, which included money for resettlement. outside of guys, so the united states was going to help them to do this. we know that that was the original go. now they couldn't do it because egypt wouldn't play along in jordan
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player. but within the gaza strip, they seem to be forcing people into smaller and smaller, smaller areas. and again, that's what they didn't. 1948 they. they pushed as many people out of the area that they took during the 48 war. and that's what settler call and he'll projects always do. i mean, look what was done in north america, pushing native americans into smaller and smaller areas. the ones who weren't killed in the process of the international criminal court recently issued arrest warrants for israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu, as well as former defense minister. you have gone as well as her masses, military chief, accusing them of crimes against humanity. the warrant means that if any of them travel to a member country, they could be arrested. right? but what's the significance of this warrant? i mean, outside the little bubbles in which his release had been, you know, sequestered their media just replaced with the government. once a once wants them to hear and outside the bubble of american politics and
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a lot of the mainstream american media, everybody in the world has been, i think, affected by this. they realize that international instances are saying what a lot of us have been saying for all a while. these are for crowds and i think that's going to very severely effect is really sooner or later. because it's not just this former minister and this prime minister, sooner or later other ministers generals senior officers is going to realize i may be in danger traveling to england on i may be in date, i may be arrested now saying if nothing. yeah, who comes to our country, we will arrest him. mm. it's still not the same as taking an affirmative action and mike, uh, intervening more aggressively in the midst of a genocide. right. why are we not seeing more countries taking that step? if you want my honest opinion, there's 2 things. the leads in these countries have not yet come to a realization that younger people who are looking at social media and are watching slaughter before they're very eyes have come to. they're still living in another
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world, a lot of a lot of leaders, a lot of politicians, much of the mainstream media in england and france and certainly in the united states. the 2nd thing is they're afraid of united states. i mean, to be put in very bluntly a lot of european countries do not want across washington. a lot of 3rd world on a, you know, global south countries do not want across washington. and i think a lot of them are afraid of what may come in the trumpet ministration. they already were, you know, having to face a lot of blow back from the binding ministration. that's not going to get any better and it may get worse under trump. it seems that without the united states, this thing we didn't very quickly, i can't imagine israel could continue to prosecute a genocidal war without us support maybe a few months, some of the some, some of these really process said they can't go on for more than 3 or 4 months without these constant shipments of that, munitions and resupply, and new tubes for the artillery and for the tank guns, i mean, that's what they say. and that's on dr. lee. true, the united states, as a participant in this war. it's not just that american officials, according to the new york times,
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and the washington post in the bbc are helping the is released to kill leaders of hamis and his butler. it's not just that american troops are on the ground with anti aircraft and anti missile defense. it is that the whole war machine would grind to a halt within a matter of months, according to what these really say their military says. so united states has a direct participant, in addition to which the security council with immediately adopt resolution forcing israel to stop were not for the us veto, which i think has been applied for times. yep. and the security council since this war began. so united states, as an active participant, and this was why, why are they so committed to this relationship? why do they not pull out? i mean, we spoke to political side as john mearsheimer. and he argues that the us commitment to israel stems primarily from the influence of the israel lobby works to shape u. s. foreign policy in a pro israel direction. but other, say it's the other way around at the us as much to gain from having are kind of
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stones out like that. it's a strategic motivation rather than all right in the lobby issue. what's your perspective? i mean i, i respect john, he was a former colleague, is a friend, and i think he's right about the lobby, but only up to a certain extent. it's really clear that for a lot of american military officials and strategist, they see 1st of all, their interventions, they believe in force. and israel is a tool in that arsenal it during the cold war, it helped the united states to beat down. so get proxies defeating countries on by the soviet union. and then in the cold war, you know, that, that black and white, you know, 0 sum a game that was an advantage to the united states. and that was, that was the anchor of the, of the strategic aspect of the american is really relationship. and united states is at odds with their own. and so is real as seen as a potential ally. and now i would argue these rallies are trying to drag the united states into a war with the wrong the united states doesn't want that. most americans,
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strategist, leaders, military officials, no, would be a catastrophe. it would also be an election loser. anybody who gets united states into a wall with the wrong will lose the next to absolute. yeah, i mean, you run sorry, or the rock or proved that was in the middle east. and as did afghanistan are extremely unpopular with american public opinion. so, but to get back to your, your, your basic, quite just in the strategic thing is part of it. the other thing is, think about us. going back to woodrow wilson, where was the support for the posting is where we're the pastor, they didn't exist. there wasn't none. where was the support for us? that was robust among angelic goals in the jewish community, among politicians from wilson right up to the last decade or 2, there was no support whatsoever, anywhere in american public opinion for the post dance they did not exist. now that's changed. most americans oppose this war. democrats, republicans,
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independence, most americans want to stop us armed shipments to israel. most americans did tests nothing. yeah. i mean, there's poll after poll to pull the chose, this is a solid trend over the better part of the year. this is new, the politicians have still not you know, begin to begin to bring this into their calculus. that that's super interesting, the shift toward a kind of public critique of nathan. yeah. who obviously can be helpful. yeah. a. what is there a danger in the focus being on the particular regime as opposed to the system in structure? so absolutely i, i think you hit the nail on the head. the problem is not nothing. you know, the nothing you know, has a, has a government that includes politicians from 3 quarters the way are halfway across the israeli political spectrum. and what he is doing is popular. and israel, if it's not nothing, you know, it's going to be someone else. this is a popular war and israel, in spite of the, you know, the, israel's,
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was what the settler movement has been doing. has met almost no push back inside israel. so if nothing else were to disappear tomorrow on criminal charges or, you know, lose no confidence vote. i know thanks very much would change, frankly. and i think that the focus on that then. yeah, it was it to some extent and attempt to divert criticism from long standing basic is really policies which nathaniel today represents but which will continue after that, you know, in apax, by the way, uh, seems to continue to be a major player in this. i mean, when he was a senator back in the old days, us president joe biden was the largest recipient of a pac money. he is the largest recipient of pro israel money. of anybody who's ever served in us at $1400000.00 over his career. how does, how does that impact the impact policy directly? i mean, we, we, we live in a country in which legalized private bribery,
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legalized bribery is the basis of our political system. politicians shield for money from big donors. and that's the way the system works. so obviously money has a, has a role to play, but i mean, i would argue public opinion has a role to play. so think about how many people ever in the history of the us congress stood up and criticized israel. and how long did they last? you know senator percy gym over is pete mccloskey, you can literally count them on the fingers of one hand and you can count the number of terms they served on the fingers. right. i think couple of things. that's not, that's no changing. i mean, you had 19 senators who had the courage to stand up and call for all to arms sales to israel. that's unprecedented. there has never been a block in congress of people with the courage to stand up to a pack and the cards to represent what most of their constituents actually believe . that's new. but you're right, the power of a pack is, is,
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is still there. i would argue it's diminished, but it's still there. it's still quite fun that you mentioned the senator is standing up. mm hm. i'm asking for an into arm says and these are conditional demands, right, right. like as long as there's a genocide and god. so we want you to stop the arm sales, the next. that would be, hey, let's just dismantle this relationship. but that's a much hard. i mean, i would take, holding the i'm sales, frankly, given this genocide as, as i would take, that is when it's time for this whole relationship to be re exempt. but this is a, this is a, this is a terrible moment. people are being slaughtered by the dozens, every single day by american weapons in violation of us law. they, i mean, they're basically engaging themselves in criminal activity in violation of us law by allowing american weapons to be used in the way that they're being used not for defensive purposes. and how does killing 500 people meet any definition of to kill one m s. liter or one has well, a leader meet a definition of defensive purposes. how does starving the population of guys and
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preventing the 4 or $500.00 trucks that should be going in every day, not meet the definition of this is a violation of us law in terms of preventing them out there in aid. i mean, there's no way that this stuff is not a violation of us law. these people actually, all criminals will talk you a little bit about public opinions. i think it has been some, as we've talked about some changes last spring, we saw huge protests across universities in us calling for a free palestine for cease fire for an in to a part time. and they were using at explicit language. you joined the faculty at columbia university in new york city uh over 20 years ago. from the time you started until now. uh, how market is the shift in public opinion on this issue? i mean, i can give you an example from campuses. i can give you an example from public opinion in general, just before i, john club joined columbia in 2003. there was a vote among students about divesting from companies that support israel's occupation. it failed into i think was 2002 or 2001 i don't, i wasn't,
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i wasn't uncle. and they had a vote in 2020, over 2 thirds of students voted in favor of the assessment at columbia. and then born in college. and those votes were, were produced at michigan in brown. and so among young people, public opinion has clearly shifted in the last 20 years. there's no question. there is no question whatsoever that for young people, at least this is now a different issue than it was for, you know, the generation before them. i don't think public opinion as a whole has shifted as markedly, but it clearly has shifted. i mean, i cannot remember and is really war. that was this unpopular with the american public opinion. you look at the polls. this war is unpopular with majorities of americans. that's new. so there has been a shift you talking with these young people and i think you're right on college campuses. yeah. very different. i mean there's a, there's a strong pro palestine sentiment there. that's the students. right. i was
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wondering if you saw a similar shift among the faculty just recently mar finkelstein, a tiered associate professor at muhlenberg college and pensylvania. i was terminated for re posting an instagram story of it featured a statement from a palestinian poet, right? she's not the only professor who is that scrutiny, although she's maybe the 1st 10. your profess it'd be fine. but i think that may be true. yeah. yet how secure is academia for people who support palestine these days they are under enormous pressure. i mean, several of my colleagues are facing disciplinary procedures. proceedings at columbia. lots of staff are under pressure. staff have been fire. yeah. contingent faculty or under much greater pressure, non tenured faculty graduates. the mechanisms of repression are concerted, are often in coordination with law enforcement are operating according to the dictates of right wing politicians like virginia fox and it least authentic who are
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on the house education committee and brought those presidents in for a grilling and the donors. and a lot of the parents and a lot of the alumni are putting huge pressure on american universities to correct. so the older people, the more conservative people, are weighing in with their money with their voices. and as are the politicians so, so the atmosphere is actually very, very harsh, not just for students, but also from faculty and staff. i mean, even it's your own campus. during the encampments, you're accused of being a, quote, spokes person for how may i ask by a colleague or another, columbia university professor who's now been temporarily banned from the campus. right. how did you process that? how do you make sense of that kind of experience? it's not the 1st time i've been called a terrorist. i mean, i have a what i call harassment file, in which there are thousands 100 scores of, of similar avionic accusations. i didn't pay much attention to what i was about to
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retire anyway. what are they going to do to me? i don't care for people who are younger, for people who are not tenured, for people who are contingent for graduate students, these can be career ending for somebody like me. you know, water off a duck's back. well, that's, that's a, it's a very mature way, way of, of, of thinking about that and processing that. now there were um allegations that some students protesting made comments about murdering scientists or said things like go back to poland and then there were some pro is real student who also reportedly called who calling protesters terrorist and they were harassing students with where he jab for example write up or, or i guess he is ok fee or anything. i mean, how do you sort of establish clear boundaries between principal protests even if we disagree with it, and some, and harassment and harmful behavior. and what is that line and your case, the columbia do a good job of establishing that line in columbia,
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the terrible job from the beginning to the current moment. but i think this is a broader problem. i think the 1st thing to say is you have to draw a clear line of violence actually physically harming people. and there's no question that in a few cases that boundary was trans transgressed, but much fewer then the, the hysterical media made it out to the end. the historical politicians made it up to appear. there were almost no incidents of violence in what is it now a year in a month? yeah, of unrest at columbia and most other universities are campuses i'm aware of and what violence there was came often from the police or from counter demonstrators. the 2nd thing is a lot of the stuff people are talking about didn't even take place on campus demonstrations that took place off campus or not the responsibilities of our students, the responsibilities of groups in society. and the 3rd thing is we have something called free speech in this country. people can say, hateful, nasty things. i'm not happy when they do that. they maybe shouldn't do that,
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but they have a right to do that. as long as they don't cost the boundary that the supreme court is established with the campus clements have a greater i was gonna say one more. it's only a police, which is all of that has to be distinguished from the, the classroom that, that's here. there, things that may be acceptable in the public space are not acceptable. there are things you cannot and shouldn't say. and there's a, there's a level of a mutual respect and a dialogue that has to take place in the classroom, or you can have education. i don't think education was interrupted. i don't think there were cases where people were on in the classroom. there were people who were harassed or hon, maybe in some ways, emotionally or, or in their feelings, in the demonstrations on campus. but that's the public space. let us talk about those feelings because if you're a college campus and people are channing and marching and you feel unsafe. mm. what, how much do we factor that in, for example, there were
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a jewish students who would say that some of the palestinian chance free palestine right made them on safe, were riveted to see, meet them and see how do you balance that, you know, a part of being on a college campuses hearing ideas and make you on company. yeah. but what's the difference in being uncomfortable with an idea and actually feeling unsafe even if nobody physically harms you? i mean, i have to say the, the language of safe and unsafe, i think, is a lot more appropriate for kindergarten than it is to university campus. i'm terribly sorry to say this. you know, they are in the public space where you're not in the classroom. if you walk around the demo, if you don't like what they're saying, but people have a right to free expression. there is freedom of speech in this country. people can say things that i hate to say it are hateful. and that may hurt people's feelings. tough. that's my, that's my personal view. i mean, i've been called things on the cat on campus. when i was engaged in demonstrations that were nasty and hateful in our ethic and you know,
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false. you're out there demonstrating you, you take what gets what comes your way. then if you don't want to listen to it, walk away. i mean, i think that this whole language of safe and so on and so forth is entirely inappropriate to political protest about issues of the day. whether we're talking about abortion, or whether we're talking about a native american rights or with whatever we may be talking about. you know, some people are offended when people say things about native americans and separate colonialism. tough. your feelings are hurt. because somebody said this about slavery or that about separate colonialism. tough luck in the classroom. it's different. okay, in the family, it's maybe different. that's those are the and the conflation of those things is an insidious tactic to shut down freedom of speech and also academic freedom in my opinion. so let's talk a little bit about the future. me. as we think about the resistance and also thinking about the entity that's being resisted. mm hm. how stable is israel's
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control over the region given shifting public opinion, given the icy see decision given even internally, what's happening in israel? i mean, what the sooner or later have to realize is they cannot rule over another people. it never worked in the past. the conversation always happens sooner or later. and they have to give up their addiction to force. i mean, there's an is really adage if force doesn't work using more force, well hasn't worked very well and it's not working and it's not going to work. you can kill and kill and kill. you can take out level after level, after level of leadership and they've been doing it for decades. and they're in a worse situation today. the idea that you can implant a jewish state in our country without that coming back to haunt you in the 21st century. i mean, tony just said that if they had done this centuries ago, they might have gotten away with it. but today, very hard. but that's the long term. the other thing is the connection between israel and it's as it were metro poll,
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which is united states and then western europe is framing every day when we talk about israel's isolation, we're not talking about the global south, it's already isolated in the global self, we're talking about it's isolation in canada and australia and, and britain and france and united states in terms of public opinion. they still have the leaks, they sit there and arrogantly think, well, you know, as long as congress voted down that resolution, we're good. well, they're not good sooner. or later, a public opinion is going to happen and it took us 101215 years to stop the vietnam war took 10 more than 10 years to stop the rock war. sooner or later, public opinion is going to catch up and they cannot go on without that external support without the details, without the trade. and most importantly that the guns i was excited to. thank you so much for the fine. you're very welcome. thank you. the
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john, i will choose its next president and parliament on december. the 7 bought with nationwide protest service touring installation on claims events 0 fraud. can the country maintainance position as a beacon of democracy in west africa follow? gone as elections on challenges. era unique perspective. we don't want ahead to well, but we no longer have any private spaces on the incident. that's a scary well on heard voices a year into this genocide. it still remains large. one section, connect with our community and tap into conversation as you find elsewhere, but humanity, the number of people who want to stop sending weapons has gone up and up despite what they hear in the mainstream media. in the united states, the stream on algebra, the, the,
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there's no limit to how a dream continue to study in your own event, you know, counter everything's in a split 2nd, a little go full of life, joins the ranks of hundreds of children and it has was lost at least one live amputated scott, but by no means broke. she looks to the future and have a key on that show has saved owen medicine in pipelines, old between names on the jersey, the colleges here with
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the, [000:00:00;00] the other one sammy's a done. this is the news, our live from dell. how coming up in the next 60 minutes, the opposition fines is. continue their advance in syria moving south from alaska towards comma garza and jose. another knife is right . the strikes more than 40 palestinians killed in one strong cologne. protest is

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