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PA ‘backtracks’ on UN resolution against Israel amid US pressure

The UAE, which had drafted the resolution along with PA officials, has dropped the resolution and the vote apparently amid US pressure, reports say.

Reports by several other US and Israeli news outlets citing diplomatic sources said the PA agreed to drop pursuit of the vote amid pressure from the US government, including promises of a financial aid package as well as a temporary suspension of announcements on new Israeli settlement units and Palestinian home demolitions.

“[US Secretary of State Antony] Blinken reiterated an offer to the Palestinians for a US package of incentives to entice them to drop or at least delay the resolution,” the Associated Press said in a report published on Sunday, citing “diplomats familiar with the conversations”.

“Those incentives included a White House meeting for Abbas with President Joe Biden, movement on reopening the American consulate in Jerusalem, and a significant aid package,” the report continues, adding that “Abbas was noncommittal”.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, longtime Palestinian politician Mustafa Barghouti said a decision by the PA to withdraw the vote “goes against the Palestinian national struggle”.

“We reject equating between two sides – one that is an aggressor and an occupier, and the other that is living under occupation and apartheid. Some are saying we need to focus on diplomatic and political resistance, so why has the decision been withdrawn? Even diplomatic resistance is forbidden? Even resistance based on international law?”

“We call on the Palestinian Authority not to approve withdrawing the resolution,” Barghouti added.

The situation on the ground has become increasingly tense over the past few months under Israel’s new extreme right-wing government, which has taken steps to further ignite tensions including significantly increasing home demolitions in occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank, and carrying out several large deadly raids in Palestinian cities.

Most recently, on February 13, the Israeli government approved the “legalisation” of nine settlement outposts and announced plans to advance thousands of new illegal settlement units, which prompted the UNSC draft resolution.

The Palestinian foreign ministry said in a statement that the decision crossed “all red lines” and undermined the revival of “the peace process”.

The US has criticised Israel’s decision to expand the settlements, but at the same time also expressed its reservations against a push for the UN to denounce the move.


In response to the dropping of the UNSC vote, Martin Konecny, head of the European Middle East Project, said “anyone framing this as a US diplomatic success is taking a very narrow & biased lens”.

“This is the US arm-twisting Palestinians to shelve entirely legitimate resolution, sidelining UNSC as guardian of int’l order & shielding Israel’s expansionism,” he added.

Alaska oil project approval adds yet another climate concern

The Biden administration's approval of a massive oil development in northern Alaska commits the U.S. to yet another decades long crude project even as scientists urgently warn that only a halt to more fossil fuel emissions can stem climate change.

ConocoPhillips' Willow project would produce 180,000 barrels of oil a day at its peak, and using that crude would result in at least 263 million tons (239 million metric tonnes) of greenhouse gas emissions over 30 years.

Demand for oil isn't dropping as the planet heats, and a bitter political dispute over the project, which was approved Monday, has underscored the Democratic administration's struggle to balance economic pressures against pledges to curb fossil fuels. The proposal in the remote region north of the Arctic Circle also highlights the paradox facing the U.S. and other nations: The world's transition to clean energy lags the realities of an economy still largely driven by oil consumption.

"At some point, we have to leave oil and gas and coal in the ground. And for me, that some point is now -- particularly in a vulnerable ecosystem like the Arctic," said Rob Jackson, a climate scientist at Stanford University.

For Alaska, the project promises an economic boost after oil production dropped sharply since the late 1980s, and political leaders from both parties in the state united in support of it. Oil has long been the economic lifeblood of the still-young state, with revenues also helping remote communities and villages on Alaska's petroleum-rich North Slope invest in local infrastructure.

But the state has also felt the impacts of the changing climate: coastal erosion is threatening Indigenous villages, unusual wildfires are popping up, sea ice is thinning and permafrost promises to release carbon as it melts.

The energy sector accounts for 90% of carbon dioxide emissions worldwide and three-quarters of the total human-made greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere.

Yet global demand for crude is expected to continue rising, according to industry analysts and the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

The planet is "as far from zero emissions as we've ever been" despite the emphasis on renewable energy.

"This administration has pledged to oversee a historic transition to clean energy, but actions speak louder than words," said Earthjustice attorney George Torgun

US says it is ‘extremely troubled’ by new Israeli settlements law

Washington also denounces comments by Israeli minister claiming Palestinian people are ‘an invention’ of past century.

The United States has renewed its opposition to Israeli settlement policies, saying that Washington was “extremely troubled” by an Israeli law that paves the way for restoring illegal settlements in the north of the occupied West Bank.

State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel told reporters on Tuesday that the law, approved by the Knesset hours earlier, violates Israeli commitments to Washington against advancing settlements in the area.

“The legislative changes announced today are particularly provocative and counterproductive to efforts to restore some measures of calm as we head into Ramadan, Passover and the Easter holidays,” Patel said.

He added that the US “strongly urges” Israel to refrain from returning settlers to the area, parts of which are privately owned by Palestinians.

On Tuesday, Patel went on to broadly criticise Israeli settlement expansion. “This is something specifically we have been very clear about — that the growth of settlements and outposts is inconsistent with our views on what steps are necessary to get us to a negotiated two-state solution in a peaceful way,” he said during a news briefing.

Despite the strong words, Patel was pressed repeatedly by reporters about what the Biden administration is doing to sway Israel from advancing its settlement plans, and he failed to outline any measures beyond raising the issue with Israeli officials.


A White House statement describing a call between President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday did not mention any US criticism of settlements. Instead, the White House said Biden “reiterated his unwavering commitment to Israel’s security” during the call.

“Our commitment to Israel’s security and Israel’s security concerns are ironclad,” Patel said on Tuesday. “But I will also note that we have  — when we need to — very frank and honest conversations with our Israeli partners.”

Police unveiled a new sign near the dirt path linking New York state with Quebec, informing people they could be arrested and returned to the U.S. if they crossed

U.S. President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced changes to the Safe Third Country Agreement on Friday after a record number of asylum seekers arrived in Canada via unofficial border crossings, putting pressure on Trudeau to address it.

The Safe Third Country Agreement, signed in 2002 and which came into effect in 2004, originally meant asylum seekers crossing into either Canada or the United States at formal border crossings were turned back and told to apply for asylum in the first “safe” country they arrived in.

Now it applies to the entire 6,416-km (3,987-mile) land border. Under the revised pact, anyone who crosses into either country anywhere along the land border and who applies for asylum within 14 days will be turned back.

The new deal’s stated aim is to promote orderly migration and ease pressure on communities overwhelmed by a spike in asylum seekers who crossed at places like Roxham Road to avoid being turned back at official entry points.

But enforcing the amended agreement by apprehending people who cross anywhere along the land border could be a logistical nightmare and put people at risk, critics say.

If the purpose of this change is to deter irregular crossings, said University of Toronto law professor Audrey Macklin, “it will simply fail.”

When asylum seekers crossed at Roxham Road they wanted to be caught by authorities because they knew that was the way to file refugee claims. If the incentive becomes evasion, critics fear, people will be driven underground and toward riskier modes of travel. They will want to sneak into the country and hide for two weeks before claiming refugee status.

“This will divert people into more dangerous, more risky, more clandestine modes of entry across 6,000 kilometers of border,” Macklin said.

“That’s just a job-creation program for smugglers.

Just two weeks out from the end of the Title 42 public health border expulsion program — never needed and kept in place long after it even had a plausible defense — the Biden administration this week outlined a plan to open up processing centers in Guatemala and Colombia to pre-screen would-be migrants for refugee or other humanitarian status, and then place them in the U.S., Canada or Spain.

Ideally, this announcement will be a prompt for the administration to double down on revitalizing a beleaguered refugee resettlement system that was allowed to deteriorate badly in the Trump years, both as a result of his anti-immigrant efforts and the effect of the COVID pandemic.

Over the last two fiscal years, the U.S. resettled about 30,000 refugees, less than a fourth of just fiscal year 2022′s cap of 125,000 and the lowest levels since the program began more than four decades ago, even as officials have complained bitterly about the flows of asylum seekers who aren’t functionally being given other choices to seek humanitarian protections in the U.S.

The commitment, made last year, to take in 20,000 refugees from Latin America in this and next fiscal year is a positive step, but it must also be said that this is a drop in the bucket given the volume of need, and it should be the administration’s ultimate goal to significantly expand that number. This program must also be used as a complement to the current asylum program, not a replacement.

The reason that the asylum program frustrates officials so much is the same reason that it’s important: it’s a way for people to reach safety first and plead their case later, if the circumstances demand it. That doesn’t mean that anyone should be satisfied with chaotic flows that force people to traverse through danger, but it also doesn’t mean that we can give up on asylum altogether or foreclose on the possibility of people exercising their right to seek it in service of a more orderly and politically digestible approach.

Washington — The U.S. deported or returned more than 11,000 migrants to Mexico and more than 30 other countries in a week as part of a Biden administration effort to increase and publicize deportations following the expiration of Title 42 border restrictions, officials said Friday.
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Unlike those expelled under Title 42, migrants deported under U.S. immigration law can face severe immigration and criminal consequences, such as a five-year banishment from the U.S. and potential jail time and criminal prosecution if they attempt to reenter the country without the government's permission.

The Biden administration has highlighted the increased number of formal deportations, and the consequences they carry, as part of a broader campaign to deter migrant arrivals along the U.S.-Mexico border, which reached all-time highs over the past two years.
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The asylum restriction is designed to make it harder for migrants to pass initial screenings that determine whether they should be allowed to present their case to a judge. Those who fail these interviews face swift deportation. DHS on Friday said U.S. asylum officers had interviewed more than 2,700 migrants in the past week.

Migrants often can't access US health care until they are critically ill – here are some of the barriers they face
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Restrictive immigration policy and a fervent anti-immigrant environment creates what immigration scholars call “chilling effects” for undocumented migrants. It makes safe spaces like hospitals and clinics feel unsafe. Fearing that health practitioners will out them for their legal status, many migrants decide to forego seeking care altogether.
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Rodney, an undocumented Honduran man, arrived at a different clinic, also in need of a hernia surgery. However, two things distinguished Rodney from Adrian. The first was that Rodney’s pain was far more intense. Small movements caused Rodney severe pain in his abdomen, and if he pushed himself too far, his intestines could become strangulated, leading to a cutoff in blood flow and death. The second distinction was that Rodney had no ID.

“I’m sorry,” the staff member said. “Without an ID, I can’t check you in.”

Disheartened, Rodney left the clinic with a hand pressed to his stomach. The pain continued, and the waiting game began.

Like other low-income undocumented migrants without an ID, Rodney was unable to legally access a primary care provider and obtain a referral to surgically fix his hernia. This meant that Rodney had no other choice than to wait for his hernia to turn into a life-threatening situation, at which point he would be eligible for emergency care under the 1986 Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act.

Rodney’s case was one of many that emerged in my study about how low-income undocumented migrants navigate today’s health care system. Checking for IDs is a routine practice in medical settings. For health practitioners, IDs are necessary for medical reimbursement claims.

When undocumented migrants cannot provide an ID, they are often denied care and begin a trajectory of exacerbated suffering. For some, this means having their long-term care needs relegated to private, medically unaccredited personal care homes. For others, this means an involuntary waiting game where, for many, death seems like the only possible way out.

Under the current system, emergency care becomes possible for low-income undocumented migrants without an ID only after their bodies fail. For Rodney, care was only possible if he let his hernia worsen. In another case in my study, Pedro, an undocumented Mexican man with a urinary tract abnormality, had to wait for his kidneys to completely shut down before he could seek emergency room services.

“I’m just tired,” Pedro told me. “Waiting all the time. And now, I’m waiting to die.”

Health practitioners vow to “do no harm,” but when it comes to immigrant health care, the system is set up in way that legally inhibits them from “doing good.”

A scathing report published Wednesday by a nonprofit human rights organization details the dangers and horrors faced by people seeking asylum in the two months since the Biden administration lifted Title 42.

The report, published by Human Rights First, was based on attorney and researcher visits to the southern border. It included interviews with more than 300 migrants and asylum-seekers in Mexican cities such as Reynosa and Matamoros, where thousands of people are camped out in large makeshift encampments amid a persistent and brutal summer heat wave.

Earlier this week, a 15-year-old girl from Guatemala died while in the custody of the U.S. refugee agency.
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"While Biden administration officials have inaccurately touted it as 'working,' the grim reality is that the asylum ban is a refugee protection, humanitarian, and legal travesty," researchers wrote in the report. "The Biden asylum ban has stranded vulnerable people in places where they are targets of kidnapping and violent assaults, rigged the credible fear process against people seeking asylum, and deported many without meaningful access to counsel and despite potential eligibility for asylum under U.S. law."
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"Our findings make clear that the Biden asylum ban is a legal and humanitarian disgrace," said Christina Asencio, director of research and analysis at Human Rights First and a co-author of the report.
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conditions there are quickly deteriorating as temperatures soar, clean water is scarce and criminals take advantage of people seeking asylum or hoping to enter the U.S.
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"The amount of pregnant women, nursing women, toddlers, infants is outrageous," she said.

"Neither government cares if these people live or die," she added, referring to the United States and Mexico.