True Left

Palestinian Youth Movement organizer Mohammed Hisam explains how to be in solidarity with Palestine, who really organized the All Out For Palestine rally, why they organized it and why he’s so disappointed in “Progressive Democratic Congress members who jump ship when it gets too hot.”

Mohammed Hisam is an organizer with the Palestinian Youth Movement and currently serves as Director of Advocacy and Education for the Palestinian American Cultural Center - Houston. As an community organizer, Hisam engages in advocacy on behalf of the Palestinian community and for the Palestinian cause through organizing demonstrations and educational events and overseeing two critical grants that support Palestinian students and student organizing on Texas campuses

This is exactly right. A candidate’s stance on Palestine is a bellwether of how they will stand on all international issues.

The increasing number of migrants and refugees and the low number of deportations has become a major political issue in Germany, with the right-wing populists capitalizing on the anti-immigrant sentiment.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced a tougher asylum policy in a major interview with Germany's Spiegel magazine, in which he promised, "We must finally deport on a large scale those who have no right to stay in Germany." He called it unacceptable that deportation procedures often drag on for years.

Now, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser, a Social Democrat like the chancellor, wants to follow through on the pledge and has presented a bill that has been approved by the federal cabinet. She told reporters in Berlin on Wednesday that the reform of deportation procedures was only one step in a series of migration policies. "We are ensuring that people without the right to stay have to leave our country more quickly. In this way, we are strengthening society's support for the reception of refugees in Germany," she said.
She said the restrictive measures ensuring more and faster repatriations were necessary so Germany could fulfill its humanitarian responsibility for those needing protection from war and terror. "To protect the fundamental right to asylum, we must significantly limit irregular migration," Faeser said.

New rules for deportations
Faeser's bill provides for more powers for authorities to enforce deportations, especially of criminals and people smugglers. The bill's main points are:

Authorities will no longer notify individuals in advance of their imminent deportation, with the exception of families with young children.
In cases where the person in question lives in shared accommodation, police will be allowed to enter and search rooms other than the bedroom of the individual. According to the authorities, people have often evaded deportation by hiding in shared accommodation.
If a person does not have a passport to show, the authorities will also be able to search their private cell phone or lockers to establish their identity.
The maximum period of detention prior to deportation will be extended from 10 to 28 days to give the authorities more time to prepare for deportation.
Members of organized criminal groups in Germany can be deported, regardless of whether they have been convicted of a crime.

Germany's high number of refugees
Germany has taken in more than a million people seeking protection from President Vladimir Putin's war against Ukraine. On top of that, some 244,000 people from other countries applied for asylum last year; this year, that number could rise to 300,000.
But even those who have no grounds for political asylum or refugee status can often not be repatriated, if there is no country willing to take them in, or their country of origin is a war zone, or they themselves have serious health issues that cannot be treated in their countries of origin. Some people simply cannot be tracked down by authorities. Over 200,000 people fall into one of these categories.
According to the Interior Ministry, by the end of September, there were around 255,000 people living in Germany who were obliged to leave the country, of whom around 205,000 have a "tolerated status" (called a Duldung in German), meaning they are theoretically obliged to leave the country but cannot be deported.
According to the German Interior Ministry, by the end of September, 12,000 people had been returned to their countries of origin. Faeser now wants to speed up deportations. "Those who have no right to stay in Germany must leave our country again," she said.

For people like Christiana Bukalo, 29, born in Germany but stateless, everyday life can become a challenge at any time: Opening a bank account, booking a hotel, getting married, pursuing a career as a civil servant — you need an ID for everything. But which state will issue you a passport if you don't have any nationality at all?

She is one of a growing number of stateless people living in Germany — currently some 126,000 people.

Bukalo learned from an early age what it means to have no nationality. "Even as a child, you get the message that you don't belong," she said. "That you're not supposed to stay here, but at the same time you can't leave either.

"In Germany, we have an extreme reproduction of statelessness, as no way has been found to deal with stateless children who are born here," she said.

simply a lack of knowledge about how to deal with stateless people."

John Fetterman Grossly Pretends He Can’t Understand Pro-Palestine Protester
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Fetterman spoke at a Get Out The Vote rally for Democratic candidates in McKeesport, Pennsylvania, on Sunday. Right as he took the stage, a protester shouted, “Four thousand-plus dead children in Palestine, 9,000-plus dead civilians!”
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Most of the audience booed, and the Pennsylvania senator replied, “The joke is on you. I had a stroke. I can’t fully understand what you’re saying.”
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Fetterman, alongside the vast majority of the U.S. government, has not called for a ceasefire in Gaza.
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Fetterman’s response this time leaves a bad taste in the mouth. He spent the second half of his campaign and a fair amount of his term fending off rumors that he is mentally and physically incapable of holding office. He can’t have it both ways and use his stroke recovery as an excuse to ignore comments he doesn’t like.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rebuked his Canadian counterpart on social media late Tuesday, after Justin Trudeau criticized the way Israel is waging war

Trudeau said the world is witnessing the killing of women, children and babies, and that it must stop.

As reports of that development emerged, Netanyahu, in a dramatic move, took aim at Trudeau on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke with Israeli war cabinet member Benny Gantz to affirm Canada’s support for Israel

Gantz released a summary of his own on X, the social-media platform formerly known as Twitter, on Thursday morning. He said Trudeau “conveyed to me his long-standing support for the state of Israel and Israel’s right to self-defence.”

Both statements also noted that the pair discussed their concerns about rising antisemitism and spoke about Hamas, which Canada recognizes as a terrorist organization

The conversation with Gantz came after Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly reacted to comments from Trudeau urging Israel to use “maximum restraint” in preserving civilian life.