foreignpolicy--2020-08-06--The U.S. Is Close to Killing Russia’s Nord Stream 2 Pipeline

The U.S. Is Close to Killing Russia ’ s Nord Stream 2 Pipeline Russia ’ s controversial Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline is close to the finish line—but might be closer to finished as a viable project , after one of the companies involved in laying the pipe on the Baltic seafloor said Wednesday that it would withdraw from the project .
For years , the United States has tried to kill off Russia ’ s latest effort to strengthen its energy stranglehold on Europe , to little avail .
But targeted U.S. sanctions that go after the pipe-laying vessels @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Russia to Germany might finally do the trick , if they arrive in time .
To get around U.S. sanctions on firms helping to build the project , which would double Russian gas flows to Germany , Russia acquired a specialized ship , the Akademik Cherskiy , which can weld the steel tubes needed to carry highly pressurized natural gas .
But Russia has been relying on a second ship to lay the pipe , and the pipe-laying barge Fortuna now seems to be out of action .
That could double the time @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is 94 percent done .
The big question now is whether new U.S. sanctions contained in this year ’ s defense spending bill can be passed and signed into law before the project is completed .
“ The race then is between a slow pipe and a slow sanctions bill , ” said Kevin Book , the managing director of ClearView Energy Partners , an energy consultancy .
The Akademik Cherskiy , which Gazprom acquired in 2016 in anticipation of just such a U.S. move , could finish the pipeline in around 110 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Defense Authorization Act is not expected to be signed into law until December—at least 117 days away .
New sanctions on the project that were included in both the House and Senate versions of the defense spending omnibus bill would expand existing sanctions to include companies that support pipe-laying activities , as well as insurance and underwriting services .
The Senate version of the bill goes one step further and would slap sanctions on support vessels and companies involved in certifying the pipeline once it ’ s complete .
The two versions still @ @ @ @ @ @ @ scope of the final bill will play a decisive role in whether the project is completed .
Meanwhile , U.S. lawmakers are redoubling their pressure .
On Wednesday , Republican Sens .
Ted Cruz of Texas , Tom Cotton of Arkansas , and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin warned the German company that operates the port of Mukran , a key staging post for ships involved in the pipeline ’ s construction , that the company , its board members , corporate officers , shareholders , and employees were at imminent risk of “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ including visa bans and asset freezes , if they did not cease their cooperation with the project .
Since the Obama administration , the United States has tried to shoot down Russia ’ s latest pipeline project , which would bypass Ukraine and redouble Europe ’ s reliance on Russian natural gas .
German leaders , as well as many Western European energy companies , are on board with the project , which they say will bolster the availability of cheap energy in Europe .
Critics fear more Russian energy tricks , like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2006 and 2009 .
The United States took a stab late last year .
Construction of the pipeline was brought to a halt after U.S. sanctions passed as part of the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act compelled the Swiss company Allseas to withdraw its deep-sea pipe-laying vessel , forcing Russia to improvise a new plan to finish the pipe .
In July , after Denmark gave permission for the project to proceed , Washington doubled down on efforts to stop the project .
On July 15 , U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his predecessor Rex Tillerson in 2017 , paving the way for further sanctions to be slapped on the pipeline .
The so-called Tillerson guidance had grandfathered in the pipeline and had exempted it from wide-ranging sanctions under a blockbuster bill passed by Congress that same year .
“ Get out now , or risk the consequences , ” Pompeo said .
Former senior administration officials and congressional aides told Foreign Policy that one of the reasons efforts to stop the pipeline have come down to the wire is that the Treasury Department has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the project .
“ It ’ s known that the Treasury has interfered in the interagency process to slow and water down the technical implementation of sanctions , going back to 2017 , ” a Republican aide said .
In an interview with Voice of America in June , Trump ’ s former national security advisor John Bolton described the pipeline as a “ huge mistake ” and added : “ You might ask [ Treasury Secretary ] Steve Mnuchin why we haven ’ t imposed sanctions on the Russians for the Nord @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Nord Stream has become entwined with the Trump administration ’ s broader beef with Germany .
Trump has accused German Chancellor Angela Merkel of giving billions of euros to Russia for energy while skimping on defense .
“ Pipeline supporters in Berlin have often tried to tie U.S. opposition to Nord Stream 2 to Mr. Trump ’ s personal divisiveness in order to gin up opposition to various sanctions actions from Washington aimed at stopping the project , ” said Benjamin Schmitt , a former European energy security advisor at the State Department @ @ @ @ @ @ @ U.S. opposition to the project has been broadly bipartisan and began with thoughtful shuttle diplomacy by a number of senior officials in the Obama administration.
” The problem is that U.S. sanctions risk targeting Western firms and deepening that trans-Atlantic breach .
“ With respect to any sanctions program , you need to take into account any unintended consequence .
It would be irresponsible not to , ” said Daniel Glaser , who served as assistant secretary for terrorist financing and financial crimes at the Treasury Department until January 2017 .
Treasury did @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for this story .
Meanwhile , with the clock ticking , lawmakers are still pushing for a way to choke off the pipe—without poisoning U.S. relations with its NATO allies .
“ Sanctions to prevent the pipeline ’ s completion continue to be a bipartisan priority in Congress .
However , more work needs to be done to make sure that these sanctions stop the pipeline without unnecessarily harming trans-Atlantic relations , ” said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen , a New Hampshire Democrat and a co-sponsor of the Nord Stream 2 sanctions legislation .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ must use the time Congress created through the sanctions law to pursue a diplomatic solution with Germany , ” she said .

Russia’s controversial Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline is close to the finish line—but might be closer to finished as a viable project, after one of the companies involved in laying the pipe on the Baltic seafloor said Wednesday that it would withdraw from the project.
Russia’s controversial Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline is close to the finish line—but might be closer to finished as a viable project, after one of the companies involved in laying the pipe on the Baltic seafloor said Wednesday that it would withdraw from the project.
For years, the United States has tried to kill off Russia’s latest effort to strengthen its energy stranglehold on Europe, to little avail. But targeted U.S. sanctions that go after the pipe-laying vessels needed to finish the 760-mile-long pipeline from Russia to Germany might finally do the trick, if they arrive in time. To get around U.S. sanctions on firms helping to build the project, which would double Russian gas flows to Germany, Russia acquired a specialized ship, the Akademik Cherskiy, which can weld the steel tubes needed to carry highly pressurized natural gas. But Russia has been relying on a second ship to lay the pipe, and the pipe-laying barge Fortuna now seems to be out of action. That could double the time left to finish the project, which is 94 percent done.
The big question now is whether new U.S. sanctions contained in this year’s defense spending bill can be passed and signed into law before the project is completed.
“The race then is between a slow pipe and a slow sanctions bill,” said Kevin Book, the managing director of ClearView Energy Partners, an energy consultancy. The Akademik Cherskiy, which Gazprom acquired in 2016 in anticipation of just such a U.S. move, could finish the pipeline in around 110 days, Book said. The National Defense Authorization Act is not expected to be signed into law until December—at least 117 days away.
New sanctions on the project that were included in both the House and Senate versions of the defense spending omnibus bill would expand existing sanctions to include companies that support pipe-laying activities, as well as insurance and underwriting services. The Senate version of the bill goes one step further and would slap sanctions on support vessels and companies involved in certifying the pipeline once it’s complete. The two versions still need to be reconciled, and the scope of the final bill will play a decisive role in whether the project is completed.
Meanwhile, U.S. lawmakers are redoubling their pressure. On Wednesday, Republican Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas, Tom Cotton of Arkansas, and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin warned the German company that operates the port of Mukran, a key staging post for ships involved in the pipeline’s construction, that the company, its board members, corporate officers, shareholders, and employees were at imminent risk of “crushing legal and economic sanctions,” including visa bans and asset freezes, if they did not cease their cooperation with the project.
Since the Obama administration, the United States has tried to shoot down Russia’s latest pipeline project, which would bypass Ukraine and redouble Europe’s reliance on Russian natural gas. German leaders, as well as many Western European energy companies, are on board with the project, which they say will bolster the availability of cheap energy in Europe. Critics fear more Russian energy tricks, like the shut-off of gas to Europe in 2006 and 2009.
The United States took a stab late last year. Construction of the pipeline was brought to a halt after U.S. sanctions passed as part of the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act compelled the Swiss company Allseas to withdraw its deep-sea pipe-laying vessel, forcing Russia to improvise a new plan to finish the pipe.
In July, after Denmark gave permission for the project to proceed, Washington doubled down on efforts to stop the project. On July 15, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced a reversal to guidance issued by his predecessor Rex Tillerson in 2017, paving the way for further sanctions to be slapped on the pipeline. The so-called Tillerson guidance had grandfathered in the pipeline and had exempted it from wide-ranging sanctions under a blockbuster bill passed by Congress that same year. “Get out now, or risk the consequences,” Pompeo said.
Former senior administration officials and congressional aides told Foreign Policy that one of the reasons efforts to stop the pipeline have come down to the wire is that the Treasury Department has been hesitant about using sanctions to thwart the project. “It’s known that the Treasury has interfered in the interagency process to slow and water down the technical implementation of sanctions, going back to 2017,” a Republican aide said.
In an interview with Voice of America in June, Trump’s former national security advisor John Bolton described the pipeline as a “huge mistake” and added: “You might ask [Treasury Secretary] Steve Mnuchin why we haven’t imposed sanctions on the Russians for the Nord Stream pipeline.”
But the battle over Nord Stream has become entwined with the Trump administration’s broader beef with Germany. Trump has accused German Chancellor Angela Merkel of giving billions of euros to Russia for energy while skimping on defense.
“Pipeline supporters in Berlin have often tried to tie U.S. opposition to Nord Stream 2 to Mr. Trump’s personal divisiveness in order to gin up opposition to various sanctions actions from Washington aimed at stopping the project,” said Benjamin Schmitt, a former European energy security advisor at the State Department. “In reality, however, U.S. opposition to the project has been broadly bipartisan and began with thoughtful shuttle diplomacy by a number of senior officials in the Obama administration.”
The problem is that U.S. sanctions risk targeting Western firms and deepening that trans-Atlantic breach.
“With respect to any sanctions program, you need to take into account any unintended consequence. It would be irresponsible not to,” said Daniel Glaser, who served as assistant secretary for terrorist financing and financial crimes at the Treasury Department until January 2017.
Treasury did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
Meanwhile, with the clock ticking, lawmakers are still pushing for a way to choke off the pipe—without poisoning U.S. relations with its NATO allies.
“Sanctions to prevent the pipeline’s completion continue to be a bipartisan priority in Congress. However, more work needs to be done to make sure that these sanctions stop the pipeline without unnecessarily harming trans-Atlantic relations,” said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, a New Hampshire Democrat and a co-sponsor of the Nord Stream 2 sanctions legislation.
“This is why the Trump administration must use the time Congress created through the sanctions law to pursue a diplomatic solution with Germany,” she said.


foreignpolicy--2020-08-06--Indigenous Nations Battle to Secure Borders, Funds Amid Pandemic

Washington ’ s aims were not pure .
Indigenous nations were not consulted on the program , while an early advocate for Indigenous health said it was delivered in a “ feeble , unsystematic ” way .
Vaccinations predominantly went to nations who had signed economic treaties with the U.S. government .
A smallpox epidemic in 1837 , around what is presently North Dakota , killed more than 10,000 , nearly destroyed entire tribes , and caused entire cultures and traditions to disappear forever .
Nearly two centuries on , amid another epidemic , Indigenous communities are once again being @ @ @ @ @ @ @ even as COVID-19 devastates their communities .
It comes as the U.S. government distributes more than $ 150 billion in economic relief to governments hit hard by COVID-19 .
But more than a dozen Indigenous organizations from across the United States warned , starting in early April , that if the administration of President Donald Trump did not listen to tribal governments , they ran the risk of turning the relief package into a “ grave injustice.
” At the heart of the problem is how the Trump administration intends to use the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Relief , and Economic Security ( CARES ) Act , which authorized some $ 2.2 trillion in economic aid .
The act set aside $ 8 billion for tribal governments .
It was written in such a way , however , that included Alaska Native regional and village corporations ( ANCs ) —for-profit enterprises often run by local tribes in the state .
Normally , ANCs don ’ t receive that type of funding .
Many tribes and Indigenous governments warned Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin , in letters sent throughout April , that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ relief funding would be inappropriate and could lead to some tribes double dipping .
The competition for federal funding has long faced allegations that it is fundamentally unfair and unequal .
Small tribes have had to spend scarce resources to hire lobbyists and application writers just to receive core funding to provide basic services .
Larger tribes , with more considerable revenue , have an easier time vying for contracts and grants .
The collection of tribes pleaded with Washington to distribute the money “ in manner consistent with the intent of Congress @ @ @ @ @ @ @ respect for Tribal sovereignty.
” While Mnuchin ’ s office insisted that no final decision had been made , it did not rule out the possibility that Alaskan development bodies would have access to the cash .
And so several tribal governments took the treasury secretary to court , warning that the decision to include ANCs as eligible for federal relief funds could set a precedent that may extend far beyond the pandemic .
The competition for federal funding has long faced allegations that it is fundamentally unfair and unequal .
In court @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , whose reservation has a population of just 10,000 , reported facing $ 1 million in additional costs per week because of COVID-19 .
While Indigenous peoples haven ’ t always had success before the courts , there has been real momentum of late .
In July , the Supreme Court recognized roughly half of Oklahoma as Indigenous land , in a ruling that will have far-reaching consequences in the state justice system and beyond .
In late June , however , a federal district court sided with the Trump administration , dismissing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ precedent .
“ The court ’ s decision simply recognizes that ANCs are eligible for CARES Act funds , as Congress intended—no more , no less.
” The tribes successfully filed for an injunction from the court to stop the money from being distributed to the Alaskan corporations while they file an appeal .
The ongoing litigation has led to delays on both sides .
Tribes told news site Indianz.com that their funding was still being held up as of mid-June—months after it was supposed to arrive— with a Department of Justice lawyer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ withheld because of the lawsuit .
On the other side , one Alaskan native corporation told the court that the litigation has tied up funds promised to them .
“ Without immediate access to these funds , our villages could face a very difficult winter , ” the company , Ahtna , wrote in an affidavit .
As the legal wrangling continues , the picture on the ground is disastrous .
The Indian Health Service ( IHS ) reports there have been nearly 33,000 COVID-19 cases reported to IHS , tribal , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the outbreak in the Navajo Nation surpassed New York as the highest infection rate in the country—today , its infection rate is double any state .
Today , the nation has more cases , in terms of raw numbers , than several states .
And while the funding threats and lack of resources threaten everyone , Indigenous elders—sometimes the only remaining speakers of nearly lost languages—face particular danger .
In recent years , there have been furious efforts to collect Indigenous histories and preserve nearly lost Indigenous languages .
COVID-19 threatens to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cuts through the elderly population .
“ COVID-19 , like many diseases , renders Indigenous elders—our knowledge-keepers and language holders—particularly susceptible to illness and death , ” wrote Gina Starblanket and Dallas Hunt , two Indigenous professors and writers in the Globe and Mail in late March .
“ This virus not only places us at risk , but the future well-being of coming generations as well.
” The scope of the problem may be even larger , as many states and cities have spotty data collection policies around race , often categorizing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ if their race is collected at all .
Poor infrastructure and disparate health care funding have been significant drivers of the high number of coronavirus cases among Indigenous nations .
When Hawaii finally started releasing race and ethnicity data , after months of pressure , it found that Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders had the state ’ s highest rate of COVID-19 cases .
Most Indigenous nations took swift action to combat the virus , enacting lockdowns and stay-at-home orders even as their state governments were not .
Yet poor infrastructure and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ drivers of the high numbers .
According to the IHS , life expectancy for Indigenous people in Alaska and the lower 48 states is five and a half years shorter than the national average—a disparity driven by higher rates of diabetes , liver disease , kidney disease , suicide , homicide , accidents , and a raft of other causes .
Influenza and pneumonia kill Indigenous people at a rate 1.8 times higher than the U.S. average .
The poorer outcomes correlate strongly with a lack of funding .
The IHS itself offers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the U.S. government ’ s health care spending , overall , was more than $ 9,700 per person .
That figure was about $ 4,000 per capita for those in the Indian Health Service .
Indian Health Services provides comprehensive service for about 2.2 million of the 3.7 million Indigenous people in the United States .
Those populations are dispersed , with some living in some of the most remote and sparsely populated parts of the country .
With its $ 6 billion budget , IHS runs 26 hospitals directly and transfers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ That means the entirety of Indian Country has roughly the same number of hospitals as Connecticut .
( IHS funding does run about 600 smaller health stations and clinics throughout the country . )
A scathing 2016 review found too few staff , trouble attracting talent , inadequate services , and aging IHS-run hospitals that were not designed to provide modern health care .
There have been numerous attempts to close these gaps , but the failure to do so is now putting Indigenous people at particular risk of COVID-19 .
In 1996 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Tribal Epidemiology Centers , which were tasked with “ activities ranging from … public health surveillance , local , national and regional infrastructure and capacity building , to infectious disease outbreak response.
” The long-term underfunding and the held-up earmarked money have left nations struggling to cope .
They have been consistently underfunded , however , with each of the dozen health centers scattered across the country receiving just $ 339,000 over the past five years .
“ This is not nearly enough to do this important work , ” the House Appropriations @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , asking “ Why does the agency believe that this work does not merit an increase ?
” The IHS blamed competing funding priorities .
The Trump administration promised a nearly 25 percent increase in its 2021 budget .
The long-term underfunding and the held-up earmarked money have left nations struggling to cope .
“ It is clear that they have been insufficient to address the grave impacts of COVID-19 in Indian Country , ” Stacy A. Bohlen , CEO of the National Indian Health Board , told a House subcommittee in June @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ do not replace the need for strong and meaningful investments in the annual appropriated IHS budget.
” For example , Bohlen pointed to the Democrat-written HEROES Act , which would commit $ 30 million for water and sanitation systems in Indian Country .
She noted that a 2018 estimate from the Indian Health Service pegged the necessary investment to bring all communities to an acceptable level of sanitation and water quality at $ 2.7 billion .
Serious infrastructure problems are another burden for Indigenous health .
Nearly one-third of Navajo residents do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has recently organized a donation of more than 260,000 gallons of bottled water for the nation .
The disproportionate impact on Indigenous communities in the United States has been mirrored worldwide .
In Brazil , the nation hit hardest by COVID-19 after the United States , Indigenous tribes are being ravaged by the virus .
According to the Pan American Health Organization ( PAHO ) , Brazil has seen nearly 8,000 COVID-19 cases among its Indigenous population—177 have died , including a 15-year-old .
Numerous elders have also died from the virus , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of their peoples are being lost entirely .
It ’ s even more acute in Bolivia , with its sizable Indigenous population , where more than 1,100 Indigenous people have died , according to PAHO .
Mexico has seen close to 650 such deaths , Ecuador nearly 150 , and Colombia 73 .
Some countries have done better than others .
Venezuela has reported just 152 cases among its Indigenous populations .
Canada , with an Indigenous population north of 1.6 million , has reported just 334 cases and six deaths .
Entire @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Inuit communities , have been shut to outsiders .
When a ferry , believed to be carrying campers and tourists , set out for Haida Gwaii territory earlier in April , a convoy of cars set out to protest the travelers and send a message : “ You ’ re not welcome , ” as one member of the nation told the Canadian Broadcast Corporation .
In the end , it appears all of the passengers were essential workers or residents , though the protest sent a message—with just 12 hospital beds and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Haida can ’ t afford any infections .
Facing a lack of resources to surveil and stop the spread of the virus , nations inside U.S. borders have taken drastic measures .
Roadblocks , checkpoints , and curfews have been erected around Indigenous nations through most of the United States .
Many have remained up , even as states have moved to reopen .
The Crow Tribe , in Montana , issued an order in March , declaring : “ This is a time of war to fight a pandemic that has invaded @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the chief operating officer of the tribe who manned one of the checkpoints , told the Billings Gazette , “ We don ’ t have any cases on the reservation and we want to keep it that way.
” The nation has extended their stay-at-home order until Aug. 31 .
Nations across the United States and Alaska have taken similar steps .
Those restrictions , however , mean billions in lost revenues for tribal governments , only exacerbating the chronic underfunding on the federal level .
The Navajo Nation ’ s gaming corporation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of 1,200 people , and the remaining jobs are still in jeopardy .
But nations say the costs are worth it .
Sharon Stewart-Peregoy , a Montana state representative and member of the Crow Nation , told Kaiser Health News that the lockdown measures taken have been necessary to protect older populations .
“ When an elder dies , there ’ s a whole history , a whole line of information that we lose , ” she said .
“ It ’ s like the library burning down .
”

Miss Navajo Nation Shaandiin P. Parrish grabs a box filled with food and other supplies to distribute to Navajo families in Counselor on the Navajo Nation Reservation, New Mexico, on May 27. Sharon Chischilly/Getty Images
It was in 1832 that the U.S. government first began delivering health care to Indigenous communities. Congress allocated $12,000 to vaccinate those living in nations near white frontier settlements against smallpox.
Washington’s aims were not pure. Indigenous nations were not consulted on the program, while an early advocate for Indigenous health said it was delivered in a “feeble, unsystematic” way. Vaccinations predominantly went to nations who had signed economic treaties with the U.S. government. A smallpox epidemic in 1837, around what is presently North Dakota, killed more than 10,000, nearly destroyed entire tribes, and caused entire cultures and traditions to disappear forever.
Nearly two centuries on, amid another epidemic, Indigenous communities are once again being excluded from the decision-making process in Washington even as COVID-19 devastates their communities.
It comes as the U.S. government distributes more than $150 billion in economic relief to governments hit hard by COVID-19.
But more than a dozen Indigenous organizations from across the United States warned, starting in early April, that if the administration of President Donald Trump did not listen to tribal governments, they ran the risk of turning the relief package into a “grave injustice.”
At the heart of the problem is how the Trump administration intends to use the funds authorized in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, which authorized some $2.2 trillion in economic aid.
The act set aside $8 billion for tribal governments. It was written in such a way, however, that included Alaska Native regional and village corporations (ANCs)—for-profit enterprises often run by local tribes in the state. Normally, ANCs don’t receive that type of funding.
Native Americans of the Navajo Nation pick up supplies at a food bank set up in Casamero Lake, New Mexico, on May 20. Jonathan Nez, president of the Navajo Nation, said that of the billion promised to U.S. tribes in the March stimulus package, the first set of vital coronavirus aid wasn’t released until May.
Many tribes and Indigenous governments warned Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, in letters sent throughout April, that giving for-profit companies a share of the relief funding would be inappropriate and could lead to some tribes double dipping. The competition for federal funding has long faced allegations that it is fundamentally unfair and unequal. Small tribes have had to spend scarce resources to hire lobbyists and application writers just to receive core funding to provide basic services. Larger tribes, with more considerable revenue, have an easier time vying for contracts and grants.
The collection of tribes pleaded with Washington to distribute the money “in manner consistent with the intent of Congress as an expression of their understanding and respect for Tribal sovereignty.”
While Mnuchin’s office insisted that no final decision had been made, it did not rule out the possibility that Alaskan development bodies would have access to the cash. And so several tribal governments took the treasury secretary to court, warning that the decision to include ANCs as eligible for federal relief funds could set a precedent that may extend far beyond the pandemic.
The competition for federal funding has long faced allegations that it is fundamentally unfair and unequal.
In court filings, the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, whose reservation has a population of just 10,000, reported facing $1 million in additional costs per week because of COVID-19.
While Indigenous peoples haven’t always had success before the courts, there has been real momentum of late. In July, the Supreme Court recognized roughly half of Oklahoma as Indigenous land, in a ruling that will have far-reaching consequences in the state justice system and beyond.
In late June, however, a federal district court sided with the Trump administration, dismissing fears that the move could create a precedent. “The court’s decision simply recognizes that ANCs are eligible for CARES Act funds, as Congress intended—no more, no less.” The tribes successfully filed for an injunction from the court to stop the money from being distributed to the Alaskan corporations while they file an appeal.
The ongoing litigation has led to delays on both sides. Tribes told news site Indianz.com that their funding was still being held up as of mid-June—months after it was supposed to arrive— with a Department of Justice lawyer admitting some $679 million was being withheld because of the lawsuit. On the other side, one Alaskan native corporation told the court that the litigation has tied up funds promised to them. “Without immediate access to these funds, our villages could face a very difficult winter,” the company, Ahtna, wrote in an affidavit.
As the legal wrangling continues, the picture on the ground is disastrous.
The Indian Health Service (IHS) reports there have been nearly 33,000 COVID-19 cases reported to IHS, tribal, and urban Indian health organizations. In May, the outbreak in the Navajo Nation surpassed New York as the highest infection rate in the country—today, its infection rate is double any state. Today, the nation has more cases, in terms of raw numbers, than several states.
A community bulletin board stands at the entrance to the East To’Hajiilee housing community in To’Hajiilee Indian Reservation, New Mexico, on May 25.
And while the funding threats and lack of resources threaten everyone, Indigenous elders—sometimes the only remaining speakers of nearly lost languages—face particular danger.
In recent years, there have been furious efforts to collect Indigenous histories and preserve nearly lost Indigenous languages. COVID-19 threatens to undo much of that work as it cuts through the elderly population.
“COVID-19, like many diseases, renders Indigenous elders—our knowledge-keepers and language holders—particularly susceptible to illness and death,” wrote Gina Starblanket and Dallas Hunt, two Indigenous professors and writers in the Globe and Mail in late March. “This virus not only places us at risk, but the future well-being of coming generations as well.”
The scope of the problem may be even larger, as many states and cities have spotty data collection policies around race, often categorizing Indigenous peoples as “other,” if their race is collected at all.
Poor infrastructure and disparate health care funding have been significant drivers of the high number of coronavirus cases among Indigenous nations.
When Hawaii finally started releasing race and ethnicity data, after months of pressure, it found that Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders had the state’s highest rate of COVID-19 cases.
Most Indigenous nations took swift action to combat the virus, enacting lockdowns and stay-at-home orders even as their state governments were not. Yet poor infrastructure and disparate health care funding have been significant drivers of the high numbers.
According to the IHS, life expectancy for Indigenous people in Alaska and the lower 48 states is five and a half years shorter than the national average—a disparity driven by higher rates of diabetes, liver disease, kidney disease, suicide, homicide, accidents, and a raft of other causes. Influenza and pneumonia kill Indigenous people at a rate 1.8 times higher than the U.S. average.
The poorer outcomes correlate strongly with a lack of funding. The IHS itself offers free—if critically underfunded—care. As of 2017, the U.S. government’s health care spending, overall, was more than $9,700 per person. That figure was about $4,000 per capita for those in the Indian Health Service.
Indian Health Services provides comprehensive service for about 2.2 million of the 3.7 million Indigenous people in the United States. Those populations are dispersed, with some living in some of the most remote and sparsely populated parts of the country. With its $6 billion budget, IHS runs 26 hospitals directly and transfers funding for another 19 tribe-run hospitals. That means the entirety of Indian Country has roughly the same number of hospitals as Connecticut. (IHS funding does run about 600 smaller health stations and clinics throughout the country.)
Marlene Thomas hands out homemade masks while Navajo families wait in line to receive food, water, and other supplies in Counselor on the Navajo Nation Reservation, New Mexico, on May 27.
A scathing 2016 review found too few staff, trouble attracting talent, inadequate services, and aging IHS-run hospitals that were not designed to provide modern health care.
There have been numerous attempts to close these gaps, but the failure to do so is now putting Indigenous people at particular risk of COVID-19.
In 1996, Washington set up a system of Tribal Epidemiology Centers, which were tasked with “activities ranging from … public health surveillance, local, national and regional infrastructure and capacity building, to infectious disease outbreak response.”
The long-term underfunding and the held-up earmarked money have left nations struggling to cope.
They have been consistently underfunded, however, with each of the dozen health centers scattered across the country receiving just $339,000 over the past five years. “This is not nearly enough to do this important work,” the House Appropriations Committee in 2015 wrote to the IHS, asking “Why does the agency believe that this work does not merit an increase?” The IHS blamed competing funding priorities.
The Trump administration promised a nearly 25 percent increase in its 2021 budget.
The long-term underfunding and the held-up earmarked money have left nations struggling to cope. “It is clear that they have been insufficient to address the grave impacts of COVID-19 in Indian Country,” Stacy A. Bohlen, CEO of the National Indian Health Board, told a House subcommittee in June. Bohlen stressed that one-time emergency funds “do not replace the need for strong and meaningful investments in the annual appropriated IHS budget.”
For example, Bohlen pointed to the Democrat-written HEROES Act, which would commit $30 million for water and sanitation systems in Indian Country. She noted that a 2018 estimate from the Indian Health Service pegged the necessary investment to bring all communities to an acceptable level of sanitation and water quality at $2.7 billion.
This Navajo house near the town of Steamboat, Arizona, pictured May 24, has no running water. An estimated 30 to 40 percent of Navajo sovereign territory’s 178,000 residents don’t have access to running water or sanitation.
Serious infrastructure problems are another burden for Indigenous health. Nearly one-third of Navajo residents do not have running water. Nonprofit DigDeep has recently organized a donation of more than 260,000 gallons of bottled water for the nation.
The disproportionate impact on Indigenous communities in the United States has been mirrored worldwide.
In Brazil, the nation hit hardest by COVID-19 after the United States, Indigenous tribes are being ravaged by the virus. According to the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), Brazil has seen nearly 8,000 COVID-19 cases among its Indigenous population—177 have died, including a 15-year-old. Numerous elders have also died from the virus, raising concerns that the culture and history of their peoples are being lost entirely.
It’s even more acute in Bolivia, with its sizable Indigenous population, where more than 1,100 Indigenous people have died, according to PAHO. Mexico has seen close to 650 such deaths, Ecuador nearly 150, and Colombia 73.
Some countries have done better than others.
Venezuela has reported just 152 cases among its Indigenous populations. Canada, with an Indigenous population north of 1.6 million, has reported just 334 cases and six deaths. Entire swaths of the country, largely remote Inuit communities, have been shut to outsiders.
When a ferry, believed to be carrying campers and tourists, set out for Haida Gwaii territory earlier in April, a convoy of cars set out to protest the travelers and send a message: “You’re not welcome,” as one member of the nation told the Canadian Broadcast Corporation. In the end, it appears all of the passengers were essential workers or residents, though the protest sent a message—with just 12 hospital beds and two ventilators on the island, the Haida can’t afford any infections.
Facing a lack of resources to surveil and stop the spread of the virus, nations inside U.S. borders have taken drastic measures. Roadblocks, checkpoints, and curfews have been erected around Indigenous nations through most of the United States. Many have remained up, even as states have moved to reopen.
The Crow Tribe, in Montana, issued an order in March, declaring: “This is a time of war to fight a pandemic that has invaded the world.” Karl Little Owl, the chief operating officer of the tribe who manned one of the checkpoints, told the Billings Gazette, “We don’t have any cases on the reservation and we want to keep it that way.” The nation has extended their stay-at-home order until Aug. 31.
Nations across the United States and Alaska have taken similar steps.
Those restrictions, however, mean billions in lost revenues for tribal governments, only exacerbating the chronic underfunding on the federal level. The Navajo Nation’s gaming corporation has laid off over 900 staff out of 1,200 people, and the remaining jobs are still in jeopardy.
But nations say the costs are worth it. Sharon Stewart-Peregoy, a Montana state representative and member of the Crow Nation, told Kaiser Health News that the lockdown measures taken have been necessary to protect older populations. “When an elder dies, there’s a whole history, a whole line of information that we lose,” she said. “It’s like the library burning down.”


foreignpolicy--2020-08-06--Coronavirus Victories May Not Be Enough for Cuba

Coronavirus Victories May Not Be Enough for Cuba Cuba ’ s response to the coronavirus pandemic is a useful example of how authoritarian regimes can sometimes handle a crisis better than democracies .
This is especially striking considering the country is simultaneously facing a severe economic crisis that predates the coronavirus—but it may not be enough .
The country has so far reported 2,726 cases and 88 deaths from the coronavirus .
Lately there have been fewer than five cases detected per day and hundreds of tests have been carried out for every new case detected .
Some days no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mass testing .
Cuba ’ s health care history , both good and bad , has factored into the effectiveness of its response .
Praise should be tempered by the fact that Cuba is a dictatorship and dictatorships sometimes benefit from what the scientist Charles E. Lindblom once called “ strong thumbs and no fingers.
” Dictatorships can impose lockdowns , curfews , and forced isolation without having to deal directly with a restless citizenry or grumbles in the media .
Cuba has been praised effusively for its health care since the revolution @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hagiography , Cuba ’ s system was relatively well developed prior to the overthrow of dictator Fulgencio Batista .
Cuba had the third lowest infant mortality rate in Latin America ( behind Uruguay and Argentina ) and one of the highest life expectancies in the 1950s .
Yet most accessible health care under the old regime was concentrated in Cuba ’ s main cities .
As the Cuban-American author Samuel Farber has written in his book Cuba Since the Revolution of 1959 : A Critical Assessment , prior to Fidel Castro seizing power @ @ @ @ @ @ @ could receive medical attention only if they paid for it , and since most of them could not afford it , this meant that the majority of this important group of poor Cubans had no access to medical care.
” Health spending was cut when Raul Castro took over the presidency from his brother Fidel in 2008 , but Cuba still has one of the highest doctor-to-patient ratios in the world .
True , there is a vast gulf between the quality of treatment afforded to party insiders , who have access to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and the poor majority , who must sometimes make do with second-rate treatment in dilapidated hospitals , though the same gaps and worse exist throughout the Americas .
And there is a saying that Cuba is a good place to be born ( infant mortality rates are very low ) but an unfortunate place to get cancer , in part because of drug shortages .
During the coronavirus , though , the system ’ s strengths—widespread monitoring , large numbers of health care workers , and generally strong public trust in hospitals—have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the most effective measures in Cuba , as in Wuhan , has been centralized quarantine .
Cubans showing symptoms of COVID-19 are placed in state-run isolation centres for 14 days , whether they want to go or not .
That ’ s a tough measure , but it ’ s also a vital one to prevent spread within extended families .
Yet it also recalls one of the cruelest moments in the island ’ s health care history ; until the early 1990s , the Cuban government dealt with HIV/AIDs by testing the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have HIV into monitored and restricted sanitariums , effectively prisons , until they developed AIDS and were moved to hospital .
But Cuba ’ s acclaimed response to COVID-19 has distracted from the country ’ s severe economic travails , which are largely a product of a dysfunctional command economy that applies centralised controls to systematically induced shortages .
Cuba is in a tight spot .
Things are not quite as bad as they were in the 1990s , following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the subsequent loss of about 35 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ isn ’ t to say they are far off .
Raul Castro ’ s attempt between 2008 and 2015 to liberalise Cuba ’ s moribund economy and create “ un socialismo próspero y sostenible ” ( a prosperous and sustainable socialism ) encountered staunch opposition from Havana ’ s hard-line Fidelistas .
The arrival of Donald Trump in 2016 empowered the faction of the Cuban government that had opposed the rapprochement with the United States during the Obama years .
As is often the case in international affairs , hardliners have empowered hardliners—and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to lead reform .
The average age of the Cuban politburo is now 69 years old , the same as Leonid Brezhnev ’ s final Politburo as Soviet leader in 1981 , often referred to as a “ gerontocracy.
” Existing sanctions on Cuba have been tightened by the Trump administration , with several knock-on effects for the island .
In April 2019 , then-U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton announced new restrictions on American travel to Cuba as well as the amount of money Cuban Americans could send to relatives on the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has added seven Cuban companies to a list of military-run firms with which Americans are prohibited from doing business , including the Cuban partner of Western Union , Fincimex .
Shipping companies have also been advised not to transport oil to Cuba .
Rogelio Moreno , a Cuban friend of mine who recently moved from Havana to Argentina to work in a radiotherapy clinic , told me that the living situation in Cuba was already dire before COVID-19 .
“ Sometimes even when you have money you can not find things to buy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ When a shop does have things , a very long line forms and many people in the line do not get to buy what they want because the goods are sold out quickly.
” Moreover , the coronavirus pandemic has shuttered tourism to Cuba , one of the country ’ s main sources of hard currency .
Cuba had already seen a 23.6 percent drop in number of tourists visiting the island in July 2019 compared to the previous year .
This was largely a consequence of the Trump administration ’ s ban @ @ @ @ @ @ @ island .
But the coronavirus may also provide an opportunity .
The Cuban government has in recent days announced another round of economic reforms .
As in the past , a precarious economic situation has forced the regime to liberalize .
Speaking on Cuban state television on July 2 , President Miguel Díaz-Canel announced reforms including an increase in salaries and more autonomy for state-run companies .
Due to its success in combating the coronavirus , Cuba will also soon be welcoming tourists back to the island .
However , they will be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reminiscent of the widely hated “ tourism apartheid ” of the 1990s which saw Cubans excluded from the best hotels and resorts on the island .
The long-term aim of reforms is to unify Cuba ’ s bizarre dual currency system , where most people are paid in a non-convertible currency worth far less .
However , most economists expect currency unification to be highly inflationary ; therefore , the government is trying to put more national currency—currently worth around one-twenty-fifth of the country ’ s convertible peso , which is pegged to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ beleaguered state workers .
Cuban leaders will be hoping the country ’ s success in dealing with the pandemic will soften recent economic woes and allow it to avoid suffering a return to the dark days of the 1990s .
But despite those victories , as the world spirals into depression , the largest island in the Caribbean—and the region ’ s longest-standing dictatorship—may well go with it .

Cuba’s response to the coronavirus pandemic is a useful example of how authoritarian regimes can sometimes handle a crisis better than democracies. This is especially striking considering the country is simultaneously facing a severe economic crisis that predates the coronavirus—but it may not be enough.
Cuba’s response to the coronavirus pandemic is a useful example of how authoritarian regimes can sometimes handle a crisis better than democracies. This is especially striking considering the country is simultaneously facing a severe economic crisis that predates the coronavirus—but it may not be enough.
The country has so far reported 2,726 cases and 88 deaths from the coronavirus. Lately there have been fewer than five cases detected per day and hundreds of tests have been carried out for every new case detected. Some days no new cases are detected, despite continued mass testing.
Cuba’s health care history, both good and bad, has factored into the effectiveness of its response. Praise should be tempered by the fact that Cuba is a dictatorship and dictatorships sometimes benefit from what the scientist Charles E. Lindblom once called “strong thumbs and no fingers.” Dictatorships can impose lockdowns, curfews, and forced isolation without having to deal directly with a restless citizenry or grumbles in the media.
Cuba has been praised effusively for its health care since the revolution of 1959. Yet contrary to revolutionary hagiography, Cuba’s system was relatively well developed prior to the overthrow of dictator Fulgencio Batista. Cuba had the third lowest infant mortality rate in Latin America (behind Uruguay and Argentina) and one of the highest life expectancies in the 1950s.
Yet most accessible health care under the old regime was concentrated in Cuba’s main cities. As the Cuban-American author Samuel Farber has written in his book Cuba Since the Revolution of 1959: A Critical Assessment, prior to Fidel Castro seizing power “four out of five rural workers could receive medical attention only if they paid for it, and since most of them could not afford it, this meant that the majority of this important group of poor Cubans had no access to medical care.”
Health spending was cut when Raul Castro took over the presidency from his brother Fidel in 2008, but Cuba still has one of the highest doctor-to-patient ratios in the world.
True, there is a vast gulf between the quality of treatment afforded to party insiders, who have access to the best facilities and the latest medicines, and the poor majority, who must sometimes make do with second-rate treatment in dilapidated hospitals, though the same gaps and worse exist throughout the Americas. And there is a saying that Cuba is a good place to be born (infant mortality rates are very low) but an unfortunate place to get cancer, in part because of drug shortages.
During the coronavirus, though, the system’s strengths—widespread monitoring, large numbers of health care workers, and generally strong public trust in hospitals—have come to the fore. One of the most effective measures in Cuba, as in Wuhan, has been centralized quarantine. Cubans showing symptoms of COVID-19 are placed in state-run isolation centres for 14 days, whether they want to go or not. That’s a tough measure, but it’s also a vital one to prevent spread within extended families.
Yet it also recalls one of the cruelest moments in the island’s health care history; until the early 1990s, the Cuban government dealt with HIV/AIDs by testing the entire population and forcing those found to have HIV into monitored and restricted sanitariums, effectively prisons, until they developed AIDS and were moved to hospital.
But Cuba’s acclaimed response to COVID-19 has distracted from the country’s severe economic travails, which are largely a product of a dysfunctional command economy that applies centralised controls to systematically induced shortages. Cuba is in a tight spot. Things are not quite as bad as they were in the 1990s, following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the subsequent loss of about 35 percent of its GDP, but that isn’t to say they are far off.
Raul Castro’s attempt between 2008 and 2015 to liberalise Cuba’s moribund economy and create “un socialismo próspero y sostenible” (a prosperous and sustainable socialism) encountered staunch opposition from Havana’s hard-line Fidelistas. The arrival of Donald Trump in 2016 empowered the faction of the Cuban government that had opposed the rapprochement with the United States during the Obama years.
As is often the case in international affairs, hardliners have empowered hardliners—and the leadership is hardly in a position to lead reform. The average age of the Cuban politburo is now 69 years old, the same as Leonid Brezhnev’s final Politburo as Soviet leader in 1981, often referred to as a “gerontocracy.”
Existing sanctions on Cuba have been tightened by the Trump administration, with several knock-on effects for the island. In April 2019, then-U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton announced new restrictions on American travel to Cuba as well as the amount of money Cuban Americans could send to relatives on the island.
Since then the Trump administration has added seven Cuban companies to a list of military-run firms with which Americans are prohibited from doing business, including the Cuban partner of Western Union, Fincimex. Shipping companies have also been advised not to transport oil to Cuba.
Rogelio Moreno, a Cuban friend of mine who recently moved from Havana to Argentina to work in a radiotherapy clinic, told me that the living situation in Cuba was already dire before COVID-19. “Sometimes even when you have money you cannot find things to buy,” Rogelio told me. “When a shop does have things, a very long line forms and many people in the line do not get to buy what they want because the goods are sold out quickly.”
Moreover, the coronavirus pandemic has shuttered tourism to Cuba, one of the country’s main sources of hard currency. Cuba had already seen a 23.6 percent drop in number of tourists visiting the island in July 2019 compared to the previous year. This was largely a consequence of the Trump administration’s ban on U.S. cruise ships docking on the island.
But the coronavirus may also provide an opportunity. The Cuban government has in recent days announced another round of economic reforms. As in the past, a precarious economic situation has forced the regime to liberalize. Speaking on Cuban state television on July 2, President Miguel Díaz-Canel announced reforms including an increase in salaries and more autonomy for state-run companies.
Due to its success in combating the coronavirus, Cuba will also soon be welcoming tourists back to the island. However, they will be strictly segregated from locals in a policy reminiscent of the widely hated “tourism apartheid” of the 1990s which saw Cubans excluded from the best hotels and resorts on the island.
The long-term aim of reforms is to unify Cuba’s bizarre dual currency system, where most people are paid in a non-convertible currency worth far less. However, most economists expect currency unification to be highly inflationary; therefore, the government is trying to put more national currency—currently worth around one-twenty-fifth of the country’s convertible peso, which is pegged to the U.S. dollar—into the hands of its beleaguered state workers.
Cuban leaders will be hoping the country’s success in dealing with the pandemic will soften recent economic woes and allow it to avoid suffering a return to the dark days of the 1990s. But despite those victories, as the world spirals into depression, the largest island in the Caribbean—and the region’s longest-standing dictatorship—may well go with it.


foreignpolicy--2020-08-06--Modi Declares End to “Centuries of Waiting” for Hindus

Modi Declares End to “ Centuries of Waiting ” for Hindus Welcome to Foreign Policy ’ s South Asia Brief , the weekly newsletter that keeps you up to date on a region that is home to one-fourth of humanity .
This week : Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi lays the cornerstone to a controversial temple , Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa is poised for a comeback in Sri Lanka , Afghanistan plans its grand assembly of elders , and introducing FP ’ s new coronavirus response index .
If you would like to receive South Asia Brief in your inbox @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ Today , centuries of waiting are over.
” That ’ s how Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi summed up the moment he laid down the foundation stone for a new grand temple to the Hindu god Ram in the city of Ayodhya on Wednesday .
While the coronavirus pandemic limited the number of officials present to fewer than 200 , hundreds of millions of viewers tuned in to watch saffron-robed priests perform ceremonies kicking off the construction of the temple .
The proposed shrine isn ’ t just any temple .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the birth of one of their most important deities , Ram .
Muslims , on the other hand , point to the fact that the temple is being built on the very site of a 16th-century mosque torn down by a Hindu mob in 1992—an incident that sparked deadly riots across the country .
The importance of Aug. 5 .
The Modi government has planned this day for months .
The country ’ s Supreme Court greenlighted the construction of the temple as far back as last November , but New Delhi picked @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the first anniversary of the abrogation of Kashmir , when India revoked the Muslim-majority state ’ s autonomy and brought it under the central government ’ s control .
Combining these two events—ending Kashmir ’ s special status and building a Ram temple—has powerful symbolism .
Both moves were campaign promises for Modi ’ s Bharatiya Janata Party ( BJP ) in the last two national elections and capture how the government has achieved its goal of Hindu dominance .
With Hindu supremacy , of course , comes Muslim suppression .
As the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Ram temple are two of the BJP ’ s core agenda items , a third could be the end of Muslim family law , which is still partly practiced in India .
The BJP has already made crucial advances , criminalizing a medieval Muslim law in which men could divorce their wives by saying the word talaq , or divorce , three times .
The end product of the BJP ’ s recent policies is an increasingly uncertain time for India ’ s nearly 200 million Muslims .
Another BJP initiative , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ against Muslims in particular , was put on the back burner last December only after mass protests .
With the pandemic still spreading , Wednesday ’ s moment of Hindu triumphalism not only passed without public interruption , but it also served as a timely distraction for Modi ’ s large Hindu base .
Next steps .
What goals does Modi chase after fulfilling his campaign promises ?
The backdrop to India ’ s increasing Hindu nationalism is quite dire .
India just crossed 2 million confirmed coronavirus cases and could be the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ end of the year .
The economy , slowing dramatically before the pandemic , has gotten worse .
Estimates suggest that as many as 100 million Indians have lost their livelihoods and tens of millions of migrant workers are displaced .
The economy could contract by as much as 10 percent this year .
There is little real chance of a fiscal recovery until the health crisis abates—and in India there is no sign of that until the world produces a vaccine .
For Modi , fixing these problems will be much harder @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Ironically , by shutting down or slowing the internet in Kashmir , and by standing by as the authorities discriminate against Muslims ( as they did during the Delhi riots this year ) , India is curbing the aspirations and productivity of its largest minority group—a circumstance that can hardly provide a tailwind for the broader economy .
For more on this , try some further reading in Foreign Policy .
This week , Sumit Ganguly assessed the government ’ s political and economic record in Kashmir , Raksha Kumar described how @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and left behind , and Neeta Lal warned how the pandemic disproportionately affects Indian women , especially their job prospects .
From our archives , I recommend Snigdha Poonam ’ s explanation of why the phrase Jai Shri Ram is so important in modern India—it ’ s a great read and very relevant this week .
India hits 2 million COVID-19 cases .
India is now just the third country after Brazil and the United States to cross 2 million known coronavirus cases .
As shown below , recent trends are holding steady @ @ @ @ @ @ @ India , while other major South Asian countries such as Bangladesh and Pakistan are not far behind .
In each case , testing rates are too low to accurately gauge the spread of the virus .
Health experts estimate that community transmission is well underway .
On Thursday , FP Analytics launched its new COVID-19 Global Response Index , using a range of parameters to rank how major countries have responded to the coronavirus pandemic so far .
While New Zealand , Senegal , and Denmark rank top on the list of 36 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 24 puts it toward the end of the performance spectrum .
The full index is available to members of FP Insider .
Click here to become a member and access this and other reports by the FP Analytics team , in addition to all of FP ’ s content and newsletters .
Sri Lanka ’ s election .
Votes are still being counted in Thursday ’ s national election in Sri Lanka , but all signs point to Mahinda Rajapaksa returning to power as prime minister .
Rajapaksa is expected to be appointed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Gotabaya Rajapaksa , if their Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna ( SLPP ) party wins the most seats .
If the SLPP wins a two-thirds majority , observers expect it to sanction expanded powers for the presidency , entrenching the Rajapaksa family ’ s grip on power .
India ’ s Modi has already called Mahinda Rajapaksa to congratulate him on his performance .
Afghan grand assembly .
On Friday , Afghanistan will convene a loya jirga , or grand assembly of elders , to discuss the fate of Taliban prisoners .
Kabul has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ requested 5,000 prisoners as part of the U.S.-Taliban peace deal .
The remaining 400 are proving to be too controversial to release without further debate : According to a presidential spokesperson , many have been convicted in mass killings and sentenced to death .
A loya jirga is constitutionally enshrined as the highest expression of the Afghan people .
Kathmandu announced last week that it would reopen to mountaineers once climbing season begins in September .
How many of the world ’ s 14 tallest peaks are in Nepal ?
Scroll down for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Reserve Bank of India ( RBI ) , the country ’ s central bank , announced a debt restructuring scheme this week , the Financial Times reports .
Coupled with an extension of an ongoing debt moratorium , the RBI hopes the moves will encourage banks to shed their risk-averse instincts and continue lending to businesses .
Indicators of consumer demand , however , show that the economy remains fragile .
[ For more , watch my event last Thursday with the International Monetary Fund ’ s Kristalina Georgieva and Eurasia Group ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ discussed the extent to which the global economy is suffering and how to move forward—with a sustained green recovery—in the coming months . ]
Nepal is home to eight of the world ’ s tallest mountains , including , of course , Mount Everest .
The Himalayan country lifted its coronavirus lockdown on July 21 and will resume international flights this month as it attempts to welcome visitors once again .
That ’ s it for this week .
We welcome your feedback at newsletters @ foreignpolicy.com .
You can find older editions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more from FP , subscribe here or sign up for our other newsletters .

Welcome to Foreign Policy’s South Asia Brief, the weekly newsletter that keeps you up to date on a region that is home to one-fourth of humanity.
Welcome to Foreign Policy’s South Asia Brief, the weekly newsletter that keeps you up to date on a region that is home to one-fourth of humanity.
This week: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi lays the cornerstone to a controversial temple, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa is poised for a comeback in Sri Lanka, Afghanistan plans its grand assembly of elders, and introducing FP’s new coronavirus response index.
If you would like to receive South Asia Brief in your inbox every Thursday, please sign up here.
Modi’s Ramifications
“Today, centuries of waiting are over.” That’s how Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi summed up the moment he laid down the foundation stone for a new grand temple to the Hindu god Ram in the city of Ayodhya on Wednesday. While the coronavirus pandemic limited the number of officials present to fewer than 200, hundreds of millions of viewers tuned in to watch saffron-robed priests perform ceremonies kicking off the construction of the temple.
The proposed shrine isn’t just any temple. Hindus believe it is the site of the birth of one of their most important deities, Ram. Muslims, on the other hand, point to the fact that the temple is being built on the very site of a 16th-century mosque torn down by a Hindu mob in 1992—an incident that sparked deadly riots across the country.
The importance of Aug. 5. The Modi government has planned this day for months. The country’s Supreme Court greenlighted the construction of the temple as far back as last November, but New Delhi picked Wednesday for its ceremony because it was the first anniversary of the abrogation of Kashmir, when India revoked the Muslim-majority state’s autonomy and brought it under the central government’s control.
Combining these two events—ending Kashmir’s special status and building a Ram temple—has powerful symbolism. Both moves were campaign promises for Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the last two national elections and capture how the government has achieved its goal of Hindu dominance.
With Hindu supremacy, of course, comes Muslim suppression. As the Economist points out, while Kashmir and the Ram temple are two of the BJP’s core agenda items, a third could be the end of Muslim family law, which is still partly practiced in India. The BJP has already made crucial advances, criminalizing a medieval Muslim law in which men could divorce their wives by saying the word talaq, or divorce, three times.
The end product of the BJP’s recent policies is an increasingly uncertain time for India’s nearly 200 million Muslims. Another BJP initiative, a controversial citizenship law that could discriminate against Muslims in particular, was put on the back burner last December only after mass protests. With the pandemic still spreading, Wednesday’s moment of Hindu triumphalism not only passed without public interruption, but it also served as a timely distraction for Modi’s large Hindu base.
Next steps. What goals does Modi chase after fulfilling his campaign promises? The backdrop to India’s increasing Hindu nationalism is quite dire. India just crossed 2 million confirmed coronavirus cases and could be the world’s worst-affected country by the end of the year. The economy, slowing dramatically before the pandemic, has gotten worse.
Estimates suggest that as many as 100 million Indians have lost their livelihoods and tens of millions of migrant workers are displaced. The economy could contract by as much as 10 percent this year. There is little real chance of a fiscal recovery until the health crisis abates—and in India there is no sign of that until the world produces a vaccine.
For Modi, fixing these problems will be much harder than symbolic moves to appease his base. Ironically, by shutting down or slowing the internet in Kashmir, and by standing by as the authorities discriminate against Muslims (as they did during the Delhi riots this year), India is curbing the aspirations and productivity of its largest minority group—a circumstance that can hardly provide a tailwind for the broader economy.
For more on this, try some further reading in Foreign Policy. This week, Sumit Ganguly assessed the government’s political and economic record in Kashmir, Raksha Kumar described how a generation of young Kashmiris feel disenfranchised and left behind, and Neeta Lal warned how the pandemic disproportionately affects Indian women, especially their job prospects. From our archives, I recommend Snigdha Poonam’s explanation of why the phrase Jai Shri Ram is so important in modern India—it’s a great read and very relevant this week.
What We’re Following
India hits 2 million COVID-19 cases. India is now just the third country after Brazil and the United States to cross 2 million known coronavirus cases. As shown below, recent trends are holding steady: Cases are spiking the most in India, while other major South Asian countries such as Bangladesh and Pakistan are not far behind. In each case, testing rates are too low to accurately gauge the spread of the virus. Health experts estimate that community transmission is well underway.
On Thursday, FP Analytics launched its new COVID-19 Global Response Index, using a range of parameters to rank how major countries have responded to the coronavirus pandemic so far. While New Zealand, Senegal, and Denmark rank top on the list of 36 countries, India’s ranking of 24 puts it toward the end of the performance spectrum.
The full index is available to members of FP Insider. Click here to become a member and access this and other reports by the FP Analytics team, in addition to all of FP’s content and newsletters.
Sri Lanka’s election. Votes are still being counted in Thursday’s national election in Sri Lanka, but all signs point to Mahinda Rajapaksa returning to power as prime minister. Rajapaksa is expected to be appointed prime minister by his brother, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, if their Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) party wins the most seats. If the SLPP wins a two-thirds majority, observers expect it to sanction expanded powers for the presidency, entrenching the Rajapaksa family’s grip on power. India’s Modi has already called Mahinda Rajapaksa to congratulate him on his performance.
Afghan grand assembly. On Friday, Afghanistan will convene a loya jirga, or grand assembly of elders, to discuss the fate of Taliban prisoners. Kabul has so far released around 4,600 of a requested 5,000 prisoners as part of the U.S.-Taliban peace deal. The remaining 400 are proving to be too controversial to release without further debate: According to a presidential spokesperson, many have been convicted in mass killings and sentenced to death. A loya jirga is constitutionally enshrined as the highest expression of the Afghan people.
Question of the Week
Kathmandu announced last week that it would reopen to mountaineers once climbing season begins in September. How many of the world’s 14 tallest peaks are in Nepal?
A) 3
B) 8
C) 11
D) 12
Scroll down for the answer.
South Asia Inc.
Dodgy debt. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the country’s central bank, announced a debt restructuring scheme this week, the Financial Times reports. Coupled with an extension of an ongoing debt moratorium, the RBI hopes the moves will encourage banks to shed their risk-averse instincts and continue lending to businesses. Indicators of consumer demand, however, show that the economy remains fragile.
[For more, watch my event last Thursday with the International Monetary Fund’s Kristalina Georgieva and Eurasia Group’s Ian Bremmer, in which we discussed the extent to which the global economy is suffering and how to move forward—with a sustained green recovery—in the coming months.]
And the Answer Is…
B) 8.
Nepal is home to eight of the world’s tallest mountains, including, of course, Mount Everest. The Himalayan country lifted its coronavirus lockdown on July 21 and will resume international flights this month as it attempts to welcome visitors once again.
That’s it for this week.
We welcome your feedback at newsletters@foreignpolicy.com. You can find older editions of South Asia Brief here. For more from FP, subscribe here or sign up for our other newsletters.


foreignpolicy--2020-08-06--Biden Bucks Progressives, Won’t Denounce Israeli Occupation

In early July , Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and other influential progressives were convinced that they had secured a critical concession from Joe Biden ’ s campaign : For the first time , the Democratic Party platform would assert that Palestinians had a right to live free of foreign “ occupation , ” a scarcely veiled reference to Israel .
But days before a draft platform was released on July 15 , the presumptive Democratic nominee personally weighed in , according to three sources familiar with the discussion , ordering his advisors not to include any reference to Israeli “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ these sources , followed heavy last-minute lobbying by pro-Israel advocacy groups .
Biden aides subsequently phoned progressive leaders and urged them to drop their demand to declare Israel an occupying power , arguing that the inclusion of the phrase threatened to undermine unity within the Democratic Party .
“ The question of whether to allow the text to refer to ‘ occupation ’ or use the phrase ‘ end the occupation ’ was taken to the vice president and he said ‘ no , ’ ” Jason Isaacson , the chief policy and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Committee , told Foreign Policy .
“ This is not an issue on which the party can bend because it would be contrary to the position of Joe Biden.
” The retreat reflected the reluctance of the former vice president to reverse decades of staunch support for Israel , even as Biden and his party are expressing growing support for reestablishing diplomatic ties with the Palestinians and reinforcing the need to pay greater heed to Palestinian rights .
It also marked something of a victory for the party ’ s establishment , which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Israel , even as its prime minister , Benjamin Netanyahu , has moved increasingly close to the Republican Party and its standard-bearer , President Donald Trump .
In January , Trump unveiled a long-awaited Middle East peace plan that was heavily tilted in favor of Israel and that offered the Palestinians limited sovereignty with no authority over territorial waters , air , border , or security .
The 181-page plan , which was negotiated by Trump ’ s son-in-law and advisor , Jared Kushner , was immediately rejected by the Palestinian leadership .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Palestine is a clear victory for those supporting a return to mainstream Democratic policies of the past and a loss for the progressives seeking more restrictive or conditional support for Israel , ” said Peter Mulrean , who served for three decades in the State Department and subsequently oversaw U.N. aid programs for Palestinians .
“ The outcome is not a real surprise , ” Mulrean said .
Progressives , he added , made “ real headway ” on issues from climate change to justice reform , but “ they didn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which the mainstreamers worried would be a real liability with certain voters .
That ’ s how political negotiations work.
” The dispute over Israel comes as the campaign is facing a rebellion from within the party ’ s progressive wing , with more than 275 Sanders delegates signing a letter criticizing Biden ’ s foreign-policy team , citing concerns that it is staffed by officials with conflicts of interests , according to a report in HuffPost .
The notion that Israel is an occupying power on Arab lands it conquered in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by international law .
Multiple U.N. Security Council and General Assembly resolutions have described Israel as an occupying power , and previous Democratic and Republican U.S. presidents have said as much .
In January 2008 , President George W. Bush said that “ there should be an end to the occupation that began in 1967.
” President Barack Obama , too , referenced the “ daily humiliations—large and small—that come with occupation ” in his 2009 Cairo speech .
But there has long been resistance to including such language in the party platform @ @ @ @ @ @ @ presidential run , the platform made no references to occupation and didn ’ t even mention Israeli settlements , which have gradually swallowed up Palestinian lands in recent decades .
But support for a tougher approach to Israel has been growing in the party , fueled by the increasing influence of progressives and reinforced by resentment among more mainstream Democrats over Netanyahu ’ s growing alignment with the Republican Party .
That effort got a boost in May , when a group of 32 Democratic foreign-policy mandarins—including Anthony Lake , who served as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ administration ; former Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbot ; and Avril Haines , who is overseeing foreign policy for Biden ’ s election campaign transition team—urged the campaign to strike a fairer balance between Israeli security and Palestinian rights than previous party platforms .
Previous Democratic Party platforms , they wrote , have “ been nearly silent on the rights of Palestinians , on Israeli actions that undermine those rights and the prospects for a two-state solution , and on the need for security for both peoples.
” The letter-writing campaign—which the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that the platform “ expressly state a commitment to a resolution of the conflict that ensures both Israel ’ s security and future as a Jewish and democratic state with equal rights for all its citizens , as well as Palestinian rights , including self-determination , security and freedom .
It should include clear opposition to ongoing occupation , settlement expansion and any form of unilateral annexation of territory in the West Bank as well as clear opposition to violence , terrorism and incitement from all sides.
” Daniel Kurtzer , a former @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the letter , said he felt it was important to explicitly mention “ occupation ” to send a clear signal of opposition to the “ creeping annexation ” that is likely to occur in the coming years , whether Netanyahu makes good on his pledge to annex major portions of the West Bank or not .
“ The everyday creeping annexation has taken place for the last 53 years and will continue unless there is a focus on ending the occupation , ” he told Foreign Policy .
Biden ’ s campaign has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tougher approach to Israel than did Hillary Clinton ’ s 2016 campaign .
The latest version of the Democratic Party ’ s 2020 platform expresses clear opposition to the Israeli annexation of West Bank territory and the expansion of Israeli settlements .
The party platform reaffirms opposition to the “ Boycott , Divestment , Sanctions ” movement .
In early July , the campaign floated platform language with key progressives that would have underscored the right of Palestinians to live free of occupation .
Jewish Insider and HuffPost previously reported that the platform @ @ @ @ @ @ @ phrase “ occupation.
” But the initiative faced intense pushback from pro-Israel advocates .
Biden agreed to take it out .
Efforts to convince Sanders and his delegates to drop the matter did not succeed .
Taking the microphone during a virtual July 27 platform conference , Clem Balanoff , a Sanders delegate , offered a set of amendments that would have acknowledged the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands , toughened the language on settlements , and prohibited U.S. money being used to facilitate annexation or the violation of Palestinian rights .
In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ American and Israeli leaders have previously acknowledged the need to end the occupation , citing a 2003 remark by Ariel Sharon : “ What is happening is an occupation .
To hold 3.5 million Palestinians under occupation , I believe that is a terrible thing for Israel and for the Palestinians , ” Balanoff quoted Sharon saying .
( Sharon later backtracked on those comments , following protests from right-wing critics . )
In response , Dan Shapiro , a former U.S. ambassador to Israel under Obama , acknowledged that the platform had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stressed that it calls for restoring diplomatic ties with and resuming humanitarian assistance to the Palestinians .
“ For the first time , we say clearly and by name our opposition to Israel ’ s annexation of territory in the West Bank , ” he said .
“ We state clearly that we will continue to stand against incitement and terror .
And for the first time , we recognize the right of Palestinians to live in a state of their own.
” Wendy Sherman , a former undersecretary of state for political @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that including Sanders ’ s proposed amendment would “ divide our party at the very time we need to be uniting in order to defeat Donald Trump.
” In the end , Biden ’ s delegates voted down the Sanders amendments 117 to 34 , with five abstentions .
The Biden campaign decided to “ walk a fine line , ” Kurtzer said .
“ It ’ s the kind of balance you would expect from a party that wants to distance itself from anything Trump has done but can ’ t go @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would like.
” Despite the setback , several key progressives said they nevertheless were pleased with some elements , such as the explicit criticism of illegal annexation and expanding settlements .
“ This platform demonstrates real , tangible progress from the 2016 platform and previous party platforms , ” said J Street spokesperson Logan Bayroff .
Still , the semantic fight has left some wondering .
“ I ’ m baffled by the refusal to put the word ‘ occupation , ’ ” said James Zogby , a Palestinian rights advocate who served @ @ @ @ @ @ @ platform committee .
“ This is the first time we have mentioned the word ‘ settlement ’ and the first time we have called for an independent , viable Palestinian state .
It ’ s a better platform , but it ’ s 30 years behind the times .
No votes to lose by mentioning the word ‘ occupation .
’ ”

In early July, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and other influential progressives were convinced that they had secured a critical concession from Joe Biden’s campaign: For the first time, the Democratic Party platform would assert that Palestinians had a right to live free of foreign “occupation,” a scarcely veiled reference to Israel.
In early July, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and other influential progressives were convinced that they had secured a critical concession from Joe Biden’s campaign: For the first time, the Democratic Party platform would assert that Palestinians had a right to live free of foreign “occupation,” a scarcely veiled reference to Israel.
But days before a draft platform was released on July 15, the presumptive Democratic nominee personally weighed in, according to three sources familiar with the discussion, ordering his advisors not to include any reference to Israeli “occupation.” The decision, according to these sources, followed heavy last-minute lobbying by pro-Israel advocacy groups. Biden aides subsequently phoned progressive leaders and urged them to drop their demand to declare Israel an occupying power, arguing that the inclusion of the phrase threatened to undermine unity within the Democratic Party.
“The question of whether to allow the text to refer to ‘occupation’ or use the phrase ‘end the occupation’ was taken to the vice president and he said ‘no,’” Jason Isaacson, the chief policy and political affairs officer at the American Jewish Committee, told Foreign Policy. “This is not an issue on which the party can bend because it would be contrary to the position of Joe Biden.”
The retreat reflected the reluctance of the former vice president to reverse decades of staunch support for Israel, even as Biden and his party are expressing growing support for reestablishing diplomatic ties with the Palestinians and reinforcing the need to pay greater heed to Palestinian rights. It also marked something of a victory for the party’s establishment, which has sought to preserve close relations with Israel, even as its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has moved increasingly close to the Republican Party and its standard-bearer, President Donald Trump.
In January, Trump unveiled a long-awaited Middle East peace plan that was heavily tilted in favor of Israel and that offered the Palestinians limited sovereignty with no authority over territorial waters, air, border, or security. The 181-page plan, which was negotiated by Trump’s son-in-law and advisor, Jared Kushner, was immediately rejected by the Palestinian leadership.
“The party platform section on Israel and Palestine is a clear victory for those supporting a return to mainstream Democratic policies of the past and a loss for the progressives seeking more restrictive or conditional support for Israel,” said Peter Mulrean, who served for three decades in the State Department and subsequently oversaw U.N. aid programs for Palestinians.
“The outcome is not a real surprise,” Mulrean said. Progressives, he added, made “real headway” on issues from climate change to justice reform, but “they didn’t get their way on Israel, which the mainstreamers worried would be a real liability with certain voters. That’s how political negotiations work.”
The dispute over Israel comes as the campaign is facing a rebellion from within the party’s progressive wing, with more than 275 Sanders delegates signing a letter criticizing Biden’s foreign-policy team, citing concerns that it is staffed by officials with conflicts of interests, according to a report in HuffPost.
The notion that Israel is an occupying power on Arab lands it conquered in the Six-Day War in 1967 is firmly supported by international law. Multiple U.N. Security Council and General Assembly resolutions have described Israel as an occupying power, and previous Democratic and Republican U.S. presidents have said as much. In January 2008, President George W. Bush said that “there should be an end to the occupation that began in 1967.” President Barack Obama, too, referenced the “daily humiliations—large and small—that come with occupation” in his 2009 Cairo speech.
But there has long been resistance to including such language in the party platform. During Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential run, the platform made no references to occupation and didn’t even mention Israeli settlements, which have gradually swallowed up Palestinian lands in recent decades. But support for a tougher approach to Israel has been growing in the party, fueled by the increasing influence of progressives and reinforced by resentment among more mainstream Democrats over Netanyahu’s growing alignment with the Republican Party.
That effort got a boost in May, when a group of 32 Democratic foreign-policy mandarins—including Anthony Lake, who served as national security advisor during the Bill Clinton administration; former Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbot; and Avril Haines, who is overseeing foreign policy for Biden’s election campaign transition team—urged the campaign to strike a fairer balance between Israeli security and Palestinian rights than previous party platforms. Previous Democratic Party platforms, they wrote, have “been nearly silent on the rights of Palestinians, on Israeli actions that undermine those rights and the prospects for a two-state solution, and on the need for security for both peoples.”
The letter-writing campaign—which the liberal advocacy group J Street helped organize—recommended that the platform “expressly state a commitment to a resolution of the conflict that ensures both Israel’s security and future as a Jewish and democratic state with equal rights for all its citizens, as well as Palestinian rights, including self-determination, security and freedom. It should include clear opposition to ongoing occupation, settlement expansion and any form of unilateral annexation of territory in the West Bank as well as clear opposition to violence, terrorism and incitement from all sides.”
Daniel Kurtzer, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel who also signed the letter, said he felt it was important to explicitly mention “occupation” to send a clear signal of opposition to the “creeping annexation” that is likely to occur in the coming years, whether Netanyahu makes good on his pledge to annex major portions of the West Bank or not.
“The everyday creeping annexation has taken place for the last 53 years and will continue unless there is a focus on ending the occupation,” he told Foreign Policy.
Biden’s campaign has shown a willingness to take a significantly tougher approach to Israel than did Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign.
The latest version of the Democratic Party’s 2020 platform expresses clear opposition to the Israeli annexation of West Bank territory and the expansion of Israeli settlements. The party platform reaffirms opposition to the “Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions” movement. In early July, the campaign floated platform language with key progressives that would have underscored the right of Palestinians to live free of occupation. Jewish Insider and HuffPost previously reported that the platform committee discussed the possibility of including the phrase “occupation.” But the initiative faced intense pushback from pro-Israel advocates.
Biden agreed to take it out. Efforts to convince Sanders and his delegates to drop the matter did not succeed.
Taking the microphone during a virtual July 27 platform conference, Clem Balanoff, a Sanders delegate, offered a set of amendments that would have acknowledged the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands, toughened the language on settlements, and prohibited U.S. money being used to facilitate annexation or the violation of Palestinian rights.
In making his case, Balanoff noted that American and Israeli leaders have previously acknowledged the need to end the occupation, citing a 2003 remark by Ariel Sharon: “What is happening is an occupation. To hold 3.5 million Palestinians under occupation, I believe that is a terrible thing for Israel and for the Palestinians,” Balanoff quoted Sharon saying. (Sharon later backtracked on those comments, following protests from right-wing critics.)
In response, Dan Shapiro, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel under Obama, acknowledged that the platform had not met everyone’s hopes but stressed that it calls for restoring diplomatic ties with and resuming humanitarian assistance to the Palestinians.
“For the first time, we say clearly and by name our opposition to Israel’s annexation of territory in the West Bank,” he said. “We state clearly that we will continue to stand against incitement and terror. And for the first time, we recognize the right of Palestinians to live in a state of their own.”
Wendy Sherman, a former undersecretary of state for political affairs and key Biden advisor, argued that including Sanders’s proposed amendment would “divide our party at the very time we need to be uniting in order to defeat Donald Trump.”
In the end, Biden’s delegates voted down the Sanders amendments 117 to 34, with five abstentions.
The Biden campaign decided to “walk a fine line,” Kurtzer said. “It’s the kind of balance you would expect from a party that wants to distance itself from anything Trump has done but can’t go as far as some of the progressives would like.”
Despite the setback, several key progressives said they nevertheless were pleased with some elements, such as the explicit criticism of illegal annexation and expanding settlements.
“This platform demonstrates real, tangible progress from the 2016 platform and previous party platforms,” said J Street spokesperson Logan Bayroff.
Still, the semantic fight has left some wondering.
“I’m baffled by the refusal to put the word ‘occupation,’” said James Zogby, a Palestinian rights advocate who served as a delegate on the 2016 Democratic platform committee. “This is the first time we have mentioned the word ‘settlement’ and the first time we have called for an independent, viable Palestinian state. It’s a better platform, but it’s 30 years behind the times. No votes to lose by mentioning the word ‘occupation.’”