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Azerbaijan inaugurated its embassy in Tel Aviv in the presence of the country’s Foreign Minister and new ambassador and the Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen.
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Demonstrators chanted, “Get out Israel from U-20 World Cup.”
By Shiryn Ghermezian, The Algemeiner
Soccer’s world governing body FIFA announced on Wednesday that Indonesia will no longer host the 2023 men’s Under-20 World Cup set to start on May 20 amid protests in the host country over Israel’s participation in the competition.
Without specifying details, FIFA said the decision was made “due to the current circumstances” following Wednesday’s meeting between FIFA President Gianni Infantino and President of the Football Association of Indonesia (PSSI) Erick Thohir. The dates of the tournament, expected to run from May 20-June 11, will not change and a new host country will be announced “as soon as possible,” FIFA noted, adding that “potential sanctions against the PSSI may also be decided at a later stage.”
“FIFA would like to underline that despite this decision, it remains committed to actively assisting the PSSI, in close cooperation and with the support of the government of [Indonesia’s] President [Joko] Widodo, in the transformation process of Indonesian football following the tragedy that occurred in October 2022,” FIFA explained, referencing the stampede at a stadium in Indonesia last year that resulted in the death of 135 people.
Protests took place in Indonesia’s capital last week against Israel’s expected participation in the U-20 World Cup, in which 24 teams will compete across six cities in Indonesia.
FIFA also postponed the draw for the competition in response to the protests, where demonstrators chanted “get out Israel from U-20 World Cup” and after the governor of the Indonesian island of Bali refused to allow the Israeli national soccer team on his island. Bali was supposed to host the drawing and agreed to be one of the venues for the U-20 World Cup.
Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation and the country has no formal diplomatic relations with Israel. This would be the first year that Israel will compete in the U-20 World Cup after qualifying in June when it reached the semifinals of the Under-19 European Championship.
Before FIFA’s announcement was made on Wednesday, President Widodo said in a live stream address that while sports and politics should not be mixed, Indonesia will not change its foreign policy position toward the Palestinian cause “because our support for Palestine is always strong and sturdy.”
Widodo further reiterated Indonesia’s support for a two-state solution, and said Israel’s qualification for the U-20 World Cup was decided on long after his country was chosen to host the World Cup.
Indonesia were suspended by FIFA for almost a year until May 2016 because of government interference, according to Reuters. PSSI said last week that it fears the issues with FIFA concerning Israel’s involvement in the World Cup will result in the country facing sanctions or suspensions from participating in and hosting future soccer events, including the 2026 World Cup, the 2034 World Cup and the Olympics.
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Malir camp city, Pakistan. (Nadja Sieniawski)
Six months after disastrous floods struck Pakistan, promises of an ambitious flood recovery plan ring hollow for flood victims.
Last year’s monsoon was exceptionally violent, submerging more than a third of Pakistan’s landmass. Much of the water still covers large areas of land today, while thousands remain displaced, living in makeshift shelters on roadsides and camp cities.
Pakistan’s government has responded with an ambitious $16 billion flood recovery plan, the Resilient Recovery, Rehabilitation, and Reconstruction Framework (4RF). Most recently, the international community pledged more than $9 billion in financial support at a Geneva conference. These commitments are a welcome success for the crisis-hit and cash-strapped government.
However, victims on the ground have little faith that the newly committed aid will change their plight.
Since torrential rains hit Pakistan last August, the country’s leaders have been busy scoring diplomatic victories. Most notably, Islamabad took credit for the decision of world leaders at COP27 to establish a loss and damage facility for nations suffering from the effects of environmental disaster. Once operational, the scheme will funnel financing from the world’s heaviest emitters to the nations hardest hit by climate change.
While Pakistan’s leaders basked in the limelight, victims were still waiting for a sign of support from the government.
The largest number of flood refugees are hosted in Malir camp, situated on the outskirts of Karachi, Pakistan’s most populous city. The camp city hosted 8,500 flood victims at its height and had to rely heavily on support from local community volunteers, nearby residents, and private hospital facilities.
“Apart from helping us clear the area from bushes and providing tents, we had to completely rely on volunteers and charities to support thousands of flood victims whose houses got destroyed,” Imran Soomro, comanager of the camp city, said.
Imran Soomro and Hussain Magsi, volunteer camp managers of Malir camp city. (Nadja Sieniawski)
“We all work here for free. Many of the volunteers are flood victims themselves.”
An Islamic NGO provides food in Malir, and private hospital facilities provide free-of-cost medical checkups twice weekly nearby. Clothes, blankets, and sanitary products are donated by locals, but supplies were insufficient, particularly during the winter months. As a result, many children suffered from respiratory illnesses.
Ajeeban and Larkana set off to Malir with their eight children after floods completely destroyed their house in the village of Thatta. They now live in a small tent that they share with ten other people and await government support to build a new house.
“We are grateful for all the support from volunteers, but we cannot keep living like this. We need a roof over our heads, and for our children to return to school. For months, we have been waiting for any sign of support from the government. But there has been nothing.”
Following the floods, Malir camp was growing steadily, with many flood victims arriving from other camps.
In December, however, local authorities sent the Malir encampment a notice of eviction. Imran and comanager Hussain Magsi have been fighting eviction on the basis that the flood refugees have nowhere to go back to.
In Jacobabad, one of the districts worst affected by the floods, volunteers and victims have also been taking rehabilitation into their own hands.
Dr Samra has been fortunate enough that her own house has only suffered minor damage. She invests her time and efforts into supporting her community to settle back by providing food, clothing, medical assistance, and support for reconstruction of permanent housing.
“All this is only possible with the help of volunteers and donations. The government has contributed to the relief efforts, but unfortunately the amount of aid has not been sufficient to ensure proper rehabilitation,” Dr Samra explained.
Dr Samra’s relief efforts are wholly dependent on self-funding and donations. The funding has been sufficient for the construction of forty housing units. These are, however, unlikely to withstand a similar environmental disaster.
Dr Samra believes that her country needs more international aid. “The challenges on the ground are immense, and the government is doing what it can, but with insufficient resources.”
“The aid is very delayed, but ultimately it will reach the people.”
Unlike Dr Samra, people in Malir have little faith that international aid will reach them. Government authorities have since forced the closure of Malir camp city.
“We do not know where the billions donated early on by the international community have gone,” said Soomro.
“The government has closed the camp city but has not communicated where the flood victims should go. The only information we have received is that the government has started the paperwork for the reconstruction of housing, but no timeline has been communicated. In the meantime, the flood victims are in limbo,” Soomro said.
Bahram and Zamira fled to Malir with their two daughters two days after the rains started. Embroiderers by profession, they are hoping to find better opportunities in Karachi.
“Back home, we are indebted slaves under a feudal system. My landowner keeps calling, asking us to come back. The government has even offered us return tickets but without a penny or any idea of where and how we should live. There is nothing to go back to for us,” said Bahram.
Unequal access to land and feudal land ownership are some of the main contributors to rural poverty in Pakistan. Many flood victims are trapped by this system and view the floods as an opportunity to escape. But under Pakistan’s recovery program, there are no plans to address land ownership issues.
Additionally, many fear new climate disasters. “We experience heavy flooding every five years. How can we live in these conditions? We do not see much hope in returning to our lands anymore,” added Bahram.
While climate change is certain to have added to Pakistan’s woes, the government’s disastrous water management and urban planning are also culpable.
Shop run by flood victims in Malir camp city. (Nadja Sieniawski)
Farmers for years have complained about the adverse effects of some of Pakistan’s major irrigation and drainage systems, arguing that they deliver excess water to some areas, intensifying flooding.
Following the 2010 floods, which were similar in severity to recent floods, ambitious flood-prevention plans were drawn up. Ultimately, they failed to prevent a new catastrophe in 2022.
“I have sadly not yet seen any government efforts being made to build resilience against future floods. Up until now, everyone has been preoccupied solely with reacting to the human disaster rather than planning for the next one,” Dr Samra admitted.
According to media reports, Pakistan did present flood prevention plans to partners at the UN conference. Back home, however, the government is leaving people in the dark.
It is the world’s duty to help, especially that of the world’s heaviest polluters. But pledges of financial aid must be followed by a swift transfer of funds, and the use of funds must be tightly monitored. Corruption is entrenched in Pakistan; without increased democratic oversight, the country’s authorities cannot be trusted to direct the money to those most in need.
The ongoing fiscal crisis in Pakistan has only worsened what was an already difficult situation. Sky-high inflation and interest rates of 20 percent have made daily existence increasingly unaffordable for many Pakistanis.
For the millions of victims of the flood, rising costs and a lack of relief mean that they need support urgently from both the national government and the international community.
Anti-judicial reform protesters plan to form ‘Citizens Police.’
By JNS
Hundreds of opponents of judicial reform have established a group called the “Citizens Police” to prevent violence at “points of friction.”
About 200 Israeli activists have organized themselves in a WhatsApp group, fearing attacks on fellow anti-reform protesters.
“Due to the difficult situation created by the protests, we are establishing a civil guard if Ben-Gvir can, too,” they said, referring to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent promise to National Security Minister of Itamar Ben-Gvir to support him in establishing a volunteer national guard under his ministry’s control,” Channel 12 reported.
The idea of a national guard was first proposed by then-Prime Minister Naftali Bennett during the previous government.
“In view of the threats of Ben-Gvir’s militias, we need to take action so that our demonstrators feel safe in the face of the terror that is imposed everywhere,” the activists said. “The idea is that we will cover the country in teams of four to five who are available at any moment (in shifts, of course) to leap into action to protect protesters in their area.
“Our goal is to create a determined group that can reach the points of friction at the demonstrations in order to be there and prevent violence,” the group said.
On Tuesday, Channel 12 reported that three males, ages 17, 25 and 26, were arrested after they posted a video on social media in which they declared their intention to harm anti-reform protesters at a demonstration in Jerusalem. In the recording, they are heard saying, “There are knives. There are weapons—we are on our way to Jerusalem to kill them.”
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Yousaf had served as media spokesperson for Islamic Relief Worldwide, which the Israeli government had designated a “terrorist front” in 2006.
By World Israel News Staff
Humza Yousaf was confirmed as first minister of Scotland on Tuesday, becoming the first person of color to head the Scottish government and the first Muslim national leader in any Western democracy.
The milestone comes five months after the UK got its first Hindu leader in Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. Britain’s capital city is headed by London Mayor Sadiq Khan, the son of Pakistani immigrants.
“There’s an expectation now, or a familiarity with diversity in British politics, that we don’t see in other European countries,” said Sunder Katwala of British Future, a think-tank that studies identity and race.
Lawmakers in the Edinburgh-based Scottish parliament voted on Tuesday to confirm 37-year-old Yousaf as first minister, a day after he was elected leader of the governing Scottish National Party. Scotland, a country of 5.5 million people, is part of the United Kingdom, but has a semi-autonomous government with broad power in areas including health and education.
In an acceptance speech on Monday, Yousaf said he was “forever thankful that my grandparents made the trip from the Punjab to Scotland over 60 years ago.”
“As immigrants to this country, who knew barely a word of English, they could not have imagined their grandson would one day be on the cusp of being the next first minister of Scotland,” he said. “From the Punjab to our parliament, this is a journey over generations that reminds us that we should celebrate migrants who contribute so much to our country.”
Yousaf was born in Glasgow in 1985. His father’s family came from Pakistan, his mother’s from East Africa, part of an exodus of South Asian families who faced post-independence discrimination. One grandfather worked in a Singer sewing machine factory, while a grandmother was a Glasgow bus conductor.
At primary school, Yousaf later recalled, “there was only me and one other brown face.” He attended a private high school, then studied politics at the University of Glasgow — after breaking it to his parents, who had hoped he’d become a lawyer.
Yousaf joined the pro-independence, left-wing Scottish National Party in 2005, inspired partly by its then-leader Alex Salmond’s opposition to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, which the UK under Prime Minister Tony Blair had joined. Yousaf said he felt independence from the UK was the only way to ensure Scotland would not become embroiled in another illegal war.
Yousaf is also on record as a supporter of the Palestinians. His wife’s family lives in Gaza, and during the May 2021 conflict, for example, he spoke out against Israel.
He has accused Israel of “killing innocent civilians” and “starvation of population of Gaza and continuing human-rights abuses.”
Wife has been in floods of tears all evening. Her brother lives in Gaza with his wife & three young children. He tells us it’s raining rockets. As a parent he feels helpless, they cannot leave as they are under blockade. All we can do is pray & hope they are alive in the morning.
— Humza Yousaf (@HumzaYousaf) May 11, 2021
In 2008, he met with Hamas leader Mohammad Sawalha, also known by his nom de guerre Abu Obaida, at an event in the UK, The Jewish Chronicle reported earlier this month.
According to the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, Sawalha has spread the “radical Islamic doctrines of the Muslim Brotherhood to the Muslim community in Britain,” participated in flotillas to Gaza, and aided in the illicit transfer of funds from the U.S. to Hamas operatives in Judea and Samaria.
When The JC asked Yousaf if he was aware of Salwaha’s background and terror-supporting activities, the lawmaker did not directly answer the question. Instead, he said that he has a “strong track record of standing up against every form of hatred, including antisemitism.”
Yousaf and Sawalha both attended the 2008 Islam Expo in London, an event funded by the Qatari government. Other attendees included a Pakistani businessman who publicly praised the Taliban and a former UK parliamentarian who said that the “Jewish lobby” controls the U.S. and forces the country to do the bidding of Israel, the JC reported.
According to Middle East Forum, “European and Islamic governments have denounced Islamic Relief because of the anti-Semitism of its officials and its long history of close ties to Hamas and other designated terrorist groups. In 2020, the State Department warned about the ‘blatant and horrifying anti-Semitism and glorification of violence exhibited at the most senior levels of Islamic Relief Worldwide.’”
Elected to the Scottish parliament in 2011, he has served in several government roles, most recently health.
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Service members, military veterans, and civilians honor Veterans Day and attend a naturalization ceremony in Triangle, Virginia, 2014. (Alex Wong / Getty Images)
Like fifteen million other veterans returning from military service after World War II, Brooklyn-born Tony Mazzocchi needed a job. He was a high school dropout, from a union family, who enlisted at age sixteen and then survived the Battle of the Bulge as a combat infantryman.
After his discharge, Mazzocchi worked in construction and in several manufacturing plants. He got hired at a Long Island cosmetics factory, with a local union in need of revitalization. By 1953, he had been elected its president and, over the next twelve years, turned this affiliate of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers (OCAW) into a catalyst for new organizing, progressive political action, and contract victories like winning one of the first union-negotiated dental plans in the country.
Mazzocchi later became one of the best-known labor radicals in the country, but he was not an outlier in the postwar era. In the 1950s and ’60s, tens of thousands of World War II veterans could be found on the front lines of labor battles in auto, steel, electrical equipment manufacturing, mining, trucking, and the telephone industry.
And veterans from working-class backgrounds continue to do so in modern-day campaigns. Today, about 1.3 million former service members work in union jobs, in both the private and public sector.
According to the AFL-CIO, veterans are more likely to join a union than nonveterans. In a half dozen states, 25 percent or more of all working veterans belong to unions. Vermont State Labor Council president David Van Deusen sees veterans as “an underutilized resource for the labor movement,” particularly in high-profile organizing campaigns. No one, he believes, is better positioned to “expose the hypocrisy and duplicity of ‘veteran-friendly’ firms like Amazon and Walmart, who wrap themselves in the flag, while violating the rights of working-class Americans who served in uniform and the many who did not.”
That’s why labor consultant and author Jane McAlevey recommends unions today follow the example of Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) organizers. In the postwar era, she reports, labor better appreciated the “strategic value” that former service members can bring to strike-related PR campaigns, not to mention their “experience with discipline, military formation, and overcoming fear and adversity” — all very useful on militant picket lines.
Mazzocchi was a leading figure in this postwar generational cohort. When he became his national union’s legislative-political director in Washington, he helped shape the labor movement’s successful campaign for the 1970 Occupational Safety and Health Act, which now provides workplace protections for 130 million Americans. During his five-decade career, Mazzocchi also pushed for civil rights, nuclear disarmament, labor-based environmentalism, single-payer health care, and independent political action.
In the 1990s, Mazzocchi helped found the union-backed Labor Party and popularized the demand that public higher education should be free for all. He was inspired by the liberating experience of veterans from his generation, who were able to attend college as a result of the original GI bill, which he regarded as “one of the most revolutionary pieces of legislation in the 20th century.” According to his biographer Les Leopold, Mazzocchi believed that an all-inclusive twenty-first-century version of the GI bill could plant the “seeds of the good life” for millions of poor and working-class Americans today.
Post-9/11 veterans continue to benefit from their hard-earned access to affordable higher education. Will Fischer, a marine who served in Iraq before becoming director of the AFL-CIO Union Veterans Council, reports that he was able “to graduate from college and do so without the yoke of student debt.” Fischer now favors universalizing such benefits. He believes all student debt should be canceled and public higher education, including vocational schools, made tuition-free. As Fischer sees it, this would free poor and working-class young people from having to choose between “putting on a uniform and participating in never-ending US wars or taking on crushing debt.”
Veteran and labor organizer Tony Mazzocchi.
Vets have also worked within organized labor to create civilian job opportunities, which don’t require trading one uniform for another. Fischer’s successor at the Veterans Council is Will Attig, a member of United Association Local 160, Plumbers and Pipefitters in southern Illinois. Attig helps fellow Iraq and Afghanistan combat veterans find building trades jobs through the Helmets to Hardhats program. He introduced the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) to Common Defense, a post 9/11 veterans group, which has helped train members of CWA’s “Veterans for Social Change” network. Unveiled three years ago by CWA president Chris Shelton, a former telephone worker who served in the Air Force, this program seeks to “develop and organize a broad base of union activists who are veterans and/or currently serving in the military.”
As CWA notes, veterans, active-duty service members, and military families “are constantly exploited by politicians and others who seek to loot our economy, attack our communities, and divide our nation with racism and bigotry so they can consolidate more power amongst themselves.” CWA hopes to counter this ongoing right-wing threat by encouraging veterans in its own ranks to engage in bottom-up campaigns with community allies.
That includes fighting privatization of two federal agencies that employ many former soldiers: the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), which serves nine million patients in the nation’s largest public health care system, and the US Postal Service (USPS), which delivers mail to 163 million homes and businesses. Both have long been the target of corporate-backed efforts to reduce their staff, downsize operations, and outsource functions to private firms.
During the Trump administration, right-wing political appointees at the VA launched a major assault on the workplace rights of three hundred thousand workers represented by the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), National Nurses United (NNU), and other unions. A White House advisory panel on the future of the postal service called for the elimination of collective bargaining to help pave the way for privatization and job cuts that would hit more than a hundred thousand veterans.
During the Trump Administration, a White House advisory panel on the future of the Post Office called for the elimination of collective bargaining.
Like privatization foes at the VA, the American Postal Workers Union (APWU) and the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) have tried to fend off outsourcing threats with a campaign that declares, “The US Mail is Not for Sale!” As part of their collective opposition to Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a Trump appointee still on the job under Joe Biden, postal unions and their allies are fighting for better utilization of public infrastructure, rather than its dismantling and sale to the highest bidder. And among the leaders of that effort is Keith Combs, a former marine who is leader of a Detroit-based APWU local with fifteen hundred members.
Other participants in these labor-community campaigns are also veterans. NNU member Mildred Manning-Joy is a VA nurse in Durham, North Carolina, and, like one-third of the VA’s caregiving workforce, a veteran herself. She’s also the mother of a VA patient. Multiple tours of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq left her son with “the invisible scars of his time in combat.” Last spring, Manning-Joy was among the many unionized VA caregivers around the country who enlisted patients and their families, veterans’ groups, and other labor organizations in a successful fight to block President Joe Biden’s proposed closing of many VA facilities.
Similarly, thirty-eight-year-old Iraq war veteran Adam Pelletier transitioned from the Marine Corps to public sector union work — first becoming a shop steward, AFGE local president, and then labor council leader in Troy, New York. After using the GI bill to finish college, Pelletier joined the Social Security Administration, where he and his coworkers assisted retired and disabled Americans who depend on federal benefits. As a VA patient himself, he was active in AFGE’s campaign to “Save the VA” from would-be privatizers.
In upstate New York, Pelletier has confronted members of Congress who favor VA outsourcing and has become a valued advisor to the Veterans Healthcare Policy Institute, a Bay Area–based research group that works closely with AFGE and Veterans for Peace (which Pelletier has joined, along with Democratic Socialists of America). “Congress continually votes to outsource VA services, pushing people into more expensive and less effective care,” Pelletier said, in a message to fellow Labor Council members last year. “They do this instead of adequately funding the VA and looking at it as the model by which we could all, someday, enjoy universal health care. We must mobilize to stop this!”
One military veteran who spent twenty-nine years in Mazzocchi’s union has followed closely in his footsteps.
Just as Mazzocchi was a key builder of late-twentieth-century alliances between labor and environmental groups, one military veteran who spent twenty-nine years in Mazzocchi’s union (which is now part of the United Steelworkers) has followed closely in his footsteps. As vice president of USW Local 5, B. K. White helped lead a ten-week strike against Chevron in Richmond, California, last year, the longest walkout by refinery workers there in forty years.
A local contract negotiator and longtime advocate of stronger oil industry safety enforcement, White faced post-strike retaliation by management and was fired, along with four other USW members. While continuing to contest his dismissal, White has taken a new job as public policy director for newly elected Richmond mayor Eduardo Martinez, a leader of the Richmond Progressive Alliance and frequent critic of Chevron misbehavior.
According to Shiva Mishek, chief of staff for Martinez, White’s role will be “to help us lead ‘just transition’ work and support union labor and workforce development in Richmond,” two top priorities for the new mayor. On April 8, in Oakland, White will also be attending a daylong conference, sponsored by Labor Notes. There, hundreds of Bay Area labor activists will participate in workshops on shop-floor organizing, recent strike activity, and “Blue-Green” alliance-building to create job opportunities less dependent on fossil fuel extraction, transportation, refining, or use.
Many of the other causes long championed by Mazzocchi will be showcased at the gathering, like stronger workplace safety enforcement. And thanks to White’s participation, a veteran in labor will be among the older activists sharing their own experiences with a new generation of union radicals.
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