Opinions

In early August, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) exchanged fire with Syrian government forces near Manbij in Kurdish-majority northeastern Syria. The tensions in the north came just weeks after bloodshed in the south’s Suwayda governorate killed more than 1,400 people and displaced nearly 175,000. The violence between Druze and Sunni Bedouin groups continued for more than a week and has still not fully abated.

In March, groups loyal to former President Bashar al-Assad clashed with government forces and allied armed factions in the coastal governorates of Latakia and Tartus, dominated by the Alawite community. From 1,400 to 1,700 people were killed in the bloodshed, most of them civilians; 128,500 people were displaced.

The recurring violence has exposed the raw sectarianism that al-Assad once manipulated to maintain power. Now, in his absence, those divisions are metastasising, fuelled by a decade of unresolved grievances, land disputes and the proliferation of armed groups.

President Ahmad al-Sharaa, who took power after al-Assad’s ouster, has so far failed to build trust across all factions, as his main focus has been international normalisation and economic development. His Islamist leanings are causing alarm among minorities, including the Druze, Alawites, Christians and Kurds, who fear that his inability to rein in the various armed factions may result in more violence.

September’s elections may offer procedural legitimacy to al-Sharaa’s government, but without genuine security and reconciliation, they risk deepening the existing divides and reinforcing a power structure that benefits a select few at the expense of a truly unified nation.

Reconstruction and international recognition

Since coming to power, al-Sharaa has signalled that his national strategy is overwhelmingly focused on reconstruction and economic development. This is where his provisional government has concentrated its efforts.

In May, al-Sharaa spoke at an event in the country’s second biggest city, Aleppo, urging Syrians to join in the reconstruction effort. “Our war with the tyrants has ended, and our battle against poverty has begun,” he declared in his speech.

To unlock the economic potential of the country, al-Sharaa has sought to gain international recognition. With the help of Gulf states, the Syrian president has been able to achieve a major diplomatic victory: the lifting of sanctions and the removal of the armed group he headed, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, from the list of “foreign terrorist organisations” by the United States government.

US President Donald Trump’s administration also backed the potential integration of the SDF into the new security apparatus. From Washington’s perspective, engaging with the new authorities in Damascus can help reduce Iranian influence and prevent Syria from becoming a corridor for Hezbollah and other proxies. From al-Sharaa’s perspective this is a chance to secure international recognition and legitimacy.

Syria’s neighbour Turkiye is also an important player in al-Sharaa’s national strategy. It is providing noncombat military support – training, advice and technical assistance – to help rebuild Syria’s security infrastructure. It also is looking at a major role in the reconstruction effort.

This month, Turkiye began supplying Syria with natural gas, helping to address the country’s energy crisis in the north.

Meanwhile, Gulf states have pledged to invest heavily in Syria to help stabilise its economy. In July, Saudi Arabia announced $6.4bn in investments in real estate and infrastructure projects. Two weeks later, the Syrian government signed deals worth $14bn with Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and other countries in the fields of public transport and real estate.

However, many critics would argue that while economic support is essential for rebuilding, it cannot alone guarantee stability. The danger is that money and development may paper over deep-seated resentments and divisions that could reignite into future conflicts. The real challenge for the new Syrian government is to find a way to balance the urgent need for economic recovery with the equally crucial need to address people’s grievances.

Legislative elections

One way to address tensions is to gain public trust through a democratic electoral process. Al-Sharaa has called for national elections in September, but ordinary Syrians will not be able to cast their votes. That is because 140 of the 210 seats will be chosen by local electoral committees while 70 will be appointed directly by the president. There will be no seats filled by popular vote.

This format is a straightforward political calculation. It provides the new leadership with the assurance of a controlled outcome and avoids the challenges of organising a nationwide vote at a time when Damascus does not have full control over all territories and security cannot be guaranteed.

But this electoral process is likely to be met with mistrust from some Syrians, especially from minority communities, as they will see it as favouring the Sunni majority. Some may choose to boycott the elections, declare them illegitimate or find alternative ways to express their profound displeasure with a system that denies them a meaningful voice.

The US and the European Union will monitor the election carefully and will likely take a critical stance if it fails to establish a truly inclusive and representative parliament. This will likely complicate the new regime’s budding international relations and hinder its efforts to gain full diplomatic recognition and support.

The more pressing problem for Damascus will be that the elections will not help heal the country’s deep wounds at a time of continuing sectarian tensions. That is why Syria needs a nation-wide reconciliation process.

Justice and accountability

Syria’s interim government has yet to articulate a compelling vision for justice and accountability. War crimes under al-Assad – which include mass detentions, torture and chemical attacks – remain unaddressed. There have been promises to hold people accountable for sectarian massacres, but no concrete steps have been taken.

The absence of accountability is not just a moral failure. It’s a strategic one. Without a legal framework to hold perpetrators accountable, Syria’s wounds will fester.

Syria needs a new social contract, and the people will no longer tolerate the old foundations of impunity that defined the past regime.

The process of justice and accountability must be impartial and transparent. Given the deep-seated sectarian divisions and the decades of one-family rule by the al-Assad regime, which drew heavily on the Alawite minority, the new government cannot be the sole arbiter of justice. A national, state-led process could easily be accused of being a form of retribution against a particular sect or those associated with the old regime. To counter this perception and ensure fairness, Syria would greatly benefit from the assistance of the international community, particularly the United Nations.

An entity like the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) could be a powerful tool. Instead of focusing solely on punishment, a TRC would prioritise uncovering the truth about past crimes, including mass killings, torture and embezzlement.

This process could help Syria move away from a solely punitive justice system that purges rather than reconciles. It could help the new regime build public trust and establish a new social contract based on a shared vision rather than competing narratives. It could also help dampen demands for federalism, which risk weakening the country and undermining its security, stability and economic development.

Syria’s transition was never going to be easy. But the current trajectory – economic development undermined by potential sectarian fragmentation and militarised politics – risks turning post-Assad Syria into a failed state.

The international community can play a critical role, but its approach must evolve beyond merely applauding procedural milestones. It must support civil society and demand accountability for crimes past and present. Otherwise, Syria’s future will look hauntingly like its past with new leaders but the same old cycles of violence and instability.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Say you are the president of the United States and the relationship with a significant chunk of your political base has become less than blissfully harmonious. What do you do?

Well, one option is to stage a summit, accompanied by much fanfare, with the president of Russia, ostensibly in order to end that country’s war in Ukraine.

And this is precisely the manoeuvre that was pulled by US President Donald Trump, who on Friday rolled out the red carpet in Alaska for his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. The short-lived encounter was ultimately anticlimactic, with Trump offering the incisive assessment that “There’s no deal until there’s a deal.”

Fox News reported that Trump had rated the much-anticipated meeting with Putin a “10” out of 10 and that he particularly “appreciated the Russian president’s comments when he claimed he would not have invaded Ukraine had Trump won the 2020 presidency”.

Fox went on to add that neither head of state had bothered to specify the “reasoning behind these comments”.

At any rate, the no-deal talks constituted a convenient distraction from current intra-MAGA strife, which owes to a couple of factors. There is, for example, the matter of the files relating to the late Jeffrey Epstein, the financier and convicted sex offender who died in prison in 2019.

When US Attorney General Pam Bondi briefed Trump in May on the Justice Department’s review of the content of the so-called “Epstein files”, she reportedly informed the president that his name appeared therein.

Despite having pledged while on the campaign trail to declassify the Epstein files, Trump changed tack earlier this year and angrily dismissed the investigation as a “hoax”. He went as far as to insult many of his Republican followers as “stupid” and “foolish” for continuing to insist that the Epstein details be released.

On July 12, the president took to social media with his signature preference for manic capitalisation to berate those demanding declassification: “We have a PERFECT Administration, THE TALK OF THE WORLD, and ‘selfish people’ are trying to hurt it, all over a guy who never dies, Jeffrey Epstein.”

And yet this is not the only headache facing the “PERFECT Administration” from within Trump’s own MAGA base, many of whose prominent members have become vocally critical of Israel’s genocide in the Gaza Strip, which Trump persists in aiding and abetting.

The genocide, which will mark its two-year anniversary in October, has officially killed nearly 62,000 Palestinians thus far – although the true death toll is undoubtedly many times higher. Apparently, Israel’s behaviour was entirely palatable to much of the US political establishment when it simply consisted of unending massacres, slaughtered and mutilated babies, bombed hospitals, and razed neighbourhoods.

Now that mass starvation has been visibly added to the genocidal mix, however, Israel seems to have crossed a red line even among formerly staunch devotees. As per Gaza’s Ministry of Health, the death toll from malnutrition has hit 251, including 108 children. Images of skeletal Palestinians have flooded the internet, and the United Nations World Food Programme has categorised food shortage in Gaza as “catastrophic”.

Furthermore, according to the UN, the Israeli military has killed at least 1,760 Palestinians since late May alone, as they sought aid, including at sites run by the nefarious so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). Backed by the US and Israel, the GHF has not only served Israel’s plans for mass displacement and forced eviction of Palestinians; the aid distribution hubs have also functioned as a sort of one-stop shop for indiscriminate killing – which, after all, is the whole point of genocide.

And while Trump has intermittently chided Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the disagreeable optics of the whole spectacle, it has not been sufficient to appease the scrutiny of the likes of right-wing US Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, a traditional ally of the president known for such antics as wearing a hat imprinted with the words “Trump Was Right About Everything!”

In a social media post last month, Greene – a leading figure in Trump’s MAGA movement – was unexpectedly explicit in her condemnation of “the genocide, humanitarian crisis, and starvation happening in Gaza”. Other MAGA fixtures like far-right influencer Laura Loomer – a self-defined “proud Islamophobe” and general bona fide sociopath – wasted no time in responding to Greene’s post: “There is no genocide in Gaza.”

Anyway, political tensions and infighting were at least temporarily removed from the spotlight by the Trump-Putin extravaganza in Alaska. It’s hardly the first time the old art of distraction has come in handy – Trump’s pal, Netanyahu, is the master of this trade. His commitment to waging genocide in Gaza has more than a little to do with his desire to stave off domestic opposition and avoid dealing with the assorted corruption charges in which he is presently embroiled.

And while the Alaskan red-carpet stunt provided little to write home about, distraction may yet prevail as folks ponder what the hell that was all about.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

These days, the Russian army has a hard time scoring any major successes. Its soldiers face a grinding slog in Ukraine, dying by the hundreds, sometimes to advance just a few hundred metres or not at all.

On the diplomatic front, however, the situation is different. Russian President Vladimir Putin secured a major diplomatic victory by holding a summit with United States President Donald Trump.

At Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Alaska, it was all bonhomie. Trump clapped as Putin made his way onto the red carpet for a handshake before Trump escorted him into his presidential limo as the Russian leader smiled like a Cheshire cat. The two came away from their nearly three-hour meeting without much to say. Both spoke of agreement on a host of matters. Putin invited Trump to Moscow, who demurred – for now.

Little has leaked thus far on exactly what Putin and Trump discussed. The Russian leader sought to suggest in his remarks to the media that the talks were on his terms, bringing up Russia’s security concerns and praising his US counterpart for trying to “understand the history” of the conflict.

According to Russia’s ambassador to the US, Alexander Darchiev, apart from Ukraine, there were some concrete bilateral issues discussed. He claimed two major diplomatic questions were raised: “the return of six Russian diplomatic properties that were de facto confiscated” during former US President Joe Biden’s administration and “the restoration of direct air traffic” between Russia and the US.

Trump for his part appeared to drop the demand for a ceasefire in Ukraine – something he had publicly called for before the summit. Instead, he agreed to take the Kremlin’s demand for a full settlement of the conflict rather than a ceasefire to Ukraine and its European allies. Later, he posted on his social media platform, Truth Social, that the European Union and Ukraine agreed with him that “the best way to end the horrific war between Russia and Ukraine is to go directly to a Peace Agreement”.

Although Trump seemed to take the Russian position on a ceasefire, the worst possible outcome of the summit was still avoided. The meeting did not turn into a “new Munich”, where Trump would appease Putin just like the French and British leaders appeased Adolf Hitler in a meeting in the German city in 1938 by agreeing to a German takeover of part of Czechoslovakia. The US president did not accede to Russian territorial claims.

That said, for Putin, the summit was a tactical win because it broadcast to the world that the US president himself was casting off the pariah status the Kremlin had earned for its unilateral invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the subsequent war crimes it has overseen. The Russian president was treated like the leader of a “great power” – a status he has long been obsessed with returning Russia to – who had to be negotiated with, on his terms.

So where does all this leave Ukraine and its European allies?

Trump is clearly unwilling to change his position on Ukraine. He admires Putin – his personality and his governing style – immensely.

But Brussels, London, and Kyiv cannot give up on him. The truth is that continued US support is indispensable to Ukraine maintaining its defence. Europe has moved to pick up more of the burden of funding since Trump was inaugurated for his second term, but its military capabilities and defence industry supply chains cannot replace those of the US anytime soon, even if they increase investments exponentially.

Trump wants peace in name and cares nought about the details. For Kyiv, the detail is its very survival, and for the rest of Europe, Ukraine’s fate shapes the potential that it could be the next target of Putin’s aggression in his would-be geopolitically rebalanced world.

That does not mean that there is no way to turn Trump. There is – Ukraine and Europe can use a page or two out of Putin’s playbook in dealing with the US president.

Trump clearly likes his ego to be stroked, which is what Putin repeatedly did in his remarks to the media, echoing, for example, Trump’s claim that if he had been president in 2022, the war in Ukraine would not have happened.

Continuing diplomatic engagement is the way forward, as is seeking to change the frame in which Trump sees the Ukrainian conflict.

The US president cares more about the future of US energy exports, US competition with China, its challenge to US economic dominance and the exploitation of the Arctic than he does about Ukraine. It was Trump’s choice to host the meeting in Alaska, after all, and his obsession with Greenland – so seemingly strange to European allies of the US – makes far more sense in this context.

The key is to persuade the US president that Russia is a threat to Washington’s interests in all of these matters.

An easing of sanctions could see Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects flood into the market and depress the price for US LNG exports. Putin has reshaped Russia’s economy to be dependent on minerals exports to China, fuelling its ability to compete economically thanks to cheap inputs. Putin has also repeatedly sought to push Beijing to be more assertive in economic competition by calling on it to dump the dollar and push new trade and finance frameworks that exclude the US. And Russia is hoping to dominate the Arctic by expanding its Arctic fleet with new nuclear-powered icebreakers and submarines.

For Putin, his war in Ukraine has never been just about the dividing lines in the Donbas or his claimed injustices from the Soviet Union’s collapse. It is a war to reshape the world. On the other hand, Trump sees the war as a distraction and a drag on his own efforts to reshape the world.

Only if Kyiv and the wider West understand Trump’s approach could they persuade him what is at stake. They must focus on how Putin hurts American interests and Trump’s perception thereof. If they fail to do so, while Alaska may have proven to be no “new Munich”, its legacy could be that of one of a “new Yalta” in which Europe’s future is to be shaped by new exclusive spheres of influence drawn by Moscow and Washington.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

In April 2025, the Human Rights Court in Kenya issued an unprecedented ruling that it has the jurisdiction to hear a case about harmful content on one of Meta’s platforms. The lawsuit was filed in 2022 by Abraham Meareg, the son of an Ethiopian academic who was murdered after he was doxxed and threatened on Facebook, Fisseha Tekle, an Ethiopian human rights activist, who was also doxxed and threatened on Facebook, and Katiba Institute, a Kenyan non-profit that defends constitutionalism. They maintain that Facebook’s algorithm design and its content moderation decisions made in Kenya resulted in harm done to two of the claimants, fuelled the conflict in Ethiopia and led to widespread human rights violations within and outside Kenya.

The content in question falls outside the protected categories of speech under Article 33 of the Constitution of Kenya and includes propaganda for war, incitement to violence, hate speech and advocacy of hatred that constitutes ethnic incitement, vilification of others, incitement to cause harm and discrimination.

Key to the Kenyan case is the question whether Meta, a US-based corporation, can financially benefit from unconstitutional content and whether there is a positive duty on the corporation to take down unconstitutional content that also violates its Community Standards.

In affirming the Kenyan court’s jurisdiction in the case, the judge was emphatic that the Constitution of Kenya allows a Kenyan court to adjudicate over Meta’s acts or omissions regarding content posted on the Facebook platform that may impact the observance of human rights within and outside Kenya.

The Kenyan decision signals a paradigm shift towards platform liability where judges determine liability by solely asking the question: Do platform decisions observe and uphold human rights?

The ultimate goal of the Bill of Rights, a common feature in African constitutions, is to uphold and protect the inherent dignity of all people. Kenya’s Bill of Rights, for example, has as its sole mission to preserve the dignity of individuals and communities and to promote social justice and the realisation of the potential of all human beings. The supremacy of the Constitution also guarantees that, should there be safe harbour provisions in the laws of that country, they would not be a sufficient liability shield for platforms if their business decisions do not ultimately uphold human rights.

That a case on algorithm amplification has passed the jurisdiction hearing stage in Kenya is a testament that human rights law and constitutionality offer an opportunity for those who have suffered harm as a result of social media content to seek redress.

Up to this point, the idea that a social media platform can be held accountable for content on its platform has been dissuaded by the blanket immunity offered under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act in the US, and to a lesser extent, the principle of non-liability in the European Union, with the necessary exceptions detailed in various laws.

For example, Section 230 was one of the reasons a district judge in California cited in her ruling to dismiss a case filed by Myanmar refugees in a similar claim that Meta had failed to curb hate speech that fuelled the Rohingya genocide.

The aspiration for platform accountability was further dampened by the US Supreme Court decision in Twitter v Taamneh, in which it ruled against plaintiffs who sought to establish that social media platforms carry responsibility for content posted on them.

The immunity offered to platforms has come at a high cost, especially for victims of harm in places where platforms do not have physical offices.

This is why a decision like the one by the Kenyan courts is a welcome development; it restores hope that victims of platform harm have an alternative route to recourse, one that refocuses human rights into the core of the discussion on platform accountability.

The justification for safe harbour provisions like Section 230 has always been to protect “nascent” technologies from being smothered by the multiplicity of suits. However, by now, the dominant social media platforms are neither nascent nor in need of protection. They have both the monetary and technical wherewithal to prioritise people over profits, but choose not to.

As the Kenyan cases cascade through the judicial process, there is cautious optimism that constitutional and human rights law that has taken root in African countries can offer a necessary reprieve for platform arrogance.

Mercy Mutemi represents Fisseha Tekle in the case outlined in the article. 

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

The humanitarian tragedy unfolding in the Gaza Strip must not be perceived merely as a conflict confined to a narrow strip of land; rather, it should be regarded as a deepening humanitarian catastrophe that wounds the collective conscience of humanity with each passing day. Israel’s months-long bombardments have targeted women, children, and the elderly, rendering cities uninhabitable. Homes, hospitals, schools, and places of worship have been reduced to rubble; essential services such as food, water, healthcare, and electricity have collapsed. Hunger, thirst, and the threat of epidemic disease are propelling Gaza towards a total humanitarian collapse. To date, more than 61,000 Palestinians — the majority of them women and children — have been killed in Israeli attacks. This picture is not only the mark of war, but also a stark testament to a systematic policy of annihilation.

In the face of such a dire picture, the world’s silence or its feeble responses only deepen the suffering and pave the way for the continuation of oppression. The West’s double standards — rushing to act in other crises while adopting an ambivalent approach to Gaza — undermine the credibility of an international order purportedly founded upon principles and rules. It is a fact that had the swift and comprehensive sensitivity shown towards the crisis in Ukraine also been displayed in the face of the atrocities in Gaza, the landscape we confront today would be entirely different. Israel’s ability to act without the slightest sanction has accelerated the erosion of international law and human rights norms. The crisis in Gaza stands before us as a litmus test of whether the international community is willing and able to uphold the most fundamental human values.

From the outset, Turkiye has demonstrated a resolute, consistent, and principled stance to end the atrocities and the worsening humanitarian disaster in Gaza. Our Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency (AFAD), the Turkish Red Crescent, and our civil society organisations are working actively on the ground, and despite all obstacles, food, medicines, and medical supplies are being delivered to the region with the support of brotherly nations in the vicinity. Wounded Gazans are being evacuated and treated in Turkiye. These relief efforts not only address urgent needs, but also proclaim to the world that the people of Gaza are not alone. On the diplomatic front, our calls for a ceasefire continue within the United Nations and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, and our mediation efforts between Palestinian groups are ongoing.

At the NATO Summit held in The Hague on June 25, I underlined that the fragile ceasefire must be transformed into a lasting peace, warning that “Gaza has no time to lose.” I have openly defined Israel’s attacks and policy of collective punishment — in flagrant disregard for international law — as genocide. We are working closely, particularly with Qatar, on humanitarian access, ceasefire negotiations, and reconstruction. We value Qatar’s leading role in facilitating humanitarian aid and in advancing diplomatic initiatives aimed at bringing the massacre to an end.

The violence in Gaza threatens not only the Palestinian people but also the stability of the entire region. Tensions between Israel and Iran heighten the risk of a broader conflict, with the potential to disrupt the security balance from the Eastern Mediterranean to the Gulf. The deepening of the crisis poses serious threats in the form of new waves of displacement, increased radicalisation, and risks to energy security. The Gaza question is, therefore, not solely a humanitarian crisis, but also a matter of strategic importance for global security and peace.

The path to a solution is, in essence, clear. An immediate ceasefire must be declared, and all attacks must be halted unconditionally. Humanitarian corridors must be opened to ensure the unimpeded delivery of food, water, and medical aid, and international mechanisms must be established to protect civilians. Turkiye stands ready to serve as an actor in shaping this process. War crimes and human rights violations must be investigated before the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice; perpetrators must be held to account before the law. Sustainable resources must be secured for aid organisations — particularly the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) — which are being strangled by Israeli pressure.

The reconstruction of Gaza must not be confined to rebuilding destroyed structures; it must evolve into a comprehensive process that safeguards the rights to education, healthcare, infrastructure, economic development, and political representation. This process should be conducted with the direct participation of the local population and under the oversight of the United Nations and regional organisations. The foundation of lasting peace lies in the recognition of an independent and sovereign State of Palestine with its territorial integrity safeguarded. A two-state solution is the sole key to peace and stability in the region.

The events in Gaza once again demonstrate that war also targets those who pursue truth. In recent months, numerous journalists have been murdered simply for doing their duty, striving to bring the reality of conflict zones to the world. The losses suffered by Al Jazeera, in particular, rank among the most brutal assaults on press freedom and the right to information. The death of courageous individuals who strive to bring the truth to the world and to lift the veil of lies and propaganda that shrouds war is a profound loss for us all. Their memory will remain a symbol of the pursuit of justice. I extend my condolences to the families of the deceased, to their colleagues, and to the entire media community.

The cause of Palestine and Gaza transcends borders; it is a common test for humanity. We must never forget the heavy price borne by human dignity when the world turned a blind eye to the tragedies of Bosnia and Rwanda. For this reason, Turkiye’s unwavering stance on Gaza is both a moral obligation and a strategic necessity. Together with all actors who believe in humanitarian diplomacy, foremost among them Qatar, we will continue our efforts towards a lasting, just, and honourable peace. We hold the view that achieving peace is not beyond reach, but rather an essential goal that has been awaited for far too long. We are committed to making every effort to achieve peace and will persist in our endeavours.

History is bearing witness to those who took action and to those who turned away from the cruelty in Gaza. Gaza has no time to lose; the international community must heed the voice of the global conscience and act. The future of humanity will be shaped by the courage of the steps we take today.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Last week, actor Dean Cain, known for portraying Superman in the 1990s TV show Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, announced that he was going to be sworn in as a United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent.

Cain said he was joining the agency because ICE agents, whom he described as the “real true heroes”, were being vilified. He also posted an ICE recruitment video on Instagram with the Superman theme song playing in the background, and promoted the generous pay and benefits that come with being an ICE agent.

Cain is not the only one. Some pro-Trump celebrities have also defended or praised ICE. And Dr Phil tagged along on ICE raids in Chicago and quizzed apprehended migrants on camera.

But setting aside the irony that the Man of Steel himself was in fact also an undocumented alien, why would Superman be so keen to join ICE’s draconian raids targeting immigrants?

For one thing, we need to understand the allure of these ICE operations.

The visuals of masked federal agents, hopping out of armoured vehicles, in military-style gear and swiftly descending on what ICE enthusiasts would claim are terrorists, rapists, paedophiles, murderers, drug traffickers and gang members, are deeply comforting for many in the US.

This is a consequence of a long history where militarised policing gained a semblance of sacrosanctity in the country.

It is well documented that contemporary policing in the US has its origins in slave patrols. This means that the development of the US criminal justice system has its roots not only in slavery, but also in the belief that slave revolts or any effort to upend the racial hierarchy in American society are an existential threat to the established social order.

Over the years, the gradual militarisation of the police has drawn its rationale from periods of perceived existential crises in American society. Whether it was the rise of organised crime during the Prohibition era of the 1920s, uprisings during the civil rights movement of the 1960s, or when President Richard Nixon declared drug addiction “public enemy no 1” requiring an “all-out offensive”, these have served as the pretext for strong, military-style policing on American streets.

This militarisation of the police has been supported by Section 1033 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1997, which President Bill Clinton signed into law, allowing local law enforcement agencies to access excess military equipment from the Department of Defense (DOD). The 1033 programme has allowed the DOD to “sell or transfer”, among other things, mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles, grenade launchers, aeroplanes and helicopters.

This love affair with ICE is also a cultural phenomenon. The hard-edged, violent and brash cop, willing to stray outside the bounds of the law to protect innocent civilians from evil (the Muslim terrorist, the Soviets, the Germans) is a popular Hollywood and American TV show staple. This has normalised the perception that to keep America safe from such existential threats, it is sometimes necessary to use deadly force or extrajudicial actions, no matter how cruel or excessive they may seem.

Of course, in all of this, we cannot ignore the deep, anti-immigrant sentiments that drive the support for ICE.

In my adult life, this xenophobia has taken many forms.

As an 18-year-old college student in upstate New York in the early 2000s, I was the physical epitome of all things evil and anti-American as the country waged its “Global War on Terror”. At the time, I remember a fellow student justifying the extra security checks I had to suffer through at airports, saying, “You cannot ignore the fact that you look like the people who hate us.”

In my late 20s as a PhD student in Copenhagen, I had to hear a senior colleague say, “You’re Indian. I guess your skill is raping women.” He was referring to the 2012 Delhi bus gang rape and murder that received global attention.

Globally, we have also seen a proliferation of reality TV shows like Border Security: Australia’s Front Line and Nothing to Declare UK that claim to show the reality of the multiple threats that Western countries encounter at their borders.

It is now all but commonplace to imagine the figure of the migrant as a vessel for all things we fear and hate.

When Syrian refugees arrived in Europe in 2015, they were portrayed as a security threat, a burden on public services, and a threat to European values.

Last year, the United Kingdom saw a wave of far-right anti-immigrant riots after a mass stabbing of girls in Southport. The riots followed false claims that the attacker was a Muslim migrant. Rioters attacked minority-owned businesses, the homes of immigrants and hotels housing asylum seekers.

This year, Ireland has seen anti-immigrant attacks on South Asians, including a six-year-old girl who was punched in the face and hit in the genital area. Reportedly, these attacks have been fuelled by anger over the affordability and housing crisis.

Such anti-immigrant sentiments have been endemic to American politics.

While the discourse during the Obama years was not as antagonistic, the removal of undocumented migrants was still a political priority. President Obama was called “deporter-in-chief”, and in 2012, deportations peaked at 409,849. That said, in the same year, he also signed the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy, allowing undocumented migrants who were brought into the country as minors to apply for “renewable two-year periods of deferred action from deportation, allowing them to remain in the country”. DACA also made them eligible for work permits.

Deportations were also a priority during the Biden years. In fiscal year 2023, US immigration authorities deported or returned 468,000 migrants, surpassing any single year during Trump’s first term.

That said, during Trump’s tenure in the White House, the anti-immigrant rhetoric has been vicious, and the Republican leader does not shy away from portraying migrants as synonymous with criminality and an existential threat to the demographic, moral and cultural fabric of the United States.

This framing of immigrants as a problematic presence in American society served as a pretext for Trump’s plan to build a wall across the US-Mexico border to stop the movement of undocumented migrants, the travel ban on citizens from several Muslim countries, and a suspension of the US Refugee Admissions Program.

Trump’s second term has only been a continuation of such policies. With the genocide ongoing in Gaza and the concurrent visibility of the Palestine solidarity movement, the anti-immigration movement has merged with anti-Palestinian racism, with ICE also targeting pro-Palestine activists whom the Trump administration claims hold views that are antithetical to American values.

With all of this in the background, it then makes sense that an actor who once played an undocumented alien on TV and who himself has Japanese heritage would join ICE. In the era of Trump, targeting the tired and poor huddled masses who yearn to breathe free seems to be the American way.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

On August 5, 2019, the Indian government stripped the erstwhile Jammu and Kashmir state of its special status under Article 370 of the Indian Constitution, split it into two entities and demoted the two units to Union Territories under New Delhi’s direct control.

As the sixth anniversary approached, the region was caught in the grip of rumours of a probable further division, or other administrative changes. Reports of unusual jet activity over Srinagar triggered widespread panic among residents.

This evoked harrowing memories of similar aerial activity coupled with a similarly bizarre set of rumours in the tense days leading up to August 5, 2019. People waited anxiously.

The bombshell that came on the sixth anniversary was an official order banning 25 books that focus on Jammu and Kashmir’s history and politics – all accused of promoting “false narratives” and “secessionism” – a sweeping judgement that does not stand the test of scrutiny and is not based on any evidence.

My book A Dismantled State: The Untold Story of Kashmir After Article 370, published in December 2022 by HarperCollins, is one of them. The book is a rare chronicle of the day-to-day reality in Jammu and Kashmir after 2019. Based on ground research, extensive interviews and the collation of data from other primary and secondary sources, it punctured the Indian government’s claims of “normalcy” in Jammu and Kashmir.

The government justified the actions of August 5, 2019 on the grounds that they would usher in peace and development in the region, while glossing over the unprecedented physical and cyber-restrictions imposed across the erstwhile state, during which thousands of people, including pro-India politicians (three former chief ministers included), were arrested. Barbed wire and military barricades turned the region, particularly the Kashmir Valley, into a curfewed zone, and communication channels – from internet to telephone lines – were pushed into some black hole.

Six months later, when some of these restrictions were slightly eased and the internet was partially restored, the stranglehold of the Indian state became even more oppressive, with an exacerbation of raids and crackdowns against journalists, political and social activists, and civil rights defenders. The policy of widespread detentions under laws like the Public Safety Act, which allows the government to detain anyone without charge for up to two years, was ramped up significantly.

These realities were hardly ever reported. Journalism was severely curtailed under the state’s clampdown, particularly affecting local publications. Newspapers that refused to fall in line were choked financially until they were out of print. Those that did comply were rewarded with lavish government advertisements that kept the businesses going, minus the journalism.

Either co-opted or terrorised, the newspapers were no longer daily chroniclers of the events, developments and incidents in the region. Community voices were silenced while journalists no longer asked questions. The rich archives of some newspapers, showcasing the complex day-to-day history of the region, became inaccessible or were removed.

In the last six years, the government has been extremely intolerant of any criticism. Any word of dissent invites punitive measures ranging from mere intimidation and interrogation to confiscation of devices, and from the slapping of income tax and money laundering cases to terrorism accusations, sometimes accompanied by short detentions or prolonged arrests. While local journalism was reduced to an extension of the government’s public relations department, all civil society voices were throttled by intimidation, leaving major gaps in information.

It was this vacuum that my book aimed to fill. Focused on the first two years of the revocation of Article 370, and in 12 chapters, I documented what was happening on the ground – the increased suppression of the masses, the lack of space for freedom of expression, the shrinking space for civil society and political activism, the criminalisation of dissent, the continuation of terrorism as opposed to the claims of peace and normalcy, and the hollowness of the development claims by the government even as the new policies and actions robbed the people of their homes and agricultural lands.

The book is a pursuit of truth – the naked truth, which challenged everything the Indian state was saying. A paranoid state whose only method of engagement in Jammu and Kashmir is through increasing its military footprint, merciless subjugation of the residents and silencing of all voices of dissent was obviously uncomfortable with what I documented. The book was a warning to the government that its methods of control, creation of a police and surveillance state, and misplaced development models were unsustainable and would fail.

In the last six years, the government has been pulling the wool over the eyes of the world by trumpeting its achievements of bringing peace, normalcy, tourism and development. The April 22 killings this year of 26 innocent civilians punctured this bubble. It was a wake-up call for the government to sit back and review its policies in Kashmir and begin course correction.

Instead, it clamped down even further with a horrific scale of demonisation of Kashmiris, ruthless detentions and even more brutal demolitions of houses. This, even as there was widespread public condemnation of terrorism, including vigils and calls to reject violence – something unprecedented in the more than three-decade-long history of rebellion in the region – and even as the investigators indicated foreign militants, not locals, were involved in the killings.

In the last three months, the government has demonstrated that its policy of control through harsh security measures and pervasive surveillance would be further accelerated. The ban on 25 books, many of which provide rich, well-researched, and layered historical, political and legal narratives about the complex and trouble-torn region, is an extension of the pattern. Through this ban, there is an attempt to erase every trace of a counter-narrative and alternate memory.

By branding all criticism of the state and narratives that are out of sync with the official version as “seditious”, the government can now seize and destroy these books. Not only are the written words being criminalised – even the act of reading will be wrongfully deemed a threat to the security and integrity of the nation. While this may not stop ideas and memory from being suppressed, policing what people write and read is likely to be further intensified.

Though senseless, shocking and irrational in scale and scope, the ban, which ironically coincides with a government-backed Chinar Book Festival in Srinagar, sends a chilling message: Knowledge and information will be regulated by the state. What people write and read will be decided by the state. The thought police will penetrate deeper.

Last year, during Jammu and Kashmir’s first assembly elections as a Union Territory, India’s home minister, Amit Shah, took a dig at the regional political parties and alleged that while “they (local politicians) gave the youth stones in their hands”, his government had given them “books and laptops”.

The hollowness of such claims is laid bare when the daily reality is one of confiscation of digital devices, including laptops, during raids and interrogations, alongside a blanket book ban that only reinforces the central message of my work: Kashmir is anything but normal.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

If you read the Western press this morning, you may come to believe that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s desire to take military control over Gaza is new. But dropping 2000lb bombs does not rescue captives and wiping out whole neighbourhoods does not come without plans to build something in their place.

On Friday, Israel’s security cabinet approved the occupation of Gaza City, formalising what was always the endgame of this genocide. The plan follows a deliberate sequence: First destroy, then starve, occupy, demand demilitarisation, and finally carry out full ethnic cleansing once Palestinians have no political power and capacity to resist. This is how the dream of “Greater Israel” is achieved.

But why formalise this occupation now, after 22 months of systematic slaughter? Because the crime scene must be sanitised before the world sees what remains of Gaza.

On Sunday, the Israeli army assassinated Al Jazeera journalists Anas al-Sharif, Mohammed Qreiqeh, Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal and Moamen Aliwa by dropping a missile on a media tent near al-Shifa Hospital. Their names are now added to the long list of more than 230 Palestinian journalists and media workers that Israel has killed since October 2023.

With Israel banning all foreign media from freely accessing Gaza, Palestinian journalists have been solely responsible for covering and documenting Israeli war crimes. The assassination is a clear message to them to stop, to stay silent.

Meanwhile, foreign journalists who rode on airdrop flights to Gaza were also warned. Aerial footage they released offered glimpses of Gaza’s corpse: A patchwork of shattered concrete, ruins and hollowed streets. It is complete desolation.

The footage shocked viewers across the world and so the Israeli government was quick to ban filming on these flights, warning that aid drops would be halted if there were any violations.

Israel knows it cannot continue to block foreign media access to Gaza forever. The genocide will come to an end eventually; aid convoys and relief workers will be allowed in and with them, foreign journalists with cameras.

So before that day arrives, Israel is racing to erase the evidence because once the world sees Gaza, it will no longer be able to pretend that the war was about anything other than the mass killing of Palestinians and the erasure of their history.

The occupation of Gaza City is the murderer returning to the crime scene to hide the body. The goal is not only to cover up the crimes, but to convince the world that the dead have not died and that what we see is not what it is.

The official death toll in Gaza stands at 60,000, a number that by many expert accounts is an undercount. According to estimates, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have likely been murdered. As UN experts declared on August 7, “Israel is exterminating the people of Gaza by any and all means.” There are a lot of crimes to cover up.

We have already seen the modus operandi of the Israeli army in trying to destroy evidence in Gaza. It has buried massacred civilians in mass graves with bulldozers; it has withheld bodies of Palestinian torture victims; it has dug into the sand whole crime scenes of execution; it has planted weapons in hospitals that it has ransacked; it has lied about discovering tunnels.

All of this fits neatly with Israel’s long history of burying evidence of atrocities. Since 1948, Israeli authorities have systematically erased their ethnic cleansing of Palestinians by building on top of the ruins of pillaged Palestinian villages and towns.

Israeli intelligence has also removed documents from archives that provide evidence of Zionist and Israeli forces committing war crimes during the Nakba of 1948. Some of the documents that have disappeared give gruesome details about the brutality of Zionist fighters during massacres of Palestinians, like in the village of Dawaymeh, near Hebron, where hundreds of Palestinian men, women, and children were killed by artillery fire or directly executed. In 1955, the settlement of Amatzia was built on the ruins of the Palestinian village.

By occupying the northern part of the Gaza Strip now, Israel will certainly resort to these same methods of erasure and falsification. It will also be able to control foreign media coverage, just as it has done until now.

The Israeli army has only allowed foreign journalists into Gaza embedded with its military units under strict conditions that transform reporters into participants in hasbara. Embedded journalists must submit all materials for military review before publication, must operate under constant observation, and cannot speak freely with Palestinians.

Journalists thus become mouthpieces for the Israeli military, parroting their justifications for wholesale destruction and propagating their lies about Palestinian civilians as “human shields” and Gaza hospitals and schools as “terror hubs”.

The full-scale occupation can also help facilitate further massacres and ethnic cleansing. Those who refuse forced displacement will be labelled “militants” to excuse their slaughter. Israel used this strategy early into the genocide, dropping leaflets warning Palestinians in northern Gaza that they will be deemed “partners in a terrorist organisation” if they do not comply with “evacuation orders”.

Mass displacement is essential to the cover-up because it creates a new narrative that Palestinians are voluntarily migrating rather than being ethnically cleansed. The short-term goal is to force those willing to comply into concentration camps in the south and detach them from their homes and land. Over time, it would become easier to expel Palestinians elsewhere and deny them the right to return. It is the same way Nakba refugees were forced to flee to Gaza and were then denied their internationally recognised right of return.

The response of the international community to Israel’s plan has been just more condemnations. Germany went as far as halting military exports that could be used in Gaza – something that should have been done 22 months ago, when Israel started indiscriminately bombing civilians.

These actions are pathetic. They do not absolve these governments of their complicity in aiding and abetting the crime of genocide; they are just another sign of their moral cowardice.

The international community must take decisive action. It must undertake military intervention, as mandated under international law, to force Israel to immediately end the violence, to allow unrestricted humanitarian aid into Gaza, and to give Palestinians the freedom they are entitled to. International journalists must be granted immediate access to collect whatever evidence remains of Israel’s crimes before it disappears under the cover of “military operations”.

It is time the world starts believing Palestinians. For 22 months, Palestinians have said this is genocide. They have said it while stuck under the rubble, while starving, while carrying their children’s bodies. They said Israel was not defending itself but trying to erase Palestinians. They said occupation and ethnic cleansing are the goal. Israeli politicians themselves have said it.

Without urgent international action, the words “never again” will refer not to the prevention of genocide, but to the existence of Palestinian life in Gaza. The truth so many Palestinians have died to tell must not be buried with their bodies.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Lisa Berns, the niece of retired Gen. Colin L. Powell, passed by a newsstand in Los Angeles over the weekend and found herself reacting with dread and alarm to the news that Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin had just been assassinated.

The Orange County woman’s reaction surfaced again Wednesday, when her uncle announced he would not be running for President, a decision that, in Berns’ words, “hasn’t ruined my day. . . . It takes a lot of the pressure off of us. It takes the worry away.”

“People in public office just put themselves at risk every day, so I’m not unhappy that he decided not to run,” she said.

Lisa Berns’ mother, Marilyn Berns, whose only sibling is Powell, said she had never discussed the dangers of running for office with her brother, “But I know that it concerned us–my husband and our family. I think Colin’s decision was made prior” to Saturday’s tragedy in Israel.

“I wasn’t surprised [by Wednesday’s announcement] because Colin called me [Tuesday] night and told me what his decision was,” said Marilyn Berns, 64, a teacher at Martin Elementary School in Santa Ana until her retirement in June. “I’m pleased about the decision. It’s important to us that he do the thing he feels most comfortable with. . . . We were all getting very edgy about it.”

Berns said that her brother’s consideration of seeking the presidency had left his family subject to prolonged stress.

“There was this monumental decision that had to be made,” Marilyn Berns said. “Both of them [Powell and his wife, Alma], along with their kids, were just meeting and meeting and thinking it over. I didn’t realize until I spoke to him the gravity of what my brother was dealing with. That was very disturbing to me. I got a little teary over that.”

Elsewhere in Orange County, the response was less personal and more political as Democratic and Republican leaders found a common ground: Albeit for their own reasons, both parties agreed that Powell had done the right thing–the only thing he could do, really–in not seeking the White House.

But private citizens throughout the county reacted glumly, saying that Powell’s decision deprived American voters of a candidate whom many felt was potentially the best President of anyone in public life.

Others expressed relief, however, saying the timing just didn’t feel right.

Numerous political pundits said Wednesday that Powell’s wife had been “adamant” about having him decline, language with which both Berns women took issue.

Marilyn Berns said that her sister-in-law “has a lot of input” into her husband’s choices and that “they do things together as a team”–to a point.

Even if Alma Powell had strongly resisted her husband’s running, “she’s not the type of woman who is so forceful that she would ram her views down someone’s throat. That’s not Alma Powell’s style. She gives her input, and that’s it. She doesn’t beat a dead horse.”

“I haven’t talked to my aunt [Alma, Powell’s wife]. I don’t know that she’s adamant about him not running,” said Lisa Berns, a computer saleswoman in Orange County, “but I don’t think she’s got a burning desire for him to run.

“I don’t know what she feels precisely about Rabin’s assassination. I don’t know that it played a big part in their decision, but I will tell you this: I was in L.A. over the weekend visiting friends. I hadn’t been watching the news, or reading the newspaper.

“But at 5 o’clock when I walked by a newsstand and saw that Rabin had been assassinated, my heart sank. I don’t know if anybody else in the family had it cross their minds, but it certainly crossed mine.”

The Berns family is so concerned about its own privacy that both mother and daughter asked not to have published the name of the Orange County community where the family lives.

Despite her uncle’s decision, “I think he would have been great” as President, Lisa Berns said. “I think he would be good at anything he sets out to do. He’s obviously very bright, very well spoken, level-headed, cool. . . . He knows how to work under tremendous pressure in various capacities. He’s a fair person, an eminently decent person.”

On other fronts, Democrats and Republicans across the county were not about to try to persuade Powell to change his mind.

“If he had run, it would have made the Republican [presidential] race even uglier than it is already,” by pitting the moderate Powell against GOP conservatives, said Irvine attorney Jim Toledano, chairman of the Democratic Party in Orange County.

“The announcement comes as no surprise to me,” countered Thomas A. Fuentes, chairman of the Republican Party in Orange County. “I never met a party activist who was favorable to [Powell’s] nomination during all the time the press was touting it.”

It was always the media and never the GOP constituency who wanted Powell to run, Fuentes said, claiming the negative feeling was far more prevalent in the ultraconservative, Republican stronghold of Orange County.

“If there were ever a media-contrived candidacy, this was the best example,” Fuentes said. “To carry our banner requires some time of service to the party and also the full embrace of the values and ideals of the party–and that was lacking.”

Fuentes suggested that party regulars felt the would-be candidate had not yet paid his dues, noting that Powell’s most trusted advisers “obviously shared with him the reality that there was no Powell ground network. There has to be some structure, some network, some reality to a campaign. That not being in place, I think he just came to grips with reality.”

But some people reacted to Wednesday’s news with disappointment.

At the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace in Yorba Linda, about 150 people watched Powell’s announcement on a big-screen television. Many were both surprised and crestfallen at his decision. “I really thought he had the impetus and the appeal to win,” said 54-year-old Beverly Nocas of Pasadena. “He’s very articulate and I think he could have done a lot for us.”

Norma Canova, a 50-year-old resident of Yorba Linda, said, “I think he could have had a great role in healing racial problems in this country.”

But several onlookers, who had gathered to watch a fashion show called “Dressing the First Lady,” expressed relief.

“I couldn’t vote for him because I don’t know what he stands for,” said 81-year-old Henry Boney of San Diego. “I know that he’s a good salesman though. He created a lot of publicity for his book.”

Newport Beach resident Elaine Parks said she was “very impressed” with Powell, but was heartened by his decision to stay out of the race.

“It would have been divisive to the party, and we need complete unity to beat the current President, which I sincerely hope happens,” Parks said.

We are midway through summer in the Northern Hemisphere, and we are witnessing another severe wildfire season. In May, wildfires were burning throughout Russia’s Far East. Last month, wildfires broke out throughout Turkiye, Greece, Cyprus and Bulgaria. Fires continue in Portugal, France and Spain. In Canada, the blazes have not stopped since April.

Satellite data show that fires burn on average about 4 million square kilometres (1.5 million square miles) of the planet’s surface each year, including forests. And the number of wildfires is expected to increase by 50 percent by the end of the century.

There are two main reasons for the rise in wildfires.

First, the changing climate is driving protracted and frequent heatwaves and droughts that dry out forests, providing an immediate source of tinder and fuel. In a self-perpetuating cycle, wildfires themselves then billow carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, contributing further to the climate crisis. Fires emitted an estimated 6,199 megatonnes of carbon dioxide globally in 2024.

Second, the way we live and use land today means we are increasingly encroaching on forests and elevating the risk of wildfires. Many of these fires are started by humans for different reasons – such as carelessness and clearing land for agriculture and settlements. And urban infrastructure is edging closer to nature, increasing the danger that fire poses to human lives.

There is no doubt that the costs of wildfires for people and the planet are immense. Wildfires destroy property, crops, businesses and livelihoods and can be especially devastating for developing countries.

But not all fires are bad.

Fires have been part of the Earth’s ecosystem for hundreds of millions of years, occurring naturally on every continent except Antarctica. They can help generate and stimulate the replenishment of ecosystems. They can clear away the layers of litter on the forest floor and add nutrients to the soil, allowing new shoots to grow that provide food for birds and animals. For some plant species, seeds even depend on fires to germinate.

Conducting controlled fires – often during cooler months – is a vital way for people to prevent destructive wildfires before they begin.

For many Indigenous peoples, prescribed burning has been an integral part of land management for millennia, helping to curb dangerous wildfires, encouraging ecological diversity and procuring food by promoting new growth and attracting grazing game animals.

A recent study into the return of Indigenous fire burning in Australia’s Kimberley region showed that the annual massive wildfires in the region had reduced to once-in-a-decade events since the practice was reintroduced by the traditional owners of the land.

The use of fire for sustainable resource management is also one of the recommendations that the organisation I work for, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, is recommending as part of its integrated fire management approach.

Other preventive measures against wildfires are also needed, and community engagement is a key strategy. The practical experience and knowledge held in communities must shape integrated fire management strategies and policies from the ground up. This is essential. Actively engaging communities in decision-making, leveraging local knowledge and practices, and building capacity for fire prevention, preparedness and control can reduce wildfire risks and build long-term resilience.

Another layer of defence is fire early-warning systems. By incorporating drought indices, local traditional knowledge of weather and climatic influences, such systems predict fire-danger conditions and help with planning well before the wildfire season.

Some fires are simply inevitable, however, and having better monitoring mechanisms to detect fires and an appropriate fire extinguishing capacity at the ready is necessary if we are to contain wildfires before they become dangerous. In this way, suppression action can happen before fires grow beyond the possibility of containment. Certain countries already do an excellent job of fire monitoring, but the practice is yet to become standard in others.

Maintaining biodiversity and diverse landscapes – rather than monotonous, fire-prone, human-created landscapes – can also reduce the risk of fire spreading and causing damage and loss.

People must learn to live harmoniously with nature, not simply bend it to their will. That means inappropriate development in fire-prone ecosystems must be discouraged, given that the building of new infrastructure adjacent to wild spaces may play a central role in causing wildfires.

These strategies may sound onerous, but they take up far fewer resources, not to mention fewer lives, than battling uncontrollable wildfires.

With the right measures, humans can coexist with fire.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

For more than 21 months, much of the international media danced around the truth about Israel’s war on Gaza. The old newsroom cliche – “if it bleeds, it leads” – seemed to apply, for Western media newsrooms, more to Ukraine than Gaza. When Palestinian civilians were bombed in their homes, when entire families were buried under rubble, coverage came slowly, cautiously and often buried in “both sides” framing.

But when the images of starving Palestinian children began to emerge – haunting faces, skeletal limbs, vacant stares – something shifted. The photographs were too visceral, too undeniable. Western audiences were confronted with what the siege of Gaza truly means. And for once, the media’s gatekeepers could not entirely look away.

The world’s attention, however, alerted Israel, and a new “hasbara” operation was deployed. Hasbara means “explaining”, but in practice, it’s about erasing. With Tel Aviv’s guidance, pro-Israel media operatives set out to “debunk” the evidence of famine. The method was fully Orwellian: Don’t just contest the facts. Contest the eyes that see them.

We were told there is no starvation in Gaza. Never mind that Israeli ministers had publicly vowed to block food, fuel and medicine. Never mind that trucks were stopped for months, sometimes vandalised by Israeli settlers in broad daylight.

Israeli officials, speaking in polished English to Western media, assured the public this was all a Hamas fabrication, as though Hamas had somehow managed to trick aid agencies, foreign doctors and every journalist in Gaza into staging hunger.

The propaganda machine thought it had struck gold with one photograph. A New York Times image showed a skeletal boy, Mohammad Zakariya Ayyoub al-Matouq. Israeli intelligence sources whispered to friendly outlets: He’s not starving. He has a medical condition. As if that somehow makes his horrific condition acceptable.

The Times went ahead and added an editor’s note to “correct” the record.

That’s how hasbara works – not by persuading people but by exhausting them. By turning every fact into a dispute, every image into a row. By pushing editors to “balance” a photograph of an emaciated child with a government news release denying he is hungry.

Imagine a weather report where one source says, “It’s raining,” and another insists, “No, it’s sunny,” while everyone stands outside, soaked from the downpour. Gaza is that drenched truth, and yet much of the Western news media still feels obliged to quote the weatherman in Tel Aviv.

Every honest report is met with a barrage of emails, phone calls and social media smears, all designed to create just enough doubt to make editors pull back.

But the claim “He’s not starving. He’s just sick” is not an exoneration. It’s an admission.

A child with a pre-existing medical condition who is brought to the point of looking like a skeleton means he has been deprived not only of the nutrition he needs, but of the medical care. This is forced starvation and medicide side by side.

Palestinian journalists inside Gaza, the only ones reporting since Israel banned all foreign media and killed more than 200 Palestinian journalists, are starving alongside the people they report on. In a rare joint statement, the BBC, AFP and Associated Press warned that their own staff members face “the same dire circumstances as those they are covering”.

At the height of the outrage over these photos last week, Israel allowed in a trickle of aid – some airdrops and 30 to 50 trucks a day when the United Nations says 500 to 600 are needed. Some trucks never arrived, blocked by Jewish extremists.

Meanwhile, a parallel mechanism for aid distribution has been funnelled through Israeli-approved American contractors, which purposefully create dangerous and chaotic conditions that lead to daily killings of aid seekers. Crowds of starving Palestinians gather, only to be shot at by Israeli soldiers.

And still, the denials persist. The official line is that this is not starvation. It’s something else – undefined but definitely not a war crime.

The world has seen famine before – in Ethiopia, in Somalia, in Yemen, in South Sudan. The photographs from Gaza belong in the same category. The difference is that here, a powerful state causing the starvation is actively trying to convince us that our own eyes are lying to us.

The goal is not to convince the public that there is no hunger but to plant enough doubt to paralyse outrage. If the facts can be made murky, the pressure on Israel diminishes. This is why every newsroom that avoids the word “starvation” becomes an unwitting accomplice.

Starvation in Gaza is not collateral damage. It is an instrument of war, measurable in calories denied, trucks blocked and fields destroyed.

Israel’s strategy depends on controlling the lens as well as the border. It goes as far as prohibiting journalists allowed on airplanes airdropping food from filming the devastation below.

For a brief moment, the publication of those photos of starving Palestinians broke through the wall of propaganda, prompting minimal concessions. But the siege continues, the hunger deepens and the mass killing expands. Now the Israeli government has decided to launch another ground offensive to occupy Gaza City, and with it, the genocide will only get worse.

History will record the famine in Gaza. It will remember the prices of flour and sugar, the names of children and the aid trucks turned back. And it will remember how the world allowed itself to be told, in the middle of a downpour, that the sky was clear.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

United States Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr has announced that the US is to cut funding for mRNA vaccine development – a move that health experts say is “dangerous” and could make the US much more vulnerable to future outbreaks of respiratory viruses like COVID-19.

Kennedy is known for his vaccine scepticism and recently ousted all 17 members of a scientific advisory panel on vaccines at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to be replaced with his own selections. However, this latest announcement is just part of a series of moves by President Donald Trump himself that appear to target the vaccine industry and give increasing weight to the arguments of vaccine sceptics in the US.

Trump has previously undermined the efficacy of vaccines and sought to cut funding to vaccine programmes. Public health experts sounded the alarm after his election win in November, warning there would likely be a “war on vaccines” under Trump.

“My main concern is that this is part of an increasingly ideological rather than evidence-based approach to healthcare and vaccination in particular that is being adopted in the US,” David Elliman, associate professor at University College London, told Al Jazeera.

“This is likely to increase vaccine hesitancy … [and] will result in more suffering and death, particularly for children. This would be a tragedy, even more so because it is avoidable.”

What new cuts to vaccine funding have been made?

In a statement posted on Tuesday on X, Kennedy said 22 projects on mRNA vaccine development worth nearly $500m will be cancelled. The main reason, he said, was that the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) in his Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) had reviewed mRNA vaccines and found them to be “ineffective” in fighting mutating viruses.

“A single mutation can make mRNA vaccines ineffective,” Kennedy said in a video statement. “After reviewing the science and consulting top experts, … HHS has determined that mRNA technology poses more risk than benefits for these respiratory viruses.”

Instead, Kennedy said, the US will shift mRNA funding to other vaccine development technologies that are “safer” and “remain effective”.

Some notable institutions and companies that will be affected by the latest decision, as listed on the HHS website, include:

• Emory University and Tiba Biotech (terminated contracts)
• Pfizer, Sanofi Pasteur, CSL Seqirus (rejected or cancelled proposals)
• Luminary Labs, ModeX (“descoped” or weakened contracts)
• AstraZeneca and Moderna (“restructured” contracts)

What are mRNA vaccines, and are they really ineffective against virus mutations?

Messenger ribonucleic acid vaccines prompt the body to produce proteins that help it build immunity against certain microbes. They differ from traditional vaccines that introduce weakened or dead microbes into the body to stimulate immunity. Both types of vaccines have their strengths and weaknesses, but mRNA vaccines are notably faster to manufacture although they don’t provide the lifelong coverage that traditional vaccines might.

However, Elliman said virus mutations are a general problem for any vaccines and present a challenge scientists are still contending with.

“As yet, there are no vaccines in use that have solved this problem, so this is not a good reason for abandoning mRNA vaccines,” Elliman said. “The technology has great promise for vaccines and therapeutics, so ceasing research in the field without good evidence is unjustified.”

The move, he added, could discourage investors and scientists, both inside and outside the US, from keeping up research.

Dorit R Reiss, a law professor at the University of California, San Francisco, who focuses on vaccine law, told Al Jazeera that the decision is “troubling and shortsighted”.

“Procedurally, the decision was done in a very flawed manner. At the least, there should be notice and an opportunity for hearing and explanation under our administrative law, and there was instead a short and cursory X video with no references, no real data,” she said.

The move will not only hurt innovation, she said, but will also leave the country less prepared for emergencies.

What are RFK’s views on vaccines?

The health secretary has long been considered a vaccine sceptic.

Kennedy formerly chaired Children’s Health Defense – an anti-vaccine advocacy group formed in 2007 – until 2023 when he announced his run for the presidency. The organisation has also campaigned against the fortification of drinking water with fluoride, which prevents tooth decay.

During a 2013 autism conference, Kennedy compared the CDC’s childhood vaccine programme to Nazi-era crimes. “To me, this is like Nazi death camps, what happened to these kids,” he said, referring to an increasing number of children diagnosed with autism. “I can’t tell you why somebody would do something like that. I can’t tell you why ordinary Germans participated in the Holocaust.”

In a 2023 interview with Fox News, Kennedy claimed vaccines cause autism. He cited a widely debunked study by Andrew Wakefield, a discredited British doctor and antivaccine activist whose study on the matter has since been retracted from journals. In another 2023 podcast, Kennedy said, “No vaccine is safe or effective.”

Aside from his vaccine scepticism, Kennedy, also known as RFK Jr, has also made several controversial remarks about other health issues, such as COVID-19. He criticised vaccine mandates and lockdown restrictions during the pandemic under former President Joe Biden. He also claimed in a leaked video in 2022 that COVID-19 “attacked certain races disproportionately” because of their genetic makeup and Ashkenazi Jews were most immune to the virus. Several research studies, however, found that social inequalities were major influences on how COVID-19 affected different ethno-social groups because certain people had reduced access to care.

During a congressional hearing in the lead-up to his appointment in Trump’s administration, Kennedy denied making several of the controversial statements attributed to him in the past. He also promised to maintain existing vaccine standards.

What are Trump’s views on vaccines?

Trump has flip-flopped on this issue.

He has previously downplayed the usefulness of vaccines and, in particular, criticised the schedules under which children receive several vaccine doses within their first two years. In his election campaign last year, Trump promised to dismantle vaccine mandates in schools.

In a 2007 interview with the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Trump claimed that an autism “epidemic” had arisen as a result of vaccines, a theory which has since been debunked. “My theory – and I study it because I have young children – my theory is the shots [vaccines]. We’re giving these massive injections at one time, and I really think it does something to the children.”

In subsequent interviews, Trump called childhood vaccines a “monster shot” and in 2015 during a debate among Republican presidential candidates said vaccines were “meant for a horse, not a child”.

In 2015, he told a reporter he had never received a flu shot.

But Trump has also spoken in favour of vaccines at times. During his first term as president, Trump said at a news briefing that children “have to get their shots” after outbreaks of measles emerged across the country. “The vaccinations are so important. This is really going around now,” he said.

Additionally, in his first term during the COVID-19 pandemic, his administration initially downplayed the virus, but it ultimately oversaw the rapid production of COVID-19 vaccines in a project it called Operation Warp Speed.

After Biden became president in 2021, Trump’s camp criticised his vaccine and face mask mandates, which critics said contributed to rising levels of antivaccine sentiment among conservative voters.

Trump also avoided using Operation Warp Speed’s success as a selling point in last year’s presidential campaign. He also did not publicly announce that he had received initial and booster COVID-19 vaccine shots before leaving the White House.

Has the Trump administration targeted vaccines more broadly?

During Trump’s second term, the US introduced vaccine regulations that some critics said undermine the country’s vaccine system.

Furthermore, the Trump administration has cut funding to the US Agency for International Development, which supported hundreds of vaccine development programmes across the world.

• In February, Trump halted federal funding for schools that required students to have what his administration called “coercive” COVID-19 vaccines.
• In May, Kennedy announced that the federal government would no longer recommend COVID-19 vaccines for healthy children and pregnant women without giving details about the reasons behind the change in policy. That went against the advice of US health officials who had previously urged boosters for young children.
• In June, Kennedy fired all 17 members of a CDC panel of vaccine experts, claiming that the board was “rife with conflicts”. The panel, which had been appointed by Biden, was responsible for recommending how vaccines are used and for whom. Kennedy said the move would raise public confidence, stating that the US was “prioritising the restoration of public trust above any specific pro- or antivaccine agenda. However, the move drew condemnation from scientists and health bodies.
• At the same time, the Food and Drug Administration, which also comes under the remit of the HHS, has approved at least one COVID-19 vaccine. In May, the FDA approved Novavax’s non-mRNA, protein-based COVID-19 vaccine although only for older adults and those over the age of 12 who also have underlying health conditions that put them at higher risk from the virus. That was unusual for the US, where vaccines are usually approved without such limitations.
• The 2026 budget proposal to Congress does not include funding for the Global Vaccine Alliance (GAVI), a public-private entity formed in 2002 to support vaccine distribution to low and middle-income countries. GAVI was instrumental in securing vaccines for several countries in Africa and other regions during the COVID-19 pandemic when it was feared that richer countries could stockpile the available doses. The US currently provides more than 10 percent of GAVI’s funding. In 2024, that amounted to $300m.

Did Trump seek to undermine vaccine research and development during his first term as well?

Yes.

• Trump’s health budget proposals in 2018 and subsequently proposed budget cuts to the National Institute of Health and the CDC would have impacted immunisation programmes and a wide range of life-saving research on vaccines. However, the proposals were rejected by Congress.
• In May 2018, the Trump administration disbanded the Global Health and Biodefense Unit of the National Security Council. The team, which was set up to help prepare the US for pandemics and vaccine deployments, was formed in 2015 under President Barack Obama’s administration during an Ebola epidemic. Later, when the COVID-19 pandemic reached the US, scientists blamed the country’s vulnerability on Trump’s decision.

Despite spending more on psychiatric services and prescribing psychiatric medications at a higher rate than almost any other nation, mental health in the United States over the last two decades has only been getting worse.

Rates of depression, anxiety, suicide, overdose, chronic disability due to mental health conditions, and loneliness have all been rapidly increasing. No quantity of psychiatric drugs or hospitalisations appears adequate to reverse these trends.

Despite this, the US medical and psychiatric establishment has persistently refused to use its substantial political power to demand the transformation of care by expanding non-medical support systems to address the root social causes of mental illness, such as poverty, childhood trauma and incarceration, rather than focusing on reactive treatment via lucrative medication-centric norms. This failing status quo has created an opening for President Donald Trump and Secretary of Health Robert F Kennedy Jr’s emerging plans to remake the nation’s approach to mental health, with disastrous consequences now coming into focus.

Trump and Kennedy have hijacked legitimate anger at a broken system to justify destroying public care infrastructure, including Medicaid, food and housing assistance, harm-reduction and overdose prevention programmes, and suicide-prevention hotlines for LGBTQ youth, while promoting wellness scams and expanding the police state. They focus on the “threat” supposedly posed by psychiatric medications and call to reopen the asylums that once confined approximately 560,000 people, or one in 295 US residents, in horrific conditions, until protests against their cruelty led to their closure beginning in the 1950s.

Trump invokes false claims about mental illness to demonise immigrants, whom he is now hunting via a mass arrest and incarceration campaign. Last month, he signed an executive order that allows police to arrest and forcibly institutionalise poor Americans who are unhoused, deemed mentally ill, or struggling with addiction, effectively incarcerating them for indefinite periods.

Trump’s order, which also defunds housing-first programmes and harm-reduction services, while criminalising homelessness and encampments, contains no provisions to protect people from abuse or from the political misuse of psychiatric labels and institutionalisation to target his opponents. This raises concerns about risks to LGBTQ youth and other vulnerable groups. It also threatens groups upon which the administration has shown a eugenicist fixation: transgender people, people with autism, and others with disabilities that RFK Jr and Trump have characterised as a threat or burden on society.

The order appears to grant the government the power to deem anyone mentally ill or abusing substances, and to confine them indefinitely in any designated treatment facility, without due process. In a context where there is already a profound shortage of psychiatric beds even for short-term treatment, there are no provisions for new funding or regulatory systems to ensure that facilities are therapeutic or humane, rather than violent, coercive warehouses like American asylums of decades past.

Trump’s allies, including some medical professionals aligned with ideologies of social control and state coercion, may dismiss this as overly pessimistic. But that requires ignoring the fact that Trump’s executive order follows Kennedy’s proposal for federally funded “wellness farms”, where people, particularly Black youth taking SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors primarily used to treat anxiety and depression) and stimulants, would be subjected to forced labour and “re‑parenting” to overcome supposed drug dependence.

These proposals revive the legacy of coercive institutions built on forced labour and racialised interventions. Kennedy has also promoted the conspiracy theory that anti-depressants like SSRIs cause school shootings, comparing their risks with heroin, despite a total lack of scientific support for such claims. In his early tenure as health and human services secretary, he has already gutted key federal mental health research and services, including at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Given this, it is unclear what kind of “treatment”, other than confinement and cruelty, Trump and RFK Jr plan to deliver in their new asylums.

Trump and Kennedy’s lies about mental health, cuts to public care and vision for expanding the incarceration of immigrants, homeless people, and anyone they label as mentally ill, worsen mental health while creating more opportunities to profit from preventable suffering, disability and death. These tactics are not new, and their harmful consequences and political motivations are well established.

From Hungary to the Philippines, right-wing politicians have deployed similar rhetoric for comparable purposes. In a precedent that likely informs Trump’s plan, Brazil’s former president, Jair Bolsonaro, attacked psychiatric reformsas leftist indoctrination and defunded successful community mental health services, replacing them with coercive asylum and profit-based models, while advocating pseudoscience linked to evangelical movements. Bolsonaro claimed to defend family values and national identity against globalist medical ideologies, while sacrificing countless Brazilian lives via policies later characterised by the Senate as crimes against humanity.

Bolsonaro’s record is instructive for anticipating Trump’s plans. Trump has made no secret of his admiration for Brazil’s disgraced former president and their shared political ideologies. Bolsonaro’s reversal of Brazil’s internationally recognised psychiatric reform movement, which emphasised deinstitutionalisation, community-based psychosocial care and autonomy, inflicted profound harm. Under his rule, institutionalisation in coercive “therapeutic communities”, often operated by evangelical organisations, with little oversight, and similar to RFK Jr’s proposed “wellness farms”, skyrocketed.

Investigations revealed widespread abuses in these communities, including forced confinement, unpaid labour, religious indoctrination, denial of medication, and physical and psychological violence. Bolsonaro’s government poured large sums into expanding these dystopian asylums while defunding community mental health centres, leaving people with severe mental illness and substance use disorders abandoned to punitive care or the streets.

This needless suffering pushed more people into Brazil’s overcrowded prisons, where psychiatric care is absent, abuse rampant and systemic racism overwhelming, with Black people accounting for more than 68 percent of the incarcerated population. Bolsonaro’s psychiatric agenda enhanced carceral control under the guise of care, reproducing racist and eugenicist hierarchies of social worth under an anti-psychiatry banner of neo-fascist nationalism.

Trump and Bolsonaro’s reactionary approaches underline a crucial truth: Both psychiatry and critiques of it can serve very different ends, depending on the politics to which they are attached. Far-right politicians often use anti-psychiatry to justify privatisation, eugenics and incarceration. They draw on ideas from the libertarian psychiatrist Thomas Szasz, who argued in the 1960s that mental illness was a “myth”, and called for the abolition of psychiatric institutions.

In the US today, these political actors distort Szasz’s ideas, ignoring his opposition to coercion, by gutting public mental health services under the guise of “healthcare freedom”. This leaves vulnerable populations to suffer in isolation, at the hands of police or fellow citizens who feel increasingly empowered to publicly abuse, or even, as seen in the killing of Jordan Neely in New York City, execute them on subways, in prisons, or on the streets.

By contrast, critics of psychiatry on the left demand rights to non-medical care, economic security and democratic participation. Thinkers such as Michel Foucault, Frantz Fanon, RD Laing and Ivan Illich advocated for deinstitutionalisation not to abandon people, but to replace coercion with community-led social care that supports rights to individual difference. Their critiques targeted not psychiatry itself, but its use by exploitative, homogenising political systems.

To oppose reactionary anti-psychiatry, mental health professionals and politicians cannot simply defend the status quo of over-medicalisation, profit-driven care and the pathologisation of poverty. Millions justifiably feel betrayed by current psychiatric norms that offer little more than labels and pills while ignoring the political causes of their suffering. If the left does not harness this anger towards constructive change, the right will continue to exploit it.

The solution is not to shield America’s mental health systems from critique, but to insist on an expansive political vision of care that affirms the need for psychiatric support while refusing to treat it as a substitute for the political struggle for social services. This means investing in public housing, guaranteed income, peer-led community care worker programmes, non-police crisis teams and strong social safety nets that address the root causes of distress, addiction and disease.

Mental health is fundamentally a political issue. It cannot be resolved with medications alone, nor, as Trump and RFK Jr are doing, by dismantling psychiatric services and replacing them with psychiatric coercion.

The fight over mental health policy is a fight over the meaning of society and the survival of democratic ideals in an era where oligarchic power and fascist regimes are attempting to strangle them. Will we respond to suffering with solidarity, or with abandonment and punishment? Will we recognise the collective causes of distress and invest in systems of care, or allow political opportunists to exploit public disillusionment for authoritarian ends?

These are the questions at stake, not just in the United States, but globally. If the psychiatric establishment refuses to support progressive transformation of mental health systems, we may soon lose them altogether as thinly disguised prisons rise in their place.

If you or someone you know is at risk of suicide, these organisations may be able to help.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Do undocumented immigrants count as people?
Anyone watching as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents increasingly bypass due process to detain and deport unauthorised immigrants might assume the Trump administration’s answer is a resounding “no”. Now, regardless of deportation policies, the approximately 11 million unauthorised immigrants in the United States could soon disappear, statistically at least, if Republicans have their way.

President Trump recently instructed the US Department of Commerce to prepare for a new census that excludes undocumented immigrants. This marks the latest and boldest attempt by Trump and his congressional allies to alter how the census accounts for unauthorised immigrants. Although not explicitly stated, Trump may be trying to push this off-cycle census through ahead of the 2028 presidential election or even before next year’s midterms, which he appears intent on influencing.

Assuming Trump was being literal in his social media declaration that “People who are in our Country illegally WILL NOT BE COUNTED IN THE CENSUS,” millions could effectively vanish from the official population count. If this incomplete census were used for congressional apportionment, it would reduce representation in Congress and the Electoral College for states with large numbers of unauthorised immigrants.

The immediate partisan impact is unclear. According to the Pew Research Center, if non-citizens had been excluded before the 2020 election, California, Florida and Texas would each have lost one congressional seat and Electoral College vote, while Alabama, Minnesota and Ohio would each have gained one. Political gerrymandering would likely shape who benefits from redistricting. Republicans are already aggressively redrawing maps in states like Texas, with possible retaliatory moves in California and other Democrat-led states. Beyond electoral shifts, the broader goal appears to be marginalising undocumented people and punishing “sanctuary” jurisdictions. This reinforces the Republican narrative that Democrats deliberately tolerate illegal immigration for political gain.

Legally, how to count unauthorised immigrants depends on interpreting the Constitution, the framers’ intent and the scope of executive authority in conducting the census. Non-citizens have historically been included in the count, and the Supreme Court has never ruled directly on excluding them. However, with a conservative supermajority on the court, there is a real chance the justices could allow it – either by reinterpreting the Constitution’s language or deferring to the executive branch.

Even if Trump fails to push through a new census, his administration could still suppress the count by other means. During his first term, he tried to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census. The Census Bureau stopped collecting this data from all respondents in 1950 and removed the question entirely by 2000, instead gathering it through separate surveys such as the American Community Survey. Many feared its return would deter participation from undocumented, and even legal, immigrants, leading to an undercount. The Supreme Court blocked the effort in 2019, citing insufficient justification. But it left the door open to future attempts with more credible rationales.

Socially, the question of how to count non-citizens recalls earlier and sometimes shameful practices in the United States. For much of its early history, significant groups were denied full recognition in the political system despite living in the country. The Constitution’s original enumeration formula stated that state populations would be calculated “by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other Persons.”

Slave and free states struck the infamous “three-fifths” compromise, counting enslaved people as three-fifths of a person for congressional and Electoral College apportionment. Meanwhile, “Indians not taxed” were excluded altogether, as most Native Americans were not considered US citizens despite residing within the country’s borders. They were instead seen as members of sovereign nations – such as the Cherokee, Creek or Iroquois – even as their land, rights and dignity were stripped away. Only with the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 were Native Americans granted birthright citizenship and formally included in the population count.

These examples show two marginalised non-citizen groups, enslaved Black people and Indigenous Americans, treated in opposite ways: one partially counted, the other excluded. With history offering no clear precedent, today’s debate raises valid questions about how non-citizens, including the undocumented, should be represented. One view holds that because only citizens vote, non-citizens should not affect apportionment. The opposing view argues that excluding undocumented immigrants worsens their vulnerability and denies their very existence, even as government policies directly affect their lives.

Unauthorised immigrants both use and support public systems. While they are barred from most federal benefits such as Social Security and Medicare, they still access emergency healthcare, school meal programmes and limited housing support. They also factor into education and policing budgets in the communities where they live. At the federal level, immigration policy disproportionately affects states where undocumented residents make up a larger share of the population. At the state level, policies must be shaped with their presence in mind. For example, California now offers food assistance to all elderly residents regardless of immigration status.

Undocumented immigrants also contribute to public finances, paying nearly $100bn annually in federal, state and local taxes. This includes more than $30bn for programmes they largely cannot use, such as Social Security, Medicare and unemployment insurance. In 40 of 50 states, they pay higher state and local tax rates than the wealthiest 1 percent. States’ economic contributions to the federal budget are directly influenced by these residents. It makes sense, therefore, to acknowledge them through accurate enumeration.

The Trump administration is instead enforcing a skewed, incomplete and politically motivated interpretation of its constitutional duties regarding census-taking and apportionment. This approach could also affect other debates with far-reaching implications. The Department of Justice is urging the Supreme Court to fast-track a ruling on Trump’s challenge to birthright citizenship. This is another area where the Constitution appears clear. The 14th Amendment affirms that anyone born in the US is a citizen, with few exceptions, such as the children of diplomats. Trump is also seeking to expand the grounds for revoking naturalised citizenship, a penalty currently applied only in rare cases that usually involve fraud.

A narrower definition of who “counts” in the census could fuel arguments for a narrower definition of who counts as a citizen. Similarly, a policy of excluding non-citizens could encourage efforts to strip citizenship from naturalised or US-born residents in order to exclude them as well.

The presence of millions of undocumented immigrants reflects an immigration system that has failed under both Democratic and Republican administrations. Until meaningful reform is enacted, pretending these individuals do not exist is a misguided, politicised and harmful response to the reality of their lives within US borders, regardless of how they arrived.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Over the last century, both Muslim and non-Muslim thinkers have centred their reformist discussions on decolonisation. The sheer volume of books, articles, and seminars on this subject has become overwhelming to the point of saturation. Muslims entered this debate seeking to understand how to regain global relevance, if not influence. They struggled to pinpoint exactly where and how the Muslim agenda went off course. The colonisation of Muslim countries became the nearest and most convenient target to criticise and demonise. As a result, Muslim thinkers of the 20th century were deeply absorbed in the process of decolonisation. Analysing the root causes of our decline and disintegration is undoubtedly an essential step towards self-correction and revival. The question, however, is how much progress have we made as an Ummah by endlessly repeating age-old analyses that leave behind only a bitter aftertaste? Where has all this talk of decolonisation actually taken us?

I dare say it has led us to pursue aggressive efforts to further secularise Muslim values and promote misplaced priorities, such as pushing for a nation’s entry into the World Cup, building the tallest skyscraper, hosting music festivals, spending billions to recruit the world’s top football players, and staging Formula One races. As an afterthought, there is also an appreciation for education, often reduced to importing Western universities into the Muslim world. The significant contribution of Ismail al-Faruqi, a prominent Muslim philosopher who championed the concept of the Islamisation of knowledge, defined as the integration of Islamic principles into all fields of learning to realign modern knowledge with a monotheistic worldview, has quietly faded from focus. It has been increasingly overshadowed by an apologetic stance towards liberalism.

In striving to regain global standing, we seem to have replaced meaningful reform with superficial displays of progress.

In Western academia, discussions on decolonisation began with examinations of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s paradox of founding and later expanded to ideas such as Frantz Fanon’s theory of spontaneity, Sukarno’s concept of guided democracy, and Ali Shariati’s paradox of colonisation. With Ismail al-Faruqi’s call for the Islamisation of knowledge, Muslims came to recognise that true self-determination must also involve a revival of Muslim epistemology. This aligns with the Peruvian scholar Anibal Quijano’s argument that decolonisation requires a critical challenge to Eurocentric control over knowledge.

The Eurocentric and Western dominance over global knowledge, particularly in areas where they have little legitimacy to lead, is evident in many examples. Curators who oversee vast collections of Muslim manuscripts often claim the authority to narrate their history according to their own interpretations, which frequently diverge from the perspectives of the original authors and traditional commentators.

As the founder and director of Darul Qasim, an Islamic seminary dedicated to advanced studies in the classical Islamic sciences, I witnessed this here in Illinois in the United States at an exhibition of rare Qur’anic manuscripts, where a non-Muslim woman had been appointed to “tell the stories” of the texts. When a student from Darul Qasim corrected several inaccuracies in her account, her only reply was a dismissive: “I’m in charge here.”

Another example involves a scholar from Darul Qasim who submitted a manuscript on classical Arabic grammar to a prominent Western publisher who refused to publish it, stating: “We cannot accept this work as you have not cited any Western sources.” Such incidents highlight how Western academic gatekeeping continues to reinforce Eurocentric control over knowledge.

Ismail al-Faruqi sought to rescue Muslim knowledge from Western dominance. His vision was to “Islamicise” knowledge by cleansing the sciences of concepts that are fundamentally incompatible with Islam. His theories were grounded in a monotheistic approach that integrated all sciences with the worldview of the Ummah. The concept gained traction and was promoted by the International Institute of Islamic Thought, a research organisation founded to advance the Islamisation of knowledge and embed it within academic discourse. While al-Faruqi’s call to reevaluate our system of knowledge was undoubtedly a step in the right direction, it does not fully lead us to the ultimate goal of comprehensive decolonisation.

What is needed is a theory that goes beyond the Islamisation of knowledge. I propose digging deeper into what scholars call the coloniality of knowledge, the persistent dominance of Eurocentric frameworks that continue to shape global intellectual thought, and advancing a theory of the desecularisation of knowledge. This requires realigning knowledge at the level of its epistemology, not merely in terms of politics or economics. Muslim scholars must take on the task of presenting and representing a coherent and effective theory of our epistemology.

In summary, Islamic epistemology recognises three primary sources of knowledge: that which comes through the five senses, that which is derived from human intellect, and that which is conveyed through authentic and true reports, such as revelation to a Prophet. These three encompass every source of knowledge known to humankind, with intuition and dreams also understood as products of the intellect.

Historically, Muslims played a leading role in mastering these sources of knowledge and disseminating them across the world. In Islam, knowledge is never separated from Allah, who is the original source of all knowledge. Unlike Western intellectual traditions that sought to separate knowledge from God in pursuit of modernity and prosperity, Islam affirms that true creativity flows from Allah, and that inventions and innovations arise from honouring Allah’s knowledge of the world.

Unfortunately, there is today a deep tension in the Muslim world over how to distinguish between Islamic and secular knowledge. Many seem to believe that Muslims must undergo a Western-inspired renaissance to reclaim past glory, doing so without regard for the afterlife, or akhirah. The problem is that Muslims do believe in the akhirah, and this has created a self-imposed and false dichotomy, born of misunderstanding Islamic principles, that suggests Muslims must compete with the West while simultaneously upholding the rules of salvation. This perceived conflict forces an artificial wedge between what is considered Islamic and what is considered secular.

I believe this dichotomy is false, and anyone familiar with Islamic law, or fiqh, would recognise that. Islamic law governs how Muslims act, react, and interact with the mundane world in ways that have direct implications for their afterlife. Human actions in this world have consequences in the next. While this is not a treatise on Islamic law, this observation alone should address the doubts of sceptics. Muslims are generous not only because it helps those in need, but because they believe such acts bring immense reward in the akhirah. Charity, therefore, is not merely a humanitarian value, but a profoundly religious one. Belief in the akhirah desecularises even the simplest acts of kindness, reaffirming how Islamic thought integrates the material and spiritual.

I propose that Islamic epistemology views all knowledge not as secular or sacred, but as either beneficial (nafi’) or more beneficial (anfa’). Any knowledge that benefits an individual, human or non-human, in this world is considered beneficial. The Quran itself provides examples of such knowledge: Allah taught Nuh (Noah) the craft of building an ark from wooden planks that withstood a massive storm, and taught Dawud (David) the skill of forging armour from iron. In both cases, the knowledge is described as coming directly from Allah, and therefore, cannot be considered secular. Building bridges, highways, hospitals, and schools also falls into this category of beneficial (nafi’) knowledge, as these works serve human welfare in this life.

Knowledge that benefits human beings in the akhirah is anfa’, or more beneficial. This includes knowledge of reciting the Quran, understanding ritual worship, and knowing how to serve Allah. Establishing religious schools (madrassas), mosques, and zakat foundations, for instance, belongs to this category of anfa’ knowledge.

Muslims do not need to create a false dichotomy in knowledge, for tawheed, the oneness of Allah, also encompasses the unity of knowledge. With this understanding, there is no need to desecularise knowledge; rather, we must appropriate it correctly according to its utility in this world and the next. The key lies in affirming the existence of the other world. I dare say that, in an age where belief in parallel universes is entertained, life beyond this world is not as far-fetched as secularists might have us believe.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

In September 2025, I am supposed to start a new life, not in war-torn Gaza, but in a lecture hall in the United Kingdom. After nearly a year of endless efforts, applications, exams, and navigating bombings, displacement and blackout zones just to apply, I was accepted. Not once, but five times, by the Universities of Glasgow, Edinburgh, Birmingham, Exeter, and Ulster. I even secured funding.

But instead of boarding a plane, I remain trapped in Gaza, a place where war has flattened homes, stolen futures and caged dreams. The bombs have not stopped. Neither has our will. Unlike students in other war-torn areas, we, Gaza Palestinian students, are not being offered any path out. Many countries, such as France, Ireland and Italy, have successfully evacuated their students through government-coordinated efforts and humanitarian corridors, like via the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). These governments made it clear that their students matter. The UK has not. Despite its global standing and historic reputation for championing justice and education, it remains silent.

This is not just my story. It is a collective cry from dozens of us, admitted to top British universities, with scholarships or personal savings, who survived bombs and sieges only to be abandoned at the final border: there is no visa centre in Gaza to submit fingerprints, and no route out without evacuation.

After the war broke out in late 2023, I was forced to pause my online university studies, as both the classes and the fees became impossible to maintain under the siege. But I did not give up on education. Instead, I began applying to UK universities through UCAS, a process that demanded a carefully written personal statement, recommendation letters, detailed documentation and weeks of waiting. I submitted everything using borrowed internet in relatives’ homes or from paid co-working spaces that I reached on foot, under the midday sun or pouring rain, with no transportation. There were days when I sat on a plastic chair in the street, emailing colleges and researching entry requirements while missiles flew overhead.

When universities asked for English qualification submissions, I had no centre in Gaza to support me, not for training, not even to register. Most UK universities would not accept Duolingo, the only test I could afford and access online. So I stretched every resource and applied for each institution’s approved test, juggling freelance mobile programming by day to support myself and studying English by night, often under a mobile flashlight.

Some tests required constant camera and microphone monitoring, difficult in a war zone where displacement, noise and unstable internet made focus nearly impossible. One infraction and the test would be void. My laptop battery often died before the test ended. But I endured and succeeded.

My family shares this hunger for education. My brother is a mechanical engineer who won the competitive Qaddumi scholarship last year to begin a master’s programme at the University of Liverpool in January 2025, but it has been deferred. My sister was accepted into a Turkish government-funded medical programme at Samsun University, which was also postponed because of the war. Three of us, all with dreams and drive, are stuck in Gaza. We did everything right. So why are we left behind?

After much struggle, I finally passed the tests and converted my conditional offers into unconditional ones. I even secured funding, enough for at least the first year’s tuition fees and living expenses. I was also promised support from private foundations, conditional only on submitting my visa application.

But when I tried to apply for a visa, I hit a dead end: biometric fingerprints. The UK has no visa centre in Gaza. To complete the process, I would need to cross a border that is shut unless I am listed for evacuation. There are more than 100 Gazan students accepted to UK universities, 48 with full scholarships, who face the same deadlock. Many, like me, are running out of time. Inside the UK, institutions like the Gaza Scholarship Initiative (GSI) have stepped in to amplify our voice to the government because they believe in us.

Some have carried their offers from 2024, after universities generously deferred their admission. Most universities, however, will not offer such flexibility again. For all of us, 2025 is our last chance.

Other countries acted.

Ireland coordinated directly with Israel to evacuate its students via the Karem Abu Salem (known to Israelis as Kerem Shalom) crossing. France and Italy did the same. Students were transported to nearby countries to finish visa processing and begin their studies. They understood the stakes, not just academic, but human. These governments coordinated with humanitarian agencies to get their students out, then facilitated visas and asylum claims.

The UK has done nothing similar, despite numerous appeals from students, universities, advocacy groups like GSI, and members of parliament. We have written letters to MPs, university heads and the British Council. Even university leaders who support our admission cannot help unless the UK government steps in.

This silence hurts most because it is not due to incapability. The UK can act but it simply chooses not to. If the government coordinated with Israeli authorities and humanitarian groups like the ICRC, students could be evacuated through Kerem Shalom into Egypt or Jordan, where they could finalise visas and travel.

This is not speculative. It is exactly what other democratic nations have done. The difference? They cared enough to try.

What does this say about whose futures matter?

The UK has invested for decades in international education, offering prestigious scholarships like Chevening and the Commonwealth. It champions learning and opportunity and leads countless international partnerships. But when it comes to Gaza students, who embody that very ethos, we are being forgotten. What message does that send? Does our survival, our future, matter less? Are we invisible to the very system that welcomed us in writing?

I still believe in British education. I am inspired by its professors, challenged by its rigour, and drawn to its diversity and values. I fought for my place there. I hope, not just for me but for my peers, that the UK government remembers its legacy and chooses to act.

Because if not now, when?

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

When I was a freshman at Columbia University in 1999, the professor of my Literature Humanities course shared some personal information with my class, which was that she slept exactly three hours per night. I forget what prompted the disclosure, though I do recall it was made not to elicit pity but rather as a matter-of-fact explanation of the way things were: sleeping more than three hours a night simply did not allow her sufficient time to simultaneously maintain her professorship and tend to her baby.

This, of course, was before the era of smartphones took the phenomenon of rampant sleep deprivation to another level. But modern life has long been characterised by a lack of proper sleep – an activity that happens to be fundamental to life itself.

I personally cannot count the times I have awakened at one or two o’clock in the morning to work, unable to banish from my brain the capitalist guilt at engaging in necessary restorative rest rather than being, you know, “productive” 24 hours a day.

And yet mine is a privileged variety of semi-self-imposed sleep deprivation; I am not, for example, being denied adequate rest because I have to work three jobs to put food on the table for my family.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the national public health agency of the United States, approximately one-third of US adults and children under the age of 14 get insufficient sleep, putting them at increased risk for anxiety, depression, heart disease, and a host of other potentially life-threatening maladies. As per CDC calculations, a full 75 percent of US high schoolers do not sleep enough.

While the recommended amount of sleep for adults is at least seven hours per day, a 2024 Gallup poll reported that 20 percent of US adults were getting five hours or less – a trend attributable in part to rising stress levels among the population.

To be sure, it’s easy to feel stressed out when your government appears more interested in sending billions upon billions of dollars to Israel to assist in the ongoing genocide of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip than in, say, facilitating existence for Americans by offering healthcare, education, and housing options that don’t require folks to work themselves to death to afford.

Then again, pervasive stress and anxiety work just fine for those sectors of the for-profit medical establishment that make bank off of treating such afflictions.

Meanwhile, speaking of the Gaza Strip, residents of the occupied territory are well acquainted with acute sleep deprivation, which is currently a component of the Israeli military’s genocidal arsenal for wearing Palestinians down both physically and psychologically. Not that a good night’s sleep in Gaza was ever really within the realm of possibility – even prior to the launch of the all-out genocide in 2023 – given Israel’s decades-long terrorisation of the Strip via periodic bombardments, massacres, sonic booms, the ubiquitous deployment of buzzing drones, and other manoeuvres designed to inflict individual and collective trauma.

A study on trauma and sleep disruption in Gaza – conducted in November 2024 and published this year in the peer-reviewed journal BMC Psychology – notes that, in the present context of Israel’s round-the-clock assault, “the act of falling asleep is imbued with existential dread”. The study quotes one Gaza mother who had already lost three of her seven children to Israeli bombings: “Every time I close my eyes, I see my children in front of me, so I’m afraid to sleep.”

Of course, Israel’s penchant for killing entire families in their sleep no doubt exacerbates the fear associated with it. The study observes that children in Gaza have been “stripped of the simple peace that sleep should offer, forced to endure nightmares born from real-life horrors”, while overcrowded shelters have rendered the pursuit of shut-eye ever more elusive.

Furthermore, mass forced displacement in the Gaza Strip “has deprived families of their homes, severing the link between sleep and security”.

A recent article in the American Medical Association Journal of Ethics argues that sleep is a human right that is integral to human health – and that its deprivation is torture. It seems we can thus go ahead and add mass torture to the list of US-backed Israeli atrocities in Gaza.

Naturally, the US has engaged in plenty of do-it-yourself torture over the years, as well, including against detainees in Guantanamo Bay – where sleep deprivation was standard practice along with waterboarding, “rectal rehydration”, and other so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques”.

In her 2022 study of sleep deprivation as a form of torture, published by the Maryland Law Review, Deena N Sharuk cites the case of Mohammed Jawad, an Afghan teenager imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay in 2003 and subjected to what was “referred to as the Frequent Flyer Program”, whereby detainees were repeatedly moved between cells in order to disrupt their sleep.

According to Sharuk, Jawad was moved “every three hours for fourteen consecutive days, totaling 112 moves”. The young man subsequently attempted suicide.

Now, the ever-expanding array of immigration detention facilities in the US offers new opportunities to withhold sleep, as victims of the country’s war on refuge seekers are crammed into cages illuminated at all hours by fluorescent lights.

And while a well-rested world would surely be a more serene one, such a prospect remains the stuff of dreams.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

On July 17, I was in a market in Nuseirat camp in central Gaza looking for any affordable food item to buy when I saw a crowd of people gather in front of some shops. The people were angry about the exorbitant prices that the shop owners were charging for goods that had clearly been looted from aid convoys.

Two weeks later, I was at the same market and witnessed another angry protest. People were chanting, “You thieves!” and cursing the merchants.

Having no fear of God, shop owners are exploiting the famine without mercy, selling aid as if it were rare luxury items when in fact it is supposed to be distributed for free. The greed and exploitation have gone too far, and the people are taking things into their own hands. Across Gaza, there are protests against price speculation. In some places, shops are being forcibly closed.

Indeed, the prices of essential goods have soared to unimaginable levels, beyond anything dictated by the forces of supply and demand. People cannot understand why goods cost so much despite their minimal purchasing power. The prices I saw while walking at the market were insane: a kilo (2.2lb) of flour – 40 shekels ($12), a kilo of rice – 60 shekels ($18), a kilo of lentils – 40 shekels ($12), a kilo of sugar – 250 shekels ($73), a litre (1 quart) of cooking oil – 200 shekels ($58).

Since Israel imposed a full blockade on Gaza in March, the normal aid distribution through the United Nations – something that has to happen unabated in any warzone – has ceased.

To stave off global criticism, Israel set up humanitarian hubs to supposedly distribute aid. But they have been nothing more than death traps. Many of those who come to collect aid are shot at, and thousands have been killed or wounded.

In parallel, the Israeli government started allowing in a very small quantity of aid trucks, but a large portion of those are looted once they enter Gaza. The goods are then resold at outrageous prices.

Those who control this supply of looted food are powerful merchants and brokers, often protected by local influential actors or benefitting from indirect coordination with Israel. These actions are not spontaneous. They take place within a deliberately created atmosphere of chaos. With the collapse of state institutions and absence of legal accountability, exploitation has become the rule, not the exception.

It is clear to the Palestinians that the occupation doesn’t merely aim to show that Gaza is weak. It actively seeks to prove that it is ungovernable. To achieve this, closing the borders isn’t enough. The people of Gaza must be pushed into a state of constant chaos and friction.

Starvation is a key instrument here. Hunger doesn’t only kill. It also changes human nature. A starving person, stripped of the bare minimum needed to survive and subjected to daily humiliation, slowly loses the ability to think clearly, to judge or to restrain themselves from turning against those they perceive – rightly or wrongly – as contributing to their suffering.

There are black markets and war profiteers in every conflict. But in this one, the occupying power is encouraging these criminal activities, not because it is earning money from them, but because it serves its overall goal. The Palestinians who choose to participate in this form of extortion are motivated by greed, blackmail or survival.

This slow unravelling is exactly what the occupation has aimed for. It wants chaos in the streets of Gaza so Israeli and international media can be quick to point a finger at the Palestinians and declare: “Look, the Palestinian people are imploding. They can’t govern themselves. They don’t deserve a state.” But the truth is, this is not a sign of a failed nation. It is evidence of the occupation’s success in dragging it to the brink.

It is not the people who have lost control. Control has been forcibly stripped from them – through starvation, the systematic destruction of healthcare and sanitary infrastructure, the dismantling of state institutions and the empowerment of criminals.

Yet Gaza will not break. People may grow angry and desperate, cry out and protest, but they still retain a moral compass. This collective outcry is not infighting. It is a clear warning that society will no longer tolerate betrayal. Those who raise prices mercilessly in times of siege are traitors, and they will be held accountable before institutions of justice when Gaza rebuilds.

The occupation may be revelling now in the unfolding collapse, but it would be wrong to think it has defeated the Palestinians. Every crisis breeds new awareness. Every betrayal gives birth to new resistance. The vast majority of Palestinians refuse to become tools in the hands of their torturers. They refuse subjugation and erasure. They refuse to exploit and harm their fellow citizens.

Palestinian national solidarity is still alive.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Over the past two decades, the posture of the United States towards China has evolved from economic cooperation to outright antagonism. US media outlets and politicians have engaged in persistent anti-China rhetoric, while the US government has imposed trade restrictions and sanctions on China and pursued military build-up close to Chinese territory. Washington wants people to believe that China poses a threat.

China’s rise indeed threatens US interests, but not in the way the US political elite seeks to frame it.

The US relationship with China needs to be understood in the context of the capitalist world system. Capital accumulation in the core states, often glossed as the “Global North”, depends on cheap labour and cheap resources from the periphery and semi-periphery, the so-called “Global South”.

This arrangement is crucial to ensuring high profits for the multinational firms that dominate global supply chains. The systematic price disparity between the core and periphery also enables the core to achieve a large net-appropriation of value from the periphery through unequal exchange in international trade.

Ever since the 1980s, when China opened up to Western investment and trade, it has been a crucial part of this arrangement, providing a major source of labour for Western firms – labour that is cheap but also highly skilled and highly productive. For instance, much of Apple’s production relies on Chinese labour. According to research by the economist Donald A Clelland, if Apple had to pay Chinese and East Asian workers at the same rate as a US worker, this would have cost them an additional $572 per iPad in 2011.

But over the past two decades, wages in China have increased quite dramatically. Around 2005, the manufacturing labour cost per hour in China was lower than in India, less than $1 per hour. In the years since, China’s hourly labour costs have increased to more than $8 per hour, while India’s are now only about $2 per hour. Indeed, wages in China are now higher than in every other developing country in Asia. This is a major, historical development.

This has happened for several key reasons. For one, surplus labour in China has been increasingly absorbed into the wage-labour economy, which has amplified workers’ bargaining power. At the same time, the current leadership of President Xi Jinping has expanded the role of the state in China’s economy, strengthening public provisioning systems – including public healthcare and public housing – that have further improved the position of workers.

These are positive changes for China – and specifically for Chinese workers – but they pose a severe problem for Western capital. Higher wages in China impose a constraint on the profits of Western firms that operate there or that depend on Chinese manufacturing for intermediate parts and other key inputs.

The other problem, for the core states, is that the increase in China’s wages and prices is reducing its exposure to unequal exchange. During the low-wage era of the 1990s, China’s export-to-import ratio with the core was extremely high. In other words, China had to export very large quantities of goods in order to obtain necessary imports. Today, this ratio is much lower, representing a dramatic improvement in China’s terms of trade, substantially reducing the core’s ability to appropriate value from China.

Given all this, capitalists in the core states are now desperate to do something to restore their access to cheap labour and resources. One option – increasingly promoted by the Western business press – is to relocate industrial production to other parts of Asia where wages are cheaper. But this is costly in terms of lost production, the need to find new staff, and other supply chain disruptions. The other option is to force Chinese wages back down. Hence, the attempts by the United States to undermine the Chinese government and destabilise the Chinese economy – including through economic warfare and the constant threat of military escalation.

Ironically, Western governments sometimes justify their opposition to China on the grounds that China’s exports are too cheap. It is often claimed that China “cheats” in international trade, by artificially suppressing the exchange rate for its currency, the renminbi. The problem with this argument, however, is that China abandoned this policy around a decade ago. As the International Monetary Fund (IMF) economist Jose Antonio Ocampo noted in 2017, “In recent years, China has rather been making efforts to avoid a depreciation of the renminbi, sacrificing a large amount of reserves. This may imply that, if anything, this currency is now overvalued.” China did eventually permit a devaluation in 2019, when tariffs imposed by the administration of US President Donald Trump increased pressure on the renminbi. But this was a normal response to a change in market conditions, not an attempt to suppress the renminbi below its market rate.

The US largely supported the Chinese government in the period when its currency was undervalued, including through loans from the IMF and World Bank. The West turned decisively against China in the mid-2010s, at precisely the moment when the country began to raise its prices and challenge its position as a peripheral supplier of cheap inputs to Western-dominated supply chains.

The second element that’s driving US hostility towards China is technology. Beijing has used industrial policy to prioritise technological development in strategic sectors over the past decade, and has achieved remarkable progress. It now has the world’s largest high-speed rail network, manufactures its own commercial aircraft, leads the world on renewable energy technology and electric vehicles, and enjoys advanced medical technology, smartphone technology, microchip production, artificial intelligence, etc. The tech news coming out of China has been dizzying. These are achievements that we only expect from high-income countries, and China is doing it with almost 80 percent less GDP per capita than the average “advanced economy”. It is unprecedented.

This poses a problem for the core states because one of the main pillars of the imperial arrangement is that they need to maintain a monopoly over necessary technologies like capital goods, medicines, computers, aircraft and so on. This forces the “Global South” into a position of dependency, so they are forced to export large quantities of their cheapened resources in order to obtain these necessary technologies. This is what sustains the core’s net-appropriation through unequal exchange.

China’s technological development is now breaking Western monopolies, and may give other developing countries alternative suppliers for necessary goods at more affordable prices. This poses a fundamental challenge to the imperial arrangement and unequal exchange.

The US has responded by imposing sanctions designed to cripple China’s technological development. So far, this has not worked; if anything, it has increased incentives for China to develop sovereign technological capacities. With this weapon mostly neutralised, the US wants to resort to warmongering, the main objective of which would be to destroy China’s industrial base, and divert China’s investment capital and productive capacities towards defence. The US wants to go to war with China not because China poses some kind of military threat to the American people, but because Chinese development undermines the interests of imperial capital.

Western claims about China posing some kind of military threat are pure propaganda. The material facts tell a fundamentally different story. In fact, China’s military spending per capita is less than the global average, and 1/10th that of the US alone. Yes, China has a big population, but even in absolute terms, the US-aligned military bloc spends over seven times more on military power than China does. The US controls eight nuclear weapons for every one that China has.

China may have the power to prevent the US from imposing its will on it, but it does not have the power to impose its will on the rest of the world in the way that the core states do. The narrative that China poses some kind of military threat is wildly overblown.

In fact, the opposite is true. The US has hundreds of military bases and facilities around the world. A significant number of them are stationed near China – in Japan and South Korea. By contrast, China has only one foreign military base, in Djibouti, and zero military bases near US borders.

Furthermore, China has not fired a single bullet in international warfare in over 40 years, while during this time the US has invaded, bombed or carried out regime-change operations in over a dozen Global South countries. If there is any state that poses a known threat to world peace and security, it is the US.

The real reason for Western warmongering is because China is achieving sovereign development and this is undermining the imperial arrangement on which Western capital accumulation depends. The West will not let global economic power slip from its hands so easily.

The views expressed in this article are the authors’ own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

On July 27, the Palestinian Ministry of Education released the results of the secondary education certificate exams, also known as tawjihi. Like every year, families sat together, eyes fixed on phone screens, hearts pounding, everyone hoping to be the first to access the ministry’s website and break the news with a jubilant shout. There were joyful tears and celebrations.

Thousands of students, who had endured months of pressure, sleepless nights and fragile hope, had the exam results in their hands that would determine whether and where they could continue their education.

But thousands of others – those in Gaza – were sitting in their tents and ruined homes in despair. I am one of them. This is the second year I, along with 31,000 other Palestinians born in 2006, was unable to take the tawjihi. For another year, we have been stripped of our right to continue our education and of the hope to build a future beyond the ruins. Now, we are joined by almost 40,000 students born in 2007, who are also stuck in this dreadful limbo.

Last year, when the tawjihi results were announced, I was huddled in front of a crackling fire near a tattered tent, far too small to hold my big dreams. The deep frustration I felt didn’t fade – it settled in my mind and stayed. All I could think about was how all my sacrifices, tears, and relentless effort during a full year of studying under difficult circumstances had been for nothing.

This year, it feels even worse. Not only are my dreams of education crushed, now I struggle to keep myself and my family alive, as Gaza is starving to death.

In these two years, I have watched our education system destroyed, classroom by classroom. My school, Shohada al-Nusierat, once a place of learning and dreams, first became a shelter housing displaced families and then a target for Israeli bombing. My schoolbag – once filled with notebooks and study materials – now carries essential documents and a change of clothes, always packed and ready in case we are forced to flee our home again. The academic calendar, with all its important dates, has been replaced by a grim schedule of air strikes, displacement, and loss of friends and loved ones.

Amid this devastation, the Education Ministry has struggled to keep an educational process going. Wanting to give Gaza’s children and youth hope, it has undertaken various initiatives to try to keep students motivated. Makeshift schools have been organised wherever possible, while some university students have been able to continue their education online.

For us, the tawjihi students, efforts were repeatedly made to set up our exams. Last year, the ministry announced it would conduct the exams in February. I kept studying, despite the harsh reality and the collapse of everything around me, believing this was my chance to move forward.

February passed, and nothing happened. The ministry then announced that the exams would be held in April. But once again, they were postponed due to the unsafe conditions. Then, in June, the ministry scheduled an online exam for July for students born in 2005 who had either failed their tawjihi or missed some of its exams; they were supposed to have done this exam in December 2023. Some 1,500 students were able to take the tests online.

This gave me a bit of hope that my turn would also come, but that quickly faded. The Ministry of Education hasn’t given us any updates on the process, and it feels like we’ve been completely forgotten in the shadow of war and starvation.

Some readers may ask themselves, why amid a genocide are Palestinians so preoccupied with an exam?

You have to understand, tawjihi is a milestone in every Palestinian’s life – a decisive moment that shapes future paths for at least the next five years. It determines whether we can pursue our education in the field we desire and gain admission to top universities.

But beyond academics, tawjihi carries a much deeper cultural and emotional weight. It is not just an educational phase – it is part of our identity, a symbol of perseverance. In a place where the occupation closes nearly every door, education is able to keep a few doors still open.

That’s why we celebrate it like a national holiday; the day tawjihi results are released feels like a third Eid for Palestinians. It gives families hope, brings pride to entire neighbourhoods, and keeps alive the dream of a better future.

Over the many months I waited for the tawjihi, I held on to my dream to study medicine at a prestigious university abroad. I kept applying for scholarships and sending emails to universities across the United States, the United Kingdom and Europe, hoping for special consideration as a student affected by war. I pleaded with university administrators to waive the tawjihi certificate requirement.

But the responses were painfully consistent: “Unfortunately, we cannot consider your application unless you provide your final diploma.”

Today, despair and helplessness are not the only unwanted visitors I have. Hunger is another one. The starvation has destroyed not only my body but also my mental health.

Most days, we manage to have one meal. We survive mostly on canned beans, dry bread, or rice without any vegetables or protein. Our bodies are weak, our faces pale, and our energy almost nonexistent. The effects go beyond the physical. Hunger fogs the brain, dulls memory and crushes motivation. It becomes nearly impossible to focus, let alone study for a life-changing exam like the tawjihi. How can I prepare for the most important exam of my life when my stomach is empty and my mind clouded by fatigue and worry?

It feels as though my youth has been stolen before my eyes, and I can do nothing but watch. While my peers around the world are building their futures, I remain stuck in a place of overwhelming pain and loss.

As a tawjihi student trapped in a warzone, I urgently call on educational authorities and international institutions to step in and implement immediate solutions to ensure our right to education is not buried under the rubble of war.

We are not asking for much. Giving us a chance to finish our secondary education in Gaza is not just a matter of logistics, but a matter of justice and future survival.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.