New Israeli Laws Cement Racial Discrimination

The Israeli separation wall is seen in the West Bank on Sunday. (AFP)
The Israeli separation wall is seen in the West Bank on Sunday. (AFP)
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New Israeli Laws Cement Racial Discrimination

The Israeli separation wall is seen in the West Bank on Sunday. (AFP)
The Israeli separation wall is seen in the West Bank on Sunday. (AFP)

New Israeli draft laws allow a doctor to abandon their professional oath to treat any patient and gives them the right to refuse to treat on religious grounds.  

Opposition lawmakers said the new laws were an abandonment of values for Israel. 

Outgoing Prime Minister Yair Lapid described them as the most extensive moral deterioration that could lead Israel to become a dark state.  

Lapid blamed new Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the rise of such sentiments, saying he was "leading us to a benighted state [ruled by] Jewish law."  

Hundreds of citizens marched in Haifa, protesting the new draft laws, which also say doctors should have the right not to treat homosexuals if it is against their religious belief and if another doctor is on hand to see them.  

Most of the protesters were primarily concerned with the issue of homosexuals. Still, many, including former generals in the army and intelligence, supported Arab demonstrators who opposed the law. 

Another clause in the law allows the separation of males and females in wedding halls and grants hall owners the authority to bar homosexuals from entering.  

The law also allows Jews to buy land plots at low prices in the Negev and Galilee with the aim of Judaizing them. Authorities would allow Israeli forces to clamp down on Arabs.  

New regulations also support education in Jewish towns by including them in the nationally preferred areas, according to which they will be granted tax concessions, excluding Arab cities in Galilee and the Negev.  

Netanyahu's Itamar Ben-Gvir defended the provisions, saying it was good to have a law that allows freedom, adding that the left talks about democracy but acts like a dictatorship.  

Labor MP Gilad Kariv said Israel must decide whether to be a society that respects all people or one that discriminates between them under pretenses, asserting that the law would be used to discriminate against minorities, such as Arabs and Haredi.  

A poll published by the Israeli Kan showed that 48 percent of Israeli citizens believe the situation in the country would be worse by the end of Netanyahu’s term in office in four years. 

Only 29 percent of the respondents said Israel's status would improve, while 38 percent rejected expanding Ben-Gvir's powers and 36 percent supported it.  

Nearly half of the respondents were dissatisfied with the composition of the new government coalition, compared to 37 percent who did. 



US Announces $200 Mn Additional Aid for Sudan

The war in Sudan has killed tens of thousands and displaced more than 11 million. AFP/File
The war in Sudan has killed tens of thousands and displaced more than 11 million. AFP/File
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US Announces $200 Mn Additional Aid for Sudan

The war in Sudan has killed tens of thousands and displaced more than 11 million. AFP/File
The war in Sudan has killed tens of thousands and displaced more than 11 million. AFP/File

The United States on Thursday announced $200 million of new funding for the humanitarian crisis in Sudan, bringing Washington's commitment to $2.3 billion, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Thursday.
Sudan has been ravaged by 20 months of fighting between the regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), and the African country has been identified as one of the world's worst humanitarian disasters, AFP reported.
The World Food Program warned Thursday that Sudan risks becoming the world's largest hunger crisis in recent history, with 1.7 million people across the country either facing famine or at risk of famine.
"We see too many Sudanese faces hunger, despair," Blinken said at a UN Security Council meeting on Sudan.
He lamented that political and military crises have "derailed Sudan's transition to democracy and unleashed what is the worst humanitarian crisis in the world."
"The United States has worked intensively with partners to provide relief to Sudan... today we are announcing another roughly $200 million," he added, noting that in some parts of Sudan, people are forced to eat grass and peanut shells to survive.
OCHA operations director Edem Wosornu told the Security Council $4.2 billion would be needed to support the needs of Sudan's people next year.
Fraction of aid need met
"The volume of humanitarian aid reaching people in need remains a fraction of what is required," Wosornu told the Council.
"Ultimately, the only way to end this cycle of violence, death and destruction is for this Council to rise to the challenge of delivering lasting peace in Sudan."
Nearly all of the vast Darfur region of western Sudan is now controlled by the RSF, which has also taken over swathes of the neighboring Kordofan region as well as much of the center of the country.
The regular army retains control of the north and east, while the capital Khartoum and its surrounding cities are a battleground between the warring parties.
As fighting rages on the ground, 10 Sudanese civilians were killed and 20 wounded in paramilitary shelling of North Darfur's besieged capital El-Fasher that hit the city's main hospital and other areas on Wednesday.
The war has killed tens of thousands and displaced more than 11 million, creating what the United Nations describes as one of the worst humanitarian disasters in recent memory.
Both the army and the RSF have been accused of indiscriminately bombing medical facilities and civilians, as well as deliberate attacks on residential areas.
"Footage abounds of forms of brutality that defy human consciousness and no person should have to bear witness to," Shayna Lewis, a Sudan expert at the non-governmental group Preventing and Ending Mass Atrocities, told the council.
"But this Council must demonstrate through action that the imperiled lives of 49 million Sudanese will not be abandoned to the whims of armed men."