Why New Yorkâs Mayoral Candidates Are Challenging the Pro-Israel Status Quo
Changes that would have been unthinkable a year ago
Lev Radin/Sipa USA via AP Images
Mayoral candidate Andrew Yang visits Muslim-owned businesses on the first day of Ramadan, in the Jackson Heights area of Queens, New York, April 13, 2021.
The outbreak of violence in Israel and the occupied territories has upended the New York City mayoral election. Toeing a hawkish, pro-Israel line was once the safe choice for New York politicians, but now mainstream Democrats face backlash from progressives for endorsing Israelâs bombing campaign in Gaza.
That reaction, and the ideological and demographic shifts that led to it, may indicate more nuanced stances on Middle East politics from local elected officials in the future. This year, however, the likely winners in the Democratic mayoral primary are sticking with Israelâright or wrong.
US Senate passes unanimous resolution calling for withdrawal of Eritrean forces from Ethiopia
The US Senate has unanimously passed a resolution calling for the immediate withdrawal of Eritrean troops from Ethiopia’s war-torn northern Tigray region, after a CNN investigation revealed that the soldiers were cutting off critical aid routes.
A CNN team traveling through Tigray in late April witnessed Eritrean soldiers, some disguising themselves in old Ethiopian military uniforms, blocking aid to starving populations more than a month after Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed pledged to the international community that they would leave.
The resolution, sponsored by Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman James E. Risch and passed by the Senate on Thursday, called on Eritrea to “immediately and fully withdraw its military forces from Ethiopia” and condemned human rights violations committed by the Eritrean military.
US Lawmakers Seek Continued Efforts in Afghanistan
Eleven members of the US House of Representatives 10 Democrats and one Republican wrote a letter to President Joe Biden on the “enduring interests and ideals that should continue to guide US efforts in Afghanistan even as the armed forces end their mission in the country” amid the start of the withdrawal of American troops from the country.
The letter was signed by US Reps. Tom Malinowski (D), Jim Langevin (D), Mike Waltz (R), Stephanie Murphy (D), William R. Keating (D), Chrissy Houlahan (D), Colin Allred (D), Dean Phillips (D), David Cicilline (D), Gerald E. Connolly (D) and Bill Foster (D).
Congressional lawmakers raised concerns with Washington s special envoy to Afghanistan in hearings this week about the future of the war-torn country with a resurgent Taliban and U.S. troops