Democracy Now! Audio - Democracy Now! 2025-08-07 Thursday

Episode Date: August 7, 2025

Democracy Now! Thursday, August 7, 2025

From New York, this is Democracy Now. And when they fired, there was shrapnel over us. And we are running on the street, all of us. As you could see, women, children, men, and elderly, everyone as you can see us. left on the streets without shelter. Nothing. We have nothing left. Israel may soon expand its assault on Gaza to a full military takeover of the territory. UNICEF says at least one Palestinian child an hour is dying in Gaza.

We'll speak to Amjad Iraqi, senior Israel-Palestine analyst at the International Crisis Group. His new piece, Walking Corpses. Then White House officials confirm President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin could meet within days to discuss the war in Ukraine in the first U.S. Russia summit in more than four years. It appears that Russia is now more inclined to consider a ceasefire. The pressure on them is working. But the main thing is to make sure they don't deceive anyone in the details,

neither us nor the United States. It is unclear whether there will be a follow-up three-way summit with Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, We'll speak with Russian American journalist M. Gessen, opinion columnist for the New York Times. And the U.S. raises tariffs to the highest level since the Great Depression, including up to 50 percent tariffs on India unless it stops buying Russian oil. We'll go to New Delhi. And finally, negotiations are underway in Geneva on a legally binding global plastics treaty. Plastics are a grave, growing, and under-recognized danger to human and planetary health.

That's the conclusion of a new Lancet report. We'll speak with its co-author. All that and more coming up. Welcome to Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. In Gaza, at least four Palestinians have studied. starved to death over the past 24 hours, bring the total number of malnutrition-related deaths to at least 197.

The World Food Program has warned, food aid needs to be immediately flooded into Gaza to prevent mass starvation. This is Amira Moutaire, a Palestinian mother in Gaza City. She decried the Israeli siege as she held her emaciated baby Amar. If Israel doesn't kill us, we'll have. with strikes and missiles. It is killing us by the famine it is creating. But I want to ask the entire world and the people who believe Israel and its lies. If there wasn't a famine in Gaza, what made this baby reach this state? His bones are visible. The signs of death appeared on him.

This comes as Israeli settlers have attacked aid convoys coming from Jordan twice in recent days. During one of the attacks, settlers were filmed chanting, may Palestine's name be wiped out, quote. Over the past day, Israeli attacks killed at least 98 Palestinians across Gaza, including 51 aid seekers. Meanwhile, Doctors Without Borders, Medicine Sontier, MSF, has called for the closure of the Israeli-U.S.S. back aid centers in Gaza, the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, saying they've become sites of, quote, orchestrated killing and dehumanization, unquote. Some 1400 Palestinians have been killed. since May, trying to access food since the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation took over a delivery. In a statement, MSF said, quote, in nearly 54 years of operations, rarely have we

seen such levels of systematic violence against unarmed civilians, unquote. On Wednesday, Israel showed the headquarters of the Palestinian Red Crescent and Khan Yunus. It was the second attack on the facility in recent days. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin and Netanyahu is convening his security cabinet today to consider plans for the Israeli military to fully take over Gaza. But there's growing pushback internationally and inside Israel. One top U.N. officials said Israel's plans would have catastrophic consequences. On Wednesday, Israeli protesters rallied near the Gaza border.

This is a lonely green of the group standing together. This plan to occupy the entire Gaza Strip has only one meaning. And this meaning is the death of the hostages, the death of the Palestinians, and yes, also the death of the Israeli soldiers. If they send our soldiers to kill and get killed, the only meaning is just more death. Earlier today, families of Israeli hostages launched a protest flotilla of more than 10 ships toward the maritime border with the Gaza Strip, calling for an end to Netanyahu's war and the release of their loved ones. In news from the Occupied West Bank, Israeli authorities have finally released the body of the Palestinian activist Oda Hatholene, who was shot to death by an Israeli settler 10 days ago. The Israeli journalist, Oran Zeev, reports the Israeli army has now closed the area of his village and are blocking people from attending his funeral.

Hathelene was a beloved activist who worked on the Oscar-winning documentary, No Other Land, to see our interviews with. the director, go to Democracy Now.org. Microsoft has helped Israel develop one of the world's most invasive surveillance systems, a cloud platform to store and analyze millions of Palestinian phone calls intercepted by the Israeli spy unit, 8200. That's according to an investigation by the Guardian and 972 magazine, which finds the intercepted data has been used to target Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied world. Bank. U.S. tariffs and more than 90 countries took effect today raising import taxes to

the highest level since the Great Depression. They range from 15 percent on imports from countries like Bolivia, Ecuador, Iceland, Nigeria, up to 50 percent on India and Brazil. President Trump slapped India with one of the highest tariff rates, which are set to go into effect on August 27, to pressure India to stop buying Russian oil. Separately, President Trump tie Brazil's tariffs of 50% to punish Brazil for putting former far-right President Jare Bolsonaro, known as the Trump of the Tropics, on trial for his 2022 coup attempt. Trump has called Bolsonaro's prosecution a witch hunt. Bolsonaro was placed under house arrest earlier this week. President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin could meet as early as next week to discuss the war in Ukraine. It would be the first U.S. Russia summit in more than four years.

it's unclear where the summit between the U.S. and Russia would take place, since there's an ICC arrest warrant out for Putin. The U.S. has floated the possibility of a follow-up three-way summit, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, but Russia has not commented on this. On Wednesday, U.S. special envoy, Steve Whitkoff, met with Putin in Moscow. The Washington Post is reporting the State Department's forthcoming Human Rights Report will dramatically scale back U.S. criticism of several countries, including Israel, El Salvador, and Russia. The report also removes references to gender-based violence or violence against

LGBTQ-plus people. A leaked draft says there have been, quote, no credible reports of significant human rights abuses last year in El Salvador. Previous Department reports on El Salvador had condemned government-sanctioned killings, torture, and, quote, life-threatening prison conditions, unquote. The draft report on Israel is just 25 pages, down from 100 in the previous report. Sections removed include a line criticizing Israel's, quote, experimental facial recognition system to track Palestinians and enforce movement restrictions, unquote. In news from Sudan, an investigation by the Guardian has revealed the rapid support forces armed by the United Arab Emirates mass, occurred more than 1,500 civilians during an attack in April

at Zamzam Camp in northern Darfur, the country's largest camp for displaced people. The final death hole may be even higher with many bodies still remaining at the camp, which is now controlled by the RSF. Last month, the International Criminal Court said it had, quote, reasonable grounds to conclude the war crimes were unfolding in Darfur. The UN says Rwanda backed M23 rebels, killed over three cases. civilians in eastern areas of the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the past month, describing it as one of the largest deaths holes since the M23 reappeared in the country in 2022.

The U.N. statement cited firsthand accounts and said the M23 rebels targeted four villages in North Kivu province. It comes as President Trump's pushing for a peace deal between Congo and Rwanda, which would also allow the U.S. to tap the DRC's rich mineral resources. In southern France, at least one person has died, three people are missing, is firefighters battle France's biggest wildfire in almost 80 years. Meanwhile, wildfires in Spain and Portugal prompted evacuations this week amidst a protracted heat wave that's seen temperatures of up to 110 degrees Fahrenheit. New research suggests the wildfires that swept through densely populated neighborhoods of Los Angeles County last winter killed hundreds of people far more than the official count of

Publishing in the Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers found 440 excess deaths from January 5th to February 1st as the Palisades and Eaton fires consume 16,000 structures while displacing 150,000 residents. The excesses deaths are attributed to lung or heart conditions exacerbated by smoke or stress and other indirect factors. The Department of Homeland Security is expanding its push to hire new ICE agents by removing age limits for applicants. Until now, new hires had to be at least 21 years old, and in most cases, not older than 37. ICE is also offering $50,000 signing bonuses and student loan forgiveness. Congress recently approved $75 billion in ICE funding. This comes as federal agents continue to carry out raids across the country. On Wednesday, masked and heavily armed Border Patrol agents were seen jumping out of the back of a rental truck during a raid

targeting day laborers at a Home Depot in Los Angeles. Officials describe the operation as a Trojan horse raid. President Trump's threatening to deploy the National Guard to Washington, D.C., and take over the city's police department after a former Doge staffer was injured and attempted carjacking. On social media, Trump said he had, quote, no choice but to take federal control of the city, unquote. Trump was also asked if he wanted Congress to overturn D.C.'s home rule, which allows the district to self-govern. He replied, quote, the lawyers are already studying it, unquote. Five soldiers were wounded and hospitalized after an attack at Fort Stewart-Hunter Army Airfield in Georgia yesterday.

The suspected gunman was an army sergeant at the base and fired on his own unit. He was apprehended at the scene when other soldiers tackled him. The suspect's father said he complained about racism and was seeking a transfer from the base. Republican Congressmember Mike Flood of Nebraska faced booze and jeers during a town hall in Lincoln, Nebraska, as the crowd confronted him about his vote for Trump's tax and spending bill. Hundreds packed the town hall chanting tax the rich and multiple people called Flood a liar as he defended his vote to cut Medicaid, food benefits, and other program. Here's an audience member questioning Congressman Flood. My question is fiscal. With 450 million FEMA dollars being reallocated to open alligator.

Alcatraz and 600 million taxpayer FEMA dollars being used to now open more concentration camps and ice burning through $8.4 million a day to illegally detain people. How much does it cost for fascism? How much do the taxpayers have to pay for a fascist country? Congressmember Flood was also asked about whether he would push for the release of the Epstein files in Tucson, Arizona, the city council. Council has unanimously voted to reject Project Blue, a proposed massive data center campus link to Amazon. The 7-0 vote came after widespread community organizing against what critics viewed as a corporate water grab.

The 290-acre data center would have consumed millions of gallons of water in an area already facing drought. Tucson's vice mayor, Lane Santa Cruz, spoke ahead of Wednesday night's vote. Hundreds of our families have reached out, deeply worried about what the this data center could mean for them, for our water, for our shared future. I've listened to elected officials in other cities who've been left to deal with the aftermath of similar developments. And I've spoken with national experts and AI data infrastructure to understand what's truly driving this push. What I've learned is simple. Giant corporations prefer to operate in the shadows, but Tucson is not for sale. We deserve transparency and

accountability. And the Stanford University student newspaper has filed a First Amendment lawsuit against Secretary of State Marco Rubio over the Trump administration's campaign to revoke visas of non-citizens over constitutionally protected speech, including criticism of Israel. Greta Reich, editor-in-chief of the Stanford Daily, said, quote, there's real fear on campus, and it reaches into the newsroom. I've had reporters turn down assignments, request the removal of some of their articles, and even quit the paper, because they, they fear deportation for being associated with speaking on political topics, even in a journalistic capacity, she said. And those are some of the headlines. This is Democracy Now,

Democracy Now.org, the war and peace report. I'm Amy Goodman. And I'm Narmine Sheikh. Welcome to our listeners and viewers across the country and around the world. White House officials have confirmed that President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin could meet as early as next week to discuss the war in Ukraine. It would be the first year. U.S. Russia summit in more than four years. It's unclear where the talks would take place since there's an ICC arrest warrant out for Putin. The U.S. has floated the possibility of a follow-up three-way summit, including Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky. But Russia has not commented on this. On Wednesday, U.S. Special Envoy, Steve Whitkoff met with Putin in Moscow. For more,

we begin today's show with Russian-American journalist M. Gessen, opinion columnist for the New York Times, author of 11 books, including surviving autocracy. And the future is history, how totalitarianism reclaimed Russia, which won the National Book Award in 2017. And Gessen, welcome back to Democracy Now. Let's begin with this news that broke overnight that Putin and Trump will meet for the first summit in four years. And then there's speculation there would be a three-way summit with Zelensky, though Putin has not

confirmed this. your response to this latest news and what this meeting could mean? Well, this meeting is a feather in Putin's cap. I think that's the long and the short of it. Putin continues these so-called negotiations with no interest in reaching any kind of peace agreement, but the legitimacy, the sort of the renewed legitimacy that a conversation with the United States and personally with the U.S. president means for Putin is huge. And what precisely am guessing is it?

I mean, now what are Russia's objectives, long-term objectives in this war? Well, let's separate the objectives that Russia states it has and the objectives that I think Putin has. Russia's stated objectives are to have forever guarantees that Ukraine will not join NATO, and to annex more Ukrainian land than Russia has actually been able to occupy in the last three and a half years of war. And Russia already occupies about 20% of Ukrainian territory. So these demands are absurd, obviously illegal, and demands that Ukraine couldn't possibly agree to,

even in the presence of what I think on Ukraine's part. is a good faith, desire to reach a peace agreement. Now, what Russia actually wants is, I think, a little bit different from these articulated demands. And what Russia wants at this point is just to continue this war in perpetuity. And I'm guessing. Could you explain why that is? What are the domestic considerations for Putin in continuing this war?

Well, at this point, Russia has become a country at war. and Putin's regime has become a regime at war. This is not the kind of thing that you can roll back in a totalitarian state. It destabilizes the politics, it destabilizes the psychology of the country, and at this point it would destabilize the economy of the country to try to reprimid it back to a civilian economy. What would it mean? How would it destabilize the economy?

In fact, if you could give us a sense of how the Russian economy has been impacted by now years of sanctions and what the possible effects would be once Trump's secondary sanctions go into place, in particular against India, which is the second largest importer of Russian oil. Well, the fact that India is the second largest importer of Russian oil, and there's a bigger importer of Russian oil, and the fact that Russian oil continues to go to Europe, despite three years of sanctions, gives us a suggestion of just how. small the impact of sanctions has been.

What there has been is a kind of western, spontaneous economic boycott of Russia, but not any kind of structural sanctions that could really affect the Russian economy. What that has created is a kind of catch-up game, which sanctions on India aren't going to significantly change. Russia has been able to retool its economy, to reorient it towards. manufacturing for war, selling for war, trading with the non-Western world for war in a way that you can't put a denton by imposing even huge sanctions, even on the second largest importer of Russian oil, even if it has the imagined effect of India stopping to import Russian oil.

Most likely that will not happen. Most likely, as with other countries, there will be third country schemes. that Russia has become expert at creating, and the West has frankly become expert at ignoring. We're going to talk more about the imposition of increased tariffs up to 50% on India by going to New Delhi in a moment. But I want to ask you how you see Russia's war on Ukraine ending. You have this ominous development where President Trump says he is moving nuclear submarines to intimidate the nuclear-armed Russia, this and especially significant this week, the 80th anniversary of the only dropping of atomic bombs, and that was the U.S. bombing Hiroshima and

Nagasaki in Japan. And do you think that Putin could survive the end of his war on Ukraine? Those are great questions. So I don't think that Putin can survive the end of the war. Ukraine, or more to the point, I don't think Putin thinks that he can survive an end of the war to Ukraine, an end to the war in Ukraine. And that basically tells us everything we need to know. He is fully invested in continuing this war forever. There's absolutely no reason political, psychological, economic that would force him to end the war, except for the possibility of being brought to his knees on the battlefield. moving nuclear submarines, playing a game of nuclear chicken, is not going to do it.

Putin is convinced that, you know, Russia has been, Russian propaganda, both targeted domestically and internationally, has revolved around the possibility of a Russian-first nuclear strike for years now. This idea that we are going to go to heaven if we blow up the entire world, or more to the point some of us will survive and we don't care if the rest of the world goes to nuclear help. This idea is actually entrenched in Russia. And so unconvincingly swinging the nuclear threat

on the part of the United States is not going to put it in it. What would possibly convince Putin is if he saw his regime ending as a result of the war in Ukraine. And the only way that that could happen is if he started losing. At this point, there is a semi-frozen front line. Russia is very, very slowly making advances. Sometimes it has to retreat slightly. But basically, the front line has been in more or less the same place since the

ball of 2022. And Russia has millions of people. to sacrifice. Russia does not care at this point how much depopulation it causes. And Ukraine as still basically a democratic country doesn't have the same kinds of human resources and the same kinds of political resources to expend on this war. And that gives the aggressor a permanent advantage. And what about domestically, I'm guessing? How is this war now perceived in Russia, I mean, to the extent that one can gauge a public opinion, what is it? And is there any remaining independent media operating in Russia now? There hasn't been independent media in Russia since the week

after the full-scale invasion. So since basically March 22. There has been independent media in Russian. There's independent media in exile that, like a lot of important projects in the world is suffering actually hugely from losing some support that it had from the State Department. But at this point, there's still some brave and very ingenious Russian reporters telling people inside Russia about the war in Ukraine. But their audience comparatively is very, very small. And no, we can't judge public opinion in a totalitarian country. And we can't judge public opinion in a country at war. What we do know is that Ukrainians have have succeeded in making Russians who live far away from the front feel that it is a

country at war. That is probably the biggest single military gain that Ukraine has made in the last six months or so, right? There's constant, there are frequent drone strikes deep inside Russian territory. And there's this constant sense from what we can tell that Russians everywhere, not just living near the border with Ukraine, that Russians everywhere are vulnerable and that civilian life can be disrupted. Transportation can be disrupted. Airports are constantly getting shut down because of drone attacks, that sort of thing. That's a major negotiating advantage that Ukraine has, I mean, not an advantage over Russia, but a advantage over its previous position that Ukraine has gained in recent months.

It has been floated that possibly a ceasefire agreement that would satisfy Trump could involve both countries agreeing to stop strikes deep inside enemy territory. That proposal is on the table that does not seem to be the proposal that Americans have advanced and does not seem to be a proposal that Russia has advanced. But there's talk that this is something that at least on a temporary basis could happen. That would be a great relief to many Ukrainians because Russia has intensified its attacks on Kiev, on Odessa, sometimes on other cities far away from the front line. At the same time, it would not mean the end to the war. It would not mean that Ukraine could lift a state of emergency, that Ukrainian women and children could return to the country, that Ukrainian men who are forbidden from leaving the country, that they could reunite with their families.

It would not change the life of Ukraine, which has been in an emergency life situation for three and a half years now. And Russia has not. M. Gessen, very quickly, before we conclude, you've drawn comparisons between Putin's Russia and now Trump's America. If you could just say, what are your concerns and what do you think resistance should look like? I can't give prescriptions for resistance. What I do know, actually, is that where autocratic attempts have been reversed, and I'm not just, sure even we're at the stage of an autocratic attempt. I think we're beyond it. I think we are now living in an autocracy. And this is what autocracy in its early stages feels like, right?

It feels like some people are being affected by, some people have the full experience of living in a police state, but most of us don't. Some people have had their professional lives completely disrupted and have had their freedom of speech hugely impacted, but most people have not. And that, you know, just the number of people who live in a police state and the number of people whose daily lives are disrupted is just going to continue growing and growing and growing. Where autocratic attempts have been reversed, it has been by bringing together a coalition of people who don't have a political agenda in common, but who are equally outraged by having their freedoms taken away. This is what we saw happen in Ukraine, actually, during its revolution of 2003, 2004, and then again during, I'm sorry, 2004, 2005, and again during its revolution of 2013, a broad coalition of conservatives and liberals in Ukraine.

great Western-oriented people and nationalists coming together and saying you can't take this away from us. We have sacrificed too much to live in a democratic country. I don't know if this can happen in the United States, but that's probably our best hope. And Gasson, I want to thank you so much for being with us. Opinion and Calmness for the New York Times, author of 11 books, including surviving autocracy and the future is history, how totalitarianism reclaimed Russia, winner of the National Book Award. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the War and Peace report. I'm Amy Goodman with Nirmine Sheikh.

U.S. tariffs on more than 90 countries took effect today, raising import taxes to the highest level since the Great Depression. They range from 15% on imports from countries like Bolivia, Ecuador, Iceland, and Nigeria, to up to 50% on India and Brazil. President Trump slapped India with one of the highest tariff rates, which are set to go into effect on August 27th, to pressure India to stop buying Russian oil. Separately, President Trump tied Brazil's tariffs of 50% to punish Brazil for putting

former far-right President Jaya Bolsonaro on trial for his 2022 coup attempt. Trump has called Bolsonaro's prosecution a witch hunt. Bolsonaro was placed under house arrest earlier this week. For more, we go to New Delhi, India. We're joined by Jai Tegos, economics professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, previously an economics professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, where she talked for 35 years. Welcome back to Democracy Now. So you have President Trump imposing 25% tariff on India to go up to 50% because they're buying Russian oil. China's also buying

Russian oil. They're not doing the same with China. Talk about what this means for India and why you see Lula in Brazil's response to Trump as a good example of what India should do, defying him? Well, as you said, there's so many double standards in this particular recent announcement of Trump because it's not just that other countries like China are buying Russian oil. The European Union is buying Russian oil.

The U.S. is buying various Russian exports, including minerals of different kinds, uranium and so on. So, you know, basically, Trump has picked on this particular one to raise at this point. It could be anything tomorrow. Just as he's announced, he doesn't like Bricks, and any country that's going to join Bricks is going to suffer for it. So even if we say, okay, we stop buying Russian oil, he could well say, well, you're still in Bricks. So until you leave Bricks, I'm going to actually slap more tariffs on you. Or he could say, I don't like anything you're doing internally in terms of your own justice system or your political system. So I will

slap more tariffs on you. This can go on forever. And it's becoming not just ridiculous, but a bit bizarre, I would say. And you've said, Professor Ghosh, that India has not responded the way it might have and has made too many concessions to the U.S. If you could talk about what those concessions were when Prime Minister Modi and Foreign Minister Jashankar were here in the U.S. earlier this year. Well, you know, we don't have good information on this because this is all hearsay, it depends on, you know, basically what we get to know because none of this is made available to the Indian public. But obviously what happened was that immediately after the threats, the Great Liberation Day threats of early April, the Prime Minister and

the external affairs minister, Mr. Jashankar, they actually presented India as willing to make many concessions. And this has been something that President Trump himself actually pointed out, saying that there are all these countries coming and kissing my ass and saying, we'll do anything, sir, we'll do anything. They agreed to a rushed trade deal. I'm very, very glad that that hasn't happened because it would have been very much against India's interests. They agreed to a range of concessions, which we are unaware of at the moment. We do know there are some red lines that even they have not dared to cross, particularly Indian agriculture. the U.S. has lost a lot of agricultural exports because of the bans on China

and that China itself has imposed retaliation to the U.S. And soybean farmers in the U.S. are hurting. Various farmers are hurting. And they want to push those highly subsidized agricultural products onto India where agriculture is still livelihood for around half of our population, very, very poor, small farmers, and basically would get wiped down. by extremely subsidized multinational agribusinesses shoving a lot of their products into the

Indian market. So that's an absolute red line for India. There should be many more red lines. I'm hoping that this latest, very ridiculous demand will actually put some steel in the spine of the Indian government. It already seems to have reacted, I think, sensibly. We know that the Lula government, the South African government, I mean, everybody is actually shall we say, rethinking any kind of deal they may strike with the U.S. at the moment because it's also evident that even if you strike a deal, it's not safe. You never know what the president of the U.S. is going to decide tomorrow. And whether they will say, you know, that's off. I'm now going to impose some other punishment on you because you've done this. Wasn't it President Biden that

encouraged India to buy Russian oil? Yes. You know, the Russian oil example is so, so, typical of the double standards of the US. When Biden imposed those sanctions, they encouraged India to buy oil from Russia so long as it remained under the $60 cap precisely because they wanted to keep the global oil price down. So they wanted to harm Russia without destabilizing global oil prices because it's such a sensitive thing within the US economy. And so they actively encouraged India to import from Russia.

And they knew full well that a lot of those imports were then being effectively processed and re-exported back to the European Union. So now for the Trump administration to claim that this is horrifying and shocking and so on, it's really, shall we say, it's not very convincing. And let's face it, we also don't know three months from now, whether Russia will still be an enemy or will become a friend again. Mr. Trump loved Mr. Putin a few months ago and thought that Russia was the victim in that particular conflict. The whole thing may change in a few months and he may decide that China is now the bigger enemy and Russia is our friend again. So, you know, in this kind of context for any country to hope that a trade

deal on often really adverse terms with the U.S. is something that is going to stick and it's something that will actually benefit them in the medium term is ridiculous. Giant Ugoche, want to thank you for being with us, economics professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, speaking to us from New Delhi, India. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org. Up next, Israel may soon expand its assault on Gaza to a full military takeover of the area. Stay with us. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could save the world and all?

Simply by collecting up tin cans and empty bottles. We all want to believe it's true, but it don't matter what you do, so long as we continue to burn our way through fossils. Now it should come as no surprise to hear about the oceans rise. Polar caps are melting with every year that the planet won't, Now, people have to understand, we're going to feel it far in the land. King tide and the sunny day flood by Billy Bragg in our Democracy Now studio.

This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org. I'm Amy Goodman with Nirmin-Shir. Israel's security cabinet is meeting this evening to discuss plans to expand Israel's assault on Gaza toward a full military takeover, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who reportedly pushing for a month's long offensive on Gaza city and central Gaza refugee camps. The cabinet meeting comes as Israel's siege of Gaza has led to the starvation deaths of four more Palestinians over the last 24 hours, according to health officials. Among them was a two-year-old girl who died of malnutrition in the Almawesi area,

which Israel had declared a safe zone, despite repeatedly attacking Palestinians there. Over the past day, unrelenting attacks by Israeli forces, reportedly killed at least 98 Palestinians across Gaza, including 51 aid seekers. Among the dead is 41-year-old Suleiman al-Obeid, a legendary former member of the Palestinian National Soccer Team who's been described as the Pele of Palestine. He was killed Wednesday while waiting for food near an aid site run by the militarized U.S. and Israel-backed so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, or GHF. A new report by Medicinescent Frontier or Doctors Without Borders describes GHF run food distribution

centers in Gaza as sites of, quote, orchestrated killing and dehumanization that must be shut down. MSF's director, Raquel Ayora, writes, quote, children shot in the chest while reaching for food, people crushed or suffocated in stampedes, entire crowds gunned down at distribution points. In MSF's nearly 54 years of operations, rarely have we seen such levels of systematic violence against unarmed civilians. Separately, Jordan has accused Israeli authorities of failing to intervene as Israeli settlers attacked a Gaza-bound aid convoy on Wednesday. It was the second such incident in recent days. During one of the attacks, settlers were filmed chanting

may Palestine's name be wiped out. For more, we go to Haifa Israel to speak with Amjad Iraqi, senior Israel-Palestine analyst at the International Crisis Group. His recent piece for the London Review of Books is headlined, Walking Corpses. Amjad, thanks so much for being with us. If you can start off by talking about what is Netanyahu trying to accomplish right now by talking about a full military takeover of the Gaza Strip, you have families of hostages in more than 10 boats in a flotilla that's going to. trying to challenge the siege on Gaza to free the hostages there and talking and condemning

Netanyahu's war, not to mention the global pushback with one country after another saying they're going to recognize Palestine as a state. Your response. Thanks so much, Amy. I mean, what you're seeing right now is essentially what the Israeli government is putting on offer is a new iteration of a failed and destructive policy. So back in May, the army officially launched what we know is called Operation Gideon's Chariots. And this itself came a few months after Israel decisively shattered the ceasefire that it had with Hamas in the months before. And the kind of portrayal of this operation was that through a more aggressive approach by the Israeli military, that they would be able to, A, free the hostages and be destroy Hamas in whatever.

terms that they described. Now, we've come about three, four months on, and what we've actually seen is that this operation has failed even on its own terms. The army has not actually freed the hostages of its own accord, aside from a handful, most of them in body bags, and Hamas is still fighting on the ground, it is still negotiating and ceasefire. It has not really been destroyed, even as it's been taking severe hits. So even on the Israeli terms, this operation has not succeeded. But rather than sort of rethinking this approach, Israeli governments actually seems to think that the problem is that they haven't been aggressive enough. This is even after you've essentially seen the complete rendering of Gaza as unlivable and ungovernable. And now you're seeing this mass starvation spreading to the point that 2 million people are now very slowly sinking into famine.

And there is no real reflection by the part of the Israeli government that this war is actually reaching its course. And right now the politicians, especially by Prime Minister Netanyahu, are insisting that doubling down and going more aggressively, and especially by targeting Gaza City, which is one of the prime areas that the military wants to officially sort of set troops on the ground and try to eradicate Hamas infrastructure and to move hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from that city. This is potentially the next phase if it does get ultimately approved by the cabinet. And this is a very alarming trend for affairs. Well, Amshed, you say in your London Review of Books piece, walking corpses, that far-right politicians, you've just mentioned this, Netanyahu included, hope quite openly that the policy of starvation that's ongoing in Gaza now will encourage, quote, voluntary emigration of Palestinians from the territory. Now, where does the Netanyahu government imagine the Palestinians would go? As you said, the Israeli politicians have really made it no secret that they envision. want to see the mass displacement of the Palestinians as southwards as possible, if not completely

ejected from the Gaza Strip. Now, in its most sort of conservative estimations or desires, according to this operation, it is to try to empty out those hundreds of thousands in Gaza City and to focus some in the southern half of the Gaza Strip around areas like Deer Balah, including Al-Mawesi. These are coastal areas. And keep in mind that over the course of the war, and especially over the past few months, most of Gaza's two million people have, been crunched into those particular enclaves. So almost 80% of the strip is technically under Israeli military control. And so the idea that they want to try now emptying Gaza City entirely, essentially making almost the entire northern half of the

strip as empty of Palestinians as possible, whether it's for military purposes, whether it's for more far-right officials demanding the resettlement of Gaza. This is essentially the next phase where that might end up being achieved. And this will not be a straightforward approach because we've actually been seeing that there are still Palestinian fighters on the ground, including in the north, who are giving the Israeli military a hard time on the ground. There are, of course, the masses themselves who understand that even if they do go to the south, there is no guarantee that they can get more access to aid, even as Israeli government insists that they will expand some of the aid distribution centers, which themselves have become really killing fields for people

trying to grasp even a bit of food. And so Gazans are really caught in the face of even more and more dangerous policies by the Israeli military. And like I said, they've really made it no secret that it's not just about some military objectives, but that there are larger political, strategic goals that they're trying to achieve by recarving Gaza's geography and its demography. I wanted to also ask you about the West Bank. We're trying to follow news as it happens.

You know, the Israeli military has returned the body of Alda Hafelein. But as for what's happening at the funeral now, Israeli forces barring mourners from attending his funeral, the Palestinian activist involved with the Oscar-winning film, No Other Land, and talking about just the expansion of the Israeli settlements. Hagit O'Fran, a member of the Israeli group Shalom Achav, Peace Now, Al Jazeera, what we're seeing since 1967, and especially in recent years, is that Israel's continuing to build and build settlements in the West Bank in order to annex the West Bank into Israel. In fact, the West Bank is already de facto annexed. Talk about what's happening there

as well and how it relates to Israel saying they're going to take over Gaza. So it's important to keep in mind that the West Bank is really the prime target for these Israeli far-right politicians. They do want to annex the territory, whether in law or in practice. They do want to also empty large parts of the territories of Palestinians. And this is exactly what's actually been happening for decades, but it's certainly an expedited form since October 7th. This goes from the government to the army to the settler enterprise on the ground, where they've really taken the Gaza war as an opportunity to go as far as they, can to displace more Palestine and seize more territory and advance more legislation to formally

make large parts of the West Bank under Israeli control. And you've seen the devastating results of this. Military operations in places like Janine and Nablus and Dulcorum in the northern West Bank have completely destroyed and recarved refugee camps and major cities over there. You're seeing settlers themselves also take hand-in-hand with soldiers institute checkpoints all across the West Bank to the point that the West Bank economy is being completely stifled. There's no safety for Palestinians on the ground. There's almost no functioning economy to speak of. And the sense more and more that they're tightening the chokehold around Palestinians is really affecting people on the ground. And here it's really important to note that you also

cannot separate Gaza and the West Bank, not only for the fact that they are both occupied territories and with Palestinian populations, but that the Israeli military, Israeli government, is observing what it is advancing in Gaza, finding very little pushback and deciding that it could actually pursue and replicate many of the same policies in the West Bank, starting with the North and potentially moving downwards. And so for the Israeli far right, they really feel emboldened that this is really a historic opportunity to clinch as much of that territory as possible, even as they advance their own ambitions in Gaza. Well, what do you think? I mean, all this is going on as a group of 600 retired Israeli security officials.

have written an open letter to President Trump to urge Netanyahu, to urge him to pressure Israel to end the war. And the signatories include three former heads of Mossad. There have also been some demonstrations in Israel against the war. And in May, Israel's Channel 12 found in a poll that most Israelis think Netanyahu cares more about staying in power than winning the war. I mean, all of these things together you'd think may have some impact. on what he's planning to do, or indeed what he is doing in Gaza and the West Bank. What do you think the effect of this is? Is there any pressure at all on his administration?

It's certainly been quite a groundswell of Israeli opposition in very Israeli terms. I mean, those who question the war don't necessarily question the kind of justification for it. But what they do feel are the economic consequences of it. What they do feel are soldiers who are either being killed, many being wounded, many coming back with PTSD and other effects of the war of these past two years. This is really the longest war that Israel has experienced. And you are seeing both current and former military officials say that there is nowhere further to go. And in particular, the fact that the hostages have only been released through ceasefire negotiations

and that they have not been freed by the army and the fear of what might happen still to those who are still alive. of course, the bodies of those still captured by Hamas, that they feel that there is really not just a breaking of a promise to the hostages in their families, but to the social contract of Israelis, that they are not being prioritized and that it is instead, that the government is instead really pursuing this maximalist ambition in Gaza, that it's more interested, as you said, that to those who see the prime minister really just trying to look out for his own political survival, but also his allies, they're trying to also maximize. maximize those ambitions in the occupied territories. So there is this dissent in a certain way, but it has absolutely nothing to do with Palestinian humanity. There's very little to do with even the fact that Gaza is really in the throes of widespread starvation. In fact, in many ways, Israelis are almost indifferent. There are those who are also quite, or even cheering on this policy. They think that there's nothing going on there. But it is about what this is actually doing to Israeli society, Israeli politics, and Israeli economy.

Now, what you might end up having is that you'll end up having two thoughts at the same time, where you are seeing more Israelis say that they're willing to end the war and achieve a ceasefire, but they wouldn't mind if Israel goes back into Gaza as long as they free the hostages, and essentially as long as they don't have to pay a heavy price for what would essentially be a restructured occupation of Gaza. This is a dissonance, and the international community is insisting needs to be pushed back on, but unfortunately this is not really deterred the Israeli government, and especially Prime Minister Netanyahu from heeding these calls, from seeing this opposition, precisely because there is still interest in continuing the war.

Very quickly, the role of the U.S. I mean, you just had Speaker Johnson go to an Israeli settlement, Rayel in the West Bank, bringing a Republican delegation. You have Trump tariffing countries all over the world, if that's a word, for also political reasons, but not Israel, not to mention, continuing to arm Israel. The United States is still the prime mediator between Israel and Hamas and the ceasefire negotiations. And Trump and Whitkoff and several other officials have insisted that they do want to see an end to the war and that this might be getting out of hand.

Even Trump is signaling that he's seeing the images of a starving population in Gaza. Yet in practice, the United States is almost always defaulting to Israel's side in the negotiations and Israel's side to the war. And it is actually trying to buy time constantly for these real. to almost achieve their objectives on their own accord, even as they're seeing that this is not happening. And so rather than being able to actually use its leverage to insist to Netanyahu and the government that enough is enough, they're really not exercising this. Now, this is not mean that everything is only in the hands in the U.S. It's certainly the prime mover, but there's still

other blocks of countries, the European Union, which is Israel's biggest trading partner, which is not pushing towards recognition, but it's still not activating its full leverage to make the conditions harder for Israel to continue the war. And the same with Arab states and normalization agreements and the refusal to even suspend part of those to show Israel that things have really gone too far, whether it's in Gaza, to Lebanon, Syria, and Iran. And so there are still things that other countries can do to influence Israeli thinking and calculations as well as the United States, even if Washington will try to push back on it. But there needs to be a recognition that without that collective pushback, that the Israelis and the Americans are going to continue

determining and dictating the facts on the ground. And Gaza, first and foremost, is going to be thrown into further famine. And the West Bank may be fully and irrevocably annexed in the coming months or years. I'm Jeddoraki. We want to thank you for being with a senior Israel-Palestine analyst at the International Crisis Group. We'll link to your piece in London Review of Books, walking corpses. Up next, negotiations are underway in Geneva on a legally binding global plastics treaty. We'll speak with the co-author of the new medical journal Lancet's report, Plastics are a grave growing and under-recognized danger to human and planetary health.

Back in 15 seconds. all over the world and start living free. I know that there's somebody who is waiting for me. Dear Someone by Lila Downs in our Democracy Now studio, this is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org. I'm Amy Goodman with Nermin-Shea. Negotiations are underway in Geneva, Switzerland, on a legally binding global plastics treaty as the crisis of pollution from plastics worldwide has grown more acute. An estimated 8 billion metric tons of plastic waste now pollute the planet. Without changes, plastic production is expected to triple by 2060, much of it driven by single-use plastics.

Only 10% of plastic can be recycled. Representatives from 100 and 84 countries are participating in the UN negotiations that will conclude next week. Also this week, the Medical Journal, The Lancet, published a countdown on health and plastics, which begins, quote, plastics are a grave, growing, and under-recognized danger to human and planetary health. In the study, Dr. Philip Landrigan and an international team of co-authors outlined the latest in what's understood about the dangers of plastics through its entire life cycle. They estimate $1.5 trillion a year in health-related costs are due to plastics.

We go right now to Dr. Philip Langergan, one of the co-authors of the review. He's also a pediatrician, an epidemiologist, and director of the Global Observatory on Planetary Health at Boston College, joining us from Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Welcome to Democracy Now, Dr. Langergan. Why don't you summarize the Lancet findings and how serious this global threat is? Thank you, Amy. So the global plastics threat has been quietly worsening now for three or four decades. Global plastic production has increased 250 times since it began in the 1950s, and as you said, a moment ago, it's on track to double by 2040 and triple by 2060. The reason plastic production is growing so rapidly, and the reason the focus especially is on the production of single-use plastics,

is that the fossil fuel industry, which produces most plastic, 99% of plastic is made from oil, gas, and coal. The fossil fuel industry is pivoting to plastic manufacture as they see the market for fossil fuels declining. Maybe not as fast as we would like, but nonetheless, they see the long-term trend for the fossil fuel market going down. And so they're putting enormous resources into plastic manufacturer, for example, just completed a $6 billion facility.

outside Pittsburgh to transform fracked gas from Appalachia into plastic. And what our Lancet report showed is that plastic harms human health at every stage of the plastic lifecycle, starting with the fracking, then through the manufacturer and the fabrication of plastic products, and then finally on when plastic is discharged into the environment, that waste plastic contains thousands of toxic chemicals that cause human exposure and result in disease and disability and premature death. As a Dr. Lagerman, just to clarify that 10% of plastic is recycled at the moment, not that that's what can be recycled.

If you could speak specifically about the impact of plastic on children. Sure. The reason so little plastic is recycled is not that people don't care. It's that plastic is so complex and so toxic it cannot be recycled. Recycling rates for plastic are way below glass or steel or cardboard or aluminum. Plastics are children, infants in the womb and young children are very vulnerable to plastics because they're going through these incredibly complicated, tightly choreographed processes of early development. And plastic contains. thousands of chemicals ranging from thallates to bisphenols to ruminated flame retardants those chemicals get out of plastics they get into pregnant women and then pass through to their children they get into little kids and in children they can cause a whole range of diseases that encompass brain injury resulting in decreased IQ injury to the reproductive organs resulting in

decreased fertility when today's child becomes tomorrow's adult and and damage to the liver, which interferes with cholesterol metabolism, and increases risk for obesity, for diabetes, for heart disease, and stroke. Dr. Langergan, we just have 30 seconds. Plastics and climate change are both born of the fossil fuel industry. Talk about how they're connected. Well, they both originate from fossil fuels, and the other connection is that plastic production is energy intensive. It liberates 2.4 gigatons of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere every year. That's more CO2 than comes out of Brazil or Russia. And finally, what you're hoping to come out of the Lancet report in 20 seconds,

if you would? We need two big things out of the negotiations in Geneva. Firstly, a cap on global plastic production because the current trend is not sustainable. And secondly, strict regulation of the more than 16,000 chemicals in plastics, which currently are responsible for most of plastics known hazards to human health. I want to thank you for being with us, Dr. Philip Landrigan, Director of the Global Observatory on Planetary Health at Boston College, will link to your piece in The Lancet Countdown on Health and Plastics. I'm Amy Goodman with Nermaine Sheikh, our website'sdemocracyNow.org. Thanks for joining us.