What A Day - The Ceasefire In Israel And Palestine

Episode Date: May 24, 2021

The state of the pandemic in the US is looking brighter with infection rates dropping to where they were in June of last year, and hospitalization rates declining, too. But vaccination rates vary widely depending on where you look on a map, with New England showing rates above average and the South showing rates below average.The ceasefire between Israel and Hamas reportedly held over the weekend, and now the focus has shifted to addressing the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Rebuilding after the destruction will inevitably be complicated by Israel's blockade on most construction supplies entering the region.And in headlines: Belarus intercepts an airplane to arrest a journalist, the AP fires a Jewish journalist for voicing pro-Palestine views, and the Texas legislature approves a law to ban teaching of critical race theory.For a transcript of this show, please visit crooked.com/whataday.

It's Monday, May 24th. I'm Akilah Hughes. And I'm Gideon Resnick. And this is What The Day, where we just want to say preemptively, we're not looking to hire Rick Santorum now that he's off CNN. Yeah, we don't have any need to rehab Republicans and say racist things. You know, we don't we don't need a quota. We don't have any part of that. That is not the side of both sides that I'm interested in, quite frankly. That's right. On today's show, a delicate ceasefire continues in Israel and Palestine.

Plus, we'll have headlines. But first, the latest. The bottom line is that the people who are getting infected now tend to be people who are younger, less vulnerable to the infection, because a lot of the vulnerable population has been vaccinated. About 85 percent of those above the age of 65 have now been vaccinated. So the people most likely to get into trouble with COVID have now been protected through vaccination. And you're seeing a rapidly declining rate of new hospitalizations as a consequence of that fact. So that's former FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb on CBS's Face the Nation yesterday.

And like he's saying there, for the U.S., the summer is starting to look bright. Coronavirus infection rates have dropped below 30,000 each day. That is the lowest since June of last year, in addition to the declining hospitalization rates. But to keep that positive progress going, it is all about vaccination. So Akilah, where does that actually stand? Well, vaccination rates vary widely depending on where you look on a map. So for example, if we're looking at the northeast part of the US, in many of those states, more than 60% of adults have had at least their first jab. But if you look at the south, for example, many of those states are well below 40%. And the top 21 states for getting at least one dose voted for Biden, which begs the question why Republican elected officials don't care that mask mandates falling away might lead to an uptick in disease,

especially if the voters that they need to even exist become the most likely to catch it or die from COVID. It's just very weird. That's all I'm saying. Maybe care about that. And the new trend seems to be incentives for getting vaxxed. WOD listeners already know that in Ohio, they're giving away a million dollars in a lottery to the vaccinated. But dating apps like Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge are also allowing users to list vaccine status preferences

to limit their dating pool. Meanwhile, if bribes don't work, a Tulane University health expert told the New York Times that employers should start mandating that employees be vaccinated. Interesting stuff. Yeah. I mean, so long as at some point I can get into a lottery, I will be okay with all of it. But that's a quick look at the state of vaccines here in the U.S. Abroad, things haven't been very positive with lack of access to vaccines and a spike in new variants. So what is the latest worldwide?

There is a ton of global news. So I'm going to start with an update from the World Health Organization. On Friday, they said that official COVID-19 death toll, so it's currently around 3.4-ish million deaths worldwide, could actually be two to three times higher than reported. A devastating figure that you can share with any moron still claiming that COVID-19 is just the flu. And the World Health Organization makes the case that in many countries, it's hard to keep accurate stats on infections and deaths, leading to a major undercount. For example, in India, the official COVID count is just behind the U.S. with 26 million in total

confirmed cases. But experts have cited the low number of tests in several regions of the country and the overall stress on the healthcare system and how these numbers just aren't adding up. Yeah, there seems to be an agreement that it's definitely quite a bit higher. And so keeping with India for a second, in addition to being a major epicenter for the virus, there's a new fungal threat that's complicating things there. What have we learned? All right. So right now, the country is seeing 240,000 plus new cases a day, which is a decline from the 300,000 new daily cases from the week before. Although again, that could all be an undercount. But there are new worries about a fungal infection

there called mucormycosis that is caused by exposure to mucormold. And mucormold can be found a lot of places in soil, air, and even in the nose and mucus of humans. It spreads through the respiratory system and can break down facial structures, which sounds terrifying. But according to the AP, there have even been instances where surgeons have had to remove a patient's eyes to stop the fungus from reaching the patient's brain. Oh, horrifying, horrifying stuff. Yeah, the scariest stuff on earth. And the disease is not considered contagious, which is great. But there have been more than 9,000 cases and 250 deaths in the past little while, which is leading medical experts to believe that COVID's weakening of the respiratory system makes contracting and dying from the disease more likely.

There is a drug that treats it, but there's a shortage of the drug because of the huge influx of cases. So there's more to learn there, and we're going to keep with it as the pandemic continues on. But now let's turn to our other big story, the situation in Israel and Palestine. So Gideon, where do things stand there now? Yeah, so we left off at the end of last week with the ceasefire that was reached between Hamas and Israel after 11 days of violence. And during those 11 days, more than 240 Palestinians were killed, including many children, as well as 12 Israelis. So that ceasefire has reportedly held over the weekend, but much of the focus in the last few days has been the immediate actions that

can be taken to address the humanitarian crisis that was unleashed by the bombing campaign in Gaza. So according to the United Nations, the strikes in Gaza destroyed hundreds of homes, damaged medical and education facilities, and other infrastructure like roads and even power lines. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been displaced. The president of Egypt, which has been involved in the ceasefire agreement, reportedly pledged $500 million in the rebuilding efforts so far. And then where do things stand on the U.S. side of things? So obviously, there's been a lot of criticism about the response from the Biden administration lately. Yeah. So as The Washington Post notes, the involvement of the United States might get somewhat complicated. So the U.S. and other countries that say they want to assist in rebuilding efforts have also said they don't want to work with Hamas. Biden said last week that the aid would be coordinated with the Palestinian Authority instead, though their governance is not in the Gaza Strip,

so it's unclear how much they would actually be involved here. And also, the Biden administration hasn't detailed how much it is going to give. While the UN has released over $20 million from an emergency fund for rebuilding purposes, and countries like Britain and Norway have pledged millions as well. But Akilah, it's also sort of broadly unclear how the whole rebuilding process will go given a blockade imposed by Israel on most construction supplies entering Gaza. Reconstruction from prior conflicts has failed due largely to this reason, leaving a lot of people living in temporary housing even as this most recent campaign began. Yeah, and what has been some of the other political fallout from everything happening? There is a lot, a lot, a lot. So for one thing, there was reporting earlier this month that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was basically going to be left out in the cold

by another group of politicians forming a coalition. He is still facing corruption charges. And the read from many observers is that he basically just used this violent campaign in Gaza to his political advantage ahead of a possible national election later this year, which would be the fifth in just two years. Yeah, they have way more voting than we do. It's wild. It's very wild. Yes, I feel like we've done like half a dozen Netanyahu specific elections since we started. Somehow he still remains. So there's that side of the equation. Then reportedly, the top diplomat for Palestine has pointed to what many citizens have been saying, that this ceasefire is not addressing the causes of the most recent violence,

namely the storming of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem that we talked about, and the planned evictions of Palestinians in neighborhoods like Sheikh Jarrah. One of the people that I spoke with last week, Inez Abdul-Razik of the Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy, worried about broader issues like annexation fading from view after a ceasefire might be reached. So there was initially a ruling scheduled by the Israeli Supreme Court for earlier this month regarding Sheikh Jarrah, but now that is reportedly set for the coming weeks. Then on Al-Aqsa, there were reports after the ceasefire was reached that Israeli security forces got violent again in the past few days with Palestinians who were there worshiping and reportedly shepherded Jewish settlers into the compound. And finally, stateside, a number of U.S. Jewish organizations asked the White House to take measures against more instances of anti-Semitic violence in the

U.S. in recent weeks. All right, well, one more thing before we move on here. What was the latest update on this big arms sale from the U.S. to Israel that faced a lot of congressional opposition? Yeah, so here's what Secretary of State Antony Blinken had to say about that yesterday on ABC's This Week. First, the president's been equally clear. We are committed to giving Israel the means to defend itself, especially when it comes to these indiscriminate rocket attacks against civilians. Any country would respond to that. And we were committed to Israel's defense. At the same time, any arms sale is going to be done in full consultation with Congress. We're committed to that. And we want to make sure that that process works effectively.

Yeah. So Akilah, it doesn't seem like that deal is going to stop. Hard to say, but it doesn't sound like it. Blinken is set to travel to the Middle East in the coming days. So we'll be following that and all the aspects of this story. But that is the latest for now. It's Monday WOD Squad. And for today's Tim Check, we're doing something different. An icon of the early web, the over 25-year-old browser Internet Explorer will be put to rest by mid-June of next year. Microsoft broke the news last week. Over the years, the browser has been criticized

for its slow speed, unreliability, and vulnerabilities to hacks. And even by 2015, Microsoft had launched a new browser to replace it. But for geriatric millennials like us who were online before high-speed internet, Internet Explorer's legacy looms large. And that iconic blue E with a ring around it will forever be associated with magic and wonder. So Giddy and I wanted to say a few parting words about Internet Explorer and all the memories we made together. Internet Explorer, I remember using you to load the Neopets website. As a collage of JPEGs loaded pixel by pixel, I felt like we would be together forever. And to be honest, the JPEGs took so long to load that we almost were.

You exposed me to many viruses, but the virus I will remember is the one called heart sickness. I will love you always. You changed my life more than any friend or teacher. And I know you're rocking out in heaven with Hendrix and Joplin on an Austin Powers soundboard. Good night. Wow. Internet Explorer, you were the first program installed on a library's computer that I truly fell in love with. You did nothing from me except for games that required me to update Macromedia Shockwave Flash.

And when I was at home with you, the only thing that could come between us was my mom needing to use the phone for any reason at all. Leaving you for Firefox and then Safari and then Chrome were three of the hardest moments in my life. When I have a daughter, I'm going to name her after you. She'll be Akilah Internet Hughes Explorer Jr. Powerful. Deeply powerful. Well, rest in peace, Slow King. And to the rest of you, stay safe, tell your browsers you love them, and we'll be back after some ads. Let's wrap up with some headlines.

Headlines. On Sunday, the government of Belarus sent a fighter jet to intercept a commercial flight and forced the plane to land to detain a single passenger. 26-year-old Roman Protasevich, a journalist who ran the popular opposition outlet Nexta, was headed to Lithuania from Greece. Nexta was used during the last year's anti-government demonstrations and became an organizational tool for the opposition. Ryanair says that when the plane was over Belarusian airspace, air traffic control notified the crew of a potential security threat on board

and ordered the plane to be grounded. Authorities, though, found no explosives on board, and after Protasevich was detained, the plane continued on its path. Critics of the Belarusian regime call this an act of terror and a kidnapping. Protasevich's current conditions are unknown, but other passengers on the flight said he told them he expects to be executed. Jesus. Wow. Well, here's how we're treating journalists in the U.S. Emily Wilder, a junior level news associate at the Associated Press, was fired last week following a right wing smear campaign that surfaced her pro-Palestinian advocacy.

Wilder had been working at the AP for less than three weeks, but after the Stanford College Republicans unearthed old tweets and called her an anti-Israel agitator, and conservative outlets and politicians piled on, she was terminated. The AP claims that Wilder was fired for violating their social media policies, but according to Wilder, they didn't specify which ones.

Wilder, who is Jewish, said an AP editor had reassured her she would not face punishment for previous activism and believes the AP fired her in response to right-wing criticism. Yeah, and yet, Chris Cuomo, still making the big bucks. Yeah, cancel culture is only real if you're a young woman. Texas schools might have to present American history according to the buried 1940s Disney

movie model after state lawmakers approved a bill this weekend to effectively ban the teaching of critical race theory. Coasting on a wave of outrage from conservative lawmakers with the 1619 Project from Nicole Hannah-Jones, the Texas bill specifically bans lessons that would cause students to feel discomfort or shame on account of their race or sex. Turns out facts do care about your feelings.

A lot. Yeah. And it also says that if teachers discuss current events or controversial social affairs in classrooms, they have to discuss them from diverse and contending perspectives. An example of this would be to say racism exists, but it also doesn't. The bill is widely opposed by teachers who say it would stifle important conversations. And it was previously approved by the House, but rewritten in the Senate. In all likelihood, it will be signed soon by governor and dedicated ally to COVID, Greg Abbott.

Well, the L.A. band the Linda Lindas are proving that you don't need to be old enough to attend your own shows to rock insanely hard. They got signed by punk label Epitaph Records over the weekend for their song, Racist Sexist Boy, are a racist sexist boy And you are racist sexist joy We rebuild what you destroy You are a racist sexist boy Yeah, hell yeah. That's my stuff right there. That is everything. So members of the group are between 10 and 16 years old.

They are half Asian and half Latinx. And they have already opened for groups like Best Coast and Bikini Kill. Their song was performed in the Los Angeles Public Library, which is a place where I've been shushed, so obviously that song rules. And it was part of a celebration of AAPI Heritage Month and was inspired by a comment connecting coronavirus to Chinese American people made by one of their classmates. He shouldn't feel special, though, because racist sexist boys are some of the most common boys in our country. Yeah, they are not rare at all, unfortunately.

Yeah, we might as well make it the national anthem. And those are the headlines. One more thing before we go on the latest episode of With Friends Like These, host Anna Marie Cox is joined by former mayor of Tallahassee, Andrew Gillum. After 14 months of sobriety and stepping away from politics, Gillum sits down to discuss his recovery and the work he's currently doing to destigmatize mental health issues. Check it out by subscribing to With Friends Like These wherever you get your podcasts. That is all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, listen to the Linda Lindas, and tell your friends to listen. And if you're into reading and not just actual history without being afraid of it like me, What A Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com slash subscribe.

I'm Akilah Hughes. I'm Gideon Resnick. And remember Internet Explorer. It's a great, great place to explore, you know, one page a day. Exactly one. Every single day. That's it. That's your max.

What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It's recorded and mixed by Charlotte Landis. Sonia Tun and Jazzy Marine are our associate producers. Our head writer is John Milstein, and our executive producers are Leo Duran, Akilah Hughes, and me. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka.