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Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Netanyahu’s Vision And Biden’s No Turning Back

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(CTN NEWS) – Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has made a strong commitment to “reshape the Middle East,” while President Joe Biden asserts that there’s “no turning back.”

As Israeli forces intensify their attacks on the Gaza Strip and issue urgent warnings to Palestinians to evacuate, questions arise about the trajectory of this conflict and what the future holds.

In the aftermath of the tragic events of October 7th, Israeli officials have repeatedly expressed their intention to remove Hamas from the Gaza Strip, both militarily and politically.

However, the precise strategy to achieve this ambitious goal remains unclear.

Dr. Michael Milshtein, the head of the Palestinian Studies Forum at Tel Aviv University’s Moshe Dayan Centre and a former head of the Department for Palestinian Affairs in Israeli Military Intelligence, emphasizes the need for a well-thought-out plan for the post-conflict period.

“You cannot embark on such a monumental endeavor without a clear plan for the aftermath,” warns Dr. Milshtein. “It’s imperative to start planning immediately.”

Western diplomats acknowledge ongoing discussions with Israel about the region’s future but admit that a concrete plan has yet to materialize.

“There’s no fixed plan at this point,” one diplomat reveals.

“While we can outline a few concepts on paper, translating them into reality will require weeks, if not months, of diplomatic efforts.”

Military strategies range from degrading Hamas’s military capabilities to potentially taking control of significant portions of the Gaza Strip.

However, experts with experience in managing previous crises suggest that the planning remains relatively limited.

Haim Tomer, a former senior officer with Israel’s foreign intelligence service, Mossad, expresses doubt about the feasibility of a sustainable solution for Gaza post-Israeli military withdrawal.

The Israeli consensus is clear: Hamas must be decisively defeated.

The horrors of October 7th were deeply unsettling, and the belief is widespread that Hamas should never rule over Gaza again.

Dr. Milshtein points out that Hamas is not something that Israel can simply eliminate.

He likens the situation to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, where efforts to remove Saddam Hussein’s regime through “de-Baathification” had unintended consequences.

It left hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civil servants and members of the armed forces unemployed, contributing to a devastating insurgency.

American veterans of the Iraq conflict are now in Israel, sharing their experiences from places like Falluja and Mosul.

Dr. Milshtein hopes they will caution the Israelis about the significant mistakes made in Iraq, including the unrealistic notion of eradicating the ruling party or fundamentally changing people’s minds, which is unlikely to happen.

This sentiment is echoed by Palestinians, with Mustafa Barghouti, president of the Palestinian National Initiative, emphasizing that Hamas is deeply rooted in Palestinian society as a popular grassroots organization.

Removing Hamas, in his view, would necessitate an extensive and forceful displacement of the entire population of Gaza, a prospect that stirs profound Palestinian fears.

The idea that Israel may secretly aim to relocate hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from Gaza into neighboring Egypt evokes memories of the traumatic events of 1948, especially for a population primarily comprised of refugees who fled their homes during Israel’s establishment.

Israeli commentators, including former senior officials, have suggested the temporary housing of Palestinians across the border in Sinai as the only way for Israel to achieve its military objectives in Gaza without causing significant harm to innocent civilians.

“They should consider relocating across the border to Egypt,” he suggests, “either on a temporary or permanent basis.”

Adding to Palestinian concerns is a statement in U.S. President Joe Biden’s request to Congress on October 20th, seeking funding to support Israel and Ukraine.

The statement acknowledges that “This crisis could potentially lead to cross-border displacement and increased regional humanitarian needs.”

As of now, Israel has not explicitly stated that it intends for Palestinians to cross into Egypt.

The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) has consistently advised civilians to move to vaguely defined “safe areas” in the southern region.

However, Egypt’s President, Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, has raised concerns that Israel’s actions in Gaza might be aimed at pushing the civilian population to migrate to Egypt.

Once the conflict concludes, and assuming there are still inhabitants in the Gaza Strip, the question of governance remains uncertain.

That’s the million-dollar question,” Dr. Milshtein remarks.

He suggests that Israel should support the establishment of a new administration, led by Gazans with the involvement of local leaders and support from the United States, Egypt, and potentially Saudi Arabia.

Such an administration should also incorporate figures from Fatah, the rival Palestinian faction that was forcibly expelled from Gaza by Hamas one year after their electoral victory in 2006.

Fatah currently governs the Palestinian Authority, based in the city of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.

However, both the Palestinian Authority and its aging President, Mahmud Abbas, are deeply unpopular among Palestinians in both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Diana Buttu suggests that the Palestinian Authority (PA) might secretly desire to return to Gaza but not if it means coming back with Israeli military involvement.

Hanan Ashrawi, a veteran Palestinian politician who briefly served in the PA in the 1990s, strongly opposes the idea of outsiders, including Israel, attempting to dictate how Palestinians govern their lives.

She emphasizes that people shouldn’t view this as a chessboard where they can manipulate pawns for a predetermined checkmate.

According to her, such an approach is bound to face resistance, and the people of Gaza are unlikely to welcome collaborators.

For those with experience in dealing with Gaza conflicts, albeit on a smaller scale, there is significant concern and a feeling that most approaches have been exhausted.

Haim Tomer, a former Mossad officer, suggests a temporary suspension of military operations to prioritize hostage release.

He recalls a 2012 situation where he accompanied the Mossad director to Cairo for secret talks leading to a ceasefire.

Tomer recommends using a similar mechanism, even if it comes at a high cost.

In his view, releasing Hamas prisoners to bring back Israeli hostages should be the priority.

Israel could then decide whether to resume large-scale military operations or opt for a long-term ceasefire.

However, Tomer believes that unless there is a physical separation of the territory from Israel, the issue of the Gaza Strip will remain a persistent challenge for Israel.

He describes it as a perpetual source of contention.

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Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding, But Still Accounting 48% Search Revenue

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Google is so closely associated with its key product that its name is a verb that signifies “search.” However, Google’s dominance in that sector is dwindling.

According to eMarketer, Google will lose control of the US search industry for the first time in decades next year.

Google will remain the dominant search player, accounting for 48% of American search advertising revenue. And, remarkably, Google is still increasing its sales in the field, despite being the dominating player in search since the early days of the George W. Bush administration. However, Amazon is growing at a quicker rate.

google

Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding

Amazon will hold over a quarter of US search ad dollars next year, rising to 27% by 2026, while Google will fall even more, according to eMarketer.

The Wall Street Journal was first to report on the forecast.

Lest you think you’ll have to switch to Bing or Yahoo, this isn’t the end of Google or anything really near.

Google is the fourth-most valued public firm in the world. Its market worth is $2.1 trillion, trailing just Apple, Microsoft, and the AI chip darling Nvidia. It also maintains its dominance in other industries, such as display advertisements, where it dominates alongside Facebook’s parent firm Meta, and video ads on YouTube.

To put those “other” firms in context, each is worth more than Delta Air Lines’ total market value. So, yeah, Google is not going anywhere.

Nonetheless, Google faces numerous dangers to its operations, particularly from antitrust regulators.

On Monday, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that Google must open up its Google Play Store to competitors, dealing a significant blow to the firm in its long-running battle with Fortnite creator Epic Games. Google announced that it would appeal the verdict.

In August, a federal judge ruled that Google has an illegal monopoly on search. That verdict could lead to the dissolution of the company’s search operation. Another antitrust lawsuit filed last month accuses Google of abusing its dominance in the online advertising business.

Meanwhile, European regulators have compelled Google to follow tough new standards, which have resulted in multiple $1 billion-plus fines.

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Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding

On top of that, the marketplace is becoming more difficult on its own.

TikTok, the fastest-growing social network, is expanding into the search market. And Amazon has accomplished something few other digital titans have done to date: it has established a habit.

When you want to buy anything, you usually go to Amazon, not Google. Amazon then buys adverts to push companies’ products to the top of your search results, increasing sales and earning Amazon a greater portion of the revenue. According to eMarketer, it is expected to generate $27.8 billion in search revenue in the United States next year, trailing only Google’s $62.9 billion total.

And then there’s AI, the technology that (supposedly) will change everything.

Why search in stilted language for “kendall jenner why bad bunny breakup” or “police moving violation driver rights no stop sign” when you can just ask OpenAI’s ChatGPT, “What’s going on with Kendall Jenner and Bad Bunny?” in “I need help fighting a moving violation involving a stop sign that wasn’t visible.” Google is working on exactly this technology with its Gemini product, but its success is far from guaranteed, especially with Apple collaborating with OpenAI and other businesses rapidly joining the market.

A Google spokeswoman referred to a blog post from last week in which the company unveiled ads in its AI overviews (the AI-generated text that appears at the top of search results). It’s Google’s way of expressing its ability to profit on a changing marketplace while retaining its business, even as its consumers steadily transition to ask-and-answer AI and away from search.

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Google has long used a single catchphrase to defend itself against opponents who claim it is a monopoly abusing its power: competition is only a click away. Until recently, that seemed comically obtuse. Really? We are going to switch to Bing? Or Duck Duck Go? Give me a break.

But today, it feels more like reality.

Google is in no danger of disappearing. However, every highly dominating company faces some type of reckoning over time. GE, a Dow mainstay for more than a century, was broken up last year and is now a shell of its previous dominance. Sears declared bankruptcy in 2022 and is virtually out of business. US Steel, long the foundation of American manufacturing, is attempting to sell itself to a Japanese corporation.

Could we remember Google in the same way that we remember Yahoo or Ask Jeeves in decades? These next few years could be significant.

SOURCE | CNN

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2024 | Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

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Washington — Trump Media,  The Supreme Court announced Monday that it will not hear an appeal from social media platform X about a search warrant acquired by prosecutors in the election meddling case against former President Donald Trump.

The justices did not explain their rationale, and there were no recorded dissents.

The firm, which was known as Twitter before being purchased by billionaire Elon Musk, claims a nondisclosure order that prevented it from informing Trump about the warrant obtained by special counsel Jack Smith’s team violated its First Amendment rights.

The business also claims Trump should have had an opportunity to exercise executive privilege. If not reined in, the government may employ similar tactics to intercept additional privileged communications, their lawyers contended.

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Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

Two neutral electronic privacy groups also joined in, urging the high court to hear the case on First Amendment grounds.

Prosecutors, however, claim that the corporation never shown that Trump utilized the account for official purposes, therefore executive privilege is not a problem. A lower court also determined that informing Trump could have compromised the current probe.

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Trump utilized his Twitter account in the weeks preceding up to his supporters’ attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, to spread false assertions about the election, which prosecutors claim were intended to create doubt in the democratic process.

The indictment describes how Trump used his Twitter account to encourage his followers to travel to Washington on Jan. 6, pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to reject the certification, and falsely claiming that the Capitol crowd, which battered police officers and destroyed glass, was peaceful.

musk trump

Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

That case is now moving forward following the Supreme Court’s verdict in July, which granted Trump full immunity from criminal prosecution as a former president.

The warrant arrived at Twitter amid quick changes implemented by Musk, who bought the company in 2022 and has since cut off most of its workforce, including those dedicated to combating disinformation and hate speech.

He also welcomed back a vast list of previously banned users, including Trump, and endorsed him for the 2024 presidential election.

SOURCE | AP

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The Supreme Court Turns Down Biden’s Government Appeal in a Texas Emergency Abortion Matter.

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(VOR News) – A ruling that prohibits emergency abortions that contravene the Supreme Court law in the state of Texas, which has one of the most stringent abortion restrictions in the country, has been upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States. The United States Supreme Court upheld this decision.

The justices did not provide any specifics regarding the underlying reasons for their decision to uphold an order from a lower court that declared hospitals cannot be legally obligated to administer abortions if doing so would violate the law in the state of Texas.

Institutions are not required to perform abortions, as stipulated in the decree. The common populace did not investigate any opposing viewpoints. The decision was made just weeks before a presidential election that brought abortion to the forefront of the political agenda.

This decision follows the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that ended abortion nationwide.

In response to a request from the administration of Vice President Joe Biden to overturn the lower court’s decision, the justices expressed their disapproval.

The government contends that hospitals are obligated to perform abortions in compliance with federal legislation when the health or life of an expectant patient is in an exceedingly precarious condition.

This is the case in regions where the procedure is prohibited. The difficulty hospitals in Texas and other states are experiencing in determining whether or not routine care could be in violation of stringent state laws that prohibit abortion has resulted in an increase in the number of complaints concerning pregnant women who are experiencing medical distress being turned away from emergency rooms.

The administration cited the Supreme Court’s ruling in a case that bore a striking resemblance to the one that was presented to it in Idaho at the beginning of the year. The justices took a limited decision in that case to allow the continuation of emergency abortions without interruption while a lawsuit was still being heard.

In contrast, Texas has been a vocal proponent of the injunction’s continued enforcement. Texas has argued that its circumstances are distinct from those of Idaho, as the state does have an exemption for situations that pose a significant hazard to the health of an expectant patient.

According to the state, the discrepancy is the result of this exemption. The state of Idaho had a provision that safeguarded a woman’s life when the issue was first broached; however, it did not include protection for her health.

Certified medical practitioners are not obligated to wait until a woman’s life is in imminent peril before they are legally permitted to perform an abortion, as determined by the state supreme court.

The state of Texas highlighted this to the Supreme Court.

Nevertheless, medical professionals have criticized the Texas statute as being perilously ambiguous, and a medical board has declined to provide a list of all the disorders that are eligible for an exception. Furthermore, the statute has been criticized for its hazardous ambiguity.

For an extended period, termination of pregnancies has been a standard procedure in medical treatment for individuals who have been experiencing significant issues. It is implemented in this manner to prevent catastrophic outcomes, such as sepsis, organ failure, and other severe scenarios.

Nevertheless, medical professionals and hospitals in Texas and other states with strict abortion laws have noted that it is uncertain whether or not these terminations could be in violation of abortion prohibitions that include the possibility of a prison sentence. This is the case in regions where abortion prohibitions are exceedingly restrictive.

Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which resulted in restrictions on the rights of women to have abortions in several Republican-ruled states, the Texas case was revisited in 2022.

As per the orders that were disclosed by the administration of Vice President Joe Biden, hospitals are still required to provide abortions in cases that are classified as dire emergency.

As stipulated in a piece of health care legislation, the majority of hospitals are obligated to provide medical assistance to patients who are experiencing medical distress. This is in accordance with the law.

The state of Texas maintained that hospitals should not be obligated to provide abortions throughout the litigation, as doing so would violate the state’s constitutional prohibition on abortions. In its January judgment, the 5th United States Circuit Court of Appeals concurred with the state and acknowledged that the administration had exceeded its authority.

SOURCE: AP

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