Politics:
The UN has added Israel "to the global list of states and armed groups who have committed violations against children".
A couple of days ago, Israeli special forces freed four hostages, and killed 274 Palestinians, mainly in devastating air raids to cover the retreat from the Nuseirat refugee camp, where many refugees live in tents. The UN Security council has adopted a US drafted resolution for a hostage-for-ceasefire proposal but both sides in the conflict have yet to agree to it.
Adam Shatz, who has also just released a great biography of Frantz Fanon, wrote this in the LRB:
"The military operation in Gaza has altered the shape, perhaps even the meaning, of the struggle over Palestine – it seems misleading, and even offensive, to refer to a ‘conflict’ between two peoples after one of them has slaughtered the other in such staggering numbers. The scale of the destruction is reflected in the terminology: ‘domicide’ for the destruction of housing stock; ‘scholasticide’ for the destruction of the education system, including its teachers (95 university professors have been killed); ‘ecocide’ for the ruination of Gaza’s agriculture and natural landscape. Sara Roy, a leading expert on Gaza who is herself the daughter of Holocaust survivors, describes this as a process of ‘econocide’, ‘the wholesale destruction of an economy and its constituent parts’ – the ‘logical extension’, she writes, of Israel’s deliberate ‘de-development’ of Gaza’s economy since 1967."
London Review of Books: Israel's Descent, June 2024
The US Presidential race is heading towards the first television debates between presumed candidate Trump and current President Biden at the end of June. Earlier this month, Donald Trump was found guilty of all 34 charges in the hush money trial (falsifying business records to cover up his affair with Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election). Sentencing is expected on July 11, with prison time unlikely for a first offender, and Trump is expected to appeal, but remains, for now, the first convicted felon to run for the US Presidency.
To underline how unusual the Presidential race and the current political context in the US is, Rolling Stone has covered a secret recording created by filmmaker Lauren Windsor of remarks made by Supreme Court Justice Alito, who is also in the news currently for flying a flag associated with the Capitol riots on January 6 in front of two of his residences (a flag he claims his wife put up in reaction to a neighbourhood dispute). The Supreme Court is tasked with judging how the Justice Department has approached charging participants of the riots.
The justice’s unguarded comments highlight the degree to which Alito makes little effort to present himself as a neutral umpire calling judicial balls and strikes, but rather as a partisan member of a hard-right judicial faction that’s empowered to make life-altering decisions for every American.
Rolling Stone: Justice Alito Caught on Tape Discussing How Battle for America ‘Can’t Be Compromised’, June 10, 2024
Pop Culture:
Arcane, which finished its first season in 2021, has finally received a season two release date: November, and there's a trailer out. The stunning animation work was famously time-consuming, hence the long break in-between seasons, and the main voice actresses (Hailee Steinfeld, Katie Leung, Ella Purnell) have been very busy over the last years as well.
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