Australian PM Launches Big Attack On Israel Over Fresh Gaza Bombings After Pro-Palestine Move
Read More
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Indian Express
17 minutes ago
- Indian Express
Majority of Americans back UN recognition of Palestinian statehood, finds survey
Nearly 6 out of 10 Americans believe that every country in the United Nations should recognise Palestine as a nation, a new survey has found. The Reuters/Ipsos poll found that 58 per cent of American adults believe that every country in the UN should recognise Palestine, while 33 per cent of respondents disagreed, and another 9 per cent didn't answer when asked. The Reuters/Ipsos poll also showed that 59 per cent of Americans believe that Israel's military response in Gaza has been excessive. The tally of those disagreeing with this statement stood at 33 per cent. The findings are similar to a poll conducted in February 2024 where 53 per cent of respondents agreed that Israel's response had been excessive, and 42 per cent disagreed. The six-day poll, which closed on Monday, was taken within weeks of three countries — Canada, Britain and France — announcing their intention to recognise the State of Palestine in the coming months. The State of Palestine is recognised as a sovereign nation by 147 countries, representing 75 per cent of the UN's 193 members. Several countries, including the UK, France, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands in Europe and the US, Canada, and Mexico in North America have not recognised the State of Palestine. While Japan, South Korea and Singapore are among the Asian countries that have not recognised the State of Palestine, Israel is the only country in the Middle East to do so. The ongoing war in Gaza, which has turned into a humanitarian catastrophe, has made the calls for the recognition of Palestine louder in many of these countries. The United Nations human rights office said on Tuesday that Israel was not letting enough supplies into the Gaza Strip to avert widespread starvation. Israel has denied responsibility for the hunger in Gaza, accusing Hamas of stealing aid shipments, which Hamas denies. A larger majority of the Reuters/Ipsos poll respondents (65 per cent), said the US should take action in Gaza to help people facing starvation, with 28 per cent disagreeing. The war in Gaza began as a response to the Hamas terror attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which killed around 1,200 people. The militant organisation took hostage 251 people, of which around 50 are still being held in Gaza. In response to the terror attack, Israel launched a massive military operation in Gaza, which has since killed more than 62,000 Palestinians, and plunged the Palestinian areas into an unprecedented humanitarian crisis, and displaced most of its population.
NDTV
42 minutes ago
- NDTV
How Trump's Push For 'Americanism' At The Smithsonian Is Deeply Orwellian
When people use the term "Orwellian," it's not a good sign. It usually characterises an action, an individual or a society that is suppressing freedom, particularly the freedom of expression. It can also describe something perverted by tyrannical power. It's a term used primarily to describe the present, but whose implications inevitably connect to both the future and the past. In his second term, President Donald Trump has revealed his ambitions to rewrite America's official history to, in the words of the Organisation of American Historians, "reflect a glorified narrative ... while suppressing the voices of historically excluded groups." This ambition was manifested in efforts by the Department of Education to eradicate a "DEI agenda" from school curricula. It also included a high-profile assault on what detractors saw as "woke" universities, which culminated in Columbia University's agreement to submit to a review of the faculty and curriculum of its Middle Eastern Studies department, with the aim of eradicating alleged pro-Palestinian bias. Now, the administration has shifted its sights from formal educational institutions to one of the key sites of public history-making: the Smithsonian, a collection of 21 museums, the National Zoo and associated research centers, principally centered on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. On Aug. 12, 2025, the Smithsonian's director, Lonnie Bunch III, received a letter from the White House announcing its intent to carry out a systematic review of the institution's holdings and exhibitions in the advance of the nation's 250th anniversary in 2026. The review's stated aim is to ensure that museum content adequately reflects "Americanism" through a commitment to "celebrate American exceptionalism, [and] remove divisive or partisan narratives." On Aug. 19, 2025, Trump escalated his attack on the Smithsonian. "The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was..." he wrote in a Truth Social post. "Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future. We are not going to allow this to happen." Such ambitions may sound benign, but they are deeply Orwellian. Here's how. Winners Write The History Author George Orwell believed in objective, historical truth. Writing in 1946, he attributed his youthful desire to become an author in part to a "historical impulse," or "the desire to see things as they are, to find out true facts and store them up for the use of posterity." But while Orwell believed in the existence of an objective truth about history, he did not necessarily believe that truth would prevail. Truth, Orwell recognised, was best served by free speech and dialogue. Yet absolute power, Orwell appreciated, allowed those who possessed it to silence or censor opposing narratives, quashing the possibility of productive dialogue about history that could ultimately allow truth to come out. As Orwell wrote in "1984," his final, dystopian novel, "Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." Historian Malgorzata Rymsza-Pawlowska has written about America's bicentennial celebrations that took place in 1976. Then, she says, "Americans across the nation helped contribute to a pluralistic and inclusive commemoration ... using it as a moment to question who had been left out of the legacies of the American Revolution, to tell more inclusive stories about the history of the United States." This was an example of the kind of productive dialogue encouraged in a free society. "By contrast," writes Rymsza-Pawlowska, "the 250th is shaping up to be a top-down affair that advances a relatively narrow and celebratory idea of Americanism." The newly announced Smithsonian review aims to purge counternarratives that challenge that celebratory idea. The Ministry Of Truth The desire to eradicate counternarratives drives Winston Smith's job at the ironically named Ministry of Truth in "1984." The novel is set in Oceania, a geographical entity covering North America and the British Isles and which governs much of the Global South. Oceania is an absolute tyranny governed by Big Brother, the leader of a political party whose only goal is the perpetuation of its own power. In this society, truth is what Big Brother and the party say it is. The regime imposes near total censorship so that not only dissident speech but subversive private reflection, or "thought crime," is viciously prosecuted. In this way, it controls the present. But it also controls the past. As the party's protean policy evolves, Smith and his colleagues are tasked with systematically destroying any historical records that conflict with the current version of history. Smith literally disposes of artifacts of inexpedient history by throwing them down "memory holes," where they are "wiped ... out of existence and out of memory." At a key point in the novel, Smith recalls briefly holding on to a newspaper clipping that proved that an enemy of the regime had not actually committed the crime he had been accused of. Smith recognises the power over the regime that this clipping gives him, but he simultaneously fears that power will make him a target. In the end, fear of retaliation leads him to drop the slip of newsprint down a memory hole. The contemporary US is a far cry from Orwell's Oceania. Yet the Trump administration is doing its best to exert control over the present and the past. Down The Memory Hole Even before the Trump administration announced its review of the Smithsonian, officials in departments across government had taken unprecedented steps to rewrite the nation's official history, attempting to purge parts of the historical narrative down Orwellian memory holes. Comically, those efforts included the temporary removal from government websites of information about the Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the atomic bomb over Hiroshima. The plane was unwittingly caught up in a mass purge of references to "gay" and LGBTQ+ content on government websites. Other erasures have included the deletion of content on government sites related to the life ofHarriet Tubman, the Maryland woman who escaped slavery and then played a pioneering role as a conductor of the Underground Railroad, helping enslaved people escape to freedom. Public outcry led to therestoration of most of the deleted content. Over at the Smithsonian, which earlier in the year had been criticised by Trump for its "divisive, race-centered ideology," staff removed a temporary placard with references to President Trump's two impeachment trials from a display case on impeachment that formed part of the National Museum of American History exhibition on the American presidency. The references to Trump's two impeachments were modified, with some details removed, in a newly installed placard in the updated display. Responding to questions, the Smithsonian stated that the placard's removal was not in response to political pressure: "The placard, which was meant to be a temporary addition to a 25-year-old exhibition, did not meet the museum's standards in appearance, location, timeline, and overall presentation." Repressing Thought Orwell's "1984" ends with an appendix on the history of "Newspeak," Oceania's official language, which, while it had not yet superseded "Oldspeak" or standard English, was rapidly gaining ground as both a written and spoken dialect. According to the appendix, "The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the worldview and mental habits proper to the devotees of [the Party], but to make all other modes of thought impossible." Orwell, as so often in his writing, makes the abstract theory concrete: "The word free still existed in Newspeak, but it could only be used in such statements as 'This dog is free from lice' or 'This field is free from weeds.' ... political and intellectual freedom no longer existed even as concepts." The goal of this language streamlining was total control over past, present and future. If it is illegal to even speak of systemic racism, for example, let alone discuss its causes and possible remedies, it constrains the potential for, even prohibits, social change. It has become a cliche; that those who do not understand history are bound to repeat it. As George Orwell appreciated, the correlate is that social and historical progress require an awareness of, and receptivity to, both historical fact and competing historical narratives.
Scroll.in
2 hours ago
- Scroll.in
Israel approves plan to take control of Gaza City
The Israeli Defence Ministry on Wednesday said that a plan has been approved to seize control of Gaza City, AFP reported. A ministry spokesperson told the news agency that the plan had been approved by Defence Minister Israel Katz, adding that he had also authorised the call-up of around 60,000 reservists to carry it out. Tel Aviv had announced on August 8 its plans to take military control of Gaza City, marking a significant escalation in its nearly two-year-long war against Palestinian militant group Hamas. The approval of the plan on Wednesday comes even as mediators who have been pushing for a ceasefire in Gaza await an official response from Tel Aviv on their latest proposal. Israel's military offensive in Gaza began in October 2023 after Hamas killed 1,200 persons during its incursion into southern Israel and took hostages. Israel has been carrying out unprecedented air and ground strikes on Gaza since then, leaving more than 61,000 persons dead. Tel Aviv has also enforced a severe blockade on humanitarian aid, which UN officials say has brought the population to the verge of famine. Israel and Hamas have been holding ceasefire talks since July 6. Earlier efforts to reinstate a brief ceasefire that took effect in January had stalled due to major disagreements between the two sides. The talks are being mediated by neighbouring Egypt, Qatar and the United States. On Tuesday, Qatar stressed the urgency of brokering a ceasefire in Gaza after Hamas showed a 'positive response' to their latest proposal, AP reported. The latest ceasefire framework proposed an initial 60-day truce, along with a staggered hostage release, the freeing of some Palestinian prisoners and provisions allowing for the entry of aid into Gaza, AFP reported. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not yet commented on the plan. However, the prime minister had said last week that his country would accept 'an agreement in which all the hostages are released at once and according to our conditions for ending the war'. Ex-civil servants criticise India's 'weak' response In India, a group of 111 retired civil servants and diplomats on Tuesday criticised New Delhi's 'weak and ambivalent response' over the 'genocidal situation' in Gaza perpetrated by Israel. In an open letter, the Constitutional Conduct Group alleged that Israel was committing grave war crimes in its offensive on Gaza. The letter also noted that the enforcement of the blockade on aid appeared to be a 'deliberate attempt' to starve Palestinians and force their mass expulsion from the 'open-air prison' in Gaza into the 'empty desert wildernesses further south'. The retired officials said that there had been calls from within and outside Israel to act against Tel Aviv. 'Tragically for the Palestinians, in the absence of support from the United States and those who champion the values of freedom, democracy and human rights, the world has been powerless to stop this savage collective punishment,' the letter said. It added that several countries, including Ireland, Norway and Spain, have said that they would recognise the Palestinian state, while others such as the United Kingdom and France have 'threatened' to recognise it. India's response to 'this profound ethical, moral and existential challenge to humanity' has been not just disappointing but cynical, the letter said, adding that the Indian government issued 'insincere' expressions of support for the Palestinian cause, while also supporting and sympathising with Israel. 'India's reluctance to speak out against the merciless collective punishment of Palestinians in Gaza, has been deeply disconcerting,' the retired officials said. The ex-bureaucrats noted that the police in several states have cracked down on small groups protesting against the war. They noted that the Bombay High Court had also in July rejected a petition challenging the police's refusal to give permission for a rally on Gaza. 'The High Court preached to the petitioners to 'be patriots', 'concentrate on problems affecting India' and not concern itself with distant problems,' the letter said. 'Meanwhile, the government has expressed satisfaction in Parliament, that since it signed a bilateral framework agreement in November 2023, 20,000 Indians have got jobs in Israel that Palestinians lost because of the war.' The letter urged the Indian government to reclaim its 'historic leadership in addressing colonial injustices and consider initiatives to pull Israel back from its genocidal course that may result in one of the blackest chapters in the history of humanity'. India's longstanding position has been to support a two-state solution for establishing a sovereign, viable and independent state of Palestine within recognised and mutually agreed borders, living side by side with Israel in peace. On July 23, India had called for a ceasefire in Gaza, saying that 'intermittent pauses in hostilities' amid Israel's war on the Palestinian territory were inadequate to address the scale of challenges faced by its residents. However, this came more than a month after India on June 12, along with 19 other countries, abstained from voting on a resolution that the UN General Assembly adopted demanding a ceasefire in Gaza. In December 2023, India was among 153 nations that voted in favour of a resolution adopted by the UN General Assembly to demand a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza. New Delhi had in July 2024, reiterated its call at the UN for an immediate and complete ceasefire in Gaza.
