War and Peace

On the 1st of February, Amnesty International, a human rights organization, released its report on Israel, which accuses Israel of practicing apartheid. Apartheid, which is a crime against humanity, can be defined as a “system of legalized racial segregation in which one racial group is deprived of political and civil rights.” The practice of apartheid is typically associated with South African policies of legal segregation toward its own non-whites inhabitants from 1948 to the early 1990s. The report, however, is filled with problems that lead toward a distorted factual and legal analysis. This article principally does four things: (1) it argues that Israel cannot be an apartheid state by the definition provided above, (2) it provides a non-exhaustive disputation of certain claims made in the report, (3) it displays the consequences of Amnesty’s standard of practicing apartheid if applied to other countries, and (4) it questions the inhumane remedies that Amnesty recommends the international community support and Israel adopt.

Nine Democrats and 7 Republicans are competing to fill the seat in the newly created 6th congressional district where I happen to live in Oregon. Following the primaries of May 17th, 2022, the field will narrow and in November voters will be asked to choose from a slate that will include one Republican. one Democrat, and likely some smaller party candidates by selecting one as is required by plurality voting, by far the most commonly used method in the United States and in many countries around the world. Given the unequaled importance of elections in a functioning democracy, does this winner take all method serve us well or does it contribute to the polarization and alienation of the electorate? Is there a better method of voting that will allow voters to more completely express themselves and yield an outcome that best expresses the preferences of the people?

The State of the Union Address (SOTU) by President Joe Biden on March 1st, 2022, was the last in a centennial series of addresses, which has become customary, since Woodrow Wilson, for the President of the United States to appear before a joint session of Congress, and expound on the domestic and foreign issues of the country, and how it is fairing during the given administration. That custom stems from Article II, Section 3, of the Constitution which states “he [the president] shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the Officers of the United States.”

On February 24th, 2022, Vladimir Putin finally gave the order to invade Ukraine, announcing the attack as a "special operation" to "de-nazify" neighboring Ukraine. Although the original Russian rationale given was that the Russian troops were being sent to act as "peacekeepers" between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian separatists in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, the Russian offensive has entered into mainland Ukraine, with heavy fighting being reported around Kyiv and around the country.