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U. N. Court Will Explore Claims of Israeli Genocide

 January 28, 2024

 

South Africans

ICJ courthouse and listeners to their ruling

(Global Information Network/TriceEdneyWire.com) -  The U.N.’s International Court of Justice (ICJ) has agreed to take up an application submitted by South Africa seeking an immediate suspension of Israeli military operations in and against the Palestinian people of Gaza.

In its 84 page petition to the court, South Africa cited military operations that have devastated hundreds of schools, including those run by the U.N., destroyed educational infrastructure, and left thousands of beleaguered students suffering from mental trauma.

Close to 45 percent of residential buildings in Gaza have been damaged or ruined beyond repair, according to a recent report by the World Bank. These alleged damages and the deaths of some 25,000 Palestinians are violations by Israel of its obligations under the Genocide Convention, South Africa claims.

In its response on Friday, Jan. 26, the panel of 17 judges agreed that South Africa had jurisdiction to bring the case against Israel and that there was plausible risk that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. The finding, read out by Joan Donoghue, president of the court, was applauded by the South African delegation.

South Africa’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs called the decision a “significant milestone in the search for justice for the Palestine people. The decision is momentous… “

In the court’s ruling, Israel is ordered to take steps to limit harm to Palestinians, preserve evidence of genocide, and submit a report within a month on all measures in response to the court’s order. The judges rejected Israel’s request to throw out the case and ordered Israel to take "immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance to address the adverse conditions of life faced by Palestinians."

“At least some of the acts and omissions alleged by South Africa to have been committed by Israel in Gaza appear to be capable of falling within the provisions of the (genocide) convention,” Judge Donaghue said.

While the court failed to order a ceasefire, Columbia University Professor Mahmood Mamdani in an interview with the news show DemocracyNow, opined that the court had indeed called for a ceasefire.  “If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it just may be a duck,” he said humorously.

In a serious note, Mamdani continued: “The South African case has a strong side and a weak side. The strong side is its content, its substance, and that is based almost entirely, from what I can see, on U.N. documents. So the court is not going to question the authenticity or the veracity of those documents. Almost everybody agrees that the intellectual case is very strong.

“It’s interesting that the lawyers for Israel did not claim that a genocide was unfolding,” he added. “They questioned whether South Africa was the appropriate party to bring this question to the court. And they said that South Africa had not taken into consideration Jewish holidays, belittling the substantial question, which is genocide.”

Still, the preliminary court ruling offers only a glimmer of hope for the more than 2 million Palestinian civilians suffering in Gaza, as the ruling alone cannot put an end to the atrocities and devastation Gazans are experiencing.

For its part, Israel has rejected the accusations of genocide as baseless and said South Africa was acting as an emissary of the Hamas terror group, which seeks to eliminate the Jewish state. The Israel Defense Forces is targeting Hamas terrorists, not Palestinian civilians, they said, but that civilian casualties in the fighting are unavoidable as terrorists operate from within the population.

In a worrying development, it was reported in the Times of Israel that thousands of right-wing activists are getting ready to resettle Gaza after the war. ‘Gaza City will be Jewish’  one leader was quoted to say; adding that core groups of potential residents are being assembled.

Mamdani continued: “Israel has had a record of sheltering under American power, both hard power and soft power. This time, whether it will be able to do so is also questionable.

“The Israeli stance has been that the international community has no moral standing when it comes to Israel, because: Where were they when the Holocaust took place? There’s some truth in this, except that it doesn’t apply to most of the Third World which wasn’t part of the U.N. when the Holocaust took place. It also doesn’t apply to South Africa, which had an apartheid government. And that government was in cahoots with Israel, and Israel was one of the major foreign parties strengthening that government.

“South Africa has the moral standing to bring the claim of genocide, which others lack. So who else but South Africa can stand up for victims in Israel?” 

 Dexter King Died Believing that the Truth of His Father's Killing Will Someday Rise by Dr. Barbara Reynolds

Dexter Scott KingPHOTO CREDIT: TheKingCenter.org

ReynoldswithDexterandMartinIII

Journalist, Dr. Barbara Reynolds with Martin Luther King III (left) and the now late Dexter Scott King (on right wearing hat). 

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Not another King dying far too soon.  This was the immediate reaction of many at the news that Dexter King, the youngest son of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King had died from prostate cancer at age 62 . In 2007 his sister Yolanda died at age 52.  

At the time of his death,  Dexter had served as both chairman of The King Center and President of the King Estate.  In that capacity he engaged in legal intellectual property fights with corporations, federal agencies, and court suits with family members to protect his parents' legacy.  His strongest crusade, however, was his battle to bring to justice those responsible for his father’s murder.

Born in Atlanta on Jan. 30, 1961, he was named after Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, where his father served his first pastorate and helped launch the famous Montgomery Bus Boycott.  He was the second-born son of Dr. King  and Mrs. King and was only 7 years old when his father was assassinated in Memphis in 1968.

For years, Dexter King—who has an amazing resemblance to his globally acclaimed father, confessed that when he “looked in the mirror he saw his  father’s face trapped in mine.”  In his memoir “Growing Up King,” he spoke of gazing upon the writing on his father’s crypt, “Free At Last,” and feeling that same sense of freedom. Yet  he was freed in a different way- not in death- but in the resolution of living his best life on his own terms  and not becoming a prisoner of the King name.

As a journalist and later biographer of Coretta Scott King,  I was in and out of the King household since the seventies watching their becoming years. As a teenager Dexter used to love talking about one day becoming a businessman and he started his first enterprise, a music company where he hired himself out as a disk jockey for weddings.  In later years, his zest for business skills took root at the King Center, where he sometimes took the reins of the King Center with his siblings helping it to become a Beloved world house of peace and non-violence.

Coretta King said all four siblings—Martin III, Yolanda, Dexter, and Bernice had inherited specific qualities from her and their father.  Yolanda had a love for the performing arts and became an actress. Martin III, a social justice activist, Bernice, a Call to ministry and pastoral and organizational leadership and Dexter, a drive  to master the complexities of life by pushing forward, overcoming the most difficult problems, even when at the very root he had to overcome himself.

Confronted with the fear of death, instead of running from it, he freed himself by running into it . At age 16, he started working at a funeral home, the same one that buried his father. The experiences in the mortuary he attributed to his quest to come to terms with death and dying.  To understand the intricacies of the criminal justice system, in 1982, for a short spell he  became a police officer in Atlanta.  His stance to wear a uniform with a sidearm shocked the principled non-violent, anti-gun workers at the King Center. But he was determined to understand the system from the inside out.

 Dexter also wanted to test his acting abilities.  With his  uncanny resemblance to his father, he portrayed him in the 2002 television movie "The Rosa Parks Story."  His love for the creative arts drew him to relocate to California but he also continued his work with the King  Center and commitment to the King family legacy,

 As deftly as he helped free himself from fear and tradition, he also took responsibility for freeing his family, especially his mother, from digging their graves with their forks.   He became a strict vegetarian, giving up sugars and starches until his body craved natural foods. He said he was bothered that his grandfather, Daddy King, might have lived a longer life had he eaten differently.  At her son’s insistence, Coretta, who had mastered the art of rich Southern style cooking, became a vegetarian. Once when I traveled with her to a Florida spa, I was dismayed that for a week, they served nothing but raw vegetables and veggie smoothies. Yet, she also believed her strict regimen eased her pain from gout and other discomforts prolonging her life.  She died at the age of 78.

Both mother and son shared an intense determination to prove to the nation that James Earl Ray did not kill Martin Luther King Jr,  that his murder was the result of a conspiracy involving the U.S. government and the assassins should be held accountable.

In the  early 1990’s I picked Dexter up at the DC airport and took him to the National Press Club where I had helped arrange a briefing on the assassination. He spoke about his plans to meet with Ray and that he believed Ray’s claim of innocence and, based on other evidence, felt along with other family members that Ray was not the lone assassin.

On December 8, 1999, Dexter and Mrs. King, on behalf of the family, pursued  a civil suit in Memphis. A jury of six Whites and six Blacks  unanimously  implicated U.S. government agencies in the wrongful death of Dr. King. The shocking evidence convinced the jury that Dr. King had been the victim of assassination by a conspiracy involving the Memphis Police Department as well as local, state, and federal government agencies, and the Mafia. The Jury also concluded,  just as Dexter had argued all along, that Ray was not the shooter, but had been set up as a patsy to take the blame.  

This news , where both Dexter and Mrs. King testified, should have rocked the world, but unfortunately it landed like the noise of a feather hitting the ground. The verdict and shocking testimony were virtually ignored by the media - as it is today.

Dexter was often criticized for his insistence on following up on details ignored by the press, but he argued that it was hard for him to believe looking into his father’s murder was somehow illogical.

Yet, even in this failure, Dexter believed as his mother did, that they had both freed themselves of the guilt of not pushing for the truth.  So many times, they had heard their father and husband say, “Truth  crushed to Earth Shall Rise Again.”

And they left this world believing one day it would.

The Rev. Dr. Barbara Reynolds is co-author of the new memoir, Coretta Scott King: My Life, My Love, My Legacy. 

Virginia Attorney General says Insurances Should Cover 'Life-saving' Proton Radiation Administered at HBCU - Opinion could save thousands of Black lives  By Hazel Trice Edney 

Jan. 16, 2024

Lloyd Austin

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - The announcement that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is being treated for prostate cancer has hit home with millions of families across the nation. But in Virginia, the announcement is particularly relevant as the state’s legislature is gathering on the heels of an opinion by the state attorney general that said insurances should be covering a specific prostate cancer treatment that could save more lives.   

Proton beam cancer therapy, administered by the Hampton University Proton Therapy Institute, was casted front and center just before Christmas as Attorney General Jason Miyares issued the opinion, which clarified that those insurance companies that cover radiation as a cancer therapy should not deny coverage for proton beam therapy when a patient meets the clinical standards in the policy for coverage, an issue that has raged in the state due to repeated insurance denials.  

Miyares clarified in the three-page opinion that a section of the Virginia code that covers the topic “prohibits an insurance carrier that provides coverage for cancer therapy from denying a patient coverage for proton radiation therapy when the coverage determination is based on the carrier’s application of a higher standard of clinical evidence to such treatment than it uses for treatments it otherwise approves.”  

The recent announcement from the Pentagon concerning Austin’s diagnoses did not include the type of treatment he is receiving. However, the fact that Austin is Black draws new attention to the health disparity between Black and White men with a prostate cancer diagnosis.  

According to the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the risk of Black men dying from low-grade prostate cancer is “double that of men of other races" and Black men are slightly more likely than White men to be diagnosed with prostate cancer.  

In Virginia, the city of Portsmouth has the highest African-American cancer death rates in the state and the city of Petersburg, Virginia, leads the nation with Black men dying from prostate cancer. Both Portsmouth and Petersburg are less than an hour from Hampton University.   

Miyares pointed to the Hampton center, at a historically Black university, as being crucial to saving lives. “The Hampton University Proton Cancer Institute is a world-class academic and research institution that not only serves Virginians, but also treats people from around the world. They save precious lives. It’s essential that the prior authorization process is streamlined and patient access to proton radiation therapy is expanded and made accessible so that every patient can get the treatment that is right for them," he wrote.  

The opinion came as welcome news to families who have been repeatedly denied by insurance companies that have refused to pay for the treatment simply because it may cost more than other therapies and for reasons that many say are unexplained when their carriers provide coverage for other types of radiation treatment. 

Mary Lambert of Richmond whose 52-year-old husband died of prostate cancer in 2019 after his insurance refused to pay for the proton beam therapy, applauded the attorney general’s opinion.  

“I am elated to know that the state’s attorney has written a formal opinion,” she said. “No one’s family should have to go through what my husband and what our family went through. Our children were 9 and 12 when he passed.”  

Ironically, the Virginia Legislature had already passed HB #1656 into law in 2017 stating that “each policy, contract or plan issued or provided by a carrier that provides coverage for cancer therapy shall not hold proton radiation therapy to a higher clinical standard of clinical evidence for decisions regarding coverage under the policy, contract, or plan than is applied for decisions regarding coverage of other types of radiation therapy treatment.”  

Yet patients continue to report that the insurance companies are denying access. In some states, patients and patient families have successfully sued their insurance carriers in court to get them to cover proton therapy for their cancer.  

Mary Lambert went on to stress the sad story of Congressman Donald McEachin (D-Va.), who recently died after beating his cancer, but his family highlighted that he died from the terrible side effects from other forms of treatment that are far more invasive than proton therapy. 

“It’s been law for five years. So why are people still going through this? And I’m hoping that this administration can do what they’re supposed to do. I would not wish this on anyone,” Lambert said. 

During the current session of the Virginia General Assembly, legislators will have a choice whether to further define and clarify clinical evidence that can be used to make determinations for proton treatment with HB #987.   

The legislators can clarify the law to assure that when proton treatment is recommended by a patient’s physician or oncologist, it may be an acceptable clinical standard for coverage. This will simplify insurance coverage determinations and make them faster for patients who have no time to fight cancer and no time to fight their insurance company over coverage.  

Bill Thomas, associate vice president of governmental relations at Hampton University and a national advocate for proton therapy puts it this way: “No one wants cancer.  No one wants to be radiated.  No one wants side effects from any form of cancer treatment.  But if you are diagnosed with cancer, if you must have treatment and the doctor prescribes proton radiation therapy,  shouldn’t you be allowed to follow the doctor’s orders?”    

Thomas continues, “I am advocating for people all across – not only in Virginia – but, the country because it is painful to see people suffer or die unnecessarily.  I lost my Mom, Dad, and other family members from the horrible disease that wreaks havoc in the Black community. To help save one life from death or human suffering is worth all the fight in me.   

“For an insurance company not to cover proton radiation therapy when they cover other forms is plain wrong. People are dying while companies – not medical doctors - are choosing what form of treatment they will pay for,” Thomas says. “It is just a shame that Hampton University has invested over $225 million in developing the Hampton University Proton Cancer Institute with little to no financial support from the State or local community. It is time that Virginia invests in its HBCUs and other institutions that provide life-saving modern medical treatment to the most vulnerable among us.” 

Black Neighborhoods and Shopping Districts Stripped of $406 Billion as Racial Wealth Gap Continues By Charlene Crowell 

Jan. 23, 2024

Federal Reserve Image on 2022 Wealth by Race

(TriceEdneyWire.com) -  For America, Black History Month brings opportunities to revisit our nation’s lessons, achievements, and unfulfilled promises, capturing our attention as well as our hopes. Yet nothing hits home harder than the painful reminders of how so much of Black America continues to struggle financially, despite an economy that reports low unemployment, a robust stock market, and low inflation. 

Whether discussing kitchen table economics, or yesteryear’s grievances, money – or the lack thereof – is an ongoing and dominant concern. Now is a good time to examine the policies and practices contributing to why Black wealth remains so elusive for people whose work ethic is often far larger than their paychecks. 

The Federal Reserve’s recently updated Survey of Consumer Finance 2019-2022, analyzes post-pandemic trends – particularly as they affect racial wealth gaps. 

In 2022, Asian-Americans had a typical family wealth of $536,000, the highest of any race or ethnicity, and nearly twice the typical white family’s wealth of $285,000. But these six-figure wealth assets did not include either Black or Latino households. Instead, a typical Latino family held only about 20 percent of the wealth of the typical white family (about $61,600), and Black family wealth was even lower at $44,900, only 15 percent of the wealth held by white families. 

“Despite strong growth in wealth for non-white families over the past two surveys, we remain far from racial equality, reflecting the large differences in wealth that have persisted for decades,” states the report. “Taking a slightly longer-run view, since the Great Recession the typical Black and Hispanic family has had between about $10 to $15 of wealth for every $100 held by the typical White family,” the report continues. “This ratio has closed only modestly in the past two surveys. The typical Black family went from having about $9 in wealth for every $100 held by the typical white family in 2013 to around $16 in 2022; the typical Hispanic family went from having about $10 in wealth for every $100 held by the typical white family in 2013 to around $22 in 2022.” 

Recently the Brookings Institution independently analyzed the Fed’s data in a new publication entitled Black wealth is increasing, but so is the racial gap, citing the effects of public policies against Black participation in proven wealth-building assets. 

“Policies that privilege whiteness are reflected in higher levels of wealth for the average white family, which can be leveraged across generations to generate greater wealth and advantages,” wrote Brookings. “This became very clear during the pandemic: Black households made major gains through housing and business equity, yet that growth paled in comparison to white households’ gains from investment returns.” 

For example, Brookings found that in 2020 Black businesses employed 1.3 million people and created over 48,000 new jobs. If access to capital could be available to more entrepreneurs to begin new businesses, or expand existing ones, greater Black wealth likely would result. 

In a separate but related analysis, Brookings examined how redlining of Black business districts suppressed wealth-building, similarly to how lowered appraisal values of Black homes suppress wealth-building in majority-Black neighborhoods. 

“Our research found that storefronts and shopping centers in communities with higher shares of Black residents are valued measurably lower than otherwise comparable properties in communities with fewer Black residents”, wrote Brookings last November in Building Black wealth through community real estate ownership. “We estimate that the undervaluation of majority-Black ZIP codes results in aggregate wealth losses of $171 billion in retail space for the owners of these properties... By comparison, owner-occupiers of housing lose an estimated $235 billion in majority-Black ZIP codes.” 

Imagine what Black wealth could be derived if these billion-dollar discounts were removed from Black and Latino communities. Until or unless public policy reforms effectively address these historic inequities, racial wealth gaps will persist. The financial bottom line – regardless of color – is that people cannot invest what they do not have, or are shut out from mainstream lending. Let’s embrace the lessons of history and enact policies to increase lending for minority homes and business owners, to close the nation’s racial wealth gaps.  

Charlene Crowell is a senior fellow with the Center for Responsible Lending. She can be reached at CharleneThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. 

2024 Reveals the legacy of MLK Lives On by Hamil R. Harris

January 16, 2024

 mlk

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - On March 31, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. preached at the National Cathedral on the last Sunday he lived. On that occasion, his sermon was entitled, “Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution.”

Four days later, on April 4, 1968, a bullet fired by a deranged racist fatally stopped Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis.

Andrew Young, the former US Ambassador to the UN, said Sunday night that he, Ralph Abernathy, Richard Hatchet, and other King aides tried to stop King from going back to Memphis.

But Young, who spoke at the National Cathedral last Sunday, remembered King saying, “No. I am going to catch the 6 o'clock plane to Memphis.”

Five decades later, the words and ideals of King, known as the “drum major for justice” are still carrying the rhythm for current local and national leaders who, on his birthday holiday, January 15, 2024, were marching, preaching, and praying for a new day to come.

“The battle for the soul of our Nation is perennial — a constant struggle between hope and fear, kindness and cruelty, and justice and injustice,” President Joe Biden said in the proclamation declaring January 15th, a federal holiday which falls on King’s birthday. “On this day, may we recommit to being guided by Dr. King’s light and the charge of Scripture…Let us never grow weary in doing what is right, for if we do not give up, we will reap our harvest in due time.”

 

In cities and towns across the country, the King federal holiday was celebrated in many ways. In Washington, DC, Martin Luther King III, his wife, and their daughter spoke at a prayer breakfast sponsored by Rev. Al Sharpton and the National Action Network.

“What a wonderful time to be together as it falls on what would have been the 95th birthday of Martin Luther King Jr.,” said MLK III’s wife Andrea Waters King. “We could not have thought to be in any other place than with the people in this room. The people in this room deal every single day with the facts of what is going on in our nation and the fact right now is that we are a little further away from the dream. The fact is that it’s harder to vote than when our daughter was born.”  

King III said, “So comes to mind to me on what dad said. The first thing we must hue out of a mountain of despair is a stone of hope. When you look at a world that is in great turmoil, we are certainly are much aware of the Israeli-Palestinian turmoil beyond unconscionable conflict. We are certainly aware of what is going on in Russia and the Ukraine but rarely talk about what is going on in the African continent where there are huge conflicts in Congo, and Sudan, in fact, there are 30 conflicts now.”

King III continued, “Somehow humankind has to come together. That’s what Dad and Mom would have wanted. I guess this actual day they are looking down and saying what are you all going to do?  Are we going with thermometers or thermostats? A thermometer Dad said is a great device, but it basically records the temperature. But there is another device called a thermostat that regulates the temperature. We have to decide are we are going to record and get along or whether are we going to regulate goodness and Justice and righteousness for humankind.”

King said that the King Center and the NFL would be launching a “Service initiative,” to create a program where young people would be involved in 100 million hours of service by Dad's 100th birthday five years from now.”

Rev. Sharpton, the host, told the crowd, “The Civil Rights movement should be celebrated. It should be continued…Dr King did not say that we would not have battles. What the Supreme Court did with the Voting Rights Act is to go backward,” he said. “Which means that our children are going forward with fewer opportunities than we had.”

Governor Wes Moore joined six other honorees at the breakfast.

Moore said, “In our state, we have made our North Star very clear. We are going to focus on work, wages and wealth for all of our citizens and not just some. We are going to be the first state in this country to end the racial wealth gap.”

Moore continued, “We want it all. We want peanut butter and jelly. We want earth, wind, and fire. We work together, we make sure that we are a society that we leave no one behind…That’s the assignment and I am honored to be able to receive this not an award but a reminder.”

As Moore left the stage, Sharpton said, “Governor Wes Moore. It doesn’t get any better than that.”

Andrew Young, among the last living civil rights leaders who walked with King, told those gathered at the National Cathedral that he later realized that King “knew his days were numbered.”

Young concluded, “The sanitation workers were a perfect example of people working hard…They had no benefits, no retirement, and no insurance of any kind and were virtually enslaved people. He was determined to go back, and I think he knew because of the way he acted the next few days, he knew he was going to his death.”

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