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U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks after touring Ford Rouge Electric Vehicle Center in Dearborn, Michigan, U.S., May 18, 2021. REUTERS/Leah Millis

With his muted response to the Gaza conflict, President Joe Biden is largely sticking to a time-worn U.S. playbook despite pressure from progressive Democrats for a tougher line toward Israel and from Americas allies for a more active role to end the violence.

By citing Israels right to defend itself against a rocket barrage from the Hamas-ruled enclave and only nudging Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu toward a ceasefire, Biden has effectively given Israeli forces more time to press their offensive against Palestinian militants there.

U.S. officials hope both sides will reach a point when they will be ready to wind down their attacks in coming days and that quiet, behind-the-scenes diplomacy involving regional players such as Egypt will help achieve an end to the hostilities, people familiar with the matter say.

However, Bidens effort to cautiously navigate the crisis in the Gaza Strip will be put to the test if in the meantime the fighting increases and the civilian death toll rises sharply.

"Theres a playbook thats being followed, said Aaron David Miller, a former U.S. Middle East peace negotiator for Democratic and Republican administrations. But theres always room for the unpredictable.

When Biden took office in January, he made it clear that he wanted to focus on the coronavirus pandemic and economic downturn at home and challenges such as China, Russia and Iran abroad.

Tackling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, something that has bedeviled U.S. presidents for decades, was not a top priority, though he had promised to revise some policies of his predecessor, Donald Trump, that were widely considered heavily biased in favor of Israel and which alienated Palestinians.

It was weeks before the new president talked to Netanyahu, a right-wing leader who cultivated strong ties with Trump.

The latest eruption of Gaza violence caught the new administration off guard, and it has responded so far in accordance with a familiar pattern.

Biden, a longtime supporter of Israel from his decades in the Senate and the vice presidency, began by backing Israels right to self-defense against the cross-border rocket attacks, something successive presidents have always said of Washingtons chief Middle Eastern ally.

This comes at a time when the Biden administration has sought, to little avail, to assuage Israeli concerns as it negotiates over a possible return to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

It took Biden until Monday, after Israels destruction of a Gaza high-rise that housed offices of the Associated Press and Al Jazeera news organizations but which Israeli officials said also sheltered militants, to voice support for a ceasefire.

But the White House, apparently reluctant to antagonize, made clear he was not demanding that Israel agree to one.

PRESSURE FROM PROGRESSIVES

The current hostilities are the most serious between the militant group and Israel in years, and in a departure from previous Gaza conflicts have helped to fuel violence in Israeli cities between Jews and Arabs.

Gaza medical officials say 217 Palestinians have been killed, including 63 children, and more than 1,400 wounded since the fighting began on May 10. Israeli authorities say 12 people have been killed in Israel, including two children.

Taking note of the disproportionate casualties, some progressive Democrats, a group that helped Biden win the Democratic nomination and the presidency, are pushing for him to be more assertive with Israel.

We need to have a ceasefire. The president should demand it, not just say he supports it, U.S. Representative Ro Khanna said.

Biden so far has shown no signs of giving much ground, and left-leaning Democrats may not be ready to confront him head-on.

The Democratic-led House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee met on Monday, after which some members said its chairman, Representative Gregory Meeks, planned to send a letter asking Biden to delay a planned $735 million smart bomb sale to Israel. However, Meeks had decided by midday on Tuesday not to send the letter.

Republicans have sought to use the Gaza conflict to hammer Biden and his fellow Democrats. Pro-Israel voters are a major part of the Republican political base and many are also Democrats and independents.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said anyone who advocates for a ceasefire is "basically suggesting that there is moral equivalency" between Israel and Hamas, which the United States views as a terrorist group. "There are a significant number of Democrats who want to throw Israel under the bus," he said.

At the same time, the Biden administration, which has touted its multilateral credentials, has found itself isolated over the Gaza issue at the United Nations. The United States has blocked any Security Council action on the issue, saying it would not help calm the crisis and would continue intensive diplomacy.

Biden, however, has not yet named an ambassador to Israel and dispatched to the region a mid-level official, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Hady Amr, instead of a more senior envoy.

The administration would like to get on a path in coming days leading to what a source familiar with the situation called a humanitarian pause in the violence to let relief assistance be delivered to Gaza and build a sustainable calm.

The Biden administration was also believed to be preparing significant initiatives on Gaza humanitarian reconstruction, the source said.

Biden was confronted with the issue on Tuesday on a trip to Michigan, where he was met by U.S. Representative Rashida Tlaib, the first Palestinian American woman to serve in Congress and a leading progressive Democrat. She told him that Palestinian human rights ... must be protected, not negotiated, according to an account provided by a Tlaib ally.

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Analysis: Biden sticks to Israel-Gaza playbook, irking progressives and allies - Reuters

New Yorkers could be about to do something radical. They may kick progressivism to the curb, where it belongs. With luck, other cities will soon follow.

New York voters will likely choose Eric Adams to be the Democratic nominee for mayor. Should Adams, Brooklyn Borough president and a former cop, win his partys nomination in the June 22 primary vote, he is almost certain to be elected mayor this November.

Adams win would be a victory for common sense and a serious repudiation of current Mayor Bill de BlasioBill de BlasioNew Yorkers may ditch progressivism to save their city: Will the nation follow? New York City Marathon returning with smaller field Jeffries endorses Wiley in New York mayor's race MOREs woke Leftism. New York, often in the vanguard of American politics, could be a canary in the coal mine for overreaching progressives not only in the Big Apple but across the country.

Adams has emerged in a crowded field as virtually the only candidate talking about an issue critical to New Yorkers safety. A poll conducted in early April showed voters number one issue to be the coronavirus, closely followed by crime or violence. As COVID-19 recedes, law and order will rank number one, and it should.

In the most recent week, murders were triple last years level, while robberies were up 50 percent and assaults up 19 percent. Overall, major crimes were up 22 percent. Nearly every day brings horror stories of another person slashed in some gang ritual or pushed onto the subway tracks. The New York Times recently reported, 170 people [were] shot over the last four full weeks, according to police data. The last time so many people were shot over the same four-week period in New York City was 1997.

The causes for the crime surge include bail reform laws that put too many criminals back on the street, sometimes within hours of being arrested. Also, the number of gun seizures and arrests for illegal gun possessions has plummeted. Toss in Mayor Bill de Blasio ditching the 600-officer plainclothes police unit that targeted violent crime, his reversal of broken windows policing, deciding that public urination, drinking in public and riding between subway cars are no longer arrestable offenses, and you have a recipe for disaster.

All of these policies were adopted in the name of racial justice, since minorities have historically been disproportionately arrested for petty crimes. But in New York, as elsewhere, it is minority neighborhoods that have been worst hit by spiraling violence and the stand-down of law enforcement. Thats why numerous polls have shown Black voters dont want less policing; it is mainly white woke liberals who are pushing to defund the police.

Adams gets it. We must go after the gangs and over-proliferation of guns in the city, he said in a recent interview with Bloomberg Television. If we dont, we are not going to have the economic recovery, tourism, business travelers or have our offices back and running.

Adams also acknowledges that the city needs to attract and keep top earners. Yes, you heard that right. A Democrat talks sense about the importance of the people paying the bulk of the citys income taxes.

He said in a radio interview a few weeks ago: I dont join the chorus that tells the 65,000 New Yorkers that are paying 51 percent of our income tax and [are] only 2 percent of the income tax filers I dont join the chorus that states, So what if they leave?'

Thats a major shift from clueless de Blasio, who boasted last summer, We do not make decisions based on the wealthy fewThats not how it works around here anymore. Well-heeled New Yorkers got the message, decamping to Palm Beach in droves.

Adams has the guts to say what everyone knows: Successful people are fleeing because the city has become too dirty, too unsafe, and theres not an appreciation for the commitment to the city. He is right; the wealthy have options.

Adams remarks should not be controversial, but, thanks to the leftward lurch of his party, they are. Crime is rampant in Seattle, Portland, Minneapolis and other places where the left is in charge; in Democrat-controlled cities and states, people are moving out.

Just how much Adams is rattling the Left can be read from a front-page, above-the-fold article published recently by the New York Times. The story hinted that Adams has improperly worked to help out campaign donors, though the author was quick to note that the former cop has never been accused of wrongdoing.

Adams has emerged as the front-runner, beating out the quixotic Andrew YangAndrew YangNew Yorkers may ditch progressivism to save their city: Will the nation follow? Jeffries endorses Wiley in New York mayor's race Yang: 'Defund the police is the wrong approach for New York City' MORE, who entered the race with great name recognition but little else.

New Yorkers know their city is in trouble. Not only did COVID-19 wreak havoc, infecting millions and sending tens of thousands of people fleeing to the suburbs, the damage may linger thanks to the success of remote working. Though Wall Street firms like JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs are pushing their people to come back to their offices, many businesses continue to allow their employees to work from home. Given ongoing concerns about people crowding into elevators and lawlessness in the subways, many are reluctant to return.

To be sure, Adams kowtows excessively to the unions and, in a bow to the left, has called for a two-year recovery share tax on those making over $5 million per year. He also exhibits an unrealistic affection for wind energy. But at least he talks about cutting payrolls and trimming expenses, and he has embraced charter schools in the past, which should be a prerequisite for leading New York.

New York makes up 8 percent of the countrys GDP; it is important. If voters discard failed progressive policies by selecting Eric Adams as mayor, it will send a strong message to the left everywhere. Aspiring to make New York safe and prosperous again should not set him apart, but it does.

Liz Peek is a former partner of major bracket Wall Street firm Wertheim & Company. Follow her on Twitter @lizpeek

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New Yorkers may ditch progressivism to save their city: Will the nation follow? | TheHill - The Hill

Local activists scored wins up and down the ballot in Tuesdays primary election, thanks in large part to the broader movement to reform the criminal justice system and advance police accountability.

Brandi Fisher, a prominent community organizer in the Pittsburgh area, said the energy that has propelled those causes since last summers Black Lives Matter protests was key to activists effort to boost progressive and Black voter turnout.

People say, Oh, Black people do not vote. But we know very well that Black people do vote. It's just that often their vote doesn't equate to change or better quality of life for them. They don't see it, said Fisher, who leads the Alliance for Police Accountability. And so we wanted to give people something that directly impacted them.

With the backing of groups like Fishers, Democrat Ed Gainey toppled incumbent Pittsburgh mayor Bill Peduto in the primary for Pittsburgh mayor, setting Gainey up to become the first Black person to lead the city. Peduto had drawn sharp criticism from activists for the way city police handled the local racial justice protests last summer.

Turnout was clearly a factor in Gainey's win. Over 39 percent of eligible voters cast a ballot in the race, compared to only 25.4 percent when Peduto last ran for re-election in 2017.

Tuesday also featured a strong showing by a handful of progressive-backed contenders for the Democratic nomination to serve on the Allegheny County Common Pleas Court. Those candidates have embraced justice system reforms that aim to reduce incarceration. Four of the local Democratic trial judge candidates are Black, and six are women.

If they prevail in November, the number of Black judges on the common pleas court would nearly double, increasing from four to seven, while the number of women would rise from 14 to 20. There currently are 44 judges serving on the court, with nine seats up for election. All but two of the open seats will be vacated by white men. The other two were held by white women whove already stepped down.

Aside from boosting a diverse field of progressive candidates, a coalition of grassroots organizations, including Fishers, used the election to address criminal justice issues head-on: They proposed two ballot questions restricting the use of solitary confinement at the Allegheny County Jail and banning no-knock warrants in the city of Pittsburgh. Both measures won handily Tuesday.

Those initiatives were central to motivating voters who were likely to support activists favored candidates, Fisher said. She noted that police practices and conditions of incarceration are especially meaningful to Black people, who are disproportionately likely to get caught up in the criminal justice system.

We need people to vote. We need people to vote for judges. And people don't normally vote for judges. People dont normally know who is running for judge to even vote for [them], Fisher said. The ballot initiatives were our way to give people something that would help change their quality of life. And with that, we figured that they would come out to vote for those changes.

Taken together, "This election is the story of an ascendent movement for justice that came to define an election cycle," said a post-primary statement from Unite!, a political committee that helped organize support for many of the candidates and causes on Tuesday's ballot.

Its very striking that you had a number of candidates very explicitly campaigning on a reform platform and that that was successful," said Alicia Bannon, managing director of the Brennan Center for Justices Democracy Program. "That's a real change in the discourse compared to a lot of other judicial elections.

Historically, tough-on-crime rhetoric has been widespread and very effective in judicial elections, Bannon noted.

An-Li Herring

Bannons organization advocates for greater racial, gender, and professional diversity on the bench. Courts today are predominantly white and male at both the state and federal levels. Nearly half of the state supreme courts, for example, have no justices of color, the Brennan Center reported in April.

Homogeneity on the bench, Bannon said, undermines the publics trust in the fairness of the justice system.

Courts have a tremendous impact on people's lives, Bannon said. They're hearing criminal cases. They're hearing cases that can involve people's financial stability, their rights, their freedom. And if the judges that are hearing these cases don't look anything like the communities that are being impacted by their decisions, then that's a real crisis for our court system.

While research is mixed on whether the demographics of judges make a difference in their decision-making, studies have shown they have an impact in cases involving affirmative action, sexual harassment and discrimination, and voting rights.

And, Bannon noted, Those studies [suggest] it wasn't only the diverse judges who were ruling differently. It was their colleagues as well, because judges learn from each other.

Attorney Tim Lewis, who served as a judge on the federal trial court for Western Pennsylvania and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in the 1990s, said a wide range of perspectives among judges is essential to fostering a marketplace of ideas in judicial deliberations.

Ideally, judicial decision-making is driven by the facts and the law that applies to the case before any particular judge. But we know that there are nuances that arise in various cases, Lewis said.

For example, he added, someone from a particular community whether it's a Black community, whether it is a rural community, whatever it might be may have a different understanding of certain issues that affect that community that could be meaningful in making a decision on sentencing or on any number of the many issues that come before judges."

And the stakes are high, Lewis said, because the exchange of ideas between judges offers the best way to approach dealing with systemic racism within the judicial system.

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Criminal Justice Was Key Rallying Point For Progressives Who Triumphed In This Week's Primary - 90.5 WESA

Washington Progressive congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez led efforts Wednesday to block U.S. arms sales to Israel, a move that was unlikely to succeed but highlighted tensions among Democratic lawmakers grappling with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

A clear majority of Republicans back Israel in its military confrontation with Gaza that authorities say has claimed more than 220 Palestinian lives and killed 12 people in Israel.

Democrats are more divided, leaving President Joe Bidens administration under pressure from his partys liberal flank.

At a time when so many, including President Biden, support a ceasefire, we should not be sending direct attack weaponry to Prime Minister (Benjamin) Netanyahu to prolong this violence, Ocasio-Cortez said in a statement.

The harsh truth is that these weapons are being sold by the United States to Israel with the clear understanding that the vast majority of them will be used to bomb Gaza, added Rashida Tlaib, a U.S. congresswoman of Palestinian origin.

The United States is Israels largest supplier of military equipment.

Congress was formally informed on May 5 of the latest sale to Israels defense ministry, totaling $735 million.

According to congressional rules, lawmakers have until Thursday to present and approve a resolution opposing the sale if it is to be blocked.

Democratic leaders, who do not support the resolution, have not set a date for a vote.

A substantial majority of American Jews identify as Democrats, and the party traditionally has supported Israel, albeit with a few critical voices.

The latest Middle East bloodshed however has stirred up fresh criticism of the Jewish state among moderate Democrats.

But the new initiative to block the arms sale remains, at least for now, limited to the partys left wing.

Some moderate Democrats had mulled asking for a postponement, but ultimately they retreated.

The Republicans, on the other hand, reiterated their unwavering support for Israel Wednesday, with several senators taking to the floor to demand Joe Biden and his administration stand firmly with our ally Israel.

One of the senators, conservative Ted Cruz, slammed Democrats on Twitter, saying Ocasio-Cortez and her close allies were gunning for a promotion from press secretaries for Hamas to defense secretaries for Hamas.

Biden toughened his tone Wednesday, telling Netanyahu that he expects significant de-escalation in Israels military confrontation with the Palestinians.

After a ninth night of violence, Israel intensified its airstrikes Wednesday on Gaza.

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U.S. progressives attempt to block arms sale to Israel - The Japan Times

In her three years in the national spotlight, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has become the undisputed face of unabashed progressivism. But there is another hidden-in-plain-sight legacy of her 2018 primary victory: Her campaign logo and poster have reshaped the visual branding of the left.

If Donald J. Trump redefined the red hat as a symbol of the right, Ms. Ocasio-Cortezs slant and her break from the traditional red, white and blue color palette has formed something of a new graphical language for progressivism. Political designers say her logos vibe has come to convey insurgency, youth, diversity, liberalism and winning.

What A.O.C. did is she changed what it is to run for office, said Amoy Barnes, a 34-year-old Black Democrat running for City Council on Staten Island. When Ms. Barness consulting firm presented her a set of past political logos to provide inspiration, she immediately gravitated toward the Ocasio-Cortez design. Being a young woman of color with her bright purple and the slant and her full name she set a bar to say we dont have to do things the same way.

Gavan Fitzsimons, a professor in the business school at Duke University who studies the impact of branding in the unconscious minds of voters and consumers, said that familiar design can trigger powerful associations.

Voters that see those elements are unlikely, at least initially, to notice the similarity with the A.O.C. design, Mr. Fitzsimons explained. But, he added, what happens cognitively is it shines a light in your head.

Essentially what they are doing is borrowing from all the work she has done on the progressive side of the Democratic Party, he said of look-alike logos.

The distinctive A.O.C. typography has even found itself on T-shirts sold by politicians of both parties serving as a visual shorthand of sorts for the left.

Senator Bernie Sanders, whose 2016 presidential bid inspired Ms. Ocasio-Cortezs own political career, is using it to sell shirts supporting the Green New Deal (the signature policy initiative of Ms. Ocasio-Cortez).

While Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the former White House press secretary for Mr. Trump now running for governor of Arkansas, has adopted the tilted text for her anti-left clothing line demanding, Lets cancel cancel culture.

All of which has been amusing to the design team that created Ms. Ocasio-Cortezs logo, and who have begun cataloging various duplications that pop up on the campaign trail and in popular culture. Theyre everywhere, said Scott Starrett, who helped design her logo. Finding them is actually quite fun now.

Mr. Starrett socialized with Ms. Ocasio-Cortez before she was A.O.C. in an interview he kept lapsing into referring to her as Sandy, as her pre-politics friends and family knew her and said they had discussed her ideology long before he and Maria Arenas at the design firm Tandem sketched out her logo.

The color palette and speech bubble in the final design drew inspiration from Rosie the Riveter, Mr. Starrett said. The poster with her outward gaze was drawn from a Cesar Chavez stamp. And the overall look came from boxing, farmworker unionizing and luchador posters.

The inverted exclamation mark with a star punctuated her Puerto Rican heritage, and simultaneously turned her name into a rallying cry. We wanted this idea that she was shouting her name to get attention, and also the idea that people were shouting her name, Mr. Starrett said.

The slant and condensed font, though, was as much a typographical necessity as anything. Mr. Starrett said they had lobbied for not spelling out her full name, but Ms. Ocasio-Cortez held firm. She wanted her whole name. They tilted and stacked it to make it fit.

The way she went with that angled typography, that has entered the vernacular, said Sol Sender, who led the design team that created former President Barack Obamas famous 2008 logo a red, white and blue O for his name, and a rising sun, signifying a new day which itself spurred a raft of copycats.

When Melquiades Gagarin began his own 2020 long-shot primary challenge for Congress in a Queens congressional district neighboring Ms. Ocasio-Cortezs, his logo intentionally embraced the upward slope.

Mr. Gagarin called it an homage to the A.O.C. campaign itself but also the activist, progressive spirit that she embodies. Splashed across his website was a photo of Mr. Gagarin gazing off into the distance, just as Ms. Ocasio-Cortez had in her signature posters.

It almost came to be a joke, Mr. Gagarin laughingly said, that if you werent looking off to a distance you werent a progressive candidate.

Mr. Gagarin lost, as insurgents often do. One winner: Magdalena Pea, whose copycat design and bid for first-grade class senator at her elementary school in Queens won praise from Ms. Ocasio-Cortez herself earlier this year.

I love it! she wrote approvingly in a tweet. (Ms. Ocasio-Cortez declined an interview request for this article.)

As impressed as Mr. Sender was with Ms. Ocasio-Cortezs iconography she was announcing herself as a candidate that was going to stand for something different and the whole design language supported that he is disappointed at the glut of imitators.

Dig deeper, he urged fellow designers. Come on, dont you have your own ideas?

Almost no design is truly original. Others have used angled text before including the Clinton-Gore ticket in 1992. And some archconservative Republicans are still using it now, including Trump-aligned Representative Mo Brooks, who is running for Senate in Alabama.

The Ocasio-Cortez logo was distinctive not just for the slant of the text. It also featured an unusual-for-politics color scheme of purple and yellow.

Theres really a struggle with embracing red, white and blue, said Tarik Nally, a designer based in Louisville. Not because we dont love our country or colors. But because that can be considered establishment.

Mr. Nally crafted the logo for Charles Booker, an insurgent Democrat who ran for Senate in Kentucky in 2020. He used purple and yellow and Ms. Ocasio-Cortezs signature upward tilt.

Progress and increase and movement and upward momentum, Mr. Nally said. It just felt right. Mr. Booker lost in the partys primary last year but is considering running again in 2022.

Ahead of her 2020 re-election, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez queried her team about redesigning the logo to stay ahead of the curve, as Mr. Starrett described it. He successfully rebuffed the idea, making the case that the original logo was still shaping the curve.

That race only reinforced the power of Ms. Ocasio-Cortezs design. She faced a primary battle against the former CNBC journalist Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, whose logo was flat with a blue forward arrow.

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez won in a landslide. Now Ms. Caruso-Cabrera is running for New York City comptroller and has refreshed her logo to tilt upward, mirroring the woman she had run against.

First time Ive thought about that, Ms. Caruso-Cabrera said when asked about the logo similarities as she walked through the Union Square farmers market on one recent afternoon. The upward tilt, she said, was always about optimism.

Moments later, a young woman walked past carrying a canvas sack of groceries, and wearing a yellow Ocasio-Cortez T-shirt.

Kitty Bennett contributed research.

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A.O.C. Had a Catchy Logo. Now Progressives Everywhere Are Copying It. - The New York Times