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Members of the National Organization for Women protest outside the Manhattan DA's office on October 13, 2017, after District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. made the decision not to pursue sexual abuse charges against movie producer Harvey Weinstein. (Spencer Platt / Getty Images)

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New York CityOne of the more consequential political races in America will be decided here on June 22. And it has nothing to do with Andrew Yang.

On the day Democrats in New York City will choose the candidate who will probably become the next mayor, Manhattanites will be effectively electing their next district attorney. Its the sort of race that will have far more of a seismic impact on the city and nation than the attention its been paid would indicate; the winner will be setting a criminal justice agenda that will inevitably ripple outward to DAs across the country.

Part of this has to do with the offices sheer size: The outgoing DA, Cyrus Vance Jr., presides over 500 prosecutors and a budget that nears $170 million. Manhattan is the beating heart of the real estate industry, Wall Street, and the white-collar crimes that seize headlines. Vance has crossed paths with the likes of Donald Trump, Harvey Weinstein, and Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

His failures, to most of the public, have been of the high-profile variety: not prosecuting Weinstein much sooner, not prosecuting the Trump children at all, and bungling the Strauss-Kahn case.

Regular watchers of Law and Order and other police procedurals are acquainted with another version of the office: a tough but fair institution wrangling with a procession of criminals that hard-bitten, if well-meaning, prosecutors and cops must lock up.

But a darker reality pulses belowthe office, under Vance and his predecessors, has been overly punitive and even predatory, according to legal observers and public defenders who have battled it on a daily basis. It is a place, they say, where the progressive reforms that have swept up offices around the nation have been, at best, begrudgingly or belatedly acknowledged.

Where do we start with how repressive, how predatory, that prosecutors office has been for communities of color in Manhattan? asked Rigodis Appling, a member of Black Attorneys of Legal Aid and a longtime public defender. I really think they think its their job to simply protect property and they charge things as such. When you value property more than human life, thats where it becomes disturbing and youre not doing justice.Current Issue

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There are eight Democrats running to replace Vance, who faced mounting pressure not to seek reelection. With scant polling available and a number of contenders who have raised north of $1 million, no single front-runner appears to be dominating the field. Unlike the mayoral race, this is technically not a municipal contest, which means no ranked-choice voting: Progressives do run the real risk here of splitting votes and allowing a more moderate candidate to triumph.

The winner would only be the fourth Manhattan DA since 1942. Before Vance won election in 2009, Robert Morgenthau and Frank Hogan each held the post for decades.

Danny Frost, a spokesman for Vance, argued that the DA had made great strides beyond his predecessor, Morgenthau, cutting prosecutions in half and investing forfeiture funds into various reform initiatives, including the Manhattan Family Justice Center.

Many of the candidates running espouse the principles of reform that have come into vogue in the last four years, as progressive prosecutors like Larry Krasner in Philadelphia, Chesa Boudin in San Francisco, and Kim Foxx in Chicago have taken power. The contenders fall into various camps: the former prosecutors, a civil rights attorney, a public defender, and an elected official. Some are traditionalists, wary of the left flank; others race headfirst into reform.

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All are reckoning with two competing currents: the demands to radically overhaul a system that has imprisoned too many people of color and growing calls, from conservatives and law enforcement, to hunt for a solution to New Yorks spike in shootings and murders.

Im running against a bunch of former prosecutors who have been complicit in and propped up and perpetuated this system, said Eliza Orlins, a longtime Manhattan public defender who has also been a television personality. Ive been in the trenches fighting this office.

Under Vance, certain reforms popular with progressives have been implemented, including a decision to no longer prosecute those who jump subway turnstilesbut public defenders view of the office is particularly dim. Orlins, who served as a public defender with Legal Aid, and other progressives describe Vance as a prosecutor relentlessly committed to going to trial to win cases against poorer, nonwhite defendants. In Manhattan, juries tend to be whiter and wealthier and more favorable to law enforcement than the more working-class, diverse juries in the outer boroughs.

Appling described troubling trends: Vances prosecutors charging people who steal packages from building lobbies with burglary, a violent felony, which can carry years in prison, as opposed to petit larceny, a lesser charge. The office is willing to charge defendants who are caught up in predatory NYPD practices like Operation Lucky Bag, in which police planted a bag, usually with money or other valuables inside, in a public place and waited for someone to take it, arresting them on the spot.

Before New York state reformed its outdated discovery laws, public defenders said Vances office was notorious for withholding information from the defense until right before trial, creating undue pressure on terrified defendants to plead guilty to inflated charges.

The discovery practices of the Manhattan DA were the impetus behind changing the discovery laws, said Nick Encalada-Malinowski, the civil rights campaign director at VOCAL-NY, a reform group. There are a certain set of candidates who are interested in shrinking that system.

Orlins is one of two candidates, along with civil rights attorney Tahanie Aboushi, who have said theyd slash the DAs budget by 50 percent if elected. Both are heartened that Krasner, a former public defender, beat back a law-and-order challenger on Tuesday.

We can restructure the office where we are trimming the fat, said Aboushi, who is endorsed by the Working Families Party and successfully sued the Fire Department for discrimination against Black firefighters. We should be focusing on serious crimes.

In their voting guide, Five Boro Defenders, a collective of public defenders and civil rights attorneys in New York, graded all the contenders on their ability to do the least amount of harm with an office that has traditionally had a carceral mission.

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Orlins was one candidate rated the highest. The other was not Aboushi but Dan Quart, a State Assembly member who has a long legislative record of pushing criminal justice reforms in Albany, including ending the ban on gravity knives, which are often carried by blue-collar workers but used to be illegal, allowing Vance and other DAs to rack up more prosecutions.

Im the only one with a real record of achieving results on decarceration, says Quart.

Another top contender in the progressive lane, Alvin Bragg, has won the backing of Preet Bharara, Charlie Rangel, Jerry Nadler, and several large labor unions. Bragg, who grew up in Harlem and served as the chief deputy attorney general in New York, made a name for himself seeking full transparency into how the NYPD handled Eric Garners death. He speaks often about his experience as a Black man being repeatedly stopped by police.

All of my policies have emerged from my really having experienced almost every part of the criminal justice system, Bragg said. My brother in-law living with me after getting out of incarceration. Me having been stopped three times at gunpoint growing up.

Among the four candidates competing for the left lane in the primary, there are some clear differences. In a voter guide assembled by the Brooklyn Community Bail Fund, Bragg said he would not reduce the budget of the DAs office at all. Only Aboushi and Orlins would eliminate pretrial detention altogether. Quart was the only candidate to say he would request only supervision on a defendant, not electronic monitoring. All but Bragg said theyd try to reduce the number of people in jail pretrial by at least 80 percent.

In addition to two former prosecutors with lower levels of name recognition and endorsements, Liz Crotty and Diana Florence, Lucy Lang, a Vance ally, is campaigning on the premise that someone who has worked as a prosecutor in the Manhattan DAs office can also fix it. The former head of the Institute for Innovation in Prosecution at John Jay College, Lang has won the backing of several reform-oriented prosecutors across America, including Kim Gardner in St. Louis.

My candidacy is informed by and supported by people most directly impacted by the system, said Lang, who has said shed beef up the sex crimes unit in the DAs office. People who have been incarcerated, people who have been impacted by violent crime.

However, if there is a single candidate looming over the rest, its the primarys most prolific fundraiser: Tali Farhadian Weinstein, a former federal prosecutor. Married to Boaz Weinstein, a multimillionaire hedge fund manager, Farhadian Weinstein has raised more than $2 million by aggressively targeting Wall Street megadonors. She veers to the right of several Democrats in the race, speaking more on the campaign stump about rising crime rates and gun violence, and is viewed as a candidate who would not greatly depart from Vances traditionalist approach. She is also one of the only candidates who will not rule out entering into information sharing agreements with federal agencies like ICE and Homeland Security Investigation. Expected to advertise far more heavily than most of the Democrats, Farhadian Weinstein took a measured view of Vance as her rivals pounced on her fundraising. The office has done some things well, some things less well, she said.

For Farhadian Weinstein, a key focus would be gender-based violence. We will be taking on violence against women, she said.

Her prominent progressive rivals, with time ticking down in the primary, are not holding back against her. Her ties to Wall Street are very problematic, Aboushi said, pointing to donations as large as $35,000 sent to Farhadian Weinsteins coffers. For some people, thats an annual salary.

Farhadian Weinstein, dismissing these criticisms, pointed to the large amounts of money her rivals have raised, including those whove taken cash from law firms that might have business in front of the DA.

I really caution others to not put out purity tests they cant pass, she said.

Read more:
Will New York Join the List of Cities With Progressive DAs? - The Nation

Dont be fooled by the Supreme Courts rejection of former President Donald Trumps baseless challenges to the results of the 2020 election. The high tribunal is no friend of liberals and progressives.

Of all the fevered dreams of the American right, nothing approaches the desire to overturn Roe v. Wade and revoke the constitutional right to abortion.

With the addition of three Trump appointeesNeil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrettconservatives now hold a solid 6-3 majority on the nations most powerful judicial body. No longer constrained by the need for compromise and caution, they are poised to drive U.S. law dramatically to the right.

By the time the court concludes its current term at the end of June, it will hand down decisions that could gut Obamacare, undermine the Voting Rights Act, elevate religious liberty interests above other Constitutional rights, and deal organized labor another major setback.

And the potential damage wont stop there. Next term, which begins in October, the court will pass judgment not only on Mississippis draconian abortion law, but also on a new and far-reaching Second Amendment appeal from New York.

Heres a closer look at the key cases.

Health care:

All eyes are onCalifornia v. Texas, the latest assault on the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

As originally enacted, the individual mandate in the ACA required most people to obtain health insurance or pay a monetary penalty. In 2012, the Supreme Courtupheldthe mandate as a proper exercise of Congresss power to levy taxes.

In 2017, however, Congress got rid of the penalty as part of the Trump Administrations outrageously pro-corporate tax reform legislation. Although Congress did not explicitly repeal the mandate and left the rest of the ACA intact (remember John McCains famous thumbs-down vote on the Senate floor?), a coalition of largely GOP-controlled states led by Texas filed a federal lawsuit to declare both the mandate and the entire ACA unconstitutional. District Court Judge Reed OConnor, a George W. Bush appointee and a Federalist Society member who may just be the most reactionary jurist in the country, agreed, and issued a sweeping ruling that, if upheld, would overturn the entire ACA.

Urged by California and a group of largely Democratic-led states, the Supreme Court opted to review the case, and conducted oral arguments in November. If the court affirms Reeds decision and strikes down the entire ACA, it will commit an act of judicial barbarism. Should the court topple the mandate but preserve the rest of the act, the result would be less egregious, but would likely fuel additional challenges to other sections of the ACA.

Such a challenge is currently underway in another lawsuit pending before Judge OConnor that aims to invalidate the acts requirement that birth control, cancer screenings and other forms of preventive care be covered by all health insurance policies.

Voting rights:

Voting rights are another area that have come under threat by SCOTUSs new conservative majority, most recently with a pair of cases from Arizona, Arizona Republican Party v. Democratic National Committee and Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee.

In its 2013 decision in Shelby County v. Holder, the Supreme Court declared the pre-clearance requirements of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA) unconstitutional. The preclearance process, as set forth in sections 4 and 5 of the VRA, was a bulwark against voter suppression, compelling states and local governments with a history of voting discrimination to obtain advance approval from the Department of Justice or a panel of federal judges before instituting changes in election procedures.

Preclearance placed the burden of proof and the costs of initiating litigation on the proponents of voter suppression. Shelby County flipped the burden, forcing defenders of voting rights to file and fund expensive lawsuits against suppression measures under section 2 of the VRA.

The court is now reexamining section 2 in the Arizona cases. Depending on the scope of its ruling, the court could deal another crippling blow to voting rights amid a massive upsurge of voter suppression bills introduced in states across the country in the aftermath of the 2020 elections. Oral arguments were heard in March.

Religious liberty:

Far-right Christian views of abortion, health care, and sexuality are also getting renewed attention in SCOTUS, as in the case of Fulton v. City of Philadelphia.

Since its 2014 ruling in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, the Supreme Courts conservatives have been on a mission to uphold the religious liberty interests of privately held corporations that exclude birth control coverage from employee health-insurance benefits, religious schools that receive public funding for infrastructure improvements, bakers who refuse to decorate wedding cakes for gay customers, and, more recently, churches that object to COVID-19 lockdown regulations.

In Fulton, Catholic Social Services (CSS), a faith-based foster-care agency that refuses to place children with LGBTQ+ parents, is trying to extend the religious-liberty winning streak. CSS argues it should be exempt from Philadelphias nondiscrimination policies governing foster-care and adoption placements. If the recent past is any prologue, dont bet against CSS. Oral arguments took place in November.

Labor:

Labor rights and the ability of workers to organize, too, seem ready to take a hit in Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid.

The Supreme Court under the leadership of Chief Justice John Roberts has never been kind to organized labor. In 2018, the court held in Janus v. AFSCME that the collection of fair-share fees from nonconsenting public employees to finance collective bargaining violated the First Amendment.

In Cedar Point Nursery, the court has been asked to scuttle a 1975 California law championed by Cesar Chavez that allows organizers temporary access to farms and fields to encourage workers to join unions. A group of growers contends the law allows for acts of trespass in violation of their property rights under the Fifth Amendment. Oral arguments were heard in March.

Gun ownership:

In its landmark 2008 opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court held for the first time that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to gun ownership.

Heller dealt specifically with the right to keep guns in the home. Since then, gun rights organizations like the NRA have worked to bring another test case to the Supreme Court to extend the right to bear arms beyond the home.

They may have found their vehicle in New York State Pistol Association v. Corlett, which challenges a New York law that places strict limits on the issuance of concealed weapons permits. If the lawsuit succeeds, there will be even more lethal weapons in our communities. The case has been placed on the docket for the courts next term, which commences in October.

Reproductive rights:

Of all the fevered dreams of the American right, nothing approaches the desire to overturn Roe v. Wade and revoke the constitutional right to abortion. The case of Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization may make the rights dream a reality.

At issue is a 2018 Mississippi law that bans almost all abortions after fifteen weeks, roughly two months earlier than the standard for fetal viability set by Roe. Like Corlett, Dobbs has been placed on next terms calendar. It promises to be a blockbuster.

Predicting the precise outcome of Supreme Court cases is often difficult. Its always possible that the Justices who comprise the courts conservative majority will take a scalpel rather than an axe to their deliberations in the pivotal cases before them. But one thing is certain: The power is now in their hands.

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Unequal Justice: The Supreme Court's New Right Turn - Progressive.org

U.S. Sen. Edward Markey marshaled a progressive young fan base that helped his re-election and now hes taking criticism from some of the same people as they urge him to take a harder line with Israel in his comments on the escalating conflict in the Middle East.

More than 700 people, including former Markey campaign staff and progressive activist allies of his from last years tough re-election fight against then- Rep. Joseph Kennedy III, signed a statement demanding that Markey use his position as a Senate Foreign Affairs Committee member to end what they called U.S. complicity in the Israeli occupation and apartheid of Palestine.

As the young people, organizers and advocates who are responsible for Sen. Markeys victory, we are upset and disappointed by his recent statement on Israels illegal occupation and ethnic cleansing of Palestine, the statement said. They wrote that he followed in the footsteps of Donald Trump by saying its a both sides issue, which ignores the current and historical power imbalance between Israel and Palestine Sen. Markeys refusal to support justice in Palestine is antithetical to the progressive movement that won him re-election.

On Saturday, as more than 1,000 people attended a pro-Palestinian rally outside the Boston Public Library, Markey said in a statement: There is no justification for Hamass bombardment of Israeli civilians with rocket fire, but he also called on Israel to seek an immediate ceasefire and said the U.S. must engage more heavily in the region to protect civilian lives and to facilitate a lasting peace that allows Palestinians to live with dignity in their own state.

I am deeply alarmed by the deadly violence taking innocent lives in Gaza and Israel, Markey said. Rather than escalating this violence in a way that would cost hundreds, even thousands, more civilian lives, Israel must seek an immediate ceasefire.

See the article here:
Progressives push Markey to defend Palestinians in escalating conflict with Israel - Boston Herald

Any legislation that Democrats hope to pass and put on President Joe Bidens desk needs Sen. Joe Manchins (D-W.Va.) support first. The chances for his vote seem to be slipping away for the For the People Act, a sweeping election reform package.

But the legislations supporters, particularly progressives in Manchins home state of West Virginia, arent giving up.

Despite large coalitions of national groups organizing the grassroots campaign to pass the bill, the campaign to win Manchins support has largely been a local affair. A coalition of West Virginia groups is working to educate West Virginians and Manchins office about the bill and why he should support it.

So far, its been for naught. He is the only member of the Senate Democratic caucus not to co-sponsor the bill and told ABC News on Wednesday that its because it does not have bipartisan support.

Its not for lack of effort from local groups. The push to woo Manchin began the night before Democrats officially won their Senate majority. Ryan Frankenberry, state director for the progressive West Virginia Working Families Party, fired off a letter to Manchins office on Jan. 5 as the returns for Georgias two special elections started to come in. He wrote that he was hopeful about the nights elections and that he looked forward to working with Manchins office when Democrats held the Senate majority.

[We] recognized before Georgia flipped that there was a possibility for this scenario, Frankenberry said. Weve been planning on it.

The plan is to pressure Manchin with niceness.

I would use the phrase encouraging rather than pressuring, said Sam Hickman, executive director of the West Virginia chapter of the National Association of Social Workers.

The groups running this encouragement campaign hope to remind Manchin about his past support for similar policies when he served in the West Virginia state government that are now a part of the For the People Act.

For example, as West Virginias secretary of state, he oversaw the implementation of the Help America Vote Act, a national law mandating new election standards for every state just as the For the People Act does. When he was governor, he backed a law introducing a public election financing program for judicial elections. The For the People Act includes a voluntary public financing program for congressional elections.

He knows the positive impact that these types of reforms can have, said Julie Archer, coordinator for West Virginia Citizens for Clean Elections. Were encouraged, and we just want to encourage him to do the right thing.

To convince Manchin to support the For the People Act, the local coalition has held rallies and phone banks to talk to West Virginians, plus district office visits and constituent meetings with Manchins office. The West Virginia Working Families Party also went on the air with a radio ad on Wednesday calling on both Manchin and Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) to support the For the People Act.

The ad connects West Virginias founding in opposition to Southern slavers to a need for pro-democracy legislation today in response to the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

Today democracy and freedom are at risk, the ad says. And the truth is, they are as precious now as when West Virginia was founded. Thats why were calling on Senator Capito and Senator Manchin to support the For the People Act.

Voting rights advocates can also point to polling by two nonpartisan pro-For the People Act groups, Represent.Us and Un-PAC,showing broad support in West Virginia for the bill.

The groups also note the recent success they had in the spring state legislative session in killing a bill that would have reduced voter access by eliminating the two most popular early voting days in the state and making it easier for county clerks to purge voters from the rolls.

We saw that as a major victory, Frankenberry said. They were hearing a lot of pressure.

With the state legislative session over for now, the West Virginia activist groups hope to focus all of their efforts on pushing Manchin to support the For the People Act. But now the question is whether its too late.

Manchin has repeatedly said the legislation must have bipartisan support to win his vote, even though he previously issued a statement declaring his support for many elements of the bill. But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) says that 100% of his focus is on stopping this new administration, including all legislation it supports.

The bill faced universal opposition from Republicans at a mark-up in the Senate Rules and Administration Committee on Tuesday where the vote deadlocked 9-9. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) can still discharge the bill to the Senate floor, where it is expected to face a Republican filibuster.

Bill Clark via Getty ImagesSen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) is the lone member of the Senate Democratic caucus not to co-sponsor the For the People Act.

Schumer has promised that everything is on the table to pass the bill, including changing the Senates filibuster rules, but Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) are vocally opposed to doing that. Manchin has, however, made statements in favor of a so-called talking filibuster as an expansion of the filibuster. But it is not clear what this means.

Its a positive that Sen. Manchin has talked about expanding the filibuster to include a talking filibuster, Frankenberry said. And we recognize when he says he wants to involve Republican voices. We hear what hes saying, but we think there will come a time where its very clear that their obstruction is the first and foremost thing they care about, and these bills are too important for the people of West Virginia.

Right now, it appears that Manchin doesnt intend to support a pathway for the For the People Act to pass. Local groups still hope that their efforts to show support from West Virginians will bring a change of heart.

The position that he is in is not lost on us, Hickman said. Hes got bargaining power like nobodys business. We hope he uses that bargaining power to line up with average people.

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How West Virginia Progressives Are Pushing Joe Manchin On Voting Reform - HuffPost

I spent Monday between rage and a sense of loss. I watched the Israeli government and security forces make one decision after another to escalate an already bloody situation. My familys WhatsApp text thread pinged again and again:

They are talking about red alert alarms and sirens at nine.

Im just worried about the girls, I dont want them to have a scary memory of waking up in the middle of the night.

Where do you go if there is an alarm?

My family in Tel Aviv was preparing for the possibility of Hamas firing rockets on the city, part of the latest escalation in the decades-long conflict.

READ MORE: The Latest: Gaza deaths rise in Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Hamas and other groups firing rockets into Israel from Gaza was the culmination of a weekend in which Israeli security forces brutalized Palestinian protesters and worshipers, including in the al-Aqsa Mosque, one of the most sacred mosques in Islam.

On Monday, before a single rocket was fired and my family started texting, I talked to Jawad Salah, a Palestinian lawyer born and raised in Beirut who now lives in the Philadelphia area, to hear his perspective watching from afar. He predicted that if a group like Hamas became involved, English-language media would start and end the story there, a pattern that hes seen repeatedly, that overlooks the abuse of the Palestinian people.

There is a singular focus on the last Palestinian response but never what led to it, Salah told me. He said that firing rockets is deplorable but always has a context.

I remember red alert sirens warning of incoming rockets well and how much they scared me. Growing up during the Second Intifada in Tel Aviv, suicide bombings were common but sirens were not. That changed in 2012, when Hamas fired a rocket from Gaza to Tel Aviv for the first time. I was working as a medic at a basketball arena. Everyone froze in panic. Then a blast. Iron Dome, Israels American-bought anti-rocket defense system, intercepted the rocket. Rocket attacks became a bit more common during escalations, but hits on Tel Aviv remained extremely rare.

The struggle in Sheikh Jarrah is one that everyone, especially liberals and progressives, should pay attention to and stand in solidarity with.

Still, I am so sad for the fear that my nieces and nephews are enduring as the fighting continues.

But people in Tel Aviv prepping for a red alert siren is not where the story of this week starts or ends. This story starts in Sheikh Jarrah, an East Jerusalem neighborhood nearly 6,000 miles away from Philadelphia that many Americans probably never heard of, or at least hadnt until recent news.

Despite the distance, the struggle in Sheikh Jarrah is one that everyone, especially liberals and progressives, should pay attention to and stand in solidarity with.

The short version of whats going on in Sheikh Jarrah is that right-wing Jewish activists, in their continuing effort to control the occupied territory of East Jerusalem, have been invoking a law that allows Jews to reclaim homes that they lost in the 1948 war if they have old land deeds. The law doesnt offer Palestinian residents of similar right to claim homes currently inhabited by Jews from which they might have fled from during the same war.

In early May, Palestinian residents in Sheikh Jarrah began to protest the so-called evictions. Israeli security forces responded brutally from violent arrests to the use of tear gas and rubber bullets. The violence escalated over the weekend, and extended into the complex of the al-Aqsa Mosque, where thousands of Palestinians visited for Ramadan prayer.

On Monday, tensions boiled over and Hamas fired rockets from Gaza toward Jerusalem and the south of Israel. The Israel Defense Force responded with an aerial bombardment of Gaza. The violence only escalated in the following days: Warplanes leveled residential buildings in Gaza, killing at least 49 people including 14 children, and showers of rockets from Gaza to Israel killed at least six, including one child.

Thats when my familys group text started to go nuts. My mind began connecting the dots between the struggle of Sheikh Jarrah and the struggle for justice that has been playing out in America and Philadelphia over the last year.

The murder of George Floyd, hundreds of miles away from Philadelphia and thousands of miles away from Israel, started a global movement.

The same themes that provoked those reckonings exist in the struggle of Sheikh Jarrah: police crackdown, response to protest with force, racially motivated residential displacement, and the larger question of what is citizenship and who are the government and police meant to serve.

But while many progressives are on the front lines of change in the United States, most, particularly white ones, remained silent as Palestinians were attacked. As of Monday morning, not a single representative of the Philadelphia area in Congress condemned Israels actions in Sheikh Jarrah. After Hamas fired rockets, some issued statements condemning the response and ignoring its source.

Reem Kassis, the award-winning author of the recently published cookbook The Arabesque Table and probably Philadelphias highest-profile Palestinian, followed the unfolding events in Jerusalem from Philadelphia, like me. I just feel utter helplessness and a sense of despair because this is not the first time Ive seen this, she told me Monday.

Kassis grew up in Jerusalem and remembers residents being displaced then, as they are now. I remember, as a kid, driving through these neighborhoods [of East Jerusalem], I remember driving past a house once and there was an old lady sitting on a plastic chair. My mothers friend asked her, Why are you sitting here? And she said, They took my house but I dont want to leave. I was a kid at the time, so I didnt think much of it, but I look at it now and I think it is just so hugely unfair, its inhumane, and the world is silent.

The silence on Palestinians by American liberals and progressives is so pervasive that there is a term for it: progressive except Palestine.

In his recently published book Except for Palestine, Temple University professor and activist Marc Lamont Hill and his coauthor, Mitchell Plitnick, write: The American political left has normalized a world in which it is acceptable, through words and policies, to embrace the ethical and political contradiction of being progressive except Palestine.

Hill told me that there are two reasons that led him, a Black educator from North Philadelphia, to advocate for Palestinians. Its not just the right thing to do, although it is, its also that I dont think that any of us can get fully free if other people arent free not as a lefty clich but as an actual analysis of how our politics work together.

Every year, Israel receives more than $3 billion in military aid from the United States money that Hill says could fund infrastructure in Black communities or education instead.

READ MORE: From Tel Aviv, Marc Lamont Hills Palestine comments dont sound so wrong to me | Opinion

But perhaps that most proximate reason for progressives to end their Palestinian exception is that Palestine is not just a land across the ocean it is also the home of our neighbors here in Philadelphia. Any erasure of Palestine, and the pain of Palestinians, is an erasure of people in our community.

I was 17 when I left Jerusalem. Im going to be 34 this year. I still refer to Jerusalem as home, Kassis says. I love Philadelphia. I just, as a Palestinian living in America, I dont feel totally at home. I think in part it is that I feel that there is no understanding of the Palestinian case of our struggle and very few willing to stand up for us.

My family eventually had to run to shelter and I took some solace in the protection of Iron Dome. My Palestinian neighbors likely had a much different experience. The families of Salah, Kassis, and all Palestinians deserve the same recognition that my family gets: that they deserve to be free and safe unconditionally. And that is worth standing up for from Philadelphia to Tel Aviv to Sheikh Jarrah.

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As my family shelters in Tel Aviv, Im unsettled that progressive Americans arent speaking up for Palestinian - The Philadelphia Inquirer