An old legal adage states: “Men are presumed to intend the natural consequences of their acts.”

The natural, indeed inescapable, consequence of Israel’s cutting off life-sustaining supplies of food and water to over 2 million people in Gaza is famine and mass death by starvation and dehydration. As 90 percent of the people of Gaza have become refugees, 93 percent of the population is facing crisis levels of hunger.

Epidemics of cholera, typhoid, and dysentery are also the natural consequence as sanitation systems collapse and there’s only contaminated water to drink. Deaths from disease and hunger are predicted to be several times that from fighting and bombing.

Who are most likely to die first? Children, the elderly, and pregnant women. Who are least likely to be affected? Hamas’s soldiers, who stockpiled food and water before the war.

Israel’s indiscriminate bombing has killed over 23,000 Palestinians, 40 percent of them children. The pace of killing has been “exceptionally high,” reports the New York Times. “It’s beyond anything that I’ve seen in my career,” says a former Pentagon senior intelligence analyst.

Israelis assert casualties are high because Hamas uses civilians as “human shields.” But Hamas fighters are intermixed with civilians because they live crammed together in densely populated Gaza.

Even on its own terms, the excuse fails. If a killer tries to escape capture by forcing an innocent family to stand between himself and the police, the cops can’t mow them all down to get the killer. If Hamas terrorists are surrounded by the people of Gaza, that doesn’t justify eliminating the entire population.

“Israel’s liberal use of very large weapons in dense urban areas, including U.S.-made 2,000-pound bombs that can flatten an apartment tower, is surprising,” the Times report continued.

“Israel Tells U.S. They ARE Ethnically Cleansing Gaza – The Majority Report w/ Sam Seder”

But it’s not a surprise if Israel in fact intends the mass deaths it has inflicted. Calls for “erasing” the people of Gaza and claims that “there are no innocents in Gaza” have become widespread among Israeli officials.

Prime Minister Netanyahu has likened the war in Gaza to a biblical call to “totally destroy” the Amalekites, a rival nation to the ancient Israelites. “Do not spare them,” the prophet Samuel tells King Saul: God commands you to “put to death men and women, children and infants.” The idea of treating Palestinians this way is now widespread among Israeli leaders.

Why deliberately target civilians? Many Israelis consider all the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean to be the God-given “Land of Israel.” Butchering and starving Palestinian noncombatants forces the survivors to flee this land.

“There will be no electricity and no water,” decreed Israeli Major General Ghassan Alain at the outset of the war. “There will only be destruction.” General Giora Eiland added: “Gaza will become a place where no human being can exist.” Eiland said Palestinians should be told, “They have two choices: to stay and to starve, or to leave.”

Last September at the United Nations, Netanyahu himself displayed a map showing “The New Middle East.” The map had no West Bank and no Gaza — only Israel incorporating both.

Members of Israel’s cabinet openly call for removing 90 percent of Palestinians from Gaza and resettling the land with Israelis. And Netanyahu recently told a meeting of his party that he is “looking for countries that are willing to absorb Gazans … we are working on it.”

Israel’s campaign in Gaza fits the legal definition of genocide: Israel is killing or inflicting conditions intended to bring about the destruction of Gazans as a group.

But whatever you call it, genocide or ethnic cleansing, deliberate mass murder is part of the project. The Biden administration should reconsider its support for Israel.

The day after Donald Trump was arraigned for his alleged effort to steal the 2020 election, he posted a naked threat: “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!”

That followed his federal indictment. After he was indicted in Georgia, Trump openly warned a witness not to testify. “I am reading reports that failed former Lt. Governor of Georgia, Jeff Duncan, will be testifying before the Fulton County Grand Jury,” Trump posted. “He shouldn’t.”

As Trump well knows, when he inflames his MAGA disciples, violence commonly follows. 

Now a woman has been arrested for threatening to kill the judge overseeing Trump’s federal election interference case. And the Georgia grand jurors who voted to charge Trump have had their addresses published on an extremist website. Supporters labeled the jurors’ collected addresses a “hit list” and suggested “long range rifles” might be useful. 

Obviously, jurors in any of Trump’s trials risk retaliation should they decide the evidence proves him guilty.

Judges explicitly warned Trump not to intimidate witnesses or “prejudice potential jurors.” Which raises an uncomfortable question: Why isn’t he in jail already?

Federal judges take witness tampering seriously — they revoked bail for alleged cryptocurrency crook Sam Bankman-Fried for interfering with witness testimony. That’s simply the rule of law. If you violate the orders under which you’re released pending trial, you go to jail. 

Yet Trump remains at liberty, seemingly determined to move the question of his criminal liability from a court of law into the court of public opinion — and get a chance to pardon himself if elected.

This spring, before the first charges against Trump were filed in New York, the former president threatened “potential death and destruction” if he was charged. Judges might well be worried about widespread violence from Trump supporters if he’s actually jailed. Moreover, some conservative commentators seem to regard the notion of locking up a former president as unthinkable.

Yes, things have come to a sorry pass when a president is charged with brazenly violating the law and threatens anyone who’d prosecute him. But if a man entrusted with the power of the presidency commits crimes against the Constitution and our democracy, that’s more reason to insist he be subject to law, not less.

A former top federal prosecutor opined that sending Trump to prison if he were convicted posed “enormous and unprecedented logistical issues.” “Probation, fines, community service, and home confinement are all alternatives,” claimed the former prosecutor.

These alternatives aren’t serious. If convicted, Trump must suffer punishment like anyone else.

Probation is typically reserved for the repentant, and Trump expresses no repentance. For a billionaire who lives in a luxury golf resort, fines or home confinement are a slap on the wrist. (Letting Trump continue charging Secret Service members up to $1,185 per room per night to protect him at Mar-a-Lago would only punish taxpayers.)

And what would community service even consist of?

In truth, the Secret Service can protect Trump more cheaply if he resides in Leavenworth penitentiary with other nonviolent felons. A former Secret Service agent confirmed that protecting Trump in prison poses no great challenge: “If you want to go to prison, you want to go to [a] federal prison,” he said. “They already have their security set up… It’s already safe.” 

Anyone else convicted of Trump’s crimes would plainly go to prison for years. And anyone else openly threatening witnesses would quickly see their bail revoked. Applying a different standard to a powerful person reflects only contempt for the rule of law.

When I was born into poverty, the deck was stacked against me in all aspects of life — from educational opportunities and health care to the future earnings I could expect. Now I’ve graduated from college and I’m poised to start my first post-college job.

What made the difference? Hard work, yes — but also public investment. Public programs helped keep me fed, healthy, and learning as I grew up. Kids growing up today deserve the same chance.

SNAP benefits allowed me to eat breakfast before school, eat dinner after work, and ensured that food would not be added to my list of anxieties. Programs like Free and Reduced Meals made sure I got lunch at school, too.

Medicaid allowed me to be a healthy student. It covered visits to my dentist, who identified two tooth infections before they spread to my brain. It made sure I could see my doctor, who diagnosed me with asthma so I could get treatment and play sports with other kids.

Funding for Advanced Placement exams at my low-income Title I school helped me prepare for college. And with my family’s income falling far short of tuition costs, the Pell Grant program allowed me to pursue a college education — and escape generational poverty.

Via Pixabay.

Without this help, I wouldn’t have become the first person in my father’s family to graduate high school — nor the first person in my entire family to graduate college. Our safety net is still frayed and underfunded, and escaping poverty is still the exception. But my story shows what’s possible when we’re given equitable resources and opportunities to succeed.

One new policy could make even greater strides towards equity — if it can overcome fierce opposition from conservative lawmakers.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) has introduced legislation that would increase the Child Tax Credit (CTC) to $3,000 for children ages 6-17 and to $3,600 for children under 5. DeLauro’s proposal would deliver installments of that credit monthly (rather than once a year at tax time) and make it fully refundable so the lowest income families are eligible for the full value.

This proposal is similar to the pandemic expansion of the CTC, which reduced child poverty nearly by half in the short time it was active.

The Brookings Institution uncovered that the credit was particularly effective in conservative, high poverty states such as West Virginia, Oklahoma, and Alabama. But when conservative lawmakers let it expire at the end of 2021, the expanded CTC expired and sent 3.7 million children into poverty.

According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, expanding the CTC again would benefit more than 60 million children, especially those with the lowest incomes.

The CTC also has powerful implications for racial justice. The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities found that roughly half of Black children, 40 percent of Indigenous children, 40 percent of Latinx children, 17 percent of white children, and 15 percent of Asian children get less than the full credit — or no credit at all. Expanding it would narrow racial economic divides while benefiting kids of every race.

Opponents of the CTC argue that it will discourage parents from working. However, most studies predict that 99 percent of working parents will continue to work. The tangible benefits to children living in poverty outweigh these hypothetical, unproven complaints.

We’ve seen that expanding the Child Tax Credit works. So choosing not to will harm children’s development and widen the educational disparities we already see in this country based on race and class. In an already uneven playing field, programs like this have the opportunity to give low-income students a chance to succeed.

To give more kids a chance to escape poverty, we need to invest in the kids who need it the most. Now we have another chance to get it right.

Kassidy Jacobs

Kassidy Jacobs is a Next Leader at the Institute for Policy Studies.