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With this column we are proud, actually very sad, to announce two more winners of the coveted, actually distained, Pence Outstanding Hypocrite Award (POHA).

With this column we are proud, actually very sad, to announce two more winners of the coveted, actually distained, Pence Outstanding Hypocrite Award (POHA).

We are pleased, actually depressed, to award the next two POHAs to New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu and former U.S. Attorney General William (Bill) Barr.

Like the other winners, actually losers, they display all the characteristics of an outstanding hypocrite and showed their ever-changing “versatility.”

We’ll deal with Sununu first.

Sununu was a strong supporter of Nikki Haley, who was the last challenger to Donald Trump for the GOP presidential nomination, and Sununu was a vocal critic of Trump.

He denounced Trump after the January 6 insurrection and said that Trump should drop out of the race if convicted of any of the 85 felony charges he faces.  He also described the classified documents charges “very severe” and the federal election case, “extremely severe.” Referring to Trump, he said, “a--holes come and go,” and described Trump as a “loser,” and “not a real Republican.”

Asked by the press if he thought Trump was crazy, Sununu said, “I don’t think he is so crazy that you have to put him in a mental institution.  But I think if he were in one, he ain’t getting out.”  He also has observed that Trump can “hardly read a teleprompter.”

But that was then and now is now. In a recent interview on George Stephanopoulos’s political talk show, Sununu proudly proclaimed he fully supports Trump and no longer believes Trump should end his campaign if convicted, telling Stephan-opoulos, “No, no, no…he’s not going to drop out after being the nominee?  Of course, not.  You know that’s not to be expected at all.” He explained:

"This [hush money] trial is not going to have major political ramifications that a lot of people think it may have. When it comes to these issues, people see it more as reality TV at this point. He’ll try to victimize it, and that has worked for him. This has been going on for over a year, and his poll numbers never seem to go down because of the issue."

Stephanopoulos seemed stunned and responded:  "Wait a second. Your words were very, very clear on January 11, 2021. You said his rhetoric and actions contributed to the insurrection. No other president in history has contributed to an insurrection. Please explain, given the fact you believe he contributed to an insurrection, how you can say we should have him back in the Oval Office?"

Sununu did not budge, stating it was less about Trump but more about support for a Republican administration.

"That doesn’t make any sense to me, governor,” said Stephanopoulos. “I’m sorry. You’re saying it’s not about Trump. He would be the president, and he’s somebody who contributed
to an insurrection.”

"I understand it doesn’t make sense to you, George, but look at the polls. What you are telling me is you don’t understand why 51 percent of this country is supporting Donald Trump…They’re not MAGA conservatives. They’re not extremists. They want culture change.”

Stephanopoulos did not let go and followed up with:

"I’m asking you a very simple question. You believe Donald Trump contributed to an insurrection. That’s correct, right?".

"I stand by the statement,” Sununu said, “[a]s does 51 percent of America.  I mean, really, I understand you’re part of the media. I understand you’re in this New York City bubble or whatever it is. But you’ve got to look around at what’s happening across this country. It’s not about just supporting Trump.

“It’s getting rid of what we have today. It’s about understanding inflation is crushing families. It’s understanding that this border issue is not a Texas issue. It’s a 50-state issue, right? That has to be brought under control. It’s about that type of elitism that the average American is just sick and tired of. And it’s a culture change. That’s what I’m supporting."

Stephanopoulos, obviously frustrated, tried to summarize the governor’s position:

"…[Y]ou would support him for president even if he was convicted in classified documents. You would support him for president, even though you believe he contributed to an insurrection. You support him for president even though you believe he’s lying about the last election. You'd support him for president even if he’s convicted in the Manhattan case. I just want to say the answer is yes, correct?"

Without any hesitancy, Sununu replied: “Yeah, me and 51 percent of America.”

Now, let’s take a look at Barr.

After January 6, Barr, who urged Republicans to support one of Trump’s competitors for the GOP presidential nomination, accused Trump of “inexcusable” behavior, adding that Trump’s “conduct was a betrayal of his office.”  

He said that Trump’s lies about winning the election were “bulls---“, and in a book he published described the former president as “incorrigible,” “erratic,” and a man who “cared only about one thing:  himself.  Country and principle took second place.”  (Please notice the use of the word “principle.”)

“I have made clear that I strongly opposed Trump for the nomination and will not endorse him,” Barr said at one point.

Now, this man of principle is all in for Trump -- lock, stock and barrel.

Barr has had an epiphany and believes Joe Biden is more of a threat to democracy because of the rise of the “far left.”  He explained in a TV interview:

“It’s [the far left] a heavy-handed bunch of thugs in my opinion and that’s where the threat is. I think they have a totalitarian temper.  They have bought into the progressive movement.  And they are trying to squelch opposition [unlike Trump] and freedom of speech.”

We can only conclude that Sununu and Barr are brushing up their credentials for a position in the next Trump administration should the former president defeat Biden.

Whatever the case, we are running low in our inventory of the award. At this rate, we may have to just present certificates instead of the existing very expensive lamp which features ever-changing colors.

The colors are infinite.

   —————

Berl Falbaum is a long time political reporter and author.

I have some recommended reading for the American journalistic community.

I have some recommended reading for the American journalistic community.

It is not time-intensive or laborious; it is just one page -- page 234 -- in a biography, “The Chancellor: The Remarkable Odyssey of Angela Merkel.”

On that page, the author, Kati Marton, discusses how Merkel’s body was betraying her; she was suffering from severe tremors, very noticeable in public, and so severe that, at times, Merkel, the former German chancellor, could not stand up for a national anthem.

Merkel had served as chancellor for 16 years, from 2005-21, and was deciding whether to run again. She did not; she was 66 at the time. At the peak of her tenure, she was, arguably, the most powerful public official in Europe.

Well aware of public concern, Merkel issued the following statement: “I would simply say, you have known me for quite a while and know that I am able to fulfill my office.  As a human being I also have a personal interest in my health, especially as my political career is ending in 2021, and I would like to lead a healthy life after this one.”

The press took notice and, after serious reflection, made a decision that is journalistically fascinating and hard to imagine ever happening in our own media environment.

Journalists, please read the following carefully:

“Our press association held a meeting,” said Anna Sauerbrey, a Berlin-based columnist, “and we decided to stick to our tradition of not covering the chancellor’s health unless it prevents her from doing her job. She is obviously doing her job. We consider this a private matter.”  

The author, Marton, writes, “By American standards, German media’s reluctance to pursue the story of the chancellor’s health seems remarkable. In this unsettling new world, this collective decision by the media to respect the chancellor’s privacy seemed downright quaint.”

Quaint? How about, by U.S. standards, unthinkable, inconceivable, incomprehensible.

I raise this issue given the U.S. media’s obsession with President Biden’s gaffes. In the millions of words written about them, none—and I believe I can use the absolute “none” —has ever reported how they affected either domestic or foreign
policies.

No one has taken the time to consider whether they are newsworthy in terms of Biden’s performance. Nor has anyone considered, as one reporter, a stutterer, pointed out that when Biden talks, he not only has to decide what he wants to say but how to say it to avoid stuttering.  That, of course, leads to gaffes.

As Clarence Page, a stutterer, wrote in The Chicago Tribune, “When you bump up against a word that’s not going to let you proceed without a struggle, you just switch to another word.”

The media’s only objective seems to be to get a “good story” and beat competitors to the punch.

Of course, Biden is not the first public official at the presidential level to be a victim of reckless and simplistic journalistic practices.  There have been many and one that still leaves me mystified: Dan Quayle who in 1992, as vice president, misspelled “potato” while at a New Jersey elementary school, adding an “e” at the end of the word.

This error, which had nothing to do with his official duties, hounded him during his entire career, and is ingrained in our political culture and history. Given the massive, relentless coverage, many still remember this faux pas, more than 30 years after the fact.  Incidentally, Quayle was not totally at fault; he used a teacher’s flash card in making the mistake.

If you Google “famous bad spellers,” you will find, among others, Jane Austen, Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, George Washington, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and William Butler Yeats. All of them performed pretty well in their respective discipline.

An aside on the evolution of our politics: Quayle’s misspelling severely damaged his entire career. Meanwhile, Trump’s thousands of lies, corruption, ugly sexual history, etc., did not stop him from winning the presidency in 2016, becoming the GOP presidential candidate in 2020, and he is poised to possibly winning the presidency again this year despite -- let us not forget -- having been impeached twice and found guilty of sexual assault in the civil proceeding. Someone explain all that to me.

Then there was President Gerald Ford who stumbled several times while climbing the steps on the ramp of Air Force One. The media ignored the “political relevance” of Ford’s accidents, constantly describing him as a clumsy ignoramus despite the fact that he was probably the most athletically talented president to hold the office, having had offers to play professional football, was an avid skier and decent golfer.

Indirectly, consider the coverage of Katherine, Princess of Wales, as she undergoes treatment for cancer. Understandably, the story needs to be covered; she is after all royalty. But how about substituting some respect, sensitivity, compassion and support for unfeeling sensationalism. The British press, particularly, has been shamefully ruthless.

There are, of course, other absurdities in the coverage of our politics. Would that the U.S. media copy page 234 of Marton’s book, study it, distribute it to all who cover public affairs, and take steps to implement such a policy.

Now that would be news!

   —————

Berl Falbaum is a long time political reporter and author.

When it comes to affording housing, more and more Americans are living on the edge of the abyss.

When it comes to affording housing, more and more Americans are living on the edge of the abyss.

A recent report by Redfin notes that half of U.S. homeowners and renters sometimes, regularly, or greatly struggle to make their house payments. More than a third took no or fewer vacations. And more than a fifth skipped meals and/or worked overtime in order to pay for monthly housing costs.

To make matters worse, even if Americans could afford such costs, there simply aren’t enough houses to go around. At the end of 2023, America was short upwards of 3.2 million homes, according to census data analyzed by Hines, a global real estate developer. And those houses and apartments that are being built are not easily afforded.

It is amid such a shortage of affordable housing that the U.S. Supreme Court recently heard oral arguments in arguably the most significant case about the rights of unhoused people to come before the court in more than 40 years. At issue in City of Grants Pass, Oregon v. Johnson is whether cities are allowed to punish people for using what they are classifying as “camping equipment” — pillows, sleeping bags, even cardboard boxes — as shelter for sleeping outside even when there are no available options for safe shelter.

The city council makes no pretense of their intent. Their president is on record as saying, “the point is to make it uncomfortable enough for them in our city so they will want to move on down the road.

Like many small towns, Grants Pass has no homeless shelters qualified by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The city relies solely upon the Gospel Rescue Mission to fill that need. But the mission has strict requirements for those who would stay there. Residents “must dress and behave according to their birth gender;” work six hours a day, six days a week; attend mandatory Bible studies every morning and evening; and pay $100 monthly rent. And if one is too sick or disabled to work, there is simply “no room at the inn.”

“Instead of responding to an increase in homelessness with compassion and housing services,” said Jesse Rabinowitz of the National Homelessness Law Center (NHLC), “the city of Grants Pass decided to give people tickets of around $350 for camping outside.” Rabinowitz continued, “This is literally about if people can be punished for using something like a blanket a cardboard box or a pillow when they’re sleeping outside.”

In 2019, in the case of Boise v. Martin, the Ninth Circuit court held that enforcing criminal restrictions on public camping when there is no “access to adequate temporary shelter” violates the Eighth Amendment’s Cruel and Unusual Punishments clause. It is this ruling that Grants Pass is challenging. Should the Supreme Court rule in Grants Pass’s favor and overturn Boise v. Martin, it will, in effect, criminalize homelessness during a growing shortage of housing. Freddie Mac recently estimated that, as of the fourth quarter of 2020, the United States had a housing supply deficit of 3.8 million units. This means that, if every available housing unit were filled tonight, millions of Americans would still find themselves sleeping out of doors. And, if Grants Pass were to have its way, they would be sleeping without pillows or blankets.

All too often, when confronted with the facts of this case, the response is to assume that unhoused persons are living on the streets by choice or as the result of a choice to become addicted to drugs or alcohol. Little regard is given to the systematic dismantling of the social safety net that has occurred over the last fifty years.

When I was 10 years old, in 1968, my clergyman father enrolled in a summer training program at the Chicago Urban Training Center. Twelve major American denominations established this center to train clergy, seminarians, and laity interested in inner city ministry. Among the mentors he met there was Kwame Ture, then known as Stokely Carmichael, one of the most active, committed, and engaging social organizers of the day.

On the first week of the program, he and others were subjected to something called, “the Plunge.” They were each given five dollars in change and sent out to live on the streets. In order to fit in, my father wore an old army overcoat that had been dyed. He spent his first night in a flophouse. The second in an all-night movie theater. After that, he was out of money. No food. And nowhere to stay.

So he signed on at a local business called “Rent-a-Man.” There he got a job unloading box cars making $11.25 for the day. At the end of the day, when he was paid, he noted that social security had been withheld even though the company had not bothered to get his number. It was a tax that would clearly never be paid. And to make things worse, he was paid not in cash but in a voucher. Like the 19th century Welsh coal miners who were paid with vouchers from the company store, workers at “Rent-a-Man” were paid with a voucher that could only be cashed at the bar across the street.

“You get a cycle going there,” my father later said. “You go to the bar. You cash your check. You drink up most of your check. And then the next day you’re without funds. You’ve got to go back and work again for a day.”

Life on the streets is not what it seems. Societal structures – structures purposefully designed to do what they do – conspire to keep people homeless and in poverty. It is, in essence, a modern-day indentured servitude. Only the indentureship is structured in such a way as to trap people permanently in their circumstance. Perhaps saying it’s a conspiracy seems over the top. But it was no accident that those alcoholic workers were sent to the bar to get paid.

“We need to be very clear,” says Rabinowitz of the NHLC, “that there is a well-funded, billionaire-backed, national campaign to criminalize homelessness in cities and states across the country.”

Regardless of what so many think, the vast majority of people who live on the streets are not there by choice. They are there because they lack the resources, financial and otherwise, to find shelter. They are there because there simply isn’t enough housing or shelters available.

If the court should side with Grants Pass, as it seems likely, we will be housing the homeless in jails and prisons. But even should they rule that jailing or fining the homeless for using a pillow when no safe shelter is available does indeed constitute cruel and unusual punishment, that will not solve the problem. Until this country gets serious about providing its citizens with a living wage and affordable housing, none of this is going to go away.

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Mark Jenkins retired in 2015 after 30 years of parish ministry in the Episcopal Church and 11 years teaching at Wayne State University. Since then he has spent his days reading, writing, cooking, and publishing the occasional essay.

Now, I have written about some very controversial issues, i.e. Trump, Ukraine, Israel-Hamas, the environment and many other topics.

Now, I have written about some very controversial issues, i.e. Trump, Ukraine, Israel-Hamas, the environment and many other topics.

Today, I am taking on an issue I was warned not to tackle. My family and friends repeatedly advised me to leave it alone.  But being a masochist, I can no longer resist; it has bothered me for years.

So here goes: Why do spectators at golf and tennis matches have to be silent?  (There, I did it and I think I hear the outcry already). Let’s begin by applying the “quiet” rule to some other sports.

Scene 1: A Detroit Tiger batter has finished scratching and adjusting his gloves/helmet when an announcement on the public address system commands fans to “be quiet please.” Some 45,000 fans comply.

Scene 2: A Detroit Piston is at the free throw line. A similar announcement orders fans to take their seats, not move a muscle, while the basketball player shoots.  

Scene 3: The Detroit Lions quarterback, ready to take the hike, is bothered by a fan slurping a beer in the upper deck. He stops, points to the stands and the announcer, whose voice reflects annoyance, chastises the offending fan to drink quietly.
None of the above is possible, you say?  Yup, you’re right; very true. So…

Why is golf and tennis different?  What is it about these games that require fans to not only hold their breath, but also are ousted from stadiums and golf courses if they can’t control the sniffles?

The golfing great Tiger Woods became angry when he heard camera shutters click, and at a Wimbledon classic, one player complained that she was bothered by “groans” after she missed a shot. She said a sports psychotherapist was treating her for this mental/psychological dilemma. (I did not make that up; I could never have thought of that.)

In the in-depth interviews I conducted, I was told, “You just don’t understand.” Which, of course, is true. They explained:  it’s a matter of concentration.

Apparently, it takes more concentration to hit a golf ball sitting motionless on a tee, waiting to be whacked than hit a curving, twisting 95-mile an hour pitch from just 60.5 feet away.

A basketball player doesn’t need to concentrate shooting a free throw while fans engage in hilarious antics to force him to miss. Some of the signs and photos can’t be reported in a family newspaper. When the player does miss, given the raciness of the photos, a coach ought to be a little forgiving.

Question: Who needs more time to think: A golfer contemplating a 12-inch putt or a quarterback looking at six hulking, 300-pound salivating linemen who are planning to claw their way through the defensive line to crush every bone in his body.  

The internet provides many reasons (all are really about concentration), one arguing that a tennis player needs to hear the ball hit the opponent’s racket. Apparently, that sound provides vital info for the return.

If sound -- any sound -- is so disruptive, then the first people who should be ushered out are players who grunt, among them the great Serena Williams. Those grunts are annoying, I confess, to me watching on TV. Maybe that’s her secret to winning.

We might also observe golfers don’t grunt even when they hit a drive for some 300 yards. But they do stand like statues on the green when  opponents putt. Professional courtesy.

Concentration?  What about doing backward somersaults on a beam just four inches wide and 4.1 feet off the ground? You think that might need a little concentration?

No, dear tennis players and golfers, concentration doesn’t do it. Citing that as the reason is nothing but sports elitism.  

Then, what is the reason? Answer: Tradition. These were rich people’s sports played at country clubs that required respectable behavior and appropriate manners. People at these clubs didn’t shout, let alone cuss, but behaved “properly.” One professional tennis player, discussing this issue on the web, called his colleagues “dilettantes”

Moreover, tennis was played before royalty and that required acceptable protocol. It still is at Wimbledon where members of the royalty frequently attend matches. No one ever witnessed a king, queen, prince or princess, chugging a beer, and shouting, “Helluva shot, old chum.”

Admittedly, I never met the late Queen Elizabeth but from what I have read about her, I think she would have enjoyed a more raucous scene. I know Prince Harry would.

(If it’s not too much to take on at the same time, we might also change the scoring system in tennis.  What the hell is the point of 15, 30, 40 love? The numbers don’t make sense and what is meant by “love?” Yes, I read all the reasons for the scoring, but for the “love” of me, none makes any sense.  How about 1, 2, 3 and when the player reaches 4, he/she wins the game.)

We have witnessed several revolutions in the last half-century. We have made progress in civil rights, women’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and in other sectors of society.

It’s time to fight for “fan rights” at tennis matches and on golf courses. With spring upon us, let’s make 2024 the year we begin to cheer and boo at these sporting events.  I will start it if you promise to post bail.

We might just discover it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference -- and that it is a lot more fun.  

And the player who is upset by groans will save a lot of money on therapy.    

   —————

Berl Falbaum is a long time political reporter and author.

It has been more than 30 years since the Michigan legislature imposed “caps” on medical malpractice cases.

It has been more than 30 years since the Michigan legislature imposed “caps” on medical malpractice cases. Since that time there have been only a few challenges to the law. In fact, the paucity of challenges is rather curious, especially given the rather flimsy constitutional grounds on which the law sits. Putting aside the legal merit of limiting recovery on damages, from a public policy perspective, it just doesn’t make sense.

In the late 1980s early 1990s, when states were adopting laws capping damages on mistakes made by doctors and hospitals, studies over the following decades suggested that the industry-proclaimed “health crisis” was not rooted in reality and was likely the product of fear mongering to lower insurance premiums for health care professionals and limit exposure to legitimate claims of injury and death related to sub-standard health care.

For example, one study from the Center for Justice Democracy at New York Law School found “indisputable” evidence that “caps” on damages in medical malpractice cases (euphemistically referred to as “tort-reform”) produced more medical errors and higher health care costs. Perhaps more importantly, the study determined that the adoption of damage caps did not increase the number of physicians, shattering the myth that doctors were unable to enter the practice of medicine due to the high cost of insurance and exposure to significant jury verdicts.

Still, notwithstanding data to the contrary regarding them, Michigan joined a number of other states in the passing of reform placing caps on damages. Following the legislative enactment, medical malpractice cases began to percolate through the appellate system centered on the constitutionality of the new law. In Zdrojewski v Murphy, the first appellate panel to address the issue — in an unpublished opinion — the court embraced the propaganda of a “perceived crises in the health care system” and found the public policy for “reducing medical malpractice liability” (the purported impetus behind the law) was sufficient to pass constitutional muster.

While the special interest of protecting doctors and their insurance carriers from having to be held fully accountable for medical errors influenced one panel of judges, the Court of Appeals quickly reversed course. In Wiley v Henry Ford Cottage (a published opinion) the court was outwardly critical of its predecessor opinion and re-emphasized Michigan’s Constitutional guarantee to a trial by jury did not end at determining liability but extended to the determination of damages. The Wiley court aptly pointed out that the fatal flaw in the Zdrojewski opinion was that the existence of a medical malpractice claim is not a creature of the legislation, therefore not subject to legislative abolishment. In other words, “while the Legislature may take away what it has given, it may not take away what the Constitution has given.” The fundamental unfairness of the caps is simple: arbitrarily reducing the amount of damages awarded by a jury handicaps its ability to provide full justice.

Unfortunately, the Wiley decision did not stand. Under the steady hand of a Michigan Supreme Court regime criticized for wreaking havoc on the rights of personal injury victims, Justice Clifford Taylor penned an opinion that would lead to three decades of discounted justice. Interestingly, the case that cemented the constitutionality of medical malpractice caps did not involve medical malpractice! In Phillips v Mirac, the issue before the Supreme Court was whether a statutory damage cap on lessors of automobiles, i.e., rental cars, for injury caused by the negligent operation of the vehicle) was constitutional. In Phillips, the Supreme Court demonstrated its keen ability to perform the legal gymnastics of a proper constitutional analysis while pivoting toward a retrofitted opinion that protected the economic interests of the insurance industry. In finding caps to be constitutional, the court provided statutory examples of limitations on recovery. Of course, none of the anecdotal illustrations involved pure common law causes of action independent of statutory origin. Conspicuously absent from Justice Taylor’s opinion in Phillips is any reference, analysis, dissection or even mention of the Wiley decision. Perhaps in her dissent, Justice Elizabeth Weaver said it best: “No industry should be allowed to shift its burden of responsibility and accountability to the shoulders of the severely injured merely because it claims to be in crisis.”

The time is now.

Caps on damages have the ulterior consequence of de-incentivizing doctors to behave carefully. Lowering the risk of malpractice lawsuits weakens the deterrent factor necessary to maintain responsible care, judgement and decision making of medical professionals. A jury verdict is not an “award” or “compensation,” these are terms associated with things we achieve or earn. Rather, a verdict is a monetary measurement of human suffering. The idea that caps lower insurance premium costs, increases the number of health professionals and creates greater access to health care has been debunked. The only true consequence of placing a cap on recovery for those who have had the unfortunate experience of unimaginable suffering due to mistakes made by doctors and hospitals is cheating victims of their right to fully recover what has been lost or destroyed.

––––––––––––––––––––

A. Vince Colella is a co-founder of personal injury and civil rights law firm Moss & Colella.

We’ll start with a Jeopardy!-like format in which contestants are given a fact as a clue and they have to answer with a question. Here is the clue: It is one of the world’s most devastating humanitarian disasters.

We’ll start with a Jeopardy!-like format in which contestants are given a fact as a clue and they have to answer with a question. Here is the clue: It is one of the world’s most devastating humanitarian disasters.

I think I hear a collective response: “What is Gaza?” While the answer is understandable, it is wrong.

It is Sudan which has been met in the world with a silence that is truly deafening.  The global blindness to Sudan, whatever the reasons, clearly demonstrates the double-standard -- once again -- that is applied to Israel and which deserves uncompromising condemnation.
First some facts from internet sources and a cover story, “The Victims of Africa’s Forgotten War,” in a weekly issue of The Guardian on the civil war in Sudan that began about a year ago between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and Rapid Support Forces (RSF). (Focus, if you will, on the numbers).

 --About 25 million people require humanitarian assistance of which 14 million are children.

--More than 8 million (15 percent of the total population) have fled their homes since the war began.

--Sudan faces the largest displacement crisis in the world. More than 6 million have been displaced within Sudan and almost 2 million have fled the country.  Four million children have been displaced making Sudan the largest child displacement crisis in the world.

--The country faces dire food shortages, the health care system is in desperate shape, and 65 percent of the population lacks access to health care.

--Women are raped in front of their children, daughters raped in front of their parents, children shot through their heads in their beds, others are kidnapped. Even before the war broke out, the U.N. estimated that more than three million women and girls were at risk of gender-based violence.

--The conflict has plunged Sudan into “one of the worst humanitarian nightmares in recent history,” according to one U.N. official. And some warn, the war may trigger the world’s largest hunger crisis.

One doctor, who asked to remain anonymous, told a reporter:

“The roads were filled with the smell of death and gunfire. Bodies were decomposing in the streets, covered in bullet wounds.

“The city was flooded with guns of all types. I have never seen anything like this.”

He said he witnessed gunmen kill residents indiscriminately, and when armed groups started going door to door …killing residents, he and a colleague fled.

Writes The Guardian: “An increasing number [of refugees] are trying to reach Europe as food supplies dwindle in the refugee camps and the eyes of the world look elsewhere.” (italic emphasis mine).

I believe I can conclude that you are responding with disbelief and a surprised, “Huh?”

Of course, that’s the point. There is little condemnation from the U.N. Nightly news shows which, invariably, open with a lead story on the suffering of Gazans, have given little, if any, airtime to the despair in Sudan.  

There have been no protests in the streets or on college campuses. Organizations which posture themselves as being apolitical, for the first time in their histories, found it necessary to adopt anti-Israel resolutions but have ignored Sudan.

Of course, there are other humanitarian disasters around the world which have escaped any public outcry. For instance, in the war in Yemen 150,000 civilians have been killed and 227,000 have died as a result of famine and lack of health care.  Another five million -- that’s five million -- are facing a “catastrophic” famine in the coming months and more than 730,000 children are suffering from “severe” malnutrition.

And while the Russian onslaught of Ukraine has faded from public view, the killing continues with tens of thousands of children being

kidnapped by Russia with nary a word of protest from any quarter.

None of this is to suggest that Israel should be immune from criticism or that the plight of Gazans be ignored nor that Israel should -- must -- do all that is possible to minimize civilian casualties. (In a previous column, I have called for the ouster of Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.)

We are addressing fairness, balance and outright bias which, to understate the fact, has been sorely missing. Consider another example: Israel has been pressured continually to scale down its military operation while Hamas is hardly mentioned. Yet, the war would end immediately if the terrorist organization simply laid down its arms.

So, here is a suggestion to the media: Consider publishing a story on why this is so.  Why is Israel always -- and I use the absolute “always” advisedly -- the culprit?  Why is it faced with international condemnation for a war it did not start and which it has to fight against an enemy that hides behind civilians and promises to repeat its butchery “again, again and again.”  

Why are other calamities ignored?  Why is Israel blamed for civilian deaths by countries who, when they were allies in World War II, deliberately leveled more than a dozen German and Japanese cities?

We won’t even mention the two A-bombs -- “Litte boy” and “Fat man” -- dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which, the internationally renowned intellectual/writer, the late Hannah Arendt, considered a war crime in her book: “Eichmann in Jerusalem: The Banality of Evil.”  (Also worth noting:  Civilian deaths in World War II totaled between 50-55 million while combatant/military deaths stood at 21-25 million).

The answers to the questions posed above would make fascinating reading. That would be a real public service.    

 
   —————

Berl Falbaum is a long time political reporter and author.