If Hamas continues to say no to the current ceasefire proposal, it will be clear it has “made a choice to continue the war”, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken declared from a Doha podium yesterday, after the militant group delivered its response to a US-backed Israeli proposal to end the fighting in Gaza.
But all is not yet lost in the latest push to end the war. Although Israel claims Hamas's suggested changes to the proposal are tantamount to a rejection, Mr Blinken said some of the alterations are “workable”.
The developments came after the UN's Security Council voted to back the ceasefire plan, with the world body also issuing a report accusing Israel and Hamas of crimes against humanity and war crimes.
In an election year in part defined by high-level criminal cases, a domestic war of sorts is unfolding in Washington over the Justice Department.
Republicans in the House yesterday voted to hold Mr Biden's Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress – the latest in a partisan dispute that led Mr Garland to publish a Washington Post opinion piece decrying the “heinous threats of violence” made against his department colleagues.
Meanwhile, about 35 million people across the western US this week were under a dangerous “heat dome” that caused record-breaking temperatures, after a wave of sweltering weather that settled over Mexico and parts of the southern US spread west and north.
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EYE ON 2024
Opinion: 'Law and order' party keeps quiet after Hunter Biden verdict
The guilty verdict against Hunter Biden for illegally buying a gun while addicted to drugs should have been a banner day for Republicans keen to capitalise on the felony conviction of Democratic President Joe Biden's son.
So how did the self-described party of law and order celebrate the legal downfall of their mark? Let's just say it was awkward.
Republicans have spent months claiming, without evidence, that criminal cases against their leader, Donald Trump, are being conducted by a “weaponised” Department of Justice that is in cahoots with Mr Biden, who somehow is directing prosecutions against his rival before the November 5 election.
It's classic Trumpian projection, given that he has vowed to go after political rivals if he wins a second term in the White House.
Any legal decision against Trump is met with cries of “rigged” or “fraud” or “fixed”, as part of a broad campaign to delegitimise the entire federal justice system.
So Tuesday's guilty verdict against Hunter Biden underscored how far conservatives have painted themselves into a rhetorical corner.
Read bureau chief Thomas Watkins's column here
What's Washington talking about?
G7 President Joe Biden has arrived in Italy to meet Group of Seven leaders in an effort to increase pressure on Russia over its war against Ukraine. The leaders are expected to announce new sanctions and export controls against Russia that take aim at entities and networks helping President Vladimir Putin's forces fight the war in Ukraine, White House spokesman John Kirby said.
Majd Kamalmaz The State Department officially recognised the death of American psychotherapist Majd Kamalmaz, who disappeared during a trip to Syria in 2017. Republican representatives Joe Wilson and French Hill hosted a memorial ceremony for him on Capitol Hill yesterday, as Syrian-American activists demanded a criminal investigation, saying “Kamalmaz’s confirmed murder by the Assad regime has been public for a month”.
Gen Frank McKenzie The retired head of US Central Command has released a new book, The Melting Point: High Command and War in the 21st Century, which tackles the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and civil-military relations. He'll be sitting down today with Washington think tank Centre for a New American Security “to discuss hard-earned lessons from a pivotal time in American history and the future of US policy in the Middle East”.
QUOTED
'It's not just to honour those who showed such remarkable bravery on that day … it’s to listen to the echoes of their voices, to hear them, because they are summoning us, and they’re summoning us now'
– President Joe Biden warning about 'the price of unchecked tyranny' on the 80th anniversary of the D-Day storming of Normandy, France, in the Second World War
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Spotlight: Palestinian chef Michael Rafidi wins prestigious James Beard culinary award for Washington restaurant
Washington has persisted with support for Israel as the war in Gaza continues, but this week, the US capital's culinary elite dedicated a major win to Palestinians everywhere.
Palestinian-American chef Michael Rafidi, owner and chef at Washington's Albi restaurant, received the Outstanding Chef award at the annual James Beard Foundation ceremony in Chicago.
Rafidi was recognised for his dedication to the Arabic and Levantine cuisine he serves at his restaurant, which he established in February 2020.
He dedicated his win “to Palestine and to all the Palestinian people out there, whether it's here or in Palestine or all over the world”.
Rafidi also leads Yellow, a cafe in Georgetown that serves Arabic-inspired bites and dishes with a French slant.
The chef, who grew up in Maryland, previously told The National that he had little interest in cooking his ancestral food at the beginning of his career, instead favouring French dishes and modern cuisine.
But after travelling around the Middle East, he changed course.
Only in America
Star-studded White House Juneteenth concert celebrates black-American emancipation
Juneteenth is America's newest national holiday with roots deeply embedded in the country's history – and this week, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris brought a music-filled celebration of black-American emancipation to the White House.
Mr Biden signed a law in 2021 that made June 19, or Juneteenth, a federal holiday.
It commemorates the day in 1865 – after the Confederate states surrendered, ending the Civil War – when a Union general arrived in Galveston, Texas, to inform a group of enslaved African Americans of their freedom under President Abraham Lincoln's 1863 Emancipation Proclamation.
Singer Patti LaBelle and rapper Doug E Fresh were among the performers at the star-studded White House party.
But the oppression that preceded liberation was not ignored. Mr Biden also commemorated America's violent history of enslavement in his remarks.
Juneteenth is “a day of profound weight and power”, he said.
“A day to remember the original sin of slavery and the extraordinary capacity to emerge from the most powerful moments and the painful moments with a better vision for ourselves. A day that reminds us we have a hell of a lot more work to do.”
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