Haq's Musings

Riaz Haq writes this data-driven blog to provide information, express his opinions and make comments on many topics. Subjects include personal activities, education, South Asia, South Asian community, regional and international affairs and US politics to financial markets. For investors interested in South Asia, Riaz has another blog called South Asia Investor at http://www.southasiainvestor.com and a YouTube video channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkrIDyFbC9N9evXYb9cA_gQ

Sunday, December 31, 2023

The Great Indian Brain Drain Accelerates

India is losing its best and brightest to the West, particularly to the United States, at an increasingly rapid pace. A 2023 study of the 1,000 top scorers in the 2010 entrance exams to the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) — a network of prestigious institutions of higher learning based in 23 Indian cities — revealed the scale of the problem. Around 36% migrated abroad, and of the top 100 scorers, 62% left the country, according to a report in the science journal Nature. Nearly two-thirds of those leaving India are highly educated, having received academic or vocational training. This is the highest for any country, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Example of The Great Indian Brain Drain. Source: Boston Political Review

Brain drain is defined as the loss of precious human capital of a nation. It is a “consequence of an education system designed for ‘selecting’ the best and brightest in an economy that is still too controlled and cannot create opportunities for its best and brightest”, according to Indian economist Shruti Rajagopalan. High-profile examples of India's human capital loss include Satya Nadella (Microsoft), Sundar Pichai (Google), Shantanu Narayen (Adobe), Arvind Krishna (IBM) and Ajay Banga (World Bank).

Foreign-Born STEM Workers in America. Source: American Immigration Council

Growing number of Indian students are going abroad for higher education each year and 90% of them never return home after completing their studies. In 2022, the number of Indian students leaving the country for higher education reached a six-year high of 770,000. And a 2021 report estimated that around two million Indian students would be studying abroad by 2024.

Many developing countries are experiencing brain drain. But India is losing its best brightest at a much faster rate than others. Some call it "The Great Indian Brain Drain". This is the reason why Indians in the United States are the best educated and the highest earning group. In a recently published book titled "The Other One Percent", authors Sanjoy Chakravorty, Devesh Kapur and Nirvikar Singh explain this phenomenon.

They write that the vast majority of Indians who migrate to the United States are from privileged backgrounds in terms of caste, class and education. They have gone through “a triple selection” process that gave Indian-Americans a boost over typically poor and uneducated immigrants who come to the United States from other countries. The first two selections took place in India. As explained in the book: “The social system created a small pool of persons to receive higher education, who were urban, educated, and from high/dominant castes.” India’s examination system then selected individuals for specialized training in technical fields that also happened to be in demand in the United States. Kapur estimated that the India-American population is nine times more educated than individuals in the home country. Here's an excerpt of it:

"A major focus of this book is on demonstrating and understanding the multiple selections that shaped the Indian-American population. These selections applied not only to education (that, in terms of attaining college degrees, made the India-born population three times more educated than that in the host country and nine times more educated than the home country’s population) but also to class and caste (favoring, by large margins, the “upper” and dominant classes and castes of India), profession (engineering, IT, and health care), and both the region of origin (Gujarati and Punjabi were overrepresented in the first two phases, and Telugu and Tamil in the third phase) and region of settlement (in specific metropolitan clusters in and around New York City, the San Francisco Bay Area, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Houston and Dallas). In addition to direct selection is what we call the “selection+” advantage: we suggest that group characteristics or norms, such as the fact that Indians had the highest propensity to live in married-couple households of any major immigrant group, added to the advantages of being an already selected group. We show, in particular, how family norms were useful in keeping the Indian-American poverty level low (under 5 percent) and family income high (the highest in the United States). It is also likely that the selection process enabled, without explicitly intending to, the generation of high levels of social capital (through linguistic/ professional networks such as Gujarati entrepreneurs in the hotel industry, Telugu and Tamil workers in the IT industry, IIT engineers, Malayali nurses, Bengali academics, etc.)"

Doctor Brain Drain. Source: Statista

Asian Americans are the best educated among all Americans of various races and ethnicities, including whites. Within Asian Americans, the Indians (three quarters) have the highest educational attainment with at least a bachelor's degree, followed by Koreans and Pakistanis (about 60% each).

Asian American Educational Achievement by Countries of Origin. Source: US Census

Asians, including Chinese/Taiwanese, Indians and Pakistanis, tend to be concentrated in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Technology) fields where incomes are generally much higher than in other occupations.

As of 2019, there were 35,000 Pakistan-born STEM workers in the United States, according to the American Immigration Council. They included information technologists, software developers, engineers and scientists. These figures do not include medical doctors and healthcare workers.

Foreign-born workers make up a growing share of America's STEM workforce. As of 2019, foreign-born workers made up almost a quarter of all STEM workers in the country. This is a significant increase from 2000, when just 16.4% of the country’s STEM workforce was foreign-born. Between 2000 and 2019, the overall number of STEM workers in the United States increased by 44.5 percent, from 7.5 million to more than 10.8 million, according to American Immigration Council.

India and Pakistan Among Top 10 Countries Receiving US Immigrant Visas. Source: Visual Capitalist

India topped the top 10 list of foreign-born STEM workers with 721,000, followed by China (273,000), Mexico (119,000), Vietnam (100,000), Philippines (87,000), South Korea (64,000), Canada (56,000), Taiwan (53,000), Russia (45,000) and Pakistan (35,000). Enormous number of Indian STEM workers in the United States can at least partly be attributed to the fact that India's "body shops" have mastered the art of gaming the US temporary work visa system. Last year, Indian nationals sponsored by "body shops" like Cognizant, Infosys and TCS received 166,384 H1B visas for work in the United States. By comparison, only 1,107 Pakistanis were granted H1B visas in Fiscal Year 2022. In addition to H1B work visas, 9,300 Indian nationals and 7,200 Pakistani nationals received immigrant visas to settle in the United States as permanent residents in 2021.

In addition to 35,000 Pakistan-born STEM workers, there were 12,454 Pakistan-born and Pakistan-trained medical doctors practicing in the United States, making the South Asian nation the second largest source of medical doctors in America. Pakistan produced 157,102 STEM graduates last year, putting it among the world's top dozen or so countries. About 43,000 of these graduates are in information technology (IT).

Over a Million Pakistani University Students Enrolled in STEM Fields

Google Names Indian-American CEO

Pakistani-Americans in Academia

Top One Percent: Are Hindus the New Jews in America?

Growing Share of Working Age Population in Pakistan

Pakistan Scientific Output is World's Fastest Growing

India's Chandrayaan 3 Success: Can Pakistanis Explore Space?

Digital Pakistan 2022

Pakistan's Large and Growing Civil Nuclear Program

Riaz Haq's Youtube Channel

PakAlumni Social Network

Thursday, December 21, 2023

Bibi to Biden: "You Carpet Bombed Germany. You Dropped the Atom Bomb. A Lot of Civilians Died"

At a recent Democratic fundraiser organized by the Israel lobby in the United States, President Joseph R. Biden shared some details of the conversations he has had with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu about protecting civilians in Gaza. Justifying Israel's genocidal war on Gaza, Netanyahu told Biden: “You carpet-bombed Germany. You dropped the atom bomb. A lot of civilians died”. Netanyahu is “a good friend, but I think he has to change, and… This (extremist coalition) government in Israel is making it very difficult for him to move,” Biden told the attendees at the campaign fundraiser in Washington hosted by former AIPAC board chair Lee Rosenberg. Last month, Biden used the word “indiscriminate” to describe Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza, according to a report in the Times of Israel.

President Biden and Prime Minister Netanyahu

The Israel Lobby:

American Israeli Political Action Committee (AIPAC), also known as the Israel lobby, is considered the most powerful lobby in Washington D.C. The lobby has showered its friendly politicians with money from Jewish donors. It has also ensured the defeat of those politicians who dared to speak out against Israeli policies in the Middle East. As one former Democratic senator, Ernest Hollings, put it on leaving office, ‘you can’t have an Israeli policy other than what AIPAC gives you around here.’ Or as Ariel Sharon once told an American audience, ‘when people ask me how they can help Israel, I tell them: “Help AIPAC.”’

President Jimmy Carter who helped broker peace between Israel and Egypt knows the Israel lobby well. He told Amy Goodman of "Democracy Now" many years ago: "I think it’s accurate to say that not a single member of Congress with whom I’m familiar would possibly speak out and call for Israel to withdraw to their legal boundaries or to publicize the plight of the Palestinians or even to call publicly and repeatedly for good faith peace talks..... And I would say that if any member of Congress did speak out, as I’ve just described, they would probably not be back in the Congress the next term ".

Biden-Netanyahu Conversations:

President Biden recalled how during one of their many conversations since October 7, Netanyahu sought to justify the deaths of civilians in Gaza by recalling how many died in the US response to the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, according to the Times of Israel.

“You carpet-bombed Germany. You dropped the atom bomb. A lot of civilians died,” Biden quoted Netanyahu as having said. “They not only want to have retribution — which they should — for what Hamas did, but against all Palestinians… They don’t want anything to (do) with the Palestinians,” Biden said, reiterating the US stance that Hamas does not represent all Palestinians and that not all of Gaza should suffer because of the October 7 attack by Hamas on Israel.

It should be noted that the reason Netanyahu sounds American is because he was raised and educated in the United States. He is essentially an American who was born in Tel Aviv, raised in Philadelphia, and then returned to Israel after finishing higher education at MIT and Harvard.

The US and Israel:

While acknowledging the US role in killing large number of civilians during WW II, Biden pointed out to Netanyahu that the conventions and laws agreed to by the international community after the war were designed to stop the kind of excesses Netanyahu mentioned, such as the carpet bombing of Germany and the dropping of the atomic bombs on civilian populations in Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

“I said, ‘Yeah, that’s why all these institutions were set up after World War II to see to it that it didn’t happen again,'” Biden said he told Netanyahu. Biden also advised Netanyahu not to repeat the mistakes the US made in response to the terrorist attacks in New York in 2001. “Don’t make the same mistakes we made [after] 9/11. There was no reason why we had to be in a war in Afghanistan [after] 9/11. There was no reason why we had to do some of the things we did,” Biden said.

While Biden's response makes sense, it is hard not to see the parallels between the United States and Israel. Both of them are settler colonial societies built on genocide of the native populations and their replacement by Europeans. This process was endorsed by top British politicians like Winston Churchill.

This process of Israel's creation was endorsed by top British politicians like Winston Churchill. “I do not admit that the dog in the manger has the final right to the manger,” former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill told the Peel Commission in 1937, “even though he may have lain there for a very long time.” He denied that “a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America, or the Black people of Australia,” by their replacement with “a higher grade race.”

Thursday, December 14, 2023

Pro-Israel Politicians and Donors Assault Academic Freedom in America

Widespread student protests on the US campuses against Israel's genocidal war in Gaza are being labeled antisemitic by pro-Israel politicians and donors. They have now joined forces to intimidate the leadership of top American universities. President Liz MaGill of the University of Pennsylvania has already been forced out. Leaders at Harvard and MIT are also under threat. The Pro-Israel Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Brandeis Center have called on 200 college presidents to investigate pro-Palestinian student groups. Faculty members and instructors at several public and private colleges have either been placed on leave or fired for comments about the conflict, according to Bloomberg columnist Noah Feldman. These actions are a direct assault on the academic freedom in America, with long term negative consequences for the world's most admired institutions of higher education.

Pro-Palestine Protest at UCLA. Source: Daily Bruin

Academic Freedom:

Academic freedom is about free exchange of ideas on campus by students and faculty. It is considered essential for learning. Limiting this freedom hurts pursuit of excellence which has helped American colleges and universities become the envy of the world. This freedom must be defended by all Americans to maintain the excellence of institutions of higher learning in America.

US Congress:

GOP politicians see these pro-Palestine protests on US campuses as a fundraising opportunity. Harvard alumna Rep. Elise M. Stefanik ’06 (R-N.Y.) aggressively questioned presidents of Harvard, Penn and MIT to score points with the Israel lobby. “At Harvard, does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard’s rules of bullying and harassment?” asked — to which Gay twice responded that “it depends on the context.”

GOP politicians like Stefanik are deliberately conflating slogans such as "From the River to the Sea, Free Palestine Free" with call for genocide of Jews. In fact, this chant is only about ending the long brutal Israeli Occupation of Gaza (along the Mediterranean Sea) and the West Bank (of the Jordan River).

Jewish Donors:

Several Jewish donors of major private sector universities have either cancelled their donations or threatened to do so over the Pro-Palestine protests. Investors Bill Ackman and Ross Stevens have been among the most vocal pro-Israel donors at Harvard and Penn. They both called for the ouster of the presidents of these universities over what they call "antisemitism" on campuses.

The aggressive behavior of Jewish donors is serving to reinforce the antisemitic stereotype of wealthy Jews. As former Labor Secretary Robert Reich put in a Guardian Op Ed: "As a Jew, I cannot help but worry, too, that the actions of these donors will fuel the very antisemitism they claim to oppose – based on the perilous stereotype of wealthy Jewish bankers controlling the world".

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion:

Some right-wing politicians and donors have attacked DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) programs as the cause of what they call "antisemitism" on campuses. These programs help bring in faculty and students from under-represented groups to colleges and universities that have traditionally been almost entirely white. They blame DEI because many new students from minority background tend to sympathize with Palestinians who they see as oppressed. Many of them see Israel as a "Western settler-colonialist oppressor par excellence", according to the Wall Street Journal.

Israel has long been seen as a settler colonial state . It was established by the displacement of the indigenous population of Palestinians and their replacement by Europeans, similar to places like America and Australia. This process of Israel's creation was endorsed by top British politicians like Winston Churchill.

“I do not admit that the dog in the manger has the final right to the manger,” former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill told the Peel Commission in 1937, “even though he may have lain there for a very long time.” He denied that “a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America, or the Black people of Australia,” by their replacement with “a higher grade race.”

Related Links:

Wednesday, December 6, 2023

COP28: Pakistan Planting World's Largest Mangrove Forest

Pakistan, which contributes less than 1% of global carbon emissions, is among the countries considered most vulnerable to climate change. About a third of the country was devastated by massive floods in 2022. The nation committed continued pursuit of nature-based solutions to the problem at COP26 in Glasgow in 2021. As part of this commitment, the country is planting one of the world's largest mangrove forests in the Indus River Delta, a key component of its Ten Billion Tree Tsunami campaign launched by former Prime Minister Imran Khan.

Pakistan Mangroves Plantation Project. Source: Delta Blue Carbon

Mangrove Forest:

Also known as Delta Blue Carbon Project, the mangroves plantation will eventually cover 350,000 hectares of Tidal Wetlands on the south-east coast of Sindh. Currently, Pakistan is estimated to have 600,000 hectares of mangrove forest. Mangroves absorb hundreds of millions of tons of atmospheric carbon, reduce the impact of storms on human lives and economic assets, and provide a habitat for fish, birds and other plants supporting biodiversity. It is funded by sales of carbon credits to global polluting industries such as those involved in fossil fuels trade.

Pakistan NDCs (Nationally Determined Contributions) For Climate Goals. Source: UN

Massive Floods of 2022:

More than a year after the unprecedented floods of 2022, Pakistan is still dealing with the havoc they wreaked. Over a thousand Pakistanis died. About 33 million people in two southern provinces became homeless. Sindh was inundated with 784% of normal rainfall in the year. Balochistan saw 522% of average rainfall. Both provinces suffered their worst ever heatwave prior to this unprecedented deluge. Nearly a million livestock were lost, over two million acres of farmland came underwater and 90% of the crops in Sindh and Balochistan were damaged. This was a massive humanitarian crisis.

Nature Based Solutions:

How are nature based solutions different from man made solutions? Here's how the World Bank explains the difference:

"Nature-based solutions are actions to protect, sustainably manage, or restore natural ecosystems, that address societal challenges such as climate change, human health, food and water security, and disaster risk reduction effectively and adaptively, simultaneously providing human well-being and biodiversity benefits. For example, a common problem is the flooding in coastal areas that occurs as a result of storm surges and coastal erosion. This challenge, traditionally tackled with manmade (grey) infrastructure such as sea walls or dikes, coastal flooding, can also be addressed by actions that take advantage of ecosystem services such as tree planting. Planting trees that thrive in coastal areas – known as mangroves -- reduces the impact of storms on human lives and economic assets, and provides a habitat for fish, birds and other plants supporting biodiversity"

Karachi Mangroves Exhibit. Source: Magnifiscience Center

Saving Karachi:

One of the objectives of restoring mangroves is to prevent a climate disaster in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city and the country's economic hub. Mangroves in Karachi are a unique marine ecosystem fringing the coast, and they provide both a vital spawning area for ocean fish and protection from periodic tsunamis and storm surges.

Karachi's Magnifiscience Center has a special exhibit to help teach citizens the importance of restoring this marine ecosystem. Here's an excerpt of a recent Time Magazine report on the subject:

"On a recent Tuesday morning, several dozen Pakistani schoolchildren barreled down a wooden walkway into a thicket of mangroves. They jostled for space at a small viewing platform and eagerly pointed out fish darting between the exposed tree roots. As the rising tide inched ever closer to the crabs and mudskippers resting on shore, the children’s guide launched into a detailed explanation of the unique marine ecosystem fringing the coast, and how it provided both a vital nursery for ocean fish and protection from tsunamis and storm surges. If mangroves are so important, wondered one child out loud, “Why are they in here, and not out there?” By in here, she meant the soaring glass atrium of Karachi’s newly opened MagnifiScience Centre, where the high-tech centerpiece is the living mangrove exhibit—complete with real trees, live fish, plastic crabs, and an accelerated tidal ebb and flow maintained by underground water pumps. Out there is the crowded coastal megacity of Karachi, where all but a few of the mangrove forests that once defined this Indus Delta port town have been chopped down, paved over, and developed into ocean-view high-rises, golf courses, and container ports".

Related Links:

Haq's Musings

South Asia Investor Review

Groundwater Depletion in Pakistan

Pakistan Water Crisis: Facts and Myths

Pakistan Ramps Up Low-Carbon Sources of Electricity

Cycles of Drought and Floods in Pakistan

Pakistan at 75: Economic and Demographic Progress

Dust Bowl in Thar Desert Region

Dasht River in Balochistan

Bridge Collapse After Sudden Glacier Melt in Pakistan

Riaz Haq's Youtube Channel

PakAlumni Social Network

Wednesday, November 29, 2023

Sikh Assassinations: US Exposes Modi-Doval Hubris

The United States Department of Justice has filed an indictment alleging that an Indian agent hired an assassin to kill Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a Sikh separatist. It seems that the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his National Security Advisor Ajit Doval now believe in their own hype about India being a superpower that can get away with murdering American citizens on the US soil.

Sikh Leaders: Gurpatwant Singh Pannun (L), Hardeep Singh Nijjar (Mid), Paramjeet Singh Panwar (R)

Earlier, a Canadian Sikh leader named Hardeep Singh Nijjar was murdered in June this year in British Columbia. The US DOJ believes that Nikhil Gupta was involved in both the killing in Canada of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, and the attempted murder in New York, He is reported to have told an associate two days before the Nijjar’s slaying: “we are doing their job, brother. We are doing their New York [and] Canada [job],” according to the indictment. He lives in India and was arrested on the charges in the Czech Republic on June 30, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. Gupta's plot to kill Gurpatwant Singh Pannun was foiled in a US sting operation involving an informant who was being recruited by him to be the hitman.

“Modi and Doval have a much more macho approach to statecraft, including taking a more risky approach in intel operations in order to say, ‘Look at how tough I am in protecting India’s interests’,” said Paul McGarr, a specialist in South Asian security and intelligence at King's College London, according to France24 news agency. “RAW could do it before, but wouldn’t have conducted assassinations without Modi’s approval,” added McGarr. “RAW has got the political license to kill under Modi.”

The US DOJ decision to go public with charges came after President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and CIA Director William Burns warned India of potential consequences for the U.S.-India relationship over the actions, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The Indian government is engaged in a worldwide assassination campaign targeting Sikhs and Kashmiris seen as "terrorists" by New Delhi, according to leaked documents of Pakistani intelligence agencies. Inside Pakistan, a spate of assassinations and other attacks in recent years targeted people alleged to be involved in Sikh and Kashmiri activism as well as Islamist militancy inside India, according to The Intercept. Last month, the Pakistani government arrested people it believes were involved in targeted killings of Sikhs and Kashmiris inside Pakistan.

Pakistan foreign office spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said her country remained a “target of a series of targeted killings and espionage by (Indian Intelligence Agency) RAW". “In December last year, Pakistan released a comprehensive dossier providing concrete and irrefutable evidence of India’s involvement in the Lahore attack of June 2021. The attack was planned and executed by Indian intelligence,” she said, adding that in 2016, a high-ranking Indian military officer Kulbhushan Jadhav confessed to his involvement in directing, financing and executing terror and sabotage in Pakistan.

Narendra Modi has a long history of murdering minorities in his country. After the Gujarat anti-Muslim pogrom of 2002, Narendra Modi made the cover of India Today magazine with the caption "Hero of Hatred". Modi was denied a visa to visit the United States. The US visa ban on Modi was lifted in 2014 after he became prime minister. Since then, Narendra Modi's image has been rehabilitated by the West as the US and Western Europe seek allies in Asia to counter the rise of China. However, Modi's actions on the ground in India confirm that he remains "Hero of Hatred" and "Divider In Chief" at his core. A recent two-part BBC documentary explains this reality in significant detail. The first part focuses on the 2002 events in Gujarat when Modi as the state chief minister ordered the police to not stop the Hindu mobs murdering Muslims and burning their homes and businesses. The second part looks at Modi government's anti-Muslim policies, including the revocation of Kashmir's autonomy (article 370) and a new citizenship law (CAA 2019) that discriminates against Muslims. It shows the violent response by security forces to peaceful protests against the new laws, and interviews the family members of people who were killed in the 2020 Delhi riots orchestrated by Modi's allies.

Here's Indian National Security Advisor on how to use Taliban to attack Pakistan:

https://youtu.be/eYRuk8H5M9E?si=ZB1c7Dd8ntQdKeFi

Riaz Haq's Youtube Channel

PakAlumni Social Network

Wednesday, November 22, 2023

Is Islamophobia Shaping US Policy in Middle East and South Asia?

As the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rolls out "Nakbah 2023", a former senior US diplomat has been caught on a viral video telling an Arab street food vendor in New York that the killing of 4,000 Palestinian children in Gaza is "not enough". The video shows Stuart Seldowitz, who worked on the National Security Council South Asia Directorate under President Barack Obama, beginning by insulting Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) and the Holy Quran, and then goes on a hateful anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian tirade. Seldowitz also served as deputy director/senior political officer in the U.S. State Department’s Office of Israel and Palestinian Affairs from 1999 to 2003. This incident raises the question: Is Islamophobia shaping the US policy in the Middle East and South Asia regions?

Stuart Seldowitz, Former US Senior National Security Official

US-Pakistan Ties:

US-Pakistan relations hit an all-time low during the Obama years when Stuart Seldowitz worked on the National Security Council South Asia Directorate. Did Seldowitz contribute to the downward spiral? Would the ties have tanked as rapidly and as far as they did if he wasn't there? Were there other Islamophobes in policy roles who caused it? Seldowitz's recent hateful comments about Muslims and Palestinians do raise all these questions.

Nakba 2023:

"We're rolling out Nakba 2023", said Israeli government minister Avi Dichter, referring to Israel's genocidal war on Gaza on November 12, 2023, according to Haaretz newspaper. Nakbah, meaning catastrophe, is what the Palestinians call their forced removal from their homes and lands by violent Zionist militias in the 1940s.

Since Dichter's statement about "rolling out Nakba 2023", another Israeli minister, Gila Gamliel, has explained in a Jerusalem Post op ed why Israel has made large parts of Gaza un-inhabitable. In her words, Israel wants to "promote the voluntary resettlement of Palestinians in Gaza, for humanitarian reasons, outside of the Strip."

Palestine Partition Plan of 1937

The Nakba 1 happened in contravention of the Balfour Declaration on British support for a Jewish state in Palestine that clearly stated: "it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine."

Balfour Declaration. Source: Jewish Virtual Library

Settler Colonialism:

What has followed the Balfour Declaration of 1917 is essentially settler colonialism. It is similar to the displacement of the indigenous populations and their replacement by Europeans in places like America and Australia. It was endorsed by top British politicians like Winston Churchill.

Zionist Psyche:

How do Zionists like Stuart Seldowitz, Avi Dichter and Gila Gamliel think about what is going on in the Middle East? I wrote the following piece a couple of weeks ago to explain it:

Zionists are "secular" but they use God as their "land agent" who gave them the "promised land", says Professor Avi Shlaim of Oxford University. Jews are God's "chosen people" who are exempt from the rules that apply to non-Jews, according to Israeli author and journalist Gideon Levy. Israel is carrying out "ethnic cleansing … and that may become genocide”, adds Israeli American scholar Omer Bartov. "No, Palestinians did not commit acts of terrorism, Israel did", tweets Miko Peled, an ex IDF soldier and son of a former Israeli general. These few quotes summarize current thoughts of some of the former Zionists.

Israel Turns Gaza into Rubble

Israeli author and journalist Gideon Levy:
The core of Zionism is the "feeling of being chosen people" that is "deep rooted" in Israel. A consequence of it is that the rules and laws that apply to others do not apply to Israelis. Here's a quote from one of his speeches:
"This is the core of Zionism. This feeling of chosen people is still very deep rooted in Israel. The consequence is that everything which refers to any other country in the world does not refer to Israel. That we are a special case. That international law should be implemented everywhere, but we are a different case. That a Molotov bottle against a Jewish soldier is not like a Molotov bottle against a Russian soldier because we are different, because we are chosen, because of this damned Jewish supremacy".
On Israel's campaign of dehumanizing Palestinians, Levy says:
“My biggest struggle is to rehumanize the Palestinians. There’s a whole machinery of brainwashing in Israel which really accompanies each of us from early childhood, and I’m a product of this machinery as much as anyone else. [We are taught] a few narratives that it’s very hard to break. That we Israelis are the ultimate and only victims. That the Palestinians are born to kill, and their hatred is irrational. That the Palestinians are not human beings like us… So you get a society without any moral doubts, without any questions marks, with hardly public debate. To raise your voice against all this is very hard.”
Levy believes that the talk of the peace process and two-state solution is a scam perpetrated by Zionists. Here's Levy in his own words:
"Now the real turning point should be, for us, the moment that each of us realize that the Israeli occupation is not a temporary phenomenon. I think that most of the people, if not all of them, understand that the occupation is there to stay. And Israel never had the slightest intention to put an end to it. All the efforts were only to mislead the West and to maintain the occupation. All this longest peace process in history, which never led to anywhere, was never aimed to lead to anywhere. All those efforts were only in order to mislead you and enable the occupation to grow, including Oslo".
Professor Avi Shlaim:
Oxford Professor Avi Shlaim believes that Israel "prefers land to peace", adding that "land grabbing and peacemaking don't go together". Here's his exact quote:
"Land grabbing and peacemaking don’t go together, it’s one or the other, and by constantly expanding settlements, Israel showed that it prefers land to peace....Israel by its actions has shown that it is not interested in having a Palestinian partner for peace because it wants to maintain its control over the territory. Israel refuses to accept Hamas as a negotiating partner. Israel’s position is that Hamas is a terrorist organisation – pure and simple. It will never negotiate with it. Benjamin Netanyahu’s policy has been to let Hamas rule the Gaza Strip, but to contain the Gaza Strip, and this policy collapsed, because Gaza could not be contained."
Professor Omer Bartov:
Holocaust scholar Omer Bartov has warned of "genocide" in Gaza. He has talked about "clear intention of ethnic cleansing" in the narrow strip of two million Palestinians under heavy bombardment by Israeli forces since the October 7 terrorist attack by Hamas in Israel. Here's a quote from him:
"So, my sense is the following. Israeli political leaders and military leaders have made very startling and frightening statements about Gaza, speaking about flattening Gaza, speaking about Hamas, but by sort of extending it also, by extension, also Gazans, in general, as human animals, speaking about moving the entire population of Gaza out of Gaza. That is a clear intention of ethnic cleansing. So, those statements show intent. And that’s a genocidal intent, which is often very difficult to prove in genocide. People who carry out genocide don’t always want to say that they’re doing it".
Former Israeli Soldier Miko Peled:
Miko Peled, whose father was a general in the IDF and who himself served in the Israeli military, says that Israel is the biggest obstacle to peace in the Middle East. Talking about the October 7 surprise attack by Hamas on Israel, he says that "Israel is behaving like a gangster who has been humiliated taking vengeance upon innocent civilians, killing thousands upon thousands". "It's not a question of self-defense, it's a question of brutality and revenge because Israel was humiliated", he adds in an interview on Al Jazeera English.
Peled accuses Israel of lying about the October 7 attack. He said the testimony is now showing that most of the Israeli civilians on October 7 were killed by the Israeli helicopters firing indiscriminately. He says the western governments who support Israel “are supporting the fight against justice, the fight against peace”.
Peled says that “liberal Zionism” is a myth and all forms of Zionism amount, in practice, to the denial of fundamental rights and freedoms for the Palestinian people. This process starts at a young age for Israeli children whose history textbooks claim that the Palestinians left their homes of their own free will, that they were not driven out by Jewish militias in the 1940s. These history books deny what the Palestinians call "Nakbah", meaning Great Catastrophe, that forced them to flee their homes as part of the Zionist plan to ethnically cleanse what is now Israel.
Related Links:

Haq's Musings

South Asia Investor Review

Modi and Netanyahu: Two Sides of the Same Coin

Israel's Gaza Attack is Criminal, Not Defensive

Pictorial Review of Israel's Young Gaza Victims

American College Campuses Rise Up Against Israel's Genocidal War on Gaza

Israeli Settler Colonialism

India Promotes Half Truths About UNSC Kashmir Resolutions

Obama's Parting Shot Against Pakistan

Total, Extended Lockdown in Indian Occupied Kashmir

What is India Hiding From UN Human Rights Team?

Indian JNU Professor on Illegal Indian Occupation of Kashmir, Manipur, Nagaland

Riaz Haq Youtube Channel

VPOS Youtube Channel

Friday, November 10, 2023

Israeli Scholars Provide Insights into Zionist Psyche

Zionists are "secular" but they use God as their "land agent" who gave them the "promised land", says Professor Avi Shlaim of Oxford University. Jews are God's "chosen people" who are exempt from the rules that apply to non-Jews, according to Israeli author and journalist Gideon Levy. Israel is carrying out "ethnic cleansing … and that may become genocide”, adds Israeli American scholar Omer Bartov. "No, Palestinians did not commit acts of terrorism, Israel did", tweets Miko Peled, an ex IDF soldier and son of a former Israeli general. These few quotes summarize current thoughts of some of the former Zionists.

Israel Turns Gaza into Rubble

Israeli author and journalist Gideon Levy:
The core of Zionism is the "feeling of being chosen people" that is "deep rooted" in Israel. A consequence of it is that the rules and laws that apply to others do not apply to Israelis. Here's a quote from one of his speeches:
"This is the core of Zionism. This feeling of chosen people is still very deep rooted in Israel. The consequence is that everything which refers to any other country in the world does not refer to Israel. That we are a special case. That international law should be implemented everywhere, but we are a different case. That a Molotov bottle against a Jewish soldier is not like a Molotov bottle against a Russian soldier because we are different, because we are chosen, because of this damned Jewish supremacy".
On Israel's campaign of dehumanizing Palestinians, Levy says:
“My biggest struggle is to rehumanize the Palestinians. There’s a whole machinery of brainwashing in Israel which really accompanies each of us from early childhood, and I’m a product of this machinery as much as anyone else. [We are taught] a few narratives that it’s very hard to break. That we Israelis are the ultimate and only victims. That the Palestinians are born to kill, and their hatred is irrational. That the Palestinians are not human beings like us… So you get a society without any moral doubts, without any questions marks, with hardly public debate. To raise your voice against all this is very hard.”
Levy believes that the talk of the peace process and two-state solution is a scam perpetrated by Zionists. Here's Levy in his own words:
"Now the real turning point should be, for us, the moment that each of us realize that the Israeli occupation is not a temporary phenomenon. I think that most of the people, if not all of them, understand that the occupation is there to stay. And Israel never had the slightest intention to put an end to it. All the efforts were only to mislead the West and to maintain the occupation. All this longest peace process in history, which never led to anywhere, was never aimed to lead to anywhere. All those efforts were only in order to mislead you and enable the occupation to grow, including Oslo".
Professor Avi Shlaim:
Oxford Professor Avi Shlaim believes that Israel "prefers land to peace", adding that "land grabbing and peacemaking don't go together". Here's his exact quote:
"Land grabbing and peacemaking don’t go together, it’s one or the other, and by constantly expanding settlements, Israel showed that it prefers land to peace....Israel by its actions has shown that it is not interested in having a Palestinian partner for peace because it wants to maintain its control over the territory. Israel refuses to accept Hamas as a negotiating partner. Israel’s position is that Hamas is a terrorist organisation – pure and simple. It will never negotiate with it. Benjamin Netanyahu’s policy has been to let Hamas rule the Gaza Strip, but to contain the Gaza Strip, and this policy collapsed, because Gaza could not be contained."
Professor Omer Bartov:
Holocaust scholar Omer Bartov has warned of "genocide" in Gaza. He has talked about "clear intention of ethnic cleansing" in the narrow strip of two million Palestinians under heavy bombardment by Israeli forces since the October 7 terrorist attack by Hamas in Israel. Here's a quote from him:
"So, my sense is the following. Israeli political leaders and military leaders have made very startling and frightening statements about Gaza, speaking about flattening Gaza, speaking about Hamas, but by sort of extending it also, by extension, also Gazans, in general, as human animals, speaking about moving the entire population of Gaza out of Gaza. That is a clear intention of ethnic cleansing. So, those statements show intent. And that’s a genocidal intent, which is often very difficult to prove in genocide. People who carry out genocide don’t always want to say that they’re doing it".
Former Israeli Soldier Miko Peled:
Miko Peled, whose father was a general in the IDF and who himself served in the Israeli military, says that Israel is the biggest obstacle to peace in the Middle East. Talking about the October 7 surprise attack by Hamas on Israel, he says that "Israel is behaving like a gangster who has been humiliated taking vengeance upon innocent civilians, killing thousands upon thousands". "It's not a question of self-defense, it's a question of brutality and revenge because Israel was humiliated", he adds in an interview on Al Jazeera English.
Peled accuses Israel of lying about the October 7 attack. He said the testimony is now showing that most of the Israeli civilians on October 7 were killed by the Israeli helicopters firing indiscriminately. He says the western governments who support Israel “are supporting the fight against justice, the fight against peace”.
Peled says that “liberal Zionism” is a myth and all forms of Zionism amount, in practice, to the denial of fundamental rights and freedoms for the Palestinian people. This process starts at a young age for Israeli children whose history textbooks claim that the Palestinians left their homes of their own free will, that they were not driven out by Jewish militias in the 1940s. These history books deny what the Palestinians call "Nakbah", meaning Great Catastrophe, that forced them to flee their homes as part of the Zionist plan to ethnically cleanse what is now Israel.
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Friday, November 3, 2023

America's College Campuses Rise Up Against Israel's Genocidal War on Gaza

Israel's genocidal war on Gaza has sparked widespread strong protests on American college campuses. Many Jewish Americans have also joined marches in major cities across the United States against the US policy of blind support for the Israeli government. Polls indicate that young Americans are increasingly turning against the Biden administration. This will likely hurt President Joseph R. Biden's chances of re-election in the upcoming presidential elections in 2024. It is important to remember that the US college campuses led the opposition to the Vietnam war in the 1960s and marched against South African Apartheid in the 1980s. Young Americans have repeatedly proved to be America's conscience.

Pro-Palestine Protest at UCLA. Source: Daily Bruin

Genocidal War:

Israel has completely cut off water, food, electricity, fuel and communications in Gaza. It is bombing its 2 million trapped residents around the clock since the October 7 terrorist attack on Israelis by Hamas. On the ground in Gaza, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's promised "Mighty Vengeance" is in fact a genocidal war on Gaza. Thousands of Palestinian civilians, mainly innocent children and women, have been killed by Israel's bombing. The Israeli military has destroyed hospitals, churches, mosques, apartment blocks and schools. Large parts of Gaza have been turned to rubble by the Israeli air strikes. Multiple generations of families have been completely wiped out. Craig Mokhiber, a UN human rights official, has called it “textbook genocide” and accused the UN of again “failing” to act, referring to previous genocides in Bosnia, Rwanda, and Myanmar. Israeli government ministers' statements calling Gazans "human animals" and their intentions of "flattening Gaza" lend support to Mokhiber's conclusions. He has resigned from his UN post in protest. At a recent senate hearing, Pakistan-born US Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) presented Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin with statistics and a personal story of loss when questioning him about Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza. Van Hollen said:

"Last night, my wife and I learned that someone we know well lost two family members and four of their children killed in bombing in Gaza. So, they are not yet included in the most recent death toll reported by the United Nations yesterday, which says the number of dead has risen to over 8,300 people, 70% of them women and children, including 3,457 children. These are UN figures. According to UN figures, that is about six times more children killed in three weeks in Gaza than the number of children killed in Ukraine during the entire war there.And if you scale the deaths of those Palestinian children to the United States population, it’s comparable to more than 230,000 American children killed. The executive director of UNICEF, Catherine Russell, said at the current rate, more than 420 children are being killed and injured in the Gaza each day, a number, she said, which should shake us to our core. I agree".

The Original Sin:

Speaking at the UN General Assembly debate on the Gaza ceasefire resolution, the Pakistani Ambassador to the UN Munir Akram provided the historical context for what is happening now. He said Israel’s occupation and killing of Palestinians “is the original sin” and not what happened on Oct 7. “We all know who started this. It is 50 years of Israeli occupation and the killing of Palestinians with impunity,” he added. The resolution passed with 145 countries voting in favor and 14 against, including the United States and Israel.

College Campus Protests:

There have been massive protests on US college campuses against mass killings of civilians by indiscriminate Israeli bombings in Gaza. Vast majority of the victims of Israel's attacks are women and children who make up over two-thirds of the Gaza population. These protests have drawn the ire of Israel supporters who are alleging antisemitism to try to stop these protests. Some wealthy pro-Israel Jewish donors are threatening college administrators, while others are rescinding job offers made to students who have participated in anti-Israel rallies. In the media, several journalists have been fired for expressing pro-Palestine views.

Israel Apartheid and BDS:

According to Amnesty International, Israel's practices in Israel and the occupied territories amount to Apartheid, which is prohibited in international law. Prior to the latest protests, dozens of US college campuses voted for and passed BDS (Boycott-Divest-Suspend) resolutions against Israel with overwhelming majority. These were designed to send a message to the Jewish state to abandon its Apartheid policies aimed at the Palestinians.

Jewish Americans Call For Ceasefire:

Many Jewish Americans have marched in support of a ceasefire in Gaza that has been proposed to stop the slaughter of Palestinian civilians and allow aid agencies to deliver desperately needed help to relieve the immense suffering of the civilian population. Overwhelming majority of countries voted for this ceasefire at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). 145 countries voted in favor of this resolution and 14 against, including the United States and Israel.

US Opinion Polls:

Polls show that the majority of young Americans oppose the Biden administration policy of unconditional support for Israel. A recent Quinnipiac poll found that 51% of voters under 35 say they disapprove of the United States’ sending weapons and military support to Israel—a much higher figure than the 28% of Americans who oppose such a policy. Only 21% of voters under 35 say they approve of Biden’s Israel policy; 42% of voters across all age brackets approve.

A CBS News poll conducted last week found that 59% of respondents under 30 oppose sending weapons and supplies to Israel. An even more resounding 64% of those between age 30 and 44—a bracket more likely to vote that carries the whole millennial generation and part of Gen X—said the U.S. should not.

US Pew Poll Conducted in 2022. Source: Pew Research

Democrats Split:

Some strong voices critical of Israel have recently emerged in the US Congress, particularly among the progressive Democrats. A Pew survey conducted last year found that only 44% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents have a favorable view of Israel. Conservative and moderate Democrats (50%) are more favorable toward Israel than liberal Democrats (36%). But the party establishment, led by the Biden administration, remains totally committed to supporting the Jewish state unconditionally. This split could cost Democrats enough votes for them to lose the White House and both houses of Congress in 2024.

American Muslim Vote:

Recent Reuters/Zogby poll shows that only 17% of Arab-Americans expressed support for President Biden, a huge drop from the 59% support he received in 2020. American Muslim vote is particularly important in swing states where Biden won by a small margin in 2020. For example, Biden won Michigan by about 154,000 votes, and there are estimated 242,000 Muslims in the state. And he won Minnesota by about 233,000, where there are an estimated 115,00 Muslims, according to an NBC report.

The White House has unveiled a strategy to combat Islamophobia, an attempt to woo Muslim voters. "We look forward to continuing our work with community leaders, advocates, members of Congress, and more to develop the strategy – which will be a joint effort led by the Domestic Policy Council and the National Security Council – and counter the scourge of Islamophobia and hate in all its forms," White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.

Summary:

US polls indicate that Israel's genocidal actions in Occupied Palestine are costing the Jewish state the support of many young Americans, and causing a major split in the Democratic Party. These events do not augur well for Israel in the long run. It is time for the Israeli public to ponder if it is wise to support Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's policy of continued occupation and destruction of Palestine.

Wednesday, October 25, 2023

US Proposes H-1B Visa Changes to Stop Indian Body Shop Fraud

The Biden administration has proposed a number of significant changes to how the H-1B temporary work visas are issued to high-skilled foreign workers. These changes are the result of the government finding earlier this year that companies, particularly Indian body shops, had colluded to try to increase their chances of winning a coveted visa by gaming the visa lottery system. This has helped Indian workers win as many as three quarters of all H1B visas issued in recent years.

H1B Visas Issued in India. Source: Visagrader.com

Every year, applicants sponsored by Indian body shops claim the lion's share of H1B visas. In 2022, Indian nationals received 166,384 new H1B visas, accounting for nearly three quarters of all such visas issued by the US government. The figures reported as India IT exports include the wages earned by millions of Indian H1B workers in the United States.

Public interest groups have been complaining about the behavior of Indian body shops gaming the system to take away a big chunk of the H1B visas issued each year. Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) is one such group. In a report last year, FAIR said, "In fact, the H-1B lottery as currently constituted is a corrupt program dominated by Indian “body shops” that prey on desperate foreign workers looking for a light at the end of the tunnel: a green card. A bustling industry of lawyers and lobbyists advertises ways to improve players’ “chances of success.”"

“Because [USCIS] made it easier, you’re seeing an over-exaggerated demand, mostly from Indian outsourcing companies that provide lower-cost labor,” Roger Ross, a policy adviser for U.S. Tech Workers, told FAIR in a phone interview.

Top 10 Recipient Countries of H-1B Visas. Source: USCIS

H-1B rejection rates of around 7% for India and other nations are after the lottery selection, according to Visagrader. The problem is that Indian body shops are gaming the lottery system by multiple entries for each of their applicants to win the lottery in huge numbers, unfairly edging out applicants from other countries.

In 2022-23, thirteen of the top 30 H-1B employers were Indian outsourcing firms that underpay migrant workers and offshore U.S. jobs to countries where labor costs are much lower, according to a report by the Economic Policy Institute.

Top 30 H1B Employers in 2022-23. Source: EPI

Last year, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) issued a Notice of Intent to Deny (NOID) for petitions filed by companies they found related by common ownership such as family relationships or registrations done by the same agent.

The most significant change to the H1B visa system involves the elimination of multiple entries by employers on behalf of the same employee. In 2023, over half of the approximately 800,000 H-1B registrations were multiple entries, artificially inflating the chances of some applicants, according to an Indian news outlet NDTV's report. Under the proposed new rules, an employee can only be registered once, and employers will now be required to submit passport information for each employee. This allows the USCIS to ensure a fair and equitable selection process. Violation of this rule will lead to denials or revocations of visas.

Other changes involve elimination of "employer-employee" relationship for H1B visa (entrepreneurs can sponsor themselves) and eligibility of remote work for job offers, extension of the "cap-gap" provision for international students on F-1 visa to receive H1B visa, more on-site inspections for IT consulting work and stricter definition of "specialty occupation".

Currently, India tops the list of foreign-born STEM workers with 721,000, followed by China (273,000), Mexico (119,000), Vietnam (100,000), Philippines (87,000), South Korea (64,000), Canada (56,000), Taiwan (53,000), Russia (45,000) and Pakistan (35,000). Enormous number of Indian STEM workers in the United States can at least partly be attributed to the fact that India's "body shops" have mastered the art of gaming the US temporary work visa system. Last year, Indian nationals sponsored by "body shops" like Cognizant, Infosys and TCS received 166,384 H1B visas for work in the United States. By comparison, only 1,107 Pakistanis were granted H1B visas in Fiscal Year 2022. In addition to H1B work visas, 9,300 Indian nationals and 7,200 Pakistani nationals received immigrant visas to settle in the United States as permanent residents in 2021.

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