To what extent does the strong sense of belonging turn into discrimination?

Discrimination, in all its forms and expressions, is one of the most common forms of abuse and violations of human rights. It affects millions of people every day and is one of the most difficult to recognize. Discrimination and intolerance are closely related concepts. Intolerance is a lack of respect for practices or beliefs other than one's own. It also implies the rejection of people whom we consider different, for example, members of a social or ethnic group different from our own, or people who are different in their political or sexual orientation. Intolerance can manifest itself in a wide range of actions through hate speech, causing physical injury or even murder.

Discrimination occurs when people are treated less favorably than others in a comparable situation simply because they are part of, or are considered to belong to, a particular group or category of people. People can be discriminated against because of their age, disability, ethnicity, origin, beliefs, race, religion, sex or gender, sexual orientation, language, culture and many other factors. Discrimination, which is often the result of people's prejudices, makes people feel powerless, prevents them from becoming active citizens and from participating in the development of their skills and, in many cases, from accessing work, health services, education or housing.

Discrimination has direct consequences on the people and groups discriminated against, but it also has profound indirect consequences on society as a whole. A society where discrimination is allowed or tolerated is a community where people are deprived of freely exercising their potential for themselves and for society.

The principles of equality and non-discrimination are established in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights” (article 1). This concept of equality is embedded in contemporary democracy, such that states are obliged to protect various minorities and vulnerable groups from unequal treatment. Article 2 enshrines non-discrimination: “everyone has all the rights and freedoms proclaimed in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind.”

Direct and indirect discrimination

Discrimination can be practiced directly or indirectly. The direct one is characterized by the intention to discriminate against a person or a group, for example, when an employment office rejects Roma candidates for a job or an apartment company does not rent them to immigrants. Indirect discrimination occurs when an apparently neutral provision, criterion or practice represents a disadvantage for a certain group compared to others. Examples range from a minimum height criterion for being a firefighter (which may exclude many more women than men among applicants) to a department store that does not hire people who cover their heads. These rules, seemingly neutral in their own logic, may in fact disproportionately disadvantage members of certain social groups. Direct and indirect discrimination is prohibited under human rights instruments; Indirect discrimination is often more widespread and more difficult to prove than direct discrimination.

Structural discrimination

The key element in structural discrimination is not the intention but the effect of keeping minority groups in a subordinate position. (Fred Pincus)

Structural discrimination is based on the way our society is organized. The system itself disadvantages certain groups of people. Structural discrimination works through norms, routines, behavioral patterns and attitudes that create obstacles to achieving true equal opportunities. Structural discrimination often manifests itself as institutional prejudice, mechanisms that constantly operate in favor of one group and discriminate against others. These are the cases in which the resulting discrimination is not clearly based on the conviction of a person or a group of people, but on institutional structures, whether legal, organizational, and so on. The problem with structural discrimination is to make it visible, as we often grow up with it, it is self-evident and indisputable.

The existence of structural discrimination leaves states with the challenge of adopting policies that not only look at the legal framework, but also at other incentives, taking into account behavioral patterns and how different institutions function. Human rights education can be one of the answers to this problem.

Tax evasion in the face of global poverty.

For decades, multinational corporations, especially those based in core countries, have funneled billions of dollars in profits to tax havens, making even more money for their shareholders.

That's why a global deal negotiated in 2021 by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) was a big deal: It set a global minimum tax of 15% and included some ways countries could collect that tax even if tax havens and companies were not cooperating.

But corporations are already finding new ways to get around that agreement; a development that will end up reducing the amount of corporate taxes that countries can collect by about half of what was originally expected: $135 billion annually instead of $270 billion, according to a report published by the EU Tax Observatory on October 23.

This finding is a big problem because tax evasion exacerbates global inequality, taking money that could have been used by governments for policies that improve the lives of their citizens and instead giving it to the shareholders of giant corporations.

The 2021 agreement made it difficult for companies to shift their profits to low-tax countries, says Gabriel Zucman, director of the EU Tax Observatory and one of the report's coordinators. But instead, companies will now shift their profits to countries that offer large tax credits or subsidies, including some in the EU. Governments are increasingly using refundable tax credits, like the Inflation Reduction Act, as their new way to structure corporate tax policy, Zucman says.

Avoiding taxes is an art that companies have perfected in recent decades. In the 1970s and 1980s, according to data from the EU Tax Observatory, hardly any profits were shifted to tax havens, countries like Bermuda and Ireland, where companies based in relatively high-tax places like the United States and Europe could shift their profits. trades on paper and only pay minimal (or in some cases zero) taxes on their profits. But that changed in the 1990s and 2000s, when about a third of American multinational corporations' foreign profits moved to tax havens. In 2010, companies based in core countries began generating even more profits, around 50%, and the level has remained high since then, according to the Fiscal Observatory report. Around $1 trillion in profits were shifted to tax havens in 2022, according to the report.

A common method of corporate profit shifting works like this: a company like Microsoft sells its intellectual property to a subsidiary in a low-tax country and then pays that subsidiary for the use of that intellectual property. The foreign subsidiary makes huge profits that would normally appear on Microsoft's US or UK profit book, but instead appear offshore and are therefore taxed at a very low rate. This is actually a strategy Microsoft used, selling its intellectual property to an 85-person factory in Puerto Rico, where its tax rate was close to 0%, according to ProPublica. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) says Microsoft owes it $29 billion in back taxes. In response to ProPublica's questions on the issue, the company declined to discuss details, saying only that it "follows the law and has always fully paid the taxes it owes."

In some of the most widely used tax havens, such as Bermuda, the Cayman Islands and Ireland, U.S. companies reported tens of billions of dollars in profits despite having few employees, according to an analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. In 2019, for example, American companies reported $30.7 billion in profits in Bermuda, which works out to about $36 million per employee there. The status quo allows multinationals to "use accounting tricks to report complete nonsense to their tax authorities," says Steve Wamhoff, director of federal tax policy at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.

Both the EU and the United States have tried to stop profit shifting, knowing it was costing them billions of dollars, but no significant progress was made until the global minimum tax agreement in 2021. At that time, the OECD He praised the agreement as "groundbreaking" because it made it much easier for countries to force companies to comply. Essentially, the signatory countries agreed to set a floor for multinational corporations to pay a tax of at least 15% in each jurisdiction where they operate. If a jurisdiction in which a multinational company is located does not tax that company at 15%, the agreement makes it possible for other countries to collect that revenue.

"It's a very well-designed mousetrap," says Mike Kaercher, senior counsel at New York University's Tax Law Center.

There are some obstacles to the effective implementation of the agreement, the main one being that all participating countries have to ratify it and the United States, one of the biggest promoters of the agreement, has not yet announced any plans to do so.

Additionally, the rule allowing participating countries to collect minimum taxes not collected by non-participating countries is temporarily suspended until at least 2026 to make room for adoption, and according to Zucman, there is some concern that this suspension will be extended indefinitely. Additionally, in July 2023, the OECD clarified that the global minimum agreement does not apply to certain tax credits, such as those offered by the Inflation Reduction Act. Part of the Inflation Reduction Act allows tax credits to be transferable, meaning a green energy company can receive a tax credit and then sell it to another company. allowing the green energy company to get much-needed cash and a multinational company to get a significant discount on its minimum 15% tax rate.

While for decades there was a race to the bottom among the many countries that lowered their tax rates to invite foreign companies to shift their profits there, there will now be a global subsidy race aimed at green energy producers, Zucman argues.

“It is concerning that the global corporate minimum tax agreement does not address this form of tax competition and, in fact, legitimizes it,” Zucman and his co-authors write.

Of course, there is a positive aspect to this new form of tax avoidance; Encourages companies to invest in green energy. However, it risks exacerbating inequality in the countries where companies operate. It could help increase shareholders' after-tax profits at the expense of everyone else.

Thirty years after Oslo:

Without a political future, the Palestinian National Authority has no future at all

The Palestinian National Authority (PNA) was born from the Oslo accords signed between Palestinians and Israelis 30 years ago. The interim authority was created with a resolution of the Central Council of the Palestine Liberation Organization on October 12, 1993. It has survived thanks to two factors: the will of the Palestinian people, who saw it as a step towards freedom and independence, and the recognition, support and financing of the international community, including Israel, which saw it as a factor of stability.

Three decades later, many of the ANP's foundations are crumbling. It seems that it is losing the reasons for its existence and the factors that guarantee its survival.

The most dramatic transformation that has affected the ANP has been the radical change in Israel's policies, strategies and very nature. Israel, under the leadership of Labor leaders Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, the signatories of the Oslo accords, anticipated that the ANP would fulfill two functions. One was a politician; At that time, Israel needed a political counterpart, especially one that would not rule out territorial compromise. The other function was to provide services to the Palestinians, thus freeing Israel from the ethical and legal burden of directly occupying and governing another people.

The core of the negotiation strategy designed by Rabin and Peres was to keep all options open. Israel neither accepted nor rejected the two-state solution as an end to the peace process, but rather adopted an open position. In this way, Israel benefited from the duality of service/government and political functions of the ANP, without making the difficult land sacrifices that the Palestinians required.

Later, under the leaderships of Ariel Sharon and Benjamin Netanyahu, and as a result of Israel's transition to increasingly right-wing norms, Israel gradually began to confine the ANP. It became little more than a service provider, keeping the lights on and the economy humming. Israel strongly resisted an independent political role for the ANP and its representatives and punished their political activities.

Natural conclusions

Thirty years later, today's Israel, led by far-right figures such as Itamar Ben-Gvir, Bezalel Smotrich and Benjamin Netanyahu, no longer employs an open strategy towards the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Israel has made a decision. In the new Israel there is no longer any critical mass, neither among the public nor among the political elite, who is willing to give up control of any part of historic Palestine/Greater Israel. This new Israel is leaving the ANP with only one of two possibilities: fit in or abandon this new reality. The pressure to fit in is suffocating him to near collapse.

This new Israel is leaving the ANP with only one of two possibilities: fit in or abandon this new reality.

The resulting decline in the PNA's ability to fulfill its political and governing role has gradually made it less relevant to the Palestinian public. The relentless continuation of Israeli settlement expansion, which led to the effective failure of the ANP's political project to end the occupation through peaceful negotiations, has eroded public support for the ANP. Furthermore, the combined decline in financial contributions from international donors and the loss of Palestinian tax revenues that Israel deducts (in effect stealing from them) is bankrupting the PA. While the United States, which was one of the PA's largest donors until 2017, has continued to fund Palestinian security bodies, it has cut aid for all other needs, distorting official structures and contributing to poor governance. As a result, public trust in the ANP has plummeted, with polls by the Jerusalem Media and Communications Center showing that trust in the ANP was 80% in 1996, falling to a paltry 50% in 2022.

Because the ANP does not exist in a vacuum, its gradual weakening has played into the hands of the main opposition party, the Islamic movement Hamas. Hamas gained enough strength to take control of the Gaza Strip in 2007, and appears to be leading the resistance against the Israeli occupation in the West Bank, thus increasing its popularity and making the PNA appear impotent.

If this vicious cycle continues – the weakening of the ANP by Israel and indifferent international donors, leading to a deterioration in performance, leading to declining public support and then further delegitimization – then the ANP is doomed. This last tangible result of the Oslo Accords is on the brink of collapse.

The collapse of the ANP will not happen soon or suddenly. It may take some time. What is breathing life into the ANP are the narrow circles of top government brass, security elites and the private sector, each with strong vested interests in the survival of the ANP.

What could make this house of cards collapse? The president's sudden absence could have that impact. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, as one of the last founders of the PNA and elevated by international recognition and domestic legitimacy, may be able to shore up the PNA while he is alive. That is why the current heated debate over succession in the ANP is completely irrelevant. Its current president is likely to be the last. Persistent factional divisions between Fatah and Hamas reinforce this forecast. Palestinian law states that once the president dies, the speaker of parliament (which in practice does not exist due to divided factional politics) must take over as president for two months, during which elections are held.

Without a president to serve temporarily, the only other path to presidential succession is for Fatah leaders to agree on a successor or successors. Experience tells us that our leaders are more likely to disagree than agree. Without the will of the Palestinian people to sustain it, the PNA is much more likely to disappear from existence, as will the Oslo accords and the Israeli political culture that made them possible.

Ghassan Khatib served as Vice President of Advancement and Professor of International Studies and Cultural Studies at Birzeit University and held various positions in the Palestinian Authority. He is the author of Palestinian politics and the peace process in the East

Plants... More sensitive than humans?

Climate change has a significant impact on plants and ecosystems in general. As the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere increases, changes in climate patterns occur, such as increased temperatures, variations in precipitation patterns, and extreme weather events.

These changes can have several consequences for plants. For example:

Changes in geographic distribution: plants adapt to certain ranges of temperature and precipitation. With climate change, conditions may become less suitable for certain species in their current location. This can cause changes in the geographic distribution of plants, either moving to higher latitudes or higher elevations in search of more favorable conditions.

Changes in life cycles and phenology: Climate change can alter patterns of flowering, fruiting and other events in the life cycle of plants. For example, warmer temperatures can accelerate the flowering of some plants, which can have implications for pollination and interaction with other organisms.

Water stress: Climate change can affect water availability in different regions. More frequent or intense droughts can cause water stress in plants, which affects their growth and survival. Some species can adapt by developing mechanisms to conserve water or resist periods of drought, while others may be more affected.

Plant-pollinator interactions: Climate change can alter interactions between plants and their pollinators. Pollinators depend on environmental cues, such as temperature and food availability, to synchronize their activities with plants. If these signals are altered, pollination can be affected, which has implications for plant reproduction and diversity. It is true that organisms are very sensitive to changes in their environment.

The ability to detect and respond to stimuli from the environment is essential for the survival and success of an organism. In the case of plants, their sensitivity to environmental changes has been recognized and used for centuries. Plants have various mechanisms that allow them to detect changes in factors such as light, temperature, humidity, availability of water and nutrients, among others.

For example, plants can adjust their growth and development in response to the intensity and direction of sunlight, allowing them to maximize energy capture for photosynthesis. Furthermore, plants can detect changes in the availability of water and nutrients in the soil and adjust their physiology and morphology accordingly.

For example, when water availability is low, plants may close the stomata of their leaves to reduce water loss through transpiration. They can also develop longer, deeper roots to access water and nutrients in deeper layers of soil. These adaptive responses of plants to environmental changes have been exploited by humans for centuries. Farmers, for example, observe plants' responses to different environmental conditions to determine when and how to grow their crops.

Indicator plants, such as certain lichen species sensitive to air pollution, are also used to monitor environmental quality in certain areas. In short, plants are very sensitive to changes in their environment and have been used for centuries as indicators of these changes.

Their ability to detect and respond to environmental stimuli is essential for their survival and has been used by humans for various purposes.