Demographics of Support for the Israeli-Palestine Conflict

Americans have generally been supportive of Israel and without US military assistance, Israel would certainly have struggled much more than it has. A recent Pew opinion poll, however, suggested that there are key demographic differences in terms of who is more or less supportive of Israel in its conflict with the Palestinians. The Christian Science Monitor has the story.

How one views Israel in the recent Gaza conflict depends largely on race, age, and political affiliation, the poll indicates. While 40 percent of Americans overall see the Palestinian militant group as the prime instigator of the current violence versus 19 percent who blame the Israelis, this gap is smaller – and even nonexistent – within certain demographic groups.

Consider differences among age groups: Among Americans 65 or older, the fault lies with Hamas, as 53 percent of them blame the militant group for the current violence, while only 15 percent blame Israel. Among Americans ages 18 through 29, however, 29 percent put Israel at fault, versus 18 percent who put the blame on Hamas.

Why are Millennials less supportive of Israeli policy? According to Alec Tyson, a senior researcher at Pew, the answer may have to do with religion, as young people are less likely to be members of denominations that tend to support Israel.

Keep in mind that the poll was conducted prior to the recent escalation of violence in Gaza, but it seems likely that the results wouldn't have been much different if the poll had been taken yesterday instead of earlier this month.

Positive Notes on Women's Reproductive Health

For reasons that are always hard for me to fathom, women's reproductive rights seem to be constantly under attack, mainly from men. But there has been some good news lately. Yesterday, a federal judicial panel blocked Mississippi's legislative attempt to shut down its last abortion clinic by requiring that its doctor have a local hospital affiliation. 

A federal appeals panel on Tuesday blocked a Mississippi law that would have shut the sole abortion clinic in the state by requiring its doctors to obtain admitting privileges at local hospitals, something they had been unable to do.

By a 2-to-1 vote, the panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that by imposing a law that would effectively end abortion in the state, Mississippi would illegally shift its constitutional obligations to neighboring states. The ruling is the latest at a time when states, particularly in the South, are increasingly setting new restrictions that supporters say address safety issues and that critics say are intended to shut clinics.

Notice that the ruling was narrowly focused on the fact that this was the last abortion clinic remaining  in Mississippi.

In March, a panel from the same appeals court, composed of different judges, upheld a Texas law requiring admitting privileges, ruling that the closing of some but not all clinics within a state did not present an undue burden to women seeking abortion. About one-third of the abortion clinics in Texas have shut in the last year because of the requirement, leaving 22 open and forcing women in some parts of the state to drive more than 100 miles to obtain an abortion.

If everyone had access to and used effective contraception, including emergency contraception after unprotected intercourse, then the demand for abortion could be lessened and the angst over it alleviated. Thus, it was encouraging to hear that delegates to this year's meeting of the Society for the Study of Reproduction focused attention on contraception, including discussion of the development of a male contraceptive.

Scientists at the meeting, held in Grand Rapids, Michigan, were less cheerful about the prospects of developing a hormonal contraceptive for men. Christina Wang, a reproductive-health researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles, is working to develop such a pill by combining a progestin steroid with testosterone. But she says that pharmaceutical companies' interest in such treatments has cooled over the past decade.

Over the years it seems to me that the prevailing opinion of women is that they would never trust a man who told them he was using a male contraceptive. Men may also not believe a woman who says that she is using a contraceptive, but the consequences of non-use or failure of a contraceptive is clearly vastly greater for women than for men. Getting contraceptives to women seems to be the single biggest problem that needs to be solved here.

Unaccompanied Minor Children Represent a Global Issue

There are more unaccompanied minor children arriving in the US than into any other country (reflecting partly the fact that we have more immigrants than any other country), but the US is not the only recipient of such migrants. The Migration Policy Institute has a nice overview of the situation and policy choices being debated and implemented in the US and the EU. In a separate email that went out today, they note the global scope of the issue. Since I don't see this piece online, I will quote from the email I received, which has numerous links to the sources of their information:

The U.S. immigration, humanitarian, and political systems currently are grappling with a sharp rise in the number of unaccompanied minors, with more than 57,000 children encountered so far this fiscal year at the U.S.-Mexico border. This trend is not unique to the United States. Child migrants traveling without relatives are on the move across the globe, leaving their homes as a result of violent conflict, abuse, poverty, famine, and natural disasters.
The United States is not the only destination for Central American child migrants fleeing gang violence and poverty. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees reports that 5,500 unaccompanied children sought safety in Mexico in 2013, while Mexico, Panama, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Belize recorded a combined 435 percent increase in asylum claimants (adult and child) from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.
The phenomenon of unaccompanied minors is found in most major immigrant-receiving countries. The European Union registered 12,685 asylum applications from unaccompanied minors last year, with an additional 12,770 entries by unaccompanied minors not applying for asylum. The children come mainly from Afghanistan and Syria, across Africa, and as far away as Vietnam.

As of August 2013, the Australian Human Rights Commission recorded 358 unaccompanied minors in immigrant detention centers around the country, where concerns of poor treatment and conditions have been raised. Due to a policy of interdiction, fewer boats of refugees have attempted to reach Australia, leaving many stranded in Indonesia. Since 2012, the number of children arriving in Indonesia has increased 11 percent, to 2,478 minors. Many of the unaccompanied children are ethnic Hazaras from Afghanistan, fleeing persecution by the Taliban.
The occurrence of unaccompanied children seeking refuge is not limited to industrialized nations, but also found in regions of conflict. The Syrian civil war has produced more than 1 million child refugees, with hundreds of thousands fleeing to Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, and beyond. Yemen is host to 2,700 unaccompanied children, mainly from Somalia and the Horn of Africa. Violent conflicts throughout Africa have forced children to flee, seeking safety in refugee camps. The Shire refugee camp in Ethiopia alone shelters at least 1,500 Eritrean unaccompanied minors.
For the United States the treatment and safety of the children arriving at the border has become a high priority, with Congress this week debating the appropriate response. For a primer on the child migration crisis, from its roots in Central America to U.S. policy, check out the Source's recent Policy Beat, and other MPI resources on unaccompanied minors, which can be found here.

Ebola Virus Taking a Toll in West Africa

Just as we set our sights on getting one virus (HIV/AIDS) under control, the ebola virus is gaining ground in West Africa. NBC News notes that:

Ebola has infected nearly 1,100 people and killed 660 of them in the current West African outbreak, according to the World Health Organization. It's the worst Ebola outbreak ever recorded. The virus has spread across borders between Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea and was taken by airliner for the first time ever when a Liberian citizen, Patrick Sawyer, collapsed a week ago after flying into Lagos. He’s since died and two tests came back positive for Ebola.

Two Americans--a doctor and a health worker--have both been infected with the virus in Liberia, where they were working as part of a North Carolina-based organization trying to save the lives of Ebola patients. 

One bright spot — early treatment seems to help patients survive better, even though there’s no specific treatment for Ebola. In some outbreaks, 90 percent of patients have died, but the death rate in this outbreak is closer to 60 percent, and Strickland [Melissa Strickland, director of Samaritan's Purse in North Carolina says it’s possibly because patients are being identified earlier and getting supportive care, such as saline solution, to prevent dehydration.

A story on BBC News indicates that the virus was first identified in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) in 1976, and has spread out from there. The virus was named for the river near the village where the first patient was identified. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control notes that the most likely carriers of the disease (besides infected humans) are bats, although monkeys may also be a reservoir. 

Is the End of AIDS in Sight?

Six of the people who died on the Malaysian Airlines flight shot out of the air over Ukraine were AIDS researchers on their way to an international AIDS conference in Melbourne, Australia. They perhaps already knew that one of the themes of the conference would be to set sights on ending the AIDS epidemic by 2030, as reported by this week's Economist.

“End” is an elastic term, since there is no cure for HIV infection, nor is one in sight. But optimists think a combination of the tools available—particularly the antiretroviral (ARV) drugs which now keep around 13m people alive—could be enough to stop the virus spreading. In the parlance of epidemiologists, they believe they can arrive at R0<1 .="" average.="" course="" during="" each="" font="" her="" his="" in="" individual="" infected="" infection="" layman="" less="" lifetime="" means="" of="" on="" one="" or="" pass="" person="" s="" terms="" than="" that="" the="" to="" will="">

This would be nothing short of miraculous, when you consider that no one had heard of the disease a few short decades ago, but in the meantime it has killed millions, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. Using condoms, not sharing needles, and taking antiretroviral drugs all are helping to bring the disease under control, but the success in doing that runs the risk of diverting attention away from the work that still needs to be done--most of it related to lifestyle and the cost of drugs, rather than anything inherently medical.

The Post-2015 Development Agenda, intended to follow on from the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals, which were set in 2000 and which explicitly mention AIDS as a problem to be dealt with, do not, at the moment, mention the disease directly. This worries many. Spending on prevention and treatment, about $19 billion a year in a combination of locally raised money and foreign aid, is thought unlikely to rise over the next few years. Those fighting AIDS must learn to do more with less.