Vox Sentences: New York governor: "You boycott Israel, I, uh, I boycott you!"

Muhammad Ali, 20th-century and black icon; Iraq is about to retake Fallujah; New York flips the script on BDS.

Vox Sentences is written by Dylan Matthews and Dara Lind.

TOP NEWS

Down goes...

Hulton Archive/Getty Images

• Muhammad Ali died Friday night at the age of 74.

  [NYT / Robert Lipsyte]

• The cause of death was septic shock, after Ali was hospitalized for a respiratory ailment. But the ultimate cause of his death was the Parkinson's disease he'd lived with for decades — which, contrary to what you might expect, was more likely caused by the pesticides he'd worked with on his farm than by his boxing career.

  [Vox / Julia Belluz]

• Ali was an icon of the 20th century, and many of its greatest writers wrote about him. If you want to understand his significance, you could do worse than starting with their accounts.

  [Vox / Victoria Massie]

• He was a genius athlete who transformed not just boxing but the whole sports industry — leading a shift in power from ownership and management to the athletes themselves, by refusing to be grateful for being allowed to fight.

  [NPR / Howard Bryant]

• That shift only makes sense because Ali was specifically a black icon. Dave Zirin's obituary shows how Ali wasn't just a symbol of the civil rights movement but a leader within it.

  [The Nation / Dave Zirin]

• To claim Ali for America, some of his eulogists have tried to claim he "transcended" race, erasing his radicalism in the process. Kevin Blackistone offers a corrective.

  [Washington Post / Kevin Blackistone]

• Or they've fought over the meaning of Ali's conscientious objection to the Vietnam War — either calling him a "draft dodger" (he wasn't) or celebrating the action without recognizing its analogues today.

  [The New Republic / Jeet Heer]

• There was, however, one galling respect in which Muhammad Ali was an unabashed hypocrite. Bring it on home, ClickHole.

  [ClickHole via Twitter]

...Fallujah

Ahmad al-Rubaye/AFP/Getty Images

• The city of Fallujah, which ISIS has held for two years, is on the verge of returning to Iraqi control. Iraqi forces have secured the southern edge of the city.

  [Al Jazeera]

• The most recent offensive was led by Shia militias called the Popular Mobilization Forces (or Units), who'd been effective in fighting ISIS in the past but whose reputation for killing Sunni civilians has led Iraqi leaders to limit their role.

  [Middle East Eye / Alex MacDonald]

• Retaking Fallujah would be a huge victory for the anti-ISIS forces, and could spell the "beginning of the end" for ISIS as a whole.

  [The National / Hassan Hassan]

• But Iraq has to plan its assault carefully, because there are 50,000 civilians trapped in Fallujah. ISIS has reportedly tortured some residents and shot others trying to flee.

  [WSJ / Ghassan Adnan and Asa Fitch]

• That makes it hard for the Iraqi forces to retake the city without causing serious collateral damage.

  [CBS News / Charlie D'Agata]

Who will boycott the boycotters?

Stephanie Keith/Getty Images

• New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed an executive order Sunday preventing the state from giving any money to groups that advocate for "boycott, divestment, and sanctions" against Israel — a movement known as the BDS campaign.

  [NYT / Jesse McKinley]

• BDS has gained momentum, especially on college campuses, over the past several years. Modeled on the attempts to divest from South Africa in the 1980s, the movement is supposed to shame Israel into ending its occupation of Palestine.

  [Vox / Zack Beauchamp]

• BDS has been criticized by people on both sides of the Israel/Palestine debate for squashing intellectual freedom — especially by urging a "cultural boycott" of Israelis.

  [Al Jazeera]

• And it's been questionably effective so far. (The boycott efforts certainly don't appear to be hurting Israel economically.)

  [Bloomberg ]

• Now, states (led by the pro-Israel establishment of both major parties) are fighting back. Some states have passed laws essentially divesting from BDS; Cuomo skipped that step and simply signed the executive order unilaterally.

  [Reason / Robby Soave]

• Cuomo's order could have huge implications, given that the state of New York gives a lot of money to public and private colleges. It sure seems like, under the executive order, student organizations — or even universities themselves — could be stripped of state funds if they issue a pro-BDS statement.

  [Foundation for Individual Rights in Education / Adam Steinbaugh]

• This seems unconstitutional. And it probably is.

  [Harvard Law Review ]

MISCELLANEOUS

Justin Schmidt studies insect pain. And by "study," I mean he lets insects sting him over and over and over again. [FiveThirtyEight / Jody Avirgan]

• In April 1992, Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote an opinion officially overturning Roe v. Wade. He had four other justices on board. This is the story of how that opinion wound up not becoming law.

  [Balkinization / Jack Balkin]

• Archer's producers want to do a live-action movie, and they want Jon Hamm in the title role.

  [Daily Beast / Marlow Stern]

• A new report on CDC biosafety failures read like "a screenplay for a disaster movie" according to one expert, so, you know, that's great.

  [USA Today / Alison Young]

• "Indoor sky-diving" — it's a thing.

  [DCist / Rachel Sadon]

VERBATIM

"At the only gay bar in the most sparsely populated independent country in the world, Zorig Alima tells me he’s a 'penis shaman.'" [Gawker / Lila Seidman]

• "A lot of these people grew up on ethnic jokes, which are totally taboo now. Do you know, Lydia, there are no ethnic-joke books in bookstores anymore?"

  [Ralph Nader to Pacific Standard / Lydia DePillis]

• "'Let me tell you about my start-up idea,' she would whisper as she sank her fangs into their juicy necks."

  [The Hairpin / Madeleine Schwartz]

• "[Charles Koch] said students should study Marx, and that he would be open to funding Marxist research, although there are no apparent examples of him doing so."

  [Washington Post / Jim Tankersley]

• "At present, globalisation is a luxury of the rich, for those of us who can swan about the globe with the flick of a boarding pass. The so-called 'migrant crisis' is globalisation for the poor."

  [The Guardian / Giles Fraser]

WATCH THIS

Muhammad Ali's biggest fights were outside the ring [YouTube / Joe Posner]

Stanley Weston/Getty Images

Will you support Vox’s explanatory journalism?

Most news outlets make their money through advertising or subscriptions. But when it comes to what we’re trying to do at Vox, there are a couple of big issues with relying on ads and subscriptions to keep the lights on:

First, advertising dollars go up and down with the economy. We often only know a few months out what our advertising revenue will be, which makes it hard to plan ahead.

Second, we’re not in the subscriptions business. Vox is here to help everyone understand the complex issues shaping the world — not just the people who can afford to pay for a subscription. We believe that’s an important part of building a more equal society. And we can’t do that if we have a paywall.

So even though advertising is still our biggest source of revenue, we also seek grants and reader support. (And no matter how our work is funded, we have strict guidelines on editorial independence.)

If you also believe that everyone deserves access to trusted high-quality information, will you make a gift to Vox today? Any amount helps.

One-Time Monthly Annual

$5/month

$10/month

$25/month

$50/month

Other

$

Yes, I'll give $5/month

Yes, I'll give $5/month

We accept credit card, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. You can also contribute via