Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
February 18, 2018
Hello All – The murders of students and teachers has elicited a nationwide outpouring of rage. Rage against the political system that allows gun violence to go unchecked. Rage against the hypocrisy of politicians who send "thoughts and prayers" and have their pockets stuffed with money from the National Rifle Association. Rage against the Machine.
There were rallies and protests everywhere this weekend. On Saturday in Tarrytown, 100 people rallied for stricter gun laws. Today, Sunday, more than 350 rallied outside the GOP county headquarters in White Plains to demand action to end gun violence. In Hastings on Saturday, CFOW had a rally that demanded an end to gun violence at home and abroad.
It is difficult to explain in just a few words the causal links and interconnections between wall-to-wall gun violence in the United States and the fact that our country has been at war more or less continuously since World War II, and without a let-up since 9/11. But we think the links are strong and that to make progress against gun violence – in our towns, in our schools – we need to turn our country away from war and to stigmatize the thinking that turns to war whenever international disagreements arise.
A good introduction to this line of thinking is provided by a leaflet prepared by CFOW stalwart Nick Mottern for our rally in Hastings. It is reprinted here in the hope that it stimulates thought and discussion.
Was the Parkland Killer Inspired by Our Sociopathic Wars?
Students and parents at Florida's Parkland school are putting a stop to the usual post-massacre commentary. They are saying, thanks for the "thoughts and prayers," but this time we will fight the NRA and hold pro-gun politicians accountable.
It is imperative, however, that we all look more broadly at the highly-charged, militaristically propagandized emotional ocean in which we in the U.S. are all swimming. In America today, the message coming out loud and clear from the President, the Congress, super hero movies and so much more: "If you have a problem with humans kill them."
Was Nickolas Cruz, the Parkland Killer, in any way influenced by Donald Trump's threat to incinerate North Koreans, or Barack Obama's commitment to, and joking about, assassinating people with drones.
Just who are the socio-paths here?
Are we willing to pay the price, over and over, for the government/business fear-mongering and fomenting of societal sociopathy that this combine views as essential to carrying forward with good old-fashioned colonial wars to grab resources from people of color. As in Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq, Somalia, Syria, Libya, Niger, and the list goes on.
There are countries, such as Canada or Switzerland, where gun ownership is even more prevalent than in the United States. But gun violence is very low and mass murders almost non-existent. Why?
Is there a connection between the amount of gun violence in the United States and our many wars?
Is there a connection between the violence in our country and our history of slavery and white supremacy? Is this experience the source of our Islamophobia?
Since 9/11, we have had constant warfare. Today we have more and more wars, overt and covert. The students in Florida have never known a time when we weren't at war, when we didn't demonize a people who were strangers to us, or who were darker than the whitest white, or who had the misfortune to live near oil or other valuable things.
Can we change attitudes towards guns and violence while our media and politicians urge us to support war and violence? Can we endure a regime of heavily militarized police forces and a "surveillance state" without accepting that disagreements should be settled by force? With troops and bases in more than 100 countries, do we have the strength to ask, "In whose interest have we become an Empire?" There are many questions we have to think about. - Nick Mottern
News Notes
excellent summary of their "thoughts and prayers" responses to last October's mass shooting in Las Vegas shouldn't be missed.
Today, February 18th, is the international day of support for the Tamimi family of Palestine's West Bank. In this inspiring video, Abby Martin ("Empire Files") interviews the family's most notorious member, Ahed, now on trial for felonious slapping.
With congressional action on DACA apparently at a dead end, this useful survey of the several legal cases challenging Trump's right to abolish the DACA program asks, "Will the Supreme Court Become Trump's Enabler?"
As we may (or may not) be teetering on the edge of a financial crash, I found this selection of articles from The London Review of Books about previous crashes very interesting. NB highly recommended is the article by old friend Robert Brenner on the 2000 crash.
In writing about the life-issues of one woman, Katha Pollit (The Nation) deftly illustrates how "Trump Is Making Life Even Harder for Working-Class Women."
Coming Attractions/Things to Do
Ongoing – Concerned Families of Westchester holds a rally/vigil each Saturday in Hastings, at the VFW Plaza, from 12 to 1. Please join us.
Monday, February 26 - Port Chester Immigration Defense and Make the Road (Westchester Hispanic Coalition) will be hosting a Free Legal Advice and Training for Immigrants and those who serve them. The program begins at 7 p.m. At St. Peter's Episcoopal Church, 19 Smith St. in Portchester.
Sunday, March 4th – CFOW's monthly meeting will be at the Dobbs Ferry Historical Society, 12 Elm St. in Dobbs, from 7 to 9 p.m. At these meetings we review our work of the past month and lay plans for the coming weeks. Everyone is welcome at these meetings; please join us!
Saturday, March 10th – Jewish Voice for Peace and other organizations will present a forum on "Defending Constitutional Rights: Religious Freedom and Police Accountability" at the Ethical Culture Society of Westchester, 7 Saxon Wood Rd., in White Plains, starting at 2 p.m. Speakers will include Omar T. Mohammedi, President of the Association of Muslim American Lawyers, and Jon Moscow, writer and community activist with the NY Coalition against Islamophobia and Jewish Voice for Peace – Northern NJ.
CFOW Nuts & Bolts
Please consider getting involved with Concerned Families of Westchester. We meet for a protest/rally each Saturday in Hastings, from 12 to 1 p.m., at the VFW Plaza (Warburton and Spring St.) Our leaflet and posters for our rallies are usually about war or climate change, but issues such as racial justice or Trump's tax cut legislation are often targeted, depending on current events. We meet on the first Sunday of each month, from 7 to 9 p.m., at the Dobbs Ferry Historical Society. Our weekly newsletter is archived at https://cfow.blogspot.com/; and news of interest and coming events is posted on our CFOW Facebook page. If you would like to make a financial contribution to our work, please send your check to CFOW, PO Box 364, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY 10706. Thanks!
This Newsletter
Articles linked in the CFOW newsletter are intended to illuminate some of the main action-issues about which we are concerned. Coming mostly from the "dissenting media," they provide an alternative to the perspectives of the mainstream media. In addition to the section on the Florida school shooting and the excellent "Featured Essays," I especially recommend the essays on the US role in Niger and more generally the invasion of Africa; the photo essay about what happened at Standing Rock, one year ago; and Thomas Edsall's interesting essay on what's happened to the Democratic Party.
Rewards!
One of the "rewards" for this week's newsletter is prompted by the powerful energy coming from the students and parents of the Parkland, Florida high school. Listen to the subtle Crosby and Nash song "Teach Your Children" and see what you think. And for something completely different, here is a useful map. that you might want to consult in times of confusion. (h/t JG).
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
THE FLORIDA HIGHSCHOOL SHOOTING
After Sandy Hook, More Than 400 People Have Been Shot in Over 200 School Shootings
---- When a gunman killed 20 first graders and six adults with an assault rifle at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, it rattled Newtown, Conn., and reverberated across the world. Since then, there have been at least 239 school shootings nationwide. In those episodes, 438 people were shot, 138 of whom were killed. The data used here is from the Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit that began tracking school shootings in 2014, about a year after Sandy Hook. [Read More] For more numbers, read Lydia O'Connor, "We're Averaging One School Shooting Incident Every 63 Hours In 2018," Huffington Post [February 14, 2018] [Link].
How Trump Is Undermining the Fight Against Mass Shootings
By George Zornick, The Nation [February 15, 2018]
---- Forget banning assault weapons. Forget preventing people from obtaining "countless magazines," or banning the manufacture of high-capacity clips, or expanding background checks for both guns and ammunition. Forget all of these commonsense measures that could prevent mass shootings like the one Wednesday in Parkland, Florida, that killed 17 people. President Donald Trump, who got $30 million worth of help from the National Rifle Association on his way to the White House and is, in so many ways, the NRA's dream president, will not do any of these things—nor will his Republican allies in Congress. … As Trump swings a sledgehammer to the hated "administrative state," with Ryan's support and encouragement, he is destroying or attempting to destroy some of the very modest programs the government does undertake to prevent mass shootings and violence in schools—even when it comes to enforcing current laws or improving mental-health services. [Read More]
In Wake of Florida Massacre, Gun Control Advocates Look to Connecticut
---- In the aftermath of the rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, where 20 children and six educators were killed in 2012, state lawmakers in Connecticut set out to draft some of the toughest gun measures in the country. They largely succeeded — significantly expanding an existing ban on the sale of assault weapons, prohibiting the sale of magazines with more than 10 rounds and requiring the registration of existing assault rifles and higher-capacity magazines. The state also required background checks for all firearms sales and created a registry of weapons offenders, including those accused of illegally possessing a firearm. Now, in the wake of another wrenching shooting rampage — this one at a high school in Parkland, Fla., that killed 17 — and in the absence of any federal action, gun-control advocates, Democratic politicians and others are pointing to the success of states like Connecticut in addressing the spiraling toll of gun violence. Analyses by the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence show that, with few exceptions, states with the strictest gun-control measures, including California, Connecticut, New Jersey and New York, have the lowest rates of gun deaths, while those with the most lax laws like Alabama, Alaska and Louisiana, have the highest. [Read More]
The Students' Voices
(Video) Florida student Emma Gonzalez to lawmakers and gun advocates: 'We call BS'
---- Emma Gonzalez, a senior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, addressed a gun control rally on Saturday in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, days after a gunman entered her school in nearby Parkland and killed 17 people. … "We haven't already had a moment of silence in the House of Representatives, so I would like to have another one. Thank you. Every single person up here today, all these people should be home grieving. But instead we are up here standing together because if all our government and President can do is send thoughts and prayers, then it's time for victims to be the change that we need to see." [See the Video]
(Video) Parkland student: My generation won't stand for this
---- We can't ignore the issues of gun control that this tragedy raises. And so, I'm asking -- no, demanding -- we take action now. Why? Because at the end of the day, the students at my school felt one shared experience -- our politicians abandoned us by failing to keep guns out of schools. But this time, my classmates and I are going to hold them to account. This time we are going to pressure them to take action. This time we are going to force them to spend more energy protecting human lives than unborn fetuses. [See the Video]
FEATURED ESSAYS
The Wars No One Notices: Talking to a Demobilized Country
By Stephanie Savell, Tom Dispatch [February 15, 2018]
By Stephanie Savell, Tom Dispatch [February 15, 2018]
---- At heart, whatever our small successes, we continue to face a grim reality of this twenty-first-century moment, one that long preceded the presidency of Donald Trump: the lack of connection between the American public (myself once included) and the wars being fought in our names in distant lands. Not surprisingly, this goes hand-in-hand with another reality: you have to be a total war jockey, someone who follows what's happening more or less full time, to have a shot at knowing what's really going on in the conflicts that now extend from Pakistan into the heart of Africa. … For any of this to change, President Trump's enthusiastic support for expanding the military and its budget, and the fear-based inertia that leads lawmakers to unquestioningly support any American military campaign, would have to be met by a strong counterforce. Through the engagement of significant numbers of concerned citizens, the status quo of war making might be reversed, and the rising tide of the U.S. counterterror wars stemmed. [Read More]
Ahed Tamimi and women in the Palestinian resistance
By Nada Elia, Middle East Eye [February 18, 2018]
---- As activists around the world take part in the Global Day of Action to Free the Tamimis on February 18, it is only appropriate to highlight the courage that made 17-year-old Ahed Tamimi the face of Palestinian resistance. It is also important to celebrate Palestinian women generally, and the long history of their many contributions to the struggle. We must do our part to denounce how Israel treats an indigenous woman defending her land and natural resources from an illegal occupying army. Ahed Tamimi is an admirable young woman who makes Palestinians and our allies proud, not because she slapped a soldier, but because, for years, she has participated in, and led, protests against the theft of her land. She was an icon before "the slap" that resonated around the world. …While Ahed herself may be exceptional, her struggle is nevertheless typical of that of millions of Palestinians. Nor is there anything unusual about her pre-dawn arrest: Israel arrests an average of two Palestinian children per night. As such, Ahed is representative of a multitude of Palestinian women and children whose stories are insufficiently reported. [Read More]
A Border Patrol Memoir Gets Caught Up in the Deportation Fight
By Ryan Devereaux, The Intercept [
---- … Over the next four years, as he patrolled the vast expanses of the American southwest, where U.S. enforcement strategies have driven migrants into some of the country's deadliest terrain, culminating in thousands of deaths, Cantú was proven wrong. While he was granted the ground-level view of immigration enforcement that he had been looking for, it came at a cost. There was no way to be half-in, he learned. When you become a cog in "the thing that crushes" — a name Cantú later gave to the U.S. immigration enforcement apparatus — your good intentions have a way of evaporating and you become implicated whether you like it or not. … Like the war on terror, the interlocking conflicts along the border are at times regarded as abstractions among those who are removed from its realities. But unlike the wars abroad, the disaster at home has yielded few firsthand, literary accounts from officers and agents tasked with fighting that fight (though perhaps that will change as the face of U.S. immigration enforcement evolves)."The Line Becomes a River" provides a rare window into that world, but Cantú also attempts to go deeper, reflecting on the border itself and the clichéd narratives that surround the region. Woven throughout his personal story is a deep body of research and critical analysis that seeks to explain how the status quo came to be. And while reasonable minds can disagree on whether he's succeeded, Cantú, in both his book and public comments, has clearly attempted to address the underlining conditions that made his experience what it was, along the way demonstrating a willingness to publicly challenge the mission of his former employer. [Read More]
WAR & PEACE
US wasting billions on nuclear bombs that serve no purpose and are security liability
By Julian Borger, The Guardian [UK] [February 15, 2018]
---- The US is to spend billions of dollars upgrading 150 nuclear bombs positioned in Europe, although the weapons may be useless as a deterrent and a potentially catastrophic security liability, according to a new report by arms experts. … A third of the B61 bombs in Europe under joint US and Nato control are thought to be kept at Incirlik base in Turkey, 70 miles from the Syrian border, which has been the subject of serious concerns. The threat to the base posed by Islamic State militants was considered serious enough in March 2016 to evacuate the families of military officers. During a coup attempt four months later, Turkish authorities locked down the base and cut its electricity. The Turkish commanding officer at Incirlik was arrested for his alleged role in the plot. … There have been reports that the bombs have been quietly moved out because of safety concerns, but that has not been confirmed. The remaining B61 bombs are stored at five other locations in four countries: Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany, according to the Federation of American Scientists, which tracks the weapons. The NTI report said it "should be assumed that they are targets for terrorism and theft". The bombs are the remnants of a much larger cold war nuclear arsenal in Europe, and critics have said they serve no military purpose, as the nuclear deterrent against Russia relies largely on the overwhelming US strategic missile arsenal. [Read More]
The War in Syria
The US Is Permanently Occupying Northern Syria, and That's Trouble
---- With the Islamic State on the ropes, the Trump Administration has announced that some 2,000 U.S. troops will stay permanently in the Kurdish region of northern Syria. Ostensibly, the troops will fight Islamic State remnants and combat Iranian influence. In reality, the United States seeks to remove President Bashar al Assad, or failing that, dismember Syria into zones controlled by outside powers. … On February 7, US jets and artillery attacked pro-Assad forces in Khusham, an oil-rich area in north eastern Syria outside of the Kurdish region. The U.S.-allied Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) had captured the area from the Islamic State and Assad-allied troops were trying to take it. Needless to say, the fighting had nothing to do with Yazidis or remnants of the Islamic State. Then on February 9, Israel claimed an Iranian drone entered its airspace, a charge denied by Iran. On the same day Assad's artillery shot down an Israeli jet fighter, the first such loss since 1982. In retaliation Israel bombed a dozen sites in Syria. The United States is allied with Israel against Assad, Russia, and Iran. Such clashes are just the latest indication of the expanded role played by outside powers. … How did the United States get tangled up in another Mideast quagmire? [Read More]
For more on this slow-motion crisis, read John Glaser, "America's Creeping Regime Change in Syria," February 14, 2018] [Link]; and Dozens of Russians Are Believed Killed in U.S.-Backed Syria Attack," [Link].
The War in Afghanistan
More Afghan Civilians Being Deliberately Targeted, U.N. Says
---- An annual United Nations report released on Thursday offered a stark assessment of the 16-year Afghan war, showing a slight decline in civilian casualties from an all-time high but a rise in complex bombing attacks that have taken a heavy toll in the capital. The report said at least 10,453 Afghan civilians had been wounded or killed in 2017. At a time when the American and Afghan governments are releasing fewer statistics — the Afghan Army stopped publishing military casualty numbers in November, for example — the United Nations report on civilian casualties is one of the few reliable indicators of how the war is proceeding. … Airstrikes — which are carried out only by the United States-led international forces, in an operation now called Resolute Support, and the Afghan Air Force, not by the Taliban and their allies — killed 295 civilian bystanders and wounded 336 more, the report said. That was the highest toll since the United Nations started counting in 2009, and possibly for the entire war. [Link].
The US Invasion of Africa
Drones in the Sahara
By Joe Penney, The Intercept [
----- U.S. Special Operations forces have been in Niger since at least 2013 and are stationed around the country on forward operating bases with elite Nigerien soldiers. What happened in Tongo Tongo is just a taste of the potential friction and instability to come, because the pièce de resistance of American military engagement in Niger is a $110 million drone base the U.S. is building about 450 miles northeast of Niamey in Agadez, a city that for centuries has served as a trade hub on the southern edge of the Sahara Desert, not far from Mali, Algeria, Libya and Chad. In January, I hopped aboard an aging plane that followed a roundabout route to one of America's largest-ever military investments in Africa, its latest battleground in an opaque, expensive, and counterintuitive war on the continent. … The irony is that while the American presence is supposed to help keep the country stable, the U.S. has participated with the Nigerien government in a constitution-bypassing maneuver that undermines the country's already-fragile democratic process. … I got the feeling that Agadez was just one or two mistakes away from a radical change in which the American military becomes the focal point of hostility. Armed drones are a major issue anywhere the U.S. uses them, but in Niger, the American base is in a major city not far from potential drone targets. Judging from the secrecy and lack of trust thus far, it's not hard to envision a future in which an errant drone strike causes the population of Agadez to turn against the base. [Read More] Also very useful is this report from The New York Times: "'An Endless War': Why 4 U.S. Soldiers Died in a Remote African Desert" [February 17, 2018] [Link]
GLOBAL WARMING/CLIMATE BREAKDOWN
Photo Essay: Looking Back at Standing Rock One Year Later
By Zoë Carpenter, The Nation [February 16, 2018]
---- On February 23 of last year, a day when the frozen ground had started to turn to mud, law-enforcement officers rolled into the Oceti Sakowin camp near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in North Dakota. Donald Trump had been inaugurated a month earlier, and the new president quickly reversed an Obama administration decision to deny Energy Transfer Partners a permit to finish construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, a $3.78 billion project running directly under the Missouri River. The water protectors, as protesters called themselves, had been fighting the pipeline since the spring of 2016, concerned that the proposed route cut through ancestral land of spiritual significance, and that a pipeline leak could contaminate the primary water supply to the reservation. The small group who had remained through the bitter winter at Oceti Sakowin had been ordered to leave by February 22 or face eviction and arrest. Most did; a few dozen remained the following the day, when Humvees with snipers on their roofs rolled into camp, a helicopter buzzing above them. Photojournalist Tracie Williams, on assignment for the National Press Photographers' Association, captured some of what happened next. … An hour after police evicted the last demonstrators from Oceti Sakowin, North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum signed four measures increasing punishments for demonstrators. Among other things, the new laws expanded the definition of criminal trespass, and raised the penalty for a riot conviction. Though the measures were clearly in response to Standing Rock, they also reflected a much broader conservative backlash to direct action—a backlash that resulted in a wave of legislation introduced in states across the United States. Overall, according to the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law, lawmakers in 30 states have introduced 56 bills to restrict public protest since Trump's election. [Read More]
Trump Administration Targets Obama-Era Effort to Limit Methane
By Lisa Friedman, New York Times [February 12, 2018]
---- The Trump administration on Monday moved to repeal one of the last unchallenged climate-change regulations rushed into place in the waning days of the Obama presidency — a rule restricting the release of planet-warming methane into the atmosphere. The rule, which applied to companies drilling for energy on federal land, has been the subject of intense court battles and delay efforts, as well as one surprise vote last year in which Senate Republicans temporarily saved it from being torpedoed. Methane, which is about 25 times more potent at trapping heat than carbon dioxide, accounts for 9 percent of all domestic greenhouse gas emissions; about a third of that is estimated to come from oil and gas operations. Under the rule, oil and gas companies would have been required to capture leaked methane, update their equipment and write new plans for minimizing waste when drilling on government property. [Read More]
THE STATE OF THE UNION
Why Is It So Hard for Democracy to Deal With Inequality?
By Thomas B. Edsall, New York Times [February 15, 2018]
---- In theory, in a democracy, the majority should influence — some would even say determine — the distribution of income. In practice, this is not the case. Over the past few decades, political scientists have advanced a broad range of arguments to explain why democracy has failed to stem the growth of inequality. Most recently, Thomas Piketty, a French economist who is the author of "Capital in the Twenty-First Century," has come up with a straightforward answer: Traditional parties of the left no longer represent the working and lower middle classes. … These upheavals have left the party of the left ill-equipped to tackle not only inequality but economic mobility more broadly and with it the pervasive decline of much of what has become red America. This in turn raises the question: Can a party split between an upscale wing that is majority white and a heavily minority working class wing effectively advocate on behalf of a liberal-left economic agenda? The jury is out on this question, but the verdict could very well be no. [Read More]
Puerto Rico Needs More Than Bandages
---- Puerto Rico needs more than bandages. It needs to rethink and redesign its electric, water and wastewater systems, both to protect them against the next big storm and to provide the dependable service they were failing to give residents before Hurricane Maria. To accomplish that and other rebuilding needs, Puerto Rico had sought $94.4 billion in total disaster aid in November. That included nearly $18 billion to rebuild the power grid — nine times what Congress has provided. … Scientists point to the possible contribution of climate change to Maria's intense rainfall — as well as to the rainfall of Harvey and Irma, its predecessor hurricanes. The Caribbean is already seeing changes in land and ocean temperatures that mimic global climate trends. The mass movement of Puerto Ricans to the mainland after last fall's hurricanes may provide one of the first examples of a large-scale climate migration in the Americas. [Read More]
Amidst Election Security Worries, Suddenly Paper Ballots Are Making a Comeback
By Zaid Jilani, The Intercept [
---- The nation's secretaries of state gathered for a multi-day National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) conference in Washington, D.C., this weekend, with cybersecurity on the mind. Panels and lectures centered around the integrity of America's election process, with the federal probe into alleged Russian government attempts to penetrate voting systems a frequent topic of discussion. Cybersecurity experts from the federal government and military were in high supply. Every secretary of state was invited to a closed-door briefing at the Department of Homeland Security, while federal experts spoke to a wider audience at the conference. … One way to allay concerns about the integrity of electronic voting machine infrastructure, however, is to simply not use it. Over the past year, a number of states are moving back towards the use of paper ballots or at least requiring a paper trail of votes cast. … America's paper ballot states may seem antiquated to some, but our neighbors to the north have used paper ballots for federal elections for their entire history. Thanks to an army of officials at 25,000 election stations, the integrity of Canada's elections is never in doubt. "It's highly decentralized and it's paper-based so documents can be verified easily afterwards," Marc Mayrand, former Chief Electoral Officer of Elections Canada, told the National Post. "So, there may be an error in transmission from time to time or there may be somebody trying to hack the web system that publishes results for the general public. But it's always verifiable, you can always go back to your paper trail." [Read More]
How Trump Plans to Evict Poor Families From Public Housing
By George Zornick, The Nation [February 16, 2018]
---- When President Donald Trump released his first budget proposal last year, it called for the deepest cuts to the Department of Housing and Urban Development since the early 1980s. Congress didn't go along—the budget deal that legislators just passed after a brief shutdown actually increased HUD funding by $2 billion over previous levels—but Trump and his team are undeterred. The White House budget released this week calls for a $68 billion cut to HUD, or a 14 percent reduction, which is even deeper than what Trump demanded last year and, according to experts, the most radical attack on federal housing aid since the US Housing Act became law in 1937. If enacted, the Trump budget would be a vicious eviction notice to millions of low-income families. [Read More]
ISRAEL/PALESTINE
Trump Creates, Then Exacerbates, Crisis for Palestinian Refugees
---- One of the most consequential actions Donald Trump took during the first year of his presidency was to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel in December 2017. When the Palestinians predictably responded by pulling out of the US-led "peace process," Trump retaliated by cutting US financial support to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) by more than 50 percent. The US cutback in aid to UNRWA critically threatens the access of Palestinian refugees to food, health care and education. In Gaza, 1.3 million Palestinian refugees, who comprise 70 percent of Gaza's population, depend on UNRWA for food assistance. The refugee crisis was aggravated by Israel's 2014 massacre in Gaza. … As Professor Richard Falk, former UN special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, stated, until the United States lifts the unconditional mandate it gives Israel to repress the Palestinians, "there will be no peace. It's our struggle here to end this destructive policy." [Read More]
The Boomerang Effect: How Netanyahu Made Israel an American Issue, and Lost
---- While support for Israel among Republicans has remained high, a whopping 79%, support for Israel among Democrats has sunk even further, to 27%. True, Netanyahu's strategy in courting US conservatives has proved a success. However, the price of that success is that the relationship between Israel and the American public has fundamentally changed. Netanyahu has shoved Israel into the heart of polarizing American politics, and although he has achieved his short-term goals (for example, obtaining US recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel) he has irrevocably damaged the decades-long consensus on Israel among Americans, and in that there is a great source of hope. [Read More]
