Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
January 21, 2018
"Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble."
Hello All – On Saturday several million people joined the Women's March in more than 250 towns and cities across the country. This year the marchers' demands were varied; not simply focused on Trump as a disgusting human being, but addressing also many concrete issues. By chance the Women's March intersected with a political crisis in Washington, nominally about government funding, but (for many) more broadly about the Trump Agenda and its heinous policies. The foreground issue in the political crisis is whether the needs of 800,000 young immigrants in the DACA program would be addressed as part of the resolution of the funding crisis. Prominent among the signs and slogans hoisted by last Saturday's marchers were demands that the DACA "Dreamers" be allowed to stay in the United States. Will the power of the Women's March affect the fate of "the Dreamers"?
Behind specific issues raised by Saturday's marchers was the demand that our government serve The People, that it use its power to meet human needs, to lift up and not oppress. In America today this is a revolutionary demand. The lynchpin of the political-funding crisis in Washington – the plight of our immigrant neighbors – elicits a focus on the individual lives at stake. When we shift our gaze from the politicians' crisis, what do we find? Here Amy Gottlieb writes about the arrest of her husband, immigrant organizer Ravi Ragbir. Here an immigrant who has been in the United States for 30 years says good-bye to his family at the airport as he is being deported. Here an immigrant describes her reaction to an expulsion order from ICE, obviously targeting her because she is a political organizer. Looking at "immigration enforcement" from the perspective of the lives ruined, no rational purpose can be discovered, beyond bureaucratic sadism.
The question on the table is whether the congressional Democrats can resist a compromise on funding legislation that will fail to sustain the DACA program. Given the Democrats' record on this thus far, there are reasons for concern. The marches on Saturday show that there is a power in the country for solidarity and humanity. Now is the time when this power is needed.
News Notes
Paul Booth, a leader of Students for Democratic Society in the early and mid-1960s, died this week. With SDS, In April 1965 he organized the largest-to-date "March on Washington," as the Vietnam War was on the cusp of expanding and drafting tens of thousands of young men. As this memoir from The New York Times notes, Paul was a "moderate" within SDS, the last leader who was rooted in its social-democratic origins. Singer and organizer Si Kahn wrote this week about the importance of Paul's steady leadership as SDS became an important national organization on US college campuses. Following SDS, Paul worked for the rest of his life in the union movement and Democratic Party. Here is an essay about rebuilding a more effective party and union movement that he was working on at the time of his death.
A poll of people in 134 countries finds that "approval for American leadership" has dropped dramatically under the Trump regime. As the New York Times reports, "just 30 percent of people interviewed in 134 countries last year approved of American leadership under Mr. Trump, a drop of nearly 20 percentage points since President Barack Obama's final year and the lowest finding since the Gallup polling organization began asking the question overseas more than a decade ago. The decline was especially steep in Latin America, Europe and Canada."
The public record of serious "collusion" between Russia and the Trump presidential campaign has been pretty thin to-date, and the foundational issue re: Russian manipulation – the alleged hacking of the Democratic National Committee computers – has largely disappeared from view. Therefore, it is imo of great interest to read New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg's column about evidence that Russian money went to the Trump campaign via the National Rifle Association. While on this topic, also of interest this week is a radio interview with Russian expert Stephen F. Cohen, who has repeatedly called attention to the bizarre overstatement of Russian deviousness and the media demonization of Russia's Putin. (And for more from this perspective, check out the Oliver Stone documentary on the 2014 coup in Ukraine, linked under "Featured Essays.)
Ahed Tamimi, the Palestinian teenager who slapped an Israel soldier, remains in jail. Ahed will be 17 on January 31st, and thanks to Code Pink you can send her a birthday card by going here.
Coming Attractions/Things to Do
Ongoing – CFOW holds a rally/protest each week in Hastings, at the VFW Plaza (Warburton Ave. and Spring St.) from noon to 1 p.m. The focus of the rally varies, depending on current events, but primarily they protest our many wars and the politics of Empire. Please join us!
Sunday, February 4th – The next CFOW meeting will be at the Dobbs Ferry Historical Society from 7 to 9 p.m. At these meetings we review our work over the past month and make plans for the next one. Frequently, we have Meaningful Discussion. Everyone is welcome at these meetings.
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 excellent "Featured Essays," the articles by Mike Klare about Trump's frightening "Nuclear Posture Review"; Robert Fisk's reporting on the new shape of war in Syria; two good articles on the perilous situation re: North Korea; observations about Guantanamo on its 16th anniversary; and an excellent essay on the novelist Richard Wright.
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!
Rewards!
Stalwart readers who are determined to press on through this newsletter might want to take a short break. Our rewards this week (for reading all the way to here) are two classics: "My baby just cares for me" by Nina Simone (once of Elmsford); and "A change in gonna come," sung by Aretha Franklin. Enjoy!
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
FEATURED ESSAYS
How the U.S. Is Making the War in Yemen Worse
By Nicolas Niarchos, The New Yorker [January 22, 2018]
---- Since the war began, at least ten thousand Yemeni civilians have been killed, though the number is potentially much higher, because few organizations on the ground have the resources to count the dead. Some three million people have been displaced, and hundreds of thousands have left the country. Before the war, Yemen was the Middle East's poorest state, relying on imports to feed the population. Now, after effectively being blockaded by the coalition for more than two and a half years, it faces famine. More than a million people have cholera, and thousands have died from the disease. UNICEF, the World Food Program, and the World Health Organization have called the situation in Yemen the world's largest humanitarian crisis. Yet the U.S. and Great Britain have continued to support the coalition, mainly with weapons sales and logistical help. (A small contingent of U.S. Special Forces fights Al Qaeda militants in the south of the country.) Without foreign assistance, it would be very difficult for the Saudis to wage war. As casualties mount, legislators in the U.S. have begun to question support for the Saudis. Nonetheless, the Administration of Donald Trump has refused to criticize the kingdom. [Read More] And check out these pictures from "More Than a Thousand Days of War in Yemen" [Link].
Hawaii and the Horror of Human Error
By Paul McLeary, The Atlantic [January 15, 2018]
----- The Cold War came to an end, somehow, without any of the world's tens of thousands of nuclear warheads being fired. But there were decades-worth of close calls, high alerts, and simple mistakes that inched world leaders shockingly close to catastrophe. Saturday's terrifying, 38-minute episode in Hawaii will not go down as one of those close calls: Residents of the state waited for the bombs to fall after receiving text messages that a ballistic missile was on its way. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai on Sunday said "the government of Hawaii did not have reasonable safeguards or process controls in place to prevent the transmission of a false alert"—a case of human error, in other words. But the episode did reveal the glaring deficiencies of an early-warning system that can easily misfire, along with some frightening truths about the speed at which policymakers and presidents must make decisions in the event that missiles really do fly. "Mistakes have happened and they will continue to happen," the Arms Control Association's Daryl Kimball told me. "But there is no fail safe against errors in judgment by human beings or the systems that provide early warning." [Read More]
For more on nuclear danger and "fail safe" – Ray Acheson, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, "We Need a Complete Nuclear-Weapons Ban" [January 16, 2018] [Link]; and Robert E. Hunter, "Dealing with Hawaii's False Alarm," LobeLog [January 16, 2018] [Link].
The Making of an Israeli Dissident
By Yuli Novak, Haaretz [Israel] [January 18, 2018]
---- In the Israel of 2018 anyone can become a dissident instantaneously. All you have to do is choose – at any given moment, consciously or otherwise – to remain true to yourself. In recent years a struggle has been going on in this country over the nature of its regime, a struggle that will determine which rules, norms and values guide the social and political system called the State of Israel. This is a struggle between a conservative, racist, ultra-nationalist worldview and a democratic, liberal one, and it is taking place in all public arenas: education, the legal system, culture, open forums, the media and the Knesset. Take your pick. … That is what happened to me. About two years ago, over the course of a few months I turned from someone living a relatively normal life to the object of blatant and inflammatory, violence-laced words uttered by cabinet members, into a person whose life is under daily threat, someone who becomes the subject of a Shin Bet investigation on the orders of the prime minister, someone who is under surveillance and subject to constant harassment. It's true, no one has thrown me into a solitary confinement cell and no one has treated me the same way Palestinians are treated. I still retain the abundant privileges I have as an affluent Ashkenazi Jew. And yet, with the changing political reality around me, I've become, without meaning to, a dissident. [Read More]
(Video) 'Ukraine on Fire': Oliver Stone Docu on US Destruction of Ukraine
From Russian Insider [January 16, 2018]
[FB – Exactly what happened in Ukraine in 2014 is not clear in many essential parts, but "what happened?" has become a significant issue in US politics, part of the larger question regarding the extent of Russian intervention into the US political system. This film by Oliver Stone presents imo useful rebuttals to many of the anti-Putin (and thus anti-Trump) claims in US political debates. However, the remnant of historian in me feels that the Ukrainian internal/domestic situation is more complex than is presented in the film (and anywhere else in the US debates); but the larger context of the aggressive nature of US/NATO expansion to the East, and the reckless attempt to absorb Ukraine into the West, are imo correct.]
---- Oliver Stone's seminal documentary Ukraine on Fire has finally been made available to watch in the West. Ukraine, the 'borderlands' between Russia and 'civilized' Europe is on fire. For centuries, it has been at the center of a tug-of-war between powers seeking to control its rich lands and Russia's access to the Mediterranean. … The film was originally released in 2016, but unsurprisingly, Stone came up against problems distributing the film in the US and western countries. A Russian-dubbed version was available almost immediately and was aired on TV in Russia, but people in the 'free world' were left without access to the full film. [See the film].
WAR & PEACE
The World According to Trump; Or How to Build a Wall and Lose an Empire
By Alfred W. McCoy, Tom Dispatch [January 16, 2018]
By Alfred W. McCoy, Tom Dispatch [January 16, 2018]
---- As 2017 ended with billionaires toasting their tax cuts and energy executives cheering their unfettered access to federal lands as well as coastal waters, there was one sector of the American elite that did not share in the champagne celebration: Washington's corps of foreign policy experts. Across the political spectrum, many of them felt a deep foreboding for the country's global future under the leadership of President Donald Trump. … Yet no matter how sharp or sweeping, such criticism can't begin to take in the full scope of the damage the Trump White House is inflicting on the system of global power Washington built and carefully maintained over those 70 years. Indeed, American leaders have been on top of the world for so long that they no longer remember how they got there. Few among Washington's foreign policy elite seem to fully grasp the complex system that made U.S. global power what it now is, particularly its all-important geopolitical foundations. As Trump travels the globe, tweeting and trashing away, he's inadvertently showing us the essential structure of that power, the same way a devastating wildfire leaves the steel beams of a ruined building standing starkly above the smoking rubble. [Read More]
More on US overseas military bases - This article in US News serves up a panorama of what G.W. Bush, Cheney, Obama, H.R. Clinton, and Trump have done since 9/11 - Catherine Besteman and Stephanie Savell, "Where in the World Is the U.S. Military? Everywhere." [January 12, 2018] [Link]. Recently a new organization, The Coalition against US Foreign Military Bases, met in Baltimore. You can read about their plans and endorse their organization statement here.
Trump's Nuclear Posture Review: Back to Armageddon
By Michael T. Klare, The Nation [January 18, 2018]
---- It is no secret that when it comes to shaping government policy, Donald Trump has been driven by compulsion to undo the enlightened measures of his predecessor, Barack Obama. Trump has used every instrument at his command to undermine the gains made in those areas during the Obama era. But no rollback of that legacy is likely to prove as consequential or dangerous as his plan to enlarge America's nuclear arsenal and expand the uses to which it can be put. If all of Trump's policies are enacted, we will soon find ourselves in a world as terrifying as that of the darkest days of the Cold War. … The Trump NPR, a draft of which was leaked to The Huffington Post on January 11, calls for increasing rather than reducing the role of nuclear weapons in US strategy. It also decrees a massive boost in military spending so as to finance the actual procurement of additional munitions, including both replacements for all three components of the strategic triad as well as an array of new weapons intended to bridge the (perceived) gap between conventional conflict and all-out nuclear war. [Read More]
More insights into Trump's Nukes – Robert Anderson and Martin J. Sherwin, "Nuclear war became more likely this week – here's why," The Guardian [UK] [January 13, 2018] [Link]; and David E. Sanger and William J. Broad, "Pentagon Suggests Countering Devastating Cyberattacks With Nuclear Arms," [Link].
Merchants of Death
Trump Is Turning the State Department into a Global Weapons Dealer
By Haley Pedersen and Jodie Evans, AlterNet [January 11, 2018]
---- The Trump administration will soon announce its next move in the ongoing assault on diplomacy and human rights currently taking place in the United States. Through a plan dubbed "Buy American," the administration is calling for U.S. attachés and diplomats to play a larger role in the sale of U.S. weapons, effectively solidifying their role as lobbyists for the arms industry rather than agents of diplomacy. This means the State Department, the agency that is meant to foster diplomatic relations and maintain peaceful engagement with other countries, will now openly operate as a weapons dealer. … This move by the Pentagon and the U.S. State Department to advance the interests of the arms industry will increase profits for the merchants of death that are already thriving thanks to U.S. involvement in perpetual warfare around the globe. Shares of the five biggest military corporations—Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and General Dynamics—have more than tripled over the last five years and currently trade at or near all-time highs, so they are literally making a killing on killing. [Read More] For some better news, read "Germany Bars Arms Sales to Yemen Attackers," from TeleSur [January 21, 2018] [Link]. Does this matter? Read "US-Led Coalition Civilian Killings Tripled in Iraq and Syria in 2017," [Link].
A New Round of War in Syria?
The Next Kurdish War Looms on the Horizon
---- Be sure, as usual, that the Kurds will be betrayed. The new "force" will exist just so long as the Americans think it necessary; after which it will be left to the mercy of the Syrians and Turks who both regard it as a threat to their hegemony. Both Erdogan and Assad have long ago regarded any enemy of their states as "terrorists" – a dangerous word whose etymology goes back to Tsarist Russia and World War Two but whose ascendance needed the Americans and the world's reporters to crown – and the Kurds, until they come to heal, will be treated as that by Ankara and Damascus. Syria cannot countenance a Kurdish mini-state on its territory and Turkey cannot tolerate a Kurdish mini-state along its southern border, however secular, liberal and socialist it claims (not without reason) to be. [Read More]
For more on the shape-shifting war in Syria – Jason Ditz, "Tillerson: US Military Presence in Syria 'Open-Ended,' Will Ensure Regime Change," [Link]; and "Syrian Kurds Urge UN Action to Prevent Turkish Invasion," [Link]. Middle East scholar Juan Cole has been writing a daily useful update on the looming Turkish invasion of a Kurdish region in Syria, which may have far-reaching consequences: "Turkey threatens war against US/Kurdish Force in Syria" [January 16, 2018]; "As US throws Kurds under the Bus, Is Turkey preparing to invade Syria?" . [January 17, 2018]; "Trump Admin Commits to Forever War in Syria against Iran," [January 18, 2018];; "Russia accuses US of destabilizing Syria with Kurdish-Turkish Clash," [January 19, 2018]; and "Syria: Turkey Begins Military Operation against US-Allied Kurds in Afrin," [January 20, 2018]. For a useful map of the Kurdish regions inside Syria, go here.
War with North Korea?
Why Trump's North Korea 'Bloody Nose' Campaign Is a Big Bluff
---- The Trump administration's leaks of plans for a "bloody nose" strike on North Korean nuclear and/or missile sites is only the most recent evidence of its effort to sell the idea that the United States is prepared for a first strike against the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). But the "bloody nose" leak—and the larger campaign to float the idea of a first strike against North Korea—isn't going to convince Kim Jong Un or anyone else who has paid close attention to the administration's propaganda output. That's because national security adviser H.R. McMaster and other senior advisers know the Trump administration has no real first-strike option that is not disastrous. A review of the entire campaign to suggest otherwise reveals the leak has been spun in the hope of creating pressure on Pyongyang.
How Not to Defuse the Korea Crisis
By Rajan Menon, The Nation [January 18, 2018]
---- Most people intuitively get it. An American preventive strike to wipe out North Korea's nuclear bombs and ballistic missiles, or a commando raid launched with the same goal in mind, is likely to initiate a chain of events culminating in catastrophe. That would be true above all for the roughly 76 million Koreans living on either side of the Demilitarized Zone. … Meanwhile, there remains the continuing danger of a war in the Koreas, whether premeditated or triggered accidentally by a ship seized, an aircraft downed, a signal misread… you get the picture. No serious person could dismiss this scenario, but even the experts who track the evidence closely for a living differ on just how probable it is. In part, that's because, like everyone else, they must reckon with a colossal wild card—and I'm not talking about Kim Jong-un. [Read More]
War with Iran?
Donald Trump Still Doesn't Understand Iran After a Year in Power
By Patrick Cockburn, The Independent [UK] [January 16, 2018]
---- The US-Iran confrontation is already destabilising parts of the Middle East that were starting to settle down after the defeat of Isis in the second half of last year. "The escalating American threats against Iran mean that the Iranians will be more vigorous in safeguarding their position in Iraq and Syria," said a former Iraqi minister who did not want his name published. … The US can stir the pot in Iraq but not achieve any decisive breakthrough in rolling back Iranian influence. In Syria, the American position is even more complicated because it relies, for leverage, on its alliance with the Syrian Kurds – the two million-strong minority that controls a great swathe of territory across northern and eastern Syria. The US has about 2,000 specialist soldiers in Syria, but its military strength depends on the use of airpower in support of Kurdish ground troops who belong to the Syrian branch of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, which has been waging a guerrilla war in Turkey since 1984. [Read More]
Keeping Iran's Ballistic Missiles in Perspective
By Greg Thielmann, Arms Control Association [January 16, 2018]
---- The Trump administration's 120-day "stay of execution" for the Iran nuclear deal has temporarily sidelined arguments over the absence of constraints on ballistic missiles as one of the agreement's principal flaws. But if this "flaw" is not quickly put in proper perspective, the issue could help undermine one of the most important non-proliferation achievements of our era. Iran's current ballistic missile development program is neither illegitimate nor disproportionate given that country's size and security situation. It is high time for opponents and supporters of the Iran nuclear deal (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA) to address this subject in a more balanced way. [Read More]
CIVIL LIBERTIES/"THE GLOBAL WAR ON TERROR"
The Guantanamo Prison Is Sixteen Years Old: A View from the Military Commissions
---- On 17 January 2018, the Guantanamo military detention facility marks its sixteenth anniversary. At its peak, the prison population was 779. Today, forty-one people remain imprisoned, a few of whom are facing trial in the military commissions. These special tribunals were established by the Bush administration and retained by the Obama and now the Trump administrations. One of the trials has five defendants, all of whom are accused of playing roles in the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks that triggered the US "war on terror." These five were among fourteen "high value detainees" who arrived in Guantanamo in September 2006, after being held and tortured for years in CIA black sites (secret prisons). In early December 2017, Lisa Hajjar was one of the journalists who attended a week of hearings in the 9/11 case. In this is a radio interview, she discusses recent developments in the military commissions. [Read More]
It Wasn't Just Republicans — Democrats Also Voted to Shut Down Debate on Trump Administration's Surveillance Powers
By Alex Emmons, The Intercept [January 17, 2018]
---- A critical mass of Senate Democrats voted with Republicans on Tuesday to shut down any further debate on a bill that strengthens the government's spying powers. The bill would renew a key surveillance authority for the National Security Agency until 2023 and consolidate the FBI's power to search Americans' digital communications without a warrant. … Documents leaked by Edward Snowden in 2013 revealed that the law serves as the basis for two of the NSA's largest surveillance programs: PRISM, which collects communications from U.S.-based internet companies, and Upstream, which scans the data passing through internet junctions as it enters and exits the U.S. Tuesday's vote left privacy activists questioning why Democrats would willingly hand such massive powers to the Trump presidency. [Read More]
GLOBAL WARMING/CLIMATE BREAKDOWN
Unfractured: A Documentary on Activism, Family and the Fight Against Fracking
From Justin Mikulka, DeSmogBlog [January 12, 2018]
---- Unfractured, the new documentary about environmental activist and ecologist Dr. Sandra Steingraber, is primarily about the personal sacrifices made by individuals like Steingraber while fighting for environmental causes and future generations. "I try to tell my kids, 'Mom is on the job,'" Steingraber explains. "That is my job. To protect you and to plan for your future." However, as Steingraber makes clear elsewhere in the film, we learn the reality: "It is not possible to do it all." While the documentary primarily follows the battle against fracking in New York, Steingraber also travels to Romania to meet with anti-fracking protesters there and then returns to New York to join efforts to stop natural gas storage in Seneca Lake salt caverns. [Read More, see the video]
Also useful/interesting – Julia Conley, "As Trump Denies Science, 'Terrifying Trend' Continues as 2017 Among Hottest Years Ever Recorded," [Link]; Sharon Kelly, "New NASA Study Solves Climate Mystery, Confirms Methane Spike Tied to Oil and Gas," DeSmogBlog [January 16, 2018] [Link]; and Coral Davenport, "Citing 'Inexcusable' Treatment, Advisers Quit National Parks Panel," [Link].
THE STATE OF THE UNION
How the Labor Movement Is Thinking Ahead to a Post-Trump World
By Rachel M. Cohen, The Intercept [
---- The American labor movement, over the past four decades, has had two golden opportunities to shift the balance of power between workers and bosses — first in 1978, with unified Democratic control of Washington, and again in 2009. Both times, the unions came close and fell short, leading, in no small part, to the precarious situation labor finds itself in today. Just over 10 percent of workers are unionized, down from 35 percent in the mid 1950s. Potentially, though, a wave of Democratic victories in 2018 and 2020 could give labor groups one last chance to turn things around. With an eye toward that moment, labor's leading strategists are coming together to build a program that avoids the mistakes of the last two rounds. [Read More]
The Myths of Housing Policy
---- David Madden and Peter Marcuse's thought-provoking book In Defense of Housing asks us to rethink the U.S. housing crisis. They argue that the United States' housing crises is not confined to a few big cities but nationwide since "there is no US state where a full-time minimum wage worker can afford to rent or own a one-bedroom dwelling." Also half of the nation's renters—in cities and also in rural areas—spend an unsustainable amount of their income on housing. The authors' rethinking uses an innovative global as well as a historical view of housing. … The basic conflict Madden and Marcuse see is between housing as a commodity for profit making—real estate—and housing as a home. Madden and Marcus think that the major problem globally is the commodification of housing: currently housing's value "as an investment outweighs all other claims about it, whether they are based upon right, need, tradition, legal precedent, cultural habit etc." [Read More]
Also useful/interesting – Michelle Chen, "The Medicaid Work Requirements Could Make it Impossible to Qualify for Medicaid in Most States," The Nation [January 18, 2018] [Link]; and Christopher Mathias, "Murders By U.S. White Supremacists More Than Doubled In 2017, New Report Shows," Huffington Post [January 17, 2018] [Link].
ISRAEL/PALESTINE
Holy City of Sterile Streets [Hebron]
By Roger Cohen, New York Times [January 20, 2018]
---- If there's an endpoint to the terrible logic of an occupation driven in part by a fanatical settler movement abetted by the state of Israel, that place is the historic center of Hebron. Once home to the souk and jewelry market, a bustling maze of commerce, it is now a stretch of apocalyptic real estate. Wires trail down crumbling walls. Garbage accumulates. Mingling is obliterated. Security demands separation. … The soldier is waiting for a call from his commander. Until he gets it, we cannot pass. I stand at the checkpoint with Yehuda Shaul, who served in the infantry in Hebron and later became a founder of Breaking the Silence, an advocacy group that collects testimonies from former Israeli soldiers troubled by their service. Shaul's a well-known figure in Hebron. He calls a lawyer for his organization. A half-hour later, we are allowed to proceed. … "It's not defense, or prevention. It's offense against Palestinian independence. That is the mission," Shaul says. "The view is that between the river and the sea there is room for one state only, so it better be us." Inevitably, the settlers, however extreme, become a vehicle of this strategic aim. [Read More]
U.S. Funding Cut Reignites Debate on Palestinian Refugee Agency
---- The United States, its biggest donor, announced this week that it was withholding $65 million from a scheduled payment of $120 million. The Trump administration said it was pressing for unspecified reforms from the agency, while also seeking to get Arab countries to contribute more. In response, the relief agency said on Wednesday that it would begin a fund-raising campaign to try to close the gap before it is forced to cut vital safety-net services. … The Trump administration's move, which added to a deficit of around $150 million on the agency's budget of nearly $1.25 billion, brought new attention to a sprawling agency that functions as a quasi-government in some areas of the Middle East and has courted controversy throughout most of its history. And it revived politically loaded questions about just who should qualify as refugees — and what is the proper role of the organization charged with caring for them. [Read More]
OUR HISTORY
The Hammer and the Nail [Richard Wright]
By Louis Menand, The New Yorker [July 20, 1992]
[FB – This week The New Yorker on-line made available some its noteworthy book reviews. This essay about Richard Wright and his life and times is still timely, 26 years later.]
---- Richard Wright was thirty-one when "Native Son" was published, in 1940. He was born in a sharecropper's cabin in Mississippi and grew up in extreme poverty: his father abandoned the family when Wright was five, and his mother was incapacitated by a stroke before he was ten. In 1927, he fled to Chicago, and eventually he found a job in the Post Office there, which enabled him (as he later said) to go to bed on a full stomach every night for the first time in his life. He became active in literary circles, and in 1933 he was elected executive secretary of the Chicago branch of the John Reed Club, a writers' organization associated with the Communist Party. In 1935, he finished a short novel called "Cesspool," about a day in the life of a black postal worker. No one would publish it. He had better luck with a collection of short stories, "Uncle Tom's Children," which appeared in 1938. The reviews were admiring, but they did not please Wright. "I found that I had written a book which even bankers' daughters could read and weep over and feel good about," he complained, and he vowed that his next book would be too hard for tears. "Native Son" was that book, and it is not a novel for sentimentalists. [Read More]
From Spinoza to Vilkomerson, Jewish voices for peace have long been banned– by Jews
By Jonathan Ofir, +978 [Israel] [January 10, 2018]
---- It may come as a surprise to some that Jews are actually being banned in an organized and institutional manner – from entering Israel – the Jewish state. But scrutiny of Jewish history reveals how logical this is. They are simply considered "the wrong kind of Jews", as Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann told Lord Balfour. And the "wrong kind of Jews" can be banned. The Jewish tradition of such societal expulsion of Jews is known in Hebrew as 'herem', the term also applied for 'boycott'. …This throws me 362 years back, to the expulsion of the legendary philosopher Benedict (Baruch) Spinoza in 1656, from the Amsterdam Jewish-Portuguese community. There are admittedly differences, which I shall address, between that expulsion and the banning of Jewish Voice for Peace – but there are also striking similarities, which I believe are instructive for understanding the psychological mechanisms at hand [Read More]
