CFOW Newsletter
May 13, 2019
Hello All – A little more than a year ago, John Bolton became Trump's National Security Advisor. He has essentially taken over the direction of US foreign policy. This man is simply a crackpot, regarded by traditional "defense intellectuals" as unhinged. Now he and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo are intent on war – whether against Venezuela, North Korea, or (this week) Iran. Abetted by a cooperative "intelligence" community and an uninterested Congress, unhindered by a divided Pentagon, and enabled by a befuddled and beleaguered President Trump, Bolton and Pompeo are about to drag us into war.
In the case of Iran, why is this happening? The fears of a decade ago, that Iran might acquire nuclear weapons, were resolved in 2015 by the "Iran Nuclear Agreement." The most rigorous inspection and verification regimes in history affirm that Iran was keeping strictly to the terms of the Agreement, Nevertheless, President Trump withdrew from the Agreement a year ago, and this week restarted heavy economic sanctions against Iran. This is causing real pain in Iran, and is strengthening the hand of Iraqi leaders who said the USA could not be trusted to keep an agreement, and have thus been proven right. Once again, the spark that threatens to ignite the Middle East comes from Israel, whose intelligence agencies claim to know that Iran intends to attack Americans, somewhere and sometime soon. So powerful US military forces are now threatening Iran, and Secretary of State Pompeo now states that if any Iran-linked entity (Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, etc.) harms any American or one of its allies (Israel, Saudi Arabia, etc.), the United States will attack Iran.
As noted in the several articles about the US and Iran linked below, and as stated eloquently by Arundhati Roy in Harlem last night, the consequences of such a military attack on Iran would be catastrophic. This would not be a weekend war; and could become a nuclear war (Israel, Russia, the United States). A war against Iran would almost certainly become a regional war, with many thousands of civilian casualties. So someday soon, please call Reps. Eliot Engel (202-225-2464) and Nita Lowey (202-225-6506) and our Senators Chuck Schumer (202-224-6542) and Kirsten Gillibrand (202-224-4451). Ask them to speak out against war against Iran. It's important.
News Notes
How did we get Mother's Day? It has several roots, as recounted in an interesting primer from the Howard Zinn Education Project. One of the roots was a declaration by Julia Ward Howe in 1870. Howe, an abolitionist and the author of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," called on women to protest the carnage of war. For more on this story, including Howe's declaration and an interesting video, go here.
Chelsea Manning is finally out of jail – for now. She spent several months in jail, including a stretch in solitary, for "contempt" – she refused to testify to a grand jury attempting to get dirt on Julian Assange. She was released because the term of the grand jury had expired. Now that a new grand jury is about to start, it is likely that she will be called again and, again refusing to testify, be put back in jail. For more about this story, go here.
President Trump says that "illegal immigrants" spend much of their day committing crimes. Is this true? It is well known that immigrants – those with legal papers and those without – commit fewer crimes than native-born Americans. Now a new study has found that "illegal" immigrants commit fewer crimes than do those born in the USA. Will Trump's fib never die? Probably not in my lifetime. For the story, go here.
Last week the founder of the UK's "Extinction Rebellion" was found not guilty by a jury after being charged with vandalism for writing a climate-danger message on a wall. The "vandal" used the "necessity defense" – that his small "crime" was necessary to combat the greater crime of allowing global warming to continue. The "necessity defense" was used by the anti-pipeline stalwarts attempting to block the Spectra pipeline near Indian Point a few years ago. That fact that a jury in the UK agreed that the small crime was necessary to stop the greater crime may show which way the wind in blowing. For the full story, go here.
Safeguarding Our Elections
CFOW's Allegra Dengler writes: NYS Board of Elections reexamined the hackable Dominion ICE after new information about major security flaws were brought to their attention. Unfortunately, they declined to decertify it, so it may soon be coming to a county near you. They reported that a piece of foam inserted into the machine after the printer is used could protect it from hacking. What? Even if poll workers could securely handle that in the middle of an active election, it would void any warranty. Soon they will be reviewing an even more hackable voting machine, the touchscreen ESS Expressvote XL. New York City Board of Elections, whose chief Michael Ryan was wined and dined and flown around the country as a member of an ESS advisory board, wants to buy it even before certification. Our current ballot scanners which are not attached to printers are much more secure. Fair Fight Action, formed by Stacey Abrams after the 2018 election debacle in Georgia, is fighting the Expressvote XL in Georgia. Democracy advocates are fighting it in Philadelphia. We need to fight it in New York. A report from Fair Fight Action about the corruption of ESS (Election Systems and Software), vendor of the Expressvote XL quotes Senator Ron Wyden "ES&S has "Figured Out a Way to be Above the Law" and Georgia showed the Company is "Accountable to Nobody." What to do? Sign up with the SMART contact form for updates on actions to take: Let your county know you oppose purchase of the new hackable Dominion ICE or ESS Expressvote voting machines. Contact Westchester County Executive George Latimer here and the Westchester County Board of Legislators here.
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 immigration policies are often targeted, depending on current events. We (usually) 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. And if you would like to support our work by making a contribution, 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. As always, we have some excellent "Featured Essays." Including a fabulous Democracy Now! program with Arundhati Roy. I also encourage you to check out the several articles about the lying liars behind the threat to make war on Iran; a user-friendly primer by Bill Hartung showing how our total war budget adds up to more than $1 trillion each year; a powerful video and a good article about the sadistic police work at our southern border; useful insights into the Trump/Kushner "Deal of the Century" that will make a bigger mess in Israel/Palestine; and an excellent review of a new book about one of our great historians, Eric Hobsbawm. Read on!
Rewards!
This newsletter was helped along with the fabulous music of Sidney Bechet. He was born in 1897, and tomorrow is his birthday. Here are some of my favorites; I hope you like them too: St. Louis Blues, (he was 61), "Petite Fleur," and "Blues My Naughty Sweetie Gives to Me." Enjoy!
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
FEATURED ESSAYS
(Video) Arundhati Roy on Democracy Now!
From Democracy Now! [May 13, 2019]
---- A Democracy Now! full program with Indian writer and activist Arundhati Roy. She speaks about the threat of fascism in India, Kashmir, Julian Assange, the prospects of US war against Iran ("The Biggest Mistake It Has Ever Made"), and capitalism and climate collapse. As always, she is thought-provoking and insightful. [See the Program]
Bill McKibben and Elizabeth Kolbert on the U.N. Extinction Report
From The New Yorker, [May 9, 2019]
---- After years of languishing far down the list of voters' priorities—for Democrats and even more so for Republicans—the desire for action on climate change has brought this issue to the top of many voters' concerns, according to a CNN poll. Now Presidential candidates are competing to establish themselves as leaders on the issue, while children are making headlines for striking from school. Bill McKibben, whose book "The End of Nature" brought the idea of global warming to public consciousness thirty years ago, tells David Remnick that the accumulation of weather catastrophes—droughts, wildfires, floods—may have finally made an impact. McKibben joined Elizabeth Kolbert in a conversation about the U.N.'s new report on species extinction. It finds that a million species could become extinct within a few decades, and that human life itself may be imperiled. While the political tide could be turning, both worry that it is too late. [Read More] And this morning, The New Yorker published "Climate Change and the New Age of Extinction," by Elizabeth Kolbert [Link].
Trump Has Defied Nearly All Subpoenas. What Can the House Do?
By Marjorie Cohn, Truthout [May 10, 2019]
---- Nearly 800 former federal prosecutors, both Republicans and Democrats, signed a statement saying that if it weren't for the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel opinion that a sitting president can't be indicted, Trump would be charged with multiple felonies. Ten million people have signed a petition calling for the House of Representatives to initiate impeachment proceedings. The Democratic-controlled House would have the votes to impeach Trump. The case would then move to the Senate for trial, where two-thirds of the senators must agree to convict Trump and remove him from office. That is nearly impossible, as the Republicans control the Senate. …. Although there is strong sentiment for impeachment, the procedure is politically risky for Democrats. However, it is possible that televised evidence of Trump's crimes could turn GOP senators against him, as happened during the Watergate hearings. … The articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon included obstruction of justice, abuse of power and refusal to comply with eight congressional subpoenas regarding the Watergate scandal. Will Trump follow a Nixon-like path, with television — ironically — becoming the site of his downfall? Or will he manage to strong-arm his way to legal impunity? [Read More] Also useful on the impeachment question is "Trump's Contempt for Democracy is Pushing Congress Toward Impeachment," by Ruth Conniff, The Progressive [May 9, 2019] [Link] and "An Imperial Presidency?" by Charles Blow, New York Times [May 12, 2019] . [Link]
The Military-Industrial Virus: How bloated defense budgets gut our armed forces
By Andrew Cockburn, Harper's [June 2019 issue]
---- This entire process, whereby spending growth slows and is then seemingly automatically regenerated, raises an intriguing possibility: that our military-industrial complex has become, in Spinney's words, a "living organic system" with a built-in self-defense reflex that reacts forcefully whenever a threat to its food supply—our money—hits a particular trigger point. The implications are profound, suggesting that the MIC is embedded in our society to such a degree that it cannot be dislodged, and also that it could be said to be concerned, exclusively, with self-preservation and expansion, like a giant, malignant virus. This, of course, is contrary to the notion that our armed forces exist to protect us against foreign enemies and impose our will around the globe—and that corruption, mismanagement, and costly foreign wars are anomalies that can be corrected with suitable reforms and changes in policy. But if we understand that the MIC exists purely to sustain itself and grow, it becomes easier to make sense of the corruption, mismanagement, and war, and understand why, despite warnings over allegedly looming threats, we remain in reality so poorly defended. [[Read More]
WAR AGAINST IRAN?
Will the U.S. Start a War Against Iran?
May 7, 2019]
---- On Sunday, May 5, U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton announced that the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group and a bomber task force had begun to make their way from the Mediterranean Sea toward the coastline of Iran. Iran, Bolton said, had made "a number of troubling and escalatory indications and warnings." He was, characteristically, not specific. It was enough that Bolton—who has a history of making hazardous statements—had made these comments from the perch of the White House in Washington, D.C. "The United States is not seeking war with the Iranian regime," he said rather incredulously. After all, what is the arrival of a massive war fleet on the coastline of a country but a declaration of war? …. The journey of the USS Abraham Lincoln through the Red Sea comes as the U.S. government tries to tighten its sanctions regime against Iran. Any country that buys Iranian oil, the United States now says, will be liable to have sanctions placed against it. The five countries most vulnerable to further U.S. sanctions are China, India, Japan, South Korea, and Turkey. India, Japan, and South Korea have said that they would try and abide by the new, and harsh, U.S. sanctions. China and Turkey have made it clear that they will not follow the U.S. lead. [Read More]
For more on US planning for a war of aggression v. Iran - "Pompeo in Baghdad to Pressure Iraq to Join Press against Iran; Iraq Declines," by Juan Cole, Informed Comment [May 8, 2019] [Link]; and "Is America Ready for John Bolton's War With Iran?" by May 10, 2019] [Link]. For the New York Times' version, read "Pentagon Builds Deterrent Force Against Possible Iranian Attack," by Julian E. Barnes and Eric Schmitt, New York Times [May 10, 2019] [Link].
Bolton Is Spinning Israeli 'Intelligence' to Push for War Against Iran
By Gareth Porter, TruthDig [May 11, 2019]
---- John Bolton has gotten away with a dangerous deception. The national security adviser's announcement Sunday that the Pentagon has deployed air and naval forces to the Middle East, which he combined with a threat to Iran, points to a new maneuver to prepare the ground for an incident that could justify a retaliatory attack against Iran. Bolton presented his threat and the deployments as a response to alleged intelligence about a possible Iranian attack on U.S. targets in the Middle East. But what has emerged indicates that the alleged intelligence does not actually reflect any dramatic new information or analysis from the U.S. intelligence community. Instead, it has all the hallmarks of a highly political case concocted by Bolton. Further underscoring the deceptive character of Bolton's maneuver is evidence that senior Israeli national security officials played a key role in creating the alleged intelligence rationale for the case. …The United States is in danger of falling for yet another war ruse as malignant as those that led Congress and the mainstream media to accept the invasion of Iraq or the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. [Read More] For more on the role of Israel and Israeli "intelligence," read "Israel wants the Trump administration to attack Iran, but U.S. mainstream media ignores Netanyahu's instigating," by James North, Mondoweiss [May 6, 2019] [Link].
Grim Outlook for Iran Nuclear Deal
By Peter Jenkins, LobeLog [May 8, 2019]
[FB - Peter Jenkins was a British career diplomat for 33 years. His last assignment (2001-06) was that of UK Ambassador to the IAEA and UN (Vienna), during negotiations that led (eventually) to the Iran Nuclear Agreement in 2015.]
By Peter Jenkins, LobeLog [May 8, 2019]
[FB - Peter Jenkins was a British career diplomat for 33 years. His last assignment (2001-06) was that of UK Ambassador to the IAEA and UN (Vienna), during negotiations that led (eventually) to the Iran Nuclear Agreement in 2015.]
---- Iran's patience with Europe's feeble submission to one of the most villainous U.S. administrations of all time finally ran out on May 8. That day President Hassan Rouhani told the European parties to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), via remarks at a session of his Cabinet, that henceforth Iranian performance of certain of the agreement's commitments would be conditional on European performance of all its commitments. The European non-performances that he seemed to have in mind are the cessation of purchases of Iranian oil and the withdrawal of bank financing for trade with Iran. Both these non-performances are a consequence of a Trump administration threat to sanction any European entities purchasing Iranian oil or engaging in financial transactions with Iranian entities. European governments are now in a very awkward situation. [Read More]
WAR & PEACE
The Alarming Rise of Civilian Deaths in the War On Terror
---- New reports show an escalation in civilian casualties from U.S. operations in Syria, Afghanistan and Somalia – and a pattern of US denial about the scale of the problem. "There is no military solution" is an often-heard saying since the "global war on terror" began almost 18 years ago. We need political solutions to the military conflicts we've embroiled ourselves in over the last two decades, most policymakers agree. But in the meantime, the last three administrations have sent in the military to pave the way for a political solution – and have kept them there, allegedly to protect civilians from the Taliban in Afghanistan, ISIS in Syria and al-Shabab in Somalia, among other militant groups. Yet all too often, these civilians become casualties of the very military forces Washington supposedly deployed to protect them. A series of new reports document an alarming escalation of civilian casualties caused by US operations in Syria, Afghanistan and Somalia – and with it, a pattern of US denial about the scale of the problem. The result is a global war on terror that persists in killing and injuring civilians – including children – in ever rising numbers. [Read More]
Boondoggle, Inc.: Making Sense of the $1.25 Trillion National Security State Budget
By William D. Hartung and Mandy Smithberger, Tom Dispatch [May 9, 2019
---- In its latest budget request, the Trump administration is asking for a near-record $750 billion for the Pentagon and related defense activities, an astonishing figure by any measure. If passed by Congress, it will, in fact, be one of the largest military budgets in American history, topping peak levels reached during the Korean and Vietnam Wars. And keep one thing in mind: that $750 billion represents only part of the actual annual cost of our national security state. There are at least 10 separate pots of money dedicated to fighting wars, preparing for yet more wars, and dealing with the consequences of wars already fought. So the next time a president, a general, a secretary of defense, or a hawkish member of Congress insists that the U.S. military is woefully underfunded, think twice. A careful look at U.S. defense expenditures offers a healthy corrective to such wildly inaccurate claims. [Read More]
The War in Afghanistan
The Unspeakable War
Editorial, New York Times [May 11, 2019]
---- John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, told The Times this month that a recent decision by the Trump administration to stop releasing important metrics about the war — the size of the Taliban, for instance, or how many provinces they control — is akin to "turning off the scoreboard at a football game and saying scoring a touchdown or field goal isn't important." Put another way, the American people are being kept more in the dark about the dismal state of the United States' longest-running war, now in its 18th year. [Read More]
THE GREEN NEW DEAL
A Green New Deal Needs to Fight US Militarism
By Phyllis Bennis, Jacobin Magazine [May 2015]
---- The war on terror unleashed in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attack has led to almost two decades of unchecked militarism. We are spending more money on our military than at any time in history. Endless wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Syria and elsewhere are still raging, more wars are threatened against Iran and beyond, costing the US trillions of dollars and creating humanitarian disasters. Treaties to control nuclear arms are unraveling at the same time that conflicts with the major powers of Russia and China are heating up. The Green New Deal must have anti-militarism at its core. Wars and the military render impossible the aspirations contained in the Green New Deal. And slashing the out-of-control military budget is crucial to provide the billions of dollars we need to create a sustainable and egalitarian economy. To fund the Green New Deal, with all of its component parts, we must transition away from the current war economy that pollutes the planet, distorts our society, enriches only the war profiteers. An end to US wars across the globe and massive cuts to the military budget will provide funds for green jobs, public education, health care for all, and green infrastructure development. And we will transition our nation's security away from failed and failing wars into a new foreign policy based on peace and diplomacy, not war. [Read More]
The Meaning of the Green New Deal: Tackling Climate Change but with Good Union Jobs
By Héctor J. Figueroa, Other Words [May 10, 2019]
[FB - Héctor J. Figueroa is President of 32BJ Service Employees International Union, the largest property services union in the country.]
---- Across the country, you'll find millions of working families whose wages haven't budged in a generation, even as the cost of living has skyrocketed. Many of these same communities are now getting hit hardest by floods, droughts, storms, and other climate disasters. How are workers going to withstand rising climate risks if their paychecks don't even cover the bills, while corporate polluters rake in profits? Our communities don't experience climate change and inequality as two isolated issues, but as interlinked crises. A Green New Deal offers an immense opportunity to tackle both crises at the speed and scale that justice and science demand. It's a bold, essential plan to transition to a clean energy economy built on good, union jobs that leaves no worker — or community — behind. [Read More]
THE DEMOCRATS & THE 2020 ELECTION
Who's Anti-Bernie and Why They're Wrong
An interview with Norman Solomon, from Op Ed News [May 9, 2019]
---- Politicians who change direction with the wind aren't dependable. We don't really know where they stand if they're willing to stand somewhere quite different when the political winds shift. Bernie Sanders is on another trip entirely. From him, instead of transactional behavior with elements of opportunism, we get long-term consistency with a core of idealism. During more than five decades, he's been part of progressive social movements that are committed to really changing the political winds — not blowing with them. … A media meme during the winter was that Bernie had lost his unique appeal because so many other candidates were embracing his positions such as Medicare for All and tuition-free public college. That meme has faded as Bernie's polling numbers are so far ahead of all the candidates who've moved in a progressive direction. But there was always — and continues to be — enormous antipathy toward Bernie, or at least toward his politics, from corporate media and corporate forces overall. It's going to be a very tough primary campaign, and yet I think Bernie has a better chance of winning the nomination than anyone else does. [Read More]
Corporate Media Target Gabbard for Her Anti-Interventionism
By Owen Walsh, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting [FAIR] [May 8, 2019]
---- Presidential hopeful Tulsi Gabbard has not garnered much press coverage since announcing her bid on February 2; she's the 13th-most-mentioned Democratic candidate on TV news, according to FAIR's most recent count But when corporate media do talk about the Hawaii congressmember, they tend to reveal more about themselves than about her. A veteran of the Iraq War, Gabbard is centering her presidential campaign around anti-interventionism: the belief that US interference in foreign countries, especially in the form of regime-change wars, increases the suffering of the citizens in those countries. When corporate outlets talk about this anti-interventionist position, they primarily use it to negatively characterize the candidates who espouse it. Few in establishment media seem interested in going any deeper or considering the veracity of arguments raised by anti-interventionists. … So perhaps the simplest explanation for corporate media's treatment of Gabbard is that she opposes the kind of intervention that they have historically been complicit in. [Read More]
IMMIGRATION CRISIS AT OUR SOUTHERN BORDER
(Video) Aid Worker Faces 20 Years in Prison for Providing Water and Shelter to Immigrants
---- Scott Warren is one a many people, living in/near the Arizona desert, who leaves food and water for immigrants and searches for the bodies of those who died attempt to come into the United States. He is now under indictment for --- whatever it was that he did. See this excellent video about a community trying to do what is right and help immigrants – no human is "illegal." [See the Program]
"The Fourth Amendment Doesn't Apply Here" — U.S. Border Guards Arrest Arizona Immigrant Rights Volunteer
By Ryan Devereaux, The Intercept [May 9, 2019]
---- An immigrant rights advocate on the U.S.-Mexico border was arrested and accused of "illegal alien smuggling" as she accompanied an asylum-seeker to a port of entry in southern Arizona. Ana Adlerstein, a volunteer at Casa del Migrantes, a migrant shelter in the Mexican town of Sonoyta, said U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials told her that "the Fourth Amendment doesn't apply here" and "the border's different," as she was taken into custody Sunday. Adlerstein was detained for more than four hours, and though she was not charged, she said CBP officials specifically told her that she was being placed under arrest, cited U.S. law prohibiting human smuggling, denied her access to an attorney, and informed her that investigators with the Department of Homeland Security would be following up with her as part of an "ongoing investigation." The arrest marks the latest in a series of aggressive actions the Trump administration's frontline immigration enforcement agencies have taken against individuals and organizations working with migrants, which has included the arrest of nine humanitarian aid providers in Arizona, and sweeping surveillance, interrogation, and travel restrictions leveled against activists, journalists, and immigration attorneys in the San Diego-Tijuana area. [Read More]
ISRAEL/PALESTINE
The Gaza Ghetto Uprising
By -- Everything is completely disconnected from context and reality, intentionally and willfully. Half a week after Holocaust Remembrance Day, the knowledge that 2 million people have been locked up more than 12 years behind barbed wire in a giant cage doesn't remind Israel of anything and doesn't arouse anything. Half a week before Independence Day, the struggle for freedom and independence of another people is perceived as murderous terror for no reason. Even the desperate attempt to prevent the brink of starvation is perceived as greed; the effort to somehow impart the appearance of a holiday in the holiest month of the year is depicted as extortion. That's how low the brainwashing goes and no one protests. Everyone accepts it with a shrug. Anyone who doubts how hollow and destructive the inculcation of the Holocaust is in Israel should look at the responses in Israel to this Gaza Ghetto Uprising. Anyone who ignores the reality in Gaza or tries to deny its disaster has learned nothing. [Read More]
In Gaza, the Bombs Have Stopped, but Our Suffering Continues
By Ahmed Abu Artema, The Nation [May 10, 2019]
---- Those of us who are left are tormented psychologically. Israel controls our borders and our ability to move, so we are prisoners on our own land. We are denied the right to travel freely to find work or pursue our education, to visit our families in other towns, or even to seek treatment at a hospital. Our youth unemployment hovers at a staggering 70 percent because Israel bombs our businesses and cuts off our trade. Gaza's young people are denied even a flicker of hope. Cease-fire or not, there is no way out of the endless violence until Israel, the occupying power, ends its illegal blockade and siege of Gaza. Israel cannot control our lives and our land forever. Palestinians, like all people in the world, want to live free. [Read More]
Also useful/interesting on Israel/Palestine – "Waiting for the Next Round," by Gershon Baskin, The Jerusalem Post [May 10, 2019] [Link]; "The Two Narratives of Palestine: The People Are United, the Factions Are Not," b [Link]; and "What I Saw in Gaza Changed Me Forever," b[May 6, 2019] [Link].
The Trump/Kushner "Peace Plan" for Israel/Palestine
Report: leaked draft of Trump's peace plan reveals creation of 'New Palestine,' promises to join Israel in next war in Gaza if Palestinians reject
By Allison Deger, Mondoweiss [May 7, 2019]
---- A leaked document of "main points" from the Trump administration's so-called "deal of the century" was published today by Yisrael Hayom, outlining a plan for a two-state solution that includes the creation of a demilitarized state of "New Palestine," Israeli annexation of all settlements in the West Bank, a land deal with Egypt, and shared capitals in Jerusalem. If either Israel or the Palestinians, including Hamas and the PLO, reject the deal, the document says the U.S. will impose steep penalties. The U.S. will cut off all aid to Israel and ensure "no country in the world transfers money" to the Palestinians, whose economy is reliant on foreign donors. If the PLO accepts the plan and Hamas or Islamic Jihad in Gaza reject it, the document warns "the U.S. will back Israel to personally harm leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad" in a future escalation, and will hold Hamas' leadership "responsible in another round of violence between Israel and Hamas." The plan goes on to caution, "It is inconceivable that a group of a few dozen will determine the lives of millions of people," which echoes similar sentiments made by Kushner last week. [Read More] Also useful is "Failure to Launch: Trump's Palestine 'Deal' Stillborn," by Asa Winstanley, [May 12, 2019] [Link]; and "New 'deal of the century' details shows minimal Israeli concessions," from Middle East Eye [Link].
Escalating Tensions in Gaza
By Phyllis Bennis, Institute for Policy Studies [May 11, 2019]
---- We don't want to go through the history on this." Jared Kushner said in discussing his supposed peace plan for Israel-Palestine. But in fact, it is selective history, buoyed by U.S. media, that has allowed the siege on Palestine to go on for so long. Phyllis Bennis, director of the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, joined several broadcast programs this week to discuss Kushner's plan and the recent violent escalations in Gaza. "I don't think there's a real strategy," said Bennis, pointing out that several leaks of Kushner's plan reveal that it's "not a deal having anything to do with peace, having certainly nothing to do with justice." But, as Bennis notes, those were never really on the table to begin with. Instead, Bennis said, "It's based on the idea that Palestinians don't really care about rights, don't really care about sovereignty, don't really care about their heritage, their land, their culture, or anything else, and all they really care about is getting a decent job." [Read More] Among Bennis' broadcast appearances, especially recommended is her interview on The Real News, where she discusses the Trump/Kushner "peace plan."
OUR HISTORY
Eric Hobsbawm, the Communist Who Explained History
[FB – Eric Hobsbawm was one of the great historians of our time. He wrote about workers and peasants, about revolution and defeat. Yet unlike many of his extraordinary contemporaries (EP Thompson, et al.), he remained in the British Communist Party after 1956; and for this he was ever-after criticized. But to me the question is/was, How did this affect his history writing/understanding? This essay linked below (at last) addresses that question.]
By Corey Robin, The New Yorker [May 9, 2019]
---- Eric Hobsbawm was a historian and a Communist. The first pursuit brought him great success. When he died, in 2012, at the age of ninety-five, nearly all of his books were still in print, his writings had been translated into more than fifty languages, and he was eulogized across the globe. He left behind an astonishing body of work, including a widely read tetralogy spanning the years 1789-1991 and a vocabulary that revolutionized the study of modern history: the "invention of tradition," "primitive rebels," the "general crisis" of the seventeenth century, the "dual revolution," the "long nineteenth century," and the "short twentieth century." The second pursuit ended less well. Hobsbawm joined the Communist Party in 1936 and stayed in it for about fifty years. Not only did the cause to which he had devoted his life expire in infamy but the rubbish that it had promised to sweep from the stage—ethnic and national chauvinism—would, in time, make a new bid for legitimacy. As early as 1990, Hobsbawm foresaw how the disintegration of the Soviet Union would accelerate forces that "have been kept frozen for up to 70 years." He came to see the consequences of that disintegration less as the disappointment of his hopes than as a coda to "the most murderous century" in history, which saw, in Europe, a revival of torture, the deliberate slaughter of millions, the collapse of state structures, and the erosion of norms of social solidarity. [Read More]
