Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
May 23, 2021
Hello All – For Israel and Palestine, finally a ceasefire! But I fear we will look back on this moment as a brief interregnum in a struggle that has gone on for a century and is about to resume. Gideon Levy, a columnist for Israel's liberal Haaretz, wrote today: "With End of Gaza Fighting, Welcome Back to Israel's Normal Routine" [Link]. Versions of this pessimistic opinion blanket the media spectrum, with the exceptions of statements coming from the White House.
Reports from Israel/Palestine support this pessimism. Recall that the triggers for the current uprising and war were the assault on worshipers at the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem and the threatened evictions/ethnic cleansing of Palestinian families in E Jerusalem. Over the weekend Israel launched new rounds of attacks on Palestinians at Al-Aqsa, and eviction threats are now issued to even more families [Link]. Other sources for instability include Israel's failure to form a government for the fourth time and the canceling of Palestinian elections by the Palestinian Authority. And much more. There is little that is stable "from the river to the sea."
The Gaza war clarified the critical role of the United States in enabling Israel's occupation and domination of millions of Palestinians. The foremost US role is in supplying Israel's military machine, which receives $10 million each day to buy US planes and bombs, all used to destroy Gaza. Code Pink's Media Benjamin and Nicholas J. S. Davies describe "How the United States Helps To Kill Palestinians" here. A second, but also important, role of the USA is to shield Israel from diplomatic action. On four occasions while Israel was bombing Gaza, President Biden prevented the UN Security Council from even discussing the issue. Phyllis Bennis, of the Institute for Policy Studies, puts this into a broader context in her essay, "Biden's opposition to an Israeli ceasefire is nothing new" [Link].
Going forward, there have been some changes in how much of the world frames the Israel/Palestine conflict that may have an important bearing on the ability of Palestinians to mobilize international support, including from people in the United States. One change results from the issue of two reports, one from the leading Israeli human rights organization and one from Human Rights Watch, that state without qualification that Israel is an "apartheid state." While this will be strongly debate by all parties concerned, the respectable sources of this statement move the issue of "apartheid" from the fringes of the debate to the center.
Those hoping/working for peace and justice in Israel/Palestine will have our work cut out for us in the coming months. Because of the key role of the USA in giving Israel's colonial-settler project legitimacy and supplying it with weapons, Americans have both an opportunity and a responsibility to make a difference in the outcome of this struggle.
Some useful reading on Israel's war against Palestinians
(Video) "We Want Real Dignity and Freedom": Gazans Welcome Ceasefire But Demand End of Siege & Occupation
From Democracy Now! [May 21, 2021]
---- In Gaza, thousands of people have taken to the streets to celebrate after Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire, ending Israel's 11-day bombardment of the territory. At least 243 Palestinians, including 66 children, were killed in the airstrikes and bombings. Rockets fired from Gaza also killed 12 people in Israel. Raji Sourani, director of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza, welcomes the ceasefire but stresses Palestinians demand more than just the end of bombing….. [See the Program]
When Palestine Shook
By Yousef Munayyer, New York Times [May 19, 202
---- Before the world's attention shifted toward pushing for a cease-fire, Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, Jerusalem, inside Israel and in the diaspora had all mobilized simultaneously in a way unseen for decades. They are all working toward the same goal: breaking free from the shackles of Israel's system of oppression. Reacting to growing Israeli restrictions in Jerusalem and the impending expulsion of Palestinians from their homes in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, Palestinians across the land who identified with the experience of being dispossessed by Israel rose up, together. Even now, as bombs fall on Gaza, they continue to do so. [Read More]
Unity at last: The Palestinian people have risen
By Ramzy Baroud, Middle East Monitor [May 18, 2021]
---- From the outset, some clarification regarding the language used to depict the ongoing violence in occupied Palestine, and also throughout Israel. This is not a 'conflict'. Neither is it a 'dispute' nor 'sectarian violence' nor even a war in the traditional sense. It is not a conflict, because Israel is an occupying power and the Palestinian people are an occupied nation. … Actually, it is a Palestinian uprising, an Intifada unprecedented in the history of the Palestinian struggle, both in its nature and outreach. [Read More]
Some Items of Interest
In July, Daniel Hale will be sentenced to up to ten years in prison for violating the 1917 Espionage Act. He has pleaded guilty to giving documents about the drone program to The Intercept. Hale's actions in releasing documents showing the criminal nature of the USA use of drones is analogous to the work of Edward Snowden in exposing government surveillance. A website organized in his defense explains the case and ask people to write letters for him. A more in-depth view of Hale himself and the significance of his actions and his case can be found in a webinar presented by the BanKillerDrones website; the legal representative for Daniel Hale speaks beginning at 38:48.
Early in the Cold War, the Russians charged the USA with "imperialism," citing the status of Puerto Rico, which the US had occupied and controlled since 1898. Clever President Truman responding by turning Puerto Rico into a "Free Associated State," – generally called "a Commonwealth" – and thus no longer a "colony" (and a standard trick for settler-colonialism). And for many decades Puerto Ricans have debated Statehood vs. Independence vs. the status quo. Now legislation in Congress may open the way for Puerto Ricans to choose their final status. This article from Dissent Magazine frames these developments in a useful historical context.
With the trend towards electric cars, international conflicts about controlling oil may soon be a thing of the past, no? Alas, nothing is ever simple. In an interesting article by Michael Klare called "The Post-Petroleum Resource Race and What to Make of It," we learn about lithium, cobalt, rare earths, and other minerals that are essential for turning solar and wind into electricity, and which are often found only in far away places. Read more here and be forewarned.
CFOW Nuts & Bolts
Please consider getting involved with Concerned Families of Westchester. Taking the Covid Crisis into account, we meet (with safe distancing) for a protest/rally on Saturday in Hastings, at 12 noon at the VFW Plaza (Warburton and Spring St.) A "Black Lives Matter/Say Their Names" vigil takes place every Monday from 5:30 to 6 pm, in Yonkers at the intersection of Warburton Ave. and Odell. In this time of coronavirus, we are meeting by Zoom conference; if you would like to join one of our Zoom meetings, Tuesday and Thursday at noon and/or Sunday at 7 pm., please send a return email. Our 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 support our work by making a contribution, please send your check to CFOW, PO Box 364, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY 10706. Thanks!
Rewards!
This Newsletter was helped along with the blues music of Taj Mahal, still cooking at age 79. And so the Rewards for stalwart Newsletter readers this week are a sampling of his mighty career. Here are "Cakewalk into Town"; "You Don't Miss Your Water"; "Diving Duck Blues" (with Keb' Mo'); and "Take a Giant Step." Lots more on line; enjoy!
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
CFOW Weekly Reader
War & Peace
The Pentagon Inflates the Chinese Nuclear Threat in a Push for New Intercontinental Missiles
By Michael T. Klare, The Nation [May 19, 2021]
---- This year, as in every year, the Department of Defense will seek to extract budget increases from Congress by highlighting the severe threats to US security posed by its foreign adversaries. Usually, this entails a litany of such perils, ranging from a host of nation-state adversaries to nonstate actors like ISIS and Al Qaeda. This year, however, the Pentagon is focusing almost entirely on just one threat in its funding appeals: The People's Republic of China. Sensing that a majority in Congress—Democrats as well as Republicans—are keen to display their determination to blunt China's rise, senior officials are largely framing the military budget around preparation for a possible conflict with that country. … From the Pentagon's perspective, this means portraying every budgetary item—from Army tanks and Navy ships to Air Force jets and ballistic missiles—in terms of their utility in fighting the Chinese military, the People's Liberation Army (PLA). Every US military service is seeking more money than before (as they always do), and each one is touting the importance of their weapons in overcoming the Chinese military threat. … The result, not surprisingly, is a contest among the services to magnify the vital importance of their pet projects in overpowering the PLA. [Read More]
More on the dangers of war with China – "Biden is Accelerating the Pace of the New Cold War with China" by Joseph Gerson, Peace Advocate [Boston] [May 20, 2021] [Link]; and "Risk of Nuclear War Over Taiwan in 1958 Said to Be Greater Than Publicly Known" by Charlie Savage, New York Times [May 22, 2021] [Link]. This latter article focuses on documents stolen by Daniel Ellsberg at the same time that he stole what came to be called "the Pentagon Papers." The show US plans to use nuclear weapons against China.
The Climate Crisis
A Climate Dystopia in Northern California
By Naomi Klein, The Intercept [
---- It's a ritual that has been repeated many times over the coldest months of Northern California's winter. The Chico police arrive between 9 a.m. and noon on a Thursday, perhaps in the hopes of catching people when they are home. Home, in this case, being flimsy tents, draped in tarps, many of them strung up between pine trees, secured to fences, or hidden beneath highway overpasses. The cops read out orders and sometimes hand out flyers: You have 72 hours to clear all of your belongings or they will be destroyed. … Adding a dystopian layer to this story: According to a survey by the Butte Countywide Homeless Continuum of Care, about a quarter of Chico's unsheltered residents lost their homes in the 2018 Camp Fire which burned the neighboring town of Paradise to the ground, taking the lives of 85 people. For this reason, Chico's war on the unhoused may be providing a grim glimpse into an eco-authoritarian future, in which the poor victims of climate change-fueled disasters are treated like human refuse by those whose wealth has protected them, at least in the short term, from the worst impacts of planetary warming. … It some ways, the question boils down to this: What kinds of public policies will support more people living on less land without turning on each other — and how can those policies simultaneously dramatically lower emissions so that the habitable space for humanity does not contract well beyond survivability? To put it another way: How do we rapidly decrease carbon emissions and economic and social stresses all at the same time? [Read More]
The State of the Union
A World of Bikes, Not Walls? Demilitarizing the Border
By
---- From the mountaintops of southern Arizona, you can see a world without borders. I realized this just before I met Juan Carlos. I was about 20 miles from the border but well within the militarized zone that abuts it. I was, in fact, atop the Baboquivari mountain range, a place sacred to the Tohono O'odham, the Native American people who have inhabited this land for thousands of years. At that moment, however, I couldn't see a single Border Patrol agent or any sign of what, in these years, I've come to call the border-industrial complex. On the horizon were just sky and clouds — and mountain ranges like so many distant waves. I couldn't tell where the United States ended or Mexico began, and it didn't matter. I was reminded of astronaut Edgar Mitchell's reaction when he gazed back at Earth from the moon: "It was [a] beautiful, harmonious, peaceful-looking planet, blue with white clouds, and one that gave you a deep sense… of home, of being, of identity. It is what I prefer to call instant global consciousness." A couple hours after my own peaceful moment of global consciousness, Juan Carlos appeared at the side of a dirt road. I was by then driving in a desolate stretch of desert and he was waving his arms in distress. I halted the car and lowered the window. "Do you want some water?" I asked in Spanish, holding out a bottle, which he promptly chugged down.
"Is there anything else I can do for you?" I asked. "Can you give me a ride to the next town?" [Read More]
Our History
Did 'Cancel Culture' Drive Richard Wright Underground?
By Joseph G. Ramsey, The Nation [May 20, 2021]
---- Last month's publication of the fully restored version of Richard Wright's novel The Man Who Lived Underground is big news. And for good reason. Against the background of Derek Chauvin's trial for the murder of George Floyd—and widespread protests against racist police brutality—Wright's gripping tale resonates. It's impossible to read these opening pages and not draw connections between Wright's protagonist Fred Daniels—an innocent black man fingered by police for a crime he did not commit—and too many real-life cases today. … So it makes sense that initial reviews of Wright's long-lost novel have focused on the theme of police brutality. Moreover, it seems likely that Wright's detailed depiction of police torture was one reason The Man Who Lived Underground was rejected in 1942. Its publication thus gives us an opportunity to reckon with the role that the American literary establishment has played in stifling frank depictions of this long-standing problem. … It is long past time that Richard Wright's vivid depiction of police brutality was brought to light—and that such real-life police abuses were rooted out for good. The biographical understanding made possible by the publication of "Memories of My Grandmother," however, reminds us that, for Richard Wright, the police were not just a literal horror but also allegorical figures, representing life- and left-wrecking tendencies that afflicted the racist-capitalist state—and also many of its victims. [Read More]
