CFOW Newsletter - Support for Israel's War Rips Apart Biden's Winning Coalition

Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter

January 28, 2024

Hello All – Of course we were warned.  The possibility of Trump Two has been coming at us since the last election.  The word is out that next time Trump will really be Trump: fascism, whatever, call it what we will.  As Trump rallied his troops on January 6^th, he proclaimed that "it will be really wild."  Well, here we are.

For months now, and especially since the Biden people went whole hog for Israel's war on Palestinians, our confidence/hope that the worst wouldn't happen has been falling apart.  While there are dozens of things that "might happen" to derail the Trump campaign for President, based on "normal" election metrics, things look bad.  Biden is down in the polls, and each Trump legal defeat brings a spike in support and fundraising.  Are we doomed to a Trump presidency, some version of fascism, world environmental destruction, etc. etc.?

Our "whistling past the graveyard" confidence was built on the apparent solidity of a pro-Democratic voting base composed of working-class Americans, African-Americans, women, and young people.  While not monolithic, these voting blocks are the most politically active in the US and have no reason to believe that Trump will be "good for them."  But will they vote for Biden (not abstain)?  Will they work for Biden?  Send him money?  Talk him up (and Trump down) at work?  See him as a barrier to fascism?

Biden's winning coalition is in tatters.  The main fault line runs along Biden's refusal to call for an immediate ceasefire in the war on Gaza, and the Biden administrations to do just about everything in their power to support the war – money, weapons, and diplomatic cover at the UN and in institutions (such as NATO) where the US calls the shots.

The war is getting worse and will get worse until it stops.  Famine looms.  The International Court of Justice considers Israeli genocide. The battlefield spreads to Yemen, Lebanon, and today Iraq/Iran.  Each day of delay means not only hundreds of casualties and the suffering of hundreds of thousands, but more time lost before applying the brakes can be effective.  Every day of fighting increases the chances of a Biden defeat in November.

Some Reading on the Late, Great, Biden Winning Coalition

Black Pastors Pressure Biden to Call for a Cease-Fire in Gaza

By Maya King, New York Times [January 28, 2024]

---- As the Israel-Hamas war enters its fourth month, a coalition of Black faith leaders is pressuring the Biden administration to push for a cease-fire — a campaign spurred in part by their parishioners, who are increasingly distressed by the suffering of Palestinians and critical of the president's response to it. More than 1,000 Black pastors representing hundreds of thousands of congregants nationwide have issued the demand. In sit-down meetings with White House officials, and through open letters and advertisements, ministers have made a moral case for President Biden and his administration to press Israel to stop its offensive operations in Gaza, which have killed thousands of civilians. They are also calling for the release of hostages held by Hamas and an end to Israel's occupation of the West Bank. [Read More]

The American Jewish Left in Exile

By David Klion, New York Review of Books [January 28, 2024]

---- In 2010, about a year into Barack Obama's first term as president and Benjamin Netanyahu's second as prime minister, Peter Beinart observed that a significant divide was opening between younger American Jews and their elders over support for Israel. … One sign of this generational divide is the increased visibility of young, left-wing, anti-Zionist American Jews—a cohort to which I and many of my friends belong. For months our most prominent representatives have been two activist groups calling for a ceasefire in Gaza: IfNotNow (INN) and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP). Broadly speaking, these groups reject Israel as the central focus of American Jewish life, and do so explicitly as Jews. They draw on language, symbolism, and values rooted in the rich and at times suppressed history of left-wing Jewish radicalism, which peaked before the State of Israel was founded and Zionism became central to diasporic Jewish identity.https://archive.ph/dcdz4 

Also of interest  - "Is Israel Part of What It Means to Be Jewish?" by Marc Tracy, New York Times [January 16, 2024] [Link]; and "Black and Jewish Activists Have Allied for Decades. What Now?" by Daniel Bergner, New York Times Magazine [January 23, 2024] [Link].

Israel's Victory in Gaza turns Pyrrhic as a Majority of Youths and Democrats brand it Genocidal

By Juan Cole, Informed Comment [January 26, 2024]

---- Israel is losing its campaign against Gaza not so much on the battlefield — though it is unclear that very many of its military goals have been accomplished — but in the court of public opinion. The Israeli far right has long ignored such PR setbacks, convinced that as long as the US government protects it at the United Nations, it retains impunity. The Biden administration cannot, however, veto public opinion. A new You.gov opinion poll finds that 34% of Americans believe Israel is committing a genocide against the Palestinians of Gaza. Moreover, it isn't just that a third of Americans believe there is an ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza. An absolute majority — 55% — of Americans aged 18 to 30 see it as a genocide. [Read More]

SEIU Becomes Largest US Union to Demand Gaza Cease-Fire

By Jessica Corbett, Common Dreams [January 22, 2024]

---- With over 25,000 Palestinians killed so far in the U.S.-backed Israeli assault of the Gaza Strip, the Service Employees International Union on Monday became the largest union in North America to join a growing coalition of labor groups calling for a cease-fire. … The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy group in the United States, welcomed the cease-fire demand from SEIU, which followed similar calls from the United Auto Workers; American Postal Workers Union; United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America; and various other unions. [Read More]  Also of interest – "The Chicago Teachers Union Has Called for a Cease-Fire in Gaza," by Dave Stieber, Jacobin Magazine [January 2024] [Link].

Children, Women & the ICJ: Everyone Against the Gaza Genocide

By Isra Nadeem, Code Pink [January 26, 2024] [FB – Lots of pictures!]

----- Every week CODEPINK goes directly to the halls of Congress to call for a ceasefire in Gaza! While following this week's action-packed agenda, we ended up speaking with about 20 US senators!  [Link].

CFOW Nuts & Bolts

Please consider getting involved with Concerned Families of Westchester.  Weather permitting we meet for a protest/rally each Saturday in Hastings, at 12 noon at the VFW Plaza (Warburton and Spring St.)  A "Black Lives Matter/Say Their Names" vigil is held in Yonkers on the first Monday of the month (next is February 5th) from 5:30 to 6:00 pm at the intersection of Warburton Ave. and Odell. Our newsletter is archived at https://cfow.blogspot.com/; and news of interest and coming events is posted on our CFOW Facebook page.  Another Facebook page focuses on the climate crisis. If you would like to join one of our Zoom meetings, each Tuesday and Thursday at noon, please send a return email for the link. 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!

Stalwart readers of a certain age will remember Melanie Safka for her performance at the rain-soaked Woodstock Festival of 1969.  Melanie died this week at the ago of 76.  Friends remember her music/writing as a reflection of the hopes for peace and a better world.  Here are some favorites: "Brand New Key"; "Candles in the Rain"; and "Beautiful People:' RIP Melanie Safka.

Best wishes,

Frank Brodhead

For CFOW

CFOW Weekly Reader

Featured Essay

Israel and Gaza, a Few Years From Now

By Amira Hass, Haaretz [Israel] [January 22, 2024]

---- A few years from now, a new father will hug his baby, his first son, and all of a sudden he will be rocked by a memory: a father carrying a baby in his hands, beside him a woman with her hair covered with a hijab and two or three children, all walking south with hundreds of others among shards of asphalt, piles of sand, blurred by the dust being kicked up as they march. Smoke rises from a distance, a drone hums relentlessly above, bombs explode one after the other. The new father will remember how he – a soldier at the end of his compulsory service – called out over a loudspeaker to order that father ("You, in the green shirt, with the child") to walk toward the soldiers behind the mounds of earth, standing alongside tanks. Through the clouds of dust, he sees the father handing over his baby to the woman, and with his arms raised in the air, approaching the soldiers. It's a silent movie. If they said something to each other, the new father who was a soldier back then couldn't hear it. Perhaps at that moment of recollection he will tighten his embrace of his first son. Or perhaps, slightly alarmed, he will hurriedly place his son in the stroller and drink a glass of water as he wipes away the beads of sweat that suddenly dot his forehead. Or maybe he'll just smile and say to himself: We showed those sons of bitches what it means to slaughter us like sheep. And he'll kiss his son's forehead. [Read More]

The War on Gaza

The first US-Israeli joint war

By Gilbert Achcar, Le Monde Diplomatique [France] [January 22, 2024]

[FB – The statement of the International Court of Justice ruled that Israel must not commitment any acts that would contribute to genocide in Gaza.  The order also warned nations that might also be complicit in Israel's genocide to cease & desist.  As this article shows, the US has been "complicit" in Israel's genocide since Day One.]

---- The Israeli military forces' war on Gaza, following Hamas's 7 October attack, is the first Israeli war in which Washington is a cobelligerent. The US openly supports the war's proclaimed goal and is blocking calls for a ceasefire at the United Nations — all while providing arms and ammunition to Israel and acting to dissuade other regional actors from intervening in the conflict to help Hamas. … In the aftermath of 7 October, Washington decided to send two US carrier battle groups into the eastern Mediterranean, led by the aircraft carriers USS Eisenhower and USS Ford, a marine intervention unit, as well as an amphibian assault group led by the USS Bataan in the Black Sea and the USS Florida nuclear submarine, which carries cruise missiles. At the same time, Washington alerted its air bases in the region and urgently delivered military equipment to Israel, including missiles for the Iron Dome aerial defence system. Washington thus provided a regional cover to Israel, so that it could devote the bulk of its forces to a war against Gaza whose stated objective, from the outset, has been the eradication of Hamas.  [Read More]

Israel's Mainstream Brought Us to The Hague, Not Its Lunatic Fringes

By Gideon Levy, Haaretz [Israel] [January 28, 2024]

---- Isaac Herzog, Yoav Gallant, Israel Katz: Israel's president, defense minister and foreign minister. The president of the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Joan Donoghue, chose to cite all three of them as evidence of suspicion of incitement to genocide in Israel. The judge did not cite the far-right fringes, neither Itamar Ben-Gvir nor Eyal Golan; neither retired generals Giora Eiland (let epidemics spread in Gaza) nor Yair Golan, the man of peace and diagnostician of processes (let Gaza starve). … The judges in The Hague diagnosed perfectly what we here refuse to admit: Israel's problem is its mainstream, not its lunatic fringes. It is the mainstream that brought us to The Hague, it is the mainstream that incited to genocide, after Israel convinced itself with unbelievable ease that after October 7 everything is permitted. Fortunately, in The Hague they seem to think differently, very differently. [Read More]

Also of interest – "Israel, the United States, and the Rhetoric of the War on Terror," by Maha Hilal, Counterpunch [January 26, 2024] [Link]; and "Israeli police repressing anti-war protests with 'iron fist,' say activists," by Oren Ziv, 972 Magazine [Israel/Palestine] [January 24, 2024] [Link].

The International Court of Justice Ruling

International Court of Justice Rules That Israel Must Stop Killing Palestinians

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, January 26, 2024

---- The International Court of Justice has ruled that Israel must cease its warmaking in Gaza — cease committing and inciting genocidal acts — and that the case charging Israel with genocide must proceed. … Therefore, Israel must cease killing Palestinians. This was a make or break moment for international law, or rather a break or make-a-first-step moment. There is hope for the idea and reality of international law, but this is only a beginning. … Governments that have made statement in support of the case against genocide include Malaysia, Turkey, Jordan, Bolivia, the 57 nations of the Organization of Islamic Countries, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Maldives, Namibia, and Pakistan, Colombia, Brazil, and Cuba. [Read More]  Also of interest is this Democracy Now! interview with Columbia professor Mahmood Mamdani on "South Africa's Genocide Case Against Israel & Reemergence of Non-Aligned Movement" [January 25, 2024] [Link].

And two v. interesting interviews from the website Jadaliyya: 'The ICJ Ruling & Political Implications, Video A, W/ Mouin Rabbani & Lisa Hajjar," [Link];  and [Part 2] "The ICJ Ruling Legal, Political, and Grassroots Implications - With Diana Buttu and Mouin Rabbani [Link].

The "Other" Genocide Court Case

"I Have Lost Everything": In Federal Court, Palestinians Accuse Biden of Complicity in Genocide

By Alice Speri, The Intercept [January 26, 2024]

---- In a momentous day for the quest to keep Israel and its allies accountable for its brutal war on Gaza, members of leading Palestinian human rights groups, residents of Gaza, and Palestinian Americans argued in a U.S. District Court on Friday that the Biden administration should halt its financial and military support for Israel and uphold its obligations to prevent genocide. The arguments came in a lawsuit that the Center for Constitutional Rights, or CCR, filed in November against President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, charging them with complicity and failure to prevent the "unfolding genocide" in the occupied strip. Testifying either in person at the Oakland, California, courthouse or remotely from Palestine, the plaintiffs spoke for nearly three hours about the deliberate devastation wrought by Israel in the aftermath of the October 7 Hamas attacks.  [Read More]

A Wider War?

Biden Must Choose Between a Ceasefire in Gaza and a Regional War

By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies, Code Pink [January 25, 2024]

---- In the topsy-turvy world of corporate media reporting on U.S. foreign policy, we have been led to believe that U.S. air strikes on Yemen, Iraq and Syria are legitimate and responsible efforts to contain the expanding war over Israel's genocide in Gaza, while the actions of the Houthi government in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Iran and its allies in Iraq and Syria are all dangerous escalations. In fact, it is U.S. and Israeli actions that are driving the expansion of the war, while Iran and others are genuinely trying to find effective ways to counter and end Israel's genocide in Gaza while avoiding a full-scale regional war. [Read More]

How is Gaza Offshore Gas Development Tied to the Israeli Invasion?

By Patrick Mazza, Counterpunch [January 26, 2024]

---- A common thread seems woven through the world's major conflicts, access to fossil fuels. Ukraine is rich in coal, oil and gas. The South China Sea has major undersea reserves of oil and gas. The current conflict in Gaza is no exception. [Read More]

Mainstream Media

March Against Genocide Isn't News to New York Times

By Dave Lindorff, FAIR [Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting] [January 25, 2024]

---- Devoted New York Times readers are likely unaware that a huge protest was held in the nation's capital on Saturday, January 13, to protest Israel's wanton slaughter of tens of thousands of Gazan civilians, and to condemn "Genocide" Joe Biden's weapon shipments and diplomatic backing for Israel. The Times, despite having a huge bureau in Washington, DC, did not mention the event, even over the course of the following week. … By size alone, the rally deserved a story in the Times. But this wasn't just one isolated US demonstration; it was part of a global call for protest against the ongoing assault on Gaza, which by January 13 had killed nearly 24,000, 70% of the victims being women and children. Times editors were surely aware that large anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian demonstrations were occurring around the US and the world (Al Jazeera, 1/13/24).  Even more newsworthy than the number of demonstrators and simultaneous global actions was the reality that this was the second mass action in DC in two months. In both cases, the lead organizers were Palestinian or US Muslim pro-Palestinian organizations. [Read More]

The Climate Crisis

Slow Change Can Be Radical Change

By Rebecca Solnit, Literary Hub [January 11, 2024]

---- We are impatient creatures, impatient for the future to arrive and prone to forgetting the past in our urgency to have it all now, and sometimes too impatient to learn the stories of how what is best in our era was made by long, slow campaigns of change. Martin Luther King Jr. famously said that "the arc of history is long but it bends toward justice," but whichever way it bends you have to be able to see the arc (and I'm pretty sure by arc he meant a gradual curve, not an acute angle as if history suddenly took a sharp left). Sometimes seeing it is sudden, because change has been going on all along but you finally recognize it. … Another immense impact of this impatience and attention-span deficit comes when a political process reaches its end, but too many don't remember its beginning. At the end of most positive political changes, a powerful person or group seems to hand down a decision. But at the beginning of most were grassroots campaigns to make it happen. The change got handed up before it got handed down, and only the slow perspective, the long view, lets you see the power that lies in ordinary people, in movements, in campaigns that often are seen as unrealistic, extreme, aiming for the impossible at their inception. [Read More]  Also of interest is "Can reparations be a way to stave off climate catastrophe?" by Natasha Lennard, Book Forum [January 2024] [Link].

Our History

The Zapatista uprising, 30 years on

By Bernard Duterme, Equal Times [January 10, 2024] [h/t JG]

---- For more than two decades, in the absence of de jure autonomy, the rebels of Chiapas have exercised "de facto autonomy" in the organisation of daily life in their territory. They control a highly politically fragmented area roughly the size of Belgium where they are trying to build a "different world" that is radically democratic, "anti-capitalist" and independent of the Mexican state. The Zapatistas' critique of the dominant model is articulated through action and developed over time. Their new emancipatory perspective aimed at "redistribution and recognition" is expressed both in their form of self-governance that seeks to "command by obeying," as well as in their repeated intercontinental invitations to articulate struggles "from below and to the left". In its early days, the Zapatista rebellion was often compared to the Central American revolutionary movements of the 1970s and 1980s, either in an attempt to stigmatise it or to set it apart. [Read More]

CFOW Newsletter - Famine Stalks Gaza. Save the Hostages? Ceasefire Now!

Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter

January 23, 2024

Hello All – Famine now stalks Gaza.  The World Food Program and similar UN organizations report that the supplies of flour and rice on hand are now less than half of what's needed.  Despite promises to the contrary, the amount of humanitarian aid – including food, water, and medicine – remains grossly inadequate. Last week the UN's  Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) warned that, of Gaza's 2.3 million people, "the Israeli campaign has left 378,000 people at catastrophic phase 5 levels of starvation." De-coding the language and doing the math, this means that an estimated "756 Palestinians in Gaza are dying of hunger each day, which comes to a projected 22,680 deaths from starvation over the next month.  If, as expected, that Israel allows no meaningful increase in the amount of food aid entering Gaza, the prognosis is that this will only get worse.  Going forward, in addition to the one thousand Gazan's killed each week by bombs and bullets, some 5,000 will die of starvation.

 As some of the essays linked below discuss, to these 6,000 deaths per week or 25,000 deaths per month, we must add an unknown number of Palestinians dying from  infectious diseases or from winter cold, especially for those now without housing. Certainly a high percentage of the 160 babies born each day in Gaza, now almost always in circumstances that risks death for both mother and child, will add to the death toll. Will it reach 50,000 a month? It seems possible.

And so we must ask, Can the world – can the people of the USA – absorb the information that tens of thousands of helpless civilians are being killed each month by Israel's war on Gaza, and frequently by the US-made bombs and ammunition fueling this war, without spiritual meltdown and moral collapse?  In years to come, every child growing up will learn that our government inflicted a great evil on the people of Gaza.  What will we say when asked, some years from now, "How could this happen?"  "What did you do?"

How To Save the Hostages?  Ceasefire!

In Israel, the families and loved ones of those held hostage by Hamas and other organizations in Gaza are getting increasingly desperate.  Yesterday they invaded a cabinet committee meeting, disrupting with shouts of "free them now!"  For the most part, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's repeated claims that military action, leading to the defeat of the Hamas armed wing, is the most likely/only way to free the hostages.  Is this true?

The facts are that, of the 240-50 hostages kidnapped on October 7^th, only 1 has been freed by the Israeli military.  108 hostages were released in step-by-step negotiations in November.  Further efforts broke down, and fighting was resumed on December 1. Although Israel continues to list 130 people as held captive in Gaza, perhaps two dozen of these have been killed or have died while in captivity.  Hostage families raise the alarm that this will be the fate of all the remaining hostages if hostilities continue.

Last week Peter Beinart posted an excellent video (11 minutes) arguing that "to save the hostages, end the war."   The failure of the Netanyahu people to free more hostages, and their refusal to consider a ceasefire, persuades many people that, when it comes to defeating Hamas, the hostages are simply "collateral damage" and an embarrassing PR problem,  The blowback from Israeli society against this callousness is intensifying: Read "The Families of Hostages Are Calling on Israel to Do Something Radical," by Mairav Zonszein, New York Times [January 5, 2024] [Link].

Some Essays on Gaza's Crisis

Starvation as a Method of Warfare

By Alex de Waal, London Review of Books [January 11, 2024]

---- If the catastrophe in Gaza continues on its current trajectory, the prediction of mass death from disease, hunger and exposure will come to pass. If humanitarian assistance is provided promptly and at scale, deaths from hunger and disease will stabilise and decline, but they will still take time to return to pre-crisis levels. Even with an immediate cessation of hostilities and delivery of emergency aid, along with efforts to restore water, sanitation and health services, mortality would remain elevated for weeks or months. Even this would constitute a 'major' famine, according to the definition of 10,000 or more deaths. A 'great' famine, with 100,000 or more excess deaths, may be in prospect if the current level of hostilities and destruction continues. [Read More]

(Video) "Israel Is Starving Gaza": Israeli Rights Group B'Tselem Says IDF Is Using Hunger as a Weapon of War

From Democracy Now! [January 10, 2024]

---- Human rights groups say Israel is using starvation as a weapon in the Gaza Strip as Israel severely restricts the delivery of humanitarian aid, medicine and food supplies to millions inside the besieged and bombed territory. In a new report," Israeli human rights group B'Tselem lays out how Israel's decision to cut off electricity, water and international humanitarian aid to Gaza after a 17-year blockade against the territory has led to a very quick collapse of infrastructure. "The things that impede this provision of food for people who are starving is a declared policy by Israel," says Sarit Michaeli, B'Tselem international advocacy lead. "The Israeli government is at fault, is responsible for this, and this should lead to immediate international action." [See the Program]

The coming famine - "Israel is starving Gaza" [the B'Tselem report] [January 8, 2024] [Link]; "Israeli-Made Famine: Denial of Food Aid could Kill 22,000 Palestinians this Month, Half of them Children," by Juan Cole, Informed Comment [January 15, 2024] [Link];

The Epidemiological War on Gaza

By Maya Rosen January 5, 2024

---- Since October 7th, Israel has severely reduced the entry of food, water, and fuel into Gaza, successfully creating what global health expert Yara Asi described as "a dire human-made humanitarian catastrophe" characterized by mass hunger, thirst, homelessness, and lack of medical services. As months pass without any meaningful relief, these conditions have produced "the perfect storm for disease," in the words of United Nations Children's Fund spokesperson James Elder. On January 2nd, the WHO announced that there are currently 424,639 cases of infectious diseases in Gaza. Since such official counts only represent those who were able to make it to a clinic or hospital, experts assume that the true rates are much higher. A half million infectious disease cases would still have overwhelmed Gaza's healthcare system before October 7th, though many would have been treatable with food, water, and medical care. But today, amid an ongoing assault that has destroyed 27 of Gaza's 36 hospitals, as well as the very foundations of the enclave's public health—in the form of food, water, and shelter—epidemics are likely to mean mass death. [Read More]

CFOW Nuts & Bolts

Please consider getting involved with Concerned Families of Westchester.  Weather permitting we meet for a protest/rally each Saturday in Hastings, at 12 noon at the VFW Plaza (Warburton and Spring St.)  A "Black Lives Matter/Say Their Names" vigil is held in Yonkers on the first Monday of the month (next month February 5) from 5:30 to 6:00 pm at the intersection of Warburton Ave. and Odell. Our newsletter is archived at https://cfow.blogspot.com/; and news of interest and coming events is posted on our CFOW Facebook page.  Another Facebook page focuses on the climate crisis. If you would like to join one of our Zoom meetings, each Tuesday and Thursday at noon, please send a return email for the link. 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!

The Rewards for stalwart readers this week bring back a personal favorite, Amy Rigby and (sometimes) Wreckless Eric.  So first up we have "The Good Girls." And next we have Amy's "Dancing with Joey Ramone."  And finally, now with Wreckless Eric, we have her 2020 gentle good-bye to Donald Trump, "Vote That Fucker Out!" Lots more of her/their stuff on-line; enjoy!

Best wishes,

Frank Brodhead

For CFOW

The CFOW Weekly Reader

The Political Costs of Biden's Wars

By Seymour Hersh, ZNet [January 18, 2024]

---- Donald Trump won big in Iowa this week, as anyone with an ounce of sense knew would happen, despite days of dishonest and tedious wishful thinking from CNN and MSNBC, and some print media, about the possibility of a Haley surge in Iowa that could carry over to New Hampshire. Forget about that. The Republican nominee will be Donald Trump, unless he is stopped by the courts, and at this point the odds are that he, if untethered, will sweep to victory this November and could bring the House and Senate with him. The Democratic response, with a few exceptions, has been to enter a state of denial. In my Washington world, the looming disaster is swept aside by loyal Democrats who insist that Biden beat Trump once before and he can do it again.  [Read More]

The Dems Should Hear 2024 Alarm Bells Over Biden's Gaza Policy

By James Zogby, The Arab American Institute [January 16, 2024]

---- 2024 may be the first election in which the issues involving Palestinian rights may impact the outcome. Over the past several decades, elections have been fought over a range of domestic and foreign policy concerns—from civil rights and abortion to the wars in Vietnam and Iraq. In most instances these were partisan "wedge" issues—that is, issues that were used by one party against the other. What is important to note about the growing concern for Palestinian rights is that it has become a "wedge issue" that is dividing the Democratic Party. [Read More]

The Genocide Case Against Israel at the International Court of Justice

(Video) Omer Bartov on Israel, Gaza and the Charge of Genocide

---- On January 12, Peter [Beinart] hosted an online discussion entitled "Omer Bartov on Israel, Gaza and the Charge of Genocide." He was joined by special guest Omer Bartov, Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Brown. Omer is one of the world's most prominent scholars of the Holocaust. He's also an Israeli who has warned about the genocidal rhetoric of some Israeli leaders since October 7. Now that South Africa has brought a case to the International Court of Justice charging Israel with genocide for its actions since October 7, Peter wanted to ask Omer what he thinks of that legal argument. In the wake of the controversy over Masha Gessen's declaration that in Gaza, "the ghetto is being liquidated," [See the Program[

Also of interest – "South Africa's genocide case against Israel: How will the ICJ decide?" from Aljazeera [January 10, 2024] [Link]; and "South African ICJ Initiative, Gaza Atrocities, and the Ceasefire Imperative," by Richard Falk, ZNet [January 21, 2024] [Link].

The Widening War – Yemen

How Biden Can Stop Houthi Missile Attacks—Without Risking War

By Trita Parsi, Responsible Statecraft [January 15, 2024]

---- Here is a simple reason why U.S. and U.K. military strikes against Yemen's Houthis will not achieve their objective of re-opening the crucial Red Sea lanes for international shipping: The Houthis don't have to succeed in striking additional commercial vessels, or even successfully retaliate against U.S. military ships. All they need to do is to try. That is enough to sustain a de facto shipping blockade of the Red Sea, through which a staggering 12% of global trade flows. Many Western commercial vessels will simply not risk moving their ships through those waters, not in spite of President Joe Biden's military strikes, but now because of them. [Read More]

Also of interest – "The Houthis May Have Checkmated Biden in Red Sea Standoff," by Murtaza Hussain, The Intercept [January 19, 2024] [Link]; "U.S. Officials Care More About Protecting Oil Tankers Than Palestinians," by Edward Hunt, Foreign Policy in Focus [January 11, 2024] [Link]; "President Biden Needs to Go to Congress for Authorization on Yemen," by Rep. Ro Khanna, The Nation [January 22, 2024] [Link]; and "The Only Solution to the Violence in Yemen and the Red Sea is a Cease-Fire in Gaza," by Phyllis Bennis, In These Times [January 17, 2024] [Link].

And in the West Bank

Israel Wants a Palestinian Intifada in the West Bank

By Gideon Levy, Haaretz [Israel] [January 17, 2024]

---- Israel is now doing everything to drive the West Bank to another intifada. It won't be easy. The West Bank has neither the leadership nor the fighting spirit of the second intifada, but how can one not explode? Some 150,000 laborers who worked in Israel have been out of work for three months. You can also explode from the army's hypocrisy. Its commanders are warning that we must enable laborers to go to work, but the IDF will be the main culprit for the Palestinian uprising if it breaks out. The problem is not merely economic. Under the guise of the war and with the extreme rightist government's assistance, the IDF has changed its conduct in the occupied territories in a dangerous way – it wants Gaza in the West Bank.  [Read More]

You Don't Understand How Bad It Is Here [Occupied West Bank]

By Jasper Diamond Nathaniel (Graduated from Hastings schools) [January 19, 2024]

---- In the middle of this nightmare in Gaza, I traveled to the West Bank to bear witness to Palestinian life under the occupation (I am a Jewish American guy who lives in Brooklyn, for those who don't know)—I guess I got tired of being told, "You don't understand." The plan had been to send out dispatches along the way (as I did from East Africa and across America), but I encountered a few obstacles that forced me to abandon this plan somewhere in the Jordan River Valley where it was presumably trampled by settlers. [Read More]  Today, Jasper Diamond Nathaniel sent out another article: "The Perfect Context for Murder: The killing of a Palestinian American teenager in the West Bank forces the U.S. to respond" [January 22, 2024] [Link].

The Media and the War

How the Gaza War Can Be Big News and Invisible at the Same Time

By Norman Solomon, Counterpunch [January 19, 2024]

---- In-depth content analysis by The Intercept found that coverage of the Gaza war by the New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times "showed a consistent bias against Palestinians." Those highly influential papers "disproportionately emphasized Israeli deaths in the conflict" and "used emotive language to describe the killings of Israelis, but not Palestinians." What is most profoundly important about war in Gaza — what actually happens to people being terrorized, massacred, maimed and traumatized — has remained close to invisible for the U.S. public. Extensive surface coverage seems repetitious and increasingly normal, as death numbers keep rising and Gaza becomes a routine topic in news media. And yet, what's going on now in Gaza is "the most transparent genocide in human history." [Read More]

Also of interest – (Podcast) "Gregory Shupak on Gaza and Genocide," from FAIR [CounterSpin] [January 19, 2024] [main article starts at 7:30 into the program] [Link]; and "Netanyahu just said Israel will permanently occupy the land 'from the river to the sea.' The U.S. media is covering it up," by James North, Mondoweiss [January 19, 2024] [Link]

Conflict on Campus

Amid Gaza Protests, Universities Are Cracking Down on a Celebrated Protest Tactic: Sit-ins

By Prem Thakker, The Intercept [January 21, 2024]

---- On October 25, hundreds of people participated in a sit-in at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, calling on school administrators to cut ties with weapons manufacturers involved in Israel's occupation of Palestine. … The incident at Amherst is reflective of a broader university crackdown against students participating in a form of protest with deep roots in the American civil rights movement: the sit-in. Elsewhere across the country, universities have met such sit-downs — often driven by demands related to divestment from companies selling arms to Israel, a tactic with roots in protests against apartheid South Africa — with disciplinary action, off-campus criminal charges, and an over-application of campus policies seldom used in similar circumstances. [Read More]

Also of interest - (Video) "Jewish Scholars vs. Jewish Donors on Antisemitism," from Peter Beinart [January 22, 2024] – 8 minutes [Link]; and "Rutgers SJP is reinstated and still defiant," by Students for Justice in Palestine at Rutgers - New Brunswick [January 20, 2024] [Link].

The Climate Crisis

Alongside Soaring Global Temperatures, Growing Oil and Gas Drilling and Profits

By David Suzuki, ZNet [January 21, 2024]

---- We've just come out of the hottest year on record — by a lot! Scientists predict that this year we'll exceed the 1.5 C limit for warming set by countries in the 2015 Paris climate agreement. Meanwhile, Canada and the U.S. are setting records for oil and gas production, and industry would like to keep it that way. The main cause of the record warming — and the floods, droughts, wildfires, mass human migrations, species extinctions and economic hardships that come with it — is increasing levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide from burning gas, oil and coal. We've known this for at least half a century! … There are signs of hope — decreasing emissions in the U.S., falling prices and growing uptake for renewable energy and more. But we've taken so long to act on the crisis that far more ambition is needed. [Read More]

The State of the Union

We Are Witnessing the Biggest Judicial Power Grab Since 1803

By Elie Mystal, The Nation [January 18, 2024]

---- The Supreme Court heard two consolidated cases yesterday that could reshape the legal landscape and, with them, the country. The cases take on Chevron deference—the idea that courts should defer to executive agencies when applying regulations passed by Congress. They're the most important cases about democracy on the court's docket this year. That's because what conservatives on the court are quietly trying to do is pull off the biggest judicial power grab since 1803, when it elevated itself to be the final arbiter of the Constitution in Marbury v. Madison. … If conservatives get their way, elections won't really matter, because courts will be able to limit the scope of congressional regulation and the ability of presidents to enforce those regulations effectively. [Read More].  Also of interest, "Does the EPA Die Today?"  by Thom Hartmann,  The Hartman Report [January 17, 2024] [Link].

Our History

Wiping Away the Tears [Remembering Wounded Knee – December 1890]

By Winona LaDuke, The Barnraiser [January 17, 2024]

---- The ride is hard. Si Tanka Wokiksuye Omaka Tokatakiya, the Future Generations Ride, commemorates the Lakota ancestors and families who were brutally murdered in the Wounded Knee Massacre on December 29, 1890. The ancestors had ridden from Standing Rock to Pine Ridge to save their people; instead, they were shot by the United States Cavalry. This year, the seven-day ride had 100 riders at the end, most of them under 20-years-old. The ride is grueling and there is suffering. That's part of the grieving process, the healing process. That's the next generation. … But in our grieving, something else begins. A new chapter, a time to heal from the brutality of history. The time for massacres is long over. The time for healing is now. That's true, whether you live in North America, South America or Palestine. As I witnessed those horse riders, I saw the coming of a new generation. They are the ones already here. It is time to wipe away the tears. [Read More]

Also of interest re: "Our History" – "For a Model of Working-Class Mass Organizing, Look to the CIO," an interview with Steve Fraser,(labor/CIO historian) Jacobin [January 2024] [Link]; and "Norma Barzman, Blacklisted Screenwriter, Dies at 103," by Clay Risen, New York Times [January 19, 2024] [Link].

CFOW Newsletter - 100 Days of the War on Gaza

Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter

January 14, 2024

Hello All – Tomorrow, January 15^th, is the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday.  Born in 1929, he was killed in 1968.  We remember him for his leadership of the civil rights movement, but he was also a man of peace, speaking out against the Vietnam War and condemning the 'madness of militarism." In doing this, he defied his government and suffered much criticism.

This year, as we remember King, we live in the shadow of a horrible war against Gaza, where almost 100,000 Palestinians have been killed or injured by Israel in 100 days of war. Last week, the International Court of Justice heard credible arguments by South Africa that Israel was engaged in genocide. Several essays about South Africa's case are linked in the reading below.  Whatever the Court's decision about genocide, the magnitude of the killing and destruction in Gaza is very great:

·    As of today, 24,000 people have been killed in Gaza and more than 60,000 have been injured, with more than 7,000 buried under the rubble and presumed dead; more than 10,000 of those killed are children;

·    The physical destruction of Gaza will soon be complete. About 3/4^th of the housing has been destroyed, most of the hospitals and schools have also been destroyed, along with 104 mosques and many places of history and culture;

·    Almost all of Gaza's 2.3 million residents have been displaced from their homes, with 1.5 million now refugees in the southern-most city of Rafah; and

·    The conditions of life for those still living in Gaza have collapsed; by early February, the UN estimates that everyone will be facing starvation. Thousands of children have been orphaned, hundreds of thousands have infectious diseases, and hundreds of thousands have little or no shelter against winter weather.

Yesterday, there were demonstrations around the world, including many in the US protesting Israel's war, calling for an immediate cease fire and for sending aid to the starving and homeless thousands in Gaza. Some 64 members of Congress and about two-thirds of US voters support this call for a ceasefire. Many families of hostages in Israel maintain that their loved ones cannot survive without a ceasefire.

On this MLK anniversary, let us work for peace.  Even if we are very busy, we can at least make calls to the White House (202) 456-1111; Rep. Bowman (202) 225-2464; Sen. Gillibrand (202) 224-4451; and Sen. Schumer (202) 224-6542, asking them to support a ceasefire for Gaza and the full restoration of humanitarian aid. Thanks.

CFOW Nuts & Bolts

Please consider getting involved with Concerned Families of Westchester.  Weather permitting we meet for a protest/rally each Saturday in Hastings, at 12 noon at the VFW Plaza (Warburton and Spring St.)  A "Black Lives Matter/Say Their Names" vigil is held in Yonkers on the first Monday of the month (this month January 8) from 5:30 to 6:00 pm at the intersection of Warburton Ave. and Odell. Our newsletter is archived at https://cfow.blogspot.com/; and news of interest and coming events is posted on our CFOW Facebook page.  Another Facebook page focuses on the climate crisis. If you would like to join one of our Zoom meetings, each Tuesday and Thursday at noon, please send a return email for the link. 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!

The Rewards for stalwart newsletter readers this week come from Hudson Valley Sally, too long missing from these pages.  First up is Billy in Air," by CFOW's own Jenny Murphy.  Another one I like is "Sister Moon,"  And I think you will also like their cover of Phil Ochs' "Power and Glory.  Enjoy!

Best wishes,

Frank Brodhead

For CFOW

CFOW Weekly Reader

The War on Gaza – Featured Essays

Mohammed el-Kurd: We Must Be Willing to Sacrifice to End Israel's War

An interview with Mohammed el-Kurd, Jacobin Magazine [January 10, 2024]

---- Palestinian writer Mohammed el-Kurd spoke to Jacobin about Israel's vicious war on Gaza and the daily humiliations and frequent killing that Israel has long inflicted on Palestinians. "We are told time and time again that our death is business as usual."Israel's brutal war on the people of Gaza has thus far had two main consequences. It has revealed to the world the violence and cruelty that underlies the ongoing siege of Gaza and occupation of the West Bank, and it has brought into existence the biggest global antiwar movement in a generation. [Read More]

What Will Happen to Gaza's People?

By Peter Beinart, New York Times Guest Essay [January 7, 2024]

----- There are signs that some members of the Israeli government have a strategy, or at least a preference, for what happens next. It's implicit in the kind of war Israel has waged, which has made Gaza largely unlivable. And a growing number of Israeli officials are saying it out loud: They don't want to force just Hamas out of Gaza. They want many of Gaza's people to leave, too. … There's a chilling historical backdrop to all this. Palestinians in Gaza know that if they leave, Israel is unlikely to let them to return. They know this because most of them are descendants of the expulsion and flight that occurred around Israel's founding in 1948, which Palestinians call the nakba. They live in Gaza because Israel didn't let their families return to the places that then became part of Israel. [Read More]

We have a tool to stop Israel's war crimes: BDS

By Naomi Klein, The Guardian [UK] [January 10, 2024]

---- Though BDS had broad support from more than 170 Palestinian civil society organizations, internationally the movement remained small. During Operation Cast Lead [2009], that began to shift, and a growing number of student groups and trade unions outside Palestine were signing on. Still, many wouldn't go there. I understood why the tactic felt fraught. There is a long and painful history of Jewish businesses and institutions being targeted by antisemites. … For two decades, widespread fear stemming from that false equation has shielded Israel from facing the full potential of a BDS movement – and now, as the international court of justice hears South Africa's devastating compendium of evidence of Israel committing the crime of genocide in Gaza, it truly is enough. [Read More]

The Genocide Hearing at the International Court of Justice

[FB – On Thursday the International Court of Justice heard South Africa's case against Israel's war on Gaza, charging Israel with the crime of genocide. Israel replied to the charges on Friday.  Democracy Now! broadcast useful program segments on the South African case and Israel's response. ZNet compiled clips and highlights from the South Africa presentation, as well as responses from Jewish Voice for Peace and others, which you can see here. A video of the South Africa presentation (3 ½ hours) can be seen here. Some useful/insightful commentary is linked below.]

The Int'l Court of Justice Case is a Chance to hold Israel and the US to Account for Genocide

By Medea Benjamin and Nicholas J.S. Davies, Code Pink [January 11, 2024]

---- On January 11^th, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague is holding its first hearing in South Africa's case against Israel under the Genocide Convention. The first provisional measure South Africa has asked of the court is to order an immediate end to this carnage, which has already killed more than 23,000 people, most of them women and children.  … Since countries engaged in genocide do not publicly declare their real goal, the greatest legal hurdle for any genocide prosecution is to prove the intention of genocide. But in the extraordinary case of Israel, whose cult of biblically ordained entitlement is backed to the hilt by unconditional U.S. complicity, its leaders have been uniquely brazen about their goal of destroying Gaza as a haven of Palestinian life, culture and resistance. … If the ICJ issues a provisional order for a ceasefire in Gaza, humanity must seize the moment to insist that Israel and the United States must finally end this genocide and accept that the rule of international law applies to all nations, including themselves. [Read More]

Will the ICJ find Israel guilty of genocide?

By Meron Rapoport, 972 Magazine [Israel/Palestine] [January 11, 2024]

---- The International Court of Justice (ICJ) today began a landmark hearing to determine whether Israel's devastating war on the Gaza Strip amounts to the crime of genocide. While the deliberations on that question could take years, South Africa, which filed the lawsuit, is aiming for the ICJ to issue several interim orders, including requiring Israel to immediately suspend its military operation; a ruling on these provisional measures could be issued within weeks. Whether or not Israel would obey is another matter. Michael Sfard, one of Israel's leading human rights attorneys who deals extensively with the state's violations in the occupied territories, is very familiar with this arena. In an interview earlier this week, he told +972 that South Africa can certainly reach the threshold of proof required at this stage for an interim order instructing Israel to stop the fighting in Gaza. An order could also be issued requiring that Israel report to the Court on how it is acting to prevent genocide, and how it is dealing with the incitement to genocide emanating from its own political leaders. [Read More]

Don't Turn Away From the Charges of Genocide Against Israel

By Megan K. Stack, New York Times [January 12, 2024]

---- The 84-page case submitted to the court by South Africa is crammed with devastating evidence that Israel has breached its obligations under the 1948 international genocide convention, which defines genocide as "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group." The document before the court is meticulously footnoted and sourced, and many experts say the legal argument is unusually strong. … The proceedings are meaningful for the United States, too. The Biden administration has been the indispensable sponsor of this war — arming, funding and diplomatically shielding Israel despite increasingly dire reports of Palestinian death and displacement. If the violence in Gaza is found to be genocide, the United States could be charged with complicity in genocide, a crime in its own right. Given the sheer power of the United States and its track record of international impunity, the odds of any significant consequences may be small — but, nevertheless, Americans should understand that the case is both substantial and serious, and that their own government is implicated. [Read More]

Also of interest – "In Genocide Case Against Israel at The Hague, the U.S. Is the Unnamed Co-Conspirator, by Jeremy Scahill, The Intercept [January 11, 2024] [Link]; "South Africa's ICJ Case Against Israel Is a Call to Break Free From the Imperial West," by Tony Karon, The Nation [January 11, 2024] [Link]; and "If It Isn't a Genocide in Gaza, Then What Is It?" by Gideon Levy, Haaretz [Israel] [January 14, 2024]  [Link].

Conflict on Campus

'The Eye of the Beholder'

By Nadia Abu El-Haj, New York Review of Books [December 24, 2023]

---- On November 10, 2023, Columbia University suspended two student groups that support Palestinian rights: Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP). The previous month both had organized protests on campus against the war that Israel launched on Gaza after the Hamas attacks of October 7. … The actions of the Columbia and Barnard administrations are not exceptional. Since the start of the latest Israel–Palestine war, it has become all but de rigueur for universities to censor speech criticizing Zionism and the Israeli state—especially when student groups are involved. Last month Arizona State University cancelled an event that was to feature Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, the University of Vermont cancelled another talk by El-Kurd, and Hunter College cancelled a screening of Israelism, a documentary by two Jewish filmmakers critical of Jewish-American Zionism. (Hunter reversed the decision after much backlash.) Meanwhile, student protests have been met with unusually draconian responses. [Read More]

Also of interest - (Video) "Palestine, the Harvard Controversy, and Attacks on Academic Freedom," Marc Lamont Hill interviews Norman Finkelstein, ZNet [January 4 2024 [Link]; "Claudine Gay was brought down by the Israel lobby," by Philip Weiss, Mondoweiss [January 7, 2024] [Link];and "Pro-Israel Effort to Smear Penn President Started Well Before Oct. 7," by Akela Lacy, The Intercept [January 13 2024] [Link].

The Climate Crisis

See How Hot 2023 Was in Two Charts. Hint: Record Hot.

By Raymond Zhong and Keith Collins, New York Times [January 9, 2024]

---- The numbers are in, and scientists can now confirm what month after month of extraordinary heat worldwide began signaling long ago. Last year was Earth's warmest by far in a century and a half. Global temperatures started blowing past records midyear and didn't stop. First, June was the planet's warmest June on record. Then, July was the warmest July. And so on, all the way through December. Averaged across last year, temperatures worldwide were 1.48 degrees Celsius, or 2.66 Fahrenheit, higher than they were in the second half of the 19th century, the European Union climate monitor announced on Tuesday. That is warmer by a sizable margin than 2016, the previous hottest year. [Read More]

Civil Liberties/ "The War on Terror"

Sunsetting the War on Terror — Or Not: The Stubborn Legacy of America's Response to 9/11

By Karen J. Greenberg, Tom Dispatch [January 10, 2024]

---- This week marks the 22nd anniversary of the opening of the Guantánamo Bay detention facility, the infamous prison on the island of Cuba designed to hold detainees from this country's Global War on Terror. It's an anniversary that's likely to go unnoticed, since these days you rarely hear about the war on terror — and for good reason.. … But Guantánamo, a prison that, from its founding, has violated U.S. codes of due process, fair treatment, and the promise of justice writ large isn't the only unnerving legacy of the "war" on terror that still persists. If indefinite detention at Guantánamo was a key pillar of that war, defying longstanding American laws and norms, it was just one of the steps beyond those norms that still persist today. … Once powers previously outlawed or at least restrained in the name of fair, just, and responsible laws and norms become codified and implemented, the road back to normalcy is tantamount to impossible. [Read More]

The State of the Union

Magical Thinking About Biden 2024 Paves the Way for Another Trump Presidency

By Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon, ZNet [January 11, 2024]

---- An avalanche of polling shows Joe Biden with abysmal approval ratings and grim re-election prospects, but Democratic leaders keep spinning away in dreamland. Even before the Israeli war on Gaza began three months ago, party loyalists were in denial about Biden's unpopularity with key Democratic-leaning constituencies. Now the situation has worsened, with Biden's standing in free-fall among young people as well as Arab and Muslim Americans, while support among people of color has seriously eroded. … But there's a serious problem beyond just polls. It's the disaffection of activists – pivotal because thousands of talented, hard-working activists are needed to help persuade voters on the fence, and to get-out-the-vote of traditional Democrats who are only "occasional voters."  [Read More]  Also of interest is "Americans Are More Likely to Back Candidates Who Support a Cease-Fire, a New Poll Shows," by John Nichols, The Nation [January 12, 2024] [Link].

The Cops Killed More People in 2023 Than They Had in Years

By Elie Mystal, The Nation [January 11, 2024]

---- Three-and-a-half years after the summer of "no justice, no peace," we are back to the quiet acceptance of systemic injustice. A new report from the nonprofit organization Mapping Police Violence shows that 2023 was the police's most homicidal year on record. The police killed at least 1,232 people last year, the most since the organization began tracking police murders in 2013. In 98 percent of those cases, the officers faced no charges. … It's worth noting that the cops unleashed their most deadly year on us when the murder rate by people who are not protected by a badge went down. Society as a whole was less homicidal, but the cops were more violent. [Read More]

Our History

[FB – Monday is the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr.  Born in 1929, he was killed in 1968.  Remembered as a civil rights leader, he was also a man of peace, especially in the last year of his life, when he spoke out against the War in Vietnam.  This latter part of his legacy is frequently omitted from annual commemorations of his life, leaving a distorted picture of the man and his work.  This year the website Portside has put up a good sampling of videos about what he did from Montgomery (1954) to Memphis (1968).  Also informative/interesting is a collection of essays about King from The Boston Review.  Here are intros to three of them:

MLK Now

By Brandon M. Terry [September 10, 2018]

---- In the year before King's death, he faced intense isolation owing to his strident criticisms of the Vietnam War and the Democratic Party, his heated debates with black nationalists, and his headlong quest to mobilize the nation's poor against economic injustice. As we grasp for a proper accounting of King's intellectual, ethical, and political bequest, commemoration may present a great obstacle to an honest reckoning with his legacy.  There are costs to canonization. … It is no wonder then that King's work is rarely on the reading lists of young activists. He has become an icon to quote, not a thinker and public philosopher to engage. [Read More]

On Violence and Nonviolence

By Elizabeth Hinton [September 10, 2018]

---- Arguably, the success of King's brand of nonviolent direct political action depended on the presence of this violent direct political action. As King recognized, and Brandon Terry points out, the coercive power of mass nonviolence arose in part from its ability to suggest the possibility of violent resistance should demands not be met. Therefore, we should endeavor to see violent and nonviolent expressions of black protest as entwined forces that shaped the decade. In addition, and more challenging perhaps, we should attempt to understand violent rebellion on its own terms, as a form of direct political action that was just as integral to the decade. [Read More]

Exceptional Victims

By Christian G. Appy [January 26, 2018]

---- Exactly a year before he was murdered, Martin Luther King, Jr., gave one of the greatest speeches of his life, a piercing critique of the war in Vietnam. Two thousand people jammed into New York's Riverside Church on April 4, 1967, to hear King shred the historical, political, and moral claims that U.S. leaders had invoked since the end of World War II to justify their counterrevolutionary foreign policy.  … The Riverside Church speech alone should place King in the pantheon of 1960s antiwar activists. Yet in public memory, his opposition to the Vietnam War is largely forgotten. Why? … Part of our failure to attend to this dimension of King's thought is, paradoxically, rooted in his hagiography. Our reflexive genuflection to military service goes hand in hand with our failure to treat antiwar protestors as real heroes of U.S. democracy. King's antiwar critique unsettles something very insidious and essential to the reproduction of empire. Cleaving it off was the price of admission into the U.S. pantheon of heroes. [Read More]