Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
January 7, 2024
Hello All – After three months of the War on Gaza, almost 100,000 Palestinians have been killed, injured, or are missing, buried under the rubble of bombed cities and towns, presumed dead. Later this week, the International Court of Justice will hear a case accusing Israel of committing genocide in its war. A decision is expected by the end of the month, one that would oblige all US members, including the United States, to take whatever action the Court orders.
While a majority of Americans support a ceasefire, President Biden and his team continue to support Israel in its genocide, supplying millions of dollars, tons of weapons, and diplomatic support at the UN, shielding Israel from criticism. Last week President Biden by-passed Congress for the second time to send $147 million worth of bombs to Israel. On the front burner is a proposal to give Israel an additional $14 billion in military aid. This is not just Israel's war; it is our war also.
Palestinian children bear a heavy burden in this war, suffering casualties at a rate unknown in modern wars. The UN reckons that more than 9,600 children have been killed. Doctors Without Borders reported yesterday that more than 10,000 children have been "disabled" (amputations, etc.), and that 20,000 children in Gaza are orphans. As indicated in some of the reading linked below, almost all are homeless, and almost all are on the edge of starvation. More than a million children in Gaza are suffering from malnutrition and disease, with long-term consequences for those who are lucky enough to live through the war. Diseases induced by the conditions – deliberately inflicted by Israel as a weapon of war – may kill half a million people in the next year, according to health experts. Tens of thousands will suffer stunted growth and serious disabilities.
The Biden people have pretended to be working for an increase in "humanitarian aid" to Gaza, which is now under food, water, medicine, and fuel blockade by Israel. Yet little has happened. There is a worldwide consensus/understanding that, at this moment, only the United States – and thus only the Biden administration – can deter Israel from continuing to commit war crimes against civilian non-combatants in Gaza. And it may be that only strong protests from rank-and-file Americans can persuade the Biden people to pull the plug on this war. This may well be the moral crisis of our era. Can we do it? We can certainly try.
Featured Reading/Viewing on the War on Gaza
It's not just bullets and bombs. I have never seen health organizations as worried as they are about disease in Gaza
By Devi Sridhar, The Guardian [UK] [December 29, 2023]
---- The Israel-Gaza war is also deadly for children, reportedly the deadliest conflict for children in recent times: roughly 160 children were being killed a day last month according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Compare this with three a day in the recent conflict in Syria, two a day in Afghanistan, and 0.7 a day in Ukraine. The total number of children killed is already more than 5,300 says Unicef, the United Nations Children's Fund. … The WHO spokesperson Dr Margaret Harris has said that diarrhea rates among children in refugee-like camps (sheltered housing) in Gaza were, in early November, already more than 100 times normal levels, and with no treatments available, children can become dehydrated and die quickly. … Ultimately, unless something changes, the world faces the prospect of almost a quarter of Gaza's 2 million population - close to half- a million human beings - dying within a year. These would be largely deaths from preventable health causes and the collapse of the medical system. It's a crude estimate, but one that is data-driven, using the terrifyingly real numbers of deaths in previous and comparable conflicts. [Read More]
We all see the horrific videos of suffering in Gaza. We must not look away
By V (formerly Eve Ensler), The Guardian [UK[ [January 3, 2024]
---- In the video the father clutches his dead child. I feel the agonizing failure of language to meet this moment. I feel the smoldering shame and rage of living in a world that for 80 days has allowed the full-scale destruction of a people and their place, (over 21,000 dead, over 56,000 injured, 90% of Gaza destroyed) in broad daylight, where babies' brains are exploded and people are being starved and bombed in their dreams and hunted with rifles and gunned down in wheelchairs and where, with each passing hour the precious poets, journalists, doctors and nurses are being erased into eternity. Where hospitals, schools, mosques, art centers, everything that makes a life and holds a culture is turned to dust. I watch the video again. Some might call this a form of self-harm. Some might call it obsession. But that is not it at all. I am watching as a way of seeing, as a way of paying attention, as a way of knowing and in that knowing allowing the pain of that father into my body, my heart and my memory as a way of not letting him go, as a way of saying you are not alone, you are not forgotten. [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 (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!
In one of the grimmest moments of our lives, we reach deep into our comedy bullpen to bring in a sure-fire "stopper" against the world's madness. I speak of course of George Carlin. Whether you are already a big fan or have never heard of him, my spiritual consultant (EZ) thinks you will enjoy this hour-long compilation of skits and this 1992 HBO Special.
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
The CFOW Weekly Reader
The War on Gaza
How Long can Israel Defy the World?
By Yakov M. Rabkin, Informed Comment [January 4, 2024]
---- Palestinians in Gaza are being decimated. Over 20 000 have been killed, mostly women and children. Three times more have been wounded. Some experts qualify it as genocide, others as massacre. Two million people have been displaced, many more than during the entire history of displacement of the Palestinians since the start of the Zionist settlement at the turn of the 20th century. As Israel takes out hospitals and civilian infrastructure, infectious diseases and famine threaten to kill many more people. … Gaza is violently demodernized, bombed into stone age: hospitals, schools, power stations are bombed to rubble. What is happening appears unprecedented. [Read More]
The myth of Israel's 'democracy' - The Chris Hedges Report
From The Real News Network [January 5, 2024]
---- Israel's status as a bona fide democracy is often taken to be a self-evident truth, but a more critical look at the history and reality of Zionism calls this into question. After all, how can a democracy exist in a country constitutionally defined as an ethnostate that can only exist through the suppression and gradual elimination of its Others? Israeli historian Ilan Pappé joins The Chris Hedges Report for a discussion on Israel as an inherently colonial, and therefore anti-democratic, project. Ilan Pappé is a professor with the College of Social Sciences and International Studies at the University of Exeter in the UK, where he directs the European Centre for Palestine Studies, and co-directs the Exeter Centre for Ethno-Political Studies. Prior to coming to the UK, Pappé was a historian and politician in Israel. He is the author of several books, including The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. [See the Program]
The Genocide Hearing at the International Court of Justice
South Africa appeals to the International Court of Justice: Stop Israel's genocide in Gaza
By Robert Herbst, Mondoweiss [December 31, 2023]
[FB – The Court will hear this case this week – January 11 and 12 – and render a decision by the end of the month. Robert Herbst is a member of JVP-Westchester and a CFOW stalwart.]
---- On Thursday, December 28, South Africa filed an Application Instituting Proceedings at the International Court of Justice to commence proceedings in a legal forum against Israel for its genocide in Gaza, and to press for "provisional measures" – a preliminary order requiring the Israel Government and military to cease their genocidal acts in Gaza pending a full hearing by the court. South Africa's Application is 84 pages long and devastating – to the State of Israel, to its Jewish political and military leaders and personnel committing the genocidal acts and speaking openly of their genocidal intent, to those in Israel, America, and Europe standing so firmly in support of them, and to the Jewish people in whose name Israel purports to act. [Read More]. Also of interest – "Genocide in Gaza," by John J. Mearsheimer [January 4, 2024] [Link]; and "America Must Face Up to Israel's Extremism," by Michelle Goldberg, New York Times [January 5, 2024] [Link].
Israel's Leaders Plan "Ethnic Cleansing" for Gaza
Israeli calls for Gaza's ethnic cleansing are only getting louder
By Ishaan Tharoor, Washington Post [January 5, 2024]
---- Nearly three months of war have left Gaza in ruins. Israel's quest to eradicate militant group Hamas after it carried out its deadly Oct. 7 attack looks far from finished, no matter the skyrocketing death toll for Palestinians. More than 20,000 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip due to Israeli bombardments and the ongoing offensive. A sprawling humanitarian crisis has seen close to 90 percent of Gazans displaced and the majority of the embattled territory's more than 2 million population teetering on the brink of famine. … The human misery unfurling across Gaza finds little sympathy in the Israeli public discourse, where the priority remains the vanquishing of Hamas — perpetrators of the single bloodiest slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust — and the freeing of hostages held in Hamas's Gazan redoubts. Indeed, a steady drumbeat of sound bites from Israeli lawmakers and other politicos has urged an even more devastating fate for the territory. [Read More]
(Video) "Voluntary Migration" or Ethnic Cleansing? Mouin Rabbani on Israel's Push to Expel Residents of Gaza
From Democracy Now! [January 3, 2024]
---- Dutch Palestinian policy analyst Mouin Rabbani says Israel is using the Hamas attack of October 7 as a pretext to carry out its "long-standing ambition" to push Palestinians out of the Gaza Strip. He notes Israeli officials started proposing mass displacement of civilians to Egypt and other countries almost immediately after fighting began, and that this reflects Zionist policy since even before the founding of the state of Israel. "Ethnic cleansing, or what Zionists would call transfer, is intrinsic to Zionist and later Israeli policy towards the Palestinians from the very outset," says Rabbani, co-editor of Jadaliyya and host of the Connections podcast. [Read More] Also of interest – "The long history of Zionist proposals to ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip," by Mouin Rabbani, Mondoweiss [December 28, 2023] [Link]; "Israeli government riven with division over future of Gaza after far-right calls to expel Palestinians," by Leonie Fleischmann, The Conversation [January 5, 2024] [Link]; and "Ethnic Cleansing of Gaza Is Becoming an Official Israeli Government Policy," by Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com [January 3, 2024] [Link].
Will the War Become "a Regional Conflict"?
Will Israel Drag the US Into Another Ruinous War?
By Trita Parsi, The Nation [January 3, 2024]
---- America and Israel's interests have never been fully aligned on Gaza. But as Israel's bombardment of the narrow strip has continued for almost 100 days, the Netanyahu government is shifting in a direction that directly threatens the stated goals of the Biden administration: Israel wants to expand the war into Lebanon and appears to welcome open warfare against so-called Axis of Resistance—Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and the revolutionary government in Iran. The assassination of Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri in Beirut yesterday makes that clear. So far, President Joe Biden has refused the one step that can prevent both this escalation and the US from getting dragged into yet another war in the Middle East: a cease-fire in Gaza. [Read More]. Also of interest – "The U.S. can't blindly support Israel and prevent escalation in the region at the same time," by Mitchell Plitnick, Mondoweiss [January 6, 2024] [Link]; and "The Zionist Destruction Machine Threatens Lebanon After Gaza," by Gilbert Achcar, ZNet [January 5, 2024] [Link].
Antiwar Action
'I refuse to take part in a revenge war': Israel jails teen for opposing army draft
By Oren Ziv, +972 Magazine [Israel/Palestine] [December 28, 2023]
---- On Tuesday, Dec. 26, 18-year-old Tal Mitnick from Tel Aviv became the first Israeli to refuse mandatory military service since Israel launched its assault on the besieged Gaza Strip more than 80 days ago. Mitnick was summoned to Tel Hashomer recruitment center, where he declared himself to be a conscientious objector, and was sentenced to 30 days in military prison. Mitnick is one of 230 Israeli high schoolers who signed an open letter in early September, prior to the war, announcing their intention to refuse their draft orders as part of a mobilization against efforts by Israel's far-right government to restrict the judiciary's power. Connecting the judicial coup to Israel's long-standing military rule over Palestinians, the high schoolers — who organized under the banner of "Youth Against Dictatorship" — declared that they would not join the army "until democracy is secured for all who live within the jurisdiction of the Israeli government." [Read More]
Letter from America [The New Antiwar Movement]
By Joe Allen, Rebel News [January 2, 2024]
---- Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza since Hamas' October 7th attack has produced the most significant antiwar campaigning since the election of Barack Obama in 2008. For the first time in nearly two decades, we have the beginnings of an antiwar movement in the United States with thousands pro-Palestinian demonstrators regularly appearing on the streets of major U.S. cities. The largest Pro-Palestine demonstration in U.S. history took place on November 4, when nearly 300,000 marched against U.S. support for Israel's war in Washington, D.C. Another national demonstration is planned for January 13, 2024 sponsored by the American Muslim Task Force for Palestine.[Read More] Also of interest – "American Unions Long Backed Israel. Now, Some Are Protesting It," by Emma Goldberg and Santul Nerkar, New York Times [January 7, 2024] [Link]; and "Blocking Israel's Supply Chain," by Binoy Kampmark, Counterpunch [January 3, 2024] [Link].
The Role of the Media
John Pilger: A life telling truth to power
By Victoria Brittain, Middle East Eye [January 2, 2024]
---- Original, brave, taking great personal risks, and extremely hard working, Pilger was never in the mainstream press pack. In the 1960s he spent eight years between Vietnam and the US as the Mirror's star writer. They were times of hectic intensity for any journalist. In Vietnam Pilger immersed himself in the catastrophe of the Vietnamese people under US bombing and the destruction of life, livestock and countryside by the poison of Agent Orange. In the US the stories were in the violence against the civil rights movement and the assassinations of US leaders heralding change, such as Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy. He looked back on Vietnam decades later as a "farce full of lies". [Read More] Also of interest – "The Impossibility of Reporting the Story of Gaza," by Afnan Abu Yahia and Lila Hassan, The Nation [December 29, 2023] [Link]; and "CNN Runs Gaza Coverage Past Jerusalem Team Operating Under Shadow of IDF Censor," by Daniel Boguslaw, The Intercept [January 4, 2024] [Link].
The Climate Crisis
Double Threat: Nukes and Climate Change in 2024
By Tom Engelhardt, Tom Dispatch [January 5, 2024]
---- Perhaps the most remarkable thing about humanity isn't our literature, our theater, our movies, the remarkable food we cook, the cities we've built, or the endless other things we've created. To my mind, it's the fact that, in our relatively brief time as rulers of this planet, amid a chaos of never-ending wars and conflicts, we've come up with not just one but two different ways of doing ourselves (and much of the rest of our world) in.And that, to my mind, is no small achievement. … We're talking about the end of the world as we've known it. And that should be, but isn't, the news of our time or of any time. Welcome to 2024. [Read More] Also of interest – "Nobody is really planning for a fossil fuel phaseout," by Shannon Osaka, Washington Post [December 20, 2023] [Link]. But it's not a Debbie Downer for everyone; read "Fossil Fuel Giants to Lavish Shareholders With Record Paydays as Climate Crisis Deepens," by Julia Conley, Common Dreams [January 1, 2024] [Link].
Our History
[FB – The stories in today's "Our History" describe how moments of participation in social justice movements transformed two men – James Baldwin and Karl Marx – in ways that reshaped their world views and enabled them to share new insights about the worlds in which they were living.]
James Baldwin's Day of Mourning: A tragedy in Birmingham and the making of a radical.
By Ed Pavlić, Boston Review [December 15, 2023]
---- The week following the Birmingham bombing was also the week when Baldwin began a period of radicalization that would last through the decade and shape the rest of his life. … Where for years it had been common to find Baldwin's name in the table of contents of liberal magazines…, on the National Day of Mourning Baldwin shared the microphone and the stage with radicals and activists representing at least two generations: longtime pacifist insurgent Bayard Rustin, who had served as Deputy Director of the March on Washington Committee; [and others]. In this company, and in his public appearances, Baldwin was changing almost minute by minute, shifting his public image from a socially engaged—if tactically equivocal—literary success who guided readers' self-reflection to that of prophetic celebrity-activist, unambiguously using his image and his words to advocate for immediate and structural, social transformation. [Read More]
How Young Karl Marx Got Radicalized
By Ryan Moore, Jacobin Magazine [December 2023]
---- Karl Marx started out in a liberal milieu where the primary concern was abolishing religious authoritarianism. In time, he came to believe that abolishing capitalism was necessary for true freedom — and that only the working class could do it. … Marx would go on to take several more intellectual leaps to develop a method of historical materialism and his critique of political economy. Yet by late 1844 his revolutionary dialectic of theory and praxis was firmly in place, to be concisely formulated in his Theses on Feuerbach the following year. Starting with a love of freedom and confronting the limits of liberalism in a class-divided society, Marx's life course is a model of how young people become radicalized, one which many continue to follow today. [Read More] 
