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 6th, 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
---- 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?" b[Link]; and "Black and Jewish Activists Have Allied for Decades. What Now?" b[Link].
Israel's Victory in Gaza turns Pyrrhic as a Majority of Youths and Democrats brand it Genocidal
---- 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]
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," b [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
---- 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]
