Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
June 16, 2024
Hello All – For the second time, it now appears that a promising peace proposal to end the war in Gaza has collapsed. The most recent proposal, falsely described by President Biden as an "Israeli proposal," was endorsed by the UN Security Council and this week by the meeting of the G7 countries. As two articles linked below explain in some detail, the proposal was initially described in the mainstream media as similar to the Hamas proposal of May 6th – suggesting that since Hamas and Israel had endorsed the main terms of the proposal, peace was at hand.
Alas. Biden's "Israel" proposal does not lead directly to a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, a Hamas demand and originally thought to be included in Biden's proposal. Thus Biden proposes only a temporary ceasefire, with the possibility that it could become permanent if Israel wanted this. Israel, of course, has not said an official word about Biden's "Israel" proposal, but major actors in the Israeli government have made it clear that there will be no ceasefire before all Israel's war aims have been accomplished, including the destruction of Hamas, etc.
It is reasonable to conclude that President Biden's "Israeli" proposal was never expected to bring peace to Gaza. Rather, it was hoped that it would bring peace to the Democratic Party and the outrage around the world that the USA is supporting a genocidal war in Gaza. As has happened so often in the past (see Vietnam War), antiwar efforts are met by flawed, insincere peace declarations and proposals, attempting to turn the onus of continued war and slaughter onto the party that is being bombed (Vietnamese, Palestinians), rather than on those doing the bombing.
In modern wars of colonial conquest or domination, control of the media narrative is essential for victory. In the war on Gaza, the mainstream media supports the war by omitting the scenes of horror and slaughter readily available on Aljazeera or much of European news, and by repeating stenographically President Biden's claims to be seeking a end to the war in Gaza. Working to end this war includes working to counter the mainstream media's messaging that our government is on the side of peace.
Some essays illuminating the week that was
Blinken's lies about Hamas rejecting a ceasefire reveal the Biden administration's true intentions
By Mitchell Plitnick, Mondoweiss [June 15, 2024] [h/t JW]
---- Biden's proposal is very similar to the one Hamas accepted on May 6. Notably, the United States at the time explicitly said that Hamas had not accepted the proposal. Blinken's blatant contradiction of his own agency's words is typical of the prevarication that the United States and Israel have maintained throughout recent weeks, during which the Biden administration has gone to great lengths to create the illusion of pressing for a ceasefire. However, there is a key difference between the May 6 proposal and the current one, and it lies in Phase Two of the plan. Biden's plan calls for a negotiation during Phase One that would lead to a permanent ceasefire. He even noted, as did the Security Council, that if negotiations need longer to succeed, Phase One, including its temporary ceasefire, will be extended for as long as it takes. But crucially, the plan also says that if Israel decides Hamas is not negotiating "in good faith," it can resume its murderous rampage through Gaza. And if that happened, it would be doing so with the full public blessing of the U.S. — a blessing even more explicit than it has given until now. [Read More] Also of interest is "Unpacking Blinken's lies on the Gaza ceasefire negotiations," by Mohamad Elmasry, Aljazeera [June 14, 2024] [Link].
As Israel Rejects UN Ceasefire, 3,000 Palestinian Children in S. Gaza in Danger of Starving before their Parents' Eyes
By Juan Cole, Informed Comment [June 12, 2024]
---- The children of Gaza do not care. They do not care about US Secretary of State Tony Blinken's posturing on the UN Security Council demand for an immediate ceasefire. They do not care that Hamas says it accepts the resolution. They do not care that Israel's far right extremist government rejects it. Their severe lack of interest in geopolitics is only matched by their hunger for actual concrete food aid. And if they do not get it, they will take revenge on the adults by dying. Some 3,000 likely candidates for starvation have been identified by UNESCO. The only thing that can stop them from dropping dead, their little bodies emaciated, is a ceasefire. The leader of Israel's fascist government, the war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu, rejects such a ceasefire. [Read More] Also of interest is "UN: Israel-caused Famine to encompass all Gaza by July, killing as many as 19,800 a Month," by Juan Cole, Informed Comment [June 9, 2024] [Link].
The Bowman Campaign
Why So Much Depends Upon Jamaal Bowman Beating AIPAC
By Hadas Their, The Nation [June 13, 2024]
---- Representative Jamaal Bowman is a hugger, a high-fiver, and a beloved member of the Squad on Capitol Hill. He's also engaged in a fight for his political life, as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has vowed to make an example of him, spending millions of dollars, sometimes in a single day, to drown him out with unrelenting attack ads. Bowman is seeking his third term representing New York's 16th Congressional District, which encompasses a mix of working-class cities and wealthy suburbs in Westchester County and the northern end of the Bronx. Facing a primary opponent funded by a seemingly bottomless well of dollars from AIPAC, he told me, "I'm just kind of overwhelmed with love and support and strength." I met with Bowman at a Jews for Jamaal canvassing of Hastings-on-Hudson on the first weekend of June. About a hundred supporters gathered at MacEachron Park for bagels and cream cheese, listened to constituents and organizers speak about the importance of the campaign, and collectively recited the Jewish Shehecheyanu blessing, which expresses gratitude and celebrates life. We then heard from the congressman himself before pounding the streets with campaign material. [Read More]
Also of interest – "Hillary Clinton Just Made the Wrong Choice in One of 2024's Most Crucial Races," by John Nichols, The Nation [June 14, 2024].[Link]; and "George Latimer's History of Slow-Walking Desegregation," by Branko Marcetic, Jacobin Magazine [June 2024] [Link].
AIPAC Watch
'Their message is, The Empire Strikes Back': Breaking down AIPAC's role in the 2024 election
By Michael Arria, Mondoweiss [June 12, 2024]
---- Political consultant Peter Feld unpacks AIPAC's strategy in the Democratic primaries, Jamaal Bowman's bad poll numbers, and whether Gaza will impact Biden's reelection. [Read More] Also of interest is "Bipartisanship or Republican meddling? AIPAC is biggest source of GOP donations in Dem primaries," Politico [June 9, 2024] [Link].
News Note – Noam Chomsky
News of Chomsky's Ill Health Prompts Outpouring of Gratitude for 'Lion of the Left'
By Brett Wilkins, Common Dreams [June 12, 2024]
---- News that renowned American linguist, dissident, and author Noam Chomsky is hospitalized in Brazil following a massive stroke he suffered last year was met with an avalanche of accolades and well wishes from members of the international left on Wednesday. Valeria Chomsky told The Associated Press that her 95-year-old husband—a laureate professor at the University of Arizona and professor emeritus at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)—is currently in a São Paulo hospital. She took him there on an ambulance jet with two nurses after he was able to travel from the United States following his June 2023 stroke. Chomsky told Folha de São Paulo that although her husband has difficulty speaking and the right side of his body is numb from the stroke, he follows the news and "when he sees images of the war in Gaza, he raises his left arm in a gesture of lament and anger." She said his condition has improved significantly, and he is seeing a neurologist, speech therapist, and pulmonologist daily. [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 Mondays 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!
Please join us! – Tomorrow's (Monday) "Say Their Names" vigil in Yonkers (see above) will mark the 4th anniversary of the murder of George Floyd. Members of several other organizations will be joining us, and the media has been invited. Please stand with us against the tidal wave of police killing of Black Americans. – 5:30 at Warburton and Odell Aves.
Rewards! This week's Rewards for stalwart newsletter readers come, once again, from Hudson Valley Sally, an ensemble of local musicians who sang in Hastings for the Riverarts program. I think you will like "The FM Band"; "Annie"; and "Bound for Glory" (Woody Guthrie). There are many more great tunes on-line. Enjoy!
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
The CFOW Weekly Reader
Featured Essays
Acts of Language
[FB - Why have so many writers treated pro-Palestine speech as a threat?]
By Isabella Hammad, New York Review of Books [June 13, 2024]
---- Since the protests began on campuses throughout the United States, I have been struck by the verbal contortions many writers have gone through to avoid engaging with the gravity of Israel's assault on Gaza—one of the most brutal, punitive military campaigns in modern history—and with the clarity of the students' moral outrage. If you are in this country, and you have successfully ignored the images of children, dead and living, being pulled out from rubble in Gaza, … you might get the impression from much of what you read that a woke mob has been flinging words like "colonialist" around indiscriminately, aggressing American Jewish students, and intimidating all those who oppose their views into silence. It has been startling to me to read so many writers lamenting the speech of pro-Palestine protesters in the US compared with this actual violence—tantamount, according to numerous experts, to the crime of genocide. Such essays frequently describe speech as being either threatening (from the Palestinian side) or under threat (on the anti-Palestinian side). [Read More]
The Lasting Legacy of Truth-Teller Daniel Ellsberg
By Norman Solomon, Tom Dispatch [June 12, 2024]
---- After working inside this country's doomsday machinery, even drafting nuclear war plans for the Pentagon during President John F. Kennedy's administration, Dan Ellsberg had gained intricate perspectives on what greased the bureaucratic wheels, personal ambitions, and political messaging of the warfare state. Deceptions about arranging for the ultimate violence of thermonuclear omnicide were of a piece with routine falsehoods about American war-making. It was easy enough to get away with lying, he told me: "How difficult is it to deceive the public? I would say, as a former insider, one becomes aware: it's not difficult to deceive them. First of all, you're often telling them what they would like to believe — that we're better than other people, we're superior in our morality and our perceptions of the world." [Read More] Also of interest is "y James Carden, Responsible Statecraft [June 6, 2024] [Link].
Answering the call to fight injustice: An interview with Barbara Smith
By Ashley Smith, Tempest Magazine [June 11, 2024]
[FB - Barbara Smith is one of the leading intellectuals and activists who developed the traditions of Black feminism. A part of a group of Black lesbian socialists, she co-authored the groundbreaking "Combahee River Collective Statement." Tempest's Ashley Smith interviews her here about her history as a participant and leader in struggles from the civil rights movement to Palestinian solidarity today.]
---- Barbara Smith: I became politically active in the heart of the 1960s during the long Civil Rights Movement. As a teenager in Cleveland, Ohio, I joined the struggle that was centrally focused on school desegregation… The city officials, in a typically cynical manner, built new schools in segregated areas so that the color line was upheld and reproduced. This was true of all northern school systems. They would never put a school in an integrated neighborhood. … Already active in the struggle, I went to Mount Holyoke College in the fall of 1965. There were virtually no Black students on my campus. There was a group called the Civil Action Group, which I joined. Most of the Black students already at the school were active in it. We didn't have a Black student group or an Afro-American society yet. The focus of the Civil Action Group was civil rights organizing. Already, the movement was turning toward Black nationalism and Black power and also beginning to take up the struggle against the Vietnam War.[Read More]
The War on Gaza
Israel Has Had a 'Conscience-ectomy.' Can a Society Survive Without a Conscience?
By Gideon Levy, Haaretz [Israel] [June 12, 2024] ---- Can a society exist without a conscience? Can a state continue to function after its removal? Is the conscience a vital organ, like the heart or the brain, or is it like the spleen or the gall bladder, which you can live without? Perhaps it's like the thyroid: You can live without it, as long as you take a replacement for the hormone? These questions should be asked by every Israeli now, after the country underwent a total 'consciencectomy' on October 7, 2023. Israel has been without a conscience ever since. For now, it appears to be alive. The process that Israel has undergone in the past several months can only be described as a separation from its conscience. It had been sick for years; now it is dead. There are a myriad explanations and justifications, but the question remains, in all its force: How can a society continue to endure over time without a conscience. [Read More]
(Video) Doctor Just Back from Gaza: The Health System Has Totally Collapsed Due to Israel's Genocidal War
From Democracy Now! [June 11, 2024]
---- More than eight months into Israel's devastating assault on Gaza, the territory's healthcare system is barely functioning, with the World Health Organization reporting this week that there have been 464 Israeli attacks on Gaza's healthcare system since October 7, affecting 101 health facilities. Gaza's Health Ministry warns that the few remaining hospitals still partially functioning could completely shut down due to Israel's near-total blockade of the territory, which is keeping out parts needed to maintain hospital diesel generators, as well as crucial medical supplies. Over 37,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's war on Gaza, and nearly 85,000 Palestinians have been wounded. "The situation in Gaza … remains catastrophic," says Dr. James Smith, an emergency medical doctor just back from Gaza, where he treated patients for nearly two months. "There are no fully functional hospitals any longer in Gaza and no health facilities that are able to absorb the sheer scale of need now." [See the Program]
The War at Home
Palestine Is on the Ballot
By Liza Featherstone, Jacobin Magazine [June 2024]
---- In numerous races across the country this year, Palestine is a key issue for voters. Popular opinion is on the side of a Gaza cease-fire, but pro-Israel billionaires are spending big to overcome that antiwar will. … For the first time ever in American politics, Palestine is on the ballot all over the country, mobilizing billionaires and special-interest groups against the Left … Yet the issue is also inspiring voters and candidates who oppose the war. In recent years, left and progressive candidates have mostly avoided foreign policy, especially Israel, seeing the terrain as simply too risky, especially with no grassroots antiwar movement demanding or supporting such a criticism of the status quo. This time, with protests in the streets and encampments on more campuses than anyone can track, is different. Not only has AIPAC put Israel on the ballot, but the Left, too, has a positive case to make. [Read More]. Also of interest is "The "Uncommitted" Vote Campaign Pressured Democrats on Gaza. What's Next?" by Tyler Walicek, Truthout [June 12, 2024] [Link].
Active-Duty US Service Members Issue Appeal to Congress to Stop Funding Genocide
By Marjorie Cohn, Truthout [June 13, 2024]
---- On June 4, a coalition of active-duty service members, veterans and G.I. rights groups launched a campaign called Appeal for Redress V2 to encourage military personnel to tell Congress to stop funding genocide in Gaza. Israel's genocidal operation, now in its ninth month, has killed more than 37,000 Palestinians and wounded nearly 85,000. The campaign is sponsored by Veterans For Peace (VFP), the Military Law Task Force of the National Lawyers Guild, About Face: Veterans Against the War and the Center on Conscience & War. It is modeled after the 2006 Appeal for Redress issued during the occupation of Iraq. During that campaign, almost 3,000 active-duty, Reserve and Guard personnel sent protected communications to their members of Congress urging an end to the wars and occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan. [Read More]
The Mainstream Media & the War
When Israel Burned Refugees Alive, Establishment Media Called It a 'Tragic Accident'
By Robin Andersen, FAIR [Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting] [June 10, 2024] ---- Over the Memorial Day weekend, Israel bombed starving Gazan refugees crowded in tents in Rafah, where Israel had told them to go. Nevertheless, without warning, Israel hit the camp with at least eight missiles spreading fire though the encampment of plastic tents. Some refugees burned to death, mostly women and children, leaving them dismembered and charred. … US news media reported the tent massacre, some more truthfully than others. But most establishment media repeated Israel's false claims that it was an accident, weaving disinformation messaging into toned-down descriptions of the scene. With confused syntax, they omitted words like "genocide," "massacre" and "starvation." Most left out the language of international law that is best able to explain the unprecedented crimes against humanity that Israel is committing. Corporate reporting left the tent massacre devoid of context and empathy, ignored actions that need to be taken, and ultimately facilitated the ongoing Israeli genocide of Palestinians. [Read More]
The War in Ukraine
Why Does American Folly March on in Ukraine
By James Carden, American Conservative ---- As the tide of the war has turned, perhaps permanently, in Russia's favor (itself an entirely foreseeable development despite the wishful thinking that has characterized too much of what passes for informed analysis here in Washington), Ukraine's Western sponsors find themselves scrambling to find a way to halt Russia's momentum. For their part, Biden, Blinken and Sullivan have decided to reverse course—despite public assurances to the contrary—by secretly sending long range ATACMS to Kiev and lifting the (wise) prohibition against the use of American weapons to strike inside Russian territory—a prohibition Germany has likewise lifted. … Amidst this flurry of activity, no one can explain in clear, unambiguous language why the matter of who governs Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Luhansk, Donetsk (or even Odessa and Kharkiv) is worth a direct, possibly even catastrophic confrontation with Russia. How and when did it become a paramount national security objective of the United States and NATO to help Galician ethno-nationalists regain control over a people they neither desired nor valued? [Read More]
Also of interest – "Biden, Zelensky Sign 10-Year Bilateral Military Deal," bJune 13, 2024] [Link]; "Putin Makes Public Peace Offer to Ukraine," byJune 14, 2024] [Link]; and "G7 Leaders Agree To Provide Ukraine With $50 Billion Using Frozen Russian Assets," bJune 13, 2024] [Link].
The Climate Crisis
What grief for a dying planet looks like: Climate scientists on the edge
By
---- [Climate scientists] Kalmus and Abramoff are among the rapidly growing number of those exasperated with the lack of urgency around the climate emergency. According to the American Psychological Association, which defined eco-anxiety in 2017 as "a chronic fear of environmental doom", more than half of US adults see climate change as the biggest threat facing humanity. … Kalmus remains disappointed with people, he says. He thought we'd have more courage, more fortitude, more compassion and love for each other and life on Earth. "It's like a nightmare," he explains, that judges, world leaders, corporate leaders and people on the street "don't understand that we're in an emergency, … that everyone's still acting like things are normal". [Read More]
If Not in New York, Then Where? ["Congestion Pricing"]
---- Here is what the indefinite pause on New York City's congestion pricing program, if it sticks, will cost: 120,000 more cars daily clogging Lower Manhattan's bumper-to-bumper streets, according to a New York State analysis, and perhaps $20 billion annually in additional lost productivity and fuel and operating costs, as well as health and environmental burdens and a practically unbridgeable budget shortfall for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority that will straitjacket an already handicapped agency and imperil dozens of planned necessary capital improvement projects for the city's aging subway system. Here is what it gains Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, who announced her unilateral decision about the suspension last week: perhaps slightly better chances for New York Democrats in a couple of fall congressional races. [Read More]
Civil Liberties
The Liberal Police State: How Democrats Are Playing Into GOP Hands
By Sandy Tolan, The Nation [June 2024]
---- In a campaign where Democrats seek to contrast their values with those of Trump and his neofascist supporters, supposedly liberal Democrats are alienating a significant proportion of the electorate—not only young students of conscience and of color but also Black churches and elderly white Midwesterners horrified by the images coming out of Gaza. As the stakes rise, the distinctions are blurring, and the liberals have only themselves to blame. This centrist Democratic strategy fits into a larger, longer-term, bipartisan alliance that views protesters as the enemy, and their tactics as a threat to the fundamental interests of our militarized, fossil-fuel-dependent society. [Read More]
The State of the Union
(Video) Supreme Court Protects Access to Mifepristone, But War on Abortion Rights Continues to Escalate
From Democracy Now! [June 14, 2024]
---- The Supreme Court has unanimously rejected a challenge from anti-abortion groups to the nationwide availability of the abortion medication mifepristone, which is available by mail and can be taken at home in many states. Mifepristone is used in roughly two-thirds of all U.S. abortions, including in some states that have severely limited or banned abortions. "This is just one of the strikes — not the first strike, not the second or third, but one of the strikes — in an artillery that is aimed at reproductive freedom," says our guest, legal scholar Michele Goodwin. We discuss the ruling and the anti-abortion movement's "playbook" of attacks on reproductive healthcare with Goodwin. [See the Program]
Our History
(Video) Understanding The True Origins Of Juneteenth
An interview with historian Robin D. G. Kelly, The Minority Report – 40 mins.
---- Many know Juneteenth as the official declaration of emancipation in Texas in 1865, two months after the end of the Civil War and the dismantling of slavery in the rest of the South. While Juneteenth has recently been recognized as a national holiday, African Americans have been observing and celebrating this day for 150 years, extending beyond Texas, the United States, and even the era of slavery itself. Originally known as "Jubilee Day," its roots can be traced back to biblical references in Leviticus chapter 25, which symbolized the liberation of slaves, debt cancellation, and the restoration of land to its divine authority. This significant occasion also provides an opportunity to connect the struggles of Black and Indigenous communities and highlight the shared experiences of oppression and dispossession. [See the Program]
