Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
March 10, 2024
Hello All – Live-streamed on social media and shown on TV, we see children in Gaza staring. At least 23 have already died. Do we help them, as "good Samaritans"? Or do we pass by on the other side: "It's not our concern"; "I'm too busy to care"; or "What about Hamas?" The miracle of the present moment is that millions of people around the world are speaking up for a ceasefire in Gaza, denouncing their government's inaction to stop the crimes of genocide taking place in Gaza.
The International Court of Justice has warned that Israel's war on Gaza is potentially a genocide. In addition to the bombing and shooting, part of Israel's war plan is to deprive Palestinians in Gaza with the means to live: food, water, housing, & medical care. Israel hopes to force all the Palestinians out of Gaza. As famine expert Alex de Waal points out in an article linked below, using starvation as a weapon is common in war; Israel is on a well-trodden path.
This is unacceptable. Our government is supplying the weapons, bombs, and ammunition used kill and maim Palestinians. At the same time, it is refusing to challenge Israel's blockade of humanitarian aid into Gaza and condoning the destruction of hospitals. This week The Washington Post and The Wall St. Journal reported that the Biden administration had sent more than 100 planeloads of weapons and ammunition to Israel since October 7th; in almost all cases, without informing Congress. As far as one can tell, Biden's plan for Gazans is to feed them a little and bomb them a lot. After all, Israel has the right to defend itself against the tens of thousands of women and children who threaten it so much.
President Biden has two new bad ideas: air-dropping food packages into Gaza and building a temporary port so that food can be delivered by sea. UN food experts warn that this is totally inadequate. Air drops cannot provide enough food to meet the need, and the temporary port may not be ready for many weeks. The land routs for food must be opened and expanded. Only a permanent ceasefire – now supported by 76 members of Congress – can end this genocide.
Join the antiwar movement. Please call the White House (202) 456-1111; Rep. Bowman (202) 225-2464; Sen. Gillibrand (202) 224-4451 and Sen. Schumer (202)224-6542. Just say you want a CEASEFIRE NOW FOR GAZA. Thanks.
Some useful reading on the editorial theme
I Said the Era of Famines Might Be Ending. I Was Wrong.
March 9, 2024]
[FB - Alex de Waal is executive director of the World Peace Foundation at Tufts University, Medford, Mass. He is the author of "Mass Starvation: The history and future of famine."]
---- Nearly eight years ago I wrote an essay for New York Times Opinion asking whether the world had finally moved beyond the peril of large-scale famines. My answer was that it might very well have. I was wrong. Famines are back. I underestimated the cruel resolve of some war leaders to use starvation as a weapon. And I overestimated how much the world's largest humanitarian donors cared about feeding the hungry in conflict zones, and giving them the necessary help to rise above the devastation when the fighting finally ended. … Many things go into the conditions that create a food crisis: crop failures, high food prices, unemployment. But it's war that has created the famines taking shape today. Worldwide, about two-thirds of the people who are facing hunger live in war or violence zones, like Sudan and Gaza, or are trying to flee them. [Read More]
Starvation Is Stalking Gaza's Children
By Megan K. Stack, New York Times [February 29, 2024]
---- Reports of death by starvation are difficult to verify from a distance. The hunger in Gaza is caused but also partly hidden by a pitiless war that has obliterated hospitals, flooded morgues and damaged communication networks, leaving us to cobble together what's happening from scraps of information. Relief organizations in Gaza struggle to figure out whether the crisis has crossed formally into famine; statistically, the clearest indication is that at least two people out of every 10,000 die every day from starvation. They measure the circumference of children's upper arms to document the peril of their weight loss. These children are not suffering from drought or crop failure or some other natural disaster. Their hunger is a man-made catastrophe. … To a lesser but important extent, people in Gaza are hungry because the U.S. government — Israel's pre-eminent military aid provider and political defender — has failed to use its considerable leverage to force Israel to let Gaza eat. [Read More]
Time Is Running Out to Stop the Carnage in Gaza
By James Bamford, The Nation [March 10, 2024]
---- There is no ambiguity when it comes to the use of starvation as an illegal weapon of war. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court declares that intentionally starving civilians by "depriving them of objects indispensable to their survival, including willfully impeding relief supplies" is a very serious war crime. The Nazis used starvation as a key weapon during World War II. Known as the Hungerplan, it began with the forcible starving of Soviet prisoners of war. "Crowded into vast camps without any shelter, 1.3 million died in the four months after the invasion. About 2.5 million had died this way by the end of the war," noted Alex de Waal. Writing in the London Review of Books, de Waal added that "the Hungerplan was a crime comparable in numerical terms to the Final Solution. Indeed, forced starvation was one of the instruments of the Holocaust. Eighty thousand Jews starved to death in the Warsaw Ghetto." [Read More]
The Bowman Campaign
The Bowman campaign has begun, with phone-banking, postcard-writing, and collecting signatures on nominating petitions. For more information about the campaign, go here.
A significant development this week was the change in Bowman's opponent George Latimer's position on ceasefire for Gaza. Up until now, Latimer mostly refused to discuss this, and when he did he rejected a ceasefire as interfering with Israel's fighting against Hamas. But now that President Biden has come out in support of a "temporary ceasefire" or "pause," Latimer has changed his position to be the same as Biden's. Because a "temporary ceasefire" will only postpone the resumption of slaughter for a few weeks, Bowman opposes this, calling for a permanent ceasefire instead. (Also the CFOW position.) The Journal News published a lengthy article this week about how Latimer's position flip-flop might effect the campaign; read it here: "Latimer's call for military pause in Gaza shifts battle lines in primary against Bowman," by Chris McKenna [March 6, 2024] [Link].
AIPAC Watch
Rep. Bowman's opponent in the Democratic primary is Westchester County Executive George Latimer. As previous post in this newsletter have described, the largest contributor to Latimer's campaign is that Amerian Israel Political Action Committee, or AIPAC. AIPAC is targeting progressive Democrats such as Reps Bowman and Corrie Bush because their positions on Israel/Palestine are not to AIPAC's liking. This is a national campaign for AIPAC, and they have attracted millions of dollars from rich people, including many who normally support Republicans. Two useful articles published this week are "AIPAC uncorks $100 million war chest to sink progressive candidates," by Elena Schneider and Melanie Mason, Politico [March 3, 2024][Link]; and "AIPAC's Super PAC Set to Lose First Race of 2024 Despite Record Spending, but Reveals a Major Win," by Ben Samuels, Haaretz [Israel] [March 6, 2024] [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 April 1st) 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!
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
CFOW Weekly Reader
Featured Articles
By Arundhati Roy, Common Dreams [March 8, 2024]
---- The richest, most powerful countries in the Western world, those who believe themselves to be the keepers of the flame of the modern world's commitment to democracy and human rights, are openly financing and applauding Israel's genocide in Gaza. The Gaza strip has been turned into a concentration camp. Those who have not already been killed are being starved to death. Almost the entire population of Gaza has been displaced. Their homes, hospitals, universities, museums, and infrastructure of every kind has been reduced to rubble. Their children have been murdered. Their past has been vaporized. Their future is hard to see. … Racism is of course the keystone of any act of genocide. The rhetoric of the highest officials of the Israeli state has, ever since Israel came into existence, dehumanized Palestinians and likened them to vermin and insects, just like the Nazis once dehumanized Jews. It is as though that evil serum never went away and is now only being recirculated. The "Never" has been excised from that powerful slogan "Never Again". And we are left only with "Again". [Read More]
The Shoah After Gaza
March 7, 2024]
---- A distorted consciousness of the Shoah ensures that whenever the victims of Israel, unable to endure their misery any longer, rise up against their oppressors with predictable ferocity, they are denounced as Nazis, hellbent on perpetrating another Shoah. … We find ourselves in an unprecedented situation. Never before have so many witnessed an industrial-scale slaughter in real time. Yet the prevailing callousness, timidity and censorship disallows, even mocks, our shock and grief. Many of us who have seen some of the images and videos coming out of Gaza – those visions from hell of corpses twisted together and buried in mass graves, the smaller corpses held by grieving parents, or laid on the ground in neat rows – have been quietly going mad over the last few months. Every day is poisoned by the awareness that while we go about our lives hundreds of ordinary people like ourselves are being murdered, or being forced to witness the murder of their children. [Read More]
Also of interest – "Drone Whistleblower Subjected To Harsh Confinement Finally Released From Prison" [Daniel Hale], by Kevin Gosztola, The Dissenter [March 5, 2024] [Link]; and "Israel's Cruelty Is Concealed by Its Decentralization," by Amira Hass, Haaretz [Israel] [March 4, 2024] [Link].
The War on Gaza
Leaked U.S. Cable: Israeli Invasion of Rafah Would Have "Catastrophic Humanitarian Consequences"
By Ken Klippenstein, The Intercept [March 5, 2024]
---- A diplomatic cable sent Monday from the U.S. Embassy in Israel offers an unusually candid assessment of the humanitarian situation in Rafah, a southern city in the Palestinian Gaza Strip. The cable, written by officials with the Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance at the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, warns about the potential effects of an all-out Israeli ground invasion of Rafah, where about 1.5 million Palestinians, driven south by Israeli evacuation orders, are sheltering from Israel's war on Gaza. "A potential escalation of military operations in within Southern Gaza's Rafah Governorate could result in catastrophic humanitarian consequences, including mass civilian casualties, extensive population displacement, and the collapse of the existing humanitarian response, multiple relief actors have warned USAID's Levant Disaster Assistance Response Team," the cable says. [Read More]
(Video) Biden Admin Quietly Approves 100+ Arms Sales to Israel While Claiming Concern for Civilians in Gaza
From Democracy Now! [March 7, 2024]
---- While the Biden administration has been publicly voicing reservations over the mounting death toll in Gaza, a Washington Post investigation revealed the administration has quietly approved and delivered more than 100 separate weapons sales to Israel over the last five months, amounting to thousands of precision-guided munitions, small-diameter bombs, bunker busters and other lethal aid. Only two approved foreign military sales to Israel have been made public since the launch of Israel's assault on October 7, which the Biden administration approved using emergency authority to bypass Congress. "It is actually illegal to provide military assistance to a country that is restricting U.S.-funded humanitarian assistance, and we know that this is the case with Israel," says Josh Paul, a veteran State Department official who worked on arms deals and resigned in protest of a push to increase arms sales to Israel amid its assault on Gaza. [Read More] For more analysis, read "[Open Source Intelligence] Reveals Unprecedented Extent of U.S. Arms Airlift to Israel Since Oct. 7," by Avi Scharf, Haaretz [Israel] [March 7, 2024] [Link]. To read the Washington Post article, "U.S. floods arms into Israel despite mounting alarm over war's conduct,"go here.
Also of interest – Gideon Levy writes a (often controversial) column for Israel's leading liberal newspaper Haaretz. This week he wrote three columns of (imo) great interest: "When Israel Becomes Like Hamas" [LInk]; "After 150 Days of Death and Destruction in Gaza, Israel Is Neither Stronger nor Safer" [Link]; and "Gaza's Night of Death and Hunger" [LInk].
The West Bank
A new surge of settler outposts is terrorizing Palestinians off their land
By Imad Abu Hawash, +972 Magazine [Israel/Palestine] [March 8, 2024]
---- Over the last five months, large swathes of Palestinian-owned land in the West Bank have been effectively annexed by Israeli settlers. In some areas, like Battir, settlers have established completely new outposts — nine of them, according to a report by Peace Now. … While all Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal under international law, the construction of unauthorized outposts is technically illegal even under Israeli law. Nonetheless, the Israeli army invariably protects the settlers, and the state generally allows them to be hooked up to the electricity and water grid — unlike the Palestinian communities on whose lands they are built. [Read More] Also of interest is "Israel's illegal West Bank settlement plans face global condemnation," from Aljazeera [March 7, 2024] [Link],
The Mainstream Media
Is The New York Times Complicit in a Plausible Genocide?
By Zachary Foster, Palestine Nexus [March 8, 2024]
---- "Strikes Pound Rafah, Flatten Large Mosque," The New York Times reported on Feb 22nd. Was anyone killed? Who dropped the bombs? And what is Rafah? The title conceals all the important information, namely, that Israel killed scores of Palestinian civilians. A Feb 29th headline reads: "As Hungry Gazans Crowd a Convoy, a Crush of Bodies, Israeli Gunshots, and a Deadly Toll." Why are the Gazans Hungry? Did the Israeli gunshots kill the Palestinians? In the words of Rad, the Times wrote a "haiku to avoid saying Israel massacres Palestinians that they're deliberately starving in Gaza." … The pro-Israel bias at the Times has been more than a century in the making [Read More]
The War at Home
Gaza Is on the Ballot All Over America
By John Nichols, The Nation [March 5, 2024]
---- Inspired by Michigan's unexpectedly high "uncommitted" vote, activists across the country are now mounting campaigns to send Biden a pro-cease-fire message. … The question now is whether more "uncommitted" votes cast in more primaries might infuse Biden and his team with the sense of moral urgency that has been lacking since the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel with a full-scale military assault on Gaza that has killed upwards of 30,000 Palestinian civilians—more than 12,000 of them children. The answer will come from states across the country, where activists have picked up the "uncommitted" banner and are running with it. [Read More] For an extensive analysis of "uncommitted' voting on Super Tuesday from NPR, go here.
The War in Ukraine
Empire Decline and Costly Delusions
, Counterpunch [March 8, 2024]
---- When Napoleon engaged Russia in a European land war, the Russians mounted a determined defense, and the French lost. When Hitler tried the same, the Soviet Union responded similarly, and the Germans lost. In World War 1 and its post-revolutionary civil war (1914-1922), first Russia and then the USSR defended with far greater effect against two invasions than the invaders had calculated. That history ought to have cautioned U.S. and European leaders to minimize the risks of confronting Russia, especially when Russia felt threatened and determined to defend itself. Instead of caution, delusions prompted ill-advised judgments by the collective West (roughly the G7 nations: the U.S. and its major allies). Those delusions emerged partly from the collective West's widespread denial of its relative economic decline in the 21st century. That denial also enabled a remarkable blindness to the limits that decline imposed on the collective West's global actions. Delusions also flowed from a basic undervaluation of Russia's defensiveness and its resulting commitments. The Ukraine war starkly illustrates both the decline and the costly delusions it fosters. [Read More]
The Climate Crisis
The most epic (and literal) gaslighting of all time [The sins of Exxon]
By Bill McKibben [March 5, 2024]
----Last week the CEO of Exxon gave an interview that amounts to an attempt to pawn off the climate crisis on everyone else, and also to map out the road he sees ahead—a road that involves wasting huge amounts of money subsidizing the fossil fuel industry. … Woods explains, Exxon is a molecule company, by which he means it's interested in transforming molecules—'and they happen to be hydrogen and carbon molecules'—to 'address the needs of our society.' What he's saying, quite explicitly, is that Exxon is not an electron company, i.e. a company interested in building out wind or solar power. And when Fortune asks him why not, he lets slip the basic truth of our moment: "we don't see the ability to generate above-average returns for our shareholders." For everyone who's ever asked themselves, why isn't Exxon (and Chevron and the rest) leading the charge to renewable energy, there's the answer: you can make money doing it, but not as much as they've made traditionally. [Read More]
Our History
Wounded Knee's Radical Legacy
By Joel Whitney, Boston Review [
---- In 1973 rookie reporter Kevin McKiernan smuggled himself onto the Pine Ridge Sioux Reservation in the trunk of a car, hoping to cover the takeover of Wounded Knee, South Dakota. Embedded with activists of the American Indian Movement (AIM)—who clamored for control of their communities and an end to slum conditions, McKiernan filmed their conflicts with Tribal Chair Richard ("Dickie") Wilson, his armed supporters who called themselves Guardians of Oglala Nation (GOONs), and the government agents backing them. Despite a media blackout, McKiernan sat in on AIM negotiations with the Nixon administration, earning on-camera glares from negotiator Kent Frizzell. As a settlement was hammered out between the groups, McKiernan buried his film in a hole and smuggled himself out of the encampment. Arrests followed, his included. Six weeks later, he returned to Wounded Knee to recover his footage. [Read More]
