Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
May 19, 2024
Hello All – Ten days ago there was a moment of hope for peace in Gaza. Hamas had agreed to the outlines of a US-brokered peace deal. Then Israel rejected the deal – insisting on a temporary, not a permanent ceasefire – and the war has resumed and escalated.
For months President Biden said that an attack by Israel on the southern Gaza city of Rafah – where more than a million refugees had ended up – was a "red line." The United States would not support an attack on Rafah, and might take serious action. But no action was taken; perhaps it was never intended, only a bone thrown to the antiwar majority of the world, desperate to end Israel's slaughter.
Red lights are flashing in Gaza. Genocide. Famine. 600,000 have fled Rafah in the last 2 weeks. In all of Gaza, more than 35,000 people have been killed, food deliveries by land have been blocked – sometimes by Israeli "settlers" – and hospitals no longer function. Those who want to know – millions around the world – can watch the cruelty and killing live-streamed on their phones. Those who don't want to know – especially in Israel and the US – can pass by on the other side, oblivious to the horror.
It is a mystery to many why President Biden, behind in the polls, continues on his war-supporting path that is rejected by so many, especially young people and people of color. It is reckless to believe that somehow these millions of voters will be corralled back into the Democratic Party base in time for November's election. Those who fear a Trump presidency must redouble our efforts to persuade Biden to end the war now, before it is too late for all of us.
The 76th Anniversary of "The Nakba"
Last week Palestinians marked the 76th anniversary of their mass expulsion from what is now Israel, an event that is at the core of their national struggle. Palestinians refer to the anniversary as the "Nakba", Arabic for "catastrophe". Some 700,000 Palestinians, a majority of the pre-war population, fled or were driven from their homes before and during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war that followed Israel's establishment.
After the war, Israel refused to allow them to return because it would have resulted in a Palestinian majority within its borders. Instead, they became a seemingly permanent refugee community that now numbers some six million, with most living in slum-like urban refugee camps in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and the Israeli-occupied West Bank. In the Gaza Strip, the refugees and their descendants make up about three-quarters of the population.
Israel's rejection of what Palestinians say is their right to return has been a core grievance in the conflict and was one of the thorniest issues in peace talks that last collapsed 15 years ago. Now, many Palestinians fear a repeat of their painful history on an even more cataclysmic scale. (For example, "My Grandmother Survived the Nakba—Now I Hope to Survive a Genocide," by Abeer Barakat, The Nation [May 15, 2024] [Link]).
The war in Gaza is a political earthquake, reshaping politics in both the US and Israel. Where this will end up will be determined in part by historical memory – of the Holocaust, October 7th, 100 years of Israel's "settler colonialism," and the Nakba. Millions of people in Israel/Palestine carry these memories with them. Understanding this will help us to understand the roots of this war and the possible roads to peace.
Some commentaries for this week
(Video) South Africa's Lawyer Breaks Down in Tears at ICJ Hearing!
[FB – In December, South Africa filed a complaint against Israel at the International Court of Justice, charging Israel with committing genocide in its war on Gaza. In February the ICJ issued a preliminary ruling that South Africa had established a "plausible case," and ordered Israel not to violate the Genocide Convention. Recently, with Israel's invasion of Rafah, South Africa filed a further complaint, pointing not only to the military assault, but also to the deliberate blocking of humanitarian and food supplies to Gaza by Israel. South Africa presented its case last Thursday, and Israel replied on Friday. A South African lawyer's presentation of the case I thought was particularly eloquent and persuasive. Check it out here. Middle Eastern historian Juan Cole presented a useful summary/analysis of the South African case – "S. Africa v. Israel on Rafah Genocide: Endgame in which Gaza is utterly Destroyed for Human Habitation" -- which you can read here.
The View Within Israel Turns Bleak
By Megan K. Stack, New York Times [May 16, 2024]
---- Israel has hardened, and the signs of it are in plain view. Dehumanizing language and promises of annihilation from military and political leaders. Polls that found wide support for the policies that have wreaked devastation and starvation in Gaza. Selfies of Israeli soldiers preening proudly in bomb-crushed Palestinian neighborhoods. A crackdown on even mild forms of dissent among Israelis. The Israeli left — the factions that criticize the occupation of Palestinian lands and favor negotiations and peace instead — is now a withered stump of a once-vigorous movement. In recent years, the attitudes of many Israelis toward the "Palestinian problem" have ranged largely from detached fatigue to the hard-line belief that driving Palestinians off their land and into submission is God's work. [Read More]
The Unpunished: How Extremists Took Over Israel
By Ronen Bergman and Mark Mazzetti, New York Times Magazine [May 16, 2024]
---- This story is told in three parts. The first documents the unequal system of justice that grew around Jewish settlements in Gaza and the West Bank. The second shows how extremists targeted not only Palestinians but also Israeli officials trying to make peace. The third explores how this movement gained control of the state itself. Taken together, they tell the story of how a radical ideology moved from the fringes to the heart of Israeli political power. [Read More] Also of interest – (Video) "Stop This War Right Now": U.S. Doctor Who Saved Sen. Duckworth's Life in Iraq, Now Trapped in Gaza," from Democracy Now! [May 15, 2024] [Link]; and (Video) "The Plan Is Genocide": Palestine's U.K. Ambassador Decries Israel's Attack on Gaza & U.S. Complicity," from Democracy Now! [May 13, 2024] [Link].
The Bowman Campaign
Concerned Families of Westchester supports Rep. Bowman for re-election. Yesterday we passed out Bowman flyers at Hastings' farmers market. We had a good reception. Phone banking and door-knocking are also part of the campaign. If you would like to learn more – or get involved – email Bowman for Congress
During the last re-districting of Rep. Bowman's congressional district (CD 16), Co-Op City in the Bronx was restored to CD 16. Many people may not know the fascinating history behind Co-Op City. Check out "History of Co-Op City," by Michael Caspar, just published in New Left Review.
The "Israel Lobby" Goal is to Stop Rep. Bowman
'Jews for Jamaal' and Squad Push Back Against AIPAC Attack on Bowman
By Brett Wilkins, Common Dreams [May 16, 2024]
---- As the leading U.S. pro-Israel lobby's political action committee unleashes a nearly $2 million ad blitz targeting Congressman Jamaal Bowman, Jewish allies of the New York Democrat—who is an outspoken critic of what he and many experts call Israel's genocide in Gaza—on Thursday joined progressive lawmakers in condemning right-wing efforts to defeat pro-Palestine incumbents. United Democracy Project (UDP), the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's (AIPAC) super PAC, has booked $1.9 million in television ads to influence the outcome of the Democratic primary in New York's 16th Congressional District. [Read More] Also of interest – "Long-anticipated AIPAC blitz against Bowman begins with $2 million, one-week ad buy," by Marc Rod, Jewish Insider [May 16, 2024] [Link]; and "Outside Groups Spent $285,000 Backing Jamaal Bowman. AIPAC Alone Just Dropped Nearly $2 Million to Attack Him," by Akela Lacy, The Intercept [May 16, 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 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!
Rewards!
An informal poll this week revealed that too few had checked out last week's Rewards from Mavis Staples; so here's another chance. For those yearning for more, here are some new dance steps from New Orleans and Tuba Skinny. Still more? Check out the family-friendly anarchist group Chumbawamba, here with "Time Bomb" and "The Diggers' Song." Enjoy!
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
CFOW Weekly Reader
Featured Essays
UCLA's Unholy Alliance
By Robin D. G. Kelley, Boston Review [May 18, 2024]
---- In December the House Committee on Education and the Workforce held a hearing on anti-Semitism on college campuses that forced University of Pennsylvania president Liz McGill and Harvard University president Claudine Gay to resign in its wake. In April the committee held another hearing, reducing Columbia University President Minouche Shafik, keen to avoid the fate of her counterparts, to a groveling mess. On May 23 it will hold yet another, under the title "Calling for Accountability: Stopping Antisemitic College Chaos." … Between April 25 and May 2, UCLA experienced the worst episode of both anti-Semitic and anti-Palestinian/Islamophobic/racist violence in the university's century-long history. Proud Boys, white nationalists, and neo-Nazis joined forces with Zionists (including some self-declared Israelis) to attack UCLA's Palestine Solidarity Encampment, whose residents included a large number of Jewish students. The assailants were not affiliated with the university. [Read More] Also of interest is "Business titans privately urged NYC mayor to use police on Columbia protesters, chats show," by Hannah Natanson and Emmanuel Felton, Washington Post [May 16, 2024] [Link].
Code Pink's Medea Benjamin on Disrupting the U.S. War Machine
From The Intercept [May 15, 2024]
---- This week on Intercepted, Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the feminist antiwar organization Code Pink, speaks with Jeremy Scahill. Since the launch of the so-called war on terror in 2001, the 71-year-old activist has spent more than two decades disrupting congressional hearings, chasing members of Congress through the halls of the Capitol for answers, and traveling to countries the U.S. has labeled as enemies. Benjamin discusses her personal path to activism and the siege on Gaza, and offers a guide on how ordinary people can disrupt business as usual in the chambers of power in Washington, D.C. [Read More] Also of interest – "We're in a pivotal moment in American history. We cannot retreat," by Sen. Bernie Sanders [May 15, 2024] [Link]; and "I Was Shot in Vermont. What if It Had Been in the West Bank?" by Hisham Awartani, New York Times [May 16, 2024] [Mr. Awartani is a Palestinian American student at Brown University.] [Link].
The War on Gaza
The Arsenal of Genocide: the U.S. Weapons That Are Destroying Gaza
By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies, Code Pink [May 14, 2024]
---- On May 8, 2024, as Israel escalated its brutal assault on Rafah, President Biden announced that he had "paused" a delivery of 1,700 500-pound and 1,800 2,000-pound bombs, and threatened to withhold more shipments if Israel went ahead with its full-scale invasion of Rafah. The move elicited an outcry from Israeli officials (National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir tweeted "Hamas loves Biden"), as well as Republicans, staunch anti-Palestinian Democrats and pro-Israel donors. Republicans immediately prepared a bill entitled the Israel Security Assistance Support Act to prohibit the administration from withholding military aid to Israel. Many people have been asking the U.S. to halt weapons to Israel for seven months, and of course Biden's move comes too late for 35,000 Palestinians who have been killed in Gaza, mainly by American weapons. Lest one think the administration is truly changing its position, two days after announcing the pause, the State Department released a convoluted report saying that, although it is reasonable to "assess" that U.S. weapons have been used by Israeli forces in Gaza in ways that are "inconsistent" with international humanitarian law, and although Israel has indeed delayed or had a negative effect on the delivery of aid to Gaza (which is illegal under U.S. law), Israel's assurances regarding humanitarian aid and compliance with international humanitarian law are "credible and reliable." By this absurd conclusion, the Biden administration has given itself a green light to keep sending weapons and Israel a flashing one to keep committing war crimes with them. [Read More]
Israel Wants Endless War Without the Politics. Biden's Going Along for the Doomed Ride.
By Murtaza Hussain, The Intercept [May15, 2024]
---- Israeli military officials are now going public with criticisms that the war in Gaza had been misguided for a simple reason that Clausewitz himself would have recognized: Besides revenge, the war never had a clear political strategy or objective. Israeli leaders have taken the position that Palestinians are merely a subject population to be suppressed and controlled. This lack of a political approach reflects long-standing attitudes in Israeli society that have now trapped the country in a forever war with the Palestinians and their other neighbors — with the U.S. as its patron effectively pulled along for the ride. The roots of this failure had been years in the making. … From a U.S. perspective, Biden's reflexive backing for a war that has proven to be equal parts aimless and brutal has now trapped the U.S. in a situation where it is the primary enabler of an alleged genocide. The war has not only tarnished America's reputation abroad but is also increasingly tearing at its own social fabric. Even diehard subscribers to the U.S. foreign policy consensus have been forced to reckon with the failures of treating the Palestinians as politically irrelevant. [Read More]
What About the Palestinian Hostages?
By Gideon Levy, Haaretz [Israel] [May 16, 2024]
---- Dr. Adnan Al-Bursh was the head of the orthopedic wing at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. During the war, he had to wander from one hospital to the next, as they were all destroyed by the IDF. He has not been back to his home in Jabalya since the start of the war, and last December all trace of him disappeared. Recently, it transpired that he had died in an Israeli jail, apparently due to the torture of beatings during interrogation. … How can people identify with the pain felt by Israelis over the fate of the hostages, when these same Israelis turn out to be cold-hearted and indifferent to the fate of the other side's hostages? Why isn't there a single banner in Tel Aviv's "Hostage Square" calling for an investigation into the killing of the doctor from Gaza? Is his blood less red than the blood of the Israeli hostages who died? Why should the whole world take an interest and work only for our for hostages, and not for the Palestinian hostages, whose conditions of imprisonment and whose deaths in Israeli prisons should horrify everyone? [Read More] Also of interest - (Video) "How AI Tells Israel Who To Bomb," Vox [May 17, 2024] [Link]; "'Most Thorough Legal Analysis' Yet Concludes Israel Committing Genocide in Gaza," by Jessica Corbett, Common Dreams [May 15, 2024] [Link]; "Is Israel Committing Genocide?" by Aryeh Neier, New York Review of Books [June 6, 2024 issue] [Link]; and "Beyond Awards and Accolades: Why Gaza Journalists are the Best in the World," by Ramzy Baroud, ZNet [May 15, 2024] [Link].
The Student Uprising
Gaza Solidarity Encampments Interactive Map
From ZNet [May 14, 2024] [124 campuses] [Link].
(Video) Columbia-Affiliated Union Theological Seminary Votes to Divest from Israel's War on Gaza
From Democracy Now! [May 14, 2024]
---- As student protests around the world call for their educational institutions to divest from companies with ties to Israel, we speak to the Reverend Dr. Serene Jones, the president of Union Theological Seminary, an ecumenical seminary affiliated with Columbia University that is one of the first schools to begin divesting from companies that "profit from war in Palestine/Israel." Jones says divestment is an extension of Union's "long policy of trying our best to bring our values, our core mission and our conscience to bear on how we invest our money," and credits student activists with pushing the administration to action. Jones criticizes Columbia's decision to arrest student protesters with a "police takeover" and "violent decampment," in contrast to Union's approach to student political expression. "We support students learning what it means to find their voice and speak out for justice and freedom," she says. [See the Program]. Also of interest is "Many Speak for Palestine," by Ayça Çubukçu, Boston Review [May 1, 2024] [Link].
The Invasion of Haiti
The US Plan to Outsource Its Imperialism in Haiti to Kenya
By Samar Al-Bulushi, Jacobin Magazine [May 2024]
---- The US has long outsourced meddling in Haiti to Global South countries. Recently Kenya has agreed to take over leading a US-backed multinational police intervention there — justifying its own "stabilization" mission with Pan-Africanist rhetoric. As far as the plan to "stabilize" Haiti is concerned, the US-Kenya alliance represents a convergence of strategic interests between the United States as an imperial power and Kenya as an increasingly assertive player in the Global South. Given the widely criticized history of imperial meddling in Haiti, the Biden administration has sought to avoid being seen to play a direct role in the most recent plan to intervene in the country (a plan that is dominated by US concerns about migration rather than the well-being of Haiti's people). By outsourcing the mission to Kenya, the Biden administration hopes to convince the American public that the United States is not committing itself in yet another foreign military occupation, and to persuade Haitian citizens — much as it did in 2004 when Brazil agreed to lead the UN stabilization mission known as MINUSTAH — that the interveners are comrades rather than colonizers. Strategically downplayed is the fact that (along with at least $300 million in financial backing) the United States will be providing logistical support to the mission in Haiti, including intelligence sharing, communications, and air power — meaning that this is as much a US-led mission as it is a Kenyan-led one. [Read More]
The Climate Crisis
The Race to End Fossil Fuel Production
By John Feffer, Foreign Policy in Focus [May 15, 2024]
---- Everyone complains about the weather, but nobody does anything about it. This quip by the American essayist Charles Dudley Warner applies to fossil fuels as well. Everyone talks about ending fossil fuel production, but almost no one is doing anything about it. … Given all this Green rhetoric and crude (oil) action, it's hard to find examples around the world where people are actually doing something to end fossil fuel production. One of those places is Ecuador, which held a referendum last August about keeping oil under the ground of a certain plot of land in the Yasuní national park. [Read More]
Who will Tell the Story of Regional Climate Disasters when the News Desert Swallows all Local Newspapers?
By Jane Braxton Little, Tom Dispatch [May 13, 2024]
---- My adopted hometown of Greenville in Plumas County, California, was hit by a climate-driven wildfire in 2021 that devastated 800 homes and left the downtown smoldering on its Gold Rush-era dirt foundations. Two years into rebuilding, the only local online publication announced that it was shuttering. So, I set aside my freelance journalism career, joined a team of like-minded citizens, and launched The Plumas Sun. Like hundreds of journalists across the country, we're reporting from the intersection of news deserts and climate disasters. As floods, fires, and tornadoes surge, and daily as well as weekly publications collapse, local journalism maintains an all-too-slender lifeline in devastated rural communities like mine. Local journalists remain after the Klieg lights go dark and the national media flee our mud-strewn, burned-out Main Streets. We continue to report as our friends and neighbors face the challenge of rebuilding (or not). [Read More] Also of interest – "11,000% Return: Trump's $1 Billion Offer Could Yield $110 Billion Windfall for Big Oil," by Jon Queally, Common Dreams [May 16, 2024] [Link]; "The Strategy of the Green New Deal from Below," by Jeremy Brecher, Strike! [May 17, 2024] [Link]; and "How Oil Companies Manipulate Journalists," by Molly Taft, The Nation [May 15, 2024] [Link].
The State of the Union
Alabama Mercedes Workers Lose First Union Election, Vow to Fight On
By Luis Feliz Leon and Jane Slaughter, Labor Notes May 17, 2024]
---- A no-holds-barred campaign by Mercedes management convinced a majority of workers at its Alabama factory complex to vote against forming a union. In addition to anti-union videos and mailings, captive-audience meetings, firings, and an onslaught of pressure from state politicians and even a local pastor, the winning move was to fire the company's U.S. CEO and replace him with a vice president who promised to care about the "team members." A team leader named Ray, who voted no, said his area was 100 percent union before the former CEO was removed. "[New CEO] Federico [Kochlowski] has been a positive influence," he said. "A lot of people want to give him a chance. It was all production-driven before him; he's more about the team members. He's willing to change. "We have a year. We have that year to see what he does. If he doesn't make positive changes we can bring the union in." (After losing an election a union has to wait a year before filing a new petition for the same group of workers.) The vote, held May 13-17, was 2,045 in favor of forming a union to 2,642 against. The majority of the workforce is Black. There were 51 challenged ballots, and five voided; 5,075 workers, not including contract workers, were eligible to vote. [Read More]. Also of interest is "What It's Like Voting Union Inside Alabama Mercedes Plant," by Jane Slaughter, Labor Notes [May 15, 2024] [Link].
(Video) "Unbuild Walls": Detention Watch's Silky Shah on Debunking Immigration Myths & Embracing Abolition
From Democracy Now! [May 14, 2024]
---- Amid an intensifying crackdown on asylum seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border, we speak to the author of the new book Unbuild Walls: Why Immigrant Justice Needs Abolition about U.S. immigration policy under the Biden administration. Author Silky Shah is the executive director of Detention Watch Network and a longtime immigration rights advocate whose new book aims to "debunk the idea that immigration is a public safety issue," in the face of narratives, from both the Republican and Democrat political establishments, of criminality and deterrence. Despite Biden's campaign promises to reform the immigration system, his administration has "ceded more and more ground to the Republicans and moved the whole conversation to the right," Shah says. "Legalization isn't even on the table." Shah discusses how the immigrant rights' movement uses the language of abolition to build connections with other social movements fighting oppression, from mass incarceration to police brutality. "These systems aren't separate. … We have to call for abolition of the whole system and understand those things together." [See the Program]
Our History
Happy Birthday Malcolm X
---- Born on May 19, 1925, Malcolm was assassinated in 1965. Here is a short (video) biography of Malcolm, with a bare-bones outline of his life. For a more complete overview, here is a Democracy Now! program from 2005, "A Life of Reinvention," in which Manning Marable, one of Malcolm's biographers, traces the arc of the tragedy of Malcolm X.
