Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
October 6, 2024
Hello All – We now mark one year of war in the Middle East. In the year following the Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023, Israel killed more than 100,000 people in Gaza, 70% of whom are women and children. Last week the war expanded to Lebanon, where more than 2,000 people have already been killed. Now Israel is preparing to respond to Iran's missile strikes against military targets in Israel. If this happens, Iran vows to respond in kind. The USA prepares to support Israel, sending more troops and naval forces to the region. Where will this end?
A ceasefire for Gaza – an end to that war – is the key to preventing a catastrophe in the Middle East. The military force in control of Lebanon – Hezbollah – has supported Palestinians in Gaza with missile strikes on military targets in northern Israel. They vow to do this until Israel ends its war on Gaza. Israel's attack on Lebanon aims to stop this, and also pursues the long-term Israeli goal of controlling Lebanon. Iran has attacked Israel in support of its ally in Lebanon, and thus in support of Hezbollah's demand for an end to the war on Gaza. All roads to peace lead back to Gaza. Yet President Biden and Vice-President Harris show no signs of modifying their "blank check" support for Israel. Our failure to stop this war will be remembered bitterly by generations to come.
Illuminating the Week That Was
(Video) Regional War Feared as Biden Backs Israel's Threat to Retaliate After Iranian Missile Attack
From Democracy Now! [October 2, 2024]
---- Israel has announced it is sending more troops into southern Lebanon as the Middle East moves closer to a full-scale regional war. On Tuesday, Iran fired at least 180 ballistic missiles at Israel that Iran says targeted Israeli military and security sites, a response that comes after a series of escalating Israeli attacks in recent months against Hezbollah, Hamas and Iranian leaders. The United States aided Israel in intercepting many of the Iranian missiles on Tuesday, and President Joe Biden has vowed to support Israel in further retaliation. "From what I can gather, the Iranian assertion about targeting military and security facilities is correct," says Israeli analyst Ori Goldberg in Tel Aviv. "While things were supposedly in control while Israel was going from glory to glory killing its enemies and getting the bad guys, there was also a deep sense of insecurity and a lack of control right at home." [See the Program]
Must the Sword Devour Forever?
By Seth Anziska, Jewish Currents [October 2, 2024]
---- While pledging this incursion [in 1982] would extend only 40 kilometers into the country, Israeli officials in fact intended to reach Beirut and "break the backbone of Palestinian nationalism" in Lebanon. … Forty-two years later, the parallels hardly need to be spelled out. In a departure from the tit for tat violence that has animated the borderland since the aftermath of the October 7th attacks, Israeli forces have now unleashed a bombing campaign deep inside Lebanon, from the cities of Tyre and Saida, to the southern suburbs of Beirut, to the capital city's core. Over 1,000 people were killed by the barrage of Israeli "precision" bombs supplied by the United States—at least 558 on September 23rd alone, the highest single daily death toll among Lebanese citizens since the country's civil war. [Read More]
Israelis Must Get Up From the Yearlong Shiva for October 7
By Gideon Levy, Haaretz [Israel] [October 6, 2024]
---- October 7, 2023 has passed; October 7, 2024 will pass on Monday. A year ago, this day seeded disasters the scale of which Israel has never known, and changed the country. Israel stopped on October 7, 2023 and has since embraced it and refused to say good-bye. The scale of the disaster might explain it, but the suspicion cannot be avoided that the stubborn, unceasing, singular engagement with October 7, without taking a breath and without leaving room for anything else, is intended for other purposes. For Israelis, October 7 justifies everything Israel has done since. [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 make out your check to "Frank Brodhead," write "CFOW" on the memo line, and send your check to CFOW, PO Box 364, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY 10706. Thanks!
Rewards!
This week's Rewards! for stalwart Newsletter readers brings back Amy Rigby. Someone I like; I hope you do too. Here are a memoir, "Girl to City": "Dancing with Joey Ramone"; and "Vote that Fucker Out," Enjoy!
Best Wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
CFOW Weekly Reader
Featured Essays
"Escalation Dominance" . . . and the Prospect of More Than 1,000 Holocausts
By Norman Solomon, ZNet [October 1, 2024]
---- Everything is at stake. Everything is at stake with nuclear weapons. While working as a nuclear war planner for the Kennedy administration, Daniel Ellsberg was shown a document calculating that a U.S. nuclear attack on communist countries would result in 600 million dead. As he put it later: "A hundred Holocausts." That was in 1961. Today, with nuclear arsenals vastly larger and more powerful, scientists know that a nuclear exchange would cause "nuclear winter." And the nearly complete end of agriculture on the planet. Some estimates put the survival rate of humans on Earth at 1 or 2 percent. No longer 100 Holocausts. More than 1,000 Holocausts. If such a nuclear war happens, of course we won't be around for any retrospective analysis. Or regrets. So, candid introspection is in a category of now or never. [Read More] Also of interest is "The Race That Can't Be Won" [Nuclear weapons] by Jessica T. Mathews, New York Review of Books [September 30, 2024] [Link].
Weaponizing Antisemitism 101: A Back-to-School Special
By Roy Eidelson, Couonterpunch [October 4, 2024]
---- As the new academic year begins here in the U.S., college administrators around the country have already adopted draconian measures to further crack down on anti-genocide actions and even speech itself. The context in which this is all unfolding is monstrous: education has been obliterated in Gaza — a clear case of scholasticide — with universities now buried under rubble. And yet false accounts accusing pro-Palestinian advocates of abusive language and violent disruptions on campus — spread by "pro-Israel" groups, by ambitious, anti-diversity-equity-inclusion politicians, and by wealthy, arrogant donors — have instead helped to turn the focus to the emotional distress experienced by Jewish students. [Read More]
An Open Letter from American Medical Professionals Who Served in Gaza To President Biden and Vice President Harris
(October 2, 2024 - Excerpts)
A Year of Israel's Genocide in Gaza: A Reflection
By Stephen McCloskey, ZNet [October 2, 2024]
---- On 6th October 2023, I received an update on an education project at the half-way point of delivery in the Gaza strip managed in partnership with a Palestinian NGO. Attached to the report were multiple photographs of smiling children, relaxed in each other's company, enjoying their journey in education. Four hundred children were enrolled in the programme from Beit Lahia in the north, Deir al-Balah and Maghazi in the centre, and Rafah in the south. They are all places that have been burned into our psyches by endless atrocities over the past year. They have at times masqueraded as 'safe zones' as Palestinians in Gaza, the majority of whom were already refugees from the 1948 Nakba, have been forcibly displaced multiple times. The world has discovered that there are no safe zones in Gaza. I have lost contact with the children on our programme and have no way of knowing if they are alive or dead, have suffered bereavement or life-changing injuries, or are among the 17,000 young people unaccompanied or separated from their guardians. They are almost certainly in need of mental health and psychosocial support, living in tents or schools converted into make-shift shelters, malnourished, dehydrated and suffering from infectious diseases such as diarrhoea, jaundice and acute respiratory infections. [Read More]
Also of interest – To mark the one-year anniversary (October 7) of the war on Gaza, Aljazeera has put up several excellent documentary films. More will be coming, I'm sure. Available now are (Video) "Investigating war crimes in Gaza" [Link]; (Video) "Failing Gaza: Behind the Lens of Western Media" [Link]; and (Video) "Starving Gaza: How Israel's man-made famine is killing Palestinians" [Link].
The War in Lebanon
(Video) "Don't Do It": Lebanese Lawyer Warns Israel Against Using War to Create a "New Middle East"
From Democracy Now! [October 3, 2024]
---- Israeli strikes continue to rain down on Lebanon, including a strike that killed rescue and health workers in Beirut. Lebanese authorities say 1.2 million people have been displaced by the Israeli attacks. Israel announced eight of its soldiers were killed while invading southern Lebanon this week. Israel launched the ground invasion after assassinating Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Friday, despite Nasrallah reportedly agreeing to a 21-day ceasefire. "This overwhelming use of force cannot change people's agency," says Nadim Houry, Lebanese researcher and executive director of the Arab Reform Initiative. "The region does not want to be a satellite of Israel or a satellite of the U.S. And by the way, the region does not want to be a satellite of Iran either. The problem is the region is not really being given much of a choice." [See the Program]
Also of interest – "Why, in its Current Duel with Israel, Hezbollah will Prevail, as in 2006," by Walden Bello, Foreign Policy in Focus [September 26, 2024] [Link]; and "Killing Hezbollah leaders failed 30 years ago. It won't work now," by Elia Ayoub, +972 Magazine [Israel/Palestine] [October 4, 2024] [Link]
War with Iran?
(Video) Could Israel and Iran go to war?
From Aljazeera ["Inside Story"] [October 4, 2024]
---- Iran tells the US its period of 'unilateral self-restraint' is over.After firing nearly 200 ballistic missiles at Israel, Iran warns the United States of further action unless Israel's aggression is curbed. The world waits to see what Israel will do next, as it continues bombing Gaza and Lebanon. Can peace prevail – or is a wider war more likely? [Guest speakers include Gideon Levy of Haaretz]. [See the Program]
Target: Iran
By John Feffer, Foreign Policy in Focus [October 2, 2024]
---- Israel has assassinated the leader of Hezbollah and killed many of its members by way of booby-trapped pagers and walky-talkies. After a blitzkrieg bombing campaign, Israel once again invaded Lebanon this week to escalate its campaign against the paramilitary-cum-political party. Meanwhile, it continues to wage war against Hamas in Gaza. It has bombed various locations in Syria. And it has even attacked the Houthis in distant Yemen. The Israeli government has never tried to hide its larger objective: weaken the sponsor of Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis. Israel is really fighting against Iran. … These last two attacks have come after elections in July elevated a reformer to the presidency in Iran. They have come after Iran has given a number of indications that it is reevaluating its unremittingly hostile policy toward Israel. They have come after the Iranian government has showed signs of willingness to restart nuclear negotiations with the United States. https://fpif.org/target-iran/
What is US Policy Now?
What are the Biden administration's motivations in the Middle East?
By Michael Arria, Mondoweiss [October 4, 2024]
--- Mondoweiss spoke to analyst Mouin Rabbani about U.S. motivations in the Middle East and why the Biden administration fully supports Israel's escalations against Lebanon and Iran. [Read More]
Also of interest – "American Influence in the Middle East Is Evaporating Before Our Eyes," by Juan Cole, TomDispatch [September 30, 2024] [Link]; "US military action in the Middle East is not making Israel safer," by Rami G Khouri, Aljazeera [October 3, 2024] [Link]; (Video) "Who Is Really Dragging the U.S. Into Israel's Wars?" by Glenn Greenwald [Link]; and "Progressives Escalate Calls for Arms Embargo as Israel Expands War Into Lebanon," by Jessica Washington, The Intercept [September 30 2024] [Link].
The Climate Crisis
Climate Change Does Not Care About Your Borders
By Kate Aronoff, The New Republic [September 30, 2024]
---- More than [FB - 227] people are now believed to have died as a result of Hurricane Helene, the storm that swept through the Southeast over the weekend and left some 500 miles of destruction in its wake. Cell phone service is spotty, while incapacitated roads and bridges are complicating an already strained recovery effort. Asheville—recently dubbed a "climate haven" for its historically mild climate and perch within the Blue Ridge Mountains—is among the areas worst hit; so far, 30 people have been reported dead there. … In recent years, the definition of what counts as climate policy has gotten even stranger in the United States. On the campaign trail, Democrats haven't talked about global warming all that much. To the extent that they do mention climate policy, it's mainly discussed as a means to spur investment in low-carbon technologies like electric vehicles and solar panels. … But next to images of entire downtown areas half-submerged in floodwaters, or homes moving faster than a river tube, touting the administration's successful boost of the construction of manufacturing facilities rings hollow. Framing climate action primarily as a good-news story in which the U.S. will come to dominate green export sectors overlooks the very real pocketbook struggles the climate crisis is already causing. [Read More]
Also of interest – "A Shift Among Democrats: Embrace Record Levels of Oil and Gas," by Lisa Friedman, New York Times [October 2, 2024] [Link]; and "Revealed: how the fossil fuel industry helps spread anti-protest laws across the US," by Hilary Beaumont and Nina Lakhani, The Guardian [UK] [September 26, 2024] [Link].
Civil Liberties
(Video) "I Pled Guilty to Journalism": WikiLeaks' Julian Assange Speaks Publicly for First Time Since Prison Release
From Democracy Now! [October 1, 2024]
---- WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange spoke publicly today for the first time since he was released in June from a London prison. Assange addressed the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in France about his 14-year legal saga after publishing evidence of U.S. war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. Assange was freed after pleading guilty to a U.S. charge of obtaining and disclosing national security material. Democracy Now! broadcasts the first time the world has heard Julian Assange's voice since he was arrested in 2019. "I eventually chose freedom over unrealizable justice after being detained for years and facing a 175-year sentence with no effective remedy," says Assange. "I am not free today because the system worked. I am free today, after years of incarceration, because I pled guilty to journalism." [See the Program]
The State of the Union
Election 2024
By Michael Albert and Stephen R. Shalom, ZNet [October 1, 2024]
---- As the U.S. election nears, there is considerable controversy, confusion, consternation, and sometimes recrimination on the left. But most of all, there is a lot of anguish over the terrible choices we have. Here we offer our take on the situation. Our basic view is that in swing states—where the outcome is not a foregone conclusion—it is crucial to cast ballots for Kamala Harris as a means of defeating Donald Trump. A Trump victory would be catastrophic in terms of the future of democracy, climate change, reproductive and LGBTQ rights, racial justice, immigration, labor rights, and a host of other issues.… The Biden-Harris policy on Palestine is indeed vile. The U.S. government is financing, arming, providing intelligence to, cheerleading, providing diplomatic support for, and otherwise abetting the spreading slaughter. For many leftists this is a bridge too far. One can talk all one wants about lesser and greater evils, but how can one be asked to vote for genocide? What is more evil than that? But we are not being asked to participate in a referendum on genocide. ("Raise your hand if you are in favor of genocide.") Rather we are asked to determine the occupant of the White House, which may offer different degrees of horrors for Palestinians (and Lebanon and the world). By refusing to choose, we may help consign Palestinians to their worst possible fate rather than their second worst possible fate. One might sneer at the difference, but to those living through it, the difference is rather significant. [Read More]
Also of interest – "Arab Voters Are Abandoning Kamala Harris. Why Doesn't She Seem to Care?" by Waleed Shahid, The Nation [October 3, 2024] [Link]; and "Gerrymandering Gives One Party a Head Start in House Race," by Michael Waldman, The Brennan Center [October 2, 2024] [Link]
Our History
The Revolution Will Not Be Podcast: Pacifica Radio at 75
By Iain Boal, Counterpunch [October 4, 2024]
---- At three o'clock on a spring afternoon in 1949, in a sixth floor studio above University Avenue in Berkeley, volunteer sound-proofers, "hammering down the carpet at the last moment", paused in their work. Lewis Hill stepped to a microphone and in his distinctive baritone announced for the first time: "This is KPFA, listener-sponsored radio in Berkeley." It was an experiment so unlikely ("Why would anyone subscribe to a station they can hear for free?") that the scoffers in the local Bay Area press predicted it would be lucky to survive six months. … The originating impulse of the Pacifica project, poetically named as a gesture to the founding vision, was to explore through peaceable dialogue the root causes of conflict — between individuals, nations, and belligerent empires. By bringing to the airwaves "informal, intensely personal, uncensored, and free-ranging discussion" – the description is philosopher Erich Fromm's – together with the finest of the radio arts, the listening community would be equipped with an "exacting ear", in the happy phrase of Eleanor McKinney, one of the trio of syndicalist founders. [Read More]
