Hello All – Each week I write a short leaflet for our Saturday peace & justice vigil in Hastings. Our vigils address the front-burner issues of war or injustice confronting us, and thus so does the leaflet. I write the leaflet on Friday, but don’t print it until Saturday morning, in case the world turns upside down. This was one of those weeks.
The Friday afternoon draft of the leaflet reflected the consensus/views of analysts upon whom I usually rely to interpret what’s going on. This Friday, for example, my leaflet draft was similar to the views expressed by our excellent thinker Phyllis Bennis, who described the “peace plan” as a trap for Hamas/the Palestinians, a plan that served only Israeli interests “Surrender of die” seemed an accurate summary of the plan. And so when Hamas gave a qualified “yes” to the plan, and when Trump ignored the qualifications and lauded Hamas’s agreement to end the war, etc., I had to hold the presses and re-write everything. The world (and the war) had turned upside down.
Or has it? Tomorrow US real estate operators Kushner and Witcoff will meet with negotiators in Egypt to develop “the plan.” Will the negotiations be confined to the nuts and bolts of a prisoner/hostage swap? Or will the Trump representatives demand discussion about other issues, such as Hamas disarmament, which would be expected to derail the negotiations. We will see.
Perhaps readers might be interested in our Final Saturday Leaflet, as a souvenir of a moment when there was some hope that the war might end.
Is peace coming to Gaza? Last week President Trump released a “20 Point Peace Plan.” On Thursday Trump announced that Hamas had until Sunday to agree – essentially to surrender – or face devastation. Hamas has now declared a qualified “Yes”; and Trump has decided that Hamas has accepted his plan and that Israel must stop the bombing. Just like that.
This is amazing. The first step in implementing the Plan will be for Hamas to release all hostages and for Israel to release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. The complicated steps that will end with hostage and prisoner releases are about to begin.
The GREAT SURPRISE in these developments is that suddenly the ball is in Israel’s court. It must comply with Trump’s demands that Israel stop the bombing and enact a ceasefire. It must join diplomatic talks about who will run Gaza. In short – contrary to all expectations – it must act as though the war is about to end. Rather than Trump declaring that Hamas has rejected the 21 Point Plan, by not agreeing to all its vague and injurious ideas without further discussion, Trump has said that Hamas’s agreement to a full hostage release is enough.
Many obstacles, not least Trump and Netanyahu, may derail the talks and return Gaza to war. But for now, it appears that the worldwide demands to stop the war have persuaded Trump that Israel, totally isolated in world opinion and dragging the US into similar world isolation, must end its war. We must keep pushing.
SOME ANALYSES OF THE “PEACE PLAN”
(Video) Is an end to war in sight in Gaza?
From Aljazeera [“Inside Story”] [October 4, 2025] – 30 minutes
---- Negotiations are due to begin in Cairo, which US President Donald Trump says may bring an end to Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip. Hamas has partially agreed to Trump’s plan to end the war, but with major caveats. Guests include Mouin Rabbani and Muhammad Shehada.[See the Program]
Hamas’s Strategic Gamble
By Jeremy Scahll, Drop Site News [October 5, 2025]
---- Since Trump’s election, Hamas officials have said the only chance of halting Israel’s genocide resides with Trump. In the immediate aftermath of the release of the 20-point plan, Palestinian leaders from across the political landscape publicly denounced it as a surrender order and an attempt to use diplomacy to crush Palestinian resistance after Israel’s two year military assault had failed to achieve that goal. A senior Hamas official told Drop Site that the group’s leadership understood that “this proposal was not put forward to find an end to the war. It is either total surrender or continue the war. Take it or leave it.” … But on a strategic level, Hamas officials and other Palestinian leaders knew that formally rejecting Trump’s offer would be strategically disastrous. The public narrative would almost certainly portray Hamas as rejecting peace even after a broad coalition of Muslim and Arab countries had endorsed it. [Read More]
(Video) Norman Finkelstein: Trump plan has no connection to reality in Gaza
From Aljazeera [“Up Front”] [October 4, 2025] – 30 minutes
---- Norman Finkelstein tells Marc Lamont Hill why he believes Trump’s peace deal is the weakest yet with no path to justice. [See the Program]
ALSO OF INTEREST - (Video) “Trump’s Gaza Plan Is Mere “Repackaging of Genocide” for Israel’s Benefit: Diana Buttu,” from Democracy Now! [September 30, 2025] [Link]; “Hamas just accepted Trump’s ‘peace’ plan. Here’s what it didn’t accept,” by Qassam Muaddi, Mondoweiss [October 4, 2025] [Link]; “Gaza Plan Released by US Includes Significant Changes Requested by Netanyahu in Kushner-Witkoff Meeting,” by Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com [September 30, 2025] [Link]; “Trump and Netanyahu’s 20-Point Gaza Ultimatum,” by Phyllis Bennis, The Nation [October 3, 2025] [Link]; and “This Yom Kippur, There Will Be No Forgiveness for Israel’s Transgressions in Gaza,” by Shari Grunberg, Haaretz [September 30, 2025] [Link].
THE GLOBAL SUMUD FLOTILLA
FB – It was indeed a “sumud” flotilla. A definition of “sumud”: “’Sumud’ is a Palestinian idea that is interwoven with ideas of personal and collective resilience and steadfastness. It is also a socio-political concept and refers to ways of surviving in the context of occupation, chronic adversity, lack of resources and limited infrastructure.” Most of the crews of the 40 boats in the flotilla, illegally kidnapped by Israeli terrorists on the high seas, have been released and are heading home. Last night a contingent of 137 people arrived in Turkey to a rapturous welcome. The “welcome home” rallies followed a weekend of huge protests throughout Europe, Latin America, and elsewhere following the assault of the flotilla by Israel. Before his boat was boarded, David Adler sent out a message reflecting the roots of his personal “sumud”: “I’m here because my Jewish heritage demands it.” Another flotilla will be launched soon.
NEWS NOTES
While putting together this newsletter, I was referred to an article published last March in the UK Guardian headlined “ICE accessed car trackers in sanctuary cities that could help in raids, files show.” The article states: “Westchester, a 450-sq-mile mostly suburban area just north of New York City – has had laws limiting cooperation with federal immigration authorities on the books since 2018. But documents including emails and access logs newly made public show Ice has had access in the past to a major database that holds license plate reader information collected across the county. Westchester county police said they managed a network of 480 such cameras as of January 2023. Westchester police provided these figures in response to a freedom of information law request and are the most up-to-date figures available on the scale of the county’s license plate surveillance network. In just the last week of January 2023, the cameras scanned 16.2m cars, according to these documents. [Read More]. Did I miss this news? Did everybody? Are our “elected officials” at work to end this practice.?
How crazy is Trump? His lengthy and incoherent speeches at the UN and at Hegseth’s gathering of the military brass in Quantico, VA suggest that he mental condition is getting worse. When we “normal” seniors meander in our thoughts or start repeating ourselves, it is treated as a harmless affliction of the elderly, perhaps in need of care. But we do not have the world’s largest armies or the nuclear button at our disposal! The gravity of the problem is illustrated in this video featuring Rep. Madeline Dean: “‘Unhinged and Unwell’: Trump’s Mental Decline Raises Alarms,” in which the congresswoman confronts House Speaker Mike Johnson about the need to get Trump some help and get him out of the White House. [See the Video]
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.) The Northwest Yonkers Neighbors for Black Lives Matter holds a Monday afternoon vigil at 5:30 pm at the corner of Warburton Ave and Odell. The CFOW newsletter can be read on Substack, and is archived at https://cfow.blogspot.com, and news of interest and coming events is posted on our CFOW Facebook group. Another Facebook group 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!
The Rewards for stalwart newsletter readers this week come from the venerable Vietnam Peace Commemoration Committee, headed by stalwart John McCauliff and dedicated to keeping alive the true history and inspiring memories of the Vietnam War and the opposition to it. Last week Peter Yarrow, of “Peter, Paul, and Mary” died. Yarrow was not “just” a musician, he was a stalwart for peace & justice. Three years ago the Commemoration Committee put together a program of some of the antiwar music that wall-papered the antiwar movement. The program featured Peter Yarrow (among others), and so please let this be a thank-you to Peter Yarrow for who he was and all he did. Enjoy “They Who Sang” - [Link].
Best withes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
FEATURES ARTICLES & ESSAYS
(Video) How Zionism and Hindu Nationalism ‘Work Together’
An interview with Arundhati Roy
With Mehdi Hassan, from Zeteo [October 3, 2025] – 38 minutes
---- Mehdi Hasan speaks to award-winning Indian author Arundhati Roy. In the wake of her global success, Roy says that India tried to trot her out as a symbol of Hindu nationalism. Instead, Roy became one of her country’s most prominent dissidents. “For me… there’s never been a moment where I felt, ‘Oh, I should do this,’ or ‘I should keep quiet’, or ‘I should suck up to so and so,’” she says. Mehdi and Roy discuss what it’s like for her to be a target for Hindu nationalists, India and Kashmir, the parallels between Hindutva and Zionism, Israel’s brutal genocide in Gaza, Donald Trump and the rise of global fascism, and also Roy’s powerful new memoir, ‘Mother Mary Comes to Me.’ [See the Program]
(Video) Jane Goodall at COP21: “I’m Here to Save the Rainforests” from Intensive Farming, Corruption
From Democracy Now! [December 11, 2025]
---- One of the world’s leading voices on the issue of climate change and protecting the environment at COP21 is Jane Goodall, a renowned primatologist, best known for her groundbreaking work with chimpanzees and baboons. In this web exclusive interview, she explains that she came to Paris for this year’s U.N. climate summit “to save the rainforests” from corruption and intensive farming. She also explains how climate concerns drove her to be a vegetarian. Ultimately, she remains optimistic, saying, “Nature is resilient.” ]See the Program]
ALSO OF INTEREST RE: JANE GOODALL - “Jane Goodall’s legacy: three ways she changed science,” by Rachel Fieldhouse & Mohana Basu, Nature, [October 2, 2025]; and “Animals and Us,” by Stephen Jay Gouls, New York Review of Books [June 25, 1987] Says Gould: “I believe that Jane Goodall is one of the intellectual heroes of this century. More than twenty-five years ago, when she was in her twenties, by sheer gumption, and virtually alone, she began her studies of a chimpanzee community at Gombe, in Tanzania.” [Link].
(Video) “Orwell: 2+2=5”: Raoul Peck & Alex Gibney on New Documentary, Authoritarianism, Trump & More
From Democracy Now! [October 2, 2025]
---- We speak with the acclaimed filmmakers Raoul Peck and Alex Gibney about their latest documentary, Orwell: 2+2=5, which explores the life and career of George Orwell and why his political writing remains relevant today. “We are living again and again — not only in the United States, but in many other countries, including in Europe, in Latin America, in Africa — the same playbook playing again and again,” says Peck, who directed the film. Gibney, a producer on the film, says Donald Trump perfectly illustrates the “assault on common sense” that is part of any authoritarian system. “What you instinctively know to be true is upended by the authoritarian leader, so that everything flows from him,” says Gibney. “He just invents things on the spot, but he expects them to be revered as true.” [See the Program]
THE WAR ON PALESTINE
Do Cry Over Spilt Blood: Generations Will Go by Before Gaza Forgets the Genocide
By Gideon Levy, Ha’aretz [Israel] [October 5, 2025]
---- It is not a peace agreement between Israel and Gaza, which would, of course, have been much better, but rather an agreement that the United States forced on Israel. However, it has long been clear that only an imposed agreement can bring Israel to make a change. Here it is. A sign of hope for the continuation of coercive U.S. policies, without which nothing will move. Tens of thousands of lives were saved this weekend. The fear, hunger, illnesses, suffering and hardship of over two million people may gradually come to an end. … This moment should be seized to change the mood in Israel: It is time for Israelis to open their eyes and see their handiwork. Perhaps there’s no point crying over spilt milk, but spilt blood is different. It is time to open the Gaza Strip to the media and tell the Israelis: See, this is what we have done. It is time to learn that relying solely on military force leads to devastation. It is time to understand that in the West Bank, we are creating another Gaza. And it is time to look straight ahead and say: We have sinned, we have acted wickedly, we have transgressed. [Read More]
The Oslo Accords Are Alive and Well and Perpetuating the Israeli Occupation
By Amira Hass, Ha’aretz [Israel] [September 30, 2025]
---- The Oslo Accords are alive and well, and our people continue to benefit daily from their pure logic. All the right’s crocodile tears won’t erase the fact that this is one of the greatest achievements ever attained by the Jewish entity that exists between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. When it so chooses, Israel decides that the agreement is in force and that the other side is violating it, so it has to be punished – for instance, through the systematic theft of all the Palestinian Authority’s income from customs duties on merchandise imported from abroad. And when it so chooses, Israel decides that the agreement has vanished from the earth – therefore, it has the right to alter land arrangements through another trick that enables Jews to take over lands, or to close the only border crossing available to Palestinians in the West Bank. But when you peel away from the agreement the years that have passed, the lip service paid to peace and the lawyerly detail of its provisions and mechanisms of implementation, the basic principles that remain valid in the West Bank to this day stand out. [Read More]
‘North Gaza Massacres’: Telling the stories of the everyday heroes of Jabalia refugee By Hamza Abu Al-Tarabeesh, Mondoweiss [October 5, 2025]
---- Every person on this earth has a special mission. The journey begins with searching for an answer to the question of knowing the secret of their existence. Some succeed in discovering this early, others late, and many never at all. I believe I have recently found mine. I didn’t know it would weigh so heavily on my heart and mind, but for over a year now, I have carried it out—because it is worth it. Most of my neighbors, friends, and family with whom I share memories and life experiences, have fallen victim to the ongoing genocide in Gaza. All that remains of them are brief snapshots preserved in my memory. In my neighborhood of Jabalia Camp in northern Gaza, I am the only writer, and my mission is to bring life to those memories and to honor the people we lost. Beyond each statistic about the victims, there was a person with a name, a story, and aspirations for a brighter future. In their honor, I wrote the book, North Gaza Massacres: Jabalia Camp, which was published last August. It is a book of remembrance and resistance. [Read More]
The destruction of Gaza City is a crime against history
By Baker Zoubi, 972 Magazine [September 30, 2025]
----- Palestinians in Gaza City are facing an impossible choice, as the Israeli army works to annihilate what remains of northern Gaza’s last bastion from the air and the ground. … As residents scramble to escape death, there is little capacity to mourn the destruction of their city. But the Israeli army’s systematic erasure of Gaza City — flattening one neighborhood after another, as it did already in Rafah, Jabalia, Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahiya, and much of Khan Younis — is wiping out thousands of years of Palestinian and Arab heritage, representing a crime against history itself. Many of the Gaza Strip’s multi-civilizational treasures have already been obliterated over the course of Israel’s two-year genocide. But Gaza City’s ancient origins, along with its centrality in the formation of Palestinian national identity and resistance against the Israeli occupation, make its ruination more than simply a human tragedy. [Read More]
WAR ON IRAN?
US Demands of Iran Make Another War Likely
By Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com[October 2, 2025]
---- The Trump administration is committed to ramping up the pressure on Iran, The Washington Post has reported, and the demands that the US is making of Tehran make another US-Israeli war on the country more likely. According to the report, the US is demanding that Iran accept four conditions as a baseline for negotiations, including committing to “meaningful” and direct talks, agreeing to end its uranium enrichment program, imposing curbs on its ballistic missile program, and ceasing funding of its allies in the region. Before the 12-Day War, Iran made it clear that it wouldn’t end its uranium enrichment altogether, although it was willing to reduce its enrichment to much lower levels and was exploring the idea of an enrichment consortium involving other regional countries. But those negotiations were abruptly ended when Israel launched the war on June 13, two days before Washington and Tehran were set to hold another round of talks. In the wake of the US-Israeli bombing campaign, Iran has maintained that it won’t give up its nuclear enrichment program, framing it as a matter of national pride. Iranian officials have also made clear they will never accept a deal that would impose limits on its ballistic missile program since the weapons are the only real deterrent Tehran has. [Read More]
WAR ON VENEZUELA?
Trump Declares He Can Wage Secret Wars Against Anyone He Calls an Enemy
By Nick Turse, The Intercept [October 2, 2025]
---- The Trump administration is waging a secret war against undisclosed enemies without the consent of Congress, according to a confidential notice that was sent to several congressional committees this week and obtained by The Intercept. It marks the most detailed explanation of the legal underpinnings offered by the administration for a series of lethal attacks on boats in the Caribbean that began last month. President Donald Trump has decided that the United States is engaged in a declared state of “non-international armed conflict” with “designated terrorist organizations” or DTOs, according to the notice. It describes three people killed by U.S. commandos on a boat in the Caribbean last month as “unlawful combatants,” as if they were soldiers on a battlefield. This is a significant departure from standard practice in the long-running U.S. war on drugs, in which law enforcement arrest suspected drug dealers as opposed to summarily executing them. [Read More]
CIVIL LIBERTIES
(Video) “Attack on Free Speech”: Journalist Mario Guevara Deported After Covering Anti-Trump Protest
From Democracy Now! [October 3, 2025]
[UPDATE: Mario Guevara was deported from the United States early on October 3, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.]
---- The Spanish-language journalist Mario Guevara may be deported to El Salvador as soon as today despite holding work authorization in the United States and never having been charged with a crime. Guevara, who founded the outlet MG News, where he received awards for his coverage on immigration, has lived in the United States for nearly 20 years. He was arrested and jailed in June for live-streaming an anti-Trump “No Kings” demonstration near Atlanta. “Mario’s case is really the tip of the spear, and today’s deportation is deeply troubling,” says lawyer Nora Benavidez. “It is because of his journalistic work that they targeted him. They really do not want what he’s doing to expose ICE.” [Read More]
(Video) Mahmoud Khalil Hails Judge’s Scathing Ruling Against Trump Efforts to Deport Pro-Palestinian Students
From Democracy Now! [October 1, 2025]
---- A Reagan-appointed judge has issued a scathing ruling rebuking the Trump administration’s targeting of pro-Palestine students. Judge William G. Young called the case AAUP v. Rubio “perhaps the most important ever to fall within the jurisdiction of this district court” and ruled that contrary to the State Department’s claims, “non-citizens lawfully present here in [the] United States actually have the same free speech rights as the rest of us.” For more, we’re joined by lawyer Alex Abdo, who worked on the case; Todd Wolfson, president of the plaintiff, the American Association of University Professors; and Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, whose arrest and targeting by the Trump administration in March kicked off a heightened scrutiny of immigrants living and working on U.S. college campuses. [See the Program]
THE STATE OF THE UNION
(Video) Chicago Mayor on Trump’s Threat to Use “Dangerous” Cities as “Training Grounds for Our Military”
From Democracy Now! [October 1, 2025]
---- We speak to Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson as President Trump singles out the city as a training ground for the military and National Guard deployment. Militarized federal agents from the FBI and Border Patrol have already joined ICE agents for a city-wide crackdown against immigrants and protesters. Felony charges have been brought against protesters at ICE’s Broadview detention center. “This is yet another example of how this president is militarizing forces, ultimately with the goal to occupy cities,” says Johnson, who calls Trump’s threats a “political stunt” and an “affront to democracy.” [See the Program]
ALSO OF INTEREST – Almost at random, some recent articles from the New York Times and the Washington Post: “Trump authorizes National Guard in Chicago as ICE, protesters clash” [October 4, 2025] [Link]; “Federal Agent in Chicago Shot Motorist in Confrontation, Officials Say” [October 4, 2025] [Link]; and “California National Guard Sent to Oregon” [October 5, 2025] [Link].
The United Police State of America Has Arrived
By Ian F. Blair, The Intercept [October 4 2025]
---- The consolidation of the new police state has not been announced. There was no press conference declaring that local, state, and federal law enforcement — plus the military — are all marching to the same drum. No news conference featuring a bunch of police captains standing before a microphone to express their commitment to the new regime. But it is here. In the past six months, a quiet, mass reorganization of resources and rules and personnel has rippled across the country in order to enforce the Trump administration’s desires. This realignment is happening swiftly, smoothly and without fanfare. That the police have been so quiet in a historically loud moment should be a dead giveaway that a shift is under way. The line between order and chaos is moving. And the police are adapting to meet the changing norms. [Read More]
OUR HISTORY
Remembering Assata Shakur (1947–2025)
By Alan Wald, Jacobin Magazine [October 2025]
---- For nearly fifty years, the fugitive revolutionary Black nationalist Assata Shakur defied the monstrous system of racialized mass incarceration in the United States. Since the 1970s, more than seven million African Americans have been caged in the hellhole conditions of state and federal prisons. Nonetheless, Assata, likely framed for murder in 1977 in an act of political retaliation, died a free woman on September 25 in Havana, Cuba. Assata escaped prison in 1979 and fled to Cuba, where she received asylum and continued to write and speak on revolutionary themes. … We are now witnessing the twilight of the 1960s and ’70s cohort of Black radicals. Indeed, Assata Shakur’s death may mark the close of what was in many respects a wholly unique generation of political activists. The radicalization of Assata and her peers began with a moral obligation to end racism and stop the Vietnam War and morphed into a broader transnational outlook distinctive of the era. Will their ideas be entombed with them? For them, the US fight for civil rights was intimately linked with anti-colonial and anti-imperialist armed struggles then underway in Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America, and Asia. Cuba was admired as singularly active in championing the Black liberation movement in the United States, offering education, military training, and asylum. [Read More]
Can Warriors Stop Endless Wars? The Role of Veterans in Movements for Peace and Justice
By William D. Hartung, Tom Dispatch [September 30, 2025]
---- Thankfully, Hegseth’s vision is not shared by many of the veterans of America’s disastrous post-9/11 wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere. The eye-opening documentary What I Want You to Know presents the views of just such veterans about their service and about the meaning of the conflicts they fought in. Almost to a person (no, not “a man”!), they said the following four things:
– They don’t know why they were sent to the places where they fought
– They did not believe the U.S. could win the war they were sent to fight
– Their government lied to them
– They were forced to do things that will haunt them for the rest of their lives
It took courage for such veterans to go on camera and offer the unvarnished truth about the disastrous wars they helped to fight. They are, of course, far from alone, but as one of the producers of the film told me, many veterans are reluctant to discuss such feelings and insights publicly. Some don’t want to reflect on the idea that the wars they fought in were disastrously misguided and didn’t end in anything resembling an American victory. Others fear political retribution. Still others prefer to keep such conversations among their fellow vets, in large part because they feel that people who haven’t served can’t fully understand what they went through. [Read More]
