Gaza & Israel are 7 hours ahead of the US east coast time. So each day I awake to learn that “since dawn,” (early afternoon in Gaza) 40 or 50 or 60 people have been killed by Israeli bombing or artillery fire . Soon the news switches to reports from inside whatever hospital remains standing in Gaza, where I see video of frantic crowds unloading bodies of the dead and injured from cars or donkey carts arriving at a hospital entrance. Inside the hospital I watch a controlled chaos, with the injured lying on the emergency room floors (beds are rare), surrounded by grieving or caring family members, while doctors and nurses rush about. As a volunteer US doctor tells Democracy Now! in a video linked just below, there are no longer enough medical supplies in Gaza to help most of the injured. He speaks of people being killed and wounded as they line up for what they are told is food distribution. He sounds very tired, and speaks of the heroism of the Palestinian medical staff who have been doing this work for months. He pleas for an end to the war.
What’s happening in Gaza these days is no longer a war, but simply a massacre. Not as efficient as the Nazis – Israel is still using bullets and bombs and starvation – but still a genocide live-streamed to all. Decades after the genocide in Armenia, after the Nazi Holocaust, after the killings in Rwanda, we ask why the world did not/could not stop these crimes. Decades from now, people will be asking why the great nation of the USA did not/could not bring itself to say STOP THE KILLING IN GAZA. It is the only power in the world that can make this happen.
Following on the ceasefire in the war against Iran, Trump and others are talking about the possibility of a ceasefire in Gaza. Aljazeera’s “senior political analyst” Marwan Bishara, consistently skeptical about Netanyahu’s willingness to end the war, now says (cautiously) that the Israeli Prime Minister may now think that his new status of “war hero” may protect him if he ends the war and calls for new elections in Israel. Whether Netanyahu will agree to Hamas’ key demand, that the return of all remaining hostages must result in a permanent end to the war, remains to be seen.
TRYING TO SURVIVE IN GAZA
(Video) “One Mass Casualty After Another”: U.S. Doctor in Gaza on Ongoing Israeli Massacres at Aid Sites
From Democracy Now! [June 25, 2025]
---- In Gaza, at least 41 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks since midnight, including more Palestinians targeted by Israeli forces while seeking food and humanitarian aid. This comes as UNICEF is warning Gaza is facing what amounts to a “man-made drought” with children at risk of dying from thirst due to Israel’s blockade. We go to Dr. Mark Brauner, an emergency medicine physician who is currently volunteering at the Nasser Hospital in Gaza. He describes “execution-style” killings of Palestinians at food distribution sites and the desperate lack of baby formula leading to the deaths of children suffering from malnutrition and starvation. [See the Program]
‘The Hunger Games’: Inside Israel’s aid death traps for starving Gazans
By Ahmed Ahmed and Ibtisam Mahdi, 972 Magazine [June 20, 2025]
---- After two months without a single drop of food, medicine, or fuel entering Gaza, a trickle of white flour and canned goods has been allowed in since late May. Most of it has gone to sites in Rafah and the Netzarim Corridor managed by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), guarded by private American security contractors and Israeli soldiers. On June 10, small shipments also began arriving via aid trucks operated by the World Food Programme (WFP). But with hunger deepening, people no longer wait for the trucks to move safely past Israeli troops. Instead, they rush toward them the moment they appear, desperate to grab whatever they can before supplies vanish. Tens of thousands gather at the distribution points, sometimes for days in advance, and many go home empty-handed. Starving civilians gather in massive crowds, waiting for permission to approach. In many instances, Israeli troops have opened fire on the masses — and even during distribution itself — killing dozens as they try to collect a few kilos of flour or canned goods to bring home in what Palestinians have dubbed “The Hunger Games” [Read More]
ALSO OF INTEREST - “Gaza’s Grassroots Effort to Ensure Humanitarian Aid Reaches Starving Palestinian,” by Abdel Qader Sabbah, et al., Drop Site News [June 27, 2025] [Link]; and “For Most Palestinians in Gaza, Staying Hungry is better than Risking Life to get Aid,” by Motasem A Dalloul, Middle East Monitor [June 24, 2025] [Link].
MAMDANI FOR MAYOR
---- Zhoran Mamdani’s victory in the Democratic Party primary election for NYC Mayor was an exciting and profound event. Readers of this newsletter already know a lot about this. My small addition is to highlight a few pieces of good reading. The Nation published two good articles assessing the election’s significance: Ross Barkin’s “With Zohran Mamdani’s Surreal and Historic Victory One City Died—and Another Was Born” [Link] and John Nichols’ “Zohran Mamdani Proves That Power Belongs to the People” [Link]. At the end of election night, Mamdani gave a moving victory speech which you see/hear here. Mamdani’s win prompted a lot of talk/speculation about the need for, and possibilities for, turning out the current (very old) generation of Democratic Party leaders and replacing them with younger, more aggressive fighters: for example, “Majority of Democrats want party leaders replaced as DNC turmoil deepens” from Nation of Change [Link]. Finally, I am now reading a book by Mamdani’s father, who teaches at Columbia, and perhaps you will find interesting, as I did, this New York Times story about Mamdani’s amazing parents.
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 has resumed its weekly Monday afternoon vigil at 5:30 pm at the corner of Warburton Ave and Odell. The CFOW 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
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
FEATURED ARTICLES & ESSAYS
How Trump Upended 60 Years of Civil Rights in Two Months
By Nikole Hannah-Jones, New York Times [June 27, 2025]
---- Since returning to power, Trump has used his singular authority as the head of the federal government to recast the white majority as the primary victims of systemic racial discrimination — though no evidence, not even self-reporting among white people, shows this to be true. In addition to upending long-established enforcement of civil rights law in employment, he has undermined civil rights protections in housing and education and environmental policy; crippled or shuttered entire federal civil rights agencies; and retracted federal findings of civil rights violations against police departments. He has forced by mandate, threat and coercion the elimination of policies and cultural norms focused on integration and equality throughout government, education and the private sector. Trump has claimed — though he has no authority to do so — to have repealed birthright citizenship, which was embedded in the Constitution at the end of slavery to guarantee Black Americans citizenship by birthright and grants automatic citizenship to all people born on American soil. [Read More]
(Video) Bill Moyers Dies at 91: PBS Icon on Corruption of Corporate Media and Power of Public Broadcasting
From Democracy Now! [June 27, 2025]
---- The legendary journalist Bill Moyers has died at the age of 91. Moyers, whose long career included helping found the Peace Corps and serving as press secretary for President Lyndon Johnson, was an award-winning champion of public television and independent media. We feature one of his numerous interviews on Democracy Now! where we discussed the history of public broadcasting in the United States and the powerful role of money in corporate media. “The power of money trumps the power of democracy today, and I’m very worried about it,” he said in a 2011 interview. His comments hold particular resonance as the Trump administration moves to strip federal funding from PBS and NPR today. [See the Program]
NATO’s 5% Pledge: An Obscene Betrayal of Global Needs
By Medea Benjamin, Code Pink [June 26, 2025]
---- At this week’s NATO summit in The Hague, leaders announced an alarming new goal: push military spending to 5% of nations’ GDP by 2035. Framed as a response to rising global threats, particularly from Russia and terrorism, the declaration was hailed as a historic step. But in truth, it represents a major step backwards—away from addressing the urgent needs of people and the planet, and toward an arms race that will impoverish societies while enriching weapons contractors. This outrageous 5% spending target didn’t come out of nowhere—it’s the direct result of years of bullying by Donald Trump. During his first term, Trump repeatedly berated NATO members for not spending enough on their militaries, pressuring them to meet a 2% GDP threshold that was already controversial and so excessive that nine NATO countries still fall below that “target”. Now, with Trump back in the White House, NATO leaders are falling in line, setting a staggering 5% target that even the United States—already spending over $1 trillion a year on its military—doesn’t reach. This is not defense; it’s extortion on a global scale, pushed by a president who views diplomacy as a shakedown and war as good business. [Read More]
Eight ways to strengthen feminist struggles
By Silvia Federici and Verónica Gago. Ojala [Mexico] [June 16, 2023]
---- Feminist struggles and feminist politics are not only aimed at improving the living conditions of women and those who dissent from heteronormativity. They aim to change the world. There can be no substantial change in the lives of our communities without profound social transformation. As women, we are the fundamental subject that makes the reproduction of life possible. In capitalist society, we make the reproduction of the labor force and the reproduction of the workers possible. Within the feminist movement there is general agreement that social reproduction is the foundation of our terrain of struggle, our perspectives and our analysis. We thus affirm that feminisms in struggle must have an analysis of all aspects of social life, which we can achieve through the expansion and connection among many very diverse struggles. We can and must intervene in any issue, in all issues. There is no social change, perspective or issue that does not involve the reproduction of life. The reproduction of life is the starting point for our interpretations of the world, and in the creation of our strategies. [Read More]
An Ordinary White: My Anti-Racist Education [An Interview with David Roediger]
By Zhandarka Kurti, Hard Crackers [June 28,2025]
ZKurti: I read your memoir with great interest. It was nice to be invited into your inner world, to learn about how you grew up, the moments that shaped you, and all the twists and turns your life took. What prompted you to write a memoir?
David Roediger: About three years ago, my mother died at 100 and I wrote her obituary and it made me think about the way that family and radicalism came together for me. So that was part of it. And then where I teach and now all over the US, critical race theory was outlawed. If it weren’t being repressed, I wouldn’t claim to be a critical race theorist. But in that setting, I started the book with a little post-it note that said “the memoir of a critical race theorist.” I was going to do a tour only in states where it was against the law to teach critical race theory. Kansas, where I teach, is one of those places. But it turned out I was only so interested in that. So I ended up writing a lot about growing up in a sundown town that was in a kind of revolutionary situation at the southern tip of Illinois in the late 60s. I wrote a lot about experiences in the very late New Left, what I’m calling a micro-generation of the New Left, what our experiences were. And then lots about Chicago. I spent the 80s and parts of the 90s in Chicago with the Chicago Surrealist Group and the Charles Kerr Company. I wanted to tell that history in a way to keep it for everybody to know. [Read More]
THE WAR ON IRAN
[FB – My Substack post on Wednesday was focused on the “12-Day War” and included links to articles & essays. Here are some essays reflecting new developments and recent thinking about the war.]
(Video) Who decides who can have nuclear arms?
From Aljazeera (“Inside Story”) [June 28, 2025] – 28 minutes
---- Have the actions of Israel and the US increased the risks that more countries will want them? The United States and Israel attacked Iran, saying it could not have a nuclear weapon, which Tehran denied it was trying to build. [Guests include UK’s Tariq Ali.] [See the Program]
Israel’s euphoric ‘victory’ over Iran is quickly giving way to disillusionment
By Meron Rapoport, 972 Magazine [Israel/Palestine] [June 27, 2025]
---- It took years after 1967 for Israelis to grasp that the war hadn’t ushered in the transformation they had hoped for. This time, the disillusionment set in almost immediately. Mere hours after U.S. President Donald Trump abruptly announced the ceasefire, it was already apparent that victory over Iran was unlikely to end Israel’s conflict with the Islamic Republic, let alone all of its future wars. … while the details of the Trump-Tehran ceasefire agreement remain murky, what’s clear is that none of Netanyahu’s three aims have been fulfilled. Iran is in no rush to return to nuclear talks, accusing Washington of duplicity by engaging in diplomacy while greenlighting Israeli strikes. No restrictions have been made on Iran’s expanding missile arsenal, which Israeli army Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir cited as the main reason for the “preemptive strike.” And there’s no reduction in Iranian support for its so-called “ring of fire” — the regional network of proxies encircling Israel. If Israel has emerged as the superior military power, diplomatically, it appears to have gained little, if anything at all. That outcome shouldn’t be surprising: since the war in Gaza began, Netanyahu has largely abandoned efforts to set clear diplomatic goals for military action, relying instead on force as the sole instrument of policy, from Gaza and Lebanon to Syria and now Iran. This latest front has once again exposed the limits of that approach. [Read More]
ALSO OF INTEREST - “The War the World Has Feared for Decades Is Here,” by Séamus Malekafzali, The Nation [June 23, 2025] [Link]; “What comes next following the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran?” by Mitchell Plitnick, Mondoweiss [June 27, 20250 [Link]; and “The ceasefire with Iran reveals the limits of Israel’s power — and its dependence on the U.S.,” by Abdaljawad Omar, Mondoweiss [June 24, 2025] [Link].
THE WAR ON PALESTINE
Meanwhile, in Masafer Yatta, the Dispossession of Palestinians Surges Forward
By Gideon Levy and Alex Levac, Ha’aretz [Israel] [June 27, 2025]
---- Taking advantage of the war in Iran, settlers in the South Hebron Hills have stepped up their violent assaults on Palestinian communities in the area. Here, in the district of dispossession and apartheid, the settlers are taking advantage of the wars and attacking Palestinians with unrestrained violence. There is no one to stop them. Rather, the Israeli authorities, for their part, are making draconian decisions that might lead to the longed-for absolute ethnic cleansing of this desert region. A semblance of tranquility and calm hovered over this arid, mountainous terrain this past Monday, far from the Iranian missiles. But below the surface there is anything but tranquility in this battered zone, where thuggish settlers have become the exclusive masters, more so perhaps than in any other place in the territories of the occupation. Perhaps it's the remoteness that allows them to vent their innate, raging violence, to truly run wild and do all the damage they want. The Israel Defense Forces will observe from the side, and in some cases even take part in the pogroms, and the police will also assume a passive bystander's stance, never lifting a finger against the hooligans. This state of affairs has existed here for years, but during the 12 days that Israel was at war with Iran it assumed a new intensity and frequency. [Read More]
100,000 Dead: What We Know About Gaza's True Death Toll
By Nir Hasson, Ha’aretz (Israel) [June 26, 2025]
---- On Monday of this week, Hamas' Health Ministry in the Gaza Strip published an updated list of those killed in the war, a 1,227-page chart, arranged from youngest to oldest. The Arabic-language document includes the deceased person's full name, the names of the father and grandfather, date of birth and ID number. The names of the children under the age of 18 cover 381 pages and amount to 17,121 children, all told. Of the total of 55,202 dead people, 9,126 were women. … Even without the anticipated future waves of excess mortality, the combination of casualties from violence and those who died from diseases and hunger led to the death of 83,740 people prior to January, taking into account the survey and the excess mortality. Since then, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, more than 10,000 people have been killed, and that doesn't include those in the category of excess mortality. The upshot is that even if the war hasn't yet crossed the line of 100,000 dead, it's very close. [Read More] ALSO OF INTEREST is “Israel ‘Disappeared’ Almost 400,000 People in Gaza, Half of Them Children: Report,” from The New Arab [June 25, 2025] [Link].
CIVIL LIBERTIES
How will Your Data be Used in an Age of Dark Enlightenment?
By Rebecca Gordon, Informed Comment [June 25, 2025]
---- Government agencies have many ways of keeping tabs on us today. The advent of cellular technology has made it so much easier to track where any of us have been, simply by triangulating the locations of the cell towers our phones have pinged along the way. … Facial recognition is another technology you’ll see on police dramas these days. It’s usually illustrated by a five-second interval during which dozens of faces appear briefly on a computer monitor. The sequence ends with a final triumphant flourish — a single face remaining on screen, behind a single flashing word: “MATCH.” … The second Trump administration is deploying all of these surveillance methods and more, as it seeks to extend its authoritarian power. And one key aspect of that project is the consolidation of the personal information of millions of people in a single place. [Read More]
The Supreme Court’s Birthright Citizenship Ruling Is a 5-Alarm Catastrophe
By Elie Mystal, The Nation [June 27, 2025]
---- The legal upshot of the Supreme Court’s monumentally disastrous decision in Trump v. CASA (more commonly known as “the birthright citizenship case”) is chaos. Utter legal chaos. In its ruling on Friday, the court’s usual six monarchists granted Donald Trump’s request to reexamine various nationwide injunctions preventing Trump and Stephen Miller from implementing their plans to revoke birthright citizenship to any American who doesn’t happen to be white. With the legal sleight of hand so beloved by the Roberts court, the ruling doesn’t actually allow Trump to end birthright citizenship. It just makes it incredibly difficult for courts to stop him from ending birthright citizenship. It’s a distinction, one that lawyers will try to exploit for an entire rearguard action to defend citizenship in this country, but one that’s unlikely to make much of a difference if you happen to be born on the Republican side of the tracks. Once you read the fine print, it becomes clear that this decision is a historic, five-alarm catastrophe. [Read More]
ALSO OF INTEREST - “Sonia Sotomayor Puts It Clearly: None of Our Rights Are Safe,” by Shirin Ali, Slate [June 27, 2025] [Link]; and “The Supreme Court Just Cosigned One of Trump’s Most Lawless Immigration Moves,” by Elie Mystal, The Nation [June 24, 2025] [Link]
HEALTHCARE
Calculating the Damage of Vaccine Skepticism
By Rivka Galchen, The New Yorker [June 27, 2025]
---- Since its inception, in 2000, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, which works with local governments to bring vaccines to low-income countries, has helped administer 1.9 billion vaccines and reached a billion children. Global vaccination work has nearly halved the global infant-mortality rate, saved more than a hundred and fifty million lives, prevented innumerable costly hospitalizations and long-term disabilities, and strengthened local health services in many remote places. … The U.S. may be doing more than simply failing to aid global vaccination efforts. The domestic stoking of anti-vaccine sentiment is itself infectious—a disease-carrying rat population on the ships exporting American culture. Hotez, the vaccine researcher, used to see the American anti-vax movement as its own thing, separate from the vaccine skepticism of other countries, which is sometimes tied to a distrust of government that stems from colonial histories, civil wars, and political instability. But he now believes that the U.S. anti-vax movement, with its wellness-influencer and health-freedom themes, has become an export, threatening global vaccine goals. [Read More]
Promise of Victory Over H.I.V. Fades as U.S. Withdraws Support
By Stephanie Nolen , New York Times [June 25, 2025]
---- Decades of research and investment produced new approaches to vaccines that were going into their first significant clinical trials. The hunt for a cure was homing in on key mechanisms to block the virus, which can lurk dormant and near-untraceable in the body for years. Most critically, a breakthrough preventive drug, lenacapavir, a twice-yearly injection that offers total protection from H.I.V., was to be rapidly rolled out across eastern and southern Africa. The main target: young women. About 300,000 of them were newly infected with the virus last year — half of all new infections worldwide. Every one of these plans has been derailed by the Trump administration’s slashing of foreign assistance. [Read More]
THE STATE OF THE UNION
A Nation of Immigrants Under Attack
By Farrah Hassen, Counterpunch [June 27, 2025]
---- The vast majority of immigrants in this country — including those kidnapped by ICE — have no criminal history. According to agency data compiled by research organization TRAC, out of the 56,397 people held in ICE detention as of June 15, 71.7 percent had no criminal record. Both Republicans and Democrats have enabled ICE’s rampant human rights abuses since the agency’s creation in 2003. ICE functions as a quasi-police force with limited public oversight and uses private data sources like utility bills to conduct unauthorized surveillance of potentially anyone in the U.S. The current system has a vested interest in locking up and deporting people instead of pursuing real immigration solutions, like pathways to citizenship. This system, which includes ICE and its detention facilities, must be defunded and dismantled. People abducted by ICE are not numbers. They’re someone’s entire world. They’re cherished members of communities. And they’re on the frontlines of defending all of our civil liberties. We must stand together and demand that ICE leave our communities. We are a nation of immigrants after all. [Read More]
Learning From The Los Angeles Protests
By Frieda Afary, Ojalá [Mexico] [June 28, 2025]
---- On June 6, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid on the Los Angeles Garment District led to the arrest and detention of 44 undocumented workers. The raid inspired protests by family members and immigrant rights activists in front of a federal detention center in downtown L.A. The protests set off by the June 6 ICE raids continued to grow over the next few days to include thousands, mostly young people of color. They spread to other parts of L.A. and other major cities in the U.S. On June 14, a previously planned series of nationwide protests called No Kings Day brought out an estimated five million people in mostly peaceful marches and rallies in 2,000 different towns and cities. These protests were planned to coincide with a $45 million taxpayer-funded military parade in Washington D.C., which Trump had ordered to celebrate Flag Day—and his birthday. Protesters, including youth and people of color as well as labor activists, spoke out against the raids, the mass firing of over 260,000 federal workers, the gutting of the health, education, and environmental protection budget, and the assault on civil and human rights. They also spoke out against authoritarianism and fascism. The Trump administration’s assault on immigrants has been part of a broader plan of action to promote hatred and to gain support among millions of working-class people. The protests in L.A. showed that these efforts will not go unanswered. [Read More]
ALSO OF INTEREST - “Lessons in courage, care and collective action from the international accompaniment movement.,” by Moira Birss and Zia Kandler, Waging Nonviolence [June 24, 2025] [Link]; “What Will It Take to End Trump’s ICE Raids?: by Sonali Kolhatkar, Znet [June 25, 2025] [Link] ; and “Trump’s Global Gulag Search Expands to 53 Nations,” by Nick Turse, The Intercept [June 25, 2025] [Link]
OUR HISTORY
50 years after the Vietnam War, the legacy of nonviolent resistance lives on
By Elena Novak [June 20, 2025]
---- “It was a big show.” That is how Robert Levering described the celebration in Ho Chi Minh City on April 30, marking the 50th anniversary of the end of the war in Vietnam. Levering was attending the celebration as part of a delegation from the Vietnam Peace Commemoration Committee, one of three delegations invited by the Vietnam Union of Friendship Organizations, or VUFO, a non-governmental organization promoting people-to-people diplomacy between Vietnam and countries around the world. The other delegations were from the National Council of Elders and the Fund for Reconciliation and Development, bringing to Vietnam an intergenerational, cross-movement cadre of organizers and activists to commemorate the anniversary of the war’s end. … one of the biggest inflection points in the antiwar movement came in 1969, when two of the largest protests the U.S. had ever seen pressured President Richard Nixon to cancel his plans for a massive escalation of the war, including the threat of nuclear warfare. In his own memoir years later, Nixon shared his realization that he could no longer carry out the escalation without turning his own country against him. The resistance to the war was intersectional, led by students, peace activists, housewives, faith leaders, labor unions, even the soldiers themselves. In 1971, 800 veterans hurled their war medals over a fence surrounding the Capitol. [Read More]
The Moral Distortions of the Official Korean War Narrative
By Grace M. Cho, The Nation [June 24, 2025]
---- This year marks the 75th anniversary of the official start of the Korean War, known as “the Forgotten War” in the United States, yet most commemorative events will only enforce our forgetting through a distorted narrative. It goes something like this:
On June 25, 1950, the Korean War began when North Korea crossed the 38th parallel and invaded South Korea. It was a brazen act of communist aggression, an unprovoked surprise attack against an independent democratic nation, that prompted President Harry Truman to call an emergency meeting with the UN to authorize sending US forces to Korea. Although the war ended in a stalemate on July 27, 1953, the US-led UN forces, alongside South Korean forces, were successful in containing communism and safeguarding freedom in both South Korea and the United States.
The truth is, however, that South Korea—the nation that the United States and United Nations had established in 1948 after a three-year American occupation—was not democratic; it was a brutal police state that would only become democratic after four decades of popular struggle. Its first president, Syngman Rhee, had also planned to cross the 38th parallel in an armed invasion during the months leading up to June 25. Rhee’s aspirations were by no means a secret. They were publicized in South Korean newspapers, and Rhee pleaded for the United States to fund his war effort. But in the US news media, censorship was the order of the day. The New York Times, for example, voluntarily suppressed information that South Korea had been planning to attack the north. [Read More]
