Can We Stop Starvation in Gaza? Last week, UN officials were warning that thousands of Palestinians would die if food aid was not resumed. After 11 weeks of an Israeli blockade of a food blockade on Gaza, a trickle of aid has begun. Will those threatened by starvation now be saved? Beginning this week, Israel has allowed truckloads of aid to enter Gaza from Egypt. Aid experts say that at least 500 truckloads per day are needed to meet people’s minimum food requirements. Yet deliveries have been far short of that. What’s the problem?
We have recently learned that Israel and the United States have created a new food aid plan for Gaza. Instead of resuming aid via the UN and charitable organizations, a new organization staffed by US military veterans and CIA types will distribute the food. These sites will be surrounded by Israeli soldiers. To get food aid, Palestinians will have to pass through the lines of Israeli soldiers. They will enter Israeli custody. The details of this plan are described in some of the essays linked just below this editorial.
The real purpose behind this plan is to force/lure Palestinians in Gaza to move from the north and center of Gaza to the south, where the new US-Israeli aid sites will be located. This will assist the Israeli project of preparing to expel Palestinians from Gaza, concentrating them into a very small space. It will also serve to put Palestinians under direct control of the Israeli military. Food aid is not the point. It is a way to force Palestinians to leave Gaza. Our government should have nothing to do with this evil plan. Americans should not be fooled by this. We must continue to demand an end to the war on Palestinians and the creation of a real plan for aid and recovery. We must protest and speak up. Now is not a time for silence.
SEVERAL MORE VIEWS ON STARVATION IN GAZA
Israel’s “final solution” for Palestinians.
From Jewish Voice for Peace [May 21, 2025]
---- For three months, the Israeli government blocked all aid to Gaza, starving the over two million Palestinians trapped there. Now, they are carrying out a vicious air assault and full-scale ground invasion that has killed hundreds and displaced tens of thousands in a matter of days. Brazen as ever, Israel’s right-wing leaders have made their genocidal intentions abundantly clear. They have openly recognized that mass starvation, and the global outcry it has prompted, are inhibiting their drive to take control of all of Gaza. When minimal aid was allowed in, Netanyahu admitted it was only for appearances’ sake, promising that the Israeli military would take control of the entire territory. Israel’s ultra right-wing finance minister Bezalel Smotrich put it more bluntly: “Just as we levelled Rafah, we will level all of Gaza.” The hard truth is that this is Israel’s final solution for Palestinians in Gaza. [Read More]
Israel’s Final Solution for Gaza
By Vijay Prashad, Counterpunch [May 23, 2025]
---- In early May, the security cabinet of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met and agreed that Israel would ‘capture’ Gaza and remove its Palestinian population ‘to protect it’. To achieve this policy of annexation of Gaza, the Israelis tightened their siege by preventing the entry of food, water, electricity, and other humanitarian aid (they had already enforced a blockade of aid since 2 March 2025). Then, the Israelis began to bomb Gaza with increased ferocity, with Israeli ground forces gathering at the edge of Gaza and entering in short bursts. By 18 May, these Israeli ground forces began measured entries into Gaza. After intense pressure, the Netanyahu cabinet agreed to allow ‘basic amounts’ of food into Gaza. Meanwhile, the Israeli army released a ‘forced displacement’ order for the people in Khan Younis. There is a tangle of war crimes in the paragraph above: 1. Population transfer in an occupied territory is illegal. 2. Deprival of food, water, and electricity for civilians is illegal. 3. Annexation of an occupied territory is illegal. 4. Deliberately killing civilians in a war zone is illegal. … In Amnesty’s recent annual report, there is the chilling sentence: ‘the world has been made audience to a live-streamed genocide’. [Read More]
Israel’s aid plan for Gaza is a key part of its strategy to expel Palestinians
By Qassam Muaddi, Mondoweiss [May 22, 2025]
---- The forcible expulsion of the Palestinian people is now the explicit goal of Israel’s war on Gaza. Late on Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel would only end the war if “Hamas surrenders, Gaza is demilitarized, and we implement the Trump plan.” Trump walked back his February plan for the U.S. to “own” Gaza, expel its people, and turn it into a “Riviera of the Middle East,” but Netanyahu seized upon it all the same and took it as a green light to exterminate Gaza. … The latest phase in this plan is Israel’s weaponization of humanitarian aid for the purpose of furthering the Gaza final solution. The plan is simple: starve Gaza’s population, and only create one designated flattened stretch of land where they can come to get food rations — facilitated by the Israeli army and run by a U.S. private contractor. Gaza’s population will be forced to go to these collection points, where they will be corralled inside what would effectively be a concentration camp, located in what used to be the city of Rafah, now a flattened wasteland. [Read More]
THE MURDERS IN WASHINGTON, DC
(Video) On the Preciousness of Life
Making Sense of Yesterday’s Horrifying Murder in Washington, DC
From Peter Beinart [May 22, 2025]
---- This terrible murder of two young Israeli embassy officials, Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim I think is one of those moments where it's important to be able to speak certain complementary truths, truths that are separated by “and,” not by “but.” But also to state them in the right moral order. And the first, most fundamental, primary thing to say is that this murder was fundamentally wrong. It was not fundamentally wrong because it sets back the Palestinian cause, although it does set back the Palestinian cause. … So, from a tactical, strategic point of view, for people who care about Palestinian rights, this was incredibly self-defeating and destructive, but that's not the reason that this was so wrong. It's wrong because Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim's lives are infinitely precious, and to take their lives was a terrible, terrible crime and atrocity. [See the Program]
(Video) “Nothing Can Justify It”: Journalist Gideon Levy Reacts to Killing of Israeli Embassy Staffers in D.C.
From Democracy Now! [May 22, 2025]
---- We speak with Israeli journalist Gideon Levy after a young Israeli couple was shot dead in Washington, D.C. Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim both worked at the Israeli Embassy and were killed by a gunman after leaving the Capital Jewish Museum Wednesday night. … “This incident can be only condemned. Nothing that Israel is doing can justify such a murder,” says Levy. He adds that incidents like the Washington killings are adding to a growing sense inside Israel that “because of the war in Gaza, Israel is turning into a pariah state.”[See the Program]
(Video) Antisemitism: Does criticizing Israel amount to antisemitism?
From Aljazeera [“Inside Story”] [May 23, 2025]
---- Earlier this week, two Israeli embassy staff were shot dead at a Jewish event in Washington DC. Police arrested a suspect who said he 'did it for Gaza and for Palestine'. There have been global condemnations and condolences for the victims. Many Israeli, US and European officials say it was an antisemitic attack-- and Police say they're investigating it as such. But there are times when that description might be accurate for certain actions. Israel has a long history of dismissing any legitimate criticism it faces as 'antisemitic'. So, how can anyone challenge Israel's war on Gaza or its military raids in the occupied West Bank, without running the risk of being called antisemitic'? Or is this an easy way of shutting down any debate about Israel's occupation? [See the Program]
NEWS NOTE
Noam Chomsky, Ed Herman, and many others have written powerful critiques about media bias – what it is, why it exists, and whose interests it serves. One part of their critique includes language choices that signal who are the good guys and who are the bad guys, so that readers will come to the story with a “proper” orientation. For a somewhat light-hearted but on-the-nose illustration of how this might work in a typical newsroom, read “How to Write About Palestine: A concise guide to proper media behavior when discussing the "complicated" situation,” by Sisonke Msimang, The Intercept [May 25, 2025] [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.) The Northwest Yonkers Neighbors for Black Lives Matter has resumed its weekly Monday night 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
REWARDS!
Looking for newsletter Rewards! Is fun and often surprising. Today’s New York Times included an obituary for Michael Roemer, “Making of Acclaimed but Little-Seen Films.” I read on. And so I did not know but learned one of Roemer’s “little-seen films” was the 1964 civil rights classic, “Nothing But a Man." And so I did not know but learned that the maker of this civil rights classic was a white man. The film stars jazz singer Abby Lincoln, and I did not know but only recently learned that she, her husband the jazz drummer Max Roach, and a posse of black artists invaded the UN Security Council in 1961 to protest the UN’s role/inaction in the events leading up to the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, aided by the CIA. You can read about this here, and you can see some interesting film in the recent Democracy Now! Program focused on the new documentary film, "Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat." So I enjoyed learning about Michael Roemer and “Nothing But a Man,” and I hope you do too.
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
FEATURED ARTICLES
Why “Nonviolence” is More Effective, Even in a Violent World
By Nicolás Paz, Pressenza [May 2025]
----We live in a world and a culture that legitimizes violence. Gaza, Ukraine, and the rearmament of Europe are only the most visible examples. Yet we must not forget other parts of the world that also suffer from violence and remain largely invisible—places like Sudan, Myanmar, or the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In the face of these realities, can nonviolent resistance still offer an effective response? … Talking about nonviolent resistance may sound utopian or simply naive, especially when conflicts are severe or when the “enemy” has already resorted to violence. But what do recent studies say on the matter? Research by professors Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan debunks the common belief in favor of violence. Their work shows that “historically, nonviolent resistance campaigns have been more effective in achieving their goals than violent resistance campaigns.” [Read More]
Social Self-Defense vs. MAGA: A Strategic Assessment
By Jeremy Brecher, Strike! [May 22, 2025]
---- Trump and his enablers are conducting an “administrative coup” against Congress, courts, and civil society. This assault is being conducted on multiple fronts. It seeks unlimited power, the demolition of any possible base to restrict its power, unlimited accumulation of wealth for its followers, and a cultural revolution to enshrine autocracy, repression, racism, sexism, hatred, cruelty, and disinhibition as internalized values of the American people. So far it has met significant but spotty resistance. … The goal of social self-defense is to make a persistent fascist dictatorship less likely and its restriction and elimination by direct counteraction, electoral repudiation, and/or social strike more likely. Because of pervasive uncertainties, we can’t know precisely what process will achieve that objective. Fortunately, while different tactics can at times lead to tensions, efforts to change the balance of power in various ways are for the most part synergistic. We know that a chain will break at its weakest link, even if we don’t know what link that will be. Thus the overall strategy for social self-defense is to change the balance of power by strengthening the forces opposing the regime and putting increasing pressure on the regime and its allies. [Read More]
The Return of the Nuclear Threat
By Jimmy Tobias,The Nation [May 19, 2025]
---- The detonation of a one-megaton nuclear weapon over New York City would begin with a blinding flash and a nightmarish pulse of heat and flame. People would be vaporized, turned to ash, burned alive, while the blast wave would demolish skyscrapers and rip buildings off their foundations. … Millions would die. Social and economic order would collapse. Indeed, wrote the Nation journalist Jonathan Schell in The Fate of the Earth, his seminal book on nuclear weapons, “it is difficult to believe there would be appreciable survival of the people of the city after a megaton ground burst.” Schell’s words, written more than 40 years ago, were intended to awaken American readers to the apocalyptic horrors of a nuclear attack on their largest city. Yet in the intervening decades, many have forgotten, or never learned, the lesson he and others tried so hard to teach. [Read More]
THE WAR ON PALESTINE
Will Not One Israeli Say: End the War for Gaza's Sake?
By Gideon Levy, Haaretz [Israel] [May 25, 2025]
---- There are in Israel more than a few politicians and public figures calling to end the war. There are many people who are fighting courageously for the release of the hostages. There are many more who yearn to see the current government ousted. There are people who fear for Israel's international standing as it becomes a pariah state. Many are also worried about the consequences of Israel's ostracism and its economic and societal costs. And there is not a single righteous person in Sodom. Few express concern publicly not only about Israel's reputation and moral standing but also, and chiefly, about the fate of Gaza's inhabitants. … The human voice is missing; humanism is dead. It is completely absent from politics; most intellectuals have been struck dumb, and there's no hint of it in the media. There isn't a single Yeshayahu Leibowitz, Janusz Korczak or Bertrand Russell to cry out: this must end no matter the price, because of what Gaza has been through. All of Israeli society lacks the basic humanity to be shaken by the suffering of the worst victims. [Read More]
(Video) Israel’s Gaza Trap: Starve, Lure, Kill—Jeremy Scahill Exposes “Final Phase” of Genocide
From Empire Files [May 23, 2025] – 41 Minutes
---- Abby Martin speaks with investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill about Israel's new offensive into Gaza that Netanyahu is calling the "final phase" of the genocide. [See the Program]
(Video) “The Worst It’s Ever Been”: U.K. Surgeon in Gaza Warns Kids Are Bearing Brunt as Israel Widens Assault
From Democracy Now! [May 22, 2025]
---- We speak with Dr. Victoria Rose, a British plastic and reconstructive surgeon who has been on three medical missions to Gaza since the start of Israel’s war on the territory. She joins us from Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, where she’s been treating patients for over a week, and describes horrific injuries amid Israel’s ongoing bombardment, limited medical supplies and widespread malnutrition making it harder for people to heal. “Children are particularly taking the brunt of this,” she says. “It’s the worst it’s ever been.” [See the Program]
Israeli Airstrike Kills at Least 7 of a Doctor’s Children, Gaza Officials Say
By Aaron Boxerman and Rawan Sheikh Ahmad, New York Times [May 25, 2025]
---- At least seven of the Najjar family’s 10 children were killed, according to Gaza health officials and the family. Two remain missing, presumed dead under the rubble of their home, according to Ali al-Najjar and Mohammad al-Najjar, the nephew of Dr. Najjar’s husband. Read More] FOR SOME VIDEO, “Outrage, horror after Israeli attack kills nine children of Gaza doctor,” from Aljazeera.
‘No soldiers, no occupation’: Israel’s anti-war protests small, but growing
By Simon Speakman Cordall, Aljazeera [May 23, 2025]
---- Alon-Lee Green and eight others were arrested on Sunday for protesting with about 600 others along Israel’s border with Gaza, spending two nights and almost three days in prison before being placed under house arrest. Together, they represent part of a small but increasingly visible groundswell of resistance in Israel to a war that, for a variety of reasons, many Israelis are turning their backs on. “Some people are protesting because they see it as a political war,” Green, who also serves as national co-director of the activist group Standing Together, said of the growing sense in Israel that the war on Gaza only serves to sustain Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition. “Some are tired of fighting, some want the hostages [to be released from Gaza] , and some [are protesting against] what we’re doing to Palestinians. All are welcome,” he continued. “You want to resist the government? You’re welcome. You don’t want to enlist? You’re welcome. You supported the war until just recently? You’re welcome.” Read More]
THE STUDENTS
The Radical Courage of Noor Abdalla
By Aida Alami, The New Yorker [May 21, 2025]
---- At the People’s Graduation, held in the church’s main sanctuary, Abdalla was the guest of honor. She was there on behalf of her husband but also, she told me, to celebrate the community that has helped her through the most trying period of her life—cooking for her, keeping her company, helping her prepare for the arrival of her son. The other students being honored, and the friends and family who gathered with them, were the people who hoped, along with Khalil, that their organizing would make a difference, would change their institution, would press for change, and would stop the bombs from falling on civilians in Gaza. [Read More] ALSO OF INTEREST - “‘We promise each other liberation’: Columbia activists honor expelled students at the ‘People’s Graduation,” [May 24, 2025] [Link].
Students across the U.S. are going on hunger strike as Israeli-engineered famine takes hold in Gaza
By Michael Arria, Mondoweiss [May 20, 2025]
---- In recent weeks, students across multiple university campuses in the United States have launched hunger strikes in solidarity with the people of Gaza enduring famine. The protesters are also calling on their school to cut ties with weapons manufacturers and other companies connected to Israel. In addition to the hunger strikes, we have seen new encampments and even campus occupations. Despite the growing suppression of the movement, students have achieved multiple divestment victories and are pushing for more wins. Student protesters across the country are adapting their strategies to Trump’s crackdown, but it’s safe to say the activism is not slowing down. [Read More]
ALSO OF INTEREST - “Trump Is Coming for Chinese Students. Who Will Protect Them?” by Akela Lacy, The Intercept [May 22, 2025] [Link]; and (film review) ‘The Encampments’ is an inspiring call for liberation in response to the horror of genocide,” by Shokoofeh Rajabzadeh, Mondoweiss [May 11, 2025] [Link]
THE WAR IN UKRAINE
Why US Engagement Is Essential in Setting Terms for Peace in Ukraine
By Anatol Lieven, The Nation [May 21, 2025]
---- President Trump’s new strategy of getting Russia and Ukraine to negotiate directly might seem to make sense. In the end, after all, they will have to sit down together to sign any agreement that can be reached. Without active US involvement, however, that end is likely to be postponed for a very long time; and as Trump has said, that time will be measured not just in months or years, but in tens of thousands of human lives. The Russian and Ukrainian positions are far apart, and absent US sticks and carrots applied to both, there seems little realistic prospect that they will come together. US engagement is also essential because a new relationship between the United States and Russia is the greatest incentive that Moscow can be offered in return for making peace with Ukraine. [Read More]
WAR WITH IRAN?
Witkoff's latest 'zero enrichment' red line has zero chance of working [Nuclear Iran]
By Trita Parsi, Responsible Statecraft [May 19, 2025]
---- Steve Witkoff, Donald Trump’s hard-charging envoy, is doubling down on “zero enrichment” as the red line in nuclear talks with Iran — a rigid stance that risks sabotaging diplomacy altogether. “We have one very, very clear red line, and that is enrichment. We cannot allow even 1% of an enrichment capability,” Witkoff tells ABC’s “This Week.” “Everything begins… with a deal that does not include enrichment… because enrichment enables weaponization, and we will not allow a bomb to get here,” he added. This demand has, for 25 years, proven both futile and counterproductive. It gives Iran more time to advance its nuclear program while stalling the realistic, verification-based deals that could actually constrain it. Unless Trump reverts to his original red line — weaponization — this rare chance to stop both an Iranian bomb and a war could slip away. [Read More]
THE STATE OF THE UNION
(Video) “I Can’t Breathe”: Five Years After George Floyd’s Murder, Trump Admin Rolls Back Police Oversight
From Democracy Now! [May 23, 2025]
---- This Sunday marks five years since George Floyd was murdered by former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. In a video that shocked the world and spurred a global movement for racial justice, Chauvin pinned Floyd to the ground with a knee to his neck for eight minutes while Floyd gasped for air. Floyd repeatedly said, “I can’t breathe.” Despite the nationwide uprising that followed Floyd’s killing, Congress failed to pass legislation that sought to reduce racial profiling and the use of force by law enforcement. The Trump Justice Department dismissed police reform and oversight agreements in Minneapolis and Louisville earlier this week, just days ahead of the fifth anniversary. We speak with Nekima Levy Armstrong, Minneapolis-based civil rights attorney, activist and founder of the Racial Justice Network, on where the movement for racial justice stands today. See the Program] FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES PERSPECTIVE, read “5 Years After George Floyd’s Murder, the Backlash Takes Hold,” by Clyde McGrady, New York Times [May 25, 2025] [Link]
OUR HISTORY
(Video) “King of the North”: New Book Examines MLK’s Fight Against Police Brutality & Racism Outside Dixie
From Democracy Now! [May 23, 2025]
---- Historian Jeanne Theoharis’s new book, King of the North: Martin Luther King Jr.’s Life of Struggle Outside the South, is a major reexamination of the civil rights leader that offers a different picture of both King’s own experiences of police brutality and his sustained critique of police brutality and the criminal legal system in the North as well as the South. “We’ve southernized Dr. King. And so, his critique of police brutality outside the South, his long-standing critique of school segregation, of housing segregation, of job discrimination, King sees these as national, not local,” says Theoharis, distinguished professor at Brooklyn College. [See the Program]
