Hello All - Two million people in Gaza are being starved and bombed to death. Our government supports this with money, with bombs and bullets, and with its veto at the United Nations. This must stop.
Israeli human rights organizations, the International Court of Justice, and many governments call what is happening genocide. Tens of thousands in Gaza have been killed, hundreds of thousands wounded.
Israel has imposed a blockade preventing food and medicine from coming into Gaza. Since May, 251 people have starved to death, including 108 children. 11 people starved yesterday. The UN says 12,000 children under 5 suffer from “acute malnutrition.”
The US and Israel have set up a fake food system. It looks like it is offering food, but it is a trap – Israeli snipers and US mercenaries have killed more than 1,800 people as they line up for food. 14 more were killed yesterday.
Below I’ve linked a sign-on letter from Peace Action NYS to our Senators Schumer and Gillibrand, castigating them for failing to support Bernie Sanders’ “Joint Resolution of Disapproval,” calling for a halt on “offensive arms” transfers to Israel. NB that a majority of Senate Democrats supported the Resolution. Our political leaders are not only out of touch with basic international law and moral injunctions against killing; they are out of touch with rank-and-file Democrats. The refusal of our local Democrat and Indivisible groups to speak out against Israel’s genocidal war is also disappointing. Unlike the “good Germans” who failed to speak out or act out against the Nazi genocide, Americans face little danger in denouncing US support for Israel’s wars. When asked down the road what “they” did during the Palestinian’s great holocaust, what will they say? There is still plenty of work to be done. Silent Democrats, please join the antiwar movement and demand that our “Democratic leaders” stop their support for the genocide in Palestine.
So, please call Congress. Say you want no more US weapons or money going to Israel. Call Rep. Latimer - (202) 225-2464, Sen. Gillibrand - (202) 224-4451, and Sen. Schumer – (202) 224-6542. Thanks.
ILLUMINATING THE WEEK THAT WAS
(Video) “This Is Orchestrated Killing”: MSF Condemns GHF Aid Sites, Saying They Were Set Up to Be Death Traps
From Democracy Now! [August 11, 2025]
---- Doctors Without Borders is demanding the closure of Israeli- and U.S.-backed food distribution centers in Gaza run by the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. About 1,400 Palestinians have been killed trying to get food at GHF sites since May. A new report from Doctors Without Borders — also known as Médecins Sans Frontières, or MSF — gathers testimony from its medics and others about the apparently deliberate targeting of Palestinians seeking food. “The GHF is singularly disorganized, reckless, dangerous, and we cannot help but come to the conclusion that these are deliberately set-up death traps,” says Doctors Without Borders CEO Avril Benoît. She stresses that the starvation crisis in Gaza is entirely a result of Israel’s ongoing siege of the territory. “People are starving because Israel wants them to,” says Benoît. [Read More]
Humanity’s Fight Against the Perpetrators of Starvation and Extermination
By Robin Anderson, Counterpunch [August 15, 2025]
---- For weeks the world has seen pictures of skeletal children starving with no relief in sight. As Heba Almaqadma, a 24-year-old Palestinian journalist still living in Gaza City said, “In Gaza, Hunger Has Overtaken Bombs as Israel’s Cruelest Weapon.” Pictures of Starving Palestinians have been juxtaposed against images of Jewish holocaust survivors. … We’ve watched bomb strikes and seen the pictures of the hideous dystopian landscapes of Gaza in rubble, we’re heard devastated doctors testify about the targeted assassinations of children, and those paying attention know the IDF targets starving, unarmed civilians trying to get food for their families at ‘distribution hubs.’ We’ve heard the words of a former special forces veteran Anthony Aguilar who explained that the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in committing war crimes in Gaza. Devastated after a hungry Palestinian child, who received no food, kissed his hand and was then deliberately shot dead, [Read More]
With IDF Soldiers and Settlers Expelling Palestinians, the West Bank Is Seeing a Creeping Nakba
Editorial, Ha’aretz [Israel] [August 13, 2025]
---- There's no way, and there won't be one, to justify or defend what Israel is doing in the West Bank. Under the cover of the war in Gaza and with the full backing of the IDF, Israel's settlement enterprise, from government officials to the youngest member of the radical, often violent "hilltop youth," has been given free rein. They are driving out Palestinian residents and seizing more and more of their land. As reported by Haaretz on Tuesday, yet another Palestinian shepherding community of about 100 near Ramallah was forcibly expelled from their village after settlers threatened the residents and demanded they leave. The residents of Ein Ayub are the latest victims of West Bank settlers, who have seized the Gaza war as an opportunity to carry out their own mass displacement – a creeping Nakba. [Read More]
THE MAMDANI CAMPAIGN
Mamdani’s Victory Over Fear
By Spencer Ackerman, The Nation [August 12, 2025]
---- It’s been a summer of fear like no other in New York. This time, the fearful include the city’s richest residents, who see their dominance threatened by mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani. Fueling their panic is the mounting realization that the War on Terror politics they sought to use against him—in a city reshaped by 9/11—didn’t work. The city’s power elite now have few viable options to defeat Mamdani, a 33-year-old state assemblyman and member of the Democratic Socialists of America, as he campaigns against the vastly unequal living conditions they’ve created. Mamdani’s 12-point victory over former New York governor Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary, the biggest political upset in the city’s history, marked the first warning sign for the collapse of Islamophobic politics as usual. Megadonors seeking to exploit post–October 7 anxieties among the city’s sizable Jewish community spent $20 million on nonstop attack ads and came up empty. … If Trump stages more brutal raids in New York in response to a Mamdani victory in November, he’ll be ratcheting up the fear-driven politics of the city’s anti-Mamdani power brokers. Suddenly, the lords of capital in New York are seeing that 9/11 politics are no longer enough to stop the multi-ethnic working class from winning power. They may find common cause with Trump to endorse new crackdowns using the tools of the War on Terror. But even such a violent show of force would likely do little to deter a newly galvanized coalition of working New Yorkers who are sick and tired of living in fear. [Read More]
ALSO OF INTEREST - “Debunking the Myths About Mamdani’s Candidacy,” by Stewart Lawrence, Counterpunch [August 13, 2025] [Link] and “Zohran Mamdani, Violence, and the Establishment’s “Law and Order” Playbook,” by Partha Banerjee, Pressenza [August 16, 2025] [Link]. The Mamdani campaign and its success has stimulated/inspired similar radical/populist campaigns in big cities. More recently: “Socialist Kelsea Bond Is Running for Atlanta City Council: An Interview,” from ZNet.
NEWS NOTES
For their admirable work in support of Palestinian rights, our friends at WESPAC were sued in 7 courts by bogus “pro-Israel” entities. This week, the fourth of the suits was dismissed, as reported in “Trump-Appointed Judge Tosses Lawsuit Accusing Pro-Palestinian Groups of Being Fronts for Hamas.” [From Common Dreams]
CFOW is an affiliate of the national network Peace Action, and an active member of its New York branch (about 13 community-based peace organizations. This week we joined a Peace Action sign-on letter to our Senators Schumer and Gillibrand denouncing their opposition to Bernie Sanders’ resolution in the Senate prohibiting “offensive arms” transfers to Israel. You can read the letter here.
The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is the largest socialist organization in the US. It claims 80,00 members, and has been active in many protests and election campaigns, including NYC’s mayoral campaign by Zohran Mamdani. Needless to say, there are many disputes and discussions in DSA about strategy and what to do; and needless to say, these controversies took center stage at their recent DSA Convention in Chicago. DSA activist Paul Le Blanc’s report illuminates many discussions that went down at the convention. [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 holds a 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.
REWARDS!
This was the week that President Trump announced he was going to Russia to meet Putin in Alaska. As dementia sweeps the civilized world, the Rewards this week for stalwart newsletter readers are brought to us from The Real Tuesday Weld, absent from these pages too long. And so we have "The Show Must Go On"; "Terminally Ambivalent Over You”; “Me and Mr. Wolf"; and with special guests (The Puppini Sisters) "Don't Get High No More."
Enjoy!
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
FEATURED ARTICLES & ESSAYS
Building an Opposition to Survive the Trump Era
By Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Hammer & Hope [Summer 2025]
---- Americans roundly oppose Donald Trump’s authoritarian regime and the miserable state of the country. While the president claims that he has a mandate on “mass deportations,” 62 percent of the public opposes his draconian immigration policies. Outraged people in liberal and conservative towns and cities nationwide have come together to defend their neighbors from the terror of abductions by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Meanwhile, more than 60 percent of adults blame Trump for the rising costs of groceries — a signature campaign issue of his — and half say his policies are making them worse off financially. But given the scale of the onslaught, there is a sense that people aren’t resisting enough. The New York Times Opinion columnist Michelle Goldberg described the apparent conundrum: “There’s less hope and more resignation” now compared to Trump’s first term. “In the last election Trump won the popular vote, and most demographics shifted rightward. The resistance has seemed exhausted and demoralized, and leaders in business, law and academia have adjusted accordingly,” she wrote. Mass protests have demonstrated disagreement with the Trump agenda. But protests have generally been fragmented and localized, proving to be little more than speed bumps for Trump’s reckless agenda. What we need is to build a more sustained resistance, one that can pose a real threat to the Trump regime, are more rooted, sustained local and regional networks. [Read More]
Can Congress Stop Trump From Starting a War in Mexico?
By Nick Turse, The Intercept [August 15 2025]
---- More than 30 humanitarian, public interest, immigrant rights, faith-based, veterans’ advocacy, and drug policy reform groups are calling on Congress to oppose the use of military force against drug cartels in Latin America by the Trump administration. Melding two failed American wars — the war on drugs and the war on terror — would “put people at risk of violence and destabilize hemispheric relations while hindering, not helping, efforts to protect communities from drug trafficking and other crime,” according to the organizations, which include the Alianza Americas, Center for Civilians in Conflict, Drug Policy Alliance, Public Citizen, and Win Without War. … The decision to involve the American military in what has previously been considered a law enforcement effort comes as Trump has increasingly turned to U.S. troops for law enforcement purposes on American soil and taken over the D.C. police. These efforts are seen as dangerous escalations of the use of military force and violations of long-held norms. [Read More]
(Video) YouTube Star Ms. Rachel on Her Gaza Advocacy: “My Deep Care for Children Doesn’t Stop at Any Border”
From Democracy Now! [August 13, 2025]
---- We speak with Rachel Griffin Accurso, the educator known to millions around the world as Ms. Rachel, who has become a leading advocate for children in Gaza. Her YouTube channel for young children became wildly popular during the COVID-19 pandemic and today has more than 16 million subscribers. Since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza, Accurso has used her social media reach to speak out for Palestinian children facing hunger, disease, injury and death. She has been hailed as the heir to Mister Rogers, the legendary PBS children’s entertainer who also used his position in families’ living rooms to speak out on social issues. … We also speak with Tareq Hailat, director of the Treatment Abroad Program for the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, who helped connect Accurso with a 3-year-old girl from Gaza named Rahaf who lost both her legs in an Israeli airstrike. Accurso and Rahaf filmed a video, in which they sing a dance together. [See the Program]
THE WAR ON PALESTINE
Hundreds of Thousands of Israelis Join Nationwide Strike for Gaza Hostage Deal
From Ha’aretz [Israel] [August 17, 2025] [Read More] And from Aljazeera: “Israelis hold nationwide protest to end Gaza war, ‘bring back the hostages.”
---- Thousands of protesters in Israel have taken to the streets demanding an end to the war in Gaza and a deal to free captives held there, as the military intensifies attacks on Gaza City to force tens of thousands of starving Palestinians to flee again. Israeli schools, businesses and public transport have been shut down, with demonstrations planned in major cities as part of a national day of action by two groups representing a number of the families of captives and bereaved families.
‘They want us homeless and hungry’: residents of Gaza City brace for Israeli invasion
By Tareq S. Hajjaj, Mondoweiss [August 15, 2025]
---- As the Israeli army confirms plans to invade Gaza City and occupy it, Palestinians have to decide whether to endure another cycle of displacement or stay and risk being killed. While some plan to evacuate, others are done following orders. The first time that the residents of Gaza City got an evacuation order was in October 2023. The Israeli army had ordered the 1.1 million people living in northern Gaza to move south ahead of the Israeli ground invasion. Following the return of hundreds of thousands of residents of the north to Gaza City after the temporary ceasefire earlier this year, the Israeli army is now issuing another evacuation order. On August 8, the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office stated the Israeli army was preparing to take control of the entire city. In other words, permanent occupation. On August 13, the army confirmed that the plans were approved. The invasion is reportedly set to start on October 7, the day that would mark two years of genocide. [Read More]
(Video) “Silencing the Coverage”: Israel Assassinates 5 Al Jazeera Journalists in Targeted Strike in Gaza
From Democracy Now! [August 11, 2025]
---- We speak with Al Jazeera managing editor Mohamed Moawad after Israel assassinated five of the network’s journalists in Gaza, including veteran correspondent Anas al-Sharif, in an airstrike Sunday on a media tent outside Al-Shifa Hospital. Al Jazeera has condemned the attack as an attempt to silence reporting on Israel’s planned seizure and occupation of Gaza. The strike also killed Mohammed Qreiqeh, Ibrahim Zaher, Moamen Aliwa and Mohammed Noufal, and came just weeks after the United Nations and press freedom advocates warned al-Sharif’s life was at risk following Israeli accusations linking him to Hamas. “The pattern is clear: degrading, delegitimizing, smearing, and then killing,” says Moawad. He says the network, which is one of the few international outlets with local journalists, is now “scrambling” to cover the conflict as Israel prepares a renewed assault and occupation of the territory. “They went after Al Jazeera because we are the only international organization covering the conflict from the frontline.” [See the Program]
(Video) Rooted in the West Bank: 25 Years of Defying Settler Violence
From Aljazeera (“Witness”) [November 4, 2024]
---- The struggle of a West Bank community of farmers to hold on to their land under assault from Israeli “settlers.” Learn more from the Israeli Committee Against Home Demolitions. Watch the 45-minute documentary film here.
THE UKRAINE WAR
(Video) A Debate on Trump-Putin Summit, Ukraine, Russia & Paths to Peace
From Democracy Now! [August 15, 2025]
---- As U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin meet in Alaska for a high-stakes summit to discuss a possible ceasefire in Ukraine, we host a debate between two foreign policy thinkers about the war, its causes and how it could be brought to a conclusion. John Mearsheimer is an international relations theorist at the University of Chicago, known for his realist perspective. He has long argued that Western policies are the main cause of the Ukraine crisis. … Matt Duss is executive vice president at the Center for International Policy and the former foreign policy adviser to Senator Bernie Sanders. He says that despite Western missteps, Russia is ultimately the main cause of the current war, which Putin started in 2022 with a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. … Both Mearsheimer and Duss say Ukraine’s war effort is flagging and that the best way out is to “make the best peace they can,” even if it means conceding territory to Russia. [See the Program]
US-Russia Talks: the Choice Between Peace and Escalation
By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies, Code Pink [August 16, 2025]
---- Donald Trump came into office promising to end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours. Now, six months later, his high stakes meeting with Vladimir Putin in Alaska may have put the United States and Russia on a new path toward peace, or, if this initiative fails, could trigger an even more dangerous escalation, with warhawks in Congress already pushing for another $54.6 billion in weapons for Ukraine. After emerging from the meeting, Putin correctly framed the historical moment: “This was a very hard time for bilateral relations and, let’s be frank, they’ve fallen to the lowest point since the Cold War. I think that’s not benefiting our countries and the world as a whole. Sooner or later, we have to amend the situation to move on from confrontation to dialogue.” Trump said he will follow up by talking to NATO leaders and Zelenskyy, as if the U.S. is simply an innocent bystander trying to help. But in Ukraine, as in Palestine, Washington plays the “mediator” while pouring weapons, intelligence, and political cover into one side of the war. In Gaza, that has enabled genocide. In Ukraine, it could lead to nuclear war. [Read More]
THE CLIMATE CRISIS
(Video) The climate crisis across the Pacific
From Aljazeera [June 11, 2025] – 25 minutes
---- Rising Tides, Shifting Powers delves into the poignant reality of Pacific islanders grappling with the existential threat of climate change and the complex geopolitics involving the United States and China. The episode opens with Millicent Barty, a climate activist and entrepreneur, whose daily life exemplifies the immediate dangers faced by Pacific communities. As sea levels rise, their cultural heritage is at risk, mirroring the precarious future of the entire island nation. Simultaneously, Suluafi Brianna Fruean, a Pacific Climate Warrior, represents the voice of young Pacific Islanders on a global platform. She campaigns for the urgent need for climate action for the Pacific. … Fight for the Pacific, a four-part series, showcases the Pacific’s critical transformation into a battleground of global power. This series captures the high-stakes rivalry between the US and China as they vie for dominance in a region pivotal to global stability. The series frames the Pacific not just as a battleground for superpowers, but also as a region with its own unique challenges and aspirations. [See the Program]
CIVIL LIBERTIES
'This Isn't Normal!' Secret Pentagon Plan for Troops to Put Down Local 'Unrest' Nationwide
By Jon Queally, Common Dreams [August 12, 2025]
---- Internal documents obtained by The Washington Post and reported on Tuesday reveal a secret Pentagon plan by the Trump administration to create a standing force of military personnel that could be rapidly deployed to U.S. cities or communities to quell public protests or any situation President Donald Trump deems "domestic civil unrest." The proposal to create what it dubs a "Domestic Civil Disturbance Quick Reaction Force"—which evidence shows has been under serious consideration by the administration over recent months—would utilize existing statute, including invocation of Title 32, to authorize the deployment of specialized National Guard units anywhere in the country within hours, according to the documents. According to the Post: [Read More]
THE STATE OF THE UNION
‘A Guy Who Never Dies’ [The Jeffrey Epstein Affair]
By Fintan O’Toole, New York Review of Books [August 12, 2025]
---- For Trump, the great problem of the Epstein story is that it is the point at which paranoid fantasy melds into grotesque reality. It is a hybrid of fevered conspiracy theory and actual conspiracy. It lives at once in a gothic horror movie he has helped to script and in the all-too-tangible world of untrammeled power and merciless exploitation he actually inhabits. It provokes both wild surmises and entirely rational questions. This is a combustible mix that Trump does not know how to control. … On August 5 the Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee issued subpoenas for several witnesses to appear at planning hearings into Epstein’s crimes, including Bill and Hillary Clinton. But he also served the Justice Department a subpoena demanding that it produce its Epstein-related files by August 19. If Trump orders the department not to comply, he becomes part of the great conspiracy. This would become a satisfyingly shocking twist in this paranoid story: the good guy was actually the archvillain all along. If he allows it to comply, he feeds the beast he is trying to kill. We know that the release of documents never stops the search for the ultimate exposure of the plot. It gives the searchers a vast new terrain of clues and anomalies to explore, a giant new web of connections to map. And if Trump tries a middle course, releasing the documents with references to himself redacted, he merely proves that he has something to hide. [Read More]
OUR HISTORY
The Education of a Historian
By Eric Foner, The Nation [August 14, 2025]
---- My education as a historian began at home. My father, Jack D. Foner, was a historian, as was his twin brother, my uncle Philip. W.E.B. Du Bois and Paul Robeson were family acquaintances, and history was a frequent point of discussion around our dinner table in the suburbs of New York City. But the history that my brother Tom and I absorbed was quite different from what we were taught at school. There, slavery and modern-day racism were rarely, if ever, mentioned. My parents, however, instilled in us the conviction that the Jim Crow system was a scandalous injustice and that radical dissenters such as Frederick Douglass—whose powerful speeches and writings my uncle collected and published in five influential olumes—were among the most heroic Americans. ... Long before the depredations of Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, the Rapp-Coudert Committee of the New York State Legislature in Albany launched an effort to purge the City University of New York of “subversive” elements. My father and uncle Philip lost their teaching jobs. Later, my mother, Liza, was dismissed from her job as a high school art teacher. My uncles Henry and Moe, who were also blacklisted, went on to become key leaders of New York City’s labor movement. Their experience taught me another important historical lesson: the fragility of civil liberties. Freedom of speech and the right to dissent were not ingrained in the American system from the outset. [Read More]
The Danes Resisted Fascism, and So Can We
By Sarah Sophie Flicker, The Nation [August 5, 2025]
---- I am half Danish, half New Jersey Jew. Born in 1970s Copenhagen during the salad days of jazz, communal living, and the rise of Christiania, I was raised by parents with soft hearts and strong morals. They set me up to build a life of good trouble, and for the past two decades I have worked as a political organizer and artist. Still, over the years, I have kept this story of my great grandfather close, dutifully following the unwritten “Jante law,” which discourages drawing attention to oneself. I feel compelled to share what I’ve learned now, not out of obligation to historical accuracy but because the facts reveal a powerful map for the road ahead. They are a testament to what’s possible when a society commits to the long game of ending fascism and protecting those who incur the fascists’ wrath. … My maternal grandfather, Soren, slept with his shoes on throughout the war, perpetually primed for action. Aunt Gitte defied the Nazis from the hospital where she worked. Uncle Mogens, a journalist, undertook great risk as a courier for the resistance, successfully delivering vital war information, before he turned to reporting for the daily wartime paper, Information, which began as an illegal, underground publication. [Read More]
