Next week, Saturday March 28th, we have the third No Kings Day. More than 3,000 events are planned across the USA, including several in Westchester. Once again, CFOW is working in partnership with NYCD16 Indivisible, Yonkers NAACP, and Safeguarding Democracy to gather all who can be gathered to oppose Trump’s war & fascism. We will meet at noon at TWO LOCATIONS – the VFW Plaza in Hastings and on Warburton Ave in Yonkers at the Hudson Fulton Memorial Park. At 12:30 both gatherings will march towards a midpoint on Warburton Ave. for a rally. To learn more and RSVP for the event (helps the organizers), go here.
AND NOW TO THE IRAN WAR. The US/Israeli war is beginning its fourth week. We are now told to expect a long war, perhaps several months, not the 5 days of so that President Trump predicted. The economic damage of the war now spreads worldwide, with predictions of a world depression. And Israel has used the war on Iran as a cover for renewing its war against Lebanon, where more than a thousand people have been killed and more than a million displaced.
What can we do? There are some simple things that everybody can do., with several war-making actions now in Congress about which we can call our elected “representatives” to demand they oppose Trump’s war and its expansion. For example:
● The Trump people are planning to send several thousand more US troops to the region with a mission variously described as invading Iran along the critical Strait of Hormuz waterway or finding the enriched uranium supposed destroyed in last June’s 12-Day War against Iran. Wherever the troops go, this is BOOTS ON THE GROUND, a sure recipe for a long war and many US casualties. A ground invasion of Iran, and the war itself, is not supported by the US people, with only 7 percent supporting a ground invasion and a majority opposing the war itself. On Tuesday, a former US Army intelligence analyst told Democracy Now! that a ground invasion of Iran could be a “suicide mission”; and
● The war will be VERY expensive. The Pentagon puts the cost as about a billion dollars a day. Others predict the costs will be much higher: for example, war analyst Nick Turse explains how “Trump’s war on Iran could cost trillions,” The Pentagon is talking about a $250 BILLION ask to support the war. Beyond the enormous killing, mayhem, and economic destruction of the world economy, it is tragic that so many pressing needs in the USA could be funding with the money wasted on this war; and
● The Trump people want to send $660 million worth of more weapons to Israel. This will come up in the Senate as soon as next week, where Bernie Sanders is leading the effort to stop this. Calls to Sen. Gillibrand and Schumer to support Sanders in stopping this arms sale are important. In fact, calling Congress is one of the few things we/the/people can do right now. So please call Rep. Latimer - (202) 225-2464, Sen. Gillibrand - (202) 224-4451, Sen. Schumer – (202) 224-6542, and Rep Lawler - (202) 225-6506. Just say, no more money for war, no more money or weapons for Israel. Thanks!
SOME ESSAYS ILLUMINATING THE US/ISRAEL WAR ON IRAN
(Video) “Iran Is Playing the Long Game”: Prof. Vali Nasr on What to Expect from Protracted War in Middle East
From Democracy Now! [March 19, 2026]
---- In a major escalation in the war in the Middle East, Israel has bombed Iran’s South Pars gas field, the largest known natural gas reserve in the world, leading Iran to attack energy sites across the Gulf. Iranian American professor of international affairs Vali Nasr says that Iran is prepared for a much longer war than the U.S. and Israel anticipated. “The longer this war goes on, the more Iran is building leverage, and the more the strategic calculations of Israel and the United States appear to be falling short,” he says. Iran “thinks the longer that the war goes on, the less Israel and the United States will be able to defend against Iranian missiles, because they’re going to run out of interceptors.” In the latest sign the war on Iran could be just beginning, Reuters is reporting President Trump is considering deploying thousands of more U.S. troops to the Middle East. The Pentagon has also asked for $200 billion from Congress. [See the Program]
Signifying Absolutely Nothing [War on Iran]
By Fintan O’Toole, New York Review of Books [April 9, 2026 issue]
---- In Donald Trump’s war on Iran, everything is meta except the bombs. At the point of impact, where buildings shatter and flesh is shredded, the war inhabits the material world of awful human consequences. But up to that point, as it exists in Trump’s mind, it seems to be a crazy historical pageant in which disconnected scenes from past American imperial misadventures are randomly reenacted. … Trump has pushed domestic terror to the point where his agents can murder American citizens on the street without accountability. He is now pushing the use of overwhelming force abroad into a terrain where accountability becomes impossible because there are no clear objectives by which to distinguish purpose from pointlessness, right from wrong, success from failure. But what happens abroad does not stay abroad: one of the things Trump has never lied about is that for him the real war is on the home front. He is showing that he can declare it however and whenever he feels like it. [Read More]
Apocalypse Now: The Great Battle of the Gas Fields and Looming World Hunger
By Juan Cole, Informed Comment [March 20, 2026]
---- The world changed for everyone on Thursday. The US was only predicted to grow 0.7% this year. It could well be that as of today, we have been tipped into recession. The day before, the Israeli Air Force bombed Iran’s South Pars gas field. This action escalated the war to a whole other level. Bombing security-related targets in Iran could affect the government’s stability (though there is little sign of that), but it does not affect the economic future of the country. If Iran’s oil and gas rigs begin being targeted, that attack could reduce the country to fourth-world status. Oil and gas development doesn’t happen overnight, and repairs can take years. Iran leadership, more hard line than ever before, has repeatedly made it clear that if they cannot export gas on oil from the Persian Gulf, then no one will be allowed to. So in retaliation for the Israeli attack, on late Wednesday and into Thursday Iran targeted the Ras Laffan Liquefied Natural Gas complex in Qatar, as well as gas fields in the United Arab Emirates. These assaults have little impact on Israel, but threaten instead the well-being of the entire world, as I warned last week. [Read More]
ALSO OF INTEREST - “How the Israeli Tail Wags the American Dog,” by Eli Clifton and Ian S. Lustick, The Nation [March 12, 2026] [Link]; and (Video) “How US Imperialism Shaped the Iran We See Today,” by Rida Ali, Zeteo [March 21, 2026] – 5 minutes [Link].
NEWS NOTE
NYC now has an eviction crisis, and one way to address this crisis is to provide lawyers for tenants in eviction court. Based on my many years of work as a tenant advocate, I learned that giving tenants legal assistance in front of the judge will dramatically improve a tenant’s chances of not being evicted. On Thursday, March 26th, a “Citywide Tenant Town Hall”, sponsored by the Right to Counsel Coalition, will take place in Judson Memorial Church, 55 Washington Square South in NYC, from 5:30 to 8 pm. Dinner provided. For more info and to RSVP, go to bit.ly/HCMCTownHall2026. Thanks!
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!
Many stalwart newsletter readers have heard some music from the amazing Elle Cordova. On her website she also posts short, thought-provoking videos; and here are a few to encourage you to want to see/hear more. First up are some thoughts about scientists; next we have a peek at the future of dating; and finally we hear her optimistic take on November’s mid-term elections. Enjoy!
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
CFOW WEEKLY READER
FEATURED ARTICLES & ESSAYS
(Video) “This Is My Home” [An interview with Diana Buttu, a Palestinian living in Israel]
From Peter Beinart [March 22, 2026]
---- Our guest is Diana Buttu, a Palestinian lawyer and political analyst based in Haifa. Since this war began, I’ve struggled to understand why most Israeli Jews support it. I discussed this last week with the Iranian, Jewish, and Israeli writer Orly Noy. But sometimes, the people who best understand a society are those who live within it as outsiders. It’s that experience of marginality, of seeing things from below, that often animates the insights of Black writers in the US and long animated the insights of Jewish writers in Europe. That’s why I’m turning to Diana, a Palestinian in Haifa, to help understand Jewish Israeli society in this awful moment. She’s someone I’ve been learning from for a long time. I’m grateful I had the chance to do so again. [See the Program] ALSO OF INTEREST - “‘Forever live by the sword’: Understanding Israelis’ massive support for Iran war,” by Jonathan Ofir, Mondoweiss [March 22, 2026] [Link].
Israel Has Become Dangerous for Jews Around the World
By Amira Hass, Ha’aretz [Israel] [March 17, 2026]
---- Israel is dangerous for Jews, precisely because it presents itself as the representative of the Jewish people across generations. When, together with the United States, it bombs Iran and crushes Lebanon, forcing hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes, Israel does so in the name of the Jewish people, not just in the name of its Jewish citizens. As it continues a war of annihilation and revenge – now in its low intensity stage – against the Palestinian population, confined to 48 percent of the Gaza Strip, and after portraying Palestinians as a link in a historical chain of archenemies, it acts as an ambassador for Jews everywhere. When it gives free rein to its settlers and its mista’arvim (undercover units whose members disguise themselves as Palestinians) to slay Palestinians, it envisions Diaspora Jews who will settle or, at the very least, invest their wealth in its territory. When Israel accelerates the expulsion of Palestinians from most of the West Bank into enclaves it has long planned, it does so with the thought of millions of Jews who may still be forced to flee and immigrate to it, God willing, when antisemitism increases. From March 3 to 14 at least seven incidents of violence were reported against synagogues and an ultra-Orthodox Jewish school in Canada, Europe and the United States; these did not result in fatalities. [Read More]
Why Is There No Anti-War Movement?
By Eric Blanc, The Nation [March 16, 2026]
---- Donald Trump’s war on Iran is very unpopular. As pollster G. Elliot Morris notes, it is the most unpopular a US war has ever been when it started. And “with just 38 percent of Americans in favor, support for bombing Iran is lower than retrospective support for the war in Iraq was in 2014.” Why then has there been so little collective protest against the US-Israel offensive? Answering this question is not easy. What follows are seven hypotheses rather than definitive conclusions. But exploring why we’re lacking an anti-war movement today can help us move to actually start building one. And for the sake of Iranians, the Middle East, and working people in the United States, we’d better do so as soon as possible. [Read More]
The Democratic Nat’l Committee’s Kneejerk Backing of Israel Is Political and Moral Failure
By Norman Solomon, Informed Comment [March 19, 2026]
---- No matter how much the DNC leadership tries to shunt it aside, the burning issue of U.S. policy toward Israel will not go away. This year, it has become key in one Democratic primary race after another, putting incumbent members of Congress on the defensive for their timeworn efforts to justify support for Israel or acceptance of funding from the AIPAC lobby. Yet the DNC stance is that the party establishment is wise to seal itself off from such unpleasantness. The DNC’s refusal to make public its autopsy of the 2024 election is tangled up in dodging the autopsy’s reported conclusion that Kamala Harris’s rigid support for arming Israel was a significant factor in her defeat. Keeping the official autopsy under wraps, supposedly in order to improve the prospects of future election victories, actually makes such victories less likely by mystifying instead of clarifying electoral history. … But the DNC is still largely paralyzed with pressure from its old guard and insistence on being unaccountable to the party’s rank-and-file. The Democratic Party is in dire need of democracy. [Read More]
THE WAR ON PALESTINE
With Chilling Composure, an 11-year-old Palestinian Boy Recounts His Family’s Final Moments
By Gideon Levy and Alex Levac, Ha’aretz [Israel] [March 20, 2026]
---- We’re standing on a street corner. From here the family’s Kia proceeded down the street and turned left, toward their home. And here, behind the wall next to the small but now-shuttered Nablus Restaurant – hummus, falafel and ful – Border Police officers hid before emerging to fire a lethal volley at the car. It was 1:30 A.M. this past Sunday. The Kia’s windows were open; it was quite easy to see who was inside. A family. Parents and their four children. A blind child sat on his mother’s knees, in front next to the driver; his three siblings were in the back. The officers could have shouted at them to stop the car – and they would have heard. … On Monday morning, not long after the incident, we were at the corner where everything happened. Opposite us on the sidewalk stands 11-year-old Khaled Bani Odeh. He’s describing, with gestures and words, stage by stage, the massacre of his family, before his eyes, a day and a half earlier. Here’s where the car stopped; the officers were standing over there, unleashing a hellish hail of gunfire at the car. Here is where they beat him after he emerged from the vehicle of death; over there they made him stand with his face to the wall and shouted at him that he was a liar – just minutes after annihilating his family. They thought Khaled was someone else – a wanted youth whom they were pursuing. [Read More]
ALSO OF INTEREST - “In the Shadow of War, Israeli Settler Violence against Palestinians Intensifies,” by Adam Coogle, Human Rights Watch [March 18, 2026] [Link].
ISRAEL’S WAR ON LEBANON
(Video) Report from Beirut: 1,000+ Dead, 1M+ Displaced, Many Fear Long-Term Occupation of Southern Lebanon
From Democracy Now! [March 20, 2026]
---- As Israel continues to pummel Lebanon in its resumed war against the country and the Hezbollah paramilitary, we get an update from Associated Press reporter Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut. “If you compare this particular war to the last one, less than two years ago, what happened in the past three weeks is what happened in the past seven or eight months,” says Chehayeb, who describes masses of displaced people and fears of an imminent ground invasion. “There is a humanitarian crisis unfolding in the country, and it doesn’t appear that these strikes will stop anytime soon.” [See the Program] ALSO OF INTEREST - “More Than 1 Million People in Lebanon Have Been Displaced. These Are Their Stories,” by Afeef Nessouli and Steven W. Thrasher, The Intercept [March 22 2026] [Link].
THE WAR ON CUBA
Trump’s Plan for “Taking” Cuba
By Peter Kornbluh and William M. LeoGrande, The Nation [March 20, 2026]
---- Trump’s brazen claim that he can do anything he wants with Cuba is typical of his audacious bluster, but this time it cannot be discounted. He has Cuba over the proverbial barrel… and literally barrels of oil. After cutting off Venezuelan oil shipments, Trump threatened to sanction any other country sending oil to Cuba, imposing a complete oil blockade on the petroleum-dependent island. While Washington is strangling the Cuban economy, behind the scenes the two countries are engaged in the delicate dance of back-channel diplomacy—an effort which could, conceivably, result in a “deal,” rather than a war. As president of the United States, Trump’s leverage is his ability to inflict pain on other countries— through tariffs, economic sanctions, and high explosives. In international relations, this is called “coercive diplomacy.” On the street, it is called extortion. Having cut off Cuba’s oil supply, Trump no doubt believes he can make Cuban leaders “an offer they can’t refuse.” … Indeed, rather than toppling Cuba’s Communist government, the Trump administration appears to be far more focused on opening Cuba’s economy to US investment and restoring Washington’s pre-revolution position as the dominant influence over the island nation—“regime compliance rather than regime change,” as The New York Times describes US goals. [Read More] ALSO OF INTEREST -”Cuba Will Survive,” by Vijay Prashad, LA Progressive [March 15, 2026] [Link].
THE STATE OF THE UNION
The Biden Boom and the Trump Slump: A Serious Comparison of the Two Economies
By Dean Baker, Counterpunch [March 20, 2026]
---- President Trump and his administration have repeatedly sought to contrast the economy since the start of his term with what they claim was a disastrous Biden administration. As Trump put it on March 4, 2025 in his address to Congress, “We inherited from the last administration an economic catastrophe and an inflation nightmare.” To hear them tell it, any lagging economic indicators are attributable to Biden; nonetheless, on their watch things have never been better. As Trump explained during his 2026 State of the Union, “The roaring economy is roaring like never before.” In fact, by most economic measures the economy’s performance was outstanding during President Biden’s term in office. A year into the Trump administration, there are signs of concern. [Read More]
The Trump Administration Just Won a Terrifying Victory Over Protesters
By Sam Russek, The New Republic [March 17, 2026]
---- The future of protesting in the United States may have been decided in a cramped Depression-era courtroom in downtown Fort Worth, Texas, on Friday. Nine defendants, who federal prosecutors claimed were part of an “antifa cell,” were found guilty of an array of charges, including providing “material support” for terrorism, for attending a demonstration outside an ICE facility that turned violent on July 4, 2025. … What constitutes an antifa terror cell? Apparently, a group of people who did not all know each other before being scooped up and charged as one. While some of the nine defendants who were convicted on Friday had met through self-defense classes, the Socialist Rifle Association, and an anarchist book club, loosely associating through Signal group chats, others didn’t know anyone—and only happened to be at the Prairieland ICE Detention Center last July 4 because they found the details for the demonstration online. [Read More]
OUR HISTORY
The Nightmare of Fukushima 15 Years Later
By Joshua Frank, Tom Dispatch [March 19, 2026]
---- Nine countries now possess nuclear weapons and we have just seen the start of a new war in the Middle East over one more nation supposedly trying to acquire them. While we consider the dangers of such weapons and their capacity to cause massive destruction, we often overlook the risks associated with what still passes for “peaceful” nuclear power. With that in mind, let me revisit a moment when that reality should have become far clearer. … The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, built by General Electric (GE) in the mid-1960s, was designed to withstand natural disasters, but its creators never foresaw an earthquake like that. When the plant’s sensors detected the quake, its reactors automatically shut down. That emergency shutdown (or scram) halted its fission process, triggering backup power to keep cold seawater flowing through the reactors and spent-fuel containers to prevent overheating. Things at Fukushima were going according to plan until that massive tsunami battered the plant, washing away transmission towers and damaging electrical systems. There were backup generators in the basement, but those, too, had been inundated by waves of seawater, and an already bad situation was about to get far worse. [Read More]
(Video) Labor Icon Dolores Huerta, 95, Reveals She, Too, Was Raped by Cesar Chavez; Speaks to Maria Hinojosa
From Democracy Now! [March 20, 2026]
---- A major New York Times investigation details the late co-founder of the United Farm Workers Cesar Chavez’s sexual abuse of women and girls. The revelations about Chavez’s history of grooming and abuse have sent shockwaves through the labor movement and California, where officials are already moving to cancel or rename public celebrations planned in his honor. Chavez is also accused of sexually assaulting fellow labor rights icon and United Farm Workers co-founder Dolores Huerta, now 95. Huerta says the assaults led to the births of two of her children. She concealed the pregnancies and had kept the children’s paternity secret until now. Huerta spoke for the first time at length about her new public disclosures in an exclusive interview with Latino USA host Maria Hinojosa, who joins Democracy Now! to discuss how Huerta is “not only coming to terms with her own assaults, [but also] coming to terms with the fact that the movement and the person who she admired as part of the movement is essentially being covered up, disappeared.” [See the Program]
