Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
June 16, 2019
Hello All – Is President Trump about to take us into a war with Iran? Without much evidence, Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo are claiming Iran was responsible for the attack on two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman last Wednesday. But was it? And will the Trump people use this incident as an excuse to attack Iran? And what will happen if it does?
Despite Trump's bluster, we actually know little about what happened to the oil tankers. For example, were the ships struck by a torpedo, or a mine, or a missile? There is disagreement. And who did it? There are reasons to wonder, for example, why Iran would attack a Japanese tanker while the Japanese leader was visiting Iran. And analysts raise questions about a "false flag" attack that might be intended to lead to war. Remembering the "weapons of mass destruction" falsehood that led to the war with Iraq, we should be cautious.
But if Iran were responsible for attacking the oil tankers, why would they do this? Trump's withdrawal from the Iran Nuclear Agreement – negotiated over several years – and the subsequent renewal of economic sanctions are seen by Iranians as a betrayal and an act of war. They see the failure of the United Nations and the European nations to stand up to Trump's sanctions as a further betrayal, leaving them on their own against the USA. What does Iran's "peace faction" have to say against the argument that it's time to stand up and fight back?
There is widespread concern among the US political elite that the Trump people want to manipulate "facts" so as to justify continued support for Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen. Trump recently proclaimed an "Iran National Emergency" that would give him legal cover to sell weapons to Saudi Arabia without congressional approval. Pending now in Congress are 22 weapons sales worth eight billion dollars. This money will go to Raytheon and other "merchants of death." Is this what the war-scare is about?
This is a critical moment if we are to avoid war. The "Iran National Emergency" brings us closer to war. We can do our part to stop it by telling our congressional representatives to stand up to Trump and his war talk. Please call Senator Charles Schumer (202) 224-6542; Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (202) 224-4451; Congresswoman Nita Lowey 202-225-6506; and Congressman Eliot Engel (202) 225-2464. Let them know that you oppose war with Iran and selling weapons to Saudi Arabia
Incredible, But True
Yesterday the New York Times published an article titled "U.S. Escalates Online Attacks on Russia's Power Grid." The article was co-authored by The Times' hawkish David Sanger, known as "Scoop" because of his availability to receive and write-up "secret" information from the Pentagon. In yesterday's article, "Scoop" writes: "The United States is stepping up digital incursions into Russia's electric power grid in a warning to President Vladimir V. Putin and a demonstration of how the Trump administration is using new authorities to deploy cybertools more aggressively, current and former government officials said." The article goes on to describe how the Pentagon's cyber squad has placed malware in Russia's national power grid that (supposedly) can be activated at will. Needless to say, the Pentagon claims this is a defensive measure, responding to earlier Kremlin attacks on the USA. This seems to me to be reckless in the extreme, illustrating and amplifying the dangerous military encirclement – and now infiltration – of Russia by the USA and its NATO allies. Note also that this aggression is justified by the hoodwinking of Congress. "Scoop" writes: "The action inside the Russian electric grid appears to have been conducted under little-noticed new legal authorities, slipped into the military authorization bill passed by Congress last summer. The measure approved the routine conduct of "clandestine military activity" in cyberspace, to "deter, safeguard or defend against attacks or malicious cyberactivities against the United States." Under the law, those actions can now be authorized by the defense secretary without special presidential approval." Unbelievable.
News Notes
The huge demonstrations in Hong Kong have (at least temporarily) defeated the government and its attempt to enact unpopular legislation at the behest the China. Check out Sunday's demonstration.
The arrest and trial of humanitarian activist Scott Warren has been reported in previous newsletters. His crime: leaving food and water in the Arizona desert to help "illegal" immigrants who are crossing into the USA. On Tuesday, his case ended in a mistrial, as the majority of the jury refused to convict him. For background on this significant victory, check out this Democracy Now! program.
New York renters/tenants gained a great victory in the state legislature this week, gaining the strongest-ever legal protections. The law is one of several similar efforts nationwide and is expected to give municipalities around the state more authority to regulate rents and ensure greater access to affordable housing. See this report from Democracy Now!'s Juan Gonzalez.
USA wealth-inequality got even more unequal in the last three decades, as the top one percent of Americans gained $21 trillion in wealth since 1989 while the bottom 50 percent lost $900 billion. Read the grisly details here.
Climate Action Needed
Fairly strong climate legislation is in the final stages of debate and discussion in Albany. The Climate and Community Protection Act would (among other things) include a path to 100% renewables and a ban on new fossil fuel projects. (For details, go here.) As the legislative session is coming to an end, calls are needed between now and Wednesday to let political leaders know that climate legislation is important to people. Please call Governor Cuomo (press 2 to speak with a human): 518-474-8390; Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins: 518-455-2585; and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (pronounced "hasty"): 518-455-3791. Thanks!
Thing to Do/Coming Attractions
Ongoing – Weather permitting, the CFOW stalwarts gather every Saturday from 12 to 1 PM at the VFW Plaza in Hastings (Warburton and Spring St.) to protest war and other evils. Please join us!
Thursday, July 4th – Mark your calendars for the more-or-less annual CFOW 4th of July Picnic. All CFOW friends are invited to a picnic on the lawn/porch of the Dobbs Ferry Historical Society, 12 Elm St. in Dobbs, from 1 to 5 p.m. We'll have a grill and hot dogs and maybe a few other things. Come see old friends and make new ones!
CFOW Nuts & Bolts
Please consider getting involved with Concerned Families of Westchester. We meet for a protest/rally each Saturday in Hastings, from 12 to 1 p.m., at the VFW Plaza (Warburton and Spring St.) Our leaflet and posters for our rallies are usually about war or climate change, but issues such as racial justice or Trump's immigration policies are often targeted, depending on current events. We (usually) meet on the first Sunday of each month, from 7 to 9 p.m., at the Dobbs Ferry Historical Society. Our weekly newsletter is archived at https://cfow.blogspot.com/; and news of interest and coming events is posted on our CFOW Facebook page. And if you would like to support our work by making a contribution, please send your check to CFOW, PO Box 364, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY 10706. Thanks!
This Newsletter
Articles linked in the CFOW newsletter are intended to illuminate some of the main action-issues about which we are concerned. Coming mostly from the "dissenting media," they provide an alternative to the perspectives of the mainstream media. As always, we have some excellent "Featured Essays," I also highly recommend the set of articles and videos about the dangerous confrontation underway between the USA and Iran; the set of articles about the Democrats and the 2020 election, with a focus on E. Warren and B. Sanders; an excellent article on the very sound reasons to abolish Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE); and a good article by Jonathan Cook on the reasons why the Trump/Kushner "Deal of the Century" for Israel/Palestine is a non-starter.
Rewards!
The Newsletter's rewards give stalwart readers a brief oasis before heading into the chaos of the week's news. The rewards this week illustrate the amazing range/oeuvre of Ry Cooder. First up is "Jesus on the Mainline." Next is an instrumental from the film, "Paris, Texas." And finally, with V. M. Bhatt he performs "Ganges Delta Blues." Enjoy!
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
FEATURED ESSAYS
Two Iraqi Peace Activists Confront a Trumpian World
By Laura Gottesdiener, Tom Dispatch [June 12, 2019]
By Laura Gottesdiener, Tom Dispatch [June 12, 2019]
---- There's a dark joke going around Baghdad these days. Noof Assi, a 30-year-old Iraqi peace activist and humanitarian worker, told it to me by phone. Our conversation takes place in late May just after the Trump administration has announced that it would add 1,500 additional U.S. troops to its Middle Eastern garrisons. "Iran wants to fight to get the United States and Saudi Arabia out of Iraq," she began. "And the United States wants to fight to get Iran out of Iraq." She paused dramatically. "So how about all of us Iraqis just leave Iraq so they can fight here on their own?" Assi is among a generation of young Iraqis who lived most of their lives first under the U.S. occupation of their country and then through the disastrous violence it unleashed, including the rise of ISIS, and who are now warily eying Washington's saber-rattling towards Tehran. They couldn't be more aware that, should a conflict erupt, Iraqis will almost certainly find themselves once again caught in the devastating middle of it. … In late May, I spoke with Assi and Mohammed separately by telephone in English about the rising threat of another U.S. war in the Middle East and their collective two decades of peace work aimed at undoing the violence wrought by the last two U.S. wars in their country. Below, I've edited and melded the interviews of these two friends so that Americans can hear a couple of voices from Iraq, telling the story of their lives and their commitment to peace in the years after the invasion of their country in 2003. [Read More]
The Indian Subcontinent's Third Partition
[FB – The re-election campaign of India's ruling party focused Trump-like hatred on India's minority Muslim population and the alleged threats coming from neighboring Pakistan. The result was the re-election of Prime Minister Modi and his Hindu fascist BJP party. This article gives us a useful review of how "communitarianism" or religious hatred has fueled India's politics from Day One.]
The First partition (1947)
The Indian subcontinent got partitioned in 1947 when the British colonial rule came to an end. India was divided into two new independent states: India and Pakistan. The reason for the division was the Indian National Congress' (INC's) adamant refusal to share power with the Indian Muslim League (IML) headed by Muhammad Ali Jinnah who was himself a non-practicing Muslim with a secular vision. Muslims represented over 25% of the then total Indian population. The partition was gory and bloody; in excess of a million people were killed. Also, millions of Hindus and Sikhs in Pakistan and Muslims in India, migrated to areas cohabited by their coreligionists.
The Second partition (1971)
Jinnah died within thirteen months after the formation of Pakistan. In the late 1950s, power in Pakistan was gradually usurped by its military, with strong encouragement from the United States and Britain. British trained and labeled "martial race" the West Pakistan based army mainly comprising Punjabis and some Pashtuns. The majority wing, East Pakistan with 54% of Pakistan's population, consisted mostly of Bengalis, the "non-martial race." The outright racism by the Punjabis (27 % of total population), the West Pakistan-based elite, and the economic exploitation of West Pakistan-based businesses resulted in a revolt by the Bengalis and culminated in a war in East Pakistan which then became Bangladesh in 1971.
Over a million people died and hundreds of thousands of Bengali women were raped by the Pakistani soldiers.
The Third partition (2019)
The third partition took place on May 23, 2019 when the Indian general election results were announced. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) won a decisive victory with 303 seats in a 543 national Assembly, the lower house. With coalition support, BJP now controls 353 seats.) One of the major reasons Modi won the election was by uniting as many Hindus as possible by instilling the fear of Pakistan. … The 2019 partition of India is not physical; it is a partition of people based on their religion: Hindus and Muslims. [Read More]
(Video) Glenn Greenwald Explains the Political Earthquake in Brazil Caused by Our Ongoing Exposés
---- Last Sunday, the Intercept and the Intercept Brasil published a series of exposés that has created a major political earthquake in Brazil that has only grown and intensified throughout the week. In less than a week, the once-revered Justice Minister of President Bolsonaro's government, Sergio Moro, now faces widespread calls to resign from the same large Brazilian media outlets that spent years transforming him into an untouchable icon of integrity and uncritically applauding his every move. Even more grave, the improprieties revealed by our reporting have cast serious doubt on the validity of numerous guilty verdicts issued by Judge Moro and the anti-corruption task force, beginning – most importantly – with the conviction and imprisonment of former President Lula da Silva last year at exactly the time that he was the overwhelming front-runner to win the presidency in 2018…. Because of the importance but also complexity of these issues for those outside of Brazil, we created a video explaining what this archive is about, what these revelations mean, and why the consequences of our reporting are so significant not only for Brazil but for the entire democratic world. [Read More] Also interesting is Wednesday's program from Democracy Now! (Video) "Secret Files Show How Brazil's Elites Jailed Former President Lula and Cleared the Way for Bolsonaro" [Link]. The Intercept's revelations have helped fuel the massive demonstrations against Brazil's rightwing government; check out this short program from The Real News.
Department of Justice Bloodhounds on the Scent of John Brennan
---- The New York Times Thursday morning has bad news for one of its favorite anonymous sources, former CIA Director John Brennan. The Times reports that the Justice Department plans to interview senior CIA officers to focus on the allegation that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered Russian intelligence to intervene in the 2016 election to help Donald J. Trump. DoJ investigators will be looking for evidence to support that remarkable claim that Special Counsel Robert Mueller's final report failed to establish. Despite the collusion conspiracy theory having been put to rest, many Americans, including members of Congress, right and left, continue to accept the evidence-impoverished, media-cum-"former-intelligence-officer" meme that the Kremlin interfered massively in the 2016 presidential election. One cannot escape the analogy with the fraudulent evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. As in 2002 and 2003, when the mania for the invasion of Iraq mounted, Establishment media have simply regurgitated what intelligence sources like Brennan told them about Russia-gate. No one batted an eye when Brennan told a House committee in May 2017, "I don't do evidence." [Read More] Earlier statements by Ray McGovern for the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) can be read here and here. Those still wedded to the "Russian hacking" story might want to check this out.
WAR WITH IRAN?
The mainstream media has generally maintained a high level of skepticism about Secretary of State Pompeo's assertions that Iran was "certainly" responsible for damaging two oil tankers last Thursday in the Gulf of Oman (between Oman and Iran). This was illustrated by MSNBC's Rachel Maddow on Thursday: (Video) "Mike Pompeo Constructs Iran Narrative Moving US Toward War Footing." More in-depth reporting also underlined the many unknowns:
(Video) U.S. Rushes to Blame Iran for Tanker Attacks as Much of World Pushes for Diplomacy
A Democracy Now! interview with Vijay Prashad [June 14, 2019] [Link]
Whatever Pompeo Says, there is no Certainty Iran mined the Tankers
By Juan Cole, Informed Comment [June 13, 2019] [Link]
(Video) Iran calls tanker explosions 'suspicious' as global concern grows
From Aljazeera [June 13, 2019] [Link]
For the New York Times version, read "Tankers Are Attacked in Mideast, and U.S. Says Video Shows Iran Was Involved," [June 13, 2019] [Link]
And here's another problem for the war hawks:
Mike Pompeo Said Congress Doesn't Need to Approve War With Iran. 2020 Democrats Aren't Having It.
By Akela Lacy and Jon Schwarz [
---- As the Trump administration ratchets up tensions with Iran, escalating fears that the United States is looking for a possible path to another war in the Middle East, several Democratic presidential contenders are standing firm in their rejection of the White House's attempts to create a legal rationale for war. They were responding to comments Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made in a May 21 classified briefing for members of Congress that suggested that the Authorization for Use of Military Force, or AUMF, passed by Congress three days after 9/11 could provide a legal basis for a war with Iran. In interviews with The Intercept, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., as well as spokespeople for Sens. Cory Booker, D-N.J., and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., said it would be illegal for the U.S. government to rely on a 2001 law that authorized military force against perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks to go to war with Iran. [Read More]
WAR & PEACE
Congress Can End the Yemen War This Summer, Despite Trump
By Hassan El-Tayyab, Truthout [June 8, 2019]
---- On April 16, President Trump vetoed one of the most historically significant pieces of legislation to emerge from Congress during his presidency: S.J.Res.7, the Yemen War Powers Resolution. This bill would end U.S. military involvement in Saudi Arabia's and the United Arab Emirates' (UAE) disastrous war on Yemen. A veto override vote in the Senate a few weeks later passed with a simple majority of 53-45, but did not achieve the 67-vote supermajority needed to overturn the veto. Though the effort failed, we learned something important in the process: We now know in unequivocal terms that a bipartisan majority in Congress wants to end the U.S. military role in a war that has already claimed the lives of 85,000 children under the age of five due to hunger and disease. Congress has another chance to end the war this summer during consideration of the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and defense appropriations bills. These annual military spending bills offer Congress one of the quickest and most straightforward ways to defund the war and condemn this military campaign. Through the NDAA and defense appropriations, Congress can prohibit intelligence-sharing and logistics support activities for the war in Yemen; suspend direct commercial sales licenses for the maintenance and sustainment of fighter aircraft used in Saudi-UAE offensive operations in Yemen; and even stop domestic training of Saudi and UAE fighter jet mechanics. Importantly, these bills could suspend the transfer and sale of weapons ― something many experts believe could be the best chance for creating the leverage needed for lasting peace in Yemen. [Read More]
HUMAN-CAUSED CLIMATE CHAOS
Climate Change Will Increase Risk of Violent Conflict, Researchers Warn
By Neela Banerjee, Inside Climate News [June 13, 2019]
---- Worsening climate change will increase the risk of future violent conflict within countries, a group of top researchers representing an array of viewpoints said Wednesday in the scientific journal Nature. The study, "Climate as a risk factor for armed conflict," tries to address some longstanding disagreements among climate scientists, political scientists, historians and other experts about what role, if any, climate change has played in internal conflicts over the last 100 years. Stanford researchers took the unusual step of convening 11 of the most experienced and cited experts on the topic to resolve their assessments of climate change's impact on global security. Working together, the experts concluded that climate change so far has not played a large role in stoking conflict, overshadowed instead by other factors such as poor governance and weak economic development. But they agreed that climate change will play a far greater role in destabilizing countries as the planet warms. [Read More]
THE DEMOCRATS AND 2020
Why Won't the Democratic Candidates Move to the Left on Foreign Policy?
An interview with Peter Beinart, The Intercept [June 13, 2019]
---- The Democratic candidates have introduced a raft of radical progressive proposals on the domestic policy front, from Medicare for All to free public college to universal basic income. Yet that appetite for radicalism has been sorely lacking on the foreign policy front, with the candidates mostly mouthing the same noncommittal platitudes we've come to expect from cautious presidential contenders. Why is it that the policy area in which American presidents have the most power and the most freedom to shape world events is so often overlooked in our political campaigns? Atlantic contributor and City University of New York professor Peter Beinart joins Mehdi Hasan to talk about why Democrats are so timid on foreign policy. [Read/Hear the Program]
Demand for Presidential Climate Debate Escalates after DNC Says No
By Marianne Lavelle, Inside Climate News [June 13, 2019]
---- Like Miami, the low-lying coastal city where Democrats will hold their first presidential debates of the 2020 race, the Democratic National Committee is at risk of being inundated. Fifteen of its presidential candidates, more than 50 of its member organizations in the states, and a slew of progressive organizations that make up its voting base, some armed with petitions bearing over 200,000 signatures, all are now calling for the DNC to hold a separate climate-focused debate. The executive committee of the Democratic party in Miami-Dade County—the U.S. metropolitan area considered most vulnerable to sea level rise and where the first debates will be held June 26 and 27—voted unanimously Monday to urge Democrats to devote one of the 12 Democratic presidential debates to the climate crisis. [Read More]
Elizabeth Warren Is Proving Her Doubters Wrong
By Katrina vanden Heuvel, The Nation [June 11, 2019]
---- Yet, to borrow a phrase, Warren persisted. And with the first debate quickly approaching, she has jumped in the polls and emerged as the clear leader in the Democratic "ideas primary." Last week, Warren unveiled a sweeping new plan for what she calls "economic patriotism." Her proposal calls for $2 trillion investment in clean energy, which she says would create more than a million jobs and advance the goals of the Green New Deal. In a boost to workers, the plan would require federal contractors to pay a $15 minimum wage and offer 12 weeks of paid family leave. It would also convert the Commerce Department into a new Department of Economic Development, focused on job creation. By linking the causes of environmental and economic justice in one package, Warren is reimagining the American Dream for these times. … Warren is certainly not the only Democrat in the field running on innovative, important ideas. Sanders, in particular, has built on his transformative 2016 campaign, with bolder proposals for public education and Medicare-for-all. One also hopes that Warren will show the same audacity and vision in foreign policy as the campaign continues. But no matter what happens, it's now obvious that pundits who argued that Warren had missed her moment were wrong. The presidential race is better because she is in it. [Read More]
Bernie Sanders Proposes New Economic Bill of Rights
By Marjorie Cohn, Truthout [June 13, 2019]
---- Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders delivered a full-throated defense of democratic socialism in his June 12 speech at George Washington University. Sanders quoted FDR's 1944 State of the Union address: "We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence." Sanders, like FDR, proposed an Economic Bill of Rights, including the rights to health care, affordable housing, education, a living wage and retirement. "Economic rights are human rights," Sanders declared. "That is what I mean by democratic socialism." …The Universal Declaration of Human Rights sets forth two different categories of human rights: (1) civil and political rights, and (2) economic, social and cultural rights. Civil and political rights comprise the rights to life, a fair trial and self-determination; freedom of speech, expression, assembly and religion; and freedom from torture, cruel treatment and arbitrary detention. Economic, social and cultural rights include the rights to health care, education and social security; the right to form and join unions and to strike; and the right to equal pay for equal work, unemployment insurance, paid maternity leave, and the prevention, treatment and control of diseases. U.S. policy since Reagan has been to define human rights only as civil and political, excluding economic rights. [Read More] And Louis Proyect gives us an interesting article, "Bernie Sanders and the New Deal" [June 14, 2019] [Link]
THE STATE OF THE UNION
Abolish ICE! Fighting for Humanity over Profit in Immigration Policy
By Jennie Rose Nelson, NACLA [June 6, 201
---- In its less than 20 years of existence, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has amassed an extensive and shocking record of human rights violations. The current administration's anti-immigrant sentiment has radicalized the agency, emboldening it to employ increased violence, excessive force, and blatantly illegal methods of arrest with impunity. While families continue to be separated at our border, inadequate government efforts to reunite families in the wake of "zero tolerance" policy means it could take years for authorities to even identify thousands of children taken from their parents, raising concerns they could remain separated indefinitely. Meanwhile, the network of ICE-managed private detention facilities is rapidly expanding. It is behind these prison walls that ICE agents have committed their most egregious and unregulated acts of violence, including fatal medical neglect, rape, and sexual abuse of minors. In response to these abuses, activists have been calling for the agency's abolition. The Abolish ICE movement is rapidly gaining traction, despite frequently facing derision in the mainstream press. Constant news headlines revealing ICE's systematic violence make it increasingly difficult to claim such acts are isolated incidences within an otherwise functioning and necessary system. While few politicians deny that ICE's role and conduct in immigration enforcement must be subject to oversight, concrete plans of action seldom follow their calls for "comprehensive reforms." [Read More]
Anyone who'd rather not be shot should read this book
By David Swanson [June 9, 2019]
---- Thom Hartmann has long written and spoken on the topic of guns in the United States, along with many other topics. Of those topics he's dealt with that I know anything about, I have not always agreed with him on every detail, but on most I've found him highly informative and persuasive. His new book, The Hidden History of Guns and the Second Amendment, is possibly the best book I've ever seen on its topic, both to read, and to pass along to anyone in the United States, whatever their current opinion on guns and gun laws may be, as well as to share with anyone else on earth who may be trying to understand why the United States seems to be allowing its own ongoing slaughter, with guns the second-leading cause of death among children in the United States. … Over 1,000 people have been killed in the United States in mass-shootings over the years. But this pales in comparison with non-mass shootings, which kill about 34,000 per year, two-thirds of those being suicides, a small percentage being accidents, and a smaller percentage being police killings. Roughly twice the number killed are non-fatally (but often horrifically) injured. The direct financial cost of just the deaths, plus the lost productivity, is some $300 billion per year, but there's no way to put a number on the cultural poison, the fear, the anxiety, the hatred, the bitterness, the distrust, or the shame. [Read More]
ISRAEL/PALESTINE
Trump enjoys bipartisan support for his plan to eradicate the Palestinian cause
By Jonathan Cook, Middle East Eye [June 14, 2019]
---- The US seeks to engineer a suitable regional environment before it begins implementing the 'deal of the century.' The White House's prolonged financial bullying of the Palestinian Authority (PA), the Palestinians' government-in-waiting, has reached the point where there are now credible warnings that it is close to collapse. The crisis has offered critics further proof of the administration's seemingly chaotic, often self-sabotaging approach to foreign policy matters. … There's nothing especially 'Trumpian' about the administration's emerging 'peace process.' Again, critics view the Trump administration's approach as a dangerous departure from the traditional US role of "honest broker". Such analyses, however common, are deeply misguided. Far from lacking a strategy, the White House has a precise and clear one for imposing a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – President Donald Trump's so-called "deal of the century". Even without publication so far of a formal document, the plan's contours are coming ever more sharply into relief, as its implementation becomes observable on the ground. …Further, the Trump administration's vision of the future for Israelis and Palestinians – however extreme and one-sided – has wide, bipartisan support in Washington. There's nothing especially "Trumpian" about the administration's emerging "peace process." [Read More]
(Video) "Advocate": Israeli Attorney Lea Tsemel Reflects on Defending Palestinians Who Resist Occupation
From Democracy Now! [June 14, 2019]
---- Attorney Lea Tsemel has defended Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli courts for nearly half a century, insisting on their humanity and their right to a fair trial. Her work has earned her the scorn and reprobation of many Israelis, as well as death threats. A staunch critic of the Israeli occupation of Palestine, Tsemel has long argued that Palestinians who carry out politically motivated violence are freedom fighters, not "terrorists." In 1999, Tsemel won a landmark case in the Israeli Supreme Court, making it illegal for Israeli officials to torture detained Palestinians during interrogations. The documentary "Advocate" narrates the remarkable life story of Tsemel. The film premiered at this year's Sundance Film Festival and screened in New York City for the first time Thursday night at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival. We speak with Lea Tsemel and the director of "Advocate," Rachel Leah Jones. [See the Program] And you can see Part 2 of this interview here.
OUR HISTORY
A Complex Fate: Vasily Grossman in war and peace.
By Sheila Fitzpatrick, The Nation [June 12, 2019]
[FB – Vasily Grossman's Life and Fate is often – and justifiably, imo – compared to Tolstoy's War and Peace in its ability to capture a society at war. The prequel to Life and Fate – originally "Stalingrad" but later edited down to "For the Right Cause" – is now published in English translation under its original title and with censored material restored. (My copy arrives tomorrow!) – Check out historian Sheila Fitzpatrick's interesting essay and get to know this great novelist.]
---- Vasily Grossman is hard to pigeonhole. A Jewish novelist and journalist and not a party member, he was one of the Soviet Union's leading war correspondents during World War II, first at Stalingrad, then with the Soviet Army moving westward. He wrote powerfully about the destruction of the Jews of the Ukraine and Poland. His big postwar novels, For the Right Cause and Life and Fate, drew on his wartime experiences, and at one point it seemed he might be a plausible contender for the role of the Soviet Tolstoy. But the novels, especially Life and Fate, had too strong a Jewish theme for the Soviet authorities. They also suggested a basic similarity between the Soviet and Nazi political systems, so he often had trouble with the censors, though his work was never under a total ban. Life and Fate was confiscated by the KGB in 1961 before publication, but his other writings stayed in print, and he remained at liberty and died of cancer a few years later. [Read More]
