Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
January 14, 2024
Hello All – Tomorrow, January 15th, is the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday. Born in 1929, he was killed in 1968. We remember him for his leadership of the civil rights movement, but he was also a man of peace, speaking out against the Vietnam War and condemning the 'madness of militarism." In doing this, he defied his government and suffered much criticism.
This year, as we remember King, we live in the shadow of a horrible war against Gaza, where almost 100,000 Palestinians have been killed or injured by Israel in 100 days of war. Last week, the International Court of Justice heard credible arguments by South Africa that Israel was engaged in genocide. Several essays about South Africa's case are linked in the reading below. Whatever the Court's decision about genocide, the magnitude of the killing and destruction in Gaza is very great:
· As of today, 24,000 people have been killed in Gaza and more than 60,000 have been injured, with more than 7,000 buried under the rubble and presumed dead; more than 10,000 of those killed are children;
· The physical destruction of Gaza will soon be complete. About 3/4th of the housing has been destroyed, most of the hospitals and schools have also been destroyed, along with 104 mosques and many places of history and culture;
· Almost all of Gaza's 2.3 million residents have been displaced from their homes, with 1.5 million now refugees in the southern-most city of Rafah; and
· The conditions of life for those still living in Gaza have collapsed; by early February, the UN estimates that everyone will be facing starvation. Thousands of children have been orphaned, hundreds of thousands have infectious diseases, and hundreds of thousands have little or no shelter against winter weather.
Yesterday, there were demonstrations around the world, including many in the US protesting Israel's war, calling for an immediate cease fire and for sending aid to the starving and homeless thousands in Gaza. Some 64 members of Congress and about two-thirds of US voters support this call for a ceasefire. Many families of hostages in Israel maintain that their loved ones cannot survive without a ceasefire.
On this MLK anniversary, let us work for peace. Even if we are very busy, we can at least make calls to the White House (202) 456-1111; Rep. Bowman (202) 225-2464; Sen. Gillibrand (202) 224-4451; and Sen. Schumer (202) 224-6542, asking them to support a ceasefire for Gaza and the full restoration of humanitarian aid. 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.) A "Black Lives Matter/Say Their Names" vigil is held in Yonkers on the first Monday of the month (this month January 8) from 5:30 to 6:00 pm at the intersection of Warburton Ave. and Odell. Our 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 send your check to CFOW, PO Box 364, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY 10706. Thanks!
Rewards!
The Rewards for stalwart newsletter readers this week come from Hudson Valley Sally, too long missing from these pages. First up is Billy in Air," by CFOW's own Jenny Murphy. Another one I like is "Sister Moon," And I think you will also like their cover of Phil Ochs' "Power and Glory. Enjoy!
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
CFOW Weekly Reader
The War on Gaza – Featured Essays
Mohammed el-Kurd: We Must Be Willing to Sacrifice to End Israel's War
An interview with Mohammed el-Kurd, Jacobin Magazine [January 10, 2024]
---- Palestinian writer Mohammed el-Kurd spoke to Jacobin about Israel's vicious war on Gaza and the daily humiliations and frequent killing that Israel has long inflicted on Palestinians. "We are told time and time again that our death is business as usual."Israel's brutal war on the people of Gaza has thus far had two main consequences. It has revealed to the world the violence and cruelty that underlies the ongoing siege of Gaza and occupation of the West Bank, and it has brought into existence the biggest global antiwar movement in a generation. [Read More]
What Will Happen to Gaza's People?
By Peter Beinart, New York Times Guest Essay [January 7, 2024]
----- There are signs that some members of the Israeli government have a strategy, or at least a preference, for what happens next. It's implicit in the kind of war Israel has waged, which has made Gaza largely unlivable. And a growing number of Israeli officials are saying it out loud: They don't want to force just Hamas out of Gaza. They want many of Gaza's people to leave, too. … There's a chilling historical backdrop to all this. Palestinians in Gaza know that if they leave, Israel is unlikely to let them to return. They know this because most of them are descendants of the expulsion and flight that occurred around Israel's founding in 1948, which Palestinians call the nakba. They live in Gaza because Israel didn't let their families return to the places that then became part of Israel. [Read More]
We have a tool to stop Israel's war crimes: BDS
By Naomi Klein, The Guardian [UK] [January 10, 2024]
---- Though BDS had broad support from more than 170 Palestinian civil society organizations, internationally the movement remained small. During Operation Cast Lead [2009], that began to shift, and a growing number of student groups and trade unions outside Palestine were signing on. Still, many wouldn't go there. I understood why the tactic felt fraught. There is a long and painful history of Jewish businesses and institutions being targeted by antisemites. … For two decades, widespread fear stemming from that false equation has shielded Israel from facing the full potential of a BDS movement – and now, as the international court of justice hears South Africa's devastating compendium of evidence of Israel committing the crime of genocide in Gaza, it truly is enough. [Read More]
The Genocide Hearing at the International Court of Justice
[FB – On Thursday the International Court of Justice heard South Africa's case against Israel's war on Gaza, charging Israel with the crime of genocide. Israel replied to the charges on Friday. Democracy Now! broadcast useful program segments on the South African case and Israel's response. ZNet compiled clips and highlights from the South Africa presentation, as well as responses from Jewish Voice for Peace and others, which you can see here. A video of the South Africa presentation (3 ½ hours) can be seen here. Some useful/insightful commentary is linked below.]
The Int'l Court of Justice Case is a Chance to hold Israel and the US to Account for Genocide
, Code Pink [January 11, 2024]
---- On January 11th, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague is holding its first hearing in South Africa's case against Israel under the Genocide Convention. The first provisional measure South Africa has asked of the court is to order an immediate end to this carnage, which has already killed more than 23,000 people, most of them women and children. … Since countries engaged in genocide do not publicly declare their real goal, the greatest legal hurdle for any genocide prosecution is to prove the intention of genocide. But in the extraordinary case of Israel, whose cult of biblically ordained entitlement is backed to the hilt by unconditional U.S. complicity, its leaders have been uniquely brazen about their goal of destroying Gaza as a haven of Palestinian life, culture and resistance. … If the ICJ issues a provisional order for a ceasefire in Gaza, humanity must seize the moment to insist that Israel and the United States must finally end this genocide and accept that the rule of international law applies to all nations, including themselves. [Read More]
Will the ICJ find Israel guilty of genocide?
By Meron Rapoport, 972 Magazine [Israel/Palestine] [January 11, 2024]
---- The International Court of Justice (ICJ) today began a landmark hearing to determine whether Israel's devastating war on the Gaza Strip amounts to the crime of genocide. While the deliberations on that question could take years, South Africa, which filed the lawsuit, is aiming for the ICJ to issue several interim orders, including requiring Israel to immediately suspend its military operation; a ruling on these provisional measures could be issued within weeks. Whether or not Israel would obey is another matter. Michael Sfard, one of Israel's leading human rights attorneys who deals extensively with the state's violations in the occupied territories, is very familiar with this arena. In an interview earlier this week, he told +972 that South Africa can certainly reach the threshold of proof required at this stage for an interim order instructing Israel to stop the fighting in Gaza. An order could also be issued requiring that Israel report to the Court on how it is acting to prevent genocide, and how it is dealing with the incitement to genocide emanating from its own political leaders. [Read More]
Don't Turn Away From the Charges of Genocide Against Israel
---- The 84-page case submitted to the court by South Africa is crammed with devastating evidence that Israel has breached its obligations under the 1948 international genocide convention, which defines genocide as "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group." The document before the court is meticulously footnoted and sourced, and many experts say the legal argument is unusually strong. … The proceedings are meaningful for the United States, too. The Biden administration has been the indispensable sponsor of this war — arming, funding and diplomatically shielding Israel despite increasingly dire reports of Palestinian death and displacement. If the violence in Gaza is found to be genocide, the United States could be charged with complicity in genocide, a crime in its own right. Given the sheer power of the United States and its track record of international impunity, the odds of any significant consequences may be small — but, nevertheless, Americans should understand that the case is both substantial and serious, and that their own government is implicated. [Read More]
Also of interest – "In Genocide Case Against Israel at The Hague, the U.S. Is the Unnamed Co-Conspirator, by Jeremy Scahill, The Intercept [January 11, 2024] [Link]; "South Africa's ICJ Case Against Israel Is a Call to Break Free From the Imperial West," by Tony Karon, The Nation [January 11, 2024] [Link]; and "If It Isn't a Genocide in Gaza, Then What Is It?" by Gideon Levy, Haaretz [Israel] [January 14, 2024] [Link].
Conflict on Campus
'The Eye of the Beholder'
By Nadia Abu El-Haj, New York Review of Books [December 24, 2023]
---- On November 10, 2023, Columbia University suspended two student groups that support Palestinian rights: Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP). The previous month both had organized protests on campus against the war that Israel launched on Gaza after the Hamas attacks of October 7. … The actions of the Columbia and Barnard administrations are not exceptional. Since the start of the latest Israel–Palestine war, it has become all but de rigueur for universities to censor speech criticizing Zionism and the Israeli state—especially when student groups are involved. Last month Arizona State University cancelled an event that was to feature Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, the University of Vermont cancelled another talk by El-Kurd, and Hunter College cancelled a screening of Israelism, a documentary by two Jewish filmmakers critical of Jewish-American Zionism. (Hunter reversed the decision after much backlash.) Meanwhile, student protests have been met with unusually draconian responses. [Read More]
Also of interest - (Video) "Palestine, the Harvard Controversy, and Attacks on Academic Freedom," Marc Lamont Hill interviews Norman Finkelstein, ZNet [January 4 2024 [Link]; "Claudine Gay was brought down by the Israel lobby," by, Mondoweiss [January 7, 2024] [Link];and "Pro-Israel Effort to Smear Penn President Started Well Before Oct. 7," by Akela Lacy, The Intercept [January 13 2024] [Link].
The Climate Crisis
See How Hot 2023 Was in Two Charts. Hint: Record Hot.
Raymond Zhong and
---- The numbers are in, and scientists can now confirm what month after month of extraordinary heat worldwide began signaling long ago. Last year was Earth's warmest by far in a century and a half. Global temperatures started blowing past records midyear and didn't stop. First, June was the planet's warmest June on record. Then, July was the warmest July. And so on, all the way through December. Averaged across last year, temperatures worldwide were 1.48 degrees Celsius, or 2.66 Fahrenheit, higher than they were in the second half of the 19th century, the European Union climate monitor announced on Tuesday. That is warmer by a sizable margin than 2016, the previous hottest year. [Read More]
Civil Liberties/ "The War on Terror"
Sunsetting the War on Terror — Or Not: The Stubborn Legacy of America's Response to 9/11
---- This week marks the 22nd anniversary of the opening of the Guantánamo Bay detention facility, the infamous prison on the island of Cuba designed to hold detainees from this country's Global War on Terror. It's an anniversary that's likely to go unnoticed, since these days you rarely hear about the war on terror — and for good reason.. … But Guantánamo, a prison that, from its founding, has violated U.S. codes of due process, fair treatment, and the promise of justice writ large isn't the only unnerving legacy of the "war" on terror that still persists. If indefinite detention at Guantánamo was a key pillar of that war, defying longstanding American laws and norms, it was just one of the steps beyond those norms that still persist today. … Once powers previously outlawed or at least restrained in the name of fair, just, and responsible laws and norms become codified and implemented, the road back to normalcy is tantamount to impossible. [Read More]
The State of the Union
Magical Thinking About Biden 2024 Paves the Way for Another Trump Presidency
By
---- An avalanche of polling shows Joe Biden with abysmal approval ratings and grim re-election prospects, but Democratic leaders keep spinning away in dreamland. Even before the Israeli war on Gaza began three months ago, party loyalists were in denial about Biden's unpopularity with key Democratic-leaning constituencies. Now the situation has worsened, with Biden's standing in free-fall among young people as well as Arab and Muslim Americans, while support among people of color has seriously eroded. … But there's a serious problem beyond just polls. It's the disaffection of activists – pivotal because thousands of talented, hard-working activists are needed to help persuade voters on the fence, and to get-out-the-vote of traditional Democrats who are only "occasional voters." [Read More] Also of interest is "Americans Are More Likely to Back Candidates Who Support a Cease-Fire, a New Poll Shows," by John Nichols, The Nation [January 12, 2024] [Link].
The Cops Killed More People in 2023 Than They Had in Years
By Elie Mystal, The Nation [January 11, 2024]
---- Three-and-a-half years after the summer of "no justice, no peace," we are back to the quiet acceptance of systemic injustice. A new report from the nonprofit organization Mapping Police Violence shows that 2023 was the police's most homicidal year on record. The police killed at least 1,232 people last year, the most since the organization began tracking police murders in 2013. In 98 percent of those cases, the officers faced no charges. … It's worth noting that the cops unleashed their most deadly year on us when the murder rate by people who are not protected by a badge went down. Society as a whole was less homicidal, but the cops were more violent. [Read More]
Our History
[FB – Monday is the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. Born in 1929, he was killed in 1968. Remembered as a civil rights leader, he was also a man of peace, especially in the last year of his life, when he spoke out against the War in Vietnam. This latter part of his legacy is frequently omitted from annual commemorations of his life, leaving a distorted picture of the man and his work. This year the website Portside has put up a good sampling of videos about what he did from Montgomery (1954) to Memphis (1968). Also informative/interesting is a collection of essays about King from The Boston Review. Here are intros to three of them:
MLK Now
By Brandon M. Terry [
---- In the year before King's death, he faced intense isolation owing to his strident criticisms of the Vietnam War and the Democratic Party, his heated debates with black nationalists, and his headlong quest to mobilize the nation's poor against economic injustice. As we grasp for a proper accounting of King's intellectual, ethical, and political bequest, commemoration may present a great obstacle to an honest reckoning with his legacy. There are costs to canonization. … It is no wonder then that King's work is rarely on the reading lists of young activists. He has become an icon to quote, not a thinker and public philosopher to engage. [Read More]
On Violence and Nonviolence
By Elizabeth Hinton [
---- Arguably, the success of King's brand of nonviolent direct political action depended on the presence of this violent direct political action. As King recognized, and Brandon Terry points out, the coercive power of mass nonviolence arose in part from its ability to suggest the possibility of violent resistance should demands not be met. Therefore, we should endeavor to see violent and nonviolent expressions of black protest as entwined forces that shaped the decade. In addition, and more challenging perhaps, we should attempt to understand violent rebellion on its own terms, as a form of direct political action that was just as integral to the decade. [Read More]
Exceptional Victims
By Christian G. Appy [
---- Exactly a year before he was murdered, Martin Luther King, Jr., gave one of the greatest speeches of his life, a piercing critique of the war in Vietnam. Two thousand people jammed into New York's Riverside Church on April 4, 1967, to hear King shred the historical, political, and moral claims that U.S. leaders had invoked since the end of World War II to justify their counterrevolutionary foreign policy. … The Riverside Church speech alone should place King in the pantheon of 1960s antiwar activists. Yet in public memory, his opposition to the Vietnam War is largely forgotten. Why? … Part of our failure to attend to this dimension of King's thought is, paradoxically, rooted in his hagiography. Our reflexive genuflection to military service goes hand in hand with our failure to treat antiwar protestors as real heroes of U.S. democracy. King's antiwar critique unsettles something very insidious and essential to the reproduction of empire. Cleaving it off was the price of admission into the U.S. pantheon of heroes. [Read More]
