CFOW Newsletter - Famine Stalks Gaza. Save the Hostages? Ceasefire Now!

Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter

January 23, 2024

Hello All – Famine now stalks Gaza.  The World Food Program and similar UN organizations report that the supplies of flour and rice on hand are now less than half of what's needed.  Despite promises to the contrary, the amount of humanitarian aid – including food, water, and medicine – remains grossly inadequate. Last week the UN's  Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) warned that, of Gaza's 2.3 million people, "the Israeli campaign has left 378,000 people at catastrophic phase 5 levels of starvation." De-coding the language and doing the math, this means that an estimated "756 Palestinians in Gaza are dying of hunger each day, which comes to a projected 22,680 deaths from starvation over the next month.  If, as expected, that Israel allows no meaningful increase in the amount of food aid entering Gaza, the prognosis is that this will only get worse.  Going forward, in addition to the one thousand Gazan's killed each week by bombs and bullets, some 5,000 will die of starvation.

 As some of the essays linked below discuss, to these 6,000 deaths per week or 25,000 deaths per month, we must add an unknown number of Palestinians dying from  infectious diseases or from winter cold, especially for those now without housing. Certainly a high percentage of the 160 babies born each day in Gaza, now almost always in circumstances that risks death for both mother and child, will add to the death toll. Will it reach 50,000 a month? It seems possible.

And so we must ask, Can the world – can the people of the USA – absorb the information that tens of thousands of helpless civilians are being killed each month by Israel's war on Gaza, and frequently by the US-made bombs and ammunition fueling this war, without spiritual meltdown and moral collapse?  In years to come, every child growing up will learn that our government inflicted a great evil on the people of Gaza.  What will we say when asked, some years from now, "How could this happen?"  "What did you do?"

How To Save the Hostages?  Ceasefire!

In Israel, the families and loved ones of those held hostage by Hamas and other organizations in Gaza are getting increasingly desperate.  Yesterday they invaded a cabinet committee meeting, disrupting with shouts of "free them now!"  For the most part, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's repeated claims that military action, leading to the defeat of the Hamas armed wing, is the most likely/only way to free the hostages.  Is this true?

The facts are that, of the 240-50 hostages kidnapped on October 7^th, only 1 has been freed by the Israeli military.  108 hostages were released in step-by-step negotiations in November.  Further efforts broke down, and fighting was resumed on December 1. Although Israel continues to list 130 people as held captive in Gaza, perhaps two dozen of these have been killed or have died while in captivity.  Hostage families raise the alarm that this will be the fate of all the remaining hostages if hostilities continue.

Last week Peter Beinart posted an excellent video (11 minutes) arguing that "to save the hostages, end the war."   The failure of the Netanyahu people to free more hostages, and their refusal to consider a ceasefire, persuades many people that, when it comes to defeating Hamas, the hostages are simply "collateral damage" and an embarrassing PR problem,  The blowback from Israeli society against this callousness is intensifying: Read "The Families of Hostages Are Calling on Israel to Do Something Radical," by Mairav Zonszein, New York Times [January 5, 2024] [Link].

Some Essays on Gaza's Crisis

Starvation as a Method of Warfare

By Alex de Waal, London Review of Books [January 11, 2024]

---- If the catastrophe in Gaza continues on its current trajectory, the prediction of mass death from disease, hunger and exposure will come to pass. If humanitarian assistance is provided promptly and at scale, deaths from hunger and disease will stabilise and decline, but they will still take time to return to pre-crisis levels. Even with an immediate cessation of hostilities and delivery of emergency aid, along with efforts to restore water, sanitation and health services, mortality would remain elevated for weeks or months. Even this would constitute a 'major' famine, according to the definition of 10,000 or more deaths. A 'great' famine, with 100,000 or more excess deaths, may be in prospect if the current level of hostilities and destruction continues. [Read More]

(Video) "Israel Is Starving Gaza": Israeli Rights Group B'Tselem Says IDF Is Using Hunger as a Weapon of War

From Democracy Now! [January 10, 2024]

---- Human rights groups say Israel is using starvation as a weapon in the Gaza Strip as Israel severely restricts the delivery of humanitarian aid, medicine and food supplies to millions inside the besieged and bombed territory. In a new report," Israeli human rights group B'Tselem lays out how Israel's decision to cut off electricity, water and international humanitarian aid to Gaza after a 17-year blockade against the territory has led to a very quick collapse of infrastructure. "The things that impede this provision of food for people who are starving is a declared policy by Israel," says Sarit Michaeli, B'Tselem international advocacy lead. "The Israeli government is at fault, is responsible for this, and this should lead to immediate international action." [See the Program]

The coming famine - "Israel is starving Gaza" [the B'Tselem report] [January 8, 2024] [Link]; "Israeli-Made Famine: Denial of Food Aid could Kill 22,000 Palestinians this Month, Half of them Children," by Juan Cole, Informed Comment [January 15, 2024] [Link];

The Epidemiological War on Gaza

By Maya Rosen January 5, 2024

---- Since October 7th, Israel has severely reduced the entry of food, water, and fuel into Gaza, successfully creating what global health expert Yara Asi described as "a dire human-made humanitarian catastrophe" characterized by mass hunger, thirst, homelessness, and lack of medical services. As months pass without any meaningful relief, these conditions have produced "the perfect storm for disease," in the words of United Nations Children's Fund spokesperson James Elder. On January 2nd, the WHO announced that there are currently 424,639 cases of infectious diseases in Gaza. Since such official counts only represent those who were able to make it to a clinic or hospital, experts assume that the true rates are much higher. A half million infectious disease cases would still have overwhelmed Gaza's healthcare system before October 7th, though many would have been treatable with food, water, and medical care. But today, amid an ongoing assault that has destroyed 27 of Gaza's 36 hospitals, as well as the very foundations of the enclave's public health—in the form of food, water, and shelter—epidemics are likely to mean mass death. [Read More]

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 (next month February 5) 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 readers this week bring back a personal favorite, Amy Rigby and (sometimes) Wreckless Eric.  So first up we have "The Good Girls." And next we have Amy's "Dancing with Joey Ramone."  And finally, now with Wreckless Eric, we have her 2020 gentle good-bye to Donald Trump, "Vote That Fucker Out!" Lots more of her/their stuff on-line; enjoy!

Best wishes,

Frank Brodhead

For CFOW

The CFOW Weekly Reader

The Political Costs of Biden's Wars

By Seymour Hersh, ZNet [January 18, 2024]

---- Donald Trump won big in Iowa this week, as anyone with an ounce of sense knew would happen, despite days of dishonest and tedious wishful thinking from CNN and MSNBC, and some print media, about the possibility of a Haley surge in Iowa that could carry over to New Hampshire. Forget about that. The Republican nominee will be Donald Trump, unless he is stopped by the courts, and at this point the odds are that he, if untethered, will sweep to victory this November and could bring the House and Senate with him. The Democratic response, with a few exceptions, has been to enter a state of denial. In my Washington world, the looming disaster is swept aside by loyal Democrats who insist that Biden beat Trump once before and he can do it again.  [Read More]

The Dems Should Hear 2024 Alarm Bells Over Biden's Gaza Policy

By James Zogby, The Arab American Institute [January 16, 2024]

---- 2024 may be the first election in which the issues involving Palestinian rights may impact the outcome. Over the past several decades, elections have been fought over a range of domestic and foreign policy concerns—from civil rights and abortion to the wars in Vietnam and Iraq. In most instances these were partisan "wedge" issues—that is, issues that were used by one party against the other. What is important to note about the growing concern for Palestinian rights is that it has become a "wedge issue" that is dividing the Democratic Party. [Read More]

The Genocide Case Against Israel at the International Court of Justice

(Video) Omer Bartov on Israel, Gaza and the Charge of Genocide

---- On January 12, Peter [Beinart] hosted an online discussion entitled "Omer Bartov on Israel, Gaza and the Charge of Genocide." He was joined by special guest Omer Bartov, Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Brown. Omer is one of the world's most prominent scholars of the Holocaust. He's also an Israeli who has warned about the genocidal rhetoric of some Israeli leaders since October 7. Now that South Africa has brought a case to the International Court of Justice charging Israel with genocide for its actions since October 7, Peter wanted to ask Omer what he thinks of that legal argument. In the wake of the controversy over Masha Gessen's declaration that in Gaza, "the ghetto is being liquidated," [See the Program[

Also of interest – "South Africa's genocide case against Israel: How will the ICJ decide?" from Aljazeera [January 10, 2024] [Link]; and "South African ICJ Initiative, Gaza Atrocities, and the Ceasefire Imperative," by Richard Falk, ZNet [January 21, 2024] [Link].

The Widening War – Yemen

How Biden Can Stop Houthi Missile Attacks—Without Risking War

By Trita Parsi, Responsible Statecraft [January 15, 2024]

---- Here is a simple reason why U.S. and U.K. military strikes against Yemen's Houthis will not achieve their objective of re-opening the crucial Red Sea lanes for international shipping: The Houthis don't have to succeed in striking additional commercial vessels, or even successfully retaliate against U.S. military ships. All they need to do is to try. That is enough to sustain a de facto shipping blockade of the Red Sea, through which a staggering 12% of global trade flows. Many Western commercial vessels will simply not risk moving their ships through those waters, not in spite of President Joe Biden's military strikes, but now because of them. [Read More]

Also of interest – "The Houthis May Have Checkmated Biden in Red Sea Standoff," by Murtaza Hussain, The Intercept [January 19, 2024] [Link]; "U.S. Officials Care More About Protecting Oil Tankers Than Palestinians," by Edward Hunt, Foreign Policy in Focus [January 11, 2024] [Link]; "President Biden Needs to Go to Congress for Authorization on Yemen," by Rep. Ro Khanna, The Nation [January 22, 2024] [Link]; and "The Only Solution to the Violence in Yemen and the Red Sea is a Cease-Fire in Gaza," by Phyllis Bennis, In These Times [January 17, 2024] [Link].

And in the West Bank

Israel Wants a Palestinian Intifada in the West Bank

By Gideon Levy, Haaretz [Israel] [January 17, 2024]

---- Israel is now doing everything to drive the West Bank to another intifada. It won't be easy. The West Bank has neither the leadership nor the fighting spirit of the second intifada, but how can one not explode? Some 150,000 laborers who worked in Israel have been out of work for three months. You can also explode from the army's hypocrisy. Its commanders are warning that we must enable laborers to go to work, but the IDF will be the main culprit for the Palestinian uprising if it breaks out. The problem is not merely economic. Under the guise of the war and with the extreme rightist government's assistance, the IDF has changed its conduct in the occupied territories in a dangerous way – it wants Gaza in the West Bank.  [Read More]

You Don't Understand How Bad It Is Here [Occupied West Bank]

By Jasper Diamond Nathaniel (Graduated from Hastings schools) [January 19, 2024]

---- In the middle of this nightmare in Gaza, I traveled to the West Bank to bear witness to Palestinian life under the occupation (I am a Jewish American guy who lives in Brooklyn, for those who don't know)—I guess I got tired of being told, "You don't understand." The plan had been to send out dispatches along the way (as I did from East Africa and across America), but I encountered a few obstacles that forced me to abandon this plan somewhere in the Jordan River Valley where it was presumably trampled by settlers. [Read More]  Today, Jasper Diamond Nathaniel sent out another article: "The Perfect Context for Murder: The killing of a Palestinian American teenager in the West Bank forces the U.S. to respond" [January 22, 2024] [Link].

The Media and the War

How the Gaza War Can Be Big News and Invisible at the Same Time

By Norman Solomon, Counterpunch [January 19, 2024]

---- In-depth content analysis by The Intercept found that coverage of the Gaza war by the New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times "showed a consistent bias against Palestinians." Those highly influential papers "disproportionately emphasized Israeli deaths in the conflict" and "used emotive language to describe the killings of Israelis, but not Palestinians." What is most profoundly important about war in Gaza — what actually happens to people being terrorized, massacred, maimed and traumatized — has remained close to invisible for the U.S. public. Extensive surface coverage seems repetitious and increasingly normal, as death numbers keep rising and Gaza becomes a routine topic in news media. And yet, what's going on now in Gaza is "the most transparent genocide in human history." [Read More]

Also of interest – (Podcast) "Gregory Shupak on Gaza and Genocide," from FAIR [CounterSpin] [January 19, 2024] [main article starts at 7:30 into the program] [Link]; and "Netanyahu just said Israel will permanently occupy the land 'from the river to the sea.' The U.S. media is covering it up," by James North, Mondoweiss [January 19, 2024] [Link]

Conflict on Campus

Amid Gaza Protests, Universities Are Cracking Down on a Celebrated Protest Tactic: Sit-ins

By Prem Thakker, The Intercept [January 21, 2024]

---- On October 25, hundreds of people participated in a sit-in at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, calling on school administrators to cut ties with weapons manufacturers involved in Israel's occupation of Palestine. … The incident at Amherst is reflective of a broader university crackdown against students participating in a form of protest with deep roots in the American civil rights movement: the sit-in. Elsewhere across the country, universities have met such sit-downs — often driven by demands related to divestment from companies selling arms to Israel, a tactic with roots in protests against apartheid South Africa — with disciplinary action, off-campus criminal charges, and an over-application of campus policies seldom used in similar circumstances. [Read More]

Also of interest - (Video) "Jewish Scholars vs. Jewish Donors on Antisemitism," from Peter Beinart [January 22, 2024] – 8 minutes [Link]; and "Rutgers SJP is reinstated and still defiant," by Students for Justice in Palestine at Rutgers - New Brunswick [January 20, 2024] [Link].

The Climate Crisis

Alongside Soaring Global Temperatures, Growing Oil and Gas Drilling and Profits

By David Suzuki, ZNet [January 21, 2024]

---- We've just come out of the hottest year on record — by a lot! Scientists predict that this year we'll exceed the 1.5 C limit for warming set by countries in the 2015 Paris climate agreement. Meanwhile, Canada and the U.S. are setting records for oil and gas production, and industry would like to keep it that way. The main cause of the record warming — and the floods, droughts, wildfires, mass human migrations, species extinctions and economic hardships that come with it — is increasing levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide from burning gas, oil and coal. We've known this for at least half a century! … There are signs of hope — decreasing emissions in the U.S., falling prices and growing uptake for renewable energy and more. But we've taken so long to act on the crisis that far more ambition is needed. [Read More]

The State of the Union

We Are Witnessing the Biggest Judicial Power Grab Since 1803

By Elie Mystal, The Nation [January 18, 2024]

---- The Supreme Court heard two consolidated cases yesterday that could reshape the legal landscape and, with them, the country. The cases take on Chevron deference—the idea that courts should defer to executive agencies when applying regulations passed by Congress. They're the most important cases about democracy on the court's docket this year. That's because what conservatives on the court are quietly trying to do is pull off the biggest judicial power grab since 1803, when it elevated itself to be the final arbiter of the Constitution in Marbury v. Madison. … If conservatives get their way, elections won't really matter, because courts will be able to limit the scope of congressional regulation and the ability of presidents to enforce those regulations effectively. [Read More].  Also of interest, "Does the EPA Die Today?"  by Thom Hartmann,  The Hartman Report [January 17, 2024] [Link].

Our History

Wiping Away the Tears [Remembering Wounded Knee – December 1890]

By Winona LaDuke, The Barnraiser [January 17, 2024]

---- The ride is hard. Si Tanka Wokiksuye Omaka Tokatakiya, the Future Generations Ride, commemorates the Lakota ancestors and families who were brutally murdered in the Wounded Knee Massacre on December 29, 1890. The ancestors had ridden from Standing Rock to Pine Ridge to save their people; instead, they were shot by the United States Cavalry. This year, the seven-day ride had 100 riders at the end, most of them under 20-years-old. The ride is grueling and there is suffering. That's part of the grieving process, the healing process. That's the next generation. … But in our grieving, something else begins. A new chapter, a time to heal from the brutality of history. The time for massacres is long over. The time for healing is now. That's true, whether you live in North America, South America or Palestine. As I witnessed those horse riders, I saw the coming of a new generation. They are the ones already here. It is time to wipe away the tears. [Read More]

Also of interest re: "Our History" – "For a Model of Working-Class Mass Organizing, Look to the CIO," an interview with Steve Fraser,(labor/CIO historian) Jacobin [January 2024] [Link]; and "Norma Barzman, Blacklisted Screenwriter, Dies at 103," by Clay Risen, New York Times [January 19, 2024] [Link].

CFOW Newsletter - 100 Days of the War on Gaza

Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter

January 14, 2024

Hello All – Tomorrow, January 15^th, 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 3/4^th 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

By Medea Benjamin and Nicholas J.S. Davies, Code Pink [January 11, 2024]

---- On January 11^th, 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

By Megan K. Stack, New York Times [January 12, 2024]

---- 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 Philip Weiss, 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.

By Raymond Zhong and Keith Collins, New York Times [January 9, 2024]

---- 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

By Karen J. Greenberg, Tom Dispatch [January 10, 2024]

---- 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 Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon, ZNet [January 11, 2024]

---- 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 [September 10, 2018]

---- 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 [September 10, 2018]

---- 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 [January 26, 2018]

---- 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]

 

 

 

CFOW Newsletter - Children in the cross-hairs of Israel's war on Gaza

Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter

January 7, 2024

Hello All – After three months of the War on Gaza, almost 100,000 Palestinians have been killed, injured, or are missing, buried under the rubble of bombed cities and towns, presumed dead. Later this week, the International Court of Justice will hear a case accusing Israel of committing genocide in its war. A decision is expected by the end of the month, one that would oblige all US members, including the United States, to take whatever action the Court orders.

While a majority of Americans support a ceasefire, President Biden and his team continue to support Israel in its genocide, supplying millions of dollars, tons of weapons, and diplomatic support at the UN, shielding Israel from criticism. Last week President Biden by-passed Congress for the second time to send $147 million worth of bombs to Israel.  On the front burner is a proposal to give Israel an additional $14 billion in military aid.  This is not just Israel's war; it is our war also.

Palestinian children bear a heavy burden in this war, suffering casualties at a rate unknown in modern wars.  The UN reckons that more than 9,600 children have been killed.  Doctors Without Borders reported yesterday that more than 10,000 children have been "disabled" (amputations, etc.), and that 20,000 children in Gaza are orphans. As indicated in some of the reading linked below, almost all are homeless, and almost all are on the edge of starvation.  More than a million children in Gaza are suffering from malnutrition and disease, with long-term consequences for those who are lucky enough to live through the war. Diseases induced by the conditions – deliberately inflicted by Israel as a weapon of war – may kill half a million people in the next year, according to health experts. Tens of thousands will suffer stunted growth and serious disabilities.

The Biden people have pretended to be working for an increase in "humanitarian aid" to Gaza, which is now under food, water, medicine, and fuel blockade by Israel. Yet little has happened.  There is a worldwide consensus/understanding that, at this moment, only the United States – and thus only the Biden administration – can deter Israel from continuing to commit war crimes against civilian non-combatants in Gaza.  And it may be that only strong protests from rank-and-file Americans can persuade the Biden people to pull the plug on this war.  This may well be the moral crisis of our era.  Can we do it?  We can certainly try.

Featured Reading/Viewing on the War on Gaza

It's not just bullets and bombs. I have never seen health organizations as worried as they are about disease in Gaza

By Devi Sridhar, The Guardian [UK] [December 29, 2023]

---- The Israel-Gaza war is also deadly for children, reportedly the deadliest conflict for children in recent times: roughly 160 children were being killed a day last month according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Compare this with three a day in the recent conflict in Syria, two a day in Afghanistan, and 0.7 a day in Ukraine. The total number of children killed is already more than 5,300 says Unicef, the United Nations Children's Fund. … The WHO spokesperson Dr Margaret Harris has said that diarrhea rates among children in refugee-like camps (sheltered housing) in Gaza were, in early November, already more than 100 times normal levels, and with no treatments available, children can become dehydrated and die quickly. … Ultimately, unless something changes, the world faces the prospect of almost a quarter of Gaza's 2 million population - close to half- a million human beings - dying within a year. These would be largely deaths from preventable health causes and the collapse of the medical system. It's a crude estimate, but one that is data-driven, using the terrifyingly real numbers of deaths in previous and comparable conflicts. [Read More]

We all see the horrific videos of suffering in Gaza. We must not look away

By V (formerly Eve Ensler), The Guardian [UK[ [January 3, 2024]

---- In the video the father clutches his dead child. I feel the agonizing failure of language to meet this moment. I feel the smoldering shame and rage of living in a world that for 80 days has allowed the full-scale destruction of a people and their place, (over 21,000 dead, over 56,000 injured, 90% of Gaza destroyed) in broad daylight, where babies' brains are exploded and people are being starved and bombed in their dreams and hunted with rifles and gunned down in wheelchairs and where, with each passing hour the precious poets, journalists, doctors and nurses are being erased into eternity. Where hospitals, schools, mosques, art centers, everything that makes a life and holds a culture is turned to dust. I watch the video again. Some might call this a form of self-harm. Some might call it obsession. But that is not it at all. I am watching as a way of seeing, as a way of paying attention, as a way of knowing and in that knowing allowing the pain of that father into my body, my heart and my memory as a way of not letting him go, as a way of saying you are not alone, you are not forgotten. [Read More]

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!

In one of the grimmest moments of our lives, we reach deep into our comedy bullpen to bring in a sure-fire "stopper" against the world's madness.  I speak of course of George Carlin. Whether you are already a big fan or have never heard of him, my spiritual consultant (EZ) thinks you will enjoy this hour-long compilation of skits and this 1992 HBO Special. 

Best wishes,

Frank Brodhead

For CFOW

The CFOW Weekly Reader

The War on Gaza

How Long can Israel Defy the World?

By Yakov M. Rabkin, Informed Comment [January 4, 2024]

---- Palestinians in Gaza are being decimated. Over 20 000 have been killed, mostly women and children. Three times more have been wounded. Some experts qualify it as genocide, others as massacre. Two million people have been displaced, many more than during the entire history of displacement of the Palestinians since the start of the Zionist settlement at the turn of the 20th century. As Israel takes out hospitals and civilian infrastructure, infectious diseases and famine threaten to kill many more people. … Gaza is violently demodernized, bombed into stone age: hospitals, schools, power stations are bombed to rubble. What is happening appears unprecedented. [Read More]

The myth of Israel's 'democracy' - The Chris Hedges Report

From The Real News Network [January 5, 2024]

---- Israel's status as a bona fide democracy is often taken to be a self-evident truth, but a more critical look at the history and reality of Zionism calls this into question. After all, how can a democracy exist in a country constitutionally defined as an ethnostate that can only exist through the suppression and gradual elimination of its Others? Israeli historian Ilan Pappé joins The Chris Hedges Report for a discussion on Israel as an inherently colonial, and therefore anti-democratic, project. Ilan Pappé is a professor with the College of Social Sciences and International Studies at the University of Exeter in the UK, where he directs the European Centre for Palestine Studies, and co-directs the Exeter Centre for Ethno-Political Studies. Prior to coming to the UK, Pappé was a historian and politician in Israel. He is the author of several books, including The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. [See the Program]

The Genocide Hearing at the International Court of Justice

South Africa appeals to the International Court of Justice: Stop Israel's genocide in Gaza

By Robert Herbst, Mondoweiss [December 31, 2023]

[FB – The Court will hear this case this week – January 11 and 12 – and render a decision by the end of the month. Robert Herbst is a member of JVP-Westchester and a CFOW stalwart.]

---- On Thursday, December 28, South Africa filed an Application Instituting Proceedings at the International Court of Justice to commence proceedings in a legal forum against Israel for its genocide in Gaza, and to press for "provisional measures" – a preliminary order requiring the Israel Government and military to cease their genocidal acts in Gaza pending a full hearing by the court. South Africa's Application is 84 pages long and devastating – to the State of Israel, to its Jewish political and military leaders and personnel committing the genocidal acts and speaking openly of their genocidal intent, to those in Israel, America, and Europe standing so firmly in support of them, and to the Jewish people in whose name Israel purports to act. [Read More].

Also of interest – "Genocide in Gaza," by John J. Mearsheimer [January 4, 2024] [Link]; and "America Must Face Up to Israel's Extremism," by Michelle Goldberg, New York Times [January 5, 2024] [Link].

Israel's Leaders Plan "Ethnic Cleansing" for Gaza

Israeli calls for Gaza's ethnic cleansing are only getting louder

By Ishaan Tharoor, Washington Post [January 5, 2024]

---- Nearly three months of war have left Gaza in ruins. Israel's quest to eradicate militant group Hamas after it carried out its deadly Oct. 7 attack looks far from finished, no matter the skyrocketing death toll for Palestinians. More than 20,000 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip due to Israeli bombardments and the ongoing offensive. A sprawling humanitarian crisis has seen close to 90 percent of Gazans displaced and the majority of the embattled territory's more than 2 million population teetering on the brink of famine. … The human misery unfurling across Gaza finds little sympathy in the Israeli public discourse, where the priority remains the vanquishing of Hamas — perpetrators of the single bloodiest slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust — and the freeing of hostages held in Hamas's Gazan redoubts. Indeed, a steady drumbeat of sound bites from Israeli lawmakers and other politicos has urged an even more devastating fate for the territory. [Read More]

(Video) "Voluntary Migration" or Ethnic Cleansing? Mouin Rabbani on Israel's Push to Expel Residents of Gaza

From Democracy Now! [January 3, 2024]

---- Dutch Palestinian policy analyst Mouin Rabbani says Israel is using the Hamas attack of October 7 as a pretext to carry out its "long-standing ambition" to push Palestinians out of the Gaza Strip. He notes Israeli officials started proposing mass displacement of civilians to Egypt and other countries almost immediately after fighting began, and that this reflects Zionist policy since even before the founding of the state of Israel. "Ethnic cleansing, or what Zionists would call transfer, is intrinsic to Zionist and later Israeli policy towards the Palestinians from the very outset," says Rabbani, co-editor of Jadaliyya and host of the Connections podcast. [Read More]

Also of interest – "The long history of Zionist proposals to ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip," by Mouin Rabbani, Mondoweiss [December 28, 2023] [Link]; "Israeli government riven with division over future of Gaza after far-right calls to expel Palestinians," by Leonie Fleischmann, The Conversation [January 5, 2024] [Link]; and "Ethnic Cleansing of Gaza Is Becoming an Official Israeli Government Policy," by Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com [January 3, 2024] [Link].

Will the War Become "a Regional Conflict"?

Will Israel Drag the US Into Another Ruinous War?

By Trita Parsi, The Nation [January 3, 2024]

---- America and Israel's interests have never been fully aligned on Gaza. But as Israel's bombardment of the narrow strip has continued for almost 100 days, the Netanyahu government is shifting in a direction that directly threatens the stated goals of the Biden administration: Israel wants to expand the war into Lebanon and appears to welcome open warfare against so-called Axis of Resistance—Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and the revolutionary government in Iran. The assassination of Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri in Beirut yesterday makes that clear. So far, President Joe Biden has refused the one step that can prevent both this escalation and the US from getting dragged into yet another war in the Middle East: a cease-fire in Gaza. [Read More].

Also of interest – "The U.S. can't blindly support Israel and prevent escalation in the region at the same time," by Mitchell Plitnick, Mondoweiss [January 6, 2024] [Link]; and "The Zionist Destruction Machine Threatens Lebanon After Gaza," by Gilbert Achcar, ZNet [January 5, 2024] [Link].

Antiwar Action

'I refuse to take part in a revenge war': Israel jails teen for opposing army draft

By Oren Ziv, +972 Magazine [Israel/Palestine] [December 28, 2023]

---- On Tuesday, Dec. 26, 18-year-old Tal Mitnick from Tel Aviv became the first Israeli to refuse mandatory military service since Israel launched its assault on the besieged Gaza Strip more than 80 days ago. Mitnick was summoned to Tel Hashomer recruitment center, where he declared himself to be a conscientious objector, and was sentenced to 30 days in military prison. Mitnick is one of 230 Israeli high schoolers who signed an open letter in early September, prior to the war, announcing their intention to refuse their draft orders as part of a mobilization against efforts by Israel's far-right government to restrict the judiciary's power. Connecting the judicial coup to Israel's long-standing military rule over Palestinians, the high schoolers — who organized under the banner of "Youth Against Dictatorship" — declared that they would not join the army "until democracy is secured for all who live within the jurisdiction of the Israeli government." [Read More]

Letter from America [The New Antiwar Movement]

By Joe Allen, Rebel News [January 2, 2024]

---- Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza since Hamas' October 7th attack has produced the most significant antiwar campaigning since the election of Barack Obama in 2008. For the first time in nearly two decades, we have the beginnings of an antiwar movement in the United States with thousands pro-Palestinian demonstrators regularly appearing on the streets of major U.S. cities. The largest Pro-Palestine demonstration in U.S. history took place on November 4, when nearly 300,000 marched against U.S. support for Israel's war in Washington, D.C. Another national demonstration is planned for January 13, 2024 sponsored by the American Muslim Task Force for Palestine.[Read More]

Also of interest – "American Unions Long Backed Israel. Now, Some Are Protesting It," by Emma Goldberg and Santul Nerkar, New York Times [January 7, 2024] [Link]; and "Blocking Israel's Supply Chain," by Binoy Kampmark, Counterpunch [January 3, 2024] [Link].

The Role of the Media

John Pilger: A life telling truth to power

By Victoria Brittain, Middle East Eye [January 2, 2024]

---- Original, brave, taking great personal risks, and extremely hard working, Pilger was never in the mainstream press pack. In the 1960s he spent eight years between Vietnam and the US as the Mirror's star writer. They were times of hectic intensity for any journalist. In Vietnam Pilger immersed himself in the catastrophe of the Vietnamese people under US bombing and the destruction of life, livestock and countryside by the poison of Agent Orange. In the US the stories were in the violence against the civil rights movement and the assassinations of US leaders heralding change, such as Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy. He looked back on Vietnam decades later as a "farce full of lies". [Read More]

Also of interest – "The Impossibility of Reporting the Story of Gaza," by Afnan Abu Yahia and Lila Hassan, The Nation [December 29, 2023] [Link]; and "CNN Runs Gaza Coverage Past Jerusalem Team Operating Under Shadow of IDF Censor," by Daniel Boguslaw, The Intercept [January 4, 2024] [Link].

The Climate Crisis

Double Threat: Nukes and Climate Change in 2024

By Tom Engelhardt, Tom Dispatch [January 5, 2024]

---- Perhaps the most remarkable thing about humanity isn't our literature, our theater, our movies, the remarkable food we cook, the cities we've built, or the endless other things we've created. To my mind, it's the fact that, in our relatively brief time as rulers of this planet, amid a chaos of never-ending wars and conflicts, we've come up with not just one but two different ways of doing ourselves (and much of the rest of our world) in.And that, to my mind, is no small achievement. … We're talking about the end of the world as we've known it. And that should be, but isn't, the news of our time or of any time. Welcome to 2024. [Read More]

Also of interest – "Nobody is really planning for a fossil fuel phaseout," by Shannon Osaka, Washington Post [December 20, 2023] [Link].  But it's not a Debbie Downer for everyone; read "Fossil Fuel Giants to Lavish Shareholders With Record Paydays as Climate Crisis Deepens," by Julia Conley, Common Dreams [January 1, 2024] [Link].

Our History

[FB – The stories in today's "Our History" describe how moments of participation in social justice movements transformed two men – James Baldwin and Karl Marx – in ways that reshaped their world views and enabled them to share new insights about the worlds in which they were living.]

James Baldwin's Day of Mourning: A tragedy in Birmingham and the making of a radical.

By Ed Pavlić, Boston Review [December 15, 2023]

---- The week following the Birmingham bombing was also the week when Baldwin began a period of radicalization that would last through the decade and shape the rest of his life. … Where for years it had been common to find Baldwin's name in the table of contents of liberal magazines…,  on the National Day of Mourning Baldwin shared the microphone and the stage with radicals and activists representing at least two generations: longtime pacifist insurgent Bayard Rustin, who had served as Deputy Director of the March on Washington Committee; [and others]. In this company, and in his public appearances, Baldwin was changing almost minute by minute, shifting his public image from a socially engaged—if tactically equivocal—literary success who guided readers' self-reflection to that of prophetic celebrity-activist, unambiguously using his image and his words to advocate for immediate and structural, social transformation. [Read More]

How Young Karl Marx Got Radicalized

By Ryan Moore, Jacobin Magazine [December 2023]

---- Karl Marx started out in a liberal milieu where the primary concern was abolishing religious authoritarianism. In time, he came to believe that abolishing capitalism was necessary for true freedom — and that only the working class could do it. … Marx would go on to take several more intellectual leaps to develop a method of historical materialism and his critique of political economy. Yet by late 1844 his revolutionary dialectic of theory and praxis was firmly in place, to be concisely formulated in his Theses on Feuerbach the following year. Starting with a love of freedom and confronting the limits of liberalism in a class-divided society, Marx's life course is a model of how young people become radicalized, one which many continue to follow today. [Read More]