Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
February 11, 2024
Hello All – There are 2 million people in Gaza. The UN says that 500,000 of them are starving, and will die unless emergency food relief arrives soon. A ceasefire is necessary to allow food relief into Gaza. Our government should work for an immediate ceasefire so that thousands of people – most of them children – won't starve.
Over the weekend, Israel announced that it now plans to do just the wrong thing – to attack the southern city of Rafah, the portal for food entering Gaza. The one million people in Rafah have nowhere to flee where they won't be bombed. They can choose death by starvation or death by bombing. The Biden administration pouts and says it does not support this unless Israel comes up with a plan to "safely" move a million people to a "safe" place. Despite the persistent rejection of US words of caution by the Netanyahu government, the Biden people show no sign of taking action that might prevent massacre and genocide.
The International Court of Justice has declared that genocide is probably happening in Gaza, and that ALL nations should take steps to prevent it. What does this mean for the US? Our government now provides money, bombs and weapons, and diplomatic support for Israel at the UN (the veto). International law requires that our government should end its complicity in Israel's genocide. Gaza is a complicated situation, but the simple first step – after which more will follow – is a ceasefire.
Please join the antiwar protests. For starters, call the White House (202) 456-1111; Rep. Bowman (202) 225-2464; Sen. Gillibrand (202) 224-4451 and Sen. Schumer (202)224-6542. Just say you want a CEASEFIRE NOW FOR GAZA. Thanks.
Featured Essays about the War on Gaza
An Israeli Incursion Into Gaza's Rafah Will Be an Unprecedented Humanitarian Catastrophe
By Gideon Levy, Haaretz [Israel] [February 11, 2024]
---- All we can do now is to request, beg, cry out: Don't enter Rafah. An Israeli incursion into Rafah will be an attack on the world's biggest displaced persons camp. It will drag the Israeli military into committing war crimes of a severity that even it has not yet committed. It is impossible to invade Rafah now without committing war crimes. If the Israel Defense Forces invades Rafah, the city will become a charnel house. … There is also nowhere to evacuate these millions of people. In the devastated Gaza Strip, there is nowhere left to go. If the Rafah refugees are moved to Al-Mawasi, as the IDF will propose in its humanitarian plan, Al-Mawasi will become the site of a humanitarian disaster the likes of which we haven't seen in the Strip. … The Israeli public must wake up, and with it the Biden administration. This is an emergency more dire than any other during this war. The Americans must block the invasion of Rafah with actions, not words. Only they can stop Israel. [Read More]
If the Israeli Army Invades Rafah, What Will Be of More Than 1.5 Million Palestinians Who Take Shelter There?
By Amira Hass, Haaretz [Israel] [February 10, 2024]
---- Most of the Gaza Strip residents, some 1.4 million people, are concentrated in Rafah. Tens of thousands are still fleeing into the city from Khan Yunis, where the fighting continues. The thought that Israel will invade Rafah and that fighting will take place between and near civilians terrifies the city's residents and the internally displaced persons. The terror they feel is augmented by the conclusion that nobody can prevent Israel from carrying out its intention – not even the ICJ ruling that orders Israel to take all measures to avoid acts of genocide. … The following image will repeat itself several times over the next few days: A march of starving and frightened Palestinians starts fleeing in panic each time the IDF announces another area whose residents are supposed to evacuate, while the tanks and infantry troops advance toward them. The shelling and ground troops will get closer to the hospitals that are still functioning. Tanks will surround them, and all the patients and medical teams will be required to evacuate to the crowded Al-Mawasi area. [Read More]
Let Them Eat Dirt
By Chris Hedges [February 8, 2024]
---- There was never any possibility that the Israeli government would agree to a pause in the fighting proposed by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, much less a ceasefire. Israel is on the verge of delivering the coup de grâce in its war on Palestinians in Gaza – mass starvation. When Israeli leaders use the term "absolute victory," they mean total decimation, total elimination. The Nazis in 1942 systematically starved the 500,000 men, women and children in the Warsaw Ghetto. This is a number Israel intends to exceed. … More than half a million Palestinians – one in four – are starving in Gaza, according to the U.N. Starvation will soon be ubiquitous. Palestinians in Gaza, at least 1.9 million of whom have been internally displaced, lack not only sufficient food, but clean water, shelter and medicine. There are few fruits or vegetables. There is little flour to make bread. [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 is March 4th) 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!
It has been a long time since I shared with Stalwart Readers some videos with the fabulous Nicholas Brothers. Today's the day, and here they are with Dorothy Dandridge in "Chattanooga Choo-Choo"; and together in one of their greatest performances, "Jumping Jive" with Cab Calloway, from the film "Stormy Weather." Enjoy!
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
The CFOW Weekly Reader
Featured Essays
Bernie Sanders: "The International Billionaire Class Is Making Out Like Bandits"
By Sen. Bernie Sanders [adapted from a speech Senator Bernie Sanders gave at the Center for International Policy in Washington, D.C., on February 6, 2024.]
---- I am here today because I strongly believe that in Congress some of the most important issues facing our country and the world are rarely debated in a serious manner. Whether it is our corrupt political process dominated by billionaires, whether it's a dysfunctional healthcare system, whether it is an educational system failing millions of young people, whether it is massive income and wealth inequality in America, whether it is the fact that real wages have been stagnant for the last 50 years, there has been a lack of serious debate on some of the most important issues impacting our people. And that is certainly true in the area of foreign policy. [Read More]
Full Speed Ahead on the Global Titanic. Going Along with the Utter Madness of Nuclear Weapons
By
---- Yes, the Doomsday Clock keeps ticking — it's now at 90 seconds to midnight, according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists — but the ultimate time bomb never gets the attention that it deserves. Even as the possibility of nuclear annihilation looms, this century's many warning signs retain the status of Cassandras. Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump withdrew the United States from vital pacts between the U.S. and Russia, the two nuclear superpowers, shutting down the Anti-Ballistic Missile, Open Skies, and Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaties. And despite promising otherwise, Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden did nothing to revive them. Under the buzzword "modernization," the American government, a thermonuclear colossus, spent $51 billion last year alone updating and sustaining its nuclear arsenal, gaining profligate momentum in a process that's set to continue for decades to come. "Modernizing and maintaining current nuclear warheads and infrastructure is estimated to cost $1.7 trillion through Fiscal Year 2046," the office of Senator Edward Markey (D-MA) pointed out, "while the Congressional Budget Office anticipates that current nuclear modernization would cost $494 billion through Fiscal Year 2028." [Read More]
(Video) Colonial Law and the Erasure of Palestine
---- In Palestine, the law has been used as a tool of oppression to legitimize and advance the dispossession of the Palestinian people for more than a century. From the theft of Palestinian land by legal mechanisms to the non-recognition of Palestinians as a people with the inalienable right of self-determination, the law is yet another weapon wielded against the Palestinian people by Israel and its patrons. Activist, attorney, and Rutgers University professor Noura Erakat joins The Chris Hedges Report to discuss the use of lawfare against Palestine and her new book, Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine. [See the Program]
The War on Gaza
By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies, Code Pink [February 8, 2024]
---- On February 7, 2024, a U.S. drone strike assassinated an Iraqi militia leader, Abu Baqir al-Saadi, in the heart of Baghdad. This was a further U.S. escalation in a major new front in the U.S.-Israeli war on the Middle East, centered on the Israeli genocide in Gaza, but already also including ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, Israeli attacks on Lebanon and Syria, and the U.S. and U.K.'s bombing of Yemen. … At the same time, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has been touring the shrinking number of capitals in the region where leaders will still talk to him, playing the United States' traditional role as a dishonest broker between Israel and its neighbors, in reality partnering with Israel to offer the Palestinians impossible, virtually suicidal terms for a ceasefire in Gaza. The position of the United States and Israel today is that ending a massacre that has already killed more than 27,700 people is not a serious option, even after the International Court of Justice has ruled it a plausible case of genocide. [Read More]
(Video) Jeremy Scahill: Israel Has Waged a "Deliberate Propaganda Campaign" to Justify Brutal Gaza Assault
From Democracy Now! [February 7, 2024]
---- The United States and more than a dozen other countries quickly moved to suspend funding to UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, a vital lifeline for millions of people in Gaza, shortly after Israel accused a handful of the agency's staff of taking part in the Hamas attack on October 7. But the U.K. broadcaster Channel 4 obtained the intelligence dossier on UNRWA that Israel shared with allied countries, and found "no evidence to support its explosive new claim." The Financial Times and Sky News also reviewed the materials and came to the same conclusion. Israel's claims about UNRWA are just the latest example of what journalist Jeremy Scahill says is a "deliberate propaganda campaign" to justify its brutal assault on Gaza. "This is one of the most epic frauds in modern history, reminiscent of the lies told to explain and justify the invasion and occupation of Iraq," says Scahill, senior reporter and correspondent at The Intercept. [See the Program". Also of interest is Scahill's article for The Intercept on Israeli propaganda: "Netanyahu's War on Truth," [February 7, 2024] [Link].
The War Comes Home to the USA
(Video) "Incandescent" with Rage: Matt Duss on Voter Anger over Biden Support for Netanyahu & Gaza Assault
From Democracy Now! [February 5, 2024]
---- We discuss the possibility of wider war with Matt Duss, a former foreign policy adviser to Senator Bernie Sanders, now with the Center for International Policy. "The Biden administration's strategy here is failing," says Duss. Voter outrage over its unwavering pro-Israel stance is "incandescent" and on track to harm the president's reelection campaign as Democratic Party members pull back on get-out-the-vote efforts, while some may refuse to vote at all. "The issue of Israel-Palestine is not just a foreign policy issue. It is an issue of social and racial justice," explains Duss. "This is going to be fixed, if it can be fixed at all, by changing policy and ending support for this massacre." [See the Program]
(Video) "We Cannot Trust Biden" on Gaza: Michigan House Dem Majority Leader Meets White House Officials
From Democracy Now! [February 9, 2024]
----- Senior Biden administration officials traveled to Michigan on Thursday to meet with Arab American and Muslim leaders amid growing opposition to Biden's candidacy over his support for Israel's assault on Gaza. Michigan is an important election battleground state and home to the largest percentage of Arab Americans in the United States. Michigan House Majority Floor Leader Abraham Aiyash, the state's highest-ranking Arab and Muslim leader, joined the meeting to demand a ceasefire in Gaza, restrictions on military aid to Israel, and recommitting humanitarian aid to Palestinians. [See the Program]
Voices from Gaza
(Video) "Unconscionable": American Pediatrician Who Worked in Gaza Hospital Recalls Horrors of Israel's War
From Democracy Now! [February 6, 2024]
---- Democracy Now! speaks with Dr. Seema Jilani, a pediatrician who spent two weeks in Central Gaza volunteering in the Al-Aqsa Hospital emergency room. "I saw the fall of a hospital before my very own eyes," says Jilani. …"I have never treated this many war-wounded children in my career. …It is all of our responsibility to consider those orphans, consider those families who are completely bereft of any and all human dignity that has been taken from them. … Their fate will sit with us." [See the Program]
(Video) After Losing Nearly 100 Relatives in Gaza, Palestinian American Doctor Refuses to Meet with Blinken
From Democracy Now! [February 5, 2024]
---- We speak with Dr. Tariq Haddad, a Palestinian American leader who refused to meet with Secretary of State Antony Blinken last week in protest of the Biden administration's ongoing support of Israel's bombardment of Gaza. Instead, the doctor wrote a 12-page letter to Blinken admonishing the latter for his role in the deaths of nearly 100 of his family members. [See the Program].
Israel-based civil society and human rights organizations call for a ceasefire
[FB – Some 3-dozen human rights organizations issued the following statement on February 7, 2024.]
---- We, the undersigned Israel-based civil society and human rights organizations, call for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and demand the immediate release of hostages held in the Gaza Strip. An immediate ceasefire will prevent further loss of civilian lives and facilitate access to vital aid for Gaza to address the unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe there. … We thus call on all parties to reach an immediate ceasefire and we call upon Israel to allow unfettered entry and delivery of humanitarian aid and goods into and throughout Gaza, as directed to do by the International Court of Justice. Hamas must unconditionally release all people taken hostage on October 7. We call on the international community to uphold its legal obligation to restore respect for international humanitarian law and protect civilians. The international community must ensure that all those responsible for grave violations of international humanitarian and human rights law be held accountable. These steps are vital for ensuring human rights and security for Israelis and Palestinians alike. [Read More]
The Gaza War and The Mainstream Media
What the Israeli Public Doesn't See
By Elisheva Goldberg, Jewish Currents [February 7, 2024]
---- On January 29th, The Nightly News with Michal Rabinovitch—which airs on Israel's public broadcaster, known as Kan—ran a series of stories that were broadly representative of the channel's programming over the past few months. … Notably absent from this coverage of the war and its reverberations was any mention of the killing of Palestinian civilians, or of the perils now facing the more than 2 million people trapped in the besieged enclave—including not only Israel's military campaign, but also famine, thirst, displacement, and lack of medical care. In most Israeli media coverage, "it is as if [Palestinian civilians] don't exist," Gideon Levy, a reporter for the left-leaning Israeli daily Haaretz, which has covered the plight of Palestinians in Gaza, told the progressive American news program Democracy Now!. On international news networks, "you see Gaza. You see children dying on the dirty floors of the hospitals, bleeding to death. You see the uprooted people, you see the destruction, you see the suffering . . . and the starvation," Levy said. "In Israel you see only the soldiers, only the hostages."Some media analysts have warned that this absence is shaping Israeli public opinion.[Read More]
Also of interest – "Dehumanization and misinformation in service of genocide," byFebruary 9, 2024[ [Link] and "CNN's bias toward Israel starts at the top," byFebruary 9, 2024] [Link].
The Climate Crisis
First time world exceeds 1.5C warming limit over 12-month period
---- For the first time on record, global warming has exceeded temperatures of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) over a 12-month period, European climate monitors have said, in what scientists called a "warning to humanity". … In 2015, almost 200 governments signed the unprecedented Paris climate agreement to phase out fossil fuels in favour of renewable energy in the second half of the century. Last year, the United Nations said the world is not on track to meet the long-term goals of that deal, including capping global warming at 1.5C. [Read More]
It's the 2024 Election Season. Where's the Climate Story?
By Mark Hertsgaard and Kyle Pope, The Nation [February 7, 2024]
---- By any reasonable journalistic standard, 2024 should be the year of the climate election. Countries around the world face critical questions about leaving fossil fuels behind; adapting our transportation infrastructure, housing stock, and farming practices to increasingly harsh weather; and protecting the people most at risk. … Despite the moment of peril we are living through—a moment felt especially acutely by young people looking to their futures—news outlets around the world are largely sidelining the climate conversation, contributing to the sense among young people that journalism isn't covering the issues they most care about. [Read More]
Our History
'Hit the Line Hard'
By Jake Nevins, The New York Review of Books [February 12, 2023]
---- During the cold war, football's violence became precisely its point. … American football as a shorthand for endangered national values—patriotism, virtue, loyalty—did not begin with the cold war. … Cast against the threat of communism, football became the site of a struggle over the American family and, more pointedly, American boys, whom politicians often crudely identified as the last bastion of defense against Soviet risks to the "American way of life," a euphemism for the free enterprise system and the nuclear family unit. The cold war, moreover, was by its nature patriotically unsatisfying, involving no concrete displays of military prowess or superiority, only the fear that the United States had been both outpaced and infiltrated. For legislators, then, and for the youth football coaches with whom they explicitly aligned themselves, football was a theater for muscular nationalism, throwing the perceived softness of containment policy into relief. [Read More]
