Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
April 7, 2024
Hello All – Today marks the six-month anniversary of the War on Gaza. Is peace on the horizon? Last week, following Israel's murder of 7 humanitarian aid workers in Gaza, President Biden confronted Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu by telephone. News reports are not clear about what Biden demanded and about what Netanyahu agreed to do. Will Israel reduce/end its killing of civilians in Gaza and allow more food aid to pass into Gaza? And what are the consequences if Israel fails to do this?
For some perspective, since October 7th more than 33,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza (including 14,000 children), almost 2 million Palestinians have been forced from their homes, hundreds of health and aid workers have been killed, all Gaza's hospitals have been destroyed, etc. Today, Israel allowed more than 300 trucks carry water, food, and humanitarian supplies. More than 500 a day are needed, but this is a big improvement over what' been allowed in since October 7th. Negotiations for a ceasefire are re-starting in Cairo, but Israel continues to reject an end to the war. Vigorous protest is still needed.
The critical point for the US antiwar movement is the demand that US arms transfers to Israel be ended, as a way to force Israel to end the war. This demand was echoed last week in a letter to Biden from 40 members of Congress, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The momentum for peace continues, but each day before ending the fighting means another day of genocide for Gaza.
Commentary This Week
(Video) How credible is US rhetoric on 'policy change' towards Israel?
From Aljazeera ["The Bottom Line"] [April 7, 2024]
---- Annelle Sheline talks about quitting her job at the US State Department due to frustration over 'naive' Israel policy. … Annelle Sheline tells host Steve Clemons that the contradictions in US policy toward Israel's war in Gaza made her job as a State Department officer in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor "so difficult". Sheline announced her resignation publicly on March 27. [See the Program]
(Video) "Genocidal Machine": Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah on Israel's Destruction of Gaza's Hospitals
From Democracy Now! [April 1, 2024]---- Israeli forces withdrew from Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City today after a two-week raid that has left most of the medical complex in ruins. Since October, Gaza's health sector has been completely decimated, leaving only a dozen hospitals partially functional as the entire medical infrastructure is relentlessly shelled, besieged and raided. We speak to British Palestinian reconstructive surgeon Ghassan Abu-Sittah, who spent over a month treating patients at Al-Shifa and Al-Ahli Baptist hospitals. … "This was a war Israel declared on Palestinian children," he concludes, "because Palestinian children represent the Palestinian tomorrow that is incompatible with the Zionist settler-colonial project." [See the Program]
(Video) Road to Famine: Israeli Law Prof. Neve Gordon on Israel's History of Weaponizing Food Access in Gaza
From Democracy Now! [April 4, 2024]
---- As the world reels from the World Central Kitchen attack in which seven aid workers in Gaza were struck and killed by three separate Israeli missiles while delivering aid for starving Palestinians, we speak with prominent Israeli scholar Neve Gordon about Israel's history of weaponizing food access in the Gaza Strip via the destruction of Palestinian agricultural land, labor restrictions and blockade, "controlling and managing the population through food insecurity." Neve Gordon is a professor of human rights law and author of multiple books on Israel's occupation of Palestine. [See the Program]
In Six Months in Gaza, Israel's Worst-ever War Achieved Nothing but Death and Destruction
By Gideon Levy, Haaretz [Israel] [April 7, 2024]
--- Sunday is the six-month anniversary, and it seems this won't be the war's last six-month milestone; no one in Israel has any idea how to end the worst war in its history, whose costs are piling up at an alarming rate and whose benefits are negligible, nonexistent in fact. That is why we must muster the courage to say, after six months of calamities, that it would have been better had it not broken out. No, no. Israel did have a choice: don't go to war. If these are its results, it would have been better to show restraint, to punish those who should have been punished for the horrors of October 7 and move on. … At the end of this war, Gaza will be destroyed and killed, and we will discover a different face starting at us in the mirror. The world will treat us accordingly, just as we would expect it to treat any evil state acting this way [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 Mondays 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!
This week's Rewards for stalwart newsletter readers come from the early years of Bob Dylan. I was surprised to find so much early stuff on-line. Here is a 1964 television of Dylan singing an (abbreviated) version of "With God on Our Side." And here are recordings of Dylan concerts at Carnegie Chapter Hall (1961) and at Town Hall (1963). Enjoy!
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
CFOW Weekly Reader
Featured Essays
(Video) Israel lobby's influence on US policy as powerful as ever
An interview with John Mearsheimer, from Aljazeera ["UpFront"] [March 29, 2024]
---- Israel's war on Gaza has killed more than 32,000 and caused a widespread humanitarian disaster. As Israel continues its attacks on Gaza and the civilian death toll keeps rising, the US is facing a growing backlash for its military and financial support to Israel. This week the US abstained from a UN Security Council ceasefire resolution vote, allowing the measure to pass. But the US said the abstention did not signal a change in policy or support towards its ally. On another front, Russia's war on Ukraine continues unabated, with casualties mounting. While the US has pledged billions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine, the legislation has stalled in Congress. How are the current conflicts and diplomatic tensions affecting Washington's global standing? And could this signal the end of US unipolarity? This week on an UpFront special, Marc Lamont Hill speaks to renowned political scientist John Mearsheimer about how US foreign policy could affect the outcomes of these wars. [See the Program]
Tax Day and War Resistance, Philip Berrigan Style
By
---- Each year Americans forfeit a sizable slice of their income to the United States Treasury to fund the government. Tax Day is dreaded. No one likes surrendering their hard-earned cash. But rather than a resigned shrug, Americans should look closely at what they are getting for their money when it comes to government services and policy. In fiscal year 2023, the Pentagon received $858 billion for the preparation of war. This doesn't include hidden costs for intelligence services, veterans' benefits, Homeland Security, or the Department of Energy which oversees the nation's nuclear arsenal. All totaled, over $1 trillion a year is allotted for warmaking. …As this Tax Day approaches, perhaps we can reflect on the life and work of Philip Berrigan and undertake our own ministry of risk for peace in whatever form that may take, to ease the suffering, to restore human dignity, to challenge our doomed policy of warmaking. [Read More]
Why the Two-State Solution Isn't a Solution at All
---- After 176 days, Israel's assault on Gaza has not stopped, and has expanded into what Human Rights Watch has declared to be a policy of starvation as a weapon of war. More than 32,000 Palestinians have been killed, and the international community has reverted to a deeply familiar call for a two-state solution, where Palestinians and Israelis can coexist in peace and security. President Biden even declared "the only real solution is a two-state solution" in his State of the Union address last month. But the call rings hollow. [Read More]
Also of interest – "Unjust Wars and a Just Peace," by [Link]; and "The New Junta in Niger Tells the United States to Pack Up Its War and Go Home," b [Link].
The War on Gaza
(Video) Lavender & Where's Daddy: How Israel Used AI to Form Kill Lists & Bomb Palestinians in Their Homes
From Democracy Now! [April 5, 2024]
---- The Israeli publications +972 and Local Call have exposed how the Israeli military used an artificial intelligence program known as Lavender to develop a "kill list" in Gaza that includes as many as 37,000 Palestinians who were targeted for assassination with little human oversight. A second AI system known as "Where's Daddy?" tracked Palestinians on the kill list and was purposely designed to help Israel target individuals when they were at home at night with their families. The targeting systems, combined with an "extremely permissive" bombing policy in the Israeli military, led to "entire Palestinian families being wiped out inside their houses," says Yuval Abraham, an Israeli journalist who broke the story after speaking with members of the Israeli military who were "shocked by committing atrocities." [See the Program] To learn more about Israel and AI, read "'Lavender': The AI machine directing Israel's bombing spree in Gaza," by Yuval Abraham, +972 Magazine [Israel/Palestine] [April 3, 2024] [Link]. Also important/of interest is "Israel Creates 'Kill Zones' in Gaza Where Anyone Who Enters Gets Shot," bMarch 31, 2024] [Link].
Gaza War Turns Spotlight on Long Pipeline of U.S. Weapons to Israel
From The New York Times [April 6, 2024]
---- President Biden sends arms to Israel under an Obama-era $38 billion aid agreement that runs until 2026. Israel's purchases include the types of bombs dropped in Gaza. In the fall of 2016, the Obama administration sealed a major military agreement with Israel that committed the United States to giving the country $38 billion in arms over 10 years. … Now that military aid package, which guarantees Israel $3.3 billion per year to buy weapons, along with another $500 million annually for missile defense, has become a flashpoint for the Biden administration. A vocal minority of lawmakers in Congress backed by liberal activists are demanding that President Biden restrict or even halt arms shipments to Israel because of its military campaign in Gaza. https://archive.ph/8JT1L
(Video) Norman Finkelstein on Gaza: The US could have stopped Israel on day one
Interviewed by Marc Lamont Hill, Aljazeera ["Up Front"] [April 5, 2024]
---- As Israel's war on Gaza continues, killing more than 33,000 people, numerous scholars and politicians have voiced concern and condemned Israel's policies and actions. Among those critics is Norman Finkelstein, a staunch advocate for Palestinian freedom and one of the foremost historians on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, himself a son of Holocaust survivors. This week on UpFront, Norman Finkelstein shares his insights on Israel's war on Gaza and responds to some of the controversies surrounding him in an interview with Marc Lamont Hill. [See the Program]
Also of interest – "Israel's Brutality Is Increasing—and So Is Its Denialism," by Linah Alsaafin, The Nation [April 3, 2024] [Link]; and "War First, Then Annexation: Is Israel Preparing to Permanently Occupy Gaza?" by Dahlia Scheindlin, Haaretz [Israel] [April 3, 2024] [Link].
Palestinian Voices
Palestinians and the world must not lose hope
By Mariam Barghouti, Aljazeera [April 6, 2024]
---- I do not think I will ever be able to fully explain what it is like to be a Palestinian – in all the shades of bruises we come in. It is not for the lack of words as much it is for the recognition that if I were to speak of the horrors, I am not confident that those who listen would bear to hear all the pain embedded in the Palestinian experience. For the past 182 days, Palestinians have been plunged into waves of deep grief, penetrating pain, and a crippling fear of anticipated loss. Quivers of terror remain stuck in our spine unable to escape, just like us. One of the most testing parts of this aggression is having to manage this. [Read More]
(Video) Wael Dahdouh: Gaza's voice amid loss and courage
From Aljazeera [March 31 2024]
---- Al Jazeera's Gaza bureau chief bears scars of war, echoes resilience globally. Journalists, especially in war zones, face immense challenges in reporting conflict realities. In the context of Israel's war on Gaza, their role has been pivotal in exposing the devastation and suffering. Among these journalists, Wael Dahdouh, Al Jazeera Arabic Gaza bureau chief, stands out for his dedication to covering his homeland's conflicts over the past 25 years. Despite personal losses, including family deaths in air strikes and his own injuries, Dahdouh's commitment remains unwavering. His story, highlighted during an interview in Doha, where he receives medical treatment, exemplifies journalistic courage and resilience. [Read More]
More voices – "Why Palestinians in Israel, Like Me, Keep Marching to Protect Our Land," by Nagham Zbeedat, Haaretz [Israel] [April 1, 2024] [Link]; "y Julia Conley, Common Dreams [March 30, 2024] [Link]; and (Video) "Dying Slowly While the World Is Watching": Bethlehem Reverend on Israel's War on Palestinian Christians, from Democracy Now! [April 1, 2024] [See the Program].
Israel in Turmoil
Irremediable Defeat: On Israel's Other Unwinnable War
---- October 7 changed all calculations. The Palestinian Al-Aqsa Flood Operation is often examined in terms of its military and intelligence components, if not usefulness, but rarely in terms of its strategic outcomes. It placed Israel at a historic dilemma that even Netanyahu's comfortable Knesset majority cannot – and most likely will not – be able to resolve. [Read More]
Also of interest – "Tens of Thousands Rally Across Israel Against Netanyahu's Gov't, Demand Hostage Deal," from Haaretz [Israel] [April 6, 2024] [Link]; and "Daily Polls Show That Israelis Continue to Choose This War, Even if They Don't Want Netanyahu," by Amira Hass, Haaretz [Israel] [April 1, 2024] [Link].
A Wider War?
By Paul R. Pillar, Responsible Statecraft [April 5, 2024]
---- The latest Israeli heightening of violence in an already violent region presents the Biden administration with one of its biggest challenges yet in keeping the United States out of a new Middle East war. Israel's bombing of an Iranian diplomatic compound in Damascus, killing a senior commander in Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps and several other Iranian officials in addition to at least four Syrian citizens, was a marked escalation. Besides being as much an act of aggression in Syria as many previous Israeli aerial attacks, hitting the embassy compound constituted a direct attack on Iran. Iranian leaders will feel heavy pressure to respond forcefully. [Read More]
The War at Home
(Audio) The War in Gaza and the Emerging Rift in American Jewish Life
Peter Beinart and
---- In this interview with the Times Opinion editor Max Strasser, the journalist Peter Beinart explores what he calls the twin pillars of American Jewish life: Zionism and liberalism. Beinart argues that the two are fundamentally in conflict with each other, a longstanding tension that has become even more fraught since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7 and Israel retaliated in Gaza. In this conversation, Beinart makes the case for liberalism over Zionism and calls on the American Jewish community to see that "Palestinian equality doesn't need to be a threat to Jewish safety." [Listen to the Program]
40 House Democrats urge Biden to withhold arms transfers to Israel after WCK workers aid incident
By Ben Samuels, Haaretz [Israel] [April 5, 2024]
----40 House Democrats urged U.S. President Joe Biden to withhold pending arms transfers to Israel after seven World Central Kitchen aid workers were killed in Gaza, as well as to place conditions on future weapons assistance. "In light of this incident, we strongly urge you to reconsider your recent decision to authorize the transfer of a new arms package to Israel and to withhold this and any future offensive arms transfers until a full investigation into the airstrike is completed," wrote the lawmakers, led by Reps. Mark Pocan, Jim McGovern and Jan Schakowsky. [Read More]
Wisconsin is latest US state to send 'uncommitted' message to Biden on Gaza
From Aljazeera [April 3, 2024]
---- Nearly 50,000 Wisconsin voters chose "uninstructed" – the state's version of "uncommitted" – in Tuesday's Democratic primary as part of a growing campaign in the United States where protesters are using the ballot to voice their displeasure with President Joe Biden's handling of the war in Gaza. State elections officials announced that the uninstructed option accounted for more than 47,800 votes cast, or nearly 8.3 percent of the total, surpassing the 20,682 votes by which Biden defeated former president Donald Trump in Wisconsin in 2020. [Read More]
Also of interest – "Poll: Most Americans don't agree with Biden Administration's support for Israel's Military Campaign," b[Link]; "The surge in Islamophobia on Biden's watch is unprecedented," by Corey Saylor and Farah Afify, CAIR [Council on American-Islamic Relations] [April 2, 2024] [Link]; and (Video) "Palestinian American Dr. Walks Out of Biden Meeting, Hands Him Letter from 8-Year-Old Orphan in Gaza," from Democracy Now! [April 4, 2024] [Link].
The Mainstream Media
UN Tells Israel: Cease Fire; NYT Says: If You Want
By Dave Lindorff, FAIR [Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting] [April 4, 2024]
----- The editorial boards of the nation's major media organizations must have been frantic last week. Used to reporting on US foreign policy, wars and arms exports so as to portray the United States as a benevolent, law-abiding and democracy-defending nation, they were confronted on March 25 with a real challenge dealing with Israel and Gaza. No sooner did the Biden administration, for the first time, abstain and thus allow passage of a United Nations Security Council resolution that was not just critical of Israel, but demanded a ceasefire in Gaza, than US officials began declaring that the resolution that they allowed to pass was really meaningless. It was "nonbinding," they said. That was enough for the New York Times. [Read More]. Also of interest is "Latest Huge Transfer of 2,000-Pound Bombs from U.S. to Israel Not Newsworthy to the New York Times," by[Link]
The War in Ukraine
With no way out of a worsening war, Zelensky's options look bad or worse
By Isabelle Khurshudyan, Washington Post [April 6, 2024]
---- As Russia steps up airstrikes and once again advances on the battlefield in Ukraine more than two years into its bloody invasion, there is no end to the fighting in sight. And President Volodymyr Zelensky's options for what to do next — much less how to win the war — range from bad to worse. Zelensky has said Ukraine will accept nothing less than the return of all its territory, including land that Russia has controlled since 2014. But with the battle lines changing little in the last year, militarily retaking the swaths of east and south Ukraine that Russia now occupies — about 20 percent of the country — appears increasingly unlikely. [Read More]
Politicians make poor historians
By Benoît Bréville, Le Monde Diplomatique [France] [April 2024]
---- For the last two years, the war in Ukraine has been compared to a host of earlier conflicts: the first world war, because it too was fought in muddy trenches; the Cuban missile crisis (October 1962), which also threatened humanity with nuclear holocaust; all of the USSR's foreign interventions (Berlin in 1953, Budapest 1956, Prague 1968 and Kabul 1979); the Iran-Iraq war, as a conflict between two neighbours (1980-88); and the war in Kosovo, which tried to break free of Serbia's grip. Volodymyr Zelensky and his spokespeople are past masters at such comparisons. [Read More]
The Climate Crisis
Atmospheric Greenhouse Gas Concentrations Hit New Record Levels
By
---- The three most critical heat-trapping gases in Earth's atmosphere again reached record levels last year, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Friday, underscoring the inadequacy of efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions amid the worsening climate emergency. NOAA said the three most important human-caused greenhouse gases—carbon dioxide (CO2), methane, and nitrous oxide—"continued their steady climb during 2023." While the levels of these heat-trapping gases did not rise "quite as high as the record jumps observed in recent years," the figures "were in line with the steep increases observed during the past decade." …Global surface CO2 concentrations averaged 419.3 parts per million (ppm) last year, an increase of 2.8 ppm. It was the 12th straight year in which worldwide CO2 concentrations rose by more than 2 ppm. [Read More] Also of interest is "2100, and before. Thoughts on the birth of my first grandchild," by Bill McKibben [March 26, 2024] [Link].
Civil Liberties
Columbia University Is Waging War on Dissent
By Katherine Franke, The Nation [April 1, 2024]
---- It is clear that Columbia is burdened by an intractable conflict of interest: On the one hand, it is charged in two lawsuits and by Congress with allowing a horrendously antisemitic environment (in their view) to fester on our campus, and claims that it has under-enforced its own rules of conduct and antidiscrimination law. On the other, it is responsible for impartially investigating and adjudicating disciplinary charges brought against students and faculty in connection with their pro-Palestinian speech and protest. As such, the school has very strong incentives, in light of the lawsuits and congressional pressure, to over-enforce the rules against the pro-Palestinian members of our community—to prove that it is doing everything it can to eradicate speech and expressive conduct that is experienced by some students as offensive or painful. [Read More]
The State of the Union
Do We Face the Gravest Threat to Our Democracy Since the Cold War?
By Robert L. Borosage, The Nation [April 1, 2024]
---- Trump repeatedly demonstrates that he—and increasingly the Republican Party that he dominates and the MAGA movement that supports him—will seek to sabotage any election that he loses. If elected, he's already promised to prosecute his opponents, to mobilize the military to round up and deport millions, to purge the bureaucracy to make it an instrument for his illiberal agenda. … But those concerned about our freedoms should also be wary about areas that retain bipartisan support: the bloated military budget, including the trillion-dollar modernization of the nuclear arsenal, the increasingly bellicose confrontation with China, our vast empire of bases and commitment to police the globe, the military-industrial complex as the country's lead industrial policy. [Read More]
Our History
[FB] - Last Thursday was the anniversary – 1968 – of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. He was only 39 years old. In his short life he had made a journey from the Montgomery Bus Boycott to the leadership of the US civil rights movement As he is commemorated, this is the life that will be remembered. And this is right and just. But in the last year of his life King became an outspoken opponent of the Vietnam War and a critic of "the madness of militarism." Yet in our history books, this has been forgotten. Indeed, speaking out against the Vietnam War brought down on him fierce criticism, even from the civil rights movement itself. Yet he persisted. On April 4, 1967, exactly one year before his death, King gave his "Beyond Vietnam" speech at Riverside Church in New York. Listen to it here. Also of interest is this detailed counter-narrative from the "official story": "Did J. Edgar Hoover Order the Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr?" by Jeremy Kuzmarov, Covert Action Information Bulletin [April 4, 2024] [Link].
