Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
April 21, 2024
Hello All – On Thursday more than 100 students at Columbia and Barnard colleges were arrested by the NYPD. Their crime? Protesting Israel's genocidal war on Palestinians by setting up tents in the center of the campus. Their demand? That Columbia "divest" itself from all financial ties with corporations (Raytheon, Lockheed, etc.) making profits from the war. The arrested students have been suspended from school; some have been evicted from their dormitories.
The student uprising at Columbia is part of a tidal wave of antiwar protests at hundreds of colleges and high schools. In most cases, it appears that the school administrators have opted for "law & order"; rather than taking the students' concerns seriously, they have suspended or expelled students and called in the cops. Needless to say, the demands of the students now include "free speech," the right to assemble and dissent, and amnesty for the arrested and suspended students. The protests will grow.
As noted in the reading linked below, the events at Columbia have sparked solidarity demonstrations and similar protests at many other schools. It is possible/likely that the campus antiwar movement will grow, with civil disobedience and student defiance of "authority" becoming the new norm. Israel's genocide in Gaza is now live-streamed, and student demands that their colleges and university disinvest from the profiteers of the war machine and collaboration with the war-makers follow a well-trodden path. The personal bravery of this generation of peacemakers is inspiring to millions.
It is a great tragedy that the congressional and school-administrators' repression proceeds under the banner of fighting "anti-Semitism." The fact that so many Jewish-led organizations, such as Jewish Voice for Peace and If Not Now, are in the leadership of this antiwar movement shows the foolishness of the claim that anti-war equals anti-Semitic. Yet here we are; let us applaud the brave students at Columbia and Barnard and the many other schools where students can tell the difference between right and wrong, and are willing to take risks to act on their beliefs.
Some useful reading about the Columbia strike & its significance
Inside the Gaza Solidarity Encampment at Columbia University
By Lara-Nour Walton, The Nation [April 19, 2024]
---- The occupation, organized by the Columbia University Apartheid Divest coalition (CUAD), Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), had been planned for months. The encampment was an escalation of previous pro-Palestine actions, designed to echo the university's history of protest. "Columbia University has a rich legacy of student activism, from Vietnam War protests in 1968 to being the first Ivy League school to divest from Apartheid South Africa in 1985," wrote CUAD on Wednesday. "The Gaza Solidarity Encampment will remain until Columbia University divests all finances, including the endowment, from corporations that profit from Israeli apartheid, genocide, and occupation in Palestine." [Read More]
Pro-Palestinian organizations at universities across the world protest in support of Columbia 'Gaza Solidarity Encampment'
By Isha Banerjee, Columbia Spectator [April 21, 2024]
---- As the "Gaza Solidarity Encampment" at Columbia enters its fifth day, students at over a dozen universities across the country—and the globe—have begun protesting in solidarity with the encampment after 108 affiliates were arrested on campus by the New York Police Department on Thursday. Protests ranged from walkouts to marches to encampments in solidarity with the Columbia efforts, garnering anywhere from 50 to hundreds of protesters. At Yale University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, students started encampments in solidarity with the Columbia "Gaza Solidarity Encampment." In a Friday evening Instagram post, the national chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine called on all chapters to follow Columbia SJP's lead and pressure their administrations to divest from Israel. ]Read More]
(Video) The New McCarthyism: Congress Grills Columbia Univ. President Amid Crackdown on Pro-Palestine Speech
From Democracy Now! [April 18, 2024]
---- In nearly four hours of grueling congressional testimony before the Republican-led Committee on Education and the Workforce, the president of Columbia University, Nemat "Minouche" Shafik, said she had taken serious action against accusations of antisemitism on campus in recent months amid Israel's assault on Gaza, including dismissing or removing five faculty members from the classroom, suspending 15 students and suspending two student groups — Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace. … Our guests Nara Milanich and Rebecca Jordan-Young, both professors at Barnard College and Columbia University, respond to the televised hearings. "What happened at those hearings yesterday should be of grave concern to everybody," warns Jordan-Young. "What we got was a live performance [of President Shafik] throwing the entire university system under the bus." Adds Milanich, "Antisemitism here is being used as a wedge. It's being used as a Trojan horse for a very different political agenda." [See the Program]
Statement by University of Southern California Student Asna Tabassum, Class of 2024 Valedictorian
[April 16, 2024]
---- I am honored to have been selected as USC Class of 2024 Valedictorian. Although this should have been a time of celebration for my family, friends, professors, and classmates, anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian voices have subjected me to a campaign of racist hatred because of my uncompromising belief in human rights for all. This campaign to prevent me from addressing my peers at commencement has evidently accomplished its goal: today, USC administrators informed me that the university will no longer allow me to speak at commencement due to supposed security concerns. I am both shocked by this decision and profoundly disappointed that the University is succumbing to a campaign of hate meant to silence my voice. I am not surprised by those who attempt to propagate hatred. I am surprised that my own university—my home for four years—has abandoned me. [Read More] To see/hear Asna Tabassum on Democracy Now!, go here.
Misunderstanding Antisemitism
(Video) "Antisemitism"
From "Historians for Peace and Democracy" – 2 minutes [Link]. For a more in-depth explanation, read "Equating Critique of Israel with Antisemitism, US Academics are Being Silenced," b[Link]
Also of interest – "Long live the student resistance," byApril 20, 2024] [Link]; (Video) "Over 100 Arrested at Columbia After Univ. President Orders NYPD to Clear Pro-Palestine Student Protest," an interview with Cornell West, Democracy Now! [April 19, 2024] [See the Program]; and "Protesting Columbia University's Arbitrary Suspension and Eviction of Students," f [April 16, 2024] [Link].
The Bowman Campaign & AIPAC Watch
The main challenger to Rep. Jamaal Bowman's re-election to the House of Representatives is County Executive George Latimer. Latimer's campaign was (at least partially) initiated by the pro-Israel lobby American-Israeli Political Action Committee, which has channeled hundreds of thousands of dollars to Latimer. AIPAC's interest is in electing "pro-Israel" people and defeating those deemed "anti-Israel." Rep. Bowman is judged to be "anti-Israel" because he supports Palestinian rights and, since October 7, calls for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, opposed by AIPAC and thus by Latimer. AIPAC's program for this election campaign calls for spending up $100 million to defeat progressive legislators such as Bowman. An interesting article was published today in the New York Times describing some problems that AIPAC's campaign has encountered, as millions of Americans (and 80+ members of Congress) are demanding a ceasefire re: Israel's war on Gaza. Here is an excerpt from that article:
After Hamas's Oct. 7 attack on Israel, pro-Israel political groups put the Democratic Party's most outspoken critics of the Jewish state on notice: An avalanche of spending was coming to either unseat them or force them to change their posture on the Middle East. But the first expected target of that avalanche, Representative Summer Lee of Pittsburgh, will face only nominal opposition in the Pennsylvania primary on Tuesday. And though groups like Democratic Majority for Israel and United Democracy Project, an affiliate of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, have raised tens of millions of dollars to make good on their threats, they have so far mostly declined to spend it.
To learn more about the Bowman campaign, and to get involved, go here.
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 illustrate the musical genius of Rhiannon Giddens. For a sampling of the many modes in which she makes music, enjoy "Cornbread and Butter Beans" (with the Carolina Chocolate Drops), "Julie"; "She's Got You"; and "Cry No More". She can do anything!
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
The CFOW Weekly Reader
Featured Essays
'A new abyss': Gaza and the hundred years' war on Palestine
By Rashid Khalidi, The Guardian [UK] [April 11, 2024]
---- For people everywhere, myself included, the awful images that have come out of Gaza and Israel since 7 October 2023 have been inescapable. This war hangs over us like a motionless black cloud that gets darker and more ominous with the passage of endless weeks of horror unspooling before our eyes. Having friends and family there makes this much harder to bear for many of us living far away. … Looking back over the past six months – at the cruel slaughter of civilians on an unprecedented scale, the millions of people made homeless, the mass famine and disease induced by Israel – it is clear that this marks a new abyss into which the struggle over Palestine has sunk. While this phase reflects the underlying lineaments of previous ones in this 100 years' war, its intensity is unique, and it has created deep new traumas. Not only does no end to this carnage appear in sight: we seem to be further than ever from a lasting and sustainable resolution, one based on dismantling structures of oppression and supremacy, and on justice, completely equal rights and mutual recognition. [Read More]
Zionism must be exposed and discredited
By
---- You could not get a better picture of Zionism than from two recent events. Israel bombed a consulate in a foreign country – Syria – killing top Iranian military officers, among others, and Israel supporters in the U.S. forced the cancellation of the valedictorian address at the University of Southern California because the speaker opposes Israeli genocide in Gaza. Today Zionism threatens political freedom in the United States and international order. These actions are consistent. They are expressions of a maximalist ideology that operates on a global level to support the Israeli regime. That ideology, of course, is Zionism, the belief that Jews need a state in order to be safe. [Read More]
In a Historic Victory, Tennessee Volkswagen Workers Vote Union
By Luis Feliz Leon, Labor Notes [April 19, 2024]
---- In a watershed victory, workers at the Volkswagen factory in Chattanooga, Tennessee, voted tonight "UAW, yes!" The company's sole non-union plant will finally join the rest of the world. "If Volkswagen workers at plants in Germany and Mexico have unions, why not us?" said equipment operator Briam Calderon in Spanish, ahead of the vote. … The UAW is riding a wave of momentum after winning landmark contracts at the Big 3 automakers last year. Production workers at Volkswagen earn $23 per hour and top out above $32, compared to $43 for production workers at Ford's Spring Hill assembly plant by the contract's end in 2028. … Labor historian Nelson Lichtenstein compared tonight's win to the Union Army's victory in Chattanooga in 1863, during the U.S. Civil War, when President Abraham Lincoln declared it "the gateway to the South."No longer will the wage-and-benefit standards of the million-strong auto workforce in the U.S. be set by the non-union portion of the industry. A militant and increasingly powerful UAW will set the standard." [See the Program] For some background about labor organizing in the South, read "How Alabama Communists Organized in the Jim Crow South," an interview with Robin D. G. Kelley, Jacobin Magazine [April 9, 2024] [Link].
(Video) One Year into War, Sudan Wracked by World's Largest Displacement and Hunger Crises
From Democracy Now! [April 17, 2024]
---- One year ago this week, a devastating conflict erupted in Sudan when a fragile alliance between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces collapsed. The war initially began around the capital city of Khartoum but quickly spread to other parts of Sudan, including Darfur, Port Sudan and the Gezira state, situated in the country's agricultural heartland. One year on, the conflict has driven nearly 9 million people from their homes, collapsed the country's health system and created the world's largest hunger and displacement crisis. "This is essentially a war between two generals," says Khalid Mustafa Medani, chair of the African studies program at McGill University, who explains why the warring parties have "absolutely no legitimacy in civil society" and how the fighting is weaponizing international aid. [See the Program]
The War in Gaza
In Gaza's Hospitals
By Omar al-Najjar, New York Review of Books [April 19, 2024]
---- I was born in the spring of 1999 in the village of Khuza'a, east of the city of Khan Younis, in the Gaza Strip. We grew up among wars: 2008, 2012, 2014, 2021. The main camp of the Great March of Return—the protest movement violently suppressed by the Israeli army in 2018—was less than 350 feet from our home. … The war has changed everything. By the second day, October 8, the Israeli Occupation Forces—calling them "Defense Forces" would be inaccurate—were bombing our neighborhood indiscriminately, mostly with ground shells but also with airstrikes. That day we lost a neighbor and his entire family under the rubble. My parents, siblings, and I were left with no choice but to leave and stay with relatives in Bani Suhaila, closer to the city center. Right away I volunteered to work in the emergency department of the Nasser Medical Complex, the largest hospital in the southern half of Gaza. [Read More] Also of interest is "Leaked Cables Show White House Opposes Palestinian Statehood," by Ken Klippenstein and Daniel Boguslaw, The Intercept [April 17, 2024] [Link].
The West Bank
Palestinians Wonder Why Settlers Who Attack Them Bother Concealing Their Faces
By Amira Hass, Haaretz [Israel] [April 20, 2024]
---- "What I don't understand is why the settlers who attacked us were masked. After all, no one will punish them and no one will do anything to them," said a young Palestinian from the village of Al-Mughayyir on Sunday. He was just barely saved from Israeli attackers who invaded his village Friday afternoon – about 24 hours before the body of Binyamin Ahimeir, the Jewish teenager who was murdered in the West Bank that day, was found. The statement summed up a decades-long, collective Palestinian experience. The settlers benefit from committing violence, which serves the state's goal: to grab as much Palestinian land as possible. Over the past several years, the threat of settler violence has forced dozens of Palestinian herding communities to fold up their encampments and move to built-up areas in villages or nearby land. [Read More]
Also of interest – "Dear President Biden, Are You Okay With Israeli Settlers Using American Weapons?" by Amira Hass, Haaretz [Israel] [April 8, 2024] [Link]; and "y Jake Johnson, Common Dreams [April 17, 2024] [Link].
The Wider War
(Video) Is Regional War at Stake as Israel Weighs Response to Iran?
From Democracy Now! [April 15, 2024]
----- The Middle East is bracing for the possibility of regional war after Iran responded to Israel's bombing of the Iranian Consulate in Damascus with a major drone and missile attack Saturday. This was "a performative operation to send a message," says journalist Reza Sayah, who joins us from Tehran. But while Iran "does not want to escalate matters," Israel may be preparing to do just that. Washington, D.C.-based analyst Trita Parsi says that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has been trying to instigate conflict between the U.S. and Iran for "more than two decades," and given that Biden has demonstrated an unwillingness to "draw any red lines for Israel publicly," these latest provocations could become a prime "opportunity" for such a war. Crucially, Iranian restraint "cannot last forever," warns our final roundtable guest, the Israeli journalist Gideon Levy, who touches on both Iran's own sovereignty and increasing global pressure for Israel to end its war on Gaza. "Gaza is still starving and bleeding, and we shouldn't forget it," says Levy. [See the Program]
The War at Home
(Video) 'Israelism': How deep do indoctrination and Israeli army glorification go?
From Aljazeera ["Talk to Aljazeera"] [April 21, 2024]
---- The documentary Israelism examines the rift among Jews regarding Palestine, highlighting young people's increasing criticism of Israel and Zionism. This divide is driven by firsthand accounts of Israel's actions in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.As the film faces opposition from groups trying to cancel its screenings, its main protagonist, Simone Zimmerman, and its co-director and producer, Erin Axelman, talk to Al Jazeera. [See the Program]
(Video) No Tech for Apartheid: Google Workers Arrested for Protesting Company's $1.2B Contract with Israel
By
---- Democracy Now! speaks with two of the Google employees who were arrested staging sit-ins on Tuesday at the company's offices in New York City and in Sunnyvale, California, to protest the tech giant's work with the Israeli government. Organized by the group No Tech for Apartheid, the protesters are demanding Google withdraw from Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion contract to provide cloud computing services to the Israeli military. [See the Program]
Also of interest – "CBS News poll: Rising numbers of Americans say Biden should encourage Israel to stop Gaza actions," by Anthony Salvanto, [April 14, 2024] [Link]; and "Fired by a German University for Solidarity with Palestine — Interview with Nancy Fraser," from Left Voice [April 10, 2024] [Link].
The Mainstream Media & the War
The media is advancing a false narrative of 'rising antisemitism' on campus by ignoring Jewish protesters
ByApril 20, 2024]
---- What is the mainstream U.S. media's greatest single distortion about the protests at Columbia University and elsewhere? Here's the winner so far: the media is ignoring the fact that Jewish students are participating in the pro-Palestinian protests, and therefore they might have valuable things to say about the charges of "rising antisemitism" on their campuses. Their comments would have been particularly pertinent because just last week, Columbia's president had been interrogated by a hostile committee in the House of Representatives, where she seemed to concede that antisemitism was a real danger. … Let's turn now to the second-place finisher in the media distortion sweepstakes: the failure to report on how powerful wealthy donors are almost certainly influencing recent university policies. This angle doesn't just apply to Columbia. [Read More]
Also of interest – "Cruelty of Language: Leaked NY Times Memo Reveals Moral Depravity of US Media," b [Link]; and "The McCarthyist Attack on Gaza Protests Threatens Free Thought for All," by Ari Paul, FAIR [Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting] [April 19, 2024] [Link].
The Climate Crisis
The Green New Deal: From Below or from Above?
By Jeremy Brecher, Labor Network for Solidarity [April 2024]
---- The original Green New Deal resolution took as its models not only the original New Deal but also the home front mobilization for World War II. A fully developed Green New Deal will need both the kind of federal initiative and strong federal agencies that transformed the American economy during World War II and the popular participation and decentralized creativity represented by the Green New Deal from Below. The Green New Deal from Below can make a significant difference in reducing greenhouse gas pollution, creating good jobs, and countering injustice. It can help create the support and the building blocks for a national and even a global Green New Deal. [Read More]
Also of interest – "y Julia Conley, Common Dreams [April 15, 2024] [Link]; and "," by Olivia Rosane, Common Dreams [April 18, 2024] [Link].
Civil Liberties
The US isn't just reauthorizing its surveillance laws – it's vastly expanding them
By Caitlin Vogus, The Guardian [UK] [April 16, 2024]
---- A little-known amendment to the reauthorized version of Fisa would enlarge the government's surveillance powers to a drastic, draconian degree. The US House of Representatives agreed to reauthorize a controversial spying law known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act last Friday without any meaningful reforms, dashing hopes that Congress might finally put a stop to intelligence agencies' warrantless surveillance of Americans' emails, text messages and phone calls. The vote not only reauthorized the act, though; it also vastly expanded the surveillance law enforcement can conduct. In a move that Senator Ron Wyden condemned as "terrifying", the House also doubled down on a surveillance authority that has been used against American protesters, journalists and political donors in a chilling assault on free speech. [Read More]
The State of the Union
25 Years After the Columbine Massacre, Is There Any Hope to End America's Epidemic of Gun Violence?
By Peter Dreier, The Nation [April 19, 2024]
---- Twenty-five years ago —on April 20, 1999—two 12th-grade students at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, armed with semiautomatic rifles and pistols murdered 12 students and one teacher, and injured another 21 people. The Columbine massacre triggered a national debate on gun violence. But the epidemic of gun violence has continued; in fact, it has escalated. Public opinion remains strongly in favor of stricter laws, but politicians, cowed by the National Rifle Association, have failed to do their job of protecting Americans from this plague. … Since Columbine, the nation has witnessed 476 school shootings. [Read More]
Our History
Howard Zinn and the Joy of a Political Life
By Frances Fox Piven, The Nation [December 15, 2024]
[FB - The following essay is reprinted from Frances Fox Piven's introduction to Some Truths Are Not Self-Evident: Howard Zinn's Essays in The Nation on Civil Rights, Vietnam and the "War on Terror."]
---- The essays of Howard Zinn collected here remind me sharply of the living man, who was my friend for many decades. Each commentary is written much as he spoke: straight-forward and to the point, invariably penetrating and well-informed, never cluttered with needless complexity or intellectual pretension. What is most distinctive about Zinn's writing is his moral passion and indignation at the corruptions and deceptions and bloodiness of the powerful; his deep empathy for the travails of ordinary people, especially people engaged in struggle. As Eric Foner comments in the final essay here, Zinn was not afraid to speak out about the difference between right and wrong. [Read More]
