Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
December 3, 2023
Hello All – For 8 days, a truce in the Gaza War let Palestinians breathe again, recover their spirits, and scrounge for food. This has now ended. Since Israeli bombing resumed on Friday, almost 1,000 Palestinians have been killed, bringing the total number of deaths to more than 16,000. More than 6,000 of these are children, and more than 3,000 women have been killed. Thousands more bodies lie under Gaza's rubble.
While the negotiations to exchange Israeli hostages held by Hamas and other organizations for Palestinians held in Israeli jails failed, the US Secretary of State was on the scene. Yet his "influence" made no difference. He made statements cautioning Israel not to kill too many civilians, not to bomb hospitals and schools, and to allow "humanitarian aid" to reach the starving people in Gaza. As he returned to the USA, it was apparent that these feeble warnings had had no effect on Israel.
I think it is of great interest that US Vice-President Kamala Harris and Secretary of Defense Austin spoke yesterday, seeming to respond to the great slaughter in Gaza upon the renewal of Israel's offensive. Harris called the images of civilian casualties "devastating," while Austin warned Israel that civilian slaughter would result in a "strategic defeat." Harris also stated that, following the war (if that ever comes), there must be no displacement of people from Gaza, that Israel cannot reoccupy Gaza, and that the siege/blockade of Gaza must be ended. Of course, these are only words: but the fact that the words were spoken after Israel massively disobeyed Blinken's timorous cautions about not killing too many civilians, and that the postwar redlines stated by Harris are directly contrary to Israel's stated war aims, must be given serious thought.
In addition to "moral suasion," the Biden administration has several levers that it could use to force Israel to stop the killing/ethnic cleansing/genocide in Gaza and the West Bank. The US gives Israel $10 million each day in military aid. Next week the Biden people will ask Congress to approve a $14 billion additional subsidy to Israel. And the US plays a vital role at the UN and in other international organizations in shielding Israel from criticism and sanctions. The threat to use these levers has worked in the past and can work again. We must keep pushing Biden to take steps to stop the slaughter; he (and perhaps only he) has the power to do it.
Some useful reading about the Gaza War
Yearning for a life once known
The Electronic Intifada December 1, 2023]
---- In the dark night of 23 November, I couldn't shake off the fear that the promised truce wouldn't bring the relief we desperately needed. Each minute felt endless as I stared at the clock, worrying if I would make it through until Friday morning. I was staring at the clock as if my life depends on it. It was one of the longest nights I have ever lived. When 24 November arrived, it brought a moment of relief. After 47 days of nonstop bombings and terrifying experiences, I cautiously stepped outside. I was able to walk the streets with no fear that I would die at any second. My solitary confinement was finally over. I found a city I could hardly recognize, full of destruction and the sounds of people in pain. [Read More]
Ceasefire reveals the toll of devastation in Khan Younis
By Ruwaida Kamal Amer, +972 Magazine [Israel/Palestine] [November 28, 2023]
---- After 47 days of continuous bombing and destruction, the news that Israel and Hamas had reached a temporary ceasefire agreement was met with cautious relief here in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip. Since 7 a.m. on Friday, Nov. 24, life has slowly begun to return to something resembling how it looked before the war, with families leaving their homes and shelters for the first time in weeks to check on their relatives or to try and find cooking gas and food. But the relief also brings sorrow and anxiety, as people face up to the scale of the devastation caused by Israel's bombardment — including the loss of loved ones and homes. [Read More]
20 Things You're Not Supposed to Know About the War on Gaza
By David Swanson [November 29, 2023]
---- The ceasefire in Gaza is due to activism, which is due to long-term organizing and educating. If the ceasefire is maintained or renewed, it will be due to activism. We need more nonviolent activism, less apathy, and less obsession with elections in a rotten election system. But we need those who oppose war on Gaza to find solidarity with those who oppose war in Ukraine with those who oppose militarizing borders with those who oppose building up to a war with China in a very similar way to how the war with Russia was approached in decades past. We are stronger together, and our understanding of the problem is stronger when the problem is not a particular war but the disease of war itself. ]Read More]
'Let Us Not Hurry to Our Doom'
By Seth Anziska, New York Review of Books [November 9, 2023]
---- No amount of historical understanding can prevent people from indulging their worst capacity for violence. But there is also the capacity for love. If we are to learn anything in a time of war, we must listen closely to members of the bereaved families: those just burying their mothers, fathers, and children in the south of Israel, and those still likely unable to find gravesites for theirs in Gaza. Among them are some of the only truth-tellers worth paying any attention to, those who call not for retribution but for a cessation of rage. In this frenzy of killing and death, we need to pause long enough to hear their voices. [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 Monday 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!
I needed some spirit-lifting this week, and found relief in the music of the Resistance Revival Chorus. Perhaps stalwart newsletter readers could use the same medicine. Here are some songs I liked - "Ella's Song" [after the words of civil rights hero Ella Baker]; "This Joy"; and "All You Fascists Bound to Lose." Everybody get well soon!
Best Wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
CFOW Weekly Reader
Some Insights into the Gaza War
Israel Knew Hamas's Attack Plan More Than a Year Ago
Ronen Bergman and
---- Israeli officials obtained Hamas's battle plan for the Oct. 7 terrorist attack more than a year before it happened, documents, emails and interviews show. But Israeli military and intelligence officials dismissed the plan as aspirational, considering it too difficult for Hamas to carry out. The approximately 40-page document, which the Israeli authorities code-named "Jericho Wall," outlined, point by point, exactly the kind of devastating invasion that led to the deaths of about 1,200 people. Hamas followed the blueprint with shocking precision. [Read More]. For some further implications of the Jericho Wall" plan, read "Report: Israeli Officials Knew of October 7 Attack a Year Ago, But Didn't Act," by [Link].
'A mass assassination factory': Inside Israel's calculated bombing of Gaza
By Yuval Abraham, +972 Magazine [Israel/Palestine] [November 30, 2023]
----The Israeli army's expanded authorization for bombing non-military targets, the loosening of constraints regarding expected civilian casualties, and the use of an artificial intelligence system to generate more potential targets than ever before, appear to have contributed to the destructive nature of the initial stages of Israel's current war on the Gaza Strip, an investigation by +972 Magazine and Local Call reveals. These factors, as described by current and former Israeli intelligence members, have likely played a role in producing what has been one of the deadliest military campaigns against Palestinians since the Nakba of 1948. [Read More] The author was interviewed this week on Democracy Now! – (Video) 'Mass Assassination Factory': Israel Using AI to Generate Targets in Gaza, Increasing Civilian Toll [Link].
Combatants for Peace
By Sulaiman Khatib and Avner Wishnitzer, New York Review of Books [November 23, 2023]
---- In 2005 a group of former Israeli soldiers who had refused to serve in the Occupied Territories came together with a group of Palestinians who had fought against Israeli occupation and served time in Israeli prisons. The meeting took place in a humble hotel in Beit Jala, near Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank. It was the end of the second intifada, which had claimed the lives of some three thousand Palestinians and a thousand Israelis. Many of the people in the group had taken active part in the violence.[Read More] The authors were interviewed this week on Democracy Now! – (Video) 'There Is an Alternative": Meet the Israeli & Palestinian "Combatants for Peace" Urging Nonviolence [November 27, 2023] [Link].
Dominant Orthodoxies
Seth Anziska, New York Review of Books [December 2, 2023]
---- By proffering autonomy as an alternative to full sovereignty, the Begin government ensured indefinite control over the Occupied Territories, extending Israeli sovereignty beyond the 1967 borders without any expiry date or formal annexation. The result has been to blur the demarcation of a border and help prevent Palestinian state formation. So many advocates of the "peace process" since the 1990s have simply ignored this historical lineage, or the structural reality that makes meaningful sovereignty and self-determination for Palestinians—the attainment of basic rights and freedoms—impossible under such conditions. [Read More]
Also of interest – "Transformed Into Mist: How to Read the Israeli "Kidnapped" Posters," by Greg Grandin, The Intercept [November 28, 2023] [Link]; "Israel Arms the World's Autocrats—With Weapons Tested on Palestinians," by Sam Russek, New Republic [November 24, 2023] [Link]; and "The Lesson From This War: Peace Is a Public Health Issue," by Gregg Gonsalves, The Nation [November 30, 2023] [Link].
US Policy in Crisis
Gaza, Biden, and a Path Forward
By Max Elbaum and Bill Fletcher Jr., The Nation [December 1, 2023]
---- The Gaza crisis and the Biden administration's response to it has significantly altered the pre–October 7 dynamics of US politics. Two big challenges have now become central to left and progressive strategy. US policy toward Israel-Palestine must change, both regarding today's immediate priority–a durable cease-fire now!—and in the long term, when the decades-long habit of issuing a blank billion-dollar check to Israel needs to end. However, the task of getting all constituencies who make up the anti-MAGA majority to vote for the Democratic presidential nominee has become much harder—if that nominee is Joe Biden. [Read More]
US Sent Israel 15,000 Bombs Since October 7
---- The Wall Street Journal published details about the White House's secretive arms transfers to Israel since October 7. The US has provided Israel with 57,000 artillery shells and 15,000 bombs, including over 5,000 with 2,000-pound warheads.According to a list of weapons obtained by the Journal, the US has shipped Israel "more than 5,000 Mk82 unguided or 'dumb' bombs, more than 5,400 Mk84 2,000-pound warhead bombs, around 1,000 GBU-39 small diameter bombs, and approximately 3,000 JDAMs."The US has additionally shipped 57,000 155 MM shells to Israel. NBC News previously reported in October that Washington sent Tel Aviv artillery rounds that are cluster munitions. [Read More] Also of interest, concerning the US role in enabling Israel's armed forces, is "How the US made Israel's military what it is today," by Thalif Deen, InterPress Service [November 2023] [Link].
How A Deeply Controversial White House Adviser Is Running The Agenda On Gaza
By Akbar Shahid Ahmed, Huffington Post [December 1, 2023]
---- Four men in Washington shape America's policy in the Middle East. Three are obvious: President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan. The fourth is less well-known, despite his huge sway over the other three ― and despite his determination to keep championing policies that many see as fueling bloodshed in Gaza and beyond. His name is Brett McGurk. He's the White House coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa, and he's one of the most powerful people in U.S. national security. [Read More]
How the Media Shape the War
The Stenographer Party
ByNovember 29, 2023]
---- If there is a moment for transformation, it is this very moment. We are required, as writers and journalists, to have a backbone, to refuse, to take our reporting beyond the politics of appeal, despite the consequences—for they do not compare to life under occupation—and because the consequences (recrimination, censorship, ostracization, even murder) should terrify us into action. Fear should make our voices bigger and more resounding. One seldom survives if they shrink themselves when confronted with a black bear. Such bravery is asked of us now, not when gardens grow over our martyrs' graves, not when the rubble is swept up and sculpted into memorials, and not when the bloodied press vests of our fallen journalists rest eternally in shadow boxes. Now, as our colleagues are killed and censored by the Zionists, whose genocidal campaign in occupied Palestine. [Read More]
Media's Fatal Compromises
By Patrick Lawrence, Consortium News [November 28, 2023]
---- The practice of "embedding," which requires correspondents to report in war and conflict zones as part of a given military unit, struck me as a repellent compromise with power as soon as American media began accepting this unacceptable practice. It is an undisguised effort to control what correspondents see and hear, and so what they write or broadcast, and so what their readers, listeners and viewers think. It is a trick, in short. The ruling or governing power's military pretends it respects the rightful freedom of an independent press, while correspondents and editors get to pretend they serve as brave correspondents and principled editors. [Read More] For additional insights into "embedded journalism," read "y Brett Wilkins, Common Dreams [November 6, 2023] [Link].
Also of interest – "Press Relayed Israeli Claims of Secret Hospital Base With Insufficient Skepticism," by Ari Paul, FAIR [Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting] [December 1, 2023] [Link]; and "Gaza war: Israeli government has Haaretz newspaper in its sights as it tightens screws on media freedom," b[Link].
The Climate Crisis
By Bill Mckibben, Common Dreams [November 28, 2023]
---- We're still a day or two away from the official start of COP 28 in Dubai, but in some ways it seems over before it began: revelations Monday that the host nation had used its official position to leverage new oil and gas deals around the world were a timely reminder that there are entire nations that essentially operate as oil companies, with precisely the same attention to morality as Exxon or Shell. This is the logical endgame of an immoral group of men quite willing to sacrifice the planet for their power. [Read More]
Also of interest – "COP28: A Billion Lives will be lost by 2100 without these Top Seven Climate Policies," by Joshua M. Pearce, The Conversation [December 1, 2023] [Link]; and "COP28 must address militarization," bNovember 28, 2023] [Link].
Our History
[FB – Henry Kissinger died without facing judgment for his many crimes. Several million people died because of decisions he made and policies he endorsed. The "official" memory of Kissinger's life and deeds is recorded in "Henry Kissinger Is Dead at 100; Shaped the Nation's Cold War History," by the New York Times [Link]. Archive material for an alternative, more accurate evaluation can be found in "Henry Kissinger: The Declassified Obituary, from the National Security Archive [Link]. Below are linked several obituaries/reviews from the US media of dissent.]
A People's Obituary of Henry Kissinger
By Greg Grandin, The Nation [November 29, 2023]
---- Earlier, during more critical times, he had been accused of many bad things. Now that he's gone, his critics will get a chance to rehearse the charges. Christopher Hitchens, who made the case that the former secretary of state should be tried as a war criminal, is himself dead. But there's a long list of witnesses for the prosecution: reporters, historians, and lawyers eager to provide background on any of Kissinger's actions in Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, East Timor, Bangladesh, against the Kurds, in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, and Cyprus, among other places. … Reading Kissinger as an alien out of tune with the chords of American Exceptionalism misses the point of the man. He was in fact the quintessential American, his cast of mind molded to his place and time. [Read More]
Henry Kissinger, Top U.S. Diplomat Responsible for Millions of Deaths, Dies at 100
By Nick Turse, The Intercept [November 29, 2023]
---- Henry Kissinger, national security adviser and secretary of state under two presidents and longtime éminence grise of the U.S. foreign policy establishment, died on November 29 at his home in Connecticut. He was 100 years old.Kissinger helped prolong the Vietnam War and expand that conflict into neutral Cambodia; facilitated genocides in Cambodia, East Timor, and Bangladesh; accelerated civil wars in southern Africa; and supported coups and death squads throughout Latin America. He had the blood of at least 3 million people on his hands, according to his biographer Greg Grandin. There were "few people who have had a hand in as much death and destruction, as much human suffering, in so many places around the world as Henry Kissinger," said veteran war crimes prosecutor Reed Brody. [Read More]
Also of interest – "A Matter of Character," by Anthony Lewis, New York Review of Books [October 27, 1977] [Link]; "On Top of Everything Else, Henry Kissinger Prevented Peace in the Middle East," by Jon Schwarz, The Intercept [November 30, 2023] [Link]; "Ask Brutalized Cambodians What They Think of Kissinger," by Nick Turse, New York Times [December 1, 2-23] [Link]; "How War Criminal Kissinger paved the Way for a Genocidal Total War on Gaza's Civilians," b[Link]; and "For Media Elites, War Criminal Henry Kissinger Was a Great Man," b[Link].
