Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
March 17, 2024
Hello All – Israel's war on Gaza has exhausted the patience of the World. With more than 100,000 Palestinian casualties, including 31,000 deaths, the war has truly reached what the International Court of Justice feared: a Genocide is happening to the people of Gaza.
Will this worldwide outrage change the policies of the Biden administration? The US now gives Israel $10 million each day and supplies the weapons, bombs, and bullets that kill so many. According to international law, we are complicit in Israel's genocide and Gaza's martyrdom.
There are signs that this might change. The question before us is: Will this change end the killing? Can we achieve a permanent ceasefire? There are some signs of hope:
· A majority of Democratic voters, and especially young voters, want a permanent ceasefire; as do 78 members of Congress. 87 more want "some kind of ceasefire." A recent poll by the Wall St. Journal found that 80% of respondents disapproved of the way Biden was handling the Gaza war, and 42% believe "Israel has gone too far" [Link]. The continuing support for "uncommitted" in Democratic primaries shows that dissatisfaction runs deep within the Democratic electoral base.
· This week, Senate leader Chuck Schumer criticized Israel's Prime Minister Netanyahu, saying that if Netanyahu stayed in power, "then the United States will have no choice but to play a more active role in shaping Israeli policy by using our leverage to change the present course." A response in the leading Israeli newspaper Haaretz observed that the speech "Clears Path for Democrats to Disavow Netanyahu," and if that happens the waves stirred up by the speech "could turn into a tsunami if Biden and the rest of the pro-Israel U.S. left follow suit." [Link].
· A group of 7 US Senators, led by Bernie Sanders, has reminded President Biden (by letter) that "Your administration has repeatedly stated, and the United Nations and numerous aid organizations have confirmed, that Israel's restrictions on humanitarian access, both at the border and within Gaza, are one of the primary causes of this humanitarian catastrophe"; and that under US law military sales to Israel must be ended. [Llink]. Similarly, under a National Security Memorandum signed by President Biden last month, "Israel has until March 25 to provide the Americans with written assurances that it will abide by international law while using U.S. weapons, as well as pledging to both facilitate and not obstruct the delivery of aid into Gaza. Sales would be suspended if Israel fails to provide written commitment by then." [Link]
· And finally, President Biden has indicated that an attack on the southern Gaza city of Rafah, which could kill tens of thousands of people, may be a "red line" for blank-check support for Israel. On Friday Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu announced that his cabinet had approved in invasion plan for Rafah [Link]; while today Netanyahu told the German Chancellor that "the operation will go forward." [Link].
There are other signs that the Biden people may not be willing to keep giving Israel blank checks for killing. We must keep the pressure on Biden: permanent ceasefire.
Please 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 PERMANENT CEASEFIRE NOW FOR GAZA. Thanks!
Articles Addressing Themes in This Editorial
When Starvation is a Weapon, The Harvest Is Shame
By
---- In a work entitled "Irish Famine 4," Palestinian-American journalist and artist Sam Husseini combined grass and paint to commemorate a bitter time in Irish history when starving people died with their mouths stained green because, according to historian Christine Kinealy, their last meal was grass. Shamefully, British occupiers profited from exporting out of Ireland food crops so desperately needed. Over a seven year period, beginning in 1845, one million Irish people died from starvation and related diseases. It was a conscious mass killing. One of the most horrific means of execution we can read about or imagine was employed. The result, an excruciating descent into despair, delirium and bodily immobility while one's attention, and character, is gradually reduced to extreme hunger and pain. Now, in the occupied Gaza Strip, weapons dealers benefit from increasing military shipments to Israel. Palestinians, like the Irish, have resorted to eating mixtures of grass and animal feed. The past five months of Israeli siege, bombing, and displacement have killed more than 31,000 people – mostly women and children. The onset of famine will expand that number exponentially, particularly among children. [Read More]
Biden's Red Line: Why U.S. Could Be Days Away From Suspending Arms Sales to Israel
By Ben Samuels, Haaretz [Israel] [March 11, 2024]
---- There is a very real chance that the United States will halt the sale of offensive weaponry to Israel by month's end should it fail to dramatically improve the amount of aid entering Gaza, or if it launches a military operation in Rafah without a credible plan for the million-plus Palestinians sheltering there. … Israel has until March 25 to provide the Americans with written assurances that it will abide by international law while using U.S. weapons, as well as pledging to both facilitate and not obstruct the delivery of aid into Gaza. Sales would be suspended if Israel fails to provide written commitment by then. The requirement was made clear by the national security memorandum Biden signed last month – his second groundbreaking measure taken toward Israel following his executive order clearing the path toward sanctions on extremist Israeli settlers.The March 25 deadline looms as some U.S. lawmakers and a significant part of Biden's electoral bloc have taken the level of their displeasure over U.S. policy regarding the Israeli-Hamas conflict to fever pitch. [Read More]
War on Gaza: Torture, executions, babies left to die, sexual abuse… These are Israel's crimes
By Jonathan Cook, Middle East Eye [March 15, 2024]
---- Through consistent and glaring failures in their coverage, establishment media – including supposedly liberal outlets, from the BBC and CNN to the Guardian and New York Times – have smoothed the way for Israel to carry out mass slaughter in Gaza, what the World Court has assessed as plausibly a genocide. The role of the media has not been to keep us, their audiences, informed about one of the greatest crimes in living memory. It has been to buy time for US President Joe Biden to keep arming his most useful of client states in the oil-rich Middle East, and to do so without damaging his prospects for re-election in November's US presidential vote. [Read More]
Rewards!
The Rewards for stalwart Newsletter readers this week feature the amazing talents of Rhianonn Giddens. A favorite of mine is the story of the slave "Julie." Her early career included reviving Southern music with the Carolina Chocolate Drops. This week Democracy Now! broadcast an extended conversation with Giddens: see it here. And enjoy!
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
The CFOW Weekly Reader
Featured Essays
(Video) "Revolutionary Love": Michelle Alexander on Gaza, Solidarity, MLK & What Gives Her Hope
From Democracy Now! [March 13, 2024]
---- Author and civil rights advocate Michelle Alexander's new piece in The Nation reflects on Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s April 4, 1967, speech in New York opposing the war in Vietnam and its lasting lessons for American society today. She describes "revolutionary love" as the transnational "connections between liberation struggles" around the world, and calls for anti-oppression movements in the U.S. to continue working to "end the occupation of Palestine and commit to the thriving of all of the people who have been subjected to endless war and occupation." Revolutionary love, argues Alexander, "is the only thing that can save us now." [See the Program]
What Was Palestine Before the Nakba?
By Mohammed El-Kurd, The Nation [March 17, 2024]
---- What have they done to you? What have they done to Palestine? I was struck by the images of Palestine before the walls and the colonies and the checkpoints clogged its arteries; images captured between towns and villages, now separated by concrete barriers and worlds apart, that were once intertwined socially and economically. Our eyes seldom encounter Palestine before the Israeli regime, a Palestine defined not by its ailments but by its industries and cultures. [Read More]. Also of interest by Mohammed El-Kurd is "Are we indeed all Palestinians?" Mondoweiss [March 13, 2024 [Link].
An American Who Has Helped Clear 815,000 Bombs From Vietnam
By Seth Mydans, New York Times [March 15, 2024]
---- Chuck Searcy has spent decades of his life redressing a deadly legacy of America's war in Vietnam: unexploded ordnance. By the time his one-year tour of duty ended, Mr. Searcy found himself doubting not only the war but his own character. "I've really sometimes wondered if my timidity or refusal to step up and say this was wrong, whether this was a moral failure on my part," he said. "It was a worry that made me feel that I was failing in a duty that I had as an American." That sense of duty has propelled him to commit his life to redressing one of the most deadly legacies of the war: the millions of unexploded bombs and land mines that continue to kill and injure people every year. [Read More]
(Video) "Anti-Zionism Is Not Antisemitism": Palestinian Prof. Shalhoub-Kevorkian on Hebrew Univ. Suspension
From Democracy Now! [March 15, 2024]
---- Hebrew University in Jerusalem has suspended an internationally renowned Palestinian professor for saying that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. Professor Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian is a feminist scholar whose work focuses on the impacts of militarization, surveillance and violence on the lives of Palestinian women and children. She made the remarks in an interview on Israel's Channel 12 on Monday, where she also said it was time to "abolish Zionism." "I am calling for abolishing Zionism because I see it as very violent towards the people and as causing criminality," says Shalhoub-Kevorkian, who discusses the atmosphere of silencing and reprisals against those who criticize Israel's policies toward Palestinians. [See the Program]. Also of interest is "Call to Action: Support academic freedom for Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian," by the [Link].
(Video) "Empire's Laboratory": How 2004 U.S.-Backed Coup Destabilized Haiti & Led to Current Crisis
From Democracy Now! [March 11, 2024]
---- Haiti is under a state of emergency, with tens of thousands displaced amid the fighting, and United Nations officials warn the country's health system is nearing collapse. … For more, we speak with Haitian American scholar Jemima Pierre, who says the unrest in Haiti today can be traced to decisions made two decades ago by the United States and other outside powers. "The root of this crisis is not last week, it's not this week, it's not even Ariel Henry. But we have to go back to 2004 with the coup-d'état," says Pierre. She adds that because successive security plans have been sanctioned by the United Nations Security Council, "the whole world is participating in the occupation of Haiti unwittingly." [See the Program] Also of interest is "Haiti's Hour of Deliverance or Despair," by Amy Wilentz, The Nation [March 14, 2024] [Link].
The War on Gaza
(Video) Professor Jeffrey Sachs: 'US is complicit in Israeli genocide'From Aljazeera, ["The Bottom Line"] [March 17, 2024]
---- "Does the United States want to be complicit in genocide?" This is the question that US leaders should be asking themselves as Israel's war on Gaza continues, argues Columbia University Professor Jeffrey Sachs. Sachs tells host Steve Clemons that Israel could not continue "for one day" without US support, and the rhetoric from top Democrats criticising Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is "meaningless" because no action is taken to stop the war crimes. This has led to US isolation on the world stage, as Israel is allowed to continue "whatever they have in their minds… which will never lead to peace". [See the Program]
The Ongoing Genocidal Violence against the Palestinian People and their Cultural Heritage in Gaza
From the Middle East Studies Association of North America [March 12, 2024]
---- Since the beginning of the current war, estimates of the extent and depth of the destruction are devastating. According to the 9 January 2024 Statement of the Arab Regional Group at the International Council of Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) "more than 200 of the 325 registered sites in Gaza considered of national or global historic, archaeological, natural, religious and humanitarian importance have been destroyed or severely damaged by the Israeli military. … These institutions and resources, which underpin the sense of community and shared history and identity of the Palestinians of Gaza (as well as the West Bank and the diaspora), have been and continue to be deliberately destroyed as part of an intentional policy, voiced clearly by multiple Israeli politicians and military figures since early in this conflict, of completely destroying Gaza and precluding any possibility of a meaningful "return" and rebuilding by its forcibly displaced and decimated population. [Read More]
Pramila Patten's Rape Fantasies
By
---- A Critical Analysis of the UN Report on Sexual Violence during the 7 October Attack. … The primary author of the report is Pramila Patten, the "UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict." The subject-matter of this report is sexual violence committed by Gaza-based Palestinians on 7 October 2023. Especially in light of the incendiary subject-matter, it is a skimpy document running to a mere 17 pages. … The only discernible purposes of Patten's tawdry mission reduce to, first, acting as yet another purveyor, vehicle, conduit, and conveyance of the "evidence" Israel has been propagating since 7 October, and, second, lending the UN's authoritative imprimatur to this "evidence." … It is a stage production directed by the UN bureaucracy to appease Israel and its powerful backer in Washington. How and why Ms. Patten came to play the starring role in this theatrical extravaganza are of secondary importance. [Read More]. Also useful is "Claims of Mass Rape by Hamas Unravel Upon Investigation," by Arun Gupta, Yes! Magazine [March 5, 2024] [Link].
By Brett Wilkins, Common Dreams [March 12, 2024]
---- In addition to killing, maiming, and forcibly displacing hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children, Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza has wrought tremendous psychological damage upon kids in the embattled strip, as detailed by a Save the Children report published Tuesday. The charity's report—entitled Trapped and Scarred: The Compounding Mental Harm Inflicted on Palestinian Children in Gaza—examines how "five months of violence, displacement, starvation, and disease on top of nearly 17 years of a blockade have caused relentless mental harm to children in Gaza." [Read More] As for Israel's combatants, read "Israeli military faces biggest mental health crisis since 1973 war: Official," from Aljazeera [March 16, 2024] [Link].
Some Israeli Voices
Israel Is on the Brink of the Abyss
Editorial, Haaretz [Israel] [March 15, 2024]
[FB – Haaretz is the leading liberal daily newspaper in Israel.]
---- With each passing day, the government is deepening the hole in which Israel is trapped. But since the politicians are primarily concerned with keeping their jobs, the only way to topple this disastrous government is by bringing masses of people into the streets. That is now the order of the day. [Read More]
Israeli Leftists: Shake Off the Shock of October 7 and Open Your Eyes to Gaza
By Gideon Levy, Haaretz [Israel] [March 13, 2024]
---- Dear friends and former friends: It's time to sober up from the sobering up. It was baseless to begin with, but now, nearly half a year after your "eyes were opened," it's time to return to reality. It's time to go back to seeing the whole picture, to reactivate the conscience and the moral compass that were shut off and stored away on October 7, and to see what has happened since then to us and, yes, to the Palestinians. It's time to remove the blindfolds you put on, not wanting to see and not wanting to know what we're doing to Gaza, because you said that Gaza deserves it and its catastrophes no longer interest you. … But how can an entire people avert its eyes from the horrors it is committing in its backyard, with no camp remaining that will cry out against them? How can such a brutal war go on and on without any opposition within Israeli society? [Read More]
The Plan to Subjugate the Palestinians Goes Ahead
By Amira Hass, Haaretz [Israel] [March 12, 2024]
---- Even those who mocked finance minister minister Bezalel Smotrich are participating, or supporting out loud and by their silence, the government's overwhelming use of force against the Palestinians everywhere. Most Israelis were shocked by Smotrich's unvarnished statements, which frankly reflect the opinion of the government, to the effect that the return of the Israelis abducted by Hamas on October 7 isn't the most important thing. But most Jewish Israelis aren't shocked by the killing of over 20,000 women and children in the Gaza Strip, the growing starvation and the danger of death and dehydration of its inhabitants. When this terrible war ends – who knows when – the majority that opposed the judicial overhaul will discover that it has almost been completed. Judicial review is weaker and more submissive to the regime than ever, the school system is in total consensus and more cowardly than ever before, and the mass media is acting as the army's spokesman with full enthusiasm. Truly a victory. [Read More]
Also of interest by Amira Hass – "Israel Has Severed the West Bank From Gaza. During War, It Becomes a Death Sentence," Haaretz [Israel] [Mar 13, 2024] [Link]; and "Nameless, Shackled: Israeli Ethics Committee Examined Medical Treatment of Detainees From Gaza," Haaretz [Israel] [March 12, 2024] [Link].
The Role of the Mainstream Media
(Video) Mehdi Hasan on Genocide in Gaza, the Silencing of Palestinian Voices in U.S. Media & Why He Left MSNBC
From Democracy Now! [March 14, 2024]
---- Acclaimed journalist Mehdi Hasan joins us to discuss U.S. media coverage of the Israeli war on Gaza and how the war is a genocide being abetted by the United States. Hasan says U.S. media is overwhelmingly pro-Israel and fails to convey the truth to audiences. "Palestinian voices not being on American television or in American print is one of the biggest problems when it comes to our coverage of this conflict," he says. … "Where is the outcry here in the West?" asks Hasan of reports of Israeli war crimes, including the killing of over 100 journalists in the past five months in Gaza and the blockade of aid from the region. "It's a stain on [Biden's] record, on America's conscience." [See the Program]
Also of interest - (Video) "Hasbara: Oct. 7 and Israel's propaganda war," Chris Hedges interviews Ali Abuminah, founder of The Electronic Intifada [March 15, 2024] [Link]. – 60 minutes; and "NYT's Morning Newsletter Blames Everyone but Israel for Israeli Crimes," by Harry Zehner, FAIR [Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting] [March 16, 2024] [Link].
The War in Ukraine
Are We Stumbling Into World War III in Ukraine?
---- President Biden began his State of the Union speech with an impassioned warning that failing to pass his $61 billion dollar weapons package for Ukraine "will put Ukraine at risk, Europe at risk, the free world at risk." But even if the president's request were suddenly passed, it would only prolong, and dangerously escalate, the brutal war that is destroying Ukraine. The only way to find out what Russia really wants, or what it will settle for, is to return to the negotiating table. [Read More]
The Climate Crisis
First US Offshore Wind Farm goes Live off Long Island in Omen of a Green Future, Cheaper Electricity
---- This past week, the United States joined the rest of the advanced industrial countries in the world in having at least one functioning large offshore wind farm. Governor Kathy Hochul and Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, among others, flipped a large electrical switch to signal that all 12 of the large wind turbines built by Orsted and Eversource Energy 35 miles off Long Island are now functional. Construction began in 2017. The wind farm will generate 130 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 70,000 average-size homes. Long Island is usually spoken of as Nassau and Suffolk counties. Nassau County has roughly 450,000 households, so this one wind farm could power over 15% of them. … President Biden has set a goal of 30 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030, which observers are saying will be difficult for the US to reach. It is estimated, however, that offshore wind alone could provide all the electricity the US could ever want. [Read More]
The State of the Union
Trump Showed Us Who He Is the First Time: Term 2 Would Be a Thousand Times Worse
---- As people whose lives have long been tangled up in politics will do, we soon started talking about the state of the world: the wars in Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan, the pain on this country's border with Mexico, and of course the looming 2024 election campaign. It was then that the college student told us he wouldn't be voting for Joe Biden — and that none of his friends would either. The president's initial support of, and later far too-tepid objections to, the genocidal horror transpiring in Gaza were simply too much for him. That Biden has managed to use his executive powers to cancel $138 billion in student debt didn't outweigh the repugnance he and his friends feel for the president's largely unquestioning support of Israel's destruction of that 25-mile strip of land on the Mediterranean Sea. To vote for Biden would be like taking a knife to his conscience. And I do understand. [Read More]
Our History
How a Civil Rights Ideal Was Hijacked
By Nikole Hannah-Jones, NYTimes Magazine [March 13, 2024]
---- Today we have a society where constitutional colorblindness dictates that school segregation is unconstitutional, yet most Black students have never attended a majority-white school or had access to the same educational resources as white children. A society with a law prohibiting discrimination in housing and lending, and yet descendants of slavery remain the most residentially, educationally and economically segregated people in the country. A society where employment discrimination is illegal, and yet Black Americans are twice as likely to be unemployed as white Americans, even when they hold college degrees. … Those who believe in American democracy, who want equality, must no longer allow those who have undermined the idea of colorblindness to define the terms. Working toward racial justice is not just the moral thing to do, but it may also be the only means of preserving our democracy. [Read More].
Dorie Ladner, Unheralded Civil Rights Heroine, Dies at 81
By Sam Roberts, New York Times [March 15, 2024]
---- Born and raised in racially segregated Mississippi by a mother who taught her to take no guff, Ms. Ladner joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee as a teenager; left college three times to organize voter-registration campaigns and promote integration; packed a gun on occasion, as some of her prominent colleagues were shot or blown up; befriended the movement's most celebrated figures; and participated in virtually every major civil rights march of the decade. [Read More]
