Sunday, October 20, 2024

Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter October 20, 2024

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Sunday, October 13, 2024

CFOW Newsletter - Year Two for Gaza: Now a Wider War

Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
October 13, 2024

Hello All – Israel's war on Gaza enters its second year, with no end in sight.  World leaders agree that only the United States has the power and influence to curb the killing, with more than 42,000 dead in Gaza.  Yet polite requests from President Biden for a ceasefire fall on deaf ears.  Without using power, such as an arms embargo and an end to US vetoes at the United Nations, Israel has no reason to obey US requests.  When will this genocide stop?  What can we do?

The war has spread far beyond Gaza.  Israel's invasion of Lebanon has already killed more than 2,000 people, with more than one million fleeing their homes for safety. In the "West Bank," an area occupied by Israel in 1967, 751 Palestinian have been killed by Israeli troops and "settlers," Jews illegally squatting on the occupied lands.  Now we face a potential regional war, with Israel vowing to attack Iran – perhaps in the coming week – with consequences impossible to predict.  For example, The New York Times announced this afternoon that Biden will send the sophisticated missile-defense system THAAD to defend Israel against Iran, along with 100 US military personnel to operate the system.  Would Iran target this system and the US troops?  What would "we" do then? 

The world watches this with horror.  Outside the US and Israel itself, the world can see media broadcasting the genocide in real time.  It is as if the Nazi attack on the Soviet Union in 1941 or the US war against Vietnam were broadcast live to the world.  The damage caused by pretending that we don't see will be a long-term trauma for all of us.

This week Israel launched a renewed operation in northern Gaza, seeking to expel the people remaining and killing those who do not move.  Hospitals and schools (shelters) are being destroyed.  Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are in the crosshairs of this deadly rampage, while those who could be Good Samaritans, the US leadership, "passes by on the other side," ignoring the duty to save lives. History will remember our disgrace.

Some Thoughts on One Year of the War on Gaza

 
Biden's Moral Failure in Israel

By Peter Beinart, New York Times [October 8, 2024]

---- In his 2021 Inaugural Address, he described American history as a "constant struggle between the American ideal that we are all created equal and the harsh, ugly reality that racism, nativism, fear, and demonization have long torn us apart." He promised to make the United States once again a "beacon to the world." Since taking office, the president has framed a commitment to equality as the answer not only to the rise of domestic white nationalism but also to the authoritarian powers who threaten democracy overseas. This self-presentation now lies in ruin. Through his unwavering backing of Israel, Mr. Biden has effectively supported its unequal treatment and oppression of Palestinians — especially in Gaza — and undermined the ethical rationale for his presidency. [Read More]

Israel's Year of Killing, Maiming, Starving, and Terrorizing the People of Gaza 
By Nick Turse, The Intercept [October 7 2024] 
---- Statistics can't tell the story of civilian suffering in Gaza. Physical pain defies easy quantification. Emotional trauma is far more than a number on a psychological distress scale. Still, numbers can be enlightening — and damning. The Intercept has assembled a short primer and accompanying infographics to offer a glimpse of what a year of relentless Israeli attacks — and U.S. military support for Israel — has meant to the people of Gaza. [Read More]

Also of interest – "One Year of Empty Rhetoric From the White House on Israel's Wars," by Jonah Valdez, The Intercept [October 9 2024] [Link]; and "One Year After October 7, Jewish Peace Group Says: 'We Cannot Only Mourn'," by Jake Johnson, Common Dreams [October 7, 2024] [Link]

Illuminating the Week that Was

"A Direct Death Sentence" – Israel seeks to Expel 400K Palestinians from N. Gaza, and to Empty its Hospitals 
By Juan Cole, Informed Comment [October 10, 2024] 

---– In a further crime against humanity, Israeli authorities are now attempting to complete the ethnic cleansing of northern Gaza, where 400,000 Palestinians are still residing, despite earlier Israeli efforts to force them out. … The Rome Statute that charters the International Criminal Court lists as one of the actions making for "crimes against humanity" under article 7 — "Deportation or forcible transfer of population." That action is later defined this way: "Deportation or forcible transfer of population" means forced displacement of the persons concerned by expulsion or other coercive acts from the area in which they are lawfully present, without grounds permitted under international law." The current ethnic cleansing drive in northern Gaza is not justified by any military rationale; Israeli authorities declared the area free of Hamas months ago. Civilians are being targeted, as has all too often been the case in Israel's total war on Gaza. [Read More] (

(Video) "Death Is Everywhere": Doctor Who Volunteered in Gaza and Lebanon Condemns Israeli Attacks on Hospitals 
From Democracy Now! [October 12, 2024] 
---- As the Israeli military continues its assaults on Gaza and Lebanon, which have included the targeting of hospitals and ambulances and the killing of medical personnel, among other violations of international law, we speak to a doctor currently volunteering in Beirut. Dr. Bing Li is an emergency medicine physician and U.S. Army veteran who also volunteered at Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza earlier this year. Li recounts her experiences in Gaza, where "it feels like death is everywhere," and warns that Israel's latest forced evacuation, of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, is "essentially a death sentence" for patients, including children in the hospital's intensive care unit. Now in Lebanon, Li describes how providers are scrambling to increase healthcare capacity in anticipation of additional attacks. [See the program]

The High Cost of Biden's Policy of Unconditional Support for Israel 
By Jeet Heer, The Nation [October 11, 2024] 
---- For Joe Biden, words and actions never need to match up when it comes to handling America's relationship with Israel. In fact, Biden has a peculiar tic: He'll grouse in private about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and even make public speeches advising Israeli restraint. But these words will never result in any action showing that he's serious. … Writing in The New Republic, Matt Duss observed: "Biden wasn't hoodwinked by Netanyahu any more than he was by George W. Bush when he chose to back the Iraq War. He chose this path, and stayed on it despite constant warnings of exactly where it was leading. Having done so, when he exits the White House, he and his team will leave this world a more dangerous and lawless place, America's credibility more broken, the so-called "rules-based order" even more "so-called" than when he entered." [Read More]

Nihon Hidankyo's Nobel Peace Prize Win Could Not Have Come at a More Important Moment 
By Joseph Gerson, Common Dreams [October 12, 2024] 
---- The Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Nihon Hidankyo is long overdue and could not come at a more important time. The Hibakusha (A-bomb witness/survivors) of Nihon Hidankyo have been among the world's most courageous and steadfast advocates of nuclear disarmament. The organization has focused on three core demands: preventing nuclear war, eliminating nuclear weapons, and obtaining essential medical care for A-bomb victims. Hidankyo was founded in 1956, in the wake of the Bravo H-Bomb test 1,000 times more powerful than the Hiroshima A-bomb, which poisoned Japanese fishermen and Marshall Islanders. [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 make out your check to "Frank Brodhead," write "CFOW" on the memo line, and send your check to CFOW, PO Box 364, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY 10706. Thanks!

Best wishes, 
Frank Brodhead 
For CFOW

CFOW Weekly Reader

Featured Essays

The Price [New nuclear weapons]

By W.J. Hennigan, New York Times [October 11, 2024]

---- The U.S. Navy has put in an order for General Dynamics to produce 12 nuclear ballistic missile submarines by 2042 — a job that's projected to cost $130 billion. The industry is struggling to find the tens of thousands of new workers it needs. For the past 18 months, the company has traveled to elementary schools across New England to educate children in the basics of submarine manufacturing and perhaps inspire a student or two to consider one day joining its shipyards. … [A program to interest school children in building submarines] is one small facet of the much bigger preparations America is making for a historic struggle with its nuclear rivals. With Russia at war, China escalating regional disputes and nations like North Korea and Iran expanding their nuclear programs, the United States is set to spend an estimated $1.7 trillion over 30 years to revamp its own arsenal. The spending spree, which the government began planning in 2010, is underway in at least 23 states — nearly 50 if you include subcontractors. It follows a decades-long freeze on designing, building or testing new nuclear weapons. Along with the subs, the military is paying for a new fleet of bomber jets, land-based missiles and thermonuclear warheads. Tally all that spending, and the bill comes to almost $57 billion a year, or $108,000 per minute for three decades.  [Read More]

How Israel has made trauma a weapon of war 
By Naomi Klein, The Guardian [UK] [October 5, 2024] 
---- A slick, high-priced television production. Speeches from top officials. A live audience of thousands. A unified show of collective sorrow and military resolve. That is how the Israeli government hoped to mark the passing of one year since Hamas's surprise and bloody attacks last 7 October. But little has gone according to plan. Many of the families of people killed or taken hostage on that day have come out forcefully against the state-sponsored event, saying pageantry can wait until after the government secures a hostage deal and faces an independent investigation of its own failures before, after and on that day. Some parents have forbidden the government of Benjamin Netanyahu from using their children's names and images. … These clashes over commemoration tap into deep underlying debates about the uses and abuses of Jewish suffering, conflicts that date back to before Israel's founding, and that stretch well beyond its notoriously undefined borders. They are over a series of unresolved but increasingly high-stakes questions. What is the line between commemorating trauma and cynically exploiting it? [Read More]


(Video) Ta-Nehisi Coates: I Was Told Palestine Was Complicated. Visiting Revealed a Simple, Brutal Truth

From Democracy Now! [October 8, 2024]

---- As the war on Gaza enters its second year and Israel expands its attacks on Lebanon, we continue our conversation with the acclaimed writer Ta-Nehisi Coates. His new book, The Message, is based in part on his visit last year to Israel and the occupied West Bank, where he says he saw a system of segregation and oppression reminiscent of Jim Crow in the United States. "It was revelatory," says Coates. "I don't think the average American has a real sense of what we're doing over there — and I emphasize 'what we're doing' because it's not possible without American support." [See the Program]   Also of interest is "Ta-Nehisi Coates Is Bucking the Media's Palestine Consensus," by Branko Marcetic, Jacobin Magazine [October 9, 2024] [Link]. 
 

Why Is It That We 'Must' Respond to the Iranian Attack?

By Gideon Levy, Haaretz [Israel] [October 10, 2024]

---- There are a few axioms in Israel that cannot be challenged. One of the worst has now come to the fore: We must respond to the Iranian missile attack. Why "must" we? Because we must, that's all. Because they started it. Because now it's our turn. Because if we don't respond, they'll attack again. Because deterrence. Because national honor. Because security. Because any country would retaliate. Because what do you want us to do? Should we do nothing? All of this is, but how about a slightly more rational consideration, such as cost versus benefit? …  But why must we respond? What will we get from it? These questions are off-limits. Iran attacked, Israel must respond. Why? Because. Playground rules. [Read More]  Also of interest by Gideon Levy is "Gaza's Reality Has Been Hidden From the Israeli Public," Dawn Magazine [October 7, 2024] [Link].


Election 2024 
Mideast and Election Confusion 
By Michael Albert, ZNet [October 11, 2024] 
---- Like many others I am at a loss to explain much less affect certain current events. I feel confused, like I did last week, but now a week later, a week darker. I think many others feel similarly. Perhaps to acknowledge some confusion can help overcome some confusion. … And then there's public support and public passivity about genocide in both Israel and the U.S. Despite media obfuscation it seems like the carnage is unavoidably obvious. The Israeli population can't possibly not know what's going on, yet they issue calls to kill even more. How do we understand the mentality that led to that?  On the other hand, at least the Israelis have some kind of pitiful excuse that they're morbidly afraid that if they aren't super violent they will disappear. When we get to the American public support for Israel starving people while bombing the hell out of them, I again wonder why. [Read More] 

Also of interest – "Harris Holds Massive Edge Over Trump Among College Students. It's Even Bigger in Swing States," by Johanna Alonso, Inside Higher Education [October 9, 2024] [FB - Some interesting variables reported] [Link]; and "Harris Proposes Medicare Expansion for Home-Based Long-Term Care: "It's About Giving Folks' Dignity," by Wendell Potter, Health Care un-covered [October 8, 2024] [Link].

The War on Gaza 
How Much Does Israel's War Cost the U.S.? Don't Ask the State Department. 
By Nick Turse, The Intercept [October 9 2024] 
---- An exchange with spokesperson Matt Miller over one year of U.S. military aid to Israel totaling more than $22.76 billion raised more questions than it answered. He doesn't know how much military aid the U.S. has given to Israel during its war, even though his department oversees such assistance. He doesn't know how many billions of dollars, above the annual baseline of $3.3 billion in aid to Israel, have been appropriated in supplemental funding. He knows additional money has been allocated but doesn't know how much. "There are different ways of looking at it," said Miller. The only thing Miller is sure of is that a new comprehensive report by the Costs of War Project at Brown University on U.S. spending on Israel's military operations and related U.S operations is dead wrong. Costs of War Project tallied up at least $22.76 billion in military aid since October 7, 2023. [Read More]

(Video) "The First Live-Streamed Genocide": Al Jazeera Exposes War Crimes Filmed by Israeli Troops Themselves 
From Democracy Now! [October 9, 2024] 

---- A new documentary from Al Jazeera takes a look at evidence of war crimes in Gaza in the form of social media posted by Israeli soldiers recording and celebrating their own attacks on Palestinians. We play excerpts from the film Investigating War Crimes in Gaza, now available online, and speak to two of the journalists involved in its production, director Richard Sanders and Gaza-based correspondent Youmna ElSayed. "Israelis themselves were telling us precisely what they were doing and why they were doing it," says Sanders about the evidence the team reviewed. "They don't think it's complicated. They don't think it's nuanced. Their rhetoric is often overtly genocidal." ElSayed adds, "They've had all the courage to do that because they know that they are not even going to be condemned." [See the Program] 
 

Also of interest – "Gaza's governance must remain in Palestinian hands," by Said Zeedani , 972 Magazine [Israel/Palestine] [October 8, 2024] [Link]; and "The Future Taking Shape on College Campuses," by Adrita Talukder, The Indypendent [October 6, 2024] [Link].

War with China? 
China-Bashing Week: Congress Passes 25 Anti-China Bills 
By Megan Russell, Code Pink [October 11, 2024] 
---- Last month, Congress ushered in their designated "China Week," which saw 25 anti-China bills pass through the House. The end goal proclaimed by committee members was to "counter the influence of the Communist Party of China." However, the week was nothing but a last ditch election effort for House leaders to garner political support by being "tough on China" and pass a series of anti-China, anti-Chinese bills, many of which are inflammatory, racist, and ill-advised. These bills will only do one thing: perpetuate Asian American hate and lead to worsening relations with China. [Read More]

The State of the Union 
A Lesson in Basic Civics for People Who Stubbornly Defend the Electoral College 
By Elie Mystal, The Nation [October 10, 2024] 
---- Far from being a hallmark of a democratic republic, the Electoral College is one of the key parts of our constitutional system that does not follow the principles of democratic republicanism based on universal suffrage and self-government. Instead of voting for the president, we vote for "slates of electors" who are obligated to vote for a particular candidate. The number of electors in the slate is based on the state in which we vote and, because of the way the number of electors is apportioned, violates the principle of one person, one vote. That means that the single elected official who is supposed to represent all of the American people—the president of the United States—is not chosen by a vote of all the American people. It makes the president of our democratic republic the only official who is not a democratically chosen republican representative. [Read More]

Our History 
Back on Catfish Row ["Porgy and Bess"] 
By Geoffrey O'Brien, New York Review of Books [November 21, 2019]  
---- Porgy and Bess opened on Broadway in 1935, to mixed reviews and insufficient box office receipts, but I am unable to disassociate it from the musical culture I grew up with in the 1950s, a decade when George Gershwin's opera seemed to be everywhere. In 1951, at the dawn of the LP era, the first ostensibly complete recording was released by Columbia Masterworks. Earlier recordings had consisted only of hit songs from the show—"Summertime," "My Man's Gone Now," "It Ain't Necessarily So."  … No technical explanation was needed to grasp the tidal power of Gershwin's music in the choral surges and Porgy's final departure, especially at the volume my brother preferred. At the same time, an intimacy of feeling throughout suggested a community, almost a household, of voices running through all the possible levels of speaking, singing, crying out. To listen closely was to be pulled into an encompassing sonic environment within which lives were being lived under constant stress, in the imaginary but very real space around the record player. [Read More]



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